Ever since Heroes took off a couple years ago, there had been a surge of interest in super powers. Flight. Mind reading. Super speed. Strength. With that, people have been asked what power they want. A friend of mine even wrote (or is in the midst of writing; it’s been on hold for-like-EVER) a story of us and our college mates with powers—manifested when we drank a tainted case of, ugh, Miller High Life. I was fortunate enough to have suggested my own power for the story. And it’s the power I would pick over a super healing factor, invulnerability, or mastery over space/time.

Self Duplication. The ability to create multiple copies of myself in an instant.

Okay, this pick was totally inspired by one of my favorite comic book superheroes:

Jamie Madrox, The Multiple Man

Why this power? Why create another copy of myself? Heck, why not ten? A thousand? Eh, I think if I had this power, I need to limit myself. I could easily take over the world with billions of myself making up the military. Let’s go into my powers into more detail. And yes, I have thought about this seriously.

My ability is very similar to Jamie’s, minus the need for kinetic energy. I can just think it and a copy will form. When I create a duplicate, it’s just as instantaneous; more like cell-duplication with my copy forming off a part of myself rather than out of thin air. This video does a pretty sweet rendition of it. How many at a time? Not sure. I think that with each copy I make, I need an amount of concentration that exponentially grows with each duplication. Two of myself would be as easy as breathing while making a hundred would probably take so much energy and concentration, it would be best left for emergencies.

A way to work around this though would be to just spread out the rate of duplication. Meaning, I would create maybe five every hour or so. Duplicates exist indefinitely until I absorb them, which would be by contact. There is no time limit to them. I could create a duplicate and send it off to live off his own life and never hear from him again.

A copy is independent from me, meaning I can’t directly control him. He is free to make his own decisions. However, since they are pretty much a direct copy of me, they would pretty much be thinking the same way I am, and through mutual self interest, he would most likely act the way I would and do what I made him for. However: They may be the exact copy as me with the same background, history, and experiences… but we can still turn out to be different people. For example, if I send him to another country to learn the culture, I can’t say for sure that when—and if—he came back, he would turn out the exact same way I would if I stayed home. It’s like we’re the same thread, but at the moment of duplicating, we’re split and can go in different directions. We both may look the same at the two new ends, but if one is burnt or cut or soaked it would definitely not be similar to the other.

When I absorb a duplicate, I will also absorb all the experience, skills, and knowledge he may have picked up. This can be very useful. I can send one to learn all the martial arts in the world. I can have a duplicate master mathematics and physics. I can be a cook, a spy, an actor, a taxi cab driver, an athlete… all these things will take time of course, but I can focus on all of them at one time.

I can duplicate matter as well. I mean, if I couldn’t each duplicate would be naked as day, right? So, each duplicate would be an exact copy of myself with all the clothing I’m wearing and whatever objects I’m holding. It would need to be in contact with my skin, however. Anything in my pockets or backpack would not be duplicated. I can’t duplicate living matter though, otherwise if I was touching another person and duplicated, I’d have created a copy of that person… I think that would get way too complicated.

A death of a duplicate should generally be a bad thing. I think I, as the orignal, and all copies would experience some remote trauma or pain. Not exactly the same, but if I or a copy should feel some very extreme emotions or pain, the rest of us would feel a bit of it. But I don’t think it’d be a good thing to just send hundreds of myself to fight a war and die; I think I would go insane with the constant pain and deaths.

Soooo, as you can plainly see, I have given this plenty of thought. Self-duplication. It’s the power for me!

Oh, yeah. With that power I can totally freak the ladies out like Dr. Manhattan (minus the blue penis). Unless they’re into that kind of thing.

What super power would you have?

Tags: Comics, Dr. Manhattan, Multiple Man, self-duplication, super-powers