When discussing superpowers, most of us tend to talk about the best of the best. The ability to fly, superhuman strength, invisibility… these are the skills that make comic book characters powerful and effective when it comes to fighting crime. However, in the history of comic books, there have also been a number of completely worthless superhero powers to emerge. Below are ten of the worst.

10 Taking the Form of Water – Wonder Twin Zan
When push comes to shove, the ability to turn into a puddle of water isn’t all that amazing. Despite this fact, Zan uses his powers time and again to thwart the evil plans of countless supervillains. Sure, his “form of water” powers get stretched a bit to make him more powerful (he’s turned himself into an ice golem, a blizzard and a cage with ice bars), but that doesn’t diminish the fact that this skill is pretty lame.

9 Changing the Color of Things – Color Kid
After getting struck by a rainbow from a different dimension, the Color Kid is bestowed with the power to change the color of any object. Beyond the ability to redecorate his home in a single bound, this skill has few practical uses. Not surprisingly, his early application to join the Legion of Super-Heroes was rejected.

8 Detachable Limbs – Captain Marvel
The title of Captain Marvel has belonged to a variety of different superheroes. The worst of the bunch appeared in a 1966 comic that found the robotic hero with the supremely bizarre ability to detach his body parts from his torso. From here, each arm could punch a different henchman, each leg could kick out a criminal, and, well, I guess his head could bite a fifth enemy if necessary.

7 Yelling Really Loudly – The Thunderer
During the age of anti-Nazi propaganda, The Thunderer emerged as one of the worst pro-American crime fighters. As a mild-mannered radio announcer, Jerry Carstairs (Carstairs!?) grew upset with the way America was handling Nazi jerks. As such, he assembles a costume that includes a built-in microphone. With no other powers at his command, yelling is his sole ability.

6 The Ability to Eat Anything – Matter Eater Lad
Matter Eater Lad has a stomach of steel. While the ability to eat iron bars might be a pretty cool party trick, it doesn’t often help out when it comes to fighting crime. His one moment in the sun came when an indestructible machine threatened to destroy the entire universe. Thankfully, Matter Eater Lad solved that problem by consuming the entire device.

5 Body of Plastic – Plastic Man / Mister Fantastic
The ability to reach things across the room isn’t exactly a useful superpower. Sure, plasticity can help you slip under a door frame or possibly take a punch, but there’s hardly any type of destruction potential from the ability to become rubber. That is, unless you transform your body into a giant rubber band and thwack the enemy on the back of the neck.

4 Converting Sound to Light – Dazzler
Let’s face it: superhero characters created as a tie-in to a product don’t typically do all that well at the comic store. Such was the case for Dazzler, who was created as a cross-promotional character for Casablanca Records and Marvel. Essentially, Dazzler has the ability to change sound vibrations into light. This means that she might be able to temporarily blind an opponent. Or, if the criminal happens to be epileptic, then a nice strobe effect might prove a good way to induce a seizure.

3 Looking Like an Old Lady – Madam Fatal
Though Richard Stanton (a.k.a. Madam Fatal) didn’t really have any superpowers, his one advantage that he used repeatedly to catch criminals was the ability to convincingly dress up as an old lady. Supposedly, this caused his enemies to underestimate him when a fight broke out.

2 Talking to Fish – Aquaman
In reality, the ability to call a shark to your aid is helpful in only a very few limited circumstances. Take this fish out of water, and all of a sudden Aquaman’s telepathic ability is essentially useless. To compensate for this fact, it is eventually revealed that Aquaman can communicate with any animal that has evolved from marine life (such as humans). However, one can’t help but think this evolution is something of a cop out.

1 Communicating With Squirrels – Squirrel Girl
If you had the power to command a specific animal, you’d probably hope that animal was lions or bears or something with big sharp teeth. Unfortunately, Squirrel Girl is stuck commanding an army of tiny rodents. Unlike Aquaman, this communication cannot be done telepathically. Rather, the squirrels must be within earshot of her so that she can speak squirrel-talk (or sometimes English) to them.

Since we crank out so many stories each week some really good ones get lost in the cracks. And since so many new people visit Guyism every day (thank you), we thought we’d start taking some time on the weekends to share some classics that many of our newer readers may have missed.

Everyone wants to have at least one superpower. Anyone who tells you that they don’t is either lying or doesn’t like fun. For ages, mankind has marveled over the possibilities of saving the world with their superhuman abilities. But if you were able to ignore that whole “with great power comes great responsibility” thing, and still had superpowers, wouldn’t your day-to-day life kind of rule? Things would at least be a lot easier, and a lot more fun. Here are 8 superpowers that would make every day a blast and a half.

8 Teleportation
Imagine this: you’ve woken up way past your alarm clock and you’ve already gotten a couple of warnings from your boss for being late. Well, with teleportation, there’s no need to fret. All you have to do is get yourself dressed and transport your whole body over from your room to your office. Case closed. Suck it, boss. Bored on a Saturday afternoon? Why not check out the beaches in Australia for a few hours before you need to be home in time for dinner? The possibilities are really endless. The best part is that traveling no longer has to be a long endeavor which sometimes forces interaction with really annoying people. Teleportation could make that happen.

7 Super strength
Ever been to a bar or a club, and there are a bunch of d-bags looking to mess around with hapless bystanders? Don’t you sometimes wish you could calmly go up to one of those juice heads, pick them up off the ground by their Affliction t-shirt and escort them face first out of the bar? Super strength could make that happen for you. Helping your friends move would be a cinch, no matter how many floors up their apartment is located. Life could be like one of those beach movies where the hero shows off by carrying a girl on each of his shoulders. You really can’t go wrong with this one.

