This is basically in response to a thread i've been reading in the Wolverine forums regarding his healing powers and how they actually work. I thought it'd be fun to actually reseach his healing factor and see if it would actually work with real world science... sort of bringing science back into comics :D
 
First off, I’d like to say a few things about Wolverine. This Marvel superhero is a well thought out character, with great powers and a great look. He’s savage, he’s mysterious, and is rough around the edges; he’s a loose cannon. Maybe that’s why everyone likes him so much. I however, feel seriously fed up with Wolverine. He’s become so popular that he makes appearances in almost every Marvel video game, television show, or toy line up. It’s kind of pissing me off now.

His mutant power; called his “healing factor,” allows him to rapidly counteract toxins, disease, and irritants. His body heals quickly from physical injury, and he is seldom afflicted by poisons. What a power to have! But what would have to happen on the cellular level for such healing abilities to occur?

Let us start with the physical injuries. Wolverine battles it out with Deadpool in an abandoned factory. As they exchange blows, Deadpool initiates a cunning attack forcing Wolverine to expose his chest. Deadpool seizes the opportunity to lunge his dagger between Wolverine’s ribcage. After withdrawing the dagger Deadpool ducks away in the shadows, assuming his enemy is incapacitated. Now this is where the healing factor kicks in. Within minutes, the wound is nowhere to be seen. It’s as though Wolverine was never stabbed in the first place. For this to occur, all of the surrounding cells would have to multiply at an alarming rate. Any organs, skin, or tissue severed would go into a state of hyper-mitosis. 
 
There would need to be a trigger in the body telling the cells to quickly make up for any loss of structure. It’s not like his cells are normally in a state of hyper-mitosis, or he would age way too rapidly. Aging is generally a process that takes place after many generations of mitosis. Wolverine would look 50 when he’s 15 if his cells were always in such a state. So these cells divide at extreme speeds when needed. Cell bodies travel through the cytoplasm at incredible rates, and DNA is read and copied without error at similar speeds. After all is said and done, Wolverine shows no sign of scarring, meaning that he heals differently than normal humans do. Scarring is a result of tissue overlap as the wound heals. Wolverine must have an internal mechanism that coordinates all cell structures to lay identical to the original layout of his body.

Let us move on to his immune system. Wolverine walks into a room, and sees a glass of wine on the table. A letter beside the glass says “drink me.” As Wolverine lifts the glass from the table, he inadvertently springs a trap that releases a vapour containing viral and bacterial organisms into the room. The organisms are lethal to humans in few numbers. Furthermore, the wine glass contained a poison strong enough to kill Sasquatch. After a few minutes of torturous pain coming from his lungs and stomach, Wolverine slashes the door with his claws; freeing him of the death trap. Another minute is all he needs for the pain to subside. His body has completely fought off both the poison and the infectious disease. How did he do this?

Poisons are varied from those that simply eat away at bio-matter, to those that shut down integral cellular functions; forcing the cell to become incapacitated. Toxins are similar in its destruction. It is possible to explain the healing process with the hyper-mitosis theory, where the cells just keep dividing until the entire toxin or poison is used up. Once there is no more poison or antigen, the body can return to its normal state. But what will become of the viruses or bacteria? Such organisms multiply endlessly until expunged by the immune system. 
 
A normal humans immune system takes anywhere from 5 days to weeks when responding to foreign bodies. By the time the immune system recognizes the foreign body and makes the proper antibodies, the person can be in serious trouble. Wolverine’s immune system would not only need to recognize foreign bodies really quickly, but it would need to replicate the proper amount of antibodies almost instantaneously. Such antibodies would also need to circulate through the body at an incredible rate. So does Wolverine have some kind of speed-up mechanism throughout his body? Does the Flash from DC comics have the same ability?

Lastly, his aging. Aging is often due to errors in DNA replication, causing wrinkles, liver spots, disease, and lack of pigment. But it is almost as if there is an internal countdown in our cells. DNA has a tail end with many added proteins (aka Guanine, Tyrosine, Adenine, Cytosine) that do absolutely nothing; however each time a cell replicates, one of those proteins is lost. This means that eventually (after so much replication) the cells will stop cutting out useless proteins that don't code for anything, and will begin to cut out useful proteins that are important to our genetic makeup. 
 
