Topic
Superhero
Not just comic book superheroes live here. But when they do, it's amazing what can be accomplished with superhero legends in the hands of a capable writer.
Pick-up time at the Daycare
"Hello." Dr. Octopus stomps in through the front door, the fire engine-red, reinforced steel squealing slightly in his grip. For a moment, I'm afraid the thick window-glass in the middle is about to crack. "Sorry," he says. "Bad day." He's tried to wash up, I can see that, but…
Super. Hero.
She was a hero, she reminded herself. She had superpowers and wore a spandex costume and little girls dressed up as her for Halloween. She took another sip of her coffee, which had cooled. Should she bother getting anther cup? Hot coffee hurt worse when it was thrown. Her…
Location, Location, Location
A high-pitched whistle, a rubber band snap, and suddenly a future version of Phil appeared right in front of me in the middle of the Mercer and 9th crosswalk. He looked like a total freak old man with a blue mohawk and a neon purple catsuit. The rest of the crowd glared at us as…
The Surrender of Dr. Menace
"Are you sure you want to do this?" asked Captain Ortega. I nodded. "You need someone to do it," I said. "Your people still have family, and I won't let him take that from anyone else." I tried not to think of the bank building reduced to a pile of rubble that was now covering…
I Can Be a Hero Too
Daddy fingers the sturdy laces on the seven-league boots like he used to finger Mama's rough, black hair. Like gold strands. Priceless. "Oh, Besslynn, your Mama would've been so proud," Daddy says, helping me string the laces up. "Who would've thought our people could ever own a…
For the Peace
The enormous feet of a mammoth blocked his path, nearly treading on his toes. Sudhir wanted to swear, but instead politely edged into a space between two shacks, trying to relax. "Om mani padme hum..." he murmured, counting prayer beads in his pocket. Tension eased as he moved…
The Capes We Wear
You don't know this, but I've been here before, watching the flying robot monkeys attack Trafalgar Square. I was on the other side, the wrong side. The monkeys used to be under my command. "Uncle Elijah, quick!" you yell, seconds before you black out from the nearest monkey's…
The Greatest Good
"I think I might be developing superpowers," says Ronnie. Dana looks up from her cereal. "Really? Hon, that's great!" Ronnie shrugs. "I mean, I'm not sure yet. We'll see. But I'm thinking about what I'd want the suit to look like, just in case." "Oh, gotta have the suit," Dana…
Public Service
The Superhero saved us at the last moment. That sounds cliche, but it's true. My dad was probably going to lose his job. My mother was crying about how to make the mortgage payment. We live paycheck to paycheck, splurging a bit on Saturday to go eat out at the steakhouse, and…
Fight Some Crime, Or I'll Tell Mom
Randall's weird power is refilling anything empty. He's been doing it for as long as he can remember, although he keeps it quiet. Cheetos bags--poof! Overflowing with cheesy goodness. Sprite bottles--bang! Topped off and fizzy. It doesn't always work perfectly. He once tried to…
The Editor and The Policeman
Having enjoyed their meal, the editor and the policeman retired to the bar to enjoy their drinks in privacy. Discussion turned, as it always did, to both their core topic of conversation and the reason for their annual get-together. "Busy year?" asked the policeman. "As always,"…
After Instalove
1. It's been two years since you met, eighteen months since you defeated Thanatos. You expected something bigger. Europe, maybe. Instead, 28 days out of 30, you're doing the same shit that the other kids from your high school do: community college, shows at the VFW, making out…
Nothing To Sneeze At
"And she's definitely here?" Felicity asked, looking around the room. "Why do you think we're wearing the masks?" Mark said. Felicity wasn't the scientific sister, far from it, but even she realized how absurd it was trying to actually see Gina. Not quite as absurd as attempting…
A Villain Turns Mad
I'm on the set of a big budget movie, mere moments away from destroying Hollywood, and not with one of my patented Doomsday devices either. No, my plan involves wrecking the industry from the inside by turning public opinion against it and its bogus propaganda. No one needs to…
In My Wheelchair, I Am Invisible
In my wheelchair, I am invisible. It's my superpower. I glide silently down the street in the darkness, my wheels whispering on the asphalt. A pedestrian moves out of my way without making eye contact, or even acknowledging my presence. Invisibility is a mixed bag as superpowers…
A Villain Considers His Options
I'm bolting down the third-floor hallway, making a beeline to the stairwell where I can either: A) rush down, and hopefully escape P.A.M. Fantastic from my office/lair's side door or B) scramble up and hope the rogue murderbot hasn't compromised the helicopter's computer.…
I Won At NaSuHeMo!
