How to Build a Viltrumite (in real life)

Added: 2026-06-06

[00:00:00]This is Marcus. His girlfriend was attacked, but he couldn't stop it. So, he came to us begging for one thing, to become a Viltrumite. Using real science, we'll try to give him a Viltrumite superpowers, but Marcus might not survive. And even if he does, he might become the very thing she needs protection from. There are seven things that make a Viltrumite special, but let's start with their super strength.

[00:00:26]A chimpanzee the size of a 12-year-old can overpower most human adults without trying, even though they have the same basic anatomy and muscle groups. This gap starts with one protein. Inside your muscles, there's a gene called ACTN3.

[00:00:42]It produces a protein called alpha-actinin-3, which acts as a supercharger for fast-twitch muscle fibers, muscles designed for explosive bursts of power.

[00:00:52]The working version of this gene is called the R allele. Most people have it, but roughly one in five people carry a different version, the X allele. It's a mutation that switches this protein off entirely. This is because evolution traded raw strength for endurance.

[00:01:09]However, chimpanzees never made that evolutionary shift. 67% of their muscle fibers are fast-twitch, compared to 40% in humans. Therefore, we inject Marcus with a modified virus carrying the R allele and push his muscle fiber ratio towards chimpanzee levels.

[00:01:28]It works, but he can't fully control his new-found strength. What happens when he can't tell the difference between an enemy and her?

[00:01:38]However, super strength means nothing if one hit ends you. This experiment fixes that. Your bones are constantly being built by cells called osteoblasts, and the only thing stopping them is a protein called sclerostin, produced by a gene called SOST. Think of it like a brake pedal. Its only job is to stop bone growth. But for people with a condition called sclerosteosis, the osteoblasts never stop because there's nothing telling them to. The result is bones so dense they're essentially unbreakable. Real patients with sclerosteosis can survive severe car accidents without a single broken bone.

[00:02:19]Therefore, we silence Marcus's SOST gene. However, osteoblasts don't know the difference between a leg bone and a skull. They just keep building. His skull gets denser, slowly compressing the nerves controlling his hearing and his face. Over time, he goes deaf and parts of his face stop moving. He's harder to hurt on the outside, but the damage just moves inward.

[00:02:46]Being strong and unbreakable isn't enough. Actual Wolverine's can recover from catastrophic damage within hours.

[00:02:53]There's an animal called the axolotl that can regrow an entire severed limb.

[00:02:59]Here's how. In axolotls, two proteins called NEG and Prod1 trigger something called dedifferentiation. Essentially, the cells around the wound forget what type of cell they are and revert to a blank state, like pressing undo until you're back to an empty page. These blank cells collect into a cluster called a blastema, and because each one can become anything, the blastema rebuilds whatever was lost. Scientists have studied axolotls for years because they can trigger massive cell growth without causing cancer, but they haven't figured it out yet.

[00:03:34]However, we engineered this into Marcus anyway. Here's the trade-off. Healing and cancer are the same process, rapid cell division. The only difference is an off switch. We gave Marcus the accelerator, but he doesn't have the off switch.

[00:03:51]The first three experiments give Marcus power. This one gives him time. The naked mole rat is the only mammal known to barely age. They also have an extremely high resistance to cancer, both because of the same mechanism.

[00:04:05]Naked mole rats produce an unusually heavy sugar molecule called hyaluronan.

[00:04:10]It wraps around their cells and activates something called the P16 pathway when things get too crowded.

[00:04:16]This forces cells to stop dividing before they become tumors. Think of it like this. Mole cells are like workers who refuse to retire and they eventually make mistakes causing diseases. But mole rat cells clock out early because of the hyaluronan. They are sent home before they cause any damage. Therefore, we integrate this system into Marcus.

[00:04:38]However, the naked mole rat is cold-blooded. Its metabolism matches the temperature of its environment rather than fighting it. So, when this integrates into Marcus, its internal clock slows down. Weeks start passing the way hours used to. He stopped aging, but she didn't.

[00:04:58]Velstromites can travel through space unprotected. To give Marcus that ability, we have two problems to solve.

[00:05:05]Problem one, oxygen. The Bajau people of Southeast Asia regularly dive into the ocean to hunt food. This evolved their spleens to be roughly 50% larger than normal. The spleen basically works like a backup oxygen tank. Therefore, we replicate this in Marcus using EPO, a hormone that boosts red blood cell production. This dramatically increases how much oxygen his blood can carry.

[00:05:30]However, blood that thick increases his risk of getting a stroke. Problem two, the vacuum. In a vacuum, fluids in the body boil even at body temperature. This is called ebullism. Tardigrades can survive this by producing trehalose.

[00:05:46]It's a sugar that replaces the water in their cells with a glass-like state. We engineer this into Marcus alongside diesel, a protein in tardigrades that can shield his DNA from radiation. But to survive it, Marcus has to shut down, becoming completely unconscious.

[00:06:05]Vultromites can fly without wings, but it's impossible to give Marcus that because of physics. However, we can give him something close. There's a protein called resilin, found in insect joints.

[00:06:17]It can store and release mechanical energy almost perfectly. The froghopper uses it to accelerate to 400 Gs before a jump. For reference, that's more force than a rocket launch relative to body size, of course. Resilin also returns 97% of stored energy. Most tendons are like worn rubber bands. Stretch them and you get some energy back, but most of it disappears as heat. However, resilin is closer to a steel spring. Therefore, we engineer synthetic resilin into Marcus's tendons. Combined with the muscles and bones from previous experiments, he can now cover miles in a single jump. But here's the trade-off. Once he's in the air, he can't steer himself. If he miscalculates, landing becomes extremely dangerous.

[00:07:07]There's a concept in psychology called the Proteus effect. It's named after a Greek god who could change his shape at will. Researchers found that when people inhabit a physically powerful body, even just a digital avatar, their behavior changes to match it without them deciding to. Give someone a taller avatar and they negotiate more aggressively. Give them a stronger one and their empathy drops because every second the body sends signals to the brain about strength, safety, and what's worth worrying about. After the six previous experiments, Marcus's signals have completely changed. He can't be heard. Nothing around him registers as dangerous anymore. And slowly, without noticing, his brain recalibrates to match. The things that used to drive him, her fear, her safety, start to feel like they belong to a different person.

[00:07:56]He came to us because he loved her, because he wanted to protect her. But love requires seeing someone as vulnerable, breakable, and she's starting to feel very insignificant to him. One day, he grabs her arm to stop her from leaving. He didn't mean to hurt her. He just forgot she breaks.