I’ve never been that into Marvel films. Largely I think it’s that the heroes felt overpowered, leading to needless escalation of the villains, etc., without any real challenge. And while I’m sure someone more knowledgeable than I will elaborate on the nuances, it’s seemed like they’re pretty much all extra strong and fast (certainly beyond the ordinary human level), with maybe some other bonus features on top. They all tend to fight like highly-trained martial artists, they all I’ve always preferred the heist film approach: problem-solving with special/uncommon skills, perhaps, but ones that were more limited than general invincibility.
My five-year-old recently went on a kick of wanting to pretend to go to the unicorn salon (not sure why that was specified), we’d have to describe the colors of the outfit and hairdos we got, as well as our “powers.” Partly for my own amusement, and also to get her to think about humor/creativity/tradeoffs, I’ve tried to come up with more limited ones. Firebreathing? Not interesting, too overpowered. Immune to heat but extrasensitive to cold? Better.
Riffing off of that, I’ve come up with a few other variants that I think would be more interesting:
Telepathy, but it’s a two-way link: the person whose mind you’re reading can also read yours while connected.
Limited healing powers: e.g., impenetrable skin, but blunt force trauma still applies.
[Credit to my brother] Daredevil, but his echolocation only extends to people. Good in a fight, not so much for escaping a labyrinth.
Then there are the funny hyperliteralist/tradeoff ones:
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! But only buildings. If you want to jump over something else, put a building in front of it.
Can run as fast as a car! But it’s a specific car, and you can only go up to the speed that it’s currently doing. So you need to coordinate with an accomplice.
Can turn invisible, but the cloaking device makes a lot of noise.
And truly narrow-use/silly magic:
The ability to talk to animals (but you still have to persuade them to listen/help).
The power to turn soup into ice cream.
Can summon a frog (just one at a time, though, and it’s an ordinary frog. It doesn’t talk, you can’t control it, but you can make that frog appear/disappear).
I’d love to read your other ideas in the comments!
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