You’re no fun! (Can I at least get the generic “mutant” physique – toned and fit and shapely and vigorous and sexy?)
Well, that’s a relief…
More seriously, it seems to me that to juggle Ultra Boy’s powers would require a LOT of thinking, and sometimes some VERY rapid decision-making. Drop one power, deploy the next, all with split-second timing. With Storm’s powers, I have the luxury of lots of time. Draw upon this low-pressure cell, bleed off some high-pressure from over Iowa, push the tornado away from Dubuque, pull some of the heaviest rain from one watershed to the next. More like playing chess than playing tennis.
But as Ultra Boy, you can default to invulnerability; thinking like a lots-of-luxury chess player is hard to do when you’re unexpectedly getting hit in the back of the head.
Storm, easily. Not only do I think it is a cooler power and Ultra Boy a dumb character ( even for the Legion ), but I’d inevitably fuck up as Ultra Boy. Like Trinopus noted there is too much quick thinking on the fly required in crisis situations. My motto is “perfection takes time” or more usually “barely adequate takes time” - I’m not that quick on my feet mentally.
Storm’s powers are cool on a local scale, but I’m not sure we should have her trying to alter large weather patterns, and definitely not try to change global weather. Who knows what could go wrong?
Couldn’t Ultra Boy just tow some icebergs around? Build some solar power satellites? Go out and find a nice water filled asteroid and bring it back to Earth?
That’s one of the benefits of working with weather: it rarely hits you on the back of the head. Storm would be safe from hailstones…by controlling hail clouds.
True; even if she could (and I believe, per the comics, she can’t) she shouldn’t. But just think of the lives you could save by micro-steering tornadoes.
Using only one of his powers at a time? Even if you give him a flight ring, how do you tow an asteroid without using both super strength and invulnerability? Given that the flight ring is only good for moving a person around, not an asteroid – does he even have a power that will move asteroids?
Same with fighting a major alarm fire in a high rise building: you need invulnerability just to survive inside the conflagration…so no other power is available. Or you can just hang around the periphery of the fire, and access super-strength…but to much less avail.
Storm can’t move asteroids…but she can cause a local downpour over the burning building. At very least it will help prevent the fire from spreading.
I’ll go with Ultra-Boy, and I’d mostly be interested in using the Ultra-Vision to spy on politicians and blackmailing them with the knowledge gained, in order to force through a whole raft of reform legislation - civil rights, environmental, welfare, education, UHC etc. in every country I can . Which would do a lot more actual good for the world than rescuing kittens or fighting ISIL, and would actually address things like famine and even crime, in a way no local rainstorm or taking out a Mafia boss here or there ever could. Plus doesn’t betray my pacifism.
The other powers will stand me in good stead when the oligarchic bastards try to have me killed.
I would like Ultra Powers, please, because, as Athena’s Agent, I will strive to use them in a wise and clever fashion to promote female education and empowerment around the world (starting in Indiana, since I’m right next door, and all). Also, I think Storm’s powers are … excuse me for saying, unwise. Weather is both a part and a product of the ecological system and you can’t just spot-correct that without causing a whole range of problems in adjacent ecological fields.
You’re short-listed for obvious reasons, but the Goddess would like you to explain your empowerment and education schemes, and how ultra powers will help you achieve them. Wouldn’t a couple billion dollars to promote STEM education for girls be better?
'snot my righteousness. If I were just fulfilling my own agenda, gun control, a lot of anti-corporatism and serious nuclear disarmament would have been on there too. Instead, I would just plan on making the whole world as much like Scandewegia as superhumanly possible…
I agree that too much use could lead to problems. Make it rain in California…and you might make the drought worse in Nevada.
But I don’t think it’s demonstrated that local weather control must bleed over to bad effects elsewhere. If there are severe downpours in one county, it might do no harm at all to spread them out over four counties. The same overall precipitation occurs, but less flooding.
To make the comparison to fighting forest fires: yes, very aggressive suppression of forest fires leads to accumulation of undergrowth and not only a greater fire danger later, but also a change in the ecological balance of the forest. But suppressing the worst hot-spots in a fire, or conducting controlled burns, or channeling fires via firebreaks, are good, sensible, wise forestry practices.
Steering a tornado away from the trailer park and through the nearby wheatfield would save a bunch of lives, and not have much of an ecological effect.
I’d like Ultra Boy’s powers and I would, of course, use them to do a little creative sculpting so that the general public could have something scenic to enjoy on clear nights when the Moon is full. What else?
Well, I’ve always been more of a LSH fan than an X-fan, having gotten my start reading comics reading a giant-sized Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes many many many moons ago. Additionally, Ultra-Boy was among my top 5 Legionnaires, despite his stupid name and origin (Jo Nah swallowed by a space whale? Really?). Meanwhile, Storm was not among my favorite X-People, even when being a mutant in the Marvel Universe was rare.
I’ll go Ultra boy too please. With a distinct absence of super powered villains to deal with the 1 power at a time limitation is fine with me.
I’d start with kicking back with a few beers on a remote hill top somewhere round Syria, spying on ISIS from a distance and randomly making leaders burst into flame at selected moments to make it seem like Allah’s wrath.
A very difficult decision. Ultra Boy’s one-at-a-time restriction seems rather onerous. Do I get Storm’s other powers, like lightning bolts, flight, wind blasts, wind shield, etc? I’ll need them for personal protection and for when direct personal action is required. I note that the area of effect is essentially unlimited with effort. OTOH Storm might be seen to impinge on Aeolus, and the lightning bolt ability might offend Zeus, but then Athena is Zeus’s favourite daughter, so I’d effectively be Zeus’s proxy.
On balance, if I can have the extras, I’m going with Storm. The ability to indirectly do good is much greater: simple gentle rain will make the land more fertile, alleviate famine and drought, bog armies down and more; dense fog will keep people off the streets, quell riots etc. Less gentle rain can extinguish fires. On the other side, if necessary the ability to smite those who offend Athena would be immense. Think of the effects of a Manhattan-sized sandstorm: you could easily kill millions.
But the coolest ability of all? If it’s naturally raining, I and the lady I’m squiring get to walk in the dry! (If the potion turns me female, like Storm, change that to me and the gentleman who’s squiring me)
I choose Ultra Boy and use my powers to lead the colonization/conquest of Mars (named after Pallas Athena’s lame rival to champion of battle).
Let the other 11 Dopers try to deal with Earthers’ petty problems. Glory is only achieved through struggle, and if super-powered dopers end all of Earther’s problems for them then no honor has been gained nor will they value what they have been given.
In the Mars environment my powers will be helpful, but not omnipotent. Like the boat-faring Athenians of yore, let us struggle to make a new world to challenge Earth [ok not a perfect historic metaphor], thereby uniting Earthers in a common cause to prove themselves worthy of Athena’s gifts to avoid economic if not death ray induced domination by Pallas Athena’s Martian Hegemony.
(Also, I eschew Storm as I assume she cannot outright terraform Mars nor create habitable oxygen bubbles, both of which would make the endeavour too easy.)
Interesting question. If you put her in a spacesuit, Storm can control “space weather.” It’s silly, but who knows. She might be able to use the solar wind to push an asteroid towards Mars. On Mars, it’s possible she could draw moisture out of the crust and get some global warming going on, which would be a good thing on Mars and if she screws up, no biggie.
Non-canonical. Storm is in tune with earth’s weather, and needs large volumes of air to work best. She can make it rain in the attic, but only a little. She’s been shown to be helpless in outer space.
(She doesn’t seem to create matter out of nothing, although she does seem to pull energy out of…um…subspace or somewhere.)
