Devil's Cape Pulls No Punches

I may be putting my geek cred on the line by admitting this, but I hate Superman. And Spider-Man. And the Green Lantern, as well as the Incredible Hulk, and a bevy of other superheroes (including Aquaman, but nobody likes him). They're just not interesting.

Sure, the writers of these comics try to inject some kind of human element into it, like the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde aspect of the Hulk or that the death of Peter Parker's uncle was his own damn fault, but at the end of the day, you know no matter what happens they're not going to die. Even if the superhero in question experiences some catastrophic event, like Bane paralyzing Batman or Doomsday actually managing to kill Superman, they are going to heal, or be revived, or show up in an alternate reality time line. It's a cheap way to do business, but DC and Marvel have money that needs to be made and a dead Bruce Wayne is not going to do that.

Luckily, Devil's Cape by Rob Rogers exists in a universe where if a superhero gets shot, blown up, mauled, or set on fire, they better damn well have a good HMO.

Set in Devil's Cape, a sister city to New Orleans founded by a pirate, the story proper takes place over twenty years, though chapters devoted to the city's history take us back even farther. The city of Devil's Cape is rife with corruption, with the Greek and Italian mafias, street gangs, and the head honcho: The Robber Baron. The Robber Baron is the Don Corleone of the book's universe; everyone knows who he is and what he does, but nobody has the power or guts to make a stand against him. Those that try pay with their lives, or in the case of one D.A., essentially his free will.

The book's narrative is split into a bunch of different stories detailing, in several cases, the entire lives of some characters. The storylines tend to do their own things for a decent portion of the book, describing the genesis of the heroes, by a baptism involving part of the Golden Fleece from "Jason and the Argonauts" and the death of the second Dr. Camelot, to the malignant beginnings of circus freaks turned mercenaries. There's a healthy mix of superhero origins involving voodoo, technology, government projects, curses and X-Men style mutations so none of the characters, even the twin brothers, feel like the same person.

The writing sits are a very brisk pace, so you're not stuck on one story line for so long that you get bored or forget the details of another which is good because this book clocks in at over 400 pages, though you may find yourself wishing it were longer. The ending is a bit of a cop-out but everything gets a sequel these days. Hopefully this will too.