Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Sometimes I really love my fans

Especially when they give me more detailed information about just how incredibly stupid Amazons Attack is. In this case, Tim Ellrod was kind enough to let me post this e-mail explaining just how remarkably idiotic not only the Amazons catching up to Air Force one was, but also the bomb that malfunctioned:

I have to say that when you said that the worst was yet to come, I didn't really know what you meant, and I'd pretty much thought that it would just be more of the same.

I was wrong.

While the physics and science in the first two issues was annoying, the problems in these two issues...where do I start?

Air Force One has a cruising speed of about 575 miles per hour (this from some very cursory research), so those Pegasi (Pegasuses...?) have got to be on PCP or something. Additionally, that sucker is flying at an altitude of around 30,000 feet above ground, so the Amazons and their Pegas...damn, now I know why you just went with "flying horses". Anyway, the Amazons and their steeds probably couldn't even breathe at that height, much less catch up to a plane traveling at 84% of the speed of sound.

This isn't the worst, though. No, no. The worst has got to be the high-tech bomb at the nuclear power plant, and how Green Arrow says that if it had gone off by the reactor, it would have reduced Star City to a green crater for thousands of years. Bull. Crap. A fission reactor is not a fission bomb. A fission bomb needs highly refined "weapons grade" Uranium, which will have a purity of about 95% U-235. A fission reactor on the other hand, doesn't need weapons grade stuff, so it'll generally have about 5% U-235. Sticking a friggin' hand grenade next to a fission reactor will not cause it to become an A-Bomb!

On a side note, the comic makes this big thing of the Bana using high-tech weapons, while the Amazons do not. Are they even supposed to be super-advanced like that? From the brief summary you gave, it just seemed like they were a slightly different group of Amazons.

Oh, and as it happens, Batman's bee line gave me the distinct impresion that he's not apathetic, but that he knows how ridiculous things have gotten. "Bees. My God." sounded a lot like "Bees. *shakes head* You've got to be #@%&ing kidding me." I'm not joking; that's really what it looked like when I read it.

Also...

Not-Bush: "A relic of the Cold War. Allows arrest of suspicious individuals. Provides for deportation. Imprisonment. Camps. ...the people need to know they're safe. Secure. They need to know that someone strong and capable is looking out for them. Implement the order. Now. There's no other way to save the country."

Are we sure this comic wasn't co-written by Michael Moore?

Besides, all this boldface type is reminding me of another, much funnier comic, a comic about Gotham City, and it's filthy crime-ridden streets crawling with corrupt cops and whores. Crawling with them.

I enjoyed that comic so much more than this one...

Not-Bush's plan is made even stupider when you realize that it doesn't even fit into the comic. The writers are literally bending the story just to wedge this anti-Bush "subtext" into it. If a group of armored warriors arrived in D.C., the most logical course of action is to attack them. How on Earth is arresting "suspicious individuals" going to help? Besides, it should be pretty clear when someone is an Amazon, what with all the armor and sharp weapons. You shouldn't get that many unjust arrests on this one.

Finally, on the poll, while Supergirl and Wonder Girl are acting like idiots, the dumbest plot I have yet seen is still the Church of Humanity's plan. Basically each step of that plan was stupid, from Nightcrawler going right from "low-ranking priest" to pope, to the "false rapture" element.

Sincerely,
-Dick Grayson, age twe-...erm...Tim.



Oh dear lord do I love my fans. ^^ ‎

13 comments:

Kimberly said...

I LOVE SCIENCE!

I have to agree with Tim on the Batman line. Definitely "Bees. My God, are they serious?" Shame he left his instant-escape-from-terrible-plotline device back in the batcave.

Unknown said...

I dunno about the Pegasi (Pegasus'?) if we're going to bring up air speed and so on you also have to question how a horse with wings like those drawn would work... they can't, they'd need much more musculature and a much larger wingspan to carry the weight of horse and rider (and weapons)... I'd be more happy with a hand wave of 'it's magic'
not that I'm defending the comic, just the idea of criticizing flying horses believable speed XD
Bees
My God

Anonymous said...

Lewis, do you by any chance know whether these flying horses fly with their wings or with just magic? Because if it's the former, than I believe they would have much more trouble flying fast (rarefied air), which is kinda redundant, considering they won't be able to breathe anyway, but still adds a little more to this giant pile of stupidity

Anonymous said...

Torri:

I too happened upon the thought of Pegasus flight being magical in nature (I'm the guy who wrote the email ^_^). Anyway, you're right in that anything with that much mass would need a much greater wingspan (maybe 30 feet or more) and would need a set of wing muscles a la Todd Lockwood (he did most of the illustrations for D&D's 3E dragons). However artists are not really bound by the rules of biology (nor should they be), so unfortunately there's no clear proof either way; the artists could have just drawn the Pegasi without wing musculature for the sake of not overloading the panels with detail.

In the end, I assumed the Pegasi (I'm sticking with that term for now) were nonmagical in terms of flight, since they had a semi-plausible flight mechanism. If these were just horses but were STILL flying, then magic would have been the first thing to leap to mind. Admittedly, criticizing the airspeed of a flying horse is kind of dumb when there are also two TEENAGE GIRLS flying alongside the plane, but I couldn't help myself.

On a side note, it's a shame the bold type didn't come up on the page, since my Millerspeak became much less humorous (it was originally FILLED with DARK letters, much as Gotham's STREETS are filled with the DARKNESS of CRIME, miscreants and WHORES).

