Anyway, I know that we do not inhabit a delightful comic book universe, but are Wolverines claws in anyway anatomically possible? I do not know much human anatomy, so I ask you:
Would it be possible to “store” the three blades in the forearm at all? How about with some minor alterations of the muscles?
Would it be possible for the claws to somehow travel through the bones of the wrist and hand? Forgetting any Deus ex Machina of Logans healing factor immediately fixing the broken bones, could you see any way for a conduit of some sort to exist without severely impairing wrist and hand movement?
The blades would have to completely cut through the wrist bones. Once past the wrist though, the hand bones wouldn’t get in the way. The hand bones are just like an extension of the fingers that is covered in flesh.
IMO though, the wrist bones would make the forearms an impractical storage location for the blades, even taking into account Wolverine’s incredible healing.
Reminds me of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, where Molly has Wolverine-style blades in her fingertips: “four-centimetre scalpel blades” (i.e. longer than the joint that’s supposed to contain them).
I read somewhere (one of the Marvel Encyclopedia things) that he is unable to pop the claws if his wrist is not in the right position; there is some sort of lock on the mechanism that retracts them into his forearm.
Bear in mind that Wolverine’s entire skeleton was replaced/supplemented with adamantium, and that the claws were a modification during that process. One supposes that there would be some modification of the wrist bones to permit passage of the claws.
Has anyone explained how the claws pop out? I imagine it’s some major surgury to transplant the neccesary muscles and attachment to the claws, but has this every been mentioned in the comic books?
I think that the newer comics have Wolverine’s original mutation include bone claws of the variety we are familiar with. The adamantine skeleton was just plated over them so they would stop breaking.
See, now I opened up this thread thinking that it would be asking if these claws were anatomically possible, and was going to say, “Duh! Of course they are! There they are, see?”
Alrighty, lets all suspend disbelief for a sec and just try to look at this logically. IF they were housed in his forearm and, when retracted, didn’t reach up the to wrist, and IF there were grooves cut into his wrist bones to allow them to pass, and IF when extended, their interal end didn’t reach down to the wrist from inside his hands, then I don’t see why they wouldn’t allow Wolverine a full range of wrist motion. Now, most comic artists don’t bother with thinking this through, so lots of images have them resting inside his wrists, but of course it makes no sense for them to be there. Is it anatomically plausible that they are organic, like the comic book has made them out for the past decade? No. If he had claws, they’d be more like Deathstrike’s. But I guess if you had access to an impervious metal and a test subject who had magic heal powers, then it’d be no problem to install then into his arms.
I don’t see how he can bend his wrists at all. And if the claws retract so far that he can bend his wrists, he probably shouldn’t be able to move his elbows.
I think the main problem with claws like that would be the musculature involved in extending and retracting them. If you look at a cat’s paws, you see that the claws retract by rotating upwards, pulled by a muscle in the lower limb, and extend by rotating down and out, pulled by another opposing muscle.
Wolverine’s claws appear to push straight out along the line of his forearms, so the muscles pulling on them would have to be in his wrists or hands and would have to be able to contract enough to pull at least 15 inches of blade in a straight line. Possible? Maybe, with some very creative surgery, but it seems pretty unlikely.
I think the claws would have to be pushed out by lymphatic fluid squeezed out of small sacs wrapped in muscle and have sort of a nub at the base of the claw that fits into a corresponding indentation in his hand bones thus locking his claws in the extended position. Upon releasing the pressure the claw nub slips out of the dent and and are sucked back into his forearms as the sac re-expands.
