Where did the name Zatara come from in the Count of Monty Cristo?
The character of Luigi Vampa gave Edmond the name Zatara after he witnessed Edmond Dantes wash up on shore after escaping the Chateau d'If.
Superhero Catch Phrases?
The Hulk says "Hulk Smash"
You have to form a superhero team out of 19th century literary characters. Who's in it, and what are their superhero names and powers?
To a considerable extent, this was already done by Dumas, whose Three (Four) Musketeers are really quite like a superhero quartet. They are all terrifying fighters, capable of taking on larger numbers without concern. Porthos is enormously strong but not very clever. Aramis is subtle and well connected. Athos is the brains, the father figure - although in most teams his byronic attitude would go with a younger member - and d’Artagnan is the bright young hero.Otherwise the trouble is that most Victorian adventure heroes did not rely greatly on their physical skills. The Count of Montecristo, for instance, used immense wealth and long-sighted scheming to destroy or humiliate his enemies; Captain Nemo used technology; Sherlock Holmes, his immense ability to observe and deduce. The super-strong man as protagonist and hero seems to me a twentieth-century phenomenon, considering not only James Wyllie’s The Gladiator, but also such characters as Conan the barbarian, Tarzan, or the Italian sandals movies about Hercules and Maciste. In the nineteenth century, the strong man might feature prominently, but not as the protagonist or the centre of the action - take for instance the heroic Ursus in Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Quo Vadis, whose immense strength makes him the heroine Ligia’s sidekick, while the mercurial Roman army commander Vinicius takes the lead.
If you could be any superhero, outside of DC and Marvel, who would you want to be and why?
The 19th Century Batman: Edmond Dantès, the Count of Monte Cristo.Rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Multi-lingual. Knowledgeable in the arts and sciences. Master of disguise. Strong and intelligent. Connections everywhere. He used his riches and know-how both to exact revenge on those who deserved it and to reward the kind and gentle by weaving intricate tapestries of intrigue.If I couldn’t be Superman, Dantès is my dream.
What one super power do you wish you had?
Connection to the Speed-Force.A connection to the speed-force meansprocessing events in less than an atto-second (that is 0.000,000,000,000,000,001 seconds) Light can circle the planet ~7.5 times in a second, light cannot even travel between two ends of a water molecule in an atto-secondThis also means that if a gun is against my head, and a bullet is fired, by the time it reaches my skin, my sensory neurons would have sensed the change in air pressure fast enough that I would have ample time to reactSuper-speed, I could circle the globe a couple times faster than my english teacher can blinkRunning on WaterRunning on cloudsrunning verticallyrunning upside-downPhasing/intangibilityGenerating lightning/electricityThis means a clean, renewable, free, and endless supply of energy for the whole worldA speed aura to protect me and my environment from high-velocity travelFaster healingA broken arm can heal in a few hoursimmunity to sicknessFast metabolism, I can eat as much as I’d like with no consequencesManifest matter and energy from the speed forcetime travelWith a connection to the speed force I could give the world clean renewable energy, finish homework in less than a second, move large sums of food and resources large distances in seconds and much much more.
Is the emergence of comic book super heroes an uniquely American phenomenon? Have these characters emerged elsewhere independently?
No, it’s not at all an American phenomenon. A great deal of the most popular video game and TV characters/franchises here are actually from Japan. And yes, they have comics of their own. Sonic, Power Rangers, Mario, and others all hail from Japan, or were at least created by Japanese minds.Remember the Megazord from Power Rangers? This gargantuan robot that helps the Power Rangers fight evil? You’d think it came from the Japanese Sentai series, and that’s correct. Partially, that is. Its true origin came from the Japanese Spider-Man series back in the 70’s, Supaidaman. The robot was called Leopardon.Toei, who created Sentai and was connected to Power Rangers, also created Supaidaman. Because of this, the giant robot theme would later be used in the Sentai series, and the American import, Power Rangers.So, no. It’s not uniquely an American trait.