She Puts the Sparx in Sparx & Arrows
Kara Sparx was a character in Cobalt City that I attached myself to early on. She was mostly a minor background character in some of the initial Cobalt City books, but I wanted to do more with her. After all, she was a nerdy techie with a cool robot, and who did a lot of work with lighting and hologram projections.
The first story I wrote with Kara Sparx involved was “Unexpected Sparx,” when Kara had to save her niece from a runaway Ferris wheel during the visit of a creepy carnival to Cobalt City. In this story, she relied heavily on Lumien (her robot), her jet pack, and her zap guns.
Then I wanted to write a Kara Sparx story in which she’d come up with a device that let her travel to other worlds in the Coil, the Cobalt City multiverse. Somehow, mechas got thrown into the mix as well, and that became “Big in Japan.” That story also let me write a bit more Snowflake, who is my favorite foul-mouthed panda sidekick.
Finally, I wrote a crossover story specifically for Sparx & Arrows where Kara Sparx teamed up with the modern incarnation of the Huntsman to tie together the stories in that collection. “Blast from the Past” was Kara’s first real team-up with another superhero, and she acquitted herself admirably enough. Even after that story, though, she’d be hard pressed to call herself an active super hero. She’s just an inventor who helps out on the side of good now and then. And that’s my kind of hero!
All of the stories mentioned above can be found in Sparx & Arrows, which is available in print and ebook formats!
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