The inspiration behind “Refurbished: The Clover Initiative”

If you follow me on Instagram and other forms of social media, you know that I have been working on my debut novel for quite some time. You also probably know that book one, Refurbished: The Clover Initiative will come out later this year. It’s taken me about three years to really solidify the story and seriously think about publishing, but the book has been in my mind for a lot longer.

I filled my childhood with superhero stories. The idea of suddenly developing abilities or being born with them delighted me, but mostly, I loved the stories of extraordinary people saving the world. Among all my Spider-Man comics, Batman: The Animated Series VHSes, and Saturday mornings spent watching Static Shock and Justice League cartoons, there was a superhero team that always stood out the most.

Stan Lee, Denver Comic Con, June 2016 by howdoyourespond

I grew up watching reruns of the 1990s X-Men: The Animated Series (cue epic intro music). I’d watch this show religiously since my parents installed cable TV at home. I loved to see a group of superheroes that were so diverse. The X-Men were not the paragons of justice that I was used to seeing from DC comics. They were imperfect heroes because they were regular people who had to be shaped into heroes. Society had no place for them because they were born different, so many of the X-Men had to figure out their own path and find their chosen family among other mutants. The idea of outsiders growing into heroes fascinated me.

That fascination accompanied me throughout my life, so when I set out to write a new book, I looked at X-Men for inspiration. I wanted to create a team of superheroes that would have to forge their way into society. I wanted them to be diverse in superpowers, nationalities, races, genders, and ages. But mostly I wanted them to be misfits and underdogs, trying to figure their way into becoming their own people and, ultimately, heroes. Thus, the Refurbished Saga was born.

When Stan Lee created the X-Men, he wanted people to see diversity as a positive trait, so he wrote an anti-bigotry story about superheroes. I want my readers to take a similar message from my writing. I want to remind people that, “there’s no such thing as somebody who is bad just because he or she is different.”