10 Famous People Who Could Be Superheroes
The sad fact of the matter is that we live in a world where being exposed to radioactivity will kill you rather than allow you to grow 50 feet tall and shoot energy beams from your eyes. But what if we didn’t? What if we lived in the crazy world of comic book superheroes? Who, then, would the heroes of this world be? We could certainly guess, but fortunately we don’t have to. Since comics are always pretty specific about who gets to become a superhero. The signs are there, you just have to put it all together.
Wolf Blitzer
If there’s one thing comics have taught us it’s that superheroes and villains often have names that are both awesome and meaningful. What are the odds that a culture from another planet would name one of their scions “Mar-Vel”? What about John Henry Irons? No, you can’t have a name like Wolf Blitzer and not be an awesome superhero.
Possible Powers: Thankfully mundane people in dimensions inhabited by superheroes are incredibly dense, allowing wolf to masquerade as Lightning Wolf. The Kung-Fu master who created the Lightning Bite technique in the late 60s and early 70s.
January Jones
On the same vein, comics teach us that superhero names also alliterate. Peter Parker, Bruce Banner and Wally West being prime examples. It’s also hard to come up with a cooler name than January Jones, it sounds foxy and intimidating at the same time. Bonus points for looking good in a cape and corset combo.
Possible Powers: In order to get double mileage out of the name (alliteration and theme) I would expect January to exhibit some kind of ice manifestation since January is a chilly month, at least in the northern hemisphere.
Kate Upton
Speaking of looking good in a corset Kate Upton certainly has the sort of body we expect to see squeezed into form-fitting lycra. Why her specifically? Honestly there are a lot of attractive women who could be in this slot; Salma Hayek, Olivia Wilde, Alison Brie, but I figured Kate would get the article more hits on internet search engines. Shameless, I know.
Possible Powers: No idea, but invisibility would be ironic, wouldn’t it?
Bruce Campbell
Speaking of being the right shape for super heroics, Bruce Campbell’s face is clearly meant to have a Flash-style mask, I mean just look at that chin! It already borders on the supernatural. If Bruce Campbell WAS a super hero the chin would get its own origin story.
Possible Powers: I think it would be difficult to argue for anything other than the standard super-strength/invulnerability/flight combo.
Sarah Palin
Superman pretends to be Clark Kent by changing his mannerisms and posture to an extreme degree. But it’s still not quite as extreme as Sarah Palin. Can’t you picture it? Alaskan Vigilante, Grizzlymom spends most of her time fending off fangly vampire attacks and Russian robot incursions. She’s even become governor to keep better track of those threats, when suddenly BAM! She gets tapped for the vice-presidency! If she shows the country how capable she actually is her cover will be immediately blown! Time to put on a weird persona and a crazy accent! It’s the only way to get that pesky Katy Couric off your scent.
Possible Powers: Guns. That’s totally a power, ask the 90s.
Sir Richard Branson
If Iron Fist, Iron Man, Batman and Green Arrow have taught us anything it’s that money is perhaps the greatest superpower. Especially when that money is in the hands of an eccentric man. Surely if we lived in a world with super-villainous threats Sir Richard would spend less time trying to carve up the cellular telephony market and more time building lasers.
Possible Powers: Whatever he wants, you can build any power into an exo-suit.
Stephen Hawking
The genius with a physical disability trope is fairly common in fiction. And usually neither aspect is as extreme as what Stephen Hawking’s got going on.
Possible Powers: Astral Projection maybe? Cosmic awareness? How else would he know so much about the universe? Someone needs to take lessons from Sarah Palin about keeping their identity a secret.
T-Pain
Ok, I’m not even joking about this one. You guys are aware that T-Pain actually IS a robot, right? He was built by Sir Richard Branson to popularize the term “Shorty” which Sir Richard finds to be “Quite ripping”.
Possible Powers: The ability to get machines to take their clothes off.
Seal
Are you aware that Seal’s name is actually Seal? I always thought it was a stage name. This is another great example of name determinism. Seal is a very unusual looking guy with an unusual name. in superhero world he would likely not have a secret identity at all.
Possible Powers: Can’t decide if he’d be some sort of man-selkie or if he’d have some sort of epoxy power.
Johnny Knoxville
Superheroes often get their powers accidentally, and the guys from Jackass are always having accidents on purpose. It’s not hard to imagine a world in which Johnny tries a stunt involving toxic waste, a recently fallen meteorite or a clearly supernatural rabid wolf. Bonus points if the same accident causes Bam Marguera to gain superpowers turning him into a supervillain for Johnny to fight.
Possible Powers: Probably something having to do with stapling things to his groin.
So there you have it, the signs are clearly there. Although now that I think of it, maybe the world would be doomed if this was the case. These ten would make a heck of a crime fighting league though, wouldn’t they?
