If there were a hipster superhero, what would his/her special powers be?

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What would s/he be called and who would s/he save?

― miss mounds, Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:34 (twenty years ago)

s/he would save the world from paying more than $1.50 per beer at a club!

― the underground homme (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:38 (twenty years ago)

Please indiemang, save us from properly matching clothes!

― geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:39 (twenty years ago)

Ok, so I think we have a name. Our hipster superhero is INDIEMAN!! So now we need know what his special hipster powers are, the backstory as to how he got them, perhaps a female hipster love interest whom he constantly saves from whatever evils hipster girls need to be saved from.

― miss mounds, Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:46 (twenty years ago)

http://www.gregsgrooves.com/imagesm-r/nazareth_no.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:47 (twenty years ago)

Free Pabst Blue Ribbon and ironic trucker hats for all! And they'd have buttsex with that old roommate of Gear's on his couch!

― Ian Riese-Moraine has been xeroxed into a conduit! (Eastern Mantra), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:48 (twenty years ago)

Ability to identify Guided By Voices b-sides at 1000 yards.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:49 (twenty years ago)

Female - Vintage Vixen - needs to be saved from plagues of giant moths errupting from her wardrobe.

― Anna (Anna), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:49 (twenty years ago)

I am Autotuman - with the uncanny ability to bring harmony where there is dissonance

― On one hand I've got myself to blame (Lynskey), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:51 (twenty years ago)

He'd obviously have the power to know what bands were cool whith out ever hearing them, or even (OK here's where it gets supernatural) hearing of them. He'd be able to sense cool bands.

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:00 (twenty years ago)

Ability to identify Guided By Voices b-sides at 1000 yards.
..As long as he's wearing his special horn-rimmed glasses.

Backstory: Born of hippie parents and never too good at sports, the milquetoast-mannered Dylan Barrett Arnold liked to play Dungeons and Dragons and played the clarinet in the concert band.

His only weapon against tittie-twisters was his sarcasm. His self-esteem can withstand multiple hits, but still remains his ultimate achilles heel.

― geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:08 (twenty years ago)

He's got the motion that all the indie boys and indie girls all wanna touch and take it home...

― Ian Riese-Moraine has been xeroxed into a conduit! (Eastern Mantra), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:11 (twenty years ago)

Indieman wears a cape made of children's thrift store memories!

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:40 (twenty years ago)

Can lethally PWN any poseur or wannabe in a 20-foot radius.

― j.lu (j.lu), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:55 (twenty years ago)

Can stay reasonably awake until 3:00 am

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:57 (twenty years ago)

Has to have INDIEMANG glasses ov course.

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:58 (twenty years ago)

Can frighten off non-indie women with his Crap Dancing power.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:00 (twenty years ago)

Haha yes. And can bore older people into a coma with his/her encylodpaedie knowledge of the Sarah Records catalogue!

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:01 (twenty years ago)

White Belt of POWER maybe?

― THE JAMES DEAN OF THE OLD TESTAMENT (ex machina), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:01 (twenty years ago)

Immune to Sense of Humour based attacks.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:08 (twenty years ago)

Assymetrical haircut of doom.

― Roz (Roz), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:10 (twenty years ago)

He would be capable of discerning between too seemingly identical bands why one is awesome and the other is crap.

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:10 (twenty years ago)

His secret real life dad is John Peel.

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:13 (twenty years ago)

If male: skinny enough to slip underneath doors or through keyholes.
If femle: can stun male supervillains with BODACIOUS SUPER-ASS.

― n/a (Nick A.), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:35 (twenty years ago)

Power to annoy supervillains by moving into the cheap, working-class supervillain neighborhood in droves, opening up trendy stores and restaurants, and driving up property values and rents to the point where the supervillains can no longer afford to live there.

― n/a (Nick A.), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:39 (twenty years ago)

the ability to whistle any track from the soul jazz catalogue on command

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:43 (twenty years ago)

Can, in any room, be it bare and sparsely furnished or carpeted with an inch-deep mess of dirty clothes and unpaid parking tickets, unearth enough change to buy breakfast at the Burrito Bar, day after day.

― k/l (Ken L), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:52 (twenty years ago)

can decimate soundwaves from any david foster and/or diane warren production with special secretly canadian hoodie button

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:55 (twenty years ago)

Resides in the Basement Apartment of Solitude (just around the corner from the all-ages venue and the frighteningly hip record store).

What would be his kryptonite? Lack of health care coverage?

