the final vote, and all of America in a live broadcast in which the whole world had a chance to vote.
The final votes were cast by you, the TV audience, via text message. But that wasn’t all, of course—the Discards had their say as well, and their inside knowledge of what it takes to be a hero and of these two aces in particular meant their votes held extra weight—and counted for a thousand viewer votes each. Replays of the previous eleven weeks of challenges played on screens before the studio audience to remind us of where these aces have been, and what they’ve done. Throughout it all, Rosa Loteria and Stuntman waited onstage for the results. And it must be said that they both withstood the stress with heroic calm. At last, the votes were tallied, the scores computed, and Peregrine took the stage to announce the winner: Jamal Norwood, Stuntman!
Amid the cheering of the audience, Jamal was so astonished he didn’t seem to understand that he had won until Rosa hugged him, like the good sport she is. The audience erupted with celebration as Stuntman’s former teammates and rivals joined him to wish him congratulations. Jamal had this to say about his victory: “I couldn’t have done this alone. All of my teammates, everyone who challenged me, everyone who went to Egypt—we’re all heroes, every one of us,” he said.
And that says it all.
There you have it: Stuntman is the new American Hero!
A Judge’s Verdict: Thomas “Digger” Downs
So now Stuntman is the first American Hero. Hurrah, mate.
Here’s the real dirt from your old pal, Digger.
I didn’t see that coming. Even at the last I was thinking Rosa had it, but there’s no predicting the fancies of the American voting public.
If Curveball had stuck with it, she would have been a shoo-in. She had it all. Looks, a really useful power, a “good girl” personality that projected itself on screen; it was all there. But she left to play hero in Egypt instead. Too bad.
Kate will be one of the big aces. One of the ones you hear about for years. Even when this whole UN thing blows over she’ll probably be doing the ace thing for some cause or other. She’s that kind of girl. And she’ll do the good she does because of one thing, and it wasn’t because she helped the joker gods of Egypt.
Nope, the big thing she did was be on American Hero. Most of America knows who she is now. She and Drummer Boy and Rustbelt and Bubbles are important because they were on American Hero. If it wasn’t for the program, they would never have gotten together to go to Egypt. Even if they had gone to Egypt on their own, they would have been ground up piecemeal by the caliph’s forces. We taught them teamwork. We taught them how to really use their powers.
So do I think Kate should have been the American Hero? She wasn’t any of our first pick. I liked Brave Hawk, but the man is an asshole. He was always trying to stir things up and always by saying “Me too.” I don’t think he ever had an original thought.
Topper was all over the place. As long as the contestant was female, our girl Topper liked them. I sat through so many tirades about how Curveball or Rosa or Bubbles or Earth Witch or Simoon, or Dragon Huntress—or Gardener, for Christ’s sake—was the obvious winner, I’m glad a guy won—even if it is an arrogant dipstick like Stuntman.
Hammer liked Jade Blossom. I can’t fault that; the girl had potential. She never knew how to use it, though. Seems like the best thing she did was anchor a fire hose. There’s so much more she could have done with her powers, but they never seemed to occur to her.
I think maybe Stuntman won because the viewers liked watching him get munched up. He sure provided a lot of blood and bone for the ghouls, even if we did clean up a lot of it in post-production. I hear the producers are happy to have Stuntman as winner because they can put out a Stuntman DVD with all of the damage he took in unexpurgated color. Ain’t technology grand?
Probably the most inventive user of power was the Candle. You could tell he put a lot of thought into what he could do with his firepower. He’s a nice guy; finished a lot better than most nice guys. Bad luck