Erik Sass is covering the events of the war exactly 100 years after they happened. This is the 251st installment in the series. 

September 26-29, 1916: The Tide Turns Against Romania 

At first glance the entry of Romania into the First World War on the side of the Allies looked like another disaster for the Central Powers, capping a year of disappointments and setbacks including Verdun, the Brusilov Offensive, and the Somme. With an army 800,000 strong – on paper, at least – and promises of help from the Allies, it seemed like Romania’s declaration of war against Austria-Hungary could be the final nail in the coffin, sealing the fate of the Habsburg realm and with it Germany’s hopes for victory. 

This interval of Allied optimism proved short-lived, however. As the British, French and Russians soon discovered to their dismay, Romania only had enough weapons and equipment to field half a million troops, and its isolated position in Eastern Europe meant there was no way for the Allies to deliver supplies in the quantities necessary to make up the difference. Meanwhile by September 1916 the Russian Brusilov Offensive (whose stunning success over the summer helped convince Romania to join the Allies in the first place) had finally run out of steam, freeing up German and Austrian troops to fend off the Romanian offensive and then launch a counterattack. 

After crossing the Carpathian Mountains and briefly occupying Austria-Hungary’s Transylvanian borderlands in early September, the Romanian adventure came to a sudden, sobering end on September 16 with the arrival of Erich von Falkenhayn, until recently the German chief of the general staff, now the commander of the new hybrid Austro-German Ninth Army facing the Romanians in Transylvania. For Falkenhayn, cashiered from the top spot for the failure at Verdun, this field command was a chance to redeem himself in the eyes of the German Army and public – and he did so in spectacular fashion. 

Assisting Falkenhayn was another near-legendary German commander, August von Mackensen, who took command of the German-Bulgarian Donauarmee or Danube Army along Romania’s southern border, further divided into eastern and western operational groups (including the Bulgarian Third Army in the east). Together Falkenhayn and Mackensen’s forces effectively encircled Romania, setting the stage for a crushing counteroffensive in the fall of 1916.

The first blow landed almost immediately, with Mackensen’s invasion of the disputed province of Dobruja between the lower Danube River and the Black Sea on September 3, 1916. In short order Mackensen’s hybrid German-Bulgarian forces captured the border town of Silistra, then pushed the unprepared Romanians back almost halfway to Constanta, Romania’s biggest port and a key supply hub. Although the hybrid Russo-Romanian Dobruja Army won a brief reprieve with their victory over the Bulgarian Third Army at the Battle of Cobadin from September 17-19, enforcing a temporary stalemate on the Danube front, they couldn’t prevent Mackensen from capturing the fortress of Turturkai on the Danube on September 26, along with 25,000 prisoners. 

Battle of Hermannstadt 

But all this was only a prelude to the debacle now unfolding to the northwest, where the Germans inflicted a shattering defeat on the Romanian First Army at the Battle of Hermannstadt from September 26-29, 1916. 

The dominant natural feature in this area was the towering Carpathian Mountains, which ran south and west along the Hungarian and Romanian frontiers, forming a natural border between them. In the opening days of their offensive the Romanians had crossed the mountains through a handful of passes to capture the Hungarian borderlands – but this superficial success had dire consequences, as the advance through the passes channeled the Romanian armies away from each other, separated by the intervening mountain ranges. Strung out on the far side of the Carpathians, the Romanian armies were unable to coordinate mutual support, leaving them all exposed to flank attacks and encirclement. 

Falkenhayn took advantage of these disjointed deployments to attack the Romanian armies and destroy them “in detail,” or one at a time, aided by Mackensen’s attacks in the south, which forced the Romanians to weaken their invasion force in Hungary. He first struck the Romanian First Army at Hermannstadt on September 26, in order to clear the enemy from the approaches to the key passes across the Carpathians, including the Turnu Roșu or Red Tower Pass south of Hermannstadt.

