Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

split

2024-06-26 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
split
Votey panel for split
This explanation is incomplete or may contain errors. It was generated by AI and has not yet been reviewed by a human editor.

Explanation

In this comic, a woman approaches Wolverine from the X-Men with a question. She asks if he would be willing to split his body between being a "desperate loner" or a "man of the people." Wolverine dismisses the idea, saying something like "What an odd question -- why would I split myself? It's never going to come up." In the final panels, the woman tells the other X-Men to keep multiplying, because the "Wolverine question" is going to become relevant soon -- implying the X-Men are going to keep splitting and reproducing like cells.

The humor here plays on the concept of cell division and biological reproduction. Wolverine's famous mutant power is his incredible regenerative healing factor -- he can regrow tissue and recover from nearly any wound. The comic takes this to its logical (absurd) extreme: if Wolverine can regenerate, could he theoretically be split into two complete Wolverines, like a cell undergoing mitosis? The "Wolverine question" -- whether each half would retain his personality -- becomes a real philosophical problem if the X-Men start multiplying.

This is a play on the philosophical "split brain" thought experiments and personal identity puzzles (reminiscent of Derek Parfit's work on personal identity), wrapped in an X-Men comic book scenario. The joke is that an abstract philosophical question becomes urgently practical when you are dealing with mutants who can actually regenerate.

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