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      CONTENTS

      Acknowledgments

      CHAPTER 1 IN WHICH I PUT EVERYTHING THAT WOULD NORMALLY GO IN THE INTRODUCTION

      But No One Ever Reads Those, or at Least I Don’t, So I’m Putting It Here

      CHAPTER 2 COWBOY SECRET SPACE DETECTIVE: GEIST

      CHAPTER 3 IN WHICH I EXERCISE…KINDA

      CHAPTER 4 SUPERWHATNOW?

      or, All the Good Names Are Taken

      CHAPTER 5 DON QUIXOTE DE ORLANDO: MASTER LEGEND

      CHAPTER 6 SIDEKICKS

      The Also-Rans of the Superhero World

      CHAPTER 7 ARMY OF ONE: MR. XTREME

      CHAPTER 8 DOES THIS CAPE MAKE MY BUTT LOOK BIG?

      Superhero Costuming and Equipmentage

      CHAPTER 9 THE BAD GUYS ARE BROUGHT

      Real-Life Super Villains

      CHAPTER 10 SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH AMAZONIA

      CHAPTER 11 ME, GEIST, AND MY JUNK

      A Hero Is Born

      CHAPTER 12 LESSONS LEARNED

      or, Remind Me Why I Did This Again?

      The Amazing Whitebread’s Legion of Superbuddies League of Societies

      APPENDIX 1 The Hall of Spandex

      or, Nine Bigger-Than-Life Heroes and One Little Bitty Villain

      APPENDIX 2 Mortified by Justice

      Mrs. Whitebread Speaks!

      APPENDIX 3 You Can Pick Your Name, and You Can Pick Your Nose, but You Can’t Pick Your Name’s Nose

      or Something Like That

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      Thanks to:

      Mom and Dad, for making me

      God, for making them

      Wife, for making me shop this idea to agents

      Matt McGowan, for making the proposal not suck

      Richard Ember and Mike Shohl, for making the book not suck

      The DFW Writers’ Workshop for making my writing not suck quite so hard

      Geist, for making most of this book possible

      Biscuit, for making me want to be a hero

      and last but not least,

      Cupcake, for making a late but significant appearance in the whole proceeding.

      CHAPTER 1

      IN WHICH I PUT EVERYTHING THAT WOULD NORMALLY GO IN THE INTRODUCTION

      But No One Ever Reads Those, or at Least

       I Don’t, So I’m Putting It Here

      Let me tell you a quick story.

      A few years ago, two German men—Arnim Meiwes and Bernd Brandes—met in an Internet chat room called Gay Cannibals and came to the joint decision that for their mutual sexual pleasure Meiwes would kill and eat Brandes. The meal would climax, if you’ll pardon my diction, with Meiwes eating Brandes’ penis. At trial, Meiwes told the court that he’d been looking for someone slim and blonde to eat like Sandy from the Flipper films.

      This short story, completely true, brings three important facts to light:

      1. An Internet chat room exists called Gay Cannibals—dear holy God.

      2. The actor, Luke Halpin, who played Sandy Ricks in Flipper, is apparently some sort of fetish figure among at least some of the aforementioned homosexual flesh eaters.

      3. Some people are crazy as all hell and will do anything.

      So why the living crap did I just disgust and horrify you with that story? For one, How to Write Non-Fiction That Sells, the book I skimmed just prior to sitting down to write, says you want an attention grabber at the beginning of your book to hook the audience. In addition, and almost just as important, I included it because this was the story that got me thinking about heroes. To be specific: superheroes. Those guys and gals in comics and movies and occasionally TV who run around in inappropriately tight costumes catching criminals and causing, on average, an estimated $3.2 million in property damage for every $1,000 in stolen property recovered. In a world where gay (no judgment implied) cannibals willingly offer themselves up so that other gay (no judgment implied) cannibals can eat their penises while watching Flipper, Why, dear Lord, why has no one yet put on a cape and cavorted through the city primeval, saving damsels from falling bits of building and punching carjackers in their coin purses? There are people who will put on a leather hood and yell at you while you lick their shoes, but no one wants to put on a mask and yell a snappy catchphrase before swinging down from a rooftop and jerking an old woman out from in front of a bus full of toxic chemicals barreling down on her like the dark specter of hell itself.

      Is that too much to ask?

      Surely this state of affairs is not right. There’s a Batman-shaped void in society calling out to be filled. Specifically, I feel it’s calling out to me, a lifetime devotee to all things superhero. And why shouldn’t I be the one to step up? I’ve read almost every issue of Daredevil ever published.^* I once lovingly hand-crafted a statue of no less a third-stringer than the Absorbing Man out of Super Sculpey,