# Cool powers, but useless in a fight. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 17, 2015, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437 "2015-07-17T18:32:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dante\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@Dante\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dante_G)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/1 "2015-07-17T18:32:11Z")
There are numerous characters/superheroes in comics these days. Mutants, Inhumans or whatever DC calls their gifted - my question is, what are some characters that you think have interesting or cool powers, yet in a fight, they’d be useless. Try to be unbiased as possible. Don’t list characters you hate just because you hate them. Feel free to list ones that have utterly stupid powers as well, just for the sake of conversation. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/2 "2015-07-17T18:56:49Z")
[Cypher](http://marvel.wikia.com/Douglas_Ramsey_%28Earth-616%29), of the New Mutants: his power is that he can understand any language. At one point, he died and was resurrected; as part of that, the writers modified his powers so he can understand an opponent’s combat maneuvers as “language”, which apparently makes him useful in a fight. ---
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/3 "2015-07-17T19:20:02Z")
The canonical example is probably Skin. His power is that he has a lot of excess skin. Yards of it. It’s not extra tough or prehensile or anything. It’s like we weighed 1500 pounds and then got gastric bypass and went back down to 120. It’s that much skin. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/4 "2015-07-17T19:33:55Z")
I remember thinking that about [Bouncing Boy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouncing_Boy) back in the era when I read comics fairly regularly. I thought, "They need a cast of dozens of super-powered heroes and they had a deadline and someone penned this guy without thinking all the way through to how he’d actually fight crime or deal with violent people & stuff. Imagine if they had to give him his own ongoing comic series! ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/5 "2015-07-17T19:51:24Z")
> [@JSexton](#): > > The canonical example is probably Skin. His power is that he has a lot of excess skin. Yards of it. It’s not extra tough or prehensile or anything. It’s like we weighed 1500 pounds and then got gastric bypass and went back down to 120. It’s that much skin. That seems to stretch the definition of “power”. More like “medical condition” 😛 Like calling one of those unfortunate real life people covered by horny tumors “superpowered”. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/6 "2015-07-17T19:51:26Z")
Of course the Legion of Super-Heroes had a whole back-up team (The Legion of Substitute Heroes!), consisting of the rejects like Color Kid (could change the color of any object) and Stone Boy (could turn into solid stone, acquiring all the characteristics of solid stone–including the characteristic of being completely inanimate). They were meant to be funny, for the most part, but I always had to wonder how they felt. How would you like to be rejected by the outfit that let in Bouncing Boy?! ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/7 "2015-07-17T19:53:35Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > How would you like to be rejected by the outfit that let in Bouncing Boy?! And Matter-Eater Lad. ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/8 "2015-07-17T20:05:37Z")
Hey, don’t knock Tenzil Kem. Yes, his code name was “Matter-Eater Lad.” Yes, he was from the planet Bismoll. But…um… Okay, you can knock Tenzil Kem. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/9 "2015-07-17T20:10:51Z")
Faster than a rolling O Stronger than a silent E Able to leap Capital T in a single bound It’s a word! It’s a plan! It’s LETTER MAN! ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/10 "2015-07-17T20:25:56Z")
Alicia in Misfits. Technically, it could be useful in a fight, since the attacker would then try to rape her instead of fighting, but she wasn’t about to use it that way. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/11 "2015-07-17T20:31:52Z")
Technically speaking, at least according to the movies, Mystique’s shapeshifting powers aren’t very useful in a fight. I mean, she fights really well, but that doesn’t have anything to do with her powers. She’s just a very good fighter. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/12 "2015-07-17T21:57:26Z")
In the comics, Mystique sometimes pulls tricks like growing spines or spikes, or getting really big muscles which somehow actually function to give immense strength. The writers have never really settled on her limits. (It has never clearly been established whether she is limited by the law of conservation of mass. Sometimes, she gets really big… Is she just a hollow balloon that has the same mass she had as a normal-sized individual?) But, yeah, by and large, she’s a stealth monster, not a combat monster. X-Men have one or two healers, who are really good after a fight, but don’t really contribute to the fight. Barbara Gordon, as Oracle, was an information guru, and could manipulate data like anything – as good as, or better than, the Bat Computer – but as a young woman in a wheelchair, wasn’t too effective in combat. John Constantine could usually pull a rabbit out of his hat, but when it came to fighting, he got beaten up a lot. He could be remarkably persuasive – a master of double-talk and fast-talk – but some people just don’t listen. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/13 "2015-07-17T22:05:08Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > (It has never clearly been established whether she is limited by the law of conservation of mass. Sometimes, she gets really big… Is she just a hollow balloon that has the same mass she had as a normal-sized individual?) HULK SMASH LAW OF CONSERVATION OF MASS! fnord ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/14 "2015-07-17T22:11:00Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Technically speaking, at least according to the movies, Mystique’s shapeshifting powers aren’t very useful in a fight. I mean, she fights really well, but that doesn’t have anything to do with her powers. She’s just a very good fighter. I’d say that can count as “good in a fight.” If she can use her power to convince you to turn your back on her so she can plant a knife in your kidney, I’d call that using her powers to win a fight. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/15 "2015-07-17T22:17:21Z")
I rolled an RPG superhero who was a pathetic weakling who only had a low level power of intangibility. Basically he couldn’t effect or hurt anything or even manipulate objects, but could still be hurt by any form of energy, sound, or magic. It’s hard to imagine anything more useless in a fight than that. We looked into what the chances of learning a stunt to leave a rock in someones aorta, but just wasn’t possible. He got thrown into the garbage and I rerolled. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/16 "2015-07-17T23:00:04Z")
> [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](#): > > Hey, don’t knock Tenzil Kem. Yes, his code name was “Matter-Eater Lad.” Yes, he was from the planet Bismoll. But…um… > > Okay, you can knock Tenzil Kem. In his defense, he did eat the ‘indestructible but actually quite tasty’ Miracle Machine once. But the indigestion was nothing like Bismoll ever took on. ---
**Author:** ![Lanzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/74df32/32.png) [@Lanzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lanzy)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/17 "2015-07-17T23:01:55Z")
Later on Bouncing Boy was able to really smash things when he bounced on them. The original Invisible Girl could only turn invisible, no force shields at all. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/18 "2015-07-18T01:40:02Z")
> [@Lanzy](#): > > The original Invisible Girl could only turn invisible, no force shields at all. Yeah, a “girl power.” In the animated Legion teevee series, Bouncing Boy was very good at piloting the Legion rocket ship. So maybe they let him in in recognition of his non-powered abilities. Maybe he makes the most delicious egg salad. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/19 "2015-07-18T04:29:51Z")
> [@D\_Odds](#): > > And Matter-Eater Lad. ME is one of the few Heroes who could have killed Superboy Prime. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437/20 "2015-07-18T04:33:27Z")
Sure, if you ignore what Superboy Prime would have done to him after the first bite. Restraint was not one of SP’s better traits. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cool-powers-but-useless-in-a-fight/725437.md?page=2)