The Return of Dr. Perry Quantum

If I had to invent some sort of character archetype for Dr. Perry Quantum,--by all accounts his real name-- I'd label him a two-fisted scientist, or an adroit bruiser, or something equally oxymoronic. He's a man who can truly, only be defined by contradictions.

After obtaining advanced degrees in Chemistry and Genetics, Dr. Quantum turned his superhuman intelligence and charisma toward extensive research and experiments, and gaining funding for extensive research and experiments respectively. His goal? Wish fulfillment.

Like every other boy who grows up in a first- or second-world country, Dr. Perry Quantum went through a superhero phase. He just never grew out of it. Is it coincidence his "big breakthrough" came around the same time the first real life superhumans began showing up in the headlines? Of course not. Coincidence and superpowers don't broadcast on the same frequency.

Just days after he revealed his super-serums to the public, he walks out of the rubble of a collapsed building, an ambulatory statue in a white lab coat, holding an 8-year-old girls in his arms. The picture won some kind of award from Time Magazine; little girl, curly blond pigtails blowing in a dusty breeze, clinging to this stone man who doesn't even feel the weight of her on one arm, the ruin of a collapsed brownstone behind them.

Dr. Perry makes the news again this week as a man calls himself The Druid, a hobo with the ability to manipulate plants, attempted to terrorize Boston Common. Dr. Perry appeared on the scene within seconds, of course. It must save on time, not having to cover a secret identity. The superhuman branch of the Entertainment channel caught the best footage: Dr. Quantum, surrounded by tree's out of J.R.R. Tolkien's worst nightmares, pulls a syringe from his coat pocket, jabs it into his arm and depresses the plunger with his thumb, not even rolling up the sleeves of his signature lab coat.

Dr. Quantum combusts, and he is encased in flame; simultaneously, he rises six inches off the ground. Branches flail at him, but they erupt in red fire and turn to ash before they can touch his skin. The hero lowers his hand imperiously at monstrous tree after monstrous tree, gouts of flame shooting from his fingertips.

The battle ended in minutes. Dr. Perry Quantum, socially conscious as he is, forced "The Druid" to right the trees he'd uprooted, healing the damage from the Dr.'s own fire. He's not a crazy hippie. I'll vouch for him.

Look. I'm no scientist. I'm a journalist. But, I passed all the basics. Dr. Perry Quantum injects himself with one of his super serums and his skin turns to unbreakable stone. He uses another and he's sheathed in fire. Am I willing to believe this is a miracle of science? Yes. In his stone form, his coat gets ripped and torn, in a very dramatic fashion. In his fire form, his lab coat never burns. Am I willing to believe that's science beyond my ken? Hardly.

Why not? I'm not sure. I went to college in a different age--before the dawn of the superhumans. I witnessed their birth. My mind has been able to adapt to things people of other times just wouldn't have been able to handle. But there's something about seeing that brilliant white lab coat, pristine like a flag, not burning to cinders as the world burns around it, that makes my mind say, "No, that's not scientifically possible". Scientifically. 

There are more things on Heaven and Earth, Horatio...

All I'm saying is, Dr. Perry, maybe it's you, not the super serums.

Cheers,

-B.H.