Falkenhayn’s Ninth Army included the famous Alpenkorps or Alpine Corps, composed of Prussian and Bavarian “hunters” or woodsmen who were used to mountain conditions and rough terrain. Taking advantage of their high mobility, Falkenhayn sent the Alpenkorps around the Romanian First Army to threaten its supply lines in the rear, while his main infantry force launched a frontal assault against it from the west. 

As German artillery pounded the Romanians from the front, pinning them down  the Alpenkorps crossed the Sibin Mountains (a branch of the Carpathians), slipped around the enemy force to the east and occupied the Red Tower Pass, severing Romanian communications across the Carpathians. Meanwhile Austro-German forces from the neighboring Austro-Hungarian First Army harried the Romanians even further east, making it impossible for the Romanian high command to send reinforcements to the First Army. 

Panicked by the prospect of being cut off and destroyed, the Romanian First Army commander, Ioan Culcer, had no choice but to order a hasty withdrawal, abandoning Hermannstadt and with it the central position in Transylvania. By September 29 the Romanians were in full retreat towards the mountain passes – which they would have to fight to clear (along with forces transferred from other spots, weakening the Romanians along the whole front). One German junior officer recalled the scenes of carnage that followed:

The Romanians repeatedly tried to break out of the encirclement. Upon reaching the pass and finding it blocked, and being exhausted after the strenuous march over the difficult mountain paths, the Romanians were taken over and completely destroyed by the Alpen Corps attacking from their rear. The losses in the Romanian units were terrible. The Alpen Corps had placed a tight grip on the road to the pass. The Romanians repeatedly attempted a breakthrough. German rifles and machine guns reaped a bloody harvest. Those not killed or wounded fell back into the witches cauldron below. The panic which befell the swarming masses was indescribable. Horses, wagons, and artillery still in complete harness ran into the Alt river and disappeared into the depths of the water. Cows and herds of swine were jammed into the narrow pass roads intermingled with troops. 

Worse, the defeat at Hermannstadt set in motion a chain reaction, as the Romanian Second Army had to move south to cover the First Army’s retreat, in order to avoid a collapse of the entire Romanian line. This was a portent of things to come. 

For ordinary German soldiers, the march south to the Carpathians was both exhilarating and intimidating, as it took them through some of the most primitive terrain in Europe, including dark, towering forests. The same junior officer recalled the eerie experience of marching with his unit, by night, through the Transylvanian foothills towards the famed Vulcan Pass, fated to be the scene of a pivotal German victory in October: 

A few minutes later the darkness of the forest had completely enveloped the soldiers. The smell of rot and mold was very strong. You could not see your hand in front of your face. They held on to the person in front either by his bayonet or webbing in order not to lose connection. The soldiers didn’t march on a defined mountain road, but a climbed a wildly overgrown mountain path which had been used by humans maybe once in ten years and then only by daylight…

See the previous installment or all entries.

Japanese engineer Atsushi Shimizu has created a wind turbine that can not only withstand a major typhoon, but can harness its power, Gizmodo reports. Shimizu, who is the founder of the green tech company Challenergy, claims the incredibly strong turbine could help solve Japan’s energy problems and even make the country a leader in clean energy production.

In the last year alone, Japan has been hit by six typhoons, which have damaged and destroyed traditional wind turbines around the country. Other natural disasters in recent years, meanwhile, have made nuclear power a less viable option for the country, prompting an energy shortage. Shimizu’s typhoon turbines, by contrast, would convert a typhoon’s winds into usable energy. Shimizu claims that if enough of his turbines were erected, a single large typhoon could power Japan for half a century.

Unlike traditional wind turbines, Shimizu’s typhoon turbines are constructed on an omnidirectional vertical axis to better withstand a typhoon’s powerful and erratic winds. Their blades can also be controlled so they don’t spin out of control in heavy winds. Shimizu recently installed his first test turbine near Okinawa, and is awaiting a storm to test it out.

Shimizu tells CNN the typhoon turbines could revolutionize energy production in Japan. “Japan actually has a lot more wind power than it does solar power, it’s just not utilized,” he said. “Japan has the potential to be a super power of wind.”

