Comments on: Which superpowers rock?

Question: Which superpowers rock?

crapples — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:08:33 -0800

Which are the coolest superpowers of all, and why?

I have an ongoing argument with my 10 year old about which superpowers are awesome and which ones suck. I won't tell you any of my opinions or his because that might bias the responses to this question. So, help us settle it once and for all: Which superpowers are the coolest? Why? Which ones are totally lame? Why?

By: phearlez

phearlez — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:16:44 -0800

If I had to pick just the one thing, flying would be it. Hands down. Not the flashiest but certainly the most useful.

Up second, speed. Always loved The Flash.

Third choice, super strength.

By: Alison

Alison — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:19:09 -0800

Shape-shifting is the best. You can fly, disguise yourself or do fantastic party tricks.

By: blue mustard

blue mustard — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:22:02 -0800

By: matimer

matimer — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:22:38 -0800

Yah Morph was my favorite character on the X-men cartoon cause he could use everyones powers

By: aramaic

aramaic — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:24:15 -0800

Control over relative time. The ability to "freeze" time for everyone other than me would make me the most powerful entity on the planet. Nothing could stop me from destroying civilization!

(insert evil laugh)

By: cloeburner

cloeburner — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:25:33 -0800

I've always maintained that psychokinesis like that of Jean Grey would be the best superpower. It would allow you to fly, and depending on how strong it was, let you do a whole bunch of other stuff too.

By: nile_red

nile_red — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:27:18 -0800

teleportation. definitely. oh! or invisibility.....can i have invisibility and teleportation?

By: Clay201

Clay201 — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:27:54 -0800

I was always partial to telekinesis. Given enough proficiency, there's almost no limit to what it could do.

By: rudyfink

rudyfink — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:29:08 -0800

teleportation (controlling space), controlling time, and controlling energy.

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:32:29 -0800

I'm with Alison. Shapeshifting is totally where it's at. You can be anyone or anything, get into anywhere... and not to put to fine a point on it, imagine the sex!

This argument may not hold much water with your ten-year-old, though.

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:34:05 -0800

(...too fine a point, of course.)

And for all you invisibility types out there, shapeshifting offers every advantage that invisibility does.

By: Kickstart70

Kickstart70 — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:34:08 -0800

Dr. Strange's magic abilities, without doubt. He could do all of the items other people talked about here so far and much, much more.

By: Capn

Capn — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:34:33 -0800

Omnipotence

By: sdis

sdis — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:35:35 -0800

Teleportation, definitely.

Honorable mention goes to shapeshifting and timestopping. And that scene with Magneto busting out of jail in X2 using iron filings injected into the security guard was the best scene of all time.

By: iconomy

iconomy — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:36:49 -0800

Seeing through things. X-ray vision, I guess it's called? Generally just heightened senses of any kind - - hearing, sight, whatever. That, and flying.

By: GaelFC

GaelFC — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:37:04 -0800

NOT the boy Wonder Twin, I tell you what. Turning into a form of water? Oh, some writer had a deadline to make, methinks.

I'd say timetravel (even if you lose a fight, you can go back and fix it!). Not sure which superheroes have that though.

By: rolypolyman

rolypolyman — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:37:05 -0800

Unlimited wishes. Then you have all the above. The Genie is where it's at.

By: jedicus

jedicus — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:38:16 -0800

This is kind of a cop-out (and display of extreme dorkiness), but you really have to define the question better than that, otherwise 'omnipotence' is sort of a catchall.

Now, if you go with 'traditional' superpowers (say those possessed by the original X-Men or the individual powers of Superman), I'd say it's a tossup between flight and immortality (in the longevity sense), whether via something like Wolverine's healing factor or Superman's nigh-invulnerability.

I think those are the only two that would satisfy any deep-seated human desires.

By: callmejay

callmejay — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:38:55 -0800

Definitely flying.

By: cptnrandy

cptnrandy — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:40:17 -0800

Invulnerability.

Everything else is cool, but as you get older and get to learn about pain, you see how useful that would really be.

By: cptnrandy

cptnrandy — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:41:10 -0800

Of course, super strength with invulnerability is better. If you're just invulnerable, you could be trapped.

