#he literally has multiple quirks and has mastered a lot of them to a degree where he can take out high level assassins with ease &l

[bloominstorm]

I don’t care I’m absolutely here for Deku vs. Class 1A

[fernrisulfr]

Unpopular FGO Opinion/Rant

The title is there to warn you ahead of time, so if you’re still reading, buckle up. I recently lost my significant other, and the person who shared this opinion with me, so I’ve decided to rant about it on Tumblr. Cause why not. I’m aware this isn’t a popular opinion, at least not based on who I follow, but here it is. MUSASHI IS TERRIBLE.  She’s bad. I hate her. I’ve felt every time she’s been in the story of FGO has made things worse/lowered the quality. It’s gotten to the point where the moment she arrives I go “Ugh. Musashi” and attempt to get through things that much faster so she’ll go away. She is overtly shilled. All I ever hear is “Oh she’s such a chaotic bisexual!” and “That’s my wife!” but here is the thing people. She is the waifuest of all waifu bait. Like this woman is practically to FORUMLA. But let’s get into details shall we? So first off her design. There’s a lot of problems here, but it mostly boils down to two points. Her colours and her eyes. We’ll start with the latter. Musashi’s eyes are dead and soulless. They’re pale and lifeless. It is a blank stare which contains nothing. These are dead eyes. Next we have the issue with the colours. Part of the problem here is the mixture of red and blue, which due to their contrast can be very difficult to pull off, particularly when using such vibrant shades. Replacing one with a shade of purple would have made for an easier transition; but this is only part of a larger problem. Her skin is pale, her hair is pale, her eyes are pale, and then she is wearing a mixture of vibrant blue and red. It clashes horribly. None of these colours go together from a design standpoint. Like can these colours go together? Totally! But not in these shades. Further adding to the problem is that with her eyes and hair being such faded, sort of pastel shades, her face sort of blends together, and it again causes the difference between the faded colours of her head and the vibrance of her clothes to be even more apparent. It would have worked better if they’d say given her vibrant eyes to give the outfit something to match with, or if they’re dressed her in more pastel/pale colours (though ones different enough from her hair to not simply make her appear monotone.).

Now we will address Musashi as a character. Again, she is VERY “quirky waifu” flavoured bait. Everyone constantly talks about how cool, pretty, and strong she is, and that’s just in the actual STORY. Servants have completely dropped character to praise her for some reason or another. She is the Mary-est of Sues. Let’s look at her flaws, which aren’t actually flaws because the story never actually addresses them. One is that she’s a big eater with a love for Udon. Having a large appetite is one of the biggest cliches among “waifu quirks” in anime. It’s massively overdone and very common. Than we have the fact that she is literally a Shotacon, which people tend to overlook. Both in the story and in general, despite that it’s deeply concerning. I’ve seen who completely loses their shit over Prism Illya and the Lolicons (and they’re not wrong), but they absolutely ADORE Musashi, despite the fact she goes around constantly to young men and talks about how they’d “be perfect if they were a little younger”. To offer the biggest and worst instance of this, was when in the much praised Shimosa, she said this to FUUMA KOTARU. Fuuma, who as is only looks to be about 16 to 18 years old physically, and he isn’t young enough for her! Musashi is a Shotacon, and this should be deeply more concerning to people in and out of universe than it is, but both in story and out of it people tend to just shrug it off and ignore it, where I will bet had she been male and doing this about girls they’d lose their shit over it. (And they would be right to.). Actually as we have Blackbeard, we can see very clearly that they would. (Blackbeard is awful, which is a shame because aspects of him had potential, but he’s a Lolicon so he’s firmly in the “Ugh. Go away, Blackbeard” category.). 

Finally we’ll talk about Musashi’s two biggest contributions to the story in the form of Shimousa & Lost Belt 1. Warning for spoilers of some sort ahead. So firstly we’ll address Shimosa. Everything in Shimosa involving Musashi was bad. I hated it. All the parts of it I enjoyed were the parts where she wasn’t there or not directly involved. Muramasa was good. Fuuma & His Robot Mom were interesting to watch, though it feels like there could have been more there. Aspects of the individual Swordmasters were interesting and would have been fun to explore. Here is the thing though. The story shills Musashi so fucking hard. From the moment she arrives, every NPC immediately praises her in some form. Oh she’s so beautiful, or strong, or blah blah blah. The story is less about the Master of Chaldea, and more about her. The forced support thing was also just awful. Like it’s awful normally to be honest, but losing the choice of a servant in those boss fights is just even worse. I realize that I’m boiling things down to a few things at a time, but if I gave the full rant, we’d be here all day, across multiple posts, and I’d have to research specific examples and go through all of Shimousa and Lostbelt 1 again. 

