Ask the Captain: Origins
Hello and welcome to our weekly advice column by Captain Happily Married, Edison City’s heroic defender against evil, injustice, and interpersonal conflicts! Today’s topic: the origins of superpowers!
Today’s question has been submitted by
: How did CHM and SSM know their kids had powers? When do kids’ powers start to show up? How do you figure out what your kids’ powers are and, like, contain them?Captain Happily Married: An excellent question, citizen! Sometimes you don’t really know precisely; it just takes the sharp eye of a skilled observer! For instance, when my oldest daughter Margaret, aka Meg Atomic, first detonated the backyard outside our house at the age of five years old, I said to myself, our daughter has superpowers! And I’m pretty sure they’re explosive!
Super Soccer Mom: Okay, let me clarify things a bit here: it really is different for every powered kiddo. In Meg’s case, yeah, when she exploded at five, we noticed. Kinda hard not to notice that. But then you have to figure out exactly what you’re dealing with. My other daughter, Sauna, creates super-high temperatures, right? When she set her bed on fire at first I thought it was another Meg situation. Turns out not so much. You really don’t know.
CHM: Indeed you don’t! Containment-wise, we have Seymour to help with that; he can project force fields and cryo-sprays for the big messes! With other powers it’s a little trickier!
SSM: Yeah. That leads to another point as far as when: that depends on your power origin. With kids who’re born with their power, if it’s in their DNA or whatnot, it can be a range, but usually puberty’s the upper limit (as if they don’t have enough to deal with at that age, right?). If you get it through falling into a chemical vat or bitten by a radioactive whatsit, though, all bets are off. Mine happened when I was on a space mission. I had a power-free childhood, adolescence, everything, there’s some backstory I can’t get into, but long story short I was out there and some weird reversed-polarity kapparadiated somachromatic energy flew by and zapped itself in. Hit the ship, hit me, and when it was done I had the ability to link up mentally with any electronic device. Short version is I can think at my microwave and pop some popcorn for you. Also I’m psionically linked to Seymour, my cybernetically enhanced soccer ball, and he’s very useful. Anyway.
CHM: Exactly! I received my mystical powers from the Sacred Kneecap of St. Gengulphus!
SSM: Which we try to keep secret because if something happened to the darn thing than your powers would go away, remember?
CHM: Oh, right, yes. Of course. I knew that!
SSM: Ah, c’mere, you big dork.
*SMERP*.
The management regrets to inform the audience that question time has been postponed as the Captain and Super Soccer Mom have been suddenly called away on Urgent Superhero Business.
They will return.
The management regrets to inform the audience that question time has been postponed as the Captain and Super Soccer Mom have been suddenly called away on Urgent Superhero Business.
Oh, is that what the kids call it today? In my day, it was called "Shagging."