No one on the Superhero Nation editorial board is pleased with the way football has gone this year.

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Mike: You’re positive you’re not an alien?

Catastrophe: Do aliens frequently speak fluent English?

Mike: Decryption programs applied to radio transmissions can do surprising things.

Catastrophe: I was checking football club rankings when you found me. Unless aliens are frequently interested in football…

Mike: You’d be surprised. You follow football?

Catastrophe: Sometimes. There aren’t any good teams around here.

Mike: Name three.

Catastrophe: Good teams? Arsenal, Man U and Newcastle.

Mike: Please. If you ever need to make up sports teams in the future, I recommend going with animal names, not randomly selected adjectives and nouns. “New castle?” “Man you?” That doesn’t even make sense!

Catastrophe: …

Catastrophe: You don’t get out much, do you?

This is the final part of a four part series. You can see part 1 here.

Mike: We have a non-optional orientation program for aliens. This is very simple. If anyone asks, say that you’re not an alien.

Catastrophe: I’m a cartoon character.

Mike: That was easy, wasn’t it?

Catastrophe: …

Catastrophe: Wait. There are aliens on Earth?

Mike: Uhh… no?

This is part II of a four part conversation. You can see part 1 here or part 3 here.

Agent Orange presents his link of the day and a related public service announcement for crocodile-Americans.

The Annals of Crocodile Failures, 94^th Edition

Lions, buffaloes and crocodiles do battle for control of a Kenyan wildlife refuge. This film is rated PG… Pretty Gruesome. The crocodiles make their inglorious appearance at 3:30, but they’re so ineffective that the (mammalian) commentators only notice them at 3:38. Unless you enjoy watching lions play two crocodiles silly, I recommend skipping ahead to 4:30, which is when things get rowdy on the land. “They’ve got ’em surrounded” (5:45). I also enjoyed the sudden appearance of Superlion– he flies– at 5:45.
6:30 is outlandish and further indicates how completely pathetic the crocodiles were in their brief appearance. Any creature that is unable to cripple a baby buffalo is hereby banished from the reptile class. Experts at Palomar University, one of the world’s leading reptological institutions, have found that:

The class Reptilia [Reptiles*] includes turtles, snakes, lizards, alligators**, and other large reptiles…

Let’s face it, crocodiles: even turtles and snakes*** count as reptiles. But not you*. (Don’t snicker too hard, mammals… the lions did not make a persuasive case for your phylum).

Not to fear, crocodiles: although you are no longer reptiles, you may technically qualify as amphibians****. However, both mammals and reptiles will remain ashamed to share a subphylum with you.

Tailnotes

*clarified for the benefit of crocodiles. Not that I think it will help.

**Unsurprisingly, saving the best for last. Incidentally, 99 % of reptologists agree that alligators > lizards > snakes > amoeba > crocodiles. As for the last 1%, if you are ever so horrifically unfortunate to find one of them, escape quickly. (Even if you’re a mammal—it’s not worth finding out if it can spread across species). Say whatever you need to. “I need to sharpen my claws (fingernails)” or “my scales (skin) require polishing.”

***Crocodile sympathizers may dispute that snakes are more worthy of the reptilian name than crocodiles. And we can speculate about the psychological disorders that might prod them to do so. But the fact remains that snakes can eat hippos (not for the squeamish). And, furthermore, snakes have their own baseball team, with which I am not familiar, and dominate a city with which I am.

****Assuming they’ll have you. Don’t hold your breath.

Setup: Catastrophe is a statistician that has been transformed by a mutagen into something uncannily similar to a character on a hit cartoon show, Hegemon (“Gotta kill ‘em all!”) Mike heads the Office of Special Investigations’ efforts to conceal extraterrestrial life and mistakenly believes Catastrophe is an alien.

Mike: Hello.

Catastrophe: I’m reading.

Mike: This’ll only take a second.

Catastrophe: Time’s up.

Mike: …

Mike: Let’s say five minutes.

Catastrophe: That’s 30000% of your original request. Is talking with you really more important than the club rankings?

Mike: And considerably less likely to get you pushed down the stairs.

(This is part of a four part series). After 6:00 PM on 12/29, you can read part 2 here.

Dr. Berkeley is a mathematician that Jacob Mallow hires to complete a project that relies heavily on numbers theory. Unfortunately for Berkeley, the project is actually an attempt to build a weapons-grade mutagen. Whoops. Several accidents later, he is mutated into a dead ringer for Katastrophy, the supervillain in a popular Japanese cartoon show.  In the aftermath of his mutation, he has to escape capture from his former employer and devise a serum to restore his humanity.

WRITERS’ NOTES

When designing a character, it’s critical that your audience discern key characteristics about each character.  Did the quotes help you associate Catastrophe with any particular characteristics?  Which ones?  Some variation of self-assured, eccentric and calculating probably made your list.  Did you get discontented as well?  

TO:  HUMAN RESOURCES

FROM:  RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

The viability of meeting federal diversity requirements with inorganic means

Situation recap: Staffing issues unique to the Office of Special Investigations, like a strong base of nonhuman applicants, render it difficult to meet congressional standards on (human) minority employment.

