1. Eating Through Anything – Matter Eater Lad
Alright, so it might be neat to be able to eat anything without consequence — those late night Taco Bell trips would be a lot easier, for one. But when would you ever really have to eat through a wall though? Maybe if you’re a superhero, but it just seems like it’d be a funny thing to watch. Especially when one stops to consider the truism that what must go in must come out. Not to mention, he wasn’t a cannibal — there goes any chance of using his powers to beat up the bad guys.
2. Changing the Color of Things – Color Kid
Of all powers to grant a superhero, changing the color of things is definitely not on our list of awesome. How could this even be useful? Apparently Color Kid liked to confuse his flying enemies by switching the colors of the ground and the sky, but any enemy stupid enough to fall for that would probably get creamed anyway. It might be a fun “superpower” — for a six-year-old. And really, with such a lame power, he could have at least made a better costume.
3. A Trained Bumblebee Sidekick – The Red Bee
This one made our sides hurt from laughing, which is about all the damage he is capable of. The Red Bee’s shtick was beyond ridiculous — that in a fight he’d open up the little compartment in his belt, and release a single bee. Not a radioactive super bee, or an exotically poisonous one, but a regular, trainedbee. It would fly out to sting his opponent, and that’s it. As if that wasn’t bad enough, his costume makes our eyes bleed.
4. Compelling People to Run – Tag
Making people do things would turn out to be an interesting superpower to wield, as a general rule — but only being able to make people run? Lame. Maybe if Tag had a cliff at his disposal every time he battled an opponent, he might be successful, but that’s not the case. It might be amusing to make people run in circles or into things, but it just seems like too much hassle, and just plain silly to boot.
5. Turning Into a Ball – Bouncing Boy
Bouncing Boy could turn himself into a ball by inflating himself — like Kirby. He came across his powers by accidentally drinking some plastic solution that he thought was soda pop. Well, serves him right for not paying attention, and now he’s stuck with one of the lamest superpowers ever. He has to run, err, bounceaway from all of his opponents, which is not really all that cool.
6. Omnilingualism – Cypher
Cypher was a mutant with the ability to translate anything — written, spoken, or computer language. It seems like it would be one of the more bearable superpowers on the list to have in the real world, but as a superhero … not so much. How often could he have come across a chance to be useful at all? Maybe if Professor X needed a manual translated, but after deciphering stuff he’d have to completely depend on the other superheroes to do the real work — he was useless in battle.
7. Turning Completely Flat – Tommy
Tommy had the ability to render herself into a two-dimensional state, taking on the shape of a piece of paper. There are only two ways we can think of to use this superpower: Giving people paper cuts or sliding under doors/through mail slots. OK, so paper cuts kind of hurt, and they’re pretty annoying, but sliding under things is pretty useless. For those not convinced, she was the first person to die in the Mutant Massacre. On the plus side, Kate Moss could always play her in a movie.
8. Summoning Squirrels – Squirrel Girl
Squirrel Girl seems like early evidence of the Furry Fetish — but we digress. Summoning squirrels to aid in a fight is definitely a lame superpower, really; they couldn’t even spring for ferrets or another creature just a tad more useful than squirrels. It’d be worth it if you could summon, say, elephants, bears or tigers. Something fierce. Don’t squirrels run away from everything? Maybe Squirrel Girl’s squirrels don’t, but it’s nothing a little rodent poison wouldn’t take care of.
9. Sticky Skin – Tar Baby
Besides the terrible name, Tar Baby’s superpower is incredibly lame. He had sticky skin, and could secrete some kind of adhesive. Basically everything stuck to him, which would probably be nothing more than a huge pain in the ass, don’t you think? It might come in handy at some point, maybe while shoplifting, but the clean-up and hassle of the whole thing would not be worth it.
10. Turning Into Any Form of Water – Zan
The Wonder Twins were lame as it is, what with having to touch each other and chant, “Wonder Twin powers, activate!” Jayna’s powers were neat enough, she could turn into any animal. The usefulness stopped there though, and her brother, Zan, got an even shorter end of the stick. He could turn into any form of water, including liquid, steam or ice. So he could wet beds and turn into sculptures at will? Hopefully Jayna never got thirsty.
11. Yelling Really Loudly – The Thunderer
During the age of anti-Nazi propaganda, The Thunderer emerged as one of the worst pro-American crime fighters. As a mild-mannered radio announcer, Jerry Carstairs (Carstairs!?) grew upset with the way America was handling Nazi jerks. As such, he assembles a costume that includes a built-in microphone. With no other powers at his command, yelling is his sole ability.
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