The Epic Origin of Super Potato

May 21, 2018
Super Max has a luxurious blond coiffure, a cape, big muscles (737, to be exact), and an outsized ego. So, it’s humiliating when Doctor Malevolent shoots him with a new weapon and turns him into a potato. Now, he’s Super Potato, a tiny figure with spindly arms and legs, and he’s devastated: “Super Potato cries like a baby surrounded by onions.” He still has superpowers, though, and once he rigs up a new costume for his potato-shaped self, he’s ready to do battle with Doctor Malevolent (who looks like a slimmed-down Gru from Despicable Me) again. Super Patata has been available in Laperla’s home of Spain for several years; this is its U.S. debut, and its uncredited English translation sounds natural and doesn’t fumble. Laperla’s parody strikes an easy comedic tone from the first page, and its wackiness unspools effortlessly. Full-color panel artwork combines caricature with handsomely drafted backgrounds of cityscapes and spaceships, and Laperla nails Super Potato’s expressions of rage and exasperation. A promising start to a series with appeal to strong and reluctant readers alike. Ages 7–11.

June 15, 2018
This graphic novel has "Gilligan's Island Syndrome."Fans of the old TV show got frustrated because, over and over again, Gilligan and his friends tried to escape from their desert island, and over and over again, they failed. This comic book has the same sense of futility. On Page 10, Super Max, a very blond, very vain superhero, is turned into a potato by his archenemy, Dr. Malevolent, and he spends the rest of the book trying to reverse the process. Alert readers will figure out, just about around Page 10, that it's never going to work, because the book is the first in a series, and because potatoes are funny. So the appeal of the story depends on the quality of the jokes, which varies widely. Some scenes are mordantly funny: The villain corrects an elegant waiter who refers to him as "Mr. Malevolent." But there are far too many potato puns. (Arguably, one is too many.) Still, the visual design is appealingly simple. Even most of the human characters bear some resemblance to spuds in shape, except for Dr. Malevolent, who looks a lot like a string bean. (He even has green skin, making him just about the only character who isn't white.)The main storyline lacks any suspense, but fans of Waiting for Godot may enjoy the sense of fatalism, and fans of Gilligan will admire the hero's persistence. (Graphic humor. 7-11)

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July 1, 2018
Grades 1-3 Super Max is the kind of crime fighter who fixes his hair before flying to the rescue and asks his mirror who's the handsomest superhero of them all. So when his archenemy, Doctor Malevolent, turns him into a potato, Max's ego takes the hardest blow. Overcoming this hardship with a new potato-sized costume, he mashes Doctor Malevolent's plan to starch-ify the rest of the city. With the fiend at his mercy, the hero learns that turning potatoes back into people is impossible, which gives him a chance to prove that compassion is central to true heroism. The predicament also sets the character up for future, potato-shaped adventures. The art punches things up considerably, with well-constructed, flowing page layouts, humorously extreme reaction shots, and a stark and vibrant color palette that feels both classical and unique. If Loony Tunes was in the superhero business, this is something it might have baked up. A superhero romp with some age-appropriate examples of heroic behavior and a nonstop torrent of gags that work a decent portion of the time.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)