My Worst Mutant Powers Five

As legend, and the living legend himself tells it, Stan Lee introduced the concept of mutants to the Marvel Universe when he ran out of good origin stories. While most of his characters gained their superhuman abilities through a variety of accidents that often included some form of radiation, he found it would be simpler to say that a character was a mutant, just born with powers, and thus the X-Men were born(probably because their parents were exposed to radiation...Stan loved his radiation in the ‘60s).

Nearly 50 years later, the franchise is still going strong, with hundreds of mutants having appeared in the Marvel universe since Stan's initial handful. There have been some really creative and useful abilities, and some less so. Today, my fives will list the characters I think got stuck with the worst powers:

1) Angel: One of the founding members of the X-Men, Warren Worthington III was born with hollow bones and large, birdlike wings. He had really good eyesight, but his main ability was that he could fly. That was it. He had the same useless ability as Heroes' Nathan Petrelli, with more difficulty blending in. He had to hide his wings in a trenchcoat or false bottom backpack when he went out in public. In a universe populated with characters who could fly and control weather, or fly through telekinesis that allowed them to move anything with their mind, or levitate through absolute control of magnetism, or ride soundwaves through the air from one's sonic scream, flight alone is a pretty lame power. It's no wonder that they eventually gave the character a makeover, and after traumatically losing his original wings he was given new ones by the villainous Apocalypse. Reborn as Archangel, he had new metallic wings and he could fling his knifelike feathers, which were laced with a paralyzing neurotoxin. Now that's a useful ability. I think writers later reverted him to his original useless bird wings, and I believe currently he can switch between his two forms.

2) Artie Maddicks: Angel and the rest of the original X-Men team appeared in a comic in the late ‘80s known as X-Factor. X-Factor's original premise was that this team posed as humans who hunted down dangerous mutants, but their true goal was to rescue mutants, training them in the use of their powers. Artie was the first child they rescued. Aside from his physical disfigurement, the mute mutant's main mutation was the ability to project images. Since he couldn't speak, he communicated through these visuals. It made for some humorous comic book panels as his thought balloons read like a rebus, and sometimes he could project images based on what someone else was thinking, but for the most part it was a fairly passive ability. I'm not sure much was ever done with the character beyond that initial series, and after a few sporadic appearances in some other books with his buddy Leech(who had the useful ability of neutralizing the powers of anyone in his immediate vicinity), Artie apparently lost his powers along with millions of other mutants thanks to an insane Scarlet Witch.

3) Chance: As part of the Fallen Angels, a ragtag group of outcast mutants, this young girl didn't even realize she had abilities when she was recruited to the group of thieves assembled by Vanisher. Unusual things kept happening around her during the course of that limited series, from her friends losing control of their abilities to their abilities not working at all. She eventually learned that she was the cause of all their problems, with a latent “double or nothing” power that she couldn't really control. She manages to figure it out in time to help the team against some aliens that had abducted them. Still, either canceling or enhancing the powers of those around you isn't that great of a power, and the character hasn't been seen since her appearance in that 8 issue limited series.

4) Jubilee: Jubilee first appeared in the X-Men as a young mutant who eventually becomes another of Wolverine's young sidekicks. Her power was the ability to create bursts of colored energy, basically fireworks. Manipulating light wasn't particularly original, as Dazzler already could control light on a larger scale, converting sound into light to create brighter flashes or lasers. Jubilee's bursts could explode, but with the exception of a few rare occasions in which she was under great duress, most of these were minor, nothing compared to the explosions that another established mutant, Boom Boom, could create with her energy spheres. So, with her unoriginal abilities, Jubilee served as the team's new young recruit, making wisecracks while distracting evil mutants with exploding flashes of light long enough for Wolverine to stab them with his claws. I've read that she too was another victim of the Scarlet Witch's meltdown, but later resurfaced in the latest incarnation of the New Warriors as “Wondra”, using some kind of special gauntlets that let her lift heavy objects. I guess that's better than fireworks.

5) Cypher: Doug Ramsey was a member of the New Mutants, students who served as the next generation of potential X-Men. His mutant ability was that he could read and translate any language, spoken or computer. While those skills could certainly lead to a number of great careers, from interpreter to computer programmer, they're probably not that useful to a team of heroes, at least not in battle. Doug was eventually shot saving a teammate's life. His memories live on in Warlock, a techno-organic alien teammate he had bonded with in the past, but the true Doug is no more, his story a cautionary tale for anyone who joins a team of superheroes with such a passive ability.