I’m a sucker for superheroes and as for the dark side of super-powers and origin tales — mmm, tasty. Who Can Save us Now? delivers a whole lot of awesome wrapped up in one book. Featuring 22 short stories from some very talented writers and some very cool illustrations, this book is a pleasure to read.

The short stories are so strong precisely because they are short stories. Let’s face it – any long contemplation of superheroes and superpowers soon begins to produce questions which threaten to wash the whole suspension of disbelief right away – how does Superman shave? Isn’t Batman being a big crybaby by not learning to deal with his parents’ murder? How come the Hulk’s pants never rip off? In the age of GPS and CCTV can we believe no one has figured out where Batman lives? Hmm … he always comes from the south end of the city …

Who Can Save Us Now hands us small delicious morsels, each unique and strange and I guarantee after each story you’ll be sitting there thinking about what ifs and making up your own superpowers.

The Stories

We meet the support group for superheroes with useless powers in David Yoo’s The Somewhat Super. A guy who never has to go to the toilet as a superpower!

Roe #5 by Richard Dooling is dark and unnerving in its glimpse of a superhero made by man (and probably something coming up once we get that genetic engineering business sorted).

Some stories, like The Rememberer by J. Robert Lennon and Bad Karma Girl Wins at Bingo by Kelly Braffet edge into familiar I-can-almost-guess-what-the-story-is-about-from-the-title-and-I’m-pretty-much-right territory. They’re still enjoyable but in the sense of the least-best in a superb collection.

The story I liked the least was The Meerkat by one of the editors – Owen King (son of horror novelist Stephen King). I think Owen King’s talent may lie in putting together story collections, rather than writing stories.

I loved Girl Reporter by Stephanie Harrell – a sort of alternate Superman and Lois Lane tale told from Lois’ viewpoint (clearly it is them, without a name ever being mentioned).

A sample:

One night I said to him, “I want to fuck in a sweaty boxing gym.”

There’s nothing like the smell of iron and decades of male sweat to make a gal wet for a pounding. So he took me to Silverado’s Gym after hours, in one of the warehouses down by the docks. We broke into the weight room. I stripped and lay myself out on the blue vinyl mat. I could see my reflection in the mirrored wall, amidst row of barbells and weight machines. I was pliant and powerful.

“All right, stud. Ditch the suit.”

He started to tug at his boots.

“First the cape,” I said.

How I got Who Can Save us Now? Brand-new Superheroes and their Amazing (short) stories: A Borders bookshop in Kuala Lumpur near the end of August 2008 (cost $62.90 ringitt). One of the shopping days on overseas holiday and I was dying for something to read. It leapt off the shelf, stomped through my mind and left me wishing the standard superheroes we know today were more nuanced.

The upcoming Watchmen movie (based on the graphic novel), Heroes, the movie Unbreakable, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Iron Man and this book all form part of the post-Superhero movement which is a reaction to the Superman-style stories of the past. No one accepts that Superman or superheroes are all amazing all the time.

Ok, I haven’t delved too deeply into the selection of stories in this book because they are short stories and discussing them is very close to telling them.  It is a great collection that is much deeper, richer, funnier, scarier and awesome than the title suggests.

Buy Who Can Save us Now from Amazon or hit up the library (although our libraries here rarely seem to get good short stories collections in).

I tried to find some cool Superheroes links but then came across some big stupid story about Stan Lee creating “the World’s first GAY superhero”.  Really, he’s about to make the World’s first gay superhero?

Happy reading,

Mat

put your ear to the mown grass and you will hear sobbing

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