superpowers that are not all that when you think about it

[taltamir]

So, captain america's super power was steroids... and batman's super power is money (actually a lot of super heroes have money as their super power). So what are some other super powers that are not that super when you get right down to it?

[Temotei]

The ability to post on the wrong board.

[Glimbur]

Aquaman can breathe underwater and talk to fish.

[Kosjsjach]

The ability to post on the wrong board.

I agree. This doesn't seem like the place for this.

Besides, Batman's "superpower" isn't money, but super-preparation.

[Mando Knight]

Aquaman can breathe underwater and talk to fish.

And Batman's white blood cells!

[AstralFire]

Batman's superpower is somehow managing to have mastered 127 martial arts, tracking, escape, and pain resistance and gotten post-graduate, graduate, and master's level education in something like 5 different fields from the time he was 12 'til he was in his mid-20s, and then going out and adventuring on a daily basis while becoming a highly successful CEO that transformed a large company into the richest one in the entire world and yet no one manages to notice.

seriously if they'd just give him 'super memory' I might be able to start buying some of that.

[Glimbur]

Batman's superpower is somehow managing to have mastered 127 martial arts, tracking, escape, and pain resistance and gotten post-graduate, graduate, and master's level education in something like 5 different fields from the time he was 12 'til he was in his mid-20s, and then going out and adventuring on a daily basis while becoming a highly successful CEO that transformed a large company into the richest one in the entire world and yet no one manages to notice.

seriously if they'd just give him 'super memory' I might be able to start buying some of that.

Silly AstralFire, he simply pulled himself up by his bootstraps.

[drengnikrafe]

I have a vague memory in the back of my head of some guy who could create ice out of water particles in the air. I want to say it was part of The Incredibles. In any case... "Congrats, you have all the powers of a household appliance"...

That, or mind control that you can't fully control. Think... What Women Want, if things go awry. Reading surface thoughts... What good is that, really?

[taltamir]

Aquaman can breathe underwater and talk to fish.

Ha, nice...

The ability to post on the wrong board.

oops, sorry.

[Zaydos]

I have a vague memory in the back of my head of some guy who could create ice out of water particles in the air. I want to say it was part of The Incredibles. In any case... "Congrats, you have all the powers of a household appliance"...

That, or mind control that you can't fully control. Think... What Women Want, if things go awry. Reading surface thoughts... What good is that, really?

There was a guy in the Incredibles with that power, and that's also Ice Man's power in the original X-Men comics.

[AstralFire]

The thing to remember about weak superpowers is that you inevitably have someone who was a huge fan of the character who grows up and gets to write them for a living and all of a sudden the weak superpower pulls all sorts of **** out from nowhere.

This is why air/water control always get so many random esoteric uses that would take an immense amount of energy to work, but yet people can't ever seem to be willing to give alternate usages to thermo/pyrokinesis, despite combustion being the driving point of technology through the ages. o.O

[Mando Knight]

Silly AstralFire, he simply pulled himself up by his bootstraps.

No, he didn't. He pulled himself up by his Bat-Straps.

[taltamir]

The thing to remember about weak superpowers is that you inevitably have someone who was a huge fan of the character who grows up and gets to write them for a living and all of a sudden the weak superpower pulls all sorts of **** out from nowhere.

This is why air/water control always get so many random esoteric uses that would take an immense amount of energy to work, but yet people can't ever seem to be willing to give alternate usages to thermo/pyrokinesis, despite combustion being the driving point of technology through the ages. o.O

yea... they would actually save many more lives and suffering if they open power plants with their ability to break the laws of thermodynamics and create infinite energy out of thin air.

[drengnikrafe]

yea... they would actually save many more lives and suffering if they open power plants with their ability to break the laws of thermodynamics and create infinite energy out of thin air.

I stand corrected. The ability to save the world from itself with infinite energy generation is a really cool superpower. I just never thought about that before.

[Starscream]

Green Lantern's power is bling.

Zatanna's power is verbal dyslexia.

Hawkman's power is flying (but not as well as any of the other heroes who can fly).

Plastic Man's power is being Silly Putty.

Elongated Man's power is being Silly Putty, but neither as putty-like or as silly as Plastic Man.

Martian Manhunter's power is being an attempt to make Superman more sci-fi, and also afraid of sparklers.

Rex the Wonder Dog's power is being as smart as a human while being a medium sized dog (i.e., weaker and more vulnerable than a human while also lacking thumbs)

Wonder Woman's power is somehow being a feminist icon even though her abilities are almost as good as her male counterpart's.

Batman's power is an obsessive attention to detail, excellent detective skills, and paranoia being Adrian Monk.

Dr. Midnight's power is being a blind guy who can see.

Captain Marvel's power is being a rip off of Superman who is allowed to exist only because he is now owned by the same guys who own Superman.

Beast Boy's power is turning into any creature that is less powerful than a superhero.

John Constantine's power is being Sting.

Aquaman's power is being able to watch Flipper and know that the dolphin was actually cursing like a sailor the whole time.

Green Arrow's power is using a weapon that was phased out in favor of guns centuries ago.

Lobo's power is forgetting who he is supposed to be a parody of and parodying himself instead.

Matter Eater Lad's power is an eating disorder.

Mr. Miracle's power is escaping, which is only useful if he lets himself get captured first.

Hourman's power is drug addiction.

Ambush Bug's power is that Keith Giffen gets bored about once a decade and writes him a miniseries.

[Starscream]

And now the Marvel characters!

Deadpool's power is being Ambush Bug but with a healing factor and an internet following.

Squirrel Girl's power is being Ambush Bug and Deadpool, but also appealing to furries.

Wolverine's power is healing so fast that he forgets not to get hurt in the first place.

The Punisher's power is being a supervillain, and having the other heroes not notice.

Hawkeye's power is being a less popular version of Green Arrow, but he helped found the Avengers, so he keeps appearing even though he can never hang on to a title of his own.

Iron Man's power is a robot suit that is nowhere near as powerful as the many actual robots hanging around (Vision, Sentinels, etc).

Captain America's power is being topical.

Thor's power is speaking Olde Early Modern English despite being Norse.

Cable's power is somehow making it out of the early nineties intact.

Black Bolt's power is never being allowed to talk.

Blade's power is being probably not nearly as good at killing vampires as most of the people on this list would be (if they bothered, which they don't so apparently vampires aren't a big deal).

Spider-Man's power is moot, because it is physically impossible to discuss Spider-Man on the internet without it becoming a rant about One More Day, Quesada you stupid $%^&!!!

Cyclops' power is that nobody likes him but he somehow gets the hottest chicks in the universe.

Daredevil's power is being Dr. Midnight, but with considerable drawbacks.

Ghost Rider's power is being, like, this wicked sweet tattoo I'm totally going to get, guys. It's going to have like a motorcycle, but instead of a helmet the guy riding it just has a skull, and it's totally going to be on fire, dude!

Ant-Man's power is that no matter what he does, nobody will ever forget that he hit his wife once.

Wasp's power is that she let him do it, even though she is a much more capable superhero than he is, and could have totally kicked his butt.

Silver Surfer's power is whatever the writers find convenient this issue.

Storm's power is putting her own 30 years of character development on hold and sublimating her entire personality so that she could marry a guy no one likes.

[Zeta Kai]

Superman's power is that the writers can't keep track of his abilities & limitations, so they just let him do whatever he feels like.

I'm sorry, what I meant was whatever he super-feels like.

[herrhauptmann]

Plastic Man's power is being Silly Putty.

Elongated Man's power is being Silly Putty, but neither as putty-like or as silly as Plastic Man.

Either plastic or elongated man actually gets his powers from some drug that makes him stretchy. It's the one who's wife got murdered a few years ago, setting off Infinite Crisis or some other major "And the multiverse would never be the same, AGAIN" plotline.

Doesn't earth have like 5 greenlanterns, 6 if you count Guy Gardner? And each, despite getting his power from the same source, seems to have different weaknesses (the color yellow for one, a specific variety of wood for another).

And you forgot Mr Terrific, who's power is to set up amazing Rube Goldberg devices using other people, so that their powers can combine in new and interesting ways to save the day, then they never do it again. (Like star trek always ejecting or modifying the warp core)

[Lycanthromancer]

Robin's power is that he plays catch with Batman.

[AstralFire]

Wood is a weakness for one Green Lantern, and he has convoluted reasons for why he's different from all of his real-world successors.

The others all used to have yellow as a weakness and now they don't.

Yellow was the lamest of all the kryptonite-style weaknesses in comics ever. A color. Seriously. Who the hell thought that was a good idea.

[Lycanthromancer]

Wood is a weakness for one Green Lantern, and he has convoluted reasons for why he's different from all of his real-world successors.

The others all used to have yellow as a weakness and now they don't.

Yellow was the lamest of all the kryptonite-style weaknesses in comics ever. A color. Seriously. Who the hell thought that was a good idea.

The Colour out of Space?

[Starscream]

Either plastic or elongated man actually gets his powers from some drug that makes him stretchy. It's the one who's wife got murdered a few years ago, setting off Infinite Crisis or some other major "And the multiverse would never be the same, AGAIN" plotline.

