Ki
Literally meaning “spirit” or “breath,” but also known as “latent energy” or “fighting power,” it is the spiritual energy used by many Dragon Ball characters. By drawing out this tangible internal energy, a person is able to manipulate and use it outside the body in many different techniques. Usually, the more concentrated the masses are, the more time the user requires to draw it out, or “power up.” When a fighter gathers ki, they are able to gain enhanced strength, speed, and endurance, and can increase the power of their attacks to inflict greater damage to opponents. This spiritual energy bears some resemblance to real-world aspects of martial arts such as kung fu and tai chi.
Kid Flash
Wally West was the nephew of Iris West, who was the fiancée of Barry Allen, the alter-ego of DC Comics’ The Flash of Central City. Iris introduced Wally to Barry, whom Wally thought was dull and uninteresting until Barry offered to “introduce” Wally to the Flash. Barry used some simple super-speed tricks to pull off the double identity, and gave Wally the surprise of his life. However, in the same way in which Barry received his powers of superhuman speed, a bolt of lightning struck chemicals in his lab, which spilled on Wally. This altered his velocibiology and granted him super-speed powers similar to Barry’s. Barry then revealed his dual identity to Wally, and a new partnership was forged. Wally enjoyed many adventures with Barry, and quickly established himself as a hero. A few years after becoming Kid Flash, Wally met fellow heroes Robin and Aqualad, and they worked together to stop the menace of Mr. Twister. It was the first time that heroes’ sidekicks joined forces. At their second meeting, Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad and Wonder Girl established a team and the Teen Titans were born, with Robin becoming the leader of the team. The Titans continued to operate with their mentors, as well as spending time with their peers in the Titans. Kid Flash eventually left the group to focus on school, while also continuing a part-time solo career and partnership with the Flash on a handful of cases. Wonder Girl eventually persuaded him to rejoin the team, but after this incarnation of the team disbanded, he returned to Blue Valley to continue his college education.
Some months later, Raven banded together a group of New Teen Titans to help her battle her demon-father, Trigon. Initially, Wally was disinterested in joining the team, but Raven used her emotion-manipulating powers to make Wally fall in love with her so he would join this new group of Teen Titans. This caused many problems among the Titans.
The Crisis on Infinite Earths brought Kid Flash out of a self-imposed retirement, and the death of Barry Allen gave him a new sense of purpose. Despite the risks, he took over the name and costume of The Flash, and was determined to live up to the example that Barry Allen had set. That job, however, would not be easy. He was still consigned to relatively low speeds, only 700 miles per hour or so. Also, he won the lottery and gained a fortune, which allowed his more selfish characteristics to thrive, and when he lost it all, his life seemed to be going into a tailspin.
During the Infinite Crisis, content with passing the Flash mantle on to Barry’s grandson Bart Allen, Wally and Linda decided to raise their children on the alien world Savoth, where the residents were longtime friends of the Flashes. However, shortly after their arrival, the twins began to age very rapidly. The Savothians, who were advanced scholars of velocibiology, at first did not agree to help the Wests, but finally relented and agreed to train Linda to deal with the children’s rapid aging.
Wally’s primary ability is his super speed, which he gets from tapping into the Speed Force. On several occasions, he has traveled much faster than light and been pulled into and exited the Speed Force by his own volition.
Kill stealing
In a multiplayer online game, to deal a fatal blow on an enemy that another player or other players had almost killed, thereby getting the credit or rewards for someone else’s kill.
“Killer rabbit”
See Caerbannog.
Killing Joke, The
In DC Comics’ adult graphic novel, Batman visits The Joker in Arkham Asylum. While contemplating the futility of their relationship, and how it will only result in the death of one of them in the future, he discovers that the Joker sitting before him is actually an impostor. Meanwhile, the real Joker is looking to buy a run-down old theme park. Through flashbacks, we are shown scenes from the Joker’s past, and we learn that he had a significant other named Jeannie who was pregnant with their child. After the flashback scene, the Joker kills the owner of the theme park. Later, Commissioner Gordon’s daughter Barbara answers her door, and when she opens it, the Joker shoots her through the stomach and back, and takes nude photos of her lying bleeding on the floor. After his goons abduct Commissioner Gordon, we see in another flashback that the Joker was a failed comedian who, out of desperation for the life of his unborn baby, joins the mob for one job and becomes the Red Hood.
