Poll Position: It’s all Greek to me …

Sorry for posting this a couple of days late, but this week your dilemma is:

{democracy:118}

Now, you're not going to actually BECOME the person in question, you're just going to have powers BASED ON them. So keep that in mind as we join the discussion after the jump.

  • Antaeus: Antaeus was the wrestler who could not be defeated as long as he was touching the ground. He was eventually beaten by Hercules, who held him overhead and strangled him to death, I believe. Now, in a normal world, this is a pretty great power. There aren't a whole lot of people strong enough to pick you up and strangle you, after all. However, you also have to be wary of getting shot while you're jumping and whatnot.
  • Apollo: Likely powers here would obviously involve some sort of flames, since Apollo's main job was driving the sun across the sky each day. He was also a great archer, however, as well as being in charge of music. There are a lot of possibilities here, as Apollo was definitely one of the big boys in the Greek pantheon.
  • Atlas: Atlas didn't do much besides carry the entire world -- literally -- on his shoulders. Of course the world was a lot smaller back then, so how impressive was that, really? Regardless, he's pretty strong, and if the power set included the ability to lift literally anything, that might be kind of interesting.
  • Artemis: The goddess of the hunt, I would think powers based on her would essentially make you the baddest archer, stalker, tracker, and ranger of all time. Which would be like being Green Arrow, but not sucking.
  • Hermes: Speed, flight, and overnight delivery guaranteed or your money back. Plus all the flowers you can stand from your FTD Florist, which is nice.
  • Medusa: If you could turn the flesh-to-stone power off, this wouldn't be that bad. If you can't ... well, let's just say you'd better avoid mirror fun houses at the carnival. Of course, Marvel had Medusa from the Inhumans, whose power was to stretch her hair like Reed Richards stretches his body. So that's an option.
  • Poseidon: One of the big boys like Apollo, this power set would deal with water. On the low end we're talking about water breathing, swimming, maybe control of fish, that sort of thing. You know, Aquaman. On the higher end we're talking the ability to literally control typhoons and water tornadoes and all kinds of scary things.
  • Zeus: The biggest of the big boys, a Zeus-like power set would have to include throwing thunderbolts. On the downside, you might be fatally attracted to swans. Or cows. Or any of the other myriad of beasts the King of the Gods took a shining to back in the day. He was not a well man, sexually speaking.

The temptation is to go with overall might, with Zeus, Apollo, or Poseidon. But I don't really like water, and Zeus' peccadilloes frighten me. Apollo is very tempting because he was so varied, you could go in a lot of directions with him.

I also really like the idea of being a Super Ranger, based on Artemis and the hunt.

At the end of the day, though, I'd go with the speed and flight of Mercury. That's not as flashy or massive as some of the other powers here, but I don't see myself as super-strong. I love the idea of flying, and I always thought the Flash (clearly based on Mercury) was cool.

Who would you pick if you could?