The Monstrefact Omnibus: Monsters of Marvel Comics

from Marvel Comics or other comics for that matter. We'll probably dip back into DC and others in the future as well. So up first, let's consider the mummies of Marvel Comics. First up is Nakantu, the Living Mummy, created by Steve Gerber and Rich Buckler for supernatural thriller back in nineteen seventy three. The story goes that Nikantu was a North African tribesman who, after capture by the Egyptians, led her a vault, but was ultimately embalmed, alive and

sealed in a tomb by an evil priest. Three thousand years later, he awakens in modern times, first as a rampaging monster and ultimately as a monstrous hero who fights alongside the likes of Morbius, the Living Vampire, Werewolf by Night Man, Than and others as part of the Legion

of Monsters. In addition to his mystic senses, the Living Mummy also boasts incredible strength, which isn't surprising given that Marvel dot Com lists him at a height of seven foot six or about two hundred and thirty two centimeters. That's two inches taller than Andre the Giants build height. You might guess then that Nakhan to the Living Mummy is the tallest mummy in the Marvel universe, and you

would be dead wrong. Allow me to introduce you to Gomdola, who, like Nikantu, looks like your standard bandage wrapped on dead horror movie mummy, only he's roughly the size of King Kong. Yes, Gomdola is a true giant mummy. He first rampaged in the pages of Journey into Mystery back in nineteen sixty and is credited by Marvel dot Com to the legendary Jack Kirby and Dick Ayres. One of the books I source for this series is monsters creatures of the Marvel

Universe explored by Kelly Knox. Knox lists Gomdola at a height of up to sixty feet or eighteen meters, and describes his awakening in a modern Egyptian museum, his subsequent rampage, his pursuit by Interpole, his worship by cultists, and eventually his battles with the Fantastic Four. The secret to his great size, however, is that he's not a mummified human, but an evil robot from another planet that terrorized ancient Egypt before being deactivated and stuck away in a tomb.

Like a lot of classic curvy monsters, Gomdola is an only big and physically powerful, he also has other crazy powers like levitation and telekinesis. So at this point you might be wondering, fine, given all of this, exactly how tall is the tallest mummy actually unearthed in real life? The answer would seem to be Third Dynasty Pharaoh Sonicate

during the third millennium BCE. By today's height standards, and certainly by Marvel comic standards, he wasn't too terribly tall, only one hundred and eighty seven centimeters or about six foot one and a half, but for the time period, based on what we know from skeletal evidence, he was

considerably taller than average. As discussed in the twenty seventeen paper Oldest Case of Gigantism Assessment of the alleged Remains of Sonicate, King of Ancient Egypt, published in The Lancet, he is still the oldest known paleo pathological case of gigantism. The authors Galassi at All indicate that skull measurements, photos, bone data, and other measurements suggests gigantism and possibly acromagaly

in the facial features, though regressed through age. In analysis of his physical and royal stature, the authors write the following quote. The fact that he was buried with honors in an elite Mastaba tomb after reaching adulthood suggests that gigantism at the time was probably not associated with social margination.

While short people were much preferred in ancient Egypt, especially in the early Dynastic period, we have no records that very tall people had any special social preference or disadvantage. Sonicut was originally unearthed in nineteen oh one, so it seems to possible that his discovery and subsequent writings about his discovery or treatments of this general theme and other works might have influenced the creation of these two Marvel mummies,

but I couldn't find any definitive mention of it. And we also have to consider the influence of things like the widespread hoax of the Cardiff Giant mixed with just a little good old fashioned mummy mania. Now, to come back to Nakantu, the Living Mummy and Gomdola, I have to point out that, as far as I can tell, these two never faced off against each other. Comic fans,

if I'm wrong, please write in and let me know. Also, to date, neither Mummy has crossed over into the MCU or other Marvel movies, but we can only imagine that they are both out there waiting, sleeping, anticipating their release. All right, now, let's move on into the world of mutants, with Mystique going to continue our look at various monsters from Marvel comics in this episode. Though today's pick is

probably better described as a human mutant. It's none other than Raven Darkholme aka Mystique, the blueskinned, red haired shape shifter, whose various affiliations have cast her at times as a supervillain and other times as an anti hero in the Marvel universe, created by Chris Claremont and Dave cockrum back in nineteen seventy eight. She has a long history in

various X Men media. Mystique's most obvious mutant power is, of course, her ability to alter her appearance and morphology, taking on the likeness of anyone in her path, often

