Archive for the ‘The Great Divide’ Category

Let’s face it. If Superman is going up against the incredible el kabongo insaniac frothin’ at the mouth Hulk, he’s going to have to stop bein’ a sissy little boy scout and pull out his big guns. In order to face the unleashed animalistic fury of a nuclear powered wimp with a PhD in physics, Superman needs to put his Doomsday fighting, no holds barred gloves on.

The way I see it starting, some goon shoves Bruce Banner in the lunch line somewhere in Metropolis, and lil’ Brucie starts throwing a green-skinned temper-tantrum. Within the first five minutes, ten square blocks of the City of Tomorrow are devastated, and Superman has just shown up from stopping a tsunami or an earthquake on the other side of the planet. A couple miles away still and breaking the sound barrier a few times, Superman has already used his telescopic and x-ray vision to determine that a hulking, man-shaped tumor is destroying his favorite city, and closing in on the Daily Planet.

Being Superman, he goes in for a quick assessment of this monster that he’s never seen before. Landing several super-speed punches in succession, Superman lets up, since most enemies just can’t take that kind of punishment. And then? BADOOM. Superman is jettisoned into the ocean, having just fallen victim to an incredible green uppercut with a strength he’s never witnessed outside of his own Weight Training Room of Solitude. At this point, Superman regrettably realizes that he’s going to have to fight harder and more viciously than ever before.

Superman charges back, unleashing a volley of heat vision blasts and, uh, cold… breath… to hopefully imprison or at least slow the Hulk down. Of course, this pisses the Hulk off to no end. “The madder Hulk gets, the STRONGER Hulk gets!” he bellows, sounding something like a toddler not getting a new action figure at KB Toys. The Incredible one then grabs Superman’s head, spins him a few times, drives the man of steel about two miles underground and walks into the lobby of the Daily Planet. The force of an atom bomb is detonated in the building, and the Planet falls. Dazed, Superman wakes up somewhere in the earth’s crust and witnesses the carnage and mayhem two miles above him. Red fills his eyes.

Superman is now more pissed than he ever thought possible and ready to do whatever it takes to make the Hulk dead. After all, the Hulk has just killed Superman’s wife and friends and put him out of an honest job. Waaaaay faster than a speeding bullet, Superman flies up on the unsuspecting Hulk, who has already forgotten about the last son of Krypton. Since the Hulk let’s damn near everyone know how his powers work, the whole madder/stronger thing, Superman has an advantage. Zooming in on the green behemoth, Superman uses his various vision powers to pin-point the portion of Hulk’s brain that triggers anger and adrenaline, and promptly fillets it with his heat vision, effectively lobotomizing the Hulk. The Hulk turns back into Bruce Banner, Superman crushes his head, then throws the body towards the sun for good measure. Having broken his no-killing oath, Superman soars into space, never to be seen again. The end.

Now that we have examined the two major comic companies, it is only proper that we delve a little deeper and look at the characters of those two separate universes and muse over how they would stack up in a mano e mano brawl. In doing this, we should start with the two great powerhouses of the respective universes. In this case, it is Superman vs. the Incredible Hulk. I assert that the Hulk would win this fight.

Born of the fury of a gamma bomb, the Hulk is a creature of rage and strength whose emerald skin is capable of withstanding the onslaught of heavy artillery fire. His leg muscles are so powerful they can propel the Hulk and his girth of 1040 lbs. to a distance of near three miles in a single bound, which is significantly farther than the height of a tall building.

The key power of the Hulk is that the madder the Hulk gets, the stronger the Hulks gets. How does it make you feel when someone punches you in the face? It pisses you off. It does the same thing to Hulk which only makes him stronger. The only chance that Superman has of beating the Hulk is unleashing full power from the first blow, which he wouldn’t do because he is too big of a boy scout. In any normal brawl, the Hulk is going to keep getting stronger the more Superman beats on him. This will lead to the eventual beating of a Kryptonian ass.

Sure, Superman has all those extra powers that the Hulk doesn’t: heat vision, super hearing, super ventriloquism but none of that matters in a beat down. What matters in a beat down is just how much damage you do and how much you can destroy which comes from getting stronger as you get angrier.
Here is their battle in 200 words.

