Heroes And Villains Who Aren't Using Their Powers Right

Just like any regular jerk, comics' heroes and villains still get it wrong, despite their incredible superpowers. Whether our favorite characters are held back by an elevated sense morality or guilt, or they just don't realize the things they could do if they really let loose, comic book people don't always use their powers like a normal dink would. And sometimes, it's just a bad comic writer plotting themselves into a corner, ruining the character forever. Here are a few comic book characters who seem to be using their powers all bass ackwards.

Victor von Doom is a scientific genius and an incredibly powerful user of magic, He often combines these two disciplines when designing the downfall of Reed Richards, aka Mister Fantastic, who's the smartest man in the world and Doom's old college rival. Because Doom's ego is all-consuming, he spends most of his time ruling the dirty little peasant country of Latveria, keeping his toothless citizens reliant on him, and focusing on revenge instead of true world power. If Doom ever broke free from his obsession with vengeance against his stretchy foe, he'd undoubtedly rule the world.

Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner, ruler of Atlantis and friend to all fish, hates the surface world. He's a jerk, often attempting to drown lowly surface-dwellers for their crimes against the ocean or if they look at his weird wing-feet wrong. If Namor really wanted to ruin the world of the air-breathing dirt-people, he'd use his ability to control fish and just tell them to stop getting caught. There's no greater weapon against Earth than disrupting the food supply and the economy. By creating a natural disaster, Namor would have the Earth at his command.

Storm is a powerful mutant who can control the weather, and humans are a weak, helpless race of creatures whose lives revolve around weather patterns. The connection between the two is obvious, but millions of people still starve because of drought, while more die in tornadoes and hurricanes, and even many more people perish in weather-related tragedies. Maybe Storm could find it in herself to direct another hurricane or two out to sea. Unless it's headed for the Kardashians. In that case, a few casualties might be okay.

When you're a gigantic alien with so much cosmic power that you can just give it away like free restaurant bread, you don't really need to fire a warning shot before you descend on a planet to eat it. Galactus is a gentleman, however, and always sends a herald down to a planet a few days before he chows down on them. Most aliens just respond with violence, but few are powerful enough to really put a dent in Galactus. By offering a warning, Galactus always runs the chance of being killed when he arrives, but the sad, hungry alien doesn't seem to mind. And you thought that vegans had a tough moral code to follow.

Sue Storm Richards, aka Invisible Woman, could be the world's best ninja vigilante if she wanted. She has all of the powers that true ninjas desire, including the ability to move around silently and unseen, and the ability to kill without a sound. Have you ever heard a force bubble pop in a brain? If you have, you're dead. Instead of doing awesome ninja junk, Sue sticks around with her distant husband and acts as a human shield whenever her family is attacked. Her skills would make Elektra look like a stupid, legless hippo in comparison, but Sue's familial loyalty prevents her from doing what every single comic book ninja would kill to do.

The problem with Superman is that he can do just about everything, and that includes performing surgery with nothing but his eyes. Superman's been shown using his x-ray vision to detect physical abnormalities in people, and using his laser-like heat vision to operate on deadly tumors, all while barely breaking the skin, and with a precision that no human doctor could match. Sure, Superman does some pretty important stuff to save the world, but the dude could clear out a pediatric cancer ward in an hour and Lex Luthor's goons would still be there when he was done.

Owen Reece can do pretty much anything, and that's an issue. The incredible ability to control matter down to the molecule overwhelmed Reece, and he spent decades performing stupid, petty crimes... until Doctor Doom and Volcana helped Reece understand his full power. After seeing that crime didn't pay as much as molecular manipulation, Molecule Man happily retired, but then went a little crazy. Because of Molecule Man's crippling emotional and mental difficulties, he's neither destroyed the world or saved it, which wouldn't be hard for the master of matter.

Most of Batman's villains know about the self-imposed limitation that keeps Batman in check. No matter what you've done, Batman just won't kill you. While the threat of mind-breaking pain and terror can be worse than death, Batman's greatest foes are undeterred, and always live to escape Arkham Asylum and kill again. Despite hundreds of opportunities to end crime for good with a single snap of an evil neck, the Dark Knight allows crime to continue to plague Gotham because of the one self-imposed rule that no one else seems to follow.

The powerful ruler of Apokolips, Darkseid can shoot beams from his eyes that obliterate their target from existence, unless that target has Superman-level endurance. Darkseid used his Omega Beams to literally zap Batman into the stone age, and he doesn't even have to be able to see his target, because Darkseid can blast stuff around corners. While the impossible beams were written as a severely overpowered weapon, it's something that Darkseid would use a lot more if he was serious about this world-conquering stuff.

Mxy is a reality-altering imp from the Fifth Dimension who can pretty much create or destroy anything he wants using nothing but his thoughts. While he's generally more interested in annoying Superman than really causing any harm, Mxy's limitations only exist because he's not actually into being evil. The true extent of Mxyzptlk's reality manipulation was seen in the Emperor Joker storyline when The Joker stole the the imp's endless power and used it to truly mess up reality. Ultimately, Mxyzptlk's just not a villain. If he were, the Justice League would have been dead, or turned inside-out and given seal flippers or something, long ago.

Equipped with a magical, unbreakable lasso that can force anyone to tell the truth, Wonder Woman can easily wrangle the truth out of superpowered bad guys. Meanwhile, countless street-level thugs, high-level embezzlers, and murderers pass through the legal system due to a lack of evidence. Wonder Woman could surely take a few days out of every year to clear some courthouses, empty prisons of the wrongly convicted, and use her presence to keep people honest. She could single-handedly fix the justice system. But she's too busy making out with Superman in space.