[h/t Gizmodo]

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An estimated 41 million people have played with them. They vary in price from $1 to more than $100,000. They can zip along orange trackways at speeds of almost 600 scale miles per hour. And they’re about to get a big-screen adaptation courtesy of Fast & Furious director Justin Lin. Here are 11 other things you might not know about those iconic racing toys called Hot Wheels.

1. HOT WHEELS WERE THE BRAINCHILD OF ELLIOT HANDLER, WHOSE WIFE CREATED BARBIE.

Elliot and Ruth Handler, along with their friend Harold Matson, founded a picture frame company named Mattel in 1945. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Handler started using spare parts to make dollhouse furniture, which was sold on the side. By 1946, toy manufacturing had become Mattel’s specialty. In its early years, the company’s biggest hits were novelty items like cap guns and ukuleles. Then, in the late 1950s, Ruth hit on what would prove to be a brilliant idea: The Handlers’ young daughter, Barbara, loved to play with paper dolls; inspired, Ruth decided to create a three-dimensional replacement for the primitive toys. Elliot had his doubts, telling his wife that “no mother is ever going to buy her daughter a doll with breasts.” But he was wrong: Barbie debuted in 1959, and within 12 months, Mattel had sold 351,000 of the dolls.

But soon, Elliot would have his own multimillion-dollar idea. In the 1960s, tiny die-cast car toys were all the rage. The dominant force in that market was the English Matchbox brand, whose scaled-down vehicles left a lot to be desired (at least in Handler’s opinion). For one thing, these little cars were all based on existing automobiles. Surely, Handler felt, kids would rather play with designer hot rods. More importantly, the wheels made Matchbox cars difficult to get moving.

Convinced that he could break into the die-cast game, Handler joined forces with a team of designers to create a series of aesthetically-pleasing, lightning-fast cars. Production started in 1967.

2. THERE ARE A FEW CONFLICTING STORIES ABOUT WHERE THE NAME CAME FROM.

In his 2003 book Hot Wheels: 35 Years of Speed, Power, Performance, and Attitude, Randy Leffingwell summarizes the two most popular explanations. Most people credit Handler with coining the name. According to some sources, when the businessman saw designer Fred Adickes testing out a prototype one day, he remarked “That’s one set of hot wheels you’ve got there.”

But Handler himself traced the origin to a chat he once had with Alexandra Laird, who worked in the packaging department. Between 1964 and 1969, she named more or less every outfit in Barbie’s closet and became known as Mattel’s “namesmith.” In her version of the story, Laird started cooking up ideas as soon as she learned about the die-cast project. “I went back and looked at these funny little cars and then wrote a whole bunch of names on a list the way I always did,” Laird said. Suggestion number one was Big Wheels. “Elliot looked at it, half-smirked, and asked me for another word, different from ‘big,’” Laird recalled. “He talked about the custom styling and wondered aloud if that was what people would call ‘hot.’” After that, Handler allegedly blurted out “Hot Wheels,” and the rest is history.

3. ONE OF THE ORIGINAL HOT WHEELS DESIGNERS LATER PUT A NEW SPIN ON THE OSCAR MAYER WIENERMOBILE.

Most of Mattel’s first 16 Hot Wheels cars, which hit the shelves in 1968, were designed by GM’s Harry Bentley Bradley. Hot Wheels aren’t the only pop culture cars he left his mark on, though: In 1995, Bradley designed an all-new Wienermobile for Oscar Mayer. It had aerodynamic windows and hot dog-shaped dashboards.

4. A CAR IN THE ORIGINAL LINE WAS BASED ON THE 1965 DODGE DEORA—WHICH DIDN’T HAVE DOORS!

Among the maiden 16 Hot Wheels, this might have been the strangest. In lieu of doors, the cab of an actual ’65 Deora was equipped with a hatch at the very front of the car. A driver would need to open the hatch and climb in backwards before he or she could sit down behind the wheel. Vehicle customizers Mike and Larry Alexander went to Harry Bradley, and together they created the experimental pickup for the 1967 Detroit Autorama, where it won nine trophies. Full-sized Deoras were never mass-produced.

