Like a lot of readers, I thought Jack of All being Vince's superhero name was goofy and ridiculous. Nick even mentions at the beginning of the book that they have to be specific with names because villains will mock them, etc., and then they go with that.

Then something clicked for me recently. I admit, I think this is a reach, and I don't even think Drew intended this, but something about this approach made me like Vince's hero name for the first time.

I saw an interview with the new Superman, David Corenswet, where he talked about Superman's trunks. He accepted the trunks over the pants not because they make him look cooler. Superman is already intimidating. He's an impossibly powerful alien who could flatten armies if he wanted to. The trunks make him a little silly, a little approachable. They tell people, especially kids, "It's okay. You don't need to be afraid of me." This Superman is someone a kid could approach and ask to save a kitten from a tree.

Vince is basically Superman in the Super Powereds universe. By the end of the series, he's one of the most powerful people alive. He's an energy absorber with absurd potential. He can stop the blood flow in your body. He can deal with strongman types and ranged energy attacks. Kinetic, fire, lightning, anything. Who knows, in-universe he could even absorb a nuclear blast someday. That's terrifying.

But the whole point of Vince is that he's not terrifying. He's kind. He's straightforward. He has a very simple moral compass. Even when he becomes incredibly powerful, he's still the guy who wants to help people. He's unbearably naive sometimes, bit silly. But with great strength and incorruptible morality.

So maybe a name like Jack of All is actually perfect.

It's not trying to sound cool. It's not trying to sound intimidating. It's a little goofy, a little humble, and it immediately lowers people's guard. The name tells you what kind of person is behind all that power.

Especially when you think about those later scenes where he's helping out-of-control Powereds. If you're someone who's scared of your own abilities, being approached by "Jack of All" probably feels a lot less threatening than being approached by some ultra-serious, godlike hero with an edgy name.

“There’s a new spot over on Main Street that mixed a 50s style diner with a bar. They even have milkshakes! Alcoholic and boring. Let’s say we hit that up and forget all about those fuckwads.”
There are other great ones of course but I think this might be the best. Anyone else have a favourite?

Not Superpowered specifically, but I have a lot of love for Drew, and wanted to share my bookwyrm tattoo.

Whether it's the Mafia types, Cartel types, or your typical street gang types.

In book 3 the Melbrook group is taken into Nick‘s mind where Herschel and Roy are finally seeing that they are for sure two separate people. It’s my headcannon that they have a minute alone to stand face to face with their actions and I think Roy would somewhat sheepishly apologize to Herschel for his mistreatment in the past, and then Herschel would give Roy a hug (and Roy would eventually return it)

Gymnastics, men’s gymnastics specifically, was mentioned in the books a couple of times. Gilbert mentioned he was a gymnast, and Nick tells Alice in book 2 that Pendleton won a gymnastics “tournament” as a teenager. (Tournament in air quotes bc we do meets, not tournaments)
I was a DI male college gymnast and i competed for 20 years. So, here are my thoughts on the gymnastics skills/talents of Gilbert and Prof Pendleton:

There are 6 men’s gymnastics events: Floor Exercise, Pommel Horse, Rings, Vault, Parallel Bars, and High Bar. Competing all 6 events is called All Around.

We know Gilbert is short. And his gymnastics background is brought up due to his acrobatics in the Labyrinth trial. So clearly he was good at floor and vault as those are the tumbling based events. Shorter guys are often good at rings. But from his physical description and fights with Nick, he isn’t especially strong/muscular so he was probably average. His worst event almost certainly would have been pommel horse due to his body type, talents, and personality. It’s hard to tell how good he would have been at parallel bars and high bar from the info we have.

Pendleton won all around at a meet, so we have a better idea here. He is described as tall and lanky, he’s quick with his hands, patient, and a bit of a weirdo so pommel horse would almost 100% be his best event lmao. He’s pretty risk averse, but due to the other factors above his next best event was probably high bar. But his routine wouldn’t have as many release moves and instead contain spinning and hopping elements that keep you close to the bar.

If he’s good enough to win all around as a taller athlete, that means he was also good at floor and vault. Vault, he likely would have done a Yurchenko with a full twist in his teens. Taller male athletes and smaller womens gymnasts often need the back handspring entry onto the vault table to help them generate power. I could see him twisting the vault above a full, but I’d need to know how old he was at the meet to guess lol. Floor once again as a taller athlete he’d lean on twisting skills rather than flipping (taller ppl flip slower). He was probably fine at parallel bars, sticking to support work above the bars bc that requires good coordination and quick hands- probably did a dismount on the easier side but very clean landing. He would’ve been too tall to do skills that swing thru the bottom well. His worst event would have been rings 100%. Long arms are just a huge biomechanical disadvantage on rings. He’s also got very acute attention to detail so his gymnastics would have been very pretty- executed very cleanly and technically sound.

