I can't remember if I already wrote about this

Something tells me I have already written this before, but I needed something for a class in school, so this was what the teacher got (45 minutes worth of hard work).

Super-strength is the best super-power


You are walking alone on a long stretch of beach when you come across an old lamp. When you rub the side of the lamp to clean it, a genie appears and informs you that as payment for releasing him, he will grant you one super-power. You must chose between the traditional comic book super-powers: super-strength; invisibility; flying; x-ray vision; or control over the weather, fire and water. There are other super-powers comic book heroes have possessed in the past, but these are the choices the genie has given you. And super-strength is the only logical choice.

To begin with, super-strength is the best choice for the intimidation factor alone. Let’s say you have a super-villain cornered in an alley and you would prefer that he surrendered rather than fight. And really, isn’t it always preferable to have the super-villain surrender without a fight, avoiding millions in property damage caused by throwing each other through buildings? What’s more intimidating: picking up a car, crushing it and then hurling it a city block, or using x-ray vision to see what the evil-villain has in the pockets of his tights?

“Aha! I can see you have your car keys and a tube of Chapstick! Surrender now or I shall be forced to look at the contents of your wallet!”

Super strength also carries with it the implied secondary aspect of invincibility or at a minimum it provides increased resistance to physical harm. Clearly you need stronger bones, skin, and muscle tissue in order to prevent, say, your arms ripping out of their sockets as you lift n entire building. No other super-power carries an inherent secondary power as useful as invincibility. However, if you still are not convinced, compare super-strength to the other powers individually.

Invisibility loses out because it’s really only useful if you want to do dishonest or perverted things. Sure, it’s an excellent super-power should you decide you want to be Hanging Around In Women’s Locker-Rooms Man or if you want to be a super-villain who uses invisibility to rob people. But even then, there are no guarantees that current motion detectors won’t be able to foil your invisibility, so it is entirely likely that even if you plan to turn to a life of crime, modern technology will still be one step ahead.

Many people will try to sell you on flying as the best super-power, and I’m not going to argue that flying would anything short of exhilarating; however, the practicality of fighting crime with the ability to fly is extremely limited. Even if we assume that your ability to fly means you can fly incredibly fast (but wouldn’t it be a bummer to chose flying, only to find out it means you can fly only as fast as you can run and it makes you just as tired?), that only means you can get to the site of a battle quickly. By no means does this ensure victory on your part.

Imagine you learn there is an evil genius rampaging through the other side of Metropolis in a gigantic robotic spider, so you fly over to the scene. Apart from getting there quickly and, admittedly, being able to find it easier because of your high perspective, what else have you got? Now, you’re pretty much just a normal guy except you’re wearing a spandex suit with your underwear on the outside of the pants. You are no more able to defeat the robotic spider than the police when they show up, so what good are you?

Which raises the excellent point of why there exists a never ending supply of evil-geniuses whose preferred method of world domination revolves around giant robots which they pilot from seats behind the eyes – some super-hero with a free weekend should find this island (and we know they come from an island – it’s always an island, right?) and destroy the place. But that’s neither here nor there.

As far as control over the weather, fire and water goes, at this point you’re hardly even contributing to your Justice League or Hall Of Super-Friends or whatever guild you have joined. So, you can make it rain or shoot fireballs – so what? Most super-villains have to ability to hatch secret evil plans that could work around your super-power. I’d hate to think some madman finally destroyed the world (which, it seems, is priority number one for all evil-geniuses and super-villains) because he was wearing a fire retardant suit and carrying an umbrella.

Of course, there is always the chance you are more concerned with everyday life instead of saving the world. Even if you choose to eschew the crime-fighting lifestyle, however, super-strength is still number one. How often have you ever really, really needed to look through a wall or become invisible? But, I bet a day doesn’t go by when you don’t wish you were just a little bit stronger so you could, say, open a pickle jar or lift the entire couch off the floor to vacuum underneath. Given the practicality of super-strength in both crime fighting and everyday life, it’s definitely the way to go when the genie asks you which power you want.