X-Factor #7 - "ThinkFast" is confirmed and Speed meets Northstar

[icon_uk]

...and adorable fanboying ensues (Oh, and a mystery is introduced)





The pairing of openly bisexual David "Prodigy" Alleyne and Tommy "Speed" Shepherd (sexuality previously unconfirmed I think), has been a popular one amongst fans (who dubbed it "ThinkFast") since they first met in the "Young Avengers series" a few years ago, a classic "Sensible one and super-reactive one" odd couple double act), but now it's confirmed as canon.





The crux of the new plot is an interesting one, as David thinks he remembers how he died the death which led to his repowered resurrection on Krakoa, but Tommy has evidence that that's NOT how David died as they were making out at a club at that exact moment, so X-Factor is going to have to investigate how one of their own member's death did, or did not, happen.

It's certainly a new twist on investigating a suspicious death
 

Comments

[cygnia]

Question...is Quicksilver spoken with the same hatred as Wanda is on Krakoa?

[sabertoothlotus]

I imagine the whole "not really a mutant" thing doesn't go over well, but he never, y'know, rewrote reality so most mutants weren't anymore. It's an interesting question, though, and I don't know if it's been addressed.
What is Pietro even up to these days?

[themajesticmoose]

Not to my knowledge, probably because I don't think most mutants are aware of the part he played in what happened. Wanda seems to get all of the blame. But it is Exodous who is spreading this version of events and he's not what I would call the most trustworthy source of information

[thediiem]

Even if they don't know what part he played in mutant depowering, he definitely had an impact on the community when he was not-really-repowering mutants using corrupted Terrigen crystals. Is there a shorthand for poisonously proud person who tries to do the right thing for selfish reasons and still mostly messes up?

[zachbeacon]

I mean, putting aside that some people don't know how involved he really was in HoM, (and he blamed everything between that and Secret Invasion on a "Skrull imposter") he was actually part of the mutant community (on multiple X-Factor teams) whereas she left them completely when they left the Brotherhood for the Avengers. During the "alien imposter" (did anyone actually buy that?) era he was making a misguided attempt to repower mutants...with Terrigen Mists; it didn't go well but in hindsight it could have been MUCH worse.

[thezmage]

Surely any discussion of top speeds would restrict itself to speeds one can travel at safely?

[agent8]

It would seem to me though that any mutant power (or even non-mutant superpower) would come with its own innate set of safeguards.
Storm is immune to lighting strikes, I would think that speedsters would have some innate protection against things like air friction, the vacuum effect that Northstar is describing , etc.

[donnblake]

Yeah, Required Secondary Powers , the Wiki Which Shall Not Be Linked calls it. Which to be fair, even moving at five hundred miles per hour on foot would be enough to seriously mess up a baseline human, I'm pretty sure.

Northstar here seems to be suggesting that his top speed outstrips his inbuilt protection against that sort of thing, which is an interesting thought and opens up dramatic possibilities of pushing himself beyond safe limits in especially dire situations, so I'm cool with it, although I do wonder how he came up with that fairly specific number for a top speed.

[silicondream]

The single most Required Secondary Power for running speedsters, which is almost never acknowledged, is the ability to remotely pull themselves toward the ground. (Or the wall, or the ceiling, or whatever surface they're running along.) Running works by pushing yourself forward and up off the ground, and then letting gravity pull you back down so your foot can make contact for the next step. There's no way to give yourself a forward velocity of Mach Ridiculous without also propelling yourself upward at Mach Somewhat Less Ridiculous, and then you're airborne and helpless until you come back to Earth a few minutes later...or a few million years later, in subjective speedster time. It's like a normal person trying to sprint on the Moon.

You could compensate to some degree by running with an incredibly extreme forward lean (Howard Porter loves to draw the Flash this way), or by switching to a speedwalk instead, which is how real people tend to adapt to low gravity. But at comic-booky speeds, no gait modification will work. You better have sticky feet like Spiderman, or the ability to increase your personal gravity, or...I dunno, maybe the little head-wings are just really good spoilers?

[donnblake]

For Flash specifically, given some of the Speed Force shenanigans he gets up to, I half suspect that he's just accelerating himself through abstract velocity powers and only moves his legs out of habit.

[icon_uk]

Though sometimes it's the limits which are interesting (when not being glossed over for narrative purposes). The most obvious one I can think of in the X-Men is Sunspot.

Roberto's power is to be super strong, but specifically not invulnerable, yet some degree of invulnerability would be required to stop his muscles ripping themselves off his skeleton every time he used superstrength. So basically he's superstrong, they never mention the issue, but he's not bulletproof if the plot says he's not.

