Saturday 30 March 2019
The Best Superman in the Best Superman Costume
Here's a picture I did of my favourite actor to play the Man of Steel wearing my favourite Superman costume - the Grant Morrison/Rags Morales Action Comics costume.
Friday 15 March 2019
The Science of Obscure Superheroes
Recently I gave a talk for the Reading branch of the British Science Association on the subject of the science of superheroes. It's a subject that's been covered a great deal elsewhere and so I wanted to approach it from a different angle. I decided to focus on the science behind some lesser known superheroes. I chose to discuss The Whizzer, Chunk, Matter Eater Lad, and the Red Bee. I looked at their powers and origin stories and tried to find parallels in real world science. I've adapted my talk into a four part article.
Here are links to all four parts, and also the "reading list" I made for attendees of the talk.
Here are links to all four parts, and also the "reading list" I made for attendees of the talk.
The Science of Obscure Superheroes Part One: The Whizzer
Here are the illustrations I created for the talk:
The Science of Obscure Superheroes: Reading List
Recently I gave a talk for the Reading branch of the British Science Association on the subject of the science of superheroes. It's a subject that's been covered a great deal elsewhere and so I wanted to approach it from a different angle. I decided to focus on the science behind some lesser known superheroes. I chose to discuss The Whizzer, Chunk, Matter Eater Lad, and the Red Bee. I looked at their powers and origin stories and tried to find parallels in real world science. I also created a list of some of my favourite comics featuring these characters, alongside a list of some of my favourite, vaguely science related comics.
Here are some comics where you’ll find some of the characters from these articles:
These 1950s tales feature Superboy’s first adventures with his teenage pals in the futuristic Legion of Superheroes. These stories are endearingly daft and charming, but most importantly this collection features the first appearance of Matter Eater Lad!
Superman and the Legion of Superheroes
By Geoff Johns and Gary Frank
While Matter Eater Lad doesn’t appear in this comic, his pals in the Legion of Superheroes do. The lesser known heroes of the Legion of Substitute Heroes also make an appearance. Superman gets transported to the 31st Century and he must reunite his childhood friends in order to fight space Nazis!!!
Animal Man Vol. 1
Animal Man Vol. 2: Origin of the Species
Animal Man Vol. 3 Deus Ex Machina
By Grant Morrison and various artists
During Grant Morrison’s run on Animal Man in the 80s, Animal Man gave up superheroing and began to focus on animal rights activism instead. As he did so he became one of the first superheroes to realize the truth of his existence - that he is actually a comic character living in a two-dimensional world. Along the way he encounters some pretty obscure superheroes, including B’wana Beast, Merryman, and our pal the Red Bee!
Avengers Epic Collection: The Final Threat
By Gerry Conway, Jim Shooter, and various artists
Marvel fun from the 1970s. The Whizzer pops up to help the Avengers fight his villainous son, Nuklo! This collection also features appearances from Doctor Doom, Ultron, and Infinity War baddie Thanos! It also features some fantastic art from comics legends George Perez, Jim Starlin, and John Byrne.
Flash (1987) #9-11
By Mike Baron, Jackson Guice, Mike Collins, and Larry Mahlstedt
The first story to feature Chunk! These comics have never been collected to my knowledge but you’re likely to find them for quite cheap on ebay or in the bargain bin of a comics shop and they’re well worth hunting around for.
Flash: Rogues
By Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, and Doug Hazlewood
Chunk gets shot in the first story in this collection, and Flash must prevent all of Keystone City from getting sucked into his old friend. Then Flash battles a bunch of villains from his extensive rogue’s gallery, including Captain Cold, Fallout, and Gorilla Grodd!
Here are some science related comics you might like:
Concrete, Vol. 1: Depths
By Paul Chadwick
Ron Lithgow gets his brain transplanted into a giant, alien, concrete body and tries to make a life for himself as an explorer and a writer. The interesting thing about Concrete is that aside from Concrete himself and the aliens who give him his body (who are never seen again after the first issue) there are no other sci-fi aspects to this comic. The ramifications of life in a giant concrete body are explored by applying real world physics, and conveyed through some stunning art from creator Paul Chadwick.
Action Comics Vol. 1: Superman and the Men of Steel
Action Comics Vol. 2: Bulletproof
Action Comics Vol. 3: At The End Of Days
By Grant Morrison and various artists
Grant Morrison combines the feel of the original 1930s Superman comics by Siegel and Shuster with his own mind bending cosmic concepts. Superman battles a menace from the fifth dimension and Morrison realizes this threat in a fascinating way. Just as a fork from our three dimensional world might “attack” a two dimensional piece of paper at several different points simultaneously, Superman is attacked at several different points in his life simultaneously by his fifth dimensional foe.