Furthermore, it displeases Congress greatly that recruiters (apparently regardless of their race) appear to pass over African-American candidates. The Civil Rights Commission guidelines has ruled that avoiding life insurance claims is not a valid reason to discriminate on the basis of race…

In the 1980s, Research and Development had been working on PROJECT ROBOT, a series of combat-androids. We discontinued the program after field tests in Nicaragua revealed that our prototype was a sociopathic Sandinista that had been plotting to escape for years, but we have resolved that bug. As a temporary solution to contemporary issues, we can resume production of the androids with several specs relevant to HR’s goals.

1. Variant skin-tones
2. Variant dialects– including “Will Smith” and “Bernie Mac” (However, OSHA regulations have forced us to suspend testing of “Chris Tucker”).

I present to you PROJECT BROBOT. Let me suggest a few guidelines about using the androids.

1. We hosted several European scientists last week. One of the prototypes heard several of them speaking in Spanish. He became very… odd. I would highly recommend not putting them in a Spanish-heavy environment. In fact, I would recommend not letting them out of the office at all.
2. Leaving them within easy access of scissors or staplers could be problematic. (Or coffee-pots. They are remarkably resourceful).
3. If at all possible, I would recommend giving each robot a bodyguard unit, ideally armed with electromagnetic weaponry (in case other robots attack?).

Additionally, we have noticed that Brobots have a considerably shorter lifespan than the control group. Researchers on the floor above us are conducting acoustical research. We learned that when their piano crashed through the ceiling, discontinuing work on Prototype 7-B. In another incident, a guard adjusted his belt and accidentally knocked off his holster, causing his pistol to hit the ground and discharge a bullet. Prototype 4-C will be missed.

FROM: AgentOrange@osi.hr.gov

TO: OfficeofSpecialInvestigationsListServ@osi. gov

SUBJ: I’m in reptile hell, wish you were here! And a cheerful December 25 to you, too!

Our idiotic legislative branch has seen fit to direct federal Human Resources branches to “take measures this December to promote diversity through awareness of the cultural practices of diverse cultures practicing December sentiment.*”

Investigation has revealed that OSI agents culturally practice such diverse days as Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan, Pancha Ganapati, and the Winter Solstice Festival of The Arrival of The Dark Lord Xanthu*. If you are interested in learning about these festivals, get your ass to a library.

If you are reading this, your ass is not in a library because agency e-mail accounts are not for public use and because the consequences for violating operational security are swift, severe and sharp.

Because you do not have access to a library, allow me to enlighten you about the December beliefs of certain tribes of a certain kingdom** contained within Florida in an area that is caught between four nuclear power plants that make Chernobyl look appealing have deflated local property values. “Seminoles?” you ask.***

I’m speaking about a tribe virtually identical to Seminoles in every respect but a few: 1) scales 2) foot-long-teeth 3) a total absence of anything approaching culture or intelligence. We are, of course, speaking about the dwellers creatures of the Jurassic Arc. They are known by many names: manimals, crackodiles, mutated wastes of oxygen. As far as anyone can tell, their main purpose is to serve as the best argument against nuclear power.

Congress recently suggested that, “the government is undertaking a cultural excursion to the crocodiles of the ‘Jurassic Arc.’ Given the dearth of reptile-American federal employees, it is suggested that you partake of said excursion. It is noted that the Office of Special Investigation’s budgetary request is pending.”  

The Jurassic Arc is a fine place to spend a hellish week experiencing the filthy bottom hygienic diversity of the reptile world. National Geographic recently described the radioactive weedarium marsh as “an epic opportunity to explore a self-contained biome that closely resembles the conditions of the late Jurassic.” That all is true, insofar as the late Jurassic had 1) reptiles so vilely repulsive that other species felt the need to flee from or attack them 2) mosquitoes the size of Seminoles (helicopters, not Indians) and 3) a conspicuous lack of deodorant.

Earlier today I met a moonsuited researcher-mammal from the Environmental Protection Agency. He was positively giddy about the “sociological value” of the find here. He asserts that some fraction of the creatures here have quasi-human intelligence. Either his nose is completely dysfunctional or, more likely, the DEA should investigate whatever he’s buying from the crackodiles.

Speaking of “sociological value,” I think that it would be worthwhile to document some conversations to prepare my legal defense.

ORANGE: Hello. I’m Agent Orange.

CRACKODILE 1: Oarings!

CRACKODILE 2: Awwings!

CRACKODILE 3: What’s a agent?

CRACKODILE 2: Aging!

CRACODILE 1: Eh-gint!

ORANGE: Sort of like a primordial lizard, except that I have a higher threshold to wanton slaughter and am much more effective at it.

CRACKODILE 3: What’s a threshold?

ORANGE: Getting lower by the moment.

The following conversation occurs after the three crackodiles have apparently stalked me in the wilderness to discover where I make camp each night.

ORANGE: …you woke me up.

CRACKODILE 1, 2: Hullo!

ORANGE: What are you doing here?

CRACKODILE 3: They wanted to know what your box does.

ORANGE: My computer? It’s a machine that protects my sanity by connecting me to intelligent life.

CRACKODILE 1: Compooder!

ORANGE: GAH! Slowly, put that down… or I will put you down.

CRACKODILE 2: Food!

ORANGE: NO!

ORANGE: …

ORANGE: I WILL END YOU!

