‘Bloodshot’ is grounded in ‘science faction,’ says comic writer

Writer Kevin VanHook calls it “science faction.”

When he, Don Perlin and Bob Layton dreamed up the comic book c🍌haracter Bloodshot back in the 1990s, they wanted it to be a little bit different than other superheroes whose powers were sometimes rooted in the hജe-was-bitten-by-a-radioactive-badger school.

🦹“We always tried to have that grounding in reality,” VanHook tells Thꦜe Post.

That grounding came from scien🍌tific publications they were reading at the time, and the character they spit out was a killer who’s infused with nanotechnology, making him superhuman.

Now “Bloodshot” is hitting the big screen Friday, and many of those scientific concepts from the comic book have ꦇbeen carried over. Vin Diesel plays a soldier who gets an infusion of nanites from an ethically challenged scientist (Guy Pearce), turning him into a nearly indestructible assassin.

But just how much fact is 🦩there to this science fiction? Cꦿould nanotechnology really deliver any of these powers? Read on.

Healing

Bloodshot’s injuries heal within seconds as the tiny nanites in his system knit his wounds back togethe💝r.

It’s i♔n the realm of possible but not quite as 💙portrayed.

“People always think of [nanotechnology] as these little nano animals,” says Jacob Treviꦓno, 🦩principal scientist at Brooklyn startup Chemeleon and a Columbia University adjunct professor. “It’s definitely not that. It’s more what we call smart materials — particles that we engineer going into the body.”

Nanomachines do exist, but their functionality, for now, is extremely limited. Instead, scientists are developing special gold particles, for example, that attach themselves to cancer cells and kill them. Or particles that are designed to drop of𓂃f medicine to an affected area.

Trevino says a nanomaterial that acts almost like scaffolding might soon be applied to the wound, attracting healing cells and closing a🥃 cut days faster.

Decades down the road, a nan⛎omaterial designed to heal itself when cut could be applied to skin.

Glowing

Bloodshot’s glowing chest is explained in the film as the nanites in his system working. And while it’s true that the harder that objജects are working, the more heat they generate, “humans wouldn’t be able to see it,” Trevino says, because heat is in the infrared spectrum.

Regeneration

When pieces of Bloodshot’s body are blown off, the nanites rebuild him𓄧 a new part, like a🌼 lizard growing a tail. Possible?

“That’s a big no,” Trevino says.

Communication

Without g🌄iving𓄧 too much away, the nanites in Bloodshot’s body are able to access information on the internet.

Trevino says it is now possible to send simple signals to nanoparticles but th🍒ey “couldn’t do anything w♊ith it, because they have no computation power.”

Blood

The movie explains that all of Bloodshot’s blood has been replaced by ꦦnanites. This is🐭 obviously complete (science) fiction.

Scientists, however, are developing nanoparticles that might stay in someone’s bloodstream for the ✨long term that would attach to ca𒆙ncer cells, for instance, if they were to grow in the body.