Choose Your Superpower
Doug Liman's upcoming film Jumper is about an ordinary teenager who discovers he has the power to teleport anywhere he wants. With great power comes great responsibility, right? Not so much. Christensen's character decides to rob a bank.
There's something so refreshing about that kind of brutal honesty, isn't there? I mean, "boys will be boys." Tell the truth: If all of a sudden you discovered that you could turn invisible, would you sneak into a few locker rooms before saving the world? Personally, if I could read peoples' minds, I might employ it to negotiate my next car purchase as soon as I'd use it to stop an evil plot. And if I could teleport inside a vault, I would be hard-pressed not to consider reappropriating some discretionary funds.
If you could have a superpower, what would it be? Would you use it for good, like our friendly neighborhood Spider-man, or just go have a blast? Any other fans of flying?
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That my friend is a question I've asked myself many times over the last twenty years of my life. What would I do with super powers. When I was a kid I was a huge fan of the X-Men and Spider-man. I was an outcast and these were my friends so I identified with them. I always admired Nightcrawler because he accepted his lot in life and was ok with it. I wished I could have done that. Unfortunately I would have been more like Wolverine and been a weapon for destruction with animal like instincts. So in all honesty, I would use my powers to gain things like money, power and girls. Alas, I never had an Uncle Ben to give me those special words.
So yes, if I had any super power, I would use it to advance my position in life.
I'm a bad man, a very bad man.
I think that the over-inflated sense of righteousness is the number one failing of comic books. If you think about it, superheroes should be more like professional athletes--totally self-absorbed self-styled masters of their own universe. I don't think it's possible not to abuse superpowers (as the maxim states about absolute power). Garth Ennis is writing a series. The Boys, right now that looks at that very phenomenon. I have to say I've given up on it because it's just too gross and annoying, but the basic idea is that people with superpowers let the power go to their head and get out of control. That's what I think powers would do to any of us, me included.
That said, invisibility would be awesome.
Have you ever seen James Gunn's The Specials? It kind of takes that formula on to. It's actually pretty funny, not his best work, but you have to kind of be a nerd like me to get all the lines in the film.
Any who, I agree, I think if Superman were here he would totally not be the saviour of the planet like he's made out to be. He would totally be pimping it with the ladies and get free crap ala our current celebrity loving world we live in.
Spider-man too. He wouldn't be able to resist the temptations of fame and fortune, especially coming from nothing to his fandom of today. I think Raimi tried to touch on that a little in Spider-man 3, but it got glossed over (like so much else in the film) and pushed to the back.
I guess I don't feel so bad now that I think about it this way.