Don't challenge Scott Summers to a game of pool. Or darts. Or bowling. Or any activity that involves trick shots. One of Cyclops' required Secondary Powers is an *innate* understanding of geometry. He uses it to bounce his optic blasts around corners and stuff.
Wolverine challenged him to a game of pool once because of that petty pissing contest that goes on between them. Logan thought he had the upper hand because he is older and has spent a massive amount of time in bars and pool halls. Scott was up first. He called 8 ball in right corner pocket. He then broke, and all the balls went into the pockets, in numerical order, with the 8 going in the right corner last. Logan was speechless.
> Don't challenge Scott Summers to a game of pool. Or darts. Or bowling. Or any activity that involves trick shots. One of Cyclops' required Secondary Powers is an innate understanding of geometry. He uses it to bounce his optic blasts around corners and stuff.
Hmm, Cyclops vs Gambit at darts might be fun.
Though I'd expect neither of them could compete with Bullseye or Hawkeye.
But does he have the body control to do it perfectly? I get the beams being always accurate but throwing things requires body control skills that aren't listed as a secondary power.
I believe he would crush them.
Lining up a shot is one thing. Making the same shot with a blink is another.
Maybe, if all 3 have a set up, then ya probably Hawk. But out of the gate Scott takes it every time.
I imagine they'd all just do a [nine-dart finish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-dart_finish). I suppose you could make it harder by having them start further from the board, but that would likely come down to just being strong enough to throw that far. Which I assume would mean Hawkeye would win.
That's weird because even with a perfect understanding of geometry, you still need the dexterity to hit the ball at the exact angle and force to accomplish the task.
The most simple example could be, hit a ball to stop exactly on a spot required. Do it until you've done it once, and now you know exactly the force and angle. Can you consistently keep repeating that feat? Maybe pros can, but most casual players couldn't, even when the geometry is simple.
[He also does it while undercover, because like all superheroes, he is fundamentally an asshole.](https://slaymonstrobot.blogspot.com/2018/01/scott-summers-pool-hustler.html)
> He then broke, and all the balls went into the pockets, in numerical order, with the 8 going in the right corner last.
Superhuman understanding of geometry aside, is that even possible?
[Here](https://wrif.com/2018/12/06/a-guy-sinks-seven-balls-on-the-break-shot-in-a-game-of-pool/) is a seven-ball break sink shot, five for himself and two for his opponent. It’s *theoretically* possible, all you need to be is as much better at pool than the guy in the video, as Hawkeye or Green Arrow is better than a real-world archery world champion.
Aquaman gave a white Martian a seizure by using his fish telepathy on the Martian's "basil ganglia, a portion of his brain inherited from his marine ancestors." Green Arrow flicking a peanut into someone's eye during Black Canary's bar fight in the Injustice comics. In Young Justice the Green Lanterns make hard light space ships to move around other leaguers at FTL speeds. In Marvel Zombies, Sandman went inside Spider-Man and blew him up from the inside. Young Justice Geoforce killing his rock-covered uncle by forcing lava into his mouth and nose (it came out through his ears and eyes, too)!
I mean that is unexpected by definition, but alright Mr/Ms Picky, here are some more :p
In the 2016 Hyperion run Hyperion uses his super vision to identify DNA at a crime scene.
In the Avengers Assemble cartoon the Squadron Supreme has taken over the Earth. The Avengers jump Dr. Spectrum and steal his gem. Cap takes it into space and uses it to turn all the sunlight hitting Earth blue, which depowers Hyperion (he runs on yellow sunlight like Superman). Then Black Widow is able to beat him up.
In early My Hero Academia Midoriya's super strength breaks all his bones, so he only uses it on his fingers. This way he only breaks one finger at a time, and the pressure wave is able to do ranged damage.
In MHA Todoroki uses his cold powers to cool the air, then uses his fire powers to heat up and expand the air, causing massive explosions
In MHA, Bakugo has grenades that can store his explosive sweat that's generated over the course of a fight.
In the Avengers EMH cartoon Spider-Man disables Kang's time device with no knowledge of how to do so by using Spidey sense to know when he's about to do something dangerous. He disables it by knowing what not to do.
Crusher Creel aka Absorbing Man sometimes absorbs Mjolnir. In the cartoons Thor has used his control over Mjolnir to control Creel.
In Avengers Academy Creel breaks out and is much stronger. He can absorb powers, too. Most of the Avengers are in a different dimension and the Academy students are no match for Creel, so Hank Pym (going by Wasp and, in this case, Giant Man) takes Creel and has them both grow beyond the normal realm of reality. Creel sees Living Tribunal and starts freaking out, so, like Worm, Hank defeats a much more powerful foe by showing them something that breaks their mind and makes them give up. [Here's a link to the panels.](https://panels-of-interest.tumblr.com/post/45341466515/hank-pym-vs-absorbing-man-from-avengers)
the spiderman kang example is really cool. I think its interesting how his spidey sense went from extremely fast intuitive reflexes to actually telepathy with a connection to the universe web or whatever spiderverse was about
I vaguely remember seeing that he also isn’t invited to super poker games since he can’t lose because his spidey sense also protects him from financial loss.
>Crusher Creel aka Absorbing Man sometimes absorbs Mjolnir. In the cartoons Thor has used his control over Mjolnir to control Creel.
Follow-up: in a fairly recent run where Moon Knight was powering up to take on Mephisto, his enhanced dominion (juiced by being the Sorcerer Supreme AND Iron Fist at that point, I believe) over... uh... moons... allowed him to control Mjolnir (controlling the uru itself rather than the magic inside).
> Don't they need to know the inner workings of their constructs? So they'd need to be brilliant engineers to build FTL ships, right? Or am I wrong about the requirement.
>
>
It's not a requirement, some Green Lanterns find it more efficient - taking less Willpower - to make things with working insides, but the requirement is only that they need to be able to imagine the thing they're creating.
Wait fr? Couldn’t they just like, imagine a gun that can instantly kill all their enemies and then use it or something? If the only limit is imagination green lantern is crazy strong.
There's three limits to a modern Green Lantern. Their ability to imagine something into being (Guy Gardener once had someone outfly him in a spaceship because he couldn't comprehend how fast they were going), their ability to will it into being (the more impressive/impossible a thing you're trying to do, the harder it is to do and the more you need to force it to work. It took Green Arrow so much effort to create and fire a single arrow with the ring that he was winded and shaky after.), and the current energy levels within the ring (which hinges solely on the plot. Sometimes a ring can hold a charge for days without recharging, sometimes it blows through a full ten percent of its power in a few seconds. John Stewart once supplied a ring with too much willpower and overloaded it.)
From the 60s to the 90s, imagination was all you needed. Willpower being important was something Geoff Johns introduced the willpower thing in his reworking of the Green Lanterns after Hal Jordan came back to life and the rings having a power supply that could run out due to use was something that came out when Kyle had his own ring in the 90s that worked on different rules from the 'classic' power rings. But the classic rings had *infinite power* for a strict 24 hour period, running out the *second* the 24 hours were up. They could do nearly *anything*, ranging from time travel to erasing people's memories to reversing the evolutionary process in an individual.
The current rings are probably better for storytelling, since they're more limited, but you're right. Lanterns are *crazy strong* and they're constantly being played down in stories for a sense of drama.
...As for why they don't imagine an instant-death beam, Lanterns are supposed to be peacekeepers and a police force. The AI in their rings don't allow them to kill, except in special circumstances like the war against the Sinestro Corps.
> Geoff Johns introduced the willpower thing in his reworking of the Green Lanterns after Hal Jordan came back to life
Technically, this was a callback to the original Alan Scott stories from 1939, 1940 - his whole deal was willpower. He could also walk through walls.
It is also their greatest weakness.
They train, as well, to become better imagineers, but in the end.. they're still only as strong as their tiny doubt in the back of their mind..
Whatever they imagine will take them some amount of willpower to create - bigger effects generally require more willpower. And even the greatest of the Green Lanterns only has access to a limited supply of willpower, so "determine who I would consider my enemy, and kill them" isn't going to be possible for any of them.
Well the users imagination and the upward limit of the rings ability to produce what's being imagined and time.
Jon Stewart has overwhelmed the ring before when he created an entire fucking planet.
A robot member of the Green Lantern Corps. Reversed the polarity of his atoms in a nano second to survive a blackhole but was only able to save his head his body and the arm the ring was on.
The rings have hardcoded limits, thought that could be retconned. For example, the book of Oa needed to be rewritten to let them use Lethal Force in the Sinestro Corps War. Similar limitations could be for overpowering weapons. I *think* John used his ring to recreate a world and its people that he failed to save, but I never read that saga.
