My kids finally convinced me to watch an episode or two of Nickelodeon's new show, "Victorious," with them yesterday. I had seen a few minutes from the end of another episode and wasn't too impressed. Like many of Dan Schneider's other shows (iCarly, Drake & Josh, Zoey 101) the funny scripts took a hit from poor teenage overacting--except for anything with Gibby in it on "iCarly." That kid is fucking hilarious.
That's not to say I wasn't interested in "Victorious," just for the wrong reason. The only thing I knew about it was that its star, Victoria Justice, had previously guest-starred on an episode of "iCarly" where she wore a sports bra for 80% of the show and made me feel like 100% of a creepy perv for the rest of the week.
"Victorious" wouldn't make me feel much different. I wasn't prepared for was the highly sexualized content in a show about a half-dozen sexy teenagers who go to a performing arts school. Of course, I'm far from the type to jump on a soapbox and decry how we're corrupting our youth. Instead, I want to know where the hell were shows like this when I was fourteen? Do you know how hard it was to masturbate to "Saved By the Bell" and "Double Trouble?"
In this particular episode, the kids went to the beach in an RV and, in a take on the classic trope of "people getting locked in stuff" (i.e. walk-in freezers, bank vaults, elevators stuck between floors) another RV parks beside them while they are getting ready, preventing them from getting the door open. The air conditioner doesn't work and the windows can't be opened, which is all an excuse for flat-stomached teenage girls in bikinis to lounge about getting sweaty.
Meanwhile, one of the girls had already left the RV to go pee, serving as a reverse McGuffin that the trapped characters must wait to find and save them. Unfortunately, she gets sidetracked when she bumps into four hot dudes on the beach and...
Um, I mean what really caught my eye was that sexy hip shake. That is not something a cold person does to get warm. That is something a drunk sorority girl does when she's trying to win a wet T-shirt contest.
Now, I'll grant you the Ghost homage was pretty funny, though I doubt any of the kids watching the show got it... which indicates to me that the producers understand, "While our target audience might be kids, a significant portion of our viewers are creepy dudes in their 30's and 40's who want to see sexy teenagers, so throw in a few jokes for them, too."And once you realize that, it's hard not to overanalyze everything else. Why does the pottery guy later emphasize his desire to "glaze" her pot for her? Why do the four guys want to eat tuna with the girl? When they get snowcones, is there something symbolic about her getting cherry? She sure is eager to get rid of her cherry (snowcone) since she gets a brainfreeze from eating it so fast.
And of all the images to include in a montage...
... I guess it could be worse.
Many years ago, when I was about ten or eleven, my mom told a story about a former co-worker of hers at the grocery store where she worked when I was born.
This woman and her husband liked to lick boysenberry jam off one another's naked bodies. They bought boysenberry jam expressly for this purpose, and used it for nothing else. Then one day, the husband's mom came to visit. In the morning, the woman came out of her bedroom to find the mother-in-law sitting on the couch eating toast slathered with--what else?--boysenberry jam.
When my mom told this story, it got quite a reaction, though all these years later, I'm not sure why. In fact, it seemed my mother buried her lead when she followed up the story with "And then there was another co-worker whose husband liked to have her poop on his chest." How is that an afterthought?
I find it doubtful the subjects of the tale were scraping the excess jam off their naked flesh and returning it to the jar. I'm all for frugality, but that seems more trouble than it's worth. I mean, a jar of boysenberry jam in the early-to-mid-70's probably cost about 40 cents.
I suppose it's possible the husband was using his penis to extract the jam from the jar, but that too seems dubious. I suppose it's possible they used their fingers to take the jam from the jar and then reinserted the same fingers into the jar after they'd been touching various unsanitary places.
Regardless, the point of this is that to this day whenever I make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at someone's house, I can't help but wonder whether I'm using the "lick off the naked body jelly."
Last time, Mr. T found some crack under an old lady's fridge, escorted a widow to get her late husband's pension check, saved a boxer from his opponents rabid, homicidal fans, became the boxer's trainer, and wore the same shirt for a week.
