Wolf Gnards

I was reading this story about a firefighter dressing up as Spider-Man to save an autistic child, and it got me thinking about super suits. A real life Spider-Man would run into some major wardrobe malfunctions. In a real fire whatever synthetic material Spidey’s suit is made of would go up like kindling. Tobey Maguire joked about the Spider-wedgies in Spider-Man 2, but the problems of fully functional super suits run much deeper than any wedgie.

The Thermodynamics of Superhero Costumes

The most glaring problem with comic book superheroes is the construction of their secret super suits. Is Peter Parker a seamstress? Batman is easy to forgive, with Bruce Wayne being a billionaire and all. He could afford fine Italian craftsmanship. But Peter Parker is at home with a needle and thread, are we to believe he could craft anything remotely fashionable or functional. Skin tight body suits need to be tailored. Could Martha Kent possibly sew anything that doesn’t resemble footy pajamas? However, I’m willing to suspend my disbelief, maybe, fairies deliver superhero costumes. Maybe, Versace supply heroes with outfits free of charge. It doesn’t matter where it comes from, it’s how they work that’s important. I mean Spider-Man got a costume from a “Costume Making Machine” in Secret Wars (Of course, that outfit turned out to be an alien symbiote, but that’s entirely different story), anything can happen.

The main problem I see with superhero costumes is any sort of climate control. The problem with any superhero’s suit is sweating, soupy balls and pit stains (or soupy breasts, it’s an equal opportunity life saving biz). In the Spider-Man movies, Peter Parker likes to perform the iconic Superman shirt rip, but are we to believe Pete is sitting around all day in full body long underwear… in the summer? Superman has the excuse of being Kyptonian, he doesn’t sweat much and is probably not effected much by extreme hots or colds. But is non-sweating part of a spider ability? Batman is the probably the most unbelievable because he’s a regular dude underneath his threads. We know that Gotham City is located somewhere in New Jersey. We know New Jersey is humid as hell. We know every actor to don the cape and cowl has complained about how hot and unbearable it is.

Heat + Head-to-Toe Foam Rubber = Bad Times

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Available at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con is a Star Wars themed toaster. Just what chubby Star Wars fans needed: More carbs!

That’s how they get you though because, of course, I want it, and I don’t even eat that much toast. But now every piece of toast I’ll ever eat, if it doesn’t have Darth Vader’s face stamped on it, it will just be a huge disappointment.

I think Lucas Arts needs some more health conscious options for today’s leaner, meaner fan boy. Maybe, a Boba Fett Salad Shooter.

Call a Jedi a Trekkie and just see what happens. Lightsaber to the throat, kid. There’s nothing worse than being misclassified. It’s just a profound statement of just how misunderstood you really are. Do your parents really understand you? Not if they’re putting phasers under the Christmas tree, they don’t. The same is true for Nerds and Geeks. No nerd calculates so hard, gets such perfect grades, to be called a geek. Likewise, no geek spends 3 weeks putting together the perfect steam punk ensemble to be called a nerd. Too many people use the terms “geek” and “nerd” almost interchangeably. While the key differences between the two may be relatively minor to some, they are critical to those in the know. For the uninitiated, it’s time to find out makes a nerd a nerd and a geek a geek.

Nerd

The term nerd first came about in the 1950’s when suspenders, pocket protectors, and badly taped horn rimmed glasses were all the rage. “Nerd” first appeared in print in Dr. Seuss’s If I Ran the Zoo. “… A Nerkle a Nerd and a Seersucker, too! “ However, the meaning is a little unclear. Other sources claim it’s an off shoot of nert (meaning nuts), knurd (drunk spelled backwards), and also gnurd (hmmm… could it be related to gnards of all things).

But despite its origin, Nerd has taken on a meaning of its own. In the world of Nerds and Geeks, perhaps the Nerd is the more cerebral of the two. If a nerd is anti-social it is merely because they’re studying far too hard. Calculus, Science, straight A’s: these are the things nerds are made of. They do enjoy a good calculator joke from time to time (6922251 x 8), but will forever be marked by their need to achieve. Some say nerds lack any sort of social development skills, however, this is simply untrue, a nerd just does not care to develop social skills. The frame of thought is if they make enough money, who needs to be socialized? Nerds are raw brain power at its finest.

Famous Nerds: Bill Gates, Steven Hawking, Al Gore (he invented nerds), Ben Stein

Geek

If nerds are almost soulless computation, geeks are their free-spirited counterparts. The geek is the nerd’s inner freak… literally. The term geek comes from carnival sideshows, the wild man who bites heads off of chickens and such. Something far more primal than today’s modern geeks. Geeks are now unilaterally almost always associated with fandom. If geeks are better socialized than nerds, it is only because they’ve devoted their lives to a piece of pop culture that happens to have other like-minded geeks also devoted to it. The average geek gets pretty solid B minus grades, but can repeat every line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail verbatim. Comic books, Dungeons & Dragons, Sci-Fi, Cosplay: these are the tools of the geek.

