Legend

The first superhero novel that takes the cape off and asks what's underneath, Legend is where comic book mythology meets genuine literary character work, written for the generation that grew up on Stan Lee and stayed for the therapy. The world's first superhero just walked into a therapist's office. He has no idea how much he needs to be there. Ben Stephens is nineteen years old, barely out of high school, and carrying a secret that would break most people twice his age. When the world changed and magic came flooding back into reality, Ben became Legend, the first and greatest of the new heroes. Different body, different face, different everything. The problem is he still has to go home afterward and be himself. Dr. Jennifer Hsui is a brilliant psychiatrist with a complicated history with superheroes, a six-year-old daughter who worships Densetsu on Saturday mornings, and absolutely no intention of getting emotionally involved with a client. Then Legend climbs through her tenth-floor window and asks for an appointment. What begins as an exploration of identity, doubles, and the psychological weight of being a symbol slowly becomes something far more urgent. Heroes are disappearing. Not dying, not retiring. Vanishing, one by one, their bodies left behind like empty houses. Someone has been planning this for a very long time, and the plan is almost complete. Legend is a story about what it costs to be the person everyone else believes in, about the difference between the hero you dream of being and the person you actually are, and about a small girl handing a dying god a wrinkled piece of fruit and saving the world. Perfect for fans of Soon I Will Be Invincible and the more character-driven corners of superhero fiction.