But just how DOES a wirepoon work?

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

I'm 90% sure that, before the 1989 movie, Batman did not use a launching device for his silken cord. Either he tied it to a batarang or threw a noose like a cowboy around any handy protrusion on a building. Then.. and here's the tricky part.. he often would swing up off the ground. What? How? Don't ask me. It never made any sense to me how someone standing on the street and holding a cord could swing up off the ground. The first Tim Burton movie introduced the idea that Batman would fire a line from a little pistol thingy which had a motor to reel him up like a hooked fish. And this has been featured prominently ever since.Yet Batman need not have waited fifty years to get hold of such a useful gizmo. His fellow Justice Society member the Sandman had been using a wirepoon since the early 1940s and it's exactly the same sort of device. Above is a panel from WORLD'S FINEST COMICS# 7, Fall 1942. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby helpfully provide a diagram of the wirepoon gun and (who knows?) if you were good in metal shop class, maybe you could make one for yourself.

__

Yet this wasn't an innovation of the more flamboyant Sandman in his purple and gold phase. Even when he was lurking in the night while wearing a gas mask, business suit and cloak, the Sandman was abandoning his trademark gasgun for the wirepoon. I didn't see a story where this was explained. Maybe it made him resemble radio's Green Hornet just a bit too much for comfort, maybe there were too many situations where a gas gun was not the most practical weapon... outside on a breezy day or in a room full of innocent bystanders. Or maybe crooks had just learned to take a deep breath before slinging lead. In any case, the wirepoon replaced the gas gun.I do like this creative (and slightly mean) application from ALL-STAR COMICS# 6, September 1941. Sandman throws a loop around some bounders, then presses the button to make the line reel in. That's a wire you're pulling tight around those guys, Mr Dodds. Ouch!

Comments

[jcbaggee.insanejournal.com]

How great would it be if after years of being accused of ripping off everything from Batman, Green Arrow learned that Batman's greatest ideas were modifications of existing tech from earlier heroes?

I do remember the Batarang attached to the Bat-line, most vividly from the 60s series. I seem to remember a cover during No Man's Land that had Batman throwing a Bat-line out, but that's the last time I recall it. And in all honesty, Batarangs don't necessarily show up that often anymore either.

[buttler.insanejournal.com]

Of course a lot of things that Batman really did do first, he didn't anymore as far as the DCU's concerned because he wasn't even born in the 1940s. Like kid sidekicks? Plenty of 'em for decades before Robin came along as the sensational character find of, um, sometime in the 1990s.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, that always irked me about Crisis, Dick Grayson was now no longer the first sidekick, as he had always been, he was now just yet another one, following in the pixie-bootsteps of Sandy, Wing, Stuff and Dan the Dyna-Mite!

[buttler.insanejournal.com]

Now I want the timeline to be tweaked just enough that Ollie can start giving Bruce grief about totally ripping off his Arrowcar, Arrowplane, Arrowcave and Arrowsignal. And Speedy, of course.

[volksjager.insanejournal.com]

Sandman was one of those few character to have multiple looks and change with the times.

I meant to ask you in a previous post, what would you consider the first Superman story that took place on "earth-one" ?

[earthelemental.insanejournal.com]

Earth-1 Clark Kent. (http://darkmark6.tripod.com/superboyind1.htm)

Earth-1 Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson (http://darkmark6.tripod.com/batmanind1.html)

Does this help?

[earthelemental.insanejournal.com]

And here's an Earth-1 Timeline (http://www.angelfire.com/mn/blaklion/Earth1.html)

[volksjager.insanejournal.com]

My cup runneth over ! Thanks :)

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Now I want to see the story with Abin Sur arresting a 20s gang boss.

[volksjager.insanejournal.com]

Not another Black Lantern........

[earthelemental.insanejournal.com]

Anytime. These Earth-1 links are old favorites of mine.
They certainly help explain how it all began.

The fun part is that Post-Infinite Crisis DCU history makes most of this stuff relevant again.

[lawrence_live.insanejournal.com]

Wow, thanks!

[blake_reitz.insanejournal.com]

I can't even describe in words how much I love technical drawings of supertech gear, and it's fascinating to see what must be a very early example of such. Very interesting how the wirepoon (which as a single tool, is a very pulp like gadget) was adapted to pretty much any superhero who does not fly for transport. Good post!

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

But just how DOES a wirepoon work?

A fairly recent episode of Mythbusters proved that, while it's essentially impossible with modern tech to create a hand-held device that is strong enough to puncture a structure that can support an adult male body suspended on a wire, it is possible to create something that does almost everything else.

So the answer to your question is "Very well, thank you."

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

Well, MYTHBUSTERS... it's an entertaining show, but I wouldn't take its findings as conclusive. Just because they can't make something work doesn't rule out someone with more specialized knowledge or ingenuity finding a way. I can imagine Jamie and Adam in 1900 spending weeks on trying to get an airplane to fly, then concluding, "I'm satisfied, there's no way. This is busted."

