Rasl: Science Fiction Heist
A groundswell for Nikola Tesla has been building over the last couple of decades. I’d been hugely into science and technology, but other than seeing the Tesla Coil in Command and Conquer: Red Alert, I hadn’t heard much about the scientist. I didn’t know his lab was the basic for the Universal horror films Frankenstein laboratory which has come to be the default lab for any mad scientist. The first time he was brought to my attention was when I was doing my undergrad degree and one of my TAs went on a nearly hour-long rant on how Tesla was a genius who was robbed by Edison. Then he had a small, but key role in the film The Prestige. A year or so ago, The Oatmeal raised money to fund a Tesla museum. It was kicked off by this comic. Why all the fascination with Tesla? The stuff he was doing and trying to do includes both what was science fiction at the time (radio, RADAR, etc) and is still science fiction today (teleportation, free energy, etc). It is the the combination of the two that makes him ripe for use in science fiction dramas and thrillers.