The Monstrefact Omnibus: More Marvel Heroes
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This is an iHeart Podcast. You know what's great about your investment account with the big guys? It's actually a time machine. Log in and Zoom. Welcome back to 1999.

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There are places where science and mystery collide, and Skinwalker Ranch might be the most compelling. In the new season of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch on the History Channel, a team of scientists and engineers uncovers a mysterious material buried inside the mesa, one that doesn't occur naturally. This isn't just legend. It's real data, physical evidence that challenges everything we know about geology, physics, and maybe even reality itself.

How deep does the truth go? Find out on The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch. New episode Tuesday at 8, 7 central. Only on the History Channel. Today's episode is brought to you by USPS. I know, I know you've got your shipping game on lock. But did you know with USPS Ground Advantage service, it's like your shipment has a direct line to you.

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Check out USPS Ground Advantage service at USPS.com slash in the know. Because if you know, you know. Hey there, Joel here. And I am Matt. We are from the How to Money podcast. Matt, summer is here. I could not be more excited for our annual family beach getaway together, my friend. Oh, heck yeah. I'm excited as well. This year, we are taking our families on a joint vacation to St. Simons. This is off the coast of Georgia. That's right. The Atlantic coast. And we found an awesome Airbnb. That's perfect for us.

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Hi, my name is Robert Lamb, and I'm back with another omnibus episode of The Monster Fact, collecting the four most recent Marvel Comics-themed episodes all rolled up into a single convenient package. Up first, let's consider the terrifying Man-Thing. Let us return to the pages of Marvel Comics to consider a true monster, Man-Thing. It's not to be confused with DC's Swamp-Thing.

but he stands as something of his spiritual twin sibling. So both Man-Thing and Swamp-Thing are hybrid swamp-based humanoids created through an explosive collision of humanity, mad science, and swamp water.

Both characters hit the comics for the first time in 1971. However, most commentators seem to see it merely as coincidence and point to various differences in the characters. Plus, Marvel's walking swamp creature, the Heap, predates both of them, dating back to the early 1940s, as does the muck monster It from Street and Smith comics. Still, these various swamp beings become linked.

They have a kinship. And you'll even find a panel in Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run visually suggesting kinship between Swamp Thing, Man-Thing, The Heap, and others. But I've already talked about Swamp Thing on The Monster Fact, so let's get serious about Man-Thing.

As pointed out by Kelly Knox in the book " Creatures of the Marvel Universe," Man-Thing started off as a human scientist named Ted Salus. Now, like a lot of Marvel comic book scientists, Ted worked on super soldier serums, at least until enemies tried to take it from him. Ted then injected himself with the serum and accidentally wrecked his car in the Everglades and was also exposed to extra-dimensional forces in the process.

So what emerged from the swamp was neither man nor thing, but Man-Thing, a humanoid swamp creature that would become the guardian of the nexus of reality where science and magic converge. Man-Thing boasts incredible strength and can throw down with the toughest of physical opponents, but some of his most impressive powers are due to his empathy.

Man-Thing is so empathic that negative emotions in others can cause him physical pain and distress, especially when he senses fear. This will also cause him to lash out violently at individuals in the throes of fear and lay his burning hands upon them.

Man-Thing's burning hands are a fascinating superpower, brought to life most wonderfully in the 2022 MCU Werewolf by Night special, which captures it as a kind of holy fire that incinerates Ted's victims.

On one level, this seems to be just another version of various magical tales in which creatures feed off of fear or sense fear in others as if it is an actual energy or a quantifiable substance. Man-Thing's abilities, however, are frequently explained in terms of chemistry.

Knox attributes his burning touch to chemicals in Man-Thing's body, and Sumarek and Wallace in Marvel Anatomy, the authors here presume that this chemical secretion is something akin to sulfuric acid, that it's excreted through Man-Thing's pores.

I suppose we might compare this ability to the self-defensive secretions of various natural world organisms. And given Man-Thing's plant-based physiology, we have to acknowledge that certain plants do secrete acidic substances through their roots, in some cases to dissolve rocky soil, and in other cases to eradicate competition. But what about this notion that a monster like Man-Thing, or even a natural world organism, can "sense fear"?

It's a common trope, but is there anything to it? Certainly there is no true sixth sense for fear in which humans or other animals can tap into an otherwise invisible video game fear meter. Fear, like other human-defined emotional states, is hard to quantify in animals and subject to human testing bias.