Fortunately for the continuation of the crackodile species, the EPA agent happily surrendered offered his computer to me. On day four of our cultural excursion, the EPA man made the egregious mistake of bringing up Christmas. Crackodile 3 then attempted to demonstrate his tribe’s own religious gift-bringing ceremonies. The details are still unclear to me—and I hope they always will be—but the EPA agent woke up the next morning to find what is apparently the severed head of a leopluridon at his feet. The EPA agent attempted to explain to me that night that the ritual rearranging of the leopluridon’s brain tissue is meant to bring good luck.

Other Findings

1. The next mammal to call me a “peer” of the crackodiles is going to have an unfortunate accident falling down the stairs. Onto a food processor.
2. The next time someone wants religious diversity, they’re getting a decapitated leopluridon.

Tail-notes

*Mammals!

**NON-MAMMALS!

***Assuming you’re an idiot.

****BECAUSE CLAWS ARE SCARIER, DAMMIT.

Appendix

Here is a series of completely unrelated thoughts.

1. I am on “an excursion to the [crackodiles] of the Jurassic Arc,” which suggests that my obligation is predicated on the presence of crackodiles.
2. I laughed so hard during the scene in Aberration when the broad rigs her house to explode and then lures the crocodiles inside.
3. The crackodiles live in something like a communal hut.
4. Eglin Air Force Base is an hour’s flight away.
5. Captain Crash can restation himself and his F-99 to EAFB at his leisure.
6. EAFB has occasionally had issues with ordnance control. They really need to be more careful.
7. Captain Crash’s F-99 holds three tons of bunker-busting explosives.
8. The crackodiles have expressed an interest in flying mammals.
9. Captain Crash is, in a matter of speaking, a flying mammal.
10. If any crackodiles are alive by the time Congress allows me to escape, a flying mammal will be restationed to the Jurassic Arc.

10 days ago, I changed the title of one of my most popular articles from “Helping Girls Write Guys” to “Writing Male Characters” (I explained my reasoning here). I think that it’ll take 20 or so more days until I have conclusive information, but so far the article has tripled in unique hits over the past ~9.5 days compared to the 10 days before the change. I had anticipated some change, because my target audience is much more likely to use words like male/writing/characters than helping/girls/guys, but the magnitude of the leap surprised me.

Additionally, the article has become more effective. I suspect that the new title retains readers that click the Google link more effectively. “Writing Male Characters” is very straight-forward and serious; “Helping Girls Write Guys” doesn’t sound nearly as helpful.

1. Before, the article bounced an unacceptably high ~60% of readers. That has dropped to 35%. My preliminary conclusion is that strong titles are critical to retaining readers.
2. Including readers that bounce after a very short amount of time, the average time spent on the article has increased from two minutes to three. Excluding relatively unpopular articles that are skewed by a few devoted readers (three people spent an average of 30 minutes on one of mine), only my review of Soon I Will Be Invincible and my article on naming characters retain readers longer. And my SIWBI review is 4000 words long.
3. With the exception of the main site at www.superheronation.com, more readers enter my site through this article than any other.

Agent Orange: Contrary to popular belief, the New York Times is not actually the most anti-American news outlet. CSPAN is far more dangerous, and not just because it is more accurate than the average comic book. You couldn’t design anti-American propaganda more effective than around-the-clock Congressional coverage.

“You don’t change the world by whispering.” — NY Governor Eliot Spitzer

“Only a New Yorker could think that volume can change the world.”– Jacob Mallow

FROM: AgentOrange@osi.hr.gov

TO: OfficeofSpecialInvestigationsListServ@osi.gov

SUBJ: December Morale Issues

As you receive your duty schedules this December, please think of the story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

What happened in the Rudolph case study

1. Team-members pulling together to complete an important task
2. Division of labor

What didn’t happen in the Rudolph case study

1. Reindeer complaining about “hazard pay” or “life insurance premiums”
2. Reindeer demanding to be at home on Dec. 24 or 25.
3. Threats of congressional investigations into Reindeer Resources practices and relevant reindeer being kicked into a food processor

Ho, ho, ho! Have a cheerfully nondenominationally cheerful December season!

–Human Resources

“I reject the cynical view that politics is a dirty business.”– Richard Nixon

Sorry, I can’t think of any way to make that any funnier.

“I’m a conservative, but I’m not a nut about it.”– George H.W. Bush

“And that is why you and I are different.”– Dr. Lizard, webmaster of the Lizard Lounge.

“Poor Darrell Hammond. What’s he going to do when I leave office?”– Bill Clinton

“Probably enjoy his internship more.”– Dr. Lizard

This next one is dedicated to a certain fictional counterterrorist we all know and love, rather than anything in real-life.

My last fake card was done like a Magic: The Gathering card. It’s come to my attention that there are superhero card games (!). One of my Australian (!!!) readers says that he has actually played one, OverPower.

He says: “Your art [expletive]s but I bet Hegemon will be funner to play than” Overpower.

In honor of this alleged card game that has apparently made its way to Australia already, I give you your second Hegemon card, There’s No Time!

(Please click to see the full image if it’s cut off).

To the extent that the art is not painfully bad, I made use of Dali’s classic Persistence of Memory.

This article describes some remotely technical details of search engine optimization, particularly for authors/novelists.

