For some unknow reason, I was thinking about this yesterday on the drive home. Come up with superpowers, either from magic or mutation or technology or whatever, but they are an almost completely useless power.

For example:

Ability to predict the future, but you can only predict the price of a food item 24 hours in the future.

Ability to fly, but no higher than 5 mm over any solid surface.

Ability to read the thoughts of, and control an animal, but only worms (and they are not any smarter, so you only read worm thoughts and they only understand worm concepts).

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

I don't think you can beat Invisible Boy of Mystery Men, who's invisible if you are not looking at him. Mr. Furious, maybe, the Waffler

IIRC, one example from the Wild Cards series was Nova Boy, who could make the sun go nova. An example of a power that is way too powerful to be useful.

A few off the top of my head...

Office Supplies Lass has the ability to link paperclips into chains with the sheer force of mental agility.

The Grassmaster has control over every blade of grass in a 1 meter radius. By concentrating for an hour, he can make them all point towards him.

Airhead is continuously, helplessly aware of the positions or velocities of every single air molecule in a one centiimeter radius of her skin. An astonishing bore at parties.

The Reconstructor spent his childhood pushing chicken bones around on his plate at dinner until the day that a toaster fell on his head while at Walmart. Given a pile of chicken bones, he can articulate them into variably-complete chicken skeletons at a glance. Once he stops paying attention, they fall apart again.

When Solocity is exposed to direct sunlight, she can absorb it and radiate it instantly back at the sun. She doesn't tan very well.

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www.pageatatime.com - Art, Evolution, Painfully Slow Development.

Invisible Boy did have a use for his power in the movie, based on a loophole in the description, which I won't specify as it's a minor spoiler.

Mr. Furious, at least in the comics, could get so mad at crime that he became bulletproof, which is quite useful.

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www.pageatatime.com - Art, Evolution, Painfully Slow Development.

Hey, that would be cool.

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"Shut up and calculate" R. Feynman

I wrote these down several months ago. I should keep them for
my own proprietary use, but...

Blubberella "The Girl of Lard"

Weight: 470 pounds
Has to roll out of bed.
Unable to walk through most doorways.
Eats constantly.

Electroshock "Shock"

Able to make the hair on his head stand on end at will by
charging his head with static electricity.

Snooze

Able to sleep through anything.

Orgasma

Able to orgasm for hours at a time.
(I rather like Orgasma's superpower.)

Touchie-Feelie

Able to feel a person's hair or whiskers growing.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"The other planets?
Well, they just happen to be there, but the point of rockets is to explore them!"
-- Kai Yeves

Sport-swag accuity: The ability to sense bobble heads at 150 yards.
Minor appendage flourescense: The ability to make your fingers and toes turn flourenscent pink or yellow.
Empathetic Deja Vu: The ability to know if anyone around you is having deja vu
Neutrino Sensitivity: The ability to feel neutrinos as they pass through you

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

They at least could tell if Nova Boy was using his power.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

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"I'm as accurate as any psychic. And I'm a cartoon!" -- Squidward

"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender

From 'Family Guy': Meg had the power to quickly change the length of her fingernails.
From 'Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul':One patient had the ability to recite continuously stock market prices in real time, shifted back 24 hours (e.g., the prices as they were 24 hours ago).

My contribution:Total X-ray vision. You see through absolutely everything. Of course, since you see through everything, you end up seeing nothing.

I like the X-ray vision idea, but it's been done. Ray Milland,
'X - The Man With the X-Ray Eyes' (1963).

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"The other planets?
Well, they just happen to be there, but the point of rockets is to explore them!"
-- Kai Yeves

These just in!

The Clam

Able to keep his mouth shut even when he thinks he's just come up
with a brilliantly witty remark.

LumberJack

Able to digest cellulose. Minor fire hazard and greenhouse gas
producer.

Radar Boy

Detects Radar with a tooth filling.
(My friend has actually done this when I was with him.
His filling only detects police radar in the X-band.)

Groovy

Able to identify familiar musical passages on phonograph records by
looking closely at the groove. Most adept at identifiying 1950's and
early 1960's rock on 45 singles.

The Geek

Can identify a computer addict in a lineup with better than 95%
accuracy. Can identify a tech rep in a lineup with better than
98% accuracy.

Starlette

Is mistaken for a movie star by everyone who sees her. Nobody
can think of the name of the actress they mistake her for.

Microwave

World Champion multiple gold medal winner in the Baby Olympics.
Swept the bye-bye waving events. Capable of waving bye-bye
to everyone and everything, without stopping, for longer than
anyone is able to watch.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"The other planets?
Well, they just happen to be there, but the point of rockets is to explore them!"
-- Kai Yeves

That wouldn't really be worthless: you'd never need shoes.

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If we don't play god, who will?-James Watson
I never think of the future, it comes soon enough.-Albert Einstein
The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.-Tom Waits
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a yo-yo.-Enoch Root, The Confusion

Haven't heard of it, but I'm intrigued. What happened in the story (I'm guessing spoiling a 1963 story isn't particularly problematic)?

Many people in films seem to have the pretty useless power to move mud, etc, from one side of their face to the other from shot to shot.

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I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, was in no way fair comment and was motivated purely by malice. I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.

Very basically, his vision kept getting "better" and "better" until he
couldn't stand it anymore. The same kind of story as "The Incredible
Shrinking Man". I expect that the IMDB has a plot summary. Right
at the moment IMDB isn't showing me much because I uninstalled
Flash, and nearly every IMDB page insists on showing some Flash
stuff before it will display the main content.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"The other planets?
Well, they just happen to be there, but the point of rockets is to explore them!"
-- Kai Yeves

X or X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes Spoiler Alert









































Dr. Xavier (what a coinkydink!) eventually is able to see "God looking back at him" and in a fit of insanity quotes a well-known biblical passage and then gouges out his eyes, thereby "x-cising" the problem.

Dave MItsky

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Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

The ability to teleport anywhere along your line of sight, but it takes twice as long to do so as to walk, climb etc. there.

The ability to morph into a goldfish.

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If we don't play god, who will?-James Watson
I never think of the future, it comes soon enough.-Albert Einstein
The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.-Tom Waits
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a yo-yo.-Enoch Root, The Confusion

The ability to read minds. In my office, all I'd get is dreck.

The ability to read your own mind. (Controlling you own mind would be cool; I wouldn't need any more therapy! )

The power to extend claws through your skin, but without self-healing. Wolverine would've died of a massive infection years ago.

The power to shapeshift into someone who looks almost exactly like you.

The ability to rearrange your freckles at will.

The power to foresee what you will eat for lunch tomorrow.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort