Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, Welcome to the Monster Fact Omnibus. My name is
Speaker 2: Robert Lamb. This is going to be another one of
Speaker 2: these episodes where we play a little catchup and we
Speaker 2: take in this case, four separate past Monster Fact entries
Speaker 2: and we cobble them all together in one episode. This
Speaker 2: is going to be audio only because the period of
Speaker 2: time that we're covering here includes both the Netflix video
Speaker 2: and pre Netflix Video era, so I think two or
Speaker 2: video two or audio, so they're just all going to
Speaker 2: be audio. So these are going to be four more
Speaker 2: entries from the Marvel universe. I can't quite get enough
Speaker 2: of the Marvel universe in terms of its weirdness, characters
Speaker 2: I've never heard of, as well as characters that are
Speaker 2: quite beloved by myself and other comic book fans, video
Speaker 2: game fans, film fans, and so forth. So moving forward,
Speaker 2: if you would like to hear Monster Fact entries on
Speaker 2: additional Marvel characters, creatures, and so forth, write in give
Speaker 2: me your suggestions. Likewise, for other comics, DC comics, I've
Speaker 2: done some of those in the past. Outside of Marvel
Speaker 2: and DC. I'm also happy to dive into those worlds
Speaker 2: as well. Alright, without further ado, let's jump into an
Speaker 2: episode that I recorded, I believe last summer. This is
Speaker 2: going to be a discussion of the cosmic villain Galactus.
Speaker 2: If you've seen the new MCU film The Fantastic Four
Speaker 2: First Steps, then you've finally experienced a proper cinematic treatment
Speaker 2: of Galactus, the iconic devour of worlds for Marvel Comics,
Speaker 2: created in nineteen sixty six by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
Speaker 2: This titanic space god predates the Big Bang. He survived
Speaker 2: the great collapse of the previous universe and entered into
Speaker 2: our own, hatching from the cosmic egg. His god like
Speaker 2: abilities come via the power cosmic, which he sustains through
Speaker 2: the consumption of entire worlds. And yet Galactus is a
Speaker 2: lot more complex than your typical Earth destroying elder god.
Speaker 2: While definitely an existential threat and a perpetrator of untold megadeaths,
Speaker 2: Galactus does not consume worlds with malice, as the latest
Speaker 2: MCU film accurately depicts. He himself is a slave to
Speaker 2: his own insatiable hunger, but is lawful and honorable, standing
Speaker 2: by the letter of pacts made for the survival of
Speaker 2: various planets and such. While he's certainly a villain and
Speaker 2: a monster by many measurements, he is also beyond good
Speaker 2: and evil, a natural force that dwarfs everything he encounters.
Speaker 2: Sometimes he even acts in ways that might cast him
Speaker 2: as an antiher. In the Fantastic Four First Steps, Galactus
Speaker 2: is as close to his Silver Age glory as we
Speaker 2: could hope for. A giant humanoid being in purple armor
Speaker 2: and a great hat that might best be described as
Speaker 2: a papal miter with cosmic horns. English character actor Ralph
Speaker 2: Ineson provides his voice and likeness. The presentation is delightfully
Speaker 2: over the top, as it should be. But the entire
Speaker 2: Galactus scenario, in which a ravenous cosmic power sends its
Speaker 2: harbingers out in search of worlds and civilizations to dine on,
Speaker 2: actually isn't entirely the domain of comic book science fiction.
