Comic Magneto: How does he fly and get that force field?

[Tsyr]

Where do you get that? Their official movie site says he manipulates magnetism.

Movie one, about 1/2 of the way through it. The police scene. Magneto levitates their guns (Fine, most guns are steel), then causes one to fire. Still fine. Then he catches the bullet. Not fine. Bullets are cast from lead, which while a metal, is not affected by magnetic fields.

 

[Viking Bastard]

He has stopped bullets in the comics too.

 

[Zub]

Sorry Guys, but Molecule Man is the most powerful Mutant alive. In fact, he is the most powerful being in the universe. For some time, he believed he could affect only inorganic matter, but found out that it was simply a mental block. Once the block was removed, I think all the higher beings in the multi-verse were afraid of him. I think this was explored in a What-If comic at some point. I also seem to recall him being pretty powerful in the first beyonder series. Details are really hazy about this though.

Zub

Edit: Ok - I stand corrected on that issue. But it would be a simple matter for him to rearannge his body to turn himself into a mutant.

 

[Umbran]

Sorry Zub, but while the Molecule Man may be in the running as the most powerful mortal the Marvel Universe has ever seen, he isn't a "mutant" in the sense that Marvel Comics use the word. He got his powers in an accident with a particle accelerator.

About magnetism - Contrary to popular belief, magnetic fields can affect more than ferromagnetic metals (iron, nickel, and cobalt). Those metals are the only ones to have a naturally occuring permanent magntic moment (meaning that the atoms act as small, permanent magnets). However, just about any material can have an induced magnetic moment if it's exposed to a strong enough field. Once the moment is induced, the object may be manipulated.

I wil see if I can dig up a link to the videos of magnetically levitated spiders.

 

[Staffan]

Don't they make quite a lot of bullets out of non-lead metal these days, on account of lead being bad for the environment?

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Anything can be affected by a magnetic field if you make the field strong enough.

Otherwise all that research to create a fusion reaction contained within a magnetic "bottle" would be pretty pointless.

 

[Umbran]

Otherwise all that research to create a fusion reaction contained within a magnetic "bottle" would be pretty pointless.

The stuff "magnetic bottles" are intended to hold are plasmas - charged particles. Moving charged particles create/interact with magnetic fields, and changing magnetic fields cause charged particles to move. This is nothing new - it's the principle behind alternating current - and doesn't require particularly strong fields.

 

[Henry]

Anything can be affected by a magnetic field if you make the field strong enough.

Otherwise all that research to create a fusion reaction contained within a magnetic "bottle" would be pretty pointless.

However, you have underscored my concern with "movie magneto's" powers - by that thought, anything, even plastics, could be affected, making his prison useless. However, they made great pains to be sure no metal got near him. So this begs the question: the blurb on the movie website notwithstanding, can the movie magneto affect all metals, or only ferromagnetic ones?

Or should we not push the comparison too closely?

 

[Umbran]

Or should we not push the comparison too closely?

Don't push the comparison too closely. Accuracy (either in terms fo real science, or in terms of following canon) gets thrown out the window when faced with making an interesting story. Doubly so when the canon is not in and of itself consistent.

 

[mooby]

Correct me if I am wrong, but not all metals (for example, mercury, tin, sodium, adamantium) are affected by magnetism, are they? (In other words, no more so than plastics would be.) In this case, magneto is weaker, but stronger in some ways.

Some metals are non-magentic. Most are.