Mr. T and the T-Force #6 picks up where the last issue left off, with Mr. T and Slammin' Sam Slamm wading through a crowd of fans who presumably like boxing, yet are determined to make sure there is no match tonight.
Here's my theory. O'Malley, the champ, was diagnosed with some fatal disease when he was a teenager. His greatest regret was that he'd never become a professional boxer, so Make-A-Wish set him up with the Welterweight champ, who agreed to take a dive against the 17-year-old contingent on his getting the belt back and the loss erased from his record after the kid died three to five months later.
Now, O'Malley is 26 and still champ because every few months he fights someone else who feels sorry for him and agrees to lay down with the agreement that the losses will be expunged from their records once O'Malley dies. By now, just about everyone know except O'Malley, including everyone in the crowd. When O'Malley's original opponent broke his hand, he offered the shot to Slamm, but Sam isn't in on the scheme. His fans are all afraid a legitimate fight against a professional boxer, even one as lousy as Sam Slamm, will probably leave O'Malley brain damaged, so they're doing anything in their power to stop the fight from happening, including beating Slamm and Mr. T with beer bottles.
Unfortunately, before they can save his life, O'Malley stops the violence Jesus-style.
You have to admit, "We wuz only lookin' out for your interests, champ," makes a hell of a lot more sense in my plot than if O'Malley is a legitimate, undefeated champion boxer.
Finally, the fight begins, giving Mike Baron a chance to break out his new thesaurus and Tony DeZuniga a chance to stop trying to draw anything of any quality one would expect from a professional.
I'm not sure what the artistic decision was here, but it was clearly a stylistic decision because DeZuniga only draws the boxing match in this awful, scratchy style and the colorists threw away all their crayons except the green, brown, and yellow ones. On the walk to the ring and during the introductions, Sam's trunks are red, Mr. T's shirt is blue, both boxers' gloves are red, and Mr. T's gold is... well, gold.
And I will wager Mr. T has never said "widdershins" unless in reading this issue he asked aloud, "What does 'widdershins' mean?"
Fortunately for O'Malley's fans, Sam isn't a very good boxer and is unable to knockout the champ. While most would agree he won the bout, the judges are in on the whole Make-A-Wish fiasco.
With the match over, Mr. T spots Mrs. Thibodeaux's grandson and warns him not to sell crack near his apartments any more, but then Mike Baron realizes the issue is almost half over and no one has pulled a gun on Mr. T and gotten beaten up yet.
So, no really meaningful discussion on the crack sales is had nor is any compromise reached. Instead, Mr. T takes the widow to get her pension check and has his suspicions that the entire gang he beat up last issue will try to kill her confirmed.
"Better that your kids be orphans than for these fools to get that check!" He clearly understands this woman is about to be shot and there is nothing he can do to stop it, yet insists she keep the check. Prior to this, he refuses her request that they call the police and her suggestion he use his T-Force wrist radio to call for help, because "cops don't show fast around here" and his T-Force friends "ain't bulletproof."
Luckily, O'Malley and Sam Slamm just happen to be hanging out together half a block away and come to the rescue.
The first time Mr. T beat up the entire gang for trying to steal her check, the gang decided the only way to save face was to try to kill her and Mr. T. This time, however, things will be completely different because Mr. T has taken away their guns and those are very difficult to acquire in America.
Which only leaves the Mrs. Thibodeaux's grandson storyline to wrap up. Instead, though, Mike Baron decides to mix things up a little and have someone pull a gun on Mr. T and get beaten up.
For the record, this is a completely different bald black guy with a goatee wearing earrings and dressed in blue denim being beaten up by Mr. T from either of these two:
You can tell because his denim outfit has orange accents instead of pink ones.
Somehow, beating the hell out his friends, threatening to beat the hell out of him, and stealing his box of money from under his grandmother's refrigerator fails to motivate Lewis to be Mr. T's friend, which completely shocks Mr. T who just can't understand why Lewis runs away, leading him to a little soliloquy about how he'll always be there if Lewis needs him and the scene we've all been waiting for: Mr. T changes his clothes!