Speaking of Lost Belt 1. Didn’t like Musashi there either. I slowly “Ugh”-ed louder and louder the more I realized her arrival was incoming. Now to a degree I understand why she had to be there, unfortunately. Shimousa was a sort of Proto-Lostbelt, and the implication was she was from a Lostbelt that had already been pruned, these facts were in and of themselves interesting and relevant to the story, but it was also wrapped up in Musashi’s everything. Musashi is bad, I can’t express this enough. She is a Mary Sue. She shows up and she’s just “oh so perfect” and any “fault” she has really isn’t one, or get’s shoved aside and never addressed again, or gets fixed almost immediately. Anyway. Lostbelt 1. The main issue is that again, she shows up, gets shilled hard, pushed directly into center stage, and in this case suddenly gets a much larger part in the goings on than those around her, even if those servants are more relevant to the narrative, and all so people can once again go “OH SHE’S SO POWERFUL.”. It’s bad. 

I look forward to when she dies, so that she will stop haunting the narrative. Yes, I know that much about what is to come, but not much beyond that so I cannot give proper commentary. 

This has been my rant. If you made it this far, congratulations. If you don’t agree with my opinion that’s perfectly fine, you’re entitled to your view on the matter just as I am entitled to mine. I just needed to get this out of my system. I’m sorry it’s not more comprehensive. I also apologize that there’s going to be a second rant about Lostbelt 3 incoming, unrelated to the above topic. 

[autumn-foxfire]

Holy shit I almost choked. Not literal, but all the motions were there. 'also twice removed means something much different in the bnha fandom' You really went and said that huh. Wow. I also think I might show my friend the stardew valley post, she really likes that game. Now for what I actually planned on saying. I support smart Todoroki rights. The constant dumb or extreme baby and can't defend himself portrayals are getting real tiring. Because he absolutely can defend himself. (1/6)

Shouto isn't a coward. He will smack away Endeavor, rant about him freely, and slurp soba and stare him dead in the eye 'oh nasty scar you got there' he is absolutely a smart boi. He just takes sayings a bit too literal sometimes. And hey, I'm socially awkward too! I had a bad childhood too! But if people thought of me how they write Shouto, flinching and cowering and just taking what Endeavor did to him I'd just be really insulted. (2/6) 

He understands a whole lot of things, its kinda a given for us. OP said it all, that conclusion post is super valid too. And yeah what the addition says. It can be tricky to find a balance, most of the time it's always overdone. Can't expect people to get it 100%, it's fanfic. And some people enjoy that. Like I'd be reading a Hawks fic and your so right, they really do that to him. And like, y'all as much as I am for the Commission being shitty and Hawks being baby. (3/6) 

I'm sure canon isn't to that degree. If you really wanna protray Hawks as a victim, please know that's not the only way. And it's insulting to him too. So whenever I see a fic where Hawks oh surprise surprise! Has some actual self-respect, isn't a dumbass and shows his intellect without being a total pushover by the Commission and his entire thought process warped by fanon I'm like heck yeah! That's the good stuff. And hey if you want people to care about him, they can still do that. (4/6) 

Not everyone needs to come off totally broken or like Eri to be a victim. Hawks doesn't need to be confused and slowly guided to know what the Commission did was bad. I doubt he even cares. And at least everytime I've seen people be confronted by their pasts they've all been like 'yeah? I mean, it's all in the past now and I'm doing fine. Thanks though.' But fanfic exists for the reason of people being able to call out situations they don't like. (5/6) 

And canon is 100% okay with the hero training program those guys have and Hawks going on a solo infiltration mission. None of the heroes are gonna bat an eye to that. He's an adult, he did his job. Consequences are your own. Done. That's just how it works, he's doing his risky hero career just like everyone else. Our personal feelings about the unfairness of it all doesn't have a say in how canon accepts it. (6/6)

Okie Dokie! Second time's the charm (mostly because I'm writing this in Notepad and unless my computer freezes, I should be okay)

You're the only one to spot that tag, I'm glad you found it funny (sorry you almost choked or well kinda, though). Also that setup was going to give me nightmares and I don't know how the man did not have anxiety attacks over it. Now to get into the actual answer.

I personally hate it when a smart character is dumbed down for the sake of the plot, whether it be in canon or in fanon. I also hate it when canon characteristics are taken away from the character for plot convienance too.

Shouto is a young man that is awkward in social situations and can be oblivious to jokes or sometimes take jokes to literal (like the time with Mount Lady). He is brave and intelligent. He isn't a cowering child, not anymore. He can and he has stood up to his father on multiple occassions and while he's socially awkward at times, he's learning how to interact with his friends and classmates around him (I recently saw a post about how Sero was discussing trading manga with him so he does have friends outside of Izuku and Bakugo). You don't need to reduce him to a boy that flinches whenever someone raises a hand or is secretly afraid of his father whenever the two of them alone because the way Shouto expresses and deals with his trauma in canon is completely valid too.

It's the same with Hawks. Hawks is aware of his crappy situation and how he was raised, it was even his excuse to join the league (being trapped in a birdcage). He's also not blind to the commission or it's faults and corruption. He even defied an order to allow innocent people to die in order to further his mission because he knew it was wrong. He's also constantly referencing how the commission doesn't give him much choice too. Which is why I'm always confused when Hawks is portrayed to believe the commission is right and needs to be gently guided (usually by the LoV but's that's a rant for another day) to realise this situation isn’t okay. If anything Hawks just needs help untangling himself from the commission’s influence (and the best stories I've read of Hawks doing that have been with the support of heroes, not villains, but maybe I'm just biased).

(Though I'm not sure how okay people would be to learn that both Shouto and Hawks were trained from a young age and reduced to their quirks/worth and Hawks was even told to give up his name. While it's common for teenagers to hone their quirks, especially before the entrance exams to hero schools, I don't think anymore would be okay with six years olds being told to master their quirks to perfection)

Overall though, people can write what they want. If they want to write Shouto flinching or Hawks being completely under the thumb of the HPSC then they can. Hell, sometimes I enjoy those stories myself even so I can't judge. But when I don't like a story I just backspace and then leave it alone because something that I might not like might be the favourite story for someone else. We all have our preferences and perspectives of characters, these are mine.

[makeste]

1)Makeste, been reading over your latest all for one/one for all theory post, and while I think it’s intriguing, I was a bit confused over how you seemed to think that (SPOILERS POTENTIALLY) if One for All really is a more benevolent take on All For One’s Quirk- literally the same power, but used in a different way more befitting of a hero, then that meant Deku couldn’t still be All For one’s potential offspring anymore. For me, your theory actually seemed to inform this perspective, and now I

(note: once again I’ve taken all of the asks and merged them all together for greater readability, so here’s the rest.)

...and now I think it’s even more likely that deku could be a secret son and heir to All For One.

(...actually, I’m putting the rest of the ask and my response under the cut -- this got way longer than I intended lol.)

One thing that’s common amongst those ‘gifted’ with multiple quirks is that to even be capable of holding more than 1 power set, you need to have your body modified to be able to withstand the strain of more than one quirk- and thus differing bio-energies and mutations needed to properly utilise them clashing with each other within your body- if your body’s not capable of handling the pressure, it’s hinted that the damage could potentially result in a similar situation to someone eating more than 1 devil fruit in One Piece I.e you’re geography(in that you are now literally part of the landscape in the immediate area, floors and walls included, which must be hell for Ujiko to mop up afterwards) however, there are three exceptions to this- Giganto, All For One and Midoria, all of whom can wield multiple quirks, apparently in harmony with each other without suffering the negative side effects that the rest of the populace must go through to be even capable of doubling their own powers, never mind that it’s mostly involuntary and unwilling on most of the participants.

All For One goes without saying, since his body is hinted to be naturally capable of housing a ridiculous amount of Quirks, perhaps as a side effect of lacking his own ‘true’ power, but Giganto is another story- he’s the only other one we’ve seen to be capable of holding multiple powers naturally, but it’s hinted this is only because his quirk or his body structure lets him absorb/endure whatever damages normally result for wielding multiple quirks at once, and he’s still somewhat affected by the strain of it anyway. His mind is capable of rational thought, making his own decisions depending on the situation, and holding memories of his past life, all things none of the Nomu can preform- however, in exchange, it’s clear that what mind he does have isn’t very bright, as he’s easily manipulated by ujiko using just a recording of All For One’s voice, acts in a animalistic fashion, ignores social conventions like wearing clothes, and seems to have lost his humanity in exchange for overwhelming strength, ensuring he can never be a part of normal society, even though he doesn’t actually look that weird compared to some other mutations we’ve seen walking about in broad daylight.

In contrast, Midoria, despite only being capable of wielding 20% of One for All, is already starting to utilise and adapt the various powers within the quirk without any mental or physical drawbacks, beyond the teething problems of suddenly developing a new power that has different requirements to his current move set, and his fear at going though changes no-one else has, whereas All Might, even after mastering the physical aspect to its ultimate limit, never even had a hint that he could do more than just punch creatively. Part of this may be the whole spiritual thing, part of it may be that the quirk’s ‘physical’ development wasn’t exactly ready for use in that manner, but frankly, I think it means Izuku’s body is somehow, despite being naturally quirkless, suited for using multiple quirks, allowing him to wield different interlocking powers without losing any of his sanity or humanity, unlike Giganto, but exactly like somebody else.

I think I once wrote up a little mini- statement about how Izuku was more fitting as a Good Counterpart of All For one than All Might, who was simply too opposite of the symbol of evil to have any point in common beyond the role as an opposing symbol of peace. Having the exact same power as his father, and in fact being able to wield that power to the fullest extent beyond what even his mentor or the previous generations of heroes could, precisely because of his inherited genes being from someone naturally predisposed to absorb and utilise multiple quirks at once without suffering any side effects only deepens that connection between the two.

In fact, if Izuku is his son, then it means that he technically inherited his uncle’s- the ‘first’ wielder- recessive genes, being skipped over entirely by the genetic lottery just like his long-dead, yet still resurrected uncle was compared to their shared family member’s power, which wouldn’t be the only thing Izuku has in common with the siblings. Izuku’s analytical mind allows him to understand a lot about the conditions and limitations behind any quirks he witnesses in action, allowing him to formulate counter strategies like we saw in Miro’s spar, or even utilise those very same quirks to his advantage later. All For One Demonstrates a similar analytical appreciation towards quirks, though his come with the intent of understanding the power and the reasoning behind whether or not it would be beneficial for him to steal it for himself, his subordinates or turn his person of interest into a nomu. They both seem to have a mind and body capable of wielding greater strength than those around them through multiple abilities, and it seems that as Midoria gains greater control over his varied abilities, he somehow gets mentally closer to All For One, though only AFO seems to be aware of this, perhaps due to his greater expertise with their ‘shared’ quirk. Actually, if Izuku is indeed his son, and your theory is correct, then that means Izuku went through the world’s most convoluted method of inheriting his parent’s quirk, going through 10 generations and a childhood of alienation to get to the same starting point as his peers.

But yeah, to sum up, the fact that Izuku is so ‘normal’ now, despite gaining a power that we’ve seems physically and mentally ruin anybody else who had it, save one other, makes me think that Izuku may still be connected to All For One on a far deeper level than anybody else realises. Which of course means that Izuku gets the angst of being the son of his greatest nemeses, harbouring the soul, mind and powers of his greatest nemeses, and potentially being alienated from every hero in the world of the extent of this connection gets out, and everybody starts seeing him as All For One 2.0, or a means of the Symbol of Evil resurrecting himself inside a fresh, healthy young body to build his empire again. Angst for days, Boy!

okay, so let me start by saying that I’m not quite sure where this idea (which I’ve seen before) comes from that it takes a specific type of body to handle multiple quirks? from what I recall, the only evidence we’ve seen of that that is All Might’s explanation in chapter 59 about some people being unable to “bear the load” of receiving quirks from All for One. but I thought that was more about them having quirks forced on them than anything else. I got the impression that it was a very invasive and violent thing to do to a person -- basically an assault on their minds -- and that that was what messed them up for the most part. though I could be wrong about that.

one thing I want to note is that you mentioned Gigantomachia as an example of someone who can withstand multiple quirks, but I believe that was a mistranslation on JBox’s and Mangastream’s parts. Viz’s translation, which makes more sense to me, is that Gigantomachia is so strong that he was able to serve as All for One’s bodyguard even without having multiple quirks.

so yeah. I think the clashing translations caused a lot of confusion in this regard, but my current understanding is that Machia is so feared because he has ridiculously OP strength, speed, stamina, durability, etc. even without being modified like the Noumu. he’s just that fucking strong on his own, which is what makes him so impressive.

