Pär came out of the shower today with the bleached streak of hair combed back so it spread out across the entire left side of his head.

"Hey, you're Reed Richards again!"

"Yes," he said calmly. "I would like to be Reed Richards all the time. Including the little rubbery hands."

"What would you do if you had the rubbery hands?" I asked him.

"I would pleasure you."

"What else?"

"Then I would pleasure you some more."

"Not that I'm complaining, but that is how you'd use your great superpower?"

"I always thought it was the dumbest superpower ever. 'Oooh, look, I can stretch real far! I can get a beer without having to stand up!'"

"You could do other stuff with it," I suggested.

"I could pleasure many women at once!"

"Reed Richards had a grander vision than you do. That's why he formed the Fantastic Four."

"I wouldn't mind using my brains to put together a superhero team of my mutated pals," Pär said, "but I wouldn't need rubbery hands to do it. 'Ooh, look at me and tremble in fear, I'm so stretchy!'"

I sighed. "The Fantastic Four were the lamest superheroes ever."

"No, there were lamer ones."

"Well, let's drop the superlatives and just say they were lame."

"Yes, they were lame."

"Who was lamer?"

"I dunno," Pär said. "There was a Frogman once."

"I don't know that one," I said, privately irked that my once-encyclopedic comic book knowledge was failing me.

"Yeah, I don't remember exactly what Frogman's deal was. I think he had been a superhero and then he got older and decided to become a supervillain. Like, he wanted the attention. His entire superpower consisted of having shoes with springs on them so he could jump far."

I considered this. "I suppose the idea is that anyone has the ability to do a lot of good or a lot of damage if they're willing to step outside the norms in either direction. They put on a mask and that lets them separate from their normalcy. Then they can do extraordinary things, good or bad, because they aren't held back by the usual behavioral rules that keep people acting average."

"Sometimes the mask seems to do a little too much for them," Pär said. "I always thought it was ridiculous that as soon as Spiderman got bit by a spider, he went out and developed a sticky super-strong web spray goo that any government or corporation would pay millions for. He couldn't do it before he got bit, so why does he suddenly become this outstanding scientist afterward?"

"Maybe... he had a new affinity for webs. Because he was all spidery."

"He was a high school chemistry student! Being 'all spidery' doesn't make you a better scientist!" A strange sound emerged from Pär's nose. There was a long pause.

"That was me scoffing, by the way," he said. "Not a cry of existential despair."

"Oh, that was you scoffing?"

"Yes." Pär attempted a better scoff. The new scoff was a combination of a snort and a "huh!" of lofty contempt. It came out kind of squeaky. "Hmm." He scoffed again. It sounded like a heavy box being dropped on a small rodent.

"Good one, honey. You just work on that scoff. I'll go write in my journal..."