Comic Relief

Soon I Will Be Invincible is a superpowered comedy of manners

by Justin Bauer

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Published: Jun 12, 2007

Blame Seth Cohen for making the comic book the emblem of underdog geek chic. Blame Sam Raimi or Christopher Nolan or Ang Lee for emphasizing pained coming-of-age over world-beating heroics. Blame Pixar for smuggling suburban family dynamics under their capes, or NBC for building a superhero soap opera. Don't blame them too much, though, because the do-gooding upstanding loners of serial comics have never been more ubiquitous or accessible or enjoyable. Superheroes have stopped being simple symbols and have become widespread cultural shorthand.

It's this background that makes a novel like Austin Grossman's Soon I Will Be Invincible so possible and so satisfying. The superhero novel seems counterintuitive, forcing its characters to rely entirely on text and description rather than pictures and special effects. But Grossman is less interested in the powers that distinguish his characters than he is in the conflicts that drive them, and the humor that comes from the gap between their preternatural talents and their facility in managing those abilities. Knowing his audience already understands the problems with flowing capes and the advantages of heat vision, Grossman can write himself a superpowered comedy of manners.

Invincible drops us into a stock situation: evil supergenius Dr. Impossible's latest attempt to rule the world. This time, it's through climate control, although the mechanics of world domination are less important than the quest � Impossible notes that he's tried everything else he can think of. "Doomsday devices of every kind, nuclear, thermonuclear, nanotechnological ... I've commanded robot armies, insect armies, and dinosaur armies. Fungus army. Army of fish." Grossman alternates chapters between Dr. Impossible's narration and the existential crisis of a new superheroine, patchwork cyborg Fatale, recently conscripted into a league of superheroes fallen on hard times.

There are battles and speeches and maniacal cackling, of course. The plot chugs along as an extended caper, but ultimately it's Grossman's attention to detail that pulls the book along. Because of his familiar subject matter, he constantly dances on the edge of cliche, but his talent in fleshing out the ridiculousness of superheroism keeps the book from parody and makes it into a brightly colored high-flying confection.

(j_bauer@citypaper.net)

Soon I Will Be Invincible Austin GrossmanPantheon Books, $22.95, 293 pp.

 

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