We learn that Barbara is paralyzed from the waist down by her injury. The captive Commissioner Gordon is stripped naked and sent through an insane carnival ride, bombarded with the nude images of his daughter in an attempt to break his sanity. He is ridiculed by the Joker before an audience of carnival freaks. Another flashback shows that before the Joker could even begin the Red Hood job, Jeannie had died. Distraught, he has doubts about the job, but gets bullied into going through with it anyway. When Batman ruins the job, the Joker (while trying to escape) accidentally falls into a river of chemical waste and after removing his red helmet, he sees what he has become. It becomes evident that he is insane, as he is shown laughing with blood dripping from his eyes and mouth.
Back in the present, after gathering clues, Batman finds his way to the carnival and proceeds to fight the Joker and free Gordon. He tries to comfort Gordon, but is told to continue in the pursuit of the Joker, and to “bring him in by the book.” The Joker attempts to shoot Batman, but this gun turns out to be a fake and Batman lives. The Joker tells an unusual joke about two insane men, and while he laughs uncontrollably, Batman utters a solitary chuckle. As the police show up, the story ends as it starts, with the pouring rain.
Despite its short length, The Killing Joke has gained notoriety due to its label as a graphic novel and its adult content. Written by Alan Moore, the graphic novel was drawn by Brian Bolland and colored by John Higgins.
Kilobyte (KB)
A unit of computer memory or data equal to 1,024 (210) bytes.
Kilogram
A measure of mass equal to 1,000 grams. On the surface of the Earth, an object with a mass of 1 kilogram (kg) would weigh approximately 2.2 pounds (lbs), and an object that weighs 1 lb would have a mass of approximately 0.454 kg.
Kimba
Based on Osamu Tezuka’s 1950s manga graphic novel Jungulu Taitei, or Jungle Emperor, this 1965-67 cartoon was the first anime series broadcast in color in Japan. Throughout its 52 episodes, the main character, orphaned by humans, fought against his own animal instincts and desires for revenge, in an attempt to live peacefully with all creatures, including humans. Born on the ship transporting his mother to a European zoo, Kimba escapes and swims back to Africa, where he’s hailed as the successor to his father Caesar. With the assistance of wise old Dan’l Baboon, bigmouth parrot Pauley Cracker, and kindly human Roger, Kimba protects all the animals in the jungle. For the American dubbed version, experienced radio actors were employed to voice the characters, featuring Billie Lou Watt as Kimba, as well as Hal Studer, Gilbert Mack, Ray Owens and Sonia Owens. The series was directed by Eiichi Yamamoto, featuring a full-orchestral score by Isao Tomita performed by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra.
Kingdom Come
In this 1996 stand-alone story written by Mark Waid and illustrated by Alex Ross, sometime in the not-so-distant future, superheroes have lost sight of their true calling. A new generation of “metahuman” vigilantes are using extreme means to fight crime, damaging property and killing innocents along the way, and the human population is stuck in the middle of a bloody war over turf and bragging rights. The reader experiences all this through the eyes of Norman McKay, an elderly pastor who was chosen by the Spectre (a DC Comics representation of God) to name the guilty party during Armageddon: Was the impending destruction of the world the fault of the heroes, or the citizens? (Norman was chosen because he was the pastor in the hospital room when the Sandman died, and the Sandman passed his visions to McKay.)