Remember what I said about Logan's aging? I mentioned that he would look 50 when he was 15, because his cells divide much more rapidly than that of a normal human's cells. But in order for Wolverine's age to be slowed to a crawl (because I think he does still age, if only at a fraction of the rate of everyone else. Mainly because if he didn’t age at some level, then he would still be at the age he was when his healing factor first kicked in), he must have some kind of internal mechanism that either replenishes those proteins at the tail of the DNA strand, or he has way more unused proteins than the average man.
 
Well, this blog was mostly dedicated to trying to make Wolvey’s powers of healing plausible, rather than seeing if it could actually be possible in the real world. Though the perspective was off, it still pretty much proves that a “healing factor” is not currently explainable with real world science. Sorry Logan.
 
M
 

In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night...

Here is the review... Green Lantern: First Flight!!!

Ok, cheesy opening line out of the way, on to the real meat...

We have a truly amazing movie here ladies and gentlemen, one that actually stays true to the original comic, with a few bits borrowed from retcons here and there, but in all honesty, if the current Green Lantern run was written like this, then Green Lantern would take over Superman and Batman for the lead in DC comics.

Chris Meloni has done an outstanding job here as Hal Jordan... For those of you who read my review of "Final Frontier", you'll know that i loved David Boreanaz as Hal, but Chris absolutely shatteres that, in all honesty, i'll be hearing Chris Meloni as Hal in the future now, he's the only voice i can actually picture properly.

The writing was awesome, we have OA, the Guardians of the Universe, the entire Green Lantern Corps and quite a few familier faces and 'tip of the hat' moments to prior Green Lantern stories...

Ok, time for the obligatory nitpicking part of the review...

So OA wasn't exactly like it was in the comics, neither was Abin Sur or the Centeral Power Battery... but truth be told, these changes don't actually stand out until you actually take a close look at them, and when you're watching the movie, you don't even realise that they have been altered.

The Plot

Ok, the plot was good... it's basically meshing Emerald Dawn together with a bit of the Sinestro Corps origins... though thankfully there isn't a Geoffcon in sight... literally... the Centeral Power Battery, Hal Jordan, Sinestro... all of the characters are how they were written prior to Rebirth... this literally goes back to Silver Age Green Lantern and takes it's run from there...

There are no "Will Whales" or "Fear Bugs", not a hint towards anything remotely connected to the Emotional Spectrum... in fact, the only thing in the entire movie that actually had even a remote link to Geoff Johns was Sinestro's costume and logo... that's it... praise the lord!!!

So we start out with Abin Sur crashing to earth, literally taking a page from Emerald Dawn, or Secret Origins... Handing the ring over to Hal, insert amazingly cool transformation sequence here, and then it's time to start training... with Sinestro as his Master...

To be honest, i wasn't sure what to expect from First Flight... not only was it an Origin story, but it tried to mash together other storylines as well, like the betrayel of Sinestro and the origins of the Sinestro Corps... but in all honesty, it was amazingly well written and acted out, the plot line was solid and the acting was well above par for an Animated Feature.

The Corps

Ok, where to start here...

We have Kilowog, Hal Jordan, Sinestro, C'hip, Arisia, Bodikka, Ganthet, Abin Sur, Tomar Ra, The Green Man... hell, if i listed all the Corps members that i recognised in the movie then i'd be here all day, and that alone should tell you that this movie is not only sticking faithfully to the comics, but the artists and writers actually took some time to look into the comics and use existing and well loved characters.

The Guardians were perfect, hell, they were just as i'd imagined them prior to Rebirth... imperfect, stuck in their ways, arrogant and aloof... the voicing was perfect for them and they were drawn literally as if they had floated out of the comics onto the screen.

The Art

Ok, this is the only part where i feel the movie was let down... it wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination... it just felt a bit off in places, like it was trying to bridge the gap between American cartoon style and Japanese anime... you could even look in some frames and swear that it was a frame ripped straight out of Dragon Ball Z, especially prominant when Hal sticks his hand into the Centeral Power Battery.

Overall the art has to be given a solid 7/10, it was good, but just let down in some places... as i said, it just felt a bit off while keeping with a style that fit the storyline.

