In the lexicon of the OPG (Omni-Power Genesis, the leading experts on superpowers and the first book in the Bible) there are primary powers and there are secondary powers. Primary powers are, you guessed it, a superhero’s most prominent powers. The one’s they use to save the day on the reg. The one’s listed on their collectible trading cards. Secondary powers are the unsung heroes of a superhero’s skillset (hmm, is a superhero metaphor really appropriate in a sentence about superheroes?) they’re the abilities the hero needs to have in order to allow them to use their primary abilities. It’s the invulnerability that makes it possible for those strong guys to break through brick walls without hurting themselves. It’s the friction resistance that prevents speedsters from bursting into flames. It’s the ability to withstand air pressure and breathe low amounts of oxygen that allows flyers to fly.
The example that we’ll work with in this post is pyrokinetics, though the points we make can be applied to a bevy of secondary powers. Their primary powers are fire projection, fire manipulation, all that good stuff. They’re the hottest guys on the block. But an often overlooked, though in retrospect totally obvious, secondary power of theirs is heat resistance. What good would they be without it. Imagine if every time they used their powers they had to be rushed to the emergency room to be treated for severe burns. They would be a pretty useless superhero. So generally they can tolerate severe temperatures that would melt, burn or fry a lesser being. (An even lesser known tertiary power of theirs is the ability to shrug off any and all insults, or burns.)
One of the marks of a truly talented superhero is the ability to use their secondary powers as additional primary powers. There’s no law saying that you can’t save the world using the little bonus gifts you’ve been given. [Tell a lie, there’s actually a little known law in a small province on the planet Cartalogia, the universes leading go-kart manufacturers, that specifically prohibits the use of secondary powers in go-kart races, so if you’re ever in a scenario where you need to save the world with go-kart race you should not use your secondary powers for fear of interplanetary war with the Cartalogians.] So you need to get creative and work to hone your secondary powers into effective tools all on their own. In our example that could mean participating in rescues from burning buildings or explosions. If the super-genius that was dispatching heroes to various crisis sites was only paying attention to primary powers they might assume that a pyrokinetic is the last thing a fire would need. They’d send out hydrokinetics or weather-manipulators. But that would be foolish and people would die! It might take a while for those guys to put the fire out. We need to get someone inside the fire to mitigate the loss of life. So you get a pyrokinetic.
Additionally if you’re a pyrokinetic you could sign up with a space program and be the first person on the surface of the sun! That would be pretty sweet. Just make sure you sign up with a legit space program not like a mad science space program. Because a mad scientist would definitely skin you in order to make a heat resistant space suit for themselves. So if you’re filling out the forms and notice that the agency is called MASA (Malevolent Angry Scientist Agency) you should leave immediately. If you get it right though... wow. Imagine if you were the first person on the sun. You could retire from all that dangerous superhero stuff immediately. Think of the marketing deals. You could make a fortune off of selling sunglasses and sunscreen. I don’t know about you but if I were shopping for sunglasses I’d definitely purchase the brand that the first person to walk on the sun was wearing. (*Ahem*) Oh right, but that’s obviously not why we do this. We do this to help people. So keep on doing that.
Superhero costume designers need to be keenly aware of the nature of secondary powers as they often need to figure out ways to install them, so to speak, into a superhero’s costume. Nobody wants to be rescued from a burning building by a naked man. I mean, I guess if they’re tapped in a burning building, any savior will do, but ideally they’d be wearing clothes no? So they need to figure out how to make their costumes heat and fire resistant too. Or friction resistant in the case of speedsters. Or malleable in the case of stretchy guys or (uch) shapeshifters.
Once you have a deeper understanding of your own secondary powers you’ll become much more effective in combating supervillains with the same powers as you. Other superheroes who fight these guys won’t necessarily be paying attention to anything but the big flashy abilities they’re using. But once you’ve gained a mastery over your own powers and intimate knowledge of what you’re capable of, you’ll be able to see past the more obvious abilities and get into the nitty-gritty of how they use their powers and what they might be capable of. This will give you an obvious edge when it comes to fighting them. Especially if they haven’t gone on the same introspective journey you have. Just a heads up though you might have to swap enemies with another superhero to be your most effective self. This can get a bit dicey, superheroes get weirdly attached to their bad guys. It’s all very territorial. The devil you know and all that jazz. (Note: This doesn’t apply to Codename: Gabriel. The superhero/spy/alleged angel who frequently finds himself fighting the actual Devil. He knows that Devil and he does not like him. If anybody wants to swap nemeses with him give him a call, he’s definitely open to a trade.) To sidestep this try only fighting bad guys with the same powers as you from the getgo. If everybody does that then we’ll never have any problems like this. Though I guess there’d be nobody fighting the bad guys with the powers to fire bullets through time or the ones who shoot garbage from their hands. Those seem like the kinds of powers only bad guys have.
An important thing to note is that, in some cases, if exploited by a particularly savvy supervillain (Note: If you are a particularly savvy supervillain it is illegal for you to read the rest of this paragraph), your secondary powers can also become secondary weaknesses. For example, superheroes who can project forcefields need to breathe. To account for that, the forcefields they create are not entirely impermeable, their secondary powers kicks in and allows oxygen and sunlight to pass through, and carbon dioxide to pass out. These tiny, microscopic openings in their forcefields could conceivably be exploited by a supervillain to pump in harmful gasses in order to incapacitate or even kill our projecting protector. So you once you’ve discovered the wonders of your secondary powers we’d advise you not to publicize it (like by writing a free to read blog post without any legal warnings).
Learning about and mastering ones secondary superpowers can be a challenging endeavor, but the rewards are well worth the time you’ll need to put in. Once you’ve done this you’ll find that not only can you be a more effective hero but you’ll have gotten more in touch with yourself and grown as a person for it. Mastering secondary powers requires a level of self-awareness and introspection that utilizing your primary powers doesn’t and heroes who manage to do it often become more skilled at using all of their powers.