I want to see the original script for this. How was this scene envisioned? Why is Mr. T standing before a plain background with a stool, breaking the fourth wall while he changes into some bizarre uniform with "Positive State of Mind" written on it. It's like Mr. Rogers changing out of his sweater and loafers at the end of every show.
If you're like me or the millions of other people who have seen Rocky III, when you hear there is a comic book about boxing starring Mr. T, you're gonna need a new pair of underwear.
Don't change yet though or you're just going to have to change again when we're finished.
Mr. T and the T-Force #5 contains the first part of a two-issue story arc titled "Easy Prey," a down-to-earth examination of street violence and juxtaposes how it affects single mothers, the elderly, and tomato can boxers who live in the park.
Mr. T, landlord, groundskeeper, owner, and super of an apartment building, is trying to get some yardwork done, but is being distracted by two out of work slackers moving a couch--which will never be mentioned again or have any bearing on anything in this or any future story arcs, making it curious that Mr. T gets so worked up about it--and old Mrs. Thibodeaux, who wants Mr. T to move her ice box.
If that wasn't enough to keep Mr. T busy, he also gets a visit from a woman and her two kids who have just been mugged.
Have you considered requesting the postman hand deliver the check and filing a grievance with the post office about the mailboxes? Mailboxes are technically federal property and anyone tampering with them can be shot. Have you considered contacting the police before you go to the weird landlord down the street who talks about himself in the third person and breaks into the bedrooms of children in the middle of the night and throws them into dark alleys?
Mr. T takes on the case, but first he has to move Mrs. Thibodeaux's old fridge. She just got a new one... but can't seem to pay her rent. Mr. T doesn't complain though because he respects his elders, as evidenced by the fact he's never broken into Mrs. Thibodeaux's apartment in the middle of the night and thrown her into a dark alley nor kicked her in the face with another man's foot. Things get more interesting though when he lifts the old fridge and finds a suspicious plastic tray.
At this point, I can't help but wish that Granny Crackfiend would become Mr. T's archnemesis, recruiting kids to deal her dope on the schoolyards, luring them in with fresh baked cookies, but then turning into a completely hardcore, Tony Montana badass who will plug a kid behind the ear with a .38 while he obliviously sucks on a hard candy and looks at old photos of Mr. Thiboudeaux in his army uniform if she suspects he's skimming.
Instead, Mr. T wound up fighting inner city ninja children.
Mrs. Thibodeaux offers that the stuff might belong to her nephew, which would make my story even better if her nephew was a good guy, but gets his ass beaten down by Mr. T and hauled into the cops on the word of Granny Crackfiend. That's a Dr. Doom level of evil.
Mr. T takes the money to pay Mrs. Thibodeaux's overdue rent and carries the refrigerator down to the alley where it can serve as the perfect hiding place for kids playing hide and go seek on very special episodes of 1980's sitcoms. While in the alley, he hears a group of people threatening some dude out for a jog and decides there's no better time to beat up some thugs while reciting early-90's rap lyrics.
The guy out for a jog turns out to be Slammin' Sam Slamm, the boxer with the least creative nickname ever. Would it have killed Mike Baron to name him "Wham Bam" Sam Slamm? That literally took me more time to type out than to think it up.
How much cooler would it have been if in addition to being a downtrodden underdog about to get his one shot at the big time, Sam was destined to be the next Stalin and all those guys were trying to kill him before he could achieve any significant power and put into motion the deaths of millions? Now Mr. T has unwittingly set those wheels spinning and will have to do anything in his power to stop Sam.
Between Granny Crackfiend and "Wham Bam" Sam Slamm, future despot, I've already created two storylines more compelling than every issue of Mr. T and the T-Force put together.
First off, we learn there is good reason for Sam to be such an underdog. In fact, those odds are probably not long enough. According to Brady, the owner of the local gym, O'Malley is "26--at the top of his game" while Sam is a 33 year old "washed up old stumblebum." O'Malley's the welterweight champ with a record of 29-0, 25 by knockout; Sam is 33-18 with fifteen knockouts. Sam also trains and sleeps alone in the park, can't afford a cutman or trainer, and only got a shot at the title because O'Malley's original opponent broke his hand. At only 15 to 1, I would mortgage my house and sell my kids to bet on O'Malley--if this wasn't a comic in which the star agreed to help train the underdog.
