Andrea Vernon and the Corporation for UltraHuman Protection is a series of humorous Capepunk superhero novels by Alexander C. Kane set in a world where superhero work has been privatized to corporations, who are contracted by various counties for protection. The novels focus on the Corporation for UltraHuman Protection (or CUP for short), specifically its NYC branch, which has a contract to protect the Bronx from supervillains and alien invasions.
The New York branch Super Team consists of King Tiger (a man-tiger mutant from Mumbai with enhanced strength and sharp claws), Señora Fuego (a Hispanic woman who can throw fire), Rabbi Diamond (The Last of His Kind from a planet of diamond people with Mind over Matter powers, who was raised by a Jewish family), Lightning Hwang (can turn into lightning, but spends much of his time either running Hwang's Hardware or doing crossword puzzles), Inspector Well Actually (a super genius with enhanced senses, who can only exhibit his power when correcting someone), The Big Axe (an 8-foot tall man with a magical axe), and Kitchen Sink (a Romanian gymnast in Power Armor). In book 2, Rabbi Diamond's place on the team is taken by Glare (who continuously projects blinding light from every pore).
The titular Andrea Vernon is a young second-generation Haitian-American, who has always dreamed of discussing art and literature on the banks of the Seine while sipping on coffee. Instead, she finds herself in debt and out of work, with her high-achieving siblings (State Senator Vernon, Dr. Vernon, and Professor Vernon-Blanchard) looking down on her at family dinners. One day she is hired as an administrative assistant for CUP's New York office, which is run by Ms. Persephone Oh. Ms. Oh loves to spout farming idioms in her Georgia twang and reminding everyone about her origins in Faro County of that state. Andrea's one condition of employment is that she must never ask questions.
So far there are two books in the series: Andrea Vernon and the Corporation for UltraHuman Protection and Andrea Vernon and the Superhero-Industrial Complex. A third novel, Andrea Vernon and the Big Axe Acquisition was released as an audiobook exclusive.
The novels contain examples of the following tropes:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Andrea mentally calls supervillains "malevolent mustachioed misanthropes".
- Alien Invasion: Sparnaxian invasion is the primary conflict of the first novel. They actually came to Earth by accident, as one of them messed up when creating the wormhole, intending to go to planet Juvnta to deliver a gift to King Hrodshnur. Once they realize they're not on Juvnta, they decide they might as well slaughter humanity since they're here.
- Artistic License – Politics:
- In the second book, Never More basically writes a new bill for the US Senate to pass, even scrawling in margins that any senator who votes against it or abstains will be arrested on charges of treason. Despite the ridiculousness of this being legal, the bill passed 99 to 1 (Andrea's brother is the only one to vote "nay" and has to flee DC immediately). May be justified by Never More either bribing or blackmailing pretty much everyone in government, so even the courts won't declare the new law unconstitutional.
- The second book also spends quite a bit of time explaining how the city of St. Louis is not a part of St. Louis County, a fact which affects superhero jurisdiction. But earlier in the book, CUP is called to Baltimore City because it has a contract with Baltimore County... even though both of them are also completely separate political entities.
- Benevolent Boss: Ms. Oh may be tough and stern, but she genuinely cares about her employees and even orders the building evacuated when it becomes clear that the Sparnaxians are coming after her (although she does tell the hourly employees to clock out first to avoid problems with payroll). She seems to like Andrea and appreciates how well Andrea has taken to her role as her administrative assistant. She also treats her employees to parties and pizza whenever they land a new contract or defeat a particularly nasty bad guy (and get paid for it, of course).
- Berserk Button: Deinonychus really hates it when people call her a raptor and really goes off on a rant when they mention Jurassic Park, pointing out that both Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg used the appearance of a deinonychus for a velociraptor even though they knew The real raptors had looked nothing like it.
- Big Applesauce: Most events happen in or around NYC, so those without knowledge about its geography may be a little lost.
