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Juggling Jesus on a unicycle, look at that thing! It's what happened to your He-Man figures if you left them unattended in the same room with your little brother and his Play-Doh. ("They were attacked by Poop-man!") It looks like something straight out of a comic book, because that's precisely what it is: A sticky foam-like substance was first seen on the pages of legendary British comic 2000 A.D., where none other than Judge Dredd used "riot foam" to ensnare rowdy citizens. When you look for non-violent means of crowd control, the question you need to ask is always: "What would the nearest fictional ultra-militant law enforcement officer do?"

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Of course, the main problem with the original sticky foam was not its comic book roots -- it was flat-out useless. People could move their legs faster than they could be sprayed with the stuff, so the only way the foam had any stopping power was if a sufficient glob managed to glue a person's thighs together. (Yes, this presumably meant they had to deliberately aim for the dick.) Combined with the obvious concerns re: extended immobility and risk of suffocation, this has been enough to keep sticky foam off the backs of whoever happens to annoy the military this week.

Still, don't think for a second that they've completely abandoned the sticky stuff. If anything, they're thinking bigger. The current plan is to use a slightly upgraded version of the foam for stopping vehicles, and also there's this fucking thing: