Review: Did Jim write this second or first?
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 22, 2014
Officially this is a "prequel" and written after "Confessions of a D-List Supervillain".  That worried me since usually a prequel runs into a few obvious flaws.  After all, when anyone reading knows how the book/story has to end, there is usually a lack of mystery and excitement.However, even knowing how the final chapter of Origins had to end up, and knowing of some of the events that were likely to be written about this story is compelling and fun.A huge part of that is the main character Calvin Stringel.  In Confessions, Jim turned him into an interesting character with a personality that grew nicely throughout the tale and played well with the rest of the cast.  Here, despite not spending much time with characters who featured prominently in Confessions, Calvin was again a fun, if somewhat pathetic figure, striving against a system that seems stacked against him at every turn.I would recommend that if you can read Origins before Confessions.  The two tales fold together quite well in either order, but I believe you'll find Calvin a bit more interesting if you read about his fall first.