By: junkbox

junkbox — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:42:28 -0800

Turning into a bug or becoming really small like "Ant Man" is definitely on the lame side. Giant Man is also pretty meh. Then there's that one guy who's just really good with a bow, who never gets any respect.

Flying, invisibility, telephathy/telekinesis are the marquee superpowers in my opinion. Super-strength and invincibility/healing factor are also very cool, but the character needs some sort of "gimmick" to go with them because those pwers aren't terribly interesting in and of themselves. Shapeshifting and taking on other people's powers are excellent superpowers, but they're usually accompanied by a tragic element (see: Rogue and Mystique) that serves as a drawback to what would otherwise be an overpowered character. Personally, I think X-ray vision and the ability to run thru solid objects are cool powers, but some folks disagree.

By: Scoo

Scoo — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:45:54 -0800

Another vote for Telekinesis, if it were to allow control down to the molecular level. You could synthesise virtually anything, ala Dr. Manhattan, or turn the power inward to repair and improve your nervous system, brain, organs, etc. Most of the other powers listed here could be had with a ceative application of telekinesis. All I need now is to be involved in a freak radioactive/chemical/electrical/mystical accident and I'm off to the races!

EXCELSIOR!

By: Asparagirl

Asparagirl — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:47:45 -0800

Electricity/magnetism control is where it's at. Then you can fly by bouncing off the Earth's magnetic field.

By: MsMolly

MsMolly — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:56:07 -0800

I'd definitely choose flying or teleportation. No more having to gather frequent flyer miles before I could go somewhere cool on vacation. And I could just step out to Paris or Mumbai for lunch... Mmmmmmm.

By: blueyellow

blueyellow — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:56:14 -0800

Telepathy would be interesting. Maybe having a super genius mind that automagically grasps things and figures them out. Super charisma could also be fun, having superinfluence on people. Also, how about the ability warp the space-time contiuum .. generate worm holes, slow things down...

By: bshort

bshort — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:59:29 -0800

Gravity control.

Flying, limited telekinesis, and hey, if someone is trying to beat you up you can just make him weigh so much that he's stuck to the ground.

By: pmbuko

pmbuko — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:04:55 -0800

Inspector Gadget. 'nuff said.

By: COBRA!

COBRA! — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:05:49 -0800

I think you'd want something with the widest possible range of uses; overspecialization sucks, even for superheroes. So I nominate super-speed (and I mean Flash-quality so-goddamned-fast-I-can-make-my-own-molecules-vibrate-through-to-other-dimensions fast, not the "Oooh! I can run pretty quickly!" Northstar/Quicksilver variety). You can essentially duplicate flying, teleportation, invisibility, and invulnerability through immense speed, and you can also beat the crap out of somebody before they even swing at you.

The only thing I can think of that would be nearly as useful would be Luthor-level super genius. Think of it: he's smart enough to play a nearly even game with Superman for 65 years. That's some superpower for a paunchy bald guy.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:06:08 -0800

Someone has to find the Dr.Katz clip where Dave Chapelle goes off on superheroes.

Worst superpowers: Aquaman. I mean, talking to fish? What would a fish say?

FISH: Hi Aquaman!

AQUAMAN: Hi fish! Seen anything under the water?

[PAUSE]

FISH: Hi Aquaman!

By: Hlewagast

Hlewagast — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:07:11 -0800

I'll vote for teleportation, but only if I can bring my clothing and other objects with me when I *bamf*, because showing up nude would not be cool.

By: fenriq

fenriq — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:07:21 -0800

There are different best powers for different people.

Shapeshifting is good.
Flying is good. But its gotta be at whatever speed you choose, not some lame ass twenty miles an hour crap.
Invisibilities alright but not if you've gotta be naked to be totally invisible.
Super strength would be fine if it came with invulnerability too.

I always liked Forge's superpower of being able to build anything.

I think shapeshifting would be the most fun one to have. Especially after watching that episode of Family Guy where Peter gets shapeshifting powers and makes Justin Timberlake make out with Gene Shalit.

COBRA!, Superman could have crushed Luthor like a bug anytime he wanted to if only he hadn't been raised by those moralistic farmers.

By: box

box — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:08:12 -0800

I'm a big fan of invisibility myself, though FoB makes the good point that shapeshifting might be even better. Controlling time is also pretty good.

