Once you’ve worked your way through all the “normal” superhero identities, it becomes an increasingly more difficult task to conjure up a character who feels, well, original. Nowadays, you could be forgiven for thinking that all the good superhero ideas have been taken up, so you can’t exactly blame the writers who had to go down another road to spark their creativity. And that road just so happens to be one paved with bricks made out of insanity.
Sure, a whole host of naff, forgettable superheroes have emerged over the course of time, though none of them are quite so as unbelievably ridiculous as the bizarre creations we’ve assembled for inclusion on this list – all of whom were presumably created in less than hour after a week-long binge on radioactive vodka.
10. Squirrel Girl
For all intents and purposes, Squirrel Girl was created to bring a sense of fun and goofiness back to Marvel comics, which at the time had gone all boring and broody. Unfortunately for Doreen Green (Squirrel Girl’s real name), she was given the preposterous ability to actually control squirrels. Laugh if you will, but on several occassions Squirrel Girl has managed to utilise her powers to defeat super-villains, including one Dr. Doom. If you think that’s dumb, well… you’re right, it is. But not as dumb as the way it happens, which took place during her first ever comic book appearance.
After ambushing Iron Man and suggesting they team-up, he completely freaks out and declines. When he’s suddenly captured by Dr. Doom, Squirrel Girl calls in an army of, yes, squirrels, who attack his ship and chew the power cables. The day is saved and Iron Man gains a newfound respect for Squirrel Girls. Not really: he goes off and promises he’ll “put in a good word with the Avengers,” which we can only assume is a filthy lie. Oh, and she also has a pet squirrel called Monkey Joe, ’cause why wouldn’t she?
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8 Comments
Bouncing Boy’s powers may be a joke but he has a dream wife (for an imaginary comic book character). His wife is Triplicate Girl and her power is to split into three identical copies of herself. So essentially he gets to have sex with triplicates every night.
I think you missed the point of Ambush Bug, which may have started out as a legitimate DC “hero” but quickly grew into the role of parodying everything about DC and comics in general. His mini-series (two of them) and one-shots from the 80s are great examples of comic book comedy and stand up even today (and with all the news about Jimmy Kimmel and Matt Damon going on right now, I’m here to say Ambush Bug did that gag first with Darkseid appearing at the end of every issue of his first mini-series with a promise of a battle that never happened).
I agree wholeheartedly. The mere presence of Ambush Bug on this list shows that the brilliant point of the character went completely over this author’s head. This author probably has the same complaints about Keith Giffen’s JLI. Ambush Bug, especially the first miniseries, is some of the best comedic writing ever published.
I love Maggott.
I RPed as him on an X-Men Movieverse site way back when X3 came out. His power was very interesting, but the writers never really did anything with it.
At first I thought Maggott was pretty dumb, but the more I read up on him the more I liked him.
Now Beak was the most ridiculous superhero I had ever seen, I’d have to say that he is probably one of the few Marvel mutants that greatly benefited from getting depowered.
Haha this article made me laugh, can’t believe some of these even got made!
What about Jazz? I mean, he wasn’t technically a superhero, or a supervillain for that matter, but he was “powered” nonetheless, in as much as being blue is a superpower.
Color Kid was actually more powerful than you think. And did deserve better than this list. While your mommies were still playing with their easy bake ovens, Color Kid was introduced in Adventure comics during the Legion trials when a kryptonite cloud had surrounded 31st century Earth and would take decades to dissipate. In order to let Superboy and Supergirl remain members he changed the color of the green k into blue k which made it inert to them. Later, when Keith Giffen was looking to joke up the Legion of Subs, Color Kid was one of those foils. What he and others did not want to explain was that Color Kid affected more than the color spectrum, he adjusted the wavelength of radiation at the atomic level. Hence the radiation frequency of green k could be neutralized by him. And consider this, we see what is around us because we see certain frequencies that generate what we say is a specific color. That is why despite a color blind person seeing red as green, doesn’t alter the fact that the object they see is colored with a hue that is at that frequency. Color Kid in theory could block all color from reaching the eyes of a foe, creating literal black out, or overload and generate an inescapable white out. And while he could not increase the energy output of a yellow sun, he could alter the radiation frequency of the light to blue to supercharge a Kryptonian or red to drain their powers. So I spit at Keith Giffen for his depiction, and laud the late Dave Cockrum who did render a decent version of Color Kid who honored this more powerful than written substitute.