Weapon

A weapon, arm, or armament is any device used with intent to inflict damage or harm to living beings, structures, or systems. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as crime, law enforcement, self-defense, and warfare. In a broader context, weapons may be construed to include anything used to gain a strategic, material or mental advantage over an adversary.

While just about any ordinary objects such as sticks, stones, cars, or pencils can be used as weapons, many are expressly designed for the purpose – ranging from simple implements such as clubs, swords and guns, and to complicated modern intercontinental ballistic missiles, biological and cyberweapons.

History

Prehistoric

The use of objects as weapons has been observed among chimpanzees, leading to speculation that early hominids first began to use weapons as early as five million years ago. However, this can not be confirmed using physical evidence because wooden clubs, spears, and unshaped stones would not have left an unambiguous record. The earliest unambiguous weapons to be found are the Schöninger Speere: eight wooden throwing spears dated as being more than 300,000 years old. At the site of Nataruk in Turkana, Kenya, numerous human skeletons dating to 10,000 years ago have major traumatic injuries to the head, neck, ribs, knees and hands, including obsidian projectiles still embedded in the bones, that would have been caused by arrows and clubs in the context of conflict between two hunter-gatherer groups.

Fruit Ninja

Fruit Ninja is a video game developed by Halfbrick Studios in Brisbane, Australia. It was released April 21, 2010 for iPod Touch and iPhone devices, July 12, 2010 for the iPad, September 17, 2010 for Android OS devices. It was released for Windows Phone on December 22, 2010. Also, in March 2011, versions for Samsung's Bada and Nokia's Symbian began to be distributed on their respective official application channels. Just prior to E3 2011 Fruit Ninja Kinect was released for the Xbox 360 on August 10, 2011 and utilizes the Kinect peripheral. Fruit Ninja was also released for Windows 8 on June 7, 2012. Versions with alternative names exist, such as Fruit Ninja HD on the iPad, Fruit Ninja THD for Nvidia Tegra 2-based Android devices, and an arcade version called Fruit Ninja FX. In the game the player must slice fruit that is thrown into the air by swiping the device's touch screen with their finger(s) or in the case of the Xbox 360 version, the player's arms and hands. It features multiple gameplay modes, leaderboards and multiplayer.

Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat is a video game franchise originally developed by Midway Games' Chicago studio in 1992. Following Midway's bankruptcy, the Mortal Kombat development team was acquired by Warner Bros. and turned into NetherRealm Studios. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment currently owns the rights of the franchise and rebooted it in 2011.

The development of the first game was originally based on an idea that Ed Boon and John Tobias had of making a video game starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, but as that idea fell through, a fantasy-themed fighting game titled Mortal Kombat was created instead. The original game has spawned many sequels and has been spun off into several action-adventure games, films (animated and live-action with its own sequel), and television series (animated and live-action). Other spin-offs include comic book series, a card game and a live-action tour. Along with Capcom's Street Fighter and Bandai Namco's Tekken, Mortal Kombat has become one of the most successful fighting franchises in the history of video games.

Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character is a warrior princess of the Amazons (which are based on the Amazons of Greek mythology) and is known in her homeland as Princess Diana of Themyscira. When outside her homeland, she is sometimes known by the secret identity Diana Prince. She is gifted with a wide range of superhuman powers and superior combat and battle skills. She possesses an arsenal of weapons, including the Lasso of Truth, a pair of indestructible bracelets, a tiara which serves as a projectile, and (in older stories) a range of devices based on Amazon technology.

Wonder Woman was created by the American psychologist and writer William Moulton Marston. The character first appeared in All Star Comics #8 in December 1941 and first cover-dated on Sensation Comics #1, January 1942. The Wonder Woman title has been published by DC Comics almost continuously except for a brief hiatus in 1986. Her depiction as a heroine fighting for justice, love, peace, and gender equality has led to Wonder Woman being widely considered a feminist icon. Created during World War II, the character was initially depicted fighting Axis military forces as well as an assortment of colorful supervillains, although over time her stories came to place greater emphasis on characters, deities, and monsters from Greek mythology. In the decades since her debut, Wonder Woman has gained a formidable cast of enemies bent on eliminating the Amazon, including classic villains such as Ares, Cheetah, Circe, Doctor Psycho, and Giganta, along with more recent adversaries such as the First Born. Wonder Woman has also regularly appeared in comic books featuring the superhero teams Justice Society (from 1941) and Justice League (from 1960).

Justice League

The Justice League, also known as the Justice League of America, is a fictional superhero team appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The Justice League was conceived by writer Gardner Fox, and first appeared in The Brave and the Bold #28 (Feb.-March 1960).

The team is an assemblage of superheroes who join together as the Justice League. The seven original members were Aquaman, Batman, the Flash, Green Lantern, the Martian Manhunter, Superman, and Wonder Woman and the team roster has rotated throughout the years, consisting of many superheroes from the DC Universe.

The Justice League received its own comic book title called Justice League of America in October 1960. With the 2011 relaunch of its titles, DC Comics released a second volume of Justice League and in 2015 released a fourth volume of Justice League of America, both of which are currently in print. Since its inception, the team has been featured in various television programs and video games.

Background