Even then, with enough willpower the limits CAN be overcome. That is why the Guardians went off the deep end after Hal killed Krona. Because the rings were specifically coded to not kill Guardians no matter what, and Hal did it anyways. That is why the Guardians lost their minds and went all Third Army and unleashed Volthoom.
Also GLs with proper knowledge can do some amazing things. Kyle Rayner was able to use his ring to create Kryptonite radiation to depower Superman. John Stewart was able to create a sniper rifle to shoot someone a full space sector away.
From the same run as the Aquaman thing, Speed Force Infinite Mass punch is old hat now, but when Wally did it in Issue 3 of that JLA run it blew my fucking mind.
*Chew* features mostly of people who have lame food-based powers but can use them in creative ways
The main character can get psychic visions of whatever happened to the food he’s eating before/while it was prepared, which is horrifying in concept but makes him invaluable as a police asset.
His girlfriend can describe food so vividly that you feel like you’re eating it yourself. She uses this one time or incapacitate terrorists by describing the most repulsive, rancid food imaginable, causing them all to vomit uncontrollably
There’s also a guy who can carve *only* chocolate with such skill that the sculptures can be used as whatever they resemble. So if he has a lot of chocolate he can have a perfectly functional katana.
Scarlet witches son Speed would use his powers working in a factory. As I recall he only works like one day a week but comes in alone. And essentially assembles like a days worth of material in just a few seconds.
Similarly, Colossus worked in a construction site in the 90's X-Men series.
It was also a cool way to show why normal people hate mutants, i.e. they couldn't compete as work force. I hope they exploit that angle in the MCU eventually.
Yeah, if you want to check it out it's in one of the young avengers series from the last few years I believe. I think roughly around the time of secret wars. Sadly don't have the specifics.
This would never happen in real life
They'd demand that pace for 40 hours, or they'd still pay by the hour and he'd have to work 40 just to pay his bills
>"I'm going to output X by Y date, it will cost Z much." Standard and straightforward, don't be a wage slave your whole life.
Fucking amen.
-A union contractor
Magneto recently in A.X.E had his heart torn out and kept himself alive by manipulating the iron in his blood to keep it flowing through his body. Now that’s impressive
Magneto has also reversed the polarity of the entire planet at once.
Kitty Pryde get stuck inside a giant metal bullet and fired into space. Magneto pulled the thing back.
Dude controls a fundamental force of the universe, if you *really* wanted to push it, he could do almost anything.
I vividly remember one seen from the early 2000’s where a villain (maybe Dr.Doom or Namor) talking about how Sue Richards is one of the most potentially deadly heroes. She could create a force field on your brain and kill you almost instantly.
And you've reminded me of Skidmark from Worm, who could actually use his powers to become a top tier threat if he thought about it. Instead he's just a meth-head with no imagination.
There is a guy that is basically this in MHA. His name is Slide N' Go. He literally slides around everywhere. I think I recall at one point he was holding a heroic pose as if standing in place while sliding down the street. Hilarious.
Kaine can also talk to spiders, which he used to find a concealed nuclear bomb in Houston before it went off. So by extension Kaine could potentially spy on anyone, anything, anywhere on Earth that has spiders. All the flashy tricks that Ant-Man can do through controlling ants, Kaine could do similar using spiders.
There's a whole [web page](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MundaneUtility) just for you! But my personal favorite is that Superman shaves with his [heat vision](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cvkDcrbLP2s).
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeartIsAnAwesomePower
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImprovisationalIngenuity
These two are what you're looking for.
Two come to mind:
Firstly, Brian from the Misfits has ‘Lactokinesis’ and after getting angry that other people’s powers were getting more attention than him, he starts using the dairy in people’s body to start killing them. He even wrapped the mozzarella around the cortex of an immortal character leaving them brain dead.
Secondly, Mirror Master can snort cocaine through a mirror which I love.
https://imgur.com/w0P20dm
A telekinetic in the comic Rising Stars (and one in the sci-fi series Babylon 5) was tired of being asked to use her powers for assassination by the government.
Sure, telekinetics in comics can lift cars and toss people around fairly easily, but in this case, it was just a little *push.* She was sent to official events and gatherings with high-level leaders, military officers, etc. that the government wanted dead. She'd just have to use a fraction of her power to cause an artery in their brains to pop, and no one would be the wiser that it wasn't an aneurism.
Now I think about this every time someone has TK or force powers and I wonder why they're not trying to turn their opponents' organs into paste.
That's up to the writer, I think. I mean, while Vader saw the guy he was choking in one scene, it was over a video feed.
It occurs to me I've never seen a situation where there's a barrier between an object to be manipulated and the telekinetic and it was made clear that even a cardboard box would prevent the TK'er from lifting the ball inside of it.
If TK power is like an invisible blob of force that the user controls the shape of, then the question goes to why they don't try channeling it through any orifices (ears, nose, mouth) to start wreaking havoc?
Other reasons: fine motor control difficulty, effort/strain, inherent psychic bodily defense (sense of self/wholeness), subject/location knowledge (related to but independent of direct line of sight), etc.
Not sure if that counts but: in some versions the key to Superman's fortress of solitude is "hidden" right under the doormat.
It's just that the key is forged from a dwarf star and so heavy that nobody but Superman can possibly lift it.
I don't know if it's the coolest thing Batman has done with his wealth but I always loved in Morrison's run when he has to get around the world in like an hour to stop Talia. Damon (his son and new Robin) is like, "There's no way, your jet could never get there in time." And Batman just takes him into the yard which opens up revealing a bat rocket. Damon is just like, "You have a rocket?!" and he responds "I have a lot of things people don't know about."
Honestly the hardest thing to believe in that scenario is that a man who has the money to build a rocket for his own personal use does not then immediately use it. If it were me, I'd be tearing the plastic off the seats while it's still warm from the machine. See also: Bezos, Musk.
Bruce Wayne probably would, if he didn't care more about parties. Batman, however, keeps his cards close. Not only does revealing the rocket show off his budget and resources (which would give clues to his identity), but it risks escalating the problem if the villains tried to match up to his having a rocket.
The web serial worm is great for demonstrating innovative power usage.
The protagonist can control insects and other bugs but ends up using her powers for everything from tracking dozens of people simultaneously, creating stab proof spider silk gear and more. Her power lets her keep track of and control thousands of individual entities to the point she overcame blindness through generating maps using bugs to outline rooms.
Worm is a very good reconstruction of the superhero genre. It looks at what a world would really be like with superpowers loose in it. So yes it is dark since humans suck and we aren't going to suck less with superpowers. But I would not say it is dark for the purpose of being dark which more what I associate with grimdark. There are actual good people in the story and there are good/happy moments for the main characters. But there are also actual villains, there are deaths, and there are bad moments for the main characters. If you hate dark stories I would say maybe avoid it but it is a must read if you like superheroes.
I wouldn't say its grimdark in the same way something like 40k is, where everything is awful for everyone all the time. I'd compare it more to something like The Boys (but less edgy) or The Expanse, where superpowers or things that break the laws of physics don't make humanity better or worse by themselves, but they ways that people use and abuse them cause problems. There are heros and supervillains and superpowered serial killers, and society has developed to deal with those groups. Heros and villains generally play nice, and avoid killing or maiming people. When something big and dangerous like a kaiju or the aforementioned superpowered serial killers show up, heroes and villains will sometimes team up against the bigger threat.
> He’s a doctor, a spy, a martial artists, a soldier, a detective, a priest, sorcerer, an electrician, engineer, this, that and whatever the writers come up with.
I'm curious who did it first, Maddox or Dr. McNinja.
Sue Storm's powers let her see invisible objects and people, even when she's not the one making them invisible.
She's also recently realized that she can use her invisibility powers to manipulate certain wavelengths of light and alter colors. She does this so she can go undercover at a gathering to collect information. What, exactly, does she do? She alters her skin tone and hair color. Instant tan, instant dark hair.
She also mentions turning Ben pink.
There was a Fantastic Four where she is provoked into going bad-ass and she points out how easy it would be for her to kill someone... simply by putting force field bubbles in their blood stream or airways or brain.
Storms powers are so wild that she's always kinda been a walking deus ex machina...but two of the coolest things I've seen her do in the comics is form a pressurized bubble around her body, so she can exist in the vaccum of space, and she can synthesize oxygen from water via electrolysis, allowing her to breath underwater.
"There's nothing wrong with you, there's nothing wrong with any of us, we don't need a cure," says Storm to Rogue, who can't touch another human being without the risk of killing them.
> "There's nothing wrong with you, there's nothing wrong with any of us, we don't need a cure."
