Sound the alarms: That French hoverboard supervillain has crossed the English Channel
Over the past few weeks, we’ve covered the remarkable story of a supervillain’s origin story as it’s developed in real time. Beginning on Bastille Day, an inventor, former jet-skiing champion, and French military reservist named Franky Zapata announced himself to the world by grabbing a rifle, mounting up on a hoverboard, and flying above the people of Paris like some great levitating sci-fi demon. More recently, he tried to cross the English Channel on his board, but fell into the ocean halfway across. We took solace in the fact that Zapata, like a number of continental armies throughout history, was unable to land on British soil on this previous attempt. And yet yesterday, he made the flight again and, god help us all, pulled off the crossing.
As Reuters reports, Zapata’s trip from Sangatte, France to Saint Margaret Bay, Britain took a little over 20 minutes. The mid-point refuelling process that caused the last attempt’s failure went well this time, allowing the world to see that, yes, people can now invade other nations on a hoverboard device that France’s armed forces minister previously told The Guardian could be used in future as “a flying logistical platform or, indeed, as an assault platform.”