Why Superman is boring

This week’s episode of Heroes reminded me of a point I made last season: when your character is essentially a god, its going to be very hard to write an interesting story about him.  Spoilers abound, be thee wary.

Case in point: Peter Petrelli, who is able to “learn” the powers of anyone in close physical proximity to him.  I havn’t been keeping a tally, but off the top of my head, Peter is:

• Telekinetic
• Able to see the future
• Able to read minds
• Able to fly
• Able to set off a nuclear explosion
• Throw lightning blasts
• Super strong
• Able to stop time
• Able to travel through time
• Able to teleport
• Able to turn invisible
• Able to walk through walls
• Oh, yeah, he’s also immortal

And those are just the highlights; I haven’t included any of the (possibly hundreds) of powers he’s picked up while wandering the halls of Level 5, or in the comics.

How do you put a character like that in danger?  How do you give him a challenge?  How do you create drama?  Peter is so vastly overpowered that he has to fight himself, because another Peter is the only credible threat.

The only exception: the Hatian, the usually-silent agent of The Company.  The Hatian (apparantly) has three powers: the ability to extract meories, the ability to erase memories, and the ability to cancel out the powers of anyone around him.  You put Peter next to the Hatian, and he’s just another emo kid crying for his mommy.

Which bings me to Sylar, the second most powerful being on the planet, and a total psychopath (unless he believes that his mommy really loves him, at which point he reverts to a suit-wearing, brian-eating mama’s boy).   HRG is forced to take Sylar - who has tried to kill his family on several occasions -  on as his partner, leading the Hatian to ask if he is being replaced.  HRG responds (paraphrasing) “only for a little while.  I’m going to find out his weakness, and I’m going to kill him.”

Um, buddy, you’re standing next to his weakness. The Hatian is everybody’s weakness.  Have the Hatian power-wammy Sylar, and shoot him.  Done and done.