Friday, August 6, 2010

Batman, the Antacid Avenger of Evil Friday!

Do my eyes deceive me, or is it an honest-to-goodness villain? Not an alien, a sea monster, or a mutated puffin?


Well, not a particularly good villain, judging by the looks of things, but we'll give it a go. Although it seems to me like if you're made of iron, changing Batman into calcium is really just grandstanding. It's not like you couldn't crush a flesh-and-blood human being if you were made of iron. Not that I've had the chance to test that theory, but I think it would be about as equal a match as putting Binky's brother Allergy against Colossus or Iron Man.

Anyway, like it seemed to happen all the time in the 50's, working in a lab meant there was a good chance you were going to mutate into something:


Science types have a hard time seeing the big picture. Before he changes into something else, why not ask him to get out of those gold clothes? They might still morph, but it would be worth a try. I can't help but think a solid gold suit would be worth trying to salvage.

Science types think they know everything, but they clearly don't.

Now, here's something even I would know is foolish if I were made out of sodium:


I'm pretty sure water dissolves salt, doesn't it? Why didn't The Element Man pull back a nub when he dipped his foot in the swimming pool?

And of course, Batman had to be afflicted with this condition as well. That always adds to the drama:


Well, screw my dreams of an America where we still follow Due Process! I'm sorry, but we think there's a good chance you'll do something if we don't take away your freedom, so into the pokey with you! And Bruce is okay with this. I guess if you're a vigilante operating outside the confines of the law yourself, you must figure this is just Karma kicking you squarely in the 'nads.

But the important thing is, we finally got back to crime. Sort of. I mean, the bad guy was under the influence of whatever was changing his elemental structure when he committed crimes, but that defense probably wouldn't keep him out of prison in Texas, so there's that. Anyway, the important thing is, we're starting to see a turn away from the "Weird Batman" era and...


Well, crap again.

I guess we'll try it again on Monday!

6 comments:

D.B. Echo said...

Just off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure that sodium metal in contact with water produces a violent reaction that...wait, I just looked it up, produces sodium hydroxide and hydrogen gas and enough heat to make the hydrogen explode (in an oxygen atmosphere, I suppose.) Dipping his sodium toe in that pool would have probably generated an explosion that would have killed everyone in the area, at least after the rest of him got involved in the reaction.

http://www2.uni-siegen.de/~pci/versuche/english/v44-1-1.html

MarvelX42 said...

Salt is NOT sodium. It is sodium cloride. Don't ever eat any sodium. It will kill you.

Also the ancient painting clearly shows a YELLOW creature where as the current one is green. Is Robin colorblind?

Anonymous said...

Yay, see, according to the Commisioner we should ALL be locked up. Then everyone would be safe.

No more need for vigilanties then.

Is it me, or is the Commisioner unusually overcome wih grief at having to lock Batman up? Or is he just really nervous the Batman will say, "Stuff that, I've decided to tie you into a knot instead for even thinking about doing that".

Happy weekend everybody!

LadyBlack

Britt Reid said...

"Is Robin colorblind?"

As we saw in an earlier entry, Robin can't tell Magenta/Pink from Red.

As for locking Batman up, considering that the process that changed the Elemental Man drove him bonkers, it wasn't unreasonable to quarantine Batman when he was "infected" with the same condition.

Why were the "infected" people's clothes transformed as well?
If you say anything directly touching their bodies was altered, at least their shoes wouldn't have been! (They were wearing socks!)
And, unless they were going "commando", they were wearing underwear...

Tony Isabella said...

As a kid, that Elemental Man story got me hooked on learning about the elements. I must have read every book our library had on the subject, though, back then, there were only a few elements: man, rock, tiger, and a couple others.

Adam Barnett said...

Everything I learned about elements I learned from comics. Same goes for metals, physical science.... this explains why I'm *really* confused most of the time!