Joshua Dread is a series of middle grade superhero novels written by Lee Bacon.
Joshua Dread tries to keep a low profile. Not even his best friend, Milton, knows his secret—-that his parents are the Dread Duo, two of the world’s most infamous supervillains. Things get complicated when he develops a superpower of his own—-namely, making things explode—-and when he discovers that the new girl in school, Sophie, is the daughter of his parents’ archnemesis, Captain Justice. Worse, strange smoke monsters are kidnapping supervillains, and Joshua’s parents might be next.
The original book has three sequels:
- A Mutant Named Mizzie is a short e-book starring Captain Justice, who must figure out what to do with a baby Mook that he finds after a battle.
- Joshua Dread: The Nameless Hero: Joshua, Milton, Sophie and a new friend named Miranda go off to Gyfted and Talented, supposedly a summer camp for training superpowered kids. They soon find themselves as part of a superhero team called the Alliance of the Impossible, all while the villain of the first book is seeking revenge.
- Joshua Dread: The Dominion Key: Joshua and his friends are still in danger, so their parents send them to Alabaster Academy, a Superhero School located far from civilization. While there, they learn that one of their teachers is also instrumental to the villain’s plan for world domination.
The books contain examples of:
- A Day in the Limelight: A Mutant Named Mizzie is this for Captain Justice.
- And Then What?: In the first book, Joshua asks his parents what they would have done if Captain Justice hadn’t stopped their potentially world-ending plan. They hem and haw a bit, insisting that the government would have given into their demands before anything bad actually happened.
- Ascended Fanboy: Milton, a huge superhero fan who gets to become one alongside his superpowered friends.
- Badass Normal: Milton becomes a pretty effective superhero in the second book, despite not having powers. He's still a massive dork, of course.
- Big Bad: Phineas Vex turns out to be behind the smoke monsters in the first book, and returns in the sequels to try and capture Joshua.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Joshua’s parents, and really all villains in this setting. They even have conventions.
- Clone Degeneration: Multiplier’s clones get less intelligent the farther removed from him they are. A clone from the real Multiplier is basically normal, but a clone of that clone is a bit stupid, a clone of that one is a stupider and so on.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The Dread Duo don't like the idea of using humanoid mutants as Mooks, because the only way to get them properly bloodthirsty is to abuse them so much that they lose any sense of their (partial) humanity. Zombies are apparently more ethical.
- Evil All Along: Gavin, in the second book, but that's almost a
Captain Obvious Reveal; the only revelation is that he was working for the Big Bad, not that he was bad himself. Also Dr. Fleming in the last book. - Expendable Clone: Joshua cringes a bit when the Multiplier's clones start killing each other, but tells himself that they don't count as real people.
- Face–Heel Turn: [nFinity].
- Fan of Underdog: During the Alliance of the Impossible’s fifteen minutes of fame, Cassie was a fan of Supersonic (Milton) and thought that the Nameless Hero was overrated. Joshua agrees with that last point.
- Everyone Went to School Together: Captain Justice went to Alabaster Academy with Josh’s parents. Scarlett Flame was a few years younger than them.
- Green-Eyed Monster: In the second book, Milton becomes jealous of Joshua for becoming the most famous member of their group, though he gets over it eventually. nFinity...doesn’t.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Joshua.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Joshua, Sophie and Miranda all have this to some extent, having moved around a lot and thus been unable to keep any long-term.
- Living MacGuffin: Joshua, whose powers The Device can harness for world domination.
- Mad Scientist: Both of Joshua’s parents, though they also have superpowers. His father is a Gadgeteer Genius while his mom is a botanist.
- Me's a Crowd: Multiplier.
- Monumental Damage: The M.O. of the second book’s side-villain, Multiplier.
- Nature vs. Nurture: A Mutant Named Mizzie reveals that the half-shark mutants, while naturally a bit bloodthirsty, only become crazed monsters because villains raise them in extremely abusive circumstances. The story ends with Captain Justice opening a rehabilitation center for Mizzie and the other young ones that he rescues from Abominator.
- No Ending: The final book resolves approximately none of the ongoing arcs, with the villains "defeated" in a way that gives Joshua a twenty-hour hour head start in running away from them. (Which is basically how the book begins.) It feels like there was supposed to be another book that just never got released.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Captain Justice, Scarlett Flame and [nFinity] are the most notable examples.
- Playing with Fire: [nFinity]. Presumably also Scarlett Flame, though we never actually see her in a fight.
- Power Glows: Sophie starts to glow whenever she activates her Super-Strength, which makes it hard to use with any sort of subtlety.
- Robot Maid: Sophie and Captain Justice have Stanley, a robot butler who is smooth, capable and friendly. Josh’s dad is jealous of him, so he makes his own robot butler, Elliot, who cooks inedible food and regularly eats household appliances.
- Stage Mom: Miranda moves around the country so that she can train and show off her powers at competitions. She comments that her mom seems to be living out her own dream of becoming a superhero.
- Superhero School: Alabaster Academy, featured in the third book. Interestingly, the school seems to be
True Neutral, with teachers openly stating that their pupils will likely become heroes or villains.- The second is set at a superhero summer camp, though it turns out to be less “campy” than advertised.
- Super Mode: Occasionally, Joshua’s powers do a weird thing where Time Stands Still (though everyone affected is still conscious) and a band of light will slowly come out of Joshua’s hand, which causes an explosion much more powerful than he can usually do.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Joshua’s power is to make things spontaneously combust by touching them. This includes the ability to “charge” something so that it will explode after he throws it.
- Teleporter's Visualization Clause: Cassie's dad can only open portals to locations he has already been to before.
- Time Stands Still: Happens when Joshua’s powers suddenly go into Super Mode. This is the power that Vex actually wants to harness for world domination.
- Unholy Matrimony: Joshua’s parents, obviously.