Secondly, people don't care that much about boxing. Maybe if this was 1947 I would go with it, but in 1994 you'd have a hard time finding ten people able to name a welterweight champion boxer, much less willing to kill his opponents in the street to guard his honor.
While Sam trains for his big fight, the widow's check comes and Mr. T goes with her to Mailboxes Etc. so he can confront the muggers. Fortunately for his plan, the muggers are apparently not the most observant men on the block, completely overlooking the overly muscled, mohawk-sporting star of his own Saturday morning cartoon wearing twenty pound of gold chains who is walking fifteen feet behind her.
Mr. T beats them all up, giving the widow a glimmer of hope... which he immediately extinguishes, plainly explaining that the muggers will be mad about being attacked on their home turf, implying they will likely try to kill her the next time they see her.
Having escorted the woman home with a check for probably around $200 and a street gang fatwa on her head, Mr. T goes for a jog with Slammin' Sam Slamm, but encounters more hatred.
Ironically, you idiots have pointed out the exact reason this plan makes no sense. Sam Slamm is a tomato can. O'Malley should have him kissing canvas in the first round. Hell, the guy just learned from one of the stars of The A-Team that running is a good form of exercise, has never hired a trainer in his 51 professional (and untold number of amateur) bouts, and never thought about looking for a gym to work out in, settling for shadow-boxing ducks at the pond next to which he slept on a parkbench, until the aforementioned television actor suggested it. How are you guys going to react when O'Malley has to fight a legitimate contender?
Mr. T and Slamm beat up some of the guys, making this the third time Mr. T has fought a group of more than three guys in just sixteen pages, but have to run when a car comes to a screeching halt and reinforcements pile out.
"There they are!" implies that these guys have been driving around Chicago, actively looking for Slammin' Sam just so they can beat him up. European soccer hooligans are shaking their heads at this level of obsessiveness. Even O'Malley can't believe it.
"Yeah, he accepted your offer to box him. We can't let him disrespect you like that! He should go curl up in the fetal position whenever someone mentions your name. That's how you show love for the champ!"
Incidentally, I'd just like to point out that Mr. T has changed out of his sleeveless blue shirt for a sleeveless pink hoodie for this jog, the only time this entire issue that he wasn't wearing the blue shirt. So to recap, Mr. T woke up one morning and put on his sleeveless blue shirt. He then mowed a lawn, moved a fridge, beat up a group of thugs, wore the same shirt for a few more days, escorted a widow to get her husband's pension check, beat up more thugs, and hung out in a gym before taking the shirt off so he could go for a seven mile jog, shower, and put on the same shirt, which he'll wear until the end of the next issue.
What do you think Mr. T's shirt smells like? Maybe that's his secret to knocking out boxing-loving hoodlums in one punch.
Clad in his favorite shirt, Mr. T helps get Sam ready on fight night and agrees to be in the veteran's corner, pointing out that O'Malley can only fight in a straight line so Slamm can win if he can "show him some angles," proving that Mr. T pays more attention to welterweight boxing than did any of O'Malley's previous 25 opponents' trainers.
Unfortunately, while Sam and Mr. T were able to run away from eight O'Malley zealots on the streets, in the arena they have nowhere to go but the ring and the crowd has more than eight guys.
Even the world's stinkiest shirt can't save them now!
Tommorow! Part Two! Boxing! Drugs! Pension checks! Mr. T beats up thugs and changes his shirt!
So I guess what I'm saying is there's really not much difference from today...
The following is a long, rambling intro where I talk about my dad thinking I'm an idiot. If you'd prefer to get straight to the ha-ha, skip down to a paragraph or two before the Jimmy Olsen scans.
