The Zodiac Legacy: The Dragon’s Return
Hardcover | Kindle Edition
Written by Stan Lee and Stuart Moore
Illustrated by Andie Tong
Release Date: January 26th, 2016

Steven Lee (infused with the Tiger) and his Zodiac team have traveled the world as heroes, learning about their inner powers along the way. Ever since they defeated Maxwell, and took the Dragon away from him (well Jasmine did), they have been honing their team skills as well. Even the government sometimes asks them for help discreetly. But just because Maxwell has vanished does not mean the battle is over yet. And here is where The Zodiac Legacy: The Dragon’s Return by Stan Lee and Stuart Moore begins.

More below.

Carlos is missing and Jasmine is not herself, more Dragon than human. Maxwell’s flunkies are rebelling, but that does not necessarily mean they want to be good guys, as the Zodiac team finds out quite painfully. Ox does plead to join but can they trust him?

In the meantime, Steven is so worried about the team breaking up what with Jasmine’s weirdness, Roxanne’s mother coming, and Kim’s big problem, he ends up finding a bit about himself, and about the parents that he pretty much gave up on. Steven who? Simultaneously, that info and how he went about it caused the mayhem that followed.

I cannot give away the details or results of said mayhem. I can only promise is that the book ends nothing like what you think it will, and our friends learn some valuable lessons on the way.

I still love that they mainly call each other by their animal name, “Horse, Ox, Rat, Tiger!”

Stan Lee and Stuart Moore bring the action and intrigue back with this second novel in the Zodiac Legacy series. Although touched upon in the first one, this one had more of the bad guys having good in them and vice versa. That part’s just plain old-fashioned good storytelling.

Andie Tong returns to illustrate, and captures the movements in her drawings perfectly. I am not a comics person, but I do recognize when art enhances the prose.

The Zodiac Legacy: The Dragon’s Return by Stan Lee and Stuart Moore is definitely a good read, not only for the 8-12 set for which it is recommended, but for us older folks as well. It’s genre-breaking within its own genre. You do not often see supernatural fictional heroes form from Chinese astrology, but here it is.

Book synopsis:

In this second illustrated novel of The Zodiac Legacy series, the dangerous dragon power only grows stronger within Jasmine, and Steven struggles to hold their ragtag team together. But as alliances become strained, the line between the “good guys” and the “bad guys” becomes blurrier and blurrier. And it all culminates in a major cliffhanger that readers won’t see coming!