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  • As Batman: Wayne Family Adventures is largely focused around showing what superheroes (namely the Batfamily) get up to on their off time, there are quite a few examples of this throughout.
    • It's shown a few times throughout the series that not only can Cass use her body language reading ability to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of her opponents, but also uses it to identify when her friends and family are hiding secrets and force the truth out of them.
    • Episode 29, "Hangout", has Tim attempt to use the Batcomputer so that he, Conner, Cassie, and Bart could watch a movie. They end up getting caught by Bruce before they can do so, however.
    • Episode 38, "S.O.S.", has Green Lantern using his Power Ring to create a diagram of how to tie a tie.
    • The "Snowfall" two-parter ends with Bruce breaking out the Thrasher suit as part of his plan to win a snowball fight.
    • Like in the mainline comics, episode 87, "Objects in Mirrors", shows that Clark Kent and Conner Kent use their Heat Vision to shave. Of course, also like in the mainline comics, this is a justified case, as Kryptonian hair, like all other parts of their bodies, is Nigh-Invulnerable, so normal razors aren't able to cut them.
  • Bleach: Happy to Serve You has Yamamoto cooking (well, burning horribly) food using his Bankai, Zanka no Tachi. Note that Zanka no Tachi can cause an Apocalypse How purely by accident with its passive abilities, and its active powers are much worse.
  • When Doctor Sigma of The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids has the opportunity to ask any question in the world to a trapped Eldritch Abomination in this comic, he simply asks for what the correct plural of "octopus" is. He explains that as a scientist, it would spoil his fun to have all of the actually important questions answered with zero effort.
  • The Perry Bible Fellowship proves here that useless superpowers with this can win by sheer rarity value.
  • The title character of Magical Mina, part of the Tsunami Channel ...uh, franchise? ...does this sometimes, with this being a particularly good example. She's also adapted her Sword magic for a scalpel. Of course, she was written to be an exceedingly clever and intelligent Magical Girl. Also, here.
  • Maximumble: In "Boss Battle!", a man is asked to use his sword to open a package.
  • This strip of Adventurers! makes you wish you had an orbital laser for just this purpose.
    • There's also Ardam using a lightning spell to recharge the batteries in Drecker's Walkman.
  • Dave in College Roomies from Hell!!! has used his laser vision to make popcorn.
  • While trying to figure out how to reach the castle, Agatha in Girl Genius took the time to build an immensely complex and advanced...coffee machine. Apparently it creates absolutely perfect coffee.
    • Klaus is a master of this, taking confiscated doomsday weapons and converting them for use in infrastructure. Of course, in times of crisis, He can turn them right back into weapons.
  • Happens all the time in Sluggy Freelance. In one arc Torg and Riff summon a world destroying demon to get them a case of beer.
    • Then there's the Unholy Evil Death Bringer sword, a god killing Talking Weapon which actually complains about being used for mundane tasks like prying things open. After being used for mundane purposes a few too many times, it encourages others to kill its current master, Torg, due to its wounded pride.
  • Dresden Codak: Kimiko Ross goes to school. WITH SCIENCE.
    • She also has a device that can rewrite DNA, which she uses to rewrite her own DNA; not for self-mutation purposes, but because her flash drive doesn't work and she needs storage space. As if that wasn't crazy enough, someone else wrote a message into the DNA of all life on Earth, containing a spam letter advertising a pyramid scheme.
      Ron: Do you keep a tally of all your affronts to nature?
  • The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: "He invented jet-boots, and he used them to kick people." The true effect on the amount of awesome involved is debatable.
  • In Jupiter-Men, Arrio mentions that he's started using magic to keep his room lit at night to save on the electric bill.
  • Nowhere University's librarian, the book version of Saruman, uses a palantír as a card catalog.
  • The Order of the Stick
    • Parodied when Xykon orders Redcloak to use Speak With Dead on a fallen Mook, thus tearing said Mook's soul from his eternal resting place so Xykon can ask him...where Xykon left his keys (in his own pocket). Which is odd, as the spell uses knowledge imprinted on the body... but theory never was Xykon's strongest side.
      Xykon: Thanks! The conjuring of his immortal soul saved me the inconvenience of digging out the spare set I keep in my desk.
    • When Belkar decides to multiclass as a Barbarian, part of the guild-leader's pitch is that the enhanced speed the class grants is excellent for getting to the front of a buffet line.