Humanity’s last hope is for Superman to return, but the hero is now self-exiled to the Fortress of Solitude. The Joker having killed 93 people at the Daily Planet, including Superman’s wife Lois Lane, Superman searched everywhere for the Joker, but the Joker was apprehended by the authorities. While in their custody, the Joker was killed in cold blood by the up-and-coming metahuman named Magog. Infuriated, Superman took Magog to jail and he stood trial for the murder, but was acquitted and seen as a hero to the citizens. After this, Superman decides humanity and time had tossed him away, and retires. Wonder Woman finds Superman at the Fortress, and has him view what’s going on in the world outside of his virtual-reality farm, asking him to come out of retirement and teach the young heroes what it means to be a true icon. Superman reforms the Justice League of America with Wonder Woman, Red Robin (Dick Grayson), Green Lantern (Alan Scott), Red Arrow, Hawkman and others. This sets the stage for a “New School” versus “Old School” battle.
Featuring an incredibly bleak plot by Waid (inspired to some extent by Marvels, the Kurt Busiek maxi-plot which Alex Ross had illustrated while at Marvel), Kingdom Come can be viewed as a big budget action book, but it was also written as a critique on the comic book industry in general, which at the time was focusing on violent vigilantes and not the idealistic heroes of old.
Kirby, Jack
Born Jacob Kurtzberg on the Lower East Side of New York City on August 28, 1917, Kirby spent his youth doodling and attending the movie theatre, gaining a profound interest in storytelling, even though his grades were below par in creative writing and art. Family financial pressures forced him to drop out of school to seek employment, and his talents led him to animated cartoons. As an “in-betweener” at the Max Fleischer studios, Kirby worked on Popeye cartoons. After a few months, however, labor unrest erupted at the studio, and Kirby decided to get out and seek employment before he found himself on strike. That employment was found at the Lincoln Newspaper Syndicate, where he began his 3-1/2 year tenure as a political, gag and strip cartoonist. While there, Kirby produced a huge volume of work, including ongoing strips, panel gags, and “fact panels.
Cyclone Burke was among his first ventures into science fiction cartooning. Socko the Seadog, created by a Lincoln co-worker as an obvious Popeye emulation, proved to be Kirby’s most popular strip of the period. While producing for Lincoln, Kirby also worked as part of the large artists’ studio of Will Eisner and Jerry Iger on a number of weekly comic strips. Under the pseudonym of Curt Davis, Kirby did Diary of Dr. Hayward, a science fiction serial. Kirby also drew an adaptation of the Count of Monte Cristo as Jack Curtiss. His first Western, Wilton of the West, was produced by Kirby under the name Fred Sande. After Kirby was no longer working for Eisner and Iger, these strips were published in an oversize comic called Jumbo. Ultimately, Kirby got into the superhero line when he went to work for Victor Fox, a notoriously low-paying publisher of comic books. Fox’s big star was the Blue Beetle, one of the earliest costumed heroes, and Kirby worked on a short-lived newspaper strip of the character, among other projects. Given a small drawing board in the shop, Kirby worked next to another new artist in this new field, Bill Everett, who would later create Namor the Sub-Mariner. Another Fox staffer at the time was a tall writer-artist who worked as the company’s editor for a time. His name was Joe Simon, and he and Jack struck up a good friendship and working relationship.
The Simon-Kirby partnership was hired to work the newly formed Timely Comics Company. The Timely line was, then, distinguished only by its two star-characters: The Human Torch and Namor. Soon, the Simon-Kirby team was creating new characters, such as Hurricane, Tuk the Cave-Boy, Mercury, the Vision, Red Raven, Comet Pierce and finally, the character whose creation was to bring the team into prominence, Captain America. While moonlighting for another company, they also produced the first full issue of Captain Marvel Adventures. Meanwhile, Captain America was an immediate success, and Simon and Kirby began to produce material at a faster pace. In a short time, they had produced ten issues of their star-spangled creation and the basic outlines for a companion book to star Cap’s partner Bucky, as one of the Young Allies. This was to be the end of their creations for Timely, as it became evident that, despite a deal that promised them a share of the profits, they were not sharing in the gold mine that Captain America had become. Convinced they were being swindled, they decided to go elsewhere.