― j.lu (j.lu), Thursday, 30 June 2005 14:15 (twenty years ago)

his batmobile would be a flying fender vibrolux reverb amp

― the underground homme (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 30 June 2005 22:38 (twenty years ago)

Enemies:

DIGITALIS - He was once known as the millionaire industrialist Philo Phillips who made his fortune by melting down old records and turntables and turning them into jewel-case trays. Longterm exposure to vinyl fumes turned Phillips into the mad supervillain Digitalis who dreams of turning all waveforms and vibrations in the universe to pure digital data: starting with sound, moving up to light and finally his ultimate triumph, the digitization of matter!

VOX POPULI - As a teen he was forever made to feel uncool by sneering hipsters, none of whom suspected his powerful psychic abilities. Now bearing an unholy grudge, Vox Populi peers into the mind of every hipster in the land to uncover their most treasured obscurities. Working from his day job at a popular reissue label and using connections within the advertising industry, Vox Populi carries out his evil scheme to expose, popularize and exploit everything our intrepid hipster hero holds dear.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Friday, 1 July 2005 02:30 (twenty years ago)

ihttp://comics.images.free.fr/outsiders.jpg

― Negativa, True Believer (Sheryl Crow in a Britney costume) (Barima), Friday, 1 July 2005 11:29 (twenty years ago)

Indieboy superhero would almost certainly be named CASEY or maybe TRAVIS.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 1 July 2005 15:12 (twenty years ago)

Alter ego is mild-mannered graphic designer Bernard Willis. He may wear a tie to his job creating new logos for a medical insurance firm, but rest assured, he is always wearing his hand-made Truman's Water t-shirt he made when he was 13 underneath his dress shirt, ready to leap into a a filthy rock club bathroom and change at the slightest hint of NEFARIOUS ROCKISM.

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 1 July 2005 15:18 (twenty years ago)

More anti-social than James Dean with Asperger's
Scrawnier than an Ethopian chicken [sorry, nabisco]
Able to hold up a pair of pants with no hips

Look, in the Econoline!
It's Thurston Moore,
It's Mike Watt,
No, it's INDIEBOY!

Yes it's indieboy, strange visitor from another state, with creative powers far beyond those of mortal men. Who can strum the chords of Johnny Rivers, bend steel strings with his bare hands, and who, disguised as Casey Travis, mild-mannered counterman for a groovy local video store, fights a neverending battle for emo, alt-rock and the youth of today!

― k/l (Ken L), Friday, 1 July 2005 15:36 (twenty years ago)

I see these superheroes as a duo . . . a boy & girl, not romantically linked & certainly not romantically involved with anyone else. She wears a black, fitted "fear no art" t-shirt & he wears a maroon t-shirt with a silk-screened design on it. Something random, like a rolling pin. They both wear vintage jeans. Maybe her cuffs are rolled up & she wears very cute mary jane shoes.
Her secret power is sarcasm & solitude, his secret power is making up bands that no one has ever heard of & discussing their history at length. The Kryptonite? A layperson's vocabulary.

― kelsey (kelstarry), Friday, 1 July 2005 15:55 (twenty years ago)

He squeezes the contents out of PBR cans for powerups like Popeye did spinach, and her hair changes color depending on her environs!

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 1 July 2005 16:00 (twenty years ago)

not romantically involved with anyone else

yes but they make faltering attempts at getting with each other, which usually gets about as far as drunken pawing and then one of them gets up and changes the cd and it sort of fizzles out.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 1 July 2005 16:48 (twenty years ago)

This is the greatest thread ever.

― tissp! (the impossible shortest specia), Friday, 1 July 2005 16:52 (twenty years ago)

Their ride: a Honda Civic hatchback that out the outside looks like crap, but on the inside contains a never-ending supply of vintage band t-shirts, the world's largest collection of Yo La Tengo boots, a GPS navigation system that can pinpoint any thrift or second-hand record store in the lower 48, and...the original tape deck.

― j.lu (j.lu), Friday, 1 July 2005 16:52 (twenty years ago)

their archnemesis is a protean changeling-like creature who alternately appears in the guise of a right-wing politician, their boss, the bouncer at the local rock club, the lead singer of a co-opted mainstream emo band, and a traffic cop.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 1 July 2005 16:54 (twenty years ago)

Greatest Enemy: The Latest Trend! Stops Hipster Hero dead in their tracks! Always has to monitor what the Latest Trend is up to!

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 1 July 2005 16:55 (twenty years ago)

origin story involves a mythical elder-brother type figure who dispenses smiths cassettes and well-worn joy division t-shirts from atop a hill at the end of a cul-de-sac in park slope.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 1 July 2005 16:57 (twenty years ago)

Rides in the Lol-o-copter

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Friday, 1 July 2005 16:57 (twenty years ago)

no, correction: the location of the cul-de-sac is a quiet residential neighborhood in white plains.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 1 July 2005 16:57 (twenty years ago)

Is the Latest Trend working hand-in-hand with the Man? Is this Latest Trend just fancying marketing and sweat-shop labour? Where the Hell is Captain Authenticity???

