My speedster obsession is culminating in my latest fic and all the research for it.
I surfed the net a bit today, and found that speedsters' powers can be quite different. Unfortunately, the most extensive page I found only had bio's for Quicksilver and Aurora, where the former works on another principle, and the latter was mostly after Walter experimented on her and changed her cellular structure. No comparative sites on powers except this:
Speed:
Speed powers seem to appear in two types, true speed, with its accompanying metabolic changes, and speed which is reached by some flight-capable mutants (example- Northstar, also Rogue). Mutants such as Quicksilver and Pegasus demonstrate complete acceleration of all their physiological functions, allowing them to not only move at extremely high velocities, but enhancing the speed at which their brains work, and how quickly their reflexes react. A side effect of high-speed brain function causes some telepathic immunity, as thoughts cross neural pathways so quickly that an average telepath senses little but gibberish, being unable to absorb the material at the rate which it is being presented. Quicksilver has been known to reach speeds enabling him to run across the surface of ocean water, but the exact speeds such mutants are often unknown, due to the difficulty of clocking something which moves too quickly for the eye to register.
In some gaming book I found Pietro listed as speed: 10 and JP listed as speed: 7, but this seems strange, since Northstar is stated somewhere as being able to almost go to lightspeed, but he doesn't do it because A) It would kill him and B)It would wreak havoc on the environment. This fact seems as far-fetched as this one: "Quicksilver now has unlimited speed."
Another thing is that Quicksilver clearly has superhuman reflexes, while John Byrne early stated that the Beaubier twins did not. This seems unlikely, because then they would constantly crash into things. I’m putting them down to “Faster than normal, but not as fast as Pietro’s.”
As it is, it's not so much the speed I'm interested in as the side-effects. I know they all are more resistant to friction, and has some degree of invulnerability. It also seems likely that their tendons are more flexible, and bones denser both to absorb the impact of running, and the air pressure created. Bodies nearly devoid of fat, but with hard, compact muscle. (Which is why the art on certain AF issues, such as the famous/infamus #106 is so horrible. Walter is the only one who looks like himself, because he is supposed to be large and muscular and bulky.) Quicksilver is even stated on Marvel Directory (
http://www.marveldirectory.com/) as being able to leg press up to a ton! Northstar and Aurora have both lifted Wolverine (with adamantium skeleton: 300 lbs.) without seeming difficulty (X-Men/Alpha Flight: The Gift). So they’re strong, all of them.
Another thing is the sheer amount of food that is needed to take in. On the bio page connected to the quotes page I have linked to further down, I saw it stated that a speedster converted 95% of what they ate directly into energy. This was on Quicksilver, but you also see some of it in the draft to Weapon X with Wild Child and Aurora. There is a very great amount of food put in front of her... I wonder what would happen if they were not fed for a week. Would they A) Starve to death, B) Be eaten up from inside my abnormaly strong stomach acids, or C) Loose the speed because it did not get enough fuel to keep running.
Of course, this much energy would make you restless, no matter whether it's a sped up system or kinetic motion. All the best-known speedsters are rash and impatient - this, of course, may be a side-effect.
Quote: "Fifteen minutes must feel like forever when your heart beats twenty-five times a second." - Wanda Maximoff, Ultimate X-Men #5.
(This, of course, makes me wonder if a heart can take the strain of going from that fast to normal if the power was cancelled out. From the Beaubiers’ touch-loose power-period, it would seem that it doesn’t matter, but then again, their power is supposed to be different. And the writers were bad.)
The best insight in a speedster’s life came in X-Factor #87, which I unfortunately don’t own. I have only seen it quoted. This is where the expression PMS (Pietro Maximoff Syndrome) showed up:
http://www.martinball.fsnet.co.uk/quotes.htmSince the power can be so fatal if they weren’t immune to it, and this immunity demands fundamental body changes, and the power is so life-dominating, I have a theory that it came gradually. If you take Scott Summers as an example of the opposite, he probably had head-aches, and needed to be more out in the sun - but when the beams came, they came at full force. I imagine it would be logical if a speedster gradually sped up, over a period of a year or two. This way, for a while, it could even be taken for a part of growing up. The same would be logical for enhanced strenght, resistace and senses. Of course, this is pure speculation on my part, but it seems logical, and in Aurora’s backstory way back in AF# 9 (the story was called “A Stranger in my Mirror”), it is stated that the speed was not as surprising as the fact that she was flying.
Pietro sometimes “speed talks”. I take this as a sign that most of the time, he has to slow down to normal speed when talking. It would also follow that he hears all things as a drawl, and sees things in slow motion. Somewhere, I found that Northstar does the same, but I can’t remember where…
Also, in “Eve of Destruction” somewhere, the plane gets grabbed and everyone falls backwards, except Northstar, whose power always propels him foreward or something. Can’t remember now; do not have the issue, and it’s too late to call the one who has.
I believe I am done for now. Will go to sleep. Will sometime later rant about light powers.
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