Gay X-Men to Tarnish the Sanctity of Fictional Marriage

I'm not the first person to point out that superheroes are kind of gay. They wear flamboyant, skintight costumes, lead double-lives, partner up with boy sidekicks and they're often misunderstood and unaccepted by mainstream society.

So, a gay wedding is basically the least homoerotic thing to ever happen in X-Men comics…

In Astonishing X-Men issue 50, out Wednesday, the openly gay mutant hero Northstar proposes to his longtime boyfriend, Kyle, with a same-sex wedding featuring a super guest list to follow next month — as well as sure controversy in some quarters.

This comes just as DC Comics announces it will be turning one of its major characters gay (proving homosexuality is a choice, made by media-savvy comic book editors). I'm sure Marvel hopes the resulting controversy will fuel sales, much as it did for the gay wedding issue of Archie Comics.

The real question is, will pundits take the bait? Will One Million Moms (a few hundred thousand moms short of a million) boycott a comic purchased exclusively by men in their twenties and thirties? Will comic book nerds be turned gay by the surge of gay-themed comics, resulting in thousands of nerds unable to have sex with men instead of women?

Find out in the thrilling conclusion! Same bat-time, same bat-channel (Fox News).

Photo by Scott Gries/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Tags: LGBT, Marriage Equality, Nerdiness

Stephen Colbert on Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, New BFFs

"Obviously, this healing is going to be a process." – Stephen Colbert

The Colbert Report airs Monday through Thursday at 11:30/10:30c.

Tags: Fox News, Mitt Romney, Nerdiness, Newt Gingrich, Primaries, Republicans, Shepard Smith, Star Wars, Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report, Video

Guess the Quote: "The Hunger Games" or Tea Party Patriot?

Excerpt from a post-apocalyptic young-adult adventure novel, or the ramblings of a free market conservative ideologue? Sometimes, it's a little a hard to tell. See how well you can tease them out. Which of these quotes come from Suzanne Collins' best-selling novel The Hunger Games and which are actual comments from the Tea Party Patriots Facebook page?

Pretend like your life depends upon it…

1. "You appear to be a moron-fascist hybrid."

2. "I guess it’s too much to hope that they’ll simultaneously destroy each other?"

3. "You will be sent to jail, or in most cases, no one really knows what happens to you, and everyone is afraid to push the issue."

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Tags: Books, Conservatives, Games and Challenges, Movies, Nerdiness, Tea Party

What Is in Rush Limbaugh's Heart?

"I don't know what's in Rush Limbaugh's heart, so I'm not going to comment on the sincerity of his apology." – Barack Obama

The President may be unwilling to speculate on the contents of Rush Limbaugh's heart, but Indecision suffers from no such compunction. Here's a list of our best guesses. Give us yours in the comments…

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Tags: Barack Obama, Nerdiness, Rush Limbaugh

Death Star vs. Moon Base: An Analysis

If you have a social life more advanced than mine or that of a Carthusian monk or of a Ron Paul Revolution keyboard commando (Internet comments division)  you may have missed the most important blogosphere discussion of the week: how much would the Death Star cost and would it be a worthwhile investment?

Students at Lehigh have estimated that it would take $852 quadrillion dollars just to purchase the 1.08×10¹⁵ tons of steel needed to build a Death Star, while Kevin Drum has noted that since a Ford-class aircraft carrier costs at least 100 times the value of its raw materials, the final price tag "would be about 1.3 million times the [Earth] world's GDP." However, since the Empire is vast and its GDP so large, Drum estimates that Death Star construction requires just  ".03% of the GDP of each planet in the Republic/Empire annually" during each year of construction.

Which raises the obvious question: what makes for the better investment, an Empire-constructed Death Star or a US-built moon base?

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Tags: Head-to-Head, Money, NASA, Nerdiness, Newt Gingrich, Star Wars