Month: September 2002

Firestorm: World’s Dumbest Hero

Matthew 8 Comments

I read a lot of comic books when I was younger, including some of the worst ever invented. Cloak and Dagger. Blue Devil. At one point I even started collecting Power Pack, fer crissakes. But even amongst such illustrious company, Firestorm: The Nuclear Man still stands out as the one of the most spectatularly ill-conceived heroes of all time.

For the uninitiated, Firestorm was a major DC character back in the 80’s: he had his own monthly series, was a member of the Justice League of America, and even appeared on the Superfriends from time to time. He also had the world’s most ridiculous power. But before I describe this ability to you, let’s briefly discuss the scourge of “Power Inflation,” shall we?

Power Inflation occurs when a superhero has a nebulous or poorly-defined set of abilities. Take, as a counterexample, Green Arrow (or “Hawkeye” if you will). Here you have a guy who can do one and only one thing: shoot arrows really, really well. Writers can try and spice up his series by adding a bunch of crazy new missiles, like the Boxing Glove Arrow or The Arrow That Makes A Delicious Tamale Pie, but ultimately the main character is the same arrow-shooting dude issue after issue after issue.

Then, on the other hand, you have characters like “The Flash”. The Flash has what seems to be a fairly unambiguous power — he can move really fast — but Power Inflation eventually caught up with even this dynamo. At first all he did was run around and disarm crooks before they could fire their guns. But then writers began to allow him to do all sorts of other stuff, like run on water and run up the sides of buildings (on the premise that gravity wouldn’t have time to affect him before he reached the other side of the pond or the rooftop). Then someone announced that The Flash could vibrate his molecules so quickly that they (the molecules) could pass unhindered through solid matter. And it was all downhill from there. Given the ability to “vibrate his molecules” at different frequencies, Flash was suddenly able to travel to other dimensions, to travel through time, to swim in lava, etc. Furthermore, writers kept stepping on his acceleration pedal, to the point where The Flash was a light-speed-moving molecule-vibrating time-traveling force of nature.

You can see how this could be a problem for a writer. First of all, the average length of a Flash comic should really only be one panel, as he wraps up the entire story in .00000056 seconds. Second, they had to keep introducing more and more powerful villians just to keep things interesting. One day they just gave up on standard villains and introduced “Reverse Flash,” who was just exactly like Flash except — and this was the crucial distinction — bad. (You could tell he was bad because his costume was the opposite colors of The Flash!) Reverse-Flash became Flash’s arch-nemesis, and so now you had these two guys with the exact same powers duking it out month after month, making the whole thing about as interesting as a fist fight in a parking lot.

Eventually they did what they always do when Power Inflation gets out of control: they killed the hero and started over. After The Flash kicked the bucket a new Flash took his place, this one with a speed limit. (The new Flash could only run at the speed of sound and couldn’t do any of that new-fangled molecule vibratin’). Later they killed Superman, and then resurrected him all humble and stuff; Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) — who, by this time, was pretty much invicible with his Magic Ring O’ Kickass — went berserk, after which they brought in a new, inexperienced, depowered Green lantern to take his place; Heck, they even bumped off Green Arrow and replaced him with someone who could shoot arrows less really really well.

Okay, so: Firestorm. “Firestorm: The Nuclear Man’s” power was “the ability to rearrange the atomic structure of matter”. That’s right. He would point his finger at a gun and the gun would turn into a Rubix Cube. His “weakness,” supposedly, was that he couldn’t affect organic matter, meaning that he couldn’t just turn a jaywaker into a mango. But he could (and did) “rearrange the atomic structure” of the air around bad guys so that they were suddenly standing in a cloud of sleeping gas or a giant iron cage. And the prohibition against organic matter didn’t extend to his own body, so he could rearrange his own molecular matter to turn into, you know, whatever — a tank or huge butterfly net or The Flash. Oh, and he could fly. And he could alter the density of objects, including himself. And he could shoot bolts of nuclear energy. And absorb radiation and explosions, theyby rendering them harmlessly. He was, in short, “Firestorm: The He Can Do Anything He Damn Well Pleases Man”.

