I’m a columnist. What’s your superpower?

Recently, I’ve been pondering some very serious life matters: how to keep my family safe, how to save to send my kids to college, how to properly arrange a will, and insurance so my family is protected. But the one that has occupied my mind the most is probably the most serious:

If I could only have one superpower, what would it be?

With the recent Spider-Man movie and the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday movie, I figured this is the perfect time to really home in on this topic. Choosing correctly really takes a lot of thought and deep research. I thought about individual superpowers and the powers of different Marvel and DC characters. I wrote down some highlights of this process, in order to help you along your superpower choice journey. What can I say? I’m a giver.

So here we go.

I want to take two powers off the table immediately. I think we can all agree that both X-ray vision and invisibility are for perverts. I don’t want anything to do with them or the litigation they bring.

Superman? Being Superman is just cheating. He has way too much power. Not only is he the strongest, but he is basically impervious to any attacks. Plus, he has X-ray vision (Weirdo!), so sayonara, Superman.

Now one thing that I would cherry pick from Superman would be the ability to fly. With the price of plane tickets nowadays, this would save a ton of money. Plus having the strength to carry your own luggage on the journey is a huge plus! Now I would just need to tie my family on to me with some bungee cords, and look out, Disney World, here we come!

I could go with the power to stretch, like Reed Richards in the Fantastic Four. If I would have had that as a young child, no cookie jar would have been safe from me. It would be fun to be able to tap someone on the shoulder who is 50 yards away from me just to watch them look around and no one is there. Teehee!!

Then there’s the Flash, who can move faster than the speed of light. This could come in really handy. The first thing I’d do is try out for the NFL. I’d be a bajillionaire in no time! Although, the speeding ticket fines would start to rack up pretty quickly after a while.

I could go with the Hulk. People always say that you shouldn’t hold in your rage. You have to let it out before it affects your health. As a Hulk, I’d have no problem with that. No psychiatrist for me! However, I don’t think I could handle being green. That happens to me enough with motion sickness.

There are always Aquaman powers. I guess it would be kind of neat to be able to breathe underwater. And controlling fish would be fun. But honestly, those powers don’t do a lot of good on land – where I plan to spend most of my time. How would I stop a bank robbery in land-locked Fishers? I’d be all washed up (see what I did there?). So, Aquaman is out.

Then there’s one of my favorite heroes of all time, Spider-Man! The ability to climb buildings, sense danger, and of course sling webs to stick my enemies to a wall is very enticing (I’m looking at you, Carl!) The one issue would be: what if I was bitten by the wrong radioactive insect. I don’t want to take the chance of being Lightning Bug Man and constantly give away my position because my butt can’t stop glowing. Gonna have to pass on Spidey.

I realize I have left villains off this list. That’s because I’m a good guy advocate. However, there is one I will mention: Sandman. The Marvel Sandman is an enemy of Spider-Man. He’s able to turn his body into sand. You absolutely do not want this power. If you have kids and have ever taken them to the beach, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Your car would never be the same.

I don’t want to leave the ladies out of this. Wonder Woman is pretty cool. Making people tell the truth with a lasso? Yep, count me in. The downside, however, would be I would never remember where I parked my invisible plane.

I would love the power to instantly heal, like Wolverine. That would negate my clumsiness, not to mention my forty-something year old body. Although, I think knowing that I could instantly heal any injury would immediately raise my “doing dumb things” factor insurmountably. Parachute-less skydiving here I come!

Let’s not forget the power of telepathy. Being able to read minds may sound enticing at first. Who wouldn’t want to know how someone really feels when they’re making small talk? But there is always a risk of digging into the mind of a stupid person. Not to mention all the political opinions people have that they think others care about. You heard me, Janice!

I did leave out two very popular heroes: Batman and Iron Man. The problem is that they don’t actually have any superpowers. Unless you count the power of being rich. Come to think of it, that’s not so bad after all! Not to mention that Iron Man literally saved the universe, so I guess he’s got that going for him. (I realize that is a terrible use of the word “literally” since we’re talking about a movie and not real life. But it’s a great movie!)

After all this research I think I landed on my superpower. I would want the power to make everyone agree with me. Because who knows better about how I want everything to be than me?

The moral of the story is … all kidding aside, truly the best superpower of all is the power of child-like imagination. Well, actually now that I think about it, I think I’d like the power to bilocate (be in two places at once) so if I have to pass gas, I can do it elsewhere so some other poor schlub takes the blame. Yes! That’s definitely it!

Tim Rathz can be reached at 40somethinginfishers@gmail.com. Follow on Facebook or Instagram.