I’ve always assumed that when Hank and the other growers increase their size, the matter they recruit is only superficially similar to human tissue; it’s actually something much stronger and lighter. Even aside from the square-cube issues, Hank is not twice or even eight times his normal strength when he goes from 6’ to 12’; he’s more like a twenty or thirty times, and frequently depicted as bullet-proof as well.
But again, it’s imaginary physics. I can’t figure out how any scientific advances ever got made in the MU or DCU, given that the laws of thermodynamics don’t hold. I’m not sure even math works the same way.
When did Joker actually DIE: not merely in the “Nobody could survive that explosioon, there’s no sense in looking for the body” sense, but an actual body being found and identified?
Not that even that matters in a world with mystics and shapeshapeshifters.
Depends how you define ‘body found’. The beginning of the relaunch his face was sliced off by the villain the Dollmaker. For the next 2 or so (real-world) years, his face remained in the GCPD evidence room, and he was treated as dead, as anyone whose face was sliced off would be.
Then he returned with it clipped on (I think Scott Snyder and/or Greg Capullo may be a fan of Repo: The Genetic Opera). He’s since returned again, intact…unless that was a flashback…I’m about 6 months behind.
No, I know; what brought it to mind was the mention of how Cyclops maybe uses sunshine to power not his optic blasts, but his mutant ability to open eye-shaped portals to the Realm Of Strange Red Stuff, followed by that stuff and all its weird properties entering the world to do whatever the story requires.
The solar-power explanation dates from the 60s or early 70s; the extradimensional portal stuff comes from the first edition of the Handbook to the MU, which was full of that handwave. In fact they should have used it more, as characters like Wolverine clearly draw mass from the lad of impossibilities, source, and pretty much every character with super-strength must draw energy from there. The only super-powered character I can think of who doesn’t draw matter or energy that way is Daredevil.
Well, and Aunt May, but her power is just to cheat death.
Even if his plasma form burns out all bacteria and vira (which, as mentioned, would be problematic with symbiotic intestinal bacteria), that still wouldn’t necessarily make him immune to AIDS specifically. HIV is a retrovirus, which means that it inserts its genes into the host cells, which can then reproduce themselves (and the embedded viral sequences) as normal for potentially decades before going into “burst into a bajillion vira” mode. Flame On clearly doesn’t harm Johnny’s own cells, and that would presumably include portions of his own cells that “shouldn’t” be there.
Of course, it might still work if he flames sufficiently quickly after sex (before the virus has a chance to actually invade any cells), and it would also provide a measure of protection against the opportunistic infections that AIDS opens a patient up to.
Currently, in Thor, the wielder of Mjolnir isn’t Thor Odinson, but a woman (as has been the case for the past year-plus):
Jane Foster
She’s also suffering from cancer, and going through chemotherapy. Ironically, using Mjolnir to transform into her Thor persona is helping to kill her: when she transforms, Mjolnir’s magic purges her body of any foreign substances or threats, and Mjolnir interprets the chemo drugs as foreign poisons (which, in fact, they are). However, as her cancer is made up of her own body’s cells, Mjolnir does nothing to wipe those out, as well.
So, in her human persona, she goes to chemo. And, then, she has to address some supervillain-y crisis, transforms to Thor, and the chemo is undone.
I couldn’t swear to it, but didn’t they once depict Johnny Storm as always ‘running hot’. Like his natural body temperature was like 50 degrees C or similar. Haven’t the faintest what issue, but I have a vague recollection of this coming up.
