2012 was Officially the Hottest Year Ever

io9 has created a round up of all the articles about 2012's record breaking heat and the impact it has had and will continue to have.

President Captain America

In Marvel's The Ultimates #15, which hit stand this week, Captain America is elected the President of America through a land-slide write-in vote.
In an interview with The Washington Post series writer Sam Humphries says "We wanted to dramatize an extreme version of what we see in America today, in the face of all [this] divisiveness, what do we have in common? What does it mean to be an American? What can we agree on? And what makes America the place that it is?"
“This is a United States that’s being torn asunder by special interest groups — by opportunists looking to divide and conquer,” Marvel Entertainment Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso says “This is a metaphor for what goes on in real life, but on steroids.”

“Are we going to see 12 issues of Captain America behind a desk? No, that’s not exciting to anyone,” Humphries says. “Captain America is not going to behave like any other president behaves. He takes the oath of office and barely takes a breath as he goes to hot spots. . . . Cap is out there because he’s so concerned about the state of the Union that he doesn’t have time to think about the State of the Union.”
You can read the full Washington Post article here, read an extended interview with Axel Alonso and Sam Humphries here, and see a preview of the comic here.

Choosing the Representation

And welcome back everyone. In this post, I'm going to round up some numbers and figure out how America's demographics breakdown for our super representatives.

Choosing The Supers 

The supers chosen have been selected to reflect US demographics for 2012 (or as close as can be obtain). Data used for this is from The CIA World Fact Book (which is worth a look through in itself for the interesting bits it has on all the various countries) and the Wikipedia page on US Demographics, leading to the following relevant numbers:

• Total population: 313.85 million people (Third largest in the world after China and India) 
• Approximately 207.6 million eligible voters 
• Age Structure: 
• 0-14 years: 20.1% (32.1 million male, 30.8 million female) 
• 15-64 years: 66.8% (104.4 million male, 104.8 million female) 
• 65+ years: 13.1% (17.7 million male, 23.4 million female) 
• Ethnic diversity/ancestry: 
• European: 63.7% (199.9 million) 
• Hispanic: 16.3% (51.1 million) 
• African: 12.2% (38.3 million) 
• Asian: 4.7% (14.8 million) 
• Amerindian or Alaskan native: 0.97% (3 million) 
• Native Hawaiian or other Pacific islander: 0.18% (0.6 million) 
• Two or more: 1.61% (5.1 million) 
• Religions: 
• Protestant: 51.3% (161 million) 
• Roman Catholic: 23.9% (75 million) 
• Jewish: 1.7% (5.3 million) 
• Mormon: 1.7% (5.3 million) 
• Other Christian: 1.6% (5 million) 
• Buddhist: 0.7% (2.2 million) 
• Muslim: 0.6% (1.8 million) 
• Hindu: 0.4% (1.3 million) 
• Other/Unspecified 2.1% (6.6 million) 
• Unaffiliated: 12.1% (3.8 million) 
• None: 4% (1.4 million) 
• Primary Language: 
• English: 82.1% (257.7 million) 
• Spanish: 10.7% (33.6 million) 
• Other Indo-European: 3.8% (11.9 million) 
• Asain or Pacific island: 2.7% (8.5 million) 
• Other: 0.7% (2.2 million) 
• Approximately 82% of the total population live in urban areas 
• 10 largest cities are: 
• New York-Newark: 19.3 million people (6.1%) 
• Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana: 12.95 million people (4.1%) 
• Chicago: 9.5 million people (3%) 
• Dallas: 6.5 million people (2.1%) 
• Houston: 6.1 million people (2%) 
• Philadelphia: 6 million people (1.9%) 
• Washington DC: 5.7 million people (1.8%) 
• Miami: 5.67 million people (1.8%) 
• Atlanta: 5.4 million people (1.7%) 
• Boston: 4.6 million people (1.4%) 
• Life expectancy of 76 years for men, 81 years for women 
• Fertility rate of 2.06 children per woman 
• HIV/AIDS prevalence of 0.6% (1.2 million people) 
• Literacy rate, those over 15 who can read and write, 99% 
• Average school life expectancy, 15 years for males, 17 years for females 
• Obesity adult prevalence rate is 33.9% (106.4 million), average man weighed 194.7 pounds (88.3 kg); the average woman 164.7 pounds (74.7 kg). 
• Labor force (153.6 million people) by occupation: 
• Managerial, professional and technical: 37.3% (117.1 million) 
• Sales and office: 24.2% (76 million) 
• Manufacturing, extraction, transportation and crafts: 20.3% (63.7 million) 
• Farming, Forestry and Fishing: 0.7% (2.2 million) 
• Other Services: 17.6% (5.5 million) 
• Unemployment rate: 9% (28.3 million) 
• Population below poverty line: 15.1% (47.4 million) 
• Household annual income distribution: 
• Bottom 10%: $0-$10,500 
• Bottom 20%: $0-$18,500 
• Bottom 30%: $0-$22,500 
• Middle 33%: 30,000-$62,500 
• Middle 20%: $35,000-$55,000 
• Top 25%: $77,500+ 
• Top 20%: $92,000+ 
• Top 5%: $167,000+ 
• Top 1.5%: $250,000+ 
• Top 1%: $350,000+ 
• Social class percentages 
• Upper class: 1% (3.1 million, Top-level executives, celebrities, heirs; income of $500,000+ common. Ivy league education common.) 
• Upper Middle class: 15% (47.1 million, Highly-educated (often with graduate degrees) professionals & managers with household incomes varying from the high 5-figure range to commonly above $100,000.) 
• Lower Middle class: 32% (100.4 million, Semi-professionals and craftsmen with some work autonomy; household incomes commonly range from $35,000 to $75,000. Typically, some college education.) 
• Working class: 32% (100.4 million, Clerical, pink- and blue-collar workers with often low job security; common household incomes range from $16,000 to $30,000. High school education.) 
• Lower class: 20% (62.8 million, Those who occupy poorly-paid positions or rely on government transfers. Some high school education.) 
• People with internet: 245 million (78%) 
• Less than 1% of Americans currently serve in the Armed Forces (less than 3.1 million people) 
• There are 22.1 million Veterans (7.04%) 
• Felons denied to right to vote: 5.3 million (2.42%) 
• 4.1% of Americans aged 18-45 identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual (12.9 million) 

