Fringe went very well last night. The podcasts will be up early in June. In the meantime I note that something interesting appears to be happening. Last month Jonathan L. Howard read a story from his Goon Squad series, featuring a Manchester-based superhero team. Last night Cavan Scott read from an as yet unfinished novel about a superhero team called Omega Squadron. The section that Cavan read featured two of the team in battle in Cabot Circus, a shopping mall in Bristol that boasts a number of high-end stores such as Harvey Nichols.

This struck me as rather significant. I’ve been hearing for years that superheroes are an intrinsically American genre that just doesn’t work in the UK. Now suddenly two teams have come along at once, as if they were London buses. And of course not long ago we had Samit Basu’s magnificent Turbulence, featuring Indian superheroes.

So what has changed? Do we suddenly want a part of the Hollywood action? Or has British culture simply just warmed to the idea of crime fighters in spandex? Whatever the reason, I’m rather pleased. And I hope that Cavan’s novel finds a publisher.