superheroes » Absurd Intellectual

Disappointing headline of the day

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 26 February 2010 Modern Life

Feb 262010

I got up bright and early this morning, ready to face a Friday with a happy heart. As I was eating breakfast, I was browsing the news sites, as I often do, when I caught site of this headline on the New York Times:

Radiation Bills Raise Question of Supervision

Perhaps I am still a little bit asleep, but until I read the first sentence of the article, I had seen the word “radiation” paired with the word “super-vision” … and I guess I had comic book fantasies, instead of something about cancer treatment and possible fraud.

Sigh.

Who will watch the…Allegiance of Heroes?

Posted by T. Keith Edmunds on 29 April 2009 Modern Life

Apr 292009

Cincinnati's own crime-fighter: Shadowhare!

Patrolling the streets of Cincinnati fighting crime, stopping injustices and protecting the innocent is Shadowhare. His identity hidden by a mask and costume, this is a real guy trying to be a real hero.

From this article:

“We help enforce the law by doing what we can in legal standards, so we carry handcuffs, pepper spray … all the legal weapons,” said Shadowhare. “We will do citizen’s arrests. We will intervene on crimes if there is one happening in front of us.”

Why do superheroes always look cooler in the movies and in comics? Oh yeah, because they’re not real and are much more unlikely to get the living tar beat out of them.

Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate what this kid is trying to do. He’s trying to make a difference and improve the world and all, and that’s admirable. And I like the idea of real-life costumed heroes, sort of. I’m a little uneasy with real-life vigilantism. It seems like the thin edge of a very dangerous wedge. Plus, Shadowhare looks like a bit of a dork.

I wish I could say that he is one lone individual with delusions of grandeur that has watched one superhero movie too many. But I can’t.

Shadowhare is not alone in his quest to fight crime. He heads up a group of men — and one woman — called the “Allegiance of Heroes.” The members communicate with each other in online forums. Among the members are Aclyptico in Pennsylvania, Wall Creeper in Colorado and Master Legend in Florida.

“I’ve even teamed up with Mr. Extreme in California — San Diego — and we were trying to track down a rapist,” said Shadowhare.

Yes, my friend. Rest easy. The Allegiance of Heroes is watching out for you.

Maybe this appeals to you? Maybe you would like to be a costumed superhero, protecting your neighborhood or community at large? How would one go about doing something like this?

Luckily, in this day and age, you can find almost anything you can image on the Intarwebs: World Superhero Registry and Real Life Superheroes. Here you can find all the information you might need about becoming a costumed superhero.

If you are going to venture out onto the streets as a caped crusader, at least have a professionally made costume.

I can’t endorse this idea and it worries me a little. At the same time, however, I can’t help but be a bit titillated by the whole thing.

Does that make me a bad person? A super-villian, perhaps?

My NY shopping list

Posted by T. Keith Edmunds on 13 April 2009 Modern Life

Apr 132009

Photo by Joe Pacheco, courtesy of 826NYC

I’m not a shopper by any stretch of the imagination. I can’t remember the last time I went shopping for something that was necessary for my immediate consumption. Now, however, for the first time in memory, I’m putting together a shopping list.

My vague plans to attend a trade show in New York in June 2010 became a little firmer as a stumbled across the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co., a real store that sells real superhero supplies. Really! I’ve always wanted to visit a store that sells capes and grappling hooks and antimatter!

A little more research shows that this super-awesome fun store is actually a front for 826NYC, a nonprofit creative writing and tutoring center for youth. (See HERE for more info about the store and the program).

The 826 program has a national scope. As well, many of the centers have a different themed store to both raise funds and raise awareness:

To raise funds, inspire creativity, and advertise our programs to the local community, most of our centers include a street-front retail store filled with unusual products, entertaining signage, and, of course, our books for sale. San Francisco’s pirate supply store sells glass eyes and one-of-a-kind peglegs, 826NYC’s Superhero Supply Company offers custom-fit capes, Seattle’s Greenwood Space Travel Supply Company sells “rare imports from other planets,” 826 Michigan’s Monsters Union Local specializes in bottling screams, 826LA features a time travel store, there’s a secret agent supply store in Chicago, and a Cryptozoology shop in Boston is in the works! (From the 826 National site)

As the blurb from 826 mentions, there are a number of stores, including:

San Francisco’s only independant Pirate Supply Store
The Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co. (with rocket parking on the roof) in Seattle
The Boring Store in Chicago, for all your international espionage supplies
LA’s Echo Park Time Travel Mart

As fun as these sound, they can’t measure up to the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co. For more photos and information see HERE.

The Real Australian Superdog

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 7 April 2009 Modern Life

Apr 072009

Every year the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair promotes the circus-on-four-feet known as the Superdogs. Trained within an inch of their lives, these pups run, jump and do tricks to the delight of kids young and old.

But they’re nowhere near as “super” as the real super dog pictured above: Sophie Tucker. (Yes, that’s her name, apparently, honouring a vaudeville entertainer.)

This pooch may not jump through hoops or run rings around other dogs in an arena: as far as I know, she only has one trick — but it’s a doozy. This Sophie’s trick is that she can turn into Robinson Crusoe.

On a boat trip with her owners off the Australian coast, Sophie was knocked overboard by choppy water. “Devastated,” her family searched for an hour, but couldn’t locate her. Tearfully, they gave her up for lost.

Via the Los Angeles Times:

Sophie … went into survival mode. She swam five nautical miles to St. Bees Island, where her wild instincts kicked in — she spent the following months surviving on a diet of wild goats and gaining infamy among the island’s few human residents.

When rangers captured the dog, and the couple learned that a wild cattle dog had been captured, they took a long-shot chance and called. Travelling to the island, the dog, although described as “vicious” after months of living on her own, recognized her former family immediately and is back to being a house-dog.

Now that’s a good-news story.

The possibility of superheroes

Posted by T. Keith Edmunds on 31 January 2009 Modern Life

Jan 312009

: “I hear Claire broke all the office’s typing speed records.” Polydactyly isn’t overly uncommon, but fully functional extra digits are rare.

Why is it that the vast majority of abnormalities that occur in humans are harmful? Shouldn’t it be that on at least a semi-regular basis, someone develops an abnormality that is advantageous?

What I mean is that we often hear about people with horribly rare and debilitating (or fatal) diseases, but we almost never hear the flipside. To illustrate: I have blogged previously about the infection a young woman in Brazil contracted that ultimately led to her death, but I have never had the opportunity to write about someone who contracts a something that, I don’t know, say allows them to grow back appendages.

Shouldn’t the law of averages allow that for every ebola-like virus that is a virtual death sentence, there is one that allows us to breath underwater? Or at the very least improve our musculature?

Sadly, it doesn’t seem so.

Or so I thought.

Marvel Comics, until recently, had a whole swath of superheroes who were simply born with their powers. A very simple way of having to avoid having people accidently irradiated or involved in industrial accidents or exposed to unknown forms of radiation. Being born different, but better, is one of those underlying pieces of evolutionary theory that we ignore as if it were an over-attentive uncle.

I don’t expect to soon see people born with functional wings or tails or x-ray eyes or the ability to walk through walls, but this is definately a start.

I’m going to have to do some more reading about polydactyly.