#6: Civilian Trent

If Trent Phloog was Megaton Man, or used to be, he’d clearly undergone a radical change of heart. Instead of the cavalier Megahero who had spurned Stella’s pursuit of a relationship back in Megatropolis, he was now a normal, mild-mannered Civilian—and an underemployed autodidact—in Ann Arbor who now wanted desperately to play a part in his baby-mama’s life—any part at all.

#5: Calling Occupants (of Interplanetary Craft)

Pedestrians were already running in the opposite direction, away from Central Park, on the sidewalks and between the traffic that had ground to a halt on Madison Avenue. The cabbie pounded the steering wheel: “There’s no respect for the working man!” He cursed UFOs as well as all Megaheroes.

#4: Spring Break

The spring semester began much as the fall semester had ended, for me at least; I saw little but the insides of libraries and classrooms and study carrels. Except that I now came home to housemates who also knew little but school work. Pammy had new students to grade and Stella had new teachers, and each of us had our respective college work cut out for us. There was little enough time for my housemates to dwell upon the world of Megaheroes they’d left behind in distant Megatropolis, let alone for me to give it much thought.

#3: Me and Sue Caza!

Back in Detroit, Mama James made the usual turkey feast with all the fixings—enough for an army should they drop by to watch football with Daddy. But it was just them and me and my sister Avril—who was still in high school and lived at home—for Thanksgiving.
     “I’m moving out of the dorms,” I announced, right after the blessing. This went over about as well as if I had suddenly revealed some entirely unforeseen sexual orientation.

#2: Need to Know

Even though she claimed to be fed up with mad science and Megaheroics, listening to Stella’s story all afternoon made me feel like even more of a boring non-entity than I did before. But I was sufficiently curious about her past life as the See-Thru Girl I might have trudged north to the second-floor comic book shop to find out more on the subject—I’m such a nerd—even though I knew the Megaheroes in comic books were mostly made up. And this girl—with a body that didn’t stop—was not made up.