Mystery Men/Headscratchers

• Captain Amazing is dead. Casanova Frankenstein is about to unleash death and mayhem upon Champion City. The Shoveler has given his sandwich speech. The Ragtag Bunch of Misfits clamber aboard their Herkamer Battle Jitney, and break into Castle Frankenstein, where they're immediately surrounded by the Disco Boys shooting at them with guns. So ... why doesn't the Sphinx just cut their guns in half with his mind?!
  • If I'm not mistaken, in his intro scene, he reveals himself as having been standing right to the side of where the line of Disco mooks were standing. So it might be that his power works by line of sight, meaning he wouldn't have been much help without exposing himself to a lot of gunfire.
    • More importantly, they are sat in a tank(or "Battle Jitney"), with a huge electromagnet designed to pull guns out the hands of enemy gunmen.
  • Come to think of it, yeah, how come we never hear anything about his powers after that? I was sitting here thinking his whole deal was subconsciously helping other people with their powers.
  • His powers are terribly mysterious; there was probably a good reason he couldn't or didn't do the gun-slice again.
    • His powers aren't terribly mysterious. His powers are that he's terribly mysterious.
      • And thus his powers are, by extension, terribly mysterious.
  • This is part of the joke/point; the one actual potentially useful power he has, and he mostly ignores it in favour of lame Ice Cream Koans. Although like Invisible Boy can only become invisible when no one's looking at him, it's possible the Sphinx can only do the gun-cutting thing if no one knows he's there; like said about, it would tie in with the idea that he's 'terribly mysterious'.
• Tying in with the Fridge Logic on the YMMV page - if the Shoveller's special ability is being able to shovel very well, why didn't he shovel a tunnel into Casanova Frankenstein's estate, rather than run along the lawn? Or would that be a job for The Digger?
  • He shovels well, but you'd need months of time to dig out a hole like that by hand.