The answer, sadly, is no. If the story of modern superhero comics is escapist power inflation (with even powerless Batman becoming more and more unstoppable) then postmodern superhero lit is your bitter antidote. The classic pomo superhero novel is about the hero's inadequacy and feebleness. Levitate yourself downwards, into the abyss, with our roundup of the lamest superheroes of postmodern lit.

Moisture Man. The hero of the title story of Charles Yu's collection Third Class Superhero, Moisture Man's power is to generate moisture. Not a flood or anything, just a little bit of dampness or vapor or whatever. He longs to join the equivalent of the Justice League on his world, but he's next to useless unless you're stuck in a desert somewhere. And then when he finally does get the chance to join the A-list heroes on a mission, he sells them out in exchange for a real superpower.

David Brinkley. (No, really, that's his name.) The hero of Super-Folks, the original pomo superhero novel from 1977, which Grant Morrison accused Alan Moore of stealing all his ideas from. A Superman analog, David Brinkley comes from the planet Cronk, and his only weakness is the substance Cronkite. He loses all his powers because criminals dosed all sorts of common consumer products with a small amount of Cronkite. And then he has a mid-life crisis and loses his hair, and mopes. And mopes. Finally, he does get his powers back thanks to the CIA, just in time to save the day one last time.

Elphin. Soon I Will Be Invincible by io9 contributor Austin Grossman is full of crappy-ass superheroes, including the drug-dependent Rainbow Triumph, who has to keep taking her meds every few hours or she loses her abilities. But Elphin, the fairy princess from the 10th century, is the lamest, with her childlike whispers and her beauty products. She keeps changing her story about where she comes from and what her abilities are, and always comes up with ridiculous excuses for why she can't use her powers in a particular situation, like she can't use her powers on iron due to fairy laws. Whatever, Elf girl!

Power Grrrl. From The Notebooks Of Dr. Brain by Minister Faust is another book that's chock full of lame superheroes facing a collective midlife crisis in psychotherapy — from the crappy Batman knock-off Flying Squirrel to the jive-talking Spider-Man clone Brotherfly. But the one you'd least want to have your back is probably Power Grrrl, a post-feminist Spice Girls-esque heroine whose main power is to turn other people into clones of herself, in a parable of super-narcissism. Just in case you miss her lameness, she talks in bimbo speak, punctuated with lots of "Like, duhs," and all of her statements are questions. And she smacks chewing gum a lot.

Crash another planet into Earth. In an episode of the Transformers cartoon, the villain Megatron tried to bring his home planet, Cybertron, into Earth's atmosphere. The Cybermen also brought their home planet Mondas close to Earth in Doctor Who, and tried to suck the life-force out of our planet, which is sort of similar.

Freeze it to death. In Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle, a substance called ice-nine freezes all water on Earth, causing the extinction of most creatures, including humans, within a few days.

Poison it. In the James Bond classic Moonraker, Hugo Drax distills the poison from a rare orchid and puts it inside globes, which he plans to launch from a space station to points all over Earth. The result: total obliteration.

Cause the sun to go nova. Evil Star, a Green Lantern villain, wanted to plant a device in the Earth's sun that would make it go nova, so he could feast on the stellar energy. The NOVA bomb in Halo: First Strike would do the same thing.

Materialize another planet around it. In the Doctor Who story "The Pirate Planet," a giant hollow planet materializes around smaller planets and crushes the life out of them, then strips them for all their mineral wealth.

Bombard it with garbage. In the Futurama episode "A Big Piece of Garbage," New York launches a giant ball of its trash into space in 2052 — only to have it crash back towards Earth, threatening destruction, years later.

Set up giant mirrors in space. This aspiring mad scientist has a plan to create a giant balloon in space, then cut it in half and coat each half with a reflective surface. If positioned the right way, they could reflect a ton of sunlight on a specific point on Earth.

Biological warfare. In the latest season of Heroes, the Company created a nasty virus that would kill almost the entire human race. And that white Samurai guy was so mad that Hiro kissed his GF that he decided to unleash it.

Killer robot army. In the classic video game Robotron 2084, a swarm of killer robots succeeds in wiping out the entire human race. Only one humanoid mutant remains to fight them off.

Knock it off its perch. Doctor Impossible plots to throw the Earth out of its orbit around the sun in Austin Grossman's novel Soon I Will Be Invincible. "As the Earth grows colder, my power becomes apparent, and the nations submit," he says. And the eponymous monsters in Zombies of the Stratosphere plot to send the Earth off course so Mars can take its place.