Stan Lee, the force behind Spider Man and X-Men, pens his first prose tale--this page-turning, high-stakes adventure.
Mild-mannered Chinese-American student Steven Lee is on a field trip with his suburban Philadelphia classmates in a Hong Kong museum when he hears screaming from a hidden door. He follows the sound and gets pulled into a clash between a high-tech warmonger named Maxwell and two of his associates, Jasmine and Carlos. They're attempting to keep him from extracting superpowers from the Zodiac via an ancient compass called a shipan. A strange green light administers the energy of the Zodiac's 12 animals, and Maxwell has already absorbed a handful. But Maxwell can only keep the powers of the Dragon, his own sign. (He must distribute the other powers among his associates born under different signs.) Moreover, the Dragon power is split between himself and Jasmine (a Dragon, too). In the ensuing fray, the Tiger energy seeks out Steven--who was born under its sign. As Steven helps Jasmine and Carlos destroy the shipan, they inadvertently release the energies for the homeless Zodiac powers, which search the planet for hosts with matching astrological signs.
Andie Tong's two-color illustrations ratchet up the suspense as the trio hunts down the unwitting hosts before Maxwell and his henchmen can. The artist's cityscapes of Hong Kong and Paris carry as much electricity as the fight scenes. Stan Lee explores issues of newly discovered strengths (an ideal metaphor for adolescence) and complex motives, and sets the scene for the next two episodes in this promising trilogy. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness