Okay for the most part everyone's talking about stupid made-up super powers and powers from comedy shows and movies parodying super heroes etc. But what about real super powers?
For instance, having abilities like being able to jump really high up in the air...but not having leg muscles or bones strong enough to withstand the impact.
Or the power to create supersonic waves that you aren't immune to.
For me having super speed always seemed pretty stupid. For instance, you have super speed, but there's nothing about your reflexes being quick, so if you book it Sonic-style you'll just end up running into (and maybe through) the wall twenty feet to the left before you have time to even see that it's there.
Or being able to see the future if you can't change the future. It always seems kinda useless
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Or for instance, Technopathy. Now, technopathy at first SEEMS like a perfectly sublime super-villainesque power, which most people take to mean the ability to control machines. Now in a world where technology is so well integrated into daily life this would be really cool, but there are a few problems...
A. Technopathy doesn't nessecarily mean the ability to control technology, rather the ability to communicate with technology. Just the same as telepathy doesn't nessecarily mean you control minds, rather that you can communicate to other people with your mind, and you would still have to give them some reason to do what you need them to do; helpful if you have good people skills, useless if you don't.
B. Even if technopathy meant complete control over technology, there's very little you could do with it either as a super hero or a super villain. As a super villain the worst you can really do is get an ATM to give you a shitload of cash, and I'm sure that eventually SOMEONE would notice the missing cash. Yeah, you'd always get green lights with street lights, yeah you could hack the shit out of anywhere, but there would never be any direct applications for it. You could never build an army of robots to take over the world, or cybernetically modify yourself, because just because you control them doesn't mean you completely know how they work and are now a mechanical genius. And as a super hero you'd be even LESS useful. Unless you're gonna stop a runaway train or wrest control of an airplane from a mad bomber or something.
Also, in an increasingly plastic and rubber world, I think that Magneto's metal-moving powers would quickly become absolutely pointless.
What do you think, my fair Escapist fellows?
