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Soon I Will Be Invincible By Melissa J Wantuck  |
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 Austin Grossman’s Soon I Will Be Invincible, is a parody on the comic book genre. On the back of the newly released paperback edition, the author’s picture adds to the parody with his expression. He peers at his readers through Clark Kent-ish glasses and a half-smile that appears laugh at his own joke.
The book is set up to juxtapose a superhero versus a super villain by alternating the chapters each one narrates. The basic plot is the same as any comic book: the villain plans to unleash evil on the world and the superhero must face the super villain in order to rescue everyone.
The super villain is Doctor Impossible. When he was in middle school he was granted entrance to a special school for gifted students called the Peterson School of Math and Science. Oh, and he throws in that he has an IQ above 300. He excelled at school and went on to Harvard but throughout his life, he was a loner. At times he reveled in it, but it seems to be the fuel for his villainous fire: no one recognized him for his brilliancy. Thus he needed to take over the world so everyone would know who he was. Basically, he was insecure and needed to compensate.
The superhero is Fatale, a half human, half machine known as a cyborg. Her real identity is unknown because she suffers from amnesia from the accident that ended up giving her powers. The accident she suffered destroyed half of her body so to put her back together, doctors and scientists used a mixture of alloy and electronics to replace what was lost and give her enhancements. She’s a crime-fighting machine but the human side of her struggles with relationships and her identity, mainly what is her life’s purpose with the body she’s been given?
Fatale is recruited by a superhero team to fight Doctor Impossible after he breaks out of jail for the twelfth time. First she has to overcome her own insecurities that she’s not good enough to be a part of these famous heroes but as she spends time with them, she learns their weaknesses and that not everyone is perfect.
The superheroes are a mixture of natural powers and those gained through an accident involving a science experiment gone wrong. Their egos weaken them and detract from their super-ness. Half of the superheroes were classmates of Doctor Impossible at Peterson. Xavier’s School for the Gifted doesn’t come to mind here.
While the concept of Soon I Will Be Invincible is an entertaining one, there’s humor, and real people and historical facts are thrown in to give it a based-in-reality spin, its execution lacks some of the superhuman luster needed to launch it to stardom. Doctor Impossible represents the textbook definition of a megalomaniac. His constant self-proclamations of how much of a genius he is get old with their repetition and harping before the end of the first chapter. He’s a flat character and more pizzazz is needed to bring him to life to snap up readers from the beginning. If Doctor Impossible walked into a room, there would be more yawns than cringes.
At the same time, the superhero, Fatale, doesn’t add much pomp to the story. She’s constantly reading into people and events to find meaning and answers. At least her constant self-questioning doesn’t turn you off in her first chapter; that takes a few chapters before getting old. She’s a novel idea for a while until nothing new is revealed about her past and it seems it may never be answered.
Soon I Will Be Invincible is a mix of many comic book stories, the top two being X-Men and The Incredibles. Doctor Impossible is a dead-ringer for Syndrome, complete with bitterness against a superhero for not recognizing his brilliance and his hideout being a fortress stronghold on a tropical island full of laboratories housed in vaulted rooms, trains, and robot armies defending it.
Everything breaks down to heroes and villains struggle with the same problems as normal humans: their weaknesses. This is where Grossman’s parody loses itself; he goes too deep.
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