History Quotes / ReedRichardsIsUseless

->''"John [=McClane's=] once-relatable, [[TheEveryman everyman]] hero now makes no sense. According to this movie he's still just an NYPD detective after all four movies. '''HOW?''' Yeah, they keep telling us he's tough to work with ''every other'' day, but now he's saved Los Angeles, Washington, New York, and ''the entire country''. And everyone knows about it! Why isn't this guy running the Department of Homeland Security? Or a private security firm? Or just write a book and retire rich as hell?"''

->''The more you look at [[Film/IronMan Tony Stark]], the more you realize he developed the mini arc reactor only to play God, or at least a shitfaced version of Shaquille O'Neal's ''{{Film/Steel}}''. Case in point: After first discovering this world changing energy source, he makes exactly one more arc reactor, and uses it to power his pizza-colored murder suit. He doesn't make any demonstration models for his company. Hell, he doesn't even draw up any blueprints. In fact, he's so damn Howard Hughes about the whole operation, that he instructs Pepper Potts to destroy the original model, rather than turn it over to his company's engineers to mass produce and solve all of the world's resource problems forever.''
-->--'''''{{Website/Cracked}}''''', "[[http://www.cracked.com/article/142_6-brilliant-movie-scientists-who-suck-at-their-job/ 6 "Brilliant" Movie Scientists Who Suck at Their Jobs]]" [[note]]Quote is actually inaccurate; Stark has explicit reasons for keeping tight control of the Arc Reactor, and later films show he is spreading his technology around.[[/note]]

-->--'''''{{Website/Cracked}}''''', "[[http://www.cracked.com/article/142_6-brilliant-movie-scientists-who-suck-at-their-job/ 6 "Brilliant" Movie Scientists Who Suck at Their Jobs]]" [[note]]Ignoring Tony's in-universe reasoning for why he is trying to control his own company's technology[[/note]]

-->--'''''{{Website/Cracked}}''''', "[[http://www.cracked.com/article/142_6-brilliant-movie-scientists-who-suck-at-their-job/ 6 "Brilliant" Movie Scientists Who Suck at Their Jobs]]"

->"John [=McClane's=] once-relatable, everyman hero now makes no sense. According to this movie he's still just an NYPD detective after all four movies. HOW? Yeah, they keep telling us he's tough to work with ''every other'' day, but now he's saved Los Angeles, Washington, New York, and ''the entire country''. And everyone knows about it! Why isn't this guy running the Department of Homeland Security? Or a private security firm? Or just write a book and retire rich as hell?"

->''"This is the problem with trying to tackle 'real world' problems in a 'serious' way with a character like {{ComicBook/Superman}}. He’s basically God. He can walk into a neighborhood full of drug dealers and just magically destroy all their drugs and drive them off. In order to explain why he doesn’t just do this all the time, or any number of other things that he could do with minimal effort that would drastically change the lives of every single person in the country, if not the world, writers like Straczynski resort to utter inanity.

->''This is, to be fair, an existing subgenre in action-adventure serials. But typically, when they do stories where the hero is completely helpless, the hero is impotent in the face of real-world horrors like famine or cancer or 9/11 (superhero comics, in particular, had a brief period where everybody did astonishingly bad pieces about how superheroes couldn’t stop 9/11). This subgenre amounts to mawkish {{glurge}} in which the fact that stories are fiction is treated as a flaw, and anybody who writes it should be punched. (Note: This proposal would likely prove fatal to Creator/JMichaelStraczynski.)''

->''One of the most charming elements of the superhero story, for me, lies in the fact that the world it all happens in is our world - that this fantastic, furious, cosmic stuff happens in what could be the skies over our heads - and sure, it should turn the world into something unrecognizable, but it doesn't.''

->''This is, to be fair, an existing subgenre in action-adventure serials. But typically, when they do stories where the hero is completely helpless the hero is impotent in the face of real-world horrors like famine or cancer or 9/11 (superhero comics, in particular, had a brief period where everybody did astonishingly bad pieces about how superheroes couldn’t stop 9/11). This subgenre amounts to mawkish {{glurge}} in which the fact that stories are fiction is treated as a flaw, and anybody who writes it should be punched. (Note: This proposal would likely prove fatal to JMichaelStraczynski.)''
-->-- '''[[http://www.philipsandifer.com/2013/12/there-should-have-been-another-way.html Phil Sandifer]]''' on "[[{{Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E10Midnight}} Midnight]]"

-->--'''{{Moviebob}}'''

-> As a side note, those superheroes who develop or invent entirely unique powers, and then hoard them? Screw those guys. When Edison invented the incandescent lightbulb, did he keep its secret to himself, and then bust nocturnal crime as the Illuminator? Fighting the nefarious [[NikolaTesla Doktor Lightning]] with the help of the Amazing Flight Brothers? No. Because, as a man of Science, he was familiar with Newton's statement about the shoulders of giants.

