Customer Reviews

The Science of Superheroes

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Perhaps movie director Kevin Smith said it best when he commented that it was a touch of the impossible that makes superheroes so appealing: "Nobody's built like superheroes are in the comics, women or men. If you were really as ripped as The Hulk, you couldn't leap from building to building -you'd barely be able to stretch enough to put on your socks."

Gresh and Weinberg address this and many other blatant impossibilities in an absorbing collection of real-world science lessons that dissect, piece by piece, some of the central plotlines of most superhero comic book stories. Beginning with the "is there intelligent life on other planets?" question that revolves around Superman's origins, the book points out the many and varied examples of "pseudo-science" and assorted technobabble that form many a backstory.

Each chapter begins with a well-known superhero's origins, along with a brief history of the storyline and developments along the course of that character's emergence as a popular genre icon. After this summary, a thorough (and merciless) scientific or technical debunking follows. The true nature of cosmic radiation and gamma radiation (the supposed genesis of Marvel's Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk) are explained. A brief history of the legend of Atlantis and some basic marine biology follows (erasing the likelihood of characters such as Aquaman and the Sub-Mariner). A lesson on arachnid physiology and behavior is examined, making Spider-Man's powers seem pretty far-fetched. A few fundamental premises about mass-energy conservation are reviewed, putting the idea of fifty-story giants or microbe-sized superheroes firmly outside the realm of believability, as well as the premise of high-speed heroes such as The Flash and The Avengers' Quicksilver.

Other elements of the superhero universe, however, are given a touch more credibility -the notion of containing the energies of a black hole is hypothesized, lending a faint respectability to the premise behind Green Lantern's abilities. Likewise the varied (and occasionally opposing) theories of human evolution and mutation are addressed, which at least provides some tangible groundwork to the recurring central theme of the X-Men. Of course some of the X-Men's individual superhuman powers remain strictly fictional, such as emitting high-energy plasma from one's eyes (Cyclops) or the ability to transform one's own skin into metal alloy (Colossus). Nonetheless some other gifts, most of which revolve around the phenomenon of psychokinesis (as with Storm) or telepathy (as with Professor X or his protégé, Jean Grey), are examined and a number of inadequately-explained medical cases presented.

In only one chapter do the authors relent and admit that one superhero premise is entirely possible in today's world: the story of Batman. Part of that particular title's long-lasting appeal has to do with the fact that its hero has no superhuman abilities -apart from his obsessive drive and lightning-fast powers of deductive reasoning. There is nothing substantially part of Bruce Wayne's night vigilantism that isn't truly beyond the realm of possibility. Even the once-fantastic miniature crimefighting devices attached to Batman's ubiquitous "utility belt" are today a fairly standard and unremarkable collection of equipment that could be found in any cop or detective's vest pocket or glove compartment ("buildering" cable, miniature camera, fingerprint kit, lockpick, smoke/gas capsule, oxyacetylene torch, infrared goggles, wireless surveillance gear, etc). To quote Kevin Smith again: "With a lifetime of training, you could be Batman. You'd need an assload of bank for the cool cave and the car, but you could do it if you were really committed."

The upshot of Gresh and Weinberg's collection of science refreshers isn't so much to let the wind out of the collective sails of comic book fans and superhero aficionados, so much as it is to reaffirm the superhero's unique position in contemporary culture. As with Star Wars, Harry Potter, and other popular fiction, our enjoyment of these amazing characters' exploits has little to do with scientific plausibility or how believable their powers are; it is something more primal that causes them to endure and reinvent themselves generation after generation. In the authors' words, "these are characters that we want to be real."

In "The Science of Superheroes" authors Lois H. Gresh and Robert Weinberg put together a full out assault on the willing suspension of disbelief that allows us to enjoy comic book superheroes from Superman to the X-Men. You probably knew in the back of your mind that the Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, Green Lantern, and Aquaman could never exist in the real world. Well you were right. But Gresh and Weinberg are here to explain to you in terms of science, which means that when it comes to proving that Henry Pym turning into Goliath would be a bad thing or that the Flash could not possibly run that fast, they actually do the math (at which point I nod my head and move on, because if you think I am going to double-check their calculations you are sadly mistaken).