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 1 July 2005 16:58 (twenty years ago)

There should be a baddie called Foe Real, who turns out to be a goodie in the end.

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 1 July 2005 16:58 (twenty years ago)

(btw i think the correlation between "i'm not really a ____ this is just my day job, i'm really a rock star" and the whole archetypal superhero thing is sort of suggestive, no?)

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 1 July 2005 16:58 (twenty years ago)

captain authenticity doesn't appear until issue #471.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 1 July 2005 16:59 (twenty years ago)

this is hilarious!

jel is hilarious!

― kelsey (kelstarry), Friday, 1 July 2005 17:01 (twenty years ago)

this should really be a comic book.

― kelsey (kelstarry), Friday, 1 July 2005 17:04 (twenty years ago)

captain authenticity doesn't appear until issue #471
And even then, he is soon to go through a long, non-Comic-Authority-approved period of incapacitation when he falls under the evil spell of the kaftan-wearing, incense-burning, Grateful-Dead-listening-to Sister Kundalini.

― k/l (Ken L), Friday, 1 July 2005 17:05 (twenty years ago)

Issue #272 starts off fine, and then Gear's roommate appears and tries to seduce our protagonist with her hypnotic trucker hat and then kidnaps him forces him to listen to Jimmy Eat World.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Friday, 1 July 2005 17:07 (twenty years ago)

he falls under the evil spell of the kaftan-wearing, incense-burning, Grateful-Dead-listening-to Sister Kundalini.

The best part of that issue was when Vintage Vixen went undercover at Phish Pheast to find him.

― j.lu (j.lu), Friday, 1 July 2005 17:17 (twenty years ago)

i don't like the word "vixen"--it's not very indie.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 1 July 2005 17:19 (twenty years ago)

really?

― kelsey (kelstarry), Friday, 1 July 2005 17:23 (twenty years ago)

there should be a confounding big-sister feminist character, who is earning a PhD in semiology.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 1 July 2005 17:23 (twenty years ago)

Oh, I don't know. I see her as a Suicide Girl type, except with lots more brains and the good taste to stay dressed.

― j.lu (j.lu), Friday, 1 July 2005 17:24 (twenty years ago)

(Grrr, x-post)

― j.lu (j.lu), Friday, 1 July 2005 17:24 (twenty years ago)

this all sounds sort of familiar...
http://www.objectif-cinema.fr/pointsdevue/images/0331/cestlaquetoutacommenc_01.jpg

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 1 July 2005 17:27 (twenty years ago)

The best part of that issue was when Vintage Vixen went undercover at Phish Pheast to find him.
She didn't find him until the end of "Revolution Number 9"!

― k/l (Ken L), Friday, 1 July 2005 17:32 (twenty years ago)

Amst, that's because the indiemobile is garaged in the secret subbasement of a local comic book store!

― k/l (Ken L), Friday, 1 July 2005 17:34 (twenty years ago)

If femle: can stun male supervillains with BODACIOUS SUPER-ASS
This is illustrated in the comic book by starry yellow balloons containing the words "BOOM!" and "POP!"

― k/l (Ken L), Friday, 1 July 2005 23:33 (twenty years ago)

have you guys really not seen the heineken commercial?!!?!?!?

― hstencil (hstencil), Saturday, 2 July 2005 03:27 (twenty years ago)

No, why, is there an indie superhero featured in there? What power does he demonstrate, the power to see inner beauty through his otherwordly beer goggles?

― k/l (Ken L), Saturday, 2 July 2005 03:32 (twenty years ago)

ok so there's like this meeting of superheroes, right? and the one dude is like "this is our new guy" and it's this indie-looking schlub dude. and every superhero goes "can he turn invisible?!" "can he fly?!?" etc. etc. as they demonstrate their powers. and he says no, and they say "well what can you do?!?!" and he takes off his shoe (which i think is a chuck taylor or some simulacra of one) and touches it and it turns into a heine. and thus, they're all like "welcome!!!!"

― hstencil (hstencil), Saturday, 2 July 2005 04:03 (twenty years ago)

I don't think that's our Indieboy/man, Stence, I think it's his gone wrong brother.

― k/l (Ken L), Saturday, 2 July 2005 04:05 (twenty years ago)

dude, he's the advertising IndieMan template. he's like in every commercial now.

― hstencil (hstencil), Saturday, 2 July 2005 04:23 (twenty years ago)

Has he ever seen Blue Velvet?

