Crappy Super Powers

In America there was the short-lived and critically panned Heroes. But in Britain there is the completely brilliant and still going Misfits. The basic concept of the two series is the same. A divergent group of individuals is blessed with amazing powers and abilities. But the reason why I give so much more praise to Misfits than I do to Heroes is because in Misfits they explore a concept that has long puzzled me about super heroes. Where are all the completely crappy powers?

On one episode of Misfits they introduce a character who has what he calls “lacto-kinesis.” He can control milk and other dairy products with the power of his mind. Now I am quite fond of an ice-cold glass of milk and even I have to admit this is a pretty dumb power. It has no offensive or defensive capabilities to speak of (even though the character in the show does use it to kill). But really at best it saves you a few seconds going from the counter to your fridge for a bowl of cereal. And with the rise in lactose intolerant individuals its a pretty selective ability.

If we're going to look at a group of individuals with varied super human abilities we need to consider the X-Men. In the world in which these characters inhabit there are these people called “mutants.” The X-Men are dedicated to helping teach mutants how to use their abilities for the betterment of all of humanity. But if you look at the mutants the X-Men accept into their ranks, there seems to only be mutants of a certain caliber of power accepted into the Xavier Academy (or the Jean Grey Academy as Wolverine decided to name his branch of the school in the current comics). 

There are no lacto-kinetics on the X-Men. Nor is there anyone who doesn’t appear to be either an offensive or defensive asset in battle. And that seems a bit discriminatory since there are millions of mutants in the world (there was a brief period in the comics where there wasn’t but they recently corrected that). Millions of mutants means odds are not every one gets a fantastic healing factor (like Wolverine), optic blasts (like Cyclops), or even telepathy (like Professor X, Jean Grey, Cable, Emma Frost, and a whole bunch of others, which seems kind of lazy on the part of the writers). Someone is going to get the short end of the genetic stick and get a completely worthless power. But we never seem to see these individuals at the Xavier School.

True, there are mutants whose mutations cause them to be physically deformed. One particular group of deformed mutants are The Morlocks who live in tunnels beneath Manhattan. Their mutations are all too physically overt for them to pass among normal humans. The majority of the X-Men look like normal people and can walk along crowded streets without anyone realizing their true nature. The main two exceptions to this are Beast and Nightcrawler. And even Beast spent the majority of his life looking like a normal human.

Nightcrawler, on the other hand, was born with the physical appearance he has in the comics. That of a blue furred devil. But with this physical abnormality comes great physical agility. That and the ability to short-range teleport. So even though Nightcrawler lost the lottery in the looks department, he still got a leg up in the powers department. Just check out the first five minutes of the film X2: X-Men United if you want to see how kickass a fighter Nightcrawler is (he takes out an entire secret service detail using an amazing mixture of teleporting and martial arts). Point is, his powers are still quite useful even if they do cause him to be an outsider among normal society.

As bad as Marvel is, DC is even worse. While Marvel at least acknowledges the possibility of ugly people with powers, no one in the DC Universe with super powers has any form of physical deformity. It’s like if super models also had super powers. Even the Legion of Super Heroes, which has such obscure and weird characters as Bouncing Boy and Matter Eater Lad, find a way to utilize those powers to the fullest, and you certainly couldn't claim any of them are deformed in any way. The Legion is made up of members from multiple worlds throughout the universe. An entire universe of super powered individuals and not one of them seems to have a useless ability or is physically repulsive.

 

Now to be certain there are powers that have drawbacks and downsides to them. Rogue of the X-Men can absorb the powers of anyone she touches but she can also drain the life out of them so she is left fearing physical contact with others. Maul of the WildCATS can increase his strength and size but as he does so he loses his intelligence. So there are downsides to some powers. But even with the downside of certain powers, they never outweigh the benefits of that power to render them useless. Theoretically Rogue is the most powerful mutant there is.

Cool powers, crappy heroes

When you look at the world we live in, some people are blessed with great intelligence, or athletic prowess, or an amazing creative skill. But many people are not. Most people are average or below average in both physical and mental aptitude. Taking that fact into consideration one should assume that if the normal population has unimpressive citizens so to should the super human population. As I think I’ve shown in most of my blog entries about super heroes and villains, these characters are really just a reflection of our own society. And sometimes our society has unimpressive members. If the fictitious world of super heroes is to be a proper reflection of the factual world of reality it should also include citizens that are less than impressive.