in order to carry out dastardly plots and assassinations. In the excellent book Marvel Anatomy by Mark Sumarak and Daniel Wallace with illustrations by Jonah Lowe, the authors point out out that her shape changing occurs at a molecular level, enabling her to even reproduce the semblance of clothing and additional appendages as needed to enhance a disguise or to aid in combat. She is, in short, the ultimate infiltrator

and the ultimate deceiver. Now on the shape shifting front, attempting to compare her to the natural world's own shape shifting expert, the mimic octopus. But I've discussed that particular species on the Monster fact already, and besides, I was even more intrigued by something else that the authors mention concerning Mystique's abilities so advance is her ability to manipulate her own form. She can actually move vital internal organs

around within her body to avoid fatal injuries. Now, this would seem to include sliding her heart out of position and into say her upper thigh, or squeezing her brain down into her net or partially into her neck, or perhaps even into her arm. Thus, coupled with accelerated healing, she can plot to evade certain death blows, either in disguise or out of it, and this has fooled her would be killers many times over the years. This ability

really intrigued me. I was asking myself, are there species in the natural world that can match or exceed this? And I suppose it depends on how you choose to compare it. Certainly we can think of various amorphous bodies and start there. We can also think about metamorphosis. During metamorphosis, most of a caterpillar's brain is broken down and ultimately rebuilt into its adult form, which is one of nature's

stunning shape shifting feats. But this is almost too extreme to compare the Mystique's shell game of sensitive organs We've already discussed the shrew's ability to shrink their brains during the winter, though they don't exactly reposition them. However, during pregnancy, a mother's orgles will shift to accommodate the growing fetus. The heart in particular is shifted during human pregnancy, though

the exact details vary depending on the individual. Beauterus grows, elevating the diaphragm and pushing the heart upward and kind of to the left. It may also push it forward a little. While the heart itself does not enlarge, the shift in position can lead to a misdiagnosis of an enlarged heart. Likewise, the resulting distortions and the detectable sounds of the heart may require further analysis by a specialist. So that's one perfectly natural way that the human body

can and does go moving its heart around. It's not as extreme as the exploits of a human mutant from the Marvel Universe, but it's still absolutely amazing. One final note on mystique is that, according to Sumarak and Wallace, her cellular manipulation of her own body actually rejuvenates her cells with each transformation, vastly extending her lifespan, or even

providing her a form of biological immortality. While rare and still very much an area of interest and exploration for natural world scientists, we seem to see something similar in certain varieties of jellyfish and plenarian flatworms, though we always have to remember there's a difference between what is likely under ideal lab conditions and what is likely given the

challenges of the wild. Mystique has already lived a long life, but the Marvel universe is a dangerous place much like the natural world, and she's made no shortage of enemies over the years, but it would be a mistake to underestimate her abilities. Up next, please destroy your other cards here and add plus two power for each destroyed, because

we're going to be talking about the symbiits now. For those of us less familiar with the intricacies of the Marvel Universe, such as familiarity primarily through various films and the ninety Spider Man cartoon, the basic origin story is pretty straightforward. Here, Spider Man acquires a new black and white costume from space that turns out to be a kind of sentient alien ooze. It flows over him becomes

his new costume. It gives him enhance stabilities, but it also becomes clear that the alien symbiant is slowly taking over. Once successfully rejected, the alien suit finds a new host in Eddie Brock, giving birth to the villain and ultimately anti hero Venom. Initially introduced in the mid nineteen eighties, the lore and legacy of the alien symbiant suit would continue to grow in Marvel comics, eventually encompassing multiple Clintar symbiants as they would come to be known, such as Carnage,

as well as a fleshed out origin story. They are the ancient bioweapons of a dark stellar deity known as Knoll, the King in Black, overthrown but not killed by his own slimy creations. In ages past, Venom stands out as the prime example of a Clintar symbiant merged with a human being, while the case of Spider Man wearing the alien suit suggests more of an exosymbiant, a layer of living ooze that acts as a kind of organic power armor.

Venom is merged with host Eddie Brock. Ultimately, at a cellular level, it flows over him, encompassing him in a powerful artifice of pseudopods and muscles. This would be exosymbiosis, but it also surges inside him, which would be endosymbiosis. In a similar way, Venom's chaotic offspring carnage manages to merge with host Cletus Cassidy's very blood. In the natural world, symbiosis is a complex topic. At times, it can be tricky to determine just where parasitism ends in some form

of mutualism or commensalism begins. A parasitic relationship between two organisms can evolve into mutualism over time, for instance, with a one sided relationship becoming something more balanced. But symbiosis on its own need not benefit both organisms to be symbiotic in nature. A twenty eighteen Yale study by Shapiro and Turner published in the journal Evolution explored mutualistic relationships between bacteria and viruses that were seemingly once parasitic in nature.