Ministry of Space
By Warren Ellis and Chris Weston
The murky, real life origins of the American space programme are used as an inspiration for this alternate history, where Britain got to all the Nazi rocket scientists after World War II instead of the Yanks.
Invincible Iron Man Vol. 2: World's Most Wanted Book 1
Invincible Iron Man Vol. 3: World's Most Wanted Book 2
By Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca
Iron Man has always been one of the most science-y superheroes and this is one of his very best stories. The Green Goblin has taken over SHIELD and Tony Stark is on the run. Tony uploads a computer virus into his own brain to erase all his secrets and keep them out of the Goblin’s hands. He must evade capture until the virus has done its work. But how can he stay one step ahead while he’s gradually losing his greatest weapon – his mind?
Tom Strong: Book 1
By Alan Moore, Chris Sprouse, Alan Gordon
Tom Strong inhabits a fantastic world that’s more Jules Verne than Stan Lee. He isn’t a superhero, he’s “science-hero”! Raised on a remote West Indian island by his scientist father in a high gravity chamber that made him super strong, Tom Strong was educated to genius level. He now uses his mental and physical perfection to fight such science themed foes as the Modular Man, Ingrid Weiss and her flying Nazi girls, and even an invasion from a universe where the Aztec civilization survived and became Earth’s dominant culture.
Here are some comics where you’ll find some of the characters from these articles:
Legion of Super-Heroes The Silver Age Vol. 1
By Various
By Various
These 1950s tales feature Superboy’s first adventures with his teenage pals in the futuristic Legion of Superheroes. These stories are endearingly daft and charming, but most importantly this collection features the first appearance of Matter Eater Lad!
Superman and the Legion of Superheroes
By Geoff Johns and Gary Frank
While Matter Eater Lad doesn’t appear in this comic, his pals in the Legion of Superheroes do. The lesser known heroes of the Legion of Substitute Heroes also make an appearance. Superman gets transported to the 31st Century and he must reunite his childhood friends in order to fight space Nazis!!!
Animal Man Vol. 1
Animal Man Vol. 2: Origin of the Species
Animal Man Vol. 3 Deus Ex Machina
By Grant Morrison and various artists
During Grant Morrison’s run on Animal Man in the 80s, Animal Man gave up superheroing and began to focus on animal rights activism instead. As he did so he became one of the first superheroes to realize the truth of his existence - that he is actually a comic character living in a two-dimensional world. Along the way he encounters some pretty obscure superheroes, including B’wana Beast, Merryman, and our pal the Red Bee!
Avengers Epic Collection: The Final Threat
By Gerry Conway, Jim Shooter, and various artists
Marvel fun from the 1970s. The Whizzer pops up to help the Avengers fight his villainous son, Nuklo! This collection also features appearances from Doctor Doom, Ultron, and Infinity War baddie Thanos! It also features some fantastic art from comics legends George Perez, Jim Starlin, and John Byrne.
Flash (1987) #9-11
By Mike Baron, Jackson Guice, Mike Collins, and Larry Mahlstedt
The first story to feature Chunk! These comics have never been collected to my knowledge but you’re likely to find them for quite cheap on ebay or in the bargain bin of a comics shop and they’re well worth hunting around for.
Flash: Rogues
By Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, and Doug Hazlewood
Chunk gets shot in the first story in this collection, and Flash must prevent all of Keystone City from getting sucked into his old friend. Then Flash battles a bunch of villains from his extensive rogue’s gallery, including Captain Cold, Fallout, and Gorilla Grodd!
Here are some science related comics you might like:
Concrete, Vol. 1: Depths
By Paul Chadwick
Ron Lithgow gets his brain transplanted into a giant, alien, concrete body and tries to make a life for himself as an explorer and a writer. The interesting thing about Concrete is that aside from Concrete himself and the aliens who give him his body (who are never seen again after the first issue) there are no other sci-fi aspects to this comic. The ramifications of life in a giant concrete body are explored by applying real world physics, and conveyed through some stunning art from creator Paul Chadwick.
