There are Humans in this World that have real "superpowers". Some of them are called "Rain Men". They include people who have varying degrees of "Asberger's Syndrome", which is a type of Autism. Many obsessive collectors of comic books, music records, dolls, model planes, model cars, books, and anything which can be considered a "specific set" of which one can spend a lifetime or many years getting them all, and placing them in some kind of "order" where the collector thinks they belong, can be the data set that the marginal "Asbergers" "sufferer" or beneficiary" enjoys a great advantage in a "photographic memory" or other means of being able to organise and have instant access to naturally-subconscious memorisation of hundreds of thousands of data points, with little effort in relation to what the average Human can do in similar circumstances. I, myself, and so many other people I've met over the years in record, comic books, and sports cards collecting or sports statistics following, have that unusual power, that invokes awe most non-collectors, who think it is a superhuman power (rather than a "skill", as it doesn't seem to have been sought, or have come as a result of deliberate effort).
I would venture to say that during my years of collecting, most of the "serious" collectors with multiple thousands of items in their collections, had this type of memory, and held all that data well organised in their heads, ready to be retrieved instantly.
I, myself have about 4,000 Long-playing 33 RPM records (such as small amount only because they were so expensive related to 78 RPM and 45 RPM records. I have about 40,000 45 RPM records. The LPs and 45s were amassed between 1953 and 1970. I looked through literally millions of 45s each year, to find one copy of all the Rhythm & Blues, Blues, Jazz, Gospel and early Soul records of the style I liked, that I could find. Just like comic book collectors keep their comics on shelves or in boxes by company, series and issue number order, with the goal of filling in all the missing numbers, I kept my records like that, in record label runs. Having only a few thousand comic books, I kept those the same way. And my sports cards were kept in each specific year (season), in the numerical order of the cards.
When searching through shelves or piles of records, or stacks of comics, I never needed to bring along a want list, or look at one, until after amassing about 20,000 45s, I started buying records I already had, or NOT buying some I THOUGHT I had already bought, because I had seen those records hundreds of times, and thought I had them in my collection when I didn't, or couldn't remember if I only saw it outside my collection, but didn't buy it because the owner was charging too high a price.
As to the comic books, when I was young and still in middle age, as well, even after I had several thousand, I knew which stories were in which books, by the number of the book. That "power" or "skill" seemed to be prevalent in the group of major collectors with thousands of items in their collections.
I wonder if there was ever a spoof story about that "superpower" held by comic book collectors, in any "Mad" style comic books?
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Topic: Most Ridiculous Superpower (Read 1129 times)