I've always had trouble getting up earlier than about ten in the morning, just like I have trouble going to sleep earlier than 1AM. There's just something about my internal clock that doesn't work that way. If I have to get up early, I will set my alarm for as much as two hours before I need to be ready just so I can spend an hour or more lounging on the couch and transitioning from "no longer asleep" to "actually awake enough to function."
In high school, I would wake up at five in the morning, just so I could be ready to go by 7:30. Unfortunately, the only thing on at that time was religious programming, infomercials, and Bozo's Circus.
I watched Bozo nearly every day of my junior and senior years of high school.
Bozo's hair (as you can see to the left) always went straight out from the sides of his head and curved upward. One morning in about 1991, for some unknown reason, the hair was limp and drooping down toward his shoulders. No one mentioned it on the air, as they would if it were part of some joke. Instead, it became the elephant in the room no one was talking about.
About halfway through the show, my father came out to the living room on the way to the kitchen to make his breakfast and pack his lunch. He paused to button the cuffs of his shirt and I--still drowsy and only about 20% awake--said to him, "I wonder what's wrong with Bozo's hair."
My dad stopped in mid-button and slowly tilted his head from side to side, as if trying to calculate the cube root of 592,704. Finally, he gasped, indicating he'd been so lost in thought, his brain had forgotten to tell him to breath, and held out his hand, his palm toward me as if he was one of the Supremes and was fearful I was going to break his heart.
"Wait here a second," he instructed me. "I'm going to go wake up your mother and I want you to say that exact same thing to her, because I want her to know that her son doesn't think there is anything wrong with Bozo's hair! Could it be that it's fire engine red or that it sticks out around his bald head about a foot and a half in all directions? I'm just thinking out loud here."
Perhaps I could have been more specific, but the point is that by watching Bozo every day, I came to accept bright red, gravity-defying hair as the norm. By that same token, when we read comics we voluntarily suspend much more reality than the majority of people can comprehend.
That said, it's surprising what things can take you out of a story when you're already accepting a world where babies from doomed planets land on Earth to become our protectors and being at ground zero of a nuclear bomb test could be the best thing that ever happened to you.
In "When Olsen Changed History," the back up story in Jimmy Olsen #127, Jimmy wakes up in a Revolutionary War camp, puts on his boots, and is immediately courtmartialed for stealing another man's boots. Jimmy escapes the kangaroo court by lying and doctoring up evidence to "prove" the boots are his.
The general who'd threatened to both hang and shoot Jimmy thirty seconds earlier instead entrusts him with George Washington's watch, which needs to be repaired at the jeweler and returned to General Washington. Jimmy gets the watch fixed, but when he gives it to Washington, it blows up and kills the father of our country.
Suddenly, Jimmy realizes something is off and runs away through the woods, evading Revolutionary soldiers. He follows a river until he gets to a freeway and confirms his suspicion that General Von Rick was really a movie producer who'd kidnapped Jimmy using knockout gas and built an entire replica 18th century town and hired hundreds of actors to recreate Revolutionary War battles and portray icons like Betsy Ross, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington.
How did Jimmy see through the elaborate hoax? And why would Von Rick go to such extreme lengths?
Okay, this is where I had to step back and rub my eyes. Let's back that up and take it slowly.
First off, Jimmy figured out that the whole thing was a sham when Washington died during the American Revolution because he once saw a statue that indicated Washington died of natural causes. I guess the fact that Washington was the first president of the United States of America and, therefore, had to have survived the Revolution, never occurred to him? That's like saying, "I knew Neil Armstrong was an astronaut because I once saw 'N. Armstrong' scribbled on a notepad in NASA's mission control." Really? Was that how you knew? Because I think everyone else in the world was tipped off by that whole "walking on the moon" thing.
Second, why did Von Rick do it? Because Jimmy Olsen panned his film. The cub reporter at a local paper gives your film one star and you decide to kidnap him and spend hundreds of thousands--if not millions--of dollars to convince him he's been transported through time?
But, on the other hand, look at why Jimmy gave the movie a bad review. The science fiction film was based on a premise of a man going back in time to alter the future. Jimmy overlooked the acting, the direction, the special effects, the dialogue, the action sequences, and panned it because it contradicted his theory of time travel. That's like Christian Fundamentalists giving Jurrasic Park a bad review because it promotes evolutionist ideas.
