Jul 22 2009
Problematic Superpowers and How to Make Them Work
I'm a former assistant editor with advice about how to write novels, comic books and graphic novels. Most of my content applies to fiction-writing in general, but I also provide articles specifically about superhero stories.
B. Mac touched on this with a couple of powers, such as super strength, telepathy/mind reading, and to a lesser degree, power suits, plus he mentioned a few others at the bottom of his article on common superhero problems. However, this is going to be a more all-around list, touching on a number of different powers.
All superpowers could be potentially problematic. However, these powers make it unusually difficult to write an interesting story.
1. SUPERSTRENGTH. Superstrength is generic and cliched. It’s very difficult to intrigue a reader with a character whose main power is superstrength. Fight scenes will either be no challenge (since he busts through absolutely everything) or no fun to read (since all he does is bust through everything). Probably both. Hardly anything will challenge him. Locked in a cell? Bust out. Locked out of a building? Bust in. Girlfriend’s in trouble? Bust up the villain.
Mix it up: Limit his powers. Maybe he only has super strength when his adrenaline hits a certain level, so he has to stay hyped if he wants his powers. Or maybe his super strength only works against certain materials. (Though that would be difficult to logically explain, it would at least be a handy limit.)
2. SUPERSPEED. Speedsters are nearly as problematic as heroes with superstrength. If your speedster is faster than a speeding bullet, nothing that can challenge him can catch him, and nothing that can catch him can challenge him. Got a villain? Your speedster can just take the villain’s sword and stab him with it. Plus, there’s no way to add a ‘ticking clock’ sense of urgency. If he can run around the world in hours, he can meet any time limit or deadline easily.
Try this: Bring their speed down a ton. I’d recommend somewhere between 60 mph (a cheetah) and 400 mph (a fast car). Then, even if they can’t be caught on foot, cars and helicopters might still pose an interesting challenge. I’d make sure to add in some sort of restrictions for the usage of their speed. Do they tire easily, like the aforementioned cheetah? Do they start off slow and get faster with momentum? There are many possible restrictions, and I’m sure there’s one that would work with you and your hero.
3. INVULNERABILITY: Ahh, invulnerability. This appeals to many new writers, because it makes their character so ‘amazing’ and ‘impressive’ that they can’t be killed. However, invulnerability does not a good superhero make. Superman was clearly a victim of this, even with his vulnerability to Kryptonite. However, Smallville addressed this somewhat. Nearly every Smallville villain had a chunk of Kryptonite available, which forced Clark to fight like a normal human a good percentage of the time. To a lesser degree, Thing (Fantastic Four), Iron Man, Martian Manhunter, Claire and Sylar from Heroes, and various others are invulnerable as well. If your hero cannot be hurt, let alone killed, there’s nothing on the line. Sure, his friends might be in danger, or his kids, or his love interest, but there’s always that extra ‘oomph’ of tension when the hero might die that just can’t be duplicated otherwise.
Limitations: This is probably the toughest to limit well. At the very least, give him his own brand of Kryptonite. However, I’d very much advise toning his invincibility down a ton. B. Mac defines ‘invulnerability’ as ‘the point at which a typical human criminal could not conceivably endanger the character’. Will you be able to write interesting fight scenes with competent thieves, if not regular people? It’s hard to make up supervillains on the fly.
4. TIME TRAVEL: This one’s pretty simple to explain. If they can go back in time, they can cancel out anything negative that may have happened, which basically retcons a good chunk of your story. This is a problem because the reader just spent the last 30, 50, 100 pages reading about exactly what happened, and going back in time to redo it just wasted their time. The reader hates it when you waste their time.
Limit it a ton: Have it take them back a maximum of five minutes, or maybe even less. Thirty seconds would be interesting to work with. Or perhaps they can go back in time as far as they’d like, but they can’t interact with anything, since having two versions of the same person at once would mess with time-space. If they could only watch, that would dissuade them from using their powers. (I’d advise that you skip over the extra time, if you take this route).
5. SHAPESHIFTING: If you can turn into anyone or anything, that doesn’t leave much that you can’t do. Even if it’s limited to people, you could (theoretically) turn into a weight-lifter and fight someone brawn-for-brawn, but then turn into small child and crawl to your safety through a narrow space. The same goes for animal shifters (like Beast Boy from Teen Titans), but translate ‘weight-lifter’ to ‘tyrannosaurus rex’ and ’small child’ to ‘mouse’.
Fixes: Limit them to a certain number of forms. Keep them stuck in a chosen form for a set length of time. Or perhaps give them a limit like ‘the person can’t be in the room, but must be within 30 miles’. Be careful, though, not to let it get too complex, or the readers might have trouble remembering the specifics.