5. 16 MILLION HOT WHEELS CARS WERE SOLD IN 1968 ALONE.

Demand for these toys hasn’t waned: Mattel estimates that over 4 billion cars have been produced and claims that eight of them are bought every single second.

6. IF YOU’VE GOT ONE WITH RED CIRCLES ON THE WHEELS, IT MIGHT BE WORTH SOME MONEY.

From 1968 to 1977, thin red lines were typically painted around the sidewalls of Hot Wheels tires. But in an effort to cut costs, Mattel went with all-black wheels partway through 1977. Collectors prize the old “redline” Hot Wheels—in fact, certain mint-condition models sell for thousands of dollars.

7. A TIE-IN TV SERIES TOOK SOME HEAT FROM THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION.

In 1969, a Hot Wheels cartoon series, sponsored by Mattel, premiered on ABC. The show featured a teenage car racer named Jack “Rabbit” Wheeler who, along with his buddies, always did his best to promote safe driving. The gang also took a firm stand against underage smoking, which they deemed “non-cool.” Mattel’s competitors wrote the FCC to complain that this Hot Wheels cartoon was a program-length commercial in disguise, which undermined federal advertising laws. The FCC concurred, and the resulting changes compelled ABC to cancel Hot Wheels in 1971.

Mattel was able to kick off another tie-in series in 2009, thanks to deregulatory measures that had taken effect during the 1980s. Titled Hot Wheels: Battle Force Five, it ran for two seasons on Cartoon Network.

8. FOR COLLECTORS, THE HOLY GRAIL IS A PINK VOLKSWAGEN WITH REMOVABLE SURFBOARDS.

In 1969, the company unveiled its most famous car to date: the Volkswagen Beach Bomb. With a surfboard loaded onto either side, it looked like the perfect rig for a summer road trip down the California coast.

Designing the iconic toy cars was a challenge: Originally, Mattel’s engineers wanted the surfboards to be removable units that could be loaded into the back of the van through wide-open rear windows. Keeping these specifications in mind, the toymakers built 16 prototypes. Then the team discovered that the Beach Bombs were too narrow to be used on Mattel’s Super Charger race tracks—so they had to come up with a different design. The new VWs were wider and featured side compartments for the boards.

Most of the 16 prototype Beach Bombs are now worth around $15,000 apiece. But a pair of them command a price tag that’s normally reserved for full-sized, driveable Porsches: These are the bright pink, rear-loading 1969 Volkswagen Beach Bombs. According to collector Bruce Pascal, only two such Hot Wheels were ever made (most of the prototypes received a different color scheme). In 2011, one sold for $125,000.

9. THE BRAND HAS COLLABORATED WITH NASA.

In 1998, Mattel teamed up with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory—a NASA research and development center—to create the Hot Wheels JPL Sojourner’s Mars Rover Action Pack Set. The product included a replica of the Sojourner rover, which landed on Mars that summer. Then, in 2012, Mattel renewed its alliance with NASA to manufacture scale models of yet another Red Planet vehicle: the six-wheeled, $2.5 billion Curiosity rover.

10. THE BIGGEST HOT WHEELS TRACK LOOP ON RECORD WAS OVER 12 FEET HIGH.

In 2015, dynamometer technician Matt West built a 5-foot, outdoor Hot Wheels track loop for Blade, his 6-year-old son. “It started as a part-fun, part-physics lesson with my son at home,” West said. Before long, word of their exploits had spread to the technician’s workplace, namely, the Ford Motor Company’s Research and Innovation Center in Dearborn, Michigan. Inspired by West’s playful afternoon, the staff decided to raise the bar for an upcoming Take Your Child to Work Day. Using 4-by-8 sheets of plywood as a stabilizer, Ford’s team set up an enormous Hot Wheels raceway with a massive loop. Guinness World Records later confirmed that, at 12.5 feet tall, it qualified as the largest Hot Wheels Track Loop ever built. On April 23, 2015, this monument to the creative spirit dazzled a crowd of adults and children alike; the very first car to brave the track was a Hot Wheels Ford Mustang.