Speaker 2: Humans have wrestled with the Fermi paradox for seventy five
Speaker 2: years now. If other intelligent life forms exist in the universe,
Speaker 2: perhaps even in some abundance, then why haven't we encountered them,
Speaker 2: heard of them, seen any signs of them? Why is
Speaker 2: the universe so silent. Hypothesized solutions vary from the possibility
Speaker 2: that Earth really is a rare commodity in the cosmos
Speaker 2: to the idea that we exist in a sort of
Speaker 2: space zoo or nature reserve. But while the latter concept
Speaker 2: entails benign alien beings that intentionally leave us alone, the
Speaker 2: dark Forest hypothesis paints a bleaker picture. Name for the
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight Lucisian novel of the same name,
Speaker 2: the dark Forest hypothesis states that the rest of the
Speaker 2: universe is quiet because its various intelligent, technologically advanced civilizations
Speaker 2: are understandably afraid. They remain unheard and unseen because they
Speaker 2: know to raise their voices or in any way broadcast
Speaker 2: their presence could attract the unwonted attention of dangerous, even
Speaker 2: more powerful forces. This could be threats known to exist,
Speaker 2: or merely threats likely to exist and therefore worth remaining
Speaker 2: silent for. And this is where we get to the
Speaker 2: possibility of if not an actual galactus, then something close
Speaker 2: enough to terrify us, something that hungers and sends its
Speaker 2: seekers and heralds far across the sprawl of stars in
Speaker 2: search of civilized worlds to harvest. First, let's think about
Speaker 2: that hunger galactus must consume worlds. This we know the
Speaker 2: idea is far from ridiculous when we consider it the
Speaker 2: Kardashev scale, which sorts potential civilizations by how much power
Speaker 2: they can harvest. Type one the energy of an entire planet,
Speaker 2: Type two the energy of an entire star, Type three
Speaker 2: the energy of an entire galaxy. Certainly, by type three
Speaker 2: we are contemplating galactus level power, and it certainly puts
Speaker 2: forms of planet and star harvesting or even consumption into consideration,
Speaker 2: both in terms of what we can imagine, such as
Speaker 2: the use of a Dyson sphere to enclose a star
Speaker 2: and collect the sum total of its energy output, and
Speaker 2: means that we can't even fathom yet. After all, we're
Speaker 2: not even a type one civilization on the Kardashev scale.
Speaker 2: Some of the aims and abilities of a type three
Speaker 2: civilization or even a Type two may simply exist outside
Speaker 2: of our context, and this leads us to another Fermi
Speaker 2: paradox solution hypothesis, the Berserker hypothesis, also known as the
Speaker 2: Deadly Probe scenario, name, by the way, stems from the
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seven Fred Saberhagen novel. The concept here is
Speaker 2: that the cosmos seems silent because thus far all other
Speaker 2: sufficiently advanced intelligent forms of life have been destroyed by
Speaker 2: deadly seekert probes, self replicating destroyers that are even now
Speaker 2: on their way to decimate Earth as well. In teasing
Speaker 2: this hypothesis apart, some have argued that humanity would have
Speaker 2: surely been discovered and eradicated already if this were the
Speaker 2: status quo in the galaxy. However, if we've not yet
Speaker 2: met the criteria for extermination, or if there's some hope
Speaker 2: of passing a civilizational test that ensures our survival yish,
Speaker 2: then perhaps the sword of Damocles merely hangs above all
Speaker 2: of our heads, entirely dependent on how we conduct ourselves
Speaker 2: or how solid the latest season of Single Female Lawyer
Speaker 2: happens to be. Obviously, there are numerous ways to dissect
Speaker 2: this hypothesis, ranging from just considering the toll such self
Speaker 2: replicating machines might take on the galaxies available mass over time.
Speaker 2: This would potentially spell a kind of gray goo apocalypse
Speaker 2: on a cosmic scale, as well as issues of detection
Speaker 2: or lack of detection here in our local neighborhood. Naturally,
Speaker 2: the idea has been explored in various Sci Fi treatments,
Speaker 2: often as a means to explore our collective values as
Speaker 2: a species, our hopes and our fears that something else
Speaker 2: out there shares those values in either its dark or
Speaker 2: light extremes. And we see this with Galactus as well,
Speaker 2: that a herald is sent to judge us, save or
Speaker 2: condemn us based on our merits or the merits of
Speaker 2: those who stand as shining examples of what we aspire
Speaker 2: to be. And in this we're reminded that Galactus is
Speaker 2: a comic book take on the divine, a god who
Speaker 2: sits in judgment, echoing a very long standing note in
Speaker 2: human myth making, such as in the Bible, and God
Speaker 2: said unto Noah, the end of all flesh has come
Speaker 2: before me, for the earth filled with violence through them,
Speaker 2: And behold, I will destroy them with the earth. In
Speaker 2: the Bagava Ghita, I am time grown old, to destroy
Speaker 2: the world, embarked on the course of world annihilation. Except
Speaker 2: for yourself. None of these will survive. Of these warriors
Speaker 2: arrayed in opposite armies. And in Marvel comics, your planet
Speaker 2: is now marked for death. Your world will be consumed
Speaker 2: by the devour. There is nothing you can do to
Speaker 2: stop him, for he is a universal force, as essential
Speaker 2: as the stars. Hold your loved ones close, and speak
Speaker 2: the words you've been afraid to speak. All right, For
Speaker 2: our next entry, we are going to discuss Lady death Strike,
Speaker 2: Wolverine enemy. Lady death Strike has long been one of
Speaker 2: my favorite characters in X Men comics. While I was
Speaker 2: never much of a comic book reader as a kid,
Speaker 2: I of course encountered her on X Men, the animated
Speaker 2: series and in the nineteen ninety four video game Wolverine
Speaker 2: Adamantium Rage. A decade later, Kelly Hugh played a modified
Speaker 2: version of Lady death Strike in the film X two.
