10 Heroically Terrible Superpowers Writers Should Feel Embarrassed They Invented

5. Squirrel Girl

Doreen Green has been an industry-wide in-joke for nearly two decades. She wasn't intended as a joke when she was created - it's just that writer Will Murray wanted a break from the (sometimes) super-serious X-Men and hark back to the era of when comics were fun, like 3-D Man - hard to believe though that might be. Squirrel Girl has the power to communicate with squirrels, and that's...pretty much it. She's the Horse Whisperer as a superhero, except with the ability to communicate with much less impressive animals. That said, she did manage to best Doctor Doom in her first appearance. Squirrel Girl isn't the first superhero whose powers have centred on being able to talk to the animals, learn all their languages, maybe take an animal degree (ahem) but she's certainly the least impressive. Ant Man's mates might have been smaller, but there were more of them, plus his various incarnations have tended to be super-smart people who can put that helmet - and his ability to shrink - to good use. Aquaman's pretty much a joke character for other reasons, but he can still drop a killer whale on you (note: Marvel vs DC came out wayyy before Blackfish, so calm it). Meanwhile, Doreen Green's mutant abilities stretch just to talking to squirrels, including her sidekick Monkey Joe - who is a squirrel, despite his name - which is probably why she has only ever appeared since in...somewhat mocking tones. Consigned to the same fate that befell Arm-Fall-Off-Boy, Squirrel Girl has been a member of the Great Lakes Avengers (notable in that all of them have terrible powers), appeared briefly in a Marvel Zombies series, and most recently joined the actual Avengers as sitter to Luke Cage and Jessica Jones' baby. I don't really begrudge Will Murray's wanting to make comics more innocent and fun again, especially in the gritty 90s, but do you know who should've known better? Co-creator Steve Ditko. The guy who made Spider-Man who he is today. To be honest, his ongoing seclusion could just as easily be for squirrel-based reasons as objectivist ones.