Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman

I have just finished Soon I will be Invincible by Austin Grossman, a highly entertaining novel set in a modern and well conceived world populated with superheroes. The would be ruler of this world is Doctor Impossible, a middle aged mad scientist who finds himself defeated time and time again despite having an extremely high IQ and powers gained from a lab accident. His biggest weakness of course is his desire to be the nail that stands out in a community filled with incredibly powerful hammers. His most recent excursion landed him into a maximum security prison, but after an interrogation goes wrong he escapes yet again eager to hatch a new plot to take over the world. Still his first person account makes up only half the book, as it is mixed evenly with the story of Fatale, a wallflower turned cyborg warrior after an unfortunately accident. She is recruited into a superhero team called the New Champions to replace Core Fire, a Superman analogue that has gone missing.

Still like most modern comic books the real story hides somewhere behind the brightly colored metaphor of capes and masks. For example Doctor Impossible is a nerd who had to fight too hard to be acknowledged in a world full of naturally charismatic and gifted people. Despite all his intellect he seems to only be able to get peoples attention by threatening to blow up the world or by unleashing armies of mechanical monsters. In his private life he is lonely and insecure, just like the heroine Fatale. She remembers nothing about her past life except for the fact that she was not happy with it. Now rebuilt as a six foot five weapon of mass destruction she’s the smallest fish in a big pond and eternally segregated from normal people and healthy relationships. The science fiction setting of this book allows the author to intersperse drama with levity. Themes of alienation go great with aliens and it’s easy to talk about past regrets in a world where time travel allows the characters to relive them, failing time and time again to do the right thing.

The author seems to have a genuine love for comic books and similar to Josh Whedon or Mike Mignola he mixes every eclectic facet of geekdom without a trace of self-consciousness or condescension. Instead he revels in the ridiculous side of comics without mocking it. His novel is full of Doomsday Devices, Alien Overlords, Pulp Heroes, Fantasy Creatures and Epic Battles. For every deep inner monologue there is also an outward cry of “You will never take me alive!” and “Tremble before my might!”

 Of course these ridiculous situations allow for some downright sad or poetic scenes. In a wonderfully Douglas Adams moment a group of super villains travel to the future expecting to get help from their future selves. Unfortunately their future selves are disgraced losers with nothing to offer, discouraging their past selves and causing them to retire in a self fulfilling prophecy. Even if certain archetypes are a little obvious (see how I didn’t spell out which novel character is modeled after which comic book character) and a few ideas are heavy handed its hard not to find something to love in this book.