During San Diego Comic-Con from July 24-27, attendees will get a chance to audition for The Awesomes at the Xbox Lounge and become a superhero. But that means some heroes will be looking for jobs, and we can think of a few who need to change careers.
Cyclops
When RPG players talk about Lawful Stupid, really, let’s face it, we’re talking about Cyclops. Cyclops’ defining characteristics are that he’s humorless, authoritarian, morally inflexible (when it comes to the behavior of other people, anyway), and just generally the kind of person who enjoys issuing orders and making people follow them whether they want to or not. This is not a leader of men. Let’s face it, Wolverine’s been leading the team since the ’80s anyway.
So, he should quit the X-Men and get a job where he can be the paladin he’s always wanted to be. A job with elaborate rules everyone has to follow or else. Yes, we think Cyclops should join that most dreaded of all organizations, and become a tax auditor for the IRS.
And the IRS would love it; just send him to deal with the people who won’t pay up. Even drug dealers fear the guy who can kill you by taking his glasses off.
Superman
Superman is, objectively speaking, like about the eighth godlike being you should call when there’s a crisis in the DCU. What, you need somebody indestructible, ridiculously strong, fast, who can fly, and endowed with a brilliant tactical mind? Meet Wonder Woman, who isn’t allergic to rocks or magic and is willing to kill when necessary, having been trained to fight since birth. Or Shazam, who’s basically a walking magical bomb. Basically, if there’s an enormously superpowered threat, those two can handle it. Hell, even Martian Manhunter is less lame than Superman, on paper, and you can beat him with a lighter. What do you want, superbreath or the ability to read minds and shapeshift?
So what should a grown, responsible, compassionate person who can fly anywhere in a blink of an eye do? Deliver aid supplies to war-torn countries. Think about it: The UN tells Superman “Hey, can you get this fifty tons of grain to the refugees in this godforsaken hole with no roads?”, he can just take care of it right there.
Nobody’s going to rob him. Nobody’s going to ask for his papers. Superman could probably do more to help the human race being a charity delivery boy than he ever did in the long-johns.
Cypher
Cypher is possibly the lamest mutant Marvel ever produced, from a hero perspective. He has no offensive or defensive powers, no useful tools to speak of, nothing. What he does have is the power to understand any language, even machine language, instantly and communicate with them.
Stop and think about that for a second. It’s not being able to chuck rocks into space, but basically he can solve any communications problem in an eye-blink. What’s he doing knocking around with the New Mutants? Somebody get this guy a consultancy!
Batman
Why Batman isn’t reforming the education system is a mystery. Think about it: Give Batman anybody, and he can, in a very short period of time, turn them into the pinnacle of humanity mentally and physically. Nerdy librarian, orphaned street urchin, rebellious teenager, whatever, give him maybe a year at the outside and they’ll have a razor-sharp deductive mind, fists and feet of iron, and a ripped physique that would reduce Adonis to tears.
Common Core? That will take Bats, what, a week? Then he can get to work teaching them criminology and beating people up, turning our educational system into a Batman factory. We’d have swarms of five-year-olds running around and insisting they are the night. Until they beat a mugger into the hospital, it’d be adorable.
OK, so he’s not exactly a huggable type of person, but obviously he can work with all learning styles and be highly effective. Basically, Batman should be appointed the Secretary of Education yesterday. Just give him the right to dangle Congressmen off a ledge to get appropriations, and we’ll start getting things done.
Yellowjacket
We bring this up for a good reason: Hank Pym is currently working with robots, and historically, that has not ended well for anybody. Really, Hank needs to start putting his biochemistry degree to use beyond just shrinking people: By being able to sit in the human body and see how processes actually work, and lugging in some diagnostic equipment with him, he probably save millions of lives with the medical research he really should be doing, right now.
And also he’d be away from robots. Did we mention he built Ultron? They really need to keep him away from robots.
If you’d like to take a shot at retiring these five, Hulu has paired up with Xbox to celebrate San Diego Comic-Con and bring the original series The Awesomes to the Xbox Lounge at the Manchester Grand Hyatt. From July 24-27, you can record your very own superhero audition video and the best audition will selected by The Awesomes themselves and get animated into an upcoming episode.