Comments on: I Have A Cunning Plan

By: TentacledBeast

TentacledBeast — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:18:06 +0000

Huh? If he could kill Batman like that, why couldn’t he kill Superman like that?

…or am I missing something?

By: Catpain Balkudder

Catpain Balkudder — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:06:41 +0000

Sorry to be a anatomical nitpicker, but technically, the retina should be considered a part of the brain (well, CNS… tomAEto/tomAto).

The optic nerve is developmentally derived from the diencephalon. This means that it is sheathed in the meninges and that the myelin covering is composed of oligodendritic cells, and not the Schwann cells which cover peripheral nervs.

And since the human retina is designed by a blind watchmaker, it’s turned inside-out and the nerves are actually blocking the photosensitive rods and cones (unlike the much more intelligently designed squid retina which is right-side out).

All in all this means that any light entering the eye strikes the nerve fibres of the retina, which is a part of the brain and hey presto! The brain has been reached through the pupils of the eyes!

By: Ron

Ron — Sun, 17 May 2009 13:39:17 +0000

So, for a comic-book scientific genius …

radio + aspirin = bomb
radio + vitamin c = invisibility

Presumably, there is a whole host of other effects from combining pharmeceuticals with a radio if the combiner is enough of a brain. I think there should actually be a character devoted to exploring just these possibilities.

By: ScienceGiant

ScienceGiant — Sat, 16 May 2009 14:56:31 +0000

Scott – Thanks, I think. You mean it wrote it under a nom-de-plume, but still used his initials?!? 8-|

Carl – and that’s why I suggested it. If “David Vern” wanted technobabble, optical maser sounds a little more impressive.

FUN FACT: Hey, kids, a laser is monochromatic, coherent source of light. But shine a red laser pointer at glow in the dark things, and nothing happens! Why?

Ron – I remember an issue of “Fantastic Four” where Johnny Storm is moaning that Doctor Doom could make a bomb with a radio and two aspirin. To which Reed Richards responds, nonsense — he’d need at LEAST a whole bottle to make a bomb of any credible threat.

That one panel alone by John Bryne balances his later decision to turn the Invisible Girl into Malice.

FUN FACT ANSWER – red photons can’t stimulate the fluoresence, no matter how long you shine the laser pointer.

By: Ron

Ron — Sat, 16 May 2009 05:48:05 +0000

I allow that Luthor’s plan seems pretty unlikely to succeed. But I read a Supergirl story in one of those Showcase collections recently in which he was able to escape from prison by turning himself invisible, and he accomplished that with … a transistor radio and some vitamin c. I hesitate to put anything past him after reading that.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 16 May 2009 03:36:37 +0000

This plan is nowhere like as cunning as a fox what used to be Professor of Cunning at Oxford University but has moved on and is now working for the U.N. at the High Commission of International Cunning Planning.

By: Carl

Carl — Sat, 16 May 2009 02:29:31 +0000

An “optical maser” would be a laser.

MASER=”Microwaves Amplified by Stimulated Emission of Radiation”

LASER=”Light Amplified by Stimulated Emission of Radiation”.

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 16 May 2009 01:41:04 +0000

DVR would be David Vernen Reed, who wrote this issue under the almost-pseudonym “David Vern.”

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 15 May 2009 20:33:16 +0000

Who is DVR, the initals of whom are in the footnote? A collaborator with Bob Haney?

And wouldn’t an optical maser have made more sense?

By: BPK

BPK — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:37:22 +0000

Yes, and you could mount the “MASER” on sharks, or failing that, ill-tempered sea bass.