Their reputation in the business was good enough to earn them a spot at Detective Comics (later to be named DC Comics), owners of Superman and Batman. Here, they set about creating new strips, while setting up a shop from which to work. The four strips on which they worked for DC were all popular, and occasionally, ads for the strips featured the Simon and Kirby byline more prominently than the strips’ titles. While their strips were always filled with action, they were not dependent on it. Highlighted by plot twists and humor, they were quite reflective of the times. Kirby drew upon his own background for settings and characterizations, and the audience was very much responsive to it. The DC editors kept the team busy and their swift rate of work sped up even more. They often turned out six pages a day and, when necessary, more than that. This involved doing penciling, lettering and inking, and sometimes even scripting. The DC editors were buying scripts from their regular stable of writers, and Simon and Kirby were making paper airplanes out of the pages; more than once, a DC editor would deliver a script to the team and then see its pages drifting out the window as he left!
Some of Kirby and Simon’s characters were busy battling the Axis as World War II progressed, and finally, Simon and Kirby themselves were called away from the drawing board to serve their country. In their absence, DC editors gave their strips to others. After serving under Patton, Kirby returned to America in 1945 to re-team with Joe Simon at the Harvey Comics Company.
From there, they went to Hillman Publications and Crestwood Publications. In addition to the western, mystery and crime comics they packaged, they invented the popular romance genre in Young Romance and Young Love for Crestwood. Later, the team decided to form their own publishing company, and their Mainline Publications put out Foxhole, In Love, Police Trap and Bullseye, but distribution difficulties plagued them, and they were forced to sell their line to the established Charlton Comics Group. During this period, the comic book industry had been undergoing massive upheavals and much of the newsstand space was given over to gore-filled horror comics. Simon and Kirby, in a position of editorial control, released some of their best material at this time, but the industry was not healthy enough to support it. As companies failed, Simon and Kirby began to drift apart, and Kirby began to look for work on his own. He not only tried to sell new comic book ideas, but made a strong effort to re-enter the newspaper strip field.
By 1959, Kirby was doing almost all his work for the company previously known as Timely and/or Atlas, which would eventually be known as the Marvel Comics Group. Their line at the time consisted of love, western and monster comics, and Kirby was put to work on all three. He drew Rawhide Kid and Two-Gun Kid and, as he had before, found the western setting to be an enjoyable one to draw. Most of his time, however, was spent on the monster books. But there was light at the end of the tunnel.
A slight superhero revival at other companies was leading to renewed reader interest. With nothing to lose, Marvel decided to try a few superheroes. The first Fantastic Four, issued in 1961, marked the beginning. The product of Kirby and Marvel’s editor/head writer Stan Lee, conceived to rival DC Comics’ Justice League of America, it had a shaky start, but one which aroused interest and considerable fan mail. Soon, The Incredible Hulk, a super-hero version of Marvel’s old monster stock-in-trade, received his own magazine and Ant-Man, a costumed scientist from an earlier science-fiction story, took over in Tales to Astonish. The Hulk was actually dropped after a few issues, but was kept around long enough after to build momentum, and eventually become one of Marvel’s biggest stars. The Mighty Thor debuted in Journey Into Mystery, and the final issue of Marvel’s Amazing Fantasy introduced Spider-Man. This was the first of Marvel’s new heroes not to be drawn by Kirby, but Spider-Man’s beginnings dated back to the mid-1950s, when Simon and Kirby were devising new characters and trying to sell them to publishers.
The Human Torch, revived from the 1940s to be a member of the Fantastic Four, took over Strange Tales, and was soon joined by Ditko’s magician character Dr. Strange. Marvel’s last monster book, Tales of Suspense, introduced Iron Man. Kirby was too busy at the time to pencil the origin story, but he did have time to design the character for Don Heck to draw. Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos debuted, combining certain elements of the superhero line with some of Kirby’s own war experiences. Kirby drew several issues before Dick Ayers took over. The Avengers and The X-Men were introduced, and with these, as with the other books, Kirby drew the first issues and established the momentum which other artists would, hopefully, keep going.
