The death-ray

*Starred Review* Clowes is best known for Ghost World, his incisive 1997 portrayal of adolescent alienation. Here he returns to similar territory, taking a different, even more lacerating approach. Shy high-schooler Andy hovers beneath the radar of his classmates until he reluctantly accepts a cigarette from his only friend, obnoxious fellow-outcast Louie, and discovers that nicotine endows him with low-level superpowers a legacy from his dead scientist father, who also bequeathed him a lethal ray gun. Like Ghost World's Enid and Rebecca, the disaffected young men scorn their classmates and society at large; however, thanks to Andy's death ray, they're in a position to act on their resentment by punishing perceived evildoers. Clowes subtly alters his drawing style throughout the story to accommodate narrative and tonal shifts. The tale works brilliantly both as a disquieting examination of juvenile misanthropy and as a takedown of superhero comics, showing the pernicious effects of pop culture on unformed minds and mocking the genre's tropes, from close-fitting costumes to overheated dialogue. Originally published in magazine format in 2004 as an issue of Clowes' comic book Eightball, this chillingly potent tale warrants its reincarnation as a handsome, oversize hardcover.--Flagg, Gordon Copyright 2010 Booklist

With great power comes great ambivalence-if you're a going-nowhere teen in a dusty suburb with one friend, two dead parents, a girlfriend who is little more than an idealized pen pal and all the other trappings of a dismal life. That's Andy, a schlubby 17-year-old who spends time with his best pal, Louie, hanging around the edges of their high school's social set. When the day comes, as it must for all misfits, when Andy smokes a cigarette for the first time, in superhero fashion he learns his scientist father injected him with experimental hormones, giving him superpowers-and a death ray that makes people disappear forever without a trace. Andy understands that his powers give him some kind of moral imperative ("I feel I have to do my part, however small, to help out humanity, or at least the good, decent members of society"), but his heroic ideals don't prove up to overcoming his smalltime jealousies. Andy doesn't do terrible things with his powers, just sad, petty things-until one dark day. Clowes's cartooning ability has never been better than in this story, originally published in 2004 and presented in a hardcover edition-crosscutting past and present, using monologues and fractured action to tell the ultimate unsuperhero story. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.