There are those who rail against the existence of Kryptonite, claiming that it’s a cop-out to have Superman be vulnerable to the radiation of his long-lost home planet, but when it comes to superheroic weaknesses, the Man Of Steel’s is practically poetic. If you compare the Golden Age Green Lantern (can destroy a city with his thoughts, but powerless against a kid with a Louisville Slugger) or the madness that is Wonder Woman’s Golden Age limitation (rendered powerless whenever tied up by a man), it’s easy to see that Supes has it easy, which does beg a rather interesting query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) reminds you that the most powerful hero in the DC Universe can be felled by a kid with a Zippo, asking: What’s the most ridiculous superhero weakness of all?
31 Comments
Alan Scott’s vulnerability to wood. A villain can pick up a stick, sneak up behind him and hit him over the head.
This is my pick too. Although Water to the Wicked Witch is also pretty ludicrous. Maybe those aliens in Signs were from the Land of Oz!
Must be Terence Hill in Super Snooper. He looses his powers when he sees the colour red.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VClG-jJyrpM
Weird. I always knew this movie as Superfuzz. I wonder why the different names?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngvYJtpXkM4
Sometimes the same movie can have multiple names depending on the country (or even between theater and video or TV releases) it is released in because of various reasons. It isn’t just a translation thing either because there are several movies released in other English speaking countries with different names.
The reasons for the name changes don’t always make sense, either.
He changed his name for Tax purposes
I would say it is a tie between Green Lanterns, Either Wood as you said or the color yellow.
Both are pretty bad like you could smash through a mountain but get taken out by a yield sign is pretty lame.
Before the retcons, I used to really be bugged by the Green Lantern Corps having a yellow impurity weakness considering yellow is one of the colors that makes green. The 24 hour charge of the ring was also pretty frustrating to accept.
I was also a little perplexed by Alan Scott’s vulnerability to wood.
They still bug me now, but I’ve at least come up with a few plausible loopholes that make them seem less ridiculous to me.
Since everyone’s weighing in on the GL weaknesses (I agree!), I’ll go with the Daxamite vulnerability to LEAD. There’s none on Daxam? Really?
Are Daxamites and Kryptonians still affected by their weaknesses when under red suns?
I think Daxamites are, but I cannot recall if that was an in-continuity fact or just something I read as speculation.
They are affected by that under the red sun.
Wasn’t Slapstick’s, from New Warriors, weakness being turned into a puddle by electricity, and then being returned from being a puddle by electricity?
Vampires, with the sun.
I mean, when you think about it, really?
They disintegrate under sunlight? Burst into flames? It’s just.. kinda stupid. That and their weakness to crosses.
Do they burn when in contact with other religious symbols as well?
(ugh. it just hit me that the question specified superhero weaknesses. er. what vampire supheroes are there that still have serious sunlight weaknesses?)
Morbius had the sunlight weakness for a while at least.
Looker from The Outsiders was a vampire, as well…
But the bursting into flames has not always been a thing. Dracula just lost his abilities in the Sunlight.
Spider-man (Peter Parker) and his morals.I mean you have villains like Venom, Sandman, Doc Oc, and Massacre that are not your general crooks but actually do damage to the city and hurt people, yet Spider-man beats them up nicely and will just web them up for the police to deal with. He could get rid of some of these villains by taking action himself. just saying. Doc Ocs Spider-man is actually better in my opinion (morally speaking, I still prefer PP as the Spider-man)
How about Daredevil?
With his supersenses, the sound and noise pollution of a high school cafeteria would slay him outright….
Or Captain Planet? The anti-pollution hero who weakness is….pollution…
I feel like a daredevil villain or one of the other heroes used his hypersensitivity to sound to render his useless, recently
There was Power Girl’s vulnerability to unprocessed materials. Bullet? No problem. A sharpened rock? run & hide.
I’d have to go with the Green Lantern’s vulnerability to the color yellow. I mean, really? Even if you were to accept the retconned notion that the weakness was due to an impurity in the original master battery lantern, whoever came up with the notion didn’t understand the color spectrum. Green is made up of Yellow and Blue. If the color yellow negated the power rings, then shouldn’t they all be either powerless, or Blue Lanterns???
It was described as a “necessary impurity” in the ring’s makeup. Yellow is necessary to makr green. Perfect sense.
Not to mention that the rings therefore should have very little power against anything orange, brown, tan or green or blue green since those all have yellow in them, too.
Does USAgent count as a superhero? If he does, “lack of common sense”.
The Martian Manhunter’s vulnerability to fire.
Makes you wonder how civilization ever got started on Mars
they just never got around to creating fire, also Mars has less…or no oxygen so fire would be impossible to make there anyway since it requires oxygen to burn.
I’m tired of Wonder Woman greatest weakness. Movie Producers.
Mystery Men – Invisible Boy – he can turn himself completely invisible… so long as he is naked and no one is looking…. cause, yeah, that’s helpful.