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ATTN: SOCIAL JUSTICE LEAGUE

It has come to our attention that you have continued to violate our intellectual property rights. Continuing to infringe on copyrighted terms and concepts, including but not limited to the following, will force us to pursue alternate methods of defending our legal rights.

1. “superhero”
2. “superpowers”
3. The concept of superpowered individuals concealing their identities with masks and capes.
4. Accusations of lurid conspiracies by government personnel against the public interest

We eagerly anticipate your cooperation in this matter.

–Wonder Comics

ATTN: WONDER COMICS

It has come to our attention that you are attempting to restrict our linguistic rights for your selfish profit. Please refer your legal staff to the following concepts in US-American jurisprudence.

1. “Common usage”
2. Lawyers/media vs. police/military. Who do you think we have on staff?
3. Billionaire playboys: you’ve either got them or you don’t.

We eagerly anticipate your lawsuit.

–The Social Justice League

The International Society of Supervillains has the dirt on “superheroes” that are really tools. Reed Richards, Namor and Superman take the cake.

ABC did a story called Why Black Superheroes Succeed– and Fail. That’s interesting for whites writing black characters (or vice versa) or those wondering why some characters are popular and others aren’t.

I think black superheroes tend to fail because they get typecast as persecuted heroes. Even the article confuses two very separate ideas.

1. The article’s first sentence: “Would Spider-Man be the box-office juggernaut he is today if he had been created as an African-American character?” All other things being equal, would a successful hero become unsuccessful if he is made black?
2. The article’s second sentence: “What if Peter Parker had had to deal with the problems of being black in America in addition to adjusting to his powers when he was first introduced in 1962?” Would a successful hero become unsuccessful if white-on-black persecution were inserted into his plotline?

These two questions are very different! The second implicitly assumes that a black hero must face white-on-black persecution, which probably makes less sense now than it did in 1962. And, regardless of whether it is plausible that every black is persecuted by whites, persecution stories are usually depressing (particularly when the persecution is based on real-life events, rather than hating mutants or Muggles). Making the hero the victim of persecution changes the tone of the plot far more than just making him black.

Do black heroes have to be persecuted? I don’t think so. Most young people, especially, haven’t lived with the intense and highly visible racism of the 1960s, but the comics industry doesn’t seem to have caught on to that. Plot elements that were commonplace (or at least plausible) fifty years ago, like racial violence and particularly caustic racist remarks, often seem outlandishly cynical now.

If you do focus on racism, I recommend using elements of racism that are likelier to resonate with your readers circa now. People might step away in hallways and elevators or sit at different tables in cafeterias—I think that most readers would agree that’s how racism manifests right now more than, say, burning crosses and even racial slurs. More provocatively, someone might suggest that a minority has gotten where he is because of affirmative action or that affirmative action hires as a whole are less qualified than other employees. Bank guards might get antsy. Etc. (For some more manifestations of modern racism, please see the footnotes).

The point is that modern racism has become subconscious—I suspect that most racists genuinely believe that they aren’t— and that portraying racism as in-your-face, 1960s slurs will likely feel out of touch and preachy to your readers.

When I watched Crash, I laughed so hard when a car crash caused people to immediately start screaming slurs. Wouldn’t you, uhh, want to get their insurance information first? NO CUZ KKKALIFORNIA IZ RACIST. Crash wants to Make A Point and comes off as totally cartoonish.

Freedom Writers portrays a racially balkanized community much more plausibly.

If you feel the need to include intense racism in your work—something that will significantly affect the tone and marketability of your piece—Freedom Writers offers a pretty good model. It treats racism more seriously.

1. FW is set in a school district with some really poor areas. Meeting basic, everyday needs is a struggle.
2. Gangs and ghettos form as an attempt to form communities to meet those needs.
3. Intense, Hobbesian struggles and racism arise as the communities clash.

FW suggests that racism arises from economics*. That offers FW’s world a sort of grim, perverse logic. FW’s world is deep—you see where the racism came from and why it is so damn hard to overcome. Readers understand economic motives and how much money matters, especially if you have very little. Readers won’t sympathize with race-based gangs, but they will appreciate that tolerance is a harder choice than they thought. That raises the stakes and makes the heroes larger-than-life.

In Crash, racism just sprouted from nowhere and persists despite economic concerns. Insulting someone rather than getting their insurance information is irrational. Furthermore, the story offers no explanation why the characters would think it’s rational. Why are characters intolerant? Because they’re emotional, maybe. That seems flimsy and unsatisfying. It also gives the story an arbitrary feel– the characters couldn’t overcome racism at the story’s start, so how are they able to at the end? It would feel much more logical if we knew why racism was a problem at the start.

Footnotes

*Although some sociologists do agree with Freedom Writers that racism is primarily rooted in economics, they’re in the minority. But that doesn’t matter– Freedom Writers feels coherent and plausible anyway.  99% of your audience has no idea what most sociologists think, so it’s the feeling that matters.

More modern racism

For the purposes of helping you write, I’ll broadly define racism as anything that might create discomfort or division along racial lines.

1) Affirmative action. I actually already mentioned this before, but I think it’s particularly useful because blacks and whites often strongly disagree not only about AA but about which statements/opinions about AA are socially acceptable. For example, in one class a white student discussing AA made the (not extremely controversial?) assertion that race influences faculty hiring decisions. This offended the black professor, who may have thought that the white was insinuating he was less qualified. The professor asked, “do you think I was hired because I’m black?” The white was taken aback by that point-black, personal question about what he probably perceived to be an impersonal, general statement. He said that he thinks that the professor’s being black was a factor.

