The 14 Worst Superheroes Ever, Ranked

When most people think of superheroes, they likely imagine Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, or any of the hundreds of popular characters that have worked their way into popular culture over the decades. The aforementioned characters are some of the strongest superheroes ever, but they're often busy saving the world. No superhero can be everywhere at once, which sometimes leaves the life-saving to heroes with less glamorous abilities.

Despite their intentions, some of these lesser-known heroes either seem silly in comparison to the more popular characters, or they're just bad at their jobs. There are plenty of heroes who have absolutely ridiculous abilities, and some have powers that are more dangerous to them and their friends than to a potential enemy. Everyone featured below is a bad superhero you'd probably want to avoid, simply because they have terrible powers or are just too silly to take seriously.

You can sometimes infer from a character's chosen team whether or not they're a heavy-hitter, and the case is pretty clear for Khfeurb Chee Bez, otherwise known as Antennae Lad. That's because he's a member of the Legion of Substitute Heroes, a team that came into being when Antennae Lad and others were rejected from the far more reputable Legion of Super-Heroes.

Antennae Lad's superpower is tied to his ears, as he has the ability to hear radio waves from anywhere on whichever planet he's currently on. In addition to being able to hear radio waves where he's at, Antennae Lad can also hear sounds from other times. That's a pretty unique and impressive ability. Unfortunately, Antennae Lad has never been able to fully control his power.

This lack of control results in confusion and an inability to focus on something he might try to listen to. As such, Antennae Lad's superpower is little more than an oddity, better suited for a magician than a superhero. While he's not limited to a specific type of broadcast or frequency, which is a small bonus, his lack of mastery over his rarely useful power makes him a weak superhero.

Craig Hollis is the one and only member of the self-proclaimed species Homo Supreme. He determined this when he learned that he couldn't die, becoming the superhero known as Mr. Immortal. After discovering that he couldn't be killed, Hollis founded the Great Lake Avengers. On the surface, Mr. Immortal's inability to die sounds great, but in reality, it's a curse.

Think of the curse of immortality in regards to vampires, but take away all the supernatural abilities. Not being able to die limits the human experience, and it didn't take long for Hollis to begin suffering a great deal of mental anguish about his ... condition. Before deciding to become a superhero, Hollis engaged in several suicide attempts.

Yes, Hollis could put himself in extreme danger whenever necessary to aid or protect his team. However, the hero's mental state constantly serves as his greatest obstacle. Hollis' condition and his upbringing left him making questionable life choices, so he took a year off buried in a grave to reconsider his life. On the one hand, he's useful in a fight as a diversion, but the cost is high.

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If you're a member of the Green Lantern Corps, then you're one of the most powerful people in the universe, right? Well, while that's true of someone like Hal Jordan or Sinestro before he became evil, it's not always the case. Each member of the Corps is empowered by their Green Lantern Rings, which they use via willpower. The stronger the will, the more powerful the Green Lantern.

Unfortunately, Ch'p, while incredibly powerful, is somewhat limited in comparison to some of the stronger Lanterns. Ch'p is the Green Lantern of Space Sector 1014 and came from a planet called H'Iven, which is populated by a race of intelligent cartoon-like animals resembling Earth creatures. He looks very much like a squirrel, though some artists have leaned into a more chipmunk-like appearance.

Regardless, Ch'p possessed a Green Lantern Ring, and he fought for the Corps for quite some time. Unfortunately, like many squirrels on Earth, he met his match on a road: He was hit by a yellow truck and was flattened. Because Green Lanterns are susceptible to the color yellow, poor Ch'p never had a chance. He was resurrected as a Black Lantern during the "Blackest Night," but sadly returned to the grave soon after.

Drura Sehpt, aka Infectious Lass, is another member of the Legion of Substitute Heroes, which she joined having been rejected by the Legion of Super-Heroes. The reason she was refused has to do with the way she uses her powers, which are considerable. Infectious Lass comes from a planet that gives her an unusual physiology. She's host to colonies of microorganisms that don't make her ill, but she can make others sick.

When she tried out for the Legion of Super-Heroes, she demonstrated her abilities on Star Boy. Unfortunately, she couldn't control how sick she made him and ended up hitting Star Boy with a massive dose. Essentially, Infectious Lass has a useful superpower, but she can't fully control it.

Another problem is that being around Infectious Lass is dangerous because a person can become sick just being in close proximity to her. That makes her more of a liability to a team of superheroes than an asset. She doesn't have a great track record, either: She's been known to miss her target and make the wrong person sick. So, while Infectious Lass does try her best, her lack of control makes her dangerous.

