Seeds Of Doubt

In the comic pictured above, Flash's sidekick, Kid Flash, runs so quickly that he travels millions of years into the past and saves mankind by stopping a catastrophe that would have altered history and prevented humans from evolving; meanwhile, The Flash runs into the future and saves humanity from itself.

There's something fishy about this story.

Until very recently, I used to accept comic-book superheroes as fact- how could so many comic fans be wrong?- but this Bad Science causes me to suspect that comic books aren't true. I mean, how could Kid Flash travel millions of years into the past when everyone knows that the world is only 6,000 years old? I think the writers might have made up the prehistoric element of this comic book story.

It makes me wonder if the futuristic element isn't bullshit as well. The Flash might be able to run fast enough to intercept 10,000 falling missiles, but he isn't strong enough stop them from landing. For that you'd need Superman. The men who wrote this story are trying to make us believe impossible, ridiculous things about the past and the future.

Writers spreading falsehoods? That's a disturbing thought. It makes me wonder if there really is such a person as The Flash at all. There are a nigh-infinite amount of comic books, toys, TV shows, posters, graphic novels and other ephemera depicting various aspects and incarnations of The Flash, but there has never been any conclusive documentation of the Flash's actual existence or his super-powers. I just figured he ran so fast that he was invisible, but maybe I was wrong.

What if there is no Superman either? Talk about scary thoughts.

Maybe superheroes are sorta like Santa Claus and his elves; they don't really exist but it makes us feel better to pretend that they do.

Perhaps Superman doesn't really exist and his images and associated ideals of Truth, Justice and The American Way are really just symbolic guidelines to aid us in our own decision making. A 'positive role-model', if you will.

This next cover (below) is more realistic. This is how the last week has felt for me. Obviously, the "radiation" shown below is a metaphor for natural tea and Firefly DVDs, but the writers of this story responsibly used high doses of radiation as a "stand-in" for the aforementioned vices...I mean, 'tea' makes you lazy and Sci-Fi makes you weird, so it's better to keep kids away from them.

There is also an element of Real Science involved here: if you pump enough radiation through living things, they will eventually stop moving. There is a famous experiment known as "Schrodinger's Microwave" that proves this.

The New Job has been a treadmill, but I'm keeping up, in fact, I just learned that my promotion goes into effect in ten days- exactly one month after my start date! I also like being directly involved in developing the workflow. As a career-long office temp, I'm accustomed to encountering workflow systems that appear to be collaboratively designed by Dr. Doom, Rube Goldberg and Dante. Our system will be designed by a blogger who believes in Superman and thinks that the Artificial Intelligence from the video game CIV IV would be a better leader than most humans.

Our system is gonna ROCK.

Breaking News

I was chatting with a friend of mine just now...she knows that I have a fondness for making stuff up so I'm not sure if she believed me when I told her that a tornado had just hit Atlanta- it struck CNN and the Georgia Dome, among other places- anyway, today is gonna be a busy day for You Tubers and conspiracy nuts, so I'd better get in early and be the first with the real story.

Scoop!


Evangelicals and insurance carriers are likely to label this bizarre event as an "act of God", but I think it's more reasonable to look at it as evidence of superhero activity.
I mean, ask yourself- "what would it be like if the Flash fought the Weather Wizard in real-life?"

The aftermath would look like this:


Since the press coverage only mentions a dozen or so injuries and no fatalities ( I hope), we can safely assume that the Flash won this particular conflict and thwarted the Weather Wizard; after which the Flash raced to and fro at 'super-speed' ,catching falling debris before it could crush hapless pedestrians...from what I didn't see, the Invisible Woman may have been present at the Georgia Dome, using a 'force-field' to keep the rafters from falling, but that's mere speculation at this point. It would be imprudent to start any rumors before all the reports are in.

Details to be posted as they arrive.

Chinese Fire Drill -or- Why I Hate the Weather Wizard

Sweet Regina's gone to China,
cross-legged on the floor
Of a burning jet that's smoothly flying
Burning Airlines give you so much more
-Brian Eno

I don't think conspiracy theories need to be limited to paranoid delusions of malign collusions- it's pretty hard to look at this wreckage and imagine that anyone survived without some sort of mysterious but well-meaning outside help. You have probably seen the footage by now- the clip with the ant-sized passengers scurrying out of both ends of a winged fireball...even knowing how it ends, it's difficult to watch without halfway expecting the outcome to change for the worse...thankfully, it doesn't. How did they all survive?

This near-catastrophe bears the unmistakable hallmarks of a SuperHero rescue- a passenger jet, a mysterious disaster, a miraculous last-second save with lots of wreckage and minimal casualties...

When I heard that everyone survived , my first thought was that Superman must have saved them- but I have been told that Superman doesn't exist, so I am forced to conclude that this was the work of The Flash (pictured) and the Invisible Girl (no photo available).

I'm guessing that the Flash and the Invisible Girl were on board during the flight when the villainous Weather Wizard(see below) caused lightning to hit the engine, setting it afire; this was noted by the quick-thinking Invisible Girl, who kept a telekinetic force-field around the engine until the plane could land. Once it touched down, the Flash scooped the passengers up and got them to the exits before he and the IG dashed off to capture the Weather Wizard*, only allowing the flames to take over once all the passengers were safe. The duo, being super-humble as well as mindful of their Secret Identities, did not return to take credit for their derring-do.

It's comforting to believe that superheroes are looking out for us, but the truth is that The Flash and The I-Girl are the intellectual properties of rival comic publishers and they would never co-operate in real-life. They live in separate universes.

I have another theory, it's much less plausible than rescue by spandex-wearing heroes, but it's a possibility nonetheless.
Perhaps, sensing that things were seriously wrong on the plane, the passengers just instinctively went into action and did what they needed to do in order to escape. Maybe some ordinary people did some super-heroic deeds- we might never know that, but we can be pretty certain that nobody on board had time to change into their crime-fighting costume and spout a few expository paragraphs regarding their tragic Secret Origin and their subsequent quest for Justice...they had other problems to deal with.

They dealt.

Yeah, I know it ain't much compared to the daily global bloodshed we witness, but at least for one moment, when the chips were down and every flippin' second was literally life or death, a planeload of strangers were able to pull together, get out ; get out alive and unscathed. I doubt they had time to think, they just reacted. Apparently, they did everything right- all it would have taken was one person to seriously fuck-up and dozens of people could have been killed, but they didn't fuck-up and they weren't killed.

Superman can't save us and I often tend to think no one can...but we don't need Superman's help-all we have to do is wait- the Vulcans will eventually save us from ourselves.
I saw it on TV.

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* I have been harboring a super- grudge against the Weather Wizard for decades. The man has the Super-Power to change the fuckin' weather and he uses it to rob banks, hold up candy stores and play spin-the -hero with the Flash?
Pathetic.

If I was the Wiz, I'd sell rain to desert nations that could pay me in oil. I'd deflect hurricanes back out to sea- not out of the goodness of my heart, but for profit. Keep me supplied with weed and I'd make damned sure Jamaica never saw another tropical storm... I'd repair the ozone layer and turn global warming into a global protection racket. I would save the world and get rich doing it.

"Hey Flash! Why don'tcha thwart my evil plan to end this drought?"

Superheroes would be powerless in the face of this benign amorality.

I would call myself a Good Guy, even if my benevolence was just a front for my avarice- only in the comics do the Bad Guys give themselves convenient labels like The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Doctor Crime, #7 or Turdblossom .

Hmmm. Maybe super-villains really are evil.

Next stop: Arkham.