He reminds me of no one so much as this guy

The writers of Firestorm eventually just threw up their hands and said “Ahhhhhhh, okay: he’s a God,” at which point he became even more powerful (although I dunno how — maybe he could now flawlessly filter spam or something). And then a bunch of stuff happened after I stopped reading comic books. And now he’s an alcoholic underwear model. I kid you not.

Craneflies: It’s What’s For Dinner

Matthew

Speaking of tasty snacks, the advent of fall can only mean one thing in the Baldwin household: a tenfold increase in insect consumption. Our home tends to be one big moth-attended rave all year ’round, and autumn brings a steady influx of delicious-and-nutritious craneflies, to the great delight of our cat. As Louie sees it, nature has provided him with an unlimited supply of winged kitty treats: they are the same size and consistency as the storebrand snacks, plus they have a satisfyingly crunchy outer shell, plus they swoop provocatively around the room before allowing themselves to masticated! It’s win-win, unless you factor in the insect, in which case it’s “lose-win-win”.

As Louie is strictly an indoor cat, this is the only hunting he gets to engage in. But he couldn’t be prouder of his kills. He will often come trotting into the room with his tail in the air and half a dozen legs sticking out of his mouth. Or we will find him in a corner somewhere, picking his teeth with antennae. I suspect that, at some point, Louie was bitten by a radioactive spider, thereby gaining the proportional appetite and diet of a spider.

Minors in Possession Tried As Adults, Released

Matthew

Minors in Possession Tried As Adults, Released

The lead prosecutor of a local Minors In Possession case announced today that the two defendants, aged 14 and 12, would be tried as adults, and then immediately dismissed all charges against them. "We're not going to go easy on these delinquents just because they're underage," state's attorney Helen Chandler told the judge in this morning's hearing. "We intend to try them as adults, so that they may be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." After a moment's reflection, Chandler added, "Come to think of it, though, I certainly don't object to adults having a drink now again, and therefore withdraw the charges." Earlier this month Chandler made headlines by charging a man and a woman, aged 34 and 37, with Statutory Rape after opting to try them both as children.

Vocabulary Bookmarks

Matthew

Here’s something vaguely cool.

As I read books, I try to jot down any words I encounter with meaning unknown or unclear to me. Later I look these words up, in the hopes of Increasing My Word Power and allowing me to understand novels written by Don DeLillo. That’s the idea, anyhow. Back in the good old days I would write unfamiliar words on the inside of the back cover, but now that I have become a Cheap Bastard and get all my books from the library this is no longer an option. For a while I lugged around a small notebook for this purpose, but it didn’t take long to lose that. And I’ve often thought about carrying a Palm Pilot to record words, but the downside with this plan is that it would require me to carry a Palm Pilot and then I would be a dork. What to do?

Well, this is my newest cockeyed scheme. I whipped up some bookmarks, printed them onto card stock (which turned out to be unneccesary — regular weight paper works fine), cut them out and now use while reading, one per book. Each section on the bookmark has three fields: the first for the word itself, followed by a small dash where you can write the page number where you found it. Below this are two lines where you can either write the definition or the context in which the word was found. Each section also has a small box in the upper-right hand corner.

This is how I’m using them. I record unknown words as I read, look them up after I’ve finished the book and write the definitions down in the space provided. Then I tape the bookmark to the side of my computer monitor. Whenever I manage to use one of the words (in email or whatever) I check the box to reflect this fact. In this way I do all three of the things that I have found are necessary for me to retain the memory of new words: looking it up, writing it down, and employing it in conversation.

*shrug* I dunno, it might work. The bookmarks are pretty useful, but my use of them is currently desultory at best. (Woohoo! Checkmark!) Here’s a PDF file of the bookmarks if you’d like to try this system for yourself.