6. TELEPATHY: Mind-reading is the focus here. Mental communication is much less of a problem than being able to read someone’s mind. If your hero can read minds, that takes a number of plot twists off the table. Betrayal, for example. The telepathic character could see it coming a mile away, unless it’s sudden. Plus, if your telepath is anywhere near the villain at any point in the story, they’ll know 100% of what’s going on right off the bat, which takes away the need for an entire novel to figure things out. If your character is telepathic, nothing anyone could ever do would surprise them.
It is redeemable though: Being telepathic is an entirely mental power. Perhaps it’s a highly uncomfortable feeling, to read someone’s mind, like being out in public, in the cold, without any clothing. Or even worse, like that borderline-painful, overly-sensitive feeling you get when you have the flu, but mentally rather than physically. Or perhaps they can only read certain minds, or under certain conditions. Or maybe they can just skim the surface. Character X could be angry about an argument they had with a side character, but all the telepath would get is the feeling of anger and the side character’s name/face from Character X’s mind.
What do you guys think? Are there any problems you feel should have made this list? Do you disagree with any of my six? Thanks.
On a side note, telekinesis is problematic too. What can’t you move with it?
I’d recommend limiting it with a size restriction (a car at the very most), or a certain material.
Also, to make sure there’s no rearranging of the organs, perhaps it only works on non-organic substances.
I think this is a really good article. Only one, very small, problem I can see. You put Chloe from Heroes. I think you meant Claire. Other than that, it was really good
Good catch, you’re right.
I fixed it.
A good article, but I disagree with 4. Time travel can work if you plan for it from the beginning. For instance in my novel a character gets knocked out and is wakened by his gf, who can’t possibly be there. He is in a delicate mental state (he has been self harming) and she lets him think shes in his head, like Fight Club. Later, he sends her back in time to save himself.
They find notes, not realizing that they left them, and so on.
As long as you don’t decide in episode 22 to change everything from episode 10, as long as you were planning this from episode 1, it can work, and be great. I think.
You can’t really disagree with something based off your own unpublished writings. Nobody can vouch for the quality, let alone the existence of those things you just detailed. You can strive for something better without following the advice laid down, but you can’t use your own writings as examples. Time Travel is a very flawed power without being severely restricted, because an individual capable of it is not only invincible, but omniscient, in fact, you could take every problem with Telepathy and Invulnerablity and apply it to Time Travel. If the past and the future are able to be changed in your lore then all the character ever has to do is go back in time with a gun and a bullet and his problems are solved, that’s it. His story doesn’t need to be told because he can fix it all from minute one.
Plus, the story you’re talking about sounds very derivative of popular science fiction, especially the time-travel related works of Philip K. Dick, seems to contain no superhero elements from what you’ve described and actually seems to fall into the exact same plot hole that makes time travel such a hated element. I do apologize if I sound harsh, but I’m trying to keep the puffery to a minimum.
If, within your timeline, a Captain Emo (for lack of a better name.) exists that possesses knowledge of the final outcome or at least, the ultimate confrontation, as implied by your comment about the notes. There is absolutely no reason for that original Captain Emo not to simply throw whatever villain or foe you’ve concocted in front of a trolley, as it stands, from what little you’ve said, it sounds those notes exist for no reason other then to give you a story to tell, and that’s really not how a story should work.
It doesn’t matter if there is a flimsy excuse offered or hand waved like “He’s trying not to screw with the time-space continuum!” It is still a flawed way to tell a story precisely because he would probably actually change the time stream more by leaving the notes then tossing Teddy McMeaney off a building.
The start of first World War can be blamed entirely on a man named Gavrilo Princip deciding to have a sandwich, that’s how life and time works, the smallest thing causes the largest changes and the things we think will change the future and our lives, don’t really do anything at all.
Again, I apologize if I come off as harsh, but honesty is beneficial at times, I think. I also think that maybe you have a story to tell, but it needs to be reworked so you have a story to tell without forcing your story to tell itself.
I came up with a few weaknesses for my powers -
Jazz – As an animal shapeshifter, Jazz has to have seen the animal she’s turned into – and remember what it looks like easily. That is, she can’t look at a picture of a Tyrannosaurus Rex – she would have to see one in real life to become one.
Darren – As a telekinetic, Darren can only lift objects that he can lift physically.
Connor – Connor’s aura manipulation is tricky – his shield only works if he doesn’t move, and it takes some time to put up. As for his aura blasts, picture Connor running headlong into a wall. The amount of power expressed is as much as he can use.
- Wings
Wings: My telekinetic has a similar restriction. And you just made me realise that I JUST wrote a scene where he lifts a TREE. I’ll go change that…
iv thought about the abbilty to see in to the futuer
there are things that are set to happen like someone walking in to the room at a certin time or someones going to have a heart attack at this place and time and some things can be changed and they can be changed by telling the person that its gonna happen
so say ur examining things if u just sat down and tried to look in to the fuchter u would only see ur self sitting down to know what the results will be you achily have to start the work so u can get resuilts
also seeing in to the fucter means theres no supprises no mysterys it makes like very boring
But if you saw into the future to save yourself time examining things, then that means you didn’t need to examine them and didn’t examine them, which means you never saw yourself examining them, which means you did go and examine them and *brain explodes*
This is the first time I’ve ever applied the Grandfather Paradox to the future. It’s just as weird tomorrow as it is yesterday.
well you can still do the test you just know the results before there finshed you just need to simpley look at the results later to know back then
SCRIBBLAR:
As Lightning Man said, the fact that you use the power in your unpublished work doesn’t mean it necessarily works.
However, the impression I’m getting from your story is that the time travel isn’t exactly a power he has. Rather, it seems more like something he’s able to do once (to send her back in time) on purpose. The rest, and correct me if I’m wrong, seems accidental. This would make the power workable. The sort of time travel I incorporated into my list is like… If they’re able to at any given moment travel to some other point in time, voluntarily, and with a pretty wide range of selection as to their destination time.
For example, I think it worked in Harry Potter. When they went back in time, it didn’t undo anything that had already happened, it just added a layer of sense to it. Plus, it wasn’t a power any of them really had, just an object that Hermione had used to go back in time to do her classes. That, as opposed to, “Watch me go back in time and warn Harry’s parents so NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED.” See the difference?
LIGHTNING MAN:
You raise some very good points. There would have to be a very good reason that the man left the notes rather than killed the villain, for example, plus a stronger reason than ‘but we don’t wanna mess up the future!’ For them not to time travel.
Also, is that World War I fact true? That’s pretty interesting, if it is.
WINGS:
That’s awesome, Wings. As for the weaknesses…
Jazz – That’s awesome. I’d also restrict her access to things like zoos, at least at first. Or if you want to make things interesting, you could say she has to have touched the animal. Then she’d have to go on wild adventures just to gain a wider variety of powers. It would make things much more interesting than, say, Beast Boy, who can turn into anything. People will think, “Oh yeah, she’s the one that had to sneak into the wolf cage at the zoo!” Just a thought, of course, yours is good too.
Darren – Good, I like this. It’s solid and it’s easy to remember.
Connor – That is a tricky one. I like what you’ve done with his shield power. It has a lot of potential for conflict (what if something huge and scary comes at him? If he so much as flinches, doesn’t that mess up the shield?). I’m not sure I’m clear on the aura blast limitation, though. Do you think you could re-explain?
@Marissa: Well… about the World War I thing, tension had been brewing between the powers of Europe for some time. I assume the sandwich somehow led to the assasination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which is considered the event that started World War I. But the general consensus is that even if he wasn’t killed something else would’ve triggered the war, since all of the powers were on edge, just waiting for an excuse.
@David: I’m sorry, I’m still too confused by my invocation of the Grandfather Paradox to reply.
DAVID and TOM:
You’re right, seeing the future would be a big one too. It’s mostly for the same reasons as telepathy: If your character knows what people will do, what will happen, there are no surprises for your character or your reader. Neither your character nor your book can be predictable and still succeed. The reader will feel no sense of urgency, and will put it down.
That wasn’t Wings, Tom, that was me.
Gahh, sorry Marissa. I just read ‘Wings’ in big bold and… I wasn’t thinking and… you get the idea. Fixed now. Sorry!
i predited that lol
On the WWI thing… the cause of the war as we know it did indeed start because Gravrilo Princip decided to have a sandwhich. There had already been an assassination attempt on Franz Ferdinand earlier, but it failed. Princip was one of the plotters, and he happened to see the Archduke in a taxi. The driver took a wrong turn and had to reverse and – well, you know the rest.
So really, you could blame it on the driver!
But yeah, there was enough tension in Europe that war was virtually inevitable. However, if it hadn’t started then, the outcome might have been different, some countries may have chosen different sides or sat out altogether…
To stay on topic, this is very helpful advice. Time travel especially is tricky. I had the idea for a detecive who can time-travel but, he can only go 24 hours back in time – no more and no less. Also, while he’s back in the past, his present self is in a coma.
