Top Five Super Powers I Don’t Want

Upon meeting people, one of my default questions is "if you could have any super power, what would it be?" I have received some rather unique answers over the years, especially from drunken geeks at convention after parties. However there have been some reoccurring answers that really made me raise my eyebrows over and over. There are super powers I find to be extremely overrated or lame, things that I would never consider if I had the option of choosing my own mutation/radiation/evolution/whatever, and yet they keep coming up whenever I ask that question.

The Top Five Super Powers I Don't Want

Flight

Of all the answers I get to the "what powers would you want?" question, this is the one that I hear constantly. I feel like perhaps it is just some sort of cop out answer, the easy way to get the weird girl to stop asking strange questions, but I really cannot comprehend why flight is so great. Sure, you can get from point A to point B without paying for a plane ticket, but what other purpose does it serve? If it's not coupled with another superpower, there is not a whole lot you can do with it. If you're fighting crime and all you can do is fly, how do you defeat a super villain? Fly around them in circles until they become dizzy?

Not to mention the BUGS. Realistically, if you're cruising along at x miles per hour, you are bound to become completely coated in insect organs. One would have to design some sort of apparatus that served as a wind/bug shield, and then that would take away from the badassery that you are probably feeling as you cruise along with the wind in your hair. I'd imagine it would be kind of impossible for the general public to take you seriously if you're wearing a clear satellite dish shaped thing over your face… or alternatively, show up to fight crime dripping in bug goo.

The entire affair seems entirely unappealing. If you want to travel, why not opt for teleportation instead?
 

 

 

 

"Niceness"

Goldstar, and your harmonic niceness vibes that you emit at people, I am looking at you.

I'm sure at one point in your life you have known someone who is so naive and wide eyed that you want to sit them down in front of incredibly graphic movies with their eyes taped open until you corrupt them into someone else. Or maybe that's just me. I went to high school in a small town in Idaho, so I was surrounded by religiously oppressed, teenage versions of the people in the "Stepford Wives". Most of them had blonde hair and teeth that were too white, and they would bring baked goods to school too often and never question anyone's unwavering goodness of heart, no matter how corrupt the person in question was.

Now imagine being able to use your super powers to make everyone like that. YAY now you have the most obnoxious "super hero" in the world! S/he will prance around like a Disney princess, birds singing in their wake and a smile plastered to their face like they are a model for a toothpaste commercial.

I think I'm going to be sick now.

 

 

 

 

Pyrotechnics

How does being the most useful person on the Fourth of July or on New Year's Eve sound? Doesn't that sound like it would be a BLAST? Wouldn't you love to be the life of the party TWO DAYS A YEAR?

Yeah. I can't see how making giant flashes of light and pretty colours around you is a useful super power. I mean, maybe you can be like Dazzler and use it to your advantage as a pop star (you don't have to hire a lighting crew), but come on. If the villain that you are fighting has any semblance of intelligence, they will realize that all they have to do is step outside of your radius of explosions and they are safe.

Obviously people like Jubilee can make this superpower awesome, but that's only because she can do about nine thousand other things on top of it. This, to me, is another one of those completely useless stand alone superpowers… unless you're looking for a job at a circus.

 

X-ray Vision

"Sweet, I can look through chick's clothes!"

X-ray vision, despite being able to see lots of boobs, seems like a totally useless superpower. Truly, what good does it do in a fight if that's your only superpower? Perhaps you can see what colour boxers your opponent is wearing and taunt him because of it, but what will that accomplish other than making the villain even more angry? Maybe you could make a fortune working for hospitals, but only after going through formal medical training to know what you're looking at. Or perhaps you could find work for Homeland Security, looking through people's walls and seeing what their (skeletons) are up to… which leads me to another point: how far does X-ray vision extend? What's to stop you from X-raying everything infinitely?

There seems to be very little use for such an ability. I would be pretty annoyed if this was the super "power" I was stuck with.

 

Turning into liquid

To be fair, I have never heard anyone tell me that they would want this ability, but it is SO lame that I had to include it. I am getting a little specific here since the only superhero I can think of with this ability is Zan from the Wonder Twins, but I just want to know what the creators were thinking. Yeah, let's give Jayna the ability to be ANY ANIMAL and kick super ass, and Zan? Well, Zan can be a bucket of water.

Possible uses for this super power:

• Putting out fires
• Quenching the thirst of third world countries
• Becoming "one" with the ocean
• Starting your own lawn watering business
• Portable eye wash station
• Ending droughts
• Really annoying the Human Torch

And with that, I will wrap this up. There are many more overrated/super lame super powers I could think of, but I believe if I listed them all we would end up with a list a mile long. So next time someone asks you "if you could have any superpower, what would it be?", actually consider your answer.

 

 

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Molly McIsaac points her camera at everything and enjoys fictional characters with green hair. You can stalk her to your heart's content on Twitter.