Anonymous said...

ITS MAGIC!

But yeah, the physics in this comic is without a doubt non-existant. Just as rediculous as the flying horses is the arrow from the first issue. Those are jet fighters. They are designed to fly at speed well exceeding the sound barrier. An arrow not only hits the plane, but is able to pierce the glass and hit the pilot in the neck.

A hybrid DNA mix of Robin Hood and Green Arrow would not be able to make that shot. The tension on the string alone would destroy the bow.

Kate Holden said...

I guess if the Pegasi (?) can fly that fast, it would explain how the Amazons seem to get around the USA so damned quickly.
...Though I suspect that trying to explain anything at all regarding this comic is pointless. Why didn't the president just fly to another country rather than around in circles? Are the rest of the world's nations completely unconcerned that America is being attacked?
...Apparently they are, since there's been no mention of them so far.
"America's being attacked by warrior women!"
"What, seriously?"
"Yeah, they've put it on big screens down the pub!"
"Awesome! Buy me a pint and some cheese and onion crisps, I'll be right there!"

Because everybody likes watching America get beaten up!

Anonymous said...

Editor: "Um, guys, are you sure this thing is... you know... realistic?"

Twin clones of Hiter: "Of course! Don't you know anything about science?"

Anonymous said...

I'm going to second the Church of Humanity's plan as the dumbest of them. Every single step of its plan was nonsensical and ridiculous. Sure, the others were stupid, but this one actually had multiple steps in it, each one idiotic.

Anonymous said...

"It's magic. We don't have to explain it!"

Anonymous said...

Y'know, I kind of hate to bring it up (I'm personally not really one for standing on protocol when heads start getting lopped off), but...what's the legal standing of the Justice League getting involved in the U.S./Themysciran conflict?

I mean, if aliens or the underground Crab People or Goblins or something attacked, you'd understand Superman showing up to save the day. But strictly speaking, at what point does the Amazons' country become legally distinct from, say, Taiwan? Is it the "banished into another dimension" thing, the fact that they use(?) magic, or is it because of their choice in tactics, or what?

But heck, I've been out of the loop for awhile on some of the legal nitty-gritty on when the Justice League is or isn't allowed to become involved in Earth wars, or to what extent, or by who's leave. (And that's assuming it's portrayed consistently, and that the universe doesn't rewrite itself again to make established information meaningless.)

And...well, y'know, at the risk of being impolitic, I think when you actually have an armed force landing troops on your soil and killing civilians, I think there's a generally little more leniency granted towards interning potential fifth columnists for security reasons than in more vague military or political situations. But I'd need to brush up on my reading of the Hague/Geneva conventions to be sure.

That being said...uh, who the heck is not-Bush ordering arrested there, exactly? Women, in general? Okay, that might be a TAD overbroad.

Humbug.


P.S...okay, what was the escort pilot shooting at Wondergirl, there? A Roman Candle? Well, since it was able to lock on to either the heat or radar signature of a person over that of a 747 ten feet away, I'm guessing it's either really new to the arsenal, or frighteningly old. Apparently it was impact-fused to boot, which made it a slightly better choice to fire. It might reduce the chances of the warhead's twenty pounds of shrapnel traveling above mach 2 hitting anything else within the 40± foot kill radius.

Humbug again.

Anonymous said...

I've been thinking theres some sorta magical force blocking wonder woman from appearing in more than 4 panels of her own comic.

I've been wondering if wonder woman had more appearances in the tie-in comics than in Amazon's attack. If so it might explain why she has so little panel time. Maybe they thought they had her in a lot of panels already cause they had drawn everything out together. Or they had their own bolshevik heads so far up their own @#$ they forgot to pencil in the main character! Seriously did they think they were actually making some sort of political statement by equating the war on terror with a invasion by women armed spears, flying horses, and magic?

I'd like to know how many joints they had to smoke before their comparison made sense. I would have found it more profound if they compared cheese to peanut butter. At least both can go on a cracker.

Its not like these women have spies or sleepers, they're holding the USA hostage with what is basically pointed sticks.

This got me thinking maybe they were watching Apocalypse Now and they remembered the line that went something like "how can these people armed with bows and arrows defeat the US?" And they were so high when they wrote, edited, and drew this comic that they thought they were making some sort of vietnam reference relevant?

I don't know what you think but I think this comic would be an amazing drug PSA.

This is your comic.
Amazon's Attack is your comic on drugs.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MAN DON'T DO DRUGS!!!

Will Staples said...

It really made me angry when President Horne (or whoever it was) was turned into a Bush clone - not only here but in Geoff Johns's Action Comics run.

I'm pretty far left. Like, I consider Michael Moore a moderate. I think George W. Bush was an incompetent, evil son of a bitch who screwed the free world five ways to Sunday and should have been impeached and convicted for crimes against humanity.

But I DO NOT WANT to read about him in my comics. I read DC Comics to get off-planet, to get away from the things that occupy my thoughts in reality. It's why I can't stand 90% of Marvel's output since Civil War. I'm not the least bit interested in what the writers think about politics, even if I agree with them.

AnotherForlong said...

I'm sorry, but you're both dead wrong about the dumbest plan ever.

The dumbest plan ever is from the "Naruto" manga, wherein the big bad wants to take over the world by reflecting his eyes off the moon to hypnotize everyone in the world.

WOW! That's just...WOW!