# Fictional supergeniuses **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 16, 2018, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213 "2018-12-16T01:47:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/1 "2018-12-16T01:47:52Z")
Johnny Depp in transcendence. Peter Weyland in the Alien series. Limitless, lucy, her. Theres too many to list in comic books to list. Any others that are interesting? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/2 "2018-12-16T01:58:55Z")
The original: Wile E. Coyote ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/3 "2018-12-16T02:03:35Z")
You rang? ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/4 "2018-12-16T02:07:29Z")
[Megamind](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1001526/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1) [Gru](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1323594/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1) ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/5 "2018-12-16T02:09:06Z")
Charlie, briefly. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/6 "2018-12-16T02:27:39Z")
There’s a former circus freak in _The Paradox Men_ who pulls off the sorts of stunts that a speed reader with a photographic memory could maybe manage, and the novel keeps on circling back to whether there’s more to him than it seems… ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/7 "2018-12-16T02:39:00Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Charlie, briefly. I thought it was Charley. Which is why it took me such a long time to figure out wth you were talking about. ETA: Anyway, also Algernon, briefly. ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/8 "2018-12-16T03:39:00Z")
A big problem with fictional supergeniuses is that they’re _really_ hard to write, since their writers are generally not supergeniuses themselves. Which means they’re often just stated to be supergeniuses, without going into their thought processes at all. A few depictions that I think do an excellent job of actually showing genius in action: Andrew “Ender”, _Ender’s Game_. Probably the best fictional depiction of a tactical/strategic supergenius I’ve ever come across. Miles Vorkosigan, _Barrayar_, et al. Second only to Ender as a tactical/strategic military supergenius, and is also a political/social supergenius. Sherlock Holmes, _Sherlock_. Of all his incarnations as a deductive supergenius, I think this depiction does the best job of really getting across just how smart he really is. The first episode, “A Study in Pink”, has an absolutely brilliant duel of wits that manages to play the Westley-Vizzini duel of wits from _The Princess Bride_ as a straight, dramatic, genuinely tense scene. Nathan Ford, _Leverage_. Ok, the show cheats quite a bit with flashbacks and retroactive cleverness, but still my favorite depiction of a supergenius mastermind. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f8ce5/32.png) [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/9 "2018-12-16T16:07:56Z")
Doc Savage. ---
**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:** [December 16, 2018, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/10 "2018-12-16T16:37:43Z")
Vizzini. Compared to him Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates are morons! ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/11 "2018-12-16T16:39:57Z")
> [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](#): > > Doc Savage. He was based largely on Philip Wylie’s _The Savage Gentleman_, from 1932. Olaf Stapledon’s _Odd John_, 1935, is probably the classic science fiction supergenius. Wilmar Shiras wrote a short story series that was collected into _Children of the Atom_, 1953, about kids who had been affected by radioactivity. Poul Anderson’s 1954 _Brain Wave_ outdoes them all. The premise is that Earth has been sitting in an intelligence-dampening cloud. Every person - and every animal - on the planet gets a brain boost. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/12 "2018-12-16T17:24:30Z")
Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/13 "2018-12-16T17:31:19Z")
Dr. Horrible ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/14 "2018-12-16T17:32:05Z")
Are you thinking what I’m thinking? The Brain, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/15 "2018-12-16T17:42:04Z")
Basically, every single superhero. Even the stupid ones end up getting roped into fixing the fusion reactor or hacking into the NSA, because “everyone else is busy” or “everyone else has been kidnapped”. But ignoring all of them, I would probably bring up Akira and Tetsuo, though they have an odd sort of supergenius. Emotionally they’re still normal people, and their genius is more about the basic nature of physics and the universe, less about how to go about actually manufacturing things. But it is an interesting (and significant) aspect of the story (particularly if you read the comic, since there’s a lot more content there). ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/16 "2018-12-16T19:02:45Z")
Moriarty in the Sherlock Holmes books. Holmes says that he has “extraordinary mental powers” not just as criminal but as a mathematical genius: “a brain which might have made or marred the destiny of nations . . . Is he not the celebrated author of The Dynamics of an Asteroid, a book which ascends to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that it is said that there was no man in the scientific press capable of criticizing it?” ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Johnny\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Q)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/17 "2018-12-16T22:27:19Z")
No love for Buckaroo Banzai? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/18 "2018-12-16T22:28:33Z")
Jack Brennan in Niven’s Protector. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/19 "2018-12-16T22:42:03Z")
Pretty much everyone in _Real Genius_. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2018, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213/20 "2018-12-16T22:50:03Z")
Dexter, of Laboratory fame [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-supergeniuses/826213.md?page=2)