The world has known about superhumans since the mid-19th century since the famous Charge of the Light Brigade that cemented the victory for the British in large part thanks to extremely durable shields created by Corporal Langston Hicks. Since then history has been shaped by people with superhuman abilities and interactions with Atlanteans and Lemurians, as well as by occasional alien invasions.
Aidan Salt is an unremarkable eighteen-year-old with no ambitions and a cowardly demeanor. Then he discovers that he has potent but unpredictable telekinetic abilities. After an encounter with a low-ranking superhero named Thunderhead, Aidan realizes that he has the makings of a supervillain, especially since he doesn't want to deal with the hassle and the paperwork of applying to join the superheroes. Thus Apex Strike is born.
However, his first outing as a supervillain goes very wrong and he ends up unintentionally killing a third-rate superhero, quickly becoming known in the media as the greatest supervillain of his generation. He manages to get away and decides to lay low for a while. However, several weeks later he's captured by superheroes who take him and dozens of other captured supervillains to Death Island, the former lair of a supervillain. They are told that they've been volunteered for Project Kayfabe, the goal of which is to convince the public that superheroes are still very much necessary by having a team of supervillains commit high-profile crimes and have those superheroes who are on the project pretend to fight them. But first there's a selection process, since the team is only supposed to have seven supervillains.
The novel contains examples of the following tropes:
- Accidental Murder:
- During his first outing, Aidan accidentally turns the superhero Icicle Man inside-out.
- After the Golem kills Showstopper, something snaps inside Aidan, resulting in a telekinetic blast wave that levels several city blocks, injuries thousands, and kills a dozen people.
- Aerith and Bob: Odigjod's parents are Bamtalegrissnkareayganitikanikan and Bob the Dietician.
- Atlantis: A technologically advanced island nation with blue-skinned humanoids populating it. Atlanteans have historically been rivals of the equally advanced Lemurians.
- Balkanize Me: This happened to Canada after World War II as punishment for joining the Axis and attempting to invade the US alongside the Lemurians. The territory was split up among the British Empire, the US, and the USSR, with Quebec (which remained neutral) becoming an independent nation. Some of the provinces that were annexed by the US became states, such as Ontario and American Columbia.
- Big Bad: The real villains of the story are Helios and most of the other superheroes involved in Project Kayfabe, with the exception of Blackjack.
- Boxed Crook: All the supervillains of Project Kayfabe. They either play ball or get sent to the Tower.
- Captain Ethnic:
- In The '70s, the Protectors were criticized for most of their members coming from the US, British Empire, and USSR. They created a new subteam called the Worldwide Protectors, which was made up of Zulu Warrior, Comanche Princess, Dark Djinn, Miss Mekong, Lady Jaguar, and Maui. It was little more than a publicity stunt, but it ended up backfiring since the public kept calling the new team "the Stereotypes" because of their ridiculous costumes and the fact that they were kept away from the heaviest fighting. They ended up turning vigilante and were brought down by the Protectors.
- Also played straight with El Capitán, the greatest superhero in history. Being a Mexican, he wears a green and red luchador mask.
- Averted with Gamemaster, who is Japanese-American, but his costume and equipment aren't based on Japanese culture.
- Character Death: A number of important characters die during the novel.
- Iron Bear, Aidan's first friend on the island, is killed by Carnivore before the selection process even begins.
- Showstopper is killed by the Golem of Prague during the botched robbery.
- Trojan Fox kills Fifty-Fifty during the same fight after the Project Kayfabe heroes turn on the New Offenders.
- Nevermore is incinerated by one of Helios's blasts during the final battle after she rescues Aidan from the hero. Nothing but her charred skeleton remains.
- Many of the Project Kayfabe heroes are killed by the New Offenders during the final battle, including Helios, Black Blur, and The Voice of the People.
- Morningstar accidentally kills her husband Silver Shrike during the final battle.
- Cult: In 1917, the Sons of R'lyeh capture Hawaiian islands and declare themselves a new nation called New R'lyeh. Still recovering from World War One, the world chooses not to challenge the powerful magic-users and accepts the new nation.
- Deadly Dodging: During the final battle, Morningstar tries to kill Trojan Fox with her enhanced mace. Ghost Girl manages to knock Trojan Fox out of the way. Having built up so much momentum, the mace ends up striking Morningstar's husband Silver Shrike, invoking the Chunky Salsa Rule. This pretty much takes Morningstar out of the fight, as she collapses near his remains in shock and grief.
- Expanded States of America: The US is significantly larger in this setting than in Real Life. For example, large swaths of Canada were annexed by the US after World War II. The Mexican state of Baja California was also annexed at the request of El Capitán, becoming the 58th state.