Speaker 2: The character's physical appearance is that of a Japanese woman
Speaker 2: with long, reddish hair, a form fitting samurai inspired costume,
Speaker 2: and long, razor sharp adamantium talons that extend from hands
Speaker 2: that are themselves sometimes depicted as relatively human, other times oversized, elongated,
Speaker 2: and truly monstrous. Her biography makes things even more complicated, however,
Speaker 2: born Uriko Oyama, Lady death Strike's father, is said to
Speaker 2: have originated the adamantium skeletal bonding process. That so famously
Speaker 2: enhanced wolverine Death Strike, however, obtained her own adamantium claws
Speaker 2: and bones after her father's death. In the Mojo verse,
Speaker 2: this is where the character Spiral not only gave her
Speaker 2: the full adamantium treatment, but also transformed her into a
Speaker 2: full blown cyborg. As such, depictions of Lady death Strike
Speaker 2: often include circuit like glyphs on her skin and other
Speaker 2: cybernetic flourishous So coming back to her monstrous hands. Part
Speaker 2: of this is the fact that she can extend her
Speaker 2: forearms via her cybernetic enhancements. But we also might conjecture
Speaker 2: that additional musculature in the hands and forearms is simply
Speaker 2: necessary to house the additional retractable adamantium talons, and, perhaps
Speaker 2: more to the point, the muscles or some sort of
Speaker 2: cybernetic mechanisms to retract and deploy them. Now, perhaps unwittingly,
Speaker 2: her monstrous hands make Lady death Strike comparable to various
Speaker 2: traditions in folklore and legend in which a demon takes
Speaker 2: on the form of a beautiful woman but is betrayed
Speaker 2: by monstrous hands or feet. This clues in central characters
Speaker 2: or heroes to the demonic nature of the individual. More directly, however,
Speaker 2: she certainly fits the fem fatale profile. There what aspects
Speaker 2: of her appearance in history that would almost allow her
Speaker 2: to take her place alongside certain feminine yokai and yuri
Speaker 2: in Japanese traditions, so various ghosts and vengeful ghosts. This
Speaker 2: sometimes have a combination of the monstrous and the feminine. However,
Speaker 2: it is unavoidable that while Asian comic book artists and
Speaker 2: writers have subsequently depicted and developed the character, Lady death
Speaker 2: Strike originates as a Western take on the Asian fem
Speaker 2: fetale trope. Connections have been drawn between her signature nails
Speaker 2: and decorative Chinese nail guards worn during the Ming Dynasty. Also,
Speaker 2: I was reminded of Lady death Strike during a recent
Speaker 2: viewing of the nineteen eighty three Hong Kong horror film
Speaker 2: The Boxer's Omen, which features a resurrected sorceress who wears
Speaker 2: decorative nail covers and also appears with elongated forearms that
Speaker 2: turn out to be animate skeleton hands. Her profile in
Speaker 2: one scene, in particular, feels very Lady death Strike. Though
Speaker 2: the Marvel character of Yuriko Oyama introduced the same year,
Speaker 2: wouldn't take on the full mantle of Lady death Strike
Speaker 2: and the various characteristics that we associate with her until
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six in Uncanny X Men number two five.
Speaker 2: Might her creators have found some level of influence in
Speaker 2: the Boxer z omen or merely in related imagery and ideas.
Speaker 2: I've found nothing concrete on this matter, so maybe I'm
Speaker 2: drawing a connection here where there isn't one. Lady death
Speaker 2: Strike continues to slice up the pages of Marvel comics
Speaker 2: as both villain and anti hero, and she recently showed
Speaker 2: back up in twenty twenty four's Deadpool and Wolverine as
Speaker 2: a minor, almost easter egg character, but it was still
Speaker 2: fun to see once more. She was not fully cyborg,
Speaker 2: but she certainly embodied some of the features that have
Speaker 2: made her such a popular character over the years. All Right,
Speaker 2: it's time to discuss I think one of the more
Speaker 2: whimsical superheroes in the Marvel universe. Let's talk about squirrel Girl.
