Thirteen-year-old Trevor Kennedy has endured bullying at school for as long as he can remember. But where Trevor once silently tolerated the jabs and name-calling, now anger surges through him in ways he's powerless to control. Only Crystal, a store clerk dealing with her own loss, sees the deep fissures in the Kennedy family --- in the haunting photographs Trevor brings to be developed.

In 1939 New York, a young artist who also has been trained in the art of Houdini-esque escape, teams up with his cousin teams up with his cousin to create a great American literary product --- the comic book. As the shadow of Hitler falls over Europe and ultimately the world, the boys end up immersed in the Golden Age of Comic Books, finding greater fame and more trouble than they could ever have imagined.