Idea for a superhero supervillain short story anthology

For some time now, I’ve had the desire to edit and publish an anthology of short stories written by others. I don’t want to do a general sci-fi or horror themed collection, though; I want to be much more particular - to create a mythology that has enough scope for a great variation of stories. I think it was Machine of Death that got my mind turning in this direction. I’ve been musing upon several ideas, and I want to share what I think is the strongest one with you.

Imagine an experimental prison facility where the inmates are required to undergo a surgical operation on their brains that accelerates their thought processes to ten times normal speed. However, the convicts feel completely normal inside their own heads, as if they are processing thoughts at normal speed. So, how would they perceive the world around them? In slow motion. Now, what’s the purpose of all this? To reduce the problem of prison overcrowding; to get convicts in and out of prison as quickly as possible and yet still give them appropriate punishment. And so, a ten-year prison sentence can be served in the space of one year; a twenty-year stretch in two. On completion of a sentence, each convict will be given a second operation on his brain, returning his thoughts to normal, before he is released back to society.

Since this is an experimental prison - the first of its kind - there are some unexpected side-effects. The convicts develop the ability to control the speed of their own thoughts; it’s like being able to slow down and speed up time itself by an act of the will. (I’m also toying with giving them the ability to astral project their souls out of their bodies, but the jury’s still out on that one.) The inmates keep this ability hidden from the prison authorities.

Then one day there is a mass prison break, and let’s say one hundred of these men (and women?) are now at large in society. Imagine all those thieves, rapists, murderers walking free, with a massive tactical advantage over anyone who would hunt them down. Imagine getting into a fist-fight and being able to see every blow coming in slow motion. Imagine seeing bullets tearing through the air towards you and being able to dodge (bearing in mind that the human body is still acting in realtime and you won’t be able to move at ten times the normal speed; what you will have, by all appearances, is lightning reflexes, but you certainly won’t be The Flash). Imagine being surrounded by a SWAT team and being able to slow time down a near standstill, allowing you to observe all of your enemies’ positions and plan your escape with careful patience.

Is this mythology strong enough to span fifteen to twenty original stories? Stories about these extraordinary evil men and the ordinary people whose job is to catch them (and any more diverse scenarios that other writers can think of). The idea originated in a piece of X-Files fan fiction that I wrote a decade ago, called Reflex - a story about Mulder and Scully on the trail of a bullet-dodging rapist (published in a small press zine called RQC). The idea was brought to the front of my mind again recently when playing the videogame F.E.A.R., where your character has the ability to slow time down for brief periods while engaging in combat. I’m also fascinated with the notion of bad guys being the only people with “super powers” (of course, there is scope for one of those stories about the innocent man wrongfully incarcerated); the good guys must use cunning and ingenuity, rather than an alternative super-power, to win the day (although I wouldn’t rule out the appearance of actual superheroes, if the story is good enough).

I’m not giving this project a definite green light just yet. This post is me putting the feelers out, to see what others think. Marketing-wise, I reckon the time is right for such an anthology, as superheroes are very much in vogue these days. But is my take on the genre worth pursuing? Comments and suggestions most welcome.