X-Ray Vision Trivia Quiz

Answer: Monsta Island Czars

The seven member hip-hop group, Monsta Island Czars, was formed in New York in 1997, and took all their peculiar performance names from monsters in the "Godzilla" movies. Those names include Gamma Ray, X-Ray, Grimlock, Lord Smog, Jet Jaguar, MF Doom and the like. Since their year of formation, they have made one studio album and five compilation albums as a group, and, in a kind of patchwork musical quilt, thirty-nine other individual albums with band members who came and went.

Answer: U Foes

U Foes are a four member group of super villains who usually show up as foes of the Incredible Hulk. The group consists of Vector, who has a telekinetic ability to repel objects; Vapor, who can change form into gas of assorted kinds; the metallic Ironclad, who can alter his density; and X-Ray who has the two villainous abilities of flight and radiation. Created by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema, and published by Marvel Comics, this dastardly gang made their first appearance in December, 1980, and commenced creating havoc, in one form or another, from that time.

Answer: Louis Sachar

"Holes", a work of fiction aimed at the young adult audience, has taken several awards for the quality of its writing. Written by Louis Sachar, it tells the story of Stanley, a fourteen year old boy sent to a juvenile prison on a dried out lake in the middle of a desert for a crime he did not commit.

There, he and the other inmates of the prison are forced to dig one hole a day for punishment. Soon, Stanley begins to suspect there is more to just digging holes for punishment than meets the eye. X-ray is the manipulative leader of the boys in the group in which Stanley works.

He controls the others by either rewarding them or turning them against each other. Though friends of a sort with Stanley at first, he eventually turns against him. And the plot thickens from there.

Answer: NATO

The NATO alphabet is also known as the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet (a name which contains more letters than the actual alphabet), the spelling alphabet, the ITU radiotelephonic alphabet and the phonetic alphabet. Each of the words used to represent one of the letters in the NATO alphabet begins with that particular letter of the alphabet. N, for example, is referred to as November, P is Papa, U is Uniform, and so on.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation created this alphabet in the 1950s to overcome the confusion that existed with various other naming systems at that time.

This enabled radio and telephone transcriptions to cross all language difficulties and be understood everywhere.

Answer: The Kinks

Published in 1995, and written by Ray Davies himself, "X-Ray" uses the literary device of a young, but unnamed narrator, interviewing Ray Davies when he is much older, and set some years after the date that the work was actually written. So although it is technically an autobiography, it is also a work of fiction as well. To make it even more confusing, it has the character of the somewhat demented future Davies recounting his memories from the 1960s.

The very popular English rock group, The Kinks, were formed in London in 1963 by Ray and his brother, Dave. They managed to survive for over thirty years, and gave their last performance in 1996. Since that time, there have been assorted rumours that the group would re-unite, but these have been constantly quashed by the members themselves. It's all very sad, really.

Answer: A ballet

Born in Copenhagen in 1946, Peter Martins was the principal dancer with the Danish Royal Ballet, and later the New York City Ballet, for the early part of his life. On his retirement from active dancing in 1983, he became initially a co-ballet director with the New York Company, before moving up to become its sole ballet director in 1990. Often working with American classical music and opera composer John Adams, who created the striking "Adams Violin Concerto" in 1994, Martins set this lovely work that same year to ballet, and gave the third movement of same the unusual title of "X-Ray".

Answer: Dub

X-Ray, aka Dub music, had its early roots in reggae music from the 1960s, but since that period, has changed and altered to develop its own form. Today, still retaining those early roots, it is considered a sub-genre of reggae. In its most basic form, it usually takes existing recordings, but removes the vocals and puts a far stronger stress on drum and bass. Because it very occasionally will include dubbed vocals from previous works, this gave rise to the name, dub music, by which it became recognised.

Answer: Crossed eyes

Created by Bulgarian author, Svetoslav Minkov, in 1934, "The Lady with the X-Ray Eyes" is described as an absurdist science fiction work. It tells the tale of a young woman who was born with strabismus, also known as crossed eyes. She eventually decides to have this condition repaired and is operated upon by a strangely brilliant surgeon who not only corrects her vision, but enhances it by giving her the ability to see through objects and people. Sadly though, Mimi, for such is our anti-heroine's name, does not use her new abilities for good, but in a long pursuit for the perfect physically endowed male. Guess how she achieves that, the naughty girl.

Answer: Chess

The X-Ray tactic in the game of chess is also known more familiarly as the Skewer. This is a type of pin movement, where a more valued chess piece, under threat of being captured, finds itself located in front of a piece of lesser worth. To avoid being taken it must move the valuable piece out of danger, but in doing so, alas, it loses its valiant subordinate.

There are different forms of this tactic used in chess.

Answer: Nuclear weapons

So X-Ray was the code name for the code name for testing nuclear weapons, in other words. This series of tests, unlike the previous ones, was carried out by United States Atomic Energy Commission, with the US armed forces only playing a support role this time. Like the others, however, Operation Sandstone was also carried out in the Pacific Ocean, in the region of the Marshall Islands.

The overall result of X-Ray made all the previously used nuclear devices obsolete and introduced a far more deadly and efficient force of destruction to the weary old world.