The Spoon

What what Jesus Do - if he had the superpowers from Heroes?

A few days ago I previewed several of the more interesting television shows from this new season. You can check the previews out here if you missed them. But after watching Heroes, I had to wonder what the true reality would be if you discovered you had the powers depicted on the show. For example, people are people and it'd be unreasonable to expect everyone not to use their powers to check out really attractive women using the potty (to use a completely random example). Because this kind of thing is important to me at this point in my life (don't ask), I'll tell you the possible real-life implications of these powers that Heroes probably won't delve into.

Here's a list of the Heroes' abilities:
-Flight
-Ability to predict the future (only when on a drug high)
-Invulnerability
-Criminal/Devious Alter Ego (only available during times of stress)
-Ability to manipulate time and one's own location
-Reading Minds

Flight
The power of flight is an old standby in comics, cartoons, and wish fantasies. It's also wildly overrated. Unless you're invulnerable in addition to being bird-like, you're basically just counting down the days until you have a major crash or beat down you're probably not going to flap away from. Let's count some of the things sharing sky you're so happily soaring through: birds, airplanes, helicopters, tall buildings, and trees are just a few examples. Yes, several items on that list don't move and the others are pretty darn large, but it doesn't take much at high speeds to kill a flying idiot. If you manage to head-butt a bird at 60 miles an hour, that's probably going to leave a mark, much less running into a traffic helicopter. And let's not forget that the only navigation system a flying person has is their own eyes. No radar, no air traffic controller, no evolutionary sense of flight control (okay, maybe this one, but I wouldn't count on it), nuthin'. So that ability to fly doesn't mean so much unless you've got some kind of navigation system and damage protection and by that point you're probably better off taking a plane.

(note to readers: I think I might've railed too much on flying powers, but if you couldn't tell already I'm kind of afraid of heights and I really dislike flying.)

The Ability to Predict the Future or Most Awkwardly described Power, Ever
In Heroes, the guy who predicts the future can only do so while taking heroin (or is it cocaine? I can never keep up on my drug knowledge) and then painting what he "sees." If I were this guy, I'd probably experiment with other drugs to get the same effect. Maybe he only has to get really, really drunk before he gets all prophetic. It wouldn't be the first time a drunk person thought they could see the future. I can picture it now.

"Hey baby...
You know I can see the future? *hiccup*
Yeah, it's awesome. *burp* F-ing awesome, man!
Like right now, I can see you and me going into the back and you take off your - *throws up*"

On the plus side, you might get the occasional sports bet out of this one. Okay, maybe there's a silver lining in there after all.

Invulnerability
I really like this power. You can do pretty much anything using this power and not have to worry about dying or even losing a limb. If you've ever seen that show Highlander, that was one of my beefs. Those guys couldn't die unless their heads got chopped off, but if their hand got cut off and they still survived, they had to go through the next ten centures of life without that hand. That would really suck. So the good thing about this power is that you don't have to worry about losing limbs. But you have to wonder if this power also prevents things like baldness or STDs. Because it'd also suck to go through forever (I'm assuming invlunerability means you won't age too) wearing a wig and discharging all the time. So even if you're invlunerable it's a good idea to use protection.

Criminal/Devious Alter Ego
This is an intriguing yet ultimately frustrating power. Why? For starters, you never know what's going on, and this power basically has control of you. In the show, the character's life is threatened and next thing she knows, she's waking up hours later after killing everyone and then disposing of their bodies. Also, there's evidence that she's done this before under the control of her devious alter ego. But where's the fun in that? I'm not saying that killing someone is cool or even laudable (I also don't condone it for obvious legal reasons), but if you do do it and it's somewhat justified (he can't cut you in line like that!) at least you want to get some satisfaction for it. On the flip side, I wonder how this power gets triggered and what the alter ego is capable of. I think it'd be pretty funny if every time you got bills you mysteriously black out and then two years later you get thrown in jail for tax evasion and suspicion of child molestation. I mean, maybe your alter ego didn't pay his/her taxes and maybe he or she tapped some underage ass, that's not exactly a plea that'll fly in the legal system. So my final verdict is that this power is intriguing but doomed to end in prison.

Manipulation of time and space
The possibilities of this power are nearly limitless and it's especially captivating because it's relatively unexplored. In the Time Machine, the protagonist can travel anywhere in time but without being able to adjust his physical location. The Japanese guy in Heroes can do both and without the aid of a machine. Obviously there's the opportunity here to do some really nasty stuff. Commit any crime you want and then when you get thrown in jail, just turn back the clock and get the hell out of there. You could also try to help save people and do nice stuff, but you'd have to be extra careful not to get killed. Let's say you lose an arm, maybe you can go back in time and get that arm back and fix it. If you're dead though, you're dead. So the best defense here is anticipation and avoiding stupid mistakes. Even when you're messing around you'd have to be careful. Somehow you get it into your head to teleport to Mt. Everest. If you do that immediately, you wouldn't have the necessary amount of red blood cells to carry oxygen to the rest of your body and you'd go unconscious in a matter of minutes and die.
But with this power, you'd probably be the shiznit crime fighter. Hear about a crime, go to that location, freeze the time and right the wrongs before they happen. But once your notoriety increases, you have to start watching your own back.

And the final power...

Mind Reading
If you've stuck with me this long, you're probably reading for a break. All I have to say about this power is, handle with care. All the information you're getting from this one is from other people. Even when people discuss themselves and their own wants and desires they're wrong a considerable amount of the time. So when you're wife thinks, "Why won't he spank me anymore?" She may still get creeped out when you slap her booty. How embarrassing if you caught somebody fantasizing about you, acted on it, and then got slapped with some child molestation charge (why does it always come back to child molestation?). You'd be a good interrogator, sure, but this power would probably screw with your personal life. Although you might be pretty good at picking up one night stands. So there's that at least.

So these are my own takes on the powers from Heroes. But what would you do with these powers? Rob a bank? Catch O.J. in the act? Molest a child? Please post it.