Behind the Science: Absolute Martian Manhunter

Behind the Science: Absolute Martian Manhunter I wanted to come back to Absolute Martian Manhunter and look at some of this from a different angle. We’ve talked about what’s happening in the story, but the science behind these abilities is a whole other conversation. And the one I want to start with is John being able to pass through solid matter. Because walking through a wall sounds simple until you ask a very basic question: why doesn’t he go straight through the floor too? That’s the part these powers usually get to skip. The wall and the floor aren’t following different laws of physics. If John can stop one from interfering with his body, something has to decide that the other should still hold him up. Then it has to keep making those decisions as he moves. First, this isn’t the usual version of Martian Manhunter. John and the Green Martian are distinct beings, and the alien is presenting itself in a way John can understand. The name doesn’t mean we can explain its abilities by talking about conditions on Mars. We’re dealing with a very different kind of alien presence here, working through a human being. There’s a familiar explanation for phasing that says atoms are mostly empty space, so a person should somehow be able to pass between them. But that “empty” space isn’t an open passage. Matter doesn’t need to be made of tiny solid marbles to behave as something solid. Electromagnetic interactions and the quantum behavior of electrons are part of what give materials their structure and stop your hand from passing through a table. And those interactions aren’t only happening between your hand and the table. They’re also involved in holding your hand together. That’s where this gets complicated. You couldn’t simply switch off all the interactions that make John’s body resist other matter and expect him to remain a functioning person. His chemistry still has to work. Nerves still need to signal. His cells still need to remain cells. Whatever is allowing him through that wall has to leave an enormous amount of ordinary biology alone. Even seeing where he’s going raises another problem. Light has to interact with his eyes. Breathing requires him to interact with air. His clothes need to come along instead of being left on the other side. If he wants to reach out and grab someone, the power has to let that contact happen without immediately making everything else solid around him. So this isn’t just an ability to become intangible. It implies control over what he interacts with, when he interacts with it, and which things count as part of him. Quantum tunnelling is real, but it doesn’t solve this for us. A particle crossing an energy barrier isn’t the same thing as an intact human body deliberately walking through masonry, staying alive, and choosing where to stop. Putting a real scientific name beside the ability doesn’t make those missing steps disappear. The story is allowed to have rules beyond ours. What I find interesting is how much those rules would have to accomplish. John doesn’t need to consciously calculate every interaction in his body. Something about the connection with the Martian is handling that for him. And that makes the ability more impressive to me. Passing through the wall is the part we can see. Keeping the rest of his existence working while he does it is the much bigger feat.