With his chiseled jaw, blond forehead curl and corn-fed good looks, The Escapist looks a lot like your prototypical superhero.

Equal parts Superman, Harry Houdini and The Shadow, The Escapist is capable of death-defying feats of escapology, worming his way out of the locks, straightjackets and death chambers of his many foes. Wearing a midnight blue costume emblazoned with the symbol of a golden key, The Escapist has devoted his life to the liberation of all who toil in chains.

Except it’s unlikely that you’ll find The Escapist on the shelves of your local comic bookstore. In reality, The Escapist is a bit of metafiction, “created” by the protagonists of Michael Chabon’s 2000 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.”

An operatic adaptation of the book, composed by former Richmonder Mason Bates, is currently nearing the end of a run at The Met as its season opener [it runs through Oct. 11].

Like the novel it’s based on, the opera tells the story of Joe Kavalier, a young Jewish refugee who flees Prague as the Nazis are taking hold of Europe. After making his way to America, the young man teams up with his cousin Sammy Klayman to seek his fortune in the then-fledgling comic book industry. Joe’s true aim to is to save enough money to bring his family to America.

Reached by phone in New York City, Bates says adapting the novel into an opera “just felt perfect.”

“It’s big, it’s sprawling, but it’s also very simple to a certain degree,” says Bates, a graduate of St. Christopher’s School, Columbia University and The Juilliard School.

Though born in Philadelphia, Bates moved to Virginia shortly thereafter and claims Richmond as home; his parents still live at his family homestead in King and Queen County.

“I might as well have been born in Richmond,” he says. “Richmond provided a great, fertile ground for me as a young artist. I grew up singing in the Episcopal church, St. Christopher’s School, attended many services at St. Stephen’s, and that choral tradition really grounded me.”

Bates, who now lives near San Francisco, says he returns to Richmond about three times a year and counts local pianist, conductor and composer Hope Armstrong Erb as a strong influence.

The process of bringing “Kavalier & Clay” to the stage began eight years ago when Peter Gelb, The Met’s general manager, approached Bates at the Santa Fe premiere of his opera “The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs” in 2017. Bates says it took him about two years to write the music for “Kavalier & Clay,” which had its world premiere last year at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.

Bates compares the show to “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

“This is unlike so many operas in its action-packed pacing,” he says. “This is a huge amount of action for an opera.”

Fans of the novel may be surprised to find that the adaptation has made some changes to the story. Joe’s younger sibling Thomas, for instance, is now Sarah; instead of being stationed in Antarctica during World War II, Joe is now sent to the European front. Bates says these changes were made to better adapt the novel for the stage.

“In order to be true to the original artform and to really honor the work, you have to break it in order to rebuild it. There’s just no way that certain elements that work beautifully in the novel would work in the opera,” he says. “In an opera, we need to see everything that happens. If a major character dies, we don’t want to learn about it in a letter.”

Bates is rare among composers for his use of synthesizers in his scores.

“For me, it’s always been about integrating it in a natural way,” he says. “It’s like another section of the orchestra that magically extends the sound.”

So far, the show’s dustups with Nazis, its Salvador Dalí cameo and dramatic kiss atop the Empire State Building during a lightning storm have proven a hit with audiences: “Right now, it’s the bestselling opera at the Metropolitan Opera,” Bates says.

Next up, Bates is working on a new piece called “The Escapist Symphony” that reinterprets elements of the score for “Kavalier & Clay”; Richmond Symphony is a co-commissioning partner. He’s also working on a musical based on the Netflix show “House of Cards.”

“That’s envisioned to be a very dark and very fun examination of these two loveable villains who rise to the presidency,” he says.

Asked about the enduring appeal of superheroes, Bates says they offer a bit of escapism during troubling times.

“This has been going on since the ’30s and ’40s and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger,” he says. “When Michael wrote this novel it was a huge event for some noble artform like the novel to examine comic books. Here we are 25 years later and it’s an even bigger world, Marvel Cinematic Universe, DC Comics and all that.

“I think there’s something about the world, when it’s got its challenges — whether it be the 1940s or now — of the simplicity of a superhero to come save us.”