Sacred Band
The golden age of heroes is decades past. The government could not condone vigilantism and now metahumans are just citizens, albeit citizens with incredible talent, who are assisted in achieving normal lives (including finding good fits for their talents employment-wise) by a federal agency.
Rusty may have been a kid during that glorious age but he remembers his idol, Sentinel, saving lives and righting wrongs — until he was outed in an incredible scandal that forced him into isolation. When a gay friend of Rusty living in the Ukraine goes missing, Rusty is forced to acknowledge that while the world’s governments claim that super teams are outdated and replaced by legal law enforcement, there are simply some places where the law doesn’t protect everyone — so he manages to find and recruit Sentinel to help him find his friend. But the disappearance of the friend is merely one move in a terrible plot against queer youth. A team of supers may be old-fashioned, but this may be a battle requiring some incredible reinforcements.
Paperback"The alchemy between the characters’ chemistry, the story’s action, and the world’s pressing—and world’s pressing—and sometimes painful—similarities to our own makes the book nearly impossible to put down." - Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"In this thoughtful take on comic book tropes, queerness and superpowers intersect....Everything comes together to create a real page-turning adventure in a setting that begs for further exploration." - Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Everything about Sacred Band was a wonderful ride. There are so many parallels to the silver and bronze ages of comics that I found myself smiling on more than one occasion." - 'Nathan Burgoine for Out in Print