The Adventures of Wrong Man and Power Girl!

Fighting fire with...stinky cheese? Stopping up a broken dam with...sharks? All in a day's work for Wrong Man! The story begins on the copyright page with a scene of a little African American girl being reprimanded by her parents; on the facing page (the dedication page) we see her in her room playing with an action figure, and the text reads: "To your parents, who are never wrong." What follows is a humorous comic-book-style picture book about an earnest but inept superhero who looks suspiciously like the girl's father. Repeatedly asked not to help his fellow townspeople, Wrong Man has a knack for taking any problem and making it worse. Luckily for all involved, Wrong Man's daughter, Janice (a.k.a. Power Girl), is there. She follows behind her hapless father to resolve the issues he creates, usually by calling law enforcement ("Yes, 911? There's a fire at the old toothbrush factory. Come quickly!...Yes, police? Janice again. The crooks are headed west on Main Street"). Finally, the opportunity arises for Wrong Man to save the day for real. Morrison's comic-panel illustrations capture both the excitement and the drama of a superhero origin story. They also convey the silliness of this superhero origin story, which ends back in the real world with the family happily reunited (and Janice's time-out over). eboni njoku