In the early days of Marvel, Kirby had found it necessary to often pencil and plot five or six books a month. Now, with Marvel’s increased popularity, he could cut down his workload, and concentrate mainly on the Fantastic Four, Thor, occasional layouts for other artists, and a newly-revived version of Captain America. It was in the Fantastic Four that Kirby first drew such popular supporting characters as Dr. Doom, The Watcher, The Silver Surfer, the Black Panther, Galactus, and the Inhumans.
With their peak of popularity being reached in the mid-1960s, Kirby was able to take on a few outside assignments, such as a comic strip adaptation of Jack Ruby’s killing of Lee Harvey Oswald, which he drew for Esquire magazine. With so many new artists and writers added to the crew, plus Marvel’s sale to a large conglomerate, Kirby found it less and less necessary to come into the office, or to even involve himself with the design of new characters and books. He could in fact, even relocate in California from New York, and mail his penciled pages to Marvel from 3,000 miles away.
In 1970, after over a hundred issues of Fantastic Four, Marvel’s readers were rather shocked to hear that Kirby had resigned from Marvel to take up an editorial post and to create a new line of comics for National-DC. Despite some rewarding creative work there, when his DC contract came up for renewal in 1975, Kirby decided to return to the comic company he was most closely associated with in the past. Kirby returned to Marvel with editorial, script, and artistic control over his old Captain America, a new Black Panther comic, among other projects. Perhaps the highlight of his mid-1970s Marvel period was a Silver Surfer graphic novel, reuniting him one last time with editor Stan Lee. Kirby would leave Marvel again in 1978 to return to his roots in the animation field, creating storyboards and concept art for some of the top animated shows of the time. However, he did help launch the independent comics movement of the 1980s with work on Captain Victory, Silver Star, and Destroyer Duck, and even got the opportunity to craft a conclusion of sorts to his New Gods series, before fully retiring in 1987.
Jack Kirby passed away on February 6, 1994, leaving behind a legion of fans and ideas.
Kirk, Capt. (Adm.) James Tiberius
James Tiberius Kirk is a character from Gene Roddenberry’s 1966-69 NBC weekly series Star Trek. He commanded the United Starship (“U.S.S.”) Enterprise in various forms for most of his active career. Born March 22, 2233 to George and Winona Kirk, he was named for his maternal (“James”) and paternal (“Tiberius”) grandfathers. He attended Starfleet Academy and moved quickly up through the ranks, becoming a captain and commanding a starship by the age of 32. His first command was a five-year assignment “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before” aboard the Constitution-class vessel.
Following his five-year mission, Kirk was promoted quickly to Admiral, where most of his duties were administrative. Convincing Starfleet to allow him to resume command of the Enterprise during the V’Ger incident, he remained its commanding officer off and on, and after the original model’s destruction, was given command of the Enterprise-A. Following the Battle of Khitomer, during which Kirk personally saved the Federation president from assassination, Kirk retired from Starfleet.
After disappearing during a public relations appearance at the maiden voyage of the Enterprise-B, Kirk remained missing for 78 Earth years. Discovered in the Nexus living a non-linear timeline idyllic existence, Kirk was convinced to leave by then-captain of the Enterprise Jean-Luc Picard. Aiding Picard in stopping scientist Tolian Soran from destroying the Veridian system, Kirk was killed in the ensuing struggle. Picard built a stone memorial over Kirk’s body on Veridian III.
In the big-screen “reboot” of the Star Trek franchise, the histories of the characters were altered.
Kirk is best known as a brash, confident leader with a rather swashbuckling personality and a bit of a “casual” relationship with rules and regulations. In Star Trek: The Original Series and the first seven Star Trek movies, Kirk was portrayed by William Shatner. In the “rebooted” film series beginning with 2009’s Star Trek, Chris Pine played Kirk.
Kismet
Kismet is a female cosmic being in DC Comics’ Superman stories. She is empowered with vast godlike capabilities, somewhat equivalent to Marvel’s character Eternity. She is nigh-omnipotent and can manipulate time, space and reality to achieve virtually any feat imaginable. She is an immortal who does not suffer from the passages of time. Kismet was transformed into the power source of Strange Visitor for a time, but not much is known about Kismet because of her rare appearances in comics. Kismet is known for having saved Clark Kent’s father while he was dying and searching for Superman. She is a member of The Lords of Order. Shown in the “Our Worlds At War” storyline, she is the protector of the DC Universe. In a Justice League of America/Avengers crossover, she, alongside Eternity, was captured by Krona by the use of 12 objects of incalculable power, in the hopes of destroying their respective universal embodiments.
