I was reading a comic today (The current volume of "The Punisher," issue 10), and I was getting more and more annoyed by something that was in the comic that was totally false. I thought about writing an e-mail or something like that, and then, something occurred to me that Marvel Comics used to do years ago.
I haven't posted on this forum in years, but I thought it would be a great venue for this idea.
Marvel used to do a thing called "No-Prizes," when a reader would spot an inaccuracy in their title, and then, rather than criticize the book, the reader would propose a solution that made sense- I think it's a fun idea, and engaging in that exercise is what made me stop thinking about writing an angry e-mail to Marvel, and instead decide to post this.
So, I'll start: the most recent issue of "Punisher" features an LAPD officer who is in the middle of being berated by a panel for her use of force. One of them remarks something like, "That's not what your button-cam shows!"
So, as someone who worked for a criminal legal office in LA, I know for a fact that, first of all, no shooting has ever been captured on a button camera, and second of, very, very few police actually even wear one- it's a new idea that is only being recently implemented through the LAPD. Among the police who actually do have them, it has never once been used, or even discussed in police-board hearings.
So, my proposal is a simple one: the Marvel Universe can be seen as about five years ahead of us, in most things. Whenever Tony Stark or Reed Richards finishes building a new invention, it's always something that is ripped from the pages of Scientific American or something like that as something that we are "a couple of years away from conceiving." It wouldn't be impossible to propose that if the Marvel Universe is that far advanced technological, it would be the same socially- they've been through enough shape-shifters, costumed detectives been unmasked, and so-on, to require police officers to wear button cameras.
Okay- now, everyone else's turn: the next time you see a major inaccuracy in a comic that would bug you, see if you can find a way you can make it logically in the comic-universe!
No characters move light speed or even close unless the writer learns about increased Mass on gravitational pull. Then go ahead with your universe busters.
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Hyperspace/space warping/mass lightening/energy conversion/physics alteration/time warping/tachyonic mass/*insert technobabble here* covers all of this just fine, as it usually does in fiction.
Interestingly, Superboy Prime was planning to destroy the universe by flying through Oa at the speed of light. Combined with stuff like the JLA issue where it was stated that he was deliberately going under lightspeed in order to take advantage of RKE, rather than FTL where it doesn't apply, leads me to believe that Prime actually could have been planning to use pure RKE there.
Yeah, "techno-babble" usually works for that kind of thing. Back when Morrison was writing JLA, Mark Waid was writing "Flash," and Warren Ellis was writing "JLA Confidential," we had stuff about hyper-dimensional gels that allowed the Flash to go faster than light speed.
Personally, with this thread, I was thinking less about the stuff like "how does Superman do things like shave?" and more about the stuff like "why did Superman not just use his heat-vision in panel 2?"
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Sep 4th, 2014 05:21 AM