Agreed on Hawking. There must be some voodoo magic behind him.
I like how your banner for this article doesn’t include any of the people mentioned in it but still features a girl so hot I couldn’t help but follow the link. LOL
Marketing Win!
Oh goodness, i hope you’re talking about a different banner image than the one i’m seeing
I’m talking about the picture of Sarah Jean Underwood (if I am recognizing her correctly) on the rotating banner at the very top of the site, not the main pic for the article itself.
Oh, haha! That makes sense! I didn’t see that pic til after I posted, so I wasn’t sure if you were trolling or what.
You should see the RSS feed
I always thought that Stephen Hawking is more-or-less a vegetable who is just the human “face” of the most brilliant wheelchair A.I. ever, probably created by his wife. The whole voice thing is a dead giveaway, no?
So…superhero-wise, Mrs. Hawking is like Hank Pym and Stephen Hawking’s wheelchair is…um, Ultron? Uh-oh.
Sara Palin, brilliant.
You forgot the trope about the hero who dies a tragic death and whose demise changes the world for the better but then gets replaced by robot version, clone version, unpowered imitator in a costume version, etc. and then comes back from the dead. So in that regard, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King should be super heroes also.
Silly Oldcomicfan. Lincoln is obviously a supervillain. He made several speeches supporting white supremacy, after all.
Not even lying.
JFK came back from the dead? Man, that’s what I get for getting my news from the Daily Show.
It’s their liberal bias, ruining everything…
Thats why we have Sarah Palin, to take out her arch nemesis the
Iiberal media!
Surely Palin is a superVILLIAN?
It would be a WAY better cover for her to be a hero… I mean, who would suspect THAT! Bruce Wayne is a spoiled playboy that spends his time dunk or “canoodling” or both… that guy runs away when trouble shows up…
Um, Bruce Campbell already is a superhero. His power is sheer awesomeness.
Enough with the silly Sarah Palin “Derangement Syndrome”, already. She has proven to be a real life superheroine by standing up to Liberals who unapologetically call her vile things everything under the sun, when other mere weaker mortals would have crawled back in hiding, overdose on drugs to make them feel better, senseless binge drinking like college frat party brats, or succumbed to other peer pressures like suicide(like many celebs have done overthe years, yet idiots still look up to them like “positive role models”). “Strange persona?” You gotta be kidding. Many of the other choices here have much stranger personas(Knoxville, Hawking, Branson) or don’t have one at all(i.e. T-Pain, Upton), but are given a free pass. Sarah Palin is a very tough modern day woman who can take the cruel vocal and graphic punishments of the Lamestream Big Media, Big Hollyweird, Left Wing Comic Book Industry, Kool-Aid drinking “progressive liberals” etc. It takes a very brave woman to be able to handle the everyday Left Wing Hate Speech thrashing she receives and can still stand up tall, loud and proud. Strong moral compass and willpower. Now that is a super power that is beyond guns. She would be more in class like a Captain America(without the Super Steroid Serum, of course): no superhuman enhanced powers, peak of excellent physical condition, patriotism, can handle military weapons, self-defense hand-to-hand combat, natural born leadership, moral compass, strong willpower, positive self-confidence, strong sense of true patriotism(not afraid of “jingoism” or the Poltically Correct Police). Batman and The Punisher are extremist vigilantes who get in trouble with the police. Palin doesn’t clash with the police(taunt and call them pigs, spit on or harass thier families), trash public parks, disrupt capitalist businesses(taunt and harass banks and restaurants), illegallly hack into businesses, public websites, or govt sites, break into and loot places of business, urinate or deficate like a child on public property, burn or stomp on the US flag, or protest the US military troops (call them names like baby-killers, “Military Industrial Complex stooges”, etc), put unlawful bounties on opposition or call for unlawful violent civil disobedience or riots. FACT: Left Wingers do the majority of all that and more.
God, that was funny… someone has a cruuuUUUUuuuush….
One of her powers is mind control over guys with GED’s.
This is the best thing I’ve read all day.
I’m going to put “does not urinate or deficate like a child on public property” on my resume in the Strengths column from now on. I didn’t know that was a desired skill set.
While I disagree with possibly every single thing you said, Wil, I support your right to say it. Likewise, I support Rodrigo.
“Your Mileage May Vary” = Freedom of Speech
At least she was presented as a tongue-in-cheek superhero and not some Dr. Doom style villain.
January Jones would be the frustrated underappreciated girlfriend/sidekick of Calendar Man, that Batman would seduce to get out of a death trap. Day would find out and try to kill her and her blond, 6 year old daughter in their crappy Gotham apartment, but then Batman would save her and get her a job in a Wayne Industries office in the suburbs of Keystone City. She would move there, wear her hair back out of her face, dress like a librarian and start calling herself Jan.