Gallery: From Elon Musk to MacGyver: The Tech Superheroes You Most Want to Be
01ff-musk3-f.jpg
Kids often dream of donning a mask and matching cape and flying out into the night to save the world using their awesome superpowers. Then adulthood — or perhaps just common sense — shatters most of our kickass dreams. But don’t give up. Just because you won’t be suiting up as the Hulk outside of Comic Con doesn’t mean you can’t go through life dressed up as his more normal alter ego, physicist Dr. Bruce Banner. Here are the superheroes of tech, both real and fictional, you told us on Facebook you most wanted to be. ### Elon Musk (Above) Elon Musk dreams as big as his comic book counterpart, Iron Man Tony Stark. He wants to [build an 80,000-person colony on Mars](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/11/elon-musk-mars-colony/), and when he’s not driving around in one of his electric Teslas, he’s trying to make space exploration more accessible for the common man. SpaceX, the company he started 10 years ago with that purpose in mind, launched the first private spacecraft into orbit in 2008 and, in 2012, became the first private company to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. He ultimately wants “to make life multiplanetary,” [Musk told former *Wired* editor-in-chief Chris Anderson](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/10/ff-elon-musk-qa). (If you want to be one of the first to join this superhero on the Red Planet, start filling your coffers. You’ll need to fork over [$500,000](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/autopia/2012/03/elon-musk-says-ticket-to-mars-will-cost-500000/).) *Photo: Art Streiber*
Jim Merithew02steve-jobs
### Steve Jobs Some say the late Steve Jobs had the ability to predict the future, giving his minions what they wanted before they even knew what that was. Arrogant and powerful, the Thor of Silicon Valley wielded almost absolute control over Apple. When designs didn’t please him, he unleashed verbal lightning and thunderstorms to get his way. *Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com*
03nikola-tesla
### Nikola Tesla Nikola Tesla has been dubbed the “[quintessential mad genius](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/07/july-9%E2%80%9310-1856-visionary-tesla-born-at-midnight/)” and “[electric Jesus](http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ef668caf14/drunk-history-vol-6-w-john-c-reilly-crispin-glover?rel=player),” but in the world of superheroes he would be Flash. He did calculus in his head, memorized entire tomes and often tinkered with his inventions in his head before physically building them. This gentle superhero gave the world the alternating current motor, the Tesla coil and radio. Not too shabby for a man who came to the U.S. with pennies in his pockets, and got the financial shaft from Thomas Edison and other business partners. Tesla also holds the patent for the first wirelessly controlled vehicle. In 1898, he showed off this battery-powered, radio-controlled robo-boat, of which [he said](http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_robots.html), “you see there the first of a race of robots, mechanical men which will do the laborious work of the human race.” *Photo: [Wikipedia / Napoleon Sarony](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tesla_aged_36.jpeg)*
BRIAN FINKE04mcafee-new-finke.jpg
### John McAffee No tech superhero seems to be livin’ la vida loca quite like John McAffee. Suspected of murder, the anti-virus guru had been hiding in the jungles of Belize since mid-November. He was recently detained in Guatemala, where he [jail-blogged](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/12/oops-did-vice-just-give-away-john-mcafees-location-with-this-photo/) until he was [hospitalized](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/12/how-vice-got-john-mcafee-caught/) for an apparent heart attack. In true superhero (or supervillain?) style, McAffee now says the heart attack was a ruse to get out of Guatemala. It worked, and now he’s contemplating movie rights to his latest adventure story in Miami. McAfee made his fame and fortune with McAfee Associates, one of the most popular makers of anti-virus software. [As Josh Davis reports](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/11/john-mcafee-last-stand-ebook/), McAfee gave away the first versions of his software for free through an electronic bulletin board he set up in his house. (Some say that was the birth of e-commerce.) When a victim needed help, he came to the rescue in his mobile “antivirus paramedic unit.” He sold his company to Intel for almost $8 billion in 2010 and moved to Belize, where things really got nuts. *Photo: Brian Finke*
05limor-fried
### Limor Fried Limor Fried is the maker of makers. Like the fictional [Angela Spica](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer_(comics)) of *The Authority*, she is super savvy with engineering and DIY hacks. She teaches others how to make Altoid-tin cellphone chargers, [Bedazzlers](http://www.ladyada.net/make/bedazzler/), [Drawdios](http://www.ladyada.net/make/drawdio/) and [brain machines](http://ladyada.net/make/brain/index.html) through her open-sourced DIY electronics company, Adafruit Industries, which she named after another tech heroine, [Ada Lovelace](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace). The company, which is helping to [revolutionize open source hardware](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/magazine/2011/03/ff_adafruit/all/), made [more than $4 million](http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/224403) in sales last year. Ladyada, as she calls herself, also has a cool sidekick, her kitty MOSFET, short for metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor. <object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,47,0" height="371" id="flashObj" width="660"><param name="movie" value="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1"></param><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"></param><param