Wolverine: Broken Character

DC Comics doesn’t understand one important thing about superheroes. Their poster boy, Superman, while interesting on an academic level, is too invincible to be exciting. You can’t outrun him, you can’t be stronger than him and you can’t even shoot him. You don’t stand a chance unless you have some rare kryptonite, and he would probably just pick up some lead to block it anyway. Superman not only beats you, he gives you lead poisoning.

That’s why I have always preferred Marvel Comics. Their characters are fallible— they can be defeated. Spider-Man’s victories are always hard-fought. At the very least, Marvel’s heroes are plagued by moral quandaries and major character flaws, especially the X-Men.
As a kid, I always thought Wolverine was one of the coolest X-Men. He has claws! Unbreakable claws! He can heal faster than the average person! He can make yellow and blue spandex look not horrific! (That last one, I think, is his real mutant superpower.)

But now I realize that Marvel’s gone too far. Wolverine is becoming invincible.

He definitely didn’t start that way. Wolverine wasn’t one of the original X-Men created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in September 1963. He debuted 11 years later in an issue of “The Incredible Hulk” as a stocky little superhuman agent of the Canadian government, which is quite cool. He joined the X-Men a year later, bringing along amazing spandex and a mutual but unfulfilled crush on Jean Grey, girlfriend of team leader Cyclops (a.k.a. the one with laser eyes).

In the late 70s, when he first appeared, his healing power was limited to merely an accelerated healing of small wounds.
But as of last June, he was able to regenerate his entire body (bones and all) after being caught in a nuclear explosion. He has also grown about a foot taller and is no longer an ugly, stocky, angry little Canadian man with claws. He’s invincible.

How do you defeat a mutant with a skeleton of adamantium (the only thing stronger than adamantium is Captain America’s Vibranium-alloy shield) who is able to recover from a nuclear bomb blast? You don’t.

There are other Marvel characters like Jean Grey who could literally destroy the entire world if she felt like it. She’s an Omega-level mutant, but she still dies. Yes, she comes back eventually, but she can actually die. Wolverine once had his skeleton ripped out by Magneto. But it doesn’t kill him, he recovers rather quickly, and then is revealed to have claws of bone. It doesn’t seem like Wolverine can actually die. Ever. This is annoying.

Then there are minor characters who could also destroy the world, but thankfully aren’t invincible. Take Gambit. In “Uncanny X-Men” #313, he charges a ship’s anchor, which Storm then throws at the Phalanx, blowing the Phalanx to pieces. Gambit’s power could evolve to the ridiculous heights of Wolverine’s power, but it doesn’t. He’s fettered by the limits of magical realism. Why isn’t Wolverine?

Video games have this concept when a character or a weapon is basically impossible to defeat, giving one side an annoying and insurmountable advantage. It’s a “broken weapon” or a “broken character.” It’s fine that Wolverine has become one of Marvel’s flagship gruff antihero characters, but the fact that he’s becoming the only important and invincible X-Man is totally unfair.

Mutants are already cooler than us normal people, what with the mind reading and the explosions and the powers of flight. So why does Wolverine need to be invincible? Why do any of them need to be invincible? If there’s anything I’ve learned at Grinnell, it’s that flaws and vulnerabilities make people more interesting. Wolverine these days is just an invincible joke.

Midnight = nerd nirvana

(Originally published Apr 24th, 2009)

For nerds, there is nothing quite like a midnight release. It is our Super Bowl. Grinnellians compare stress levels and page counts. Nerds compare midnight release experiences. The privileged feeling you get a few hours later, knowing that no one else has seen or read what you have, that’s like crack for us.

Two years ago, I bought “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” at midnight in Canada, simply so that I could get the British edition. Well, and because the nearest bookstore in rural upstate New York took me across the border to Brockville, Ontario.
Normally, I’d just take the boat over and call in to Customs. But there were two problems. One, my 14-foot outboard motor boat had no lights. Two, docking in the harbor isn’t free after 9 p.m.

Being cheap, I drove. The customs officer on the international bridge was less surprised than I might have hoped. So much for getting any
affirmation of my nerdiness. Even worse, I wasn’t even the first one there. Two Canadian teenagers—sisters who had been first in line at this bookstore since the fourth book—and an American doctor with his devoted 14-year-old daughter had beaten me.

We killed time by discussing each other’s governments, sharing pizza and soda. Other people started showing up around 11 p.m., a number of whom found it necessary to remind me that not all Canadians are named Alanis or Avril.

I was the third person in Brockville to buy the book and the second person to drive back across the border with it. Six hours later, I went downstairs for breakfast. Grandma remarked that I was up early when actually, I had finished Harry Potter instead of sleeping. I was not allowed to talk to anyone for several days.

