Pick one character from fiction. Describe powers. Explain why you would want to have them. Can be any character. However, your power is limited. I will give a good example of how here.
My choice: Vegeta, from Dragon Ball Z.
Powers: Super Thought-speed, Reflexes, Speed, Strength, an amazing ability to soak up damage, and the power to fire off energy blasts. Enough power to easily smash a dozen planets before breakfast, flight.
The limited version I get: Essentially no appreciable reflex time; dead lifting a Humvee; the ability to ignore standard weapons up to and including light artillary bombardments; land speed up to 200 miles per hour; limited flight, which requires as much energy as actually walking the distance traveled; energy blasts about equal to a 12. guage shotgun, albeit with much more control. Able to let off about the equilivelant of 50 rounds a day.
Granted, thats not inconsiderable, but it doesn’t even hold a candle to Superman, at least, when he’s operating intelligently. This is intened primarily to be the upper limit on physical abilites. You can go a good deal higher with one-power superheroes.
Reasons: I always wanted to fly. Secondarily, Vegeta is cool. More than that, I always liked the over-the-top superheroes. I admit to always wanting to be able to run, jump, and fly like Olympic atheletes can. Plus, Vegeta’s a pretty smart customer. Plus, I always wanted to react faster to the world around me.
Never a big “cosmic level” super hero fan myself. I always liked the ones with flaws. My choice? Nightcrawler. Quick, agile, cool looking, and a power he doesn’t use anywhere near it’s capacity. In age of apocolypse he teleported a guys head off…by by vegeta
[hyjack] Why do people watch DBZ? It’s basically a hour of plot stretched to like 30 episodes, and the artwork sucks.
FYI: I think their was a IMHO or MPSIMS thread on this topic that was rather amusing.
Given the maxim that absolute power corrupts absolutely, I went for the minor power that would bring me great happiness without too much wholesale destruction: The power to make anyone in the world crap their pants. Jerky drivers, line cutters, loud cell phone talkers in the movie theater, trolls in the Pit, they all get a warm steaming surprise in their shorts. Plus live TV would be **alot ** more interesting. . .
Of course, if the choice was really presented to me: the power to heal others and myself of any injury or sickness.
I think the likes of Ghoku and Vegita have it right. That kind of power is just too good to pass up. One of my favorite little demonstrations is when Ghoku digs a grave for Vegita by simply turning his head and looking at the ground. The ability to just push one’s desire and aura into a physical punch is really cool. I like the thought of being able to scream and have an unseen force just mash whatever it is that I’m yelling at (most likely would be slow drivers in the fast lane, rubberneckers, people who cut me off…there’d be a lot of cars littering the side of the road). Plus, the ability to shoot fireballs is really cool. And flight. And super strenght. Come to think of it, is there any power these guys DIDN’T have?
Oh yeah, immortality. But, seeing as how when they die, their spirits seem to just go to another universe where they are immortal and they get to carry on just the same, I think that’s a pretty nice ability.
My pick: Super-Skrull! All the powers of the Fantastic Four (invisibility, force fields, fire, flight, super-strength, super-elasticity) plus shape-shifting and super-hypnosis. What’s not to love?
Reasons: Well duh, eight powers for the price of one.
Limitation: Um, let’s see, instead of super-hypnosis, the power to persuade very influentially. Shape-shifting limited to humanoid forms. I don’t like this part of the game.
I want to be able to cast illusions, but not the type where someone THINKS they see something. That’s a mental power. I want to be able to manipulate light. Thus my illusions would be detected on film and I only have to cast one illusion to fool an entire crowd, rather than projecting the thought into everyone’s head.
This power also comes with an added bonus. If you can manipulate light, you can bend light around you and become invisible without all of those “what if” situations. “What if you ate something? Would you see it in your stomach?” Nope because I’m warping light around this general area. No physical changes to my body.
So two super powers for the price of one. Not bad. If I can just figure out how manipulating light can help me to fly, I’ll be set.
When I learned, as a kid, that atoms were mostly space, I thought it was really unfair that I couldn’t slip through a wall. I still try it, occaisionally.
I finally saw someone do it: Dr. Strange (in a Marshall Rogers-pencilled comic – he was in a bank when robbers told everyone to “hit the floor”. He hit and just kept going…).
So I say screw the [macho unlimited powers thang], I want to be Kitty Pryde.
More than that, I always liked the over-the-top superheroes. I admit to always wanting to be able to run, jump, and fly like Olympic atheletes can. Plus, Vegeta’s a pretty smart customer. Plus, I always wanted to react faster to the world around me.