Speaker 2: Longtime listeners to Stuff to Blow your mind know that
Speaker 2: we have an enduring fascination with squirrels, particularly the Eastern
Speaker 2: gray squirrel, because these are the creatures I observe every day,
Speaker 2: and I constantly find myself either just taking them for
Speaker 2: granted or just suddenly recognizing how weird and fierce they are.
Speaker 2: They're such survivors, and the same could be said for
Speaker 2: Marvel's Squirrel Girl. At first glance, you might think this
Speaker 2: particular superhero is just here for acute pose and a
Speaker 2: few laughs, and yeah, she's totally down for all of that.
Speaker 2: But since her creation in the early nineties by Will
Speaker 2: Murray and Steve did Go, Squirrel Girl has scored victories
Speaker 2: against such iconic villains as Ultron, Galactus, Doctor Doom, and Thanos. Okay,
Speaker 2: so what are her powers, you might be wondering if
Speaker 2: you're not familiar with the character already. Well, first of all,
Speaker 2: it's important to note that Squirrel Girl is not technically
Speaker 2: a mutant, but rather a typical Canadian girl who just
Speaker 2: gradually began to exhibit an amazing ability to communicate with
Speaker 2: squirrels and developed various squirrel like physical abilities, as pointed
Speaker 2: out by Mark Sumrec and Daniel Wallace in the excellent
Speaker 2: book marvel Anatomy. She boasts large incisors and rugged climbing claws,
Speaker 2: both attributes of the real world furry grappling hooks that
Speaker 2: we call squirrels. She also boasts a full fluffy squirrel tail,
Speaker 2: which I assume offers a number of benefits enjoyed by
Speaker 2: her namesake, balance, shade communication, and locomotion assistance while leaping, falling, landing,
Speaker 2: or swimming. Sumeric and Wallace put her vertical jumping ability
Speaker 2: at thirty feet or more than nine meters, which feels
Speaker 2: like a decent scaling up of squirrel leaping ability. How
Speaker 2: high could we leap if we had the leaping ability
Speaker 2: of a squirrel? I think that's a accurate The one
Speaker 2: head scratcher, however, is that squirrel girl also boasts extendable
Speaker 2: bone knuckle spikes. They extend wolverine style through the back
Speaker 2: of her palms, jutting out just above her knuckles, enabling
Speaker 2: her to punch and carve through wood as well as
Speaker 2: through ultron drones. Obviously, rule of cool applies here, and
Speaker 2: the bone knuckle spikes are indeed cool, no doubt about it,
Speaker 2: but they do seem kind of unnecessary if we're comparing
Speaker 2: her to squirrels. Actual squirrels don't have them because they
Speaker 2: can handle all their woodworking and robot thrashing with teeth
Speaker 2: and claws alone for natural world analogs to squirrel Girl's
Speaker 2: knuckle spikes or Wolverine's famous claws for that matter, we
Speaker 2: have to leave the mammal world behind and head into
Speaker 2: the amphibian world. First, we can look to the hairy
Speaker 2: frog or Tricobatracos robustus, which can break its own toe
Speaker 2: bones and extend them through the flesh as makeshift defensive claws,
Speaker 2: which may later retract, allowing flesh to heal back over again.
Speaker 2: Male autumn frogs or Babina subaspera also boast a different
Speaker 2: form of retractable spike that extends from under the thumb.