That's Elongated Man. He gets his powers from a soft drink called Gingold. He's dead now too, and he and his wife are now ghost detectives who can possess people. Except that they recently showed up as Black Lanterns too, and I'm not sure if becoming an evil zombie requires your soul or not, so the ghost thing might no longer be valid.

Doesn't earth have like 5 greenlanterns, 6 if you count Guy Gardner? And each, despite getting his power from the same source, seems to have different weaknesses (the color yellow for one, a specific variety of wood for another).

Sort of. The Golden Age Green Lantern's source of power is magic, and it doesn't work on wood. The Silver Age Green Lantern's power came from alien technology, and it didn't work on yellow. Then came the third one, who also used alien tech, but his did work on yellow. Now the Silver Age one is back, and his works on yellow too. Because he is fearless. Please don't ask me to explain further, it makes my head hurt.

[Zaq]

Thor's power is speaking Olde English despite being Norse.

Linguist senses... tingling!
Please. He speaks Early Modern at most (and even then just a half-assed pseudo version of it).

Remember folks, Shakespeare is Early Modern, Chaucer is Middle, Beowulf is Old. If the average Joe can read it without squinting, it's not Old English. It's probably not even Middle (which you can probably read if you squint and use some context clues).

What's that? That's not the point? Perhaps in your mind.

[/linguist]

(Incidentally, Old Norse isn't horrifically far off from Old English. It's still a separate language, but ON had a heavy influence on OE, particularly in the late OE period. How big? Let me put it this way: we took some of our pronouns from them. That's... well, it's a really big deal. Just trust me.)

[AstralFire]

I was thinking a less good-smart version of what you said there, but it's still funny.

[Starscream]

Linguist senses... tingling!
Please. He speaks Early Modern at most (and even then just a half-assed pseudo version of it).

Fixed. I bow before your superior knowledge of linguistics.

Fun question: How much does it hurt your head whenever Bizarro speaks?

[AstralFire]

This reminds me of that great photoshop of Robothor

10 SMITE YE
20 GOTO 10

[herrhauptmann]

That's Elongated Man. He gets his powers from a soft drink called Gingold. He's dead now too, and he and his wife are now ghost detectives who can possess people. Except that they recently showed up as Black Lanterns too, and I'm not sure if becoming an evil zombie requires your soul or not, so the ghost thing might no longer be valid.

Sort of. The Golden Age Green Lantern's source of power is magic, and it doesn't work on wood. The Silver Age Green Lantern's power came from alien technology, and it didn't work on yellow. Then came the third one, who also used alien tech, but his did work on yellow. Now the Silver Age one is back, and his works on yellow too. Because he is fearless. Please don't ask me to explain further, it makes my head hurt.

Didn't elongated man lock himself in a summoning circle with Faust and a demon, preventing them from escaping, and himself from fully dying or something?

I bow before your knowledge. I read the Sinestro Corps war recently, and realized that earth had more lanterns than I realized. Plus there's the golden age one who I don't think appeared in that story arc.
So what's the deal with Guy Gardner? He had a power ring in Death/Return of Superman, but his stuff manifested yellow if I remember. And I'd swear he was back in Sinestro Corps war with a green ring.

[ShadowsGrnEyes]

Rorschach's power is angst.

Dr. Manhatan's power is self adjusting to always be better than everyone else no matter what.

Static Shocks power is being black lightning but not not as good. also static. . . seriously?

Superboy's(1-???) power is being revamped so many times under so many different names that it hurts, also superman got old. . .

Supergirls power is being a failed attempt to combat chauvanism.

Nightwing's power is being not as good at being Batman as Batman.

Starfires power is being a yellow Mary-Sue from space. . . (be afraid Green Lantern very afraid)

Scarlet Witch's power is randomness. . . LITERALLY. . . also being a deus ex machina.

The Black Cat's super power is being captain america with boobs and a cooler costume

Jubilee's power is being the bane of electronics.

Beast's power is being blue furry and well educated.

Mystic's power is being every mans fantasy. . .

[KellKheraptis]

Superman's power is that the writers can't keep track of his abilities & limitations, so they just let him do whatever he feels like.

I'm sorry, what I meant was whatever he super-feels like.

Until Freiza-era SSJ Kakarot puts him in his place again on EW, that is.

There, fixed! Oh, and lets not forget the mouthful of Kryptonite knuckle-duster from the Batman :)

[Starscream]

Didn't elongated man lock himself in a summoning circle with Faust and a demon, preventing them from escaping, and himself from fully dying or something?

Yes. It was a true moment of Awesome from the character at the time, with him trapping one of the most feared villains in the universe for all time.

But then he escaped, apparently almost immediately. And we never even get told how. The writers just sort of expect us to assume that poor Ralph Dibny failed, even in his greatest sacrifice.