What do you think of this character/powerset?

I had an idea, and I wanted to know if anything like it had ever been done before:

The character is mainly a street - leveler, with peak human stats, and an expert in many forms of armed and unarmed combat.

However, when his life or the lives of people he cares about (or a large amount of any innocent people) are in serious danger, he temporarily manifests superpowers. They are basically random each time, and can include things like super strength, super speed, durability, agility, flight, energy beams, matter manipulation/transmutation, resistance to extreme environments/poisons/diseases, and even low - level reality warping. However, the powers always go away once the threat/situation that triggered them is over.

Seems kinda plot deviceish

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Seems kinda plot deviceish

which is a 👇

Nemesis Kid from the Legion of Super Heroes kinda has that power already.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_Kid

Or K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider. Same principle.

😉

Originally posted by DigiMark007
Or K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider. Same principle.

😉

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_problems_solved_by_MacGyver

of Night Boat

Or Thunder the Boat.

Maybe I phrased that wrong, he doesn't get any power he needs to help himself in a situation, he gets a random power.

So for example if he was dying from poison, he might develop a new immune system/healing factor to negate it, but then again, he might develop X - ray vision instead, which would be pretty useless in that situation.

The whole thing is pretty hit - or - miss.

darwin........

Originally posted by Endless Mike
Maybe I phrased that wrong, he doesn't get any power he needs to help himself in a situation, he gets a random power.

So for example if he was dying from poison, he might develop a new immune system/healing factor to negate it, but then again, he might develop X - ray vision instead, which would be pretty useless in that situation.

The whole thing is pretty hit - or - miss.

Originally posted by capt it up
darwin........

Not really darwin gets his powers from necessity.

Which is why i always wonder what would happen if he faced the LT.Would he get omnipotence?

Inspector Gadget fits perfectly

😖hifty:

Originally posted by Endless Mike
I had an idea, and I wanted to know if anything like it had ever been done before:

The character is mainly a street - leveler, with peak human stats, and an expert in many forms of armed and unarmed combat.

However, when his life or the lives of people he cares about (or a large amount of any innocent people) are in serious danger, he temporarily manifests superpowers. They are basically random each time, and can include things like super strength, super speed, durability, agility, flight, energy beams, matter manipulation/transmutation, resistance to extreme environments/poisons/diseases, and even low - level reality warping. However, the powers always go away once the threat/situation that triggered them is over.

Sounds more like a villain power-wise...

also sounded like lifeguard and the answer.

the problem with the random power is that he's not going to manifest a random power. he'll always manifest one that somehow gets him out of his situation and/or into another, because you can't have a comic's main character die "randomly" without having established himself. it's too conceptual to actually function in a comic sense, if you stick to the "random" aspect, because you can never truly be random while writing the story.

a better idea might be to have his problems solved indirectly or unconventionally. for example, if he was dying of poisoning, instead of manifesting a healing factor, he manifested several hundred pounds of excess fat [a la big bertha,] which dilutes the effects of the poison over his body to a large enough extent that he can continue doing whatever he's doing and get typical anti-venom treatment afterward. or things of that nature.

the same type of idea was brought up recently in cable and deadpool, though not capitalized on.

Spoiler:
deadpool had been shrunk down to a few inches in height due to rhino and some pym particles, and while infiltrating a hydra base, he came across a machine that could permanently rewrite genetic templates. and his initial solution was to demand a 'yao ming' template be used on him, which could seemingly reverse the process or whatever. but they just used pym particles instead. i thought it would've made an interesting way out of the situation.

Dial "H" for Hero anybody?