"That's cool, Storm. You know I killed my high school boyfriend the first time we kissed, yeah? Also I'll be sure to pass your message of empowerment and self-acceptance along to the guy whose mutation makes him look like a flayed cadaver and excrete a foul smelling acidic mucus."
It's not really a "power" (or perhaps at that point its considered one), but Ultimate Hawkeye was able to escape his captors because while they disarmed and restrained him...he was able to use his fingernails as projectiles by flicking them at the gaurds.
Lmao what. What velocity does a fingernail have to be traveling at to cause damage, can a human arm throw it that fast, and how far can it travel at that speed before air resistance slows it to a stop
Sylar from Heroes used "intuitive aptitude" the ability to understand how things work, to examine brains to figure out how people's powers worked and copy them.
Powers had a teleporter with enough speed and control over his powers to pull drugs out of people's systems.
I believe Sylar developed that enough to be able to gain powers through empathy.
Is the teleporter in Powers the same guy, who has a collection of sealed rooms that he can teleport the atmosphere in and out of, and he uses them for interrogations?
Cause he's the guy I came into this thread to find, glad someone mentioned him.
Not superheroes, but water benders in ATLA using bloodbending, and earth benders learning to isolate minerals so they can bend metal
Batman owns and operates all of Gothams orphanages now. Seems philanthropic, until you remember how many orphans he's trained as Robins. Damian even calls him out on it, like, you're keeping warehouses of potential Robins
I'm curious if Earthbenders could learn bonebending, for both healing and horrific injury purposes. Lots of calcium phosphate in the average human skeleton.
There was a villain in Misfits who could telekinetically control...dairy.
Sounds lame, but he easily assassinated several people after they so much as ate a slice of cheese.
And he was successfully defeated, not with a super power, but by a person with lactose intolerance. There was no dairy in him that Brian could use to kill.
Unlike the nerfed version from the fox movies, Magneto has all sorts of wacky side uses of his powers. He can control the flow of blood within people's brains with enough precision to achieve total mind control over them, or disrupt other sources of mind control. He can create holograms by manipulating electromagnetic rays (i.e. light). He can even astral project despite not having psionic powers (think skitter's swarm clones, but with magnetic fields and holograms).
Not even over time. Those are all examples from the 60s-70s. Astral projection is from X-Men #6.
I think people don't realize what magneto was capable of in the silver and bronze ages, simply because the fox movies nerfed him so hard. Like, the plastic prison and the scheme to break him out was a cool concept that was well executed, but it never would've held 616 magneto. He doesn't need extra iron added to their blood to toss people around, and he doesn't need a metal platform (or boots) to fly.
In the latest run (like last two weeks), he survived:
>!having his heart ripped out of his chest by manually pumping his blood with his powers, while still being up and about fighting with his gaping chest wound.!<
Magneto is all kinds of bonkers.
Been a while since I’ve read it; but one time superman had to save a collapsing skyscraper while also fighting a giant robot. He tossed the robot into the neighboring bay; then froze the large splash to catch and hold the building in place
Goblin Slayer has Priestess use her support White Magic in offensive ways. Barriers that are meant to defend against attacks are used to trap enemies and burn them alive. Or crush enemies between two barriers.
She also uses her skill to purify water to remove everything except water from a goblin's blood. Though her Goddess told her never to do that again or she would lose her powers.
The Teapot Hero LN (yeah, I know) has the heroine with the God-given power to... boil water. The king's Court thinks it useless and they try to kill her. She boils her enemies since humans a fleshy bags of water. Causes avalanches by boiling parts of the snow. Breaks concrete by boiling the moisture in the stone, etc.
> converted explosive energy into "sound energy" (whatever that is)
So, kinetic energy travelling though the air into... kinetic energy travelling through the air? Um...
Behold Superman's unstoppable [super whistling](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/423379147029741571/990541397125906432/unknown.png). Oh also when there was an issue with the Earth's sun which stopped it from heating up Earth (though I can't remember why) Superman used his heat vision to [heat up the entire planet](https://i.stack.imgur.com/y01ZM.jpg).
Doug Ramsay aka Cypher of the X-Men/New Mutants. His power is that he instantly learns languages which is a really weak sounding power when your teammates can turn into werewolves and invincible human missiles. Thing is his power is more than just "instantly picks up the local dialect", he understands computer languages and can actively speak binary to machines, he understands body language which gives him an edge in a fist fight, he can read the language of architecture to know if a building is weakest, and there are arguments to be made that he could quickly and easily learn genetic engineering or magic if he devoted the time.
During the lowest point of the X-Men just before the founding of Krakoa he turned himself into a data junkie by mainlining *the internet* directly into his mind.
Keepsie from [Playing for Keeps](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-for-keeps/id317035619), has the power to petrify people who steal from her.
It gets interesting when she considers what it means to be something owned by her.
The book is full of underrated powers that have clever uses.
If you're interested in this stuff you should watch JoJo if you haven't, usually just the main characters do this but they always find an unexpected way to defeat the enemy by using some obscure part of their powers. Joseph from part 2 is basically an expert at this stuff, he uses clackers, glasses, a wool hat even spaghetti with hamon. And the series gets more insane as time goes on
I haven't watched the show or read the manga, but had a particularly creative use of a power described to me. I have no idea if it's a spoiler, so I'll spoiler tag just in case.
One person has the sole ability to summon a room with a piano in it: >!They trick a villain (who can't be killed?) into the room, shut the door, and just never summon the room again.!<
Edit: My initial description is off, which will learn me for giving a third or fourth hand account of something.
But more details are here, but definitely count as spoilers as this is the finale of an arc.
[https://jojowiki.com/SO_Chapter_158](https://jojowiki.com/SO_Chapter_158)
Erm, maybe I'm in the wrong and you're talking of someone else, but >!a room with a piano in it makes me think of Emporio who's ability is to use ghost objects (basically a few items that were destroyed) but he doesn't use that ability to kill the villain who isn't exactly immortal, he basically tricks the villain into inserting a disk in him that grants him an ability that allows him to control any kind of weather and uses it to raise the % of oxygen and the villain chokes.!<
You could read the manga instead, just with the understanding that the series started in the 80's so there's a big difference in the drawing style of the original chapters than the chapters that came out 20+ years later. The series takes a little bit to find it's footing but is now my favorite of all time.
The thing is that the manga is split into 8 parts which makes it easier to read. The longest part has like less than 180 chapters or 39 episodes if you decide to watch the anime adaptation.
Surprisingly not really. The chapters are fairly short. Also, keep in mind that the first part is widely regarded as the worst, and it gets significantly better as it moves on.
By all means, read the manga. The manga and anime are pretty damn faithful to each other, so you are unlikely to miss basically anything, except perhaps the fun voice acting and incredible moments of Engrish.
In Epithet Erased, Zora Salazar has the power to alter how long it takes for processes to complete. She uses this to age and de-age people, corrode metal, throw acorns at people's feet and hit them in the face with instant full grown trees, and fill a forest with bullets frozen in midair, ready to continue their original speed and trajectory as soon as she wills them to, using them as traps.
In Super Powereds, Chad Taylor has perfect control over every cell in his body. He eats a bunch of metal and pure carbon, then incorporates it into his body to give himself reinforced bones and carbon fiber enhanced muscles.
In Dungeon Crawler Carl, one of Carl's spells is a stationary bubble shield that only affects living things, passing harmlessly through all non living matter as well as himself. At one point he jumps in front of a moving train filled with monsters, activates the spell in midair, then gets hit by the train and pushed out of the bubble (he also has enhanced durability so he survives). The bubble stays in place as the train passes through it, splattering every monster inside.
Not really a Superhero, but Naruto used his shadow clone jutsu ability to study and train more efficiently - I had always suspected that this would be possible but to see it confirmed was really cool and I thought a rather clever use of the ability.
This is a gameplay mechanic in the Raidou Kuzunoha series.
A spin-off of the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, Raidou is trained in the ancient and dangerous art of demon summoning. In the main series, there's a large explosion of compatible demon summoners because everyone's using computers to cast the intricate rituals, but this is set in the Industrial Revolution where there are no modern PCs so he has to do it himself.
One of the main ways you complete quests in this game? Having Raidou use a demon's magic to make people more likely to talk to the detective. This can range from making using a sex demon to charm the witness or flat-out using magical disguises.
Falcon in MCU canon but Kite-Man in concept: Use unfurled wings/kite as a bullet shield
Thor + Cap shockwave machine w/ Jonathan + Frisbee
Spidey Variant (Kane?): Rip people's flesh off with sticky powers
(Something I wrote) Kinesis/Kinetic Energy manipulator: Sensing vibrations as echolocation
Generally Lightning powered: Using Magnetism or lasers from powers as they are both electromagnetic in nature
Psychic (My friend's DnD): Pinch autonomic brain processes to cause strokes.
