The Cockroach Is Coming!
Originally published at jaredaxelrod.com. You can comment here or there.
This Friday, The Cockroach Strikes Kickstarter launches! That means that the possibility of owning and enjoying a Comrade Cockroach-themed short story on your reading-screen of choice is soon within your grasp! I’m sure you are all excited!
Those of you who know who Comrade Cockroach is, leastways. For those who don’t, please allow me to let you in on the world of this spectacular character.
Comrade Cockroach is a Cold-War-Era supervillian who has stuck around, becoming less and less important as time has worn on. In an effort to create a match for, the USA’s main superhero, the Bold Eagle (sort of a Captain America/Batman hybrid), Soviet scientists put two devices on Spetznatz soldier Lenin Davidovich Bronshtein’s spine. One device allows him to manipulate his personal gravity, giving him the ability to scale any surface. The second device is tasked with keeping the molecules of his body from being torn apart by the gravitational effects first device. This has the added bonus of healing Lenin at a fantastic rate, making him unkillable. It also has stopped his aging, making him appear in his mid-thirties despite having first donned the Cockroach cowl fifty years ago.
But all that really isn’t important. I keep going back to Comrade Cockroach because he fails. He has to be; he lives in a comic book world, and in that comic book world, the good guys always win. But despite a half a century of failure, Comrade Cockroach does not give up. It’s easy for Batman to not give up; he always wins. What must it take for a man like Comrade Cockroach to continue to peruse his mission in life, despite constant beat-downs? Comrade Cockroach keeps failing, but he is never a failure.
The Cockroach Strikes illustrates that perfectly. Sure, there’s plenty of sci-fi superhero craziness. Major Ursa, a man who becomes a bear is a major character, a bionic eye is major plot point, and there’s not one but two generations of Bold Eagles. But at its heart, the story is about a man who must find something in himself to keep going, even after he experiences one loss after another.
That, my friends, is someone worth reading about!
Further Cockroach reading, should you be so inclined:
The Cockroach Speaks
The Official File of Comrade Cockroach
Comrade Cockroach, In Motion
Of Tropes And Cockroaches
Comrade Cockroach VS Bold Eagle
Your Guide To The Nefariverse
The Battle of Blood and Ink: A Fable of Flying City Purchase available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BooksaMillion, Powells Books, IndieBound, Walmart, Overstock and your local bookseller.