Let's say it's the late 1970s and you're a company heavily invested in an exciting new technology, and you need a way to market this product to the world. What's the best way to make America aware of your idea - celebrity endorsements? Direct mail? Radio and TV ads? Or.. why not create a super hero around your product? Kids love super heroes - and there's nothing the public likes more than NEW super heroes, right? They've got to be tired of Batman and Spiderman and Wonder Woman by now! It's 1978, let's give them something new! Something high-tech and jazzy and futuristic!


And thus was born HOLO-MAN, the rainbow-hued super hero with the amazing powers of HOLOGRAMS! HOLOGRAMS, with the power to create fuzzy novelty 3D pictures of ordinary objects!HOLOGRAMS, the future of anti-counterfeiting technology the world over! What child wouldn't want to put on the rainbow garments of HOLO-MAN and impress his school chums?


Yes, HOLO-MAN isn't any ordinary super hero. He's a trademark of "Wavelength Holographics, Inc", and has the awesome abilities of a LIVING HOLOGRAM! Which, thirty years on, means he can appear on the cover of National Geographic magazine special issues and collector's edition "pogs".


Our story opens as two obvious thugs break into a top secret laser development compound somewhere north of Dallas Texas, where technology to bring us entertaining laser shows featuring the music of Pink Floyd and/or Kenny Rogers is developed. This means the outdoor summer evening entertainment of an entire nation is threatened!


"I heard that one blast from the big one here can demolish an enemy tank... if the tank just sits there for two or three hours, and you happen to have a nuclear power plant feeding electricity to the laser, and really, a guy with a $300 anti-tank launcher can do the same job a lot cheaper! But LASERS, man! LASERS! PEW PEW ZAP PEW KABOOM!!" Dr. Robinson, however, prefers our research be directed towards peace, not war. It's the 1970s, remember.


yup, we're gonna just do this nuclear fusion thing right here in the high school auditorium. Sit REAL CLOSE Mr. President.


President Carter here is reassured the "controlled' thermonuclear fusion is safe because he's got the goggles on. Goggles mean safety! And then later he'll be looking at some holographic "pictures". Gosh, those holographic pictures sound intriguing, comic book! Tell me more!


You can tell Dr. Robinson here is a little too excited about holograms. Honestly, nuclear fusion or 3D novelty photos - which is more impressive? Hint: not the 3D novelty photos.


Sadly the perfect safety record of the nuclear power industry is ruined forever by this one isolated incident. Which wasn't their fault, remember! Good thing the President is right there to get all the facts first hand.



The power of the nuclear explosion and the coherent laser beams merging with the, uh, concentrated energy refracting within his, uh, molecular whatsis thing, you know, superhero. Hologram-based superhero! HOLO-MAN! He can use illusionary holograms to startle his antagonists! And in that outfit in Texas in the 1970s, he's gonna have some antagonists, believe me!


I leave you now, Holo-Man! I have comics to write! Take this HOLO-DISC! And also a few hundred micrograms of LSD! Enjoy your trip!


Back in Texas, the evil plot is revealed and Dr. Robinson strips off his clothes to reveal the rainbow-hued secret he hides from normal society.


Let's put these super powers to the test by vanishing and becoming invisible! And on behalf of everyone who actually has to look at your garishly-colored super suit, let me say THANK YOU.


Holo-Man just walks through the wall of the oval office, interrupting the President right in the middle of drafting his "malaise" speech! Go ahead and interrupt, Holo-Man. Go right ahead.


And in an impassioned speech Holo-Man explains that America is threatened by a wave of holographic non-existent missiles that will fly around and panic everybody without, you know, exploding or anything. I think America - even a 1978 post-Vietnam America- can easily handle that threat, myself.


What's that Holo-Man? You think I'll have a hard time explaining that a masked man in rainbow tights made me feel his missile? Nonsense! I'll get Amy in here and we'll discuss it at length!


Uh oh the Surrian Holographic Missile attack has begun! Fake rockets zoom through the skies panicking an America already reeling from the onslaughts of KISS, the Fonz, and R2-D2! Don't miss the next superriffic issue of HOLO-MAN! Which, unfortunately, was never produced. We'll never know how America survived. However, if we HAD been blessed with the further adventures of Holo-Man, here's what we'd see:


We'd see the combined strength of the HOLO SQUAD - Laserman, Laserwoman, Holo-Man, Wavelength, and Utopia - as they team up with a bald ham radio enthusiast to trap an evil guy in a cape. And lightning. There's also a raccoon that apparently suffered some sort of accident near a vat of red and yellow dye. Poor raccoon.

Want to know more about HOLO-MAN, the Holo Squad, and holograms in general? DO YOU WANT YOUR OWN HOLO-DISC WITH WHICH TO WARD OFF EVIL?


Then you need to send off for the HOLO-MAN (tm) ADVENTURE KIT! It's a "LASER EXPERIENCE"! It's also $5, which was a lot of money in 1978. Holo-Man and the Holo Squad and Laserman were never heard from again, but the amazing power of holography has proven its worth over and over in vital areas like providing cute stickers for schoolgirls and images for gimmicky comic book covers of the 1990s. Sleep well Holo-Man, your sacrifice was not in vain!

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