{"id":429,"date":"2006-06-02T16:27:51","date_gmt":"2006-06-02T21:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=429"},"modified":"2006-06-02T19:24:59","modified_gmt":"2006-06-03T00:24:59","slug":"useless-mutant-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=429","title":{"rendered":"Useless mutant powers"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve always thought the powers of mutants in the X-Man universe were pretty off-the-wall. Aside from nitpicky issues like where all the energy comes from and how special DNA can manipulate the physical world, I’ve always wondered what other mutant powers there are in the world. The X-Men and the mutants serving under Magneto are obviously the best, and their powers lend themselves to warfare, whcih is why they are high-profile mutants. But even among these guys, their powers are really<\/em> diverse. Controlling the weather. Teleportation. Laser eyes. Freezing stuff. Turning into metal form. It’s pretty clear that powers vary quite a bit, and there must be a lot of powers out there that aren’t nearly as cool.<\/p>\n

So what about all the poor mutants who have stupid or pointless powers? Imagine all the wash-outs from Xavier’s school:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Rash:<\/strong> Can cause foes to experience mild itching.\n<\/li>\n
  2. Mood Ring:<\/strong> Her skin turns a different color depending on how she feels.\n<\/li>\n
  3. Dry-Man:<\/strong> Immune to high humidity.\n<\/li>\n
  4. Styles:<\/strong> Can control the movement and color of her individual strands of hair to create any hair style she wishes.\n<\/li>\n
  5. Quackster:<\/strong> Can perfectly imitate the sound of any duck in the world with such fidelity that it can even fool the ducks themselves!\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    But these guys are the lucky ones. Imagine the poor guy who finds out he’s a mutant but doesn’t know what his powers are. How does he go about finding out? I imagine his journal would be fun to read.<\/p>\n


    \nDay 1<\/p>\n

    I’ve just been to the doctor and the blood test reveals that I’m a mutant! Tomorrow I’ll experiment to see if I can figure out what my powers are.<\/p>\n

    Day 2<\/p>\n

    I cannot control the flow of elecricity. That’s a shame. That would have been nice. My hands are not immune to electrical burns, either. I also don’t seem to have any special healing powers. Still, I’m just getting started. I’m sure I’ll have better luck tomorrow.<\/p>\n

    Day 3<\/p>\n

    It turns out I can’t see through the wall of my neighbor’s house and into her bedroom. I can’t leap over her chain-link fence in a single jump. I can’t outrun a dog. I can’t use telepathy to convince a rottweiler to stop biting me. <\/p>\n

    Maybe I’ll stick closer to home for my experiments tomorrow.<\/p>\n

    Day 4<\/p>\n

    I learned an awful lot about my powers today. It turns out I can’t put out fires with my mind. I also can’t repair burned carpeting and furniture. Finally, I also discovered that I can’t control the minds of firemen to get them to stop laughing at me.<\/p>\n

    I’ve got some good ideas of what to try next! <\/p>\n

    Day 5<\/p>\n

    It seems that I can’t fly. At least, not from the roof of my house. My right leg is also not unbreakable. <\/p>\n

    With the cast on, I’ll have to limit my experiments a bit. One thing is for sure: My mutant powers don’t protect me from the itching underneath this #%@ cast!<\/p>\n

    Day 6<\/p>\n

    Not immune to rat poison.<\/p>\n

    Day 7<\/p>\n

    Oh geeze, I am REALLY not immune to rat poison. I think I’ll take it easy today.<\/p>\n

    Day 8<\/p>\n

    My skin is not immune to kitchen knives, thumbtacks, or hammers. My hair is not fire proof. I can’t regrow lost teeth. My eyes are not immune to tabasco or tear gas. I can’t leap over cars in oncoming traffic. I cannot command swarms of angry bees, hornets or wasps. <\/p>\n

    This is hard. I don’t know what to try next.
    \n<\/i><\/div>\n

    How upset is he going to be when at last he learns his mutant power is “can see into the minds of goldfish”?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I’ve always thought the powers of mutants in the X-Man universe were pretty off-the-wall. Aside from nitpicky issues like where all the energy comes from and how special DNA can manipulate the physical world, I’ve always wondered what other mutant powers there are in the world. The X-Men and the mutants serving under Magneto are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nerd-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}