If Sylar doesn't kill that whiny little annoyance I will jump in there & take her brain myself!!!

On a random note;
If I was Hiro I'd basically go round everywhere collecting each person I met who had an ability & then sit them all down so everyone could work things out.

yeah whats the rush, y charge on peter? they have ALL the time in the world, so just sit down and talk it out, tell what happened and figure whats the best action to do

Maya, is pretty annoying, deserting her brother for some dude? And Hiro was fueled by rage, If I was him I'd charge Peter too. Think about it, some dude killed your father, and Peter is protecting him?! I'd definitely be pissed.

Maya didn't desert Alejandro. She tried to drive him away because Sylar half-convinced her that Alejandro hates her, but is sticking with her only because they're kin. She believes that if Alejandro knew the truth about her, he would not be with her - and that, since she can control her own ability, she doesn't need to endanger him any more. He can go back to his normal life... er, what's left of it. I'd hardly call that deserting.

I was really exasperated with the twins at the beginning... T&C was the first episode where I actually started liking Maya.

Maya isn't nearly as annoying as she used to be, but I still don't like her.
I can't wait for Sylar to kill her.

wow i hate that character...so annoying...seriously...i hope she gets killed by sylar or something

I love Maya..
It kinda annoys me when people say they don't like her because she 'whines'
It's exactly the same with Claire.
So ya know, w/e.
MAYA! <3

Imagine Sylar with Maya's ability, he won't have to try he can just... drop you. Black Tears. No more chase.

lay off Maya a bit, it's not her fault she's easily lead astray by Sylar she clearly loves him. But I except she will be the next one to be killed off though

I actually thought she was alright at first tbh. - she's definitely gorgeous.
But she's so EASILY manipulated!!! & whiny.

Claire annoys me more but I figure she's a permanent fixture in the Heroes family so I have a long long time to complain about her

Maya has to be "whiny" because her character's powers are manifested through tears. Not really the actor's fault. I wish the special effects were better. The black tears look pretty lame. Plus, it's every guy's worst nightmare. Some serial killer kills you and then makes out with your hot sister over your dead body!

She does seem kind of pointless at this point. I wonder if there's some other use for her that we aren't gonna see in this first arc.

Aha. Claire.. -.-
But I mean, I believe there is more to come from Maya!

No, her powers are manifested through her being in a stressful situation and the tears are just a result of her 'power'...

Maya tends to be whiny because she is worried about what she can do with her power and spends her time constantly worrying and fretting about it...

I have to disagree with you. You’re thinking manifest means “to cause.” But manifest means "apparent," "obvious," "evident," or "to display" etc. So, while becoming distressed triggers her release of her powers, the actual release is manifested (i.e., apparent, evidenced) through her tears. You haven't seen anyone die from Maya's powers without the tears showing up. When she is upset to the point of crying the black tears then people become sick and start to die (shedding their own black tears).

kill kill kill kill kill (maya that is)

come on sylar, one down, one to go...

I think she will kill Adam somehow in the future.

if the virus doesnt affect him...then i dont think maya can

... where did we get the impression that the virus doesn't affect regenerators?

well...he's going to release the virus, isnt he?
so when it is, he must probably be the first to get infected by it
so either he knows the virus wont affect him
or either he's too ignorant and believeinng that nothing can hurt him
or either he is planning some suicide bomber tactics!

Well, I don't know Adam's motivations... but we as an audience know that it requires Claire's [or any regenerator's] blood plus Mohinder's antibodies to defeat the virus. Adam has part A but not part B... so why wouldn't the virus affect him?

Does it?

Where does it say it needs both?

I'm not sure where it says Adam would have to have both Mohinders blood combined with his own abilities, but Adam sure doesn't seem to afriad of letting loose the virus, which could either mean it wouldn't effect him, or he is sick of living forever and wants to die.

I think that a regenerators blood is only strong enough with mohinder's blood when it is used on someone wiithout that ability, "to enhance" the effects of the cure. Claire and Adam should be able to kill the virus before it takes their abilities away...don't you think?

Scientifically speaking... cell regeneration wouldn't be able to destroy the Shanti virus.

Our body naturally fights the viruses we come in contact with on a day to day basis. I mean those such as the cold virus and even the HIV virus. The reason why the body does this, is in our immune system are two kinds of cells: T cells and B cells. T cells are the "killer cells" that actually cause apoptosis (cell death) when they come across a cell they recognize as infected with a virus. They recognize virally infected cells, because cells present little pieces of degraded protein on their outer surfaces. In an infected cell, some of the protein presented is virus protien. In our blood are pieces of protein called antibodies. One side of them attaches onto the presented pieces of viral protein. The other end attaches into a variety of cells (including T cells) which kill the infected cell. So, a "killer cell"l knows what cell to kill, because it attaches onto these antibodies which are in turn attached to the bits of viral protein in infected cells. Without the antibody attaching to the infected cell, the killer cell wouldn't know what cells are infected, and therefore it wouldn't be able to kill them (and destroy the infecting virus).

Every single virus has a different kind of antibody that's specific for that one virus. Each one of these antibodies has a part of its protein that binds to part of the presented viral protein. An antibody against virus A wouldn't be able to recognize protein parts of virus B, so it would never bind to a cell infected with virus B. Consequently the killer cells would never know the cell was infected, and would never kill it, and the cell would continue to produce the virus. Only if the person's blood had an antibody against virus B in it, could the killer cells tell that a cell was infected with virus B. So if the person doesn't have Antibody B, cells infected with virus B won't get targeted by the immune system.

The human body has a lot of different B cells, each of which produce a different antibody, each of which in turn target a different kind of viral protein. Between all of them we're pretty well protected against most viruses. Some, though, we aren't. That is why we get vaccinated: a small amount of the virus is introduced to our system, not enough to harm us, just enough to activate the B cells which produce antibodies against it. Then, if a stronger version of that virus infects us, we already have a bunch of antibodies against it stored up, and our immune system can destroy it quickly.

So what does this have to do with Heroes?

The Shanti virus is just like any other virus. The immune system will only respond to destroy it if it knows that a cell has been infected with it. In order for the cell to be recognized as infected, an antibody has to bind to it, so the killer cell can destroy it. Right now, Mohinder is the only character we know of who actually has antibodies against the Shanti virus. Therefore only an infusion of his blood will give someone the antibodies they need, so that their immune system knows what cells are infected by the virus and can destroy the infected cells.

Where does that leave Claire, Adam, and any other regenerators?

Since neither Claire nor Adam have the antibody against the Shanti virus, their immune system would be unable to destroy any infected cells. That is, their blood itself is not a cure for the virus. However any cell that the virus destroys, their body will just regenerate. So the virus wouldn't be able to kill them (they would just regenerate the destroyed cells). Now, we know that the virus takes away abilities when it infects cells. So, once enough cells are infected with the virus, those cells won't be able to regenerate. The upshot is, it would take them a lot longer to die from the virus, but it would happen eventually.

All of this assumes that Heroes!science is the same as Real!science in every respect except one: that some people have four genes which allow them to do extraordinary things.

That's why I think the virus should still be able to affect Adam. His ability is cellular regeneration, not immunity to all harm, even though most of the time they amount to the same thing. The Shanti virus is not one of those "most of the time" situations.

[Disclaimer for other folks familiar with this: I did simplify a lot of the complicated mechanisms to help get the point across. Forgive me ]

Maya is the way that she is because she is playing a naive person who has trust in everyone. She doesn't want to hurt people and her naivety has led her to trust Sylar, but I think that her innocence will disappear when she finds out Sylar has killed Alejandro and she will work hard to avenge his death. I imagine she will toughen up after this next episode and for the next volume.

I like the sound of this!

sadly she has not toughened up like i imagined but hopefully she will moreso once it returns