As the years went on, and writers kept getting more…”creative”…Supes powers were quickly growing and getting more out of control. These little known powers had stacked up over the years until finally DC had to say, “Dammit, that’s enough” and launched the massive Crisis on Infinite Earths event to just level the playing field.

Let’s take a look at some of the lesser known, and therefore more humorous, of Superman’s Pre-Crisis abilities .  I’ll include panels of Superman using the ridiculous powers when I can.  If you have trouble reading the text, click the images to make them bigger.

Super-Ventriloquism and other voice “powers” – Not only Super-V, he had a whole bag full of voice powers that writers tended to wield at their hip like gunslingers. Superman could throw his voice over great distances and also possessed super-voice-mimicry, which means he could make his voice sound like anyone else. That power must come in handy at parties when you are stuck talking to the guy who won’t leave you alone and keeps asking you to come check out his “sweet van” out in the parking lot.  The one painted all white with no windows (aka RAPE van).  If you were Supes, you could throw your voice across the room as someone else calling your name and you can get the hell out of there. Nicely done, Superman.  Or, you could just punch a hole in the rapist’s face because you are, you know, SUPERMAN.

Super-Mathematics – Super Mathematics? That looks a lot like regular mathematics to me. By the way, Super Douche, isn’t 20 x 16 x 10 = 3,200?

Super-Weaving – Yes, that actually happened.  Super weaving.  Not weaving at super speed.  Super-weaving.

Super-Hypnosis – Apparently this is why no one recognizes Clark Kent is Superman.  And it apparently works even when he isn’t concentrating on using it (I guess that’s what makes it super hypnosis?).  However, I prefer to ignore this power and assume that everyone in Metropolis is just that dumb to notice they are the same person.  Or they really just don’t care.

Super-Telepathic Will Control – In an early issue of Superman where he’s kidnapped by aliens, he whips out telepathic will control, which allows him to override someone’s mind and make their body do whatever Superman wants.  If he can do this, then why would he ever need Super Hypnosis?

Super-Landscaping – Once again, you have to wonder if super-landscaping isn’t just a fancy name for “planting stuff at super speed”. Maybe I should try that, running around my yard as fast as I can throwing plants at the ground. Think it would work?

Super Muscular Control - Superman has such super control over his muscles that he can play Super-Dead by nearly stopping his heart.  Plus, he can do the opposite and make it beat faster, and apparently LOUDER as the comic above shows.  Why?

Super-Friction – Welding together bars with Super-Friction. With all of his other powers did Superman somehow get Super-Alzheimer’s and not remember that he has HEAT VISION?

Super-Shape shifting – “Twisting, turning, Superman alters his size and appearance..”?  How?  Is he Plastic Man now?

Super-Makeup – Or, as I call it, “putting on a disguise”.  WTF?!  Considering that we just learned that Superman can shape shift, why would he need to put on a disguise?  This. Is. RETARDED.

Playing Super-Tag – During the end of Superman II we are regaled with a whole slew of new, previously unseen Superman powers when he battles Zod and crew.  Supes explains he used them as a kid to play tag. Things like disappearing and re-appearing as like 6 different Supermen, each with a different physical property; built of rocks, intangible, etc.  Supes also has a clear film over his Super chest S that he can throw over super criminals that will envelope and confuse them for about 5 seconds.  You know, the standard Superman stuff.

Super-Kisses – Superman’s kisses cause amnesia.  It’s unclear whether he can consciously control this power.  This particular power wasn’t just used in the comics, the Christopher Reeve movies actually used it to let Lois learn (and again, unlearn) Clark’s secret identity.  I’d like to use it on myself to forget the horrible, horrible mistake of allowing Superman and Lois to “make sweet love down by the fire” in Superman II.

Super-civil engineering – This particular entry is technically post-Crisis, but I have to mention it because it’s so absurd. According to Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (one of the most fascinatingly horrible movies I’ve ever seen) Superman can shoot a beam out of his eyes that can rebuild things like The Great Wall of China.  A beam.  Out of his eyes.  That can rebuild walls.  Awesome.  That movie also showed us that a human (Murial Hemingway) can be flown by a super being up into space and not only survive, they’ll fall back towards Earth when they are let go instead of floating off and spontaneously combusting in the vacuum.  F**K YOU, science!

