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Post by chadwilliam on Jul 6, 2018 22:50:42 GMT -5
I remember a villain called, I think, Chancer who appeared in a three part Batman: Shadow of the Bat tale ("The Misfits"). Chancer's power was super-luck which is admittedly, a very cool, useful super power. A cop comes at you while you're robbing a bank; your luck sees to it that his gun jams. You fall off a roof fighting Batman; chance smiles on you and you happen to fall on a passing truck filled with pillows. Everything works to your advantage.
What I thought was a nice way of dealing with this power came from an exchange Chancer had with Cat-Man when the latter threatened to sic his tiger on him.
Chancer: I have super luck, friend. Something will happen to save me from your tiger.
Cat-Man: Luck is relative though. If you were to fight my tiger and lose only a limb, then you'd be lucky that my tiger didn't kill you.
Cue team-up.
So not a worthless super power, but it's since stood out in my mind as a nice example of putting a seemingly extraordinary ability into something tangible.
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Post by Cheswick on Jul 6, 2018 23:07:58 GMT -5
Things that come to mind for me: 1) Eye-Boy - In everything I've read of him, his power is just that he had lots of eyes, which had no practical use, and would make one extra sensitve 2) Marrow - Besides being insane, her power was that she had extra bones, which she would break off and use as weapons. (it's possible she also has a healing factor, but that's definitely NOT a useless power) 3) Mr. Immortal - He just... dies alot. I think there were some good ones in Ressurection Man.. I remember at least one story where he'd just kill himself over and over until he got good powers, but I don't recall atm. It was eventually revealed that Eye-Boy (R.I.P.) had multiple vision-related powers (X-ray vision, infrared vision, etc.). He could even "see magic", whatever that means.
Mr. Immortal's teammate Flatman also had a pretty useless power. As the name suggests, he could become flat.
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Post by foxley on Jul 7, 2018 1:37:50 GMT -5
A character called Mister Midnite appeared in two issues of Silver Streak Comics. His superpower? The ability to shout "STOP TIME!" and cause all watches and clocks within the sound of his voice to stop.
Apart from maybe stopping a time-bomb, it's hard to see a lot of use for this ability.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 7, 2018 23:26:43 GMT -5
Color KidColor Kid had the power to change the colour of anything in the universe. It does seem like an awesome power until you realize that anyone with color blindness can do something about that kid. 
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Post by cellardweller on Jul 8, 2018 0:00:04 GMT -5
I remember a villain called, I think, Chancer who appeared in a three part Batman: Shadow of the Bat tale ("The Misfits"). Chancer's power was super-luck which is admittedly, a very cool, useful super power. A cop comes at you while you're robbing a bank; your luck sees to it that his gun jams. You fall off a roof fighting Batman; chance smiles on you and you happen to fall on a passing truck filled with pillows. Everything works to your advantage. What I thought was a nice way of dealing with this power came from an exchange Chancer had with Cat-Man when the latter threatened to sic his tiger on him. Chancer: I have super luck, friend. Something will happen to save me from your tiger. Cat-Man: Luck is relative though. If you were to fight my tiger and lose only a limb, then you'd be lucky that my tiger didn't kill you. Cue team-up. So not a worthless super power, but it's since stood out in my mind as a nice example of putting a seemingly extraordinary ability into something tangible. I've never heard of Chancer, so I could be wrong, but is this ability similar to the mutant powers of Longshot and Roulette? Yes, Roulette used disks, but could still influence good luck, or bad, based on her choice. |
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Post by foxley on Jul 8, 2018 1:25:43 GMT -5
Color KidColor Kid had the power to change the colour of anything in the universe. It does seem like an awesome power until you realize that anyone with color blindness can do something about that kid. Color Kid once saved Superboy's life by changing the color of a chunk of green kryptonite, so it was no longer lethal to him. I'd like to see a colourblind person do that!  |
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Post by MDG on Jul 8, 2018 9:21:27 GMT -5
^^^^ I bought the original of that Color Kid drawing for a friend
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Post by Deleted on Jul 8, 2018 10:06:08 GMT -5
foxley ... My bad, you are so correct thanks for reminding me.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jul 9, 2018 11:41:34 GMT -5
Moreover, why couldn't Color Kid do everything Shadow Lass did?
I've never understood why the Ten-Eyed Man is supposed to be a threat. He never had Eye-Boy's super-sensory abilities, and being able to see around corners never seemed like such a big deal.
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Post by Randle-El on Jul 9, 2018 22:23:52 GMT -5
I always thought Skin of Generation X was a pretty lame character. First of all, the name -- pretty on the nose there. They couldn't at least go the extra mile and call him "Skin Boy" or something? And I always thought his power was one of those examples of writers of the Marvel mutant books REALLY digging deep to find a mutant power. From what I remember reading, his skin wasn't even special -- it wasn't super dense, or super strong, or anything. He just had a lot more of it. I suppose they could have gone in a Mr. Fantastic or Plastic Man direction, and made his skin super malleable or stretchable, and able to go really far or form any shape. But from what I recall, he only had six feet or so of extra skin. What made it even worse was that they would often put him in fights, and tried to cook up ways his six feet of extra skin would be useful. I would think anyone that had a nice sharp knife or something really hot could pretty much take care of him.
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Post by Cheswick on Jul 10, 2018 1:43:12 GMT -5
Marvel had a mutant character named Eye-Scream that could transform into ice cream, a power that was both useless and disturbing.
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Post by brianf on Jul 10, 2018 1:53:40 GMT -5
After watching (and enjoying) Incredibles 2 i do have to wonder how the lava barf of Reflux could ever safely be used to fight crime.  |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jul 13, 2018 2:43:06 GMT -5
Marvel had a mutant character named Eye-Scream that could transform into ice cream, a power that was both useless and disturbing. Correction: He could turn into any flavor of Ice Cream, including banana split. Sadly, in an attempt to make the rest of the pathetic X-men and X-Factors and XCalibers and X-puppies appear marginally useful, Eye-Scream was retired after his first and only appearance. |
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