Real life superpowers
When I was 12 going on 13, I spent a summer reading Spiderman, X-men, New Mutants, Alpha Flight and related Marvel offerings. My most fervent wish was for some mutant power to manifest itself once I hit puberty. Failing that, I wanted to get bitten by a radioactive spider. Failing that I figured I could become a ninja.
To my lasting disappointment, my latent superpowers never emerged. But I’m always thrilled when I hear of people like the Monkey Climber Girl (superpowers on display here) who developed her superhuman climbing skills in Africa, where she spent her childhood supposedly following her pet monkey up and down trees. Professional climbers say there’s nothing special about what she does - she’s just a very skilled climber - but to a confirmed couch potato like meself, that one-finger pull-up, mad rapid scampering up a wall and weird shaped fingers sure seem to indicate mutant powers.
And then there’s Echolocation Boy who, after going blind at age 3, developed a way to “see” with sound. He makes clicking noises with his tongue, and the echoes that bounce back off surfaces allow him to form an image of his surroundings. He gets around perfectly well, maybe even better than people with full use of their eyes. Very Matthew Murdock. Yes, there are doubters, but heck, kid’s pretty damn cool.
And you thought this post was gonna be about that reality show.