To re-explain Connor (and this sound hilarious) -
Picture someone taking Connor by his feet and whipping him at a wall. Without the splatting sound and the mess. The amount of force exerted on that wall is the amount of power he can use to attack with his aura.
Also, it’s a bit like Pierce’s power (Read FMA book 7, stat!) – it requires concentration, and he can’t attack while using the shield. If he gets scared (which he does), the shield reacts, normally opening to protect him subconsciously. For instance, in the scene where Ian gets captured, Connor, originaly trying to be helpful but now terrified, is curled up on the floor, his shield working like a bubble around him.
Another scene, during training, Connor is testing his shield while Darren throws things at him with his mind (sidenote: Darren gets overexcited and starts throwing everything he can see – including a chair, a globe, and several hardcover books. Owch).
- Wings, who is still listening to “Iris”
…How does someone know that’s how much force Connor hitting the wall would exert? Without having tested it…
Okay, first test.
*grabs eleven year old brother*
Here goes nothing!
*large smacking sound*
Ow. That’s gonna stain – ooh, cookies!
- Wings, the cruel and unusual (Emphasis on unusual).
Wings, you never cease to amuse me.
Test Two!
*leaps through time rift and emerges, carrying P by the leg*
Sayonara, sucker!
*whips him at the wall*
*crunching sound*
Dangit. Now I have to get that wall fixed. Curse his hard head…
- Wings, who is SO unusual that the United States Government has designed a security term for when she gets mad: Code Wings.
For what it’s worth (and back on the original topic), Runaways has a good use of invulnerability and super strength together in the character of Molly.
Molly is an eleven year old mutant with both abilities, but who doesn’t have anything resembling a comparable level of endurance.
Thus, after doing something like throwing Wolverine out the door of the building and across the street, she has to take a nap.
It works for the character and the story.
That’s a good example of using the powers without making them problematic. If, after using the powers, the character has to go sleep it off, that’d be just as much a liability as an asset.
Actually, I’ve been struggling with the “weaknesses” aspect as well. One of my characters has Superstrength and healing ability, but neither are the crazy stuff like Wolverine and Superman.
Basically, his superstrength is dependent on a number if factors. It’s kinda designed like the immune system of the human body-no response is exactly alike in a given situation. So, for instance, he can be facing and average thug who has a crowbar. Hero gets bashed in by the crowbar, his body responds by increasing his strength so he can basically crush the crowbar.
However, the sideeffect of this is that his healing ability is basically weakened severely, so if he doesn’t end the fight fast enough where his body can “renormalize” (so not a word:) ) he could potentially die from brain damage.
This is also very applicable to the major supervillain, where the two get into a fight and he gets severely burned. Well, that means that his healing ability takes priority for his body and his strength is basically “normal”, which means he can get tossed around like a sack. His healing ability, like the human immune system, can only do so much before it becomes overwhelmed and has to shut down. I that happens, he’s basically “normal” for a while, which means his ass can get killed in a fight with a major baddie.
What this means in totality is that he has to think strategically before barging into a battle, otherwise he could get killed.
My question is, does this make sense, and is it understandable?
If not, I would appreciate other suggestions for weaknesses for the hero.
Yeah, it does. Is it meant to be “if I think I’m dead, I’m dead?”
Strange coincidence – I just read the Runaways series today. If you can cope with the many plot twists and the fact that *spoiler* they seem to like killing off characters, it’s pretty decent.
- Wings
@ Shard
Well…it’s kind of meant to be “If there’s 65 guys with guns in one building and the I (the hero) must take them on, I WILL die if I go head first in” Basically, he can’t be a super healing guy and a superstrength guy at the same time in battle-his body decides which one operates when and how much. He has very little control over it.
He can take a beating and live, but can’t dish it back out Super Strength style.
He can dish it out and live, but can’t heal many of the wounds in battle, which means he has to either A) Win the battle so his body goes back to “Super Normal” which causes Super strength and healing to be there in equal proportion or he can B) Beat the mess out of the baddies but die from the wounds suffered.
If that helps any…which I’m not sure it does.
Klemente is a shapeshifter, and these are his weaknesses:
He must shift into a biological form, and it must be cat-sized or larger. If it is smaller than that, his atomic structure will go crazy. If he shifts into something non-living, he will die (when did you last see a vase with a consciousness? Though they might have one, but they can’t say so without a mouth…) because he no longer functions.
If he shifts into a person, he will adapt their personality depending on how long he is in that form. If he were to take the form of a local priest, he’d be all “peace and love” for a day if he was in that form for an hour.
