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It’s 1988, and it’s eleven-year-old Tommy Grant’s last summer before entering junior high. It turns out to be a memorable season for all the wrong reasons though, as his incessantly feuding parents mull over divorce and his best friend dumps him. Things don’t get better during the new school year, as bullies target him and he becomes a social outcast. Tommy takes solace in his fandom of Order of Cosmic Champions, an animated sci-fi TV series that lives on in comic books and action figures. He also pins his hopes on a contest in which a winning design for a new OoCC character could score him a college scholarship, the chance to be president for a day at the parent company's headquarters, and the chance to see his design made into a toy. The eventual results of this competition lead him to a rash decision: to secretly travel to Brooklyn, New York alone to convince a stranger to make a dream come true. Along with the inherent dangers of hitchhiking, the imaginative youth faces inner demons that manifest as menacing OoCC villains, including Mechani-Ghoul, the rather vicious robotic character that he created. He’ll have to fight off these baddies if he wants any shot at reaching his destination. Meanwhile, back in Ohio, Miranda Vitalis, a new girl in school who’s taken a shine to oblivious Tommy, is worried about him. As she hunts for clues to where he’s gone, she may have to confront his parents, who’ve all but ignored their now-runaway child.
