Dr.Horrible, and Old Silver Age Comics

[BryanM]

So, saw Dr.Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog, and it was better than I thought it'd be. Some of the villains in it: Purple Pimp, Fake Thomas Jefferson, and Bad Horse (the Thoroughbred of Sin). Look at these guys they're ridiculous: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wD_S2HaUBE (spoiler alert)

I wish there were more writer's strikes if this is what comes of them.

Anyway, it made me realize something about old comics, that in hindsight is pretty obvious. The hero would be some douchebag that falls ass-backwards into super powers... while the bad guy is a scientist who spends decades educating himself, and gathering the materials he needs to achieve his goals. He works really, really, really hard and some dickhead punches him in the face and it's all over.

They were about jocks beating up nerds.

Isn't that the saddest thing ever? Nerds buying books about nerds being failures and getting beat up?

It's at least as bad as those Fitness Infomercials that exploit people.

[Friendly]

Not true. First examples that come to mind: Hulk (Bruce Banner), Fantastic Four (Reed Richards). Peter Parker is mostly a nerd, too.
Of course you are right in so far that none of them were doing research in order to gain super powers.

EDIT: By the way, Joss Whedon has promised we'll get a Dr. Horrible sequel.

[BrianC]

X-Men started in the 60s. Some of the X-Men were definiltely nerds. I think Ant Man was a nerd (though he turned out to be a real jerk later on). I think he did to research for his powers too. Jocks weren't always treated favorably either. There are a lot of muscular, dumb villians out there.