After a preface that looks at how superhero comic books came about, an introduction by Dean Koontz entitled "Men of Steel, Feathers of Fury," Gresh and Weinberg devote chapters to the cream of the superhero crop. First up, of course, is Superman, which spends a lot of time examining the math on alien visitors before disproving the idea that the difference in the gravity on Krypton and Earth accounts for Superman's powers (I wonder what they make of the current living solar battery idea). Chapters are then devoted to the Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk, Batman, Aquaman and Sub-Mariner, Spider-Man, the Green Lanterns, Ant Man and the Atom, the Flash, the X-Men, science fiction superheroes, and Donald Duck. The last chapter is actually an encomium to Carl Barks, who used science and technology during the golden age of Disney comics.

I picked up this book because I teach Spider-Man in my Popular Culture class and so that chapter alone justified the price of the book for me. I should be able to impress my students by pointing out that of Peter Parker's physical spider powers only his spider grip is actually associated with a real type of spider (the hunting spider). In the past I have just shared with my students "The Daily Onion" fake headline that talks about how Peter Parker died of Leukemia after being bit by a radioactive spider, so this should give me some more credibility (but I am still going to use the joke).

Ironically it is where Gresh and Weinberg can show that the creators of a particular superhero were at least in the ballpark, such as when they come up with an alternative and more plausible explanation for the Hulk, that "The Science of Superheroes" is most interesting. Sections where they get into things like fluid breathing and talking to fish are tangentially interesting, but when you get into topics like the Square Cubed Law or the origin of black holes it comes across as overkill. If while reading this book you suddenly hear a small voice in your head warning "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," you will not be alone. This is definitely not a book to sit down and read all at once, because chapter after chapter exposing the holes in the scientific rationales for your favorite superheroes can wear you down after a while. But there is enough here of interest for most comic book fans. The authors may be a couple of science geeks, but they are the type that were weaned on comic books and their criticisms are done with affection, even if its hard to get back to anything close to square one on the aforementioned willing suspension of disbelief by the time you finish this volume (at least there is not an exam).

The back of "The Science of Superheroes" includes a couple of appendixes, the first explaining "Who Missed the Cut?" (neither super villains nor characters with supernatural origins made it) and the second where comic book creators (including Len Wein and Max Allan Collins) answer some questions about science and comic books today. Both of these added sections allow the authors to flesh out their overall thesis a bit more and show how comic book creators today pay attention to science in a different way than those in the Golden Age and Silver Age of comics. I did not even take biology in high school, so everything that Gresh and Weinberg come up with is way over my head, but they do a good job of communicating their points so that even somebody like me can understand their basic arguments.

I really wanted to like this book, as I have a fondness for the writing of Robert Weinberg. However, I found this book to be tedious, lacking in charm, badly researched and wildy inaccurate in some areas.

While it's clear that the authors (or at least one of them) love comic books, it's also clear that they haven't done much reading of them since the early 80's. The book spends much of its length deriding the lack of scientific thought behind superheroes, ignoring the efforts of modern writers to make their characters at least slightly more realistic. Frequently, the characters that they dissect are the 1950's versions, while in the comic books those characters have moved on considerably.

Also, I found the whole direction of the book disappointing. Sure, there's a good deal of accurate science here, but there's also some spurious material, and when it appears it's almost always used to disprove a "superheroic" possibility. In fact, the entire book seems designed to show us how superheroes are impossible, which seems to carry with it the message that science is boring. It would have been far more engaging to show how certain superheroes (or approximations of them) might be scientifically possible.

Compare and contrast this book to the far more interesting and engaging "The Science of Superman" by Mark Wolverton and Roger Stern. Sure, it's less scientifically rigourous, but it's also much more interesting and more likely to encourage the reader to delve more into the subject. The sub-text of this book appears to be "superheroes are impossible, and you're stupid for reading about them."

