Behind the Science: Craig Marsters, the Headless Horseman

Behind the Science: Craig Marsters, the Headless Horseman I was expecting the Headless Horseman when I picked up Sleepy Hollow. I wasn't expecting the whole thing to start over a college student refusing to hand over the answers to a history test. Craig Marsters is a teacher's assistant. He's interested in American history, he has his ancestor's sword hanging in his room, and he thinks he's got a good relationship with his girlfriend. When he's asked to tutor Brian Aston, he's willing to help him actually learn the material. Brian wants to skip that part. He wants the answers, and he decides Craig needs to be frightened into giving them up. That turns into Craig being tied to railroad tracks. His own roommate is involved. They think the line is abandoned, but a train comes through, and even after they get him loose, a collision sends him back into its path. Craig is decapitated. The people who put him there cover it up. And then he comes back. The obvious biological problem is that there isn't a functioning connection between his brain and the body riding around doing all this. A human body cannot lose its head and then get up, navigate the town, recognize people and fight. The brain needs circulation, and movement depends on communication through the nervous system. Craig's return is supernatural, not some extreme version of surviving an injury. But the part I found more interesting is what he knows. Craig can see into the memories of the people he's hunting. He learns what was happening when he wasn't in the room. The comic even makes a point of confirming that he sees Mike's past, and later he accesses Ty's memories before killing him. So I wouldn't describe it as a power that only works through a severed head. The story doesn't give us that restriction. Memory in a real person is tied to living neural networks. It isn't a recording sitting in someone's eyes, waiting for another person to look into it. Craig is getting information he couldn't have gathered normally, and that information changes his understanding of his own death. His revenge becomes more personal as he finds out how much of his life had been manipulated. There's another detail worth keeping straight. The legend says the Horseman is confined to the area around Tarrytown. Ty tries to use that as an escape route. Craig crosses the boundary anyway. Whatever happened with the older Horseman, that supposed rule doesn't save anybody here. By the time Craig reaches Katie, he isn't the student who thought he was protecting his girlfriend anymore. He finally knows why all of these people wanted access to him. The sword and the horse are the recognizable parts of the legend. Finding out the truth after he's already dead is the part that makes this version particularly nasty. Source: Grimm Fairy Tales presents Sleepy Hollow #1–4.