Why Marvel’s Newest Heroes Have The Rarest Power in Comics

Why Marvel’s Newest Heroes Have The Rarest Power in Comics

Marvel’s newest heroes share one of the rarest powers in comics. So what’s changed about superhero narratives to bring about this change?

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Why Marvel’s Newest Heroes Have The Rarest Power in Comics

One of the major strengths of superhero comics is that they mix a huge range of genre fiction. Fantasy and sci-fi characters co-exist within the same world, with powers ranging from simple super-strength to trippier abilities like coughing up a biological spaceship or being able to split your consciousness into three separate bodies. So why is one of the most basic superpowers so rare, and why is it starting to turn up in new Marvel heroes?

The heroes in question are Kelpie – from the recent The Union #1 – and Wave, originating in 2019’s War of the Realms: New Agents of Atlas #1. While Kelpie is firmly based in the realm of fantasy storytelling, being an ancient water demon, and Wave is far more sci-fi, gaining her abilities in the traditional industrial accident, the two have ended up with similar powers. But rather than their abilities being a matter of coincidence, they stem from a very real-world problem.

The power that Kelpie and Wave share is hydrokinesis – the ability to control the shape and behavior of water as an act of will. The Union #1 shows that Kelpie’s control is so precise that she can compress thrown water into knife-life constructs, while Wave uses her abilities in a variety of ways; often to travel through water at incredible speed.

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Why Marvel’s Newest Heroes Have The Rarest Power in Comics

While this power isn’t unprecedented in Marvel and DC comics, it is surprisingly rare. While characters like Thor, Iceman, and Doctor Strange can manipulate water to some extent with more wide-ranging powers, very few Marvel heroes have control of this basic element. Aside from the Inhuman hero Crystal – who commands all four classical elements – and Spider-Man villain Hydroman, very few Marvel characters boast even limited hydrokinesis.

Even when Namor, the king of Atlantis, gained the power in Jason Aaron’s Avengers run, it was revealed soon after in Chip Zdarsky, Carlos Magno, and Butch Guice’s Invaders that he had merely imprisoned Hydroman and was siphoning his abilities. The power is a little more common in DC comics thanks to Aquaman and Mera’s supporting cast, but even here the power is rare enough to most prominently feature as a benefit of the Trident of Neptune – an artifact of immense power that grants characters hydrokinesis on a temporary basis.

So, why is hydrokinesis so rare? Mostly because it’s a poor fit for superhero stories. Hydrokinetic heroes need a water source – which isn’t possible in every setting – and once they get it, there’s the risk of them becoming overpowered. For heroes like Mera, whose stories tend to take place in aquatic settings, these powers can work, but otherwise they’re tricky to write well.

Or they were when climate concerns weren’t so prevalent in comic stories. In Marvel comics, Namor is being used as more and more of an expression of the price humans will pay for global warming, evil CEO Dario Agger is speculating on water shortages, and books like Ultron Forever end with a flooded Earth not as the result of a super-villain’s plan, but as an actual prediction of the future. Over at DC, Legion of Super-Heroes revealed that the Earth of the far future is bereft of its seas thanks to humanity’s negligence (something Jon Kent, aka Superboy, is able to remedy when he discovers the Trident of Neptune), and events like Endless Winter confront Earth’s heroes with ecological devastation rooted in their own past failures.

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As comics continue to grapple with the concerns of the time in which they’re written, so too will they feature heroes and stories suited to addressing those concerns. This is particularly true of Marvel, whose wider approach is centered around depicting the world in which its readers live. Where once that meant the X-Men were children of the atom and the Hulk was created by a bomb, now it means heroes who can command the waves themselves. Hopefully Kelpie and Wave have the same kind of legacy and longevity as their topical predecessors.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/marvel-new-heroes-hydrokinesis-climate-change-global-warming/

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