Wonder Woman Lock Contest

The next installment of our 'win the lock' contest. Answer the question correctly and be entered in a drawing to win the Wonder Woman padlock.

by Ryan Sawyer, graphic designer

Wonder Woman can fly, so why does she need a jet...and for the matter, why does it need to be invisible? She doesn't turn invisible when she's in it, so it just looks like a lady sitting down, zooming through the air. Do you remember when Spider-Man briefly used a dune buggy that could drive up walls? Same concept. It's like giving Aquaman some scuba gear.

Also, I wonder if her "Lasso of Truth" would hold up in court as a legal evidence. I certainly don't think she reads the criminals their rights before she hog ties them with her lasso, and anything they say while being detained by her is almost certainly coerced, since her lasso "forces" them to tell the truth. That'd be a sad day, wouldn't it? Wonder Woman finally catches Lex Luthor red handed doing something incredibly illegal, but the case gets thrown out of court because his "confession" is inadmissable and the invisible security cameras on her invisible jet use invisible tape, so no one can see the footage.

Trivia question: Wonder Woman's creator, William Moulton Marston, had a hand in creating what popular law enforcement tool?

As usual, please email your answers to Donna, donna(underscore)tocci(at)irco(dot)com. Good luck!

Winner #2 - Thomas K!

Thanks to everyone who guessed about Superman's mother's name. We put the names of the folks who answered correctly into a hat and Thomas K's name was chosen. Congratulations Thomas!

Here is Thomas' answer:

Lara Lor-Van or Lora Lor-Van.
Lara was first referred to in the Superman newspaper comic strip in 1939, where her name was spelled as "Lora"; her name first appeared as being spelled "Lara" in a 1942 Superman novel. After the establishment of DC's multiverse system in the 1960s, it was retroactively shown that "Lora" was the name of Superman's mother in the Earth-Two universe, while "Lara" was Superman's mother in the Earth-One universe.


Yes, it seems that Thomas knows his Superman - he even provided all the links himself. We've sent him an email to get his address and the Superman padlock will be on its way shortly to him.

Please stay tuned...another super hero contest question coming up soon....

Man of Steel Padlock Contest

Hi everyone! I’m Ryan, Kryptonite’s recently-acquired graphic and packaging designer. Being a huge comic book geek, I am thrilled to be assigned the task of blogging about Superman. What can I say about the Man of Steel that hasn’t been said a thousand times in books, news articles, psychiatric journals (the interplay of the Superman/Clark Kent/Kal-El personalities is quite interesting), physics books, Biblical parallels…the cultural impact that Superman has brought to the world is mind-boggling.

Before radio, television and comic books, stories about our heroes were communicated through oral tradition. People like Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill were told to have incredible powers and perform awesome feats of strength. Naturally, the key to good storytelling is embellishment, and while many of these stories were either exaggerated or just flat-out untrue, you couldn’t help but look up to the courage and strength of these heroes. Superman is the closest thing we have to folklore in America today. He’s the ultimate hero…the strength of Paul Bunyan, the moral steadfastness of Atticus Finch…and despite being 100% alien, he has a unique "Americanity" (yup, I’m making up words now) that’s rivaled only by Captain America (rest in peace, Cap).

I could go on and on, but I’m going to restrain my inner-geek and wrap this up. If comic books could be boiled down to only ONE hero, I have no doubt that it would be Superman. He wasn’t the first superhero…we’ve been telling stories of super-powered people for thousands of years…but for the past 70 years, he’s been far and above the most loved and recognized. One day, many years from now, when WWIII has wiped out all electronics on Earth and we’re living by candlelight once again, I hope to tell my grandchildren the stories of a young child, sent from the doomed planet of Krypton to a small blue marble in the Milky Way galaxy.

And now, on to the trivia question. I was going to ask what Clark Kent’s middle name is, but there’s some dispute over whether it’s Joseph or Jerome (see, this is what happens when you ret-con stories, it screws everything up). Therefore, I decided to go with something a little less debatable. And don’t cheat by going to Wikipedia!

What is the full name of Superman birth mother?

Please email your answers to Donna -- donna(underscore)tocci(at)irco(dot)com

The correct answers will be placed into a hat and the randomly-chosen winner gets a cool Superman combination padlock, which is perfect for lockers...or telephone booths. ;)

Batman Question Winner Is....

....Mr. Al Whitehurst! Not only did he answer our Batman trivia question correctly, he was picked from our hat by our category manager, Alison.

Al knew that Batman's father's profession was indeed a doctor. He was also a philanthropist, but his profession was doctor.

Dwight is so excited about this new line of locks that he's decided to kick off the contest series with the whole kit and kaboodle....Al is going to get a full set of 5 Justice League padlocks! They are sitting here on my messy desk....Al please email me your shipping address and I'll get them right out to you. donna_tocci(at)irco(dot)com

Thanks to everyone who played....next up Superman...before the end of the week. We'll ask the trivia question and have you email them in to me (thanks for the tip Caroline!). The winner will get the Superman padlock.

And, at the end of the series, we'll be giving away another whole set of locks for answering the big question correctly. Stay tuned....



Stay tuned...

The Dark Knight

For those of you who have been waiting with bated breath for the beginning of our contest - the wait is over. Batman, the Caped Crusader is the first superhero that we will test your knowledge of. Again as a reminder the first 25 respondants will be entered into a drawing where the grand prize will be a full set of the padlocks, plus the winners picture,if so interested, on our website. The question is:

What is the profession of Batman's father?