In the past, I’ve disclosed how super-powers worked. For this article, I’m going to take a different tack, namely what problems you have to tackle when you think you’re applying technology.
The Marvel Universe has a lot more consistent advanced technology in use than the DC Universe, so much of this article will be focused there. Then again, the number of active rich and not so rich geniuses on both sides of the law is high, so it’s hardly surprising that some aspects are shared or stolen for their own technology. Whether being a genius will tend to make you villainous or just greedy, I’ll leave you to decide. You do have to wonder if they wouldn’t make more money by licensing their products.
There’s an interesting observation about the number of super-heroes and super-villains who dressed in mechanised combat suits. In the DC Universe, about a dozen. In the Marvel Universe, it’s more like a couple hundred. Some, like Tony Stark, keep evolving the Iron Man armour for different purposes. That gets even more confusing when he has made the suits for James Rhodes aka War Machine. Others have stolen some of his designs or mechanisms. Stark originally created super-transistors, long before CPUs. When they came along, no doubt he made his own version and no doubt upped his power levels. The repulsor beams he fires from his glove palms are of the same type as in his boot soles for flight propulsion. With an array of weaponry, right down to once upon a time having powered skates. As with many things in the Marvel Universe, there is a certain consistency across the mechanisms.
Probably the most absurd armoured character is still the Stiltman, whose leg mechanisms can extend to 300 feet. No doubt there must be some gyroscopes involved, even so you do have to wonder how he doesn’t step on anyone or even skid off a bus below him, let alone crushing everything in his path. There must be a limit to weight when condensed. With super-metals and alloys like vibranium and adamantium, the only limit is availability and expense or theft. The number of scientists that resort to the latter is quite extraordinary.
Some geniuses are really multi-skilled in science and technology. You only have to look at the likes of Dr. Reed Richards who built his own manned rocket to reach space and only erred on the shielding against cosmic radiation way ahead of NASA. One set of inventions that no one wanted to steal from him. About the only thing he freely gave out is his formula for unstable molecules to coat super-costumes that saved many a super-person’s blushes when their clothes fell apart from energy blasts or growing bigger.
Spider-Man depended on his web-spinners to release a tensile web chain to do something similar. As Peter Parker was a chemistry genius this shouldn’t be too surprising. It was a bonus that he could devise mechanisms.
A common problem is using a lash or catapulting a wire to swing across buildings. The chances of getting the contact point the first time all the time is statistically impossible. Well, unless you’re Daredevil but he’s blind and doesn’t need to see which makes him kind of fearless. Even so, you do have to wonder how he can contain such a length of cable in his billy-club. The likes of him and the Batman no doubt get a lot of practice but you do have to wonder why they never wrench their arms or rarely have a cable breakage.
Many of the weapons tend to be conventional guns. Why create a new weapon when you can use something people can recognise? Even so, like a lot of TV series, showing blood is somewhat curtailed. Of course, there are energy-based weapons out there. Mostly, their designs are wrong. Energy has to come from somewhere, even alien-based weaponry. They all depend on some form of battery so there is a limit to how many times it can be fired before needing a recharge or, assuming there is a capacitor technology in there, to build up its charge. Also, you need to aim at your target rather than fire into the air. With energy, it will keep going out until it hits something or loses its intensity. ‘Star Trek’ had enough of those problems with their phaser weapons.
With his utility belt, Batman was the first to carry a selection of weapons on his belt. The original was just a series of tubes on his belt containing various pellets. It was also noted that what he carried varied over the years. Presumably either he or Alfred kept them topped up. Bruce Wayne might have been trained in chemistry but the size of the pellets couldn’t possibly contain enough chemicals to do what he did. Yes, it is possible for some chemicals to expand but it needs something basic like adding water. A lot of water. I doubt that would work with tear gas, let alone putting it in a pellet. Robin’s belt is also supposed to be utility but no tubes and probably in the folds. Despite the more pouch-like belt of the 1966 Batman, it wasn’t until 1986 when Frank Miller changed it that the new pouch design, as used by the military, stayed. At least it was more practical.
The ease of making androids and robots isn’t even modern day. The original Human Torch was flawed in generating a sheath of flame in air until it got control of this ability. It’s more questionable who came first with modern day robots, Bolivar Trask with the Sentinels or Victor von Doom. Quite how Trask could create the first generation from the Master Mould by using energy is less certain unless he had access to some form of teleportation/energy technology. Certainly, his son, Lawrence Trask, didn’t depend on this technique and probably not the technology as his design was much taller and mechanical.
You would have to question who contributed the most to the development of androids and robots. Even medical doctor, Donald Blake, created an android at one point in his spare time. I doubt if anyone could steal from Dr. Doom, although he might have covertly given some of his technology to be tried out before incorporating into his own robots. It also allowed for some misdirection from his own plans.
Certainly, as noted above, it is known that Anthony Stark’s super-transistors were stolen and incorporated into other people’s armour and weaponry, and it was years before he had conclusive proof.
It is rather contradictory that many of the super-villains stole covertly considering what else they did but there have been various brokers, like the Tinkerer, who have been involved in combining technology for various people. Some businesses, like those run by Justin Hammer, chose to do so to upstage Stark Industries, which also supplies S.H.I.E.L.D. Of course, the likes of Advanced Idea Mechanics did technological and biological experiments all the time. Let’s not even wonder about Ultron and the repurposed Human Torch body into the Vision.
The contact with alien species like the Kree, Skrulls, Shi’ar and other species might have left damaged weapons and vehicles on Earth to be pilfered from which further complicates things as to where it all came from.
In comparison to the DC Universe, it is less likely that Kryptonian science and technology has gotten into the wide world. Superman’s Fortress of Solitude keeps such things hidden, even from his contemporaries. The absence or minimal materials of Rann, Thanagar, Colu and even Green Lantern Corps technology and other planets on Earth is more by their users using so little of it or not letting others examine it. Comparatively, Lex Luthor, head of LexCorp, is more remarkable for all of his inventions and the means to make them. It is up to the 30th century when there is a lot of cross-technology advancing all the United Planets that enables them to stay ahead or equal to the likes of the Khunds and Dominators.
There is always a quandary over the normal humans having standard technology, compared to our Earth’s, rather than advanced technology being used generally. I suspect, in part, there is too much association with the so-called celebrity super-heroes and their super-villain adversaries to want to make it commonplace in the home. Even so, there must be some use, if for no other reason than to repair or replace damaged buildings quickly and keep insurance claims down. Of course, the advanced technology used is often in prototypes or extremely expensive or stolen or both. I doubt if you would want a super-charged toaster, food-mixer, washing machine or floor-cleaner. Well, unless you had super-strength which would break anything plastic with a slight squeeze.
This is only really a whirlwind trip around some of the advanced technologies used in either of these two universes. It is more surprising that both Earths haven’t evolved faster with what they have access to.
If you are intending designs in such places, always remember weapons, outside of energy weapons, have recoil issues to take into account. Your aim might be good, but the collateral damage is considerable and you’d probably thank your masked identity that you are never sued for the mayhem you cause.
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