WARNING!!! THIS BLOG POST CONTAINS TOXIC LEVELS OF GEEK OUTRAGE!!! BE CERTAIN YOUR CONTAINMENT SUIT IS FULLY OPERATIONAL BEFORE PROCEEDING!
There I was the other day, innocently perusing the greeting card racks of my local convenience store, when I happened upon a card showing the Justice League. It was a “Happy Birthday, Dad! You’re my hero!” sort of thing, and just as quickly as it pinged my Geek Pleasure Center, it also fired up my Geek Outrage Projector. Because, people, the card is Just Wrong.
Here it is (click to enlarge, if you like, but we’ll be walking through it in a moment…)
So, let’s take these one at a time, shall we?
First up, Superman:
Not too bad. A nice enough sentiment. And Superman does, in fact, both fly and fight crime whilst caped. Bravo, Hallmark.
Next up, a certain well-known Caped Crusader:
Er… Here’s where things begin to go off the rails. Batman isn’t particularly known for breaking through brick walls. I mean, sure, some drywall. Batman could totally punch his way through drywall if he had to. And maybe stucco. And I guess if he absolutely had to, he could blow up a brick wall with something handy in his utility belt, but that sort of unsubtlety is at odds with his world-renowned ninja-esque sneakery. Plus, if you blow up a brick wall to help someone on the other side, the odds are you’re going to do some sort of damage to the very person you’re trying to help. Even a bat-shaped C4 charge can’t guide shrapnel around innocents. Bad call, Hallmark. But it’s about to get worse.
Um… Does this guy look like Spider-Man to you? Me, neither. That’s Green Frickin’ Lantern. He has no business climbing any towers, whether the world’s tallest or shortest. The Batman bit of doggerel is sort of cluelessly dangerous, but this part is just stupid. And yet… It gets worse:
“Just under two hours?” Really? “Just under two hours???”
The Flash can move at the speed of light. That’s 186,000 miles per second, for those of you who slept through physics in high school. “Coast to coast” is 3,000 miles. Double that to be charitable and the fact of the matter is this: On his worst day, Flash can run from New York to LA and back in — get this — 0.0322 seconds. Give or take a few millionths of a second.
That ain’t “just under two hours.” And I’m on record as saying that Flash is my favorite super-hero, so don’t mess with the Flash, Hallmark!
Hallmark does get schmaltz points (go figure) and a few class points for a nice little pop-up when you open the card, though:
Next time, though, Hallmark, think before you write! This is the seriously important business of super-heroes!