Then they blow it up.

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

That would be awesome.

But the force required to embed a grappling hook deep enough is either unreachable in a hand-held device (I forget who, but there's someone online who basically tries to make workable film gadgets, and he was stumped, too) or would do too much damage to the structure to leave the hook embedded.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

I'm just basing this on history, where people frequently come up with new materials and techniques that weren't tried before. Maybe something like the wirepoon will never be practical, or maybe right now someone in a university lab is messing with a new superfast-setting liquid adhesive that would make it possible.

I think the real problem with a wirepoon would be the way Batman fires it while falling off a skyscraper and comes to a sudden stop without having his arm separate completely from his body (which would keep falling). But that I'd chalk up to dramatic license, like the fifty word speeches between punches, and let it go.

"closed thinking"

[volksjager.insanejournal.com]

I totally agree with you on Mythbusters. "entertaining" , but they go a little flat and short on ideas at times.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

This has been addressed, actually - in 'Batgirl Year One', Babs, having made her decision to pursue a life of crimefighting, plans on getting in some roof-swinging practice. She goes up onto the roof of a skyscraper, lassoos a nearby gargoyle, and dives off the roof, rope in hand - only to be snatched out of the air by Batman and Robin, who have been watching her. She's wildly indignant at first, until Batman explains that he just saved her life - she was using plain ol' normal rope, which, as you pointed out, would have ripped her arm from her shoulder when she got to the limit of it. The Batclan, it turns out, use a special kind of rope that has stretch and give to it, so that when its limit is reached, it doesn't just twang taut like a fiddlestring - it stretches a bit, like a bungee cord, which allows the swing-ee to complete the apex of their swing without getting ripped apart.
I'm not sure just how scientifically accurate this is, but it sounds all right to me - after all, there are bungee jumpers and cliff jumpers and so forth who manage similar feats without getting torn to shreds.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

That's really all the explanation you need for a comic. It's still not completely convincing, because bungee jumpers bounce up and down for a while in decreasing arcs as the energy dissipates. But really, it's the little nod toward plausibility that is enough for comics.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

They generally jump straight down, though - if you're swinging on a rope, you're redirecting your momentum in a different direction.

[btravage.insanejournal.com]

I think this Jack Kirby Sandman deserved to be showcased in Gaimon's series like Jack's other Sandman was.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

I like the Simon & Kirby Sandman. His stories often involved criminals having nightmares about the Sandman chasing them, people turning to crime because they couldn't sleep, prophetic dreams, that sort of thing. He never explicitly had any supernatural traits, but there were hints. And of course, the layouts and action had much more energy and impact than the standard art of that time.

SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE was well done, showing Wesley Dodds in the gasmask get-up, aided by Dian Belmont. They had a realistic and non-idealized romance and partnership. He had some relationship with Morpheus and was driven by tormenting dreams to solves crimes. I haven't seen those issues in years, but I remember one story where Dodds goes to a party in the purple-and-gold costume; he was rather pudgy and unheroic looking, and felt dreadfully embarassed by the whole business. Ah well, it's a valid take on the character but I still enjoy the Simon and Kirby stories.

[earthelemental.insanejournal.com]

Ah, but that was before he got himself into shape! Otherwise, he would have retired early, and never have helped found the JSA when he finally became "lean, muscular, and heroic" which is why he kept going, stayed on the team, and switched to the new costume and took on the young sidekick.

That's probably the reason Wildcat was never an active JSA member until recent years. He was too busy training other more active heroes like Al Pratt and Wes Dodds, getting them into much better shape in order to survive "mystery men" action without the benefit of full super powers.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

The Golden Age Wesley Dodds was reasonably athletic. We see him running, jumping over hedges and vaulting into his roadster, punching out two thugs at a time... kind of the standard mystery man level. This was from the start, when he still wore the gas mask.

The Wesley Dodds from SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE was an average specimen, a bit out of shape. He relied on the gas gun to avoid brawls, and was more a detective like Ellery Queen rather than Mike Hammer. I guess the current history is that this Wesley was motivated to start hitting the gym big time because he was motivated by seeing what the other mystery men were like. The trend was toward colorful costumes and he got one for much the same reason men get new haircuts, to not be too out of style.

I like both versions, and don't feel I have to choose between them. But then I'm not that big on seamless official continuity.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

I always enjoy it when comics show us diagrams of nifty gadgets. The thing is, I can see this working - a little more attention to detail, such as where the retracting mechanism would go and how it would work, and I could see someone putting together something like this.

[ulf_boehnke.insanejournal.com]

Just a link to the Plumett Ltd. Airlaunchers (http://home.btclick.com/smithandjewell/plumett/index.htm).

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. Given that super-hero gadgets are usually much smaller and more effective than real devices, it gives the wirepoon some plausibilty.

[volksjager.insanejournal.com]

Freakin' sweet.