A lot goes into being a masked vigilante. You need an origin story (preferably tragic), special abilities, a costume, a mask, and, most important of all, a name. The right name will let people know what you’re about. A name like Killer Frost might be over the top, but no one is going to mess with her. A name like Guardian can give people hope in the darkness. Sometimes though the character picks a name that sounds silly, or ambiguous, or, let’s be frank, like a vibrator.
It happens all the time in comics, but somehow it’s even more glaring with the CW’s line-up of shows based on DC Comics. Maybe seeing them in real flesh and blood more starkly outlines their similarity to the unfeeling but stimulating simulacra forged from plastic, latex and Duracells? Either way, here are twenty five superheroes from the CW’s DC shows, ranked according to how much their name sounds like a vibrator.
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25. Green Arrow: With the phallic imagery Green Arrow meets a low bar to qualify as a vibrator name. Because arrows are long and go into people. You know what the Green Arrow does? He holds a bow and shoots those arrows. Making him an archer, not an arrow. How bad is the Star City school system if no one there knows the word for archer?
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24. Manhunter: Kate Spencer's time in Arrow was as a professional lawyer, and never veered into the sexual. So my entire argument is based on...
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24. Manhunter (continued): ...this image from the comics, which I found on Wikipedia, where this particular Manhunter is all sleek, shiny and smooth.
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23. Hourman: Hourman takes a pill that gives him super strength, speed, and improved endurance for one hour. That is much more suggestive than my joke about his name sounding like a dildo with an oddly specific battery life.
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22. Vixen: Whether you're in the repressed 1940s or modern day Detroit, Vixen is a needlessly sexy name.
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21. Silver Banshee: Silver Banshee will make a woman scream until she forgets who she is. That could be an old Irish curse or an effective sex toy.
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20. Cyborg Superman: Half man, half machine, half superman. That's a lot of mechanical man right there.
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19. Wild Dog & 18. Wildcat: When did you first hear a person referred to as a "wildcat"? Was it a vigilante who was really into boxing and or hockey, or was it followed by the words "in bed?" I'm reusing this argument for both of the same way Arrow reused the name.
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17. Atom Smasher: Get it. Smash those atoms good.
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16. Livewire: Provocative, relentless, and an electric fire waiting to happen.