[ExI] Superheroes without superpowers

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Ben
Zaiboc via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] Superheroes without superpowers

 

On 07/10/2021 08:23, spike wrote:

Batman was the only known superhero who didn't have any actual superpowers

I beg to differ:

(musical clue):



Ben

 

Ben if this musical clue postdates about 1968, I am outta luck.  I never saw
any of the Batman movies and this musical phrase doesn't stir even a trace
of memory.

Back in those days, Batman and Robin together could take three thugs, but
not four.  You always knew if they were going to get their asses whooped if
the bad guy had four henchpeople or if she had three.  Catwoman always had
four.  I don't recall the dynamic duo ever defeating Catwoman's four
henchpeople.  Not all the bad guys figured out her secret, fortunately for
the duo.

Batman really brought a lotta stuff to his crimefighting career: a 55
Lincoln Futura, which was never a production model, so it didn't take a lot
to make it into the Batmobile for instance.

After I wrote the previous post, a fun thought occurred to me.  My
lighthearted premise was that if a radioactive spider bit Peter Parker and
gave him spider strength, then perhaps being injected with something that
came from bats would give us Batman mojo.

It didn't, but a fun thought occurred to me: in a sense we all have Batman
mojo now.

Well think about it:  compare your car to the 55 Linc concept car.  There
are a few of them around, if we count replicas:

https://www.undiscoveredclassics.com/forgotten-fiberglass/chris-woodsides-19
55-futura/

It is a stylized Lincoln Continental Mark 2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Mark_II

It had that 368 CI Y-block V8, which is big but not huge even by the
standards of the day, and it is an enormous car with little or no plastic,
so it was a heavy tank.

My point: most of us here have an ordinary car which performs better than
the batmobile!  Think about that: if Batman and Robin chased us, we could
outrun their caped asses in our cheapy whatever we drive probably, while
burning a third of the fuel.  Their car looked cooler, but for all that
weight, it was only a two-seater and was a slow tank.

OK then.  The duo had computers!  But we have computers too, and ours are
waaaay better that theirs.

The duo had. capes!  We can have those if we want them.  Down at the
Halloween costume store, popular items they are because they are one of the
few left that no one has figured out a way to label them politically
incorrect.

They had. gentlemanly ways!  Even when some fiend was about to kill them in
the most painful (and least reliable) means, they still had those impeccable
manners.  Consider that time Catwoman was about to drop the duo into a vat
of boiling acid.  Robin commented, "You are not a very nice person,
Catwoman!"   Ah, OK, well sure, perfect Edwardian gentlemen, but that is a
choice.  You and I could act that way if we chose.  For a while anyway.

They had. Wayne Manor!  Well, OK, they got me there.  Not many of us have
such nice digs, and none of us have a bat cave down there.  Other than
perhaps BillK, none of us have a butler, probably none of us have Bruce's
money.  But when you really think about it, our lifestyle is pretty much at
least equal to, or perhaps better than (in some important ways) Batman's.
For instance. we live in times where we get to learn that neutrinos have
mass!  We live in times where we get to learn that detectable gravitation
events are a ten thousand times more common than our standard theory
predicted.  How cool is that?  Cooler than the batmobile!

In that sense, even though the vaccines didn't give us Batman mojo, most of
us already had it in a way.  Oh life is goooood.

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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