This Halloween, many of you may dress up as strange creatures or characters with unusual powers. In most cases this would probably be awesome, but what about when that isn’t the case? Here are the top 11 Undesirable Superpowers.
11. The Power of No Powers
Imagine you had the superpower to cancel out other people’s superpowers. In a world full of super-villains, that may be very useful, but what about when that isn’t the case? If you’re one of the only people in the world with powers and you have the power of cancellation, you’ll pretty much never get to use it. So it’s not the best for showing off to your friends.
10. Shrinking
Heroes like Antman and the Atom have made great use of shrinking, but is it really that practical? Antman’s shrinking advantage is that it supposedly decreases the distance between his molecules, allowing his attacks to be more focused like a bullet. However, if his molecules are more compact, does that make him rigid and easily breakable? Also, if being tiny is really that great, why does Antman bother turning big when he has the opportunity? I’ll keep my normal human size, thank you very much.
9. Laser Vision
Shooting lasers from your eyes may be cool at times, but how often would you really have a chance to use that? It might also make it hard to have a conversation with people, because why would they want to look the person with laser vision in the eye? Sure, you’re they’re friend, and they know you won’t hurt them, but it’s still awkward having something that dangerous pointed at you. And also, if you’re Cyclops from X-men, you can’t turn the laser vision off unless you have a special visor. Losing your glasses is uncomfortable enough without having to worry about blasting literally everything in sight.
8. Shape-Shifting
Being able to turn into anything could be a lot of fun at first, but how would it affect you in the future? Would it be addictive? If you could make yourself look like anything, would you ever want to look like yourself? Will you keep changing your appearance, trying to meet impossible expectations of what it means to look perfect? What if you forget what you really look like? Somebody tell me who I am!
7. Seeing the Future
Seeing the future puts a lot of responsibility on your shoulders, especially if other people don’t know about your powers. If you see that something horrible is going to happen, you’ll feel a need to stop it, but what if you can’t. What if the future’s unchangeable, and even if it’s not, how do you explain to people the disaster that’s going to happen. What if the people you tell think you know because you’re a conspirator in a crime you described? It’s just too much stress!
6. All the Powers
Talking about responsibility, what if you had the power to do literally everything? Would it be your job to take care of the entire world? Would you have to worry about playing God? What if being able to do anything means you have nothing left to achieve in life, and you become an emotionless void? Then again, maybe having all superpowers would be awesome. If I had every power, I’d probably also have the power of knowing what to do.
5. Invisibility
So you can turn invisible… but what about your clothes? Do they turn invisible too? If not, do you have to do your super-heroics naked? And what if you’re permanently invisible? Even if you were loved and accepted by society, you could still never see yourself in a mirror, your hand eye coordination would be off, and you have the physical attractiveness of nothing. Being invisible would make me want to turn invisible, except that would be my problem in the first place.
4. Mind Reading/Control
Say you could read other people’s minds. Would it be a moral violation to do that without someone’s consent? If you have a person’s consent, isn’t just easier to ask them what you want to know. If you add mind control on top of that, who would ever trust you? No matter how nice you are, you are still a being that could make someone do something against their will without them even knowing. Also, what if you have mind reading you can’t turn off? It would be like you’re always in a crowded room. Imagine the migraines.
3. Rogue’s Attack by Touch
Imagine you had the power to copy other people’s powers and natural abilities, and absorb memories too, simply by touching them. You don’t even have to plan on it, it just happens anytime your skin touches somebody else’s. And then there’s also the little fact that when you touch them you knock them unconscious. This means that you could never make any physical contact with the people you love. I can only imagine how lonely that would get, and being able to touch people again could be well worth losing the power.
2. Radiation Powers
Being able to shoot radiation from your body may be great for fighting crime, but it’s probably not that great for making friends and going on dates. Imagine having to say, “Hello, my name’s Bob. I like reading, long walks on the beach, and if you touch me or stand next to me for too long you might get seriously ill.”
1. Anger-induced Strength
Having super strength can be nice, but not so much if you can only use it when you get angry. What if you’re in a hospital, or a school, or at your grandma’s 90th birthday? Everyone gets mad from time to time, but having to deal with the aftermath of having gone on a monstrous destruction spree would make the experience a hundred times worse.
So what do you think of this list? Can you think of worse powers than the ones listed above?