October 30. I am soooo excited for this year's NaSuHeMo. I know we're not supposed to do any of the work in advance, but that doesn't mean you can't prepare your strategies, and I definitely am. I've read all the forums from previous years to see who had the most success. I even…
Starr Striker Should Remain Capitol City's Resident Superhero, by Keisha Cole, 10th Grade Student
***Editor's Note: Deceptively Adult Story. Mature Subject and Language*** Argument Despite the call to ban Starr Striker from Capitol City for "attacking" Captain Thunder, she should remain our resident superhero. Supports, Including a Minimum of Three Citations She tweets cute…
Starr Striker Should Remain Capitol City's Resident Superhero, by Keisha Cole, 10th Grade Student
***Editor's Note: Deceptively Adult Story. Mature Subject and Language*** Argument Despite the call to ban Starr Striker from Capitol City for "attacking" Captain Thunder, she should remain our resident superhero. Supports, Including a Minimum of Three Citations She tweets cute…
Hero
The hero was supposed to die. Louis saved him with his mind, sitting at the back of the cinema where no one might notice the concentration on his face. His hand jerked as he shoved the man safely away from his gory end in a wood chipper. The audience broke into laughter. Repeat…
The Redshirt's Daughter
Lieutenant Chang came back from Proxima Ceti IV a hero. My mom didn't come back at all. "It was just her time," Dad said, his voice all echoey and weird through the rejuvenation pod that was regrowing his skin. He'd been mauled while saving Lieutenant Chang, but Mom's body had…
The Cat Signal
Vigilante Turned Supervillain Disputes Guilty Verdict - Normal City, Arizona It's been three days since a jury found her guilty of three of the seven charges against her. Three days since she was transferred to a top prison built specifically to hold supervillains. That doesn't…
These are the Rules of Being a Hero
Listen here, son. There are rules to being a hero, and sometimes it isn't best to learn them on your own-- No, no, she can wait. I know you're eager, but she's locked away, she isn't going anywhere. You can go to her any time. Just be patient.... Anyway, this won't take long.…
Paul Flitch's Slap-Bang Fracas With Mister Delusio
It was a summer of superheroes. Children's dreams peeled themselves off the backs of cereal boxes and shimmering TV sets and thundered upward, ululating with joy and desire. Three-inch crusaders swarmed between skyscrapers, firing lasers from eyes and floss from wrists. Paul…
Pencils, Rules, Bones, Heart
Pencils In seventh grade, my crush is a boy named Austin. He walks the halls with head down, hand out, a pencil hovering circles over his open palm. He doesn't ride the bus home. Max Renner makes sure. "Freak!" Max shouts, shoving him up against lockers between periods. Despite…
Heroes
Darnell stopped throwing bags into the back of the garbage truck for a moment to look up at the two streaks chasing each other across the sky above the city: one red, one blue. He rubbed his callused hands against each other, working the dirt and dust further into the lines of…
Heroes
Darnell stopped throwing bags into the back of the garbage truck for a moment to look up at the two streaks chasing each other across the sky above the city: one red, one blue. He rubbed his callused hands against each other, working the dirt and dust further into the lines of…
Sleepwalker
I've already taken the pills. I hope they kick in before Jupiter comes to kill me. I sit on my sagging mattress, spiral notebook on my lap, ballpoint in my hand, deciding how I should finish the letter. To everyone else Jupiter's a wondrous champion--leader of the world's…
Rocket Man
The door to the roof slams shut with a bang and I jump, involuntarily. For a moment Roger is nothing but a dark figure illuminated from behind, and then he is reduced to the orange pinpoint of his cigarette as the light from the doorway is extinguished. "You okay?" he asks. The…
When Last We Left
Our intrepid heroes were making their way across the wastes of the world. We were in the future. The entire world was wasted. It didn't care anymore, and neither did we, but the heroes, they cared, and they picked up the trash we had left behind to rot. The trash couldn't rot…
Make
