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#046 Losing Your Powers

Having extraordinary abilities, or, as they are colloquially known “superpowers” (and that’s only because “extraordinarilyabledheroes” sounded too clunky,) is an immense privilege and shouldn’t be taken lightly or, heaven forbid, for granted. Many superheroes grow so accustomed to having powers that they would struggle to get through menial day to day tasks should they ever lose them. Many superheroes don’t even pause to consider the fact that they might someday be without their powers. This is stupid. People lose their powers all the time. You need to be prepared for that possibility.

Superheroes can lose their powers in a number of different ways: Curses from witches, not properly reading the terms and agreements manual on your powers and accidentally violating one of the terms and/or agreements, emotional trauma, reliving your origin event in reverse (like falling out of a vat of toxic waste or shooting a magic lightning bolt from your body), you didn’t fully think through the possible ramifications of a monkey paw wish, a different kind of magic lightning, someone wiped your memories and made you forget how to use your powers, etcetera etcetera (I could literally do this forever {an unexpected side effect from an anti-depressant pill} see.) So the odds are pretty high that at some point in your superhero career you’ll, at least temporarily, lose your powers.

Now, fear not (y’all best not be fearing), losing your powers doesn’t mean you have to give up your exciting superhero lifestyle. There are plenty of superheroes who don’t have powers. Most of them die horrible horrible deaths (have you ever been eaten by a dragon without having superpowers? Neither have I. It’s probably the worst!) but some of them don’t! Some of them live very long lives! Doing backflips across rooftops and roundhouse kicking bank robbers, living that non-powered hero dream. You can have that too, but only if you make the proper preparations while you still have your powers. Ask one of your non-powered hero friends to give you hand to hand combat training. Practice doing things like long distance running or rock climbing without the use of your powers. This way should you ever eat an expired candy bar and lose your ability to control the winds of the Earth you can fall back on the boxing lessons you took and still kick evil butt!

Even if you don’t decide to continue being a superhero, which hey, if you were looking for an excuse to retire here it is, you might find yourself having difficulty going about your regular day to day life without the use of your powers. For many heroes using their powers becomes second nature to them. They use them all the time. Even when they’re not “working” (read: beating criminals in alleyways). So it might come as a sort of culture shock when they can no longer heat up leftovers with their eye beams or skip the morning commute by teleporting to work (or to near work, gotta keep that secret identity intact). So to prepare for this I recommend setting aside some portion of your week for doing things without powers. This way you’ll be operating with some sort of net instead of plunging into the powerless life all at once. Take the train to work once a week. Move at normal speeds for at least one hour out of the day. Buy a microwave and figure out all the settings. All so when you inevitably lose your powers after you happened to step on a crack causing your mother to break her back and, in a fit of rage, curse you so that you lose your powers, you won’t be stuck up the metaphorical creek.

Losing use of your powers doesn’t only affect you though. If word gets out that a city’s defender has been essentially neutered you can be sure that supervillains and other do-badders will flood into the city. Supervillains love it when there are no superpowered people around the stop them. It’s like their favorite thing. On some level they like it even more than actual crime, which you would think is their favorite thing to do. Sure some villains like having some sort of challenge, but the vast majority would totally prefer it if nobody got in their way. So you can’t publicize the fact that you have no powers! No press conferences! Don’t release a blues album called “Hey So I Lost My Super Strength Because I Thought it Was a Good Idea to Gamble It Away to the Literal Devil,” don’t put out an ad in the classifieds that reads “seeking a new hero to defend my city because I, like a fool, lost my powers, like I literally misplaced them. I don’t know where they are. Somebody please help me,” don’t even post about it on Facebook! There are a lot of supervillains on Facebook! You need to keep that on the down low. This may even mean putting on your costume and pretending you still have powers for a bit until you can discreetly find someone else to protect your town. This is when you’ll have to get clever; use holograms, strategically placed wind cannons and speakers, maybe even some of that evil super-tech you keep confiscating from the bad guys. Anything you can get your hands on to trick the evil element of your city into thinking that you’re still in full possession of all of your abilities. If you manage to pull this off successfully and consistently until you either get your powers back or find some other superhero to take over then you can make a viral video announcing that you lost your powers. As a sweet bonus you can totally hold the fact that you tricked all your enemies over their heads for the rest of their lives. It’s always fun to lord things over the heads of supervillains. At least until they get super pissy and commit a bunch of murders as a result. It’s a bit of a tightrope walk.

Even if you never lose your powers (lucky for you none of your enemies ever got their hands on a genie, you’d be surprised how many heroes lose their powers like that,) it’s still a good idea to learn how to fight crime or just live your life without them. Superpowers are extremely fickle. You can never be sure that you’ll have them forever.