Heroes often have a limited shelf-life but their legacy from the clean cut (almost pure Boy Scout you could say) Solar and the grim and gritty The Dark started a run of superheroes that over the decades evolved into what could almost be described as its own celeb fandom with bloggers and youtubers creating a culture reporting on their various adventures as well as their wider impact on society. In Australia it was decided a national lottery would be held to choose who gets upgraded and over the past forty years there has been a steady mix of heroes ready to fight internal and external threats from all sorts of quarters and indeed hidden dimensions. We are visiting an alternate 21st century where mysterious machines are given to the countries of the world that appear to have one purpose - to create superheroes. In this novella we get a strangely familiar set of heroes that has a lot to say about how we value our icons and also gives us a fresh and satisfying adventure that goes from secret labs to the stars They are now very much part of our culture not just in movies and comics but used within our day to day language and increasingly used to champion and debate changes in our society. In the 90’s they got darker and edgier while in the twenty first century they are now a huge wide-spanning genre ranging from the comedy of Guardians of the Galaxy to the hyper-realism the Dark Knight trilogy aimed for. Since I was a child and saw Christopher Reeve fly (he really did!) I’ve been aware of superheroes and their impact on our culture. This time, Tina Valentina may have ventured too far.Īlongside Australia’s greatest superheroes – including the powerful Astra, dazzling Solar, and The Dark in his full brooding glory – Friday will go up to another dimension in the hops of finding her mother, saving the day, maybe even getting the story of a lifetime out of the adventure (and possibly a new girlfriend too) While Fry may not be super-powered herself, she understands the power of legacy: her mother is none other than the infamous reporter Tina Valentina, renowned worldwide for her legendary interviews with the True Blue Aussie Beaut Superheroes and her tendency to go to extraordinary lengths to get her story. Every Lottery cycle, a new superhero is created and quite literally steps into the shoes of the hero before them – displacing the previous hero.

In a world of superheroes, supervillains and a machine that can create them all, millennial vlogger and girl reporter Friday Valentina has no shortage of material to cover.

Girl Reporter by Tansy Rayner Roberts