[[{“value”:”
Marvel has some heavy hitters in its character roster, with everyone knowing the sheer power of heroes like Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, and Thor, as well as the immense threat of Marvel villains like Doctor Doom, Sabretooth, and Galactus. However, not every character in Marvel’s comics can be powerful and formidable, with quite a few being pretty weak, especially compared to some of their peers.
Likewise, there are Marvel characters who have powers that are so useless that they honestly would not be worse off without their powers. In fact, some would actually be better off without their powers, like ForgetMeNot and Bailey Hoskins. Many of the characters who have pretty useless powers come from the X-Men franchise, where their mutations are not the most helpful or even somewhat useful.
Debuted in X-Men: Legacy #300 by Christos Gage, Mike Carey, Simon Spurrier, Rafa Sandoval, Steve Kurth, Tan Eng Huat, Jordi Tarragona, Craig Yeung, Allen Martinez, Ulises Arreola, Rachelle Rosenberg, José Villarrubia, and Cory Petit
Possessing the power of being unmemorable, there are not many occasions for ForgetMeNot to shine – not that anyone would remember if he did. Maybe, as a spy or a bank robber, ForgetMeNot would have been able to benefit from his ability to be undetectable by telepathy or technology as well as being completely unable to be memorized. Even acting as a Robin Hood kind of figure would have made ForgetMeNot’s powers come to good use.
However, this kind of noble escapade is not in the cards for the forgettable X-Men member, as he is perennially overlooked and unnoticed by his teammates and just about anyone else that ever comes into contact with him. Regardless, Forget Me Not, whose real name is Xabi (his last name is unsurprisingly unknown), is too heroic and altruistic to care about being constantly forgotten as long as he is doing something that matters.
7
Beak
Debuted in New X-Men #117 by Grant Morrison, Ethan Van Sciver, Prentis Rollins, Hi-Fi, Saida Temofonte, and Richard Starkings
Beak is a mutant who is basically a humanoid bird. Like a bird, he has light, hollow bones, which are what make birds able to fly. However, unlike birds, Beak can barely fly; he can only take flight for very short distances and with an insane amount of effort. Given his disappointing powers, Beak has even been called a “bird with a baseball bat” – but to be fair, he does indeed carry a titanium baseball bat, so he at least gets some power from his weapon. Despite his mutant abilities, Beak genuinely believes that his only real superpower is that he is good at making friends.
It would be easy to assume that having the qualities of a bird would have a plethora of benefits. In contrast, Beak proves the opposite to be true. However, Beak’s talons on his hands and feet are very strong and could easily do damage to an enemy, so Beak’s otherwise pretty underwhelming powers have some use, especially in battle if nowhere else.
6
The Wall
Debuted In Spidey Super Stories #8 by Jean Thomas, Win Mortimer, and Mike Esposito
The villain Joshua Waldemeyer, otherwise known as the Wall, became a literal living wall after there was an explosive accident at his job as a brick mason. Instead of dying by having a wall crumble on top of him, he instead becomes an actual wall. “If a man can take on spider characteristics, then it makes perfect sense that someone can become a wall” is the thinking process that was likely going on during the creation of Joshua Waldemeyer. Regardless, the Wall uses his newfound powers to cause chaos around New York City, and he even knocks out an umpire at a Mets game.
Spider-Man just so happens to be at the game, so he interrupts his time off to stop the Wall. When Spider-Man’s actual extraordinary powers are fruitless against the brick wall of a man before him, the umpire comes to life and demands that the non-players – the Wall and Spider-Man – get off the field. The Wall and Spider-Man then have a conversation, and Spider-Man convinces the Wall to give up his villainous ways. One wonders if giving Hobgoblin a talking-to would turn him around, too.
5
Dirk Anger
Debuted in Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. #1 by Warren Ellis, Stuart Immonen, Wade Von Grawbadger, Dave McCaig, and Chris Eliopoulos
Dirk Anger lives up to his last name, as he is a curmudgeonly man who has been noted to be sadistic as well as a whole other slew of undesirable characteristics. One would think that someone who is negative and just all around crummy to be around would have to have some formidable powers to be tolerated, but that assumption would be wrong. Dirk Anger’s power is that he ages very slowly and, as a result, is over 90 years old thanks to a formula he takes from the Highest Anti-Terrorist Effort (H.A.T.E) organization, of which he is the director.