Action Comics Vol. 1: Superman and the Men of Steel
Action Comics Vol. 2: Bulletproof
Action Comics Vol. 3: At The End Of Days
By Grant Morrison and various artists
Grant Morrison combines the feel of the original 1930s Superman comics by Siegel and Shuster with his own mind bending cosmic concepts. Superman battles a menace from the fifth dimension and Morrison realizes this threat in a fascinating way. Just as a fork from our three dimensional world might “attack” a two dimensional piece of paper at several different points simultaneously, Superman is attacked at several different points in his life simultaneously by his fifth dimensional foe.
Ministry of Space
By Warren Ellis and Chris Weston
The murky, real life origins of the American space programme are used as an inspiration for this alternate history, where Britain got to all the Nazi rocket scientists after World War II instead of the Yanks.
Invincible Iron Man Vol. 2: World's Most Wanted Book 1
Invincible Iron Man Vol. 3: World's Most Wanted Book 2
By Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca
Iron Man has always been one of the most science-y superheroes and this is one of his very best stories. The Green Goblin has taken over SHIELD and Tony Stark is on the run. Tony uploads a computer virus into his own brain to erase all his secrets and keep them out of the Goblin’s hands. He must evade capture until the virus has done its work. But how can he stay one step ahead while he’s gradually losing his greatest weapon – his mind?
Tom Strong: Book 1
By Alan Moore, Chris Sprouse, Alan Gordon
Tom Strong inhabits a fantastic world that’s more Jules Verne than Stan Lee. He isn’t a superhero, he’s “science-hero”! Raised on a remote West Indian island by his scientist father in a high gravity chamber that made him super strong, Tom Strong was educated to genius level. He now uses his mental and physical perfection to fight such science themed foes as the Modular Man, Ingrid Weiss and her flying Nazi girls, and even an invasion from a universe where the Aztec civilization survived and became Earth’s dominant culture.
The Science of Obscure Superheroes Part Four: The Red Bee
Recently I gave a talk for the Reading branch of the British Science Association on the subject of the science of superheroes. It's a subject that's been covered a great deal elsewhere and so I wanted to approach it from a different angle. I decided to focus on the science behind some lesser known superheroes. I chose to discuss The Whizzer, Chunk, Matter Eater Lad, and the Red Bee. I looked at their powers and origin stories and tried to find parallels in real world science. I've adapted my talk into a four part article. This part is about The Red Bee.
Click here to read part one!
Click here to read part two!
Click here to read part three!
Click here for the Reading List!
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_bee#Supersedure
Many thanks to insect experts Jade Hailes and Antonia Forster.
The Red Bee
first appeared in Hit Comics #1 (1940). His name is Richard Raleigh, an
assistant district attorney who decides to dress up in a puffy shirt and fight
crime using bees! Red Bee uses lots of trained bees to fight Nazis and
gangsters, but his favourite bee is called Michael. Michael lives in Red Bee’s
hollow belt buckle and will only come out for special missions. The character
starred in 24 issues of Hit Comics before fading into obscurity. He was brought
back in the pages of All Star Squadron in the early ‘80s, only to be killed off
straight away.
 |
| Rick Hoberg |
Let’s talk
about Michael. Surely bees hang about together in huge swarms and inhabit
hives - they don’t sit on their own in some bloke’s belt buckle? Well, there are in
fact certain types of bees that do prefer a solitary existence. For example,
there is a type of bee found in the UK called Osmia bicornis, or more commonly,
the red mason bee!
 |
| Steven Falk |
Red mason
bees are usually found in gardens and parks. They nest in existing holes or
cavities, such as mortar joints, window frames, or dead wood, and prefer holes
in sunny south facing locations. It’s not a massive stretch to believe that
Richard Raleigh could have tempted such a bee into his belt buckle, provided he
was thrusting his hips towards the sun.
Michael is
probably a female, as male mason bees
tend to hang around the nests where they first hatched from their cocoon,
waiting to have sex, before dying soon after the deed is done. That’s very much
what the kids call a “big mood” for me.
When the
females have chosen a place to make their nest they harvest mud which they use
to seal up their nest cells, allowing their young to safely develop, keeping
them warm over winter. Red Bee’s belt
buckle would probably be full of mud.
Once
Michael has been released from her mucky belt buckle, she may be more useful in
distracting criminals than actually hurting them. Red mason bees don’t sting
unless they’re threatened. The venom in a female red mason bee’s sting is
similar to the venom of a honeybee sting, but the red mason bee sting contains
fewer barbs than that of a honeybee. This could explain why the red mason bee’s
sting does not penetrate human skin.
