Top 10 Comic Characters With The Weirdest Powers
For this list, we'll be looking at characters whose powers aren't as straightforward or obviously useful as flight or super strength.
#10: Snowflame
Popeye had spinach; this character had something a little less wholesome. Created by Steve Englehard and Cary Bates, Snowflame is a villain encountered by the New Guardians in Colombia. He gains his powers when he consumes cocaine. Yep, this dude is a cocaine-fueled supervillain. The white powder grants him several abilities including super strength, super speed, pain immunity, and pyrokinesis. He’s also armed with a very literal contact high. One touch from him was enough to make New Guardian member the Floronic Man high; he’s like the King Midas of illicit drugs!
#9: Doom Patrol
Otherwise known as the World’s Strangest Heroes, this team could be described as a collection of characters with unconventional powers. The gang of misfits originally consisted of The Chief, a super genius; Elasti-Girl, a very stretchy lady; Negative Man, who can generate explosions with energy and matter; and Robotman, the brain of a man in the body of a robot. Though the original ongoing series was canceled in 1968, the team has been revived several times, always featuring a cast with some of the strangest powers in comics. Later members include Beast Boy, Celsius, Negative woman, Coagula, and Danny the Street - who is literally a sentient street.
#8: Shazam
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This classic hero has a pretty typical set of powers, often compared to those of Superman. He’s blessed super strength, super speed, super stamina, flight and so forth. What earns Shazam a spot on our list, however, is his transformation from civilian identity to superhero. His alter ego is a young boy named Billy Batson, who can utter the magical phrase ‘Shazam’ to turn into an adult superhero. “SHAZAM” is an acronym for Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury. Confusion over the character’s original name, Captain Marvel, led DC to officially change the character’s name to Shazam in 2011.
#7: Big Bertha
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This Marvel character, created by John Byrne, has the mutant ability to alter her body mass at will. And apparently becoming morbidly obese on a whim also makes her bulletproof because… you know what? The science behind this ability is pretty flimsy. When not fighting crime and alien invasions, Bertha goes by the name Ashley Crawford and is actually a well-known fashion model from Wisconsin. When she’s done being bulletproof, she just… throws up to become skinny again. Yes, that’s right, Big Bertha is a bulimic super hero.
#6: Squirrel Girl
If you’re ever looking to recover a pile of nuts that you buried somewhere, this is the hero to talk to. Marvel’s Squirrel Girl has the enviable ability to telepathically communicate with squirrels. She also has a prehensile tail, sharp claws, and enhanced senses, and squirrel-like agility. Over the years, she has used her mutant abilities to defeat some of Marvel’s greatest villains. The many foes who have fallen before her include Doctor Doom, Deadpool, and even the mad titan Thanos.
#5: Maggott
Most people have guts, a stomach, and some intestines inside them. It’s all there to perform the relatively complex process of transforming food into energy. The Marvel Mutant Maggott is different. This South African one-time X-Men has two giant slugs living inside his empty torso cavity. They spring out of him, much to the dismay of everyone nearby, and can consume anything with their super-powered digestive enzymes. Then they transfer the nutrients they gained back to Maggott, giving him powers for some reason. The slugs are named Eany and Meany, but we prefer to call them both “disgusting.”
#4: Ten-Eyed Man
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Philip Reardon was a Vietnam vet turned security guard who mistakenly fought Batman the night of burglary, losing his eyesight when the warehouse he was working at exploded. He was given back his eye-sight by Dr. Engstrom, but there was a catch. Because in the comics… there’s always a catch. Instead of just being able to see out of his eyes (you know, those organs made for seeing) he was granted the ability to see out of his fingers. This gave him the power of 360-degree sight and periscopic vision. It also made it uncomfortable for him to scratch certain itches. Having finger-vision also makes him a great marksman.
#3: Matter-Eater Lad
Hungry, but got no food? Such a conundrum would be no problem if you had the same superpowers as Tenzil Kem. This DC hero is an alien from the planet Bismoll who possesses the power to bite through and consume any type of matter in the universe. He and his race developed this ability when the food on their home planet became inedible. To fix this conundrum, they evolved to eat things that weren’t food. Odd though they might be, M-E Lad’s powers came in handy when he ate the Miracle Machine; a superweapon previously thought to be indestructible.
#2: Arm-Fall-Off Boy
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As kids, we all dreamt of superpowers like flight, invincibility or laser, but few among us ever considered the possibility of detachable arms. How naïve we were! Floyd Belkin first appeared in 1989 in the pages Secret Origins. His special ability is that his arms fall off and he can use them as clubs to hit people. We guess that’s useful? One of his origin stories suggests that his powers come from working out too much, another indicates it was from an accident involving Element 152. Either way, this has to be one of the most useless powers we’ve heard of.
#1: Eye-Scream
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I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream. This X-Men villain puts 31 flavors to shame. Not only can he transform himself into ice cream – probably a useful ability if you’re fighting children – but he can become any flavor he wants. Eye-Scream felt jealous and inadequate when compared to the X-Men and their actual superpowers, so he decided he would attack them. Maybe he wanted to give them all brain freezes and then gross them out by revealing which part of him they were eating. Either way, he wasn’t very successful. We’re hoping he makes a return in an upcoming X-Men Movie. Not.
