How quickly would you become a supervillain? NOW

If you had superpowers--you and only you--what would you do with them?  How soon after you were gifted the power of invisibility (or super strength; or flight; or mental telepathy; etc.) would you find yourself abusing the power you were given for selfish reasons?

This is not a rhetorical question.  The answer is "Almost immediately."  Don't even pretend you wouldn't sneak into an opposite sexed locker room, or surprise everyone and win an arm wrestling contest, or help your beloved football team end the waffling and answer the eternal question ("Are you coming back?!") by just reading Brett Favre's damn mind.

I was at dinner with Garrett and Claire, and this question of superpower use (and abuse) came up.  (FYI, Garrett is a total supervillain.)  It would be sooooo easy to take advantage of your new sitch (short for 'situation') without the possibility of any real consequence; you could do almost anything without repercussion.

But this brings up a plethora of follow-up questions:

• Which celebrity would you most want to see naked?
• How much money is too much money?
• Can I trust Hung Truong enough to let him in on my secret? (No.)
• What is the best way to wreak havoc on Bryan Costilla's miserable life? (that is a question we all must answer)

The most intriguing follow-up question, though, has got to be: What superpower would you want?

Good thing we've already got the answer!  According to a very scientific Facebook poll (brought to you by the movie Kick-Ass), a majority of you would choose "Time control."  Okay.  Duh.  But it is far from unanimous.  Facebook user Joseph SquadUp Johnson writes, "damm i put fly i wanna fly shit fuck time control i live life to the fullest anyway."  But it clearly is a difficult choice; Brandyn Grabowski comments, "i picked fly cuz thats just bad ass but then i thought about it. id pick time control cuz id go back and invent all those crazy things like shamwow! and snuggies. and snuggies for dogs lmao!. and microsoft. AND apple. and then once i got like a billion bucks id go further back and put it in a bank then come back to present day and be like a qudrillianare lmao."  Dilemma!  I think the existential quandary this elicits can be summed up by Fertile, Iowa's own Zach Hermanson, who says (quite poetically), "time control. so I can pause time go behind your back stab you with a pencil. walk back to my seat and then start time again. 'WHAT HAPPEND??!??!' zach hermanson."  Preach it, zach hermanson.

But really, this mostly just reminded me of an episode of This American Life, based around the idea of superpowers, which featured Mr. "and I'm a PC" himself, John Hodgman.  He wanted to know: Which is better: The power of flight or the power of invisibility?  Look at how curious he is!

The Hodg's respondents are a lot more interesting (Going-to-Paris Man!) than the Facebook dredge.  In the audio link below, "Act One: Invisible Man vs. Hawkman" starts about 6 minutes in, and lasts about 13 minutes.  But, seriously, you might want to just listen to the whole show.  What is the opposite of a waste of your time?  Whatever it is, this is it.

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This American Life

178:

Superpowers

Originally aired 2.23.2001

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(Click anywhere above to listen--for free!--to the complete Superpowers show. Read the episode guide or listen to a 30 second promo here--all for free!  Donate $ to TAL here--not free!)


Answer any and all of the above questions in the COMMENTS below, as well as in the poll above.  If I could be invisible, I would most want to see Jonah Hill nekkid, obvs (short for 'obviously') ...NOT!

Are you a fearful, crouching masturbator like I am?  Also, re: "Act Two: Wonder Woman"--would you marry Zora?  I would.

Japanese Read Comics Backwards

Kodansha, Japan's largest publisher, has set up shop stateside leaving tens upon dozens of manga kids in shambles. Basically what this means is anyone publishing titles owned by Kodansha, no longer holds licence to those properties. Dark Horse lost Akira and Ghost In The Shell, which isn't much of a blow considering numerous volumes have been out-of-print for some time now. But for the manga-only Tokyopop, they lost everything Kodansha. So it may be awhile for the legions of pimply, sexually confused tweens to see anymore volumes of such masterworks as Chobits, Love Hina, and Samurai Deeper Kyo. Anyway, none of this is really important...

...what is important is the status of a property Kodansha owns that ins't available in the states, nor has been for almost a decade. One that they haven't even announced plans to re-print, but I can't for the life of me figure out why it wouldn't be the first thing they'd release. When you think of manga/anime, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Osamu Tezuka? Well, only if you're awesome. I'm of course referring to Sailor effing Moon! I have no shame in the following three words: I want now.

But even more important than a possible re-print of the entire manga series (which I'd hypocritacally buy even though I hate 99% of manga and it's readers) is a little poll Funimation had on their site this summer asking: "Would you watch a re-dub of the entire uncut Sailor Moon series?" Unfortunately, there was not a tab I could click to offer them my soul if they were able to obtain the rights to re-dub an uncut Sailor Moon (the rights are locked up tighter than a dirty metaphor involving school girl uniforms).

So, to make a long story just a little longer; I love Sailor Moon...and I wanted the world to know. But now that I have that out in the open...who's with me?

Japanese Spider-Man!

Back in the late 70's, Marvel had made a deal with Toei, a Japanese film and television company, that allowed them to use the Marvel characters in any way they saw fit. In exchange? Probably large sacks of money (with a large $ painted on them) that were hand delivered to the states by Godzilla himself. The result? The shittiest best Spider-Man ever!


