I suppose that any of the Mystery Men characters like The Shoveler are off limits, even though they originally appeared in Dark Horse’s Flaming Carrot books?
These are all good suggestions. When I came up with Daredevil, Hawkeye or Green Arrow, I was thinking that they’ve had incredibly impressive careers based on a relatively low level of power.
So to refine my own question, which major heroes have made the most of their limited resources?
No wait!
What about Batman? He didn’t have superhuman strength, or any other super powers, just (presumably) significant athletic ability and above-average strength, but still within the human range, and ditto for intellectual power.
Sticking to active heroes, not one off mutants with useless powers or parodies, there was the Red Bee who’s sole “power” was that he had a belt buckle with trained bees in it.
The Legion of Substitute Heroes has already been delved but I thought they could be pretty useful. Stone Boy might not have the raw power but he just needed to adapt his fighting style so that he would turn to stone just before he hit someone and let gravity or inertia do the work for him. And Color Kid once changed a cloud of green kryptonite surrounding the earth to blue kryptonite. If he applied himself he could really do some interesting things with his powers like form illusions.
Forge’s power, FWIW, was as I understood it writer’s fiat. “Hey I need something to stop Magneto from turning the planet inside out by looking at it funny. I know, Forge made something that stops it!”
Wasn’t there once a short-lived hero named “Arms-fall-off-Lad”, with the appropriate power, or did I hallucinate that?
I actually like Color Kid. During the Earthwar saga, he caused a lot of Khund ships to crash by changing the colors of the sky and the ground. And of course, when all the Subs became super-competent during the TMK era, he did a great job of disorienting the enemy with strobe-type bursts of color on every surface.
Not that I’ve ever seen him use his power this way, but he could theoretically also make someone virtually invisible, by coloring them like their background.
Weakest hero? I think I’ll vote for Cypher.
I’m surprised nobody’s yet mentioned Matter Eater Lad. You gotta respect a superhero whose only power is the ability to eat anything.
Unless Storm has lost her powers again in the past decade, I think the storyline you’re citing actually involved…
He could invent stuff. Like the Nullfier pistol. But in this capacity, he was more of a supporting character. Whenever he acted as a “superhero,” it was usually with the aid of large guns – or his powers as a sorcerer.
Hey! He could dig! Really well!
E-Sabbath, IIRC Brother Power was an extremely powerful animated clothes dummy. He had super strength and maybe electricity powers. But he was such a lame hippie that he never used them.
The Watchmen characters were pretty weak – if only because of their grounding in reality. I mean, Dollar Bill got his cape caught in a revolving door while pursuing a crook, fer crying out loud! The Silk Spectre was endowed with super-nice gams, and The Silhouette had the power of, I don’t know, being a lesbian.
Sewer Urchin from The Tick, perhaps? Entirely unsuited as a superhero when out of his element.
RealityChuck, don’t dis Ambush Bug. He also had the knowledge of comic book cliches and could use them to devastating effect. He is the only one who noticed that a pair of glasses and a handful of lame excuses do not support a secret identity. And he took out Quantas, the Koala Who Walked Like a Man…
Anyway, what was Booster Gold’s power? I had long thought it was some kind of enhanced future knowledge of marketing techniques or something.
I would nominate Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu. He was a normal human, only superbly trained in the martial arts. That also happens to be my favorite comic.
You’re thinking of Douglas Ramsey; Cypher, who was indeed in the new mutants. th writers wanted to get rid of him because it was hard to write him into a story which would need him(he was shot, if I rememer correctly).
Dazzler, btw, if had suficient sound source could be quite powerful. doesn’t make her any less lame though.
I believe the least powerful superhero would be normal man, the only superhero on the megaton planet who didn’t have any powers.
Booster gold din’t have any powers that I know of; instead he had special gauntlets that would enable flight; energy blasts and the like.
The 80s version of the Legion of Substitute Heroes had some really useless folks, like Infectious Lass and Double Header. There was also Estimate Lad, who wasn’t quite up to the Subs’ standards.
Oh, and there was also Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys, kids on skateboards who defeated Dr. Light. An ignominious nadir of a once estimable villain.
Ah, yes, Captain Planet. Was there a ever a more pathetic show?
The guy that you’re thinking about is Mati. His heart power allowed him to talk to animals. Interestingly enough, it only seemed to work on “good” animals, like deer and dolphins. “Bad” animals, like rats or sharks, usually ignored Mati’s powers and attacked the Planeteers. Mati was also able to communicate with people telepathically. He was useless in a fight, and was definitely the weakest guy on the team.
Yes, I am ashamed to admit that I know this :o
Actually, when the Legion held a contest to let one of the original five Subs in, Stone Boy won.
Anyway, Plaid Lad was pretty damned lame (like Color Kid, but Plaid only.)
Street Poet Ray had the ability to recite “Street Haiku”* and annoy the hell out of everyone.
There was an (aargh…what was the imprint of Archie Comics’s super-hero line in the '60s? Um…the Fly, etc) villian who was "The Vegetable who looked (IIRC) like a giant cucumber with legs and his power was all the powers of vegetables. He was the bad guy remember.
Also, there was a brief, ugly period during BatMania where the Blackhawks decided to become super-heroes. One of 'em, Olaf, became The Listener. He listened to radios and had one of those parabolic listening devices. And he wore baby blue pajamas with little pink ears printed all over.
Fenris
Pardon me: Chuck, not Olaf, became The Listener.
Mentally disturbed ex-dancer that dresses up like a wino in old smelly rags and harasses people. Has gloves that can rot things.