6/16/2005

Luscious Attack!

*Memes: like a snow day from reasoned comment. Just what I needed. Dear Mike sent this to me. I will now live up.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be and why? (Assume you also get baseline superhero enhancements like moderately increased strength, endurance and agility.)

Heh, I’m glad the author of this meme tossed in that parenthetical note about baseline enhancements; that shows that he or she is thinking like me, with an eye toward reality. I know that whenever I think about having superpowers (a contemplation as frequent and natural as the changing colors of the leaves… wait, that’s not very frequent) I tend to apply a little too much reality to the situation, since I’m relating everything to myself and my real-world experience. So I always wind up gravitating toward powers that probably won’t kill me too easily, as opposed to flight or super-speed. I’ll take ‘baseline enhancements’ as including ‘not liquefying one’s organs from high speeds,’ thank you very much.

But even after all that, I’ll still take Sue Storm’s powers. Provided that I don’t go blind from it (I know Warren Ellis has explained the biological implications of the Invisible Woman in at least three separate books). All I really want is the invisibility, but I’ll also take the force-field stuff. When you think about it, Sue’s pretty enormously powered; can’t she just conjure up invisible bubbles to appear in somebody’s brain with hardly any effort? That means she can pretty much kill people by thinking about it, which is perhaps a handy trait to possess. But I’d mostly like to be able to disappear and sneak into places like bulk retail warehouses without being a member. Now that’s imagination!

Which, if any, 'existing' superhero(es) do you fancy, and why?

Good heavens! Who do I ‘fancy?’ Bollocks to that!

You see, same problem here. I’m sure I’ve used a term like ‘fancy’ on this blog a few times in the manner which this question intends, but I use a different sort of ‘fancy’ in my non-internet life. It’s the sort of word I use when talking to my parents’ dog, actually. He’ll trot up to me holding a squeaky toy and I’ll bellow “You are a fancy beast, aren’t you? Yes you are! YOU are a FANCY beast! WITH A FANCY FEAST!” And he’ll just stare at me, wagging his tail as I launch into an hour-long dissection of how he’s verily the fanciest beast of them all, using no more than thirty-four unique words the whole time. He enjoys the presentation; it‘s a lot like the first chapter of Voice of the Fire, only far more challenging and troubling.

But there’s no way I’m saying Krypto or anything for my answer, because that would be sick. It’d be funny if I did it in a live-action setting; if I walked up to a clerk at the comics store and put my purchases down on the counter then conspiratorially whispered “I fancy Krypto, you know” into thin air as he tried to ring up my copies of Cocaine Comix, well that would be funny. But the internet is a serious place for serious answers.

Wait. ‘Fancy’ isn’t that sexual a term anyway. ‘Fancy’ is something Hugh Grant says in those romantic comedies while the scenic hills of England roll behind him. “Oh! I do fancy her!” I just know somebody said that in Love Actually. Fancy is a ‘cute’ thing.

So naturally, the answer is Tim Vigil’s Webwitch.

Which, if any, 'existing' superhero(es) do you hate?

Well, none I guess. Any superhero can be entertaining with the right writer behind him/her.

In practice, though? Captain Planet. Just a big stupid preachy deus ex machina whose show I always had to suffer through to get to wrestling when I was thirteen. And how was the power mine or yours or anyone else’s when those stupid kids kept having to call him to haul their asses out of the sludge factory or save them from ivory poachers or educate them about AIDS? And they had fucking power rings! No no, Captain, don’t you patronize me…

OK, here's the tough one. What would your superhero name be? (No prefab porn-name formulas here, you have to make up the name you think you'd be proud to mask under.)

Oh, easy.

‘Horse Dimension’

It just a perfect name. Chris Onstad has really raised the bar for awesome names with the introduction of ‘Circus Penis’ (found through Dirk), and I think there’ll soon be a trend for two-word double-noun names in the near-future. With ‘Horse Dimension,’ I will ride high on this wave.

But the name also makes perfect sense, given my Sue Storm-related powers. Whenever anyone would ask me where those invisible force-fields come from (being scientifically unexplainable and all), I’d just grin and say “Another dimension. The horse dimension.” Then I’d disappear.

I think I’d make a better guest star than lead.

For extra credit: Is there an 'existing' superhero with whom you identify/whom you would like to be?

I would totally want to be any third-tier superhero of moderate power. Someone whom nobody expects much from (maybe an Ultraverse character) but still has enough fanciful abilities to have more fun than the plain human. Although I’m sure I’d just wind up acting like Concrete anyway. He’s not too bad a ‘superhero’ to be, particularly if there’s no other superheroes joining me in my colorful play universe.

(and by the way, Mr./Ms./Mrs. meme writer, handing out extra points all willy-nilly will surely mess up the curve…)

Pass it on. Three people please, and why they're the wind beneath your wings.

Oh sure, I’d love to pass this meme on to WHAT ARE YOU DOING… NO!!! THE MEME IS CONTROLLING MY MIND… EVIL… F… FORCING ME TO SMOTHER IT WITH THIS PILLOW… G… GUESS I CAN’T PASS IT ON…

WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME A PLASTIC MARKER IN YOUR SUICIDE BOARD GAME, MEME?!