name="flashVars" value="videoId=853034375001&playerID=1813626064&playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAAF1BIQQ~,g5cZB_aGkYZXG-DCZXT7a-c4jcGaSdDQ&domain=embed&dynamicStreaming=true"></param><param name="base" value="http://admin.brightcove.com"></param><param name="seamlesstabbing" value="false"></param><param name="swLiveConnect" value="true"></param><embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashvars="videoId=853034375001&playerID=1813626064&playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAAF1BIQQ~,g5cZB_aGkYZXG-DCZXT7a-c4jcGaSdDQ&domain=embed&dynamicStreaming=true" height="436" name="flashObj" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" seamlesstabbing="false" src="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1" swliveconnect="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="404"></embed></object> *Photo: Andrew Tingle. Video: Wired*
06salman-khan
### Salman Khan Salman Khan is Silicon Valley’s Professor X, but with a full head of hair. In 2006, the MIT-minted computer-scientist-turned-hedge-fund-analyst started the non-profit [Khan Academy](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/magazine/2011/07/ff_khan) to turn every kid into a super-learner. The premise is simple: Students watch online videos about subjects like math, physics and organic chemistry and take quizzes about the material they’ve reviewed. Teachers can monitor their progress. To make all of this possible, Professor K has a small army of star coders working with him, including some [ex-Googlers and Facebookers](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/business/2012/06/khan-academy/). *Photo: Joe Pugliese/Wired*
Unknown07grace-hopper
### Grace Hopper Computer programmer and co-developer of the [Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL)](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/05/0528cobol-conference/) Grace Hopper was often called the Grand Lady of Software, Grandma COBOL and Amazing Grace, according to the [U.S. Navy Museums](http://www.history.navy.mil/bios/hopper_grace.htm#looking). Developed in 1959, COBOL was one of the first English-based computer languages, which made it more accessible than other languages of its time. By 1997, most businesses used COBOL. Hopper also had a hand in building A-0, the first computer compiler, and identifying the first computer bug in 1947. This superheroine of computer programming, who died in 1992, also served in the U.S. Navy and has a Navy destroyer and a supercomputer named after her. *Photo: [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Grace_Hopper_and_UNIVAC.jpg)*
08tony-stark
### Tony Stark Billionaire playboy turned DIY superhero Tony Stark uses his engineering know-how to fight bad guys. After being kidnapped, he hacked himself a battery-powered armor suit with a built-in magnetic field generator to help him escape. With his iron suit on, he’s able to defeat his abductors and return to running the family munitions business, Stark Industries. Still life wasn’t all super. Stark couldn’t live without the metal plate he had crafted for himself and couldn’t bear to tell his friends about his Iron Man alter ego. Stark powers through and survives homelessness, alcoholism, depression, a broken heart, identity theft by one of his very own Life Model Decoys, and even death. He was cryogenically preserved while scientists restored his nervous system. *Image: [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IronManV5No25.jpg).*
09batman-return1.jpg
### Bruce Wayne Bruce Wayne, Gotham City’s uber-wealthy playboy and real-estate heir, doubles as the Caped Crusader by night. Like the rest of us, Batman, Wayne’s alter ego, doesn’t have any superpowers. Instead, he uses his mental prowess to fight crime. Brains aren’t his only weapons. He gets some help from sidekicks Robin and his butler Alfred Pennyworth, plus his stash of bat-themed gadgets like his batarang and batgyro. He cruises land, sea and air in his batmobile, batboat, batplane, batsub and batcycle. Oh, and he lives above the Batcave, a pimped-out lair loaded with surveillance gear. *Image: [DC Comics](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/underwire/2011/02/review-batman-return-bruce-wayne/?pid=2634).*
10penny-and-inspector-gadget
### Penny and Inspector Gadget Clueless cyborg Inspector Gadget and his much more intelligent niece Penny are out to get the evil Dr. Claw with the aid of their pet partner Brain the Dog. Like most humans today, the Inspector has a variety of gadgets attached to his body, which he attempts to use to get himself out of trouble and fight crime. Like our real-world gadgets, his sometimes malfunction. Thanks to mobile devices and the development of [new bionic technologies](http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/346135/), we might one day turn into smarter, stealthier Inspector Gadgets. Wowsers! *Image: screen grab*
11dr-who
### Dr. Who Time Lord Dr. Who jet-sets through space and time in a TARDIS, a London-police-box-looking time machine that’s part KITT, part Dr. Emmett Brown’s DeLorean, minus the wheels. The Doctor has a crafty way of avoiding death: whole-body regeneration. When death comes knocking, his cells jumpstart cell division (unless he’s shot with an anti-regeneration gun, of course). His [sonic screwdriver](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_screwdriver), a multipurpose Scanadu-meets-Swiss-Army-knife-meets-wireless-surveillance gizmo, helps him pick locks, run medical scans, monitor aliens, and control other gadgets. *Illustration: Leo Espinosa*
122960
### MacGyver Secret agent and DIY professional troubleshooter MacGyver wielded only duct tape and a Swiss Army knife to fight crime. MacGyver was so good at hacking complex problems with commonplace items that his last name has been turned into a verb meaning “to use the seemingly useless trinkets and objects in your close vicinity together to accomplish an otherwise impossible task,” according to [Urban Dictionary](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=macgyvered).
