I think Otto Octavius should get the nuclear radiation crown here. Way back when, when Sue was in trouble carrying Valeria, while Banner was there, it was Octavius that Reed sought out for help as the top guy.
I think Otto Octavius should get the nuclear radiation crown here. Way back when, when Sue was in trouble carrying Valeria, while Banner was there, it was Octavius that Reed sought out for help as the top guy.
Nuclear physicist with a sideline in cybernetics, as he did create the tentacles that have become his iconic arsenal to handle radioactive materials that were too dangerous to be touched even with gloved hands. Given the excellent point raised earlier about female super-scientists not getting their due, I appreciate Iron Maiden mentioning Tilda Johnson/Nightshade and I would also throw in Carolyn Trainer, Otto's onetime successor back in the 90s, as a specialist in computers and digital technology with virtual reality.
The spider is always on the hunt.
Contrarian Alert:
I don't have a problem with comic heroes being polymaths. It's part of being "super." Rather than confining each to one or two areas, what I could see is picking a few to wall off. For example, maybe Mr. Fantastic don't know jack about biology or anthropology. The Beast might be clueless about robotics or particle physics.
Pym's the only one that's really had to confine. He's played in everything.
Except for that part where he's essentially a nation's supreme judge?
He also developed Ultron and became 'the father of AI,' which seems all unrelated, but actually could tie into his ant-communication research from before, if he was working on parallel processing (how ant colonies can handle complex engineering tasks without any one ant truly understanding why they are digging that drainage tunnel or whatever) years before we were using it for computing in the real world. One thing (insect communication) leads logically to another (parallel processing computing) and even could be technobabbled into having some other ties (creating AI by imposing his own mental engrams onto Ultron being analoguous for using his ant-communication helmet to impose his own mental state on the ants he's controlling).
How that all ties into the Pym particle, well, perhaps he got into that research as yet another tangent / spin-off, quixotically questing for some theoretical particle that ants used to communicate with each other as a 'hive-mind' and stumbling onto the Pym particle instead (which wouldn't have anything to do with any sort of theoretical 'ant-telepathy,' since that's not a thing that even exists).
I kind of wondered if the Pym particle was going to have some ties to the Space stone being on Earth, in the MCU, since they have some thematic synergies, and it would have tied things together interestingly (more so than tying Wanda to the Mind stone, IMO).
I agree to an extent. But I also think just like with the sciences, magic should have branches with individuals who have mastered those individual areas of expertise. So there would be someone who leads the field in Dark magic, Chaos magic, Necromancy, Elemental magic, Light magic, etc. Being Sorcerer Supreme wouldn't necessarily mean that said person has mastered all forms of magic, or is the chief expert in every field.
As for Doom, I would probably create and/or identify a different branch of magic as well for him. I don't have a name for it -- maybe we can call "theomancy" or the use of primordial magic? This kind of magic is used by cosmic entities, gods, certain powerful elder demons, etc. It is the highest order of magic. Doom alone is the only human other than The Talisman who can use this magic for various effects. The very nature of this magic gives Doom the appearance that he is much more powerful a sorcerer than he actually is. Doom also wouldn't generate the primordial magic himself, but he would know how to extract it from the environment and store it for personal use. He may never again be God Emperor Doom, and I certainly don't recommend that he challenge Zom or anyone like that with only his finite personal store of primordial magic, but compared to most other Earthly magic wielders, Doom's magical prowess as a theomancer would be extremely formidable.
Last edited by JudicatorPrime; 09-29-2020 at 02:21 PM.
Maybe but the way it works in Marvel and the nature of serial storytelling is that magic is never going to stay in one lane and different writers are going to use it differently.
Doctor Strange is the Sorceror Supreme and generally accepted as the major expert of magic in the MU. Sure Loki is a more powerful and dangerous sorcerer but even Strange is seen as more knowledgeable than he.
Loki as the God of Stories and God of Lies would probably be the biggest literary critic in the Marvel Universe were literary criticism considered a science...though even then Doom had him beat by making him realize that Doom is a better story than Loki's.
He was God in two instantly classic top-selling event stories (SW'84, SW'2015), so yeah he will be again whenever someone else gets nostalgic about Secret Wars again.He may never again be God Emperor Doom...
Mad Max FR I live meme.jpg
I think they try, but you're right, all it takes is a new writer to take on a magical character and the next thing you know Scarlet Witch is no longer just the Master of Chaos Magic and Kaluu is no longer just the High Prince of the Dark Arts. Even Brother Voodoo (Dr. Voodoo, whatever) seems to have blurred his field of mystical expertise. Still, an old fella can dream.
I'm lazy right now. I don't wanna go to the previous page T_T to get a quote. I just want to tell Judicator that he's right. I jumped the gun a bit. The spider-man thing was particularly mind changing. I think you posted more but I hadn't read it because I already changed my mind at that point.
Last edited by scribbleMind; 08-22-2020 at 09:32 PM.
Thanks, I appreciate your acknowledgment, but totally not necessary. I personally do wish that Blue Marvel was written more like Doom and fully immersed in the occult and/or magic as a very real force in the cosmos. God knows, he's met and fought both with and against magical beings enough times that it's beyond character-breaking for him not to believe that magic exists. They keep writing him like he's the incredulous, unavailing lovechild of Clark Kent and Reed Richards. Pisses me off.
Reed Richards - Physics
Hank Pym - Biochemistry and nanotechnology
Tony Stark - Engineering and robotics
Bruce Banner - Radiology
Henry McCoy - Biology and medicine
Peter Parker - Engineering and chemistry
Blue Marvel - Physics