Lamest superpowers is a little harder--after all, it's not so much the power as it is what you do with it, and that kind of thing requires good writers. Lame superpowers? I'm not a big superhero fan, but how about super-taste? Speed-reading? Rapid hair growth?

By: goethean

goethean — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:08:28 -0800

I was going to say Assyria, but I guess that's the wrong kind of superpower.

By: DevilsAdvocate

DevilsAdvocate — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:09:10 -0800

I'd say it's a tossup between flight and immortality (in the longevity sense)

I don't know if "immortality" is considered a superpower, but if it is I don't think I'd choose it. See Sandman #20, "Facade," for a haunting story of a superhero who wants to die, and is unable to.

By: COBRA!

COBRA! — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:11:09 -0800

COBRA!, Superman could have crushed Luthor like a bug anytime he wanted to if only he hadn't been raised by those moralistic farmers.

Yeah, I was thinking it would've been more accurate to credit Luthor with superhuman intelligence and drive/focus. Like, from his point of view, Superman's unwillingness to crush him like a bug is a fatal flaw that the old double-L doesn't share.

(like, think of them as athlete's-- Superman's more naturally gifted, but Luthor wants it more)

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:11:53 -0800

Telepathy. Then you don't need any of the other powers - just get someone else to do it for you!

And have to agree on being small (Antman) as the lamest, and Hawkeye (the bowman) needing more respect.

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:12:24 -0800

I have long elaborate day-dreams where I have the power to phase through stuff. According to my internal comic book logic, this gives me the power to fly (phase through gas/air/etc), turn invisible (phase through light), teleport (phase through space) and a host of other wacky skillz (turn broomstick into monofiliment by phasing out everying but a single line of atoms) and other things.

Because I'm a librarian and often spend hours at the desk with nobody to ask me where the bathroom is, this has evolved into an entire saga where I am the mysterious hero "Reaperjack" (I make my body invisible except for my skeleton and wear a spooky Nazgul-like robe) who refuses to join a government sponsored group of heroes because he is unsure of their intentions. Last week's episode involved being confronted by their leader (superstrong, supertough ex-firefighter named "America's Hero") while in my secret identity. It seems that I was picked out of a crowd by one of their psychics who noticed the absense of my mind (I had phased it out to keep my thoughts private).

How will this end? What will face Reaperjack next week? Has Evolvo escaped from his glass prison? My next desk shift isn't until Wednesday, so stay tuned!

By: mojohand

mojohand — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:12:26 -0800

Telepathy? Nah, You're going to get TMI, way way TMI.

Jayne: Well, I don't like the idea of someone hearing what I'm thinking.
Inara: No one likes the idea of hearing what you're thinking.

By: Decani

Decani — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:16:30 -0800

Being able to make cellphones turn into fresh, wet turds.

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:17:47 -0800

TMI? Nah. Obviously none of the superpowers would be terribly great without control.

Louise: Harder, Superman har...
*BOOM!*

By: mr_roboto

mr_roboto — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:18:00 -0800

There was an episode of This American Life about this, kind of....

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:18:12 -0800

Decani wins!!!

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:19:14 -0800

Lois. Argh!

By: Robot Johnny

Robot Johnny — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:19:40 -0800

There's a great This American Life episode about superpowers in which the author realizes that there are two types of people -- those who choose "flight" and those who choose "invisibility". Her argument was that those who choose invisibility are the introverts, the shy, the sneaky, the ones with guile. Those that choose flight are the ones who have something to prove, who like attention, who want to be seen exercising their power.

That said, I choose time travel.

By: Pollomacho

Pollomacho — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:19:54 -0800

How about healing, mind control and resurrection? There was a really cool superhero in this Christian comic I read that had those powers, I can't remember his name right now.

By: Robot Johnny

Robot Johnny — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:20:14 -0800

Looks like mr_roboto beat me to it, sorta... us robots are all alike.

By: jackofsaxons

jackofsaxons — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:22:53 -0800

I think controlling magnetic forces would be one of the coolest.

Think of it, you could extract the iron from someone's body, collapse a star, fly... the possibilities are almost endless.

Or, being able to affect reality, ala Franklin Richards. That's cool.

By: seawallrunner

seawallrunner — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:25:27 -0800

why do you argue with a 10-year old? :)

and my choice would be speed, hands down.

