Renegades

Adrian is the secondary protagonist of the novel, and like Nova, he switches between three different personas: Adrian the civilian, Sketch the superhero, and Sentinel the masked vigilante. Adrian is kindhearted, protective, and noble, but he suffers intense, repressed grief and anxiety due to his mother’s mysterious murder. As a result, his role as a hero soon becomes more complex, for although he is fundamentally a good and caring person, his desperation to find closure over his mother’s death drives him to enact vigilante justice, disregarding the rules that the Renegades have established to limit their own social power. While Adrian’s vigilantism is not inherently condemned, it does highlight his rebellious streak and his propensity to prioritize his own goals over the greater good.

Adrian has the ability to manifest his drawings in the real world, even bringing some of them to life (as when he creates tiny living dinosaurs and vases of flowers). He constantly extends his powers by giving himself tattoos that allow him to manifest new abilities. However, he also uses his powers to bring joy to others when he helps with Max’s glass buildings or gives presents to children at a birthday party. Jointly driven by his willpower and ambition, Adrian notes that intention is the key to his power. He believes that he can get what he wants with enough effort, whether he is trying to help his friends or solve his mother’s cold case; for most of his life, he has been able to will his desires into being. Adrian’s development is therefore focused on his pursuit of power. At the end of the novel, he falls afoul of Nova and Ingrid’s plot, and while he makes it out alive, he gets no answers about Nightmare and finds himself powerless to solve the mystery. Thus, although Adrian is enormously powerful, he does not yet realize that he is most powerful when he is helping others—not when he is pursuing his own definition of justice.

The Anarchists are best analyzed as a group, for aside from Ingrid Thompson, they all serve as “family” to the orphaned Nova. The Anarchists are led by Ace Anarchy (whose misleading status as deceased is allowed to stand for most of the novel). The group also includes Ingrid (The Detonator), Winston Pratt (The Puppeteer), Honey Harper (Queen Bee), Leroy Flinn (Cyanide), and the enigmatic, unnamed “Phobia.” All of these figures serve distinct roles in Nova’s life and as supervillains. Ingrid’s bombs and Honey’s bees serve as offensive attacks, while Leroy’s poisons, Phobia’s ability to mimic fears, and Winston’s puppeteering are combined to sow chaos on the battlefield. Similarly, Leroy and Honey serve as flimsy parental figures to Nova, while Winston is genuinely her friend despite her dislike of him. Various schisms exist within the whole, for Phobia is not close with the others and may not even have a human body, and Ingrid’s antagonism and propensity for violence sour her relationship with the team and with Nova. (Ingrid ultimately dies after trying to destroy an entire theme park in the pursuit of Anarchist ideals.)

All the Anarchists have caricatured personalities and appearances, but although they are more easily classified as supervillains than as ordinary people, their care for Nova and desire for a better life shows that they are just human beings trying to improve their conditions. Leroy is the kindest of them and shows Nova the most compassion—a trait that contradicts his ability to produce deadly poisons. However, the rest of the Anarchists are essentially flat characters; the dramatic, attention-seeking Honey is characterized as a fallen beauty queen, while Winston sports facial tattoos and exudes bizarre mannerisms. Ingrid has the most violent personality and is short-sighted, blunt, and cruel; she is desperate to harm others and has little regard for Nova’s plans or goals. Other than Ingrid—who becomes a key antagonist—none of the Anarchists show any growth and remain static figures in Nova’s life.

Ruby and Oscar are the two primary members of Adrian’s team. Ruby is cheerful, playful, and sweet, while Oscar is mischievous, courageous, and stubborn. They are good friends and potential love interests, although they never openly discuss their feelings for one another. Both are deeply loyal to Adrian—and, by extension, to Nova. Their personalities often contradict their backstories, for they have both survived intensely tragic and violent circumstances that ignited their superpowers. Ruby’s blood turns into gems and can be manipulated, and she now has a permanent, weeping wound on her arm. Her power arose after she swallowed rubies and was subsequently stabbed as a child. Likewise, Oscar died in a housefire and revived with the ability to control smoke. He also has a degenerative bone disorder that requires him to use mobility aids and causes him chronic pain. 

Despite their tragic origins, both characters choose to be heroes and pursue good rather than seeking revenge or closure, and their motives are contrasted heavily with Nova and Adrian’s self-centered goals. Oscar and Ruby always function as a duo, supporting and protecting one another. Their respective chronic conditions also emphasize their ties to one another, and they support one another’s needs and help each other to thrive amidst the challenges of being part of the Renegades. Ruby and Oscar remain flat, static characters, and although Nova’s regard for them grows, their narrative role is to show that real love and friendship exist among the Renegades.

Genissa Clark, or Frostbite, is an antagonist who represents the worst possible outcome of the Renegade system. She is cruel, sadistic, and power-hungry and utilizes her ice powers to harm the Anarchists and to discriminate against potential Renegade recruits based on her own ideals of power. Genissa’s physical beauty contrasts with her harsh personality, and she regularly torments Nova and others for her own gratification. She remains a static antagonist who behaves more villainously than many of those labeled “villains.”

Notably, Genissa never suffers repercussions for her actions, and the Renegades’ inaction in her case demonstrates the corruption in their institution, for they blatantly fail to enforce their own laws or prevent her various abuses. Ironically, their tolerance for Genissa’s lack of tolerance creates a punishing and unsafe environment for those she deems less worthy. Genissa’s violent tactics expose the flaws in the Renegade system, which clearly values power over justice. Genissa’s flaws make her an important foil to Nova, for just as Nova is a villain who is capable of good deeds, Genissa is a hero who is capable of great evil.

Max Everhart is a 10-year-old boy with the power to absorb the superpowers of others. He serves as the focus of the moral conflict between the Anarchists and the Renegades, for his relative innocence conflicts with the fact that his powers have been suborned for nefarious uses—particularly in the role he played as an infant in defeating Ace Anarchy, and his current role as an unwitting test subject for the Renegades. As a person, Max is intelligent, imaginative, and sweet, but he holds anxieties about his powers and is intensely lonely due to his enforced isolation. Max spends all of his time quarantined in a glass room that is functionally a prison, enduring the experiments of Renegade scientists who are using his DNA to create Agent N, a serum that can strip “undeserving” prodigies of their powers without their consent.

As a deeply powerful child, Max occupies a unique role. He is fundamentally innocent and never intends to steal powers from others, and he has also experienced intense abuse and attempted murder because of his ability. Even so, he is still a vital contributor to the war and to the Renegades’ overall power structure, for the absence of Ace Anarchy and the invention of Agent N will have far-reaching effects in Gatlon City. Max is humanized and objectified throughout the book; even though his adoptive fathers love him dearly, they still allow the experiments to proceed for the “greater good,” and they isolate him without even attempting to find a better way to deal with his abilities.