When transforming back, he gets a little conflicted because he forgets who he is for a minute. “Did I just shift into the shape of a teenager or was I a teenager to start with and shifted into a priest?” If he’s shifting back from dog form, he’d think “I wanna chase my tail!” and run around in circles to find it, when of course, he doesn’t have one. Then again, he’s the least sane of the group. He’d probably say that for the lulz.
I still need an origin story for him. Hmm. What could cause a normal teen to develop shapeshifting powers? I don’t need another alien in the cast, I have two of them, another affected by alien genes, a girl with a radioactive ring… Er, he can consciously manipulate his atoms? Haha. I really need to figure out his origin.
“when did you last see a vase with a consciousness?”
Six words: The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.
“Oh no, not again…”
Just a thought, but you may want to reconsider the one to one rule, since I assume you’re planning it as an on-going story or with planned sequels, and that it is a hard and fast rule. Disregard this if it isn’t, but it seems to me like with a rule like that, you’re inevitably going to be forced to hide or not use the character because when he shifts back, he won’t be useful for a period or his demeanor won’t match the mood of the piece. You could have it depend on the strength of personality as opposed or in addition to duration.
For example, an elderly priest that’s been serving his religion for the past thirty years and extremely set in his ways, could be a dominant force in his personality for the aforementioned day or longer, but a shallow and empty personality like a stereotypical Valley girl could last a few hours to a few minutes, just long enough for him to make a quick comedic statement before moving on.
As it stands, there may come a time the aforementioned gene-altering aliens are back and threatening to make Jeb Bush president or some other apocalyptic scenario, and Klemente needs to pretend to be a high-ranking military man’s young son so he or another team member can hack his laptop, but you’re hesitant to use him because thumb sucking does not suspense make. Of course, you may have already planned for this or there may never be such a situation, but I thought it was worth suggesting.
What are the least used Super powers in comics?
Okay, here’s my brief approach to it;
- Limits to Super-Strength are basically ‘how strong are you?’ There’s a whole dozen leagues of difference between Spider-Man (lifts a few tonnes) and Superman (can extinguish whole solar systems by sneezing), and quite frankly; the ability to lift a car doesn’t necessarily mean you can punch through a wall – and vice-versa. Speed, accuracy and precision are all far more important than actual strength when it comes to dealing damage with one’s fists; it’s how martial arts works. By the way? ‘Can only lift certain materials’ is really, really silly. It’s Silver Age silly.
-Limits to Super-Speed are basically ‘how fast are you?’ There’s a whole dozen leagues of difference between Quicksilver (about the speed of sound) and the Flash (about the speed of light). This is one of the only truly broken powers due to its applications, but if you were to put a significant obstacle in the path of a speedster, you’d likely do a lot of damage as speed does a lot more of the damage than mass when it comes down to it. A pea-sized object hurled at relativistic speeds could severely wreck the earth, but a mile-wide rock would probably just drift into orbit harmlessly if it moved at 1 mph.
-Limits to Invulnerability are basically ‘how durable are you?’ Even Superman will get hurt if you hit him hard enough; Icon proved that one in a recent issue of Justice League. You just need someone strong enough to hit and hurt your character; shooting the hero won’t hurt, but what about ramming the hero with a car going at full speed? Or a plane? How about a tank cannon? Or a grenade launcher? If your hero is immune to bullets, just give your villains bigger bullets.
-Time Travel is what we like to call a plot device, and each usage of time travel should be given its own story. Whether it’s going on a journey into history, going on a journey into the future, or changing the past mistakes, it ought to be given a whole lot of focus and treated as its own sub-plot at the very least. There’s a whole lot that you can explore just by invoking paradox alone.
-Shapeshifting as you’ve described it violates conservation of mass; you could use that as its own restriction, with a note that the hero needs to convert a significant amount of matter (typically oxygen, or maybe stored food) to transform into a larger form, and if he or she uses too much of it – he or she is in danger of suffering brief moments of suffocation or even the effects of starvation. Similarly, shrinking oneself ought to generate significant amounts of waste energy represented as heat. If in doubt, just consult science! It doesn’t need to be perfect – this is superhero stuff after all – but it does provide a ready and useful weakness.
-The one and only limitation for Telepathy that you really need is that it is the mental strength of the wielder versus the mental strength of the person who he or she is trying to read. You also have to be sure that the person is thinking about what you want them to think about; like all psychic powers, limitations are very, very easy to think up.
-As for Telekinesis, which you mentioned afterwards, just add a weight limit, and think about how much finesse your telekinetic has. If he or she can lift a car, but doesn’t have enough finesse to pick a lock, that’s a limitation. Making superpowers work is very, very easy. It just takes a little bit of thought about it.
