I actually thought it was, and critiqued it as, a completed short story. In fact, I believe WEKM said something about it going into a short story contest. Or maybe I'm confused...
I didn't think it seemed rushed, and I didn't feel the plot twists were too predictable. I didn't see them coming (but I'm also not familiar with superhero story tropes. Does that matter?). Actually, I'm a little less certain about Kevin being Nobel's son. I didn't have a problem with it while reading, but thinking about it I do sort of have an "Of COURSE Kevin is his son" sort of reaction.
I'm just going to cut and paste my comments, they're not organized in anyway except as reader reactions. I just wrote things down as I went through the story.
I also let myself be picky because I you mentioned you were submitting it. My extensive comments don't mean I don't like the story, because I most certainly did. Also, I'm sorry this critique runs a little long:
You should probably format the report at the beginning differently. Just to make it clear that this isn’t prose, but is part of the story. (And I didn’t mind that it came right at the beginning of the story. I don’t know where else you’d put it, in fact.)
I like Nobel testing Kevin, but I’m not entirely sure that this is the place. It seemed a bit strange that he would grill someone who just walked into his office with a question. And then I wondered about it again when he made the remark about “that’s why I assigned you to go through those files”. Now it seems as if he assigned Kevin those files BECAUSE of his tendency to question. If that’s the case, shouldn’t he have tested him before he ever assgined him the files?
While telling Kevin about Blaster, Nobel switches suddenly to talking about the Patriot, and I’m not certain why. It seems a total nonsequitur when it isn’t. I think it’s only a problem because it takes a paragraph or tw, for him to make the connection.
Nobel’s remark about Madam Destiny stealing the “always in motion the future is” saying also seems out of place. Funny, but in the wrong spot.
The absolute detail Nobel is going into about the kidnapping of Blaster’s family also seems a bit out of place. I was willing to let it go by until Nobel started including the dialogue. I just can’t make that make sense. (Even assuming that Nobel knew Blaster, and later realizing that Nobel IS Blaster, I can’t make it make sense)
On the other hand, as I continue reading I see just why you wanted to give us the dialogue here. I think it is more effective this way, it’s just weird having Nobel say it.
Patriot told Blaster that his family wouldn’t last a tenth of four seconds. Yet his daughter still had time to call out, “Daddy, it hurts”.
Kevin’s textbook answer about the Kansas crater seems a bit like an information dump to me. I like the way the revelation was done though, you could probably fix this just by cutting out a bit of the detail there. The soil-into-glass bit, as cool as it was, could probably go.
I like the quick way Blaster finished off Patriot. Nobel giving the dialogue didn’t bug me as much this time. It still seems weird when I think about it, but didn’t drag me out of the story this time.
When Kevin asks if he can ask Nobel questions, Nobel goes off talking about how he’d be a hypocrite if he said no. Which is true, but it seems kinda like he went off on a rant.
I think you prepared us really well for the Nobel-as-Blaster revelation. As Nobel was talking, I kept getting the feeling that Nobel knew Blaster very well, but was still surprised. It does seem that Kevin had very little to go on in making that assumption, though. Of course, we get very little of Blaster’s emotional reaction, just his dialogue. Seeing Kevin process Nobel’s tone of voice, his gestures, and facial expressions, could probably go a long way towards making this seem more believable.
Oh. The point-of-view does skitter between Nobel and Kevin. I don’t think it’s a problem, didn’t mind it while I was reading it, but I do wonder – what would happen if you picked one or the other?
That's it from me. Finally, I know.