Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: ai, Fantastsic Four, Pi, ryan north
AI, PI, And Doing The Maths On Fantastic Four #14 (Spoilers)
AI, PI, and Doing The Maths On Fantastic Four #14 by Ryan North and Andrea Di Vito (Spoilers). Did I get it wrong? Or did Marvel Comics?
Article Summary
- Fantastic Four #14 first looks like AI-tainted art from Andrea Di Vito, but is it?
- Ryan North continues to write a classic Fantastic Four issue from his current run
- The issue reveals a Pi-based hypnosis plot, with Jo and Nicki racing to stop a reality-warping mathematical disaster.
- The big fix rewrites humanity but the maths still may not add up.
There will be large spoilers for the lead story in yesterday’s Fantastic Four #14 by Ryan North, Marieke Nijkamp, Andrea Di VitoandRamon Rosanas. I am not spoiling it all, but I am talking about a big twist, and my perceptions while reading it. So you get this first.
It’s a really good comic, Ryan North‘s run on Fantastic Four with Iban Coello, Humberto Ramos and the like has been stellar, and so far may be my favourite run on the comic to date, although of course they had many shoulders to stand on, and it is very much reflective of the work by series creators Jack Kirby andStan Lee, with John Byrne, Walter Simonson and Jonathan Hickman especially. But we are where we are.
Firstly, I would like to apologise to artist Andrea Di Vito for something he did not do. When I started reading the comic, I thought, “Oh, he is using A.I.” Whether to create the full art or to create line art to work from. And I was all ready to expose them. Can you see why?
That’s why. Six fingers on Sue Storm’s hand. The classic A.I. tell. It could have been a mistake, of course. But then I kept reading.
This double-page spread gave me strong vibes of the current “Stare at a wall” meme. But again… with both Alicia Masters and Sue Storm…
I was all ready to fire up the outrage engines. Especially when I saw this.
The others could have been missed. This clearly could not have been. This is editorial incompetence that beats that of Stan Lee. This was clearly A.I., just a look I hadn’t seen before, and insanely professionally done… and Andrea would have gotten away with it too, if not for pesky readers like me. Get ready to publish the outrage… just as soon as I’ve read the comic.
Good trick from a Skrull. And as Jo and Nicki narrow the message down to an email sent to everyone with the latest iteration of the number Pi, the circumference of a circle divided by its radius. 3.14 something. A principle of the reality of time and space.
As the Kree and Skrull adopted children of Alicia Masters and Ben Grimm, immune to the strange hypnotism that has gripped the world, have narrowed it down to this somehow, we get a flashback to Reed Richards talking about poison ivy’s effect on humanity. And I don’t mean becoming mayor of Gotham.
But while Reed Richards was monologuing, I am screencapping…
But as the kids realise that the new iteration of PI contains something that has a hypnotising effect on humanity purely by accident, they realise they have to change PI. And also have to go back in time to change PI so that this never happens. And changing the very structure of reality isn’t going to wash. And then all my outrage fell away.
This is the story of how two alien kids made humanity no longer have twelve fingers and thumbs, but ten, and would use base-10 to count and calculate PI with different numbers, breaking the chain. You can find out how by reading the comic. But what an excellent twist, and an instant removal of my outrage. Sorry Andrea. Congratulations Ryan. You hid it very well, only getting more obvious as the story continued. Except… now I have a new outrage.. Let’s go back to those emails.
The comic says that before and after the fix, humanity had a twelve-hour clock. With base 10, five minutes past noon would indeed be written as 12.05pm. But if you lived in base twelve, with no other changes, noon would be written as 10.00. You would go 1am, 2am, 3am, 4am, 5am, 6am, 7am, 8am, 9am, Aam, Bam, and then 10pm for noon. Then 1pm 2pm 3pm 4pm 5pmk 6pm 7pm 8pm, 8am, 9am, Aam, Bam, and 10am for midnight. There is no 12.05pm possible. You might have a twenty-four hour clock, 0.00, 1:00, 2:00, 3.00, 4:00, 5:00, 6.00, 7:00, 8:00, 9.00, A:00, B:00, 10.00: 11:00, 12:00, 13.00, 14:00, 15:00, 16.00, 17:00, 18:00, 19.00, 1A:00, 1B:00, 0:00 – so that would give you a 12.05… but then that wouldn’t be PM, as the email has. Five minutes past noon would be 10.05pm. Also…
Some of those historical calculations, which were true in our Base 10 world, no longer work quite as well in Base 12. 3 and 1/8 in base 12 would be 3.16 rather than 3.125 in decimal; wouldn’t the Greeks have chosen a closer approximation? The Romans did go for 25 eighths, in base 10 that’s 3.625, but it’s further out in base 12, as 3.76. However, the biggest error with my eyes is that Pi in base 10 is indeed 3.14… etc, etc, etc. But in base 12, it’s 3.18… etc etc etc. The email text, read in base 12, seems to have been written in base 10. Help?
Also, decimal places? Maybe that’s just a language thing. I guess if you call the number 12, ten, you can still call it decimal. But this piece of art stays the same before and after the change. A bus that goes from 14th Street to 6th Avenue still goes from 14th Street to 6th Avenue. But in the Base 10 world, 14th Street should now be 12th Street. That’s a whole two Manhattan blocks difference!
Tell me if I got it wrong, Ryan got it wrong, or Marvel editorial got it wrong. And then go back to reading an excellent comic book…
Fantastic Four #14 by Ryan North, Marieke Nijkamp, Andrea Di Vito, Ramon Rosanas
OUR GUARANTEE TO YOU: ABSOLUTELY THE MOST UNEXPECTED STORY YOU’LL READ ALL YEAR! Something has gone terribly wrong on Earth, and it’s spreading from human to human – quickly, unstoppably. The Baxter Building is not immune – and before they can even realize there is a problem, everyone on the Fantastic Four is compromised! …Everyone, that is, save for Jo and Nicki – the young adopted children of Ben and Alicia, whose alien Kree and Skrull physiology leaves them immune. But what can two children do to save an entire world all by themselves? And what if what’s needed for a cure is physically impossible? Jo and Nicki take center stage in this mind-bending single-issue epic! PLUS: A SPECIAL BACKUP STORY CELEBRATING DISABILITY PRIDE MONTH!
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