The Nerd Thinks: Death to Kryptonite!

The recent release of the "Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice" trailer sparked the age old debate of who would win in a fight between Batman and Superman, which I've already discussed. The most common defense for Batman, aside from prep time, is that Batman could just use Krytponite to weaken Clark and ultimately kill him. Now Superman could easily fly away at mach 5 and blast Batman from a safe distance, but it highlights one of the most overused, and quite frankly stupid, weaknesses in all of comics: A green space rock.

How many times has Superman gone up against a villain ( or hero) that had no business being in the same room as him but because of Kryptonite they are an actual threat to him? We are talking about a man who at one point in his career moved entire planets, punched dimensions apart, can bench press the weight of Earth for days and goes up against the likes of Darkseid and Mongul. How is it that his weakness is so abundant and exploitable? I mean Batman pretty much stockpiles the thing and always keeps it on him just to give him a chance against Supes and that it just totally contrary to the character of Superman; he is supposed to be the best of us, the most powerful of us, yet he can get

You thought I was kidding about the gum

taken out by Kryptonite gum and be reduced to a sniveling pansy. He needs to create special suits just to avoid the radiation from green K but can survive being at ground zero of an ATOMIC EXPLOSION, do you see how wildly inconsistent that makes him appear to be? Superman should be able to shred the likes of Metallo, oh but wait he has a Kryptonite heart so now he's a threat. Regular non powered Lex Luthor would get killed faster than Batman..no wait..he has a Kryptonite powered suit, he can now match Superman blow for blow. I know a lot of people will say "but without it he's too powerful" and I would be inclined to agree...if he didn't also have another weakness.

Kryptonians are super powerful beings but even they have weaknesses aside from a green rock. For starters, if they are deprived of yellow sunlight for too long then they are no stronger than a regular human, same goes for being under a red sun...it makes them basically human. The biggest non Krytponite related weakness is an aversion to magic. Beings like Captain Marvel and Shazam ( and even sorcerers) present a challenge to Superman because they are based in magic. It does a whammy on them that is akin to a slow poison, much like krytponite, and is a much better way of giving a character a weakness that something as abundant as Kryptonite. There are not many magical beings or magic users that could harm Superman but there are enough to where he isn't a totally unstoppable foe and it gives the added bonus of giving whomever uses magic against him some cred; it would be much more acceptable to me if Batman learned some spells to incapacitate Superman rather than throw a green rock at him because one way shows that the character has the discipline to learn and that should be rewarded by him bringing the big guy down; the other shows just how lazy writers can be since they can just write themselves into a corner, throw a rock at Supes and suddenly have instant drama/danger.

Look, I have respect for classic things in comics ( I dig that the Flash show basically has a cosmic treadmill) but Kryptonite is a remnant of bygone era where the cover pages were full of exposition and the writers could get away with characters with as much depth as a kiddie pool in the Sahara. Nowadays we are able to craft wonderful stories and characters with strengths and weakness befitting them so why should Superman be beholden to such an archaic weakness? Green Lantern has no issue against wood, Martian Manhunter got over his fear of fire ( well at least until the retcon but at least they tried to get away from it) so why not just get rid of Kryptonite? And before anyone complains about him being op, let me remind you that Wonder Woman got powered up to the point where she is an actual god and I don't hear any complaints about that. Bottomline, having a character as powerful as Superman have such a ridiculous weakness totally undermines the character and allows for writers to be extremely lazy when it comes to putting him in peril. Take that away from them, force them to write characters that pose a real challenge to both  Clark Kent and Superman or maybe..just maybe...create new characters that can be a physical challenge for him. He is an alien after all, maybe explore more races that could kill him? I mean you really have your pick of the litter here but get red of green K, DEATH TO KRYPTONITE!

Gaming While Black

Over at Joystiq there is a piece by Jess Conditt titled " Gaming While Black" which, as you might have guessed, talks about how it is to be part of the community (be it as developer or player) as a black person. Now Jess is not a black person so she was going off the experiences of others and for the most part they weren't that great; yeah there is a few good bits there but it's not a general positive overview of things and I for one am tired of all the negativity so I've decided to share my own experiences.

I've made a post before about why I'm a gamer but I never really talked about my race, that's mostly because it doesn't really factor into the equation. I'm not an idiot, I know that when you play online that you are gonna run into jerks that will hurl every racial epithet in the book, but I get that in spite of my race and it doesn't make me wanna isolate myself into a specific corner and not interact with others; why? Because I have been gaming since as long as I can remember and I can handle a few idiots, just wreck them in the game and watch them cry sweet tears. The gaming communities have been the most welcoming ones i've been apart of, the only time I've had to mention my race is when the media or some "pop culture hackers" decide to make everything political; forcing every minority that identifies as a gamer to play race politics just to defend our hobby. I enjoy playing videogames because my race does not matter, I am not barred from purchasing or enjoying a game simply because I'm black. Do you know how nice it is to have that? To not have your race be a determining factor in how people treat you? I thought gaming was the one place that I could go to in order to escape the realities of the world but now I see people trying to force that  reality into my fantasy; I don't like that at all.

Now I am fully aware that there are not a ton of minority protagonists in gaming and those that are, often fall into a stereotype ( especially the black characters). I would love to see more diversity in that regard but I don't feel like I'm unable to enjoy the game simply because the character I am playing isn't black; I am able to enjoy my games while also being aware of the lack of representation for some but that doesn't make my existence as a black gamer something of melancholy. I actually hate the term "black gamer" I am just a gamer and I think it's high time we stopped adding race/gender as a prefix. Gaming is an inclusive hobby that cares not for race, religion, gender or orientation so I think we shouldn't focus on the consumer's race, religion, gender or orientation; at the very least not as something to prop up to show how good of a person you are, instead if you really want to help us out then showcase us in a positive light. Show black gamers at fighting tournaments, profile black concept artists, spotlight black dev teams, show us succeeding in the industry in spite of everything...that's something that we never get to see and I guarantee you it will have a more profound impact than saying "look how terrible blacks have it in the industry". But hey what do I know? I'm just a gamer.