- Big Bad: In the superhero world, the term "William" refers to this trope. At the end of the first novel, the CUP heroes are arguing whether Pickles or Slumboc was the real William of the Sparnaxian invasion.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Averted, while superheroes are united by virtue of working for the same companies, supervillains have never successfully organized in any meaningful way. A supervillain named Never More attempted to do this twice with Global Organization for Destruction and The Real Heroes, but both times the situation quickly devolved into a bloodbath at the first disagreement, with Never More being the only survivor. She tries a different tactic in the sequel.
- Bollywood Nerd: Dr. Srinivasan, the head of CUP's research division. His greatest dream is to go into space, so when CUP finally got a spaceship, he forbade all his subordinates from learning to fly it, just so he would be the only choice when the time came.
- Capepunk: Superheroes are mostly Punch-Clock Hero types who are just doing a job their powers give them qualifications for. This means that when the government certifies many supervillains in the second book as part of Never More's plan, they go along with it and inadvertently put the entire United States in peril.
- Catchphrase: Glare's teammates keep making fun of his catchphrase "I am at my brightest when night is at its nightest!", pointing out that "nightest" is not a real word. And yet after Glare uses his ability to illuminate New York during the supervillain attack in the second book, kids start quoting him excitedly.
- Cat Folk: King Tiger was born as a mutant in Mumbai. After a difficult childhood, he eventually made his way to the US and became a fully-licensed superhero. He is currently the leader of CUP's New York team. He walks like a man but has the face of a tiger and extremely sharp claws and enhanced strength and endurance.
- Chekhov's Gun: Teleporter Joe's ability to teleport to only one location. It allows Andrea to set a trap for Admiral Slumboc in the climax.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: The main reason why supervillains never form organizations of their own. A supervillain named Never More tried to do it twice, and both times it ended with everyone killing each other over some slight or disagreement, except for Never More herself. She seems to finally succeed in the second book, only for her supervillain allies to betray her at a crucial moment. When she asks why, they point out that this is what supervillains do.
- Corporate Warfare: Occasionally happens between superhero companies over territory. CUP is frequently in conflict with a lower-quality competitor named... sigh... Da Supa-Heroes (yep, that's pretty much how most people say it, including the sigh and the cringe face). Andrea (in Kitchen Sink's armor) ends up facing off against Bronx Bull, sent by Da Supa-Heroes to take out CUP's best salesman. After that fiasco, Ms. Oh forces Connor Geis, the president and founder of Da Su-... you know who... to sign over the contracts of his remaining heroes to CUP and retire to Florida. The sequel reveals that Geis never shut his company down and still retains all the licenses and certifications, which he sells to a supervillain named Never More.
- Corporate-Sponsored Superhero: Pretty much all superheroes are working for one corporation or another after the government has privatized superhero work. And many of them are used to promote different products.
- Crazy-Prepared:
- This trope is pretty much a part of Andrea's job description, which isn't helped by the fact that she isn't allowed to ask questions.
- Being a superhero and the owner of a hardware store, Lightning Hwang keeps some tools on hand at all times. This ends up allowing him to defeat Electricitus in the second book with his set of Allen wrenches.
- Cunning Linguist: According to Andrea, she speaks "excellent Italian and Spanish, above average French, enough-to-find-the-library German, surprisingly competent Latvian, and passable Czech." This was all thanks to her globe-trotting youth and dreams of living in Europe. She also speaks Haitian Creole, as her parents came over from Haiti.
- Deflector Shield: Sparnaxians have a shield that can encompass an area and be virtually impenetrable. In book 2, Dr. Srinavasin manages to duplicate the technology and creates 40 generators, explaining that the shield takes massive amounts of power to start up, but very little power to maintain itself. The generators are hooked up into the New York power grid at key locations around the city and are activated, sealing the city away from DESTRON America forces.
- The Dreaded: A number of heroes and villains have a fearsome reputation that tends to make others crap their pants. This includes Black Hole (he can suck in anything, causing it to cease to exist) and Werewolf Unicorn (his abilities are never stated, but when one guy figures out who he is, he runs like hell).