By: malp

malp — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:28:28 -0800

Never aging coupled with decent intelligence and cunning. Look at the wealth and power Ra's Al Ghul had. Who needs clown powers when you can have your own private army? Or you could be low key like Enoch Root.

All kinds of neat complications like having to come up with a new identity every few generations. Psych issues stemming from having several centuries' worth of memories. Sociopathy from seeing all your loved ones grow old and die. You could be an anti-hero, convinced you're an angel of death.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:29:28 -0800

Obviously, omnipotence is the best superpower, but wouldn't that get boring? You'd need a lot of self restraint.

Anyone ever read those old Marvel comics about the 'infinity gauntlet'? Interesting stuff...

If I could really have anything I would choose invulnerability, both from physical harm and the ravages of time. I want to see how everything turns out. Yeah, you could get trapped, but you can get trapped now, so I'd just need to be careful and try to avoid that sort of thing.

beyond that, I would like some sort of telekinetics. I think a cool 'way' of doing telekinetics would be the ability to reverse entropy. Ordinarily a ball wouldn't just bounce up off the ground on its own, because that would violate the laws of thermodynamics. Now, technically that would limit your power to the energy you could extract from the environment, but you could focus all the heat in the air into one spot, you could cause a fusion reaction and generate a ton of heat, which you could then use to fuel your powers.

And why would you need invisibility if you had a power like that? Just scramble the brains of anyone who looks at you.

I always used to think that all superpowers flowed from something like that, an ability to reverse entropy and focus energy wherever. It would explain most superhero's superpowers.

You could even use such a technique to fix your own cells and molecules, although you'd need the intelligence to understand the positions of every atom in your body

It would also be cool to be psychic. You could just implant the memory or images of you doing these cool things in everyone's mind around you. Everyone would believe you had all these other amazing powers. (you could also remove yourself from people's vision and memory, a practical form of invisibility).

By: delmoi

delmoi — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:35:12 -0800

Never aging coupled with decent intelligence and cunning. Look at the wealth and power Ra's Al Ghul had. Who needs clown powers when you can have your own private army? Or you could be low key like Enoch Root.

Now, Enoch is an interesting case, since he obviously discovered the philosophic mercury and (apparently) still has some which he still uses every once in a while.

If I had such a thing, I would simply have become a king or something, and be known as the guy who doesn't age. History would be different, for sure, but I don't think people would have trouble accepting such a thing.

I think an immortal person could have conquered the world in a few hundred years. Unlike other rulers, they could be patient, wait out their enemies.

By: 23skidoo

23skidoo — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:35:31 -0800

Yeah, controlling people's thoughts. Being able to make anyone truly believe anything I wanted them to believe.

By: Robot Johnny

Robot Johnny — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:38:15 -0800

I also remember a Letterman Top 10 list of superpowers and one of them was the "ability to shake exactly 2 pills out of an Aspirin bottle"

By: signal

signal — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:44:18 -0800

Being an omega-level mutant, and hosting the Phoenix force. Is my geek showing?

By: Invoke

Invoke — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:48:45 -0800

I've always answered "Teleportation" to that question, since I really do not enjoy the process of travelling, but I really really like being in other places. Especially if this teleportation would allow extraplanetary jaunts. That would be really really fun.

To show you the insanely lame level I've take the daydreaming about teleportation, let me elaborate on the types of teleportation powers I'd like. First, you see there are two types of teleportation, yourself-with-a-weight-allowance and other-people-or-things. I want both of those, and I want inertia/force-vector control at the destination. Otherwise if you teleport a long way north or south, you may be travelling the wrong speed relative to the local rotation. At least I *think* that is how the rotational physics work. A less iffy example of that would be teleporting to the ground when falling from a great height. If you don't have vector control, you break your legs at the minimum.

Also, if you can teleport really fast, you can emulate lots of other powers. Super speed is achieved by teleporting a millimeter at a time. Plus it would look cool, since you wouldn't have to move your legs. Ditto flying. Ditto lifting heavy things. Really it would look like you were lifting, when in fact you were fractionally teleporting the car as you pretended to lift.

If I couldn't have such mega-teleportation powers, I'd like really strong telekinesis, such as those The Turtle from Wild Cards had.