    • When Belkar acquires a Ring of Jumping, he mentions that it will be good for both raining death on his enemies, and getting items down from the top shelf.
    • There is a waitress who is training to be a ninja. This allows her to appear at the table out of nowhere, or dodge objects thrown by nearby irate customers in a pinch.
    • When Belkar acquires the skull of an Eye of Fear and Flame, he comes up with a number of uses for it. The skull draws the line at 'chamber pot.'
    • Belkar uses the firebreath of a demon cockroach to cook a pot of stew.
    • Thor's Might is useful for more than just the combat bonuses.
    • Look sharp, or you'll miss seeing a cauldron of fires from the ghastly inferno that is the Lower Planes being used for...making popcorn.
    • After Roy saves some desert travellers from slavers, they reward him with a belt that gives the wearer Super-Strength. They mostly used it to load and unload their camels.
    • Tarquin accuses bards of suffering from this trope. He thinks they could use their knowledge of narrative structure to rule the entire cosmos, but most of them are content to use it to entertain tavern patrons instead.
    • Durkon uses the Sending spell to talk with his mother once a week.
  • Used in this Exterminatus Now strip. The next strip actually deconstructs this trope a bit; their mundane overuse of Rogue's beam sword has drained it of its power.
  • Pizza Girl (and Chinese Delivery Man) in Questionable Content. Sure, they might just be ordinary people delivering food in embarrassing outfits, but you can't be sure of it...
  • Keychain of Creation would like to present the Glorious Solar [desk]. Because the Glorious Solar Saber is overrated. (This eventually makes a reappearance, revealing he mainly uses it as an inventor's workbench, which is where its presumed "Glorious Solar" enhancements are going.)
    • Marena takes the place of a horse for their cart.
  • Parodied (like everything else) in 8-Bit Theater.
  • xkcd:
    • Using the Large Hadron Collider's proton stream to hit pigeons and give helicopters cancer.
    • Stephanie Meyer has hordes of rabid fangirls. What does she use them for? Dealing with internet trolls.
    • Someone (Lucy?) uses the Year Inside, Hour Outside properties of Narnia to get more computing power. Never mind the catastrophic syncing problems that would cause. In the books they aged to maturity (probably 20 years) before coming back to discover only seconds had passed. What does it say about whatever she was running that with the acceleration, it took her about an hour?note 
    • A laser deemed not useful in a lab was kept due to being fun to use for toasting marshmallows. The Alt Text goes a step further:
      "I've been working on chocolate bar annealing techniques to try to produce the perfect laser s'more. Maybe don't mention that on the grant application, though."
  • Gunnerkrigg Court. Antimony has a Blinker Stone, a lens for psychic powers. She was taught to use it as a pocket campfire, sort-of-scrying device (with caveat that some beings see her) and signal rocket. So she routinely uses it as a torchlight and to hold private conversations with ether-aware creatures.
  • Stanley from Erfworld uses the Arkenhammer, a Tool of the Titans, to crack nuts.
  • In Everyday Heroes, Summer uses her Eye Beams to defrost a chicken for dinner. However, she doesn't have very good control of the intensity. Later though, she uses her strength and speed to build a prefab structure in the time it takes to read the instructions.
  • Freefall got extremely unobtrusive service — French ninja waiters. And even robots sometimes have fun at work. Job's to drop ice asteroids to the terraforming planet? A good opportunity to record some music. Or something even more disturbing.
    • The reason the computer of the Savage Chicken wants to kill Sam is because he and Helix used high explosives to make popcorn, thus damaging some vital components of the ship with hypervelocity popcorn kernels.
  • El Goonish Shive had cosmetic shapeshifting done both via magic and alien Transformation Ray. Tedd's peculiar use of the latter involved singing in the shower.
  • Bob the Angry Flower loves this, from creating a monster to fix his printer to bringing Jesus through time for girl advice.
  • In the world of Nature of Nature's Art, odd as it might sound, very few of the setting's superpowered martial arts styles are exclusively used for combat. In fact, some aren't supposed to be used in battle at all...which doesn't stop certain characters from doing so.
  • Shortpacked! suggests that Optimus Prime does this in this strip.
    Optimus Prime: If this is about using the mystical energies kept stored in the sacred Autobot Matrix of Leadership to open tough jar lids, I can explain—
  • A Magical Roommate has this as staple humor. Justified in that the world with magic doesn't have equivalent technology.