While
Michael wouldn’t make much of a weapon, the Red Bee’s other bees could
potentially be a tenacious foe for any criminal that crossed their path. Africanised “killer” bees from Central America
have been known to chase a person into water and then patiently wait for them
to resurface before stinging them. These bees can recognise the chemical scent
of the breath of their target as air bubbles break the surface of the water.
 |
| The Telegraph |
Honeybees
in the UK are less aggressive but are still known to be pretty tenacious. In
2016 a grandmother from West Wales returned from her shopping to find a swarm
of over 20,000 bees covering the back of her car. She called some local
beekeepers, who were able to remove the bees and she returned home. Over 24
hours later, outside her home she found the bees had returned to the car! The
beekeepers theorised that the queen bee may have become trapped somewhere in
the car.
So bees
could potentially be an effective weapon against anyone who provoked them, but
how could the Red Bee control them? How could he make sure the bees attacked
the gangsters and not him? Smoke can be used to make bees docile, but dopey
bees might not be much use in the war against crime. Is there an alternative?
The answer
is smells!
A queen bee
secretes a combination of chemical scents in order to communicate with the
worker bees. The queen’s scent can help control swarming, it can inhibit the
development of ovaries in the worker bees, and it can tell the workers whether
a queen has mated or not. The queen’s scent can also give workers the cue to
gather around the queen and form her own little entourage, or retinue to look
after her.
In 2007
researchers in the University of Otago found that a queen bee can manipulate worker
bee’s behaviour by releasing a pheromone that blocks aversive learning in young
bees. This means that the queen can stop her offspring from learning from bad
experiences. This is necessary because being exposed to a chemical scent that
stops you from growing ovaries can be pretty unpleasant for a worker bee. By
preventing the young bees from developing aversive memories against her odour
the queen is ensuring that they will continue to tend her. Basically, she
smells bad but she makes the other bees forget how bad she smells.
If The Red
Bee could harness these chemical scents, perhaps he could use them to convince
a colony of bees that he was their queen! If they ever decided that they didn’t
like the life of a crime fighter, he could make them forget that decision! A
real life Red Bee would perhaps be, not a man in a domino mask and a puffy
shirt, but a stinky, insect drag queen, armed with water pistols full of bee
sweat!
But being a
queen bee is not all it’s cracked up to be. When a queen bee gets too old to
give off the right smells they are replaced by the workers in a procedure known
as "supersedure". The workers rear a replacement queen and when the
new one is ready the workers will kill the old one in a gruesome fashion. The
workers cluster tightly around her, “balling” her until she becomes so hot she
dies.
If the Red Bee is a man who would be queen he must ensure he never runs
out of scent, lest he is balled to death by his insect minions!
Click here to read part one!
Click here to read part two!
Click here for the Reading List!
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_bee#Supersedure
Many thanks to insect experts Jade Hailes and Antonia Forster.
Thursday 14 March 2019
The Science of Obscure Superheroes Part Three: Matter Eater Lad
Recently I gave a talk for the Reading branch of the British Science Association on the subject of the science of superheroes. It's a subject that's been covered a great deal elsewhere and so I wanted to approach it from a different angle. I decided to focus on the science behind some lesser known superheroes. I chose to discuss The Whizzer, Chunk, Matter Eater Lad, and the Red Bee. I looked at their powers and origin stories and tried to find parallels in real world science. I've adapted my talk into a four part article. This part is about Matter Eater Lad.
Matter
Eater Lad first appeared in Adventure Comics #303 (1962). In the 30th Century,
Tenzil Kem was sent from the planet Bismoll to represent his home world in the
Legion of Superheroes. On Bismoll microbes had made all food inedible, and so
the Bismollians evolved the ability to eat all matter. Matter Eater Lad can eat
any amount of any substance at super-speed. Writers have struggled to find
anything for Matter Eater Lad to do over the years – there’s only so many times
you can have a character escape a cage by eating the bars. As a result he is
often written out of the stories by being drafted into his home planet’s
political system. It’s a literal case of “I have to go now, my planet needs me!”
When I
first started to consider how Tenzil’s powers might work in real life I thought
I might find the answers with goats! Like a lot of people I was under the
impression that goats could eat the shirt off your back if they wanted to.
Could Matter Eater Lad be a kind of human goat?
