Fortunately, the side-effects of nuclear power might not be as bad as we once believed. In particular, I'm beginning to believe radiation may not deserve the bad rap it's received for so long. All those radiation warnings? I think they're just a part of an elaborate ploy. A giant conspiracy designed to make us think radiation is harmful to human health, when in fact the complete opposite is true. Sure, you could say that all the nuclear tragedies are solid proof of the dangers of radiation. That's just what they want you to think. Hollywood, as always, knows the truth. You can totally count on them to shed light on important issues, even as they steadfastly refuse to trivialize or alter them for increased drama.
With the credibility of Hollywood thus established, let's talk about superhero movies. There have been a lot of them of late, so for the sake of brevity, sanity and other such lost causes, I'm going to narrow the scope of this discussion down to a couple specific examples that prove my thesis. And what's my thesis? If movies can be believed, infecting yourself with radiation is the most surefire way of gaining superpowers. Just look at Spiderman. Having him get bitten by a radioactive spider was the best thing that ever happened to that fictional New York. More recently, we have the Fantastic Four. I'll admit I haven't seen it yet (apparently I'm not missing much), but I have heard the premise. It goes something like this: Some amazingly young(!) astronauts are exposed to a funky radiation storm(?) which grants them crazy superpowers(?!!). Batman is just about the only hero who wasn't inspired by radiation of some sort. The disclaimer on that stuff should really read: Warning - May Cause Superpowers.
So says pop culture. By its standards, radiation has lost its place on the hierarchy of deadliness in favor of, like, carbs. After all, I've never seen anyone gain superpowers by eating a bowl of pasta. And what kind of superhero would they be, anyway? Noodleman? Since this is coming from Hollywood and its fads, it would probably be more like Big-Boy. And here I tbought the Anthropologist was lame.
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