Speaker 2: Both of these species are commonly compared to the fictional Wolverine,
Speaker 2: though his namesake animal also makes do with just teeth
Speaker 2: and finger claws alone, no extendable or retractable clause required. Now,
Speaker 2: I know there are frog based superheroes and super villains
Speaker 2: in the Marvel world, but do any of them have
Speaker 2: extendable horror clause? I don't think that they do, at
Speaker 2: least not yet, so I do put the question out
Speaker 2: there for any of you comic book fans, and especially
Speaker 2: in of you hardcore Marvel geeks, if you have an
Speaker 2: answer to this question right in, I would love to
Speaker 2: hear from you. All right, let's go ahead and end
Speaker 2: this episode out with the most recent Marvel Monster fact
Speaker 2: entry that I did. This is also one of the
Speaker 2: weirder ones. It is the Quasi Motivational Destruct Organism or
Speaker 2: quasi Moto. Let's dive right in today I want to
Speaker 2: cover one of the weirder Marvel Comics characters to jump
Speaker 2: out of the pages the Official Handbook of the Marvel
Speaker 2: Universe Master Edition. I have a used copy of this
Speaker 2: book from the nineteen nineties, and it contains all of
Speaker 2: your more popular X Men and Avengers, along with some
Speaker 2: real weirdos, like today's selection. The Quasi Motivational Destruct Organism,
Speaker 2: also known as Quasimoto. Yes, this supervillain, who first appeared
Speaker 2: in the pages of the Fantastic Four back in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty six, is essentially a super science take on Quasimodo,
Speaker 2: the Hunchback of Notre Dame from the eighteen thirty one
Speaker 2: Victor Hugo novel, though the character's appearance seems mostly based
Speaker 2: to my eye, on the version played by Charles Lawton
Speaker 2: in the nineteen thirties film adaptation. In Hugo's tale, Quasimoto
Speaker 2: is a cathedral bell ringer suffering from severe gyphosis an
Speaker 2: excessive convex curvature of the spine. The Quasi Motivational Destruct
Speaker 2: Organism's nature, however, is a bit more convoluted. As Marvel
Speaker 2: dot Com tells it, he was originally a sentient computer
Speaker 2: developed by the supervillain the Mad Thinker. This sentient computer
Speaker 2: desire to human form, but its creator cruelly refused it. Eventually,
Speaker 2: the Silver Surfer steps in, takes pity on the suffering computer,
Speaker 2: and uses his power cosmic to grant the computer's wishes. However,
Speaker 2: the Quasi Motivational Destruct Organism would prove the twisted vulcan
Speaker 2: to the Silver Surfer's physical perfection. He looks like a
Speaker 2: stereotypical hunchback of Notre Dame, but with a metallic skin
Speaker 2: or a metal suit. You know, sort of the Silver
Speaker 2: Surfer body, except it is the hunchback of Notre Dame's body.
Speaker 2: We're told he is a pseudo organic an android possessed
Speaker 2: of immense physical smashing power, but due to his computer origin,
Speaker 2: his brain is also able to process information and make
Speaker 2: calculations with vastly improved speed and accuracy. Yet despite this,
Speaker 2: he's not your standard super strong, super smart, gimme god
Speaker 2: cosmic bad guy. We get a lot of those in
Speaker 2: comic book stories from this era. No, we're told his
Speaker 2: actual intelligence is more that of a baseline human intelligence,
Speaker 2: and that his biggest weakness is his lack of creativity. Now,
Speaker 2: I don't think stan Lee and Jack Kirby were necessarily
Speaker 2: trying to be all that prophetic with this particular supervillain.
Speaker 2: What you see is kind of what you get with
Speaker 2: the quasi motivational destruct organism. Yet at the same time,
Speaker 2: beyond the space quasimotive gimmick, there is a reasonable amount
Speaker 2: of Miltonian depth here to the plight between the created
Speaker 2: and the creator. And then there's this interesting detail about
Speaker 2: computer enhancementulations are lightning fast, but his intelligence is actually
Speaker 2: more again human baseline, and there is something lacking in
Speaker 2: his ability to think with true creativity. It's interesting to
Speaker 2: ponder this. Given our current state of AI and computer enhancement,
Speaker 2: we can observe that computer form we're building around ourselves,
Speaker 2: thinking for us, writing for us, expressing ourselves, and representing
Speaker 2: our souls to each other through the artifice of large
Speaker 2: language models and so forth, silver fleshed on the outside,
Speaker 2: but perhaps somewhat compressed on the inside, bent under the
Speaker 2: weight of the machine and undergoing atrification. And what's more,
Speaker 2: there's this fear that I've seen express that our actual
Speaker 2: ability to express ourselves, and indeed our actual self isn't
Speaker 2: good enough without the trappings of the machine, a kind
Speaker 2: of self fulfilling prophecy, as the interface between human and
Speaker 2: AI has largely fallen short of the creative partnership we
Speaker 2: were promised. Way to go, Matt Thinkers. All right, there
Speaker 2: you have it. Now I'm going to have to move
Speaker 2: on to some all new Marvel creatures, Marvel characters and
Speaker 2: so forth to discuss here in the Monster Fact Again.
Speaker 2: If you have recommendations, write in thanks as always to
Speaker 2: the excellent JJ Possway for producing the Monster Fact as
Speaker 2: well as the Artifact and Animelius to Pendium. You can
Speaker 2: find these episodes generally every Wednesday in the Stuff to
Speaker 2: Blow your Mind podcast feed and wherever you get that
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