Icarus Falling: kitsune23’s Blog

Justice League of America #8 has been out for over a month. But I have to bring up this butchery of science.

Normally, comic books seem well-researched when it comes to basic real-life science. They have to be in order to give creedance to the comic book science, i.e. resurrections, telekinesis, etc., they typically employ. For example, Detective Comics #823, in which Poison Ivy appeared, contained mention of some plant biology that I didn’t learn until AP Biology my senior year. That isn’t knowledge one commonly comes across.

Brad Meltzer, writer for the JLA issue in question, is usually quite trustworthy as well. I’ve read The Book of Fate and, while hardly the best thing I’ve ever read, it kept me entertained. More importantly, it seemed to be quiet well researched in terms of Secret Service security, if the acknowledgements are to be believed. Likewise, his other JLA writing, along with ”Identity Crises”, was excellent.

If you’ll open your copies of Justice League of America to pages 12-14 (the exact middle of the book) you’ll see an incident involving Red Arrow, Red Tornado, Hawkgirl, and Geo-Force (if you don’t normally read comic books and you think the names are stupid, shut up and leave). Red Arrow is hurled toward a tree by Red Tornado at 60 m.p.h. at an angle that would break his neck. Hawkgirl flies in to block the collision, risking her own life. When he strikes, however, she says Red Arrow is “weightless” and she doesn’t feel like she’s been hit at all. The explanation is that Geo-Force nullified the force of gravity to make Red Arrow weightless. The problem, which I hope you all noticed right away, is that Red Arrow’s mass and the horizontal velocity of 60 m.p.h. are maintained. The voiding of the gravitational force would have absolutely no effect on the force of Red Arrow’s horizontal impact against Hawkgirl.

 This is disgusting. Why didn’t some editor notice this? This is basic, basic high school Physics, or even middle school Physical Science.

The only explantion is that some supervillain, Lex Luther perhaps, has tampered with the laws of physics in his most recent scheme to take over the world or something. Although the repercussions of such a plan would doubtlessly destory the earth. Or the universe. Or, in D.C.’s case, the “multiverse”. So the “taking over” point would be kinda moot.