6. Shamrock's Superpower Is Being Every Irish Stereotype
When it comes to superheroes, one of the many, many nationalities that is criminally underrepresented is the Irish. There was X-Man Banshee, whose phonetically-rendered accent we were mercifully rid of when he got killed off a few years ago. Aaaaaand that's it, for the most part. We say "for the most part" because we don't want to think too much about Shamrock. It makes our head hurt. Because Shamrock is the result of somebody whose knowledge of the country stretches as far as the "authentic Irish pubbe" they once visited whilst they were on holiday in Malta. From the off, her name is Shamrock. That's a good starting point, and it gets a whole lot worse from there. You see, Molly Fitzgerald has a rather unique superpower: she is phenomenally lucky. A bit like the Black Cat from Spider-Man, except Felicia Hardy's powers are rooted in the supernatural superstitions surrounding her animal namesake, not from the stereotypical "Luck O' The Irish!" And where did Shamrock get these magical abilities, you might ask? From the ghosts of people her militant IRA father killed, of course! Also she had big ginger hair. And her costume is different shades of green with a four-leaf clover in the centre. We suppose we're just glad that there was never any whisky or potatoes involved in the character, but that was probably more down to her being incredibly unpopular than any good sense on the part of the creative teams. In fact nobody could think of what to do with this horribly racist character, to the point that after only a handful of appearances she retired from being a superhero to be a hairdresser. You read that right. She was so racist, they couldn't kill her off, just had her quietly abstain from her duties and cut hair instead.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
