InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Gravity really gets me down"

manofbats (manofbats) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-10-25 23:14:00

Entry tags:

char: flash/barry allen, char: power girl/kara zor-l/karen starr, creator: amanda conner, creator: j. michael straczynski, publisher: dc comics, title: the brave and the bold

Kryptopolitans and Barry picks up a gun for the war effort.

These are from The Brave and the Bold #28 in which Barry volunteers for an experiment and accidentally travels back in time to the Battle of the Bulge then joins the Blackhawks in their fight against the Germans.

Barry's leg is broken when he awakes after blacking out. Some Nazis spot him and fends them off by pelting bricks at them.

Barry is reluctant to help the Blackhawks kill even though it's WWII and he would be fighting Nazis and he doesn't seem to have a problem with only possibly killing them with bricks to the head at super speed. Since Barry vowed to never kill while wearing his Flash "uniform" he takes it off and puts on an American soldier's uniform to help the Blackhawks just until his leg heals.

The issue ends with Barry putting on the Flash suit, his leg healed, and returning to the present via the rift his experiment created, but not before Blackhawk says, "Go with God, son."

And now for something completely different.

That was posted on Jimmy Palmiotti's blog. It was drawn for fun at a con by Amanda.

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	abagnale008 2009-10-27 07:08 am UTC (link)
	When Lois falls out of the helicopter and Superman quickly flies up to save her, her bones don't snap because Superman didn't think to match her speed and take into account of his invulnerability. He simply saves her. It's comic books, whatever the writer/artist wants to happen happens. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

bluefall
2009-10-27 07:21 am UTC (link)

Unfortunately, you're running into the Extrapolation Law here.

The majority of the audience doesn't know real complex physics or materials science. They are not sitting there going "gee at terminal velocity, his arms should be as lethal as the ground." They are going "gee when someone's falling, what you have to do is catch them." It is the only thing you can ever count on your audience to do, and the one thing you can always count on your audience to do - extrapolate what "feels right" from their own experience.

The average human being knows that when you're very strong, you can lift something large, like a desk, over your head. They know this so thoroughly and completely and instinctively that it's like knowing what color the sky is. It is absolutely exactly what all their experience ever will lead them to expect. Therefore, when you show them a picture of a superman holding something larger than a desk over his head, like a house, their automatic and more than likely only reference for that is "desk over the head, only bigger." And what does a desk do? It lifts over your head. Therefore, what does the readership expect the house to do? To lift over the superman's head. They have no reference point for load-bearing surfaces. Their reference points are all for objects where that's not a concern. Therefore, the illusion holds, the disbelief is suspended, and the reader remains immersed in the narrative when the house goes up over the superman's head, even though in reality it should crumble to pieces. Crumbling to pieces would break disbelief, because it's a deviation from the normal human experience of lifting things over the head. Reality is unrealistic that way.

In precisely the same way, the average reader knows that if you catch someone who's falling, you break their fall. Because their experience is limited to people falling short distances. And the natural extrapolation of that is that catching someone stops them from getting hurt. Your audience expects, when they see someone get caught, that that's a rescue. It's what every experience they've ever had supports.

Contrariwise, every experience any human being has ever had with a flying brick is JESUS FUCK THAT COULD HAVE KILLED ME. Extrapolation Law is working strongly against you in this case, and you better have a good justification to bring to the audience.

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