As the author, you could paint this a few ways. Maybe the student is wrong to treat the issue impersonally, maybe the professor was being oversensitive, or that there’s just a gap in understanding between the white and the black that doesn’t suggest anything negative about either.

2) Whites saying “sup” to black peers. In terms of awkward hilarity, this is one of my favorites. Whites often feel pressured to act differently with blacks. You might chalk this up to insensitivity and/or oversensitivity. Saying “sup” probably isn’t sinister, but it may create tension because the black knows that the white is acting differently because he’s talking to a black. In a related example (one I can hopefully offer without making a political point), Hillary Clinton once adopted a painfully bad drawl when speaking before a black audience.

3) Subways, trains and buses. I’ve noticed that people (including nonwhites) strongly prefer to sit by people of the same race. Visual media, like comic books, have some fantastic opportunities for some grim humor by showing a black (or white?) sitting alone in a crowded bus like he has leprosy or something. However, I’ve never seen anyone change seats to specifically move away from someone of a different race.

4) The assumption that whites and blacks have substantially different skills, traits or tastes.

Bartender: New Hegemon movie’s coming out.

Catastrophe: I heard.

Bartender: …

Bartender: How much do they pay you to wear that?

Catastrophe: Not enough.

I recently wrote a scene where Agents Orange and Black discussed how the government might profile the alternate identities of superheroes. Black focused on relationship troubles and Orange goes for characteristics like being close to people that have been kidnapped more than once.

I think I missed two important characteristics: cheerfulness (specifically the lack of it) and extraordinary and seemingly inexplicable job performance.

Job Performance

No matter how “ordinary” superheroes pretend to be, they always end up having spectacularly successful alternate identities. They won’t just be a mild-mannered journalist, they’ll be a Pulitzer-quality mild-mannered journalist. Even freelance photographers, the homeless bums of the media world, will be so eminent that they publically tell their boss they want twice the money. Industrialists will invariably build world-shaping conglomerates. Let’s not even talk about super-scientists. (Well, actually, I will talk about them, in the chapters with Jacob Mallow and Dr. Berkeley).

If I were in charge of the OSI, I’d *definitely* have a watchlist of the 500-1000 most productive and influential members of American society, with a focus on top performers in the scientific, media, academic and business communities. We can rule out the political/governmental/judicial sphere, but definitely not pro bono civil rights attorneys looking to make the world a better place. That’s obviously too many people to run surveillance on, but it should seem highly suspicious if any of these individuals is involved in anything supercrime-related. Who misses one board meeting too many? Who has cranked out one Nobel-worthy advancement after another? Of course, that works for government-friendly scientists as well.. .

The OSI’s WWII-era predecessor did a comically bad job attempting to cover up the species of Dr. Joe “Slizard,” who showed that an atomic bomb was theoretically possible. Of course, in WWII keeping the identities (and species) of your scientists was critical because roughly a third of the nation’s lab assistants were fanatically hardened Nazi assassins. The real Slizard was saved on several occasions because a Nazi threw himself at a paid actor that played Slizard at public functions.

Cheerfulness, a lack of

Ever since the end of the Silver Age of comic books, most superheroes seem to have been pathologically unhappy. This unhappiness often stems from personal tragedy, government/social persecution, or the realization that you’re a tool who only get published to make shots at Vietnam veterans.

On the whole, superheroes often demonstrate a marked inability to cope with loss and trauma without becoming 1) totally withdrawn/asocial 2) pathologically violent 3) internally conflicted. It’s probably a good thing that American servicemen have proven much more resilient than Captain America; beating the Nazis and subsequent foes would have been quite tricky if everyone went to pieces as soon a friend died. NOOOOOO, BUCKY!

Speaking of post-traumatic stress disorder, Andrew Sullivan and Blackfive, the Paratrooper of Love, go at it over how best to help the traumatized deal with PSTD.

In terms of OSI target identification, I think that I’d place a special emphasis on people that are…

1. Cynical– though many heroes try to hide it with quips, pretty much every superhero is cynical and/or grim
2. Unable to find happiness in everyday affairs; perpetually depressed
3. Noticeably asocial– have you seen the latest Batman movie?
4. Short on intimate, deep relationships.

Spiderman is the crucial exception to most of these, but even he can get emo when Venom is involved. This rubs against Rule 27 of Comic Books: He who is the most well-adjusted is the most ass-kickarific, with the corollary “with great power comes great instability.”

But, generally, I think that a psychiatrist would have some success identifying potential targets of concern. Just another reason that the hero-in-hiding should stay away from the counseling services of the Bedlam Clinic.

Superhero Nation specifically

I don’t think that many of my characters are deeply unhappy except perhaps Jacob Mallow. I’m inclined to think that angst and superheroicness are mutually exclusive. And angsty supervillains are damn unsatisfying and lack the charisma to really move the audience and plotline. So even Paingod is pretty optimistic, in a villainously libertarian kind of way.

Agent Orange: Can you hotwire that car?

