Miss Rogue, Your CT Scan Is Back. Would You Have Any Idea What This Internal Organ Is?
I want to know what kind of vitamins Magneto takes! They must be good vitamins because his powers increase movie-by-movie. In the first "X-Men" flick, Magneto could control ferrous metals within about 100 feet. Captured at the movie's end, he was imprisoned in a plastic cell reached by a 100-foot plastic bridge; the guards in the watch-room beyond the bridge were using metal, but Magneto's powers did not reach that far. In the second X flick, Magneto was able to snatch the crippled, plummeting X Jet out of the air and save it; the plane started decelerating hundreds of feet above the ground, indicating Magneto has increased his range. In the third movie, this summer's "The Last Stand," Magneto was able to levitate the entire 4,200-foot main span of the Golden Gate Bridge. Set aside what the main span of the Golden Gate Bridge must weigh -- it's nearly a mile long, meaning Magneto can project his power a much greater distance than previously. You can check the Golden Gate Bridge's live webcam to see if any mutant armies are crossing.
The X-Men movies have been the most entertaining Hollywood superhero stuff in years. In order to rationalize another sequel, I will even swallow everyone coming back to life, though coming-back-to-life is sci-fi's worst cliché. Obviously X III sets up Professor Xavier coming back to life. My guess is everyone comes back. Immediately after the movie my 11-year-old, Spenser, pointed out Logan never found Scott's body, just his glasses, while if Jean Grey is more powerful than Professor X and the Prof. could teleport his consciousness an instant before physical death, why couldn't Jean teleport hers too? The Last Stand was the abbreviated title for movie posters. The full title was Don't Worry News Corporation Shareholders, There Is No Way This Actually Is the Last Stand.
Of course, one must suspend disbelief when it comes to superheroes. But what TMQ always wonders about X-Men, Superman, the Flash and the rest is: Where are the body organs that support their powers? I'm willing to believe a superhero can fly, but where is the organ that provides propulsion? Supposedly Earth's yellow star activated in Kal-El powers that he would not have had under the red sun of Krypton. But still, some internal organ must produce the energy for his heat vision and the thrust for his flying and so on. In "Superman Returns," Supe can even fly faster than light, a power he lacked in the comics; apparently some organ too small to even bulge under his skin propels him to warp speed. Really, there must be some physical point of origin for a superhero's power. Storm must have a body organ that projects force fields that control weather. Iceman must have a body organ that can reduce temperature very rapidly, plus shed heat so Bobby doesn't boil. Where in their physiques are these organs?
Beyond that, the X-Men premise defies scientific thinking about natural selection, which holds that new organs develop very slowly across hundreds of generations. Assume some body organ can allow Shadowcat to walk through walls or Colossus to change his skin to steel: it's unimaginable such an organ could arise de novo in a single mutation. Many generations of relatively minor mutations would be required before a novel body organ could come into full functionality. Biologists from Richard Goldschmidt of the early 20th century to Stephen Jay Gould of the late 20th have speculated there is an as-yet-undiscovered natural mechanism that enables accelerated evolution. Otherwise it's hard to imagine how creatures lived through long chains of generations with still-evolving incomplete organs, since incomplete organs should be a fitness disadvantage and thus render their possessors less likely to reproduce. Unless the X-Men are an argument for intelligent design! The intelligent-design crowd believes natural selection can produce minor alterations in existing forms but cannot produce new organs or new species; a higher intellect controls that. The sudden, drastic evolutionary jumps depicted in the X-Men movies and comics sure feel like intelligent design. In fact one of the most interesting X-Men, Nightcrawler, asserts that the very rapid evolution he and his friends experience could not occur naturally and must be the result of God intervening for reasons not yet known.
Left unresolved by X III is whether Mystique, played by the scrumptious Rebecca Romijn, was nude. In her blue mutant form, Mystique seemed to be wearing a blue thong bikini. But when Romijn lost her powers, her blue skin turned the Caucasian shade and she collapsed to the ground naked. Did her bikini lose its powers too? In another scene, Wolverine's shirt was torn by projectiles that ripped his flesh. His miraculous powers healed the flesh - when we saw Logan an instant later, his shirt looked brand new. Was he wearing a jerkin of self-healing wool made from mutant sheep?
X3 on DVD out Oct. 3. $18 regular edition, $26 special edition on J&R, only for first few days.
* that's Tuesday Morning Quarterback for you fellas at home
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