- Egopolis: When Pickles and Slumboc finally figure out that they're not on Juvnta, Pickles immediately declares that Earth's new name is Pickles Planet. While Slumboc is annoyed, he continues to call it that for the rest of the novel.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: When Permafrost (a reformed supervillain) refuses to jump into the mouth of an alien monster in order to freeze it from the inside, Andrea calls his mother in Novosibirsk, Russia, and he gets an earful from her about her raising him better than that. "Now go jump into that monster's mouth and don't shame your mother!" Naturally, he agrees after that. Ms. Oh is impressed and asks if Andrea has everyone's mother's numbers in her tablet. Andrea replies that only the heroes'.
- Falling into the Cockpit: Within her first several weeks at CUP, Andrea end up being forced to don Kitchen Sink's Powered Armor, which proves to be difficult, as her frame is not nearly as miniature as that of a 95-pound Romanian gymnast. Said gymnast (named Cosmina) later refuses to ever wear the suit again, considering it "unclean". Fortunately, there's a spare one at the office.
- Fluffy the Terrible: The name of one of the Sparnaxian leaders is Pickles.
- Forgot About His Powers: Glare forgot to mention to anyone at CUP that he can do more things than just Light 'em Up, such as fly and be impervious to bullets. Whoops!
- Happily Adopted: Rabbi Diamond was adopted by a family of Orthodox Jews, who raised him as their own. He identifies as much with the Sons of Abraham as he does with his own extinct species, both having suffered much.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- In the second novel, Lightning Hwang causes an arc flash in order to stop Electricitus and save New York, knowing that he would be in the immediate proximity to the explosion and in his human form. As he tells Electricitus moments before doing it, he is prepared to die and his children are ready to take over running Hwang's Hardware from him.
- Also, The Big Axe throws his axe to the New York side and then does the same with Andrea, moments before the Deflector Shield activates and leaves him on the wrong side, facing hundreds of angry supervillains. His ultimate fate is left unknown as he's dragged away.
- Attempted and subverted with Slammer, who does a Hold the Line against the supervillains on the George Washington Bridge, hoping to die a hero. However, another hero steals his thunder and collapses the bridge without him dying.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: The Big Axe and Andrea. He's actually puny without the magic of the axe.
- I Call It "Vera":
- Ms. Oh calls the .45 revolver she carries in her purse Shirley.
- Too Many Hammers calls his main warhammer Justine.
- Insufferable Genius: Inspector Well Actually is the smartest person on the planet and has superhuman senses, but his abilities are only activated when he has to correct someone (hence his name, since his every correction starts with that phrase). Enough corrections, and he actually starts to glow and levitate. He has saved the world numerous times in the most annoying way possible. He seems to be incapable of not correcting someone, which proves to be problematic when Slumboc figures it out and uses it to obtain the location of Ms. Oh from him. Inspector Well Actually is typically paired with his girlfriend Kayla, who is excellent at saying the exact wrong thing to get his powers to work to their fullest, but their relationship has hit many bumps because he simply can't turn it off (like when she says that she loves him with all her heart, and him telling her that "well actually" the heart has nothing to do with love at all). In order to trick Slumboc, Andrea tells him to ask the Inspector if she's telling the truth, gambling that Slumboc will forget that asking doesn't trigger the correction power. This allows Inspector Well Actually to lie to him.
- An Ice Person: Permafrost is a former Russian supervillain, who is released with four months left on his prison sentence under the condition that he would assist CUP in the egg crisis. He has freezing abilities. Another freezer occasionally mentioned is Mr. Ice Guy, who was recently killed. The Big Axe really hates that name, as he knows that the freezer deliberately chose it just so people would keep saying "No more Mr. Ice Guy" after his death, and The Big Axe thinks that the pun is incredibly lame.
