Last Night, A Superhero Saved My Life

Last Night, A Superhero Saved My Life
Edited by Liesa Mignogna, 2016

Challenge Book! Book Riot Read Harder Challenge 2016 - Read a collection of essays

Premise: 22 authors write about their relationships with comics and superheroes.

Happily or unhappily, the worst piece in this collection is the first. I was so dismayed to read a pale, pathetic piece about how Batman inspired some well-off guy I’m not familiar with to be a writer. There’s a better piece later in the book with the same thrust - superheroes inspired me to be creative.

And that’s fine.

But boring.

The second piece is a raw, passionate, beautifully written essay from a woman whose rage causes her to connect viscerally with the Hulk, and how she eventually walks away from an abusive, toxic family life.

The essays are overall interesting and often funny, but there is a bright line between the ones that are about the creative process, or even one I quite liked about a love for Spider-Man and a love for Manhattan, and the ones where connection to a heroic story may have literally saved someone’s life.

My favorites also include one about Iron Man and heart defects, one about emotional distance and Rogue, a sweet ode to the lovability of Nightcrawler (again, in the face of childhood abuse), and a piece connecting Thor’s unique place in Marvel to the experience of being different from the other kids.

The weakest (besides the first) are the reprints of earlier pieces by Neil Gaiman and Jodi Picoult. The third piece that wasn’t original to this volume is by Brad Meltzer, and it’s actually a cute and very geeky exploration of the impact of reading a specific storyline as a kid.

Overall, this was fine to read in chunks, and the parts which were good were VERY good. It does suffer from being a compilation, though, because it’s so uneven.

3 Stars - a Good Book