Sometimes, the “Science” Makes My Head Hurt
Scene from Ultimate Origins #1. Script by Brian Michael Bendis, art by Butch Guice
The scientist in this scene — and Bendis, by extension — have just enough knowledge of biology to get almost everything painfully wrong. Let me just hit the highlights — feel free to chime in with your own thoughts (the full scene can be found here).
1. Genomes and genes are two different things; they are not interchangeable terms. A genome is a set of an organism’s genetic material. A gene is a sequence of DNA that codes for a particular protein or product.
2. Genealogy is a different field of study.
3. There is no official “pure strain” human genome used as a standard — each person is a little different genetically from every other person** — who’s to say who is “normal” and who is a “mutant”?
4. He seems to be suggesting the there is a single mutant gene that has variable expression (this last point isn’t about an error in the scene, just an interesting observation).
**Except maybe identical twins.
June 19th, 2008 at 12:35 am
I think it’s long been explained that the “X-Factor” gene is different for every person. And actually seems to activate depending on external stimulus – a person who gets set on fire, their mutation may be to actually control fire due to the stress of being on fire and the fire itself.
That’s how I always read it.
June 19th, 2008 at 3:32 am
The trouble with science in comics is when you try and explain some of the ridiculous things they have. Better to talk about it off-screen than to try and explain it in detail.
A platypus has ten sets of chromosones (XYXYXYXYXY), so maybe Wolverine’s is actually a human cross platypus.
June 19th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Andy Duncan – this is actually from the “Ultimate Universe” line, where they’re trying to put a veneer of “realism” over the whole “superhero” theme. Personally, I think they’re better off with “a wizard did it” as an explanation 99% of the time, and panels like this just confirm that feeling for me.
I do like how “genealogy” slipped through the editing here, though. Reading that line as “This is what we have made from Mister Howlett’s study of family history’ made me chuckle. Now I feel like writing a story where a rogue genealogist rampages through the countryside using his terrible knowledge of archival research techniques for criminal enterprise…
June 19th, 2008 at 9:55 am
I think that Beast (in 616/mainstream continuity) has said that “Mutancy” is a poly-gene thing. Like some forms of Type 2 diabetes.
June 19th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Official Comment
Multiple genes, or different genes for different people, makes the most sense to me, but apparently Bendis is going for a the single-gene theory (and for the record, so is DC with there “meta-gene”)
June 19th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Huh, I read the image and the dialogue as saying that Wolverine has a different genome, making him, and all mutants, a different species than human beings.
Which would be an improvement over the single gene causes all mutants, which IS the explanation in “mainstream” continuity, and which I hate.
June 19th, 2008 at 10:57 am
I thought maybe the “geneaology” bit meant “we went back in time, and manipulated his family’s history specifically to breed him like this.”
June 19th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Marvel mutant genetics have always been kooky, even above and beyond the normal comic book science.. Even in the original continuity, they’d describe mutants as a separate species from normal human beings one moment, then in the next talk about them interbreeding with humans or mutants who have normal babies.
June 20th, 2008 at 11:33 am
In recent years, Marvel have gotten a bit better about taxonomical matters, calling mutants “homo sapiens superior” rather than just “homo superior.”
As to how the single x-gene could produce the ridiculous variety seen in comics, well, I have a completely lunatic theory that I spent waaaayyyy too much time on.
June 21st, 2008 at 8:29 pm
The genealogy thing is priceless. I never knew that “genealogy” meant “mess of genes in this guy over here.”
June 22nd, 2008 at 8:04 pm
My take on the x-factor in Marvel U, is that it’s an activator or power supply for mutant abilities but it’s the details of the person’s genetic make up or physiology that determine what those abilities will be. Of course that doesn;t really explain why there seems to be so many odd coincidences between a mutant’s powers and his or her personality or what they (or the writer) needed at the point in the story where their powers manifest.
June 23rd, 2008 at 7:56 am
> Steven
> Which would be an improvement over the single gene
> causes all mutants, which IS the explanation in
> “mainstream” continuity, and which I hate.
Actually, in House of M #2, Beast explains that it isn’t just one gene, but a whole bunch of strands of DNA wrapped together. So the mainstream/616 explanation is that it is a polygene thing.
July 9th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
As a lay person, the thing that struck me as the weirdest thing was that they suggested that mutants were cooked up in the Weapon X facility. They call Wolverine Mutant Zero, implying that he’s the source from which all mutants spring.
It just seems weird. And, if Weapon X cooked up mutants in the first place, why would they be capturing them in that arc of Ultimate X-Men?
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