Overall

A solid 9/10

A damn good movie that really felt like we had gone back to Hal Jordan's glory days prior to Rebirth... the entire Corps were there, along with some guest mentions of Weaponers and Qward, a slight retcon there to the original but nothing major... the storyline was engrossing and flawlessly pulled off, and the acting was damn near perfect for the story.

9/10, a little room for improvement, but just shy of damn near perfect.

M

Not only did he succeed in taking over the world, but he actually heald it for over a year before anyone opposed him...

M

All hell breaks loose at Washington's Smithsonian Institute in this follow-up to the family-friendly smash starring Ben Stiller. Also featuring Ricky Gervais, Robin Williams and Owen Wilson

Ex-museum guard Larry (Stiller) is now a successful inventor, The film opens with a tacky infomercial plugging a new invention. One of the now very well off Larry Daley, and the ever crazy George Foreman. Larry has made it big and is about to make it bigger due to Walmart being interested in his inventions.

We come to realize that even though Larry looks like he has moved on with his new spot as CEO, he hasn’t. His monthly trips back to the museum prove to be a side of him he can’t let go of. This is where the story takes form and really starts to grow on you.but misses his friends among the exhibits at the Museum Of Natural History. When they’re shipped to the Smithsonian, he must follow before all hell breaks loose, which of course it does. The plot's not all too dissimilar from the original but does however benefit from having a tangible villain in the form of evil Egyptian pharaoh Kamunrah (Hank Azaria), which puts it a step above its predecessor, but you won't be paying your money for the story in this case, the jokes are the main attraction and you may feel slightly disappointed.

Looking at face value, this should be one of the funniest films ever made considering the pedigree. The sheer amount of comedy actors all in the cooking pot is astonishing. Add Zoolander to Drillbit Taylor with a dash of Mrs.Doubtfire, Andy Millman, Tom Saxondale and it certainly you should make for a delicious comedic soufflé but instead of the tasty treat you all see in the shop window, what’s left is just a plain ordinary ham sandwich with a little bit of filling.

However, there is filling to be had here *cough* entertainment to be had here. The jokes come quick and in their groups, there's some actually quite good historical gags like taking pops at Napoleon and if The Pink Panther 2 proved anything, the French accent is till funny. The Heat/Grazia oriented among you may also enjoy cameo spotting in the film as there are a huge amount of blink and you'll miss another comedic star moments and repeated viewing would defiantly be warranted to see them all.

Although the kicker comes in the variety of the jokes and the pedigree of them, the all important seasoning on the ham sandwich of a prior metaphor and in the end it doesn't supply what you came to see. Sure, you will most defiantly chuckle throughout but the sheer amount of fart jokes and slapstick humour gets a little noticeable, it keep schizophrenically switching between supplying the Basil brush humour for the kids and then expecting them to know them know about General Custer.

All in all, if you have a particular soft spot for your celebrities, can't get enough of the natural history channel or simply love an old fashioned burp gag, there will be something there for you and you will be hard pressed to find something you don't enjoy in the film. Stiller, Adams, Williams and the encore cast put in a performance much better than in the first film. The acting is better, the jokes are better, the plot, the stage, the sites, the sounds…all better. As my interview with writer Robert Ben Garant pointed out, it needed to be better, Rob had said “Ben Stiller is the boss, and he said make it funnier, so we did our best”. Well they did just that. The action, the sequences between Azaria and Stiller, the exchanges between Adams and Stiller were all great.

Night at the Museum 2 or Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian, is nothing but true fun. If you enjoyed the first film, you will enjoy this one even more! Personally, all through the movie i couldn't take my eyes of Amy Adams as Angie Everheart... A simply amazing role and a stunningly beautiful actress to boot.

9/10 for this one

I highly reccomend giving this movie a run, you'll love it :D

M

The Future Begins... Again

J.J. Abrams knows how to stir up controversy, doesn’t he? Every single aspect of the latest film in the Star Trek franchise has been picked apart by die-hard Trekkies the world over. A snapshot of the new USS Enterprise NCC-1701 released? “Oh, the nacelles are all wrong and the deflector is awful!” The first trailer with skydiving and classic cars gets shown? “They’re turning it into a summer popcorn flick!”

