Heroes and powers

Often when I meet someone new and I tell them that I am a comic geek they always ask me the most obvious two questions Who's your favorite superhero and if you had one superpower what would it be. And for me a huge comic geek that's sort of a hard question to answer.

Here is my answer for the first question Who is my favorite superhero? Well that one is a two person tie for my favorite. I cannot just have one. Both my favorites are from two different comic companies. The first is Deadpool, yes the Merc with a Mouth that never shuts the hell up. What can I say about someone who is a smartass when he gets the crap beat out of him? Not much other than I need to find a belt buckle and hoodie with him on it.

The thing about Deadpool that most don't know is that when he was created, he was not the Merc with a Mouth. He was just some obscure character that Rob Liefield designed to take on X-Force. The first designs of Deadpool or Wade Wilson looked a lot like DC Comics Dea thstroke the Terminater or Slade Wilson. Slade was a master tactician using 80% of his brain instead of the normal 10% that we non comic based life forms do. When fans first saw Deadpool they immediately thought that he was a Deathstroke rip off, and how could they not he had the same weapons and fought the same way as Deathstroke even had a name very similiar to him. But after a short while it was see that good old Deadpool was much farther from Deathstroke than you could imagine.

Wade is scarred for life from a regenerating healing factor that causes his body to become all scarred and constantly in a state of flux. Wade will never be pretty no matter what he does he was givin this healing factor to help him fight the cancer that was killing him the healing factor was a sample of Wolverine and Sabertooths modified to make sure Wade wasn't going to die.

Deadpool is mentally unstable due to the healing factor and just because he is Wade Wilson. A lot of the time in the comics you can see him haveing a conversation with himself as he is having conversations with other people. Wade is one of two people that breaks the 4th and talks to us the readers. The other is She-Hulk but I am not that big of a fan of hers.

So this is why Deadpool is one of my favorite comic characters: he is a smartass, he has more weapons on him than a small nation, he takes more damage than Wolverine and keeps going and he still thinks he is beautiful when he is all scarred.

My next hero if you didn't know is Green Lantern...and look my text is Green, just for him. Now this isn't the classic Alan Scott Green Lantern whos powers are based on magic, no this is Hal Jordan Green Lantern of sector 2814. Now why do I like Hal? Why wouldn't I? He is a rebel and does things how he sees them needing to be done. He doesn't take orders very well and never makes excuses. Hal is also a womanizer and probably the biggest man whore of the DC universe. As Ollie williams said to Hal once 'is this about you Huntress one other and the bottle of champainge?' Hal responds ' You heard about that?' Ollie says 'All I have to say is Well played.' That is just a little bit of Hal.

Hal was for the longest time a renegade he killed many Green Lanterns in an effort to bring back Coast City that was destroyed by Mongul and Cyborg-Superman. When the Guaridans of the Universe told Hal that he cannot bring everyone that died in Coast City back Hal went nuts and killed the first Guardian and absorbed his powers into himself. Little did we know that Hal at this time was being infected by Parallax, the living entity of fear. After Hal killed the Guardian he went on to Oa the Guardians planed where the Green Lantern Power battery was. The Guradians sent many Lanterns to stop Hal from doing what he thought was right and Hal in his anger killed them all, they became the Lost Lanterns. When Hal reached Oa the Guardians brought the one other renegade Lantern that was inprisioned in the Power Battery, Sinestro. He and Hal fought to the death with no rings, Hal won by snapping Sinestro's neck and then walking into the power battery and taking all its powers. Hal became Parallax, he thought it was the powers of all the green energy in the universe and so did we until yearrs later did we learn that it was actually the fear entity posessing Hal and making him stronger and more powerful.

After a while Hal sacraficed himself to reignite the sun and his body lay in the center of the sun at peace with the universe. But in comics no one ever stays dead and Hal is not an exception to that. He was reborn by the amazing talents of Geoff Johns in the book Green Lanter Rebirth. This is where I started to really get back in to the mythos of Green Lantern. Now anyone that has read any of Johns work knows that the man makes his stories as detailed as possible. And the Green Lanterns have never let me down. With the Rebirth, Sinestro Corps War, Secret Orgin and now Blackest Night we know that Green Lantern will be there for a long time to come.

Now Hal is unique in that he has held the most power rings of any Lantern in history. Yeah he has held many different green rings, but he as also held Yellow rings, blue rings, red rings and the orange ring. No other Lantern has held that many different rings at any time. I have thought for the longest time that Hal would be the rumored white lantern during the blackest night but I don't think its going to be him now, I thinik its actually going to be Sinestro, the greatest of Green Lanterns. But what do I know I am not Geoff Johns, I am just a geek.

I like Hal because he takes no shit from anyone and does what he believes right. He is quite possibly the second greatest Lantern in history. But in my mind and heart I know that Hal is an amazing character and will always be my other favorite.





Now what super power would you have if you could have one? Wow you have no idea how much I honestly hate this question. But being the nice guy that I am I answer it honestly and I say, if I could have any power my power would be similair to that of Peter Petrelli before his father stole his powers. Being an empathic power sponge and being able to control all that power could honestly make him the most powerful person in the world. I am not saying that I have an ego problem or anyting but damn that power was just awesome. I would also use it like Peter did. Yeah it might be a cop out saying that I want Peters power but you know what? Its my answer and I am sticking to it.

So there you have it. My answer to the two most commonly asked questions.