The nefarious Vindico are hell-bent on destroying the League of Heroes. Their plan? Kidnap five kids and train them to be the next generation of supervillains. With the Vindico characters' backstories, King grays the line between good and evil. At book's end, King does retreat from some of this thought-provoking ambiguity, but he never loses his knack for humorous--and teen-friendly--dialogue.

Gr 7 Up-Five seemingly average teens are sent to a sort of supervillain summer camp in King's action-packed debut. James, Hayden, Lana, Emily, and Sam are coerced into joining a villainous group fighting against the League of Heroes. Each one is paired with a villain, and the prot&3;g&3;s are surprised to find that they respect and in some cases even admire their "evil" mentors. But once they go on actual missions with the Vindico, seeing firsthand the effects of their actions, the teens start to wonder if they are on the right side. The author skillfully plays around on the good guy/bad guy continuum, showing readers both sides of each camp and blurring the lines between hero and villain. And where many action/adventure novels sacrifice character development for the sake of quick pacing, this is a nonissue for King: his teens are vivid, funny, and relatable, but their growth never comes at the expense of story or plot development. Add in descriptions of cool weaponry and superpowers, a healthy dose of clever one-liners and snappy dialogue, and plenty of chases and explosions, and you've got all the ingredients for a hit series that teens will love. King is definitely an author to watch-let's just hope he uses his literary superpowers for good, not evil. Sam Bloom, Blue Ash Library, Cincinnati, OH

Here's a debut that will knock middle-grade superhero fans on their butts. In a fresh twist, five ordinary teens are recruited to learn superhuman powers the villains. Headquartered in a secret lair (naturally), the members of the Vindico are a who's who of big-time baddies: Sliver, Rono, Avaria, Leni, and the Torturer. Each gruff marauder trains one of the reluctant teens in the arts of fighting, mind control, weaponry, and general badness. The internationally beloved League of Heroes, they say, has been lying to the public about the nature of superpowers. The teens cross section of pranksters, braniacs, shy kids, etc e surprised to find themselves not only believing much of what the Vindico says but enjoying their newly bestowed powers. By minimizing the numbing action scenes so common to this sort of book and focusing instead upon the interplay of the witty, appealing kids, King deepens the reader's experience by turning each character s, even the Torturer! to more than the typical black-and-white placeholder. A bit messy at times, but kids are going to gobble this up.

Five teens are kidnapped and trained to be supervillains in King's high-concept but one-dimensional debut novel. The titular group of villains wants a new generation of teens to help them fight the League of Heroes, so they kidnap five generally good kids (James, Lana, Hayden, Emily, and Sam). As the teens endure a rigorous training regimen, they confront their own insecurities, faults, and fears; a romance blooms between two of the captives, and a rivalry is sparked. The flaws in the Vindico's plan soon become apparent as the captives challenge the villains' authority and their new mission, resulting in a hasty conclusion. King's characters are reasonably well-drawn; the book's most compelling elements revolve around the reasons why each teen was selected to become a supervillain and the psychological tactics that the Vindico use to make them emotionally vulnerable and susceptible to coercion. But narrative tension is lessened by scant world-building, lackluster dialogue, and conventional plot elements, resulting in an entertaining but predictable story. Ages 12-up. Agents: Brianne Johnson and Susan Cohen, Writers House. (June)

Four teens and one preteen of disparate backgrounds find themselves forcefully recruited into a league of super-villains in this pallid series opener. They are plucked from lives that range from fairly unsatisfying to downright unpleasant and taken to the secret headquarters of the League of Heroes' sworn enemies, the Vindico. There, the super-villains use a variety of predictable tactics (humiliation, terror, the promise of power) to mold the unlikely kids into protégés. Though each kid has a separate potential superpower, they bond enough, given the bizarre circumstances, to work together against their mentors when one of them is threatened. What could be an enjoyable comic-book romp is fatally hamstrung by the author's regrettable tendency to tell, not show. The third-person narration shifts perspective from kid to kid and occasionally to the villains, a tactic which should develop distinct characters but here does not. With a couple of notable exceptions (a sarcastic-but-charismatic older boy virtually abandoned by his mother and a computer-genius girl reared in an unloving home), the kids' back stories are largely uncompelling. Giving readers access to the thoughts and plots of the super-villains serves to leach rather than build tension, and a credibility-straining series of double-crosses causes the climax to drag rather than thrill. Finally, the super-villains' motive for villainy underwhelms, resulting in huge suspension-of-disbelief problems. For real super-villain fun, skip this and go back to Catherine Jinks' Evil Genius (2007) and sequels. (Adventure. 10-14)