11. IN 2011, THE HOT WHEELS BRAND WAS INDUCTED INTO THE NATIONAL TOY HALL OF FAME.

Located in Rochester, New York, the National Toy Hall of Fame honors the world’s most influential playthings, from the cardboard box to Raggedy Ann. Mattel’s Hot Wheels line was formally inducted in 2011, along with the dollhouse and the blanket.

As mosquito-borne viruses like Zika, Dengue, and Chikungunya continue to spread across the globe, rapid diagnosis and treatment are more important than ever. In a recent paper published in the journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, German researchers describe an inexpensive, portable test that could help speed up Chikungunya diagnosis in remote areas.

The word “chikungunya” means “to become contorted” in the Kimakonde language of southeastern Africa, and refers to the curled-up posture of people in pain. The symptoms of Chikungunya virus (CHIKV)—joint pain, muscle pain, and fatigue—are similar to those of a bad flu and will generally resolve on their own after a few days or weeks. But they also look a lot like the initial symptoms of Dengue fever, which can be fatal unless it’s treated quickly. The two illnesses are carried by the same mosquito species, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, and are found in the same parts of the world. Identifying which of these viruses a patient has can be a matter of life and death.

Current CHIKV tests rely on polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, which chemically amplifies any traces of RNA or DNA in a sample to make them easier to identify. But PCR is time- and cost-intensive and requires refrigeration, which makes it an impractical choice in remote areas. An international team of researchers decided to see if they could do better.

They set PCR aside in favor of a technique called reverse transcriptase recombinase polymerase amplification (RT-RPA), which they hoped would also amplify the RNA of the Chikungunya virus (CHIKV). To test their assay, the team ran samples from 58 patients with suspected CHIKV infection and another 20 whose infection had been confirmed through both a PCR scan and their new RT-RPA.

The results were promising indeed. The patients’ samples had included 18 different CHIKV strains, and the RT-RPA spotted them all. The new test correctly diagnosed 36 patients, and didn’t return a single false positive. The RT-RPA was slightly less sensitive than the PCR, but it was also faster and more shelf-stable.

“The CHIKV RPA assay presented here is a promising tool for CHIKV diagnostics at the point of need,” the authors write in their paper.

Still, the test isn’t ready for primetime just yet. In its present incarnation, the assay requires a lot of steps and pipetting, and costs around $5. Ideally, the researchers say, the process would be even simpler and max out at $1. They’re continuing to refine their product, and recommend combining it with Dengue and Zika tests, which “…would improve outbreak investigations, since the three viruses induce the same clinical picture upon infection and increasingly co-circulate in many parts of the world.”
 
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At first, Erik King wasn’t sure he liked being a meme. As the relentless Sergeant James Doakes, who was immediately suspicious of co-worker and closeted serial killer Dexter Morgan on Showtime’s Dexter, King’s boiling-point performance arrived just as the internet was discovering new ways to capture bits and pieces of film and television.

“It was weird,” King tells mental_floss. “I had never had a performance taken out of context before, so it took some getting used to. But I found it flattering.”

As Dexter celebrates its 10th anniversary, King took some time to talk with us about Doakes’s untimely death, how his father inspired the character, and the art of surprising serial killers with tirades of profanity.

Was the intensity of Doakes on the page from the beginning?

I think it was clear who Doakes was. The intensity was there, but the disdain came later. The more Dexter eluded Doakes, the more he got pissed off. My father was in federal law enforcement and I have a lot of family and friends who are cops, so I knew a lot of them.

Was there any of your dad in the character?

There’s a lot of him in Doakes. He passed away in 2011, but I used to joke with him all the time. “You know, this guy is you.” It’s exaggerated, but he didn’t suffer fools. If someone parked in front of his house, there might be a colorful word or two coming out of him. And it was a public street. [Laughs]

Doakes and Dexter were usually playing a pretty cerebral cat and mouse game, but it occasionally got physical. Michael C. Hall once said he was taken aback by how strong you were while shooting a fight scene. Do you remember that?

