6 Mental Conditions That Could Be Mistaken for Superpowers

The name derives from the wendigo, a mythical cannibal monster from Native American legends. It's basically a zombie from the campfire-story era of public entertainment. In fact, just looking at the symptoms of the disease, we're kind of lucky that it hasn't been renamed something stupid, like zombieitis, given how insatiable the public's appetite for zombie-related things is and how willing public figures are to pander to it. Has originality died completely?

The Superhero: Zombor

It would seem so.

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In my defense, Zombor will be a lot better dressed than most zombies.

In practice, though, "Zombie as a superhero" is actually a pretty original concept, especially when we dig a bit deeper into the Wendigo psychosis, a big part of which involves the sufferers fearing their transformation. So, our Zombor will be a morally conflicted superhero, one afraid of his power, in an obvious shout-out to the Jekyll/Hyde stories. Can poor Todd Zombor control his urges? And how does he square that with his duty to devour all shoplifters?

The Superhero: Suggest-A-Bull

To make this stupid, punny theme work, Suggest-A-Bull will first need the strength of a bull, which I imagine he'll acquire through relatively normal means. Like say he's an orphan who was raised by the membership of a Gold's Gym or something, with all the strength and personality flaws that would imply.

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Yeah. This is exactly what I'm thinking.

But his real power comes from the special Bluetooth headset he wears (horn-themed, naturally), connected to a group of expert detectives and martial artists who, from a distance, tell Suggest-A-Bull what to do. "Pick up that clue!" they'll shrewdly advise. "Punch that guy!" they'll yell. "Stop getting punched! No! Stop getting punched! Man, the controls on this guy suck. Do you wanna go, Gary?" -hands off controller and microphone-

The Superhero: Malice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland syndrome alone isn't especially useful as a superpower; it doesn't actually make things bigger or smaller. But I'm imagining, with the help of a powerful wizard or some carelessly discarded alien technology, that our hero Malice can make reality conform to her perceptions, an ability she could use to right injustices in a variety of vaguely Fantastic Voyage-ish ways.

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"Our only chance is to send these three children inside the web."

The Superhero: Mr. Pretentious

Using his incredible ability to sound slightly French, Mr. Pretentious has the power to immediately make anyone in a room hate him a little bit more.

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"What ees thees shhhit? Croshed grahp jooce?"

Yes, this is a slightly marginal superpower, but fortunately for him, Mr. Pretentious only concerns himself with pretty marginal crimes. Correcting minor misconceptions about things, or teaching the world how great it is to not own a TV.

People who suffer from AHS, as it's known, evidently still feel everything their limb is doing, but feel disassociated from its actions. Really, it's exactly the kind of thing people used to get burned as witches for, which is probably why it wasn't first documented until the 20th century, when society stopped doing that.

The Superhero: The Grabber

Most descriptions of AHS involve the alien limb acting destructively, but what if the hand was actually wiser and more heroic than the owner? What if the hand wanted to stop crime and defend the weak using ancient martial knowledge its owner knows nothing about?

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Or, just to harass women on public transit? Evil women, I guess.

The Superhero: The Bonelord

I'm not going to lie: I'm pretty fucking excited about the Bonelord, and will sue the hair off of anyone who infringes on this idea. Here's what I'm thinking:

By day the Bonelord is billionaire playboy John Johnson, known for his vast fortune in military research and the loose-fitting trousers he's never seen without. But, using his expertise and resources to craft a variety of weaponized... prosthetic... weapons, by night he transforms into the Bonelord, and goes forth to fuck crime.

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If two years from now the Bonelord isn't the star of the next big movie franchise, I will be pretty goddamned surprised. Sure, this will be a little hard to fit within the confines of a PG-13 rating, but with some clever editing, and the bulk of his on-screen crime-fucking left to inanimate objects only, I don't see how this is any worse than most comedies these days. And once you see the storyboard I've drawn of a dude fucking a bus in half, I'm sure you'll see the potential as well.

Chris Bucholz is a Cracked columnist and is waiting for your call, Hollywood. Join him on Facebook or Twitter and gaze upon the other incredible things he has wrought.