Lash: No, jackass. I’m a Harvard MBA. And there is no way you would ask a white…

Agent Orange: Just because you attended Harvard doesn’t necessarily mean you’re devoid of useful knowledge. Excuse me for giving you the benefit of the doubt.

Hello. In addition to my normal articles on writing, I now have Writing Case Studies.  Each entry will review a book and then describe what writers should take away from what worked and what didn’t from the book.

This makes it a bit easier to describe problems/successes in characterization and plotting that might otherwise be abstract.

So far I have:

• Soon I Will Be Invincible
• Empire of Ivory

I’d really appreciate if you’d like to suggest any novels, particularly ones with superheroes or high fantasy generally.  I focus on those kinds of novels because they often have the same challenges and audience expectations as Superhero Nation.

• Creating a world more or less by scratch
• Making a fantastic world serious enough that people won’t hear your premise and groan
• Combining action and non-action components into a workable whole.

SIWBI is a first novel about a cyborg and her superhero team trying to stop a supervillain from taking over the world. Although it has redeeming qualities and the author is clearly very talented, I would recommend it only for writers.

Other reviews have been mixed. Here are some Amazon excerpts.

• “This book reads more like a first draft than a published work.”
• “This excellent novel reminds me more than anything of The Unforgiven in its deconstruction and reconstruction of its genre.”
• “Most dismayingly, the two narrators sound remarkably similar, except that Fatale’s utterly flat sections lack the occasional moments of inspiration that sparingly pepper Dr. Impossible’s narrative.”
• “Absolutely delightful.”
• “The heroes don’t even take part in the fight that beats Impossible, yet the book wants you to feel like they’ve proved themselves at the end.”

SIWBI is not awful. It was, however, poorly executed and suffers from many flaws common to first novels.

Characterization

Within the first thirty pages we were introduced to nineteen named characters and three super-groups. Most of the characters parrot a popular comic book character but without any kind of new angle, sort of like fan-fiction but with new names. These characters are so thinly-developed that you can only differentiate them by remembering who’s a ripoff of Superman and who’s Batman. For example, let me run down the eight (!) main characters.

1) Fatale. She’s the main protagonist and one of the two narrators. She’s a female cyborg and former NSA assassin, very much like Black Widow. That wouldn’t have been a problem, if the author had provided any personal spin or commentary or improvement on BW. Without those, the best she could have been was BW fan-fiction. She didn’t even get that far. Instead, she does remarkably little throughout the story. Instead of affecting the plot and making things happen, she does a lot of watching and ruminating, but neither her perspective nor her voice are interesting.

2) Dr. Impossible. He’s the villain and the other narrator. He comes closer to parodying Dr. Doom, which is a plus. Early on, his voice was engaging. Nonetheless, he still wasn’t nearly developed enough to drive a story.

3) Blackwolf, one of Fatale’s teammates. He’s a millionaire (or billionaire?*) martial-artist without any superpowers. He’s a clumsy homage to Batman, but a Batman with a curious penchant for waiting around as things happen. Even Batman fan-fiction wouldn’t inflict that on us. Shouldn’t he be, umm… Solving crimes? Running down leads? Figuring out Lily’s secret identity? Epic fight scenes? Emotionally scarring Robin?
*Pages 20 and 61 disagree.

4) Corefire (Superman/Reed Richards). Corefire is dead at the book’s start and still affects the plot more than any of the other heroes. His death makes more things happen than most of the characters do while alive. No, really.

5) Damsel (Wonderwoman). I can’t remember her doing anything but throwing up. I don’t know why they have this character.

6) Feral is Beast, minus the intelligence. He sounds like every other character, bizarrely like a high school student. (“This is all geek stuff”). If anyone needed a distinct voice, I’d say it’d be the mutant lab experiment.

7-9) Mr. Mystic (any magical hero), Elphin (a female Sir Justin), and Rainbow Triumph (Dazzler).

Fatale’s group has eight characters, hardly any of whom do anything. You might wonder what does happen. We learn a lot about another supergroup that has literally no bearing on Dr. Impossible’s villainous plot. Dr. Impossible gets beat up by another supervillain, who just lets him go and then never shows up again.

Inexplicably, we learn the origin story of one of the other supergroup’s heroes. Incidentally, it’s an enjoyable and funny play on the Chronicles of Narnia. But the only reason the author could have possibly wanted to spend a chapter on that character is to set up a sequel. I think it was a significant misuse of space. There were eight main protagonists. Surely one of them deserved that space more than a character whose only purpose was to set up a sequel. One excellent way to set up a sequel—perhaps the best way—is to develop characters that are interesting enough that we want to see more. DC/Marvel fan-fiction? Not so much.

Lack of Originality and Flavor

SIWBI looked so promising. The title and cover are outlandishly fun. The first few chapters felt fresh. But the last 80% of the book is painfully bland.

The plot went like this.

1. The villain starts his evil plot.
2. The heroes try to stop him but fail.
3. The villain raises the stakes.
4. The heroes stop the villain in the final climax.

Isn’t there supposed to be something more? For example, the Incredibles and Spiderman had interesting themes about specialness and responsibility. The Matrix and X-Men 2 had great action. SIWBI had boring action scenes (even for a novel) and, if there were any notable themes, I missed them completely.

Perhaps most notably, the villain’s grand plan is just absolutely lame. At one point, Impossible teases us by musing about his past attempts to seize world power with armies of mushrooms and termites and stuff. Termite armies would have been epic compared to this.

