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| [original cartoon pending] |
CITATION
Rasheed, Muhammad. "All These Powers, and You Chose Lame-Assed." Cartoon. The Official Website of Cartoonist M. Rasheed 00 Date 2024. [cartoon pending] Pen & ink w/Adobe Photoshop color.
CLICK & SUBSCRIBE below for the Artist's Description of this #MRasheedCartoons image:
M. Rasheed on BitChute!
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Q: What is the best superpower to have?
Jim Christmas - I haven't seen this answer yet, so…
Doesn't look like much does he?
This is “The Mule," a mutant from Issac Asimov's Foundation series. The Mule ruined a very detailed plan for the future with his unanticipated power.
His power was the ability to influence… uh… strongly. He couldn't read minds, but he had a sense of the thoughts around him, and he could make adjustments. By playing with the internal control knobs of your psyche, he could cause you to live in mortal terror of the person you love the most. He could make you work non-stop until you died, on whatever he deemed worthy. He could tweak minds in such a way that his staunchest enemies would become his most loyal followers. These people would know that they'd been altered, but they wouldn't care. They would follow the Mule's wishes for the remainder of their lives.
He could make you so desperately unhappy that you would die from it. He could give glimpses of rapturous pleasure so intense that you’d do anything just for a second look.
His power has no outward clues. To watch him would be to see nothing at all happen, except that those he focused his mind on for just a moment would forever spin in a new direction.
Muhammad Rasheed - So, if there are no humans around, he doesn’t have any powers.
Fail.
Jim Christmas - And if there's no metal, Magneto has no powers.
No atmosphere, Storm has no powers.
No people, Xavier had no powers.
No yellow sun, superman had no powers…
Etc.
Muhammad Rasheed - “What is the best superpower to have?”
Jim wrote: “His power was the ability to influence”
The ability to influence other human beings isn’t the best power because it is hinged upon other humans being around.
Jim wrote: “And if there's no metal, Magneto has no powers.”
Earth is full of metal. There’s metal everywhere. #FalseEquivalency
Jim wrote: “No atmosphere, Storm has no powers.”
If there was no atmosphere, all humans would die and the earth would be barren. #FalseEquivalency
Jim wrote: “No people, Xavier had no powers.”
Agreed. Telepathy isn’t the best power either for the same reason this ‘Mule’ guy doesn’t have the best power. Perhaps only a Dutch enslaver descended from the VOC crew would think manipulation of other people is the “best power.”
Jim wrote: “No yellow sun, superman had no powers…”
If there were no sun, earth would die. #FalseEquivalency
Jim Christmas - So you want only superpowers that work in the absence of other humans, but you do require a yellow star even though Kal-El's home planet didn't have one (so not a super power while back at home), and you don't care that Magneto was imprisoned by distancing him from all metals…
All seems rather arbitrary to me. What's your pick?
Muhammad Rasheed - Jim wrote: “So you want only superpowers that work in the absence of other humans”
lol No. I love the wide variety of power ranges. That’s genuinely cool. What we’re evaluating here is the BEST super power to have. Your decision to interpret my critique as meaning I personally wish there to only be a limited type of power in all fiction counts as the #StrawmanEffigy fallacy.
Jim wrote: “but you do require a yellow star even though Kal-El's home planet didn't have one (so not a super power while back at home)”
Very true. The Kryptonian is only powered up in very specific circumstances, similar to the “X-Gene” mutants of Marvel Comics.
Jim wrote: “and you don't care that Magneto was imprisoned by distancing him from all metals…”
Regular humans being able to take advantage of Magneto’s inherent weakness does count towards disqualifying “master of magnetism” as the best super power to have. I just pushed back on your precise verbiage (“if there’s no metal”) which seemed unreasonable, considering we live on metal-plentiful earth.
Jim wrote: “All seems rather arbitrary to me.”
I readily agree that any genre discussion that evaluates what’s the best [fill-in-the-blank] will have a great deal of subjectivity attached. Despite the snippiness of my writing voice, please understand that my critique was not provided in a spirit of meanness, but only in the routine, fellow fanboy debate challenge.
Jim wrote: “What's your pick?”
Stand by...
Muhammad Rasheed - The best power to have is to be a living battery for a vast, unlimited energy source, to use to grant yourself various additional abilities & enhancements at will.
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| Silver Surfer (Vol. 3) #3 |
The best mainstream comic book example of this power is possessed by the two characters shown in my Marvel Comics cover example above:
- The Runner of the Universe
- The Silver Surfer
Both the Runner and the Surfer are examples of living batteries for the ‘Power Primordial’ and the ‘Power Cosmic’ respectively. They have both trained themselves (the Silver Surfer’s power usage is more inherently instinctual) to use their energy sources for a wide variety of effects, to include super-strength enhancement, super-speed, interstellar flight, energy manipulation & projection, regeneration, immortality, matter manipulation, psionic powers, etc.
The best possible source for this type of power would come from learning, as opposed to it being granted to the character by generic, in story-verse fate, or the fickle whims of a desperate Cosmic Being. This way no one would be able to arbitrarily take your powers away from you since they would be based on what you know (unless you were somehow lobotomized by a far more powerful being). An example of a character learning how to give himself such power is best demonstrated in the short story Green Magic by Jack Vance.
Olumide Maborukoje - M. Rasheed wrote: "So, if there are no humans around, he doesn’t have any powers. Fail."
Surely superpowers only exist because there are other people around. In the absence of other people there is no frame of reference for what makes powers super.
Ultimately, the question is subjective. For a person who struggles with self image, the Mule’s power might seem awesome. For me, it’s terrible.
Muhammad Rasheed - There’s a wide spectrum of different types/levels of superpowers. The weakest ones are hinged upon whether other people are around or not. The best ones determine your personal levels of comfort & security up to and including immortality and planet-destroying offensives.
Olumide Maborukoje - That’s opinion.
I respect that opinion, but I disagree with it. As I said, the question is subjective.
As an individual, the comfort of the people I surround myself by is a big factor in my personal comfort and security.
For instance, you speak of immortality. As a person who values community and friendship, immortality would very quickly become a burden for me.
Muhammad Rasheed - Olumide wrote: “That’s opinion.”
lol There’s an estimated 300 million users sharing their opinions on Quora world wide, yet my posts are especially singled out as extra-opinionated for some reason. If you didn’t want to have a reasonable, civil discussion, why respond to my post?
Olumide wrote: “I respect that opinion, but I disagree with it.”
Okay.
Olumide wrote: “As I said, the question is subjective.”
Jim and I already discussed the subjective nature of sharing our genre trope opinions elsewhere in the thread. It is also my subjective opinion that continuously pointing out how our subjective opinions are subjective opinions can be quite tiresome.
Olumide wrote: “As an individual, the comfort of the people I surround myself by is a big factor in my personal comfort and security.”
Finally you got to your actual point. Thank God. lol
Olumide wrote: “For instance, you speak of immortality. As a person who values community and friendship, immortality would very quickly become a burden for me.”
As a committed practicing Abrahamic theist, I likewise would not enjoy the power of immortality in the material universe, as I actually look forward to the One God’s offer of Eternal Bliss. I get it. On an individual level, not all of the superpowers on the spectrum—even the higher level ones—would be equally appealing to every personality. I never made the claim that they were, but I’ll admit it is fun to tease people who gush over powers I personally find lame (like Jim’s goofy Mule fandom).
Olumide Maborukoje - The last sentence of your response answers my initial question.
Your initial response to Jim seemed dismissive, and I was trying to understand.
All in all, thank you for an interesting few minutes.
Muhammad Rasheed - Peace.
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