Customer Reviews

Captain Freedom: A Superhero's Quest for Truth, Justice, and the Celebrity He So Richly Deserves

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I laughed until i fell off my chair. Then i got up, read some more and fell over again.
Non stop fun. A constant stream of whit fired at you from beginning to end.

Yes. This book SHOULD be awesome.

The premise is great. The title is funny. Christopher Moore wrote a great review of the book, which is quoted on the cover. And yeah, even the cover is cool. This book has absolutely no right to suck.

But I have to hand it to writer G. Xavier Robillard. Both for the pretentious name and for taking all that potential greatness and turning it into 255 pages of kinetic suck. The book is bad in almost every way imaginable. It's not funny. It's boring. The prose just doesn't flow and the sentences are awkwardly structured. There is not an ounce of substance to the character. What you see is what you get. Captain Freedom is pompous and dumb. Everything he does, every joke in the book, every sentence in this beyond awful novel is crafted to remind you that he's pompous and dumb. There is literally nothing else.

The pompous and dumb superhero can be funny, sure. Joss Whedon did it wonderfully in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Captain Hammer was funny because of the way he interacted with other characters (who we cared about). His dialogue was laugh out loud funny. He was a parody that worked because he showed us different sides of other characters through his own shallowness. That story engaged on many levels. So many stories put their own twist on the pompous superhero archetype, but I'm not sure if I've ever seen one that aims so low, that so utterly fails the way that "Captain Freedom" does.

This is the first book I've read in a long time that I couldn't finish. I just couldn't muscle through the thing. And you know what? I saved an hour or so of my life that would be better put toward reading something worth my time. I think you should do the same. Because you know what? I like reading a book that doesn't make me want to take out a red pen, mark up the novel, and mail it to the author with a note attached ("THIS is not how you structure a sentence, G. Xavier Pretentiousname). I like laughing. It makes me happy. It makes life better.

If you like laughing, look elsewhere. Because this book? Not so much with the funny.

So it's a decent premise, and it starts off well enough but then it just falls into a long boring rut where the author tries so desperately to be hip and funny. Captain Freedom just plods on and on and on not really going anywhere at all and you find yourself simply not caring anymore. Ah well.

A clever concept, injecting a superhero into a modern world of lattes, board meetings, and financial planning, this novel reads like a mad lib. What are supposed to be thrusts of satire and mockery come off as tersely written internal dialogue. The character, an acknowledged fame seeker, provides no insight or personal empathy into his motivations in any meaningful or striking way. Instead, the author derives all motivation from stale comic book devices, without any drama, struggle, or personal revelation. I kept waiting for the character or story to pick up and find a cohesive narrative, but, instead, it remained a collection of uninteresting jabs at modern pop culture through the eyes of an unimpressive and inexpressive protagonist.

I love Superhero parody. The classic novel Superfolks, Joss Whedon's Dr Horrible, old Marvel comics What The? spoofs, just about anything, even the mediocre Hancock movie. Unfortunately, Captain Freedom falls below even that standard. Essentially, Captain Freedom is the "memoir" of a "superhero" who's fallen on hard times - that is, he's not as popular as he once was. Mostly, he tells his stories as short, loosely connected adventures starting covering the course of his career. The problem is that the stories are basically a collection of rapidfire punchlines centered upon how venal, flighty, and narcissitic the protagonist. There's nothing beyond this setup/punchline, nothing that provides a reason to care or the kind of deeper insight really good parody can provide on a subject. If you've read Superfolks or seen Dr Horrible, you'll see exactly what I mean - you really care about the main characters and what happens to them. Captain Freedom's just a jerk and like most jerks, quickly stops being funny.

I saw the cover of this book on someone else's blog and thought it looked interesting enough to pick up for myself. (I know you should never judge a book by its cover). It's got superheroes, archenemies, and time machines to name a few. This first novel by humorist G. Xavier Robillard makes fun of everything in this pop culture society of ours. Captain Freedom struggles with finding a job, wanting to be loved, writing his memoirs and get recognition for saving the world which he does a few times. It is quick paced and a fast read. Although I am a comic book reader and love pop culture, this satirical view of the superhero world was just okay.

Not my usual type of reading material, but I was really glad that I got this book. I heard about it on NPR a while ago, and just read it while in Aruba. Love the way the author ties in funny things about real life celebs,politicians,California with the fiction. I would and have recommended this to friends.

When I first heard about this book I was incredibly excited. A writer from McSweeney's wrote a satirical superhero book? Yes, please!

Captain Freedom starts off like most superhero stories - the hero in pursuit of the evil villain Genghis Kong is flying high above the streets and wondering frantically if his creme brule was taken out of the oven in time. Captain Freedom is unlike the Batmans and Supermans of our time. Yes, he's strong (he has super strength and the ability to fly and predict the weather), yes he stops bank heists, yes he's saved the world (FOUR TIMES and without the recognition he deserves), however he's also quite the chef, very concerned about his appearance (when the invisibility cape makes him look fat, all hell breaks loose), and has a penchant for drugs and alcohol.

Captain Freedom is about what would happen if superheroes were real and around today. The book starts with him being fired from Gotham Comics (because all great superheroes can only work when a cartoonist is following them, creating their comic book of course) and wondering what else there is to life. After a brief stint with internet dating he finds a life coach and decides to write a (hopefully best selling) memoir. The majority of the book is his life story.

From battling aliens on Mars to saving third world countries, Captain Freedom has done it all with the help of his sidekick/adopted son DJ (who's power is harnessing radio airwaves and turntableing, as Freedom calls it). He spends some time in rehab (what superhero celebrity hasn't?), dates an assassin, finds an underground crime unit, and constantly looks for his archenemy (because every superhero must have one.)

What I love about this book is that it's very self aware. In the beginning, Freedom states that in his memoir it must be in present tense because what comic book isn't? So, the entire book is in present tense, putting you in the middle of the action. Using pop culture references, Captain Freedom jokes about everyone from Britney Spears to Salman Rushdie. Thor makes an appearance, as does a contract that was signed in the firey pits of Mount Doom.

The book is full of quick comebacks (like all superheroes must have), strong dialogue and wonderful lines, such as "My enemy's accent is filled with that combination of malice and menace that could only come from the nation that brought us existentialism and the guillotine." (And, yes, there's a deconstructionism joke after that as well.) The book is very relevant for our time, which is also somewhat of a downside. Although it's incredibly entertaining, I fear most of the jokes being lost in time for those who read it down the line. Also, the book gets drawn out at times. Towards the end, when his memoir is done, I started to wonder where, exactly, the book was taking me. There was no end in sight and it started to drag a bit.

Regardless, the ending was well worth it. Bringing it back around, the book ends on a high flying note that makes you wish you lived in a world with superheroes. Because even though they are just normal people (with neat abilities), there's something magical about them. Something that, no matter how many drunk driving records or hijacked blogs they have, makes you have a little more faith in humanity.

G.X. Robillard has created a fast-paced. funny comic book of a novel full of bits of biting social satire. Through the medium of his character, a shallow, ambitious, two-dimensional super-hero who flies off the comic pages and onto the public stage, he provides a frame for his rapid-fire send-up of popular culture, the cult of celebrity, politics, the arts, and the general decline of the West. All this could be annoying, but there are so many trenchant gags and puns and little set-pieces that the reader is ultimately charmed. In time, our hero even has room to learn to relate to a significant other -- a nemesis. Bravo.

Captain Freedom: A Superhero's Quest for Truth, Justice, and the Celebrity He So Richly DeservesWitty new material, absolutely hilarious, fantastic book. Keep 'em coming, G. Xavier Robillard!