Everybody loves superheroes, except maybe the villains they thwart, and even they probably have a favorite superhero who is not beating them up or taking them to prison. We love and envy them because they have something that we don’t have-super powers. What kid, and for that matter, what adult, doesn’t wish for some kind of super power? When I was a kid, I always wanted to be able to fly. A lot of kids do.
Some, like myself, even try it out once or twice (the smarter kids only try once and learn that it won’t work, but it takes some of us a little longer to catch on).
Being able to fly really isn’t all that practical anyway. Think about it: You would actually have to be the man of steel to stand up to all the bugs you would hit-plus, nowadays, the Air Force is pretty much going to shoot down anything without a registered flight plan.
X-ray vision would be cool for a little while, but without another power to go along with it, it wouldn’t really be all that useful except to perverts and physicians. Ice breath would put a serious damper on your social life, as would fire power.
Animal communication might be fun, but after everything we’ve done to them and the planet, I imagine most wild creatures would probably tell us where we could stick it if we asked them for help.
Aqua man would be up a creek (no pun intended) if he asked the sea creatures for help. I can see him trying to summon a killer whale and the whale saying, “Two words for you pal-oil spill!”
Super speed has the same problems flight does, minus the Air Force, that is. Having an animal power, like Spiderman, would be fine, as long as you picked the right creature. “Hmm, my dung beetle sense is tingling. Something stinky is about to go down.”
My mom actually had laser eye beams of the non-lethal sort. She couldn’t melt steel or thaw an iceberg, but, from a reasonable distance, she could immediately halt any evil-doing by simply focusing her stare on the offending child. It didn’t burn, but you could feel the weight of that stare, and it made you stop and consider the error of your ways.
The only unusual powers that I possess are the powers of sleep and sarcasm. I get plenty of sleep per night, but if I am not engaged in an activity of some sort, I can make myself fall asleep anywhere at anytime. It’s a handy way to avoid boredom, but other than that, it’s really not useful enough to be considered a real super power. Sarcasm is good, but only if used on people intelligent enough to get it. Nothing is more disappointing than making a really witty, cutting remark, only to have the object of your sarcasm not realize they have been insulted. On the other hand, if you use it on smart people, they are likely to come back with an even wittier comment or just beat you up.
After much thought (during one of those boring times when I didn’t will myself to sleep), I came up with a few practical superpowers that I wish I had. These could conceivably be used to stop crime, but they would also be really handy on a daily basis.
First, there is the power of persuasion. I’m not very good at arguing, and it would make my life that much easier if people would just realize that I am right and they’re wrong (You can probably guess that I didn’t last long on the high school debate team).
This power would have to be combined with a sort of extrasensory perception, so that I could convince people of things without saying a word. Out of the blue, people would have thoughts like “I look like a fool,” “I really can’t dress,” “I am wearing too much makeup” and “I am not as cool as I think.”
Secondly, I would like a magic sterility wand. Let’s face it-there are people out there who just shouldn’t reproduce. They could still have all the sex that they wanted, but thanks to my little wand, future generations and the gene pool as a whole would not have to be burdened with their offspring.
If I had the ability to move things with my mind, I would have the parking situation straightened out-pronto. All the people who take up two spaces in the gravel parking lot would return to find their cars parked in a way that suggests that the driver had minimal common sense. Hundreds of extra spaces could be created this way.
Invisibility would be nice when I don’t want to be noticed in the classroom, or when my sarcasm does work, and I’m about to get beaten up.
The ability to read minds would save many relationships (or ruin them, depending on what’s on your mind). Think about it, guys; your girlfriend comes home obviously mad. Your immediate concern is, “Is she mad at me?” When you ask her what’s wrong, she tells you what someone said to her at school that day. You are relieved that, for once, the source of her anger isn’t you. If you could read her mind and know right away that you are in the clear, you could act a lot more concerned and score some major sensitivity points. Girls, I doubt the mind-reading thing would benefit you all that much when it comes to your boyfriend. Most of the time, he really isn’t thinking anything.
– Ben Hofmeister