favorite superhero

[HenrikOlsen]

I would actually say that the increase in technology has changed the ratio of "farmers with their hands in the dirt" to "academics with their heads in the clouds" to require far fewer farmers per abstract academic, thus enabling society to afford far more academics, such that even if the ratio of technologists vs. philosophers is shifting to the technologists, there are still more philosophers than before. Especially if priests are counted among the abstract philosophers.

[thoth II]

Henrik

excellent points. I was not including priests exactly, but I see your point. Because , really, the USA, for example , is a very religious country in general. Maybe it is just the city I'm near that is not that religious, it is in one of those less religious parts of USA, so I forgot about that. In this area, it is the hectic city, cell phone, iPads everywhere, etc., etc., and just about all the kids in the college work in dept. stores selling technology. I should have lived in some remote area, I probably would have been happier, but am maybe too old to start again.

[DonM435]

Adam West also portrays himself on Family Guy . . .

Is there no limit to the man's range and versatility?

[BigDon]

As far as the OP, with comics it was Silver Surfer, Spiderman, Hulk, Turok and Andar, Fantastic Four. (I was born in 1960.)

Cartoons, after we got cable, about '71, I always ran home from school to try and watch Kimba, Speed Racer and Tobor The 8 Man. And THEN we would watch the live action "Ultraman" to see some giant monster wade through some Japanese city or another before getting it's backside kicked by Ultraman thereby destroying the other half of the city.

[Cookie]

M.A.N.T.I.S.

FTW !

[thoth II]

don, I also loved the comics, I was reading them starting about 1960. I did love certain ones, I remember one called spy versus spy that was funny I remember.
Those are so great for kids, they are colorful and fun to read, plus I think they were cheap enough for me to bug my parents to buy.

[Berengar]

My superhero is my wife. Seeing her to cope the daily routine and anytime having a smile on her face is absolutely fantastic.

[jfribrg]

Yes, I enjoyed Adam West. I always wondered why the arch criminals would always come to Gotham City. Any other city (other than Metropolis of course), and there would be no superheroes to thwart their evil plans. However, my favorite superhero is Stupendous Man.

[tnjrp]

I suppose their thinking goes along the same lines as that of Night Owl I in his memoirs in Watchmen (also a great source for interesting not-so-supers)... Dressing up to commit crime only makes sense as long as the opposition will return the favour

[ggremlin]

John Williams, he supports entire movies with his magic.

[SkepticJ]

V

[DonM435]

Do any of you remember the very subversive TV series Father Murphy?

NFL Hall-of-Fame lineman Merlin Olsen played this woodsman who had to impersonate a priest to keep some orphans safe. He'd do his hard daily work in frontier civvies, but when the bad guys threatened, he's change into the clerical garb. The big, imposing Padre from Heck would scare the bad guys away with softly spoken but determined sermons. If they resisted, he'd "baptise" them in the nearest river until they confessed their sins and repented.

Somewhere along the way, Michael Landon, the producer, caught some flack for the irreverent near-Reverend premise, and Murphy dropped the Holy (Short) Orders. But while it lasted, he was a great super hero.

[Parrothead]

Mine would be Batman. Saw the show in re-runs, same with the Superman tv shows. Back in the late 70's - mid 80's here in Toronto, Chum-fm would air "Theatre of the Mind" on Sunday nights 11pm to Midnight. Used to love listening to it, it would feature different radio shows, such as: The Shadow, Boston Blackie, Lone Ranger, Superman, Dragnet, Suspense, Inner Sanctum, etc.

[johndscott]

Batman and spiderman are my superhero and i have watched almost all the movie of them in the first show.

[thoth II]

Don M

Yes, I do remember Father Murphy , I just got out of grad school then and had some money to get a good TV. I really liked guys like Merlin Olsen, who was one of those fearsome 4 on the LA Rams. They were real life "superheroes".

[cosmocrazy]

John Williams, he supports entire movies with his magic.

