Letter from the Editors:

Dearest Readers,

Look up in the sky! There, above the shelves and moving through the clouds. Is it a bird? A plane? Or some sort of bird-plane hybrid? No, it’s the 16th issue of Deep Overstock: Superheroes!

Thank you for donning your capes, your masks, your tights, and saving us in this tumultuous time with your stories and poems on caped crusaders, vigilantism, and superpowers.

This issue is full of BAM! super men, WHAM! wonderous women, ZAP! a couple of babies, and it all adds up to a team-up of epic proportions. No villains could stop what you’ve created in these pages.

But now, put down that radioactive waste vat and continue looking up in the sky, for something’s a-buzzing: it’s bees! Beads? No, bees as in beekeeping, the theme for Issue 17. So call us your queen and feed us that royal jelly called your submissions. We cannot wait to read what you send us, honey.

Yours, until felled by our arch-nemeses,
Deep Overstock Editors

Cover art by Viviann Ruiz.

Listen to the pieces: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5

Gale Acuff – Superhero; Superman
Vincent A. Alascia – Damien Strong
Maev Barba – The Neighborhood Watch
Audra Burwell – Lavender Dreams; Wrath of a Druidess
Avary Clemont – The Hooded Jackal
Mickey Collins – The Book-Stellar and Cat-a-log concept art
Ben Crowley – The Blood; The Man Made of Stone
Doug – Vin
Patricia Dutt – Superbaby
Lynette G. Esposito – You’re Almost a Super Hero, Dad
Anna Laura Falvey – Mother Flood; My Mother, a Bionic
Kate Falvey – Annie Rescues Herself; Hell is Empty and My Daughter Saves the Day; Nancy Drew Among the Amazons; Spinsters
Phyllis Hemann – Mystique Exposed; On Loan from the Sky; Unbreakable
CJ Huntington – Requiem for a Radicalized Superman
Lucy Jayes – Villanelle
Wit Lee – A superhero’s contemplation
Aurora Lewis – The Chocolate Drop
Lance Manion – unrescuable
Karla Linn Merrifield – Among the Heroic Super-Stars; Context is Everything; What would I change in the world if I could?
Jen Mierisch – How Joe “The Nose” Mulligan Survived 2020
Timothy Arliss OBrien – I’m a superstar, and super high, but superhero?
Farnilf P. – No One is Wise — Possible Magical Antidote #1
Michael Santiago – The Invincible Bastard
Bob Selcrosse – The Golden Bureaucrat; I Can Be Your Hero Baby
Rob D. Smith – Don’t Steal a Kiss from a Queen
E.T. Starmann – The Powers of Outer Space
Eric Thralby – The Little Villain That Could (But Could Only Do Good)
Alex Werner – Everything I learned in life I learned twice
Nicholas Yandell – A Public Service Announcement On Behalf of All Your Heroic Friends

Editorial

Editors-In-Chief: Mickey Collins & Robert Eversmann
Managing Editors: Michael Santiago & Z.B. Wagman
Poetry: Jihye Shin
Prose: Michael Santiago & Z.B. Wagman
Additional copyediting: Melissa Kermann