The Flash

The Flash has always pissed me off. He is the most powerful Superhero in the DC Universe, and he's portrayed as a douche. He just runs fast and does stuff fast. His power is so much more than that. He has no drive, he's just doing it for the fun of it. Look at Batman, the dude has no powers, he just kicks ass day and night because he hates crime. The Flash was like, "I've got nothing better to do so I might as well stop some guys who PERPETUALLY ROB THE BANK." Seriously, they don't ever learn?? And WTF, robbing banks?? When is the last time The Flash broke up a check-fraud operation? Robbing a bank is a minimum 25 year sentence and almost every bank robber gets caught. You can make more money scamming with much lower risk and lower penalties. Flash just beats up retards all day long. So impressive.

Look at his powers!! The dude is amazing! He could use his vibration thing to rip out Superman's heart and eyeballs, or just make them explode. That is HARD CORE. Superman wouldn't even know what hit him. What if the last thing he saw was Flash holding his heart and saying, "Hey, it was me." I would crap my pants. Maybe Flash should be evil, then his book wouldn't keep getting cancelled over and over again.

Above all that, Flash can travel through time. He basically owns time. Nobody else really does it like he does. I mean, Superman used to do the spinning the world backward thing, but that proved to be too much of a reach even for comic books, so they dropped it. I'd like to see an Elseworlds story where Superman's family is killed and he goes nuts and to try to bring them back he makes the world spin around backward and ends up killing all life on earth.

Why the hell does Flash run around beating up bank robbers and do JLA watchtower duty all day when he is easily the most powerful superhero in the universe?

I'm going to try not to focus on superheroics too much, but I had to get this out while it was fresh.

Invisibility Eye Test

OK, I'm sure you've seen invisible people pop up in science fiction or superhero stories from time to time. Famous examples are H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man, The Invisible Woman from Fantastic Four, and other sorts of things that have cloaking devices that make them invisible to the naked eye.

There's only one problem. I'm willing to accept a fictional reality where invisibility is possible, so that's not the problem. We are going to assume that invisibility is for real. But how do these invisible people see? I mean, I don't know about you but for me, light enters my head through my pupils, is reflected off my retina, which sends the signal to my brain that deciphers what's going on. An invisible person's retina is absolutely useless because the light passes through it. They would be blind. Any sort of device to capture the light would have to be visible or at least cast a visible shadow.

If the writers of Fantastic Four are going into "unstable molecules" then they should address this issue, as well.

This is what Stan Lee told me personally when I posed this question to him:
"It's simple, Ben-- she wears contacts! But tell me, how do you know light passes through invisible people? I mean, how many invisible people have you met lately?"

WHAT A TOTAL BS ANSWER!!! STAN, YOU COPPED OUT. I know light passes through invisible people because THEY ARE INVISIBLE!! IT IS THE DEFINITION OF INVISIBLE, unless you are in complete darkness, but then everything is invisible and there is no light. Or if somebody is blind, then to them, everything is invisible. But assuming someone is in broad daylight and your vision is not impaired, if you can't see them, they shouldn't be able to see you, either, because they are blind. Me: 1 - Stan: 0. BAM! Done. Next...

P.S. Stan, thanks for the no-prize. STILL A COP OUT, THOUGH!!!!

I'm a dork, and that's why I'm here.

I'm going to use this blogging space to post about the scientific things in fictional worlds that make me pull my hair out, like how Peter Parker can't hold down a steady job but he invented these amazing web shooters, and on top of that, web fluid. WTF, why doesn't he either market those or create something else??

Stuff like that. Don't get me started on time travel...