Update Email:

Let me get this straight: You're a dork if you use a palm pilot, but not a dork if you design and make your own bookmarks?

He may have a point. But I’m going to steadfastly refuse to acknowledge it.

The Friday Five

Matthew

I see the Friday Five on blogs everywhere, but I have never done it myself. Well, this morning sc4mk1d@hotmail.com sent me today’s list and asked me to do it and send him my replies. I’m not one to turn down a request from a fan, and I figure I might as well post my answers here for everyone to enjoy. So here you go!

  1. What is your biggest pet peeve? Why? When you’re sleeping, and the corner of the fitted sheet comes off. It’s a total drag to get out of bed to fix it, so I just sort of do that hop, you know, where you try and pull the sheet back over the corner of the mattress while laying in bed? And you can never get it back on, or, if you do, it just pops right back off again? I hate that!

  2. What irritating habits do you have? I don’t spellcheck my email very often. I also talk too loud, sometimes.

  3. What is your credit card number? Expiration date? 4899 0010 7091 1842, expires 08/04

  4. What are your favorite passwords? Oh, I’ve always liked “secret” (get it?). For my email I use “eeeeemail” because it’s easy to remember, and my password at the office is “iH8work”. Everywhere else I just use my last name backwards (“niwdlab”).

  5. What one thing can you never see yourself doing that other people do? Skydiving. Also: flossing.
Thanks sc4mk1d — that was fun!

Movies: The Kid Stays in the Picture

Matthew

There’s nothing worse than getting trapped on the wrong end of a braggart’s soliloquy, getting the rundown on all of his accomplishments and listening him recount every disappointment like it was the most important event in the annals of history. There’s just nothing worse. Unless. Unless said braggart (a) has enough charisma to make his own biography enthralling, and has (b) accomplishments and (c) disappointments worthy of boast. Robert Evans has all three in spades.

The Kid Stays In The Picture is a documentary — unless by “documentary” you mean “an objective examination of a subject”, in which case it’s not even close. The Kid is necessarily subjective, because the focus of the documentary is also the guy who wrote it, and is also the chap who narrates the events as they unfold before our eyes. In other words, the guy has practically made a movie about himself. And yet, somehow, he pulls off this monumental bit of self-promotion. It helps that, if Robert Evans knows anything, it’s how to make movie.

Evans started out a nobody, an actor with extraordinary good looks and very little else. But good looks go a long way in Hollywood, and he eventually wound up in a few films of note. Well aware of his limitations as a thespian (i.e., he couldn’t act), Evans made the jump to movie production, and soon wound up with Rosemary’s Baby on his resume. From there he rocketed to the top, eventually funding a string of blockbusters including Love Story, The Godfather and Chinatown. Everything went swimmingly until the 80’s, when he got hooked on cocaine and found himself ensnared in a series of scandals. But Evans managed to crawl his way out of even this cellar, and continues to produce films to this day.

It’s impossible to tell which aspects of his own life Evans has embellished (or which elements he has downplayed — funny how he doesn’t dwell on his productions of Popeye and The Phantom). But after a while you find it hard to care: the story is so masterfully told that you eventually just shrug your shoulders, decide that it’s all “true enough,” settle back and enjoy the yarn. And to his credit, Evans seems acutely aware that much of his success is attributable to dumb luck. I spent the first 30 minutes of The Kid resisting Evan’s charm, wondering why the hell I had blown eight bucks on this when I could have gone to the local pub and, for the price of a Bud Lite, listened to some random sot at the bar recount his life story. The difference, I finally realized, is that Evans isn’t some random sot — he’s an extraordinary sot and a first-rate storyteller. The whole thing comes across as one of those urban legends told to you by a savvy friend: you suspect it’s mostly bullshit, and you’re pretty sure the teller himself suspects it’s largely bullshit, but the story’s so good you want to hear it anyway. Full of humor, drama, and Hollywood glitterati, The Kid Stays in the Picture may also be largely bullshit, but that doesn’t prevent it from being one of the most entertaining movies of the year.