From: teo33398@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Doctor Zero)
Subject: Re: XMEN: Forge is not an inventor
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Distribution: rec
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 20:57:33 GMT

>In article <Bs2wDp.2nB@cs.psu.edu> antunes@astro.psu.edu (Sandy Antunes) writes:
>Hello.
>So, reading a back issue of X-Men, Forge pulls the amazingly lame line
>"since my mutant power is the ability to invent litererly anything given
>enough time..." and it starts me thinking about the nature of his power.
>
>I don't think he actually has the ability as a mutant power to invent things.
>Instead, I think he makes devices which work because he made them.  If or
>when he forgets about them, they  probably become disfunctional.  So, his

	Well, not exactly.  The way that Forge's power is described in the 
Marvel Handbook is a little different and makes more (well, for comics anyway)
sense.
	Forge's power is not a power per se, like controlling gravity or
tossing off power bolts.  It isn't active in that he can will it into action.
It is in the way that he thinks.
	The way that Reed Richards, or just about anyone else, invents
something is that they come up with an idea for am invention and then with
intuitive guesses about what should happen, experimentation, and a lot of luck,
they come up with a finished product.  With Reed Richards or Tony Stark, the
intuitive part is mostly a rational, conscious process.  In their minds they
think "If A then B.  If not A, then C.  If neither A nor C, then D".
	With Forge, Cypher and a few others (like the composer that was offed
in the Daredevil/Wolverine issues of Daredevil) instinct rather than reason
rules.  Their thought processes are more like "If A then G, If not A, then T,
etc."  Their thought processes have a feel for their field that can
automatically eliminate wrong guesses about why something should work.  Cypher
could not instantly understand Bird Boy's language; he had to work at it for a
while, because even though he was hearing the same squawks and squeaks that
everyone wlse was, his mind was thinking "Is that a verb?  Okay that means that
the Direct Object comes next.  Or does that make sense?  Try it the other way
around.  Yes, that seems to make more sense.  Now if that is the Direct Object
then...",  and so on.  Forge is much like this.  His mind makes intuitive leaps
that are correct because the background processing in his head tells him
"No, that won't work."  He can invent anything, given time and materials.
	The biggest problem with Forge's power is that he, just like any other
inventor, has to build up.  Forge couldn't instantly invent a hyperdrive
spaceship.  He has to build all the intermediate parts first.  This is where
the time and materials come in.  To build an intergalactic spaceship he would
have to invent a hyperdrive system, a hull that could withstand travel, a feul
system upon which it would run, etc.  Things like that limit his power.

	The reason that nobody in tha Marvel Universe does this is because all
the characters go about using their powers in a rather different way than in
the real world.  Sure, you've got attacking flying saucers and madmen out to 
destroy the world, but I doubt that if I had super powers that I would take
that route.  I would try and figure out how they work so that they could be 
reproduced and used for the greater good (no this isn't an article about ethics
but it looks like it is rapidly turning into one).  The creators of the Wild
Cards books looked at superpowered inventors as they would be in the real world
and gave it the "Inventors inventions cannot be reproduced by anyone but the
inventor" clause.  Otherwise the Wild Card universe would rapidly become like
the MiracleMan universe, with superhumanity becoming the dominating factor.

  This has been Superhero Psychology 322 with your instructor TheO O'Neal %}
-- 
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