Polite Dissent

This week’s example of a super power-related nose bleed actually has a logical basis in anatomy and physiology. (I know; I’m shocked too.) The scene in question comes from the recent Outsiders Annual #1 (Judd Winick and Scott McDaniels), where the team attempts to bust Black Lightning out of Iron Heights prison. They accidentally start a prison riot, which Warden Gregory Wolfe uses his super-powers to quell.

You’ll notice that several of Warden Wolfe’s victims are bleeding from the mouth. The warden has the super power to make muscles tense up and spasm. A sudden contraction of the jaw muscle could cause a severely bitten tongue and bleeding from the mouth. This doesn’t explain the nosebleed, though as there are no nasal muscles to spasm and cause a nosebleed. On the other hand, if most of the muscles throughout the body were contracted at once, this would lead to an increase in vascular resistance, and a subsequent rise in blood pressure. (If the warden’s powers can affect vascular smooth muscle, the rise in blood pressure would be even worse.) This high blood pressure could be enough to cause the nosebleeds. You would also expect to see an increase in the number of heart attacks and strokes as the blood pressure increased. This may explain the scene at the end of the fight when the warden totally unleashes his powers, killing dozens. Those deaths were probably caused by heart attacks from the incredibly high blood pressure (or the deaths could have been due to a severe spasm of the heart muscle, if the warden’s powers can affect the heart directly).

Final Thought: Shift tries to counter the muscle spasms by creating “a massive gas wave of high-octane muscle relaxant — calcium and magnesium.” While it’s true that certain magnesium compounds have muscle relaxant properties, and calcium ions are involved in muscle contraction and relaxation, I wouldn’t consider them particularly potent muscle relaxants. There’s also the chemistry to consider. Magnesium doesn’t readily become a gas at anything close to room temperature — its boiling point is nearly 2000d F (just over 1000d C). It’s also highly flammable — not a good idea in a firefight.

All previous Psychic and Super-Power Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed outsiders