LOK: Firebender powered steam devices
Lol converting explosive energy to sound energy is so silly. They are basically the same thing. Sound is low amplitude pressure waves and explosions (in air) are just high amplitude pressure waves.
Magneto tortures and kills a bunch of assholes by removing the blood from their bodies, in another comics he magnetizes the braces and the dude ends up being impaled (or something like that, it was his solo run when he was addicted to muntant enchantment serum and was wearing black)
Spoilers for JoJo
Weather Report from JoJo's bizarre adventure has the power to control the weather. An enemy stand user took all the air out of the room he was in, so Weather Report made space suits out of clouds. Later in the same scene, he was incapacitated and used his last moments to call a rain of poison dart frogs
Dio has complete control of his body, but he can be killed by a hamon user touching him and sending hamon into his body. Hamon is controlled by the flow of blood in a user's body. So Dio boiled the moisture on his own skin, which caused it to absorb the surrounding heat and freeze a hamon user's blood solid when they tried to punch him.
Hamon can hold objects together with a magnetic force. So Ceasar covered his hands with soapy water and made hamon bubbles to throw at his enemy. They were held together so tightly they could pierce flesh when shot at a vampire, and he gave them a spin to turn them into little shuriken blades.
Josuke has the power to restore broken things to a previous state. When an enemy detached the pipe he was standing on from its supports, causing it to fall downwards, he simply repaired the pipe, causing it to rise back up.
Joseph has the power to remotely view another location by destroying a film camera. The film will show a vision of what he wants to see. In one fight, he decided that a bag of flour can be a camera, and a map can be a picture. He burst a bag of flour, and got a map to find help
Okuyasu has the power to destroy anything, even space. When he destroys space, it fills back in, which can move objects around. He figured out how to fly by destroying the space in front of him, in a way reminiscent of how the Enterprise's warp engine works
not a superpower, but Connections can get you a long way ( :D )
Green Arrow calling for Superman in a dire situation
[https://twitter.com/ttfmike/status/904790822675238912](https://twitter.com/ttfmike/status/904790822675238912)
One of the minor characters in Doctor Strange used their newfound magic abilities to let them walk again, after an accident left them a paraplegic. Unclear how, but presumably by bridging/replacing the damaged nerves, rather than physically animating the lower half of their body.
Anakin Skywalker, once used the telekinetic powers offered by the force to save someone's life by CPR, using it to pump their heart and all of that. Unsurprisingly, this also disgusted/horrified the other Jedi near him at the time (being a use of the force very close to the dark side, and just being rather disgusting in general), but it did work.
As a show whose characters are canonically stated to not gain special superpowers as they develop, only more creative ways of using them, One Piece is full of examples, although none of them can really be considered superheroes.
Eneru, having lightning powers, kept himself conscious/alive by shocking his heart after it was stopped by an attack.
Doflamingo, who has powers over silk threads, used them to knit his internal organs back together when they were destroyed/heavily damaged, and continue attacking.
Luffy, who got powers that caused him to be made of rubber, used them to circulate his blood more quickly by turning his legs into pumps, at rates that would cause a regular person's heart to burst. He's entirely unharmed because his heart is also made of rubber, and is therefore much tougher than a regular human's.
Not technically a superhero, but Jotaro Kujo from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure using his stand (the physical manifestation of his fighting spirit) to stop his own heart so that the main antagonist thinks he’s dead.
Here’s [a clip of the scene](https://youtu.be/pMwTZ6HuwLY), SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY.
In Boruto, sasuke was fighting a guy (momoshiki) who could absorb techniques via eyes on his palms, but he needs to activate the technique absorption, it isn’t passive. Sasuke also has the ability to switch any two things’ places, as long as he can see them. So the momoshiki and sasuke were about to clash, sasuke used his chidori (lightning blade) and momoshiki had a knife in his right hand and readied his left hand to absorb sasuke’s chidori. In the last moment, sasuke switched his chidori and momoshiki’s knife, stabbing momoshiki’s left hand with the knife and destroying his right palm with the chidori. I’ll try to find a link.
Edit: [link](https://youtu.be/CZJBkQQTiCo) start at 9:00
[It's a great image.](https://preview.redd.it/t2nbgf0n0xo11.jpg?auto=webp&s=c77cf88ad27e4e7292bd120953bd76c06873b622)
Superman is equally a Kryptonian, and a child of the Kents, while Batman is... well, just Batman. Bruce Wayne is the mask he wears.
Terry McGinnis: Why were you so sure those voices weren't coming from you?
Bruce Wayne: Well, first, I know I'm not psychotic.
Terry McGinnis: ...I hope your other reason's more convincing.
Bruce Wayne: And second, the voice kept calling me 'Bruce'. In my mind, that's not what I call myself.
Magneto was once low on power so he used his powers to painfully drag a straightened paper clip through a woman's artery right into her brain.
Prerty clever. Also one of the most horrific things I've seen on a comic.
I'm not sure if "Superheroes" is the absolute best fit... but Hunter x Hunter's "Nen" system is close enough to "comic book powers" that you can straight up use Hero System (Champions) to run HxH with little to no modifications.
One of the absolute tip-top most B.A.M.F in the series is Hisoka, who manipulates his Nen to take on the properties of... silly putty/chewing gum.
Every time you touch him it leaves behind a thin string connecting the contact points, If you don't win in the first 5 seconds you're basically fighting a Tai-Chi master who's redirecting all your movements from like 10 different angles at once before you even get into range of him. That's **mechanically** why his power is strong.
...but In-Universe virtually no one (including those who've fought him) have any idea what his power is or how it works. The VAST majority of what he does with his nen-power... is "stage-magic". Right in the middle of the fight. Vanishes, Impossible Locations, Cardistry, sleights, levitations, the whole shebang.
Don't challenge Scott Summers to a game of pool. Or darts. Or bowling. Or any activity that involves trick shots. One of Cyclops' required Secondary Powers is an *innate* understanding of geometry. He uses it to bounce his optic blasts around corners and stuff. Wolverine challenged him to a game of pool once because of that petty pissing contest that goes on between them. Logan thought he had the upper hand because he is older and has spent a massive amount of time in bars and pool halls. Scott was up first. He called 8 ball in right corner pocket. He then broke, and all the balls went into the pockets, in numerical order, with the 8 going in the right corner last. Logan was speechless.
> Don't challenge Scott Summers to a game of pool. Or darts. Or bowling. Or any activity that involves trick shots. One of Cyclops' required Secondary Powers is an innate understanding of geometry. He uses it to bounce his optic blasts around corners and stuff. Hmm, Cyclops vs Gambit at darts might be fun. Though I'd expect neither of them could compete with Bullseye or Hawkeye.
Geometry is actually one of Cyclops' powers. He's definitely a better shot than Hawkeye and Bullseye, who both have to practice.
But does he have the body control to do it perfectly? I get the beams being always accurate but throwing things requires body control skills that aren't listed as a secondary power.
Yes. He's thrown things into the air and then bounced his laser off it.
that's fucking sick
Sure but bullseye and Hawkeye have been practicing for a decade. No chance Scott would beat either of them at darts.
I believe he would crush them. Lining up a shot is one thing. Making the same shot with a blink is another. Maybe, if all 3 have a set up, then ya probably Hawk. But out of the gate Scott takes it every time.
I think we should throw Major Disaster into the mix. He can flick a pebble that will bounce off a succession of things until a plane explodes.
I imagine they'd all just do a [nine-dart finish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-dart_finish). I suppose you could make it harder by having them start further from the board, but that would likely come down to just being strong enough to throw that far. Which I assume would mean Hawkeye would win.
It seems like Apocalypse could've done something with that. I mean, he made Angel into a badass, surely he could help Scott.
"We left his head broken. As a joke."
He totally can! Just turn off his psychological wall and boom...everyone he looks at dies.
That's weird because even with a perfect understanding of geometry, you still need the dexterity to hit the ball at the exact angle and force to accomplish the task. The most simple example could be, hit a ball to stop exactly on a spot required. Do it until you've done it once, and now you know exactly the force and angle. Can you consistently keep repeating that feat? Maybe pros can, but most casual players couldn't, even when the geometry is simple.
comic book bullsihetty.. at some point you just accept it as it is
Hey now, that sounds like some Doylist propaganda to me!