that being said, how to explain this... my interpretation is that the All for One quirk basically is the ability to withstand multiple quirks (in addition to the whole “granting” and “stealing” thing). like, that’s part of the power. it grants you the ability to handle unlimited quirks. I don’t think DNA or genetics or anything are a requirement for it. while Horikoshi does put a surprising amount of thought into having “realistic” limitations and provisos for his quirks, they’re all still basically magic to some degree. Hawks has feathers that he can telepathically control with his mind. Tokoyami has a sentient shadow that he can partially control and he can use it to fly and it can rip shit apart. Todoroki can produce ice out of literally nothing. Kuroiro can physically interact with the color black. quirks are fucking bonkers and I think we have to bear that in mind to some extent. so while All for One does no doubt have its own specific rules and caveats, I would think it’s still something that still falls under the somewhat phoned-in logical reasoning of “you have this quirk, so your body is now magically capable of handling all other types of quirks regardless of the physical nature of said quirks” with all other logic basically being handwaved accordingly.

I mean, Monoma is also capable of handling multiple quirks, holding at least four at once with no side effects whatsoever, and there doesn’t seem to be anything particular special about his own body. kid’s a goddamn twink. and yet he can “withstand” the strain perfectly fine and even has near-perfect control of his newly acquired quirks pretty much immediately upon borrowing them. he can jump from Kirishima’s hardening to Bakugou’s explosion hands in a split second and turn them off and on at will with no physical repercussions. there’s no scientific explanation for it other than it just being How His Quirk Works. I’d imagine it’s much the same for Deku. the fact that he has multiple quirks now isn’t necessarily an indicator that he must be genetically related to AFO, but what is does indicate is that he most definitely has the same quirk as him, or something very near to it.

none of this means that he can’t still be AFO’s son, mind! but the reason I don’t think it’s likely is because in my view it would come off as a bit clunky. like, from a writing perspective, it’s kind of overkill to have not one, but two overly convoluted explanations for something when just one would suffice. “Deku is AFO’s secret son” and “Deku has the same power as AFO” are both major plot twists each requiring a certain suspension of disbelief in the sense of “so you’re telling me that this kid just happens to be...” like, that’s a lot of coincidence to swallow. and past a certain point, it kind of shifts this from being a story about an ordinary kid who had a turn of fortune one day that turned out to be the start of something epic, into a story about The Son Of The Most Powerful Man In The World, Who Was Always Destined To Defeat Him And Just Never Knew It. which is also a perfectly fine story to tell! but the two ideas do kind of clash with each other, so if your goal is to tell the latter one, it doesn’t really make sense to try and insert elements from the former as well.

lol I don’t know if any of this is making sense. but basically what I’m trying to say is that I think it’s better writing to just pick one or the other. either he has this power because he’s AFO’s son, or he has it because it was passed down to him through OFA. there’s no need for both, and it makes an already complicated story even more complicated. that’s where Game of Thrones started shooting itself in the foot in its later seasons. destiny and twists of fate and such are awesome, but you have to be careful not to go overboard with it or it starts to feel forced. Deku can either be Harry Potter or he can be Luke Skywalker, but both is kind of pushing it. to borrow your phrasing, it would indeed be “the world’s most convoluted method of inheriting his parent’s quirk.” and this is just my own personal preference, perhaps, but I think the story flows better and feels cleaner if it’s just one or the other.

anyway so those are my thoughts thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. sorry for shooting down your very thought-provoking ask!! or at least it feels like I did, sob. but I do enjoy this kind of plot discussion a lot, and it’s also a particularly good way of passing the time while we wait TWO! WHOLE! WEEKS!!! for the next chapter sob so there’s that too, lol.

[newleavesinspring]

Sorry to tack on but this also makes sense in terms of what seemed to be AFO’s long term master plan. When you look at how Shigaraki was raised it doesn’t seem that he wasn’t necessarily trained to be a successor as much as he was raised to be an attack dog with multiple quirks, as AFO seemed to actively be looking for quirks that suit Shigaraki’s personality as seen here:

It’s been shown that having multiple quirks doesn’t exactly...mesh well with most people, so why is he so casual about taking quirks with the goal of giving them to Shigaraki? What makes him different than your average joe? If he’s AFO’s successor, you’d think he wouldn’t want a mindless animal, so that leaves the conclusion that either he truly doesn’t care about Shigaraki’s success, or he’s worked out a way around it. The work around, it appears, looks like it was the Vague Science Surgery ™ that Shigaraki has recently undergone, and it probably was AFO’s plan to have Shigaraki undergo that procedure the whole time.

However, when it comes to what that means for his master plan, with the revealing that Shigaraki is doing fine now that he’s out of the Science Tube™ what does that mean for All For One?