That said, there are some interesting sections. The science is, for the most part, good, if a little out-dated. Just don't rely on this book for an idea of what modern superheroes are about.

Superhero stories are used to introduce discussions of various scientific questions -- Superman for the possibility of alien life, the Hulk for gamma rays, Batman for devices like those he has in his utility belt, and so on. There's also a chapter on the EC science fiction comics -- although it sounds as though it's more accurate to describe them as science-less morality tales -- and DC's STRANGE ADVENTURES and MYSTERY IN SPACE.

The last chapter praises the "one comic book writer [who] never cheated his audience" because "he used real science and real technology in his stories." Surprisingly, they're talking about Carl Barks writing Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge. There are also two appendices: The first mentions material that wasn't covered in the book and why it was left out. The second is a collection of brief interviews with creators, including Len Wein, Mark Wheatley, Brett Booth, and Max Allan Collins.

The book is written in clear, direct prose that lays out everything you need to know, whether it's the laws of science or the history of a particular superhero. I found the origin sections enjoyable to read even thought I already knew most of them. For example, the Superman chapter begins with a history of the character from a social and cultural perspective before pointing out some of the scientific problems, like how Superman can lift a building without it falling apart.

The authors conclude that Marvel's characters were more likely to be based on inaccurate science than DC's, because DC's writers were more familiar with popular science theories and science fiction. In contrast to that theory, though, the Atom comes in for the biggest roasting, perhaps because his comic tried so hard to be plausible by using scientific technobabble.

One of the shorter chapters is the one covering the Hulk and the Fantastic Four, since instead of becoming transformed, if treated scientifically, the heroes should have died. To fill out the section, the authors give us a more plausible (given what we know now) origin for the Hulk, involving steroids and fluorescent gene modification. I would have liked to have seen similar treatments for other characters, since I appreciated the imagination and realism that went into their rewrite.

Overall, the book has just the right tone -- straightforward, educational, but not too stuffy or serious. They aren't making fun of superheroes or poking holes in the stories, but using them as springboards to teach readers more about the principles behind the concepts. At the same time, they aren't bending over backwards to make the heroes "realistic" or believable; they understand that some things are done for the sake of interesting or exciting stories.

(PS if the "mwaid" above is Mark Waid, comic book writer, I'm surprised that someone who's written humorous superhero stories in the past would react so badly to a fun read that appreciates the genre without taking it too seriously.)

I can only echo what the 2stars or lower reviewers said:

This is a lazily-written book that craps all over an interesting premise. Too much time on origin stories (apparently to bloat the page-count), when 95% of the target audience knows all this stuff.

If you're a comics fan who wants to know what's possible, impossible and if there's "any way these things could happen," you'll come away very dissapointed. The only part that rises above itself is the alternative, more plausible explanation for the Hulk's origins.

The X-Men chapter is awful (for an evolution vs creatonism 'debate,' google it, and any random piece will be better written).

Even the science is off, or at least not followed through. While the Square-Cubed Law is touched on (why Ant Men and Giant Ants will never happen), the same rules/restrictions are not factored into the issue of super-strength. I know why Spider-Man has almost nothign to do with a "six foot spider". But tell me why he (or any human sized living creature) is prohibited from "pressing 10 tons" (Marvel Universe stat). Or are they?

Too much of this book is about why all this is "impossible", using 9th grade physics. But none of it, or virtually none of it, exlores how it _could be_.

How strong could an Iron Man be in reality? If we could somehow alter the genes to strength bones/muscle, how powerful could a Spider-Man type be? Is there any way to circumvent Sqaure-Cube Law, or the restrictions of size-scaling? THAT'S what I wanted to hear about.

Buy it if it's avaialable used for a buck or two, but otherwise you'll be really dissapointed.

This is an excellent book for those who are not obsessed with superheros but find things like their origins of some interest. For the full on superhero fans who know every episode inside and out of their favourite comic book character I do not think this book would suffice though. It just doesn't go to those depths of research to satisfy them and they would probably know all the stuff inside here anyway. For people like me who have read one or two comics and seen the odd television show as a kid this book more than meets our needs.

