13 Lame Superpowers
I didn’t make any of these up. Each of these powers came from actual heroes or villains from comic books and/or cartoons.
I give you 13 of the lamest superpowers ever:
1. Stretching – And the strangest thing about this one? Quite a few superheroes from comics have this ability: Mr. Fantastic, Elongated Man, Plastic Man, Skin, etc.
2. Ability to transform into any form of water – Zan is definitely the lesser of the two Wonder Twins. His sister can become any animal. Zan? He can become water, ice, or steam. Yipee.
3. Ability to control plants and accelerate their growth – A few superheroes/villains have this one. If you’re a vegetarian, this might be useful, having an unlimited supply of food. Otherwise? Pretty useless in any urban area.
4. Shrinking – Quite a few superheroes have this ability too. And I think it’s pretty useless, no matter how creative the comic book writers are.
5. A repulsor energy that acts as a solid force field or repels all forms of matter and energy from one’s body – Unus The Untouchable died when his force field overwhelmed and asphyxiated him. Sometimes being a mutant isn’t so great.
6. Good morals and harmonic “niceness vibes” – Created to be the antithesis of the villain Lobo, Goldstar has the powers of… a boyscout.
7. Neutralizing other people’s powers – Leech and Elmo pretty much just suck away other mutants’ powers. I think I’d rather have no power at all, than have the other mutants hate me.
8. Able to reduce oneself to a two-dimensional state where one’s body is as flat as paper – That’s right. Tommy can turn herself into… paper. Watch out for her nasty paper cut.
9. Able to release a powerful adhesive that causes anything to permanently stick to it on contact, the adhesive eventually dissipates, allowing the glued objects to be removed from his person – Tar Baby can glue things. Way to go.
10. A pariah effect that enables one to overwhelmingly compel people to run towards or away from specific target that is focused on – Tag gets the award for most randomly useless power.
11. Extend razor sharp spikes of bone through one’s skin – Absalom and Marrow are not only freakishly ugly from having bones poke through their skin, and all they can really do with it is break off their protruding bone and hit people with it.
12. Able to generate pyrotechnic flares to create brilliant light and explosive force - Jubilee and Dazzler can make fireworks. Stay back 10 feet, and you’ll be fine.
13. Exist in a gaseous state - Containing himself in a specially-designed suit, poor Dummy disappeared from the New X-Men when his suit was ripped open and his form dispersed into the air.
October 25th, 2007 at 4:28 am
Angela, you’re a hoot. I mean, boy scouts, paper cuts, and fireworks. Thanks muchly for the laugh.
cjh
October 25th, 2007 at 8:25 am
Awww, but you GOTTA love Jubes and Dazz! But aside from Zak and his dumb water powers (which really do take the cake), about 90% of the Generation X team sucked. Skin? Chamber and his flaming chin? MONDO? Gah.
October 25th, 2007 at 8:29 am
I don’t know…superpower, maybe not. But if I could stretch my 5’5″ frame to 5’9″, I’ll bet my 150 pounds would look better!
October 25th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Carrie – I did like Jubes.. as well as Chamber. I agree, most of their powers were dumb. But at least they had Husk.. who shed her skin (gross) to be any composition. And Gen X was probably one of my favorite teams.
October 25th, 2007 at 8:36 am
CJ – I’m glad you enjoyed!
Di – Okay, that might not be bad! lol.. But I still wouldn’t call it a cool power.. just a cosmetic enhancement.
October 25th, 2007 at 8:38 am
Nice, lol!! It looks like a lot of these “heroes” were classified improperly back at Sky High…
I wouldn’t discount the plant one though, I think enough people have house or office plants that the power wouldn’t be entirely useless.. probably not on par with Storm or Cyclops, but enough to give some pretty good support!
October 25th, 2007 at 9:05 am
ROFL on this list. I’m cracking up. Got to agree on the Wonder Twins. They definitely didn’t make me want to tune in and watch anymore. I also liked Jubes and Dazz.
I’m feeling the urge to go watch me some X-men.
October 25th, 2007 at 9:14 am
Bahahahaha, those are hilarious! Papercut!
I never heard of Goldstar (sounds like he has the power of extra credit homework), but I always kinda liked Lobo.
October 25th, 2007 at 9:36 am
haha..still laughing about the wonder twins!
October 25th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Well, you’ve got to give them points for coming up with something different, even if it is lame. Which makes the stretchy superpower even more inexplicable… maybe it’s just fun to draw? LOL!
