Et tu, Reed?
The Fantastic Four got their powers back in ‘61. Reed Richards had built an experimental rocket. His former college roommate, Ben Grimm, was slated to pilot it. Over Ben’s objections that there hadn’t been adequate research into the effects of cosmic rays, they made an unauthorized launch to be sure to beat the Russkies to the moon. For no adequately explained reason, Reed’s fiancee, Sue Storm, and her little brother Johnny tagged along.
The cosmic rays wreaked havoc with the flight, and they crashed back to the Earth. In short order, they found that Reed had stretching powers; Johnny could burst into flames; Sue could turn invisible; Ben became a super-strong monster with orange rocky skin. (“What super-power did you get, Charlie Brown?” “I got a rock.”) Inevitably, they fight crime.
Now, despite the whole cosmic rays blunder, Reed is basically the smartest person and greatest scientist in the world.
J. Michael Straczynski, of Babylon 5 fame, has been writing the FF lately. In JMS’ first storyline, Reed was challenged with this question: Why did the cosmic rays affect them all differently?
Well, for starters, they were all physically different — different ages, masses, genetics. Each was in a different position in the ship. Cosmic rays is a catch-all term for a large number of different kinds of energetic particles. To at least a minuscule degree, they were probably exposed to different levels of different kinds of cosmic rays.
But did Reed even consider any of these?
No. He immediately decided that the only logical conclusion was that someone had been trying to send them a message.
That’s right, the greatest scientist in the world went in for Intelligent Design.
I don't really have a history with superhero comics, but I bought the collected Spider-Man story that JMS wrote on a friend's recommendation. I liked it well enough -- some bits felt clunky, others inspired, and the art (not JMS's fault) was uneven -- so I'm curious about this other project. How's the overall quality?
It's hard to know quite how to interpret ascientific thought in a world that is essentially ascientific itself. Superhero comics (modulo my small sample size) seem receptive to characters sufficiently advanced (or strange) as to approximate gods and spirits. I don't know if the FF universe is one of those that explicitly includes supernatural effects (as distinct from "cosmic ray" handwaving), but if so, it seems reasonable that such a history of observations might lead a great scientist to a hypothesis that is not strictly natural.
Unlike in our world, in which there's pretty much no excuse.
Posted by Dan P on December 12 2005 10:33