The box office is set to go up, up and away this weekend with the release of "Up," the tenth and most recent film from Pixar Animation Studios. "Up" focuses on Carl Fredricksen, an elderly balloon factory employee who steals a plethora of balloons and rigs them up to his house. As a result, his home goes sailing through the skies on a mile-high adventure around the globe.
To mark the occasion of Pixar's film hitting theaters, Splash Page assembled our own list of the best aerial headquarters in comic book history. Enjoy!
S.H.I.E.L.D. HELICARRIER: Maybe a sweet eye-patch would be enough to up your coolness factor, but that's barely a scratch on the surface of Nick Fury's tough guy act. After all, when you're busy lording over a floating headquarters filled with highly-trained espionage agents, an eye-patch almost seems kitschy.
The S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier is definitely one of the go-to aerial headquarters in comic book land, even though now it's sporting the more nefarious H.A.M.M.E.R. logo courtesy of Norman Osborn, the former Green Goblin and Marvel's current "it guy."
THE JUSTICE LEAGUE SATELLITE: There are many home bases for Marvel's Avengers squad -- from a now-defunct mansion to Captain America's rundown Brooklyn apartment -- but not a one of them holds a candle to the Justice League Satellite.
Superman and Batman already have fantastically cool hideaways -- indeed, if the Bat Cave and the Fortress of Solitude were up in the sky, they'd rank high on this list -- but their space-bound headquarters shared with a bevy of other superheroic icons takes things to an all-new level.
THE CARRIER: Haven't heard of The Authority before? Shame on you. Other than having an amazing cast of characters -- including some that were mentioned on our awesome out-and-proud list of superheroes -- these Wildstorm heroes have one awesome hideout.
As the Authority's official base of operations, the Carrier is not exactly a spaceship nor is it an airship -- it's actually a shiftship, an interdimensional vehicle that simultaneously exists everywhere on Earth and can travel through every plane of existence ever. Yeah, when does this movie come out again?
ASTEROID M: When you're a mutant terrorist with a magnetically-charged chip on your shoulder, you better be prepared with a ritzy home base. Good thing that X-Men villain Magneto has incredible home decorating sense in addition to his man-killing ingenuity.
For a time, the Master of Magnetism utilized an extraterrestrial rock and fashioned it into his own Earth-orbitting headquarters, Asteroid M. In addition to sheltering the metal manipulator himself, Asteroid M played house to his nefarious Acolytes, a pack of like-minded human haters that regrettably included the heroic Colossus at one point.
BRAINIAC'S STARSHIP: It's one thing to plan all of your villainous operations from a floating apparatus. It's another thing entirely to shape that apparatus after your own visage. Brainiac, one of Superman's most dangerous foes, did just that in the recent "Brainiac" arc in Geoff Johns' "Action Comics" run last year, flying around in a spaceship that eerily resembled his own ugly mug.
Seriously, we're surprised he didn't name the thing "Faceiac," though he probably used that giant noggin' of his to come up with something infinitely cleverer than anything we at Splash Page would offer. Lousy space punk.
DISHONORABLE MENTION - HEAVEN: As God's Holy Kingdom, Heaven is the host of an extraordinary amount of characters throughout the comic book kingdom, most notably in Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's "Preacher." Still, while it might have been a cool visual and storytelling device for us readers, this version of Heaven was anything but paradise for the characters in the comic book.
Dangerous holy infant with the power to mimic God's word? Check. Said infant escaping from high security, Angel-guarded prison block? Check. Unearthly colt magnum bullets lodged into God's cowardly form? Also check. On second thought, we'll take our chances in Hell.
Did we miss any floating headquarters that you can think of? Give us your alternate picks in the comments section!
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