Also, here’s another area, let’s try consequences;
-Super-Strength; can you do things gently, or are you basically living in a world made of rice paper and porcelain? Does a soft caress on your lover’s cheek implode their whole face under the force of it? Can you safely touch anyone or anything at all without breaking it?
-Super-Speed; what are the side-effects upon your metabolism? Can you eat ordinary portions of food, and how much do you need to eat? Are you resilient enough to actually survive travelling at supersonic speeds, or do you impose a limit upon yourself exactly because travelling at full speed would kill you?
-Invulnerability; your skin is so hard that you can’t even feel the bullets deflect off of it, but can you feel anything at all? Are you completely lacking in tactile senses as a result of nothing being able to penetrate your nerves of steel?
-Time Travel; one of the most uncomfortable things to deal with is a paradox, wherein history cannot have been changed because you wouldn’t know to have gone back and changed it. Also; what happens when you try and change something, but ultimately make everything worse?
-Shapeshifting; how painful *are* the transformation sequences anyway? Do you go through endless torment and agony like your nerves are on fire whenever you change, making you highly resentful or even scared of actually using your powers? Does this pain herald any dangerous side-effects?
-Telepathy; instead of being able to listen in on one person’s thoughts with effort, you hear everyone effortlessly all the time without any ability to drown it out? Useful in a non-crowded room, but immensely painful in a crowded area where you’re given constant and chronic headaches that make you unable to live an ordinary life.
-Telekinesis; is there any level of feedback. Every action produces an equal and opposite reaction; would, say, lifting a tank via telekinesis flatten you as if you were hit by the invisible cartoon anvil? Maybe it just takes a lot of basic mental effort to manage, and one of the long term effects could be permanent brain damage…
A. N. Onymous:
Not exactly. The limits aren’t ‘how ___ are you?’, they’re ‘how _____ can you be before it ruins the story, you become boring, it’s difficult to challenge you, or the readers won’t be able to relate enough to enjoy the story?’ Just had to clarify that.
‘There’s a whole dozen leagues of difference between Spider-Man (lifts a few tonnes) and Superman (can extinguish whole solar systems by sneezing), and quite frankly; the ability to lift a car doesn’t necessarily mean you can punch through a wall – and vice-versa.’
While that may be true in real life, if your character varies like this, it will confuse your reader. The reader wants to know exactly what the character can do, and if the reader doesn’t, he/she will not feel anxious when you lay on the suspense because the reader doesn’t know that this is beyond your character’s level of strength. It’s much more efficient to keep it uniform (even if that’s not quite realistic) than to have it vary all over the place, because the latter would take a good paragraph of straight infodump to explain all the various different surfaces he can or can’t punch through. It also allows more room for contradiction: ‘What? He can’t punch through a wall? But he lifted a semi truck that had to take much more strength than punching through a wall.’ Or even worse, ‘But he punched through a wall in Chapter 2!’
‘Speed, accuracy and precision are all far more important than actual strength when it comes to dealing damage with one’s fists; it’s how martial arts works. By the way?
That’s true, but the strong man has the distinct advantage. And I’m quite clear on how martial arts work, thank you.
‘‘Can only lift certain materials’ is really, really silly. It’s Silver Age silly.’
I was aware of that, but it was to give a feel for the fact that the powers absolutely need to be limited somehow. Powers with a silly limit like that have a better chance of selling than unbridled powers.
‘… but if you were to put a significant obstacle in the path of a speedster, you’d likely do a lot of damage as speed does a lot more of the damage than mass when it comes down to it.’
That’s the only part of your ’speedster’ section that didn’t just reiterate exactly what I said. However, I was focusing on the powers themselves and how to limit them, not what they’re able to do, so I doubt it’d work in the article anyway.
‘You just need someone strong enough to hit and hurt your character; shooting the hero won’t hurt, but what about ramming the hero with a car going at full speed? Or a plane? How about a tank cannon? Or a grenade launcher? If your hero is immune to bullets, just give your villains bigger bullets.’
Or you could just take your hero down a notch? The higher they go on the invincibility scale, the less suspense and ‘need to read the next chapter’ drive there is. Why? The reader just plain isn’t worried about the character.
There’s a very small slice of villains that could obtain a grenade launcher, or worse, a tank. If one were to use the logic you presented, all villains would start looking the same once the options (quickly) ran out, and the fight scenes would most definitely look the same. Tank controlled by Villain A .VS. character. Tank controlled by Villain B .VS. character. Lather, rinse, repeat.
‘Time Travel is what we like to call a plot device, and each usage of time travel should be given its own story.’
However, that’s not how it’s often done. That’s why I included it in this article.
‘There’s a whole lot that you can explore just by invoking paradox alone.’
