I’ll confess to not being a regular watcher of 20/20, but I think I’ll have to set my DVR to record next Tuesday night’s episode. It’s going to be a Special Edition about people with fittingly-special abilities. People some might even call real life superheroes. The special's actually drawing comparisons between these individuals and a surprisingly-extensive number of characters, including…
- Spider-Man - - a guy who can scale skyscrapers without any climbing equipment to help him. They don’t name him, but I’m pretty sure this is going to be Alain Robert, the famous “French Spider-Man” who’s basically climbed all of the tallest buildings in the world - - despite having no equipment and a permanent case of vertigo?!
- The Flash - - a guy who can run 50 marathons in 50. Okay… as fantastic as everybody else’s accomplishments are, this has to be most absurd. Anybody who’s run a marathon (like my friend, ROBOTIKA writer Dave Moran) will tell you that they're absolutely murder to recover from. You need months of prep time and days, if not weeks, of recovery time. I remember reading a book, ULTRA-MARATHON MAN, about a guy who ran 100 miles races, as wells as ones in Death Valley and Antarctica, and this guy makes him sound like a casual jogger.
- Iceman - - a guy who can pull off wearing shorts in the Arctic and, well… not dying for an hour. I’m not going to resist the urge to say that he should probably be compared to Ant-Man or the Atom, because there’s surely a lot of shrinking going on in these outings in the cold.
- Namor/ Aquaman - - a dude who can hold his breath long enough that he can swim with dolphins, whales and sharks. You’ve got to give credit to a guy who can be friends with Flipper, Willy and Jaws at the same time.
- Hawkman - - a guy who can fly at speeds of hundred MPH. They don’t come out and say that he’s got using a hang-glider, but I’ll presume he’s not just flapping his arms up there.
- Brainiac - - a super thinker with an uncanny memory for numbers. He also learned Icelandic in just a week. Hah… maybe I should ask him what Sigur Ros' lyrics translate to.
So keep your eyes peeled this Tuesday night. All kidding aside, I think this will actually be a pretty inspiring special about how far regular humans can push their bodies.
-- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Studios and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia. Pre-order the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover now on Amazon.com.