Teen outcast Andy is an orphaned nobody with only one friend, the obnoxious-but loyal-Louie. They roam school halls and city streets, invisible to everyone but bullies and tormentors, until the glorious day when Andy takes his first puff on a cigarette. The Death-Ray employs the staples of the superhero genre-origin, costume, ray gun, sidekick, fight scene-and reconfigures them in a story that is anything but morally simplistic. (W/A/CA) Daniel Clowes