Superuseless Superpowers

By John Farrier in Everything Else on Jan 17, 2009 at 9:39 pm

Superuseless Superpowers is a blog by an anonymous cartoonist who has taken up the task of chronicling the most useless superpowers. Above is his picture of the superpower 13th Bullet Proof — being completely safe from 1 out of 13 bullets shot at you.

I gotta say that the most useless superpower I ever saw was in the old Palladium role-playing game Heroes Unlimited. It was clock manipulation: the ability to stop or change the time on a clock through psychic powers. I’ll take invisibility or wingless flight over that any day.

Link via Radley Balko

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giltwist
Jan 17th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
My friends and I were playing a tabletop game of Aberrant and came up with a whole bunch of these.

* To differentiate between black and navy blue at any distance in any light.
* To know Pi, all of it.
* To see the future, but only far enough to say “Oh crap…” (Totally awesome to see this for TimeBomb on No Heroics).
* To change the color of your hair to any shade of brown you want.

I could go on.
DaveL
Jan 18th, 2009 at 12:04 am
I don’t know why… but giraffes really really like me. I honestly have half a dozen stories (from visits to zoos, state fairs, etc.) where they act like they know me and want to follow me around. Does that count as one?
just a guy
Jan 18th, 2009 at 1:04 am
I always loved this concept. THere was an old PC game called the Heroes of Hoboken, or something like that, where they had wacky character like “Red Tape man” or some guy who just raise a person’s cholesterol.

Some that my friends and I came up with were:
* The ability to control wicker (grow, move, shape, etc).
* The ability to sense headaches in others.
* Intstant tooth regeneration. (pulling out them is still ‘mundane’).
* Being able to make the skin on any visable fruit or vegitable vanish.
* Able to tell anyone’s age upon taste.

and some other ones I can’t recall right now.
Johnny Cat
Jan 18th, 2009 at 2:27 am
Those are all great, and beat my gaydar and pms detector hands down.

I like the preview for Wolverine where the bad guy says, “Do you even know how to kill me?” and W answers, “I’m gonna cut your head off, see if that works.”
Jim
Jan 18th, 2009 at 6:40 am
“* The ability to control wicker (grow, move, shape, etc)”

I would actually love that ability, though can you move it around like Magneto?

Still you could just grow the wicker so big it forces people out of widows in high rise towers!
Gauldar
Jan 18th, 2009 at 10:18 am
I would have to go with ability to control the growth of mold, within natural growing perameters. How about the ability to possess a blade of grass?
Jim
Jan 18th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Another useless super power from Heroes Unlimited: Color Change, or the ability to change an object’s color at will.
Monsewage
Jan 18th, 2009 at 11:59 am
I think you’ve described the usless power incorrectly. It is only bullets 13 and up that are stopped. Hence the 12 bullet holes in the body.
just a guy
Jan 18th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
The wicker growth thing could be used creativly. Some of the stuff we came up with could be actually functional if you put some ingenuity to it, but it was still pretty rediculous, esp in the context of other super heroes. Sure, Mr. Wicker could do some amazing things to humans, but coudln’t really stand up to most xmen, etc…

That’s one reason I loved ‘The Tick’. The Ottoman Empress was my favorite. (She controlled furniture – it was her ‘Ottoman Empire’)
Sylvain
Jan 18th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Please try “Hero Corp” in Google, this is a new french TV show talking about a lost small town where elderly superheroes or useless powers ones are living.

It’s quite funny ! Like “Captain Acid” who previously sent acid fluids with his barehands and now only sends soft shampoo, or Mental who can make you do anything … only if you’re intend to do it !
Sylvain
Jan 18th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
… remember about “Mystery Men” a movie with ben stiller where you have a guy who can be invisible when nobody look at him !
Staxeon
Jan 18th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
I think I have SPATS, spontaneous psychic audible tourette syndrome. I will say exactly the wrong thing at the right time, its uncanny. Like when my sysadmin was buying coffee, and I was recalling the one and only time I’ve been ice skating and I felt like “a fairy”, come to find out my admin and the guy making coffee were closeted. I also ruin many a surprise party.
Moodindigo
Jan 19th, 2009 at 5:41 am
Awesome! Heroes Unlimited,I used to love that game! Anyone fancy a game? I’ll GM?
Ryans
Feb 8th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Reminds me of a game my friends and I play called Superpower Superdeficiency. You have a superpower, but conversely, a superdeficiency that totally negates your superpower.

For example: You can fly but you are insanely afraid of heights.

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