-->-- '''Phil Sandifer''' on "[[{{Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E10Midnight}} Midnight]]"

-->-- '''PhilSandifer''' on "[[{{Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E10Midnight}} Midnight]]"

->''The world defended by the Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica or the ComicBook/TeenTitans has extraterrestrials, Amazons, mindreaders, witches, cyborgs, and reincarnated Egyptian princes with antigravity wings, but none of these inventions, discoveries, or fantastic elements has any effect on the world outside (except perhaps for a secret military, espionage or police teams using futuristic weapons).''

->''The world defended by the Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica or the ComicBook/TeenTitans has extraterrestrials, Amazons, mindreaders, witches, cyborgs, and reincarnated Egyptian princes with antigravity wings, but none of these inventions, discoveries, or fantastic elements has any effect on the world outside (except perhaps for a secret military, espionage or police teams using futuristic weapons).''

-> One of the most charming elements of the superhero story, for me, lies in the fact that the world it all happens in is our world - that this fantastic, furious, cosmic stuff happens in what could be the skies over our heads - and sure, it should turn the world into something unrecognizable, but it doesn't.

->''In 2002, after graduating college, ''{{Felicity}}'' realizes that she made some pretty poor choices... To help her cope, Felicity's Wiccan roommate sends Felicity back in time one year. Back. In. Freaking. Time. Rather than do something worthwhile such as, say, warn her fellow New Yorkers about the now-pending 9/11 attacks, Felicity tries to use her knowledge of future events to make her life superficially better.''
-->-- '''{{Website/Cracked}}''', [[http://www.cracked.com/article/242_6-tv-shows-that-completely-lost-their-shit_p2/#ixzz2Zx7sDLIf "6 Shows That Completely Lost Their Shit"]]

->''The world defended by the {{Justice League of America}} or the {{Teen Titans}} has extraterrestrials, Amazons, mindreaders, witches, cyborgs, and reincarnated Egyptian princes with antigravity wings, but none of these inventions, discoveries, or fantastic elements has any effect on the world outside (except perhaps for a secret military, espionage or police teams using futuristic weapons).''
-->--Creator/JohnCWright, [[http://www.scifiwright.com/2010/08/wrights-writing-corner-the-why-and-wherefore-of-world-building/ The Why and Wherefore of World Building]]

->''The greater the problem, the faster he could solve it. He’d taken the time one afternoon to solve world hunger. Six hours and twenty-six minutes with the internet and a phone on hand, and he’d been able to wrap his head around the key elements of the problem. He’d drafted a document in the nine hours that followed, doing little more than typing and tracking down exact numbers. A hundred and fifty pages, formatted and clear, detailing who would need to do what, and the costs therein.

->It had been bare bones, with room for further documents detailing the specifics, but the basic ideas were there. Simple, measured, undeniable. Every major country and ruler had been accounted for, in terms of the approaches necessary to get them on board, given their particular natures and the political climate of their area. Production, distribution, finance and logistics, all sketched out and outlined in clear, simple language. Eighteen years, three point one trillion dollars. Not so much money that it was impossible. A great many moderate sacrifices from a number of people.

->Even when he’d handed over the binder with the sum total of his work, his employer had been more concerned with the fact that he’d shown up late to work for his job. His boss had barely looked at the binder before calling it impossible, then demanded Accord return to work.''

-->-- '''{{Tailsteak}}''', [[http://www.tailsteak.com/archive.php?num=487 "On Superheroes"]]

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--> -- '''Kurt Busiek''', introduction to ''ComicBook/AstroCity''

--> -- ''Kurt Busiek, introduction to'' '''AstroCity'''

->"Dude, you're a telepath! You can use an enemy's psychology against them! You can find out hidden passwords or strategic information just by looking at them! It's not your heart that's small here, it's your brain!"
--> -- ''Linkara, during'' '''CaptainPlanet''' #3, in response to Ma-Ti's comment about "heart" being a small weapon