They found that these changes could evolve in either direction in as little as twenty generations. The paper discusses parasitism and mutualism as both being on the quote unquote symbiotic spectrum, which is perhaps a term worth keeping in mind when considering the Clintars of Marvel comics. Some view the Clintars as parasites, others as symbiotic enhancements. Certainly they can be either in the eye of the beholder, but the exact balance of the change they bring to a host can

certainly adjust over time, as we see with Venom. Or Certainly, this relationship could simply evolve over the vast expanse of time since the King in Black first brought them into the cosmos. Venom, the alien costume, and the various symbiants are the creation of multiple Marvel artists and illustrators, but the basic idea arises out of the zeitgeist of the mid nineteen eighties, and various assessments have linked the entity to various social and public health issues of the nineteen

eighties in compelling ways. From a purely scientific point of view, beyond the mere treatment of symbiosis, Venom and his fellow Clintars would also be examples of a kind of pan spermic symbiosis. After all, the origin of the alien suit is somewhere in outer space. Right. On one hand, even a highly adaptive symbiotic organism just might not be able to join with an extraterrestrial mode of life. The attempt

could simply be ineffective, or it could be catastrophic. On the other hand, if one leans fully into the fringes of panspermia hypothesis, then maybe maybe we'd have enough in common. But again we're drifting into the unknown and the unprovable here, especially since life on Earth is the only model of life we know. But the Symbiants of Marvel are ultimately less concerned with science and more concerned with power, identity,

and will, and also with lashing tendrils of ooze. Of course, now onto a classic Marvel superhero, the Thing from the Fantastic Four. So far in this series of episodes on the Monsters of Marvel Comics, we've discussed mummies, mystique, and the Symbiants, but now it's Coloperant. We're of course talking about Ben Grimm, a human test pilot transformed into an

orange rock skin superbruiser by cosmic rays. The other humans aboard the experimental spaceship would become Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman and human Torch, and of course now we're talking about the Thing all together. They're the Fantastic Four. Grim's skin is encased in plates of stone reminiscent of the epidermal scales or scoots found on various birds and reptiles, but more importantly for our discussions here on a few mammals,

namely the extant armadillo and the extinct glyptodot. Though with Marbles the Thing, these plates are not keratin, but some form of indestructible rock. It's the perfect body armour for the sort of superhero who regularly throws down with the likes of Doctor Doom, Frankenstein's Monster, and The Incredible Hulk. But I didn't decide to do this episode on the Thing based purely on Ben Grimm's rocky skin. It was actually his fingers that attracted me to the big luck.

I don't think I'd ever noticed this myself before. But while human Grim of course had five digits on each hand, thing has only four, you know, like Mickey Mouse or a character on The Simpsons. In the excellent book Marvel Anatomy by Mark Sumerek and Daniel Wallace with illustrations by Jonah Loebe, the authors point out that on occasion, special circumstances allowed Grim to retain his human form, including all four original fingers, only to lose one in the transformation

back to the thing. The authors and illustrator here speculate that beneath his armor plating, his ring and pinky fingers are fused together into a single digit, and that X ray imagery would reveal all the bones of two fingers in things outer most digit. I love this detail, but of course, what does it mean? Perhaps nothing, but it's interesting to note that most of us non superheroes can't move our pinky finger without also moving our ring finger, and the reason for this is that the nerves for

these digits are intertwined. Perhaps this anatomical fact has something to do with things tetradactyly. It makes it harder for Grim to use normal devices, but perhaps the fused finger aids him in grappling monsters and hurling debris during superhero battles. A natural world form of this fusing, known as syndactyly, occurs infrequently in humans, but is a common feature of some organisms, such as the Siamang, a primate native to

Sumatra in the Melee Peninsula. They have naturally occurring webbing between their second and third toes, and sometimes the fourth and fifth toes are also webbed together as well. The purpose of syndactyly in the cimang, however, remains elusive, as pointed out by Weisbecker and Nielsen in a two thousand

and eight article published in BMC Evolutionary Biology. Past hypotheses have explored the possibility that the webbed digits are adaptive for the creatures are boreal lifestyle, or for use in grooming, but the authors find these hypotheses unconvincing and stress that it might not be a functional adaptive trait at all.

