Painful Super Powers

Hey, guys, you’ve now entered From the Mind of One Tim Cubbin! I don’t know if you’ve ever been here before, but I know some of you reading this post are familiar with my work, or me, or both, and for that I thank you for sticking with me. If you’re new, you’ll get used to me in this post and will hopefully check out some of my other (currently) seventy posts after you’ve read this post. So I also know the title of this post or the tags I attached to it have totally interested you, as if someone else wrote this I totally would myself, but some of you know and like me and totally want to read more of my nonsense, but however you entered, you are THE BEST! You’re here, you’re reading this, I mean, this couldn’t be any more awesome to me!

            Anyhow, I’ve actually posted an essay where I talked about what super power I would like to have. Some of you have read this post, and if you haven’t, feel free to finish this post and then check it out. Whatever you want to do, you’re THE BEST! But this particular post is about painful super powers. Some of you may know I’m a HUGE Marvel comics fan (as a lot of the content on this blog involves Marvel graphic and prose novels). BUT! I don’t read any other comic book publishers, so all of my comic posts are Marvel, and if you don’t like Marvel, you’re probably not reading this. So, here’s what we’re going to do. I’ve picked five Marvel super heroes. Some of them may SEEM to have awesome powers, but if you really thing about it, maybe you might decide you won’t want those powers now.

            We’re going to start with Robert Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk. Bruce was caught in the blast of a gamma bomb, and now when he gets angry, stressed, scared, or too excited or stimulated, he transforms into a big green monster with super strength and near invulnerability, and the angrier the Hulk gets, the stronger he gets. (Okay, some of you might be a reader of “The Immortal Hulk” and now the new rules may be more wonky, but I’m going to traditional Hulk right now). So we’re going to break this down a bit. First: the gamma bomb. HE SURVIVED A GAMMA BOMB! Can you imagine how painful that would be? HE WAS BLOWN UP AND PUT BACK TOGETHER! OUCH! And when he then transforms into the Hulk, his muscles grow and he gets bigger, bulked up, his whole body expands! I mean, that HAS to hurt! It CAN’T be comfortable! And then, when the Hulk calms down, he shrinks back to puny Banner. The muscles shrinking back down to average human size? I mean, he rapidly transforms from a weak man, to a giant green monster, then back down to a wimpy average human? I would NOT like to undergo that transformation.

            Next we’re going to talk about Raven Darkholme/Mystique. She is a mutant shapeshifter. Now, I know so many people would like that power. You can be anyone you want! Come on, how much fun is that? BUT! Think about this: your molecules are changing, shrinking, growing, transforming, converting, rearranging, separated, morphing, metamorphosing, more words I can’t come up with at the moment. That would presumably feel odd, uncomfortable, or (as the title says) painful. And certain body parts changing must feel awkward, but we won’t go there. And to make EXACT, TOTAL changes? Eyes, hair, what else seems like mild changes like fingerprints, nails, things we really don’t even think about. People don’t really think about the precision Mystique must use, to be exact, full body transformations, how uncomfortable it would honestly be. Sure it’s a cool power, I totally say that, and would have wanted to have it until suspension of disbelief was broken. Again, it’s honestly something that just about no one else would think about, but I did, I put it out there, I invite you to feel either way about it. As I always say, this blog is all MY opinions, and you don’t have to agree with me. It’s just something to think about.

            Our next character is Robert “Bobby” Drake/Iceman. He’s able to generate ice, lower temperature enough to freeze things, turn his body to ice with minimal shape-changing abilities (such as bodily enhancements and reconstitution if he is damaged in ice form). Once again, shape-changing. He can change his ENTIRE body into ice. That includes skin, bones, muscles, hair, organs, everything. Total transmogrification. TOTAL! I couldn’t imagine that possibly being comfortable. This brings us back to consider Bruce. I honestly don’t know if his Hulk form has expanded bones and organs. I don’t know if Marvel has ever discussed this, but I haven’t read it, but then again, Hulk was created in 1962, and yeah, I may be old, but I’m not THAT old. Iceman was created in 1963, by the way and I also don’t know if any Marvel writer stopped to consider the feeling of Bobby’s transmutations. I know, I’m thinking WAY too much about this.