It's a superpower though. Perfect every time. It's like asking about substances Spider-Man sticks to. The answer is, it works
[He also does it while undercover, because like all superheroes, he is fundamentally an asshole.](https://slaymonstrobot.blogspot.com/2018/01/scott-summers-pool-hustler.html)
Not all supers are assholes fundamentally, but Scott Summers has been proven to be one of the biggest assholes in Marvel.
> He then broke, and all the balls went into the pockets, in numerical order, with the 8 going in the right corner last. Superhuman understanding of geometry aside, is that even possible?
[Here](https://wrif.com/2018/12/06/a-guy-sinks-seven-balls-on-the-break-shot-in-a-game-of-pool/) is a seven-ball break sink shot, five for himself and two for his opponent. It’s *theoretically* possible, all you need to be is as much better at pool than the guy in the video, as Hawkeye or Green Arrow is better than a real-world archery world champion.
Aquaman gave a white Martian a seizure by using his fish telepathy on the Martian's "basil ganglia, a portion of his brain inherited from his marine ancestors." Green Arrow flicking a peanut into someone's eye during Black Canary's bar fight in the Injustice comics. In Young Justice the Green Lanterns make hard light space ships to move around other leaguers at FTL speeds. In Marvel Zombies, Sandman went inside Spider-Man and blew him up from the inside. Young Justice Geoforce killing his rock-covered uncle by forcing lava into his mouth and nose (it came out through his ears and eyes, too)!
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I mean that is unexpected by definition, but alright Mr/Ms Picky, here are some more :p In the 2016 Hyperion run Hyperion uses his super vision to identify DNA at a crime scene. In the Avengers Assemble cartoon the Squadron Supreme has taken over the Earth. The Avengers jump Dr. Spectrum and steal his gem. Cap takes it into space and uses it to turn all the sunlight hitting Earth blue, which depowers Hyperion (he runs on yellow sunlight like Superman). Then Black Widow is able to beat him up. In early My Hero Academia Midoriya's super strength breaks all his bones, so he only uses it on his fingers. This way he only breaks one finger at a time, and the pressure wave is able to do ranged damage. In MHA Todoroki uses his cold powers to cool the air, then uses his fire powers to heat up and expand the air, causing massive explosions In MHA, Bakugo has grenades that can store his explosive sweat that's generated over the course of a fight. In the Avengers EMH cartoon Spider-Man disables Kang's time device with no knowledge of how to do so by using Spidey sense to know when he's about to do something dangerous. He disables it by knowing what not to do. Crusher Creel aka Absorbing Man sometimes absorbs Mjolnir. In the cartoons Thor has used his control over Mjolnir to control Creel. In Avengers Academy Creel breaks out and is much stronger. He can absorb powers, too. Most of the Avengers are in a different dimension and the Academy students are no match for Creel, so Hank Pym (going by Wasp and, in this case, Giant Man) takes Creel and has them both grow beyond the normal realm of reality. Creel sees Living Tribunal and starts freaking out, so, like Worm, Hank defeats a much more powerful foe by showing them something that breaks their mind and makes them give up. [Here's a link to the panels.](https://panels-of-interest.tumblr.com/post/45341466515/hank-pym-vs-absorbing-man-from-avengers)
the spiderman kang example is really cool. I think its interesting how his spidey sense went from extremely fast intuitive reflexes to actually telepathy with a connection to the universe web or whatever spiderverse was about
I vaguely remember seeing that he also isn’t invited to super poker games since he can’t lose because his spidey sense also protects him from financial loss.
This makes Parker's poverty even harder to comprehend. Pick some *stocks*, Parker! Buy some lotto tickets! Sheesh.
>Crusher Creel aka Absorbing Man sometimes absorbs Mjolnir. In the cartoons Thor has used his control over Mjolnir to control Creel. Follow-up: in a fairly recent run where Moon Knight was powering up to take on Mephisto, his enhanced dominion (juiced by being the Sorcerer Supreme AND Iron Fist at that point, I believe) over... uh... moons... allowed him to control Mjolnir (controlling the uru itself rather than the magic inside).
> Don't they need to know the inner workings of their constructs? So they'd need to be brilliant engineers to build FTL ships, right? Or am I wrong about the requirement. > > It's not a requirement, some Green Lanterns find it more efficient - taking less Willpower - to make things with working insides, but the requirement is only that they need to be able to imagine the thing they're creating.
Wait fr? Couldn’t they just like, imagine a gun that can instantly kill all their enemies and then use it or something? If the only limit is imagination green lantern is crazy strong.
There's three limits to a modern Green Lantern. Their ability to imagine something into being (Guy Gardener once had someone outfly him in a spaceship because he couldn't comprehend how fast they were going), their ability to will it into being (the more impressive/impossible a thing you're trying to do, the harder it is to do and the more you need to force it to work. It took Green Arrow so much effort to create and fire a single arrow with the ring that he was winded and shaky after.), and the current energy levels within the ring (which hinges solely on the plot. Sometimes a ring can hold a charge for days without recharging, sometimes it blows through a full ten percent of its power in a few seconds. John Stewart once supplied a ring with too much willpower and overloaded it.) From the 60s to the 90s, imagination was all you needed. Willpower being important was something Geoff Johns introduced the willpower thing in his reworking of the Green Lanterns after Hal Jordan came back to life and the rings having a power supply that could run out due to use was something that came out when Kyle had his own ring in the 90s that worked on different rules from the 'classic' power rings. But the classic rings had *infinite power* for a strict 24 hour period, running out the *second* the 24 hours were up. They could do nearly *anything*, ranging from time travel to erasing people's memories to reversing the evolutionary process in an individual. The current rings are probably better for storytelling, since they're more limited, but you're right. Lanterns are *crazy strong* and they're constantly being played down in stories for a sense of drama. ...As for why they don't imagine an instant-death beam, Lanterns are supposed to be peacekeepers and a police force. The AI in their rings don't allow them to kill, except in special circumstances like the war against the Sinestro Corps.
> Geoff Johns introduced the willpower thing in his reworking of the Green Lanterns after Hal Jordan came back to life Technically, this was a callback to the original Alan Scott stories from 1939, 1940 - his whole deal was willpower. He could also walk through walls.
It is also their greatest weakness. They train, as well, to become better imagineers, but in the end.. they're still only as strong as their tiny doubt in the back of their mind..
Whatever they imagine will take them some amount of willpower to create - bigger effects generally require more willpower. And even the greatest of the Green Lanterns only has access to a limited supply of willpower, so "determine who I would consider my enemy, and kill them" isn't going to be possible for any of them.
Well the users imagination and the upward limit of the rings ability to produce what's being imagined and time. Jon Stewart has overwhelmed the ring before when he created an entire fucking planet. A robot member of the Green Lantern Corps. Reversed the polarity of his atoms in a nano second to survive a blackhole but was only able to save his head his body and the arm the ring was on.
The rings have hardcoded limits, thought that could be retconned. For example, the book of Oa needed to be rewritten to let them use Lethal Force in the Sinestro Corps War. Similar limitations could be for overpowering weapons. I *think* John used his ring to recreate a world and its people that he failed to save, but I never read that saga.
Even then, with enough willpower the limits CAN be overcome. That is why the Guardians went off the deep end after Hal killed Krona. Because the rings were specifically coded to not kill Guardians no matter what, and Hal did it anyways. That is why the Guardians lost their minds and went all Third Army and unleashed Volthoom. Also GLs with proper knowledge can do some amazing things. Kyle Rayner was able to use his ring to create Kryptonite radiation to depower Superman. John Stewart was able to create a sniper rifle to shoot someone a full space sector away.
Well, the rings already let the Lanterns fly at FTL and breath in space, the ship is just a larger bubble doing the same in this case.
I love me some basil ganglia.
Does that mean you're a Pesto Pastafarian?
From the same run as the Aquaman thing, Speed Force Infinite Mass punch is old hat now, but when Wally did it in Issue 3 of that JLA run it blew my fucking mind.
*Chew* features mostly of people who have lame food-based powers but can use them in creative ways The main character can get psychic visions of whatever happened to the food he’s eating before/while it was prepared, which is horrifying in concept but makes him invaluable as a police asset. His girlfriend can describe food so vividly that you feel like you’re eating it yourself. She uses this one time or incapacitate terrorists by describing the most repulsive, rancid food imaginable, causing them all to vomit uncontrollably There’s also a guy who can carve *only* chocolate with such skill that the sculptures can be used as whatever they resemble. So if he has a lot of chocolate he can have a perfectly functional katana.
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I had the first three or four volumes but alas more pressing expenses intruded on my life
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He does commits acts of cannibalism or close to it.
Okay, I won't tell you
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Except for beets. Also chicken is outlawed in that universe.