October 25th, 2007 at 9:46 am
*LOL* Great TT! I guess I was so focus on the cool villains that I never paid much attention to the heroes’ superpowers.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:03 am
ROFL!! Great TT list. And god please spare us from those lame super powers puleeze?!
October 25th, 2007 at 10:23 am
I like how you think. I’ve always thought shrinking was a funny power and stretching? Uck.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Love this list! Great Thursday Thirteen.
October 25th, 2007 at 11:14 am
Although…I think the stretching thing *could* come in useful for certain body parts…like that dude in Fantastic 4…is there a reason his lady love was always smiling?
Sorry, couldn’t resist!
October 25th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Yes, thankyou, another blog to add to my reading list!!
Loved this TT!! Have a great one, SciFiChick!
October 25th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Love it!
However, if you mean DC’s Justice League part-timer, his name is Plastic Man and not Elastic Man.
Unless there was also an obscure Elastic Man that I don’t know anything about…
October 25th, 2007 at 11:49 am
CrummyJoel – Thanks! I mixed Englogated and Plastic and came up with Elastic, I guess! lol I changed it.
October 25th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
#12 would actually put me out of commision (migrainer and all that – even popping rapid-edit commercials do it to me.)
And paper cuts – man, they are vicious. Remember Miracle Max? ‘Why don’t you give me a paper cut and pour lemon juice on it?’ He knew what he was talking about.
October 25th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Thanks for reminding me of The Wonder Twins. Zan had better not use his “superpowers” while his sister is thirsty.
Comic book artists are calling the ability to control plants and speed up their growth a superpower? WTF?
October 25th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
ROFL!! I love these. I always found Zan’s abilities to be a bit weird when I was a kid. I need to go back through some of my old comics to revisit some of these again.
October 25th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Yeah, and this is why the mutant masequre (sp?) happen, to cull the herd.
I disagree about the plant power, I’d had to have my butt kicked by a tree ***see remake of whomping willow from HP3***
October 25th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Depending on the extent, the ability to control plants and excelerate growth is not useless in an urban area. It’s a small power that can be used to devasting effect if it’s extensive enough, say the ability to grow something from seed or make something exceeding larger than what it would normally be, or to have it grow in anything, even asphalt.
I say this as someone who lived up the street from a where a tree root ruptured a gas main and nearly blew up the entire block. *nod*
~X
October 25th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
A well-collected group of useless superheroes!
October 25th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Wonder Twin Powers…activate!
They were totally lame!
October 25th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
You forgot “Arm Fall Off Boy”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_Fall_Off_Boy
October 25th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Ya know… some of those, I didn’t even know existed.
:-O Is #13 for real?
October 25th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
P.D. – Wow. Yeah, he certainly deserves to be on the list!
October 25th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
ya gotta admit, though, that Poison Ivy was sexy…or was she just drawn that way?
#9 was secretly created as a marketing tool for 3M Corporation, right?
Wonder Twin powers…oh dear. I was a big fan of the Justice League as a kid (Had a thing for Aquaman…don’t know why) and I hated these twins as much as I hated Scrappy Doo!
Fun list
October 25th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
LOL!!! I forgot about Jubilee! Ya that power preeetty much sucked. Thanks for the laugh! LOL!
October 25th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Great list. #1- the mom from the Incedibles had this one (very handy power for a mom with three kids).
October 26th, 2007 at 12:20 am
I remember The Atom. I must be getting old!
October 26th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Lol. Great list. Let’s not, however, forget Jimmy Olsen as Turtle Boy (or turtle man…whichever). Or Jimmy Olsen as Bizarro Olsen… or Jimmy Olsen -most recently- as Mr. Action. Well any incarnate of Jimmy Olsen with Super Powers.
BTW … I always hated when Plastic Man would show up randomly in JLA or JSA cross overs. But supposedly, his “plastic-ness” made him indestructible and “needed.” Elongated man – terrible.
I wouldn’t call Mr. Fantastic useless,… boring definitely, but I can’t go as far as to say “useless.”
Stinks to be Jubilee. She had lame powers before, now she has no powers at all. She’s currently a member of the latest incarnation of the New Warriors who all have substituted technology for their lack of powers.
October 29th, 2007 at 11:05 am
I think Plant powers can be quite effective, Swamp Thing was pretty bad ass, Anyone ever see where he invaded Gotham to get his Girl out of jail, he trashed Batman
October 29th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Greatest write up discussing 13 Lame Superpowers! Always enjoy your write ups.