Now that I’ve talked about what Superman was like before DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths, later this week I’ll look at what happened to Superman after the Crisis in my 25th anniversary review of John Byrne’s Man of Steel.

To learn more about the Crisis on Infinite Earths event, check out my article on Strange Kid’s Club.

My wife and I watch a lot of movies and TV shows. We love the s**t out of them. We try to see a movie at least every weekend and we have multiple shows we watch during the week. It’s hectic keeping up with that.

However, having watched all of these movies and TV shows, we have come to take away many deep and thoughtful life lessons. Things you can’t learn by living life, but by watching hours and hours of Hollywood entertainment.

So here are 17 things we’ve learned while watching all of these TV and movies.

You will always have need of a celebrity (for a charity performance or prom) at the exact time that celebrity is in town for a concert or filming a movie/TV appearance. If you need to get in to see them, it’s very easy to sneak past or distract their security people because they are always completely ineffective. The celebrity will never get pissed that their security people suck and everyone keeps sneaking in to their hotel room.

Large, studio apartments (with or without wacky roommate[s]) are affordable even for the most meager of budgets. As are furnishings from Potterybarn or Crate and Barrel. College kids and people right out of college have immaculate decorating sense.

If you are being held at gunpoint, start running away just as the shooter starts shooting and tip over a table/couch/chair to hide behind. The bullets won’t be able to hit you. Odds are the shooter is a terrible shot anyway, and will hit EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE ROOM except for you. If you do get hit, don’t worry, bullet wounds apparently don’t hurt very much as no one cries out or whimpers with a bullet in them. You mainly shrug it off and wait for someone to bandage you up (heavy, stuttered breathing and sweating may be the only symptom that you have been shot). You may also have a sudden urge to tell your partner to “go on without you”, even with a non-fatal bullet to the shoulder.

When you walk into a room and see the person you are trying to capture or shoot, call out their name or yell ‘Hey!’ or ‘Stop!’ first to give them a sporting chance to run. The element of surprise is overrated…and unfair.

If you are being bullied at school, seek out the friendly, ethnic janitor or find your apartment building’s gardener or handyman. All of these eccentric, foreign, older men were actually master martial artists back in their homeland and gave up the fame and glory of being badass tournament fighters to live the dream of being a janitor/handyman here in America.

You can defeat a master martial artist who has been studying for his entire life if you spend a few weeks/months learning to fight from the aforementioned janitor or handyman.

People in countries other than America speak accented English amongst themselves. If they speak their native tongue, it will only be one word here or there to cover up an exclamation of shock, surprise or a profanity.

People over 65 act in one of two ways; cranky old coot who doesn’t approve of what those young whipper snappers are doing or wild and crazy with the libido (and mouth) of a 20 year old.

You can leave work, even in the middle of the day, and no one will notice.

It’s easy for you and your 5 or 6 friends to always get the table and/or seats right in the middle of the coffee shop/restaurant/club. Even during high traffic hours.

When living or staying in Paris, you will always have a window that looks out on the Eiffel Tower. Similarly, when taking the Parisian subway, every destination takes you right next to the Eiffel Tower.

Everyone buys the same thing at the grocery; leafy green lettuce and a long loaf of french bread that sticks out just so from the top of the bag. And all groceries use brown paper bags with no logos.

Everyone has that one friend/drinking buddy that does nothing but speak in funny/snarky one-liners. The friend has no shame and hits on anything that moves.

If a guy’s best friend is a girl who’s secretly in love with him, the guy will not even notice her as a prospective girlfriend and only think of her as “one of the guys”. Oh, she will always be hot.

If a girl’s best friend is a guy that’s secretly in love with her, the girl will not even notice him as a prospective boyfriend and only think of him as “a friend”. Oh, and he’s always kind of a dork.

No matter where you are going, if you have to drive there, you will find a parking spot right in front. Even in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.