Well, now that new Enterprise is out of Spacedock and showing alongside all that skydiving and driving and flashbang. The media hype almost ensures a generous box office return for Star Trek so the question of success isn’t really on the cards... no, what has everybody worried is the future of the franchise. What J.J. Abrams is really responsible for is the message and spirit of Gene Roddenberry’s original show, for his characters and their journeys to the final frontier. Can a reboot really do this? Can casting new actors and starting a new timeline really work? Can it be critically successful with the fans?

I can’t speak for the entire fandom, but I can speak for me. I’ve been following Star Trek since before I can remember. I grew up watching Jean-Luc Picard make moral speeches to defend the social issues of the day. I’m sad enough to write my own Star Trek stories and what-have-you, buy all the DVDs, etc. So, to be blunt, has J.J. Abrams pleased me? Has his new film still made me proud to stand up and be counted a Trekkie?

My answer is yes... but it isn’t emphatic.

The phrase that seems almost overused in the film is “alternate universe”. When a certain cameo performance begins at the halfway point, it works overtime to deliver the message that the events of Star Trek are separated from the events of the previously-established universe: rightly so, as one film cannot hope to compete against ten films, five television shows and a whole plethora of novels, games and comics. While this message does feel like a grudging addition on the part of the script, in order to satisfy the continuity of the Star Trek universe overall, it allows one to relax. It makes you shift focus: with the exception of one important character (who crosses over to deliver the “alternate universe” news) this is just as the publicity has been yelling for months: this is not your father’s Star Trek. This is a Star Trek caused by a chain reaction instigated by the film’s villain, Nero. He’s a Romulan, played by Eric Bana with plenty of sneering and hissing and screaming. He’s no Khan or Borg Queen, but he’s no pathetic weakling either. He does the job. Not only does he get plenty of mileage out of the aforementioned sneering and hissing and screaming, he causes some pretty big shockwaves in this new universe. Naturally, that’s thanks to his specially patented Science Fiction Plot Device Superweapon. This time it carries the brand label “red matter” and has some pretty explosive results.

But the franchise is safe. Nero can do what he likes with “red matter”. This is a new beginning that doesn’t give the original series a long golden shower. With that panic over for the fandom, and that panic over for myself, I was free to settle down and enjoy what is simply another interpretation of Gene Roddenberry’s classic cult series. This being a 21st Century summer, however, and this being a major blockbuster motion picture, it has to have extremely large scope. This, apparently, means it has to have “lots of action sequences”, and so the trailers weren’t lying. There’s orbital skydiving. There’s a shootout on the Romulan mining vessel Narada. There’s an apocalyptic finale.

There’s also the much-publicised fate of the USS Kelvin NCC-0514. This is what opens the film. In the space of ten minutes, much like a James Bond pre-title sequence, it tells a little story of its own that later provides some backstory to the central plot. What surprises is the raw emotion of the moment. Without wanting to give too much away, it doesn’t just tug at the heartstrings... it grabs them and pulls them like a set of church bells. Before long, though, we’re thrown forward across several jumps in time: suddenly Kirk is a child behind the wheel of that red convertible, and then he’s a barfly trying to seduce Cadet Uhura, and then he’s a cadet himself. The pace is quick, no doubts there.

What of the characters that inhabit this fast-paced world? Is James Tiberius Kirk still James Tiberius Kirk, or does Chris Pine simply prove it was all tied up in William Shatner’s unique method of delivery? Opinion will probably be divided. I, however, thought he did well. One particularly good scene was finally getting to see the infamous cheat on the Kobayashi Maru test. Everything’s done with such a cocky edge that you cannot help but laugh. The image of the man, draped in the simulator’s centre seat, eating an apple as Klingons attack is somehow just as you’ve always imagined it (despite absence of Shatner). Indeed, as the film progresses and we’re introduced to more and more of the classic characters, you realise that J.J. Abrams has mostly hit the mark: Leonard McCoy (Karl Urban), Montgomery Scott (Simon Pegg) and Hikaru Sulu (John Cho) are all refreshed with great energy and skill. The slight twinge of regret, the fan inside of me missing DeForest Kelley and James Doohan, is quickly swamped with clever dialogue and great presentation. Christopher Pike (the ever-reliable Bruce Greenwood) is also re-energised quite well, so well in fact that you’re left not caring about the lingering question of “whatever happened to Robert April?”

