High school student Rick Riker's life has been one accident after another. Raised by his paternal uncle and his wife, Albert and Lucille Landers, in Empire City after his parents were killed in one of those accidents, Rick has only two true friends, Trey, and their next door neighbor, Jill Johnson, although he has always wished he and Jill were more than friends, she being unable to see him as boyfriend material beyond her current boyfriend, boorish Lance Landers. Otherwise, Rick is often bullied by Lance and his ilk. A series of accidents on a school field trip to the animal research facility of Amalgamated Pharmaceuticals, run by Lance's dying uncle, Lou Landers, leads to Rick getting bitten by a radioactive dragonfly, he coming to the realization after he recovers from the bite itself that it has resulted in him gaining some superhuman powers, many inherent to being a fly. Beyond needing to learn how to hone and control those powers, he having problems with what a fly of any sort inherently does, namely fly, he has to decide who to tell, he fearing telling Jill in particular would place her in danger, especially as he isn't sure if he has the heroism to become a superhero. He may have no choice but to be heroic in the residents of Empire City being under attack by someone also with superhuman powers calling himself the Hourglass. What Rick does not know is that the Hourglass is really Lou Landers, whose scientific experiment to cure himself resulted in these powers instead. However, Lou has to kill to stay alive in needing to harness the energy from those he kills, in the order of one person per day. Megalomaniac Lou learns that he has a much more desired possible goal, that of immortality through murder on a grand scale.