It means quite a lot, because now Shigaraki has the capacity to use AFO (the quirk), has access to multiple other quirks that he’s able to use while maintaining sentience, Machia and the Doctor loyal to him, a cult following through the PLF with plenty of money and manpower, the top heroes (plus the kids) falling left and right, in short: all that All For One needs to rebuilt his empire, with the added potential bonus of also stealing the coveted One For All.

This culminates in the reveal that AFO has access to Shigaraki’s mind and body (the extent of which has yet to be seen), because if AFO is esstentially able to hijack Shigaraki’s body, he gets all of the above, and of course, the satisfaction that All Might will have to watch Nana’s grandson not just become a criminal, but literally become AFO himself, and given his reaction to just the former...

This point in the fight was what almost broke All Might, what truly almost made him give up, so in regards to revenge taking over Shigaraki’s body is not only icing on the cake, but will allow AFO to restore all of his previous glory and be able to take out the last successor to OFA in one fell swoop.

So when it comes to how Shigaraki’s body has changed so little, his mind is still in tact, his body was previously extremely fast and durable to an unnatural degree, he’s easily able to accomodate extra quirks (even with the handicap of only being 70% done), it appears that the surgery and outcome has been planned for a very very long time. The question is what does AFO truly want out of it?

Is the Lord of Evil’s dream to raise his successor to new heights, or was Shigaraki only ever a means to an end, a vessel so that he can achieve his own dreams of ultimate power?

Hol up

Do y'all remember back when I theorised that Shigaraki held a much weaker form of OfA passed down by blood because he's shown to have inhuman speed, strength, and resilience despite his natural quirk not contributing to those things at all?

Was- was that just because he's been holding a dormant form of AfO since before the series started?!

[badbackgroundscience]

So, what emotion(s) does the Mandarin need to use for his power rings?

You might think by the opening panel to this comic that Iron Man is shrunken by a caricatured* evil Chinese man in this issue.

You’d be wrong.

Some Pentagon generals ask Iron Man (not Tony) to go to “Red China” (It’s always called “Red China”...We get it, Stan, they’re communists...) and gather intel on some character called the Mandarin, who is rumored to be the “greatest single power in that nation”. Iron Man literally drops into the country, takes out some (questionably drawn) guards, and accidentally gets caught by, of all things Iron Man could possibly get caught by, a giant magnet.

[This magnet ray gun thing is powered by one of the Mandarin’s ten power rings, which are very different from what I normally think of when I hear the phrase “power ring”. In this issue, we’re shown four of his ten powers: he can make things vanish (including himself), levitate giant rocks, cause paralysis, emit loud sound waves, and...power a giant magnet. These are obviously expanded upon in later issues, but as of now, we have no idea what the rings are made of, how they work, or what the others do.]

Re: Tony’s speech bubble, there actually are multiple forms of magnetic attraction, though whether or not Stan and Co. knew that is up for debate.

On an atomic level, you have electrons buzzing around nuclei. Sometimes those electrons are involved in bonds, sometimes they’ve been donated into a communal sea and can easily move from one atom to another (This is what makes metals conductive), and sometimes they’re just doin’ their own thing. But they’re all negatively charged, and do you know what happens when charge moves?

You get a magnetic field. This is a consequence of relativity, and we don’t have time to get into it, now. But the important thing to walk away with is that each electron acts like a teeny tiny magnet.

Normally the electrons buzzing around are doing so in completely random directions, so if you have a lump of substance, the teeny tiny magnetic fields are pointing in all directions and cancel each other out, so there’s no net magnetic field. 

Compounds we call non-magnetic actually come in two flavors: diamagnetic and paramagnetic. The effects (”diamagnetism” and “paramagnetism”) only show up when our lump is placed inside an external magnetic field which is why we think of them as non-magnetic.

Diamagnetic materials are repulsed by an external magnetic field - their electrons all reorient themselves so their magnetic fields are pointing the opposite direction. Paramagnetic materials are attracted to the source emitting the field - some of their electrons*** express diamagnetism, but some align in the same direction of the field and express paramagnetism, which is a stronger effect.

[Science demo note: If you cool oxygen gas enough to turn it into a liquid, you can pour it between two magnets and observe paramagnetic attraction in action:]

Ferromagnetism is what we traditionally think of as plain ‘ol magnetism. Unlike paramagnetic materials, they get to take advantage of an additional quirk of quantum mechanics. A group of atoms anywhere from .1 mm to a few mm***** in size will basically walk in lockstep acting as one ‘domain’ with its own (more intense) magnet; many domains make a lump of ferromagnetic material. When domains are randomly oriented, the lump of iron or cobalt or whatever isn’t magnetized. But an external magnetic field will cause each of the domains to point in one direction, parallel to that external field. That’ll produce a much stronger magnet than you would get from paramagnetism.

