Power Up

I just spent more hours than I think I’d like to admit to the entire Internet reading world watching cartoons. Ok, nothing new there – most of you know that I’m a 12-year-old girl with an obsession for all things animated. But this 26-year-old woman (with a penchant for fudging on her age by a year or so) has an even guiltier secret than just simply watching “Justice League” on DVD. You see, I like to pretend I have cool super powers.

Pretend might be too strong a word – it isn’t as if I have a spandex outfit in the closet complete with cape and mask. But it might be possible that I like to imagine that in a cooler world, I could fly, shoot lasers from my fingers tips, and have an incredible body complete with super strength. Who doesn’t play pretend every so often? *listens to crickets chirp* Fine, I’ll be the only one here who is willing to admit to their imagination fueled foibles!

Watching the JLU episode “Clash” made me want to share a few of my superhero related questions. First off, let’s say you’re the bad guy who keeps getting foiled by Super Blogger in Cool City. As a super villain, why don’t you try moving to a new town? Stay with me here for a minute: Lex Luthor keeps trying to take over the world from Metropolis where he knows Superman hangs out. It’s the same with the Joker and Batman in Gotham. Hey super bad guys, “Move!!”

The episode in question dealt very nicely with one of my long-standing ponderances of the superhero genre: the super fight. You know the ones: half the city gets torn up as cars are used to smash people’s faces and buildings lose their facades when people get thrown into them. Don’t the people in these towns care? And, who pays for the clean up? I mean, if I, as mayor of Cool City, kept seeing Super Blogger and Bad Dude wreck my town every week, wouldn’t I ask them to move out or pay up?

Which brings me to a disclaimer: I love superheroes. I wish I had cool mutant powers that extended beyond the ability to pick out the most expensive item in any store and love it. And I totally understand that Lex and Supes live in the same town because it is fiction, it moves the story along, and a comic book about Clark Kent mooning over Lois Lane would be far more boring than watching Lex trying to take over the world and defeat Superman through the use of Kryptonite.

And lest I spark a DC versus Marvel debate, I’d like to point out that while I have used DC references, I am, at heart, a Marvel girl with an X-obsession. But let’s face it, when it comes to cartoons, DC was much quicker off the mark to get their animated guys on DVD.

Which brings me to my question du jour that I hope some of you will actually answer for a change (Not that I’m being pouty about the lack of people commenting on this blog. Not much anyways.). Since none of us can fly, shoot laser beams from our fingertips, or lift small buildings as part of our daily training regimen, what are your real life mutant powers? (Oh, and if you can do any of those things, please tell me ‘cause I think that’s Super Cool!)