#force fields

World's Finest Comics #96, September 1958. Curt Swan cover pencils, Stan Kaye inks, Ira Schnapp letters.

“I’m your tank, you’re my shield; my armor. We can protect each other and if anything goes wrong out there I promise I’ll carry us both to safety.”

“If you some how manage to carry me three miles after all this, Sock, then maybe I’ll kiss you a little better next time.”

“Well that’s one way to motivate a guy.”

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Woop !! more of the otherworldly fucks

Whenever you’re a public personality it’s a given that whenever you do anything anywhere somebody is going to try to throw something at you. Sometimes it’s harmless: a compliment, a smile, a huge wad of hundred dollar bills (if you don’t specifically know that that large number of non-sequential unmarked hundred dollar bills was acquired illegally you’re allowed to keep it pass it on!). Other times it’s a bit rude but it’s still not really gonna affect your day since you are a superhero and you’re plenty powerful: an insult, a tomato, flaming garbage. But sometimes it’s really dangerous stuff that you do not want to hit you: a hex, a heat seeking missile, a really big rock that has your name scrawled on it in permanent marker. (For a brief period the villain The Defacer was going around scrawling the names of superhero’s on different large rocks in the hopes that a stronger villain would eventually come along and use their superior strength to hurl the rock at the designated superhero. She was quickly defeated but her legacy lives on! Many of her rocks are still out there and every so often they do get thrown at the named superheroes.) You may be thinking, “woe is me, am I forced to live a life where people can just throw things at me every time I go out to the field???” and the answer to that is a big fat KIND OF. We can’t stop people from throwing things at you but we can sure as heck stop those things from hitting you in the face and ruining your day! In fact, eagle eyed readers may already have noticed that the solution was actually carefully hidden within that question. (Bat-eyed readers may already have noticed that the solution is up top in very large letters). We’re referring of course, to forcefields.

Forcefields are a superhero’s best friend. A good one will protect you and your loved ones and your home from all manner of outside attacks and unwanted solicitors. Forcefields can be used to shut out all of life’s problems. Boss on your back about the quarterly financial reports? Forcefield! He can’t bother you now! Also your computer just flew into a wall so you couldn’t get that done anyway! Birds giving you anxiety because the fact that they’ll always be a little bit better at flying than you due to generations of inborn instincts? Forcefield! Birds can’t even get near you now. Also you’ll stop getting feathers in your teeth every time you accidentally fly into a bird at lightning fast speeds. Supervillains keep launching nuclear missiles at your hideout because you accidentally posted your location on social media? Forcefield! Which will also conveniently protect you from all the nuclear fallout that I guess is just gonna annihilate everything around your hideout. Er, don’t worry, they make big forcefields! You can just put one around the whole city!

City-wide forcefields are actually growing to be pretty popular in states or countries with a large super presence. You’d be surprised how many evil schemes could be foiled by just erecting a giant forcefield around a city. Superheroes have been able to retire just thanks to the presence of city-wide forcefields. Unfortunately though, supervillains are nothing if not creative. Some supervillains have used forcefields of their own invention to trap entire cities in impenetrable domes. It’s the ultimate hostage situation. (At least until somebody figures out how to make a large enough forcefield to hold the entire planet hostage.) <Say that gives me an idea!> Supervillains use these forcefields to cut off cities from the rest of the world often causing them to descend into chaos and anarchy within a matter of minutes. It’s a classic scenario with no clear and simple solution but don’t worry we’ve got a couple of absurd and complicated ones that’ll get you right out of that problem!

You’re a superhero, you should have no less than thirteen different secret passageways that can get you in and out of the city undetected, but if you don’t it’s time to make some. Fire up your Drills for Thrills drill tank and start heading down. If your supervillain is any good they’ll have thought of that and their forcefield will extend into the ground and you won’t be able to simply dig a tunnel underneath the forcefield. But who cares about, we’re not going under, we’re going to circumvent the problem entirely. Simply keeping on drilling downward until you get to the Earth’s core. Now, if you’ve splurged and paid for the Drills for Thrills deluxe package this won’t be a problem. Your drill will be 100% guaranteed heat resistant and you can just keep on drilling through to the opposite side of the Earth without any fear of being burned, melted, or convected to death. If you didn’t pay for the deluxe package, well, turn around I guess, this is not the option for you. 