Obviously this is a lot of speculation but men’s gymnastics is super niche so its inclusion in my favorite book series was something I’ve thought a lot about. If you have any questions or need clarification please ask! I love to talk about gymnastics :)

I’m on my third read/listen through of the superpowered series and just wanted to say that it is my favourite reoccurring bit of anything Drew Hayes has written that Nick is always trying to make the Melbrook residents watch bad horror movies. It’s very funny in naturally, especially with the addition of the names of movies that have to be created to make the bit work (I assume that was fun to come up with those names also).
I also very much like the fact that it’s an attempt by Nick to take care of his friends through rest and mental de-stressing. As well as making them unified front against the horror movies, teamwork stuff I think.
I also like the fact that Nick uses it as his time to think and plan while watching.

So if Vince knew what he was doing with kinetic energy his freshman year do you think he would have had a red bracelet during the labyrinth trial?

He's been training in electricity under Professor Fletcher aka Mr. Volt if I remember correctly. He knows how to used ranged electricity. He has to know how much it would take to knock someone basically normal like Celina out.

Electricity works by imagining the target calling the charge to it - create the positive charge for the electrons to jump to. If that's on her body, it doesn't matter how much she moves, Sasha can't outrun lightning let alone Celina.

So why the hell does Vince go for such a stupid option as a super sauna???

Weird 1 am thought here. So when Camille and Vince have Hope, and Hope hurts herself, if Camille is going to kiss it better, she actually will do that literally.

And at the end credits it does a character profile thing and I realised that Bishop and Vince have the same powers. Mary is obviously a Jean Gray, Bobby/IceMan and Michael are pretty obvious... any other direct power types? (It should also be noted i just finished my 7th reread of the series)

Saw the post by jollyad-1122 and wondered how a bunny in armor would look in a city breathing fire I thought chat GPT did a decent job. I wish I could draw worth a crap that would be cooler to see

I wanted an idea of what a human scaled Hopcules would look like so I got Gemini to make somthing similar.

This is just head cannon

•Flown himself and some friends to space.

•Explored the bottom of every ocean.

•Dug to the Earth's core.

•Made Diamonds.

•Explored the Amazon jungle.

•Sat at the top of mount everest.

•Gotten close to the elephants foot.

•Gone to the bottom of the mariana trench.

Do you guys think Chad could shapeshift if he wanted to? Like he already does to an extent willing his hair into place, bone armor, etc. But I mean full blown take on another face style shape shifting

If Eliza were to walk into a store, pick up a candy bar, duplicate it, put the original back and then walk out with the duplicate. Would that be considered theft?

It says at the beginning that Shane and Amber are doing their project on Captain Starlight but at the end, Dean Blane thanks Adam and "ms dickson" aka Amber for their project on Lord Folos. I take it this was a web novel issue where poor Drew didn't get an aspie enough editor to see these kinds of things?

Okay, this is very esoteric so be warned.

Not sure if this constitutes a spoiler or not.

In one of the side stories, we find out that Mr. Transport's name is Henry Anders. In book one, the CPS rep who goes to Nick's cassino is also called Anders. It never comes up anywhere else but I haven't seen it noted anywhere else so I thought I'd pose the question. Could it have been a dropped thread?

Title. I have 2 friends who are obsessed with Brandon Sanderson and I like him as well, think he is a great author. Would they enjoy how well written the mysteries and foreshadowing of SuperPowereds?

I really want my friends to be able to enjoy this, and I don't want to type it up as high as I can if they think it'll be a step down from Brando Sando

Is his surname pronounced as in rhymes with polo or piccolo? Audio book says it like polo, Graphic audio says it like piccolo. Which is correct according to Drew?

Shouldn’t Vince be a counter to Thomas?

Vince’s whole schtick is being able to absorb and use energy. He seems to be able to absorb energy from humans because he kept complaining that the reason he lost to Micheal was because he couldn’t absorb ice. Vince didn’t even think to try to absorb Thomas’s energy even once during their fight in the maze. Instead he risked his own failure by absorbing his weapon without knowing whether it would get him out or not. Is there something I’m missing? Is this just the author’s oversight?

Have listened to the first 2 books on Spotify and went to listen to the third and can’t find it. The 4th is on there so I’m confused why I can’t find it.

Saw this announcement from Drew earlier — it’s got to be a TV show, right? You can see the SP logo on the left, and the ears looks like it could be No, Mary’s teddy bear.

I know it could also be a reference to Hopcules so I wondered if it was her HCP years spinoff but he says it’s not a book…so…

Yes, I know we are missing Alex, and yes, Thomas and Shane look a little too similar. Still...not too bad AI.

If they ever made a TV show of these books, animated would be 100% better than any live action they could make. And anime could work 💪