I’m surprised he would say that, actually. If he thought that, he never let on. Michael is taller than me, you know. I had to bring my A-game. Doakes had to come at him like a bowling ball, had to hold his own, because I knew what was gonna happen in the end. As an actor, he always brought it.

The great flaw of Doakes is that he was suspicious of Dexter from the outset, which probably didn’t help his chances of survival. When did you know he would be dying at the end of season two?

It was either four or six episodes in out of the 12. One of the producers very kindly called me, which doesn’t always happen. He said, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is, we’re writing some great stuff for you. The bad news is, you won’t be around much longer.” [Laughs] My first thought was how the rest of the cast would react, because I was and am good friends with them. I know the energy Erik King brings to the set and the energy Doakes brings, and I didn’t want to have it become, “Oh, what a shame.” So I kept it a secret for as long as I could.

Were you happy with the way he went out?

In order to maintain the integrity of who he was, he had to find out something [about Dexter]. It couldn’t have been eight or nine seasons of, “I’m watching you, motherf*cker.” That’s not going to work. Even though I wanted the character to hang around longer, I totally understood the choice.

Was there ever any discussion of Doakes surviving the cabin explosion?

Not with me. Once the cabin blew up and pieces were flying through the air, there was never a doubt in my mind.

Doakes had a way with words. How did you find out some of his choice profanity had become a meme?

I was at a gym in North Carolina trying to put some size back on when I was asked to return for season seven [in a flashback]. This guy comes up to me and says, “Did you see this website? They put Doakes in all these other movies.” You know, like Ghost—“surprise, motherf*cker.” Just little scenes. Someone would turn around and Doakes would be there.

As an actor, it was arresting to me, and kind of weird that Doakes had taken on a life of his own. Now it’s flattering. “French fries, motherf*cker,” all of that. I’ve seen it. [Laughs]

If that was weird, the Doakes bobblehead must have thrown you, too.

I have a couple of them. They have to send it to you for approval. “Does it look like you?” “Yeah, I guess it looks like me, kind of.”

What do you think would have happened to Doakes if he hadn’t crossed paths with Dexter?

Probably a police captain. The guy was really driven. He had a dogged determination. He and Dexter both. I always said they were like two pitbulls sniffing each other out. He keeps going until he finds what he’s looking for. And you see where it got him.

The British Museum is cementing its reputation as a major destination for Pablo Picasso fans. The London-based museum, which already holds more than 550 works by the Spanish-born artist, recently purchased 19 rare prints the artist made between the 1940s and 1950s, according to BLOUIN ARTINFO.

The museum’s goal is to fully represent Picasso’s work as not just a painter, but a print maker, showing off his skills in etching, lithography, aquatint, and linocut. Of the newly acquired works, 16 are linocut, a variation on woodcut using linoleum, and three are aquatint, a method that uses an etched copper plate to create a print that looks much like a watercolor.

Six of the mint-condition prints feature Picasso’s muse, Françoise Gilot, with whom he had two children. One of those works features a pregnant Gilot with their toddler son playing at her feet, while another is a moody black portrait of her only a few months before she left him. Also in the collection of 1955 aquatints is a portrait of Jacqueline Roque, Picasso’s future wife. There are also portraits of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, a friend of Picasso’s and a major dealer of 20th century French art, especially for Cubist painters.

The purchase of the new prints (worth millions, according to The Guardian) “now stands us among the most important public collections of Picasso in the world,” the museum’s director, Hartwig Fischer, said in a press release.

The British Museum will display the new prints between January and March 2017. They’re also available to view by appointment in one of the museum’s study rooms.

[h/t BLOUIN ARTINFO]

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Marvel’s resident Hero for Hire, Luke Cage, is ready to go solo when his very own Netflix series debuts on September 30. While this will be many people’s first taste of Cage, the character has actually been around for more than 40 years, and his impact stretches well beyond the streets of Harlem. From his debut as one of Marvel’s only minority comic book characters, to his obscure connection to a Hollywood star, here are five facts you need to know about Luke Cage.

