Where are the Superheroes?

Do you have a favorite superhero?

Sometimes my favorite is Superman, but that's probably because Lois and Clark was one of the only TV shows I watched when I was younger. (I even had two teddy bears named Clark and Kent.)

My actual favorites are the X-Men. I think it's because I love how all the different mutant powers are like puzzle pieces, and in order to solve a conflict they all have to fit together.

My husband and I went to see the latest X-Men movie a week and a half ago and I thought it was fantastic. Now granted, I'm an action movie girl. I like watching things blow up. (A fact I finally realized when watching Live Free or Die Hard, a movie epitomized by the quote: “You just killed a helicopter with a car!” “I was out of bullets.” It's completely over-the-top, and I love it.) But I think X-Men: First Class is a good movie, not just a good action movie.

Well anyway, watching that and watching The Invisible Man as I mentioned on Monday got me thinking about superpowers and superheroes. And I got to wondering... are there really any superheroes in books?

I keep going over and over this, and I can't seem to think of any. (And I'm not talking about random people with mysterious powers. I mean full-scale, masked, caped superheroes.) They seem to be confined to comic books and television. Why not books?

Now maybe I just blanked on novel-form superheroes, or maybe I haven't read any and you guys know of some? If you do, I'd love to hear what you come up with. But if I'm right and there are no superheroes in novels, I'm curious as to why. Is there a reason comic book superheroes don't work well in novels?

Maybe there is. Maybe certain superpowers are more impressive in a visual context. Maybe there's a different expectation of how much suspension of reality is too much in books versus comic books. Maybe the kinds of conflicts typical in superhero stories just don't fit in a standard novel-length book. Or maybe it's something else altogether.

What do you think?

Superpowers

What's your favorite superpower?

I've had this conversation with a lot of people. The question is almost always the same, even down to the wording: “If you could have any superpower, what would it be?”

I've always had a hard time answering. In part that's because there are a lot of great superpowers to choose from. Who wouldn't want to be able to go invisible or conjure flame or breathe underwater?

Or fly? Wouldn't that be great? Of all the typical superpowers I've always thought this would be the most fun. Sure it's not necessarily the most useful for catching villains, but I think everyone daydreams at least on occasion about floating through the sky. I imagine flying is a lot like swimming—go through enough clouds and you'd probably even get just as wet. But there's something irresistibly romantic about flying.

The main reason I have trouble answering the superpower question, though, is that the power I'd really want isn't on the superpower A-list. It isn't in any comic books or superpower movies I've ever heard of. For the longest time I couldn't even describe exactly what it was.

I have a name for it now: it's the Velveteen Rabbit power—the ability to make things real. But it wouldn't just be about bringing stuffed animals to life; I'd be able to make the characters from my favorite books real, and give life to the people in my head, and even turn games into reality. So I suppose this superpower is more of a combination of the Velveteen Rabbit, Inkheart (which I loved, by the way), and Jumanji... only with a little more control over what becomes real.

And maybe that's the main reason I write: when I'm writing I'm giving as much life as I possibly can to the things I most want to be real.

What about you? What power would you choose?