Dispensing Justice

In 1947, a near-Earth supernova's wavefront washes the solar system with cosmic radiation. Thirty seven years later, high school freshman Michael Gurick's father is killed combating cyborg supervillains. With a little help from his friends, Michael takes up his father's super-identity to seek justice against the cyborgs who killed his father-or will it be revenge? (Illustrations by Matt Howarth)

Long description:
Michael is just another high school freshman genius concealing his potential until the day his father--secretly a superhero and member of the crime fighting Nova League, is killed in battle. Suppressed grief turns to confusion when a nearly perfect duplicate of his father picks Michael up after school. At home they find Michael's mother is on the brittle edge of a breakdown, refusing to acknowledge that she too saw her husband die and playing along with the duplicate's charade. A family melt-down is averted by the timely arrival of Michael's oldest friend Penny and her family armed with a casserole, salad, and pie. Penny's mother--another secret member of the Nova League--imposes domestic peace with the same practiced ease that she fights supervillains, albeit with fewer broken bones.
In the days that follow, Michael only wants to retreat to the secret lab beneath his suburban home and prepare for vengeance upon his father's killers. A run-in with members of the varsity football squad leads to a pummeling and the realization that fitting into his father's old battle-suit isn't the only leverage he needs. He needs a master plan for wreaking justice. Falling for the blind daughter of his martial arts instructor isn't part of the plan, nor is fending off the well-meaning attacks of Penny's twin younger siblings before they fatally cheer him up. His life and the plan become more complex as his best friend starts to develop powers, and doubly so when he finds out that his father's legacy was more than just a battle-suit and a place to hang it, but the well-being of the supers community as well.
Michael's story plays out in Nova Genesis, a world that diverged from ours in 1947 when a supernova bathed our system in deadly cosmic rays. Without the intervention of the interstellar civilization of the Galactics, life on Earth would have been wiped out. Instead, humanity is altered, a few made more--or less--than human. Thirty-seven years later the second generation of supers born on Earth are starting to come into their powers. Michael and his friends, some reluctantly, some enthusiastically, find themselves becoming part of a new generation of heroes.