It wasn’t just the villain’s plot and the action. Pretty much everything about this story’s world was forgettable. Generic. Me-too. If I could use an example, I think there are 4 ways for a superhero story to show (or not show) how its superheroes interact with the government.

Model 1: The government’s missing. The hero ties up criminals and presumably the cops come along later, but we never see them. Or maybe the story mentions that the government has deputized the heroes, which is a generic way to make the characters feel more sympathetic than vigilantes without getting bogged down in politics.

Model 2: The government is a mild antagonist, like the cops that get in Spiderman’s way. This gives the heroes an obstacle to overcome.

Model 3: The government is a villain, like in X-Men. This gives stories a more ideological edge, but can be interesting because it takes more finesse to handle a hostile government than a hostile villain. (You can’t just randomly stab cops, unless you’re Wolverine).

Model 4: Very rarely, the government is a protagonist. The Hood uses two minor FBI agents and The Taxman Must Die rocks out with an IRS agent transferred to a super-crime unit.

SIWBI goes for option 1, mentioning that the government’s okay with the heroes doing their thing. That’s fine, if generic. Maybe no one else cares about the government!  But it feels like every aspect of SIWBI is the equivalent of option 1 writing, an easy and conventional way to build a comic book world. You can’t develop every aspect of your world, but no aspect of this world is notable.

Narration and Voice
Each chapter was narrated by either Fatale or Dr. Impossible. They monologue a lot. Sometimes SIWBI’s monologues parody comic books, but usually they felt like weak storytelling. More importantly, Fatale is a poor choice for a narrator.

1. Her back-story is cliché. She’s an injury victim-turned-cyborg, concerned about remaining human despite having mechanical parts. Boohoohoo.
2. She’s new and doesn’t know what’s going on. That wouldn’t be a problem if introducing her to the world immersed us at the same time. It worked much better for Harry Potter and Frodo.
3. She has no unique impact on the plot. Except for her inexperience, she brings literally nothing to the plot that other characters couldn’t replace.
4. Even though she’s a cyborg superheroine, her voice was frequently hard to distinguish from a male megalomaniac supervillain. These characters should not have sounded at all alike.

There were a few chapters where I read through a page or two and found that I had actually mistaken the identity of the narrator. In one case, it took five pages.

Your readers should know quickly and without any doubt who is narrating each chapter. My rule of thumb would be that it shouldn’t take more than two paragraphs.

For example, here are a few ways to help readers keep the narrators apart.

1. Write the narrator’s name right below the chapter title. This is 100% effective, though unsubtle.
2. Use demographic cues. If the narrator mentions how her arm reminds her of a 1950s radiator, we can guess she’s a cyborg rather than a supervillain. If his tail swishes, we know he’s not human. Readers might miss these cues, but they draw the reader into the story more.
3. Give them distinct voices! Making your characters sound different is definitely doable. It’s difficult, but it gets past the symptoms of voice confusion and addresses the problem, that your characterization and voice need work.

SIWBI attempted to identify the narrator by putting a graphic about the size of a gumball at each chapter’s start, a laser pistol for Impossible and an eye for Fatale. These graphics were too small to notice and I’m not sure why I would associate a laser pistol with a supervillain instead of a cyborg, or an eye with a cyborg instead of a villain.

All of the characters tended to sound alike. Here’s a multiple choice test: Who delivers these quotes from Soon I Will Be Invincible? Your choices are A) a mutant cat created in a lab accident, B) a genius millionaire gymnast-turned-businessman, and C) a whiny teen idol. (This should be easy, right?)

• “Maybe you should be at work, then. Spend some time on the streets.”
• “He always looks fine. I know you two kept in touch.”
• “Darkness? Crime, you mean.”
• “This is all geek stuff.”
• “You honestly think there’s something behind this.”
• “We haven’t seen a serious threat for almost a year. I’m almost bored.”

The first four are A and the last two are B. If you’re wondering why a mutated cat would use phrases like “geek stuff,” you’re not the only one. Notice that none of these lines actually came from the whiny teen idol, but pretty much all of them could have come from her.

Bloated Cast

I would recommend bringing in only as many characters as necessary. Each extra character is a liability.

1. Each new character makes it harder for readers to keep track of the other characters.
2. You have less time and space to develop each character.
3. Adding characters leads quickly to superficial and underdeveloped relationships.
4. Bloated casts ruin fight scenes. A book’s fight scenes are hard enough to visualize with two fighters, let alone SIWBI’s 7. (If you want to write epic fight scenes with many extras, could I suggest screenwriting?)

To paraphrase, redundant characters are reader kryptonite and should be removed. But how do we identify those characters? Generally, any character whose function/role in the plot can be performed by other characters can be axed.

SIWBI hit readers with eight characters whose only purpose was to represent a superhero archetype. For example, Mystic is the magical superhero and Feral is the mutated animal superhero. That’s not enough reason to add characters! Even if these characters were used well for parody/commentary– and they certainly were not– extra characters dilute every other character. If you absolutely needed characters like Feral or Elphin or Mr. Mystic to parody their respective archetypes, then it would make more sense to mention them as bit characters once or twice, rather than as Fatale’s teammates. That would have saved space for the few characters that did affect the plot.

