# If you were a superhero... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 11, 2000, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-a-superhero/44990 "2000-12-11T08:55:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![ChordedZither](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9c0ed/32.png) [@ChordedZither](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChordedZither)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2001, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-a-superhero/44990/61 "2001-04-09T17:32:50Z")
Tremble, all you super-hero wannabe’s, at the approach of the super-villain: **The Dread Lecturer** Ever since an accident at the nearby Teacher’s College involving a copying machine and an overhead projector, the Dread Lecturer has been able to place an entire room full of people into a stupor with just a few words. And when they have all been reduced to a helpless state of slumber, he whispers the terrible magic word, “_GPA_!” (Yes, you pronounce it ‘g-pah’, just the way it’s spelled.), causing them to file listlessly out of the room, condemned to a zombie-like existence, at least until the weekend. And even the weekends may soon be no longer safe. Rumor has it that the Dread Lecturer’s minions have been working for weeks on that most terrifying of secret weapons, known only by the code name _TakeHomeFinalExam_, said to be able to extend the Lecturer’s zombie mastery for up to a week at a time. The Dread Lecturer has only two known weaknesses. He invariably flies into an infantile rage at the sight of any new educational budget proposal from the State Legislature, and will flee in abject terror from those champions of studentkind, the **League of Annual-Student-Evaluation Surveyors**. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2001, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-a-superhero/44990/62 "2001-04-10T02:07:43Z")
My dad once made up a super-hero named **GREENBACK**. ORIGIN: He was once just an ordinary subway attendant, keeping the automatic change dispensing machines and debit-card machines in repair. Then, one day, while fixing a really bad jam in one of the debit-card dispensing machines, a nearby video game exploded, sending huge electric jolts and unknown energyes through both him and the machine he was fixing. He discovered that he had fused with the debit card machine, and had acquired its powers! POWERS: Greenback has the power to turn the “money” encoded onto any ordinary debit card into real honest-to-goodness cash money – creating bills and coins out of thin air, as it were. Villains tremble when he turns $20 worth of debit-card credit into pennies and hurls it at them! LIMITATIONS: As you can imagine, fighting crime can get quite expensive for Greenback. He is trying to hone his powers so that he can _throw_ debit cards at villains and have them turn into pennies mid-flight, thus increasing the speed with which the pennies slam into their targets (and, hence, decreasing the number of pennies needed to take down a common thug). ---
**Author:** ![Sweet\_Walter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7cd45c/32.png) [@Sweet\_Walter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sweet_Walter)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2001, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-a-superhero/44990/63 "2001-04-10T14:10:40Z")
Powers- Light Control The ability to always be backlit, either from ledges or at the open end of alleys where you bad guys will say “Now that’s a dramatic scene.” Weather Control The ability to generate a breeze blowing in whatever direction is most flattering. Weakness- I can’t move around much (I trip over my cape alot). Fluorescent lighting (so unflatering) ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2001, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-a-superhero/44990/64 "2001-04-10T14:30:56Z")
NAME: The ‘Crat POWERS: Creates massive chaos while claiming he is “only doing his job.” Can destroy any project and neutralize any kind of action with piles of paperwork that must be completed under penalty of law. Has an uncanny knowledge of obscure government rules and regulations and how to apply them at exactly the right moment so that his enemies/victims will have to start their paperwork all over again. Can numb his opponent’s mind with hundreds of trivial or completely irrelevant questions. Can reduce his foes to screaming terror merely by saying two words: “Hold, please.” Leads a vast army of apathetic clerks who can foul up or lose completed paperwork with incredible speed. As a last ditch attack, the ‘Crat can disappear within his labyrinthine state office building when his signature and/or stamp is desperately needed and not show up again for days, weeks or even months. Sometimes his victims’ heads explode with sheer frustration. Is able and willing to live on a salary that comes to no more than two thirds of what he could get for similar (and actually productive) work in the private sector. The waiting rooms of his lair are filled with the shriveled, mummified corpses of his victims covered with dust and cobwebs and clutching yellowed, brittle and still incomplete forms and documents to their chests. ORIGIN: Bitter memories of his persecution at the hands of his classmates during grade, mid and high school left the ‘Crat bitter and misanthropic. On finding a copy of the _Necronomicon_ while browsing through the bargain bin at an adult book store, the ‘Crat summoned Eris, goddess of chaos and discord, and begged her for the power to inflict endless misery upon the entire human race. WEAKNESS: Any credible threat to his pension will reduce him to a pile of quivering, whimpering jelly. ARCH ENEMY: The Libertarian, a loner skulking on the fringes of society who occasionally leads ineffectual raiding parties consisting of other social misfits, outcasts and rejects on the ‘Crat’s impregnable combination state office building and fortress. ---
