a new generation of superheroes makes its debut in “Who Can Save Us Now?”

Look! Up in the trees—it’s a cat! No, it’s a ferret! Wait a minute—is that a meerkat?

OK, it’s not the most heroic of introductions, and you’re unlikely to find it in a comic book or movie anytime soon, but it’s perfectly fitting for the heroes introduced in “Who Can Save Us Now?,” a new anthology of superhero origin stories edited by Owen King and John McNally. The book has super teams like The Quick Stop 5, a quintet of convenience store employees with powers based on items in the store, from a guy with a body made of beef jerky to a woman who can shoot streams of blue raspberry slushie from her hands and feet. It also has weird heroes like The Silverfish (he’s, uh, a silverfish, and likes to eat glue when not fighting crime) and Manna Man (who can force television evangelists to do his bidding). The super folks in “Who Can Save Us Now?” provide a wry look at what life with fantastic powers might actually be like.

King’s own contribution to the book is “The Meerkat,” the story of how Wade Hanes went to Africa with his girlfriend and came back imbued with the powers of a meerkat. Wade, of course, isn’t your typical hero—he’s more neurotic than Peter Parker and Woody Allen combined, and his powers—digging burrows, communing with squirrels, chomping off evil-doers noses—aren’t as sexy as super strength and invisibility (though they are a bit more useful than having a beef jerky body).

King and fellow authors Kelly Braffet and David Yoo will be at RiverRun Bookstore in Portsmouth for a reading of “Who Can Save Us Now?” on Thursday, Aug. 28 at 7 p.m. Attendees are encouraged to come dressed in their finest superhero regalia, and a super prize will be awarded to the best-dressed caped (or un-caped) crusader.

The Wire recently caught up with King by email to ask him about the origin story behind “Who Can Save Us Now?,” his thoughts on modern superheroics and whether The Meerkat could take the X-Men’s Wolverine in a fight.

What was your inspiration for the anthology?

The germination of the book came with my own idea for a superhero story. It was something that didn’t seem like a mainstream comic book. It was a little too quirky; one part of it was like a B-movie, and another part of it was about a superhero with self-esteem issues. At the same time, I wasn’t sure where to go with a superhero short story.
What occurred to me then was that there might be a book’s worth of superhero stories. As weird as my own superhero (“The Meerkat”) seemed, I couldn’t help wondering about what sort of madman a master of the short story field, someone like Jim Shepard or George Singleton, might come up with. And what about a first-rate crime novelist, someone like Sean Doolittle, what would his superhero look like? What kind of superhero would one of our best fantasy novelists, someone like Graham Joyce, create?

Think about Batman in this summer’s “The Dark Knight”: depending on where you stand, a superhero can look very different, maybe like a savior, maybe like a vigilante. Our hope (myself and my co-editor, the marvelous novelist John McNally) was that such an eclectic roster of authors would explore as many possibilities of the superhero premise as possible, good and bad and in-between. Of course, it’s up to readers to make the final verdict, but we’re very proud of the results.

Through all the stories, it seems like, despite the cool powers, being a superhero is no picnic. If superpowers actually existed, do you think most people would choose to be heroes?
My feeling is that if superpowers were real, most people would use them for good and evil. Without powers, most of us try to be good, but no one manages it all the time. By the opposite token, even the worst person is occasionally compelled to do good. In other words, I don’t think super powers would change the fact that we’re a pretty conflicted species, one that means well in general, yet still falls prey to temptation fairly often.

Look at a character like the Big Guy in Stephanie Harrell’s wonderful story “The Girl Reporter.” Despite the ability to fly, and the otherworldly strength, when it comes to saving damsels in distress, he can’t help favoring the blondes.

Did you read comics as a kid? Who were some of your favorite heroes, and what about them appealed to you?
I did read comics as a kid; still do, actually. My early favorite was actually Captain Marvel, and I became familiar with him not by reading the comic books, but by seeing one of those old black-and-white serials. It was his origin story, about how Billy Batson stumbles on this magician (at least, I think he was a magician—it’s been awhile) who gives him all these powers based on Greek mythology. The whole scenario was just so fantastic: there was archaeology involved, and sinister conspiracies, and car chases and fistfights and flying, and it was all life-and-death stuff. It was as wild as any game I played with my action figures, but it had the added bonus of making narrative sense. I loved the adventure of it. I loved how he just had to holler, “Shazam!” and there’d be a puff of smoke and when it cleared, nerdy Billy Batson would have disappeared and in his place would be Captain Marvel, with a chest like a Sherman Tank.

You establish early on in your story “The Meerkat” that, despite appearances, meerkats aren’t cuddly or friendly. But they don’t really seem that heroic, either. What made you use meerkats as the source of your hero’s powers?
The juxtaposition between how we see meerkats—as adorable, as harmless—and how they actually are—extremely tough, nothing sentimental about them whatsoever—struck me as an interesting pairing for a human character who doesn’t have a true sense of his own capacities. Is he the thing that people think that he is, or is he what he makes of himself?

What is it that’s so alluring about superheroes? Why do writers, filmmakers, readers and everyone else keep returning to these kinds of characters, decade after decade?
I don’t actually think that the superhero is, at its core, that new an idea. You could argue that Beowulf is a superhero, that Hannibal Lecter is a superhero. The miracles they perform astound us—and maybe they make our world seem a little bigger.

In the story “The Somewhat Super,” the characters all have odd but ultimately useless super powers. One guy can hop really well and another doesn’t go to the bathroom. What’s your own personal odd quality that you could convincingly pass off as a super power?
I can’t claim any powers at all. I mean, I have a good appetite, at times. I can make a key lime pie disappear. Does that count?

Now that the origin stories for these heroes have been established, should we expect a sequel? Surely other readers are demanding the triumphant return of The Silverfish, or details about how Peaceful Ivan almost destroyed Cleveland.
We would love to do a sequel. There are so many writers who I think could do a bang-up job on this premise. But only time will tell.

Your brother, Joe, is writing the comic series “Locke & Key” for IDW Publishing, and Marvel Comics is adapting your father’s “Dark Tower” books—is there any chance you’ll soon be crossing over into the world of comics?
I wouldn’t rule it out, although I’m occupied with a novel at the moment.

Finally: who would win in a fight? The Meerkat or Wolverine?
The Meerkat would never fight Wolverine. They’re friends—super friends, in fact.