In actual
fact, no he couldn’t be. The idea that goats can eat anything is a myth. Goats
are in fact incredibly picky eaters. The idea that they’ll eat anything comes
from the fact they are browsers. They will root through their potential meals
to find whatever they think will give them the most nutrition, even if it means
digging around in rubbish. A goat may well rip the shirt off your back and have
a chew on it but they would probably spit it out after a while once they’d decided
there was no goodness to be had from it.
Matter
Eater Lad may not be a goat-man, but there is another member of the animal
kingdom who echoes his abilities.
Crocodilians,
a group which includes alligators and crocodile, are far from picky eaters. Crocodiles
eat fish, amphibians, crustaceans, molluscs, birds, reptiles, and mammals, and even
smaller crocodiles. Certain types of crocodile have been known to eat, sharks,
wild boar, big cats, elephants, and hippos. Young alligators and crocodiles
have been observed eating up to 23% of their bodyweight in the lab in just one
sitting. That’s like a 70 kilogram (or 11 stone) person eating a 17 kilogram
(or 3 stone) turkey in one meal. There have even been seeds found in their poo,
suggesting that they also eat fruit! They can and will eat anything and they
don’t leave leftovers. If you're feeling particularly brave type "Crocodile eating" into Youtube for some examples.
Crocodiles have
evolved sharp teeth for piercing and holding onto flesh, and powerful muscles
to close the jaws and hold them shut. They have the strongest bite of any
animal. But it’s their hearts and their stomachs that really make them such
successful eaters.
Crocodiles
have the most acidic stomach of any vertebrate. It can close off a part of its
heart on the right side and use a part of its heart on the left side to flush
blood loaded with carbon dioxide from its muscles directly to its stomach. This
makes its blood supply extra acidic, which in turn makes it much easier for the
stomach lining to secrete more stomach acid to quickly dissolve a lot of flesh
and bone.
Crocodiles’
stomachs are also divided up into two sections. The first section is a muscular
pocket where the crocodiles keep any rocks that they might eat. All the hard
bits of their prey tend to remain in this area of the stomach for a few days at
a time. Once the bones are thoroughly crushed, they transfer over to the next
section of the stomach to finish up the digestion process. This process,
combined with the acidity of the stomach, means that every single part of the
crocodiles’ prey gets digested, including bones, horns, scales and hooves.
Matter
Eater Lad could well be a sort of grotesque crocodile-man, if he actually
existed. It’s worth remembering though, since crocodiles get so much from their
prey, they don’t need to eat as often as other animals. Crocodiles usually eat
about once a week, although they have been known, in extreme situations, to live
off their own tissue for up to three years. If Matter Eater Lad was a human
crocodile, you’d have to hope that he hadn’t eaten recently if you expected him
to free you from a cage by eating the bars. Or on second thoughts maybe it
would be better if he had eaten recently, just in case you started to look
particularly tasty to him.
References:
Wednesday 13 March 2019
The Science of Obscure Superheroes Part Two: Chunk
Recently I gave a talk for the Reading branch of the British Science Association on the subject of the science of superheroes. It's a subject that's been covered a great deal elsewhere and so I wanted to approach it from a different angle. I decided to focus on the science behind some lesser known superheroes. I chose to discuss The Whizzer, Chunk, Matter Eater Lad, and the Red Bee. I looked at their powers and origin stories and tried to find parallels in real world science. I've adapted my talk into a four part article. This part is about Chunk.
First appearing in Flash #9 (1988), Chester Runk was a scientist who created a matter transmitting machine. The first time Runk activated the machine it imploded and he became merged with it. Runk was now Chunk, the human black hole! Chunk has the ability to teleport objects and people into another universe – a dead universe! He needs to continue feeding himself 47 times his own mass in dense materials to avoid permanently imploding into that dead universe.
When the Flash first encountered him, Chunk was a villain, stealing diamonds to prevent himself from imploding, and trapping anyone who offended him in the dead universe. These included his therapist, a woman who turned him down for a date, a man who had cut him off in his car, and even a man whose shirt Chunk had taken a dislike to.
Eventually Chunk released his captives and became good friends with the Flash. Chunk started a waste disposal business and became a millionaire. He was a regular member of the Flash’s supporting cast for a while until the writers lost interest in him and just stopped mentioning him.
But what would a human black hole actually be like?
A black hole is a great amount of matter packed into a very small area. The result is a gravitational field so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. Scientists can’t see black holes but they can see how the strong gravity affects the stars and gas around the black hole. Also, when a black hole and a star are close together, high-energy light is made. This kind of light cannot be seen with human eyes. Scientists use satellites and space telescopes to see this light.
