HENSHIN!

After an explosion took out the electricity and caused panic in Hollowstone nine years ago, a tech billionaire stepped in to save the day.

Alton Grieves provided massive infrastructure and investment, becoming a revered hero in the process. But journalism student Alex Nolan doesn’t like how Grieves has his hand in everything people use, from social media and cars to medicine, and he plans to expose him for profiting from the city’s suffering. Alex is on a train, musing about how to go about this, when a power cut causes an emergency stop. Alex struggles to help others—and a superhero comes out of nowhere to give him a hand. Suddenly a kaiju, or monster from another dimension, appears and badly injures the superhero, who passes his power to Alex. Alex in turn becomes a henshin, or hero, defeating the kaiju. But things are complicated. His friend and fellow student Rosalia Ortega points out a conspiracy to cover up news of the superhero’s monster fighting. And Jeon Jae-hyun, a boy Alex briefly dated, is interning at the same newspaper as him. The characters in this thrilling, fast-paced, manga-style action narrative feel real, and the story and execution combine the pleasure of nostalgic tropes and evergreen themes with a contemporary freshness. Alex reads White; there is ethnic diversity and queer representation in the cast, and characters are introduced along with their pronouns.

A riveting superhero story that feels familiar and original at the same time.