[Bristow 01] • Super Zero (school edition)

Durban schoolboy Zed (aka Zachary) was still small when his father died, and he doesn’t remember very much about him. Yet some things seem to run in the blood. For when Zed discovers an old wooden box half-filled with comics in the garage, he falls upon them with such abandon that his mother is filled with dismay and foreboding. “Don’t tell me you’re going the same way as your father!” she laments. “Don’t tell me I have to cope with another deluded male who thinks he’s a superhero!“

And indeed: Zed has become convinced that his destiny is to be a “superhero”, in the comic book tradition of Batman, Spiderman and all the others, and this is confirmed by his grandmother – who, ironically, has been commissioned by Zed’s mother to help him get rid of this delusion!

He learns the burden of ethical responsibility that goes with this lonely role and finds himself thrust into battle against a “supervillain” in the form of another 12-year-old schoolboy.

Super Zero presents an extremely engaging and moving story of an unlikely blunderer's modest belief in himself, and his idealism and courage in doing what he knows to be his duty to others.