Twelve-year-old Pete Plain is an ordinary boy with an extraordinary secret who lives in a crazy town called Jericho. On the last day of school, his friend Jack gives him a powerful but illegal comic book—not to read but to hide. That afternoon the school bully shoots Jack with toxic slime. Uncertain how to help him, Pete sneaks a peek at the comic and gets drawn into a different world. There he goes on an unforgettable adventure.

When Jack discovers what Pete has done, he takes the book from him. Pete wants it back, but the forces of evil that haunt his hometown are determined to keep it from him. When Pete glimpses the ghostly grizzly dividing his family, he knows he must do something to stop it. The author of the forbidden comic books gives Pete special gifts of super sight and super speed, but will the boy from the broken home fully use those gifts or will he let himself be overcome by the bitter malady known as Sadly Absent Dad Syndrome?
Much is at stake, for the slime is deadly, and catching the bullies behind it will prove to be no easy task.