These are heroes who make Green Lantern’s weakness to yellow – or wood if it’s Alan Scott – seem normal by comparison. In some cases, these simple deficiencies have made more than one fan wonder how the hero ever made it past their first adventure and, beyond that, how they aren’t defeated every time they run off to battle evil.
The Captain Can’t Say His Own Name In More Ways Than One
One of the oldest superheroes around, The Captain, aka Shazam, aka Captain Marvel, has a weakness that breaks the fourth wall: h’t say his name. It started when DC Comics sued Fawcett Comics over the character, saying he was a knock-off of Superman, and in 1953, Fawcett agreed to never publish a Captain Marvel comic again.
In 1967, Marvel Comics introduced their own Captain Marvel, and in 1972, Fawcett licensed its characters to DC. But because their Captain Marvel hadn’t been published in so long, they had lost the trademark. DC’s workaround was to do a series titled “Shazam!” and while he still went by Captain Marvel inside the pages of the comic, people came to know him by the book’s title.
DC outright bought Fawcett’s characters in 1991 and continued to tell Captain Marvel stories. In time the decision was made to stop calling the character Captain Marvel altogether, and his superhero name became Shazam. But there was one problem.
Billy Batson turns into a superhero by saying Shazam. He also returns to being a superhero by saying Shazam. So, now that the character’s name was “Shazam,” he could never tell people what to call him unless he wanted to turn into a teenaged boy. These days, he goes by “The Captain,” but it isn’t clear if that name has caught on.
Thor Gets Sleepy
Thor is one of the most powerful figures in the Marvel Universe. With his hammer, Mjölnir, the God of Thunder is capable of, among other things, controlling the weather, flying, and taking on a more common human guise. That last one used to be a bit of a problem for the Odinson.
Back when Thor would spend time on Earth as Dr. Donald Blake, he would need to touch the Mjölnir every sixty seconds if he wanted to stay in his Thor form. Now that Thor has stopped being Dr. Blake, that weakness has vanished. But Thor does have one big problem he needs to look out for: he gets very sleepy once a year.
Whenever Thor takes on the Odinforce, he also gains his dad’s greatest deficiency: Odinsleep. While it isn’t a constant problem for Thor, since he doesn’t always have access to the Odinforce, it is an issue he’s had to deal with whenever his pops decides to take a break from the throne or seemingly dies.
When the Odinsleep strikes, which is about once a year, Thor has no choice but to put on his pajamas and head to dreamland. The Odinsleep can last a single night or go on for months, and during that time Thor enters a near coma state and is completely vulnerable, making him an easy target.
Power Girl Can’t Deal With Nature
Superman’s cousin from another reality, Power Girl has the same powers as any Kryptonian, but she doesn’t share their weakness. While the many forms of Kryptonite will mess up the Man of Steel and Supergirl, Power Girl can handle the remnants of the destroyed planet without a care because it isn’t the Krypton she came from.
But that doesn’t mean Power Girl doesn’t have her own weakness. Coming from a different, now erased, universe, Power Girl can’t handle being attacked with natural materials. She can easily take a hit with a polyester pouch or a laser blast, but if someone were to throw mud in her eye, it would really hurt.
And, considering the planet is pretty much covered in natural materials, Super Girl is always in danger of being taken out by a random tree branch or anything else the planet can produce. Of course, with microplastics infecting everything, this may not be as big an issue as it once would have been.
Every Spider-Man Ever, Ranked: All 60 Versions From Weakest to Strongest
Marvel has created dozens of different versions of Spider-Man over the years, but which variant, successor, or clone is the most powerful of them all?
Hulk Will Smash Unless There Are Puppies Around
When the Hulk gets angry, he becomes an unstoppable force of destruction that can cause mass chaos across the planet, or on other planets. No one likes it when Hulk gets mad, so the other heroes do their best to keep the Green Goliath calm and cool at all times – unless, that is, they need his rage-induced strength to beat up some baddies.
