The Power of Ten: Book Four: Dynamo – R.E. Druin

This is the Sort of Thing They Like

“For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like.” (From a joke about an art-gallery tour.) Readers will particularly like this book if they a) are or have been comic book readers, and are familiar with the decades of Marvel-in-particular ‘continuity’, b) are familiar with RPGs and/or LitRPG, c) enjoy occasional delves into the mathematics of RPG-character-generation and -improvement, or at worst view them as skippable digressions, d) have read earlier books in the Power-of-Ten series, where concepts and rules that are taken for granted in this book are introduced in more depth. The more of these you check off, the more you will probably enjoy this book. Conversely, if you’re not that kind of a reader, it means this book wasn’t for you.

Marvel and DC comics are unrealistic on their own terms. No matter how earth-shaking (or galaxy-shaking) the events in this month’s comic, next month’s issue returns the world to the status quo ante. No matter that super-heroes and super-villains have atomic flying cars, everyone else still drives ground cars with internal-combustion engines. Superheroes can stop the world in its tracks, but don’t have the power or intelligence to make the world a better place.