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Wattpad brings you a guest post from Darrell Pitt, author of The Steampunk Detective and Diary of A Teenage Superhero:

How would you feel if you saw a man flying across the city skyline?

New Yorkers were recently faced with this issue when a marketing company set up some remote controlled figures to fly over the city of New York to promote the movie Chronicle. It must have been an eerie sight. After all, flying people are not something you see every day of the week.

The power to fly would be astonishing in itself, but what would it be like to have a range of superpowers like Superman or Green Lantern or Captain America? Would you use those powers for good? Or would you use them for evil?

Power like that can be intoxicating. You probably recall the scene in Spiderman where Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben says, “With great power comes great responsibility.” It’s not too surprising that the idea is not new. Many writers have expressed similar sentiments. Among them, John Acton, a British Lord wrote to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887 saying, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”

Peter Parker learns about responsibility the hard way.

That’s an interesting idea – great men are almost always bad men. Is that why so many politicians are so poorly regarded? Is that why movie stars and singers and powerful business people so easily fall from grace? Is it because their powers are so great and yet we see them to be all too human in their failings?

In 1986 Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons released their groundbreaking comic book series Watchmen. In this series (and the movie of the same name) we are faced with an alternative Earth where superheroes are real. In fact, not only are they real, but they are just like you and me. Except for one person – Doctor Manhattan – they don’t have superpowers and are driven by desires far more complex than justice and freedom.

The characters from Watchmen.

Some of them are insecure. Some are psychotic. Others are vigilantes working with the government. Still others operate so far beyond the law they are more like criminals than the evildoers they pursue.

The movie Chronicle follows a similar concept. In it, three ordinary teenagers receive strange powers and we get to see how they deal with their amazing abilities. Do they use them for good? Or do they become their own version of a super villain? You’ll have to see the movie to find out.

Suffice to say that super powers don’t necessarily make us better people.

How would you feel if you encountered someone with the ability to fly? Or someone who had super strength? More than likely you might feel a little afraid. Probably very afraid. There might even be laws to control people with such power. They might even be automatically regarded as villains.

In my book, Diary of a Teenage Superhero, I explore the ideas of giving a group of teenagers, super powers. They mostly choose to use their powers for good, but they could just as easily use their powers for their own ends. In the sequel, The Doomsday Device, we see our heroes as they are drawn back into the clutches of The Agency. I’m currently working on the third book in the series and it’s due to be released sometime later this year.

The cover of the sequel to Diary of a Teenage Superhero - The Doomsday Device.

What will happen to Axel and Brodie and Chad and their friends? Will they continue to fight for truth and justice? Or will they be corrupted – possibly even consumed – by power? There’s one thing I will tell you. There are tough times ahead for our team and not everyone is going to survive the journey.

Until next time, good luck and happy reading.

Contact Darrell and check out his stories on Wattpad!