"Dr. William Moulton Marston: Creator of Wonder Woman, feminist, guy who thought it was okay to make his creation's weakness the act of being tied up by a man."

ok, everyone knows the trivia about him being involved with the creation of the modern lie detector, but did you know that he was a bit of a freak? That he brought another woman into his marriage and had her wear bracelets, almost exactly like wonder woman's and that he had these bracelets welded onto her wrists? i've been waiting for years for the definitive bio of this guy.

I love how Martian Manhunter is weak to fire, well, shit, so is most people :P except dudes like Luke Cage or Human Torch

If I remember CoIE Barry didn't die there because he ran too fast the Anti Monitor set up some kind of Temporal Trap and Barry kept running to be able to destroy his machine.

nice list, I always like ones like that.

Oddly enough, Dr. William Moulton Marston also invented the lie detector. I guess that's why Wonder Woman's lasso makes you tell the truth. By the way, there are so many sick bondage references in Wonder Woman, it wasn't even funny.

http://superdickery.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=34&Itemid=51

Apparently, the Dr. Marston and his wife had a live-in girlfriend, and they were all into kinky bondage. Look it up sometime.

Guess I'd never make it as a Superhero my weaknesses are blonde women and red food dye #40...

So Alan Scott is screwed if his enemy lives in a cottage in the woods or a Home Depot?

By the way, let's not forget the effect that Pink Kryptonite has on Superman (by the way, this is canon, not fan fiction)

http://media.kickstatic.com/kickapps/images/8828/photos/PHOTO_605254_8828_1473788_main.jpg

I'm surprised Professor X's one weakeness didn't make the list. Stairs.

Rajesh Koothrappali: I like Green Lantern,I'm just saying its pretty lame that he can be defeated by the color yellow.
Sheldon: Only the modern Green Lantern is vulnerable to yellow.
Leonard: Golden Age Green Lantern was vulnerable to wood.
Rajesh Koothrappali: Great.So I can take them both out with a number 2 pencil?

Big Bang Theory

On the Flash, in the example shown from Barry's death in the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, wasn't it the exposure to the so-called "anti-matter" energy that was killing him, not actually the running?

A bit like saying, "Bob died from playing his Wii too much." and the hypothetical Bob and and his Wii in question, were in a room filled with radioactive waste. So yes, Bob died from playing his Wii every freaking day, but that wasn't the active ingredient that played a part in his death. What killed Bob was that he was playing with his Wii in a radioactive room.

It makes me happy that if I ever needed to defeat the Green Lantern (provided it's the Hal Jordan version) I could just run him over with my yellow car.

Anyone else think of the FFF story with that image of Wolverine giving the one thing that can kill him to Cyclops?

Is it just me, or is Wolverine looking a little effeminate in that picture? It looks like his uniform is body paint.

I'm also really digging Asbestos Man for some reason. I would think asbestos wouldn't be as much of a weakness for the Human Torch as it would be a strength for Asbestos Man, since asbestos is very heat resistant.

i always thought some of the weakness like Martian manhunter to fire was stupid for it ment he could be hurt by a match. or a lose spark. abestoes for the human torch would also have picked water. and adam strange not being on rhan for a year or dieing makes him a little tragic for he can never live permently with his wife. as for wonder woman and her writsts bound by a man talk about a little s5m for her creator was a little freaky in real life. and yellow for green latern was all due to a bug named paralax in the main power battery which also gives the ring its power

'Are all Martians vulnerable to fire?'

It's the entire race - if memory serves, when someone realised that an entire planet of people either just like J'onn, or just like him AND PSYCHOTIC [the White Martians] might just be a problem, they basically mindwiped the entire planet to be afraid of fire to give any planet an easy way of repelling a Martian invasion.

So it's more of a really severe race-memory phobia than anything else. The death was probably more from J'onn being so freaked by the fire that he couldn't shapeshift in such a way as to avoid being kabob-ed.

And isn't the Wolverine thing just a really, really thinly-veiled version of Superman letting Batman keep the Kryptonite Ring?

superman/kryptonite should be one of the worst ones. I know it's classic and he's an archetype and all that... but it's seriously stupid. How did Iron Man/Alcohol not make this list? A superhero with a real life problem, now that was good.

Granted I will give you that kryptonite is teh most iconic weakness. But seriously, all those variations /are/ silly. especially pink kryptonite. According to Wikipedia pink kryptonite makes superman gay. and granted, it may not be a from a credible source, it also isn't beyond the realm of possibility.

Martian Manhunter's weakness to fire actually makes sense to me. Mars is fucking cold, so any extreme heat is bound to be extra harmful.

I recently found out what the real dumbest weakness is, though it is not a real comic. It is from a shitty webcomic called Sonichu. The title character is weak to pickles. It doesn't even have to be a whole pickle either. It can even be one sliced up and put on a hamburger.

So how did Green Lantern pee?
(other than drinking nothing but water ever)
I think I may have stumbled upon a golden shower themed followup to the kryptonite dildo

The Flash didn't exactly die in Crisis on Infinite Earths.
The Anti-Monitor had a cannon he was going to use to destroy the universe, and it was powered by a Tachyon (a theoretical particle that cannot move slower than the speed of light). Flash had to catch the tachyon to stop the cannon from firing, and when he passed lightspeed he started moving backwards in time, eventually ending up as the lightning bolt that gave him his speed in the first place. So it wasn't a *death* so much as entering a closed loop where he creates himself.

I thought the current yellow explanation for Green Lantern, that it is the color of fear, made some comic book sense. What follows from that is the will power that is the green color is really the emotion of courage which isn't the complete loss of fear, but feeling fear in an appropriate manner to the situation, ie, not being mobilized by it.
Unless Green Lantern is a Kantian... then I have no idea.

