The Truth About Freeze Powers

In all superhero stories, the power of ice also equates to the power of freezing people. Not killing them, just freezing them – disabling them by turning them into icicles. In the popular film The Incredibles, for example, the character voiced by Samuel L Jackson is capable of freezing a bullet mid-air as well as the policeman behind it:
 

In the X-Men, Bobby Drake (aka Iceman) can do it, since his powers are also ice-based. In various Batman incarnations, Mr Freeze can do it. Superman sometimes does it with his super-breath. The list could go on. But sadly, that frozen policeman from the video is almost definitely dead.

Now that I’ve said it you probably already see the truth of it, but after the click let’s break down just how horrible it is.

Gotham vs Metropolis

I’ve been playing a lot of DC Universe Online since it became free (when I can get onto the server). If you’re not familiar with it, it’s an MMORPG set in the world of Superman, Batman and the Justice League etc. It’s a world populated by aliens, witches, geniuses, psychopaths and heroes. You get to design a superhero (or villain), go on missions and earn experience in the standard MMORPG way.

This game makes the differences between Gotham and Metropolis very clear. One city is dirty and decaying, bathed in both eternal night and heavy rain. In the other, everything is clean glass and shiny steel, and it’s always a bright sunny day. I’ll let you guess which one is which.

Hint: nobody can see the bat-signal in daylight

Where would you rather live? Based on the above summaries, you’d think everyone would immediately choose Metropolis. But the opposite is true – most internet surveys turn up Gotham as the city of choice. Why is this?

Let's find out after the click!

Cars of the Future

If a car isn’t burning precious natural resources and clogging the lungs of small children with noxious, cancerous tar then what good are they? You might as well be on a bicycle! So who the hell would buy an electric car? What kind of pathetic loser would you have to be to get rid of your huge pedestrian-cruncher or midlife-crisis-mobile? What, are you going to ride a bus like some kind of peasant? How will anyone know how big your cock is, unless you drink diesel like lemonade and tear down the road like a bull making sweet, sweet love to a lion – deep and noisy.

...and sensual.

After the click we'll find out about the other, correct side of the argument.

Odd Celebrity Endorsements

When you’re famous and instantly recognisable (like me) then one of the ways you can support your expensive tastes and habits (drinking glacial melt-water and having sex with tigers) is endorsing products. You can sell not just your body, but also your face, name and/or voice.

Follow the click to hear about Mr T, JLS, Sylvester Stallone, Mikhail Gorbachev, zombies and SO MANY OTHERS!

The Redemption of Ryan Reynolds

When Green Lantern was released, Ryan Reynolds became a pariah because of the awfulness of the film. But does he deserve it? No. 
 

And I’ll tell you why after the click.

Superbowl Advert Recap 2012

It’s only been a day, at the time of writing, since some kind of major sporting event finished in the US. I gather it’s called the Superbowl, and like all major sporting events it involves huge amounts of money floating through the air, invisible, above our heads. It changes hands between sponsors, building contractors, ticket vendors, event caterers, local government, wholesale food warehouses, security firms, media broadcasters, merchandise manufacturers, law firms to arrange and broker these deals and stock-market analysts to analyse the stock-market impact of all these transactions.

I guess there’s also something about some sportsmen doing something on a field with a weirdly shaped ball or something, but it hardly seems relevant at this point. I’m a Brit living in the UK and I don’t even follow proper football or rugby, let alone the infantile, specially-padded offspring of the two.

Nevertheless, all that money zooming around produces ADVERTS! Some of the best adverts ever produced by Western culture, maybe even all of humanity. You can see a collection of this year’s Superbowl Adverts here, but let’s talk about some of the most interesting after the click.

Flesh Gordon II: Cosmic Cheerleaders (NSFW)

FLASH! AH-AAaawww no, not even. Not this time. 

In 1989, nine years after the iconic Flash Gordon was released, the universe briefly twisted into a vortex of evil before snapping back into place like nothing had happened. But something had happened. Something had crossed into our dimension from... elsewhere, and it was Flesh Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders.

So 80s

Yeah, nostalgia about the 80s is fun. But this was 1989 – the year the 80s came to die. This is the film that buried the bodies:

As you can see, we're in for quite an interesting experience after the click.