Skip to main contentI still remember buying my first comic book.
It was 1987, and I stood in a comic-book shop in Gresham. My hands trembled as they held an issue of Transformers, something that inspired in my heart a sense of amazement. Twenty years later, I felt a similar awe in first holding Austin Grossman's debut novel, Soon I Will Be Invincible (Pantheon, 287 pages, $22.95), an entertaining mash-up of superhero antics and literary ethos. Too bad the magic wears off.
Invincible is a present-day fictional account of superheroes and villains whose narrative alternates between two main characters, Dr. Impossible and Fatale. Dr. Impossible is the mad genius, whose medical diagnosis of "malignant cognition disorder" explains his 300-plus IQ and his numerous attempts to take over the world. Sharing the narrative spotlight is newbie Fatale, part kickass lady cyborg, part amnesia-suffering superhero, who has been enlisted to join all-star superhero team the Champions. What ensues is a tall tale of mystery and mayhem.
At his best, Grossman creates a charming take on superhero stories, challenging notions of power and fame. Like an adept DJ, he freshly samples from the vast superhero and fantasy mythology, with nods to Wolverine and The Chronicles of Narnia, while still carving room enough to allow an empathetic and introspective understanding of Impossible's sad neurosis.
The problem is, Grossman's charm wears off. Between an obese plot and the oscillating narrative, I often found myself lost in flashback after flashback. And with lines like "five superheroes walk into a bar in Green Bay, Wisconsin," the mystique of the comic book has been traded for the normality of fiction. Perhaps that's the point, as Grossman proves how adept he is at explaining each superpower and accidental mutation with scientific, Star Trek-like precision. Realistic explanation has trumped childhood imagination.
Yet amid lags in pacing and a heavy plot, Invincible exudes coolness. Maybe that's because Grossman, while moonlighting as a novelist, earns his keep as a video-game designer and studies Victorian and Romantic literature as a doctoral student at UC Berkeley. That Invincible is being made into a feature film goes to show that each story, video game and superpower Grossman constructs still manages to amaze and spark wonder.
WWeek 2015