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2001, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-a-superhero/44990/65 "2001-04-10T21:23:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sublight \* > After a furious battle against Wit Man, I am knocked into a vat of bovine excrement and Jack Chick pamphlets. Somehow, I survive the noxious brew, but at the cost of my sanity and my soul. I emerge… > > \*\* The Troll! \*\* > > Powers: I can leap to deranged conclusions in a single bound, I am more stubborn than a one-track locomotive and I laugh in the face of Godwin’s Law. I am immune to well-reasoned arguments and burning flames alike; the more you fight me, the stronger I become. I can also assume multiple identities, sometimes appearing as two separate people at once. > > Weaknesses: The flip side of my power is that I become weaker in the face of indifference. Ignore me and I vanish in a screaming puff of insignificance. Alsoo I cnt spil wurth a dam. > > Nemeses: **Wit Man** , **The Mod**. > > Costume: a flaming dunce cap that covers my body from head to toe. > > –sublight. LMAO! This is one of the funniest posts I’ve ever read. I’ll come up with a hero of mine once I’ve read the whole thread, if the stuck-in-molasses SDMB allows me! ---
**Author:** ![soulmurk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@soulmurk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/soulmurk)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2001, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-a-superhero/44990/66 "2001-04-10T22:13:17Z")
**Name:** Major Manifest aka Master of the Obvious **Origin of powers:** Lacking astute perception as a child, I set out to learn the skill. I’m still learning. **Powers:** The ability to unmistakably declare the most obvious point as if it were not immediately apparent and feel self satisfaction at having done so. **Weaknesses:** Innuendo, Insinuations, Allusions **Nemeses** Captain Obscuration, Ambiguity Andy ---
**Author:** ![Tixenfleaz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9a140/32.png) [@Tixenfleaz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tixenfleaz)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2001, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-a-superhero/44990/67 "2001-04-11T03:30:58Z")
NAME: Stool Slinging Lad ORIGIN: Seeking solace at the local zoo, our oppressed and bullied young hero witnesses a simian mob war in the monkey house. An idea is born, and with it, a legend… POWERS: Able to throw excrement with uncanny distance and accuracy, aided by a high fiber diet and the occasional swallowed rock. COSTUME: Baggy sweatpants, no underwear. DISADVANTAGES: Dirty fingernails, permanent virginity, notoriety (“There goes that little sh$t throwing bastard!!!”). Ok, you laugh. But goddammit nobody, and I mean NOBODY messed with me from the sixth grade on! ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2001, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-a-superhero/44990/68 "2001-04-12T01:49:06Z")
Another one, from one of my old gaming buddies (said gaming buddy going by the name of, I kid you not, R.E.M.): Name: **MENTALIS** Powers: Mentalis is a psychic. He can control people’s minds, and force them to bend to his will. Unfortunately, the **only thing** he can force people to do is sit down and have a beer. Weaknesses: If there’s no beer around, nobody’s going to be able to sit down and have one. ---
**Author:** ![Wolverine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba9def/32.png) [@Wolverine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolverine)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2001, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-a-superhero/44990/69 "2001-04-12T03:10:45Z")
Name: Wolverine (No, wait that one’s taken) Name: Transporter Powers: Teleportation of self and other objects within vicinity up to a certain mass. I can’t take the Statue of Liberty but can take my clothes and a couple of people. Can go anywhere including space. All I need to do is visualize where I’m going to go there. Teleporting goes extremely fast. The distance traveled is instantaneous but the actual process happens just under half a second. Weaknesses: Will die in space unless I take a small, personal vessel. Also I can’t know if anything will hit where I appear such as space debris or bullets. Origin of Powers: Comet lands in back yard and saturates my body with super cool space waves. Costume: No need for a costume just street clothes. Bad guys are deposited in jail before they know what’s happening. Coolness factor: If used for bad, nobody can throw me in jail because I can just get out again. If used for good, government respects me and can’t do tests on me without my permission. Plus, I can do the here and gone affect like Goku. I’ll never be late to anything again. ---
**Author:** ![K\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9bd4f/32.png) [@K\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K_Son)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2001, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-a-superhero/44990/70 "2001-07-30T19:46:39Z")
I would be one of a few thousand left of my kind. I would be a different race. Like superman (not his powers.) A few years ago, the sun of my home planet was blown up by the mercenary Tau forces. Never default on a payment kids. Anyway the sun going nova did nothing to the planet itself except torch all living things. Except the soldiers in their power armour. The armour merely fused at all joints makeing them still mobile but welded shut. The heat caused our bodys to evapourate away leaving only a soul. This abnormal state of being. (incorporeal, with a corporeal shell) has given us exemplary use of my dexterity, allowing us to run much faster than we could if we had muscles. The having no body thing also makes me nigh imposible to kill. Only by destroying the armour will we stop moving. We are immune to small arms fire, and while we can aim better than any living creature, we have no conviction. We are absolutely non-hostile, unless provoked or driven. Our old diety was awoken by the sun exploding and wishes to make himself known once more. So I am at the mercy of a vengeful god, and am forced to adopt the if you want to fight, I’ll be a sport and let you go first policy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-were-a-superhero/44990.md?page=3)