Tangential Giants Podcast

The guys (Kareem, Ken, and Pat) are joined by special guest J.P.G. to review some of the worst comic movies and or adaptations. Tangents include Benjamin Bratt's basketball rider, Lex Luthor's copyright master plan, Jesse Eisenberg awfulness, and more.

The guys (Kareem, Ken, and Pat) continue to tackle the topic of adult animated series. Tangents include Batman and Vegeta’s sexual aptitude, Ice-Tas a VO actor, whether “stunt casting” hurts a series, and more.

The guys (Kareem, Ken & Pat) review adult animated series. Tangents include Energon abuse, The Last Airbender’s aging audience, a Korra, Asami and Mako triangle, the subtle brilliance of King of The Hill, and more.

The guys (Kareem, Ken, and Pat) wrap up their review of comic billionaires. Tangents include the list of dead dependents Bruce claims, the MCU's bulls** time travel logic, redacted tapes of John Walker, Winter Soldier's dubious programming, trash islands in the Pacific Ocean, and more.

Show Notes

Topic 1:  Establish what constitutes a billionaire in comics and in reality.

• In countries that use the short scale number naming system, a billionaire is someone who has at least a thousand times a million dollars, euros, or the currency of the given country. Many national currencies have, or have had at various times, a low unit value, in many cases due to past inflation.

Topic 2: Breakdown of the four most well-known comic billionaires and if they have real-world counterparts

• See additional pages for breakdown details

Topic 3: How billionaires accumulated their wealth and what they do with it.

• See additional page for details

Topic 4: Why are billionaires necessary in comics (especially when there are gods, demons, magic, mysticism, etc.)

Topic 5: Which is the better comic billionaire? Which would be the more successful real-world crossover?

Kareem, Ken, and Pat are back at it, continuing their review of billionaires in comics, and the results are as ridiculous as ever.

Doctor Doom’s debts are only the beginning. Along the way, the guys veer into tangents that somehow make perfect sense in comic book economics: how exactly Power Girl makes money, Superboy’s strange Gambit-like abilities, James Bond battling red tape just to lease a car, and Aquaman turning the “five-second rule” into a trillion-dollar ocean empire. It’s part financial roast, part pop culture deep dive, and all about the bizarre ways comics imagine wealth, power, and debt.

Expect sharp banter, absurd hypotheticals, and the kind of financial wisdom you’d only hear from superheroes and supervillains. Spoiler: Spider-Man still can’t pay his rent. #ComicBookBillionaires

#doctordoom #tonystark #SpiderMan #PowerGirl #superboy #aquaman #jamesbond #superheroeconomics #comicbookhumor #geekculture #popculturepodcast #NerdEconomics #SupervillainFinance

The guys (Kareem, Ken, and Pat) review the state of billionaires in comics. Tangents include Charles Xavier’s insatiable lust for money, mutant apartheid, mutant syphilis, and more.

Welcome back to Tangential Giants, where Kareem, Ken, and Pat dive into the absurd world of comic book billionaires and the very real history of wealth. This week’s episode asks a deceptively simple question: how much is a billion, really? Spoiler: it’s more money than most of us can even conceptualize.

• Charles Xavier’s finances: How does Professor X keep the lights on at the X-Mansion while rebuilding it every time Magneto drops by? Offshore accounts, psychic stock market manipulation, and mutant real estate empires are all on the table.
• Mutant apartheid & inequality: The guys explore whether comic book billionaires solve systemic problems or just build taller adamantium towers.
• Mutant syphilis?! Yes, even superhumans face awkward medical bills. The crew discusses the implications of mutant diseases and how even wealth can’t buy immunity.
• Tangents galore: From secret mutant Illuminati meetings to Batman vs. Iron Man in an arm-wrestling contest, this episode veers into hilarious chaos.

To ground the comic absurdity, the episode also explores the history of billionaires:

• John D. Rockefeller became the world’s first confirmed U.S. dollar billionaire in 1916, thanks to Standard Oil’s near-monopoly.
• Oxfam’s 2017 report revealed that just 42 individuals held as much wealth as the poorest 3.7 billion people combined.
• Female billionaires are on the rise: Between 2013 and 2019, their numbers grew by 46%, outpacing male billionaires.
• Japan’s bubble economy in the 1980s produced billionaires like Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, once the richest man alive with a $20 billion fortune built on real estate.

• Spending $10,000 a day would take 274 years to burn through a billion.
• In 2019 alone, 19 new billionaires joined the ranks, some through inheritance or divorce.

• John D. Rockefeller – Wikipedia
• John D. Rockefeller – Britannica
• History.com – John D. Rockefeller
• CNBC – Oxfam Report 2017
• UBS/PwC Billionaires Report 2019
• Report.az – Female Billionaires Growth
• Yoshiaki Tsutsumi – Wikipedia
• Japan Inside – Rise and Fall of Yoshiaki Tsutsumi

Summary: This episode blends comic absurdity with real-world billionaire history, showing how wealth in both fiction and reality shapes power, inequality, and sometimes hilariously awkward problems.

The guys (Kareem, Ken, and Pat) continue their review about what money means in comics. Tangents include Tony Stark wearing Walmart sweatpants, Like Cage the loan officer, magic money vs. science, and more.

We kick things off with the infamous “Doom owes money” storyline, where Luke Cage literally has to chase down Doctor Doom for unpaid wages. It’s a perfect entry point into the strange economics of comic book billionaires. Doom’s mystical Latverian wealth, built on sorcery and sovereignty, stands in sharp contrast to Tony Stark’s corporate empire, which is rooted in technology and capitalism. Both characters highlight how comic book billionaires bend the rules of accountability, whether through magic loopholes or corporate ones.

But before we get too deep into fictional finance, let’s pause and ask: what does a billion really mean? A billion is one thousand million. Put another way, if you spent $10,000 every single day, it would take you 274 years to burn through a billion dollars. Most people don’t live past 90, so the scale of wealth here is almost incomprehensible.

That scale becomes even clearer when we look at history. John D. Rockefeller became the world’s first confirmed billionaire in 1916, thanks to his oil empire. Even today, when adjusted for inflation, Rockefeller rivals modern titans like Gates, Bezos, and Musk. Reports like Oxfam’s 2017 study underline the imbalance, noting that just eight billionaires hold as much wealth as half the human race. Of course, those numbers spark debate, especially since debt is counted as negative wealth, skewing the picture of who is “poor” or “rich.”

The billionaire class has also diversified. In the past five years, the number of female billionaires has grown by nearly 50%, outpacing male growth rates. Today, there are over 430 women billionaires worldwide, a sharp rise from 160 in 2013 (NBC News).

Globally, the billionaire boom really took off in the 1970s, with American oil magnates, Middle Eastern tycoons, and European industrialists joining the ranks. By the 1980s, Japan’s asset bubble produced billionaires like Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, once worth $20 billion (Japanese asset bubble overview). At one point, Japanese billionaires dominated the global top ten, while U.S. billionaires barely made the list. The roster even included figures like Sweden’s Rausing brothers, Canada’s Reichmanns, and yes, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.

When you put it all together, the parallels between comics and reality are striking. Fictional billionaires dodge accountability with magic or tech, while real billionaires do it with loopholes and monopolies. Both worlds remind us that wealth isn’t just about money—it’s about bending the rules, shaping culture, and deciding who gets paid… or who doesn’t.