- Immigrant Patriotism: The surrendered Sparnaxian soldiers from the first book end up helping defend New York in book 2, as they now consider the city to be their new home.
- The Last of His Kind: Rabbi Diamond's race was exterminated by the Sparnaxians. Apparently, they were too trusting, which allowed the Sparnaxians to learn their weaknesses. Diamond's mother sent him away as a baby to live on Earth, along with a message recorded on a crystal. The crystal turns out to include information crucial to defending Earth from the Sparnaxians. At the end of the novel, Rabbi Diamond hijacks a Sparnaxian ship and leaves Earth to avenge his people.
- Light 'em Up: In the second book, Rabbi Diamond's place on the team is taken by a new hero named Glare (excuse me, GLAAAARE!!!), who shines bright light out of every pore. The light destroys almost any clothing with prolonged exposure, so he tends to walk around naked (not that anyone can see his junk because of the bright light). Eventually, Dr. Srinavassin finds an outfit that works — a leather BDSM suit.
- Line in the Sand: In the second book, when CUP is besieged by the enemy, Ms. Oh tried to invoke this trope on her employees, only for people to start leaving the room partway through her speech, with each of them saying they're going to get some coffee. Obviously, Oh assumes they're bailing. As it turns out, everyone really is trying to get coffee, but all the cups in the kitchen are espresso-sized, so people keep having to refill them constantly to get a normal caffeine dosage. Everyone in the office is planning on staying and fighting. Teleporter Joe admits to having accidentally ordered the wrong cup size after his dish duty chart was ignored by everyone.
- Magical Jew: Zig-zagged. Rabbi Diamond is an alien, the Last of His Kind from a planet of diamond people with Mind over Matter powers, sent by his mother to Earth as a baby. He was found and raised by an Orthodox Jewish family. It's not specific if he's actually a rabbi of that's just the name CUP's marketing department has come up for him. He follows all the tenets of his faith, although when asked whether he would defend Earth if aliens were to attack on Sabbath, he says that God would probably allow it (but he should check just in case).
- Mind over Matter: Rabbi Diamond has telekinetic powers. The Sparnaxians know that they are concentrated in his hands and manage to chop them off. However, Rabbi Diamond anticipates this and brings along a set of fake plastic diamond hands he bought in Chinatown to use at parties, so his real hands are fine.
- Monumental Damage: In book 2, Truckface steals the Statue of Liberty and moves it to Canada. CUP is unable to intervene, as Liberty Island is outside of CUP's jurisdiction. While it's possible for one superhero corporation to assist another, the company with the contract for Liberty Island sends the assist form through all the proper bureaucratic channels, which means that the form won't even get processed for days. A number of CUP superheroes, who were left outside the shield, steal it back.
- My Greatest Failure: Never More's power is to sense the greatest regret of any person in the vicinity. She uses it to blackmail people.
- No Indoor Voice: GLAAARE only ever speaks at full volume, even in his thoughts.
- Office Romance:
- Andrea starts going out with The Big Axe but has trouble committing. When he suggests they go steady and exclusive, she doesn't give him an answer. He realizes she has a fear of commitment but is willing to fight that particular foe. Why? Because he's The Big Axe! He swings down his mighty arm and chops down evil! Andrea finally agrees to be a couple at the end of the first novel and even brings The Big Axe to a family dinner.
- Inspector Well Actually and an assistant named Kayla are an item as well. They get engaged during the Sparnaxian invasion.
- Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The CUP executive team is never seen by anyone and only communicates with employees via dreams.
- Powered Armor: Kitchen Sink is a Romanian gymnast who wears a high-tech flying suit of armor that can shoot seemingly random things from her guns. It turns out that the guns are "intuitive three-dimensional printers" that can guess what she wants. So if a colleague is wounded and she presses the guns to his wound, the gun will staple the wound closed and can then be used to produce replacement clothing. It runs out of ammo fast, though.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: When Never More's boyfriend Slammer breaks up with her, she has him transferred to a remote town in Alaska as punishment.
