Reed Richards Is Useless: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

{{quote|''"Stardust, whose vast knowledge of interplanetary science has made him the most remarkable man that ever lived, devotes his abilities to crime-busting..."''|''Stardust the Super Wizard'', Fantastic Comics #14}}

* An obscure Golden Age example. In Target Comics "Calling 2R" feature, a benevolent scientist known only as Skipper transformed his estate into Boystate, a high-tech refuge for unwanted boys. Boystate residents possess a variety of high-speed aircraft (by 1940s standards), "force wall" forcefields, cosmic-ray-powered healing chambers, portable radio communicators and other nifty gadgetry. But while Skipper was very happy to share his technology with his charges, he went out of his way to make sure it never left Boystate's confines. The later stories averted it when World War II broke out and Skipper was ordered to develop high-tech weaponry for the army. He was happy to comply.

* Usually played straight in ''[[Astro City]]'', as the author believes that it's important that the stories take place in our world, but the superhero Samaritan was able to stop the Challenger disaster, and there's a story dealing with a lawyer who attempts to defend his client in a mundane case by citing superhuman events - he argues that yes, forty witnesses say that they saw his client commit the murder, but there was once a bank robbery seemingly committed by celebrities who turned out to be shapeshifters, the superheroes First Family were suspected of selling defense secrets, but it was their Alternate Universe counterparts, etc. It ends up actually getting his client off the hook.

{{quote| '''Qubit:''' I'm as flattered as [[Albert Einstein|Einstein]] was when he saw Hiroshima.}}

* At the end of David Hine's ''Spawn: Armageddon'' storyline, Spawn is recreating the universe after the cataclysmic battle between heaven and hell. When Spawn is asked if he wants to cure the common cold or end global warming, Spawn says no, for he has done enough for humanity and it is now time for them to solve their own problems.

* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''[[Back To The Beach]]'' where Bob Denver -- clearly playing [[Gilligans Island|Gilligan]] -- is working as a bartender, and complains to a customer about being stranded on a deserted island with a guy so smart he could make a nuclear reactor out of a couple of coconuts... but who couldn't fix a two-foot hole in a boat.

* The ''[[Men in Black (Film)|Men in Black]]'' possess enormous amount of confiscated advanced technology. While they ''do'' release some of the technology to the public, holding the patents on numerous alien technologies sold to the public -- velcro, microwave ovens and CDs, to name a few -- they are doing great deal of constant memory erasing to hide alien existence to avoid possible panic.

** In ''[[Star Trek Insurrection]]'', [[Perfect Pacifist People|the]] [[Space Amish|Bak'u]] had discovered and settled down on a planet with incredible rejuvenating powers, but rather than considering sharing it, they keep it for themselves for... some reason. To many, this [[Designated Hero|makes them look more unsympathetic]] than [[Designated Villain|Starfleet Admiral Dougherty and the Son'a]], who ''are'' planning on bringing these powers to billions of people.

* In ''[[Flubber]]'', the [[Robin Williams]] remake of ''[[The Absent Minded Professor]]'', Professor Braniard (Williams) has to come up with some sort of scientific breakthrough to secure enough funding to keep his college solvent. If only he had some sort of supertech available to show potential investors... like a flying, self-aware [[Robot Buddy]]. Oh, wait... Seriously, the patents on whatever lets Weebo fly around would secure funding for the next decade, let alone true [[Artificial Intelligence|A.I.]] But he ignores that expediency in search of the eponymous Flubber.

** In ''Dead Beat'' it is implied that WWI and WWII were caused by the white council battling the necromancers.

** Or rather, engineered by the uber-Necromancer Kemmler to give him plenty of bodies to work with.

* A [[Ray Bradbury]] short story ("A Piece of Wood") has the army-employed scientist protagonist invent a machine that causes immediate rust: a pen, a tank, a rifle will dissolve into red dust. The finale reveals that since the device has a time delay: he has been walking around the entire military base disabling the entire installation, and it is revealed he plans to do this to the entire world. (How he would get there is unaddressed.) The story ends with the general he was talking to getting up from his chair and breaking off a leg, intending to use it as a club.

** Another Bradbury story, "The Flying Machine", was set during the [[Dynasties From Shang to Qing|Han Dynasty]]. The Emperor of China witnessed a man flying by means of a bamboo-framed dragon kite, similar to a hang-glider. The Emperor, after confirming that no one else saw the man fly, ordered the kite destroyed and the inventor executed. When the inventor asked why, the Emperor explained that he feared this invention would be ultimately used by China's enemies to attack China. The Emperor admitted that he had no desire to kill the inventor, but felt that it was necessary to safeguard his people.

He put his head to one side. "An' that'd stop people killing them, would it?"<br />

She hesitated. It would have been nice to say yes. }}

* The main character of ''[[The Witches of Bailiwick]]'' controls weather, noted as a perfect example of [[Reed Richards Is Useless]] at the top of this page. Even stranger, the protagonist's weather control ability is ''always'' treated as mundane and relatively useless.

