Welcome back, nerd squad.
Today we’ll be taking some of the more ridiculous mutants that exist and some of their wacky
super powers.
After all not all mutant’s can be a-listers or omega-level.
Some mutants have to be the ones that help to contrast the big guns, almost the civilians
of the mutant world really but also sometimes those mutants who are underestimated until
their powers reveal themselves to be remarkably useful under very specific circumstances.
Then again some mutants are also considered to be wacky due to the fact that they are
just ridiculously OP, and as such are avoided by writers who deem their powers too powerful
to make sense of in regards to storytelling.
Today we’ll be taking a closer look at some of these mutants as we countdown the top 10
mutant powers no one understands.
Alright, let’s get counting.
10 Sonic Flight
Even with Sean Cassidy’s accepted superhuman vocal stamina, this ability appears to be
an odd one that doesn’t make a ton of sense.
Banshee can produce a sonic scream which he can use as a form of sonar, to injure those
he fights with in battle and to shield himself or others or disorient his enemies.
Sure.
But he also uses his sonic scream to fly.
Which would make sense if he were just using the ability to say fly up to the second story
of a building but he has used this ability to fly longer distances as well.
However in order to remain altitude and stay in the air, he has to keep screaming.
So how does he breathe?
We know he has enhanced vocal stamina but this still doesn’t explain long trips.
The answer is that he uses a winged gliding suit that allows him the time he needs to
breathe.
However without his winged gliding suit, his sonic flight powers would be almost useless.
9 Tentacles
Not to say that tentacles are inherently bad.
They aren’t.
But what they are is random.
In some cases.
In this case, anyways.
The tentacles I wanted to talk about here were Callisto’s random tentacles.
Callisto never had tentacles until the early 2000s.
But where did they come from?
After all she was introduced in the 80s without them and they just seemed to appear.
Masque was to blame for this alteration to Callisto’s look.
Though she still had her famous eyepatch.
She’s never lost that.
Masque gave Callisto tentacles to torment her.
After he was defeated once more, she decided to keep them.
Not because they were useful but because she refused to bargain with Masque anymore so
she decided to accept them.
The super weird thing is although they were not a mutation of her own, they still disappeared
along with her powers during the events of M-Day.
8 Superpower Manipulation
This is one that people can’t seem to wrap their heads around because it’s just too
overpowered.
And why Hope Summers isn’t utilized in the comics as often as someone on her power level
could be.
Superpower manipulation is a weird one because it basically isn’t a power that has any
inherent weaknesses.
You can do whatever you need to with that power!
The possibilities are endless.
In giving Hope that power they created someone virtually undefeatable.
But when we read comics, the struggle is what we usually most enjoy exploring.
So from a writer and story-teller context this makes Hope’s power a hard one to feature
and use in comics.
Which is why you might notice, stories that involve her don’t usually focus on her insane
power set.
7 Unlimited Magics
I feel like people often forget that Illyana Rasputin’s real mutant power is teleportation.
She’s a teleporter.
And yet we all get more wrapped up in her magical abilities and her soulsword.
Magik actually only has such powerful magical abilities because she was kidnapped by Belasco.
Which is pretty weird.
Just because she was tied to Limbo through her teleportation powers--where Limbo is basically
a stepping stone for her while teleporting--she now has unlimited magical power?
Huh?
Also that whole story of Belasco kidnapping young Illyana, basically torturing her and
yet admiring and cherishing her as his protege all at the same time is just pretty odd and
nonsensical to begin with.
6 Flaming Prehensile Tongue
Toad has all sorts of odd abilities but one of the most bizarre and odd by far is his
prehensile tongue.
Now I know what you might be thinking, "but Amanda, he's Toad.
Sticky prehensile tongues should make sense for any amphibian based mutants."
But what about when we decide to make it flaming?
Yeah.
That was an update that Toad's tongue saw in the comics.
Why?
I guess because it looked cool?
But his tongue was already not a super useful power to have.
And adding flames?
Didn't make it any more useful.
5 Eggs
There’s a few occurrences of this with mutants.
Angel Salvadore has this ability due to her insect physiology.
It doesn’t really do much as a power for her.
It’s just part of the way she reproduces.
Though it is pretty creepy and a little gross.
But then again so is most stuff involving the creation of new life.
One of the other, now remarkably famous mutants who have had this weird ability?
Goldballs!
Who now actually goes by the name, Egg.
He actually changed his name due the revelation regarding his powers.
Originally we just thought Goldballs emitted gold bouncy balls out of his body which seemed
pretty odd and useless.
But then we released in the events of Dawn of X that these gold balls were actually infertile
eggs.
Which!
Is ALSO!!!
Kind of… useless.
Unless that is you have the other four insanely powerful members of the mutant group known
as The Five around you.
When matched up with Elixir, Tempus, Hope Summers and Proteus, Egg’s abilities revealed
themselves as being mighty useful as together the Five can combine their power sets in order
to resurrect any of their fallen comrades.
Still weird.
But also, now, amazing.
4 Aviation
The power of aviation through non telekinetic means that is.
Most mutants that can naturally fly usually have this power as a result of a physical
mutation.
Some are simply granted wings like Angel or Pixie, who otherwise find themselves looking
like a standard human but some find themselves with a full on bird-like mutation, like Beak.
Beak’s aviation mutation, depending on the artist, can leave him looking pretty all-out
freaky.
He either is drawn like a full-on bird person or sometimes like a hybrid bird human.
His aviation mutation barely even gives him flight abilities either.
He isn’t great at flying but can manage to do so for very short distances if he really
tries.
3 Hollow Bones
Speaking of flight-related mutations, one common trait that you’ll see presented as
a power or perk is hollow bones.
Angel and Beak both have hollow bones.
What it’s supposed to help those mutants accomplish is the ability to fly.
And usually it does, by making them significantly lighter.
But also hollow bones sounds like something terrible to have in the midst of a battle.
Somehow Angel has been presented as being very durable despite the fact that his hollow
bones have to exist in order for his flight powers to work and make sense.
But if his bones are hollow, then shouldn’t punches from foes with super strength cripple
the poor original X-Men team member?
2 Become Ice Cream
So far we’ve only seen this very specific mutant power once.
And only in a single issue.
Not even an issue of X-Men either but instead in Obnoxio the Clown’s own series.
The mutant who possessed this ability?
Eye Scream.
Yeah.
I’m not kidding.
I know, a very original name.
Eye Scream used his abilities to infiltrate the X-Mansion, planning to put an end to the
super team because their abilities made him feel ridiculous by comparison.
How he expected to accomplish this with his power set being so useless, I have no idea.
1 Love Eyes
In All New Doop, we got to learn even more about Doop’s capabilities.
While we don’t really know what Doop is exactly, he has been a member of the X-Men
and hasn’t been confirmed either way in regards to his mutant status or any other
status for that matter.
We don’t know if he’s an alien or was made in a lab or what.
What we do know is he has a slew of insanely powerful and ridiculously cartoonish abilities.
One such ability are love eyes, which seem to have no specific purpose.
Kitty Pryde suspected he was using his love eyes to try and enchant her, casting a love
spell on her but Doop claimed that they are just how he shows affection.
Un-effective love spell or just a weird quirk?
Either way, they're pretty… irrational.
Thank you so much for watching, nerd squad.
I hope you enjoyed this list.
What are some of your favourite strange mutant powers?
What mutant abilities do you think are the most useless?
What new mutant abilities would you like to see pop up in the comics?
What hasn’t been done yet, do you think?
Let us know in the comments below.
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This has been top 10 nerd and I’m your host, Amanda McKnight