As Ralph Adolphs discussed in the 2013 Current Biology article, "The Biology of Fear," some argue that fear is a mere psychological construct and something we can't apply to animals as we cannot truly know their minds. On the other hand, neuroimaging in rodents would seem to reveal a clear fear network in their brains.

Adolfs stressed a distinction to be made between the conscious human feeling of being afraid and fear as a functional state of an organism. This state exists in relation to fear-inducing stimuli, which for humans at least can be in the present, past, or an imagined future, and induces fearful behavior. Fear in both cognition and behavior is largely adaptive, and it's because fear can help us survive.

Though, of course, all of this can become maladaptive as well. Now, Man-Thing's relation to fear is interesting in light of all of this. He acutely fears the effects of another organism's fear, but the source of his own emotional distress in this scenario is not the fear-inducing stimuli that caused the original distress, but the distressed organism itself, which he may then incinerate with his burning hands due to a fear-response chemical secretion in his own body.

So there's a lot to unpack there, but hey, still a pretty great swamp monster, and I'm always down for a cool swamp monster. All right, let's insert a fresh quarter into the 1992 X-Men arcade machine and tag in Colossus. I've been plowing through old episodes of The X-Men, the animated series from the 90s with my son, in anticipation of eventually diving into the X-Men 97 series.

This show is a lot of fun, packs a lot of nostalgia for me, and leads to some interesting conversations with my son about the various themes. Some of our favorite characters include Rogue and Wolverine, but Colossus is always a treat as well. If you're not familiar with this particular mutant, we're talking about Russian X-Man Peter Rasputin, an already intimidatingly muscular man who is able, at will, to assume an impenetrable steel form.

Sometimes, as in his Marvel.com profile, Colossus' transformation is said to convert his entire body into an organic steel-like substance. Other times, the transformation is interpreted as something that occurs only at the dermal level, so only at the skin level.

Either way, the transformation generally looks as if a segmented stainless steel coating flows over his entire body. We're going to approach it here as a dermal transformation because the idea of a full body transformation leaves us less room to wonder over the scientific details of the feet.

But just the idea alone has always been a captivating one. Because here is Peter Rasputin, a powerful but peaceful man who would far rather pursue art than conflict, but who, for the greater good, can literally grow the thickest, most impenetrable skin imaginable to throw down against adversity. For Colossus, this might mean the grasping tentacles of Omega Red, always a favorite of mine, or the machinations of the Shadow King.

Once the threat is dealt with, Peter reverts to his normal form and continues on in his peaceful, creative pursuits. Lynn Ween and Dave Cockrum created Colossus back in 1975, and he remains a popular character to this day. So how might we think about Colossus from a scientific and biological standpoint?

Turning once more to Marvel Anatomy by Mark Sumerak and Daniel Wallace, the authors here discuss his ability in terms of a transmutation of his dermal layers or skin into an organic steel, with his underlying body retaining its flesh and blood form.

Their explanation details a process by which each individual skin cell draws on metallic extra-dimensional mass to become an activated organic steel cell. So, in other words, each cell of Colossus' dermal layer coats itself in biological metallic material, and this translates into the transformation of the entire epidermis.

but at the cellular level. Thus, his mobility is not compromised and his already incredible baseline strength no doubt helps out as well.

Now, by this explanation, we may not be dealing exactly with something like steel shutters from nowhere flowing over his entire body, but that metallic cellular coating has to come from somewhere if we're to adhere to the law of conservation of mass. And the answer they provide is that the ability draws on another spatial dimension. That's where the metal comes from. And okay, that works for me.

Now, I also ran across an excellent 2018 paper in the journal Advances in Physiology Education titled The Physiology of Impenetrable Skin, Colossus of the X-Men by Barry W. Fitzgerald.

His whole point is that Colossus is a great example of how a fictional character can promote multidisciplinary scientific discussion in a classroom. Now, I'm not going to summarize everything Fitzgerald has to say, but he makes some great points about Colossus and thermoregulation. Basically, we have to think about what human skin does for the body and how that might be impacted by a shift into a steel form.

