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Best Technology from Comic Books...

 
 
Tom Coates
19:13 / 23.06.07
I'm at an event in Sebastopol, California at the moment and I'm thinking of doing a really quick ten minute talk about 'technologies that are great in comic books and that you need to make real because they're so fucking awesome'.

We've been putting together a list of things that we'd like to talk about, but honestly, we're doing it all pretty sketchily and at the last minute. So I was wondering if you guys had a perspective.

What technologies from comic books would you like to make real? What's the coolest stuff you've seen that you'd like in your life. Tell me, we'll credit you in the talk and we'll get it in front of the best people in the world to make some of it real!
 
 
Jared Louderback
19:16 / 23.06.07
every single thing in transmet. I'd be alright if the future was like that. Esp. the Bowel Disruptor, hah.


But actually? Hmmmm, that's tough. So much of comicbook-tech is just over the top and unnessicary, I'm not sure.
 
 
Feverfew
19:52 / 23.06.07
Um. I second Transmet, but I'd have to exclude the bowel disruptor when you could include Foglets, Makers, and all the communications technology that got crammed in like Source Gas, among many other things that refuse to spring to mind right now.

Apart from that, Marvel's full of serious and not-so-serious tech - I'm thinking the Fantastic Four's tendency to have completely random gidgets and gizmos in amongst the world-shaking stuff, but Marvel's a universe where if you can think of it, at least one of the superpowered genii have thought of it already. Tony Stark's most always portrayed as being able to invent almost anything if he could only put his mind to it, which he often does.

As far as DC goes my knowledge is more hazy, but the stuff T.O. Morrow and Professor Ivo were cranking out was always good.

Me, though; I always wanted something like the Iron Man armour, except only for flying; none of that repulsor nonsense. Just to fly around, y'know? While looking extra cool and having 49 different versions.

(Not that I'm shallow or anything.)
 
 
Mario
20:06 / 23.06.07
Image inducers, aero discs, and any of a dozen different kinds of teleportation systems.
 
 
Tom Coates
22:49 / 23.06.07
Hm. There's got to be something more sexy.
 
 
Mario
22:58 / 23.06.07
Well, there's always Grant's liquid metal secretary/sexbot from All Tomorrow's Parties....
 
 
sleazenation
23:22 / 23.06.07
How about the ultimate nullifier from Walt Simonson's run on Fantastic Four? Disguised as a lightswitch on Galactus's spaceship it's a device that erases reality.

In fact old Fantastic Four comics are probably the best place fo comic book technology...

Gateway to the negative Zone? Time Sled? they're all there.

And then their is Iron Man's suit of armour - got to be THE best in comicbook technology.
 
 
Mario
23:26 / 23.06.07
Correction: It was from "And We're All Policemen".
 
 
Benny the Ball
10:09 / 25.06.07
Blue Beetle's Bug was pretty good - plus Mr Miricles Disks are pretty cool - I wouldn't say no to a mother box.
 
 
Triplets
12:18 / 25.06.07
Carousel Reversal Spray.
 
 
Triplets
12:23 / 25.06.07
What sort of technology are you looking for, Tom? Because there's the obvious hardtech stuff like Tony's suit, Cap's shield and Motherboxxxes. But you also have softtech like the Super-Soldier Serum, Fury's Infinity Formula, Miraclo, Venom, Green-machine making Gamma Bombs and the like.

Besides all that: The Helicarrier.

I'd also throw in Wonder Woman's arsenal bracelets from Planetary's version of her and pretty much anything that turned up in Marvel Boy.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
12:50 / 25.06.07
Tom, it's time to let other people run barbelith.
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
13:38 / 25.06.07
Bat Shark Repellent.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
14:30 / 25.06.07
I still want Mother Box. I call my iPod "Mother Box," actually. I think that's by-and-far the biggest piece of comic-tech that I'd want.
 
 
Panic
17:08 / 26.06.07
A Mobius Chair. With a Mobius Ottoman.
 
 
sleazenation
18:42 / 26.06.07
The infinity gauntlet?
 
 
the Fool
23:45 / 26.06.07
A Mobius Chair. With a Mobius Ottoman.

I like the way you think

Can I put my hand up for a mother box too! a boom tube generator (or do mother boxes do that as well?) and assorted other New Godz tech!!!

actually what I really really want is a functioning green lantern ring... I'll settle for a Legion flight ring if I can't have anything else.

I'd take miraclo over the super soldier serum, the serum tends to kill people who aren't Steve Rogers... you could synthesise either with a lantern ring anyway...
 
 
the Fool
23:46 / 26.06.07
I can't believe I was the first to want a lantern ring?!?!

Its a wishing ring people!!!
 
 
Jared Louderback
23:56 / 26.06.07
I take back what I said before. I could desperatly use some New Gods tech. A motherbox and some of those fantastic floating disks that Mister Miracle flies around on would be pretty hand. I imagine a closet like the one Scott Free and Big Barda have in there home, but in every house!
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
01:06 / 27.06.07
Fool- Mother Box can call you up a boom tube as needed. I think the New Gods also used something called "Matter Threshold," but I'm not sure if there was any real difference. Mother Box can teleport you great distances, resizing you to fit in with local scale. She can ping soothingly, modulate your mood, improve your looks (hiding, for example, Orion's horrific Apokolips visage), heal you, give you deep scan information about your environment... I would very much like my own.
 
 
_pin
16:36 / 27.06.07
I'd have said a Green Lantern Ring, and only in part because I really want to be in the Corps. But rings look shit on both me, and many others, whereas Mother Boxes look like my phone, and my phone looks boss on me, so Mother Boxes it is.
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
17:18 / 27.06.07
I can't believe I was the first to want a lantern ring?!?!

Its a wishing ring people!!!


I asked for a spray can full of chemicals that KEEP SHARKS AWAY. Nothing beats that.

Although a Motherbox or GL ring would be pretty cool.
 
 
Mystery Gypt
17:52 / 27.06.07
this thread is really underlining the idea that comic books are fantasies, as opposed to stories based on predictive science, isn't it?
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
22:06 / 27.06.07
Well, it's underlining that superhero comic books, a particular genre within the medium, are fantasy or based on the fantastical rather than the predictive. Comics as a whole are not. I'd be curious to see more hard science fiction comics, actually.
 
 
Ron Stoppable
07:55 / 28.06.07
Cosmic Treadmill. You'd think twice about being irresponsible in the the past (saving JFK, making out with your gran) if you knew that when you arrived there you'd be absolutely knackered.

Webshooters (the non-organic ones) because, y'know, webshooters!

Any Mignola radio-controlled Gorilla-With-Bolts-Through-The-Neck creation. Monkey butler!
 
 
Ron Stoppable
08:00 / 28.06.07
and Papers, I agree with you about wanting to see more hard science comics but I guess it's way trickier to pull of than flights of fancy. Ellis is good at it; Ministry Of Space and a load of stuff in Planetary. Also Global Frequency - I remember an orbiting weapon of mass destruction whose payload was massive carbon girders delivered by gravity.

Beyond that, there are a few steampunky, alternate history things around which can be quite fun - Five Fists Of Science was pretty good.
 
  
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