What Do You Do When You Have Super-Powers and Nowhere to Go?

Buy my book to find out!

https://www.createspace.com/3953540

That's right: THE POWER CLUB is now available both as a paperback and on Kindle.  Above is the complete cover.

Here's the back cover copy, and, below that, an excerpt from the book:

Damon looks like an ordinary kid . . . but he's not. He has one thing ordinary kids do not: a power.

Ordinary kids have something powered kids do not: freedom.

Damon lives in the district, where kids can use their powers freely only if they join special clubs. But getting into such a club isn't easy. First, his power must be good enough to get in. Then he has to obey their rules. Then he learns that the district allows club members to do anything they want . . . except be heroes.

Damon wants to be a hero anyway.

 ***

            “ISTHATTHEBESTYOUCANDO?” shouted Veryl Evans as he raced past Damon.

            “That’s not fair!” Damon shouted back.  “Hold still!”

            Veryl—Vee, as he preferred—ran circles around Damon, easily evading the darkspace.  His voice seemed to come from everywhere.  “If we were criminals, we wouldn’t hold still.” 

Damon tried to make the darkspace come faster.  But it came slowly, as always, a gentle cloud flowing out from every pore of his body.  By the time it spread ten feet, Vee was cackling from the other side of Mackintosh Park.

            Damon inhaled, making the darkspace go away, and glowered.  Vee could run faster than anyone else in the district and, though six months younger than Damon, was already a founding member of a club.  Damon, four months past his thirteenth birthday, still hadn’t been invited to join a club.

            That, he determined, was about to change.

"Would You Like Fries With That Murder?" The Thin Line Between Heroes and Villains

Here's an oldie but a goodie.

Back in 2003, I joined the Kansas City Comics Creators Network (KCCCN, later mercifully shortened to CCN)—a group of enthusiastic artists and writers who were devoted to publishing our own work independently. The CCN eventually went the way of all things, but not before publishing a number of works, including three massive volumes of an anthology series called Show and Tell.

Show and Tell # 1 featured the first story I ever had published. It was also my first collaboration with an artist.

The artist was Travis Fox, best known for the comics strip Foxymoron, which has run in The Kansas City Star. The story: a five-page ditty called "Would You Like Fries With That Murder?"

"Would You Like Fries" parodies the ever-popular dark side of super-heroes. Are heroes truly good and villains truly bad? Is there much difference between the two?

The twist? The story is told through the eyes of a former super-villain who is forced to make ends meet by slaving away as a fast-food employee.

Hey, even super-villains have to make a living.

Enjoy!

Story © 2003-2012 Greg Gildersleeve.  Art © 2003-2012 Travis Fox.

What If Super-heroes Walked Among Us?

How would the real world treat people with super-powers?

Lots of stories have been written to explore this theme and, to a degree, I touch upon it in my work-in-progress, The Power Club.  However, I do so with a slightly different twist.

Most authors assume that people with extraordinary powers have some responsibility “to serve and protect” ordinary folks.  Like Superman, they become super-cops, in other words.  And super-hero fiction tends to adopt two extreme views of super-heroes: Either their influence on the world is overwhelmingly positive (Superman again) or overwhelmingly negative (Watchmen). 

But my take on people with super-powers (I’m deliberately avoiding the term “super-heroes” for a reason I hope will become obvious) is a little different.

In order to understand how people with powers would be received in the real world, we need to look at those the world already regards as exceptional: celebrities, politicians, star athletes, and anyone else who is famous for 15 minutes or longer.

First, though, we need to define what a super-power is.

A super-power can be defined as any ability that

• is not shared by most people, 
• makes its possessor stand out or unique, 
• controls the physical world or manipulates perceptions, and/or
• would be considered impossible by most standards of human limitations.

But even that definition breaks down.  Most people have some ability that makes them stand out from their peers or makes them unique in some way.  All of us have a limited ability to control our physical world, and the media, for one, manipulates perceptions every day.  Also, standards of human limitations are often broken by athletes.

Still, there would be an obvious difference between a bona fide super-power (Superman-level strength, for example) and more ordinary abilities (bench pressing 200 lbs, perhaps) – but where does a circus strongman who can lift a Volkswagen fit in?

Our inability to define precisely what a super-power is would play a role in how we treat those who are different.

We would start to question if anyone who exhibits remarkable abilities has a superhuman power. 

If my Uncle Fred has a unique ability to diagnose and fix car engine problems, does that mean he has some sort of car ESP?  Does a golfer who routinely gets holes-in-one use telekinesis to manipulate the ball in mid-air?  Do politicians who get elected year after year exert mind control over their constituents (actually, the last is probably true . . .).