            Next we’ll consider Jean Grey-Summers/Marvel Girl. She’s telepathic and telekinetic. I know, finally someone who’s not a shape-changer! She can read and influence minds and communicate mentally, as well as able to move objects with her mind. (Also, with Jean, I’m referring to her as Marvel Girl and NOT Phoenix/Dark Phoenix). Yeah, I know you may be thinking “but Tim Cubbin, how can you say these powers are painful? They’re, like, the coolest powers ever!” Yes, these are awesome powers, but we’re going to explore some of the ramifications. Some people may not know this if they never read the comics, but when Jean was a little girl, she had a best friend named Annie. One day, while playing, Annie was in the road and was hit by a car and killed. Jean was there and felt Annie die with an early manifestation of her telepathic powers. If that’s not painful, I don’t know what is. Also, in the Ultimate Marvel Universe, when Jean first manifested her telepathic powers, she could not keep the thoughts of ANYONE around her out of her head. It bothered her so much she chewed her knuckles to the bone and was placed in a mental hospital out of belief of the Homo sapiens schizophrenia mental disease. I know, these are a little gruesome, but I feel they’re necessary tidbits to, in my opinion, enforce my point. So yes, telepathy seems like a really cool power, and it is, IF you can control it. There’s that caveat. Also, not painful, but another tidbit to enhance is if you can’t control your telepathy, you might subconsciously influence the thoughts of other people around you, like make people you want to be friends with like you, and make people you don’t want to like you dislike you, even if they might not necessarily want to if they weren’t telepathically influenced. And you might hear thoughts you really wouldn’t want to hear, other peoples’ private business that you really don’t want to know about, secrets you’d rather not know. Yes this could help, like being in school and taking a test, you can read the mind of the smartest student in class and use it to get a perfect score, but that’s cheating to the maximum level and invasive and unethical and so many words that means it is unfair to others to violate their mental sanctity. It’s just wrong and I really would feel terrible about myself if I did this as this would basically make me an evil mutant. I know, that sounds crazy, but that’s how I’d feel and this is my blog, my opinion, my mind, and I can’t expect you to agree with me. In fact I’d be rather surprised if you did agree with me on this because telepathically is totally awesome and you’d want it. But I’m an ethical guy and I’d feel totally wrong to use my powers all the described ways I just wrote, so there you have it.

            As my final character to analyze, I’m going to use a relatively obscure character, but if you have heard of him, or read comics with him in it, you’d likely totally see my point in choosing him. This character is Jonothon Starsmore/Chamber. Jono communicates telepathically (he can’t actually READ minds, though) and can release biokinetic blasts. I don’t think biokinesis is a common power and I don’t think I’ve ever read another character with this power. The problem is, when his powers manifested, be blasted out his lower face and frontal torso, and the biokinetic blasts roil in these locations. So now he has no vocal chords and no internal organs in these locations such as lungs or a heart. Yeah, you can imagine that hurts, but that probably died down after manifestation and he most likely doesn’t feel it anymore, but still, I don’t want to blow myself up.

            And that’s where we’re going to wrap this up… FOR NOW! Expect more installments on this topic as there are so many more characters I can analyze, so if you liked this post, keep checking my Twitter page or this blog page so you can see when I post these, and totally check out more of my work as I have SO many more ideas and content. I’m a journalist, so I write editorials and other essays like this one, as well as short stories and poetry and Marvel reviews (which I mentioned at the start of this essay), so there’s more stuff to read and like, so keep checking this page out. Follow me on Twitter, retweet, like, comment, share, whatever you can do on Twitter, or keep looking for more on my blog page, if you’re a Facebook friend, share this on your page, tell your friends about this and I’ll take my fingers off my page by saying three more words: Tim Cubbin… out!