There are far too many time-paradox stories, including but not limited to Back to the Future and a section of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Both examples off the top of my head are very very popular, and there are far more that are at least well-known. It’s to the point where when time travel is mentioned, there’s an assumed paradox. It’s spoofed in an episode of Futurama, where Fry goes back in time and sleeps with someone he later realizes is his grandma, and it turns out that he’s his own grandpa. A bit of a crude example, but shows such as Futurama tend to make fun of only the most popular tropes.
‘Shapeshifting as you’ve described it violates conservation of mass; …’
Perhaps, but both Mystique and Beast Boy, the two best-known shapeshifters, can shift as I described. While Beast Boy is from Teen Titans and is subjected to much more nonsensical occurrences than this, he turns from a tweety-bird to a tyrannosaurus rex in two seconds flat. Mystique’s is less dramatic, but she as well can turn into people of somewhat varying shapes and sizes. That’s why I didn’t account for ‘conservation of mass’.
‘The one and only limitation for Telepathy that you really need is that it is the mental strength of the wielder versus the mental strength of the person who he or she is trying to read.’
That is assuming the author is using the brawn .vs. brawn approach, such as in Eragon. In my opinion, most humans aren’t used to being mentally probed, so they’d have no way to resist yet. In terms of the B.v.B theory, they haven’t developed those muscles yet, that strength. Unless they’re used to it, they’d be subject to the intruder’s whim. That means that 99.99999% of the population at minimum would be completely and totally open to telepathy. The fact that ‘mental strength’ could keep the telepath out is only a weakness as far as a few people are concerned, and he or she is free to glean plot-ruining information out of just about anyone else.
…
Your points on consequences, which I left out on purpose in my article for space purposes, were very good. You’ve done your research, on this part at least.
Just point out why a superhero who can lift a semi truck has trouble punching the other superhero across the street with a rather clever science-based hero starting off on some rant about Newtonian physics before being cut off as part of a joke. Just have it be pointed out that lifting super-strength is a different style of strength to punching super-strength. Or have a hero point out after a lengthy battle against a bigger, bulkier foe that the greater mass is working against him when it comes to actually dealing physical damage. And then, y’know, win the fight via what TV Tropes would call a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
That’s just bad writing, or failing to point out that a plaster wall breaks far easier than reinforced steel.
I find that the silly limit will just lead the audience to think ‘wait, that’s stupid’ and ask for a refund on their ticket on their way out of the cinema. Also, I find that even the most unbridled and unlimited levels of power work with decent writing. Just from experience as a reader.
Alternatively, there’s always the fact that being practically immune to physical impact doesn’t necessarily equate to being immune to everything. You can always attack an invulnerable hero indirectly; putting them in an airtight container to suffocate them, using gas to poison them, hurling them into the water in an attempt to drown them, using mental effects (I love mentalist villains, it must be said), or even the sorts of direct attacks that their ‘invulnerability’ doesn’t extend to. Someone wearing a full bulletproof jacket will still burn (or suffocate due to lack of oxygen) if you set them on fire.
I really should have pointed out that approach earlier, come to think of it. And there is always the fact that an invulnerable, bulletproof character has friends, family and other such that aren’t necessarily bulletproof themselves. What does a bulletproof heroine do when the villain has a gun held to her boyfriend’s head? (Role reversal is fun!)
Related to that, however, a superhero story has most amount of suspense when it’s not a question of whether the hero’s going to survive, but whether the hero’s going to succeed in saving the bus full of innocent people. Having the hero fail to save a person or fail to defeat a hero on occasion would be quite effective, I think, to give your hero a struggle without putting their life in direct danger. This is actually a bit of a variant on the above ‘indirect attack’. To quote the Green Goblin; ‘Attack his heart!’
You could, however, have pointed it out as a possible limitation. I’m just trying to offer alternatives as much as anything else; even two conflicting pieces of advice can be equally valid depending on context. To be honest, almost anything can work in the right context.
It depends entirely on how the telepathy works. I haven’t read Eragon (well, I tried to; it was terrible), but I can say that telepathy can work via numerous different methods. Perhaps information is something that has to be coaxed out of someone’s mind rather than directly read? And resistance to telepathy is an automatic human reaction to that sudden feeling of mental intrusion?
Thank you.
Ultimately, however, I find that ‘what suits the story’ is a far better goal to aim for than absolute balance. It should always be about the story and characterisation first and foremost; we don’t read Lord of the Rings while wondering if the wizardly powers of Gandalf are overpowering, after all.