Black holes can be big or small. Scientists think the smallest black holes are as small as just one atom but have the mass of a large mountain. So theoretically Chunk could carry a black hole around inside him, but he’d have to be pretty damn strong to move about.
Another kind of black hole is called "stellar." Its mass can be up to 20 times more than the mass of the sun. Stellar black holes are made when the centre of a very big star collapses. When this happens, it causes a supernova - an exploding star that blasts part of the star into space.
Chunk is depicted as a kind of big, walking Hoover, sucking people and objects into himself, but in actual fact objects have to get fairly close to a black hole to get sucked in. For example, if our sun was suddenly replaced by a black hole of similar mass, the planets would still continue to orbit as normal, they’d just be really cold and dark.
In order to get sucked into a black hole you would have to pass the event horizon – the point at which escape becomes impossible, even for light! So if Chunk was a particularly powerful human black hole he would look more like a huge sphere of darkness, waddling around the place. This sphere would be surrounded by a flattened band of spinning matter called an accretion disc. An accretion disc is material, such as gas, dust and other stellar debris that has come close to a black hole but not quite fallen into it.
Due to the extreme gravity around a black hole, an object in its gravitational field experiences a slowing down of time, relative to observers outside the field. This is known as gravitational time dilation. A distant observer would see an object falling into a black hole appear to slow down and fade, approaching but never quite reaching the event horizon. Finally, at a point just before it reaches the event horizon, it becomes so dim that it can no longer be seen. Perhaps Chunk would be surrounded by fading statues?
Once you were past the event horizon it’s really brown trousers time. The Flash could probably escape the event horizon as he can move faster than light, but you wouldn’t be so fortunate. You’d get torn apart as you were sucked towards the singularity, your body getting stretched and squeezed at the same time. This process is known as spaghettification. A singularity is the centre of a black hole, where the gravitational field becomes infinite! Chunk has been described as a living singularity. When you reached the singularity, you’d be crushed to infinite density and your mass would be added to the total of the black hole.
But that’s only true of certain kinds of black holes. There are other kinds of black holes, charged, or rotating black holes, where it would be theoretically possible to avoid the singularity and pass through a wormhole into a different part of spacetime! We’re now talking about Einstein-Rosen bridges, and these might seem familiar if you’ve seen Thor Ragnarok!
Yes, Chunk could be a walking Devil’s Anus!
According to Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity a massive object like a star, creates a distortion in the surface of spacetime that we experience as gravity. Imagine putting a bowling ball in the centre of a trampoline. The ball would press down into the fabric, causing a dip. A marble rolled around the edge would spiral inward toward the bowling ball, pulled in much the same way that the gravity of a planet pulls at rocks in space. According to Einstein and Nathan Rosen, if an object has an even greater mass, like a black hole for example, it could great a "dip" so great that it creates a pathway to another part of space time! A shortcut or wormhole across time and space!
If Chunk’s mass created an Einstein Rosen bridge, maybe it would be possible for him to transport people and objects somewhere else, although it would be to another time and place in our universe rather than to a dead universe. Of course, anything that entered his event horizon would still be spaghettified, so Flash would be left with the gruesome task of retrieving the noodle shaped remains of Chunk's victims from another part of spacetime!
Click here to read part four!
When the Flash first encountered him, Chunk was a villain, stealing diamonds to prevent himself from imploding, and trapping anyone who offended him in the dead universe. These included his therapist, a woman who turned him down for a date, a man who had cut him off in his car, and even a man whose shirt Chunk had taken a dislike to.
 |
| Mike Collins & Larry Mahlstedt |
But what would a human black hole actually be like?
A black hole is a great amount of matter packed into a very small area. The result is a gravitational field so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. Scientists can’t see black holes but they can see how the strong gravity affects the stars and gas around the black hole. Also, when a black hole and a star are close together, high-energy light is made. This kind of light cannot be seen with human eyes. Scientists use satellites and space telescopes to see this light.
Black holes can be big or small. Scientists think the smallest black holes are as small as just one atom but have the mass of a large mountain. So theoretically Chunk could carry a black hole around inside him, but he’d have to be pretty damn strong to move about.