By: LarryC

LarryC — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:52:04 -0800

Trolling and derailing, definitely. But infinite flame power is good too.

By: Ryvar

Ryvar — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:53:43 -0800

Immortality would give you time to figure out how to acquire all the other powers.

By: MegoSteve

MegoSteve — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 13:09:04 -0800

I already have super-parking (the ability to find a good space in a crowded parking lot).

I think telekinesis would be pretty cool. You'd really clean up at the state fair.

By: gsteff

gsteff — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 14:45:12 -0800

Never aging coupled with decent intelligence and cunning. Look at the wealth and power Ra's Al Ghul had. Who needs clown powers when you can have your own private army? Or you could be low key like Enoch Root.

Bingo. The amount of change any individual with super powers (other than possibly super intelligence) could cause over 80 years is still nothing next to the amount that an average person could cause over 3000.

By: |n$eCur3

|n$eCur3 — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 15:42:20 -0800

I can't believe that no one has considered the logical limitations of flight.

If you're able to go fast enough to fly anywhere of importance, you'll hit birds and bugs and get hypothermia, especially if you choose to wear only spandex. If you fly high enough to avoid hitting said atmospheric objects, then you die from oxygen deprivation. Obviously, flight needs to be coupled with invincibility to even be considered.

By: luriete

luriete — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 16:26:23 -0800

I think the ability to magically clean the dishes and take out the trash would be useful. Plus, the superpowers of STAY AT HOME DAD TELECOMMUTER MAN are pretty awesome. I'd also say the power to keep the wife happy at all times with super-pheremones (or a combination of the above two powers) would also be neat. I'd just settle for the power to get a great night of sleep every night and lose 15 lbs.

By: nekton

nekton — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 16:33:49 -0800

I once had a dream that I was a superhero named Sonica who could control sound waves. She/I could create these bubbles of sound that could be strung together like beads. They could be "loaded" with damaging low-frequency sound or with music so I could DJ at parties.

That might not be the coolest overall, but that's what I would choose.

By: filmgeek

filmgeek — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 16:42:52 -0800

Think this stuff through guys!

Man of steel, woman of kleenex.

Ellison wrote a great novella called Mephisto in Onyx about mindreading.

And me? I've written this twice...and realized that I'd rather write it as short fiction than to share.

By: crapples

crapples — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 17:06:32 -0800

Wow! Thanks a ton. I don't know if this will settle things for us, but it definitely will give us a lot to talk about. Thanks.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 17:25:18 -0800

The ability to silence children.

By: sfenders

sfenders — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 17:54:59 -0800

I'll take all of the following, please:

the power to stir mixed drinks from a distance
the power to manipulate olives
the power to change the colour of tulips
the power to taste things that aren't there
the power to make other people's nostrils flare
the power to detect the presence of argon
the power of extremely rapid mulching
the ability to turn milk sour by breathing on it
general cheese-related powers
transmutation of tablecloths into t-shirts
immunity to pepper
ability to breathe tomato soup
super-human powers of art appraisal
the power of getting really close to stuff without touching it
detection of crickets
the ability to turn clothing invisible
super-human sense of comedic timing
godlike powers of alcohol consumption
perfect sense of balance
instant drying of books that fell in the water
communication with and control of squirrels

By: dhartung

dhartung — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 18:18:21 -0800

Until I saw the "superheros" tag, I thought you were referring to national superpowers, like the US, USSR, etc. I was about to write a mini-essay about how I think the British Empire, despite having many negative aspects, was the coolest.

Me, too, and same answer -- Cool Britannia...

The amount of change any individual with super powers (other than possibly super intelligence) could cause

~~cause~~ earn

and not to put to fine a point on it, imagine the sex!

There is almost no superpower to which this does not apply -- stopping time, for instance.

By: NucleophilicAttack

NucleophilicAttack — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 18:31:40 -0800

Hm, I want the ability to turn off the strong interaction at will. Mmmm, unquestioned power...

By: NucleophilicAttack

NucleophilicAttack — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 18:36:31 -0800

P.S. "imagine the sex" would only apply if the partner is into some serious BDSM!

By: Eamon

Eamon — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 18:38:00 -0800

What the hell, people? How is this even a question?

THE FORCE!