The creators of the Nextwave series, of which Dirk Anger is a main character, originally wanted to use Nick Fury in the series, but were restricted from doing so by Marvel, so they created this character instead.
On top of already possessing a not-too-impressive power, Dirk Anger also has countless weaknesses, which make his already pretty useless power of aging slowly even more inconsequential or unhelpful. He is also a complete ticking time bomb, regularly playing Russian Roulette with a loaded gun. Not exactly immortal, but not exactly dying fast, Dirk Anger’s main purpose is to be a character one loves to hate.
4
Eye-Scream
Debuted in Obnoxio the Clown #1 by Alan Kupperberg
Eye-Scream has the superpower of being able to turn himself into any flavor of ice cream. He can even turn himself into a banana split flavor. Honestly, while that might not be the most threatening or powerful ability, it sounds like a blast (and tasty). Being able to turn into any ice cream flavor would be useful for helping people who are hungry or for calming down temper-tantrum-throwing children, but there are not too many other uses for a mutant who can produce ice cream, especially in battle.
While Eye-Scream’s power may seem unique, he is not the only Marvel character to have ice-cream-centered powers, with the character Soft Serve having the ability to transform her own poop into soft serve ice cream.
If one goes up against the likes of a Wolverine or a Magneto-type opponent and comes to the fight with only the ability to transforme themselves into a flavor of ice cream, it would be a no-brainer as to who the victor would be. One thing that came out of Eye-Scream’s frosty powers is that he gave free ice cream to the kids of Milford when the town was attacked. Despite his strange powers that seem like a one-off joke, Eye-Scream did appear – briefly – during the X-Men’s Krakoa era.
3
Bailey Hoskins
Debuted in X-Men: Worst X-Man Ever #1 by Max Bemis, Michael Walsh, Ruth Redmond, and Clayton Cowles
With one of the most absolutely useless powers ever, Bailey Hoskins is one unlucky superhero thanks to his atrocious power – if it can even be called a power instead of a lethal threat to himself. Baily Hoskins has the power of self-detonation, which he can only use once, since self-detonation literally means blowing himself up into smithereens. Given that power, of course he wouldn’t be around to self-detonate a second time. Any power that can only be used once in a lifetime is already pretty bad, and Bailey is off to a less-than-great start.
To add to Bailey’s bad luck, the power being painful and guaranteeing death just makes it all the more useless as well as incredibly dumb and pointless. If he had the power of self-regeneration, like Deadpool, or even a healing factor like fellow X-Man Wolverine, his self-detonation power would not be that bad. It’d be like having a grenade at all times that he could recover from time and again. However, he does not possess the ability to regenerate, so his powers are, all in all, awful.
2
Longneck
Debuted in New X-Men #140 by Grant Morrison, Phil Jimenez, Andy Lanning, Chris Chuckry, and Chris Eliopoulos
Longneck, given the birth name of William Hanover, has the super-astounding, all-impressive superpower of… having a neck that’s slightly longer than normal. What an astounding power for a mutant to have! His turtleneck collection must be stacked.
Being a student at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, Longneck accompanied the X-Men on their missions, with him helping Cyclops against Xorn on one such mission. Longneck’s immense superpower was then taken from him during the events of M-Day, when he was depowered along with other mutants. Oh no, what a loss for him to no longer have a slightly long neck! For a mutant to have the power of having a slightly long neck, it seems like the well of inspiration was maybe a tad bit low – even for the superstar team of Morrison and Jimenez – when coming up with this new mutant character.
1
John Zander
Debuted in District X #2 by David Hine, David Yardin, Alejandro D. Sicat, Andy Troy, Rob Steen, and Richard Starkings
It is not at all uncommon for X-Men characters to be blue, like the teleporting Nightcrawler, the ferociously strong Beast, or the shapeshifting Mystique. In addition to being blue, Beast, Nightcrawler, and Mystique have actual powers that are incredibly useful and have made them super helpful in any team they serve or are a part of. In contrast, being blue does not always denote a powerful mutant. Case in point is John Zander, whose sole ability is being the color blue. That’s it, he’s just blue.
O.N.E. has denoted John Zander, who also goes by the name Jazz, as a low-level threat, which is a surprise to absolutely no one. His blueness serves no real purpose or use whatsoever. He really does not even have any other skills in addition to being blue, like superintelligence or strength. Rather, the only other thing this useless Marvel character can do is rap – and even at that, he’s incredibly mediocre.
“}]] Marvel’s most useless powers… Read More