Tuesday 4 August 2009

Sam's Power Trip Follow Up - Empathy, Power Acquisition

Firstly, I apologize for the delay in writing this post.
Aside from Rogue, there are a multitude of comic heroes with this power. I'll leave her out as she seems to be fairly well known. Instead i'll go through the history of a lesser known charater, who is quite familiar to me as the first X-Men comics I read were collections of the original series.
Mimic






















As you can probably tell from the image and his name, Mimic mimics his fellow heroes' powers. He was the first X-Man to be added to the original line up, however he didn't stay long. After being expelled after a fight with Cyclops he still managed to save the team from death in a battle against some roboty plot device character that robbed him of his powers.
However, his powers returned, but began draining the life force out of those he mimics, thus putting a hold on his hero activities for a while.
He had his chance again in a fight with the Hulk, but as the Hulk is a source of limitless energy it overloaded him and put him into a coma which lasted for years. This ended when Wolverine walked past him and gave him his regenerative powers. He is now a member of Norman Osborns' Dark X-Men.
His powers are limited to range, unlike most. However this means he can absorb and use a huge amount of powers if his opponents are within around a mile radius. He also absorbs their knowledge of their powers, meaning he can use their powers with the same level of skill instantaneously. Wouldn't that be fun to see in Heroes? Proximity to powered heroes for long periods of time results in him absorbing their powers permanently, thus he has the powers of the original X-Men and it could be argued Wolverine's. The New Dark X-Men contain some very powerful mutants, including Namor, Daken (Son of Wolverine), and Emma Frost.
Interestingly, Weapon Omega is also on the team, who also has power mimicry (I smell a Sitcom!) which should give us an interesting fight when Mimic realises he's not on the good team, and that "Professor X" is actually Mystique.
There's a multitude of other heroes with Power Acquisition etc. such as Meggan (Captain Britain's wife), Awesome Andy, the Impossible Man and an anti-hero called Terror, who absorbs powers and talents through his victims' dismembered limbs. I won't go through them all, but you get the idea. I like how most of the writers (and most of them are Marvel, there's not as many in the DC universe) make good use of these characters, there's a high chance of their appeal going stale, but using them sparingly is working so far. And the use of Weapon Omega as the Collective after Decimation made a pretty good read.
Well, sorry for holding up all the follow up posts Aled, 'till next time.

1 comment:

A figleaf of your imagination said...

Awesome! Awesome! See, I didn't know anything about that guy and now I do - we make a great team dude!