Dark side, obviously. Not that I've read any extended universe stuff or anything, but apparently some of those dudes could make stars implode.

By: schwa

schwa — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 18:50:51 -0800

I always thought the Soviet Union was the best. That Soviet charm, the KGB, huge armes, beetroot, Lenin, MiG fighters...

Thats where my vote goes!

By: Megafly

Megafly — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 18:59:39 -0800

J M Strazinskys "Rising Stars" shows us why invulnerability isn't all it's cracked up to be without super strength. (suffocation is a very real possibility even if you can deflect bullets)

By: easternblot

easternblot — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 20:01:15 -0800

Invisibility rules above all other superpowers!
-You can get in places for free!!!
-Lots of easy sneaking around
-Optimal conditions for pranks (fake flying objects, freaking people out, etc.)

Ideally, invisibility would be combined with teleportation, but if I'd have to pick one of the two, I'd still go with invisibility. (If you ask me when I'm tired and in a hurry, I might change my mind on this, though)

My least favorite superpower (because obviously I have several) is superhuman strength. Blunt force is too easy, and not very classy. Also: it's hard to do tiny finicky things like replacing a light bulb or tying shoelaces if you don't know your own strength!

By: sfenders

sfenders — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 20:31:52 -0800

On further consideration, I think communication with and control of squirrels would be the best. Also, it should include long-range telepathic communication with squirrels. And the first thing I'd order my backyard squirrels to do would be to go out and recruit some squirrels who have the power of invisibility to join my mighty rodent army.

By: rob511

rob511 — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 22:51:23 -0800

Along the lines of what Decani wrote, I'd opt for the ability to send a very painful electrical jolt (or maybe a toothache) through anyone who is a public eye- and earsore by abusing cellphones, honking needlessly, popping chewing gum, swearing at or manhandling children, spawning annoying children, ... well, I've made my point.
— (signed) The Komeuppance Kid

By: longbaugh

longbaugh — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 07:26:18 -0800

I'd choose immortality combined with the abilities to choose to remember something absolutely perfectly or discard a memory never to be troubled by it ever again. I'd spend the rest of my life reading every book I haven't had the chance to and learning as much as I could. I'd learn hundreds of languages and all the other things I don't have time for. I'd put several paycheques in to a bank account and several centuries later I'd have a fortune. I'd have experience enough to deal with anything and for those moments when you feel sad about something you can discard the memory for ever (no more sad Highlander-style flashbacks for example).

That'd be just dandy I reckon.

By: Zack_Replica

Zack_Replica — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 09:56:55 -0800

Having given this not a small amount of thought, I couldn't have only one. Flight would be great, until you're 500 miles from nowhere over the Pacific and lost. There has to be a way of psychically 'tagging' areas so you can get there-and-back. I'm sure things look much different from 20,000 feet. With little oxygen. In a thunderstorm. So I'd have to be able to stand those conditions too.
Why stop at Earth? I want to be able to hover 1 million miles above Jupiter's Great Red Spot and awe at the sheer power of it and fly through the The Star Pillars of Sharpless 171 [link]. And get back - thus the 'tagging'. Flight, speed, invulnerability, I'm so greedy.
delmoi - Hey, I've wondered this about the immortality angle: if we assume that humans aren't supposed to live for say 1000+ years, how do you deal with that? Friends and I were talking about that when we used to play Vampire: The Masquerade (yes, me a geek). If you've been alive for that long, wouldn't you stop being what is known as human? You've lived long and amassed more knowledge, and most importantly experiences, than anything else ever. How would you relate? Or would it be a cyclical thing - human to non-human to human and over again?
Just thinkin' aloud here...

By: Carol Anne

Carol Anne — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 10:50:33 -0800

100% accurate gaydar! I'm sure that Wonder Woman, in one of her incarnations, possessed that lesbian superpower.

By: honeydew

honeydew — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 16:54:48 -0800

I was all for telekenesis until I saw Carol Anne's. Perfect gaydar without a doubt.

By: ikkyu2

ikkyu2 — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 17:04:41 -0800

What, no mention of eye lasers?! If you are irritable, eye lasers are the superpower for you.

OT VIII! Woo!

By: flabdablet

flabdablet — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 09:50:06 -0800

Super speed is just low-grade time travel.