Soon I Will Be Invincible

Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
Reason for Reading: Sci Fi Experience
Rating: 4/5

Doctor Impossible - evil genius, diabolical scientist, wannabe world dominator - languishes in a federal detention facility. He's lost his freedom, his girlfriend, and his hidden island fortress.

Over the years, he's tried to take over the world in every way imaginable: doomsday devices of all varieties (nuclear, thermonuclear, nanotechnological) and mass mind-control. He's traveled backward in time to change history, forward in time to escape it. He's commanded robot armies, insect armies, and dinosaur armies. Fungus army. Army of fish. Of rodents. Alien invasions. All failures. But not this time. This times it's going to be different...

I just had to start with the book's dust cover because I pretty much can't sum the book up any better than that. The book alternates between Doctor Impossible and Fatale, a cyborg addition to the Champions, AKA the world's best known superhero team. Grossman takes a similar approach to the superhero genre as The Impossibles by imagining all the genre stereotypes as a given. What's it like to have an island laboratory? What's the not-so-good side of being implanted with so much machinery there's not much human left? How's it really feel to share a high tech lab with the members of your superhero league?

The flaw to this book is because we're following the perspective of Doctor Impossible, the reader can't help but sympathize with him and cheer him along even as the Champions hunt him down, making his ultimate demise a bit of a letdown. Because you know there's going to be an ultimate demise.

The book is a clever quick read and if it sometimes couldn't decide if it was a parody or not, well then, I forgive it.

Should I read it? Do you love superheroes? Did you love the Impossibles? Then yes, by golly, you should.


With the theme of this post, I thought it would be a good time to mention another important topic: creating your own superhero. I created mine, The Mighty Flying Jones at The Hero Factory.

Her superpower appears to be flying and managing not to hit herself with that whip. Wanna try? Let me know when you've created your superhero so I can stop by and visit.