Not every superpower deserves to be given the cinematic treatment.

Take Ant-Man. He can make himself small. As far as superpowers go, that is frankly rubbish. Superman is practically invincible, has X-ray vision, can fly, and tops this all off with a renegade disregard for society’s underpant/trouser conventions. Ant-Man is small, and also quite strong for a thing that is small. That director Peyton Reed managed to wring a half-decent film out of this character is bordering on the miraculous.

For as long as comic-book adaptations keep raking in more cash than film studios know how to spend, a search will always be on for which to adapt next. But there are characters lurking in the murky world of comic books with superpowers even worse than Ant-Man’s. Abilities so soporifically dull that filming them would be practically pointless …

Tar Baby

Marvel’s Tar Baby, born in comic form in 1985, possessed one of the most spitefully pointless superpowers in history. He could secrete a tar-like substance through his skin, allowing him to stick to things, like walls and stuff. And, well, that was about it. He just stuck, like a handful of mud or some well-buttered toast. He presumably also left dirty black smudges behind, at the very best making him a hero to the sponge industry – but not to anyone else. If the ability to stick to things is a superpower, then, technically, a blancmange hurled at a wall is a superhero. Is there a scenario in which sharing the adhesive characteristics of a used tissue might result in edge-of-the-seat rollercoaster entertainment? Probably not.

Cypher

Some X-Men are psychics, others are shapeshifting double-hardnuts. Some have impressive chair-chucking telekinetic powers, others are truly blessed and are Hugh Jackman. So spare a thought for Cypher, who, propping up the more adminny end of the superhero spectrum, can translate any language into any other. Handy, sure, like a dictionary or a cheap app, but probably about as much use as either in a dust-up against a death lizard from the pain dimension. On screen, watching him do his thing would be more interesting than watching someone type a phrase into Google Translate. But not by much. Not by much at all.

Color Kid

No one enjoys the cheerless rigmarole of repainting a room, or getting to the pub only to realise that you’re wearing the same outfit as one of your stupidest friends. Color Kid’s power – he can change the colour of things at will – could save the world from both of these injustices. He points, and poof, your living room is a snazzy new lemon hue; your navy pantaloons are suddenly an alluring mauve. Two hours of Color Kid doing just this might sound like it could wear thin, but with a car chase, a couple of shootouts and climactic fistfight shoehorned in, could it be spectacular? Could the thrill of seeing a thing become the same-albeit-different-coloured thing make audiences flock to cinemas in their millions? No. It probably couldn’t.

Gambit

Despite his obvious awfulness, Gambit was permitted to appear in the generally woeful X-Men Origins: Wolverine. He has the ability to charge objects with kinetic energy, meaning he can hurl them with power and accuracy generally detrimental to the target’s ability to remain alive. Which, on paper, sounds great. But his weapon of choice? Playing cards. The same weapon branded by those oafs in sunglasses called Randy or Rooster on late-night Channel 5 poker shows you only watch when you’re too drunk to find the remote. So watching Gambit is basically like watching a man called Sambob throwing cards at people while being a douche, for what feels like a thousand years.

Mister Midnite

Perverts, sporting cheats and superheroes – the three groups who’d surely benefit most from the ability to stop time. It would provide a decent premise for a comic-book film too, with ample potential for tension, whizz-popping special effects and expensive set-pieces. The problem is, stopping time is not what Mister Midnight does. No, with a grand exaltation of “STOP TIME!”, he stops clocks. Not time, you understand, just clocks. The world itself keeps on rolling along as normal, it just temporarily has fewer functioning clocks in it. Which means that, as a superhero, Mister Midnight is beaten in terms of actual power by Bernard from Bernard’s Watch. A $100m summer blockbuster about a man making people slightly late for things? It seems unlikely, mainly because it sounds terrible. On the other hand, a film about Bernard from Bernard’s Watch, crazed by decades of limitless power, laying waste to humanity? That sounds amazing.

Dummy

This DC Comics villain’s superpower is the ability to disguise himself as a ventriloquist’s dummy, leaving him to rule the criminal underworld in anonymous form. In essence, his superpower is disguise, serving a function that a hessian sack over the head could perform equally well. Uniquely, this particular superpower also carries with it the alarming risk of a hand mistakenly being inserted into the possessor’s fundament – a risk no one should ever take unless there’s absolutely no alternative. And, as we’ve established, with sacks in existence, there really is.

Goldstar

Goldstar at least possessed some abilities that might be of use to your average jobbing superhero. He could fly, which is a boon for anyone wanting to flaunt it on the big screen, and he had super strength. In theory then, he was as hard as Jimmy Nail’s favourite nail. Where Goldstar fell down was his unforgivable teacher’s-pet wetness: he wanted everyone to be nice to each other all the time, so he projected energy beams that caused people to banish negative thoughts, including salacious ones. Meaning he’d never use his super strength to punch a baddie’s face out through the back of their head, there would be no arguments, and no one would ever get to have sex. He’s the Lib Dem of the superhero world. The coffee Revel. The plain cheeseburger. The flaccid, clammy crybaby. He’s a do-gooding, milquetoast, whomping great blubber-gimp. I hate Goldstar so much.