Atoms
Atoms
[Megan stands at a table and is preparing a sample for some kind of analysis in a device, when Beret Guy walks in.] Beret Guy: What’re you doing? Megan: Testing a sample for beryllium. Beret Guy: That? Yeah, there’s a bunch of berylliums. Megan: How do you know?
[Megan turns to Beret Guy who takes the sample and looks at it.] Beret Guy: Look at it! See? Tons of oxygens and silicons, a few irons but definitely some berylliums too! Can’t you see them?
[They continue to talk.] Megan: No, I can’t see a list of the atoms in a thing by looking. Beret Guy: How do you tell what things are?
[Zoom in on Megan.] Megan: This is ridiculous. Look at me. What do you see? Beret Guy (off-panel): You have tons of metal in your face. Lots of fillings, I guess?
[Megan stares at Beret Guy who takes a looks at his own arm.] Megan: What’s wrong with you? Beret Guy: Too many zincs? I’ve always worried I had too much zinc and everyone thought I was weird.
Could possibly explain 452: Mission if he believes all carbon based objects to be scones.

This comic shows another quirky and fantastical ability of Beret Guy .
In this comic, Megan is preparing a sample of what appears to be some mineral for elemental analysis . It seems to be some kind of silicate containing a small amount of iron (a common example of this would be red sandstone ), and she is running a test to see if it contains beryllium (a rarer element whose best-known natural form is as a component of emerald ).  Such analyses typically involve many instruments and steps to prepare the sample.  However, Beret Guy seems to be able to identify all the elements the substance is composed of just by eyeballing it, making him perhaps the perfect elemental analysis instrument.
To confirm this, Megan asks Beret Guy what he sees when he looks at her face, expecting that a normal person would describe the arrangement of colors and features that they see. Since Beret Guy sees the atoms Megan is composed of (mostly oxygen, carbon and hydrogen ) he only notices the unusual atoms. In this case he sees the metal atoms her dental fillings are composed of. This shows his "atomic vision" extends beyond the surface of the substances. Megan finds this bizarre and asks Beret Guy what is wrong with him. He states that he has always suspected he contains too much zinc , which he believes makes people think he is weird, thus missing Megan’s point: what is weird is not Beret Guy’s elemental content, but his ability to apparently see everything as atoms sorted by element.
High zinc intake ( zinc toxicity ) can cause nausea, vomiting, pain, cramps and diarrhea. It also reduces copper absorption, which affects the immune system. However, it does not grant superhuman sensory abilities. [ citation needed ] That is solely a function of tin .
The comic continues the theme of Beret Guy’s naive misunderstandings of scientific terminology turning to be literally true.  In a previous comic his misinterpretation of the notion of energy in the vacuum resulted in him gaining significant superpowers.
In the title text, the concept is taken even further: Beret Guy found his dad indistinguishable from a dog.  This is likely because all mammals are essentially made of the same basic elements.  Absent a distinguishing element from either his dad or the dog, they would appear to be the same.  He could, however, apparently distinguish his mother because she contained plutonium .  This is a very unusual occurrence that cannot possibly occur naturally in humans. [ citation needed ] Some possible explanations are:
It is also possible that the presence of plutonium in his mother may be the source of his own differences: radioactive exposure (in this case, potentially in utero) is a common source of super powers in comic books and other fiction (though unfortunately, this does not work in real life [ citation needed ] ).
It's not clear whether his mother's plutonium is related to his "too many zincs".  One explanation for Beret Guy having too much zinc could be that his mother's plutonium changed into zinc through the process of radioactive decay .
Beret Guy’s mother containing plutonium is probably intended as a whimsical explanation of his powers, since it is a trope in fiction for radioactivity to cause superpowers.
It is worth noting that the verbs "recognized" and "had" in the title text are written in past tense. This presents the possibility that Beret Guy's mother passed away due to radiation sickness from exposure to the radiation originating from the plutonium in her middle. This possibility is further evidenced when Beret Guy adds "I never did ask her why...", indicating that he may no longer have the opportunity to do so.
The English physicist Henry Moseley discovered the law relating the atomic number of elements with their characteristic x-rays when bombarded by free electrons, providing physical evidence for the periodic table , the Bohr Model of the atom and the concept of atomic number . In doing so he developed a method of identifying elements in a substance by bombarding them in a vacuum with electrons and using x-ray diffraction methods to measure the resulting X-rays. A famous French chemist brought him a complicated mixture of Rare Earth elements , many of which had only recently been discovered, to test his method. Within a short time, Mosley amazed the chemist by identifying all the elements by number using his method and referring to his chart to name them. This comic may therefore be subtly alluding to this method by suggesting that Beret Guy's eyes can fire electrons at anything he looks at and "read" the resulting X-ray radiation, giving him the ability to identify the composite elements in a similar manner.
[Megan stands at a table and is preparing a sample for some kind of analysis in a device, when Beret Guy walks in.] Beret Guy: What’re you doing? Megan: Testing a sample for beryllium. Beret Guy: That? Yeah, there’s a bunch of berylliums. Megan: How do you know?
[Megan turns to Beret Guy who takes the sample and looks at it.] Beret Guy: Look at it! See? Tons of oxygens and silicons, a few irons but definitely some berylliums too! Can’t you see them?
[They continue to talk.] Megan: No, I can’t see a list of the atoms in a thing by looking. Beret Guy: How do you tell what things are?
[Zoom in on Megan.] Megan: This is ridiculous. Look at me. What do you see? Beret Guy (off-panel): You have tons of metal in your face. Lots of fillings, I guess?
[Megan stares at Beret Guy who takes a looks at his own arm.] Megan: What’s wrong with you? Beret Guy: Too many zincs? I’ve always worried I had too much zinc and everyone thought I was weird.
Could possibly explain 452: Mission if he believes all carbon based objects to be scones.
