name your superpower

Erik Kain

Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the contributor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.

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29 Responses

  1. sidereal says:

    The ability to induce an itch in any bodily location I desire of any magnitude I desire in anyone at any distance.Report

  2. greginak says:

    I would have the perfect soundtrack for whatever I was doing automatically emanate from myself. Say I’m walking into a job interview or meeting: the Peter Gunn theme throbs around me as I walk in and sit. Getting all romantic: Barry White or Marvin Gaye is suddenly playing all around me. Whatever the best sounds for my task would just start playing all around. That would, in many common situations, make me unstoppable.Report

  3. Kyle R. Cupp says:

    My superpower would be the ability to magically revise stories, movies especially, if I didn’t care for the plot, characters, dialogue, direction, music, etc. My superpower would include the abilities to recast actors and to continue discontinued television shows.

    My wife would have the power to think of a meal and create it instantly. Much more practical than mine.Report

  4. The ability to understand the inner compulsions that permit American conservatives unblinkingly to couple “social conservatism”, violent interventionism, and an unquestioned adulation of state capitalism.

    Too esoteric? (I also like yours, E.D.)Report

  5. Lev says:

    Funny story–for a second I misinterpreted the title of the blog post and I was going to say: “I’ll name my superpower: AMERICA! F*** yeah!”

    But I guess my answer to the question would be the power to heal. I’m surprised that it rarely comes up, but healing AIDS and the like would be both a lucrative and noble gig.Report

    • E.D. Kain in reply to Lev says:

      Lev – healing is not unorthodox. There are many, many super heroes who can heal. Now, since you said “lucrative” I will not use my superpower on you, but I just can’t accept heal as sticking to rule #1.Report

  6. The power to determine at a glance the true internal meaning of any text, as well as the precise tone, the author’s intended meaning, and the complete set of structuring oppositions upon which the text relies.

    Barring that, the power to kill a yak from 200 yards away with mind bullets.Report

  7. Gherald L says:

    Eidetic memory combined with direct mental access to the Internet…from anywhere.Report

  8. Jon H says:

    The pimple ray.Report

  9. Nicola says:

    “Bob.”

    Or rather — it’s a tie between Google-fu (the ability to instantly find the answer to ANY question I have via a quick Google search) and a fifteen-second autosave function for life, so if I do something really stupid like pour coffee down my front, I can undo it and not ruin my clothes.Report

  10. Kyle says:

    I’d have to say the ability to conjure Family Guy style vignettes at will, so when I encounter the truly absurd others can share in a truly hilarious visual.

    A close second would be the ability to make the fictional non-fictional and vice versa, which would result in Cylon bodyguards for me and Dick Cheney joining the next season of 24…or House. I’m unsure which.Report

  11. Jaybird says:

    The ability to make you people stop drinking my friggin’ wine. Buy your own damn bottle.Report

  12. SickBoySean says:

    My Super Power, Well i’ve always wanted to ability to pull an object from a picture out and into reallity. Even if it were only a temporary incarnation, the usefullness would be unending. Specially on lonely nights 🙂Report

  13. I pick the ability to download knowledge and skills directly into my brain on an as-needed basis, the way an iPod downloads music or a Kindle downloads a book. When getting into a scrape, I could say, “Whoa. I know kung fu,” and it wouldn’t be ironic.

    A money cheat key for life would be good, too. As long as only I had it, so as to avoid the inflationary side-effects of the rest of you having one, too.Report

  14. The ability to type telepathically. I’d never again have an unfinished post.Report

  15. Ryan says:

    I think I’m violating the rule, but I’m going to try to excuse it a little. I have always, always wanted telekinesis. And not in the usual superhero sense: unlike Jean Grey, I will not be throwing cars at bad guys with my mind. I just don’t want to have to get up to get the pencil on the other side of room. I still think I fail, though.Report

    • E.D. Kain in reply to Ryan says:

      Hmmmm. Well, I think severely limited telekinesis might actually be kind of interesting. It would make you a lot less powerful for one thing, which would require you to be a little more creative with the power. No hurled cars, but you could lock a door or drop a banana peel – things like that. Stuff Bugs Bunny might do if he had super powers.Report

  16. Another one: the ability to cook food with my eyes. I’d probably use it more for defrosting purposes since I actually enjoy cooking, but on those days where getting takeout or fast food doesn’t seem like a bad option…it’d be pretty sweet.

    One more – the ability to kill weeds at a single glance. God, I hate weeding (doubly so since I seem to get poison ivy every time I do it…right now my arms and legs look like they’ve undergone a mustard gas attack).Report

  17. cris says:

    myn is cing how people dieReport