It makes me think of the TV series "Alphas", where superpowers have their flaws; The guy with an amped up speed and strength risks a coronary, or broken bones. every time he uses his powers without proper care. The woman with supersenses can amplify her sensitivity in any singe sense, but at the cost of having to shut the other's off, etc.

[zachbeacon]

That reminds me. I know that Daredevil movie wasn't great but Matt sleeping in a sensory deprivation tank was a nice touch that showed just how awful his power set would be to live with.

I guess MCU Spider-Man (and arguably 616 Spider-Man*) also count if sensory overload is considered a power-induced weakness.

*Considering the dangers we face every day without even thinking about it, the Spider-Sense should be a constant low level migraine.

[repto]

That reminds me. I know that Daredevil movie wasn't great but Matt sleeping in a sensory deprivation tank was a nice touch that showed just how awful his power set would be to live with.

Between that, and showing the webbing of scars across his back, I thought, awesome, we finally get a grim and gritty, down-to-earth superhero movie where we see that being a street-level superhero takes an incredible physical toll on the body that only the most dedicated heroes can overcome. And...then we had a wire-fu fight in a playground. Sigh. Hopes dashed.

[zachbeacon]

Look, Crouching Tiger and the Matrix had an impact on people. At least it wasn't as bad as the basketball scene in Catwoman....or every other scene in Catwoman.

Honestly I'm more okay with the two romantic leads having a flirty fight/dance in public than Daredevil writing his initials in gasoline at a crime scene. One of them is a thing I could see the characters doing (Matt's judgment is terrible especially when he's thinking with his penis) and the other is only there because someone working on the movie thought a flaming "DD" would look cool.

[icon_uk]

Was the sensory deprivation tanks in Daredevil comics too? I remember something along the same lines for Hex from Clan Destine, who is another "amplified senses" guy.

And I hope Spider-Sense factors in Peter's enhanced, speed and endurance before bothering him.

[zachbeacon]

Yeah, I'm not sure I've seen that with Matt before or since the movie but I could have sworn I've seen it with similar characters.

Which reminds me of some others that I can't believe I forgot.

Mr Sensitive / the Orphan had to get a special suit because his touch-based powers caused him terrible pain. Jean Grey had her telepathy blocked early on because she couldn't deal with the intrusive thoughts. In both cases Professor X was the benefactor. I'm not his biggest fan but the guy understands the intersection of powers and disability.

I can't think of many powers that work more inconsistently than the (comic) Spider-Sense. I've seen writers say it's always on and I've seen writers say it doesn't actually work against people he trusts. That doesn't even take into account the times Peter's entire power set changed (like the Avengers Disassembled tie-in and the Other). Given the conversation with Tony about the goggles, MCU Peter seems to have much more sensitive eyes than a normal person so his Spider-Sense may work more like Miguel's than 616 Peter's normally does.

Spidey 2099 is another one with powers that are arguably disabilities.

[thezmage]

I mean there’s that, but that’s like saying Prodigy’s top speed is “about 180 MPH, if you drop him out of an airplane.” It might be technically accurate but it’s practically useless

[synnerman]

According to the old Official Handbooks of the Marvel Universe, Northstar's top speed is the speed of light in a vacuum.

In atmosphere he maxes out at Mach 10, the safest speed he can travel. I'm guessing that's lower atmosphere as opposed to upper atmosphere, low orbit.

[zachbeacon]

Not always.

Didn't that girl with the time manipulation powers from the Bendis run accidentally age herself up?

There's the "worst X-Man ever" whose power to explode works exactly once. (Well, the current resurrection-based status quo makes it a decent weapon but before that he was just a glorified suicide bomber).

Strong Guy's deformities are from him power turning on himself.

That's pretty much the entire point of the main character's arc in My Hero Academia ... though you could argue it isn't HIS power.

Honestly it's a wonder most speedsters without flight or invulnerability aren't dead. Yeah, the Flash is insanely powerful but, y'know, ice exists.

[gnarll]

I expect the people whose powers don't give them some protection have careers to brief to hear about. It is the exceptions like Explode-boy that gets diagnosed before their power manifests.

[bruinsfan]

Didn't that girl with the time manipulation powers from the Bendis run accidentally age herself up?

I know that she bounced herself back into prehistoric times and to some point in the future. She may have actually lived the extra years before making it back, rather than doing anything weird to her own physical/apparent age.

[zachbeacon]

Okay, my mistake.

[icon_uk]

You might have been thinking of Velocidad from the Five Lights, who seemed like a speedster but was actually a localised time manipulator, who did age to death like that.

