This week I wrapped up Astro City: Metrobook 2, a bulky 18-issue omnibus-style collection of the series that started in the mid-90s but which I somehow missed out on until last year. If you’re not familiar, it’s an anthology series telling all sorts of stories set in a city jam-packed with superheroes (sometimes referred to as “angels” in the world of the book). Sometimes it’s about the inner turmoil of a very powerful hero. Sometimes the gender politics bothering a female angel. Other times, it’s about the hotel doorman in downtown Astro City, or a local lawyer going to trial in a world where reality is surprisingly bendable, and evidence is newly questionable. Often, it’s about the sad reality of aging and becoming irrelevant after touching fame, greatness and glory. It’s such a gorgeously drawn, deeply felt, and reflective comic, I swear it didn’t actually exist my whole life, but was somehow dropped here from another universe just recently, or I surely would have picked it up decades ago. It’s so, so fun to read, and right up my alley in terms of crossing pop cultural referents (not references like gags, but more like tropes in fiction) with earnest human drama. A total treat.

Anyhow, the reason it works so well is that it’s interested in the truth of what a world where heroes exist might really be like for humans – super and otherwise.

So…
What are the pros and cons of living in a city, in a world, where superheroes really exist?

Would you want to live there or escape there, ultimately?

Would you HOPE to be one, or FEAR becoming one?

Saying, “It’s not worth it, I’d rather stay normal,” is for cowards.

After catching X-Men: First Class on cable the other day, I got to thinking about the classic “Which superpower would you want?” question and tried to think of a way to make it more interesting or complicated. Also, I really liked the recent Daredevil series on Netflix.

So: imagine some villainous genius/cosmic accident/industrial disaster gives you a superpower, but also leaves you disabled in some major way, either physical or mental. So for example, you can fly, but you’re schizophrenic. Or you are super-fast, but you only have one arm.

The bizarre wrinkle is, you only have your superpower one day a week. During that day, your disability vanishes. The rest of the week, you have to live with your new problem, and without that new superpower to make up for it.

If it matters, you can choose the day each week to switch to the super-you.

What superpower would you choose, and what disability would you be able to live with in exchange?

What would you do with your superpower, and how would you adjust to your new limits the rest of the week?