An excellent introduction by Dean Koontz starts this book and then the reader is taken to specific chapters on specific superheros which also makes this an easy to use reference book for assignments or something. There are sections on Superman, the Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four, Batman, Aquaman, Sub-Mariner, Spiderman, Green Lantern, Ant Man, The Flash, The X-Men and for some reason Donald Duck. Time travel, doomsday, super science and other major parts of superhero comics also have their own chapter. Like I said this book will not satisfy full on fans of guys who wear their underwear over the outside of their pants but for those with a slight interest in the subject this will more than satisfy.

It's incredibly rare for me to not finish a book once I start reading; I feel that I at least owe it to the author to get to the end.

Couldn't do it on this one. Way to boring.

I was excited about reading this as I had read "Science of Star Trek" (no idea if it's the same author or not) and found that book to be very good. The author states on the page for the Superhero book that he is on a mission to write one book for every year alive. He is turning into a book writing machine and it shows.

Too much detail about things that don't need to be explained, e.g. I do not care about the history of comic books.

Boring writing style.

I really wanted to give this book five stars because these type of books make science entertaining and fun to learn about.

This was a fun read - but it had several problems. When the man (Dean Koontz in this case) writing the introduction says he doesn't read comics, I began to get worried. It would seem to spell trouble if a book on comics couldn't get an intro writer who was at least knowledgeable about the subject matter.

Second - the section on Mutants talks about mutation in general, but never really applies it to actual mutant powers in the comic books - there is no attempt to talk about the plausibility or implausability of mutations causing super powers.

Then, that same chapter ditches science for an all out attack on creation scientists. Now, creation scientists deserve most of what was said here, but this book seemed an odd soapbox for that attack. I was expecting yet another brief, amazingly general and popular explanation of science as it relates to another comic book concept - and instead we get a "Creationists [are bad]..." diatribe. It was out of place and inappropriate.

Overall, it's an okay book, but I doubt it will ever be a classic.

I had very high hopes for this book, sadly I was very disappointed.

The only reason I finished the book was to give it as thorough and un-biased review as possible. The first couple of chapters were quite enjoyable, but the rest of the book just kept me wishing that it was going to get better.

What bothered me the most about this book was the frequent use of the word "impossible". The closed minded approach to the science they addressed is reminiscent of somebody saying the world is flat, that the earth is the center of the universe, that submarines were works of only inventive writers or that the sound barrier can not be broken. The book states that traveling past the speed of light is impossible (the chapter about the Flash), but in a later chapter it goes on to say that time travel is possible. Combine this with the book contradicting itself in the same chapter (the chapter about Spider-Man) and you end up wanting to throttle the authors for their inconsistency.

Then there is the completely irrelevant discussion of creationism in the chapter that was supposed to be about the X-men and evolution. The discussion took up most of the chapter and had nothing to do with mutation.

It is obvious by the end of the book that the authors have done little to zero research on any comic book written since the 80's. Their belief seems to be that Donald Duck was the best comic book ever and that there are no strong super heroines.

Do not waste your time or hard earned money on this book. It has a few (very few) shinning moments of good writing. But they do not offset the obvious dislike of comic books and those who work in the comic book industry.

Lois Gresh and Robert Weinberg have set up an interesting project for themselves in The Science of Superheores. They take a look at certain characters (Superman, Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Batman, Atom and Ant-Man, Hulk, X-mutants, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman and Sub-Mariner) and examine particular aspects of their origin or powers in light of what is known about science. The book could have a light-hearted debunking romp but the science sections are very series and weighty, perhaps too much. As a former (?) comic nerd who never reached uber-nerd status by combining that love with a love of science, it was interesting to see these two authors take one love to attack another, particularly as they digress into science topics that are clearly their favourites. The chapter that is the most fascinating, though, is the loving one on Donald Duck comics at the end of the book. An interesting look at science in a quick and easy read that will be scooped up by comic fans.