First seen in The Adventures of Superman #494 in September 1992, Kismet appeared in front of Superman as a girl and helps him to escape from the power of Dominus. Kismet reappeared at the end of the Superman Forever comic book, warning of cosmic upheavals in time. In the ensuing weeks, Superman co-existed in four different realities. Kismet appeared to him as a little girl in each reality, trying to warn him. Eventually, in Superman #138, she appears in her true form. She tells Superman that they share a bond, and warned him about her arch-enemy Dominus. Dominus attacked them, and Kismet was wounded but she escaped. Superman and Waverider managed to hide Kismet in the past as Clark’s childhood friend Sharon (Superman #139). Sharon would grow to become the superheroine known as Strange Visitor, wearing Superman’s old blue energy costume and having quite a few adventures before her ultimate demise at the end of the war with Imperiex. In a last-ditch effort to defeat Imperiex, Strange Visitor revealed to Superman that she was Kismet, merged with Sharon Vance, before heroicly giving over all of her energy to Superman to enable him to defeat Imperiex (Superman #173).
One of Kismet’s most recent appearences was in a JLA/Avengers crossover. While Krona tried to gain supreme power, he trapped the most powerful beings of both universes: Eternity from the Marvel Comics universe and Kismet from the DC universe. They formed a bond while together, but were forced back to their respective universes when they were freed, much to their dismay. Kismet did not survive the ending of the 9th Age of Magic.
Kite-eating tree
In Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip, the kite-eating tree is a symbol of Charlie Brown’s ineffectiveness, but unlike his other challenges, it’s also a symbol for resilience. Where every other theme of failure is Charlie Brown against himself, the tree is an external “force” that is actively out to get him. Still, he doesn’t give up on his dream of flying a kite.
Kiting
To a gamer, a strategy in which a player keeps an enemy in pursuit, while also keeping him at a range where he cannot attack. A tactic often used to safely attack the enemy using a long-range attack, or to distract the enemy while others attack it, the strategy is named for the effect of looking like you have the enemy on the end of a string, as you would a kite. In a broader sense, it is used as a blanket term to describe any strategy in which the mob is taking damage but not dealing damage.
Klingon
- In the Star Trek universe, a member of a race of warrior beings from the planet Qo’noS (Kronos in English), characterized by a genetic predisposition to hostility.
- The language of the Klingons.
In the traditional sense, the Klingon people hold honor above life. A true Klingon warrior fights to the death, preferring to die in battle than be taken prisoner (an act which brings dishonor on himself and his family for three generations). One of the most honorable deaths is a kamikaze-like suicide in which a Klingon takes an enemy’s life with his own. Viewed through their Spartan-like perspective, illness (especially terminal) is not honorable. Their most important historic symbol of leadership, Kahless, said Klingons should fight not just to spill blood, but to enrich the spirit. They believe that death is an experience best shared, and view it as a joyful time for one who falls in the line of duty. Such a warrior earns a place among the honored dead, celebrating the release of a dead spirit rather than grieving over what they consider to be the empty shell of the body.
Klingons are remarkably skilled hunters, relying on their keen sense of smell to pick up and stalk their prey. They eat their meat raw, seasoned more strongly than humans prefer, and find the human tradition of cooking, or “burning their meat,” to be somewhat repulsive. Klingon warriors are patient, and enjoy catching an enemy off-guard, for, as the Klingon proverb states, “Revenge is a dish that is best served cold.” While they believe in an afterlife, Klingons perform no burial ritual, disposing of corpses by the most efficient means possible. Archeological digs on Qo’noS revealed different customs at one time. Klingons usually mate for life with a solemn Oath of Union. This ritual is most often performed in private, rather than in any public ceremony such as a wedding.
