Okay, I must confess. Not only have I been a huge Wild Cards fan since its inception, I have already read about half of the stories in this most recent collection. I never get tired of visiting and revisiting this world because I've always loved superheroes, and spent a lot of time imagining being one, and Wild Cards is great for that purpose.

Just as with other superhero universes, I have favorite characters, superpowers I would love to have, and events in that universe that I enjoy reading about. Plus there are so many great stories to tell since all of them take place on a global scale. No, its not an overwhelmingly positive universe. Its sometimes tragic and frightening, but that just makes the more positive outcomes of many of these stories that much more meaningful.

This book is focused on the stories of those humans who received functional (i.e. useful) superpowers. I really enjoyed Marko Kloos Berlin is Never Berlin which features a shapeshifting security specialist and Carrie Vaughn's The Thing About Growing Up In Jokertown, a coming of age story of a young ace woman whose friends are Jokers, but my favorite was Walton Simon's The City That Never Sleeps, which backtracks to 1986, and features a hitman named The Spector.

The Wild Card universe is every bit as deep, and well worth a good read, as any of the stories within the Marvel and DC universes.