6 Telekinesis
Telekinesis, being able to move stuff around with your mental abilities, would be incredible. Especially if you’re lazy like 90% of the population. Remote control just out of reach? Not anymore. Wanna grab a beer from the far off kitchen? It only takes one thought and voila you’ve got a cold one in your hands! This could probably make for the best beer commercial of all time. You’re welcome, Anheuser Busch.

5 Telepathy
Okay, maybe this one goes hand in hand with telekinesis, but mind-reading is so cool it deserves its own spot. Awkward moments will forever be avoided, intentions will be made clear, and all secrets will come to light. Careful that you don’t pry too deep however, you may not be able to look some people in the eyes after finding out their deepest darkest secrets. On the flip side, you’d make a hell of an entertainer at parties.

4 Shape-shifting
Ever wanted to look like a bear to scare off those damn kids that keep hanging out on your lawn? Look like a movie star to get into that stupid club that wouldn’t let you and your four friends in? With shape-shifting this is all very possible. Of course this could leave you with some really bogus identity issues to work around down the line, but who likes to think about that?

3 Healing Factor
One thing about aging is that it sucks. Your body begins to slowly betray you little by little. Playing a game of pickup football with the boys on a Saturday afternoon could easily lead to a blown out knee. With healing factor, you can pretty much do anything without fear of injury. No longer will you be bothered by sprained ankles, minor concussions, and the like. You’ll be the king of the weekend warriors.

2 Super speed
Maybe this isn’t the most practical superpower (there is teleportation after all) but who doesn’t want to be able to run really fast? There’s something really freeing about being able to run as fast as you can. And if you can run as fast as the speed of light, that’s gotta be pretty awesome. It also gives you a free pass to talk fast and crack wise. It’ll be impossible to get smacked upside the head for saying something stupid with some super speed.

1 Flying
If you even have to question why this would make your life pretty awesome, you shouldn’t have been reading this far in the first place. Flying is cool, plain and simple. Imagine being up thousands of feet up in the air with the wind blowing through your hair, being able to look down at a beautiful skyline from above. Now imagine being able to take a girl up there with you after a date. Guess who’s getting some tonight? You are, flying guy. You are.

How do you know when you have a superpower? I’d imagine you probably need someone to tell you. I’m pretty much a narcissist so I assume I must have one, but I don’t know which. I was hoping invisibility, but when I went into the women’s locker room, there was definitely yelling and pummeling. Then again, maybe I just lose invisibility when vigorously masturbating and licking my lips. These things are a delicate balance, for sure.

That’s a pretty impressive physical talent. It wasn’t like he got lightly tapped by the car either, that was a full on flip. It’s like he’s some sort of modern day superhero, only instead of an amazing lifesaving power, he just gets hit by large objects and goes on with the rest of his crapty life. Which is probably how Superman would have turned out if he were real anyway. He’d have just been getting hit by cars or taking flight and then have to go back to a menial job as a fry cook or temp at an insurance agency. Plus Lois Lane would have probably been a Thai former prostitute named Guardita with a slightly ambiguous gender and Lex Luthor would have been his neighbor who always flushes used condoms down the toilet, forcing Superman’s sick to clog up with a bleachy-smelling viscous liquid. Not quite Super now, is it?

Maybe Batman should be a bit less judgmental. These superheroes always think they’re so great with their fancy cars and capes and attractive women who are blissfully retarded enough to not see the fact that the man in their life fights crime for like 8 hours a day. I guess I’m just a little bitter that my superhero alter ego Precum Man didn’t take off. You’d be surprised at how difficult it is to make villains slip and fall on an area specifically designed to make them take a topple.

Supergirl knows what’s up…I’ve always said that either invisibility or x-ray vision would probably be my superpower of choice just because I could do a great deal of perverse things with either of those. I’d probably lean toward invisibility though because then I’d also be able to do crime. I guess super speed or super strength would be pretty badass too though because then you could be a superstar athlete and just have to like pretend you were mortal but then one day your girlfriend sees you opening a jar of pickles and you accidentally crush it because you’re just learning your powers and she’s like “OMG” and you’re like, “Yeah, it’s my secret.” Then you make out and some Smash Mouth song plays but just as you’re about to bone your new supervillain comes and totally cockblocks you which, aside from his genocide of hundreds at the bank vault, is probably his greatest crime of all.

[Derby tip to Kayfabe]

Scientists say they are a step closer to developing materials that could render people and objects invisible.

Researchers have demonstrated for the first time they were able to cloak three-dimensional objects using artificially engineered materials that redirect light around the objects. Previously, they only have been able to cloak very thin two-dimensional objects.

The findings, by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, led by Xiang Zhang, are to be released later this week in the journals Nature and Science.

The new work moves scientists a step closer to hiding people and objects from visible light, which could have broad applications, including military ones.

As awesome as this is theoretically, a mass-market invisibility cloak probably wouldn’t be the best idea. Incidents of mysterious semen flying at nude women in locker rooms and showers would escalate, as would “Surprise sex,” bank robberies, and just general creepiness. And what if the ninjas got a hold of this? They’re already practically invisible with their stealthiness and aerodynamically small genitals…imagine what they’d do if they got a hold of this?

In related news, if someone can get me an invisibility cloak before anyone else has one, that’d be awesome. I think I have a pretty big readership in the Chinese-American scientific community so I’m hoping I can finally call in a favor to Big Invisibility. Help a brotha out