Absolutely! he is a brilliant composer and sometimes its forgotten just how many film tracks he has produced! And lets face it most of the time the music makes the film soooo much better!

My favourite superhero as a kid growing up was my Dad! Unfortunately reality set in during my adolescence and I came to understand that he was just a regular guy, even if he was & is still super to me and my siblings.

I guess I'd have to go with Superman, yes I know its predictably boring but there's nobody else I'd rather be if I had the choice.

[Paul Beardsley]

Naboo out of The Mighty Boosh. I once saw him turn his back on somebody for real. It was at the Portsmouth Guildhall, and the victim was somebody in the audience. Later he resurrected everybody after they had been killed by The Hitcher.

[jfribrg]

I guess I'd have to go with Superman, yes I know its predictably boring but there's nobody else I'd rather be if I had the choice.

I know what you mean. When I was a young lad, I felt that he didn't make use of his X-Ray vision in the ways that I would have

[tnjrp]

This is probably a good time to repost a link to some Larry Niven
http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html

[captain swoop]

Dangermouse of course.

[Trebuchet]

I don't believe anyone's mentioned The Six Million Dollar Man. Good for us. I always used to cringe when he'd leap off a 3-story building and land on his bionic legs, which would of course have crushed his non-bionic spine to about six inches long.

[Fazor]

I've never been a big super-hero person, but something spurred me to post to this thread today -- A headline on MSN (I use hotmail for some of my e-mail) read, 'Daredevil Walks into Active Volcano' . . . and I couldn't help but immediately think, 'Yeah, 'caus he couldn't see it was there!'

If I had to pick a favorite . . . probably Batman or Punisher, but I know very little about the later. When I was 11-12 (+/- a year or two) we collected some brand of super-hero/villian trading cards, and I always liked Punisher the best. I mean, a skull t-shirt and guns? Cool, right?

[Van Rijn]

I don't believe anyone's mentioned The Six Million Dollar Man. Good for us. I always used to cringe when he'd leap off a 3-story building and land on his bionic legs, which would of course have crushed his non-bionic spine to about six inches long.

It's been a long time, but in my memory, the pilot movie wasn't too bad, but it became more and more ridiculous as the show progressed. The number was pretty funny though - only 6 million dollars? Even then that was cheap, considering the hardware involved.

[Graybeard6]

Chicken Man; " The wonderful white-winged warrior." He worked during the week, so he could only fight crime on the weekends. A creation of the illimitable Dick Orkin. If you weren't listining to radio in the seventies, You've never heard of him, so check here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken...adio_series%29

[Trebuchet]

Ah yes, "The Caped Capon". I always wondered how many people knew what "capon" means.

[Graybeard6]

Ah yes, "The Caped Capon". I always wondered how many people knew what "capon" means.

I found out when I was about 14. Dad acquired a bunch of old books and told me to check and see if any were worth keeping. One was entitled Capons and Caponing. I wanted to try it on one of our young roosters, but he figured I'd just kill a perfectly good Sunday dinner.

[dethfire]

Captain Planet! His crew rocked!

[kleindoofy]

... most of the time the music makes the film soooo much better! ...

Yup.

Instead of it just being a crappy movie, he turned Star Wars into a crappy movie with good music.

[Chuck]

I was hatched in 1951. My favorite comic book superhero was Thor. I'm not familiar with a lot of the superheroes invented more recently than the 1960's.

[HenrikOlsen]

I was hatched in 1951. My favorite comic book superhero was Thor. I'm not familiar with a lot of the superheroes invented more recently than the 1960's.

Did you perchance read any from Walt Simonson's run #337-#382? It includes some of the finest writing the series have seen, turning many characters that were two dimensional caricatures into fully fleshed people and giving real challenges to characters that were shallow and overpowered.

I especially like the humorous interlude of the three-parter #363-366, the one with the cover of the third asking the immortal question "What do you call a 6'6" Fighting-Mad Frog?".
The answer incidentally being "SIR!". And yes, it is Thor on the cover.