Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Therapist to the superheroes

I was listening to Mur Lafferty's podcast yesterday and it inspired an idea in me. I've sent this idea to Mur, asking if it's been done before. I'm not up on the podiofiction or online books, and she is an expert in that world. So we'll see if it's original.

The idea is this: A young, female therapist has established a successful and very lucrative practice by serving the therapy and psychoanalytical needs of the superhero and supervillain community. As such, she knows all of their identities, which she keeps private as an ethical professional, of course. She knows these people as they really are, not as they appear in comics or on television. In fact, she knows a little too much about some of them. As the work begins to bore her and become more of a daily grind, she is summoned to appear in court where she is challenged to reveal the identity of one of her clients. It turns out that a senator, who is in league with the world's most diabolical supervillain, is attempting to make her patient records public, which would obviously be disasterous for her clients, good and evil.

The book could be a satire, obviously, playing on the cliches and pretenses of superhero fiction and comic book culture. But it could also be quite serious, addressing a topic like doctor-patient privilege.

Just another idea. Now...back to the Plotastic! book.

-Mark

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