October 29th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Good article, but there are still lamer powers out there. The Members of Section 8 from Hitman, “Friendly Fire” for example whose power was to fire powerful blast of plasma that could only injure his allies or “Jean de Baton-Baton” who fought crime using the power of frenchiness or my personal favorite “Dog Welder” he basically welded dead dogs to the faces of criminals. The legion of superheroes also has plenty of lame ones, “Arms fall of boy”, “Bouncing Boy”, “Matter eater lad” you get the picture.
October 29th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Dazzler’s powers got pretty cool after they developed. I mean, sure at the beginning she just glowed when she was singing, but she could control light. That means she could make illusions and shoot lasers out of her fingertips. While that’s maybe not quite as useful as a healing factor, it’s a lot better than just “fireworks.”
October 29th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Back in the 1960s, “Elastic Lad” was a superhero identity of Superman’s “pal,” Jimmy Olsen. He had to drink a special “elastic serum” which temporarily gave him stretching abilities. Jimmy also became an honorary member of the Legion of Super-Heroes. So, add another “hero” to the list of super-stretchers. I think there are Legion members/former members with many of the powers listed above (#7: Nemesis Lad (he was only in a couple of episodes and turned out to be a traitor), #4 Shrinking Violet, and #3 Chlorophyl Kid (though, I suspect he was only in the Substitute Legion — if my fading memory serves).
October 29th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Don’t forget Flatman from the Great Lakes Avengers/Lightning Rods. He can become flat as paper AND stretch!
October 29th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
why delete my comment?
October 29th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Sorry, thought it was spam!
October 29th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
# Di Says:
October 25th, 2007 at 8:29 am
I don’t know…superpower, maybe not. But if I could stretch my 5′5″ frame to 5′9″, I’ll bet my 150 pounds would look better!
Wow. Try 6’1″.
October 29th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
Good list. I always thought Mr. Fantastic’s stretching was lame.
October 30th, 2007 at 12:58 am
“4. Shrinking – Quite a few superheroes have this ability too. And I think it’s pretty useless, no matter how creative the comic book writers are.”
Good job on the list. I think you might’ve been a tad too quick on the trigger to include the shrinking power though. DC’s Atom Man, for example, was able to physically travel the currents of a phone connection – allowing him to instantaneously travel anywhere in the world. I always thought that was unbelievably cool albeit unfeasible…
He was also able to enter a person’s body and perform impossibly delicate operations. Imagine also building a complex that includes a running track and being able to fit it in a shoe box. Or… taking a 5 inch TV and shrinking yourself enough to turn it into the largest big-screen in the world.
If stuck in a situation where you’re falling out of an airplane, you could shrink yourself enough to travel the air currents. Need a large pool but live in a small apartment – no problem… turn anything into an olympic size swimming pool just by shrinking.
There’s a ton of other stuff before even the creative juices need to kick in:-)
13. Exist in a gaseous state
Yeah… this sounds more like a curse than a super power…
October 30th, 2007 at 1:03 am
@SolShine7
I don’t think Mrs Fantastic thought so…..
October 31st, 2007 at 12:15 am
Excellent post.
I do have to take issue with Plastic Man, though. Technically, he does more than stretch. He can:
1. Turn into ANYTHING. Car, airplane, nuclear bomb, elephant, forty foot long chainsaw, you name it. The only limit he has is that he can’t control the color. He’s always bright red and yellow.
2. He’s totally invulnerable to harm. He was blasted to atoms several millions years in the past and was able to reconstitute himself. He also functionally immortal.
All told, his powers (By DC universe standards) are considered on a par or even superior to Superman or Captain Marvel. He’s nearly all powerful in the crazy stuff he can do.
He is also as nutty as a fruitcake, so take that how you will.
November 1st, 2007 at 12:13 am
re: “extend razor sharp bones from one’s skin”…..um Wolverine anyone? great list otherwise
November 1st, 2007 at 7:11 pm
I don’t agree that the plants power is useless. Aren’t you familiar with Irene from Xanth? she managed to become a full sorceress with that power. You just have to carry a lot of seeds around with you…
November 4th, 2007 at 7:27 am
I think we are missing out a landmark supervillain here: asbestos lady! the human torches nemesis and one of the first female villains who wasnt a nazi!
http://www.marvel.com/universe/Asbestos_Lady
oooooo! asbestos coated bullets! lol
November 4th, 2007 at 9:30 am
The worst supervillain I can remember was forearm, whose superpower was that he had…four arms. Handy for picking himself up off the ground whenever he received one of his regular beatings.