The biggest surprise: Karl Urban as Leonard McCoy. He's amazing... a true scene stealer, the lines are delivered perfectly and his screen presence is unmistakable.

The biggest letdown: Zoe Saldana as Uhura. She’s not terrible, but she’s not good either.

Her involvement with Kirk’s story arc is a relatively minor, jokey one. The same cannot be said for Spock. Played with accuracy and skill by Zachary Quinto, his struggle between his human and Vulcan ancestry is arguably the most important aspect of Star Trek’s story. It does come across at times, however, to be the sole lynchpin of the script’s efforts. In trying to capture the internal conflict of Spock, the film discovers some great lines and great moments but perhaps to the detriment of the other plot elements. Nero, for example, lacks that special villain magic because he’s underdeveloped and given little actual screentime. Overall, too, the Spock character arc isn’t something we haven’t seen before. I guess, as a reintroduction to these classic characters, it sets up the final scenes (which are begging, as expected, for a sequel or possibly new franchise launch). I think, however, I’d have done it a little differently and weighted the various strands somewhat more balanced.

The only other character left to mention, I guess, is the USS Enterprise NCC-1701. Yes, she’s a character in her own right. Just ask the legions of Trekkies who admit to getting all misty-eyed at her death in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. It has to be said, I was never a huge supporter of the redesign. It looked a little strange, the nacelles overweighted and the deflector dish that sticks out like a crooked tooth... but having seen her in motion, seen her presented by the wizards at ILM, seen her from various angles during her launch sequence, yes: I’ll hold my hands up. I was wrong. She’s beautiful. There are several shots that just take your breath away. Seriously, watch as she emerges from Saturn’s gas surface towards the conclusion of the picture. If your jaw doesn’t drop, you’re not human.

Ah, what it means to be human... Gene Roddenberry often sought to answer that question through his series, didn’t he? Both on television and on the big screen, Star Trek was always three important things. It was an action/adventure. Does the new film have that? Check, absolutely check. It was also an optimistic vision of the future. It gave hope in the face of dystopian science fiction and showed a version of humanity bound together in common cause. Does the new film have that? Well, the Federation’s still there. Starfleet’s still there, putting the best and brightest on starships, equal opportunities for all... so check, yes, it is an optimistic vision of the future. Now, what of the third important criteria? What of the intelligent weight, what of the social commentary? What of the big questions being asked, what of the exploration of humanity? Does the new film have that?

Unfortunately, it has very little. It seems to be buried in Spock’s storyline. Again, this is a case of the film’s flaw: it throws everything onto the shoulders of a few, despite also unquestionably being an ensemble piece. This caused me to do some serious head-scratching on my way home. Is J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek also Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek? Can I, like Jean-Luc Picard in “The Measure of a Man” (TNG), stand here and bellow “you see, the film’s met two of your three criteria, so what if it meets the third?”

After just one viewing, I’m still not entirely sure. That said, the intentions of this film are entirely noble. Regardless of your opinions towards the publicity campaign, a campaign filled with punches and overdriven guitars, this is certainly something I don’t have any serious objection to carrying the Star Trek title. If the “alternate universe” aspect of the plot was completely ignored, I might have more serious problems. As it stands, however, what we’ve been given here is simply another branch of an ever-expanding franchise. With strong box office returns, a couple more films from J.J. Abrams will explore to see where this branch leads. The beauty of it is that it doesn’t stop other branches from growing. All it has done is taken the franchise tree and given it a quick shake. Okay, so some of the jokes are a little weak and some of the twists and turns will make you frown, but on reflection?

This ain’t half bad. It ain’t half bad at all.


Final Score
Eight out of Ten

Filled with all the right lines pointing you in the right directions, there’s no denying that J.J. Abrams is paying respect to the essence of James T. Kirk, Spock and Leonard McCoy. Whether he shows the same respect to Gene Roddenberry’s ideals and human message is a question perhaps left to the inevitable sequel. For now, this just lays groundwork. Don’t worry, though: it’s groundwork with serious potential.