But when Hulk gets going, no one can really control him. More than once, the only way the other heroes of the Marvel universe got Hulk to end a rampage by just waiting for him to get tired, but that can take a very long time and a whole lot of destruction can happen in the meantime.
Luckily, S.H.E.I.L.D. discovered a rather easy way to stop Hulk in his track: they let the dogs out. As with the vast majority of humans on the planetm when Hulk sees a puppy, all he wants to do is play with it. The big guy will happily stop smashing everything around him just for the chance to pet a corgi.
Zatanna Is Useless If She Has A Tickle In Her Throat
Zatanna Zatara is a powerful magic user who can take down just about any threat that comes her way as long as she can cast her spells. Zatanna’s method of spellcasting is to speak backwards. So if, for example, she wants to make John Constantine’s hair fall out, she would say “Ekam nhoJ s’enitnatsnoC riah llaf tuo.”
It’s a very cool gimmick, but one with a simple weakness. It’s not enough for Zatanna to just think backwards, she needs to speak the word out loud. So, if she has a sore throat, a cough, or find herself gagged, she can’t cast a spell. And who knows how much time she needs to spend practicing saying words backward. Once mistake and her spell won’t work.
Spider-Man Gets The Sniffles
Ever since Peter Parker became Spider-Man, he had pumpkin bombs blow up in his face, steel tentacles try to rip him in half, and stabbed more than anyone would be comfortable with. He was even buried alive. But none of these things, not even the dreaded Paul has been able to keep the Wall-Crawler down.
But there is one thing that seems to be able to break through Spider-Man’s defenses. It sneaks past his spidey-sense, gets right by his superhuman stamina, and can easily beat his quicker than normal healing. It turns out that Spider-Man’s most dangerous foe may just be influenza.
Swinging around Manhattan in a skintight suit leaves Spider-Man vulnerable to common illnesses, and when it comes to those New York winters, he is very vulnerable to viruses. Catching the common cold can mess with Spider-Man’s powers, throwing off his equilibrium and messing with his senses. And it can’t be pretty when he sneezes inside that mask.
Matter-Eater Lad Needs A Superpowered Tums
The Legion of Super-Heroes is one of the biggest superhero teams in comics, with dozens of members making up its roster. And with so many members, there’s bound to be a few weird ones, like Matter-Eater Lad. Tenzil Kem, a native of Bismoll, has the ability to eat anything. Stone. Metal. Wood. Plastic. Whatever you give him, Matter-Eater Lad will chow it down.
While this sounds like a pretty goofy power to have, it has come in handy from time to time. When a number of Legionaires found themselves captured during an adventure, Matter-Eater Lad simply ate the walls of their prison cell. He’s also eaten meteors that threatened lives and, on one occasion, he ate the indestructible Miracle Machine.
Little is known about the Miracle Machine. It has the ability to turn thought into reality, and appears to be connected to the Fourth World of the New Gods, as it resembles the symbol on Metron’s head. It’s also powered by a cosmic energy unlike any other.
When the Miracle Machine was used to create a monster that even the combined efforts of Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes couldn’t stop, there was only one hope: Tenzil Kem. Sure enough, Matter-Eater Lad was able to chew up and swallow the most powerful device in the universe, but, like a middle-aged man scarfing down a large pizza with extra sausage, it proved to be too much for him and destroyed Matter-Eater’s hold on reality.
Domino Is A Real Chicken
The mutant Domino has the rather helpful power of good luck. Pretty much anything she needs to happen will happen, ensuring that things will go her way. At the same time, her power causes her enemies to have bad luck, which is a pretty great bonus. In theory, nothing should be able to stop Domino. Nothing, that is, except for a certain fowl feathered fiend.
As it turns out, Domino suffers from alektorophobia aka a fear of chickens. While it isn’t likely that this weakness comes up often in the field of battle, it certainly makes her useless on a farm. Still, scheming foes have used this phobia against Domino in the past. Deadpool once put a chicken in her path to get away.