Another kind of black hole is called "stellar." Its mass can be up to 20 times more than the mass of the sun. Stellar black holes are made when the centre of a very big star collapses. When this happens, it causes a supernova - an exploding star that blasts part of the star into space.
 |
| Brian Bolland |
In order to get sucked into a black hole you would have to pass the event horizon – the point at which escape becomes impossible, even for light! So if Chunk was a particularly powerful human black hole he would look more like a huge sphere of darkness, waddling around the place. This sphere would be surrounded by a flattened band of spinning matter called an accretion disc. An accretion disc is material, such as gas, dust and other stellar debris that has come close to a black hole but not quite fallen into it.
Due to the extreme gravity around a black hole, an object in its gravitational field experiences a slowing down of time, relative to observers outside the field. This is known as gravitational time dilation. A distant observer would see an object falling into a black hole appear to slow down and fade, approaching but never quite reaching the event horizon. Finally, at a point just before it reaches the event horizon, it becomes so dim that it can no longer be seen. Perhaps Chunk would be surrounded by fading statues?
Once you were past the event horizon it’s really brown trousers time. The Flash could probably escape the event horizon as he can move faster than light, but you wouldn’t be so fortunate. You’d get torn apart as you were sucked towards the singularity, your body getting stretched and squeezed at the same time. This process is known as spaghettification. A singularity is the centre of a black hole, where the gravitational field becomes infinite! Chunk has been described as a living singularity. When you reached the singularity, you’d be crushed to infinite density and your mass would be added to the total of the black hole.
But that’s only true of certain kinds of black holes. There are other kinds of black holes, charged, or rotating black holes, where it would be theoretically possible to avoid the singularity and pass through a wormhole into a different part of spacetime! We’re now talking about Einstein-Rosen bridges, and these might seem familiar if you’ve seen Thor Ragnarok!
Yes, Chunk could be a walking Devil’s Anus!
According to Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity a massive object like a star, creates a distortion in the surface of spacetime that we experience as gravity. Imagine putting a bowling ball in the centre of a trampoline. The ball would press down into the fabric, causing a dip. A marble rolled around the edge would spiral inward toward the bowling ball, pulled in much the same way that the gravity of a planet pulls at rocks in space. According to Einstein and Nathan Rosen, if an object has an even greater mass, like a black hole for example, it could great a "dip" so great that it creates a pathway to another part of space time! A shortcut or wormhole across time and space!
If Chunk’s mass created an Einstein Rosen bridge, maybe it would be possible for him to transport people and objects somewhere else, although it would be to another time and place in our universe rather than to a dead universe. Of course, anything that entered his event horizon would still be spaghettified, so Flash would be left with the gruesome task of retrieving the noodle shaped remains of Chunk's victims from another part of spacetime!
Click here to read part four!
References:
Many thanks to astrophysics experts Lee Pullen and Aimae Wood.
Tuesday 12 March 2019
The Science of Obscure Superheroes Part One: The Whizzer
Recently I gave a talk for the Reading branch of the British Science Association on the subject of the science of superheroes. It's a subject that's been covered a great deal elsewhere and so I wanted to approach it from a different angle. I decided to focus on the science behind some lesser known superheroes. I chose to discuss The Whizzer, Chunk, Matter Eater Lad, and the Red Bee. I looked at their powers and origin stories and tried to find parallels in real world science. I've adapted my talk into a four part article. This part is about The Whizzer.
In the 1940s, The Whizzer was Timely Comics' super-fast answer to The Flash. He first appeared in USA Comics #1 (1941). Robert Frank was bitten by a cobra while on a trip to Africa with his father, Dr. Emil Frank. To save Robert’s life, Emil did what any caring responsible, scientist dad would do. He transfused the blood of a mongoose into his son’s body. Luckily this granted Robert the gift of super speed! He found he could run at speeds of up to 100mph, create cyclones by running in circles, and could run up walls and across water. He of course, used these gifts to fight crime.
If the Whizzer sounds familiar to you it may be because a version of the character appeared in the second season of Jessica Jones. This Robert Frank was radically different from his comic book counterpart, although Netflix provided a little nod to his roots, by giving him a pet mongoose.
Robert Frank was the subject of xenotransfusion - the transfer of blood from one species into the veins of another. But how plausible is the idea that humans can take on the characteristics of animals through the transfusion of their blood? Well, very plausible, if you happen to be a scientist from the 17th Century.
On June 15th 1667 a French physician named Jean-Baptiste Denys performed the first documented blood transfusion on a human. Denys bled a feverish 15 year old boy with leeches before treating him with a transfusion of lamb’s blood. The idea was that the calm, gentle nature of the lamb would be transferred to the boy. The boy survived, although this was probably only because Denys had transfused so little of the lamb’s blood into him. Denys had further success performing the same experiment again on a butcher. It wasn’t until he performed it on a third subject that he got into trouble.
