Removing Someone’s Powers
Sometimes you meet a person who has superpowers and you just find yourself thinking “hey, I don’t think that person should have powers.” Maybe they’re a supervillain who keeps using their powers for evil. Maybe they’re a small child who simply should not be able to turn into a ball of fire whenever something doesn’t go their way. Maybe they’re a huge jerk who keeps using their teleportation abilities to prank you which is a huge jerk move. So you decide to just... take their powers away from them. Can we do that? Is that a thing?
Deciding to remove a person’s powers is no simple thing. It presents a complex ethical quandary. Superpowers are an important part of a person, taking them away, especially without their consent, could be like removing an arm or a kidney or something. Now, if you’re the Arm-Hacking Kidney Stealer of Detroit, valiant defend of Montreal (protip: If you’re gonna put a city in your codename, don’t make it the city that you’re from. This way you’ll throw off the bad guys and protect your secret identity.) this is nothing new to you, you’ve already performed the mental gymnastics required to rationalize that to yourself. So go on right ahead. For the rest of you though you’ll need to do some math. How many people are threatened by this person continuing to have their powers? if they’re just pranking you then you need to come up with another solution. But if they’re threatening all of existence then you might be morally obligated to step in. Or maybe you’re not? Maybe you need to continue to search for another solution.
Another way of looking at this issue is not through the lens that superpowers are a part of a person that they have an unassailable right to, but rather that they’re like dangerous weapons that need to be regulated. Perhaps it would be criminally irresponsible for the authorities to allow a known felon to walk around with acid hands or drill fangs. Maybe it is the duty of those in power to keep the rest of the populace safe from these people. Several governments have commissioned the development of superpower suppressing or removing technologies or procedures. In rogue states, or countries where the head of state is literally a supervillain, this technology could be used as a powerful weapon to keep the populace in check and to keep superheroes from other countries at bay. This is, obviously, incredibly dangerous, which is why such technology is heavily regulated and closely guarded in countries where it has been developed. But still, is it right to even create such things? Knowing that they will be used to permanently alter a person’s genetic makeup against their will?
Another option you have it to temporarily suppress the person’s powers instead of permanently removing them. We’ve spoken in the past about power-suppressing handcuffs which many law enforcement agencies use to subdue superpowered criminals. Commonly when they’re transferred to a superhuman prison the cells are lined with power suppressing technologies so they can have full use of their hands and whatnot if they need to scratch their nose or furiously bang on the door while demanding release. However, this is not a fool proof solution either. Some people need their powers to be active to live comfortably. If you suppress an immortal person’s powers they may find themselves rapidly aging or dying depending on the nature of their immortality. Certain anthropomorphic animals, such as Super Hamster or alternate dimension visitor, Bunderclap, have been turned into dumb animals as a result of power suppressing. There are people who might find themselves crippled or at the mercy of deadly diseases were it not for their superpowers. I’m pretty sure that if Power Jones, the man with one million powers, was ever placed in an environment where he couldn’t use any of his powers he would definitely die. I’m like eighty percent sure he doesn’t know how to do anything without powers. He might actually technically be dead, being kept alive only by his nigh unlimited powers.
Certain powers also become more difficult to suppress or contain than others. Superhumans who have weapons as part of their anatomy, such as catapult fingers or literal shoulder blades, can’t just be slapped in cuffs to negate their powers. Other heroes such as Power Pod or Whirlpool, who are made of liquid, or Ghost Guy or Jonathan Lockhorn, who are incorporeal spirits, also cannot simply be placed in cuffs. Ghost Guy actually was placed in power suppressing cuffs for a bit after he was caught infiltrating an Armada facility which led to him actually coming back to life and joining Armada as an agent codenamed Ghost for a bit but those were the ‘90s and things were weird back then.
Then you have para-folks such a sewer mutants or werewolves whose species have natural abilities that are akin to superpowers. Their powers cannot be removed without forever changing their lives and cutting them off from their families and communities. Not to mention the fact that most para-folk are not even evil or criminals and that developing ways to alter their physiology would no doubt lead to many of them having their lives forever changed by bigots for absolutely no reason.
One of the examples we gave in our intro was superpowered children. Sure, at a glance it might seem smart to prevent a small child from being able to accidentally cause mass destruction. But suppressing their powers might not be the solution. Children’s powers are still developing and stunting this development could harm them in the long run. You’re better off just sending them to one of many superpower or magic schools that have been set up around the world to help children learn how to properly use their powers. (However don’t send them to the superhero school in Albany where Professor Mitch “Dummy Face” Fueller and Professor Leon “Loser Nerd” Von Iguanodon teach.)
However, there are indeed sometimes when removing a person’s powers is actually the best course of action. People who are experiencing uncontrollable powers (that post did numbers so we’re officially going to start pandering to that crowd all the time) might actually want to have their powers removed. So it’s important that that option is available. There are also powers out there that are dangerous to their users, such as certain forms of super speed that speed up the user’s heart rate to incredibly dangerous speeds. There are also powers that are “evil” such as the power to kill anybody you touch, which a person might understandably want to get rid of. The trick is to know when such drastic measures are appropriate and when you’re better off searching for another solution to the issue at hand.
At the end of the day, as a superhero, you know more about superpowers than the average person, you have them, you’ve fought people with them, and your adventures have brought you into contact with people and creatures across the galaxy, the multiverse, and even the afterlife who are in possession with fantastic powers. Which means that you have a responsibility to fight for the right of these people to keep their powers. You know how important superpowers are to people who have them, and you may even know firsthand what its like to have lost your powers. So it falls to you to lobby for imprisoned superhumans to keep their powers... unless they’re using them to prank you. Then you do what you need to do.
