Most people, I think, would leap at the chance to have Superman’s powerset, or the Flash’s, or Firestorm’s. Though we live in a world where there’s just not enough crime or alien invasions to justify working as a super-hero, there are obvious practical applications for super-speed (sleep till 0.01 second before time to clock in, and still get there on time), x-ray vision (are her breasts as real as they are spectacular?) and elemental transmutation (need a little extra cash, just transform a sheet of paper into gold leaf).
But there’s a ton of other super-powers, many much less useful, that are still extremely cool. Okay, so nobody would actually want to be the Thing, but Janet Van Dyne’s powers appeal. It would just be cool to be able to shrink to the size of a wasp, grow wings, and still possess not only your regular strength but nifty electrical power blasts. It’s not going to let you end the war in Iraq single-handedly, true, but Winston Smith could put it to pretty good use, if his current thread on dealing with an annoying co-worker is any clue.
What about the rest of you? What mostly-useless powers do you covet? (And I’m specifically disallowing anything with obvious money-making potential.)
Hmm, that’s a very good question. The problem for me, here, is sorting out exactly what separates an acknowledged useful superpower from a mostly-useless.
It would be very awesome to be able to consume anything, a la Matter Eater Lad. Then I could eat extraordinarily healthy, and take all kinds of bets (You want me to eat this steering wheel? How much many you gonna put on that?).
As a hobbist actor I’d love for the ability to change my own shape, even if it were limited to human-only shapes. It wouldn’t be much for actually fighting crime, but it’s perfect for a spy, or an undercover cop, or an actor. (You could do “As You Like It” and perform Rosalind and Jacques in the same show!)
Even Superman’s “Super-Weaving” skill (don’t ask) would be useful to the right person, admittedly under somewhat a bizarre set of circumstances.
Theoretically, pretty much any superpower ought to be worth at least a million dollars right off the bat, if James Randi is still offering that challenge for evidence of paranormal abilities. Even if your only power is dowsing for lint, you’re still a shoo-in for the prize.
My favored not-so-superpower would be a relatively simple one: the ability to duplicate myself a la the Multiple Man. In the Marvel Universe he’s occasionally been presented as kind of a joke (“Oh no! He’s turned into TWO average people!”), but I’d enjoy being able to do whatever I want all day while simultaneously holding down a steady job.
Alternately, flight. Yeah, it’s the quintessential super power; but really, how are you going to get rich doing it? By giving people rides?
I would love to be able to split into three people a la Triplicate Girl (Triad) of the Legion of Super-Heroes. I could commit all sorts of crimes, and yet have an absolute alibi–I couldn’t have robbed that bank. I was in the dentist chair the whole time!
Cypher of the New Mutants could speak any language fluently. OK, not much immediate combat potential. As for money-making, I don’t think the staff translators at the UN earn a heck of a lot; and I doubt NSA and CIA codebreakers make much more. Still! How cool! To be able to go anywhere in the world, talk to anybody, and never encounter a language barrier!
Along the same line…how about, as mentioned in another thread, the powers of Matter-Eater Lad? No need for Pepto! Trot out those sheep’s eyeballs, shiek. Got any acid to wash it down with?
If nothing else, I could put Takeru Kobayashi in his place!
Actually, that wa a pretty good superpowre. He could speak, read, and otherwise understand ALL language and communication. You would nstantly know any dead language you came across. Think of the pay you could get at the university!
That kind of super-translation power would be useful only if you could understand what you were reading, in terms of grammar and syntax and vocabulary, as opposed to magically understanding what the sentence translates to without understanding its components.
I mean, if you looked at the word “a” it could mean a bunch of different things in eighty different languages, since the syllable is so simple. You’d need context to understand it.
Your use as a human Rosetta stone would be limited if you couldn’t find some old, dead language and show other people how you arrived at your result, wouldn’t it? You know, point to the sixth word in the fourth sentence and say, “And this word means ‘sun.’”
I think that was pretty much how Doug Ramsey’s power worked. F’instance, once, while playing poker, he was reading his opponent’s body language, and the though bubbles showed him interpreting each gesture and so forth into its meaning. And he beat the pants off the guy.
Doug’s power was a long way from useless. His only problem was that Xavier & Magneto weren’t firm enough to divide their teams into people eligble to go on missions and people who were best in a support capacity.
I’d take Girl One’s (from Top Ten) ability to change the colors and patterns on her skin. It’s useless because I’m the wrong shape to be a very popular nudist, but at least I could program my skin to display pinstripes and twin-sets for work.