In case you're wondering, Jimmy's review of Star Wars: "Faster than light travel is impossible. Zero out of ten stars." Lord of the Rings: "Elves and goblins aren't real. Not recommended." Finding Nemo: "Fish can't talk. Two thumbs down."
At this point, we either have to root for the kidnapper motivated by a retarded movie review or the retard who wrote said moronic review. Instead, you keep reading only holding onto the hope they manage to half-ass their way into an accidental murder-suicide pact... which they almost do.
To prove time travelers cannot alter the past nor the future, Jimmy and Superman kidnap Von Rick and fly him back to the 1700's to the site of an Indian attack. Jimmy explains that he gladly threw Von Rick into the middle of a battle without any protection because history clearly states no one was killed in the attack.
Holy shit.
A) How did Jimmy get such accurate records? What if the guy writing the news report was the Perry White of his day and was more concerned with letting everyone know Patrick Henry was entering a pie eating contest than confirming the reports of an Indian raid on the outskirts of the frontier.
B) Just because no one got killed doesn't mean no one got their arm lopped off with a tomahawk or lost a leg to gangrene after being shot in the thigh with arrows.
C) I respect that Jimmy has a belief system and that he's committed to it, but seriously, was there no better way to prove his point? What if he's wrong and you actually can alter time? Von Rick would have the last laugh, but I doubt it would be a very satisfying one as the Indians tore his scalp from his head.
Why not go back and advise the captain of the Titanic to be on the lookout for icebergs? Why not tell Lincoln to post a guard outside the booth at Ford's Theatre? Why not tell the admirals at Pearl Harbor to be on their guard on December 7th? That way if you're wrong, you've helped divert a tragedy; if you're right, at least you tried.
Up top, let me just say this was much harder to write than I thought it would be. As with any computer-based story from the 1980's, this comic is ripe with images that are comical today for the simple fact they weren't comical then. For example, a cassette deck connected to a computer or that BASIC program every kid in elementary school at that time learned, allowing his computer to fill the screen by repeatedly printing: "I AM YOUR COMPUTER!"
I've tried my best to get away from just making jokes of "Ha ha, computers were slower back then! The 80's were crap!" I'm sure I would have similar problems were I to come across a comic in which Superman has to solve a Rubik's Cube to save Pat Benatar from an army of Wacky Wallwalkers wearing parachute pants.
With that said, I return you to regular programming.
Ah, computers. What the hell ever happened to those crazy machines? There was quite a trend toward those things in the 1980's but I haven't heard much of them ever since. I guess after that Terminator movie with the bodybuilder guy from Austria, people got a little nervous and they went the way of parachute pants and Rubik's Cubes.
Fortunately, for those of us who want to tell our kids about those bygone days, we can always turn to Superman in The Computers that Saved Metropolis: Starring the TRS-80 Computer Whiz Kids for evidence that once upon a time it was actually predicted computers might play a daily role in all our lives--
Crazy...
--and the best part is thanks to the good people at Radio Shack, it didn't cost a dime to do so.
SiTCtSM:StTRS-80WK tells the exciting story of the day Superman went to give a guest lecture in an elementary school. Of course, being Superman, he can't just walk in the front door.
You may be curious what's in those black cases, but as Superman assures the kids in the classroom, it would be hard for you to believe without five or six pages of blather taken directly from a Radio Shack marketing statement "some background information first."
"Grrr! Anything but information about computers! Why are you wasting our time, Superman! We all know computers are never going to have any effect on our lives! They are only for the super rich and astronauts! This is another of those comics where every statement is followed by an exclamation point!
That kid is Alec, the skeptic who thinks learning about computers might be boring. Boy oh boy, is he ever proven wrong when Superman starts telling the kids about 1945, because if there's one way to keep an smartass ten-year-old occupied it's by telling him stories about before TV was invented. Perhaps there's a nice yarn about a zeppelin you could spin, Superman. Even writer Cary Bates knows this is boring because he ends nearly half the sentences in periods instead of exclamation points.