I love "Kryptonite" by Three Doors Down ):

The only problem with kryptonite is that apparently, when Krypton was destroyed, pretty much every single piece of the planet gave a great big "f you" to physics and headed straight for earth. In Superman's world, you can get Kryptonite at 7-11 or something, it's roughly as common as hydrogen. Every criminal worth the name has a stash in his basement just in case he needs to get up to some trouble that might attract cape-boy's attention.

Seriously, kryptonite may be synonymous with weakness, but it should synonymous with "pathetically transparent repeated plot device to attempt to create dramatic tension in an environment where none is possible."

Or something like that but with, y'know, fewer words.

So I could take out both incarnations of Green Lantern using a Number 2 pencil?

Sorry Rob, but I think you put Wonder Woman's weakness on the wrong list. Being tied up by a man: Best. Weakness. Ever. Also, a great idea for a FFF.

On the other hand, I am happy to say that I share similar weaknesses as my superpowered favorites: fire, asbestos, indestructible metal, and uh yeah, running too fast.

These lists get weaker every day. Like they're being exposed to radioactive rocks formed in the explosion of their home planet.

Wonder Woman forgot the safe word again! Darn those pesky submission bracelets! I remember reading an article about the creator of Wonder Woman in which he said that the world would be a better place if all the men just submitted to the women. Poor Diana has such a bizarre history; but at least Gail Simone is working wonders with that character now. Wonder Woman is now as epic and strong and awesome as she should be, not just some whimsical fetish.

Pfft. Everyone knows the best super-weakness is bacon.

Or maybe raisins...

Or depth perception.

if i remember right the main reason martian man hunter is weak to fire was done as birth control by the Gurdians to keep the martian race from breeding for the race being warlike. though can not remember the jla issues where i read the thing.

Your logic behind ranking kryptonite number one is ridiculous. You basically said that since it was the first it automatically is the best. How does that remotely make sense? Why is the first of anything automatically the best version of it? If everything else has to be graded by logic, inventiveness, etc. then why is the first version of something not judged by those same standards in your world? That's called a double standard. For the other entrants you at least tried to come up with some reasoning for why they deserved their spot on the list. But kryptonite? Nope. Why do that? "It's first so it's best!"

Here's the problem with kryptonite. It was created for a faulty hero to begin with. Superman was boring. He was a perfect hero with all of the powers in the world but no weakness. So to rectify that a MacGuffin was created that could be pulled out at anytime in order to take away his powers. It wasn't creative and it's still being used today in even less creative ways. How can this week's villain magically aquire the MacGuffin? How can Supes get away from it?

Over and over AND OVER again.

Kryptonite is arguably the WORST superhero weakness of all time because it smacks of laziness.

It's disappointing because the rest of your list has a lot of interesting notes behind it. I genuinely enjoyed reading it. So to see it end on such a mind-bogglingly stupid choice is quite disappointing.

Aw, I LIKE "Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down. I love the tune, and it's not too repetitive like the crap that's on the radio today.

Anywho, that weakness of yellow things is pretty sad.

I would have placed Captain Planet and his weakness to pollution as one of the worst ones.

funny enough no one has mentioned "Jimmy Olsen's Blues" by the Spin Doctors

I always thought Martian Manhunter's other weakness was worse... That being his addiction to Chocos.

Wait: How stupid am I? I've been reading Adam Strange stories since the '60s (not that many recently, obviously), and I can't recall a single mention of being on Rann giving him super-human strength. Seriously, has this always been so, and somehow I missed it? Is this a new development, or something that's been retconned into the character's past? Or is the writer of this article thinking of some other character, or is he overly fond of mind-altering substances? Somebody, tell me!

I'm surprised they didn't mention Galactus' weakness, the Ultimate Nullifier (I don't know why he keeps it around).

P.S. Bring back Frankie Raye/Nova!

Man, kryptonite is one of the worst character weaknesses ever, not one of the best. Thus, another bad list at Topless Robot has been created.

wow wolverines weakness is some blade?! I did NOT know that. Also the wonderwoman being binned by a man LoL'z funny stuff. And Ah yes superman and kriptonite, wouldnt agree more with that choice. Good post, love stuff like this.

I know it's not a superhero thing per se, but I know Rob is down:

Devil's Fruit users vs seawater.

C'mon. Luffy is a superhero. He's like if Mr. Fantastic had a sense of humor and, I guess, balls.

I'm surprised the Daxamite (Mon-El was one) vulnerability to lead didn't make the list.

Anyone remember Proteus? He was a villain in the X-Men comics who was vulnerable to metal so he fights a team with Wolverine and Colossus in it.

And also, the Hulk has a weakness for Hostess Fruit Pies.

2 things, first i counted at least 2 people that ended their quips with "the more u know/and now you know type endings and NO ONE has yet to reply "and knowing is half the battle" or the less common and kinda crappy one from SHR "and knowledge is power". Second, i think that people have missed every version of the flash's greatest weakness a curb. Yes you may think that im being ridiculous but allow me to explain. to who ever said prof x's weakness is stairs yeah but as much so as everyone else if not less so, (so he brakes his neck so wut happens he gets reparalyzed? think not) but look at the physics of the flash he travels at near light speeds, F=MA, a human skull weighs about 1 kg so if he tripped the force would be F=1c2. C being the speed of light. that formula looks a little familiar maybe E=Mc2 m being mass. o wait if that flash tripped his face would become pure energy? thats always fun.

So basically what you are saying is you can take out either Green Lantern with a #2 pencil? Lame.

There's nothing wrong with Martian Manhunter's weakness to fire. YOur reasons are weak and arbitraty.