Of Monsters and Men

To be interested in questions of human enhancement, while also being a sucker for Hollywood blockbusters about superheroes, makes for an odd movie experience. Immersed in a fictional world both saved and threatened by the enhanced, you’re aware of the world you’ve just paid to escape. You feel doubled, like the superheroes themselves—though since you’re sitting on the couch and not saving the world, the division is less profound. You don’t have secret powers, just cognitive dissonance; your perception, not your identity, is split.

A few nights ago, I watched The Amazing Spider-Man on Blu-Ray. (Warning: many spoilers ensue.) The movie reboots the franchise that began in 2002, and this time around, the genetic enhancement of human beings is far more central to the plot. Just as in the first series, the high school student Peter Parker, bitten by a genetically modified spider, develops superpowers; but this time around, the spider comes from a corporation whose business model depends on “cross-species genetics,” and Peter’s nemesis—the scientist Curtis Connors, once the research partner of Peter’s deceased father—is a man with one...