Antoine Mauroy was a mentally ill man, well known in Paris for terrifying the locals with his antics. Denys and his colleagues thought they might be able to cure Mauroy by replacing his “bad” blood with the “pure” blood of a calf. Mauroy was picked up off the street and forced to take part in the experiment against his will. Denys performed the experiment in the presence of a group of rich aristocrats whose hobbies included witnessing new and risky scientific procedures. The experiment was performed a second time and appeared to actually have a positive effect on Mauroy. According to science writer Pete Moore, there was a reason for Mauroy’s positive reaction to the transfusion that was peculiar to him. He had syphilis.
Mauroy’s white blood cells attacked the unfamiliar blood in much the same way as they would attack a disease. This caused a raging fever. Fever is a known treatment of tertiary syphilis. Two and a half centuries later, Julius Wagner-Jauregg would receive the Nobel Prize for treating syphilis by deliberately infecting patients with malaria. Denys had accidentally treated Mauroy’s syphilis!
After the second transfusion Mauroy went back to his debauched ways. His wife begged Denys to perform the procedure again, which he did. This time Mauroy died and Denys found himself on trial for murder.
You might be thinking “Serves the silly bugger right! This is what happens when you go injecting people full of cow’s blood”. But it wasn’t as cut and dried as it might have first seemed. It was later found that Mauroy had actually died of arsenic poisoning. Denys was let off the hook, and Mauroy’s wife was found guilty of poisoning his soup. It would seem that, in a plot worthy of Columbo, Mrs Mauroy had grown tired of her husband’s debauched antics and saw Denys’s experiments as a convenient scapegoat for his murder! Other historians have argued that Mrs Mauroy herself was a scapegoat and that enemies of the experiment murdered Mauroy in a successful effort to get the icky and ungodly practice of blood transfusion banned in Europe. Either way, it just goes to show that if you are going to practice risky, untested medical procedures then make sure you’re not performing them on a complete prat who everybody's trying to kill.
These days we know a lot more about the risks of blood transfusion. We know that even humans are not universally transfusion-compatible. Humans are divided into blood groups that determine who can receive blood from whom without suffering a severe immune reaction that can be fatal. That’s because our immune system senses molecules on the surface of red blood cells and reacts aggressively to red blood cells that don’t have the right kind of surface molecules. This is why when we receive blood transfusions our blood group has to match the donor blood. Our blood must have the same kind of surface molecules on its red blood cells as the cells in the donor blood.
These blood groups are not just limited to humans. They are also found in our close relatives in the animal kingdom, especially other primates. Theoretically you could receive a blood transfusion from a gorilla or a chimpanzee, if you shared the same blood group. You might wonder why we aren’t all getting monkey blood on the NHS. Well, there are still minor differences between the blood of humans, and apes, and we don’t know what effects these differences would have. Also, great apes are endangered and they’re not exactly easy to come by.
So, is there an animal alternative? And is it a mongoose!?
Xenotransfusion research is currently focusing on pigs rather than apes, and it’s not just because there’s bloody loads of pigs around the place. Pig’s blood is quite similar to human blood. Our red blood cells are about the same size and have the same life span as a pig’s red blood cells. There are other similarities too, such as the structure of the haemoglobin – the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout the body.
Pigs could also be genetically modified to produce red blood cells that are equivalent to human type O negative. O Negative blood cells are called “universal” meaning they can be transfused to almost any patient in need. O Negative blood is what patients are given when they need an emergency transfusion and there’s no time to figure out the patient’s blood type.
You might be asking yourself “Yeah, but what about the poor pigs?” Rest assured that if we were to use pigs for blood transfusions there would be no need for them to come to any harm. Only 10% of the pig’s blood volume would be used each time, leaving the pig in need of nothing more than a biscuit and lie down.
Due to the fact that kind humans are still willing to donate blood, and also due to advances in both the storing of blood and in getting what we need from it, it’s unlikely that any of us will be receiving pig’s blood transfusions any time soon. Even if we did however, the process unfortunately would not grant us the strength, speed, and agility of a pig.
Click here to read part two!
Click here to read part three!
Click here to read part four!
Click here for the Reading List!
Click here to read part three!
Click here to read part four!
Click here for the Reading List!
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