- Fantastic Drug: Montage is a blue powder that people pinch into their eyes that alters their subjective perception of time and keeps them from remembering bad things. It essentially results in, well, a montage of their lives for as long as the drug remains active.
- Kayfabe: Project Kayfabe was concocted by several superheroes in order to convince the world that the Protectors were still necessary and that cutting their funding or bringing them under government control and oversight would be a bad idea. They would have the New Offenders commit high profile crimes and then show up to battle them, often playing up their archnemesis status (e.g. Apex Strike is Helios's archnemesis).
- Legion of Doom:
- The New Offenders are a team of supervillains created by members of Project Kayfabe in order to convince the public that superheroes are still necessary and must remain free of government control and oversight. The original team consists of Apex Strike, Nevermore, Trojan Fox, Hellspawn, Circus, Geode, and Carnivore.
- The Villain's Union was created in 1969 by Otis Shylock and Professor Death and consisted of almost thirty supervillains, becoming a criminal empire almost overnight.
- Very little is stated of the original Offenders. It's likely they were killed or imprisoned during the War on Villainy.
- Lizard Folk: The Lemurians are humanoid lizards from an island with advanced technology and a long-standing rivalry with Atlantis.
- Mind over Matter: Aidan's telekinetic powers are highly unpredictable but can be powerful. The former is in large part because of his lack of training, although he gets better as the story develops. The potency of his ability is demonstrated after a mission goes awry, resulting in Odigjod being captured and Showstopper killed. He snaps and produces a massive telekinetic blast that pulverizes the building he's in and levels several city blocks, injuring thousands and killing at least a dozen (and the death toll is so low only because the area was evacuated beforehand).
- Nonindicative Name: Lemurians are lizards and have nothing to do with lemurs. Justified since they seem to be named after the mythical "lost continent" of Lemuria suggested by some to have once existed in the Indian Ocean.
- Our Demons Are Different: Odigjod is an imp from the Third Circle of Hell, having traveled topside on a work exchange program. He doesn't want to take up the family business of torturing gluttonous souls and instead wants to be a supervillain on Earth. His powers include shapeshifting and teleportation.
- Restraining Bolt: All supervillains on Death Island were implanted with "creepers", spiderlike biomechanical devices that have several functions, the primary of which is killing the host at the press of a button on a remote kept by every Project Kayfabe hero. They can also just cause excruciating pain. The heroes also imply that the creepers act as listening devices and trackers. Only the latter is true, although they are able to sense the host's general emotional state. Before choosing to betray the heroes, the New Offenders figure out how to safely remove the creepers. Nevermore uses her partially material tattoos to dig them out of the body while Spasm uses his body control to keep the host alive and heal any damage afterwards. Aidan uses his telekinesis to hurl the extracted creeper away before it explodes. All this is done in a shielded room built by Trojan Fox to keep the creepers from sending any warning messages to the heroes.
- Super-Speed: Black Blur is a superhero in Project Kayfabe who can move faster than the eye can see. He dies just before the final battle when Ghost Girl tells Aidan to put up a telekinetic barrier around the team. Black Blur runs straight into invisible the barrier and is killed on impact.
- Super Team: The Protectors are a team created by El Capitán, the Gamemaster, and Stone Spirit in 1941. They don't answer to any government and strive to protect humanity from destructive conflicts.
- Tailor-Made Prison: The Tower was built by the Protectors at the beginning of the War on Villainy, since no normal prison could hope to contain supers for long. The Tower holds tubes filled with a liquid recovered from a crashed Grey ship that places anyone it touches in suspended animation, to the point where they aren't even aware of the passage of time. Some supers, whose bodies produce useful chemicals or energy, are constantly pumped for it using special tubes. The prisoners are guarded round-the-clock by robotic guards called White Knights. It's become a tradition to place a smiling mask on the face of any Tower prisoner in order to keep the place from being too depressing, hence the expression "miles and miles of smiles" in reference to the Tower.
- Weird Historical War: All wars since the discovery of superhumans during The Crimean War:
- During World War One, the Atlantean navy assisted the Central Powers, while supers saw widespread use by both sides. The resulting Treaty of Verdun not only punished Germany but also made using Atlantean and Lemurian technology illegal for any human nation.
- World War II involved an unprecedented number of supers and mad scientists on both sides. The usual Axis (Germany, Italy, Japan) were also allied with Lemuria and the Rebellious Imperial Possessions (Canada, India, Egypt, and several others). The latter wished to get out from under the British Empire by any means necessary. US, Britain, and USSR managed to beat them in a few years, but at a great cost.