This would create a lot of confusion, paranoia, and wish-fulfillment (“Daddy, can I have a super-power like Uncle Fred?”).

But let’s say that a few people – very few – could run at 200 mph, fly without artificial support, or manipulate light and darkness at will.  How would those people be regarded?

Most of us – busy with our own lives – would at first not regard them as much more than a curiosity, something to tweet about or share articles about on Facebook.  Sure, everyone would have an opinion.  Some would question why the government doesn’t use these people to take out [dictator or terrorist of your choice].  Others would wonder why they don’t use their powers to end world hunger or cure cancer (assuming, perhaps, that they have a responsibility to do such things).

And, if the government decided that people with powers must live in their own community – as happens in The Power Club – many of us express outrage that taxpayers have to foot the bill.  

So, for most of us, life would continue on as we watch Fox News and CNN or read the Internet to see what happens next.  Will the government figure out what do with these people who have special abilities?  Will they  figure out their own purpose?  Will Uncle Fred have to go live in “the district”?

And most of us won’t really care – until one of those people with powers goes rogue.

(And if that’s not a shameless plug for the novel, nothing is.)

Tell me your opinion: How would you react if you discovered your neighbor had a bona fide superpower?

Why I Write about Super-heroes and Why You Should Care

Image via Wikipedia

When you think of super-heroes, you probably think of Batman swinging across Gotham City and punching The Joker in the face. 

Or you think of Superman flying high above the Capitol, bearing the American flag. 

Or Spider-Man cracking wise as he bundles criminals in webs and leaves them for the cops to find.

All indelible images. But that’s not the whole story.

Yes, super-heroes stand for truth, justice and the American (or Krytponian or Asgardian) way. But they also stand for much more.

My novel in progress, The Power Club, started with the idea of kids having super-powers. I did not call them “super-heroes” because I wanted to avoid the clichés that people think of when they think about super-heroes. But when I’ve described my novel to others, they inevitably associate the concept with super-heroes.  

This, I’ve learned, is not necessarily a bad thing.

Furthermore, my main character, Damon, wants to turn his super-powered friends into heroes. Why he wants to do this is central to our understanding of super-heroes and why they matter.

Adolescent Power Fantasies? Yes and No

Super-heroes represent our primal need for three things: power, authority, and acceptance. Children become aware of their own power (or lack thereof) the first time they encounter a bully. They become aware of authority early on, and when teachers, police officers, or other adults fail to protect them or to seek justice on their behalf by punishing said bullies, they become aware of the limits of authority. They also learn early on that, in order to gain acceptance from other kids, they usually have to learn the pecking order and change their identities (including their interests or the way they dress) in order to “fit in.”

Super-heroes paradoxically help children both deal with the harsh realities of life and to escape from them. They do so by offering elaborate fantasies in which the kid has power, can fill in the gaps of authority, and wins acceptance from the general public or other super-heroes.

But the appeal of super-heroes does not stop at childhood.

Adult Power Fantasies and Male Ego Trips

Super-heroes continue to influence and inspire us even into adulthood. Consider just about any movie Arnold Schwarzenegger has ever made. Sure, he doesn’t wear a cape or bend steel with his bare hands (except, perhaps, in the Terminator films), but he’s a super-hero, nonetheless. Perhaps “action hero” is the more acceptable term, but it’s the same thing.

Consider Chuck Norris (whose martial arts expertise is portrayed in films as almost super-human), Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Will Smith (in certain roles). They all accomplish the seemingly impossible, endure horrendous physical abuse, and win over crowds by triumphing over the forces of evil.

Super-heroes all.

What about Women?

Someone recently told me that girls get short shrift as super-heroes, and, unfortunately, she was right. As recently as 2007, Warner Bros. slighted girls when it marketed Happy Meal toys at McDonald’s to tie in with the cartoon series Legion of Super-Heroes. The LSH is a team that contains at least ten super-heroines, but none of them were marketed as toys. 

Furthermore, female super-heroes often endure story lines that undermine or destroy them as super-heroes. Batgirl, in the famous Killing Joke comic (1988), was shot and crippled by The Joker. Now she’s the wheelchair-bound computer genius known as Oracle.

But in some ways, these stories mirror the struggles women face every day: glass ceilings, lower wages than their male counterparts, and sexist attitudes in a culture that is still coming to terms with equality. Super-heroes, therefore, have something vital to say to women as they do to men.

So, why do I write about super-heroes and why should you care? Because, in essence, every story is about someone facing the challenges super-heroes face: understanding power, dealing with authority, and seeking acceptance. No other genre brings this struggle to life as vividly or in such clear-cut terms.

Who are your favorite super-heroes and why?