The history lesson was all to set up the idea that computers are behemoths that weigh thirty tons, are housed in 50' x 30' rooms, and require a punchcard system to input data. Once the kids are suitably convinced they will never see a computer in their lifetime, they get a lesson in the word of possibilities presented by microprocessors.
User manuals?!? Hot diggity damn! Soon we'll all be performing calculations like there's no tomorrow! Why hasn't anyone ever thought of such a machine before? Some kind of a calcula...tion-tor?
In case you're wondering where Superman got that little tidbit about the price comparison with the good camera, perhaps he was reading the ads from earlier in the comic.
Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't have the common courtesy to let Supeman explain BASIC programming to the kids before suffering a crisis of some sort, so Superman has to fly off while the kids rely on the user manuals. A tornado is tearing through downtown Metropolis, but its no match for a Superman.
Crisis averted, Superman returns to the thilling setting of a classroom full of children inputing sample problems from their user's manuals.
I've never really liked the superintelligence power for Superman. I'm willing to accept that the yellow rays of the sun somehow make him stronger and able to fly and give his eyes the ability to melt steel while also being extra sensative to a wider spectrum of light, but saying his brain also developed to make him the smartest person on Earth was a little much for me. However, Superman's superbrain is a crucial part of this story, as it becomes the yardstick against which the TRS-80 is measured.
I've already said I take umbrage with Superman being supersmart, but I have further issues with the idea that after you type in a four-line program you can think as fast as Superman. I bet that girl could tie the Flash in a mile sprint if he spotted her the first 5,279 feet too.
Seeing that a stupid girl can be as smart as Superman with a TRS-80, Alec figures a boy can be even smarter... if you "just give [him] a little while to enter the program!" Superman waits patiently, resisting the urge to use his heat vision to boil the little shit's brain inside his skull, but when it's time to hit the RUN button, Superman's brain goes caca, prompting Alec to become even less likeable.
This is why I would make a lousy Superman. In this situation, I would politely inform the kid that while he may have successfully pressed a button faster than I could calculate a circle's circumference, I could fuck his mother at any time of day or night and even if his father knew when I was going to do it, there's nothing he, the police, or any force on Earth could do to stop me. I also would point out that if I spit gently in his direction, he would have a hold in his face the size of a saucepan.
Worse, I would then spit in his face and go fuck his mother.
Instead, Superman stands in shame and gets a dressing down by "Smart Alec." We learn, however, that the reason Superman's brain is on the fritz is a result of the tornado. Major Disaster explains that he seeded the tornado with microscopic Kryptonite crystals, which Supes inhaled when he took in the air for his superbreath. These crystals were specially synthesized "not to weaken his super-powers... No, that would be far to simple and obvious!"
Instead, they're fucking with the part of Superman's brain that does geometry.
With Superman unable to fly or properly use his other superpowers, Major Disaster comes on TV and explains there will be three disasters, none of which Superman will be able to stop, thus ushering in the reign of Major Disaster.
Huh? The theory is if some kind of tragic disaster befalls Metropolis and Superman doesn't stop it, everyone will just blindly follow the leadership of the guy responsible for the disaster? No wonder we haven't found Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. He's been joint mayor of New York and Washington, DC for the last five years.
His superbrain unable to do the complex mathematics necessary to carry out his job, Superman concludes he could use a computer to help him, but Disaster also crippled every computer within a few hundred miles... except two. Unable to fly to the school, he has to resort to another means of conveyance.
This is the second time Superman refers to the teacher by her first name--earlier he corrects himself--implying a more personal than professional relationship. At least that's what I thought until I realized her name is Margaret Wilson and the only way Superman could be interested would be if her name was Largaret Lilson.
After crashing through the floor, he explains he was "forced to take and underground route for safety's sake" because he "can't risk making too many flying entrances." What he doesn't explain though is why if he's afraid of the effects the inaccuracy of his superpowers could have while flying, he opted for the means of getting from here to there that would bring him in closest contact to gas lines, sewer mains, and power lines. I was thinking of walking, but to each his own, huh, Supes?
