Oh, sure, we’ve all been there. We bust our butts using our super powers and gadgets to save the school and our friends and loved 
ones just don’t show us any appreciation whatsoever! So, we gotta take the appreciation where we can find it, even if we have to make it ourselves.
Leon: Worst Friends Forever: A Graphic Novel is the follow-up to Leon the Extraordinary. This story explores the fallout of his initial victory against a villain called The Monocle. It turns out that doing heroic deeds doesn’t automatically make you likable. Leon finds himself at odds with his superhero mother as well as his friends at school; his interests have swayed much more into the direction of what he perceives to be acts of heroism at the cost of what it means to simply be a decent person. He’s beginning to let his friendships slip away, his relationship with his mother is becoming strained and difficult, but he fails to grasp the larger implications of these changes.
This is what makes getting through the book difficult: Leon is not particularly likable. The “worst friends forever” component of the story refers to a plot line where Leon has an argument with his good friend Carlos that does get resolved eventually, but it certainly takes its time, and on top of that, the overarching conflict of Leon taking matters into his own hands too rashly and too often is still very present. The final action of the comic sees someone trying to contact Leon’s superhero mother, who is absent, and Leon volunteering to help in her place. This is met with an angry reply of “But I didn’t ask for your help!” Leon ignores the shout, and proceeds in the way he thinks is best.
There is a planned third volume and I am hoping that this conflict will be better explored and resolved.
The narrative in Leon: Worst Friends Forever is extremely dependent on the world-building that took place in the previous book. If you are planning on purchasing this, please be aware that it is the second volume in a series of two (so far) and I personally feel that it is not suitable as a standalone narrative. Certainly, more mature readers are going to pick up on context clues about the overall story, but I think younger readers might be a bit confused about some of the smaller details: who exactly knows about Leon’s identity as a hero (other supers, kids and adults alike, flaunt their powers and some don’t – I’m not sure what the delineation is), what his specific powers are (he does not have any – it is not mentioned in this specific volume), who his friends are, how his mother fits into all this, etc.
The art is big, blocky, and punchy with a lot of bright colors set against flat and busy compositions – it very much reminds me of a kids’ cartoon.
Leon is hard to like right now, but this is a middle volume, so the story is probably just in its awkward stage.
Leon: Worst Friends Forever: A Graphic Novel
By Jamar Nicholas
Scholastic GRAPHIX, 2024
ISBN: 9781338744200
Company Age Rating: 8 – 13
NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11), Tween (10-13)
Creator Representation: African-American,
Character Representation: African-American,