I think SIWBI would have been much smoother and more coherent with only 3-4 characters on the superhero team.

1. Fatale (or your favorite narrator; I prefer Lily).
2. Someone to represent life before Fatale showed up (probably Damsel)
3. Someone that can develop the narrator, usually by playing the foil or providing comic relief.

That leaves us with a core of three protagonists: the main character, status quo, and the foil. That’s elegant and flexible. You can go Harry-Hermione-Ron or Laurence-British society-Temeraire, for example. Three is easy, but a “core” of eight protagonists is completely unworkable. Depending on how you define “character” (such as minimum number of lines), I don’t know if His Majesty’s Dragon even has eight characters.

Agent Black: The quintessential yes-or-no question of our times is not “do you want to win the war on terror?”  There are actually two: “do you feel safe in New York City?” and “Should you?”

CPT America will be featured in a Veteran’s Day comic sold at military base stores.

The Army and Air Force Exchange Service asked Marvel’s VP for business development to include Captain America and he “agreed because no other character better symbolizes the heroism and patriotism of the American soldier,” the VP said.

That’s funny, kind of. I’d be kind of insulted… well, really insulted if someone said I were as patriotic as Captain Anti-America. Sadly, The Hood (a Marvel anti-hero that trafficks in drugs and blood diamonds and accidentally kills a cop) makes a far stronger case for being patriotic.  He gets extra points for a hilarious reference to Guiliani Time.  

In Marvel’s comics for servicemen, there’s a big two-page spread that puts America in a romantic pose in front of the American flag that wouldn’t have been ridiculous, say, decades ago, when Captain America actually supported the American military.

Posing CPT America in front of an American flag is horribly two-faced.

1. Well, he’s a traitor and/or rebel.  He couldn’t bring himself to be as enthusiastic about fighting terrorists and registering superheroes as the government and people expected, which is fair.  Retiring would have been entirely acceptable. Instead he took it upon himself to militarily prevent the government from doing so, which is quite solidly treasonous.
2. Even before he rebelled in Civil War, his plotlines almost always featured the US government as a nefarious and sinister actor.  The details are blurry to me, but for example he beat the crap out of a sadistic and villainous Navy captain.
3. He’s never been very enthusiastic about either fighting terrorists or, frankly, America.  National Review argues that CPT America’s New Deal comics show that he is a terrorist sympathizer.  I wouldn’t go that far, but his recurring criticisms of the Dresden firebombing are pretty unrealistically severe for a WWII veteran.  Real soldiers–particularly ones that fought the Nazis, I’d imagine– aren’t that squeamish.  My impression is that servicemen overwhelmingly believe that the WWII bombing raids were justified on the basis of shortening the war and reducing casualties on both sides.  It seems a lot like Marvel’s writers have a certain set of views and they use CPT America as a mouthpiece to voice them, no matter how wildly implausible it would be for a WWII-era soldier to have them.  It would probably be more appropriate, I think, to have a younger America replacement make the revisionist case that the Dresden bombing is wrong;  I think that having the original America justify the bombing is probably truer to the source material, at least Captain America circa 1945. 
4. There is a major disconnect between the civic values of America’s servicemen and Captain America. America doesn’t seem to mind very much attacking Americans whenever he thinks it’s his duty to do so, which is unsettlingly often.  

Perhaps I should rest assured that “AMERICA SUPPORTS YOU”!  The comics are selling well, I guess, so maybe I’m looking at this too cynically.  I wonder who would admit to buying a comic book on a military base ;-).  I’ll have to ask around at Parris Island this summer.   

On the other hand, Spiderman is pretty kickass.  I’d be OK with his support any time.  Even Wolverine and the Fantastic Four seem to know how it is. 

A supervillain is easily identifiable because power is sexy.  That’s why we always get the best women (no one really wants to date a mild-mannered reporter or an inept freelance-photographer).  But superheroes are also easy to identify if you know what to look for: the bumbling factor.  The more bumbling someone is, the more superpowers he’s waiting to unleash. For example, the last time my henchmen attempted to break into a presidential convention, they got absolutely shellacked by Tucker Carlson. If you have ever wondered whether someone that looks that bumbling could only get on TV because he was really a superhero, you’re not alone.

There’s really no way to know how many of my plots have been spoiled by Carlson and Alan Colmes, but I’d feel pretty confident saying that they’re the main barrier between me and global domination.

I’d give you two guesses whether it’s Hannity or Colmes that’s the bane of supercriminals everywhere. Remember, people that look bumbling are dangerous. And anyone that looks as bumbling as Colmes can strangle your best assassins with his mind.  Interestingly, Sean Hannity is also a superhero, but any supervillain that fears a conservative diversity hero should reconsider his line of work.

Unsurprisingly, the talk radio guy doesn’t know how important it is to keep his appearance secret.

The Refrigerator of DOOM

Doctor Savant: “Before we open my refrigerator, you better take this.”

Lash: “What the hell, a flame thrower?”

Doctor Savant: “Just in case.”

Lash: “Just in case of what?”

Doctor Savant: “Exactly.”

Captain Carnage: “I reckon I’d be plum crazy if I didn’t say Texas is the doggoned smartest place in South America.”

Captain Carnage: “We have a Department of Defense. We need a Department of Offense.”