The Tick meets the Dark Knight
By Dave
March 19th, 2009 | Leave a comment
Captain Freedom is an archetypal superhero, a man’s man with unearthly superpowers, a conflicted girlfriend and sidekick of slightly less spectacularly superhero status.
And he’s about to be downsized.
Writer G. Xavier Robillard tells the tales of superhero exploits, corporate intrigue and the personal journey of one celebrity-obsessed pop culture hero in Captain Freedom: A Superhero’s Quest for Truth, Justice, and the Celebrity He So Richly Deserves.
NPR provides this excerpt, courtesy of Harper Paperbacks:
“Genghis Kong, the giant Barbarian, has escaped from his unusually large prison off the coast, its powerful electromagnetic fencing disrupted by offshore oil exploration, and he’s back in Los Angeles for a weekend of rest, relaxation, and wanton destruction. I fly back up into his face.
” ‘Your furlough ends now,’ I shout at him. Genghis came looking for freedom, but Freedom found him.
“I’m sure he can barely hear me. The sound of rotors from military choppers is deafening. Not sure what they think they can do, and the Pentagon’s highly touted Barbarian Defense Shield has been a total failure.
“Genghis was part of the Monsanto giant laborer breeding program. The agriculture company had created an entire line of genetically altered superfoods, like twenty-foot rutabagas. Realizing they hadn’t thought of a way to harvest the humongous produce, the company quickly bred giant farm workers to do the job. Unfortunately, the giants proved harder to control than the average migrant worker and escaped out into the world, seeking better-paying jobs and, in some instances, a life of crime.”
He goes on to do battle with credit card telemarketers, that “French triumvirate of terror, Les Miserables,” and the dread Upper Management.
Superheroes have been satirized in everything from college writing classes to TV cartoons (The Tick)
Hear it at NPR.
