Top 6: Stupid Superheroes

All of the Top 6s up to this point have been movie related, so I thought I'd give a nod to comics. Nowadays, every comic under the sun is being turned into a major motion picture, but over the long and varied history of the medium, there have been plenty of additions that should never have a movie made of them ever. EVER. Here you have the top 6 lamest superheroes of all time.


VI - THE RED BEE
Appearing in the 1940s in "Hit Comics #1" the Red Bee was basically your powerless vigilante type character. However instead of wearing a cool costume like Batman or the Shadow, the Red Bee opted for a red pirate shirt with pink puffy sleeves and red and yellow striped tights. Truly frightening only to epileptic villains. However, what made the Red Bee especially lame wasn't just his gaudy, vomitous costume, but the fact that he fought crime with the aid of a single trained bee. That's right, friends. A trained bumble bee named Michael that lived in a compartment in the Red Bee's belt buckle. Seriously, I'm not joking. A friggin' trained bumble bee... named Michael! Not even a swarm, just one. So unless the Red Bee's villains were deathly allergic to the combined sight of creatures that shouldn't physically be able to fly and grown men dressing like color blind buccaneers, he wasn't much good.


V - MATTER EATER LAD
The name Matter Eater Lad does not roll off the tongue very easily and certainly doesn't strike fear into many a villain's heart. In the 1960s the writers at DC comics were always looking for new and strange powers for their quickly growing cast of teenage futuristic heroes. However, though it seemed like they'd hit their all time low with Bouncing Boy, it turned out they could sink even lower with Matter Eater Lad. As you might have guessed, Matter Eater Lad's power was the ability to eat through any substance. So if you locked your keys in your car, instead of calling a locksmith, you could just have Matter Eater Lad devour the door handle. Matter Eater Lad wasn't into cannibalism, though, so he never actually chowed down on any bad guys, completely missing what could have been a useful power.


IV - DOGWELDER
Dogwelder was a character from Garth Ennis' "Hitman" series. Dogwelder was part of a superhero team known as Section Eight which was a band of these crazy guys that fought crime in rather inane ways. Dogwelder was a name that really stuck out to me, and like most of these on the list, that's where the bulk of the ridiculousness comes from. He's this madman in a silver welder's outfit that basically just goes around welding stray dogs to villains' faces. That's it. That's how he fought crime. Welding dogs to people. It certainly wouldn't be fun to be on the receiving end of that. You try to rob a bank and you end up with a Lhasa Apso welded to your face, yapping for eternity. It's really just more an irritation than a fighting style and relies too heavily on the cooperation of the weldee.


III - ARM FALL OFF BOY
Just like "Texas Chain Saw Massacre," you know exactly what you're getting with this guy. Arm Fall Off Boy is an oddity all his own because although he only made one appearance in a comic book ever (Secret Origins #46 [1989]), his appearance was so memorable that he has a cult following to this day. Arm Fall Off Boy made an apperance at a Legion of Superheroes recruitment drive where he displayed his "astounding" power to some of the more legitimate heroes. His power? To detach his left arm from his body and use it as a club. Arm Fall Off Boy was surprised when the Legion let him know that his talents weren't quite right for their organization, though I can't imagine why. A better super hero would have been Arm Made Of Razor Blades Guy or Arm That Doubles As A Thing That Kills People Fellow. Or even just Guy With Two Fully Functioning Arms Capable Of Wielding Big Giant Swords.


II - THE WHIZZER
One of Marvel's earliest superhero creations, The Whizzer's powers have nothing to do with peeing, despite what his costume might suggest. Like many Marvel superhero characters, The Whizzer was a rip off of a DC character, The Flash in this case, and as such, he was super fast. How did he get that way, you ask? Well let's see what Wikipedia has to say on the subject:

The origin of the Golden Age character begins while Robert Frank is on a trip to Africa with his father, Dr. Emil Frank, where Robert is bitten by a cobra. Dr. Frank saves Robert by a transfusion of mongoose blood, and soon discovers that he has developed super-speed.

That's actually real. Mongoose blood. Apparently in the '40s it wasn't such a big deal to put a completely different species' DNA into your system, mongoosian AIDS be damned.


I - ZAN from THE WONDER TWINS
If you hop in the way-back machine and think of the amazingly awesome cartoon "Superfriends," you'll probably remember the two-tone purple clad Half-Asian duo The Wonder Twins with their Beatles hairdos and blue monkey in a cape, Gleek. You might also remember that when the Twins put their rings together and said "Wonder Twin powers ACTIVATE," they could transform into stuff. Jayna could become any animal of her choosing. Quite a good power. What did brother Zan have? The ability to turn into anything water-based. How exactly do those two powers go together? You'd get all kinds of adventures where Jayna would turn into a bear or a lion or something and Zan would turn into a puddle or... yeah, that's it, just a puddle. Although, to his credit, he could turn into a refreshing glass of Kool Aid AND the ice cubes with which to cool it. Nevermind, he isn't useless at all.

And there you have it, friends. Remember these guys the next time you think about mocking Aquaman.

You're welcome.
-Kanderson