AMAZING ADVENTURES FROM ZOOM’S ACADEMY

A 13-year-old klutz earns entry to an airborne Academy for young superheroes, and proves her mettle when students and faculty from a rival institution attack the school for supervillains. Sound familiar? It should; the 2005 film Sky High shares the same premise, and Zoom, a 2006 Tim Allen vehicle currently in production, was adapted from Lethcoe’s comic book, which he improves upon here with some clever touches. The heroes all wear self-designed outfits (illustrated in the author’s occasional small pencil drawings), bear evocative names like “Beetlebomb” (good, though gross—he can blow himself up), or “Lucifina” (evil), and while taking classes in fighting dirty and creating melodramatic music, the villains-in-training wonder why it is that Good usually prevails. Young Summer, the low-self-esteem protagonist, turns out to have the vanishingly rare ability to enhance the superpowers of others and by saving Zoom’s Academy for the Super Gifted, she earns the ultimate reward: a comic of her own. Not exactly groundbreaking, but above average as media tie-ins go. (Fantasy. 10-12)