When criminal investigators get satellite or traffic cam photos that are taken from too far away so you can’t see any details, all they have to do is “enhance” the image by zooming in really close to see those details. See how it works here. If zooming in doesn’t work (extremely rare), they just “process” the image through their photo software to get back all these missing details. Once you can see a perp’s face or his license number, they just run it against their “database” to see who he is.

Want to read the followup to this article? Check out 15 MORE things I’ve learned about life from watching movies and TV here.

I love books and I love to read. I spend a lot of my time trolling through bookstores and used paperback shops just browsing. Sometimes after browsing for 2 hours I’ll buy a stack of like six books and sometimes I’ll buy nothing, to the ever increasing frustration of my wife.  She can go into a bookstore, look for 10 minutes and be done.  However, get her in a fabric store and time loses all meaning.  But a bookstore, that’s my domain.

One of the things I love to read is the murder mystery genre.  It’s one of the most popular genres of books including such classic authors as Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Recently I’ve noticed a trend with murder mysteries wherein the author tailors the murder story around a specific hobby or lifestyle.  I guess it’s to make the story more relatable to the reader.  As this practice has become more and more popular, the subjects for these murder mystery books has become so intensely specific that it has become a bit ludicrous.  Here are ten of the most ridiculously specific murder mystery books I could find.  And there may be even more odd ball ones out there. You can click the book covers to read more about the titles on Barnes & Noble.com.

Sudoku, the OCD numbers puzzle that has become quite the rage the last few years. Now, there’s a murder mystery series featuring them. The story in this series involves a Sudoku creator for the Oregon Daily participating in a Sudoku tournament where a competitor turns up dead. She must solve the mystery and then win the Sudoku tournament (of course she does) if she is to be crowned King Sudoku and become one of the 8 Deadly Immortals and protect the Earth from the attacking Demonicle hordes…..okay, I made the last part up, but I was getting a little bored and had to think of something a little more awesome than winning a Sudoku tournament.  Other titles in this series include Murder by Numbers and Sinister Sudoku.

Crossword puzzles.  They are like Sudoku for old people.  People obsess over these things.  There are books and dictionaries created specifically to help people solve crossword puzzles.  My father, my mother-in-law and my aunt are obsessed with these things.  My dad told me that he’ll start a crossword puzzle during breakfast and the next time he looks up it’s 5pm, time for dinner and he hasn’t moved…or showered.  Great, my dad is becoming Howard Hughes.  What’s an 8 letter word for shut in?  (FYI…it’s “puzzlers”)  Other titles in this series include Puzzled to Death and And a Puzzle to Die On. Stay tuned for mysteries involving Yahtzee, Bunko and Parcheesi.  Okay, Dad, you can shower now.

These two books belong in the “so boring I may have just passed out” category.  On the left you see the first book in a mystery series about a tea shop. A.TEA. SHOP.  Yes, little old ladies in red hats drinking tea and eating scones off lace doilies solving murders.  It’s like a less interesting Murder, She Wrote (if that’s possible).  Each title in the book has the name of a tea in the title as a pun.  For instance, Gunpowder Green and Shades of Earl Gray.  It’s like the author is actively trying to get me NOT read her books.  On the right you can see the first book in the “coffeehouse mysteries” set in a trendy “mom and pop” coffee shop.  I guess a coffeehouse is as good a place as any for a murder scene because every time I go there with my wife there are several douchebags I want to actually murder.  Other coffeehouse titles include Decaffeinated Corpse and Roast Mortem. And since writing those “tea shop mysteries” most certainly drove the author insane, she also writes a mystery series about scrapbooking.

This mystery series centers its stories around an old antique store.  Wait, a mystery book about antiquing?  Really?  Maybe there’s something to this.  I know when I go antique shopping with my mom, I feel an intense urge to murder myself.  I’m sure after seeing these books you are convinced that I’m actually making these up and I’ve created the book covers in Photoshop . I assure you I have not.  I couldn’t possibly come up with all of this insanity on my own.  It’s like the 7th circle of library Hell.  Other titles in this series include So Faux, So Good and Estate of Mind.  Since the main theme of these books seem to be activities that are relentlessly boring, I’m wondering if there’s a mystery book revolving around shopping at Bed, Bath & Beyond or Potterybarn.  If not, there will be, I’m sure.