Knight, Chris
One of the central protagonists in the 1985 comedy Real Genius is a Pacific Tech senior who, while his IQ is off the charts and he is busy doing laser research for instructor Prof. Jerry Hathaway (who was secretly contracted to produce a top-secret laser for the CIA), is one of the coolest nerds around! Though brilliant, Chris doesn’t take himself or anyone else too seriously. This comes in handy as he takes on the project of loosening up his uber-serious and socially awkward 15-year-old roommate Mitch Taylor, and though it seems that Chris majors in partying hard and causing trouble, when things look bleak, he ends up saving the day alongside Mitch and their colleague Lazlo Hollyfeld.
The bunny-slipper-wearing liquid-nitrogen-cutting Chris Knight was portrayed by Val Kilmer.
Knight, Ted
Wealthy and brilliant but bored, Knight was the heir to his family’s massive fortune when he came of age. Despite loving his hometown of Opal City, he found its upper echelons dull beyond measure. He preferred to console himself by pouring as much as he could into his great love, astronomy. In time, his hard work paid off, and he made a great discovery: stars were not only cosmic furnaces, but radiators of immense energy waves into space that had gone unnoticed for eons. His only regret was that he had no means of harnessing the energy. All that changed when his cousin, Sandra Knight, informed him of a scientist named Abraham Davis, who was on his way to producing a device she hoped to use to escape the same monotony Ted loathed. Intrigued, Ted visited Davis and they worked together for months before producing a single golden weapon Ted called the Gravity Rod (later referred to as his “cosmic rod”).
Debuting in Adventure Comics # 61 in April 1941, Ted Knight, who would become the alter-ego of Starman, was created by artist Jack Bumley and editors Whitney “Whit” Ellsworth, Murray Boltinoff, Jack Schiff, Mort Weisinger and Bernie Breslauer. While Knight possessed no superhuman powers, he gained various abilities that mimicked the powers of a star from his Gravity Rod: various effects of telekinesis (gravity control), and the ability to generate vast amounts of heat and light, Ted donned a red and green costume with a bright star in the chest, and dubbed himself Starman. He used his invention to great effect in crime fighting, whether it was on his own or as a member of both the Justice Society of America and the All-Star Squadron. During the 1940s, Starman faced colorful enemies like Abigail Moorland, the Prairie Witch, Bobo Bennetti and the Mist, an enigmatic scientist that became his archenemy.
Eventually, Ted Knight passed the mantle of Starman onto his son, Jack Knight. Ted Knight was triumphantly laid to rest by his fellow superheroes and was given a splendid memorial in Opal.
Koenig, Walter
Born the son of Russian Jewish immigrants on September 14, 1936 in Chicago, Walter Marvin Koenig grew up in New York City, and started acting in high school. He attended Grinnell College before transferring to UCLA, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. After college, Koenig returned to New York to study acting at the famed Neighborhood Playhouse. He landed a part on Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek, making his debut as the starship Enterprise’s Ensign Pavel Chekov in the first episode of the second season, and appearing regularly through the end of the third season, when the NBC series was cancelled. Following its cancellation, Koenig easily moved on to a host of different projects, including work as a writer on the animated show Land of the Lost. Over the years, Koenig has reprised his most famous role in several films, beginning with Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979, and progressing to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country in 1991, with a cameo appearance at the beginning of Star Trek: Generations in 1994, and a Trek-inspired voice-over appearance as himself for a 2002 episode of Futurama. From 1994 to 1998, he played the semi-regular role of Alfred Bester on TV’s Babylon 5. Koenig has also written several books, including Warped Factors in 1988, and developed the comic book series Things To Come, which debuted in 2011.
Konami code
In the 1980s, Konami of America and Japan released many games for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), such as Gradius, Life Force and Contra. Traditionally, programmers would program in hidden “cheat codes” to help make gameplay easier, which aided especially during late testing periods before commercial launch. Konami released many popular games on the NES during this era. These titles, as well as many subsequent ones, used the same cheat code scheme. Because of its recurrence, it has become known as “The Konami Code,” and knowing it by heart is one of the trademark signs of a true old-school gamer. A common version of the code is: Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right, B, A, SELECT, Start. Many people added a SELECT into the code, because pressing it changed the cursor to “2 players” instead of “1 player.” Contra, in particular, was always more fun to play with a friend.