Ferromagnetic materials are capable of maintaining a permanent magnet field on their own, though high enough temperatures (material-dependent) or whacking it with a hammer (RIP MCU!Mjolnir) will cause many of the domains to randomize their orientations, effectively causing the lump to no longer be magnetic.

But while they’re a magnet, you have your standard “opposite poles attract, same poles repel” effect kids learn about in school or from decades old episodes of Bill Nye the Science Guy. Meanwhile, a paramagnetic substance can’t retain any latent magnetism, so it will always be attracted to another magnet, no matter which pole is pointing at it (Likewise, a diamagnetic substance will always be repelled no matter which pole is pointing at it).

Gold is diamagnetic, so the yellow bits of Tony’s suit are (assuming they are gold) weakly repelled by the Mandarin’s device. But this panel does at least tell us the rest of his suit isn’t diamagnetic. Or maybe it is, and the Mandarin violates the laws of physics more than his magic rings already allow him to do.

As for how the Mandarin’s machine may or may not work, magnetic fields don’t have to be made using lumps of matter. We can construct “temporary” magnets that use electric currents. Because all you need is flowing charge, you can take a wire, coil it up so it looks like a spring, and let a current flow through it. You’ll get a magnetic field that resembles the field produced by your traditional iron bar magnet.`* That being said, it’ll be stronger if you have a rod of iron (e.g.) in the middle.

You can also use flat metal plates in lieu of wire, stacking them so they make a helical shape (A hole in the middle is where the magnetic field gets concentrated, and the plates are all stamped with smaller holes all over so they can run coolant through the system).

Other examples of these “electromagnets”? The system that makes maglev trains a thing. The system that allows recording on magnetic tape and computer hard drives. Those magnets that pick up cars in junk yards. Those magnets that make your fake perpetual motion desk toy spin around. I mean, they’re everywhere these days with all the technology we surround ourselves with. Ever wondered how an electric doorbell works? Boom. Electromagnet.

All these are examples of “resistive magnets”. The other type of electromagnet is the “superconductive magnet”, which requires cooling by liquid helium to bring the material the electricity is flowing through to such a low temperature it loses all electrical resistivity. Essentially, the electrons don’t experience any friction as they move, so they don’t lose any energy. That makes superconductor magnets cheaper to operate electricity bill-wise, but you’re paying out the nose for the helium...which the planet is running out of...

The current record for the world’s strongest electromagnet (that can run continuously, as opposed to a fraction of a second) is the 45 Tesla Hybrid Magnet at The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Florida, a diagram of which you can see above.`** It combines a 11.5-T superconducting magnet with a 33.5-T resistive magnet to get that 45, which is about 30 times stronger than the strongest permanent magnets. It costs $1,452 an hour to operate and takes 6 weeks to ‘warm up’ (during which time it’s actually cooling down).

All this fun science info aside, I do wonder why Stan didn’t just make the Mandarin’s ring powerful enough to generate a magnetic field that could pull Iron Man in on its own.

The magnet ray deposits Iron Man in a granite-walled chamber, whose walls pull a The Pit and the Pendulum - not the heating up part, just the closing in part. Tony claims he can’t make a dent in the rock, apparently having gotten rid of his “diamond drills that can penetrate the toughest rock” from that time he fought a never-dead mummy in ancient Egypt in this new version of his suit (That was a poor decision, Tony). But he just flies out an air vent and fights the baddie for a bit.

Tony tries knocking him out with some sort of high-frequency music (at least it should be music, given the eighth notes in the panel), but the Mandarin cancels that wave out with one of his own.

I’m going to ignore the question of how “high” their frequencies actually are, as well as Tony’s claim that nothing can escape his blast (Sound, you may recall, doesn’t propagate in a vacuum, so there’s a whole class of exceptions, there) and instead focus on the Mandarin’s claim that two high frequency waves nullify each other. That is true...under one specific condition. They have to be the same frequency, and the same amplitude, and one has to be perfectly out of phase with the other (You can play around with different settings here).

If the waves are identical, they’ll just add together, which is something neither of the men want.

