The essential guide to becoming a superhero
Sidin Vadukut -
Tuesday, July 22, 2008 10:37 AM
With The Dark Knight setting box offices on fire all week, this is a great time to look deep within ourselves and see if we have what it takes to be a super hero. Can we fight crime? Stand for good in the face of gruesome evil? Fill out a catsuit and cod piece in the right places?
A Scientific American Q&A feature investigates the possibility of someone actually becoming Batman:
What's most plausible about portrayals of Batman's skills?
You could train somebody to be a tremendous athlete and to have a significant martial arts background, and also to use some of the gear that he has, which requires a lot of physical prowess. Most of what you see there is feasible to the extent that somebody could be trained to that extreme. We're seeing that kind of thing in less than a month in the Olympics.
The Q&A is with Prof. E. Paul Zehr who is both a researcher and a Karate expert, and the author of a book called Becoming Batman: The Possibility of a Superhero.
Of course even the most casual comic book reader knows that a good superhero is nothing without a deadly repertoire of weapons, gizmos and gadgets. The wonderful people at Gizmodo have not only grasped this problem but also suggested a handy list of real-life gadgets that should kick-start your alter ego existence:
The Tazer Gloves are more for the do-it-yourself superhero. (We suggest farming the work out to a loyal butler or loving mother.) Running off AA batteries, you can put out 300+ volts using tin foil contacts. But with a few modifications (maybe hooking up to a real Tazer) and a little black market exploding lithium ion power, the sky is the limit.
For the complete caped crusadering shopping list read the entire post here: Gadget guide to becoming a superhero.
A superhero must also be a man of substance, with a moral fabric that is spotless and intact. And noone knows more about the moral struggles of being a superhero like Stan Lee, the creator of comic book titans like Spiderman. In order to promote his reality TV show called Who wants to be a Superhero?, Stan Lee spoke to ign.com about the essential characteristics of a do-gooding (good-doing?) captain of society:
Q: So what's the criteria for what makes a good superhero for the show?
Lee: Well, obviously we're not going to expect them to fly over buildings, crash through stone walls. So we're going to look for the traits that a superhero or even a hero should have: courage, honorable, honesty, self-sacrifice, dependability, all of the wonderful virtues that any hero should have...
And when we have all those elements within reach what we need is a clear step-by-step method to emerge as our individual superhero of choice. Puntabulous has put together a set of 12 steps with illustrations. The highlight of his piece is without doubt the picture of the woman valiantly trying to catch elephant poo in a bag. Here is a snippet:
No. 5 The Training Montage
No transition to becoming a superhero is complete without a rockin’ training montage. It doesn’t matter what you’re actually doing while you train as long as there is awesome music playing in the background and you look cool doing it.
We hope that these inputs will enrich your quest to becoming as new force for good and justice. And hopefully you will be able to come to the aid of the poor, downtrodden and hopeless. Like the UPA government.