One of the biggest movie releases for the holiday season will be "Wonder Woman 1984." Big because it's a sequel to a major league hit from 2017. Big because it features the stars from the first flick, Gal Gadot and Chris Pine. Big because it's being released online and in theaters, which means it has the possibility of reaching a huge audience that won't venture beyond their driveways on the busiest movie week of the year.
As with these kinds of films, the plot is secondary. It's all about watching our hero strut her stuff and vanquish the bad guys, in this case Max Lord and The Cheetah. She does that by using her superpowers, which include superhuman strength and durability, the power of flight, superhuman speed, reflexes, and agility, and enhanced senses, including smell, vision, and hearing. No one trick pony she, Princess Diana of Themyscira has all that as well as the Lasso of Truth, a pair of indestructible bracelets and a tiara which serves as a projectile.
To put it mildly, the lady is packing. Heck, even Oddjob only had a just a steel rimmed bowler. And while it's true that these days we all wear a mask, it's unlikely we have a latex suit or thigh high boots. Still, while most of us don't come equipped with that range of abilities or special tools, it's not that we don't have superpowers. It's just that they are of a, well, more pedestrian variety.
Ask around and you will find all manner of supernatural abilities that folks keep under their hats, and try hard to use only for good vs evil. And we're not talking things that make you super just because you're good at it. You might be a really excellent vacuum-er, or great at exercising, or are a safe driver. Or as one person put it, "I can time travel. But only forwards. And in one second increments." Nah, that don't count.
We're talking about those sixth sense kind of things, those tasks that stump mere mortals, but for which you are, for some reason unnaturally, even scarily good. In my wife's case, it's knowing exactly which Tupperware container is right to hold the leftovers. If I try and pour the leftover spaghetti sauce into a plastic holder, invariably I pick one too big and have lots of extra space. Or I choose one too small and have to get out a second one for the overflow. She sizes up what is in the pot, roots though the drawer and picks one that she fills just to the brim and no more, so much so that it looks likes she measured it or it came off a store shelf. Freaky, huh?
Our oldest son says his power is being able to split a wine bottle perfectly. When I do it everyone gets more or less the same, but it rarely is a equitable split. Not him. No matter how many glasses, how much is in the bottle, he can pour EXACTLY equal amounts so all feel like they are on level ground with the rest of drinkers. I know, it's uncanny.
Check around and odds are you will find others gifted with unique talents. One person says he has the ability to always insert a USB drive in any computer right side up the first time. Another says that even if barely paying attention she can sense when the microwave buzzer is going to go off, and opens the door with exactly 1 second left. Still another notes that he is basically invisible, in that he can meet someone 5 times and they still won't remember who he is. Handy at the store when you go back for another free sample.
It's also worth noting that superpowers are not always a good thing. One person noted that "I have the superhuman ability to pick the line at the store that takes the longest amount of time to get through." Since I seem to be able to do the same with toll booths, perhaps we should form an alliance.
Then there's the person who said they had an uncanny ability to change his wife's mood with a single sentence. The problem is that sometimes it was for good, sometimes for evil, and he still hadn't figured out which way it would go. Superpowers you can't control; that's the worst.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford is still trying to figure out at what he is super. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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