So how does all this translate into superheroes? Well, I'm going to use 20 supers to represent the entire population of eligible voters, so each super will represent 5% of those possible voters, or 10.4 million American (and you though there was a lot on their shoulders before!). So this means that for the supers to be pure representations, there must be:

• Ages: 8 will be 18-40, 9 will be 41-64, 3 with ages 64+ of which 1 will be male, 2 will be women 
• Sex: 10 will be men, 10 will be women 
• Races: 13 Europeans, 3 Hispanics, 2 Africans, 1 Asian, 1 Other 
• Religions: 10 Protestants, 5 Roman Catholics (Protestants and Roman Catholics may be substituted with general Christan), 2 Unaffiliated, 1 Atheist, and we'll say 1 Jewish and 1 Mormon/Other? 
• First Languages: 16 English, 2 Spanish, 1 Asian, 1 Other Indo-European 
• 16 will live in Urban areas, of which 2 will be from New York, 1 from Los Angeles, 1 from Chicago, and 1 from Texas 
• Labor force, or what does their secret identity do: 10 won't have day jobs, 4 Managerial, professional and technical, 2 in sales, 2 in manufacturing, 2 in others 
• Social class: 1 Upper class, 3 Upper Middle class, 6 Lower Middle class, 6 Working class, 4 Lower class of which 3 would live below the poverty line 
• 16 would have the internet 
• 7 will be Obese 
• 2 will have military backgrounds 
• 1 will be gay 

As some of you can no doubt guess, getting an exact match for all of these will be difficult, given the general portrayal of supers (well off middle aged white guys), but I'm going to work out the last few knots in my list before posting it in the next day or two. In the meantime, feel free to post your own ideas about who should be included! They may help me work out a better list.

~James