* At the end of the ''[[Wild Cards]]'' novel ''Suicide Kings'', Mark Meadows decides to start defying this trope by devoting his pharmacological genius to curing disease rather than continuing to turn himself into a superpowered [[Knight Templar]].

** In literally dozens of episodes over the course of the many series, there have been face-to-face hostage situations with the good guys carrying sidearms that will [[Stun Guns|safely and (mostly) reliably (almost) instantly render unconscious any number of targets]]. Yet the option of simply hosing down the entire situation, victim and aggressor together, and sorting it out when everything's safe isn't even discussed. ''[[Star Trek Enterprise]]'' thankfully averted this by having Reed just shoot T'Pol and the guy holding her hostage in one episode.

*** Phaser technology regresses considerably over the course of the various ''Star Trek'' series. In the original series it was shown that a handheld phaser could be used to flood an entire room with a stun field. The ship could even stun an entire city block from orbit. In later series the phasers gradually seemed to first become limited to absolutely specific narrow beams that had to hit individual targets, and then further on large phaser rifles appeared to be only capable of firing little bursts of energy. They only seem to remember wide beams when they want to tunnel through rock.

*** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in [[Deep Space Nine|Trials and Tribble-ations]] (in the novelization, at least), which has a dedicated branch of Starfleet/the Federation to clean up the mess left by all the time travel and other weird incidents. They complain about having to deal with an inordinate amount from the crew of the ''Enterprise''...

** Geordi LaForge's visor: Geordi claimed to have been blind since birth and everything including cloned implants has been a failure. He also claims that the VISOR causes intense pain but he will not take drugs to dull the pain because "It would affect how these work". However, the ''Star Trek'' Universe has proven able to cure just about every current illness, let alone alien diseases. This includes genetically correcting deformities prior to birth. This anomaly, of course, is retained so that Geordi can act as a role model for the physically challenged. Geordi did eventually get some nice robot eyes in the movies, though.

** Well think about it: there doesn't seem to be much of a shipping industry in any of the regions, as they are composed almost entirely of pedestrian trails. It could be that the technology is how the Poke Marts stay stocked.

** However there is a town in Black and White Versions where there is a storage yard, with many, many containers, as well as employees keeping track of them. Clearly, some things are being shipped somewhere. We need you Bill!

* In ''[[Portal (Video Game)|Portal]]'', Aperture Science developed several technologies that, with proper application, would have revolutionized the world. Just one, the portal gun, could have, in an instant, solved nearly every transportation and logistical problem on the planet, enabled [[Casual Interstellar Travel]], and incidentally made the company trillions. They also developed [[Brain Uploading]], [[AI Is a Crapshoot|true AI]], [[Hard Light]], some really amazing hardware to prevent [[Not the Fall That Kills You|injury from falling]], and a variety of other things. The only justification for why they did all this and still went bankrupt is that they were so into testing all their [[Mad Science]] inventions that they utterly failed to market them properly -- or marketed them for entirely the wrong things. It also doesn't help that they ignored even the most basic of safety standards, to the point where their facilities would have given [[No OSHA Compliance|OSHA inspectors]] a heart attack. And then, of course, they were all [[Turned Against Their Masters|killed by the AI]] that they put in charge of the facility, which happened around the same time as the [[Half Life|Combine invasion of Earth]].

** In summary, Aperture doesn't change the world because [[Reed Richards Is Useless|Cave Johnson is loony]].

*** [[Comically Missing the Point|But wouldn't that rot your teeth?]]

** Screw the production aspect, he has all year and armies of slave elves doing the "making". In order to deliver gifts all over the world in one night, he's obviously mastered either teleportation or time-travel. Or maybe the rumors of massive Santa-clone armies is true...

* There's a commercial where a couple train their son to be able to dunk a basketball, in order to obtain scholarships later. The kid looks to be about five or six. The implication is that they trained the kid personally, not hired someone, in which case thousands of parents would give their eyeteeth to give ''their'' kid that kind of skill. If this ever occurs to the couple or gets out, they're likely set for life.

* There are many food commercials that sidestep the "you have to pay for this product" issue, leading one to wonder why it isn't just handed out to the hungry people of the world.

== [[Real Life]] ==

* It's one thing to invent something. On the other hand, it's much harder to find sponsorship, do expensive safety tests, deal with any side effects, find a way to mass produce it, and be prepared for potential backlash if [[Spanner in The Works|something completely outside your control]] goes wrong...

* The sheer number of people who are not organ or tissue donors. This is mostly an issue in nations where the system for donation is opt in (where about 25% are donors) rather than opt out (where about 25% are ''not'' donors, while some opt out countries like Belgium or Austria only have 2% not being donors). Even if the DMV asks you if you want the pink dot on your license (as in California), most just automatically say no due to the way its asked and many others forget even being given the choice. Add to that that the family still gets final say and that most are too distraught at losing someone to be amenable to cutting them up.

** In an effort to boost organ donation, countries such as Israel place preferential treatment on registered organ donors in receiving organ transplants.

[[Category:This Index Is Useless]]

[[Category:Reed Richards Is Useless]]