Koon-ut-kal-if-fee
Vulcan for “marriage or challenge.” The word was spoken by T’Pau in the original Star Trek episode “Amok Time.”
Korchnoi, Viktor
See Karpov, Anatoly.
Korzybski, Alfred
Born July 3, 1879 in Warsaw, Poland to wealthy, aristocratic parents, the creator of the theory of General Semantics could speak and write in four languages – Polish, Russian, French and German – by his teens. He managed his father’s farm before attending the Polytechnic Institute at Warsaw to study chemical engineering. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, 35-year-old Korzybski volunteered to join the Second Russian Army, where he served as a battlefield intelligence officer on the eastern front in Poland. In November 1915, he was sent to Canada as a weapons inspector for the Russian Army. Here, he began studying English, which became his favorite language and the one in which he would write his major works. After the United States joined the war in 1917, Korzybski moved to New York to supervise the shipping of war materials to Russia. When the Russian Army and government collapsed later that year, he stayed in the United States to continue war efforts on behalf of the French and Polish armies, and soon the United States government hired him to travel the U.S. as a war lecturer to encourage sale of Liberty bonds. Shortly after the Armistice, Korzybski met Mira Edgerly (1872-1954), a prominent American portrait painter on ivory. They were married two months later, in January 1919, in the chambers of the United States Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.
His experiences during the war led Korzybski to contemplate the causes of the periodic bloodbaths that afflicted civilization. Eventually this led him to ponder the differences between humans and animals. He observed that animals by nature were mere hunters and gatherers (“space-binders”) in their pursuit of food, whereas humans practiced agriculture, reflecting a human capacity to anticipate needs, learn from experiences, and readily transmit these experiences as symbols to succeeding generations. He labelled this unique human behavior “time-binding” and noted that the rate of growth of human knowledge resembled a geometric (exponential) progression. Korzybski felt that teaching humans animalistic or mythological theories about themselves helped create and perpetuate such episodes as the recent war.
With considerable editorial assistance from mathematician Cassius Jackson Keyser (1862-1947), Korzybski published his ideas in 1921 as Manhood of Humanity: The Science and Art of Human Engineering. The first printing of the book sold out in six weeks. Korzybski continued his research into the mechanisms of time-binding, and attempted a synthesis of the sciences from the standpoint of a theory of human evaluation. He included the field of psychiatry in his research, and studied for two years with William Alanson White, superintendent of the St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C.
From 1928 until 1933 Korzybski spent most of his time writing what was to become his most famous book, Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. His book explored means of transferring the predictability of science-mathematical methods to the everyday behavior of ordinary people, and contended that humans progressed (“time-binding”) largely as a result of our more flexible nervous systems, which were capable of symbolism and abstracting in endless orders. Language allowed us to summarize or generalize our experiences and pass them on to others, saving others from having to make the same mistakes or reinvent what had already been discovered. This linguistic generalizing ability of humans, Korzybski contended, accounted for our amazing progress over animals, but the misuse of this mechanism accounted for many of our problems.
Following publication of his book in October 1933, Korzybski set out to conduct seminars at schools and colleges throughout the country. In 1938, with financial support from plumbing fixtures heir Cornelius Crane, he founded the Institute of General Semantics near the University of Chicago campus to serve as a training center and to promote research in the new discipline. During World War II, he helped S.I. Hayakawa and others establish the International Society for General Semantics (which would later merge with the Institute of General Semantics in 2003).
A housing shortage following World War II forced Korzybski to move his institute from Chicago to Lakeville, Connecticut, north of New York City. Although nearly deaf and limited in mobility as a result of his war injuries, Korzybski continued to conduct seminars and lectures until his death from a heart attack on March 1, 1950 at the age of 70.
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