Soon I Will Be Invincible
Austin Grossman
ISBN 978-0-718-15291-8
Synopsis
Doctor Impossible, evil genius and smartest man in the world, has just broken out of prison for the twelfth time. And after having his previous twelve plots for world domination thwarted, he is determined that this time he will be victorious -- soon he will be invincible and the world will be his!
With the world's greatest hero missing and no-one to stop the Doctor's rise to power, a group of young superheroes with mixed pasts team-up to form the New Champions. A young cyborg woman named Fatale is given the opportunity of a lifetime: to join the team, save the world, and recapture Doctor Impossible.
But it's not quite as straightforward as they'd hoped. The team is far from a smoothly oiled machine, and the heroes bicker amongst themselves and struggle to work with each other. And Doctor Impossible, the smartest man in the world, is always one step ahead...
Thoughts
Man, this is what it's all about! You can keep your chick-lit, with it's pedestrian girl-meets-guy plots, emotional heart-to-heart dialog, and touching observations about the bitter-sweetness of life. This is guy-stuff: Lasers! Force fields! Robot armies, with force fields and laser-beams for eyes! Proper chap-lit -- super-powers, explosions, death-rays, and world destruction!
The story is narrated in alternate chapters by Doctor Impossible and Fatale, but it's clear from the beginning that the Doc is the real hero of the book. While putting together his doomsday plan he reminisces about his past, and muses on the nature and practicalities of super-villainy. The odd juxtaposing of crazy super-powers and technology and more mundane practical matters make for great reading, whether it's his thoughts on the lifestyle problems villains face ("once you get past a certain threshold, everyone's problems are the same: fortifying your island, and hiding the heat signature from your fusion reactor."), or the difficulties of achieving total world domination ("conventional house-to-house and nation-to-nation pacification is unwieldy, to say the least. It's particularly hard to keep track of all the islands."). He's a fantastic character, and the reader ends up rooting for him and hoping he'll finally beat the good guys.
Grossman clearly has a lot of love for old superheroes, because the whole book has the feel of a classic golden-age comic and several of the characters draw their inspiration from well-known mainstream heroes such as Superman and Batman. Grossman's versions have their own differences, though, so the overall impression is one of an affectionate homage. He's also lavished a lot of love on the backdrop to the story -- there are references and odd comments about other characters and past events, which give the impression of a long detailed history of good-versus-evil battles prior to this one.
The good:
+ Superheroes! Supervillains! World domination!
+ Doc Impossible, probably the most likeable evil genius in the world
The bad:
- One book just left me wanting more; I had to re-read it immediately
The verdict
Two thumbs up from me -- I thoroughly enjoyed this, and I'm looking forward to getting it back from my friend so I can read it again. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to my fortress of solitude to develop my plans for world domination.