Which Comic Character Is the Greatest Engineer? 316
ptorrone writes "From Bruce Wayne to Lex Luthor to Tony Stark — the most popular comic heroes are more than just beefy guys in skin tight suits, they're also business persons, titans of industry and brilliant engineers. While there will always be a lot of debate on who is the strongest or fastest, MAKE has an overview of their 14 top comic book engineers, scientists and hackers."
I had only one thought when I read this. (Score:4, Insightful)
Dilton Doliey (Score:4, Insightful)
I know this sounds weird, but one of the first "geeky" comics character I was blown away by was Dilton Doiley [wikipedia.org], part of Archie's crew, in the Strange Science editions [comicvine.com].
It was short, it was funny, and he was a geek who got the girl. All these other guys are great, but they had supernatural powers or wealth, or other things going for them. Dilton just... conducted home experiments! Of course, he had his own lab, but still, as a regular kid, you could aspire to be him.
The other character I remember from childhood, of course, was Tom Swift [wikipedia.org]. Amazingly inspirational -- although, not a lot of comics of him out there (I've seen a few, but not many).
Re:Luthor? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:My vote... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wiley Coyote... Super Genius.
Though, his reliance on ACME for equipment, should be reconsidered.
I always thought that Wiley Coyote depicts very well the agony of working as an engineer. The laws of nature seem to work against you. Murphy's laws are against you. The tools/equipment do not behave according to the specs, and tend to fail at the worst possible time. Good ideas fail because of implementation details or even bad luck. Yet, you cannot let the problem go, you have to fix it! One last try, ok, maybe another one!
Re:Luthor? (Score:5, Insightful)
Lex Luthor has always been a hero. He is nearly the only person on earth making it his life's duty to fight off the alien from another planet with super powers that imposes his will on our world and is a threat to us all.
Obvious missing person. (Score:5, Insightful)
My vote would have been for Alice. She's the top engineer in her company, she's developed patents that earned her company 2 billion dollars in revenue, and her fist-of-death is legendary. All this after she overcame the handicap of being a woman....
Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Gadget Hackwrench
http://rangerwiki.net/images/e/e9/Gadget_extra_parts.jpg [rangerwiki.net]
Yes, there is a Chip & Dale's Rescue Ranger's wiki site. God bless you, Intertoobs.
Re:Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense. Agatha's far more powerful (albeit still less experienced) than Lucrezia Mongfish or the Heterodyne Boys. She made _mechanical Sparks_ as one of her very first projects! And she's clearly outclassing Gilgamesh and Tarvek, who are both first-rate Sparks in their own right.
Re:Dilbert is the closest to reality (Score:4, Insightful)
B) The theory isn't even plausible because nobody can force a particular comic to be popular among millions of people. Not the secret super-corporation that controls all corporations, the CIA, or anybody else.
Re:My vote... (Score:4, Insightful)
Wile should get extra points for being an old-school hacker, every Acme product he used was for a purpose unintended by the manufacturer.
Re:My vote... (Score:4, Insightful)
You actually saw the show, right? ;-)
Some times he fell off a cliff half a dozen times in a single episode. In other episodes, he was repeatedly smashed with the same rock, no matter how far away he got and what he hid under.
He did repeat these things -- over and over again. That's what made it funny.
Wile E. Coyote was all about the scientific method, and multiple trials. Contrary to what the GP thinks, it wasn't just a statistical fluke. ;-)
Mod parent up! (Score:4, Insightful)
Another that comes to mind is professor Farnsworth from Futurama. He invented XXX century's robots, built a spaceship that moves the entire universe, and got laid, several times.