Superman explains the situation and tells the kids they'll have to man the computers and talk to him through radio headsets. He'll feed them information from the scenes of the disasters, they'll punch it into the computers, and the resulting calculations will tell Superman how to save the day.
Shall we run through a list of better plans?
A. Call Green Lantern
B. Call Captain Marvel
C. Call Martian Manhunter
D. Call Wonder Woman
E. Call Power Girl
F. Call Aquaman
G. Call Dr. Fate
H. Call Blue Beetle
I. Call Lex Luthor (Do you think Luthor's going to stand by and let Major Disaster be the one that finally takes down Superman?)
J. Call some actual professional computer programmers and have them run the computers instead of putting thousands of lives in the hands of the kids who 23 hours earlier thought having the computer tell them "I AM YOUR NEW TRS-80 MICROCOMPUTER" was "far out" and that pressing "RUN" made them smarter than Superman.
Flying in the face of common sense, the kids settle into their seats and Superman takes off for the first disaster, a plane that's been struck by lightning. It should be noted Superman has no trouble flying now, though he stops when he gets to the plane unsure of what to do.
First off, how is it Superman's supervision and other superinformation-gathering senses are working just fine? If that's the case, what's stopping him from being able to save the plane? When someone throws you a baseball, your brain automatically calculates the parabolic curve of the ball and moves your hand to the space the ball will eventually occupy, allowing you to catch it. It's a mostly natural instinct and if it's beyond your ability, odds are measuring the ball's velocity, mass, exact angle of it descent, and the speed of any prevailing headwinds is probably likewise beyond your abilities.
Second, what are the kids going to do if their answers don't match? Press "RUN" again?
Third, if that plane has a forward velocity of 505 miles an hour at a 44 degree downward angle, it is heading for the ground at about 22,000 feet per second. Forget acceleration due to gravity and assume the plane is presently at an altitude of 35,000 feet (even though it was already plummetting toward Earth before Superman even left the school). This is how this scene should play out:
Superman: All right, team, here goes! According to my--(Transmission drowned out by sound of exploding fuel tanks, twisting metal, and screams of dying passengers.)
If the plane is merely falling from about 40,000 feet and that speed of 505 miles an hour is entirely parallel to the ground, the passengers have about 50 seconds before they crash. In which case it would play out more like:
Superman: All right, team, here goes! According to my super-vision...
10 REM SAVE PLANE FROM CRASHING
20 LET A=44
30 LET S=505
40 LET F=S*5280/3600
50 PRINT S; "MILES PER HOUR="F;"FEET PER SECOND"
60 LET H=63
(Transmission drowned out by sound of exploding fuel tanks, twisting metal, and screams of dying passengers.)
Not to mention that since Radio Shack probably didn't include a "How to calculate the proper intercept course for a crashing jetliner" program in the user's manual, those kids are going to be clueless what to do with all Superman's information.
The next disaster is a flood caused by a rupture in the Metropolis Resevoir.
It seems to me the solution would just entail shooting heat vision at the water until it evaporates. Why does he need an exact time frame? If he left a few hundred gallons over the area of a few city blocks, is that going to affect anyone?
The final disaster is a leak at the nuclear power plant north of the city. The kids calculate a way for him to spiral around the radioactive gas and funnel it into space. I won the both the city and state science competitions when I was in seventh grade and I have no idea how I'd begin to calculate this now with Excel, much less when I was 10 and writing BASIC on an Apple II.
After venting the gases, Superman goes after Major Disaster and reveals the Krytonite crystals' effect has worn off. How convenient. I suspect the crystals affected Superman for all of about fifteen minutes, but he saw an opportunity to let the kids feel useful and rolled with it. I mean, this is the guy who's hung out with Jimmy Olsen for more than half a century so we know that's his M.O. "Uh-oh, I can't possibly save this plane without the help of my friends Shanna and Alec!" I bet he let them beat him at touch football too by falling down a lot and saying things like, "Whoa, what a great juke move! I totally thought you were going to your right!"
