I was watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer recently in which Buffy, after fighting and defeating a hammer-wielding troll, accidentally broke a counter at the Magic Shop by placing the hammer on it. She wasn’t being deliberately destructive; but, because of her super-strength, she couldn’t really tell the difference between a 10 or 100 pound object, any more than Xander ccould tell whether a given pile of sheaf of papers he was holding had 20 or 30 sheets by weight alone.
Which brings me to the point of this thread: what are some things that super-powered characters cannot do, or have never learned to do? I’m not talking about things like Matt Murdock’s ability to match hie ties with his shirts, because that’s not a consequence of his power. I’m talking about the fact that Scott Summers probably knew Ororo Munroe for years before he realized she had entirely white hair.
Superman cannot donate blood, and not just because nobody can use it: needles can’t break his skin.
It is extremely difficult for anyone to perform surgery on Wolverine (though it has been done at least once, to put the adamantium on his skeleton), simply because incisions do not stay open.
I doubt that Professor X is remotely good at reading body language, since given what we know about his childhood, he wouldn’t have developed much then either.
Actually, there was one issue where he’d lost his telepathy, but still managed to talk down a knife-wielding attacker… by reading his body language. Didn’t make much sense to me.
I am assuming Matt, aka Daredevil, would have a hugely difficult time walking into a restaurant where they served beans or enter an elevator. Between the auditory and olefactory attacks on his senses, I suspect he would be overcome…
Scott Summers can’t run around with no glasses on.
Dr. Henry McCoy is completely unable to pass for a normal human, unlike most of the X-Men.
Angel (from the Buffyverse) is unable to have sex, at least not without dire consequences.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Angel’s curse is that if he ever has a moment of perfect happiness, if he ever forgets the suffering that he caused, he would lose his soul. Clearly he can have sex without triggering the “perfect happiness,” as demonstrated by his night of wild sex with Darla in AtS season 2 and his ongoing sexual relationship with Nina the werewolf in AtS season 5.
And for that matter Buffy didn’t break the counter because she didn’t know how much the hammer weighed. She broke it because she’s not a structural engineer and din’t know how much weight the counter could support.
I thought Headninja had an interesting take on the simple consequences to personal hygene practices that being immune to most Earthly diseases would bring.
Actually, that might make mroe sense that you think. After all, he can far more accurately and easily correlate emotions, behaviors, actions, and body language than anyoen else. Plus, didn’t he make pretty detailed studies of human behavior?
For a while, they were trying to push an, “it’s impossible to lie to Wonder Woman,” thing, which I hope has been abandoned because it’s so stupid. She may have been unable to tell a lie herself, but I can’t recall.
At any rate, I can’t imagine it would be too pleasant going through life if the people you met were unable to hold back that they thought your hair was tacky and you dress like a tramp.
Barry Allen could never get his partner to orgasm before him.
Ben Grimm couldn’t sneak up on people. (You ever hear of a sneaky rockslide?)
Bruce Banner could never have gotten his drivers license renewed. Can you imagine him not getting frustrated and angry while waiting in line at the DMV?
He had an aura that dispersed friction, so one wonders how he acheived orgasm at all (but he has futurekids, so he must’ve managed it).
The original Spider-Woman probably can’t get drunk or high, at least not more than once per intoxicant, because after her initial exposure she develops immunity.
Superman Family#214 (Jan 1982) featured Clark Kent donating blood. This was left a mystery until the final few panels, when it was revealled that Zatanna had disguised herself as a Red Cross nurse with the unlikely name of “Evig Doolb”, which in her backwards-speaking magic allowed Kent to “give blood”.
Another pre-crisis story described Superman as being unable to smoke, though the mechanics of this limitation were left unclear.
An earlier story from World’s Finest#236 (Mar 1976) includes Supes saying:
superman donated blood well before that, back in the 1960s (and maybre the fifties). It was explained that he was able to puncture his own skin with a fingernail.
Don’t think about it too much, or your brain will explode.
anyway, people he donated blood to temporarily acquired his supwer-powers. Didn’t last long, though.
Try not to think about that too much, either.