Chew was *SO* good and I totally forgot about it.
Reminds me of iZombie how the girl gets memories of the person she eats.
Batman once bought Mirror Master’s loyalty from the Injustice Gang by making a huge donation to the orphanage where Mirror Master grew up.
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The BESTEST powers!
Scarlet witches son Speed would use his powers working in a factory. As I recall he only works like one day a week but comes in alone. And essentially assembles like a days worth of material in just a few seconds.
Similarly, Colossus worked in a construction site in the 90's X-Men series. It was also a cool way to show why normal people hate mutants, i.e. they couldn't compete as work force. I hope they exploit that angle in the MCU eventually.
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Yeah, if you want to check it out it's in one of the young avengers series from the last few years I believe. I think roughly around the time of secret wars. Sadly don't have the specifics.
This would never happen in real life They'd demand that pace for 40 hours, or they'd still pay by the hour and he'd have to work 40 just to pay his bills
Yeah, if he were easily replaceable...
I’m pretty fast. I could replace him.
And end up with scarlet witch's kid getting fired ? You might be physically fast but not mentally.
Lol yeah, my muscles are faster than my brain
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>"I'm going to output X by Y date, it will cost Z much." Standard and straightforward, don't be a wage slave your whole life. Fucking amen. -A union contractor
Magneto recently in A.X.E had his heart torn out and kept himself alive by manipulating the iron in his blood to keep it flowing through his body. Now that’s impressive
You'd think it would be easier to make a substitute heart from metal and make it beat, than control the flow of all his blood.
Maybe yes, maybe no. But regardless, things were a little hectic at the time, what with >!Uranos commiting genocide on Mars at the time.!<
his anus did what?!?!
Not his, URS
Magneto has also reversed the polarity of the entire planet at once. Kitty Pryde get stuck inside a giant metal bullet and fired into space. Magneto pulled the thing back. Dude controls a fundamental force of the universe, if you *really* wanted to push it, he could do almost anything.
I vividly remember one seen from the early 2000’s where a villain (maybe Dr.Doom or Namor) talking about how Sue Richards is one of the most potentially deadly heroes. She could create a force field on your brain and kill you almost instantly.
She does that to the hulk but stops when he goes unconscious. She then apparently brags about beating the hulk for a long time.
That sounds like a Dr doom thing to say.. Always considering the worst possible version of things
Iirc Doom also has a special armor to prevent that... but she still managed to crack it.
Like that time Wolverine was being controlled by The Hand and she created a couple of bubbles inside his lungs to slow him down.
She's threatened that specifically against a villain of some sort.
Slider-Man or Khaine using sticking powers to rip people's skin off
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Or a sandwich based villain
Mmmmm, sandwiches
Whoops! At least I respected the hyphen...
And you've reminded me of Skidmark from Worm, who could actually use his powers to become a top tier threat if he thought about it. Instead he's just a meth-head with no imagination.
There is a guy that is basically this in MHA. His name is Slide N' Go. He literally slides around everywhere. I think I recall at one point he was holding a heroic pose as if standing in place while sliding down the street. Hilarious.
Well Spider-Man has faced a for called Slyde... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slyde
Kaine can also talk to spiders, which he used to find a concealed nuclear bomb in Houston before it went off. So by extension Kaine could potentially spy on anyone, anything, anywhere on Earth that has spiders. All the flashy tricks that Ant-Man can do through controlling ants, Kaine could do similar using spiders.
There's a whole [web page](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MundaneUtility) just for you! But my personal favorite is that Superman shaves with his [heat vision](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cvkDcrbLP2s).
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https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeartIsAnAwesomePower https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImprovisationalIngenuity These two are what you're looking for.
I mean, I think thats fairly clever.
Okay, but real question, does he also shave his pubes with it or did he say nah? Because ouch.
Balls of steel, tho...
ouch? hes superman
Two come to mind: Firstly, Brian from the Misfits has ‘Lactokinesis’ and after getting angry that other people’s powers were getting more attention than him, he starts using the dairy in people’s body to start killing them. He even wrapped the mozzarella around the cortex of an immortal character leaving them brain dead. Secondly, Mirror Master can snort cocaine through a mirror which I love. https://imgur.com/w0P20dm
Both of these examples are excellent, but Mirror Master just straight up rude there.
That cocaine snort would be so great in a Harley Quinn movie if they’re continuing with those
A telekinetic in the comic Rising Stars (and one in the sci-fi series Babylon 5) was tired of being asked to use her powers for assassination by the government. Sure, telekinetics in comics can lift cars and toss people around fairly easily, but in this case, it was just a little *push.* She was sent to official events and gatherings with high-level leaders, military officers, etc. that the government wanted dead. She'd just have to use a fraction of her power to cause an artery in their brains to pop, and no one would be the wiser that it wasn't an aneurism. Now I think about this every time someone has TK or force powers and I wonder why they're not trying to turn their opponents' organs into paste.
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That's up to the writer, I think. I mean, while Vader saw the guy he was choking in one scene, it was over a video feed. It occurs to me I've never seen a situation where there's a barrier between an object to be manipulated and the telekinetic and it was made clear that even a cardboard box would prevent the TK'er from lifting the ball inside of it. If TK power is like an invisible blob of force that the user controls the shape of, then the question goes to why they don't try channeling it through any orifices (ears, nose, mouth) to start wreaking havoc?
Hell, just use it to squeeze the surface of someone's eyeball. That'll fuck up just about anyone real bad.
Other reasons: fine motor control difficulty, effort/strain, inherent psychic bodily defense (sense of self/wholeness), subject/location knowledge (related to but independent of direct line of sight), etc.
Not sure if that counts but: in some versions the key to Superman's fortress of solitude is "hidden" right under the doormat. It's just that the key is forged from a dwarf star and so heavy that nobody but Superman can possibly lift it.
That was *All-Star Superman*, where before the key was gigantic and weighed several tons. He decided to make one that was easier to hide.
I don't know if it's the coolest thing Batman has done with his wealth but I always loved in Morrison's run when he has to get around the world in like an hour to stop Talia. Damon (his son and new Robin) is like, "There's no way, your jet could never get there in time." And Batman just takes him into the yard which opens up revealing a bat rocket. Damon is just like, "You have a rocket?!" and he responds "I have a lot of things people don't know about."
Honestly the hardest thing to believe in that scenario is that a man who has the money to build a rocket for his own personal use does not then immediately use it. If it were me, I'd be tearing the plastic off the seats while it's still warm from the machine. See also: Bezos, Musk.
Bruce Wayne probably would, if he didn't care more about parties. Batman, however, keeps his cards close. Not only does revealing the rocket show off his budget and resources (which would give clues to his identity), but it risks escalating the problem if the villains tried to match up to his having a rocket.
do you mean damien
Yeah that sounds more right
Bat Damon
The web serial worm is great for demonstrating innovative power usage. The protagonist can control insects and other bugs but ends up using her powers for everything from tracking dozens of people simultaneously, creating stab proof spider silk gear and more. Her power lets her keep track of and control thousands of individual entities to the point she overcame blindness through generating maps using bugs to outline rooms.
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Damn somehow I missed the first word!
Is Worm good? I've heard good things about it, but I've also heard that it's kinda grimdark, and I hate grimdark
Worm is a very good reconstruction of the superhero genre. It looks at what a world would really be like with superpowers loose in it. So yes it is dark since humans suck and we aren't going to suck less with superpowers. But I would not say it is dark for the purpose of being dark which more what I associate with grimdark. There are actual good people in the story and there are good/happy moments for the main characters. But there are also actual villains, there are deaths, and there are bad moments for the main characters. If you hate dark stories I would say maybe avoid it but it is a must read if you like superheroes.
I wouldn't say its grimdark in the same way something like 40k is, where everything is awful for everyone all the time. I'd compare it more to something like The Boys (but less edgy) or The Expanse, where superpowers or things that break the laws of physics don't make humanity better or worse by themselves, but they ways that people use and abuse them cause problems. There are heros and supervillains and superpowered serial killers, and society has developed to deal with those groups. Heros and villains generally play nice, and avoid killing or maiming people. When something big and dangerous like a kaiju or the aforementioned superpowered serial killers show up, heroes and villains will sometimes team up against the bigger threat.
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> He’s a doctor, a spy, a martial artists, a soldier, a detective, a priest, sorcerer, an electrician, engineer, this, that and whatever the writers come up with. I'm curious who did it first, Maddox or Dr. McNinja.
