Novelty Items

Comic book heroes usually remind us of how inadequate we mere humans really are. Let's face facts: the human body is not particularly well designed. We may have nice big brains and complex nervous systems, but our bodies are not really very efficient. Our eyesight and our hearing are fairly poor compared to our animal cousins. Our skin is prone to burn in the sun, gives poor protection from the cold and wrinkles with age. We move slowly across land and are even less equipped to travel through water. Worst of all, we cannot fly.

In contrast, many comic book superheroes can zoom around unencumbered by gravity. Not that I would really want to be a comic book hero. For sure, the idiosyncrasies of the latest characters to translate from printed page to cinema screen are fairly enviable: the X-Men have a few diverting tricks up their proverbial sleeves that could prove useful. Savage Wolverine's sharp claws would make opening a tin of baked beans easier. Icy Storm's ability to whip up a thunderstorm on a hot day would be refreshing. And Magneto's talent for moving metal by will-power would be a blessing when another vehicle is blocking your exit in the car park.

Attractive as such talents may be, however, what I really covet is not a cartoon hero's powers, but a gadget that I saw once in the Dan Dare comic strip. The adventures of Space-Ace Colonel Dan Dare, explorer of the deepest reaches of Outer Space, were told in the pages of The Eagle comic book. Yet, exciting though such shenanigans were, it was an advertisement in the same newspaper that reported Dan Dare's exploits that absorbed my imagination as a child.

"Be the Envy of your Gang with the Super New Junior Helirig," read the advertisement in the Daily World Post. A drawing showed the "Helirig" to look like a hybrid helicopter-cum-vacuum cleaner. It strapped onto the back, the engine powered the propellers and the wearer was lifted up into the air. (Of course, I know that Superman can fly without any need for such a contraption, but I have no wish to emulate a superhero who wears his underpants over his trousers). Besides, with the use of the "Helirig" you didn't need to be a hero to fly, just some money to buy the thing and that made it all seem rather more possible.

Now, in a fine example of life imitating art, NASA, the very organisation for which Dan Dare would surely work were he a human and not a fiction, is developing its own version of the "Helirig." Forget the ubiquitous silver scooters ridden by child and adult alike along pavements and through shopping malls, because the hot new toy coming on to the market is a one-person air scooter. So, perhaps, humans are okay after all. As the boffins at NASA have proved by applying their nice big human brains to the problem of independent flight, the fantasies offered in comic book worlds may soon become a reality.