One key area of concern is thermoregulation of body temperature, which the skin plays a role in via such responses as vasodilation, vasoconstriction, and of course, sweating. Can Colossus' steel skin do any of this? Well, the author here contends that his body's ability to thermoregulate would be severely impacted.

via this steel or organic steel or otherwise metal coating. And specifically during a heated battle, he would simply overheat. It wouldn't be much good battling the juggernaut if he passes out from overheating just a few minutes into the struggle.

Fitzgerald isn't here to yuck everyone's yum, though, with science. He presents a possible path forward. Perhaps, he says, Colossus' organic steel skin is actually graphene due to its protective capability and its biocompatibility. It's carbon, after all, like we are, and it's super thin, consisting of a single layer of atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice nanostructure.

This biographene honeycomb lattice layer hypothesis would therefore solve a number of the key problems with Peter's mutant power, from thermoregulation to mass conservation. The layer would swiftly form via protein folding and self-assembly, and bam, Colossus is ready for action.

I highly recommend checking out Fitzgerald's paper here if the topic interests you in or out of the classroom. Because hey, presumably Colossus is headed back into theaters and back into action this summer in the next Deadpool movie. So it's a perfect time to embrace both science and mutant powers.

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There are places on Earth where science and mystery collide, and Skinwalker Ranch is one of the most fascinating examples. In the newest season of the History Channel's The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, the

The team, made up of experienced scientists and engineers, is literally digging into the unknown to get to the bottom of a mysterious material discovered inside the mesa. This goes far beyond folklore. We're talking actual physical evidence that defies everything we know about geology, physics, maybe even reality itself.

If you're drawn to the edges of scientific discovery beyond the world of what we think we know, this season is going to fascinate you. Just how deep does the truth lie? Find out on The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch. New episode Tuesday at 8, 7 central. Only on the History Channel. Today's episode is brought to you by USPS.

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Next, let's consider a deeper cut with Puff Adder.

I recently picked up a kind of ragged copy of the official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Master Edition from, I believe, 1990, though this also might have been a reprint from years later. I'm not entirely certain, but it's filled with various Marvel characters, from the famous to the obscure, each with profile data and standardized character illustrations in this kind of glorious retro style.

Amid all the capes and tights, and there are a lot of tights, there are some gloriously weird entries in the book. There's the spiky-faced skeleton man Terror Ink with his ability to steal limbs and attach them to his own body.

I was also fascinated by Quasimodo, or Quasimotivational Destruct Organism. He is a super-powered cyborg hunchback, and presumably he's quite motivational. But in this episode, I want to focus in on the villain Pothacker, real name Gordo Fraley, and apparently a native of Atlanta.

Physically, he appears to be a very large, muscular man in a snake costume. He is a mutant in the Marvel comics with the ability to engorge his entire epidermis with blood, thus making himself appear more powerful and menacing.

Now, he's already a very capable fighter with enhanced strength, but it's curious that his mutant ability doesn't seem to actually boost his fighting power in the way that many other mutant powers do. Instead, it just allows him to better bluff and better intimidate. Oh, and he also has another weapon, a noxious gas canister in the mouth-like cowl of his snake mask.

His namesake is, of course, the puff adder snake. Consisting of several species native to Africa and parts of the Saudi Arabian Peninsula, the snake in question is able to puff itself up to look larger as a predator deterrent, and it does this by inflating its body with air and then hissing loudly.

And like the Marvel character, the snake can also back up that threat. It packs a powerful venomous bite and the force of its strikes alone is enough to kill small prey. Various natural world creatures make themselves look bigger as a defensive or mating display. Some via posturing or the manipulation of fur or feathers, while others actually inflate tissues with air, water, or blood.

These actions also frequently enhance the colors or patterns of such a display as well. While Gordo's mutant ability may appear at first to buck the general theme we see in comic book superpowers, it's certainly in keeping with actual real-world evolved adaptations.

there is a survival advantage in not actually having to fight a predator or competitor. And the same holds true with not having to fight every X-Man or Avenger you encounter on the pages of Marvel Comics. And finally, let's comb the powerful scarlet locks of Medusa. Unstuck to blow your mind, we've discussed the mythical Gorgon Medusa at length.

But today, I want to look at the character with the same name from the Marvel Comics universe. This Medusa is an inhuman, a branch of Homo sapiens descended from experiments conducted on primitive humans by the alien Kree to give them various emergent powers. While other inhumans boast devastating offensive powers or highly augmented physiologies, Medusa's power is all about her long red hair.

which she can extend to double its normal six foot length and most remarkably of all control each strand as if it were a highly prehensile arm or tentacle.

