deadweight superheroes

Right, so... Zandor, Tara and even Dorno (not pictured) could always slingshot people with their energy rocks. Zok is a dragon for crying out loud and can shoot rays out of his eyes. Igoo is a rock ape and can throw stuff. Nuff said. And then Tundro could shoot energy rocks out of his horn and can ram people and stuff. Now, I will admit that Gloop and Gleep ARE quite rubbery and can turn themselves into shapes and stuff but are they really there for anything other than comic relief? I think not!

I always liked New Mutants more than X-Men because they were a whole team of lamers with rub powers.

Lamers in the Avengers = the Wasp and the Black Knight.

American Maid had those boomerang stiletto heels. And she was good with flower arranging, I think.

Then there's Mighty Agrippa, the Roman god of the aqueduct. His super power: transporting water! Oh, the TV tie-in book, _The Tick: Mighty Blue Justice_ is a fabulous wealth of information. I recommend it.

I think many water-related super powers are pretty weak (like Aquaman, mentioned above). Don't forget the male Wondertwin, Zan, who could transform himself into any form of water. If I remember correctly, in roughly half of the episodes, he would transform into a useless bucket of water, toted around by Gleek. Gleek always seemed to spill a little, so I wondered whether or not vital organs of Zan would be missing when he transformed back into a human.

"Form of... AN ICE CAGE!"

beaten by Aquaman, how humiliating!

I can't find a picture of the "ice rocket," just the quote: "Zan would assume the 'form of' solid, liquid, or gaseous water (Don't laugh; Zan could make a pretty mean 'ice rocket' when the need arose)."

I thought Storm was kind of a dead weight in the X-Men film. Her powers were so slow to activate that they didn't seem that helpful. Maybe in the books it's different. Yes, I realize she's hot.

The Wasp was there for her strategic acumen! If all you can do is buzz around & zap people w/ your wee li'l stingers, you'd better start bugging Capt. America for some WWII tips stat!

I'm still trying to figure out how the Invisible Girl can make invisible ramps / balls / shields / etc.

And what the hell did BOOSTER GOLD do?

My favorite one, though, was where all of the Superfriends got blasted into different portions of time. Aquaman was wandering around with a bunch of dinosaurs. Then he did some sort of GPS thing and said, "Hey, this is exactly where the Hall of Justice will be built millions of years from now -- if I just leave my Superfriends locator right here, they'll eventually find it and come back in time to look for me." So he puts the locator on the ground and Superman instantaneously appears, saying, "Hi, Aquaman, we found your locator in the future and figured out what happened to you."

Does that include Tekken?

I really like the Authority, but Swift is another good example. They have tried to construct her as a great tactician, but that's never quite come off so far, I think.

Aquaman and Batman can look like dead weight at times. The Grant Morrison JLA used Batman really well - when the super-aliens have easily defeated all the rest in the first big story, but didn't care about Batman, you know that will somehow be their fatal error, but you can't work out how he can possibly take on these aliens that took out Supes, WW, GL and the others. Of course it makes perfect sense. He makes any/good use of Aquaman less often, but he gets some good moments too. I thought the way he gave every character their important moment in the spotlight during the final epic was particularly well done.

http://www.emeraldwarriors.com/glc/glc01.jpg

(Note: The TAL site is framed, so it's a bitch to get the right URL's sometimes - the following URLs are to the right info in the right frames, but they're missing the left-side permanent info frame.) Also, they seem to have done away with their search engine. Grrr!

http://www.thislife.org/pages/archive01.html#178
This is probably my favorite episode of TAL (well, except for "Squirrel Cop," that is). Seriously - go and listen to it, especially the "Wonder Woman" segment. The woman is, well, scary and intimidating and really off plumb.

