Is power stealing the dumbest, least creative power?

Is power stealing the dumbest, least creative power?

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for heroes yes, for villains no

Why? Pic related was a good villain, but power absorption ultimately made him lame.

only if the powers they absorb are lame
it only works in universes where the powers that can be absorbed are cool

wait so if the person they are fighting against someone who has no powers and only uses gadgets this means lose? meta

only if you're a shit writer and don't make them use the absorbed powers differently

least creative is flying, super strength, invisibility.

No. There's potential to fiddle the mechanics of stealing itself, and with the power changing hands in and of itself. It's probably not the best power, but it has to be beating the 9 trillion "slightly to greatly stronger than the average dude" powers.

>FORCE fields

>can steal any power
>steals flying brick powers
The oddest part is wonder man isn't just flying brick powers and despite that it's all she got.

How overpowered would she be otherwise though?

Rogue (xmen)
Parasite (superman)
Morning Star (ben10)

Notice how the hero is the only one that cant control the power.

Least creative is any of the many "different" powers that allow a character to create constructs.

Its good when they also absorb the weaknesses

depends on how you write it

youtube.com/watch?v=C7dSJN5LgsE

You've never heard of Cypher?

Assuming you mean Doug Ramsey, his power is way more useful and potentially creative than most writers give credit for.

Doug's powers were cool, too bad Claremont went with the "I'm useless" route with him (but maybe he had another plans for him later) and Louise killed the lad

No, power negation is.

Crusher Creel.
Buff said.

It had at least a unique schtick unlike peter.

His power absorption usually sated the narrative and wasn't used as a plot device like peter so ultimately it worked. He was more telekinetic than anything.

If it's used correctly it's one of the best to give a character in a world already filled with cool powers, especially for villains that don't hold back.

I'll use Avatar:The Last Airbender for an example of why, even though this series didn't have powerstealing but simply people that shared powers.

Waterbending as a fighting style is used mostly as just a way to knock people over, and freeze them in place. When given to a villain, we can see how you can use Waterbending to bloodbend, making people into puppets and taking away their ability to fight back completely. We even see a bloodbender that learns to seal the chakra inside the human body to remove people's ability to bend permanently, which was actually the heroic power to save the day in the original series but then twisted into a horrible cruel power when a villain got hold of it.

Firebending in general is just destructive, so I'll skip it.

Earthbending gives the ability to bend the earth, and by extension things like metal with enough training. When given to a cruel enough villain we find people can lavabend by forming the earth into lava, which is extremely destructive and something normal good guys wouldn't even think of trying.

Airbending is the most interesting here. It's the first protaginist's main power, so we see it plenty and mostly just used for good. It's a way to dodge and travel, and can knock stuff over. When given to the right villain in the series, he literally just pulls the air out of your throat and makes you suffocate to death.

Really, power stealing can be a great power because it can show facets of a particular power that a character would never use on their own. If a bad guy steals a good guy's power, we can see a whole new side of it.

Stories have done that time and time again, batman has done it before. Amazo has some interesting concepts using this actually. In one story Amazo specifically had the power to copy the powers of the people in the justice league... so the league disbanded in order to make him lose all of his powers. There was another story at one point with a power copier where someone had the power to trade places with their friend in an alternate dimension they were trapped in or something, and when the villain copied it and used the power they freed that person's friend while trapping themself.

The plain pasta of superpowers.

>If a bad guy steals a good guy's power, we can see a whole new side of it
That's a good point. I guess the problem arises when they let the villain steal too many powers.

At that point you want to complain about mary sue style "I have every power" characters, which is a totally valid but completely separate topic. Plenty of power-stealers can't use them all at will instantly and need time to swap between them, or can only hold 1 at a time.

Isn't it Carol she stole those powers from?

The least creative powers are fucking HIGH AGILITY and HIGH DURABILITY
That barely ever means anything

Prep time. I'm not hating on Bats, just saying it gets abused.

she lost those powers

I hadn't heard she'd taken Wonder Man's. I didn't even know he could fly.

Do you want Rogue to turn into a naked kirby dot genie?

The problem is more about stealing passive powers.

Yes?

Ok just checking.

What color should she turn? Purple and red like Simon or should she turn her signature green?

>tfw the major villain of a story I'm working on steals powers
It's important to the plot, so I can't change it.

Like Simon with white striped hair made of stars.

Only if done correctly :)

No growing big is

fpbp

What are you talking about retard, it's a power that takes the most creativity because you have to work out how the character who has it and how characters who know they have it navigate it's use and how the rules of it work with other powers rules. Meanwhile "he's super strong" is straight forward in every situation.

Depends on how it's written and what kind of powers is stolen.

My favourite example is not Sup Forums but Sup Forums with the big boss villain of My Hero Academia.
In that world about 80% of the population has powers, usally weak and sometimes useless ones, but still powers. The villain in question targets the unwanted and easily forgotten, building up the number of powers he has in secret and sometimes he targets people with very specific powers that he thinks would be needed for his schemes.
What makes it cool is that he can combine the powers he has stolen increasing their usability or make them into something new. He can also transfer any stolen powers to other people which he uses to make extra powerful servants or simply for storing the powers he has no use of at the moment.

Except rogue copies the person's skills too.

>Ultimate Fantastic Four arc that introduces Ultimate Skrulls
>involves time travel that prevents the shuttle launch that gave the F4 thier powers
>Skrulls declare themselves mankind's saviors, distributes tech that grants superhuman powers to every man woman and child on Earth
>F4 get thier powers anyway save Ben Grimm, who becomes a celebrity for being the only human to NOT want superpowers, remains normal person
>Super Skrull wears suit that gives him powers of everyone in a certain radius
>whole thing was ruse, Skrulls super-pills also act as lethal agents once switch is flipped, people literally melt
>Super Skrull taunts Ben Grimm as everyone dies, declares Ben the last living human in the universe
>Ben fires back by asking "Your suit gives you powers of everyone around you, so what happens when the only person around has no powers at all?"
>Super Skrull:..........Oh
>Ben clobbers SS, steals the suit, goes back in time to undo everything and reset the timeline

Yeah but that's also her drawback as she get a lot of mental feedback and trauma plus it's also her curse, unlike the so mentioned Sylar

Rogue is a legit copycat, and I like copycats, but I prefer the ones who needs to struggle to properly use the new powers, especially when they can't keep the powers forever and I need to improvise

It means that they can take high punches and be okay.

Other way around.

You better make it good then, buddy.

Big w-where?

I guess I should watch it.

I'd say the least creative is the nullifying or canceling ability.


You typically see it in stories with a female self insert protagonist like Twilight or Alice Academy and it's often used as a way to give the character an obligatory power that seems lame but is extremely OP (but often under utilized by how stupid or 'moral' the character is) given the universes' other powers.

Don't do it because it's important to the plot, do it because it's important to the character(s).

>unlike the so mentioned Sylar
Season 1 did it right with his methods being obscured somewhat and him taking time to acclimate to a new power. He was nearly disabled by his super-hearing for a while, and the implication that he wouldn't be able to control the nuclear powers was a strong red herring for the season's finale.

Power stealing is a great ability, it allows writers to use abilities in new ways that the other character didn't use. Give a dumb person's power to a smart person and BAM, new intelligent uses. Give a good person's power to a bad person and BAM, new sinister uses.

>Dumbest least creative power.
>Omnilingualism a power that has been shown time and time again to be creative and interesting.