Like the title says: in your opinion, which superhero is the least powerful?
To narrow things down a bit, let’s limit the candidates to major characters (what counts as major is up to your discretion) from big-name publishers. Also, I’m talking comic books only, not film, TV or other media.
I’m hardly a comic book expert, but I’m tempted to say Daredevil. He’s got enhanced senses and expert combat training. Oh, and the billy club. Great against the average mugger or low-level villain, but not the guy you want to haul out against Galactus.
On the other hand, I’m handicapping him somewhat against either Hawkeye or Green Arrow because they’ve got team affiliations that make them somewhat “more powerful.” (Batman’s got allies plus a boatload of money and more combat skill, so he definitely ranks higher than these guys.) Take away their allies and arrows, though, and Daredevil could probably take 'em out, even without his club.
But I’m sure I’m missing someone. Who may be a perfectly decent superhero, but all things considered just isn’t all that super?
Interestinmg question. Jubilee. She’s like Dazzler, but with even less power, an annoying attitude and no combat ability, yet she’s (or at least was when I was into it) a “superhero.”
Daredevil? Not even close. I recall one old superhero whose power was cool, bt rarely useful. He understood every language. Including those he’d never seen. Including Alien languages. As long as he was capable of perceiving the transmitting medium, anyway. (I don’t believe he could read radio signals or anything like that.)
I’m sorry, but I forgot his name. Gosh, he was a mutant in a group - the New Mutants? at marvel, anyway.
smiling b–you’re thinking of Cipher of the New Mutants. His power was so lame he didn’t even know he was a mutant; he just thought he was good at languages.
Least powerful, hmmm… I’d have to say Bouncing Boy of the old Legion of Superheroes. His power was that he could bounce. He wasn’t superpowerful–he could bounce.
Or how about (if you want to be really obscure) Color Boy and Stone Boy, both of the Legion of Substitue Heroes. CB could change the color of anything into a different color, while Stone Boy had ability to change into a rock (a completely imobile rock, I might add).
I’d go with Stone Boy too. Bouncing Boy at least had impact and height uses and Color Kid could probably affect the chemical makeup of things when he changed their color, so that’s a little more versatile too.
The Red Bee was pretty low on the power/intimidation scale too.
The Blue Beetle? In the two years that I read JLA, he never threw a single punch. Just flew the Beetle around and monitored the sensors. However, people said that in his own comic, he was very Batman-like in nature, so he was just suffering in comparison to, say, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Martian Manhunter.
The original Green Flame was likewise not too studly. She could spit out a flame about 2" long from her mouth. Oooh, scary. And it was green. But then she got major mojo from somewhere and jumped up to the Human Torch level of ability.
When Rogue stole Storm’s powers, all she had to fall back on were the martial arts skills she learned from Wolverine. Okay, she kicked some pretty major butt. Never mind.
I’d have to say Aquaman. He was pretty much useless anywhere there wasn’t water, and the team usually had to spend a fair amount of time rescuing him or finding him a big fishtank to splash around in. Sure, in the water he was pretty tough, but out of it? He was about as useful as the Wonderkids.
How about Angel (as originally conceived) of the X-Men. OK, he could fly. What else?
Also Marvel had (in the late 80s, don’t know if he’s still around) a “hero” named the Fabulous Frog-Man. He was a high-schooler who got a hold of his father’s jumping suit from when he was a criminal named Leapfrog. However, being a pudgy kid, he was completely inept. Very often, Spider-Man had to simply tell the kid to go home.
Great minds think alike, E-Sabbath. You must have posted about .0001 seconds before me.
I seem to recall reading about a “super” hero named The Clock. He had the ability to shout out “Stop, Time!”, which would cause all the clocks to stop. Not time, mind you, just clocks.
Ethilrist–the folks at DC keep trying to tell us that, because Aquaman lives under incredible pressure at the bottom of the sea, he must therefore be really, really strong.
Of the more recent crop, I’d say Slyde. He’s just all … slippery.
Wizard Magazine used to have a “Mort of the Month” that was an obscure, extremely lame superhero. I remember one of them was a guy made entirely of bees. Can’t remember his name though.
Its definatly the 5th member of Captain Planets helpers. The first 4 had really useful powers (fire, water, earth, wind) the last guy had ‘heart’?!!?!
It basically meant monkeys liked him, the evil villians would always just laugh at him and he’d cry. Why the script writers included him escapes me, they just had to spend more time and money drawing/voicing/including this character.
I always reckoned he was a friend of on of the main 4 and the others kinda wanted ‘heartboy’ to go away, but didn’t want to hurt their friends feelings.
I have to disagree with Jubilee (hehe, that rhymes). There was one instance where she blew up a big house or building or something, and Synch used her powers to pretty much level an entire city block. She has a lot of power, just a big fear of using it. Plus, she’s pretty acrobatic, and has been able to take out a good number of armed soldier and help out Wolverine a couple of times, so she’s a little more than useless.
Color Kid, on the other hand…yeah, that’s a pretty lame ass power. I guess he could turn green kryptonite into red and help Superman out of a bind, but outside of that? I’ll admit, I’ve never heard of him before today, but I can’t think of a single character with crapier powers.
Well, actually, there is a guy in The New X-Men who’s skin is transparent. I think that’s pretty much all there is to him. Kinda creepy and offsetting at first, but um…rather useless.
Well there is the Wasp from “the Avengers”. Actually, I hate to suggest her, because I do like the character. But frankly, she was always a little useless – she could shrink down to the size of a dust speck and had little wings to fly with when she was tiny, and could fire “wasp stings” that seemed to just annoy the average flunky, and just plain useless against major bad guys like Ultron. (Oft-repeated dialogue from “the Avengers” – “My wasp sting isn’t having any affect!”) For years, she just flitted around the heads of the other Avengers making flirty comments to Thor and complaining about how her hair was getting messed up. Eventually though, she became the leader of the team and showed a talent for ordering people around! lol.
Other useless heroes:
“Forge” from the X-Men. Just what was his power any way?
“Dream Girl” from the Legion of Super-Heroes. “I just forsaw a vague, indistinct event from the near future that is related to the villain we are currently fighting” – her premonitions invariably turned out wrong.
And then there’s the original “Mr. Terrific”. He was just a swell guy! That was his power – he was really, really, really nice.
Personally I like the characters with limiting powers. It causes the writers to get creative. Speedball always seemed kinda lame. When he hit an object hard enough, little energy balls were created that repelled him away, much like landing on a bunch of rubber balls (ok, that actually would probably hurt, but work with me here.)
Later he discovered, he could kind of control this kinetic energy and use it as an offensive weapon by starting a reaction in a small chamber untill the energy built up enough to explode the object (better be careful with your girlfriend, Speedy.)
It also was a great defensive weapon, as long as he was grounded well. Punches and even bullets would bounce off.
Plus he had a cat, Niles, that got caught in the same accident that caused Speedball’s own powers. I always wanted a cat I could throw out the window and not feel guilty about it.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! You’re serious??? Thanks for my laugh of the day!
How about Air Wave I. AFAICR, all he could do was skate along power lines. At least his son got a suit that allowed him to “surf” on radio waves.
“Terry Sloane was a golden boy like Captain Comet or Ozymandias (of Watchmen), showing astonishing talent in studies, sports and every other type of human endeavor.” So he gets bored, falls into a suicidal depression, becomes involved with a woman whose brother was in a gang, donned spandex, fought the gang, and found the will to live. He also had the words “Fair Play” on his costume, between rib cage and waist.