This one is for my mother-in-law, who is a wonderfully gifted quilter.  A mystery series that revolves around quilting.  The real mystery is why more people don’t quilt.  Am I right, everyone?  Right?  *crickets chirping*  Hello?  Other titles in this series include Old Maid’s Puzzle and Ocean Waves.  Those book titles aren’t as pun-y as the last few series.  I wonder if the titles mean something to a quilter, which just makes this series that much more awesome (again, am I right?). *chirp, chirp*

More crafty mystery series books.  Three similar mystery series about crocheting (left), knitting (middle) and cross stitching (right).  Why are there three different series for these?  They really should have just included all of it in the knitting book.  All of those things are pretty much the same.  Yes, I said it.  Knitting, quilting, cross-stitching are ALL THE SAME.  Live with it, people who do those things.  In everyone else’s mind, they are all the same.  Deal with it.

A murder mystery about glass blowing.  I’m not sure I read that right.  GLASS BLOWING.  Yep, I read that right.

Home repair and murder.  Fantastic.  Does this include mowing your lawn?  What about gardening?  However, now that I think about it, including gardening and mowing the lawn may be entirely too awesome for readers.  Better split those subjects up and spread some of that awesome around.  Leave some of that awesome for Book 2.  Other titles in this series are Repair To Her Grave and Wreck The Halls.

Mystery series about murderous figure skaters. Stars a character who is a researcher for a 24-7 skating network. I don’t know what is more insane, a book about figure skating murder or a 24-7 all-skating sports network.

Murder in a cooking class.  I don’t know where you take your cooking classes, but I wouldn’t imagine that there would be a lot of murders there. And if there tend to be a lot of murders in your cooking classes, maybe you should rethink where you are taking your classes.  I mean, maybe if you are taking your class at an abandoned warehouse and the class is taught by Jeffrey Dahmer….maybe. Maybe even if your class was at the YMCA in downtown Detroit. Otherwise, not really a lot of murdering going on (except maybe to the art of cooking).

SOAP MAKING.  Yes, that is the subject of this mystery book.  And people read it.  Because there’s more than one of them.

The guy (yes, a guy) that writes the soap making mysteries above apparently hates to be interesting or taken seriously because he also writes a mystery series about candle making.  I bet this guy Tim Myers is a rock star at parties.  What’s next, a mystery about whittling a flute?

Those are 15 of the most insane murder mystery series I could find. However, I bet in a week I can go onto Barnes & Noble.com and find 10 more. Hopefully, this trend will get a little bit more awesome. I’d like to see some murder mysteries about a bar (like Cheers) or about bear wrestling. Maybe even a mystery series staring a dashing IT developer who works for a major Southeast grocery chain and writes an extremely popular humor blog who gets caught up in the murder of the CEO. I’m just spit balling here, but that last idea is GOLD.

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However, I have come up with a few items that have yet to be produced.  Below are 5 Star Wars branded items that surprisingly have NOT been made yet.  And George really needs to get on this because these items are AWESOME.  They would easily give Lucas that little extra pocket money he so desperately needs right about now.

The Emperor Collector Series Taser Gun – One of my favorite scenes in the Star Wars movies is the final Death Star Showdown between Jedi Luke, Darth Vader and The Emperor.  When The Emperor pulled out Sith Lightning after Luke had defeated his father, I was like, “OH S**T!!  WTF WAS THAT!?”  Sith Lightning is BADASS.  So I think it’s a natural to take The Emperor, Sith Lightning and Taser guns, mix well, and give them to law enforcement and kids.  Imagine thousands of kids playing Death Star in the backyard, whipping out The Emperor Taser gun, whispering, “And now young Skywalker, you will die” and then unleashing the full stunning fury of blue Sith Lightning on their brother or sister.   Can you imagine a cop that wouldn’t shout “Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the Darkside” before he tases the crap out of a degenerate criminal?  It would be GLORIOUS!!!