She can cause her scarlet locks to bundle together into reinforcing strands and accomplish everything from minor tool manipulation to intense physical combat with other super-powered individuals. Now, as the excellent book Marvel Anatomy by Mark Sumerak and Daniel Wallace, with illustrations by Jonah Loeb,

points out, Medusa's hair is just normal hair. It's perhaps fuller and longer than most human heads of hair, but its prehensile power stems not from its internal structure, which is just the standard cross-linked keratin protein filament, but from her own powerful psionic abilities. Yes, she has telekinesis, but can only control her own hair.

And that's no slight against Medusa here. Think about it. The average human head, according to Harvard's Bionumbers website, consists of between 90,000 and 150,000 individual hairs. And we might position her at the upper end of that spectrum, even allotting for thicker hair shafts, as Sumerak and Wallace suggest.

Even being rather conservative, let's say she's using her brain to minutely control 100,000 strands of hair as if they were 100,000 additional arms.

Assuming that her psionic powers emerge primarily through neural tissue, her brain is putting in quite a lot of work here, in addition to controlling her human limbs, of course. Remember that an octopus, in order to control its own sophisticated system of grasping arms, depends in part on intramuscular nerve cords that act as sort of mini-brains to provide partially independent action.

So perhaps Medusa as well benefits from something akin to this. We might well assume her telekinetic powers rival those of Sentry or even those of the mighty Jean Grey, only much more localized in range. But if telekinetic hair strand control is a heavy lift, what about the actual physical lift of picking up various objects and even superheroes with her telekinetically manipulated hair?

This question is a good bit easier to nail down as we know exactly how strong human hair is. As Tim Radford pointed out in a 2004 article for The Guardian, Secrets of Human Hair Unlocked at Natural History Museum in London, a single human hair strand can only sustain a weight of 100 grams or 3 ounces. But when hair is woven together, it can sustain much more. A fact that hair hanger aerialists have long exploited.

In fact, if all the strands of hair on a typical human head were woven together, the resulting megabraid could hold 12 metric tons, or the weight of two elephants. So the idea of Medusa coiling her braids and holding, say, Iron Man in place isn't that far-fetched, at least from a material standpoint.

Interestingly enough, in the comics, as queen of the Inhumans, Medusa's greatest strength is perhaps her diplomatic abilities. A reminder that while super-powered hair can move around superheroes, a well-placed word can move mountains. Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster Fact, The Artifact, or Animalia Stupendium each week. As always, you can email us at contact at stufftobeloyourmind.com.

Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Today's episode is brought to you by Avis. Let's face it, with travel come curveballs. From flight delays to lost luggage, they put even the best laid plans at risk. Thank goodness for Avis. With them, you know your rental car will come through and your plans are protected at all costs.

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And here we have a specimen from the early 2000s, a legacy investing platform. Please don't touch the exhibit, folks. It could crash. Ready to step out of the financial history museum? At public.com, you can invest in almost everything, stocks, bonds, options, and more. You could even put your cash to work at an industry-leading 4.1% APY.

Leave your clunky, outdated platform behind. Go to public.com and fund your account in five minutes or less. Paid for by Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA, and SIPC. Full disclosures at public.com slash disclosures.

There are places where science and mystery collide, and Skinwalker Ranch might be the most compelling. In the new season of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch on the History Channel, a team of scientists and engineers uncovers a mysterious material buried inside the mesa, one that doesn't occur naturally. This isn't just legend. It's real data, physical evidence that challenges everything we know about geology, physics, and maybe even reality itself.

How deep does the truth go? Find out on The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch. New episode Tuesday at 8, 7 central. Only on the History Channel. Today's episode is brought to you by USPS. I know, I know you've got your shipping game on lock. But did you know with USPS Ground Advantage service, it's like your shipment has a direct line to you.

You're in the loop the whole time. It leaves the dock, you know about it. It's on the road, boom, you know. And when it reaches your customer, you guessed it, you're in the know again. Here's the real game changer. It's one journey, one partner, total peace of mind. Check out USPS Ground Advantage service at usps.com slash in the know. Because if you know, you know. This is an iHeart Podcast.