Madam Fatal is an odd character first published in the pages of Quality Comics, which was ultimately bought out by DC. The hero's real name is Richard Stanton and he's an actor who puts his skillset to use by dressing up as an old woman to fight crime. Think of Bruce Wayne with all of his abilities, good looks, money, and style, but take away the bat costume and have him dress up as someone's grandmother. Stanton got into the crime fighting gig when his daughter was kidnapped. He donned his old lady costume and crept into the criminal underworld looking for her.

Stanton ultimately learned that his daughter was alive and he continued fighting crime as Madam Fatal. It's almost genius: Being confronted by a hero who looks like an old woman is bound to throw off any potential enemies. Who would suspect that a little old lady is capable of beating the snot out of a goon? Nobody would, which is why Madam Fatal is so successful in fighting crime — Stanton uses people's preconceptions to get the drop on them. Still, as clever as that is, Madam Fatal has no superpowers, and is merely an actor in good shape. Beyond throwing punches and whacking people with a cane, there's not much he can do.

Marvel Comics' mutants run the gamut in terms of appearance and abilities. People with the X-gene can mutate into superpowered beings of unimaginable power. Unfortunately, it's common for a person's mutation to transform them into someone who appears to be less than human. This is certainly true of Hector Rendoza, better known as Wraith.

Wraith's ability is both simple and off-putting: he can turn his skin translucent. When he does this, you can see all of his internal organs, which is a bit disturbing. He was a member of the X-Men for a short time and even managed to mess with Magneto when helping out with a mission. Interestingly, while turning his skin translucent is his primary ability, Wraith can turn someone else's skin translucent as well.

Sure, this works well in disorienting the targeted individual, but the ability is severely limited. Plus, when Wraith does this, it's a sort of transference of the ability — he becomes normal again while the target's skin gets a see-through makeover. Ultimately, Wraith's ability is more unsettling than it is useful in a fight.

Back in the 1940s, when the Red Bee was introduced in the pages of Quality Comics, most superheroes were vigilantes with bags of tricks and no powers. Richard Raleigh, aka the Red Bee, is one such character, as he'd fight crime at night while prosecuting the evil-doers of Superior City throughout the day as an Assistant DA. While he's got no powers, he's highly skilled in controlling animals and marksmanship. He combined these skills into a red gun that shoots stingers, and the highly trained bees that the Red Bee keeps in his belt buckle can be controlled. He instructs them to swarm and sting his enemies. The Red Bee even has a favorite bee named Michael who lives in his belt buckle.

While awfully wacky by today's standards, it's fair to say that the character was a successful crime fighter and superhero during his time period, yet he pales in comparison to the masked vigilantes that followed him. In fact, he's such a comically bad character that DC actually brought in an older version of the Red Bee to team up with Peacemaker for some laughs in 2023's "Peacemaker Tries Hard" #3.

Beckah Parker was the late superhero known as Gin Genie, a powerful member of the X-Force. Gin Genie could generate powerful seismic waves directed at enemies as a blast power. While that's all well and good, there was a stipulation in how effective her abilities were — the seismic waves Gin Genie generated were directly linked to the total amount of alcohol in her blood.

This means that, while sober, Gin Genie had absolutely no superpowers. She had to get sloshed to be an effective combatant. Her chosen name was a direct reference to her abilities and what made them work, and she proved herself effective on several missions. The issue here is, constantly drinking alcohol in excess to empower oneself isn't the best message to send to kids reading comics.

An in-universe problem with drinking alcohol to trigger a mutant ability is that being drunk makes it incredibly difficult to hit a target. As a result, it was common for Gin Genie to accidentally slam her teammates with powerful seismic waves. This was too much even for the X-Force: Gin Genie's handler sent her to her death as part of a publicity stunt involving a boy band that had been captured by terrorists.

Dag Wentim hails from Zwen, a planet where the inhabitants gained the ability to transform into stone. This was an adaptation that enabled people on Zwen to survive in hibernation during the planet's long nights. When the sun rises once more, the stony folk reanimate and go about their lives. Perhaps unsurprisingly considering that nights last for six months, Dag Wentim left Zwen seeking adventure.

Dag attempted to join the Legion of Super-Heroes, but the fact that all he can actually do is turn into stone made that a long shot. Sure, you could use him as a battering ram or drop him on someone, but other than that, Dag's pretty useless. Like so many other terrible superheroes, he turned to the Legion of Substitute Heroes instead, adopting the name Stone Boy. 

At one stage, Stone Boy underwent hypnotherapy in an attempt to expand his powers, and he eventually gained the ability to remain conscious while in his stone state. After that, he gained the ability to move, and finally, he learned how to transform only parts of his body into stone. That's better than basically becoming a statue, but Stone Boy is still far from the first hero you'd call when trouble finds you.