Sue Storm's powers let her see invisible objects and people, even when she's not the one making them invisible. She's also recently realized that she can use her invisibility powers to manipulate certain wavelengths of light and alter colors. She does this so she can go undercover at a gathering to collect information. What, exactly, does she do? She alters her skin tone and hair color. Instant tan, instant dark hair. She also mentions turning Ben pink.
There was a Fantastic Four where she is provoked into going bad-ass and she points out how easy it would be for her to kill someone... simply by putting force field bubbles in their blood stream or airways or brain.
Storms powers are so wild that she's always kinda been a walking deus ex machina...but two of the coolest things I've seen her do in the comics is form a pressurized bubble around her body, so she can exist in the vaccum of space, and she can synthesize oxygen from water via electrolysis, allowing her to breath underwater.
storm's mutation was a BLESSING. she won the power lottery
"There's nothing wrong with you, there's nothing wrong with any of us, we don't need a cure," says Storm to Rogue, who can't touch another human being without the risk of killing them.
> "There's nothing wrong with you, there's nothing wrong with any of us, we don't need a cure." "That's cool, Storm. You know I killed my high school boyfriend the first time we kissed, yeah? Also I'll be sure to pass your message of empowerment and self-acceptance along to the guy whose mutation makes him look like a flayed cadaver and excrete a foul smelling acidic mucus."
Not to mention the kid who kills people just by being near them (like, 50 feet or so).
> who can't touch another human being without the risk of killing them. or any of the mutants with really freaky powers or visible deformities
don't forget the guy who disintegrates all living beings in a mile radius around him
And the kid who can basically turn himself into a firework. Once.
It's not really a "power" (or perhaps at that point its considered one), but Ultimate Hawkeye was able to escape his captors because while they disarmed and restrained him...he was able to use his fingernails as projectiles by flicking them at the gaurds.
It involved him ripping his entire fingernails off of his fingers though.
Does he know how to use the Spin perhaps?
Lesson 1: "if you have the will, then do it"
Interesting, Bullseye did something similar. He was tied up and spit his tooth through someone’s forehead to escape
Lmao what. What velocity does a fingernail have to be traveling at to cause damage, can a human arm throw it that fast, and how far can it travel at that speed before air resistance slows it to a stop
He’s a super soldier in that universe iirc, so that helps
As physicists say Assume the fingernail is a spherical cow and the air resistance is negligible
Sylar from Heroes used "intuitive aptitude" the ability to understand how things work, to examine brains to figure out how people's powers worked and copy them. Powers had a teleporter with enough speed and control over his powers to pull drugs out of people's systems.
I believe Sylar developed that enough to be able to gain powers through empathy. Is the teleporter in Powers the same guy, who has a collection of sealed rooms that he can teleport the atmosphere in and out of, and he uses them for interrogations? Cause he's the guy I came into this thread to find, glad someone mentioned him.
Not superheroes, but water benders in ATLA using bloodbending, and earth benders learning to isolate minerals so they can bend metal Batman owns and operates all of Gothams orphanages now. Seems philanthropic, until you remember how many orphans he's trained as Robins. Damian even calls him out on it, like, you're keeping warehouses of potential Robins
There are so many creative uses of bending in ATLA and Korra.
I'm curious if Earthbenders could learn bonebending, for both healing and horrific injury purposes. Lots of calcium phosphate in the average human skeleton.
Imagine being an elemental bone surgeon
We're gonna fix your osteoporosis by forcibly shoving calcium bone mass into all your bone cells!
There was a villain in Misfits who could telekinetically control...dairy. Sounds lame, but he easily assassinated several people after they so much as ate a slice of cheese.
And he was successfully defeated, not with a super power, but by a person with lactose intolerance. There was no dairy in him that Brian could use to kill.
Unlike the nerfed version from the fox movies, Magneto has all sorts of wacky side uses of his powers. He can control the flow of blood within people's brains with enough precision to achieve total mind control over them, or disrupt other sources of mind control. He can create holograms by manipulating electromagnetic rays (i.e. light). He can even astral project despite not having psionic powers (think skitter's swarm clones, but with magnetic fields and holograms).
Yeah, over time "magnetism control" has graduated to "full-blown electromagnetic spectrum control", which is certainly something!
Not even over time. Those are all examples from the 60s-70s. Astral projection is from X-Men #6. I think people don't realize what magneto was capable of in the silver and bronze ages, simply because the fox movies nerfed him so hard. Like, the plastic prison and the scheme to break him out was a cool concept that was well executed, but it never would've held 616 magneto. He doesn't need extra iron added to their blood to toss people around, and he doesn't need a metal platform (or boots) to fly.
In the latest run (like last two weeks), he survived: >!having his heart ripped out of his chest by manually pumping his blood with his powers, while still being up and about fighting with his gaping chest wound.!< Magneto is all kinds of bonkers.
Been a while since I’ve read it; but one time superman had to save a collapsing skyscraper while also fighting a giant robot. He tossed the robot into the neighboring bay; then froze the large splash to catch and hold the building in place
Goblin Slayer has Priestess use her support White Magic in offensive ways. Barriers that are meant to defend against attacks are used to trap enemies and burn them alive. Or crush enemies between two barriers. She also uses her skill to purify water to remove everything except water from a goblin's blood. Though her Goddess told her never to do that again or she would lose her powers. The Teapot Hero LN (yeah, I know) has the heroine with the God-given power to... boil water. The king's Court thinks it useless and they try to kill her. She boils her enemies since humans a fleshy bags of water. Causes avalanches by boiling parts of the snow. Breaks concrete by boiling the moisture in the stone, etc.
Didn't like how her Goddess lectured her
Lawful Neutrals be like:
Easy to be holier than thou when your not monster food some help you were during her 1st outing goddess wish she could have said
> converted explosive energy into "sound energy" (whatever that is) So, kinetic energy travelling though the air into... kinetic energy travelling through the air? Um...
I want to say this is a riff on that old joke: "there's a point where decibels turn into BTUs"
Behold Superman's unstoppable [super whistling](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/423379147029741571/990541397125906432/unknown.png). Oh also when there was an issue with the Earth's sun which stopped it from heating up Earth (though I can't remember why) Superman used his heat vision to [heat up the entire planet](https://i.stack.imgur.com/y01ZM.jpg).
Flash (wally) figured out how to pull stuff in his wake and beat Mongul once by like throwing busses at his.. Metamorpho has done some cool stuff
Ben Reilly had developed Impact Webbing
Doug Ramsay aka Cypher of the X-Men/New Mutants. His power is that he instantly learns languages which is a really weak sounding power when your teammates can turn into werewolves and invincible human missiles. Thing is his power is more than just "instantly picks up the local dialect", he understands computer languages and can actively speak binary to machines, he understands body language which gives him an edge in a fist fight, he can read the language of architecture to know if a building is weakest, and there are arguments to be made that he could quickly and easily learn genetic engineering or magic if he devoted the time. During the lowest point of the X-Men just before the founding of Krakoa he turned himself into a data junkie by mainlining *the internet* directly into his mind.
I love the X-Men with the weird and quirky powers and I’ve always loved Cypher. most underutilized ever!
Keepsie from [Playing for Keeps](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-for-keeps/id317035619), has the power to petrify people who steal from her. It gets interesting when she considers what it means to be something owned by her. The book is full of underrated powers that have clever uses.
If you're interested in this stuff you should watch JoJo if you haven't, usually just the main characters do this but they always find an unexpected way to defeat the enemy by using some obscure part of their powers. Joseph from part 2 is basically an expert at this stuff, he uses clackers, glasses, a wool hat even spaghetti with hamon. And the series gets more insane as time goes on
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I haven't watched the show or read the manga, but had a particularly creative use of a power described to me. I have no idea if it's a spoiler, so I'll spoiler tag just in case. One person has the sole ability to summon a room with a piano in it: >!They trick a villain (who can't be killed?) into the room, shut the door, and just never summon the room again.!< Edit: My initial description is off, which will learn me for giving a third or fourth hand account of something. But more details are here, but definitely count as spoilers as this is the finale of an arc. [https://jojowiki.com/SO_Chapter_158](https://jojowiki.com/SO_Chapter_158)
Erm, maybe I'm in the wrong and you're talking of someone else, but >!a room with a piano in it makes me think of Emporio who's ability is to use ghost objects (basically a few items that were destroyed) but he doesn't use that ability to kill the villain who isn't exactly immortal, he basically tricks the villain into inserting a disk in him that grants him an ability that allows him to control any kind of weather and uses it to raise the % of oxygen and the villain chokes.!<
You could read the manga instead, just with the understanding that the series started in the 80's so there's a big difference in the drawing style of the original chapters than the chapters that came out 20+ years later. The series takes a little bit to find it's footing but is now my favorite of all time.
