One of the coolest things about Kirby's series was the way it used technology. The writer/artist designed a whole new architecture for the Fourth World, and one of the coolest bits of tech was the 'boom tube', a teleportation device that allowed any user to move between galaxies at the flick of a switch.
So called for the deafening noise they make when activated, boom tubes were used by both New Genesis and Apokolips in times of peace and war, with the wormholes themselves being created by another piece of Kirby tech, a Motherbox, which already appeared in Justice League.
Boom tubes featured somewhat in that film too, but they're a key piece of technology in the Fourth World. That means we're likely to see a whole lot more of them going forward, and in adapting the Fourth World authentically, translating its technology could prove to be the film's biggest challenge.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
