External links
- Matt Fraction's home page
- Steven Sanders home page
- Genius Collision interview with Matt Fraction about the graphic novel.
 | This Image Comics-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
| The Five Fists of Science | |
|---|---|
| Date | May 2006 |
| Main characters | Mark Twain Nikola Tesla Baroness Bertha von Suttner John Pierpont Morgan Thomas Edison Guglielmo Marconi Andrew Carnegie Elihu Root |
| Publisher | Image Comics |
| Creative team | |
| Writers | Matt Fraction |
| Artists | Steven Sanders |
| ISBN | 1-58240-605-7 |
The Five Fists of Science is a steampunk graphic novel created by writer Matt Fraction and artist Steven Sanders. It was published in 2006 by Image Comics.
Nikola Tesla, Mark Twain and Bertha von Suttner combine forces to try to bring about world peace through superior firepower. The comic's introduction shows Twain explaining that the story does not concern itself very much with historical accuracy, and this assertion is borne out by the story: Twain and Tesla use scientific know-how, general trickery and media manipulation techniques to try to scare world leaders into following their noble path.
In the company of several allies, the two are soon confronted by dark forces led by the dastardly Thomas Edison, John Pierpont Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and Guglielmo Marconi. The inventors and financiers are collaborating on a bizarre new skyscraper, the Innsmouth Tower, on whose building site many construction workers have already died in mysterious accidents.
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Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist. He is known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.
Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and aesthetics inspired by, but not limited to, 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian era or the American "Wild West", where steam power remains in mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power.
George Westinghouse Jr. was an American entrepreneur and engineer based in Pennsylvania who created the railway air brake and was a pioneer of the electrical industry, receiving his first patent at the age of 19. Westinghouse saw the potential of using alternating current for electric power distribution in the early 1880s and put all his resources into developing and marketing it. This put Westinghouse's business in direct competition with Thomas Edison, who marketed direct current for electric power distribution. In 1911 Westinghouse received the American Institute of Electrical Engineers's (AIEE) Edison Medal "For meritorious achievement in connection with the development of the alternating current system". He founded the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1886.
Wardenclyffe Tower (1901–1917), also known as the Tesla Tower, was an early experimental wireless transmission station designed and built by Nikola Tesla on Long Island in 1901–1902, located in the village of Shoreham, New York. Tesla intended to transmit messages, telephony, and even facsimile images across the Atlantic Ocean to England and to ships at sea based on his theories of using the Earth to conduct the signals. His decision to increase the scale of the facility and implement his ideas of wireless power transmission to better compete with Guglielmo Marconi's radio-based telegraph system was met with refusal to fund the changes by the project's primary backer, financier J. P. Morgan. Additional investment could not be found, and the project was abandoned in 1906, never to become operational.
Legend is a science fiction Western television series that ran on UPN from April 18, 1995, until August 22, 1995, with one final re-airing of the pilot on July 3, 1996. It starred Richard Dean Anderson and John de Lancie.
Edisonade is a genre of fictional stories about a brilliant young inventor and his inventions, many of which would now be classified as science fiction. This subgenre started in the Victorian and Edwardian eras and had its apex of popularity during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Other related terms for fiction of this type include scientific romances. The term was introduced in 1993 by John Clute in his and Peter Nicholls' The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. It is an eponym, named after famous inventor Thomas Edison, formed in the same way the term "Robinsonade" was formed from Robinson Crusoe.
The Prestige is a 2006 psychological thriller film directed by Christopher Nolan, written by Nolan and his brother Jonathan and based on the 1995 novel by Christopher Priest. It stars Hugh Jackman as Robert Angier and Christian Bale as Alfred Borden, rival stage magicians in Victorian London who feud over a perfect teleportation trick.
Mark Twain's legacy includes awards, events, a variety of memorials and namesakes, and numerous works of art, entertainment, and media.
Nikola Tesla is portrayed in many forms of popular culture. The Serbian-American engineer has particularly been depicted in science fiction, a genre which is well suited to address his inventions; while often exaggerated, the fictionalized variants build mostly upon his own alleged claims or ideas. A popular, growing fixation among science fiction, comic book, and speculative history storytellers is to portray Tesla as a member of a secret society, along with other luminaries of science. The impacts of the technologies invented by Nikola Tesla are a recurring theme in the steampunk genre of alternate technology science-fiction.
Wonder of the Worlds Sesh Heri, published 2005 by Lost Continent Library, is the first in a trilogy of novels featuring secret agent Harry Houdini facing off against a Martian invasion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Thomas Edison has appeared in popular culture as a character in novels, films, comics and video games. His prolific inventing helped make him an icon and he has made appearances in popular culture during his lifetime down to the present day. He is often portrayed in popular culture as an adversary of Nikola Tesla.
The book Wizard, the Life and Times of Nikola Tesla is a biography of Nikola Tesla by Marc J. Seifer published in 1996.
JLA: Age of Wonder is a 2003 two-issue mini-series of comics from DC's Elseworlds imprint. Taking place from 1876 to 1913, the comics follow Clark Kent and Lex Luthor as they use superpowers to create technical innovations. The comics also follow the creation of the League of Science, a superhero league dedicated to spreading these innovations for the good of mankind. The series was written by Adisakdi Tantimedh, with art by P. Craig Russell and Galen Showman.
Ice is a Polish novel written in 2007 by the Polish science fiction writer Jacek Dukaj, published in Poland by Wydawnictwo Literackie. The novel mixes alternate history with science fiction elements, in particular, with alternative physics and logic. It won the Janusz A. Zajdel Award, European Union Prize for Literature and Kościelski Award.
Tesla's electro-mechanical oscillator is a steam-powered electric generator patented by Nikola Tesla in 1893. Later in life Tesla claimed one version of the oscillator caused an earthquake in New York City in 1898, gaining it the popular culture title "Tesla's earthquake machine".
The Invention of Everything Else is a 2008 novel written by American author Samantha Hunt. The novel presents a fictionalized account of the last days in the life of Nikola Tesla, the Serbian-American electrical engineer. Other fictionalized versions of historical characters include Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and Mark Twain. Tesla is the novel's protagonist along with a chambermaid named Louisa with whom he shares some common interests including science and pigeons. Much of the book takes place in the New Yorker Hotel. The book also includes elements of science fiction, namely time travel.
The Secret of Nikola Tesla, is a 1980 Yugoslav biographical film which dramatizes events in the life of the Serbian-American engineer and inventor Nikola Tesla. This somewhat fictionalized portrayal of Tesla's life has him contending with Thomas Edison and J.P. Morgan in his attempts to develop alternating current and then "free" wireless power.
Super Science Friends is an animated web series created by Brett Jubinville and broadcast worldwide on YouTube and on Crunchyroll's VRV Channel in the United States. The series revolves around a group of super-powered scientists, including Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Marie Curie, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud and Tapputi, who are brought together by Winston Churchill to travel through time fighting super-villains. The pilot episode Episode 1: The Phantom Premise was successfully Kickstarted in late 2014, and aired on YouTube in 2016. In 2017, Neil deGrasse Tyson joined the cast for Episode 3: Nobel of the Ball as the MC of the Nobel Prize Awards.
Tesla is a 2020 American biographical drama film written and directed by Michael Almereyda. It stars Ethan Hawke as Nikola Tesla. Eve Hewson, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Jim Gaffigan, and Kyle MacLachlan also star.
"Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror" is the fourth episode of the twelfth series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who, first broadcast on BBC One on 19 January 2020. It was written by Nina Metivier, and directed by Nida Manzoor.