Darth Vader Asthma Inhaler – It’s quite obvious that Vader has a bit of an asthma problem.  Listening to Vader wheeze his way through three and a half movies is like listening to Rosie O’Donnell walk a flight of steps.  Maybe we should use this to give confidence to kids with asthma.  “See, Darth Vader has asthma and he destroyed an entire PLANET!”  I can just imagine the commercial now, Darth Vader in the Death Star planning room.  One of the Moffs starts choking and weezing and you think Vader is choking him with the power of The Force.  Instead, Vader says, “Your lack of breath is disturbing” then hands the out of breath officer the Darth Vader Asthma Inhaler.  The Moff takes a few puffs and the meeting can resume to pats on Vader’s back for a job well done.  Excuse me while I head to the patent office website to copyright that “lack of breath” line I just came up with.  GENIUS!

Toshi Station Power Converters – How f’n OBVIOUS is this one?  Seriously.  Toshi Station.  Power converters.  They go together like Lennon and McCartney.  Peanut butter and jelly.  Made famous in A New Hope when Luke famously said that he wanted to go to Toshi Station and pick up some power converters.  Well, he didn’t actually SAY it, he WHINED it.  Real annoyingly.  Think about it, if Luke had been allowed to pick up his damn power converters, the galaxy may have been under Imperial rule for many more years.  So thank Uncle Owen for not giving in to Luke’s incessant, girly whining about f’n POWER CONVERTERS, telling him to stop being a baby and make him do his chores.

Star Wars “Moisture Vaporator” Dehumidifier - If you ask me, this is another obvious one.  Moisture vaporators were those incredibly tall spear like machines you see in the Tatooine scenes in A New Hope.  Their purpose is to pull excess moisture from the dry, desert air for harvesting.  When Owen is looking to buy a droid, he says he needs a droid that can understand the binary language of moisture vaporators.  So, how awesome would it be to have a dehumidifier that is shaped like a moisture vaporator?  They do the exact same job.  Am I the only one that sees this?!  Put this baby next to your bed.  Then, when you bring over the girlfriend and she sees this thing on your nightstand, you can say, “I need a girl who can understand the binary language of I’M A F’N DORK”.  These ideas are like printing my own money.  I AM WEAVING GOLD HERE, PEOPLE!

AT-AT Hoth Sno-Kone Machine - Ahh, the chilly wasteland of Hoth.  Miles and miles of snow, tauntauns, Wampas and rebel bases.  Interesting how the rebel alliance picks the most extreme weather planets for their bases.  Yavin 4 was a humid rainforest planet.  Hoth is a planet covered entirely in snowy, icy tundras.  I bet the rebel’s next base would have been on a planet that is constantly on fire, or maybe constantly raining.  Anyway, they have surprisingly never made a Star Wars Hoth Planet Snow Cone Machine.  However they have made a Star Wars popcorn machine. Why?! I don’t remember Vader digging his gloved hand into a box of buttered popcorn before he choked the life out of his currently doomed Admiral. WTF?! THE PLANET HOTH WAS ACTUALLY COVERED ENTIRELY IN SNOW! THEY CALLED IT THE ICE PLANET! Hellooooooo. Ice. Snow. F’n snow cones. Am I just that much of a visionary?  GET THIS DONE, LUCAS!

Man, reading this article probably blew your mind.  Watching me brainstorm like this must have been like watching Edison invent the light bulb or Einstein work out the theory of Relativity.  You don’t really know what the hell you are looking at, but you know it was pretty awesome.

So, to tide everyone over, I’m going to show you two funny videos I’ve found around the net.  Sorta keep you entertained.  I fully intend to thrust into your consciousness my best/worst movie lists for 2009, so prepare for that.  Until then, laugh along with these funny and insane videos.

Everyone here knows my love of the Back to the Future trilogy. Well Tom Wilson, the guy who plays Biff in the series, actually does stand up comedy now. This is one of his best bits. It’s a song about all the dumb questions he gets asked over and over by fans.

Well played, Japan. Well. Played. You have actually won the Internet with this video.