Books with title Gladiator's Secret

Originally Published: 1930"The lusty life of an uninhibited superman!"A scientist invents a serum to improve humankind by granting the proportionate strength of an ant and the leaping ability of the grasshopper. He injects his pregnant wife with the serum, and his son Hugo Danner is born with superhuman strength, speed, and bulletproof skin.The novel is widely accepted to have been an inspiration for Superman.

Hugo Danner was the pulp prototype of the modern superman. He was stronger than the mythic heroes of old and nigh invulnerable. He had superhuman speed and he could leap like a grasshopper. He was a circus strongman who put his god-like powers to the task of helping others, which began as an attempt to win wars for his country, but was later focused on holding our corrupt leaders to account for their dismissal of the common man’s struggle. In many ways that description is fitting of the original Superman, but while Hugo Danner arose at the dawn of the age of the superhero, he actually predates all of them. Hugo was introduced in Philip Wylie’s GLADIATOR, a pulp novel published in 1930, eight years before the introduction of his comic book counterparts. Hugo Danner’s origins are much more grounded than Superman’s. He is not sent from the Heavens to protect us and his powers are not naturally gifted by the sun. He actually owes his origins to a much more modern and terrestrial myth: Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN. Like the monster created by the titular character of Shelley’s novel, Hugo Danner’s powers are the product of science. His father vaccinated his pregnant mother with a formula derived from Alkaline Radicals so that their child would be born with preternatural powers. Hugo’s quest to put his power to purpose drives him to join the French Foreign Legion and fight in World War I, but even his strength proves insufficient to mitigate the horrors of war. In what is likely his greatest similarity to the Golden Age Superman, Hugo decides to direct his efforts toward social issues. This runs him afoul of crooked politicians and freedom fighters who are more concerned with their causes than they are with the people those causes are meant to support. GLADIATOR predicts the coming of the superhero by envisioning Hugo as a circus strongman in tights. Though Danner never dons the costume of a circus performer in his exploits, the imagery exists in the book as a subtle proof of concept. In the end, the tragedy of Frankenstein’s monster predicts Hugo Danner’s fate. He travels in search of answers and ultimately succumbs to his own despair. On the one hand, Hugo is faced with the prospect of perpetual personal loneliness and isolation. On the other, he must consider the potential horror of a world where other creatures such as himself are brought into existence. Unlike Superman, whose never-ending battle inspires scores of super-powered imitators who share his passion for two-fisted justice, Hugo has seen how difficult it can be to do good even when you have all the greatest power and all the noblest intentions. GLADIATOR leaves us with the question of how the world might benefit from the coming of a superman. It also gives us room to doubt if such a man could ever be happy here.

Gladiator concerns a scientist who invents an "alkaline free-radical" serum to "improve" humankind by granting the proportionate strength of an ant and the leaping ability of the grasshopper. The scientist injects his pregnant wife with the serum and his son Hugo Danner is born with superhuman strength, speed, and bulletproof skin. Hugo spends much of the novel hiding his powers, rarely getting a chance to openly use them. The novel is widely assumed to have been an inspiration for Superman, though no confirmation exists that Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were influenced by it.

Special promotion for this week: $0.99 instead of $2.99!Mark Levine has been called many names during his twelve short years on earth: Geek, Nerd, Dork, Four-Eyes, Shorty, Scarecrow, Smart-ass. No one ever called him Gladiator.But when he wakes up one morning in ancient Rome, trapped in the body of Marcus Livius, a legionary who was foolish enough to steal money from his commanding officer, he is about to discover some new truths. They didn't serve cereal for breakfast in Rome. Sense of humor was not appreciated. And Mark will have to fight for his life.Hilarious adventure story, that will take you to ancient Rome and back before you'll even notice. Friendship, courage, dangers and laughs, all combined together.

“‘What would you do if you were the strongest man in the world, the strongest thing in the world, mightier than the machine?’ He made himself guess answers for that rhetorical inquiry. ‘I would run the universe single-handed. I would scorn the universe and turn it to my own ends. I would be a criminal. I would rip open banks and gut them. I would kill and destroy. I would be a secret, invisible blight. I would set out to stamp crime off the earth.’” Hugo Danner is the strongest man on earth, the result of a monstrous experiment by his scientist father. Nearly invulnerable, he can run faster than a train, leap higher than trees, lift a wrecked vehicle to rescue its pinned driver, and hurl boulders like baseballs. His remarkable abilities, however, cannot gain him what he desires most—acceptance—for Hugo Danner is desperately lonely, shunned and feared for his enormous strength. An enduring classic in speculative fiction and the reported inspiration for the original comic hero, Superman, Gladiator is a melancholic tale of a boy set apart because of his unique gift and his lifelong struggle to come to terms with it.