Hero.com

Toby, Pete, Lorna, and Emily are just average kids—until they stumble upon a Web site called Hero.com and download powers that turn them into superheroes. At first, flying, teleporting, and shooting lasers from their eyes seems like nothing but fun. But when the supervillain Doc Tempest kidnaps Toby and Lorna’s mom, things take a darker turn.

Now the heroes must band together and use their new skills—from super-strength to invisibility—to rescue their mom, fight evil, meet other superheroes from the Hero.com FAQ and try to save the world from destruction.

Of course, little do they know that Villain.net is out there too, recruiting teens for the other side...

Needs More Love

Sister series to Villain.net.


 * Action Survivor - Sarah (Toby and Lorna's mother) is able to handle being kidnapped (without access to her medication) quite well, all things considered.
 * Chekhov's Gun - It's mentioned in passing that Mr. Patel is over two months late with his payment for Toby and Lorna's paper route.
 * Dating Catwoman - Lorna has a bit of a crush on school bully Jake Hunter, who is also the protagonist of Villain.net. It's worth mentioning that he likes her back.
 * Dirty Coward - Pete occasionally needs some persuasion from his friends to be heroic, and he fears that the constant bullying he's suffered has made him this.
 * Holding Back the Phlebotinum - Hero.com offers a free, one-hour trial. If you want a wider selection of powers, the ability to use more than one power, and more time to use them (24 full hours), you need to pay up.
 * Hollywood Nerd - Pete was designed with type one of this trope in mind. Glasses? Check. Computer smarts? Check. Comic book loving? Check. Prime bullying target? Check.
 * I Know Mortal Kombat - The boys decide that since they read comic books, they can totally handle being superheroes. Not so much.
 * Irony - Doc Tempest is about to rob Fort Knox, and the kids don't have the money to buy the powers to stop him.
 * Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate - Doc Tempest. He even gets in a Not That Kind of Doctor joke at one point.
 * Nerd Glasses - Pete has these as a pair of glasses that he got as a freebie from the optometrist. He ends up having to use them after he melts holes in his original pair with laser vision.
 * Omniscient Council of Vagueness - The Council of Evil.
 * Pair the Smart Ones - Pete and the equally tech-savvy Emily seem to have feelings for each other.
 * Reptiles Are Abhorrent - Averted with their mentor, The Chameleon.
 * Stock Super Powers - The fact that these are downloadable is the driving force behind the plot. There are too many different ones used to list them all here.
 * Two Lines, No Waiting - This and Villain.net are mostly separate stories, but make occasional references to each other.