Superman is flying over the New Mexico desert when he sees the emerald monster ripping up chunks of Route 66 because he just got hit by a car. Faster than a speeding bullet the man of steel barrels into jade jaws with the force of a missile and sends the Hulk skipping across the desert like a stone over water. This makes the Hulk angry and as Superman closes in for a second attack he is struck with blow just short of Doomsday’s power.

Superman would then realize that this would be a battle that he had to give all he has and the slugfest that would be engaged would shake the desert. The impact of their fists would ring bells on both American coasts as both warriors tear into each other with power of Titans. Superman’s speed and intellect would give him the upper hand as he beat the beast into a broken and bloodied mess. At this point, his boy scout code would kick in and he would enter a crisis of remorse about how close he came to actually killing a living being. His mistake because while he is crying, the Hulk is still getting angry from the pain of ruptured organs and as he gets stronger and adrenaline surges through him, his body heals.

It is all over from there. Hulk is now far stronger than Superman and he attacks with such ferocity that it is apparent why he is called the Savage Hulk. His berserk rage is not sated until Superman is a primary color smear across the landscape.

Okay, this one is a hard one to defend. How am I supposed to say that internet socializing is better than the real thing? How can I compare face to face interaction and conversation with the illusion of connectedness that internet socializing allows? Is it even possible to say that surfing the web for your social kicks is at all anywhere near equal to sitting with someone and sharing a laugh and sigh and maybe a touch? Yes, it is possible, and it all comes down to one word; globalism.

Being able to log into Myspace, Facebook or Twitter, or any other social Web site out there, allows one to connect with people who they might not be able to talk to in their local geography. It is true that we are moving into the global one world village and internet socializing is what makes it all possible. Through the internet, I can share jokes with hucksters in Hawaii, exchange recipes with real people in Rwanda and swap naughty pictures with all those lovely Ukrainian women out there.

These are not things I could do if my social scene was limited to St. Joseph. Through the internet, I have been allowed to catch up with kids I graduated high school with twenty years gone now. I probably never would have reconnected with most of these people if it were not for internet socializing.

Back to the concept of globalism. This world we live in has truly become a smaller place. News travels far faster now than in the days of analog television dialogue. Internet socializing allows you to be a part of that exchange process.

Internet socialization is perfect for those who do not have the loudest voice in mixed company. Internet socialization is great for ugly people. And for someone like me, right now, afflicted with this damnable swine flu, eyes burning, guts clenching, shivering and sweating at the same time, I can still seek out the internet for the presence of a person so I can know I am not alone in the universe. And this way no one has to watch me cough up a lung.

Every day millions of college students log onto Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or any number of social networking sites and, unfortunately, it is eroding our society from the inside. Rather than spending our time having fun with friends in person or doing something that has an actual impact on society for the better, we sit for minutes to hours toiling away on our keyboards in front of our ever-expanding monitors. We gain nothing from this waste of time other than decreasing social skills and a continually increasing lexicon of idiotic shortcuts of the English language. What we as college students really need is to get off our cushioned desk chairs and go out into the real world instead of relying on fake online societies for many of our social needs.

You may be screaming at me because of this blatant blasphemy against the titans of the internet, but I know what I’m talking about. I, too, use social networking sites, and I’m here to tell you: social networking is becoming an issue in today’s society. How are we going to teach the younger generation valuable social skills when our own social experience takes place in front of the cold glow of a computer screen? You have hundreds of friends, you say? Well, how many of those people do you actually know? How many of them have ever been invited to your home or even know where you live? Sure, Facebook and Myspace may connect old friends, but those occasional messages usually turn into nothing more than another virtual relationship for another fake social setting.

Even family and close friends are now spending hours online posting nonsensical one liners and writing short messages, but they cannot take the time to pick up the phone or even write an e-mail even though e-mail is actually part of social networking. What we are really doing in social networking is putting an unnecessary, and perhaps harmful, layer of space between ourselves and other people. In moderation, social networking can be fun, but it should never be a replacement for good old-fashioned, face to face interaction.