A book like this can go one of two ways — either it’ll suck all the fun out of comic books, or it’ll be a lot of fun. Fortunately, this book falls into the latter category. Its authors acknowledge early on that comic books require a suspension of disbelief, and it is not their intention to prove that it’s all based on a bunch of wrong science and poor thinking, but rather to wonder aloud if any of it could happen in the real world.
Naturally, the answer is pretty much always “no,” but the narrative doesn’t end there — there’s also a bit of informed speculation as to, for instance, what actual scientific phenomena could cause a person’s skin to turn green and his muscles to bulge.
The book’s only crime (aside from merely glossing over the very basics of comicdom) is the occasional overlong sidetrip into wordy scientific explanations, such as the four-page snoozefest on how a black hole works in the middle of the Green Lantern chapter. But these occasional diversions aside, The Science of Superheroes is tremendously entertaining — a successful melding of two of the things geeks love most.