Plus everyone knows how much both Adrian and the Sentinel want to find Nightmare… how do they not know? He is the worst at having a secret identity. Similarly, the parade attack near the beginning will surely remind many readers of the Green Goblin vs Spiderman parade attack.Īnd how is it possible that no-one worked out that Adrian is the Sentinel? Honestly, how? The Sentinel is a mysterious new superhero who claims he is a Renegade and Adrian suddenly disappears every time he’s around. They are not developed far beyond the description of their powers, which makes it difficult to distinguish them from the superheroes we know. Frostbite is obviously a play on Storm from X-men, right down to the “silver-white hair”. "Your days of villainy are over, Nightmare."īoth characters and scenes seem stolen straight from Marvel. "You're about to wish it had been longer." "Nightmare," said Smokescreen, with a subtle incline of his head. It was almost unreadable at first, with the cliche dialogue making it seem as if the characters were reading off the script for the latest superhero movie: The orphaned Nova, however, feels they are the reason her parents were murdered and so she teams up with the other side - the Anarchists - in order to overthrow the Renegades. After an age of anarchy descended and gangs ruled the streets, the Renegades emerged to restore the balance with their superpowers. It felt like one very long introduction.įor much of the book, this feels like a very standard superhero tale that doesn't do anything new. All I know is that Renegades didn't really pick up until the second half and, looking back, I don't get the sense that this first book really had a story arc. Maybe I'm already feeling burned out on this new "It" genre featuring superhero stories.
Maybe Meyer is just not great at beginnings. I'm reminding myself while I'm writing this that I really didn't like Meyer's Cinder but went on to enjoy the rest of the series.