10 Things Everyone Always Gets Wrong About The X-Men
9. Supposedly Useless Powers
Within every group of super-powered beings there's going to be those that awe fans with impressive displays of raw power, i.e. Storm or Havok. But for every hero wielding energies far beyond the normal power spectrum there will be those whose powers are seemingly useless. Many fans sprawled across the wide sea of the internet have been extremely critical of certain X-Men. But is this judgment fair? Not really.
Instead, it's but another example of one thing everyone tends to get wrong. A favorite example of a mutant who gets no respect is Dazzler. Being able to convert sound into light may not sound too cool but if you put some serious thought into it you'll understand why it's anything but useless. Not only is Alison Blaire able to absorb sound to create light but in doing so is able to create a field of complete silence. In what world is stealth useless? And as far as light goes, those who write that such powers are weak obviously have no knowledge of how the visual system works. It takes only a single flash of the harshest intensity to blind a victim. Photon particles can also be hardened into lasers which Dazzler once used to blow off part of Psylocke's face. Useless, huh?
Another young mutant with powers similar only in appearance to Dazzler's is Jubilee. While many presume that shooting fireworks is a useless power they 1) have obviously never had a firework go off in their face and 2) honestly don't know how Jubilee's powers actually work. She fires energy plasmoids that have the potential to be used on a sub-atomic level. Not sure about you, but that's something we'd rather avoid. The girls aren't the only ones to come under scrutiny. Cypher is a classic example of powers that are seemingly useless. With the ability to basically learn and speak in any language it's obvious that such a skill would do nothing in physical combat.
However, who says that a superhero's abilities must always be physical? Part of what makes Batman so great are his detective skills while other more subtle powers such as telepathy definitely come in handy. Being able to communicate with any person, any species, and even with computers through binary code is far from useless. So while we may be quick to judge a character's powers we mustn't forget that no power is truly useless. Well, except for lesser known characters like Jazz whose power is... being blue...