Sniegoski’s plot has all the trappings of a comic book, but it’s packaged as a prose novel. Lucas Moore, 18 years old and a high-school dropout, turns wrenches in a garage by day and gets drunk at night. His trailer-home life with his mother is interrupted when Clayton Hartwell, his billionaire biological father, arrives on the scene. Hartwell’s alternate identity is superhero crime fighter Raptor, a legendary figure who now wishes to pass his legacy on to his son. A stunning tragic twist convinces Lucas to join Raptor and clean up crime-infested Seraph City. Multiple broad action scenes stir readers’ imaginations even without the benefit of a graphic novel’s accompanying illustrations. Unfortunately, characters fall into categories of either all-good or all-bad, and the plot sags with a pat ending. But alongside good guys battling bad guys is the theme of heroes not measuring up to their image. Teenage boys will relate to Lucas as he struggles to live up to larger-than-life expectations, and they will also salute his bravery in the face of danger. (Fantasy. YA)