Marvel's J. Pennington Pennypacker was introduced in the pages of "NFL Superpro" #10 back in 1992. He and a group of men attended a special camp advertised as being able to help people find their self-esteem. Of course, it was all a front for an evil scientist, who used a device that grants people superpowers on the men. Pennypacker gained the ability to shoot pennies from his wrists. He can get rich one penny at a time, but there is also some utility to his superpower, so he adopted the moniker Almighty Dollar to fight crime.

If his ability to fire off pennies seems strange, that's because it is. Regardless, Almighty Dollar showed some propensity for combat skills, and there appears to be no limit on the number of pennies he can produce and discharge. Still, it's an extremely limited ability, and Almighty Dollar only ever appeared in the issue he was introduced in, so he never went on to fight crime one penny at a time in the long run. And, to be honest, that was probably a wise move on Marvel's part.

The late DC superhero Friendly Fire had an ability called Energy Projection, meaning he could generate and project energy waves. Unfortunately, he didn't have the best aim and often hit the other members of his superhero team, Section 8. Because of this, he adopted the name Friendly Fire and continued blasting his allies and innocent bystanders.

Friendly Fire was a supporting character in the "Hitman" comic books, and he was the only member of Section 8 who had a useful superpower. You'd think that would make him the leader of the team, but his track record of igniting his pals made him more of a liability than anything else. He also proved to be a danger to himself, because in "Hitman" #52, Friendly Fire accidentally kills himself.

During a fight where Friendly Fire attempts to show off his rather impressive abilities, he chokes. His nerves get the better of him, and he does his best to hold onto his power and aim it at the bad guy. Unfortunately, he inexplicably turns his fist back onto himself and literally pops his top, shooting his head several meters above his body. It marked a silly end for a pretty dumb character.

If it's not yet clear, the Legion of Substitute Heroes is not the greatest superhero organization in comic book history. The team came together via a bunch of rejects from the Legion of Superheroes, so its roster is made up of some of the strangest superheroes in the history of DC Comics. One such character is Ulu Vakk, aka Color Kid. He hails from the planet Lupra, where he was empowered by light from another dimension. This accident gave Color Kid the ability to alter the color of any object he desires. While that's certainly an impressive ability that would make any interior decorator the best in the business, it's not incredibly useful as a superpower.

That's not to say that Color Kid is totally useless. The ability to change the color of something is useful around members of the Green Lantern Corps and also Superman. Regarding the Green Lanterns, Color Kid can change something that's yellow to green, while for Superman, he can change Green Kryptonite into an innocuous color. He later adopted the name Color King, but there was nothing royal about his powers — he still did the same thing. Sure, he may be useful in a handful of very specific situations, but Color Kid is still pound-for-pound one of the worst superheroes ever.

Tenzil Kem originates from the planet Bismoll, where inhabitants evolved with the ability to consume any and all matter. This adaptation was in response to microbes that made all food on the planet inedible, so Bismoll's inhabitants were lucky in their ability to biologically compensate. Tenzil left his homeworld and managed to find a place in the Legion of Super-Heroes, thanks to his ability.

He adopted the very on-the-nose name Matter-Eater Lad and remained a member of the team for a while before returning home to serve in Bismoll's senate. While with the Legion, Matter-Eater Lad did what his name advertised: Whenever something got in the way of the team, he would just eat it. We're talking fences, locks, and literally anything that needs to be done away with.

There are some benefits to this ability, as Matter-Eater Lad can eat something like a bomb and render it inert. Having a guy around who can eat harmful and otherwise indestructible things is never bad in the world of superheroes, though it's unclear how he manages to do this other than a general understanding that he can eat anything. It's an interesting power on paper, but, when you actually think about it, it's really dumb.

Have you ever been so angry that you wanted to rip off your own arm and beat someone with it? Probably not, but there's a superhero who can do just that. Floyd Belkin was one of the first people to try out for the Legion of Super-Heroes, and he holds the distinction of being the first reject. There aren't a lot of uses for a detached arm, though Arm-Fall-Off-Boy typically uses them as blunt weapons. It's not only strange, but it's also off-putting and truly weird, making Arm-Fall-Off-Boy the most ridiculous character in comics.

To be fair, that was always the intention of the character. He was meant to typify the people who wanted to join the Legion of Super-Heroes but had superpowers so silly and useless that they couldn't do anything with him. The character only appeared in a handful of issues over the years, and is probably the only person capable of literal unarmed combat. Nathan Fillion played a similar character with a different name in "The Suicide Squad," but his power was just as useless in the movie, driving home how truly silly Arm-Fall-Off-Boy is.