I only have the one psy-identifier that California law requires, the unisex cuff I picked out when my abilities were found in the fifth-grade screenings. I wore it when I met you, our eyes meeting over the glistening arcs of glass rims from across the bar. We got to talking, got…
The Terrible
The Terrible installed a conveyor belt exclusively for her. It carried Invulnerabella along, wriggling helplessly toward the metalworks's blazing furnace, her sinewy arms bulging against carbon-titanium cables. Her curse stole her strength whenever she was bound; the material…
Rage
Blood. Sweat. Exhaustion. I hate when he sees me like this. "You're home," he says. He always looks different through the eyeholes in my mask: less like a person, more like a shadow. "It's 3 AM," I say. "Yeah." "Why are you up?" "I was watching you on the news. You were good."…
Mightier Than The Sword
Ultraman enters the room slowly, pausing in the doorway for effect. He has purposely kept us waiting for ten minutes. A smile tugs briefly at the corners of his mouth as he steps ponderously over to the dark green chair at the center of all the lights and cameras. This is the…
Dear Superhero
Dear Superhero, I'm not sure you know who I am anymore, or else you probably wouldn't have asked me for help. You told me you loved me once, but I doubt you remember the day you broke my heart as vividly as I do. Let me refresh your memory. After all, that moment is seared in my…
Only Heroes
Over the fields of Afghanistan where the red poppies flower, Bazooka Joy, former Girl Guide, rides a chopper into battle. Distant explosions rock the air but are dimmed by the sound of the rotor blades. Bazooka Joy, the All-American Girl Hero, runs her hand through her…
Last Thursday at Supervillain Supply Depot
Dora didn't recognize him when he walked into the store. Not at first. She only knew someone important had entered because her supervisor, Madame Furie, said so in her earpiece. "Code Yellow," Madame Furie said, leaving her to try to remember which emergency that was supposed to…
Buried in Sand
Charlie let the temporal freeze come instantly. The slowing of time was instinctual now. He'd had months in the sanitarium to perfect it. He flipped it on like a light switch as soon as he heard the gunshot. The gun was pointed at Meaghan. Had he not slowed time, the bullet…
When a Bunch of People, Including Raymond, Got Superpowers
There was this bunch of people, like maybe fifteen or sixteen of them, who just out of the blue suddenly got the superpowers of their choice. Raymond chose the power to make really delicious food that's also good for you. Some of the other new superpeople laughed when they heard…
Hero
"How's he been?" my sister asks, entering the room I am not in. "Not good." Our mother stands in the window, her silhouette like a beacon of dark across the city's nightlights. "During the day, he's okay. He even smiles. But at night." When she turns, our mother's gravel grey…
Doomsday Will Come With Flame
There is a button looming over us, round and red and waiting. If I close my eyes I can see it, a bulletproof plastic case covering it in its shining metallic console. And the console rests in the bowels of a fortress impregnable for its distance as much as for the ring of blue…
Superhero Art
***Editor's Note: Adult language and situations*** This is a story about superheroes. And Love and Art. Maybe vice versa. To complicate things, one of the main characters is named Art. I also play a part in the story, but I'm not Art. Call me Henry. That'll do. You're wondering:…
Recognition
"All things come round to him who will but wait." --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow So here I sit, staring at a small portion of baked chicken with a side of carrots and potatoes in some sort of vinegary sauce. I have been coming to these things for ten years, and they always serve…
Dark, Beautiful Force
I met you the summer I was nineteen. You were a shadow on the wall, tall and intimidating in a way I could never be, and you were all that stood between my first supervillain and me. You grinned and leapt down in your black domino mask and high-top sneakers, before I even…
Daughter of Mettle