‘Alternatively, there’s always the fact that being practically immune to physical impact doesn’t necessarily equate to being immune to everything. You can always attack an invulnerable hero indirectly; putting them in an airtight container to suffocate them, using gas to poison them, hurling them into the water in an attempt to drown them, using mental effects (I love mentalist villains, it must be said), or even the sorts of direct attacks that their ‘invulnerability’ doesn’t extend to. Someone wearing a full bulletproof jacket will still burn (or suffocate due to lack of oxygen) if you set them on fire.’
But how many villains have access to airtight containers strong enough to contain them, poison gas, mental effects, etc.? Admittedly a lot more than could physically damage said hero, but still, that takes a large chunk of potential interesting villains out of the running.
‘Related to that, however, a superhero story has most amount of suspense when it’s not a question of whether the hero’s going to survive, but whether the hero’s going to succeed in saving the bus full of innocent people. Having the hero fail to save a person or fail to defeat a hero on occasion would be quite effective, I think, to give your hero a struggle without putting their life in direct danger. This is actually a bit of a variant on the above ‘indirect attack’. To quote the Green Goblin; ‘Attack his heart!’’ ‘
I’m going to have to disagree. While success in saving innocents and/or loved ones is very high on the suspense scale, ‘will the hero live?’ is always the highest on the suspense scale. No matter what the story or even what format (movie, novel, etc.), it is a near unanimous agreement among published authors and successful screenwriters. Which I wholeheartedly doubt you are, in my subjective opinion.
I am not going to attempt to get into the specifics of this convo but I think that even cliche’ powers CAN be done well if its reinvented into a unique situation. The creativity of the writer will denote how the powers cause the reader to react.
As an avid roleplayer in my youth, I became very aware of how to balance characters. The key to making a hero work is balancing his strengths and weaknesses. As I read above… The heroes can become tiresome if there isnt any real way to defeat them. Characters can become boring if they are using their powers in a stereotypical manner.
In my story, I have a cybernetic genius,a sorceress,and a brutish warrior type under the direction of a recluse anti-hero. Even when my characters do something outstandingly powerful, the repercussions always balance it out adding to the depth of the action. The most powerful characters have the most powerful disadvantages also.
I think , done properly, any power set can be fun and interesting.
@The ReTARDISed Whovian
Your shapeshifter could have been given his power from a dying shaman in the depths of an endless rainforest. The hero goes on a senior trip the rainforest with his biology class. After walking off to find a spot to relieve himself , he could fall into an ancient underground temple where a Shaman shapeshifter is desperately trying to hang on until he can pass his powers onto another.
Your shapeshifter could invoke the essence of whatever biological he needed from the spiritworld and draw it into himself to initiate the change. The reason his mannerisms are effected are because he has the spirit of the form inside of him which affects his psychology. The longer he stays in one form the more chance of the spiritual essence overwhelming him therefore making it difficult to hold on to his true identity…..
I believe the exact term would be “Spiritual Gestalt” which means that upon blending with the spiritual essence a new unique entity is formed from the two parts,namely the hero + the spirit.
Gestalt-: a structure, configuration, or pattern of physical, biological, or psychological phenomena so integrated as to constitute a functional unit with properties not derivable by summation of its parts.
Since shamantic spirit work is worldwide and culturally universal, you can really pick any part of the wold to encounter the shaman.
Thanks CarsonArtist! I’m sorry it took me so long to reply, my homework has been stacked up in front of me at a height that rivals the Empire State Building.
That’s a really good origin, thanks for the help! I’ll have him go to the Amazon or something with Tristram (his other friend, also a superhero) and Atalya (Tristram’s girlfriend, another superhero) as part of their annual school trip. Then a bunch of weird things happen around Tristram on the same day that Klemente gets his powers (the strange things around Tristram signal his own powers waking up).
I could write a really funny scene where Klemente runs screaming through the forest at night after seeing the shaman and runs into Tristram, who also starts screaming because he is tackled to the ground and can’t see what it is in the dark.
Then Atalya shines a light on them both and sighs, seeing that they’re both screaming like little girls and trying to fight the other off with bitch-slaps. That’d put a hole in Tristram’s pride if it was brought up later. Haha.
Then maybe Klemente accidentally shifts into a jaguar and scares the crap out of Atalya and Tristram while he keeps screaming, leading to one of the teachers investigating, who finds all three running around in a panic, swearing and waving their torches around like crazy. Talk about embarrassing. Haha.
I have a superstrong character who is 350 times stronger, sounds incredably strong but if a butilding were to fall he would be in trouble becouse when translated down a skyscraper, I’m using the empire state building in this equation, it would weigh 2,245,384 pounds to him. Even a normal house would be enough to give more than a herniea. 124,000 pounds to 343 pounds