A tie-in comic book, 9th Wonders, details one hero's experiences before they happen. Its website (www.9thWonders.com) has a comic-book look; the Heroes website at NBC.com features accompanying graphic novels.

Kring pays homage, too, by referring to each episode of Heroes (tonight, 9 ET/PT) as a chapter and sometimes filming from extreme angles common to the print form.

"It has to lean into the comic-book world by its nature. You're doing a show about people who have superpowers," he says.

Those include flight, indestructibility, telepathy, prescience and teleportation. As the unrelated individuals — from a Las Vegas stripper to a Texas cheerleader to a Japanese office drone — discover their powers, they are surprised, confused, sometimes displeased and not thinking in heroic terms at all.

Most people in that situation "would go to a doctor or a shrink," Kring says.

The comic-book sensibility has attracted the cult fans, but Heroes also is drawing more casual viewers, averaging 13.5 million in its first two broadcasts. NBC has picked up the show, one of the most-watched new series, for a full season.

"There is a large, serialized, character-based nature to the show that we're hoping will interest people" who aren't comic-book aficionados, says Kring, whose other series, Crossing Jordan, has nothing to do with the genre. "You don't watch television for the special effects. TV is really about bringing people into your home, characters you can connect to, relate to, root for or root against."

Heroes ties the powers and personalities together. Niki (Ali Larter), a single mother who owes money, is struggling to make ends meet. Her power: to be in two places at once. Hiro (Masi Oka) discovers he can move through space and time, a great escape for someone trapped in his job. And indestructibility, or any power, is a burden on high school cheerleader Claire (Hayden Panettiere).

"The last thing a teen wants is to be different," Kring says.

The characters and their powers are just the start. Already, some are inadvertently crossing paths, and a villain is working in the shadows. A nuclear explosion may be on the horizon.

And the mutants themselves are mutable, Kring says. They can die, lose their powers and turn to good or evil. "What you do with these powers is up to you. There's a free will attached to it."

Jeph Loeb, a co-executive producer with strong comic-book credentials, says the hero concept goes beyond comic books and TV shows to a mythic past. Heroes have long offered a story of hope to help people in confusing times, he says.

"Historically, we've found the human condition will find a way to rise up above calamity," Loeb says. "Somehow, the best of us suddenly shines, and the hero is born."

On a more prosaic level, Loeb and other comic-book veterans working on Heroes can tell comic neophyte Kring when an idea veers into another book or movie.

"At one point, (Tim) said there should be a guy who could pick up a car and throw it in the air, using his magnetic power," Loeb says. "I said, 'Tim, that's Magneto (of the X-Men).' He turned to me and said, 'Is that a person or a power?' "

Superpowers are integral to comic books, but the best works embrace character, too, Loeb says.

"What makes Spider-Maninteresting is who Peter Parker is, that his life is completely out of control," he says. "If you ask people who Superman is, they will tell you his power. Ask who Clark Kent is and they can tell you about his life."