When my seventeenth birthday came and went without a word, I decided to take away your powers. The plan was simple: radioactive powder in your cocoa. You'd promised never to miss morning cocoa after you spent my ninth birthday babysitting a hostage crisis at Euro Disney. You'd…
Doctor was Madman, Family Man
Noted super villain and family man, Doctor Professor Putridor, succumbed Friday night at age seventy-two after a long struggle with the forces of justice. Putridor was raised on a floating island in the Pacific by his maternal grandparents, the notorious husband and wife…
Five Minutes
Sasha took what looked to be the third- or fourth-to-last sip of her Jack and Coke, still flirting with the idea of a second round. This was pure fantasy, she knew. After a shift and a half at the hospital, she was too tired to linger in the little roadside bar, neat and quiet…
The Needs of Hollow Men
Dmitri's exists in the cracks between the city, in the red zone, where the officials are too busy with the girls to see anything else. It's the only place Kane can go without someone watching him. He sits at the end of the bar, the amber whiskey in his glass trembling in time…
Phone Booth
***Editor's Note: A bit of adult language in the story that follows.*** Mark works at the northeast edge of the city, in a red-brick warehouse that used to be full of cloth or wheat or spare parts before it was an office building. His commute sucks, but he likes the job and…
The New Kid Is No Angel
This was what I got for being nice to the new kid and inviting him to hang out. Reading through my comics collection in my bedroom, we'd been arguing all morning. "You're so stupid," he said for maybe the millionth time. "If you could be invisible, why would you choose to be a…
The Colors
The trucks roll into town like a fog, muted colors and brands dotting their sides like worn heraldry. Soon the spikes are down and Sluggoth is pouring the sand. Rime lifts the tents with cool, arctic winds from his fingertips. Panoply's clones hammer nails and put up boards. And…
Everyone Loves A Hero
The hero roars up on his Harley, and deploys a grin that could melt an ice cave. "Hey hon, what's new?" I can tell you firsthand that it's impossible to hate a hero. It's also difficult to date one, unless you enjoy dangling from cliffs, being chased by henchmen through a…
Wonder
We were sitting across from each other on the subway car. I wouldn't have been looking at her--there, I mean--except it was the first thing I noticed. Sometimes your body reacts in a certain way, whether you want it to or not, or even before you know you're doing it. Face,…
They Do It with Robots
"Ladies and gentlemen, although all of the participants are consenting adults, the final act of the evening is illegal under United States law," said the announcer. "Fortunately, our ship has passed the twelve-mile limit, so we are in international waters." Guillermo turned his…
As Fast As You Can
The cars might as well have been parked. Sixty miles an hour is just not that fast anymore. I ran between the rows, head down, arms pumping. It doesn't propel me much faster, relatively speaking--like running on board a jet plane--but it's necessary. Everything is necessary, if…
Gathering Glory
Destiny drove him forward like a taskmaster from the bus, up the grand entranceway into the ballroom at the Civic Centre, past the sign-in table where he received his laminates and loot bag, onward to his publisher's booth in a back corner. There it was: the fabled anthology,…
...And A Bottle Of Rum
The old man set the bottle in its stand, leaned back into his pillows, and sighed. "Perfect. I've still got my touch." A miniature skyship hung inside the bottle, sails turned to catch sunlight, a wizard perched on the crow's nest, following currents invisible to ordinary eyes.…
Automatic Selection
Clay felt his blissful night sputter and die in the morning reality of public transportation. "No, really--I don't take the bus." Her jaw dropped open--but she kept the morning-after smile fastened to her face. "I thought you were joking. How else are we going to get there?"…
A Theory of Sixth-Sense Aesthetics
William had to wiki the word "psi-phy". The explanation--"... pop-cultural slang for the various disciplines of psioneurology, neurophysics, and quantum neuroscience,"--sent him on an endlessly nesting hyperlink tangent before he finally gave up and tabbed back to the blog entry…