What makes a superhero? Someone with special powers ... Ordinary people doing good deeds ... Anyone with sophisticated technological gadgets and incredible agility? Superheroes can spring up from the most unexpected people in the most unusual places, and BEAT to a PULP: Superhero has gathered some of the best hardboiled and noir crime stories with a superhero bend. Billy Mitchell, the six-year-old "Red Avenger" in Kevin Burton Smith's tale, has an innocence and a special something that draws us to want to don a mask and tie a towel around our necks. Steve Weddle dissects the reality of a world in which super-powered "others" walk in the midst of normal people who tend to quote only parts of the Bible. And James Reasoner's story is set in a time not usually associated with superheroes -- the American Revolution -- yet Patrick Mainwaring finds the classic essence of a superhero. Other top contributors include Jake Hinkson, Garnett Elliott, Liam Jose, Sandra Seamans, Jerry Bloomfield, Thomas Pluck, Keith Rawson, Court Merrigan, Benoit Lelievre, and Chad Eagleton. If you like the work of Frank Miller or the recent Dark Knight films directed by Christopher Nolan, then you'll enjoy the grit of these thirteen tales in BEAT to a PULP: Superhero.