Revision as of 10:40, 8 March 2013

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Chin-Up Bar

Title text: Those few who escaped found the emergency cutoff box disabled. The stampede lasted two hours and reached the bottom three times.

Explanation

Black Hat is blocking traffic on the longest escalator in the western hemisphere, the escalator in the Wheaton station in Washington D.C.'s Washington Metro.

An escalator is a motorized stairway. Black Hat installs a chin-up bar at waist height. Chin-up bars are typically capable of holding up a 300 pound (130 kg) person without moving. Being at waist height makes it hard to duck under, and hard to hurdle. Either way, on a crowded escalator during a high traffic period, avoiding the bar will be extremely difficult. The first people would probably stumble backward to avoid it, which would collide them into the passengers behind them, creating a domino effect all the way down. Of course, as the escalator continues to move people forward, but the wave of falling people is moving backward, its apparent speed will be slower than it actually is.

That is the joke in the title text, that over two hours the wave can reach the bottom only three times, whereas if this were a simple staircase the event would only last once and be over as quickly as people can fall down. The people that actually made it to the bottom were unable tue the emergency shutdown because Black Hat disabled it.

Trivia

• It would appear that the goatee'd man behind Cueball is the psychologist from 435: Purity, and that the person he is with is the sociologist from the same comic.

Transcript

[Black Hat is standing on an escalator as it ascends. He is carrying a pole with what looks like a bracket on each end, resting on his shoulder. In front of him is Ponytail, and in front of her is a punk with spiked hair and pimples. Behind Black Hat is Cueball. Behind Cueball is a man wearing glasses with a goatee standing next to someone with short hair.]

[The view closes on Black Hat and Cueball. In the background a girl can be seen standing on the descending escalator.]

Cueball: This is a long escalator.

Black Hat: 70 meters. Longest in the country.

[In the background the girl from the last panel has now passed the group and a few other people can be seen descending.]

Cueball: Why're you carrying a chin-up bar?

Black Hat: Why aren't you wearing a hat?

[The view opens up a bit more to show the two riders ahead, and the two behind.]

Cueball: I'm not really a hat person.

Black Hat: And I'm not really a Not-carrying-a-chin-up-bar person.

[Close up on Cueball]

[The view opens up to show the same people in the first panel. They're near the top of the escalator now and Ponytail is beginning to step off.]

Cueball: Seriously, why did you bring it?

Black Hat: How should I know? I'm not a psychologist.

[As Black Hat steps off the escalator he turns and installs the chin-up bar such that it blocks people from leaving the escalator, about waist height. Cueball turns to observe what Black Hat is doing.]

Twist

Click click

[They get onto the descending escalator. The man with glasses and a goatee and his companion are blocked from leaving the escalator by the chin-up bar.]

[The next panel is large.]

[The view shows an extended section of the escalator, the top right has become a pile of people all squished together and on top of each other. One person has grabbed another by the hair and is standing on a third person in an attempt to not fall. Someone is falling off the pile and another person is running down the escalator to avoid them. People closer to the bottom of the escalator are looking horrified at the scene ahead of them. In the background hat man and his companion are visible. Black Hat is looking toward the bottom of the escalator, not caring or noticing the chaos unfolding. Cueball looks back pensively.]

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