No forcefield is perfect (generally this is unfortunate but in this case it’s quite handy!) they tend to have at least one weak spot somewhere. To exploit these weak points you need to contact a friend on the other side because the two of you need to exert an intense amount of force on either side of the weak spot in order to compromise the structural integrity of the entire forcefield. If the forcefield is blocking any signals from getting out, preventing you from contacting your allies on the outside through conventional means, worry not, your city has been trapped in an impenetrable city by a supervillain, there are going to be cameras. You see, one of the reasons supervillains take hostages is for a ransom, a city’s worth of hostages is probably worth a lot of money so you can be sure that they’re going to be making a ransom video. And if they’re not even doing it for the money they’re doing it for the bragging rights so they’re still going to want a recording of what happened. All you need to do is get your markers and your glitter glue and make a big poster and stand in the camera shot. If your friends are watching the news or follow the supervillain on social media they’ll see your message and the two of you can attack those weak spots and save the town together. 

Turn your entire city invisible. Get some industrial scale levels of invisible paint and just paint everything invisible. Or project a hologram of an empty field over the entire city. This will make the bad guy think that your city was a transdimensional city that simply blipped out of this plain of existence. Supervillains know better than to trifle with the unknowable forces that control transdimensional cities so they’ll probably just pack up their forcefield and call it an early day. 

Dress up like a different supervillain, one who the offending villain hates. This shouldn’t be too difficult, most supervillains wear masks so you don’t even have to horribly scar your face or paint your skin blue or anything. Then, once you’ve perfected your costume, go up to the forcefield and laugh maniacally. This is sure to catch the attention of the villain who has trapped you who will, at first, join in with your laughter. Maniacal laughter is quite contagious. There’s your medical fact for the day. Once the laughter dies down though, the villain will most likely ask what the heck you’re laughing about. Supervillains are a questioning and inquisitive lot. And also remember, he hates you, he does not want you laughing. Now this is the most important part, and you better be able to carry out with the utmost confidence. You need to convince the supervillain that you have trapped them within a forcefield. This is not going to be easy but it’s also not going to be as difficult as you might think. All you have to do is convince the villain that your master stroke was to trap the entire world except for your city, which is actually secerelt your supervillain headquarters, within a giant forcefield. It’s the ultimate scheme, remember, no villain yet has managed to trap the entire planet in a forcefield so the entire planet bar one city will be seen as quite the feat. The real villain isn’t about to let you take credit for doing something so amazing which you didn’t even do! They’ll bluster and rant and rave and accuse you of lying and repeatedly claim that you are mistaken and that they trapped you within a forcefield. This is where you have to make sure you stay your course and stay calm. Just shake your head and say something like “Oh Demolistructor you simple minded fool, can’t you see? You played right into my hands! Oh you poor thing, you don’t even realize how thoroughly I have bested you. I guess now there’s really no question of which of us is the greatest villain!” I guarantee you that’ll get their hackles raised. If you get them mad and flustered enough they’ll shut off the forcefield to prove to you that it’s theirs and then all you need to do is punch them in the face and steal their forcefield projector. 

If you’re using forcefields as a superhero in order to trap criminals, remember that this is not a permanent solution. Forcefields are useful to stop a villain in their tracks, or to isolate them from their weaponry or machinery, but they cannot be used as full-time prisons. For one, they’re (more or less, see above) impenetrable, which means you can’t give your prisoners things like food or a clean, less on fire set of clothes. There are also no bathrooms in forcefields. So make sure you get those villains to actual prisons before long. Also, if you’re creating a full forcefield bubble, you need to make sure that air can be circulated. You don’t to suffocate yourself or others by creating a full air-tight forcefield. Superhumans with the ability to create their own forcefields are often endowed with the secondary power of choosing their permeability. They can allow carbon dioxide and oxygen to pass in and out while shutting out harmful gasses or water or oxygen-sized shrunken assailants. But if you’re designing you’re own forcefield you’re not going to be able to be as exact, so keep that in mind when deciding to use forcefields in different scenarios.