WEARING THE CAPE: SYNOPSIS
On August 18th the world experienced the Event: everyone blacked out for 3.2 seconds and awoke to a world in which a small minority of people, exposed to extreme stress or trauma, display superhuman powers. Ten years later, Hope Corrigan, an incoming freshman at the University of Chicago, is catapulted from her normal life when a terrorist’s bomb blows up the Ashland Overpass, burying her car in the rubble. The stress of the near-death experience triggers her superpowers, and she works to save as many as she can before the regular superheroes and emergency workers arrive. One of the first-responders is Atlas, Chicago’s most famous protector and leader of the Sentinels.
Although initially he discourages Hope from taking up the superhero life, Atlas offers to train her as his sidekick. And Hope is in dire need of training; now able to bench-press a bus and tear through concrete, she finds the world around her and the people in it a very fragile place. Accepting Atlas’ offer, she becomes Astra, a probationary member of the Sentinels.
In the course of her training Hope learns that superhero life isn’t what the movies, TV, and comic books make it out to be, and that few superheroes are the paragons portrayed in the media. Her first supervillain battle leaves her shaken and disillusioned. Despite these setbacks she continues her training, trying to decide what she will do once she gains full control of her powers. Will she continue to wear the cape and mask as a professional superhero? Will she become a superhero-reservist, active only in cases of extreme emergency? Or will she hang up the cape for good?
Wearing the Cape is written for anyone who loves comic books but has wondered what real-world superheroes might be like. It will be released April 25th, 2011, at which time it will be available in both paperback and electronically at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.
Wearing The Cape & other works by M.G.Harmon 