So I’ve got transportation issues, international camaraderie, free pizzas and excessive fan speculation. One problem, though: no costumes! It’s my biggest shame as a nerd—I have never dressed up for a midnight release, and therefore cannot count myself as a supernerd, no matter how many lines I can quote or how many times I’ve read a book.

Luckily, May 1st brings “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and on May 8th, Star Trek arrives. And I’m finally prepared with costumes for both.
After dissolving into fangirl squeals during the first trailer showing Gambit, the card-throwing Cajun, I realized my chance had finally come. I have in my dresser a black turtleneck with the magenta and blue trademark and the Sharpie abs. In my closet, there’s a floor-length trenchcoat. I’ve already destroyed a deck of cards by throwing half of them at drunk people at Harris, and I have a lighter to fake my mutant powers.

Sophomore year for Mary B. James, the Captain and I dressed as Captain Picard and Commander Riker, so I’ve already got the full Star Fleet uniform. Yes, it’s the wrong era for this movie, but I don’t care. It’s Star Trek; time travel is never out of the question.

While a midnight release at The Strand full of Grinnellians might not measure up to the epic nature of the final Harry Potter, but a costume brings it close. Besides, if you won’t dress up like a mutant or a Star Fleet commander for your favorite cultural obsession, is it really worth it?

Preparing for imminent zombie invasions

(Originally published Apr 10th, 2009)

I had never seen a zombie movie before college. Then I met Steph Cox '09 and I was introduced to a frightening new concept: the zombiepocalypse. “Night of the Living Dead,” “Bog Creatures,” and “Dead and Breakfast” (paired with serious conversations about our relative ability to survive a zombie attack) fueled my imagination. Grinnell is in the middle of the cornfields of Iowa. Do we really have a chance?

I sought out these troubling conversations with Steph and fellow zombie/apocalypse enthusiast Mer Nechitilo ’09; their zombie knowledge and experience easily trumps mine. Now, I ponder the general defensive capabilities of various academic buildings far more than the application of literary theory. I’m an English major. Some key thoughts:

1. We have to realize that the zombiepocalypse is unpredictable. You can only make basic plans and preparations. The real key to survival rests on improvisation.

2. Only a few buildings on campus can properly serve as a defensive stronghold against any sort of invasion, especially from zombies:
Stuck on the third floor of ARH? Kiss your brain goodbye before the zombie consumes it.

The JRC? It’s ridiculously vulnerable. No matter how much that window in the dining hall costs, it cannot withstand the pure strength of determined zombies. Obviously, Cesar Pelli had ulterior motives.

It’s still a valuable resource, though. You can run through the Marketplace, pick up the rounded knives from the pizza station to use as a Bat’leth or a bladed boomerang. Just hope the Cheery Checkers haven’t already been zombified. They won’t let you leave.

Noyce is deceptive. True, the glut of maze-like hallways can allow you to lose a confused zombie/Humanities major without much difficulty. But zombies could mount a surprise attack from anywhere. You could sustain a successful defense in the greenhouse by barricading the stairwells, but you can still get to the third floor through the Science Library. Again, through the windows.

Noyce might prove effective as a weapons barracks thanks to the abundance of chemicals. Various caustic acids could delay the zombie onslaught, but other chemicals could cause mutations, making the situation far worse.

As for the best places to avoid imminent zombie attacks? Goodnow stands as the consensus leader (sample size: 3), followed by Quad. Goodnow has only one entrance and though it has vents to the basement, the vents are metal and difficult to remove, even for a human with regular motor control and a brain. Besides, there’s a tower. Towers are great. If towers weren’t great, castles wouldn’t have them.
Goodnow is also well-stocked with primitive weaponry: atlatls and axes, among other things.

Quad can be barricaded, since no zombie could climb through the windows, but you’d ultimately get overwhelmed. There’s just too much open space. And now that it no longer serves as a dining hall, you get no food and no weapons.

But where do you go from all this theorizing? After several hours of discussions and many sources, I have a basic plan. And you should trust me, since the internet says I have a 70 percent chance of surviving. Assuming I hear the news in my Haines second room, I would make my way to the JRC for the aforementioned giant knives and food supplies, assembling a crack team of zombie killers on the way.

Next, we’d cut though Noyce in the most direct way possible, and then make our way carefully to Goodnow, keeping the pizza knives ready to slice off a zombie head. The key here is to avoid sneak attacks but not to be so out in the open that you are easily surrounded.

Once safely inside, we’d barricade the single entrance to Goodnow and ensure that it is actually the only entrance. We’d arm ourselves with atlatls and axes and wait for the hordes. But leading an inexperienced and small force against a zombie invasion is not smart. You have to wait for your heroic final stand, killing zombies as they break through your defenses and pile through the door, blocking their own path. Godspeed.