Review: There is a villain caged in the prison system with a laundry list of crimes against the world. His skin is impermeable to bullets. His movements are a blur. His mind operates at a level not seen since Einstein or Feynman. This is his twelfth incarceration and he is about to break out and try to conquer the world. Again. There was the time he hypnotized the President. The time he took over Chemical Bank. The time he imitated the Pope. The Senate was called to order but he froze them. He even held the Moon hostage. The Moon. He calls himself Doctor Impossible. The rest of the world knows him as as a supervillain.

Meanwhile, those who would stop him (and others like him) are reassembling. Once they were a group of superheroes known as The Champions, united in their fight for justice. Now they have to work to become a team again after a past both celebrated and mourned. The Champions lost (literally) their finest comrade and the world’s favorite superhero, Corefire, as well as witnessed the ultimate sacrifice of another valued teammate. They need to rebuild, but the past may prove too much a match for even them.

To help swell their numbers, The New Champions have added two new members: Lily, a hero sent from the future to save the world and Fatale, a cyborg formerly employed by the NSA. The two members struggle to assimilate into the worlds most famous and beloved supergroup, and if they can’t, it may spell doom for all of humanity. Meanwhile, Dr. Impossible is plotting world domination, and this time his supergenuis mind believes that he has prepared for every eventuality, and he shall soon rule the planet…

Recommendation: This book parallels today’s superhero trends. The populace has fallen in love with our imperfect, humanized comic book figures. Perfect heroes such as Superman and Captain America have fallen by the way side. They once stood as symbols of America’s strength and resilience, appeared in darker times to battle Nazi’s and reassure us that everything would be fine.

Since then we have been inundated with brooding heroes who struggle to come to grips with their powers and their decisions. Spiderman struggles with the pressures of losing his normalcy. Batman wrestles with his desires for revenge. The Incredible Hulk’s first incarnation detailed Bruce Banner’s fight against hating what he becomes and loving it. Even Iron Man is an alcoholic with a penchant for narcissism.

The “metahumans” in this book are chronicled in a fashion to shows that underneath their costumes and masks are humans struggling with the same things that all humans deal with: relationships, pressure, the past, dreams, duty, desire. Grossman writes lovingly about these characters and creates situations that make us think twice about the usual comic book stereotype. His writing is relatively simple and the main upshot about this book is that it keeps the plot moving. I imagine that if I was more of a comic-book fan I would have gotten even more out of it. I can think of several friends who would probably love this book. For me, it was a stress free read that kept me entertained for a couple of days.

One thing that I found interesting was the way in which Grossman’s heroes reflect our societal values and the way in which America’s closest thing to metahumans, athletes, act these days. The superhero teams in the book remind me of our Dream Teams. The first was so good. Since then, it has been a fight to assemble an ego filled team that can win the gold. Will this be the year…

Grossman, Austin. Soon I Will Be Invincible. Vintage Books, 2007, New York.

Currently Reading: The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

On Deck: When The Crocodile Eats the Sun by Peter Godwin