Dear Simon Branson: Today is going to be a good day, and here’s why.

Oh wait, wrong show.

But a person could be forgiven for momentarily confusing “Superhero,” the new musical about a withdrawn teenager and his anxious mother, with “Dear Evan Hansen,” the hit musical about a withdrawn teenager and his anxious mother.

It’s not just that the boys’ names scan so similarly. Or that both shows are about fatherless families: Evan’s the result of divorce; Simon’s the result of an accident. The opening songs (“Anybody Have a Map?” in “Dear Evan Hansen” and “What’s Happening to My Boy?” in “Superhero”) have nearly identical emotional setups, including nearly identical phrases about mothers finding their way back to their sons.

More fundamentally, both “Superhero” and “Dear Evan Hansen” show how damaged people try to use stories, whether fictional or outright false, to rebuild themselves after trauma — and how they may create new traumas in the process.