PS238: Not Another Learning Experience! is the fourth volume in the series, and although it stars kids and is independently produced, it has many of the same qualities of a classic superhero story.

Not Another Learning Experience!
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Convoluted continuity-based cliffhangers. Hero death. Resurrection with a twist. Government conspiracies. Angst. Lots and lots of heroes, many of whom keep finding new twists on their powers (tough to follow if you can’t remember their base power to start). Guest stars. Followups to tales from previous volumes. Picking up in the middle of the story, with work best aimed at long-running readers.

Given all that, I didn’t enjoy this as much as the first volume. I liked the focus then on the non-powered kid coping intelligently with the world he was thrown into, but now, he’s learning how to be a baby Batman from an adult hero who’s like the Dark Knight with more of a sense of humor.

Like many superhero fans unsure whether to keep subscribing to a title, I’m still reading because even though I’m uncertain about how much I really enjoy the stories, I like the characters (even though the author’s favorites, based on on-screen time, are not the same as mine). Williams keeps introducing new kids, when I think there’s still life left in the originals. Sometimes, that seems to be just because he needs a particular power set to keep the story going.

If this was a DC or Marvel title, I’d have dropped it already, but at one volume a year, I can keep up, and being a single-author self-published creation pushes the book just to this side of the benefit of the doubt for me.