This ‘nullification’ is how noise canceling headphones work, i.e. it works for any sound wave, not just high frequency ones. 

This is also how wave interference works in general.

Iron Man loses battle #1, and the Mandarin decides the best way to finish the job is use his karate skills. Because he not only has a bunch of power rings, he’s also the “greatest karate master the world has ever known”.

[Fun fact: while Karate is thought of as a Japanese martial art, it actually comes from the Ryukyu islands, which Japan annexed in the late 19th century. The martial art itself was developed under a lot of Chinese influence, but it’s obviously evolved since then, and there are a bunch of different types. So it’s not necessarily the writer conflating all East Asian martial arts...]

Iron Man beats him with a "built-in slide-rule calculator” (which I find absolutely hilarious) and geometry.

If you want a quick fact check on that “at an angle of 38 degrees, the velocity decreases by 52%” claim, well, we don’t really know what Tony’s talking about. Does he mean the Mandarin’s strike will somehow travel more slowly if Tony raises his arm just a bit higher? Unlikely, as the angle is clearly the important part.`*** I want to imagine Tony really means a glancing blow would be less injurious, which is true. Force depends on a change in velocity, not the velocity itself, so a blow where the Mandarin’s fist doesn’t slow to zero would mean less force gets applied to Tony.`**** That’s more likely to happen if he angles his arm.

Let’s pretend for a moment the Mandarin’s strike wasn’t completely halted, as the bottom middle panel suggests. Say the Mandarin’s hand strikes Tony’s arm (which has been tilted by 38 degrees), and keeps going along it. The Mandarin’s velocity vector would change direction by ~52 degrees (Is that where Stan got the 52 number? 90 minus 38? No Stan, no. That’s not how vectors work...). 

Like so:

Unfortunately, just knowing that angle doesn’t tell us how much the Mandarin’s fist will slow down by. It depends on the kind of collision that happens - how much energy is lost. If it’s an elastic collision and no kinetic energy were lost (which clearly is not the case), we could get the change in impact force just from the angle. It’d be about 88% the original (i.e. reduced by 12%). If you wanted a 52% reduction, the angle of deflection would need to be ~24.25 degrees, meaning Tony would have to rotate 66 degrees, not 38.

But again, that 38 could reference a completely different angle, just one part of a many-step calculation Tony has to do with his head and a slide-rule. Because our weapons manufacturer hasn’t figured out how to shrink a computer down to fit into his suit, yet.

The comic ends on the next page, with Tony catching a plane out of China and showing up late to a party for his employees he’d previously said he wouldn’t be able to make.

That makes him a slightly better superhero alter ego than those that promise they’ll do something and don’t (*cough* Peter *cough*).

* It’s the 60s, so seeing some pretty racist depictions of non-Western ethnic groups is unfortunately unsurprising. Stereotypical negative depictions of the Other** continue to this day, though the ones that propagate mainstream media aren’t usually so...obvious? Is that the right word?

I don’t know how more modern portrayals of the Mandarin (outside of Iron Man 3, which I will acknowledge as...existing) go, but I assume they’ve toned it down. 

** No, not the Others from ASOIAF -- people who aren’t like you, be it because of different culture, ethnicity, religion, gender, orientation, etc.

*** Specifically, the ones that are paired. When you’re dropping electrons into their orbits around an atom’s nucleus, depending on the total number, some of them will pair up (with one having an ‘up’ spin and one having a ‘down’ spin****). Some of them won’t. When two atoms bond with one another, unpaired electrons might end up paired (e.g. water), and they might not (e.g. oxygen gas). 

**** They’re not actually spinning; it’s an analogy.

***** That’s really big when you consider how tiny atoms are...

`* Usually the coil of wire is wrapped around a ferromagnetic material to amplify the result.

`** Despite its size, the bore hole (i.e. the hole you actually put samples in for study) is a whopping 32 mm.

`*** He does say in a later panel “...insuring that his [the Mandarin’s] hand would strike [him] at the wrong angle”.

`**** If an object bounces at too high a angle, >60 degrees, it’ll actually impart more force.

This might be a record for footnotes...

Enjoy the blog and have a dollar to spare? I have a Patreon, now.

Tales of Suspense #50 - Writer: Stan Lee, Art: Don Heck

Image Credits:

Paramagnetic oxygen from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt4P6ctf06Q

Magnetic field lines By P.Sumanth Naik, CC BY-SA 3.0

https://nationalmaglab.org/user-facilities/dc-field/instruments-dcfield/resistive-magnets/45-tesla-2