INFERNO GIRL RED

Can a newly minted superhero save a city under threat?

Cássia Costa is entering Helix, a prestigious boarding school in Apex City. She’s close with her journalist mother, Ana, who has had difficulty finding employment after reporting about a superhero named Inferno Girl Red. At Helix, Cássia meets her new roommate, Harriette Temples, and the two become fast friends. However, the semester takes an unexpected turn when the residents of Apex City are teleported into another dimension, where they are plagued by terrifying monsters unleashed by a villainous foe called the Griffin. Cássia finds a mysterious bracelet that turns her into Inferno Girl Red. Unsure of her powers, she learns that her mother knows much about this superhero and can serve as her guide. Can Cássia save Apex City from the Griffin? And, with Harriette by her side, can she rescue her mom from an unknown fate? Groom’s take on superhero tropes is abundantly fun and over-the-top exciting, with an inclusive, predominantly female cast that refreshingly eschews the unrealistically buxom, wasp-waisted representation widely found in mainstream comics. Panels are punctuated with dazzling, psychedelically hued scenes, nearly blazing the action off the page. A nail-biting cliffhanger ensures that readers will anxiously await more of Cássia’s adventures. Harriette has brown skin and lavender locs; Ana and Cássia have light-brown skin, and Cássia appears to have vitiligo.

This series opener is on fire.