Peter Parker, or rather Takuya Yamashiro, is a motorcycle racer who acquires not only radioactive spider powers, but also a giant battle cruiser called Marveller that transforms into the fighting robot Leopardon. He endlessly goes head-to-head with the villainous Professor Monster, Amazoness, and their evil army of Iron Cross Group soldiers. I'm totally serious. And did I mention it takes place in Angel Grove? ( it doesn't)

You can stream the first 11 episodes of this exilharating 41 episode series over at Marvel.com. Here's episode 9, which had my favorite title, "Motion Accessory is a Loveful Beetle Insect Spy." Enjoy! (and if you don't feel like sitting through the whole thing, skip to the 20:00 mark and watch the last few minutes)



Note: Although I like the image of Godzilla carrying bags of money over the Atlantic, in 1978 he would've been property of Toho, a rival company to Toei. Although Toei now owns Toho, back then I'm sure the business deal probably went down with suits and wire transfers. Not giant lizards.

In Watching Watchmen

Watchmen. I find it hard to imagine anyone familiar with the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons masterpiece not having reservations when thinking in terms of a live-action film adaptation of the complete and utter perfection that is Watchmen. I find it harder to imagine anyone who is intimate with this seminal masterwork wanting to see a movie made at all. Well, unless you live in a cave under the sea (without an internet connection), then you know all too well, there is a Watchmen movie and there's nothing we can do about it.

It's no surprise that Hollywood has wanted their grubby mitts on Watchmen since its initial publication in 1986, but the project never took flight (pun very much intended). It came very close in 1991 when Terry Gilliam was hired on at Warner Bros. to try and tackle the project. He couldn't. He dropped Watchmen saying it was "unfilmable," and that, "reducing the story to a two or two-and-a-half hour film seemed, to me, to take away the essence of what Watchmen is about." I feel the same way, Mr. Gilliam.

It came close again in 2001 with David Hayter writing/directing, which of course didn't bear fruit, and again in 2004 with Darren Aronofsky using Hayter's script. Well, that didn't work out. Aronofsky was replaced the same year by Paul Greengrass, but guess what...that didn't work out either! So, do you take it as a sign from God (or Dr. Manhattan) that you should let Watchmen be? No. You get Zack Snyder, the guy who graced us with 300 and the Dawn of the Dead remake to take a stab.

I feel that with all of this lead in, I'm avoiding talking about Watchmen, the film. That's partially true. I never wanted a Watchmen movie and I never will. Its just too goddamn big, not only in length, but complexity. A character study to end all, reflections on war and human behavior; a bold piece of humanity. That's just the beginning. If you haven't read Watchmen, you fucking need to, but since I'm supposed to be talking about the movie...here goes it.

I didn't hate Zack Snyder's Watchmen. I certainly didn't love it, and not sure if I liked it, but it went beyond my expectations...which was failure. I don't think it failed, I just don't think it hit the mark. Again, there's too much there. To make Watchmen right is simply impossible. But the movie did some things, the elements it could, very right. Casting was great (with the exception of Silk Spectre who was AWFUL! Seriously, Malin Akerman who played Silk Spectre should go back to porn or the street or wherever the hell she came from because she was fucking terrible!). But everyone else was handled very well, namely Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan who I was the most nervous about. I'm sad movies need to have over-stylized fight scenes where you super slow-mo for a punch, show a goofy expression, and then double forward to two seconds after the blow connects. EVERY action sequence was like this. It's distracting. The only time it worked was when Rorschach was escaping down the stairwell, through a SWAT team, with an aerosol can flamethrower or when slowing frames to show Ozymandias' amazing speed.

I never thought I'd say this...sex & gore...totally unnecessary. Less is more. The moment I ease up and start to enjoy a fight scene in the movie, I get a splintery broken femur rip through a thugs arm and blood squirted into my face. Its gore for the sake of gore and that shit belongs in slasher flicks. Bone crushing sound effects as Laurie Jupiter works a guy over and slams him up against a dumpster: badass! Gooey meat hanging from the ceiling and blood splattered on nightclub patron's faces: too much. Don't get me wrong, I can be a fan of such things, but they didn't belong here. And I'm sad Snyder swapped a sensual (and crucial) lovemaking scene toward the end of the book for a borderline raunchy one that he made up for the movie, again, graphic for the sake of being graphic.

The soundtrack was another element that was hard to swallow. The songs never feel right in the movie. Especially when they are winking at you. Nena's "99 Luftballons," for instance. Ha ha, nuclear war, I get it. Oh, and "Flight of the Valkyries," da na na NA NA, this is so stupid! The worst being "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" playing overhead in Veidt's lobby. You should have taken a page from The Dark Knight and had an epic score. Not winks and nods.

Aside from that, and a Nixon that wouldn't pass for Nixon in a high school play, the movie was...watchable. Everyone I've talked to who hasn't read Watchmen, enjoyed the movie, but were lost. And those who had, could follow along but were left wanting more. Art direction and casting were spot on, direction and sound were lacking. What would this movie have been with the same production team but Gilliam, Greengrass, Aronofksky? Who's to say. Watchmen is by no means a bad movie. Its just not Watchmen.

'Cat Cops' (Episode 1)

Coming Soon!