Once upon a time (2019), a young teenager named Isaac Arnold-Berkowitz won the world championship in HeroClix. This is the figure he designed. It’s the definition of “pushable.”

But … there’s no more pushing in HeroClix.

At all.

So outside of some contorting gameplay (say, making him Mastermind fodder … which is counterproductive since HE has the same defense) to get him to work, he’s just an expensive Outwit piece.

Worse still, even if he does get his pogs out, he can’t Mastermind to them without taking some harm himself.

Poor normal genius in a superhero game.

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8th worst

7th worst (tie)

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Someone on HCRealms mentioned this quartet:

Katie Power (Future Foundation 017) 25 points

Longtime readers may recall that Power Pack is my favorite team in comics, so this slot breaks my heart. But it has to be said.

They each have five-click dials with the same two powers all the way:

Plus they get a trait that allows each to swap powersets and ranges. So Jack who moved into enemy range could, perhaps, swap his Sidestep and CCE for Julie’s ESD for better protection.

But the whole thing is really unwieldy to use. The inability to combo their displayed dials with their siblings’ powers is always a bit deflating. You also can’t multi-swap, say, Katie’s Energy Explosion and Exploit Weakness to multiple members to get both attacks in a turn.

To top off this pack of problems, they don’t even get Sidekick status. And that’s why these kids — who are NOT all right — slide a bit further down the scale here.

(I LOVE THEM ANYWAY.)

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Mockingbird (Empyre L017) 20 points

Um, yeah, OK, only 20 points for … well … an inefficient tie-up piece (when compared with when the figure was originally released; back then, the Avengers TA gave autonomous on MOVE actions and could be Alternate Team Ability’d into Thunderbolts to pick most any Marvel TA for the game).

Now, though? Not only is she dying soon with these combat values, but she respawns onto the enemy force on click 3 —her most dangerous with Flurry — and with the Skrull.team ability, which YOU don’t get for playing her.

So why would you play her?

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Stealth. Enhancement. 11AV and 3 damage. All for cheap cost. Seems OK, right?

But that trait, tho …  keeping him from actually being that inexpensive frontline fighter he’s otherwise primed to be.

Worse still, he can actively harm your team when he gets KOed.

This fig’s a suicide bomb.

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Darwin (X-Men: Rise and Fall Fast Forces 001): 50 points

He’s all about this:

He’s Mastermind fodder on PEDs, I guess. But that’s a lot of points to sink into not doing anything else. Still maybe better than his twin:

Darwin (X-Men: Rise and Fall 002) 30 points

Wow, that’s bleak. So he’s clearly all about this:

INSTANT DEFENSIVE ADAPTATION: Opposing characters targeting only Darwin with an attack can’t have their attack or damage values positively modified. // Darwin has SAFEGUARD: Pulse Wave, Poison.

How often are enemies going to only target him? Especially in this multi target game we play. That’s not even worth 30 points and so he’s probably not worth playing.

Both are, ironically, unfit for survival

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• He got hit by the loss of Perplexed damage in the 2021 rules rewrite.
• 0 damage.
• 0 range 9 AV Incapacitate.
• He also has an alternate dial that can actually fight. But…
• …he needs to watch his teammates take damage from attacks (i.e., losing) to MAYBE activate that dial.
• … because he has to build up tokens and then roll high enough with the free action.
• And if that weren’t bad enough, he self-harms once he activates unless he hits attacks every turn.
• And with him being a melee fighter who’s likely been hanging back, that might be hard to do.
• Did I mention he has old-style Colossal Stamina? So while he can push himself for those hits, he’s still damaging himself to do it.

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That’s enough of the bad. Look for the next post: Heroclixin’s faves of the year.