6-year-old comic book fan and Intensive Care Unit patient Timmy Henders came out of a coma on Friday night just long enough to tell reporters how very disappointed he was to not have developed any badass superpowers after chugging back a 3-litre bottle of highly dangerous nuclear reactor waste.
"It's just really disappointing," he said on an intercom behind a 3-metre thick wall of lead shielding. "No spider sense, no super hearing, no x-ray vision. Not even any immunity to advanced radiation poisoning," he said, gesturing to his horridly disfigured and sore-riddled body, arms, legs and face.
The sad incident comes in the wake of many similar disappointments, most recently the case of 11-year-old Jake Smith, who did not become a millionaire genius vigilante with cool black cape and utility belt after both his parents were violently murdered in a mugging gone wrong right front of him in a dark alleyway outside the exit of an opera house.
"I'm terrified of bats, and now this happens," he said in a glum voice. "Technically, I should already be kicking badguy butt every night. I thought i'd at least be taking the first steps to becoming the hero the city deserves, even if it's not the one it needs right now."
However, according to child development psychologist Ed Harding, all is not lost.
"If Jake - and to a lesser extend the probably-going-to-die-in-the-next-few-weeks Timmy - plays his cards right, maybe pick up the guitar and a brooding, misunderstood attitude of apathetic moodiness, he could score the best superpower of all: scoring totally hot babes. The dead parents thing is just a sure ticket."
Harding estimates that, should he work his situation and circumstances just right, he could score "at least a low 8, minimum, bro."
He went on to add that there were also some other benefits to this seemingly sorry situation.
"The whole 'dead parents' thing will get guitar-weilding Jake into at least the 4th round of South African Idols," he said, "even if his voice is lacklustre and utterly unspecial." He added that teaching music to AIDS orphans, having dead grandparents as well, or having an image that is utterly incongruous with his voice and song choice could only add to this.
Meanwhile, development experts are even more adamant and vocal that no one - child or adult - should use comic book methods of getting superpowers, whether it be through radioactive waste, genetically altered arachnids, or chemical toxin exposure.
"The only way to be all powerful in this world and to roam the land with impunity like a god amongst ants is through that one and only tried and tested way," said Superpower expert and part-time graphic novel reader Stanley Marvel, "which is becoming as absurdly rich as humanly possible."
