DC Comics has a long history with the weird, wonderful, and outright ridiculous. While the DCEU has mostly managed to stay on the better-known side of the comic book material, there are a number of extraordinary things that have slipped in.
James Gunn used The Suicide Squad to investigate some stranger pieces of comic book paraphernalia the pages of DC Comics contains, but there are plenty more out there that could yet be seen on the big screen at some point.
8 The Boxing Glove Arrow
Green Arrow has been a staple of DC Comics for a long time, but unfortunately, it can be hard to take him seriously at certain times. When he decided the best method for making a non-lethal bow & arrow alternative was using an arrow with a boxing glove on the end, it was particularly hard to accept that he was a member of the Justice League.
There have been other strange arrows throughout Green Arrow’s career, but the boxing glove variant was an incredibly heavy and large object making the already bulky bow & arrow less effective and sillier. While The CW did a lot with Arrow to establish Green Arrow as a well-loved and respected DC hero, the boxing glove arrow will never be forgotten.
7 The Miracle Machine
Simply described as a box that turns thoughts into things, The Miracle Machine achieved using the technology of willpower the ability to make reality out of brainpower. Not only is this a difficult and fairly impractical weapon, but as Darkseid once said, the machine is really just a knock-off mother box.
While the Controllers created this and gave it to the Legion of Super-Heroes in the future, it was eventually locked away. If anyone in the presence of the machine wished for anything, even for a moment, it would occur, making the machine violently impractical for any but the strongest and most controlled of minds.
6 The Blue Beetle Gun
Some superheroes refuse to use guns and others, more traditionally anti-heroes will use guns liberally in taking down their enemies, and then there’s Blue Beetle. He often uses the BB gun, aka the Blue Beetle Gun, which harms opponents without being fatal by only firing compressed air at them.
While the real-world applications of compressed air are doubtful under the best circumstances, it definitely doesn’t seem like the primary weapon of a true superhero. The gun also fired flares to stun opponents, which is more realistic but also debatably unpractical.
5 The Dogwelder
Dogwelder is a superhero who welds dogs to people. Yes, you read that correctly. He spends his free time killing dogs and then welds them to the faces of evildoers. He is a member of a superhero team called Section Eight who surely have quite an image problem, as does every criminal who has faced the Dogwelder.
Not much is known about Dogwelder as he isn’t one of DC’s more popular heroes. He never shows his face and is known almost exclusively for his obsession with welding dogs to people. While DC is exploring lesser-known characters in upcoming projects, this is one that is unlikely to ever appear.
4 Arm Fall-Off Boy’s… Arms?
Actually featured in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, played by the incredible Nathan Fillion, Arm Fall-Off Boy is another unusual superhero. His only ability is to remove his arms from his body and have them act independently, controlled by his mind while separate from the rest of him.
It is possible to conjure circumstances where this would be useful, but there are many more situations where it will immediately get one killed, as was featured in the DCEU film in a most horrifying manner. Arm Fall-Off Boy is a character likely to make things worse.
3 Paranoid Pill
The paranoid pill is similar to other weapons used in DC Comics such as the fear toxins developed by The Scarecrow. However, this was developed by Doctor Bedlam as a method of defeating Mister Miracle. He filled a building with people influenced by the pill and challenged the hero to escape.
The pills caused victims to grow schizophrenic and see delusions, which they would then become violent against. While the idea wasn’t particularly new, similar weapons used in chemical form made much more sense than the idea of having to feed a pill to an enemy. It is a smarter kind of weapon though.
2 The Baby Rattle Arrow
Yes, Green Arrow once used an arrow tipped with a baby rattle in combat against villains. The arrow appeared only once, unsurprisingly, in a 1959 story where Green Arrow was gifted toy arrows by an underfunded children’s home he was helping.
While the arrows didn’t seem like they could help him, he later tricked an enemy with a fear of snakes into believing there was a rattlesnake nearby with the baby rattle arrow. So, shockingly, it is not the least useful weapon on this list. However, it would be best if it were a piece of superhero lore that was forgotten.
1 Bizarro
While a character is a surprising choice for an impractical DC weapon, Bizarro is a creation of Lex Luthor which was supposed to be used to defeat Superman. He wished to clone the Man of Steel, but the experiment went wrong and Bizarro ended up being a little less useful than Lex envisioned.
While creating a clone of a powerful hero is a viable option for defeating them in theory, it isn’t particularly practical as the creation can never be completely controlled and is likely to have far too much free will. It also created a mirror image of Superman which was a huge problem, and Bizarro never actually defeated the hero for Luthor.