Practical Superheroism 6: Means of Travel

Disclaimer:  Look if you haven't got it by now you never will.  Don't try this at home!

The last couple times I talked about weapons and other items a practical superhero needs to carry around.  Now we get to transportation.  Now since you aren't lucky enough to have been granted superpowers by Earth's yellow sun or a genetic mutation or anything, chances are you can't fly or run super fast or swing around on web ropes or any other nonsense.  Unfortunately you probably also don't have billions of dollars and your own personal workshop to build cars, planes, helicopters, rockets, and whatever else for yourself.

At the same time, as a superhero you can't really take a bus around town.  And that rusty Volkswagen Golf that can't go more than 40mph would take forever to get you to a crime scene.  And your cape would get caught up in the spokes of a 10-speed.  There's always a Segway, but then you'd just look ridiculous. 

The obvious solution:  a motorcycle.  That's the conclusion I came to when I was writing the end of the first draft of A Hero's Journey way back in 2009.  It was inspired mostly by the end of "The Dark Knight" where he rides around on the "Batpod" after the Batmobile gets blown up.  It seemed to me a motorcycle has a few advantages:

1. Speed:  If you get a decent bike it can go well over 100mph.
2. Size:  A motorcycle is small enough that you don't need a whole Batcave to hide it.
3. Maneuverability:  Because it's small it also has a lot better agility than a car.  That's great when you need to weave through crowded streets or alleys in hot pursuit of bad guys or to flee the cops.
4. Mileage:  Bikes typically get better gas mileage, though if you're driving at 100mph all the time that might be negated.
5. Cost:  Just a guess here, but I'd wager it's a lot cheaper than buying a Lamborghini or Maserati or some high-performance sports car.
6. Coolness:  Come on, it just looks fucking cool!  Much cooler than that rusty Volkswagen.  Helps you make a good impression and such.

The obvious drawback is that you don't have as much protection as a car with its airbags and windshield and whatnot, so you have to be really careful.  For me the other drawback is you need to have good balance, which I do not have.

Biker chick!

Anyway, so in A Hero's Journey my hero Dr. Emma Earl, aka the Scarlet Knight, has no means of transportation.  She didn't own a car so she had to take a bus or taxi to work at the Plaine Museum.  When she got the scarlet armor, she traveled mostly by jumping from rooftop to rooftop, which was easy in the old parts of the city where buildings were fairly close together.

By the end of that book she gets herself a motorcycle to ride around on for the reasons I stated above.  It's a lot faster than jumping around and hey, it helps her get to work too, which is an added bonus.

Of course I know nothing about motorcycles except they're loud and annoying and again require too much balance and coordination for me to ever own.  So really I can't recommend specific brands or models or anything like that.  For my story I had her get a Ninja one--a red one of course!--just because I thought it looked cool.  It kind of reminds me of the Cyclone bikes in Robotech--or Mospaeda if you want to get all technical.  Except obviously it doesn't turn into a suit of robot armor.  Dang it.

So it looks sort of like this:

Vroom vroom!

Yeah, that's pretty sweet.  Of course you can get a boring Harley if you want.  Or even one of those three-wheeled Spyder dealies.  That might be better for someone with no balance or coordination like me.  I like the sleekness of this better.

Now here's something important to note:  when she goes out as the Scarlet Knight, she takes the license plate off.  If you're good at engineering you can problem get it so the plate can flip down or something.  Since my character is a genius, she also creates a security system that would shock someone with 5,000 volts if they try to steal it.  You probably aren't that smart, but there are things you can buy to make the bike harder to steal, like a collar dealie like the kid used in "Breaking Bad" and was then used to strangle a drug dealer.  Though later his bike gets stolen anyway.  D'OH!

The obvious problem is if you don't have a lot of money, what are you supposed to do?  I'm sure you can get a used bike for fairly cheap.  Or maybe you could steal one!  (Not that I would endorse that because you'd probably get caught.)  If not, well I guess you'd better make sure you've got a bus pass.

If you want to read about a kick-ass superhero in action then buy my book A Hero's Journey for just $2.99!

Tomorrow is what all of you--or at least Michael Offutt--have been waiting for:  my epic Breakdown of "Breaking Bad"...