The Best Scarlet Knight Power (Guest Post!) From a REAL AUTHOR! *rubs hands together, makes plan to grab onto coattails.*

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that one lucky commenter will receive a free PDF copy of the book from PT Dilloway.  So comment away! I have no idea what the rules are for the comments.  I'll get back to you on that.  But get a-commentin'!

Today's post is, as the headline announces, a guest post by amazing author PT Dilloway.  If you read his blog, you know that for the past few months he has, in his own grumpy way, been promoting the publication of what will hopefully be the first of many books featuring the hero he created, The Scarlet Knight:

Who, as you can see, meets all the requisite superhero criteria: (1) Cape (2) Brooding look (3) Hot body.

You've done it, PT!  Now, let's hear from the author himself:

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First of all, thanks to Briane for having me today!

I’m pretty sure Mr. Pagel has at some point already determined “The Best Superpower.”  I’m not sure what he came up with.  Maybe it will be the one I come up with for the hero in my novel A Hero’s Journey.

The hero of my novel is called the Scarlet Knight.  Her power comes from a suit of magic red plate armor found in the sub-subbasement of the Plaine Museum of Natural History in our New York-type city, Rampart City.  The armor was created about four thousand years ago by Merlin the wizard—yes, that Merlin the wizard from Arthurian legends and all that.  Merlin provided the armor with a number of helpful attributes to help the wearer battle the evil Black Dragoon.

So here are those attributes:

• The armor is impervious to all weapons except magic/holy weapons.
• The armor also gives its wearer augmented strength, speed, and endurance
• The armor speeds healing of injuries and can even cure some ailments like nearsightedness or asthma
• The helmet is equipped with night vision to see in the dark
• The cape allows the wearer to become invisible to human eyes
• The cape also works as a parachute
• The gloves can stick to walls to allow the wearer to climb up any solid surface
• The gloves also can open any traditional, mechanical lock, not the fancy laser or computer kinds
• The boots allow the wearer to jump really high and far
• The Scarlet Knight’s weapon is the Sword of Justice, which can cut through anything from this planet/dimension
• The Sword of Justice can also be guided remotely by the Scarlet Knight’s mind
• (But the Scarlet Knight can’t fly.  So there.)

Yeah, that’s a lot of powers!

Which one of these is the best?

Going down the list, a few can be eliminated because they have drawbacks.  Like the first one.  The armor is impervious to damage—except magic/holy weapons.  That includes the claws of the evil Black Dragoon, which sort of makes it a moot point.  The armor does heal injuries—over time.  If you get disemboweled or beheaded it can’t save you.    The cape can turn the wearer invisible—only to human eyes.  Unfortunately Merlin came up with this power before the advent of video surveillance, so cameras can see through the cape.  The gloves can open locks—but only like padlocks or other mechanical ones.  If you’re up against a combination lock or a computerized one?  You’re outta luck.

And sure the Sword of Justice can cut through anything—of this planet and dimension.  That may not seem like a problem, but what happens if you have to fight an alien?  Or someone from a parallel universe?  That doesn’t come up in the first novel, but it rears its head later in the series.

So we can eliminate those powers as being the “best” because it can’t really be the best if it’s not going to work all the time.

The augmented strength, speed, and endurance is nice, but we’re not talking Superman here.  The night vision is good, unless you’re in a brightly-lit area and then it’s kind of useless.  The gloves can stick to walls, which is great for climbing; if you’re not Spider-Man it’s not always that useful.  Guiding the Sword of Justice with your mind is neat, but it takes a lot of practice to get it to work effectively.

Overall I think the jumping is the best feature because it’s the most useful.  Why?  Because unlike Superman, the Scarlet Knight doesn’t fly.  She doesn’t shoot webs out of her hands either to swing around.  And she doesn’t have billions of dollars for cars, planes, or jetpacks or anything like that.  So how does she get around the city?  It involves a lot of jumping, which is aided by the fact that Rampart City is an old, crowded city so the buildings are usually close together.  A lot of those buildings are also pretty high too, so it helps to be able to jump really high.  Though by the end of the book she gets another means of transportation, so maybe I’ve negated my own argument.

If we’re talking about just the coolest feature, the sword would win hands down.  I mean come on, it’s a sword!

If you want to learn more about the Scarlet Knight’s powers, you can buy my book from Solstice Publishing here.  The book is also available from other retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  To find out more about A Hero’s Journey including character bios, deleted scenes, and a visitor’s guide to Rampart City visit my blog, PT Dilloway: Tales Of The Scarlet Knight.

And if you haven’t got enough of my spiel, I’ll be guesting on Thinking the Lions tomorrow!

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Me again: A few things.  First, I'm 60% through the book, and it's an enjoyable, fast-paced story that somehow combines old-school comic-book style superherory (it's a word!) with magic and witty dialogue and [SPOILER ALERT! THERE'S A SUBPLOT I BELIEVE INVOLVING CORRUPTION.].  I heartily recommend this book.

Second, as PT said, check out Thinking The Lions tomorrow to find out whether PT can make a connection between superheroes and cheeseburgers.  [SPOILER ALERT! NOW I AM HUNGRY FOR A CHEESEBURGER.]

Also, while you're here, check out these superhero related posts.  I mean, what're you going to do, go back to work? Huh. I didn't think so.  It's Friday.  Nobody works on Friday.  It's in the Bible.

The Best Weird Superhero

The Best Superhero, New Nominee

The Best Anthropomorphic Animal Superhero

The Best Misunderstood Comics Character Who's Not Actually A Villain.

The Best Superhero Gadget

 And, while The Scarlet Knight will certainly factor into the voting, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that for something like seven years now there's been an off-and-on running debate about who is The Best Superhero: This link will take you to a set of all the posts discussing each nominee. But feel free to leave in the comments your own suggestions, which I will then re-post because I am lazy and like to get credit for putting up a post that other people wrote.

Once again: LET'S HAVE A BIG HAND FOR PT!