The Monstrefact: Marvel's Colossus

with my son about the various themes. Some of our favorite characters include Rogue and Wolverine, but Colossus is always a treat as well. If you're not familiar with this particular mutant, we're talking about Russian X Men Peter Resputant, an already intimidatingly muscular man and who is able at will to assume an impenetrable steel form. Sometimes, as in his Marvel dot Com profile, Colossus's transformation is said to convert his entire body into an organic steel like substance.

Other times, the transformation is interpreted as something that occurs only at the dermal level, so only at the skin level. Either way, the transformation generally looks as if a segmented stainless steel coating flows over his entire body. We're going to approach it here as a dermal transformation because the idea of a full body transformation leaves us less room

to wonder over the scientific details of the feet. But just the idea alone has always been a captivating one because here is Peter Resputen, a powerful but peaceful man who would far rather pursue art than conflict, but who for the greater good can literally grow the thickest, most impenetrable skin imaginable to throw down against adversity. For Colossus, this might mean the grasping tentacles v Omega Red, always a favorite of mine, or the machinations of the Shadow King.

Once the threat is dealt with, Peter reverts to his normal form and continues on in his peaceful, creative pursuits. Lynn Ween and Dave Cockrum created Colossus back in nineteen seventy five, and he remains a popular character to this day. So how might we think about Colossus from a scientific and biological standpoint? Turning once more to marvel anatomy by

Mark Sumerac and Daniel Wallace. The authors here discuss his ability in terms of a transmutation of his dermal layers or skin into an organic steel, with his underlying body retaining its flesh and blood form. Their explanation details a process by which each individual's skin cell draws on metallic extra dimensional mass to become an activated organic steel cell. So, in other words, each cell of Colossus's dermal layer coats itself in biological metallic material, and this translates into the

transformation of the entire epidermis, but at the cellular level. Thus, his mobility is not compromised, and his already incredible baseline strength no doubt helps out as well. Now, by this explanation, we may not be dealing exactly with something like steel shutters from nowhere flowing over his entire body, but that metallic cellular coating has to come from somewhere if we're to adhere to the law of conservation of mass. And the answer they provide is that the ability draws on

another spatial dimension. That's where the metal comes from. And okay, that works for me. Now. I also ran across an excellent twenty eighteen paper in the journal Advances in Physiology Education titled The Physiology of Impenetrable Skin and Colossus of the x Men by Barry W. Fitzgerald. His whole point is that Colossus is a great example of how a

fictional character can promote multidisciplinary scientific discussion in a classroom. Now, I'm not going to summarize everything Fitzgerald has to say, but he makes some great points about Colossus and thermoregulation. Basically, we have to think about what human skin does for the body and how that might be impacted by a

shift into a steel form. One key area of concern is thermoregulation of body temperature, which the skin plays a role in via such responses as vasodilation, vaso constriction, and of course sweating. Can Colossus's steel skin do any of this well? The author here contends that his body's ability to thermo regulate would be severely impacted via this steel or organic steel or otherwise metal coating, and specifically, during

a heated battle, he would simply overheat. He wouldn't be much good battling the Juggernaut if he passes out from overheating just a few minutes into the struggle. Fitzgerald isn't here to yuck everyone's young, though with science he presents a possible path forward. Perhaps he says Colossus's organic steel skin is actually graphene due to its protective capability and its biocompatibility. It's carbon after all, like we are, and it's super thin, consisting of a single layer of atoms

arranged in a hexagonal lattice nanostructure. This biographine honeycomb lattice layer hypothesis would therefore solve a number of the key problems with Peter's mutant power, from thermoregulation to mass conservation. The layer would swiftly form via protein folding and self assembly,

and bam, Colossus is ready for action. I highly recommend checking out Fitzgerald's paper here of the topic in or out of the classroom, because hey, presumably Colossus is headed back into theaters and back into action this summer in the next Deadpool movie, so it's a perfect time to embrace both science and mutant powers. Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster Fact each week. As always, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.