3 ways Vengeful’s dark take on superheroes surpasses Marvel and DC

With superheroes having a moment to shine in pop culture, V.E. Schwab’s Vengeful takes a look at what movies are doing, then proceeds to obliterate it all.

As an enthusiast of Victoria (V.E.) Schwab’s books in general, I’ve followed the journey to creating Vengeful that she’s documented on social media. Naturally, knowing that so much work went into it, I had high expectations, particularly when Tor only sent a finished copy and not an advance copy.

If Vicious is a blast to the chest, then Vengeful is a cold knife between the ribs, sharp and something that’ll sit with you long after you reach the last page. It’s worth the five-year wait (and in those five years, we also got a lot of other material, like Our Dark Duet, City of Ghosts, and A Conjuring of Light).

But with superheroes enjoying their moments in the sun and the debate ongoing about how dark is too dark and what that darkness should look like, Marvel and DC’s movie divisions should look to Vengeful for some examples of how to do it without feeling like a relentless slog. Though Schwab herself has only mentioned the X-Men, the dust jacket refers to pairings from both major houses of superhero comics, so we’ll compare to both as we go on.

Marcella

By virtue of having more “time” (with Vengeful weighing in at 500 pages), Marcella, who is effectively the primary antagonist, gets not only plenty of time to show why she will ruin you, but why she wants to ruin you in the first place — thanks to carefully-placed flashbacks to further elaborate on the timeline of her relationship with her husband.

She’s not just villainous for villainy’s sake. She has a purpose and a plan, and she’s willing to use her new powers to get what she wants. Moreover, her associates (I hesitate to use the word henchmen) aren’t just given names and maybe a few moments of characterization. To be fair, June is more realized than Jonathan, but that, as a decision, makes sense: she has other parts to play in the narrative as a whole.

Separate threads merging into one whole

Even the subplots of Vengeful have a bearing on the final confrontation of the whole novel. Each chapter comes with a subheading that places it in relation to one night. There’s a sense of time passing that doesn’t always work in a novel (or in a film, for that matter), and subtle calls to other story threads that hint at the connections. This book is sharp in how it doles out details and lets you know what’s really happening. There are certainly hints that this story could continue (it’s listed as a series), but I’d be happy with the duology.

Victor, Sydney, and Mitch

How did you feel when you heard “Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good?”

Okay, now double that, and you might have the pain that Schwab inspires with the relationship between Victor, Sydney, and Mitch as a found family. Vicious shows what happens when a family forms; Vengeful shows what happens when the cracks appear, but everyone’s still trying to hold it together as best they can.

Individually, Mitch gets more of the spotlight here, with Sydney and Victor still taking center stage as two of the main characters. It’s an improvement over Vicious, and though it definitely contributes to the added length of the book while also occasionally feeling a little rougher than the development of Sydney and Victor, it still feels worth it in the end.

Vengeful is on shelves today, Sept. 25.