1. YOU CAN THANK BLAXPLOITATION MOVIES FOR HIS CREATION.

In the early 1970s, Marvel saw that pop culture was changing as more ethnic diversity found its way into TV and film. To make sure it didn’t fall behind, the publisher made an effort to introduce more African American superheroes into its books, and for inspiration the company had to look no further than the film movement that defined the early parts of the decade: blaxploitation.

Over-the-top, anti-establishment films like Shaft and Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song featured black characters in urban settings that audiences could actually recognize. The unique tone and gloriously violent flair of these movies attracted audiences of all races, so it was only a matter of time before the comic book industry got its own black hero to root for. To capitalize on this movement, writer Archie Goodwin and artists John Romita Sr. and George Tuska created Luke Cage, who made his debut in his very own series Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1 in 1972. The book was also Marvel’s first solo title starring an African American hero; the Black Panther’s creation preceded Cage’s, but he didn’t receive a solo book until he starred in Jungle Action in 1973 and his own self-titled book in 1977. 

Set in Harlem, Cage uses his superhuman strength and bulletproof skin—which he gained in an experiment—to protect the people of his old neighborhood, as long as they could afford his services (he was a hero for hire after all). Over the decades, Cage shed his ’70s blaxploitation schtick and transformed into a full-fledged part of the Marvel Universe, eventually becoming an Avenger and TV star.

2. HE WAS PAIRED UP WITH IRON FIST BECAUSE THEY WERE BOTH UNPOPULAR.

Today, Luke Cage and Iron Fist may be one of the most popular duos in comics, but the only reason these two characters were ever paired up to begin with was because, well, no one really bought their books. Iron Fist’s solo comic book title was canceled in 1977 due to low sales, but Marvel didn’t want to give up on the character so easily. So that same year, Fist was teamed up with Cage, whose own comic wasn’t exactly a cash cow for the publisher.

Together, the duo saw a renaissance, as Cage’s solo comic book title was renamed Power Man and Iron Fist starting with issue #50 and sales went up. Separately, Fist and Cage weren’t moneymakers for the House of Ideas, but together, their team-up book lasted nearly another decade, ending with #125 in 1986.

3. HE PUT THE “CAGE” IN NICOLAS CAGE.

Nicolas Cage is a notorious comic book junkie—he has owned some of the most expensive issues in the world, he’s a regular sight at comic conventions, and he even played a superhero in the Ghost Rider movies. Comic books are also his namesake.

Nicolas Cage was born Nicolas Coppola, part of the famous Coppola film family that includes director Francis Ford Coppola. To avoid the murkiness of nepotism in Hollywood, though, he decided to change his name to Nicolas Cage, getting his inspiration from Marvel’s Luke Cage, one of his favorite comic characters.

4. HIS SIGNATURE CATCHPHRASE WAS A QUESTIONABLE ATTEMPT AT AUTHENTICITY.

Luke Cage’s creator, Archie Goodwin, wanted the African American roots and street slang of the character to feel authentic, especially in the wake of a successful movie like Shaft. Well, the Marvel comics don’t use the type of real-world profanity used in blaxploitation films, so Goodwin had to be creative, while still retaining that “authentic” feel of the streets. His solution became Cage’s oft-mocked catchphrase, “Sweet Christmas!”

As the Cage character evolved, the catchphrase was dropped, especially as he was put into more serious books that didn’t rely on his exploitative ’70s roots. Though that won’t stop Luke Cage star Mike Colter from saying it a few times in the new show. 