November 5th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Marrow at least had the ability to stab someone with the razor sharp bones; she never really hit anyone with them. I know it doesn’t make her a powerhouse but she was pretty vicious anyway. Look at it this way: she always had a weapon handy no matter what.
Mr. Fantastic’s true superhuman power should be his supergenius intellect. His stretching powers were good for utilitarian purposes though. They weren’t devastating in of themselves in battle, but they could be used to help set-up or trap an opponent for the rest of the team.
I always thought Dazzler had more potential than they ever let her develop, sort of like Ice Man.
November 9th, 2007 at 11:37 am
speaking of lame powers, sorry Kelly- ummm Aquaman… now there’s a lame power… “you guys fight the bad guys I’m going to swim with the fish!”
here’s another my friends and I thought was lame- Doctor Strange, etc. now he did have kewl powers, but “You guys destroy the real villiams I’m going to handle the extradimensal vortex matrix of spiritual eminations” We always hated all the magician’s off handed “you wouldn’t understand the complex world of magic and spirits” comments… yeah yeah dude um like I know that an a rip in the time/ space continuum is going to destroy the planet and we can’t help you with it… You do your hocus pocus and we’ll just kick some serious ass like heroes are supposed to do…
halstead
November 20th, 2007 at 12:35 am
C’mon, forcefields are pretty useful. So one guy asphixiated himself, that’s his fault for being a loser no one wanted to keep around.
And how did Speedball not make this list. I have the power to …. make bouncy balls. Really, you’d be better off with Macaulay Culkin.
November 23rd, 2007 at 9:40 am
i can understan how the first power you mentiond might seem lame but im sure any man would go to great lengths to be able to streach any part of their bodys, and im shure their girlfreinds or significant others would’nt mind
November 23rd, 2007 at 9:42 am
Note: my spelling sucks, i know, you’ll just have to deal with it
February 29th, 2008 at 2:12 am
I must say, this gave me a laugh but I do, like many others, have to come to the defense of Dazzler. I play her in RP and thus know a lot about her. She can make more than just sparkles and lights. She can blind people, make full body and environmental holograms, full body lazers, shields, and so much more. She was even voted as one of Marvel’s top ten super women!
She’s a really cool woman. I just don’t think she should be grouped in with Jubes. Alison’s power had to deal with light molecules and not pyrotechnics.
April 19th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Now if only they made a Superhero, that has the amazing ability to guess the weight of someone down to the microgram…..sounds like good TV…i’d watch it (but only if it was a choice between that or Wicker Man (the newone.))
September 8th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
I don’t know, I think that pariah effect that enables one to overwhelmingly compel people to run towards or away from specific target that is focused on would be an awesome power. You could compel people to come to you or go away, which would be bad ass to use at Disney.
November 3rd, 2008 at 1:50 pm
some of those just don’t belong there, stretching, plant control, shrinking, i would not mind having those… but, all the others pretty much suck XD
November 3rd, 2008 at 1:52 pm
oh and the “fear” power that makes people run away from something is pretty cool…
April 16th, 2009 at 8:08 am
Hi
I gotta disagree w/ Zan’s powers being lame: actualy I think it;s way more usefull than the rest mentioned here is, and dangerous too. Imagine him getting wherever he wants in steam form, exploding most solid materials by changing from water to ice rapidly, passing through stone walls being water, flying w/ use of wind then falling on an enemy as ice bolts. I can see in a picture above that he does look lame, but his powers surely are not.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:21 am
lol : I’ve just found that out: “For their powers to activate they have to touch knuckles and they have to say “Wonder Twin Powers Activate”.” (ComicVine.com) now that’s useless.
June 10th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
How about Bouncing Boy from Legion of Superheroes… the ability to be a kickball is pretty lame.
July 21st, 2009 at 12:41 am
I agree with most of these, but, Jubilee’s powers were far from useless. She just never used them in ways that would make them more effective. for instance, she could explode fireworks inside of someone’s head, killing them instantly. She also destroyed a mansion.
She had ludicrous amounts of potential, the writers just never wrote her correctly.
August 22nd, 2009 at 4:25 am
this ain’t the best of lists.
Stretching is actually a pretty amazing superpower (just look at luffy from One Piece, he owns)
I like jubes
turning into gas could be pretty darn useful
I don’t know about you, but being able to grow bones has about a million applications
Leeching may not be the greatest power when you’re alone, but it works great when on a team, plus one on one it can even the odds to a regular fist fight.
Controlling vegetation would be a spectacular power, you could command any number of poisonous plants, as well as create massive vines as strong as boulders to do your bidding
You’re right about the rest of the list though, those all suck.