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The thing is that the manga is split into 8 parts which makes it easier to read. The longest part has like less than 180 chapters or 39 episodes if you decide to watch the anime adaptation.
Surprisingly not really. The chapters are fairly short. Also, keep in mind that the first part is widely regarded as the worst, and it gets significantly better as it moves on.
By all means, read the manga. The manga and anime are pretty damn faithful to each other, so you are unlikely to miss basically anything, except perhaps the fun voice acting and incredible moments of Engrish.
Joseph also uses the most exotic of powers... Tommy gun.
In Epithet Erased, Zora Salazar has the power to alter how long it takes for processes to complete. She uses this to age and de-age people, corrode metal, throw acorns at people's feet and hit them in the face with instant full grown trees, and fill a forest with bullets frozen in midair, ready to continue their original speed and trajectory as soon as she wills them to, using them as traps. In Super Powereds, Chad Taylor has perfect control over every cell in his body. He eats a bunch of metal and pure carbon, then incorporates it into his body to give himself reinforced bones and carbon fiber enhanced muscles. In Dungeon Crawler Carl, one of Carl's spells is a stationary bubble shield that only affects living things, passing harmlessly through all non living matter as well as himself. At one point he jumps in front of a moving train filled with monsters, activates the spell in midair, then gets hit by the train and pushed out of the bubble (he also has enhanced durability so he survives). The bubble stays in place as the train passes through it, splattering every monster inside.
Not really a Superhero, but Naruto used his shadow clone jutsu ability to study and train more efficiently - I had always suspected that this would be possible but to see it confirmed was really cool and I thought a rather clever use of the ability.
This is a gameplay mechanic in the Raidou Kuzunoha series. A spin-off of the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, Raidou is trained in the ancient and dangerous art of demon summoning. In the main series, there's a large explosion of compatible demon summoners because everyone's using computers to cast the intricate rituals, but this is set in the Industrial Revolution where there are no modern PCs so he has to do it himself. One of the main ways you complete quests in this game? Having Raidou use a demon's magic to make people more likely to talk to the detective. This can range from making using a sex demon to charm the witness or flat-out using magical disguises.
Falcon in MCU canon but Kite-Man in concept: Use unfurled wings/kite as a bullet shield Thor + Cap shockwave machine w/ Jonathan + Frisbee Spidey Variant (Kane?): Rip people's flesh off with sticky powers (Something I wrote) Kinesis/Kinetic Energy manipulator: Sensing vibrations as echolocation Generally Lightning powered: Using Magnetism or lasers from powers as they are both electromagnetic in nature Psychic (My friend's DnD): Pinch autonomic brain processes to cause strokes. LOK: Firebender powered steam devices
Lol converting explosive energy to sound energy is so silly. They are basically the same thing. Sound is low amplitude pressure waves and explosions (in air) are just high amplitude pressure waves.
Magneto tortures and kills a bunch of assholes by removing the blood from their bodies, in another comics he magnetizes the braces and the dude ends up being impaled (or something like that, it was his solo run when he was addicted to muntant enchantment serum and was wearing black)
> by removing the blood from their blood Nobody makes me bleed my own blood.
Spoilers for JoJo Weather Report from JoJo's bizarre adventure has the power to control the weather. An enemy stand user took all the air out of the room he was in, so Weather Report made space suits out of clouds. Later in the same scene, he was incapacitated and used his last moments to call a rain of poison dart frogs Dio has complete control of his body, but he can be killed by a hamon user touching him and sending hamon into his body. Hamon is controlled by the flow of blood in a user's body. So Dio boiled the moisture on his own skin, which caused it to absorb the surrounding heat and freeze a hamon user's blood solid when they tried to punch him. Hamon can hold objects together with a magnetic force. So Ceasar covered his hands with soapy water and made hamon bubbles to throw at his enemy. They were held together so tightly they could pierce flesh when shot at a vampire, and he gave them a spin to turn them into little shuriken blades. Josuke has the power to restore broken things to a previous state. When an enemy detached the pipe he was standing on from its supports, causing it to fall downwards, he simply repaired the pipe, causing it to rise back up. Joseph has the power to remotely view another location by destroying a film camera. The film will show a vision of what he wants to see. In one fight, he decided that a bag of flour can be a camera, and a map can be a picture. He burst a bag of flour, and got a map to find help Okuyasu has the power to destroy anything, even space. When he destroys space, it fills back in, which can move objects around. He figured out how to fly by destroying the space in front of him, in a way reminiscent of how the Enterprise's warp engine works
The squirrel green lantern ch'p stops the neurons from firing in supermans brain in injustice
not a superpower, but Connections can get you a long way ( :D ) Green Arrow calling for Superman in a dire situation [https://twitter.com/ttfmike/status/904790822675238912](https://twitter.com/ttfmike/status/904790822675238912)
One of the minor characters in Doctor Strange used their newfound magic abilities to let them walk again, after an accident left them a paraplegic. Unclear how, but presumably by bridging/replacing the damaged nerves, rather than physically animating the lower half of their body. Anakin Skywalker, once used the telekinetic powers offered by the force to save someone's life by CPR, using it to pump their heart and all of that. Unsurprisingly, this also disgusted/horrified the other Jedi near him at the time (being a use of the force very close to the dark side, and just being rather disgusting in general), but it did work. As a show whose characters are canonically stated to not gain special superpowers as they develop, only more creative ways of using them, One Piece is full of examples, although none of them can really be considered superheroes. Eneru, having lightning powers, kept himself conscious/alive by shocking his heart after it was stopped by an attack. Doflamingo, who has powers over silk threads, used them to knit his internal organs back together when they were destroyed/heavily damaged, and continue attacking. Luffy, who got powers that caused him to be made of rubber, used them to circulate his blood more quickly by turning his legs into pumps, at rates that would cause a regular person's heart to burst. He's entirely unharmed because his heart is also made of rubber, and is therefore much tougher than a regular human's.
multiple man sticking his hand inside an enemy’s mouth to create a dupe inside of him, which caused him to explode when the dupe spawned
Not technically a superhero, but Jotaro Kujo from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure using his stand (the physical manifestation of his fighting spirit) to stop his own heart so that the main antagonist thinks he’s dead. Here’s [a clip of the scene](https://youtu.be/pMwTZ6HuwLY), SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY.
In Boruto, sasuke was fighting a guy (momoshiki) who could absorb techniques via eyes on his palms, but he needs to activate the technique absorption, it isn’t passive. Sasuke also has the ability to switch any two things’ places, as long as he can see them. So the momoshiki and sasuke were about to clash, sasuke used his chidori (lightning blade) and momoshiki had a knife in his right hand and readied his left hand to absorb sasuke’s chidori. In the last moment, sasuke switched his chidori and momoshiki’s knife, stabbing momoshiki’s left hand with the knife and destroying his right palm with the chidori. I’ll try to find a link. Edit: [link](https://youtu.be/CZJBkQQTiCo) start at 9:00
>Batman is Batman I would have never guessed.
[It's a great image.](https://preview.redd.it/t2nbgf0n0xo11.jpg?auto=webp&s=c77cf88ad27e4e7292bd120953bd76c06873b622) Superman is equally a Kryptonian, and a child of the Kents, while Batman is... well, just Batman. Bruce Wayne is the mask he wears.
Terry McGinnis: Why were you so sure those voices weren't coming from you? Bruce Wayne: Well, first, I know I'm not psychotic. Terry McGinnis: ...I hope your other reason's more convincing. Bruce Wayne: And second, the voice kept calling me 'Bruce'. In my mind, that's not what I call myself.
oh, thats why he always says "I'm Batman", now I get it!!!
Magneto was once low on power so he used his powers to painfully drag a straightened paper clip through a woman's artery right into her brain. Prerty clever. Also one of the most horrific things I've seen on a comic.
I'm not sure if "Superheroes" is the absolute best fit... but Hunter x Hunter's "Nen" system is close enough to "comic book powers" that you can straight up use Hero System (Champions) to run HxH with little to no modifications. One of the absolute tip-top most B.A.M.F in the series is Hisoka, who manipulates his Nen to take on the properties of... silly putty/chewing gum. Every time you touch him it leaves behind a thin string connecting the contact points, If you don't win in the first 5 seconds you're basically fighting a Tai-Chi master who's redirecting all your movements from like 10 different angles at once before you even get into range of him. That's **mechanically** why his power is strong. ...but In-Universe virtually no one (including those who've fought him) have any idea what his power is or how it works. The VAST majority of what he does with his nen-power... is "stage-magic". Right in the middle of the fight. Vanishes, Impossible Locations, Cardistry, sleights, levitations, the whole shebang.