A true explanation remains elusive. Things fingers are not merely webbed, however, but tightly fused into a single digit reminiscent of, say, a whale's flipper, so the comparison is perhaps less than illuminating. We might well compare it, however, to cases of complex syndactally in the natural world, in which the bones are fused together as well as the flesh. The kangaroo is a great example of this, with its middle toes fused together.

According to John Simons in the twenty thirteen book Kangaroo Quote, this seems to have been driven by a change from tree dwelling to ground dwelling. But is now marvelously adapted for hopping. By the way, connecting to our core stuffed to blow your mind episodes on the Horse, you might find it interesting to know that the extinct short faced kangaroo, including the giant Procoptodon, actually evolved to feature hoofed single

digits on their toes as well. With the thing. However, Hmmm, I'm gonna have to stand by my own hypothesis regarding the fused digits that somehow this is aiding Ben Grimm in clabbering time. But I would love to hear from anyone out there if you have a hypothesis regarding the curious hands of the thing. Finally, let's consider one last

weird entry with Ulvar the Giant. The Marvel Comics universe is full of giant monster conquerors with crazy powers, and yet a giant by the name of Ulvar manages to

stand out. A creation of stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby from a nineteen sixty edition of Journey into Mystery, The story, as recounted in Monsters Creatures of the Marvel Universe explored by Kelly Knox, actually begins with another giant alien conqueror Gagants, the Atlantean who arises from his undersea kingdom to lay claim to coastal San Diego and also

presumably the world. After poking around the surface world for a bit staking out the claim, if you will, Gagantis returns to the waters to report back home to Atlantis, and here he encounters an even taller, even more intimidating giant standing in the ocean. It is Oulvar. Oulvar stands a good thousand feet or three hundred and four point eight meters tall, and absolutely towers over the puny Atlantean

far beneath him. In a booming voice, it proclaims that Earth is now the property of the planet Centaurus too, so hands off. This, of course, leaves Gagantis with no other option but to return home to the ocean depths in defeat. It's only then in the comic that it's revealed that Olvar is not an alien conqueror at all, but a giant decoy built by humans to scare away there would be conquerors. The illustrations in Knox's book revealed that Olvar was atomic powered and commanded from a central

control room inside the body. Yet this is not a fighting robot like your mecha godzillas or your voltrons. No, Olvar was nothing but a highly successful technological bluff. Later we learned that Olivar was eventually dismantled, so complete was his victory, and his head now rests on the ocean floor.

Now I love this story the moment I read it, such a ridiculous twist, but I was at a loss as how to really tie it into anything on the monster fact, aside from decoys and scarecrows, which we may come back to this Halloween and stuff to blow your mind. But then I heard the story of Italian fishermen and conservationist Paolo Fancioli, as detailed in a twenty twenty Guardian

story by Giorgio Giglioni. Italian law already banned environmentally destructive trawling nets in its waters, and Tuscan authorities took to dropping blocks of concrete on the seafloor to disrupt the nets of illegal trawlers, but Fancioli and others noticed that these were spaced too far apart to make much difference with permission. He began to sink more blocks of stone, but decided to take things in a more artistic direction.

A local quarry donated one hundred blocks of granite, and local artists volunteered to shape them into stone guardians that now occupy an underwater sculpture garden to both deterillegal fissures, but also to attract scuba diving tourists. Like Ulvar, they serve as stone guardians on the seafloor, though they're a

direct physical deterrent rather than a communicative one. Now another possible connection to make with the real world and Ulvar here would be the concept of using artistic creations such as sculpture to warn future generations about radioactive sites. The Landscape of Thorn's concept by architect Michael Brill, proposed in nineteen ninety three, is one of the more evocative of these. Proposed for the US Department of Energy report for the

Waste Isolation Pilot Plant or WIPP. It envisioned a series of jagged concrete thorns emerging from the ground of a radioactive site. This was one of several proposed long term nuclear waste warning messages from the nineteen ninety three Sandia National Laboratories report that included other threatening works of stone or earth, but no giant aliens at least with the fictional Ulvar example, humans knew who Tod direct the message at Gagantis, the Atlantean in the comics. They'd already met him,

they'd seen him around the surface world. But creating a non linguistic message for human beings ten thousand years in the future is another matter altogether. Finally, Oulvar can be thought of as a kind of tongue in cheek opposite

to the Pioneer plaque. It would be later placed on board the nineteen seventy two Pioneer ten and nineteen seventy three Pioneer eleven spacecraft, serving as a kind of time capsule, but also potentially as a message to alien beings, this is what we are, and here is what we were. Olvar's message, however, is simply, don't mess with us. We're one thousand foot tall monsters. 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.