Art from the comic in question, RADIX
© Image Comics

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MIT steals ideas from a comic book

How's this for flattery. Comic book scribes Ray and Ben Lai, who created the comic book RADIX, had their ideas and even images swiped by none other than the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when a professor from the university took ideas from their book and put them in a proposal for a $50 million military grant to develop high-tech tanks.

The proposal was successful, and won MIT the chance to create new super-armor for the next generation of U.S. Army tanks. According to a wire report, the two comic book creators were afraid the military would classify the idea, thus taking away valuable ideas already incorporated into their book.

MIT has formally apologized to the duo, with Edwin L. Thomas, director of MIT's Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (how's that for a cool title) communicating to the Lai brothers, "If I had known it was your work, I would not have used it. MIT strongly supports the rights of creators and greatly regrets using the image without permission or credit. I am very sorry that this happened; it won't happen again."

No kidding.