Batman, Superman, the Green Lantern… we all had our superheroes as kids. Maybe we still do today? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, SUPERHEROES. We’ll celebrate Wonder Woman’s 70th birthday with a look at her controversial new costume. We’ll also explore the actual physics of superpowers. And, "The 99" – an Islamic comic book in which each superhero reflects one of the 99 names of Allah.
SEGMENT 1:
James Kakalios teaches physics at the University of Minnesota and is the author of "The Physics of Superheroes." He tells Jim Fleming that Superman’s powers make sense for a creature born on a planet with stronger gravity than Earth’s, and that often fantasy writers strive to be scientific if you grant them one impossible feat.
SEGMENT 2:
Wonder Woman is 70! Jim Lee drew the updated Wonder Woman and describes her to Steve Paulson, explaining the reasoning behind the updates. Jim Lee is co-publisher of DC comics. Also, Aimee Mullins is an athlete, fashion model and activist who uses whichever of her 12 pairs of prosthetic legs is appropriate for the task at hand. She talks with Anne Strainchamps about why her running legs are modeled on a cheetah’s and why she sees herself as having superpowers, rather than being "disabled."
SEGMENT 3:
Naif Al-Mutawa lives in his native Kuwait and is the Creator of "The 99," a comic book series featuring a group of superheroes each of whom derives a power from one of the 99 attributes of Allah. Al-Mutawa tells Steve Paulson that his Islamic superheroes are a response to President Obama’s Cairo speech, and that they may soon engage with the traditional Western superheroes.
http://www.wpr.org/book/100905a.cfm