We answer the following questions about superpowers. Can superheroes be real people? (No.) Can real people become superheroes? (Maybe.) And which is better, flight or invisibility? (Depends who you ask.)
Prologue. Host Ira Glass talks to comic artist Chris Ware, who thought about superheroes a lot of the time as a kid. In grade school, Chris drew superheroes, he invented his own character named The Hurricane (not to be confused with Reuben Carter), and he made a Superhero costume. Sometimes he wore parts of the costume to school under his regular clothes, which went fine until he realized he would have to change clothes for gym class. Ware's book, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, is also inhabited by a "superhero" of sorts. (6 minutes)
Act One. Invisible Man vs. Hawkman. John Hodgman conducts an informal survey in which he asks the age old question: which is better? The power of flight, or the power of invisibility? He finds that how you answer tells a lot about what kind of person you are. And also, no matter which power people choose, they never use it to fight crime. (13 minutes)
Song: "That Man," Peggy Lee
Act Two. Wonder Woman. Kelly McEvers with the story of Zora, a self-made superhero. From the time she was five, Zora had recurring dreams in which she was a 6'5" warrior queen who could fly and shoot lightning from her hands. She made a list of all the skills she would need to master if she wanted to actually become the superhero she dreamed of being. Sample items: martial arts, evasive driving and bomb diffusion. She actually checked off most things on the list ... and then had a run-in with the CIA. (16 minutes)
Song: "Goldfinger" performed by David Sedaris
Act Three. The Green Team of Boy Millionaires, Beppo The Amazing Supermonkey from Planet Krypton, and The Man from Sram. Ira talks with Jonathan Morris, the amazingly funny and charming editor of the website "Gone and Forgotten," an Internet archive of failed comic book characters. Jonathan explains what makes a new superhero succeed, and what makes him tank. (9 minutes)
Song: "Signal in Sky," The Apples in Stereo
Act Four. The Wonder Twins. Ira talks with journalist Jason Bleibtreu about Luther and Johnny Htoo, twelve-year-old twins, and the leaders of a rebel army of Burmese separatists called God's Army. Everyone around them, both their own forces and their enemies, believed they possessed superpowers, that they could not be harmed by bullets, that they had the power to command ghost armies. Bleibtrau visited the twins while they were in the jungle and explains why they were so widely believed. (9 minutes)
Song: "Superman," Spouse

And Episode 198, November 2, 2001 - Especially the third segment here, about the guy who goes around wearing a hand-sewn (spelling?) Superman costume - priceless! http://www.thislife.org/pages/archive01.html#198

Stories of people climbing to be number one. How do they do it? What is the fundamental difference between us and them?
Prologue. Ira talks with Paul Feig, who as a sixth grader, at the urging of his father, actually read the Dale Carnegie classic How to Win Friends and Influence People. But when he found that afterwards, he had a bleaker understanding of human nature, and even fewer friends than when he started. (9 minutes)
Act One. To Make a Friend, Be a Friend. David Sedaris has this instructive tale of how, as a boy, with the help of his dad, he tried to bridge the chasm that divides the popular kid from the unpopular ... with the sorts of results that perhaps you might anticipate. (14 minutes).
Act Two. Stay in Touch. After the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, U.S. diplomats had to start working the phones ... to assemble a coalition of nations to combat this new threat. Some of the calls, you get the feeling, were not the easiest to make. Writer and performer Tami Sagher imagines what those calls were like. (6 minutes)
Song: "Calling Countries," Boomtown Rats
Act Three. People Like You If You Put a Lot of Time Into Your Appearance.
To prove this simple point, a familiar one to readers of any women's magazines, we have this true story of moral instruction, told by Luke Burbank, in Seattle, about a guy he met on a plane who was dressed in a hand-sewn Superman costume. (13 minutes)
Act Four. Just Be Yourself. Jonathan Goldstein with a story about what it's like to date Lois Lane when she's on the rebound from Superman. Jonathan Goldstein is a producer for This American Life, and the author of a novel, Lenny Bruce is Dead. (13 minutes)
Song: "Mr. Pleasant," The Kinks

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Alan

B-b-b-but they had Elongated Man!!

He was the best. Slightly fascist, but less so than Batman (and no man-boy love for GL, he always hit it with the superchix).

NICE SAVE NANCY

I remember when the JLA changed its line-up and introduced Gypsy too. Circa 1986? About the same time I completely lost interest in DC Comics.

literally...

and hey, isn't there something in the Comics Code about cheap shots?

http://www.comicsetc.com/images/th3_1314469.jpg

So he can't fly, the guy can read/speak any language. It is a practical superpower.

ooh, look at me, I can escape from stuff. As long as my enemies create convoluted snares and shackles, I'm fine. I just hope no one, y'know, hits me or anything.