See also, the Velvet Tiger from Hawk and Dove

[bruinsfan]

You could be partially right too, I haven't seen all her appearances and that certainly sounds like a Bendis-y thing to do to a character.

[themajesticmoose]

I love this!

Just as a small correction, David actually did not remember his death. He just died around the time a number of other mutants died in a similar way and everyone assumed that was also how he met his end, David included.

But yes very curious and a quirky twist on a murder mystery story

X-factor's current set up reminds me a lot of Altered Carbon, a show which Krakoa's current status quo borrows quite a bit from. Which I do mean as a compliment because while I found it to be a flawed show on the whole the central concepts it had were interesting ones and I think they add a fun twist to crime/mystery tales

[leahandillyana]

I hate the idea of David dying to begin with. Also, I don't like JP.

[themajesticmoose]

Really?

I like Northstar myself. And I've been enjoying him in this series

[donnblake]

Minor question- what's up with Northstar's hair color? I thought it was silverish, having first extensively encountered him in Austen's X-men run, and assumed that silver hair was just linked to the X-gene for Speedsterdom somehow, but looking into it, it seems it variest between black and silver, with some depictions having one as the base and the other as highlights?

[icon_uk]

I think his hair has always been black, just very, VERY shiny black, with streaks of silver through it all. In the right light it positively gleams.

[bruinsfan]

Yeah, I've always had the impression that his and Aurora's hair looks like extremely reflective black metal.

[scorntx]

L'Auroraeal.

Because Mutants are worth it.

[icon_uk]

Ouch!

;)

[themajesticmoose]

It's so cute to see David and Tommy get some actual on panel interaction together and see some of their relationship here. I hope we see more of this in future issues of X-factor

[shadowpsykie]

I love this relationship but I also love how Jean-Paul is "this youth is fawning over me... I enjoy this... he is welcome here to adore me"

[dr_archeville]

Speed says his top speed velocity is 761 miles per hour (1,224 kilometers per hour). Just under the speed of sound (767 mph/1,234 kph).

Northstar says his is 189,299 miles per second (304,647 kps).
189,299 miles per second = 681,476,400 miles per hour. Or a hair over 888,495 times the speed of sound.
(The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second.)

Northstar is about 895,500 times faster than Speed.

Wow.

[silicondream]

Yeah, the speed of sound is very, very far below the speed of light.

They're almost neighbors in the human mind, though, and so fictional speedsters tend to be benchmarked to one or the other--or sometimes both, from scene to scene. Even if it means their power level is fluctuating by a factor of 888,495.

[cainofdreaming]

If you want to illustrate the difference you can do it by saying that light could circumnavigate Earth about seven and half times in a second. That's a bit easier to grasp.

And then there's Flash who makes photons stand still when he really opens up the speed.

[zachbeacon]

So his brother isn't the only massive fanboy in the family.

[scorntx]

It runs in the family.

[zachbeacon]

I see what you did there.

[shakalooloo]

Speed's sexuality may not have been confirmed before, but he did flirt a lot with Kate Bishop when they first met and in her Young Avangers Presents issue. Whether he was being earnest or not is up for debate.

[bruinsfan]

He also revealed that Coat of Arms was an ex of his in that Dark Reign: Young Avengers miniseries. Either he's bi/pan or he hadn't yet come to terms with being gay as a teenager. (I think a twin study I saw would put the chance of the latter at about 60%.)

[bruinsfan]

If Jean-Paul is drawing on internal energy for his speed, his entire rest mass would be used up providing kinetic and relativistic energy well before reaching lightspeed. (Even if he's drawing it from outside sources he'd never actually reach that speed without an effect that warps the laws of physics...) Mind you, it would only take a negligible amount of mass to move him far faster than modern technology can move any object of size.

Just over Mach 1 seems a bit low for Tommy considering he can vibrate through solid objects.

[synnerman]

The old handwavium of the ancient OHOTMU just said that Northsatar can unidirectionally channel the kinetic energy of his atoms to move at superhuman speed. The more energy he taps, the faster he goes and his atoms bind more closely making him tougher. His food and energy requirements weren't ever mentioned, especially since he wasn't a running speedster. The entry for Quicksilver was very different. And the way Quicksilver's powers functioned were definitely changed to make him faster, if not the fastest depending on who was writing him.

Northstar has always been ridiculous. Aurora was too until she had Langowski mess with her genetics. Although that was fixed recently with her resurrection so she's as potentially fast as Northstar is.

[icon_uk]

Byrne established in the first couple of issues of Alpha Flight that Northstar can fly faster that Aurora, but Aurora can fly further.