5. QUENTIN TARANTINO WANTED TO MAKE A LUKE CAGE MOVIE IN THE 1990S.

Quentin Tarantino isn’t the type of director to adapt someone else’s story too often, but he almost made an exception in the 1990s, when he entertained the thought of bringing Luke Cage to the big screen. Cage is apparently a favorite of Tarantino’s from his childhood, and after 1992’s Reservoir Dogs the director briefly thought about going to Marvel with his idea for the character. But during an interview with Nerdist, Tarantino said it was actually his comic book fan friends that turned him off the idea:

“In the case of Luke Cage, it was my comic geek friends that almost talked me out of it, because I thought Larry Fishburne back in the day would’ve been a great Luke Cage, and they were talking about Wesley Snipes. And I could see them both, but it was like ‘I think Fish would be better.’ And they go ‘Yeah … he could work out and everything, but he doesn’t have the bod that Wesley Snipes has, and Luke Cage needs to have the bod.’

“And I literally was so turned off that that would be their both starting and ending point, that it literally put it in my head that, if I do a comic book movie, it should be an original character. It should be something I create rather than try to fit in.”

Though the idea of a Tarantino-directed Luke Cage movie is intriguing, film fans can’t argue with the project that he actually decided to go with next: 1994’s Pulp Fiction.

Ten years ago—maybe even five years ago—asking your roommate to “Venmo you” for the pizza you just split might have earned you some confused looks. The mobile payment service has since become part of our cultural vernacular. In the first month of 2016 alone, over $1 billion in transactions were made through the app. Venmo payments are fee-free for users connected through their debit card or bank account and they’re simple to send and request. It’s easy then to see why the app is a popular choice for Millennials, a group that’s less likely to pay with cash or checks than older generations.

As for what the app is actually being used for, LendEDU discovered that the answer is just about everything. The student loan marketplace recently looked at more than 500,000 transactions to determine which types of payments are the most popular. When a user transfers money, they’re required to indicate what the payment is for. They don’t necessarily have to go into detail: In fact, emojis are often the descriptor of choice. You can see the top choices below.

According to LendEDU, the house and flying money emojis are commonly used for rent and utilities while the pizza and beer emojis are pretty self-explanatory. The text descriptions they looked at reflect these trends. Food was the top category with popular terms including dinner, groceries, and pizza. Rent/utilities came in second followed by fun, transportation, and alcohol. The five most-used individual terms were as follows: food, Uber, rent, fantasy (football), and bills. It’s important to note that in addition to being brief, payment descriptions are also allowed to be inaccurate. So it’s probably safe to assume that the majority of users who helped “strippers” break the top 100 were joking (hopefully the same can be said for “kale,” which somehow places in the 21st spot, above “drinks,” “cable,” and “brunch”).

While a lot of people use the app for minor expenses, a significant portion of users also seem to trust Venmo with larger payments like rent. If you’re among the app’s big spenders, it may be worth looking into the app’s security policies if you haven’t already done so. Google Wallet is one payment app alternative that offers extra protection like fraud monitoring and MasterCard’s liability coverage.

[h/t LendEDU]

All images courtesy of LendEDU.

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Soon, you’ll be able to wear your love for Pixar on your sleeve and your feet. io9 reports that the Disney-owned computer animation film studio is collaborating with skatewear label Vans to create a line of Toy Story-inspired shoes.

Details like availability and pricing are currently under wraps, but Vans recently previewed a few images of the sneakers on social media. One pair is white, purple, and green—just like Buzz Lightyear’s spacesuit—while another is cow-printed, and pays homage to Woody’s cowboy style. They even have the name “Andy” doodled on their soles. 

Vans’s website refers to the line as a “Holiday collection,” so it’s a safe guess that its Toy Story sneakers will be officially unveiled later this fall or winter. For more info, you can sign up for email updates online, or check out some pictures below.

Vans teases Toy Story shoe range inspired by Buzz and Woody https://t.co/9byIsCrfpd pic.twitter.com/XxuokShzAI

— Wired UK (@WiredUK) September 30, 2016

Another preview of the Toy Story Vans collection that’s coming soon! pic.twitter.com/M82jjrhG88

— Vans Alert (@VansAlert) September 25, 2016

Closer look at Toy Story Vans collection. I’m still waiting for a release date.

What’s your favorite so far? pic.twitter.com/aqfUQrZ7R4

— Vans Alert (@VansAlert) September 30, 2016

[h/t i09]

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