Real Superpowers
DARKMAN
In Sam Raimi’s Darkman, Liam Neeson’s character drew strength from his inability to feel pain—and his ability to art-direct the set when he got mad. The condition is called analgesia, like what that creepy guy in The Girl Who Played with Fire has. That film showed some of the drawbacks: Lisbeth Salander’s older brother, that Rutger Hauer–looking dude, cannot feel pain, and the movie illustrates how if you had analgesia, you’d have to check your arms and legs for cuts so you didn’t bleed all over the Ikea flokati when you got home from being a thug.
 
A lot of people are afraid of pain, but this idea frightens me even more: Imagine that you’re swimming at the beach and cut your foot on a razor-sharp shell. Most of us would howl in pain and do what we could to stanch the blood. But someone with analgesia could go for an hour before realizing they just gave a creepy lunch of a couple of pints of blood to a hundred sand crabs and will need
(another) tetanus shot.
 
Analgesia is a real thing, and Kevin and I have met someone with it. Tim Kridland plies his trade as the Human Pincushion in various sideshows and TV appearances. When we met him at the Seaside Heights Boardwalk sideshow, he explained that he could literally take out his own appendix without drugs if he had the medical know-how. Unfortunately, his skills were limited to piercing his skin with huge needles. When he jammed a knitting needle all the way through his upper arm, Kevin and I had the proper reaction, which was to go outside and vomit over the rail.