- Sapient Cetaceans: A speaking humpback whale offers his services to CUP in book 2 and shows up during the climax of the book to help defend New York. Despite his claims that he can summon other sea creatures to fight beside him, he shows up alone. When Andrea questions that, he points out that it was extremely short notice, so the fact that he managed to make it at all from the Pacific to the Atlantic is in an of itself a miracle. Andrea also learns that the whale approached DESTRON America at the same time but ended up going with CUP.
- Shock and Awe:
- Lightning Hwang can turn into a bolt of lightning. Apparently, he rejected the marketing team's suggestion of the name Thunder Bolt and considered Lightning Dragon to be too racist. He was perfectly fine with going by his full legal name, but Ms. Oh was having none of that. So they settled on a compromise with "Lightning Hwang".
- His villainous counterpart Electricitus can absorb electricity from an area the size of a city, even from devices that aren't connected to the grid (i.e. draining phones and tablets). He can also redirect that electricity to electrocute people. Lightning Hwang kills him in book 2, but it requires a Heroic Sacrifice from him.
- Sibling Rivalry: Andrea's siblings tend to look down on her as being a low achiever. Their full names are never mentioned, as it's become common in her family to refer to them by their titles: State Senator Vernon, Dr. Vernon, Professor Vernon-Blanchard, Administrative Assistant Vernon (that would be Andrea herself). In particular, things get more heated with State Senator Vernon once he learns that Andrea works for CUP, since his personal crusade is to ban superhero companies and return control over all superheroes to the government. He gets closer to that goal when the Governor of New York appoints him as the new junior senator to the US Congress at the start of the second novel. Apparently, State Senator Vernon still remembers every time Andrea cheated in a board game going back to their childhood. During the battle in book 2, US Senator Vernon leads a charge of the reformed Sparnaxians against the supevillains, having borrowed a horse from the NYPD.
- Someone to Remember Him By: In book 2's second epilogue, Andrea learns that she's pregnant with The Big Axe's child, even though they took all kinds of precautions. Since the last time she saw him, he was being dragged away by a mob of angry supervillains without his axe, he could very well be dead. She semi-mockingly dubs the fetus The Big Accident.
- Spell My Name with a "The": The Big Axe is never referred to as just "Big Axe". So people will say things like, "Hey, The Big Axe."
- Stupid Surrender: King Tiger storms a Sparnaxian warship and encounters a group of soldiers. He gives them the usual spiel of "surrender or else" and is actually surprised when they start to seriously discuss his offer. He is shocked when they accept, even though Sparnaxians have conquered countless planets throughout the galaxy. Apparently, they're sick of their race's imperialist tendencies and want to give this surrender thing a try. Not only are they unsure what they're supposed to do, but King Tiger has never had to actually accept surrender from anyone before, since no supervillain ever chose the option. The Sparnaxians then started running around their ship, telling their comrades that they were surrendering. Their commander initially refused and was about to fight King Tiger, when his men told him that everyone was doing it. Suddenly he didn't want to be the only one not surrendering and threw down his spear. King Tiger was disappointed to not having had to fight anyone during the invasion, although that's later rectified.
- Super-Speed:
- Headstart, the newest CUP superhero, is not only fast but actually slows down time.
- There is also a schoolkid who claims to be able to run a hundred-yard dash in under a second. He tries to rush a supervillain named Triple Brain, only for the latter to trip him up at exactly the right moment.
- Thicker Than Water: During the battle in book 2, Hill decides to switch sides and help out his son The Big Axe, telling his other sons about it, so the entire "axe" family manages to hold off the villains.
- Warp Whistle: Teleporter Joe is the latest project of the CUP science division. While he can teleport, he can only do it when aroused, and he only teleports to one location: the northern tip of Roosevelt Island. This allows Andrea to set a trap for Admiral Slumboc during the climax of the first book.
- Wreathed in Flames: Señora Fuego can produce flames out of her body.