― k/l (Ken L), Saturday, 2 July 2005 04:25 (twenty years ago)

dude, man, heine's just trying to co-opt. that's what capitalists do. beer drinkers drink beer. that's what they do.

― hstencil (hstencil), Saturday, 2 July 2005 04:26 (twenty years ago)

The next thing you're gonna tell me is there's no such thing as superheroes. Oh wait.

― k/l (Ken L), Saturday, 2 July 2005 04:30 (twenty years ago)

Thread has short-circuited, does not compute, does not compute.

― k/l (Ken L), Saturday, 2 July 2005 04:32 (twenty years ago)

That guy in the commercial was just some kinda frat boy. Indie man would turn your BEER into a Chuck Taylor!

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Saturday, 2 July 2005 07:16 (twenty years ago)

dude the first response in this thread is about beer!

― hstencil (hstencil), Saturday, 2 July 2005 07:28 (twenty years ago)

Indieman is the drummer for Gay Dad.

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Saturday, 2 July 2005 19:57 (twenty years ago)

Please tell me he rides a winged creature named Butterglory.

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Saturday, 2 July 2005 20:06 (twenty years ago)

And he has a little, cuddly animal sidekick (kind of like Rainbow Brite's little Sprite) named Huggy Bear.

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Saturday, 2 July 2005 20:09 (twenty years ago)

This is the greatest thread ever.

It is pretty damn roffley.

― Paunchy Stratego (kenan), Saturday, 2 July 2005 20:32 (twenty years ago)

I have the glasses already. Also, I voraciously read an issue of Arthur cover-to-cover yesterday, even the rambly record review bits. All I need is the cape.

― Paunchy Stratego (kenan), Saturday, 2 July 2005 20:34 (twenty years ago)

and he takes off his shoe (which i think is a chuck taylor or some simulacra of one) and touches it and it turns into a heine.

Man, I totally misread this.

― Trayce (trayce), Sunday, 3 July 2005 07:19 (twenty years ago)

http://www.umsl.edu/~dyounger/photo_site/TP_4_Site/BIG%20BUTT.jpg

― Paunchy Stratego (kenan), Sunday, 3 July 2005 08:36 (twenty years ago)

http://img.classiccloseouts.com/images_104/attributes_m/5AZ16000.jpg

― oops (Oops), Sunday, 3 July 2005 09:03 (twenty years ago)

All I need is the cape.

Made of corduroy, of course.

― j.lu (j.lu), Sunday, 3 July 2005 13:46 (twenty years ago)

how come no one has mentioned one of Indieman's biggest nemises, "the Jam Band"? supervillains who pose as crunchy lawn jam promoters by day. they hypontize their attendees into doing whirling dervishes and playing with hula hoops to conduct energy into a superbomb that can destroy the world.

their leader is Tad, hemp necklace-wearing abercrombie model, president of the kappa psi epsilon frat and rabid DMB fan. his right-hand man is Granola Gray--a trustafarian who combats Indieman's sarcasm and superior musical taste by saying shit like, "why do you judge people?", "improvisation is like so key to the live music experience"

― waxyjax (waxyjax), Monday, 4 July 2005 03:37 (twenty years ago)

Sister Kundalini is part of their axis of evil.

― j.lu (j.lu), Monday, 4 July 2005 04:05 (twenty years ago)

haha--YES! and her little brother is Nitrous Boy.

― waxyjax (waxyjax), Monday, 4 July 2005 04:55 (twenty years ago)

She didn't find him until the end of "Revolution Number 9"!
The correct title is of course "Revolution 9." This little error went unnoticed until it came to the attention of The Collectibles Kid.

― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 4 July 2005 22:10 (twenty years ago)

five years pass...

For the new Superman, a hipster sensibility

Dare I hope this means that all things "hipster" have just about run their course?

― Charlie Chaliapin (j.lu), Thursday, 28 October 2010 11:45 (fifteen years ago)

I think it means that Superman has run its course.

― James Mitchell, Thursday, 28 October 2010 11:52 (fifteen years ago)

This is just an "Elseworlds" type of alternate continuity book, right? They won't be changing the "real" Superman who appears in the monthly books. There have already been a kazillion different Elseworlds reinterpretations of Superman/Batman/etc, so the only difference here is that DC is trying to reach a wider audience than the dwindling group of superhero comic fans.

― Tuomas, Thursday, 28 October 2010 12:48 (fifteen years ago)

I think a good name for a hipster superhero would be "Alf Alpha" - his power being able to find shitty retro 80's shirts.

― Darin, Thursday, 28 October 2010 15:08 (fifteen years ago)

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