Marion G. Harmon is the author of the 9 book Wearing the Cape series, which tell the story of the rise of Hope Corrigan, aka Astra, from a "sidekick" hero-in-training to a veteran celebrity cape, and the side-novel Bite Me: Big Easy Nights. He is also the writer of the tabletop-RPG Wearing the Cape: The Roleplaying Game.

Wearing the Cape was #1 in its Amazon category in 2012, a distinction shared by subsequent titles in the series as Amazon expanded the new category of Superhero Fiction. Mr. Harmon continues to work with tabletop-RPG game design and is releasing his eleventh book, Capes, in the summer of 2023.

Wearing the Cape - Special Edition by Marion G. Harmon

Who wants to be a superhero?

Hope did, but she grew out of it. Which made her superhuman breakthrough in the Ashland Bombing, just before starting her freshman year at the University of Chicago, more than a little ironic. And now she has some decisions to make. Given the code-name "Astra" and invited to join the Sentinels, Chicago's premier super-team, will she take up the cape and mask and become a career superhero? Or will she get a handle on her new powers (super-strength has some serious drawbacks) and then get on with her life-plan?

In a world where superheroes join unions and have agents, and the strongest and most photogenic ones become literal supercelebrities, the temptation to become a cape is strong. But the price can be high—especially if you're "outed" and lose the shield of your secret identity. Becoming a sidekick puts the decision off for awhile, but Hope's life is further complicated when The Teatime Anarchist, the supervillain responsible for the Ashland Bombing, takes an interest in her. Apparently as Astra, Hope is supposed to save the world. Or at least a significant part of it.

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Wearing the Cape: Special Edition is an edition produced as part of the Kickstarter campaign to fund the production of Wearing the Cape: The Roleplaying Game. It has been re-edited, with added interior art and an author's Afterword relating the adventures and misadventures that led to the Wearing the Cape series.

CURATOR'S NOTE

•When it comes to superhero fiction, new angles, twists, and perspectives are pure gold. This book—and the series it's part of—are overflowing with them. I love the main character's journey from sidekick to full-fledged superhero, a path that is challenging in surprising ways. I love the world in which the book is set, where superheroes become celebrities with agents and unions…and face many of the same risks that come with fame in our own reality. I also love that the supervillain is called "The Teatime Anarchist," the kind of bizarre tag we might expect to find in more established comic book and cinematic superhero universes. I just love everything about this book and can't wait to read the rest in the series. I suspect you will feel the same way by the time you finish this pivotal adventure in the fledgling career of super-powered Astra. – Robert Jeschonek

 

REVIEWS

  • If you love comic-book superheroes, you'll love this. If you hate comic-book superheroes you'll still love this! The author takes a tired genre graphic-novel superhero concept and transforms it into a very readable, thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable book that I cannot recommend highly enough.

    – John Caterham

  • Superhero fiction is so full of tropes that it's nearly impossible to write something new. Wearing The Cape manages that heroic feat, being both a classic superhero story and a new take on the genre all at the same time.

    – Selia, Portland Oregon

  • The Gold Standard for Superhero Stories.

    – Scott Slemmons
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

I was driving east on the Eisenhower Expressway when the Teatime Anarchist dropped the Ashland Avenue overpass on top of me, using enough C4 to bring the whole southbound span down at once.

My day had started normally enough. I gulped coffee and grabbed scorched toast, exchanging kisses with Mom on the way out the door. The September chill nipped around the edges of my coat and at my legs, making me glad I'd worn tights under my skirt. Driving one-handed, I scanned my schedule with the other: I'd be playing Mom's Girl Friday at the gallery, getting ready for Thursday night's foundation event. Julie had texted; she planned for us to take the University of Chicago by storm our first year and wanted us ready by Orientation Week. We'd ruled Oak Park High till graduation, and she didn't see any reason our college years should be different.

I passed a gray Suburban and the redheaded munchkin in the back seat waved at me while her mom talked business on her hands-free cell. I stuck out my tongue, making her laugh, and my epad launched into Julie's new call theme: the U of C fight song. "Wave the flag of old Chicago—"

Bang.

Overhead explosions shattered my thoughts, and I looked up to see blooms of blasted concrete and falling bridge. I screamed and ducked, lost control. The car slid. A flash of yellow, and I hit something hard. I screamed again at the second, world-ending shock as falling roadway flattened my car. The tires blew. The buckled roof hit my head, flying glass stinging my face as my vision exploded in fireworks. Choking off the scream, I found myself lying stretched across the front seat, the gearshift digging into my stomach, in smothering darkness. I tasted blood on my tongue.

Alive. I was alive.

The car roof pushed down, inches above my head as I lay there in the dark, my seat belt cutting off my air. Lightheaded, clawing blindly, I unbuckled but still couldn't breathe without choking. Cement dust. Pulling my coat open, I yanked my sweater up, taking shallow, sobbing breaths through the wool and fighting to think around the rising fear.

Twisting around, I cautiously felt my legs, wiggled toes. Nothing broken? Emergency kit under seat (thanks, Dad!). Pen light—I almost wept with relief. Broken epad, damn it. Still, breathing OK, not bleeding out. Help. Help would come.

But would it come in time?

What about the munchkin and her mom? Were they under the road now? Could they wait if they were alive? I choked on panic as thick as the dust. I had to get out. I had to know. They had to be alive.

Gasping, pulse pounding, I pushed against the roof above me and felt something deep inside me change. Cold fire ran through my bones. I shrieked and my next breath filled me with the whole world. Tearing through the crushed roof of my car, I heaved aside the chunk of roadway above my head as easily as clearing cheap drywall, stood, blinking at the disaster around me, and saw what had saved me. I'd slid into a huge earth-moving machine traveling in the next lane, and it shielded me. Around us, cars had fallen with the span and lay broken among shattered chunks of road and twisted steel frame. Dust-clogged air carried the smell of spilled oil and gas, the first bite of burning rubber. A white sedan screeched to a sliding stop at the north end of the broken bridge. The world went far, far away as I looked at my shaking hands, unable to believe what I'd just done.