Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lamman. This is the Monster Fact,
Speaker 2: a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 2: focusing on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time. Today,
Speaker 2: I want to cover one of the weirder Marvel Comics
Speaker 2: characters to jump out of the pages the Official Handbook
Speaker 2: of the Marvel Universe Master Edition. I have a used
Speaker 2: copy of this book from the nineteen nineties and it
Speaker 2: contains all of your more popular X Men and Avengers,
Speaker 2: along with some real weirdos like today's selection. The Quasi
Speaker 2: Motivational destruct Organism also known as Quasimoto. Yes, this supervillain,
Speaker 2: who first appeared in the pages of the Fantastic Four
Speaker 2: back in nineteen sixty six, is essentially a super science
Speaker 2: take on Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre Dame from the
Speaker 2: eighteen thirty one Victor Hugo novel, though the character's appearance
Speaker 2: seems mostly based to my eye on the version played
Speaker 2: by Charles Lawton in the nineteen thirties film adaptation. In
Speaker 2: Hugo's tale, Quasimoto is a cathedral bell ringer suffering from
Speaker 2: severe cayphosis an excessive convex curvature of the spine. The
Speaker 2: Quasi Motivational Destruct Organism's nature, however, is a bit more convoluted.
Speaker 2: As Marvel dot Com tells it, he was originally a
Speaker 2: sentient computer developed by the supervillain the Mad Thinker. This
Speaker 2: sentient computer desire to human form, but its creator cruelly
Speaker 2: refused it. Eventually, the Silver Surfer steps in, takes pity
Speaker 2: on the suffering computer, and uses his power cosmic to
Speaker 2: grant the computer's wishes. However, the Quasi Motivational Destruct Organism
Speaker 2: would prove the twisted vulcan to the Silver Surfer's physical perfection.
Speaker 2: He looks like a stereotypical hunchback of Notre Dame, but
Speaker 2: with a metallic skin or a metal suit. You know,
Speaker 2: sort of the Silver Surfer body, except it is the
Speaker 2: hunchback of Notre Dame's body. We're told he is a
Speaker 2: pseudo organic android possessed of immense physical smashing power, but
Speaker 2: due to his computer origin, his brain is also able
Speaker 2: to process information and make calculations with vastly improved speed
Speaker 2: and accuracy. Yet, despite this, he's not your standard super strong,
Speaker 2: super smart Gimi god cosmic bad guy. We get a
Speaker 2: lot of those in comic book stories from this era. No,
Speaker 2: we're told his actual intelligence is more that of a
Speaker 2: baseline human intelligence, and that his biggest weakness is his
Speaker 2: lack of creativity. Now, I don't think stan Lee and
Speaker 2: Jack Kirby were necessarily trying to be all that prophetic
Speaker 2: with this particular supervillain. What you see is kind of
Speaker 2: what you get with the quasi motivational destruct organism. Yet
Speaker 2: at the same time time, beyond the space quasimotive gimmick,
Speaker 2: there is a reasonable amount of Miltonian depth here to
Speaker 2: the plight between the created and the creator. And then
Speaker 2: there's this interesting detail about computer enhancement. His calculations are
Speaker 2: lightning fast, but his intelligence is actually more again human baseline,
Speaker 2: and there is something lacking in his ability to think
Speaker 2: with true creativity. It's interesting to ponder this given our
Speaker 2: current state of AI and computer enhancement. We can observe
Speaker 2: the computer form we're building around ourselves, thinking for us,
Speaker 2: writing for us, expressing ourselves and representing our souls to
Speaker 2: each other through the artifice of large language models and
Speaker 2: so forth, silver fleshed on the outside. But perhaps somewhat
Speaker 2: compressed on the inside, bent under the weight of the
Speaker 2: machine and undergoing atrification. And what's more, there's this fear
Speaker 2: that I've seen expressed that our actual ability to express ourselves,
Speaker 2: and indeed our actual self isn't good enough without the
Speaker 2: trappings of the machine, a kind of self fulfilling prophecy,
Speaker 2: as the interface between human and AI has largely fallen
Speaker 2: short of the creative partnership we were promised. Way to go,
Speaker 2: Matt Thinkers, tune in for additional episode of The Monster
Speaker 2: Fact that the artifact or animalist to Pendium each week.
Speaker 2: As always, you can email us at contact at stuff
Speaker 2: to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.