Society has even seen a rise in geek subculture with the geek chic or faux geeks as the case may be. A strange blend of Emo and techie, the faux geek manages to impress girls with his iPod while having little to no knowledge of the inner workings of Dr. Who. While, a faux geek may be tolerable to hang out with, DO NOT bring them to trivia night. They will be little help.

Famous Geeks: Weird Al Yankovic, Tina Fey, Seth Green, Wil Wheaton

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Ever since my David Carradine tribute, people have been asking me if the Five Point Exploding Heart Technique is a real kung fu move. The simple answer is “no.” The slightly more complex answer is “Of course, it’s not real, are you some sort of mental!” A good rule of thumb is if a martial arts move involves some sort of flying, laser beams, or chi energy, it probably is not the real deal. However, it did get me thinking about my favorite fictional martial arts styles. These are some of best moves to watch and to pantomime with friends in grand pretend battles.

10. Shaq Fu

If you’re a big guy doing some fake fighting, you’ve probably broken out some Shaq Fu (as well as a wide array of Andre the Giant signature wrestling moves). Around the time Shaq was pretending to be a genie, he also got really into pretending he could fight. While Shaquille O’Neal is fully capable of picking me up and dunking my ass through a basket, I don’t think I have to worry much about his basketball kung fu style. There are no Shaq-urikins or inferno kinks, and Shaq is certainly not a martial arts expert. Although, I definitely wouldn’t mess with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

9. Iron Fist/Leopard Blow

Iron Fist is one of the most proficient martial artist in the Marvel universe. The iron fist maneuver focuses all a person’s chi energy into the hand, creating an iron-like impervious punch. It may be hard to believe, but the iron fist is a very real maneuver, however, to attain the powers of the iron fist one must plunge their hand into the molten heart of a dragon. So, good luck with that. The DC answer to Iron Fist is Richard Dragon. He uses a dragon amulet to focus chi energy (hmmm… sounds familiar). Richard Dragon, along with Lady Shiva and Batman, know the most powerful martial arts move in DC comics, the leopard blow. The Leopard blow is depicted different by almost every artists, all we know for sure is that it’s bad ass and can kill almost instantly.

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Washington DC has the Lincoln Memorial… Japan has a 59 feet tall Gundam robot. Winner–Japan. A big plastic robot statue in the middle of a park, what’s not to love about that.

The full-scale Gundam was commissioned to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first broadcast of “Mobile Suit Gundam.” Located in Tokyo’s Shiokaze Park, the Gundam statue will be on public display between July 11 and August 31. Sadly the Gundam cannot fly or fire laser beams, it can, however, move its head and emit smoke and flashing lights from 50 points on its body.

Not to sound insensitive, but has anyone else noticed that the Japanese became adorable puppy dogs after War World II. I’m not advocating nuclear strike, but it seemed to turn a bunch of serious bad asses into adorable nerds. Exhibit A: 59 foot plastic toy robot. Exhibit B: Huggable love pillows. The entire country collectively said, “I’ll be into Cosplay, Pikachu, whatever you want, just don’t drop another goddamn bomb on us.”

What is Phlebotinum? Phlebotinum is what makes the world go ’round. TV Tropes explains it as, “Phlebotinum is the magical substance that may be rubbed on almost anything to cause an effect needed by a plot. Some examples: nanotechnology, magic crystal emanations, pixie dust, a sonic screwdriver.” The term originates from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which was filled with its share of Phlebotinum–both mystical and technological.

Basically, any time a a TV show, movie, or comic book writes itself into a corner, Phlebotinum is there to make everything all better. Be it a magic amulet or convenient dream sequence. It’s basically a deus ex machina or a MacGuffin for MacGuffins. MacGuffins are almost seemly interchangeable circumstances or devices that exist only to move the plot along.

The MacGuffin was an Alfred Hitchcock staple, but TV Tropes takes it one step further. How do you get out of an impossible MacGuffin? An equally awesome MacGuffin, of course. That’s Plebotinum. Not just for convenient plot devices, but Phlebotinum get our heroes out of unbelievable jams. Be it grappling hooks, gamma radiation, Electro Magnetic Pulses, nanobots, or duct tape: all helpful in almost any predicament with an endless range of implausible uses.

Check out TV Tropes if you’re looking for hours to kill at work.