    • And inverted, surprisingly enough. Technology becomes an obsession of Daria once she arrives in our world, because she views magic as mundane.
  • In This Brawl in the Family strip we see Zelda using her magic to desguise a Sheik... and use the male restrooms, because the female ones are out of order.
  • Bob and George: The Mad Scientist's inventions are always used for Mundane Utility.
  • Kid Radd and his gang met up with a world of NPCs who are all invulnerable and don't feel pain. They use their power for fun party games like 'Pin the Tail on Anything That Moves', 'Five Player Badminton (They use each other as the ball and rackets)', 'Musical Bear-Traps', and 'Blatant Pyromania (Just setting themselves on fire)'.
  • In Sequential Art the Denizens used the ray gun technology they stole in personal weapons, Kill Sat and a popcorn popper (and it's a plot point too).
  • Alternate Universe version of Yeagar in Nodwick has other uses for his axe.
  • In Two Evil Scientists, Wily and Eggman use their powerful shapeshifting robots to disguise themselves as Amy and Roll and babysit for Wily's daughter Cream, while the real Amy and Roll are imprisoned by the two scientists. This bites them in the ass later on when the robots betray them partly because of being used mundanely.
  • There is a fair amount of this in Wapsi Square. For starters, Shelly was given some clay dolls by her mother and told that they would be important in the future. They crack walnuts really good. On top of that, Bud has an interesting way of making popcorn, and Tina uses her Aura Vision to predict people's coffee orders.
  • Driders and other spider hybrids have a handy supply of homegrown silk for tailoring. One of the best tailors in Drow Tales is a drider, and Spinnerette decides to try her newfound powers out by knitting a silk scarf, and later makes her costume out of her silk.
  • Also from Spinnerette, Sahira uses her newfound powers out in this strip to clean the flat in record time.
    • One page implies that Greta Gravity uses her gravity powers as a corset. Confirmed in a much later page where she loses her power and her breasts immediately sag.
  • Impure Blood: Using magic to -- open the door.
  • Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal considers how to make optimal use of Superman as a large-scale energy source.
  • Wayward Sons: Occasionally, but the most egregious example would be Nysus using his ability to manipulate time in a localized area to ferment wine in time for the Holy Day celebration.
  • Fontes' Rants: Dai Gurren Dental Care.
  • Minions At Work aren't always at work: Evil Minions have their days off too. Which is why things like All-Terrain Hammock With Attached Shade And Controlled Rocking appear around supervillain lairs.
  • In Sinfest, Fuchsia used animation by Demonic Possession as an express mail system, though this had a little side effect. Crimney's Hellish Book (also from Fyoosh) can light a fire on a rainy day.
  • Touhou Nekokayou: Stopping time can give you a few minutes to calm down.
  • The Last Days of FOXHOUND: virtually every team member who has special powers has used them for petty or useless purposes at least once. Decoy Octopus uses his near-infallible disguise powers to play practical jokes and blame Liquid; Revolver Ocelot, having gained an immunity to mind-reading, uses this to mess with Psycho Mantis; and both Mantis and Bernard have used their psychic powers to annoy people or obtain free stuff.
  • Homestuck: Dave Strider uses his Knight of Time timey-wimey superpowers to a) play the stock market, and b) move from a cold place to a warm place, then go back in time an hour in order to continue a Pesterchum conversation.
  • chainsawsuit had a long-range skeet launcher used for pizza delivery. There were some unfortunate side effects, though.
  • In Pacificators, those with Elemental Powers are discouraged from doing this, because using powers excessively shortens their lifespans.
    • It still doesn't stop some people, though. Examples include: Cinna using her Playing with Fire ability to prank Gravity Master Muneca, who sometimes respond in kind; Making a Splash Larima loves to show off; and Blow You Away Enlil prefers to fly when a more ground-bound transportation would've gotten the job done.
    • However, there is a "petty" purpose which is a big deal to Taffe (Larima's sister): she is deaf, and she uses her Make Some Noise power to amplify sounds so she could hear.
  • In The Red Star, sorceresses can light cigarettes -- indeed soldiers considered it lucky.
  • Monster Pulse: Julie uses her super-fast, almost infinitely regenerating monster - to make a coat.
  • Spare Keys for Strange Doors: Marion uses her magic rather than a snorkel.
  • Manly Guys Doing Manly Things
  • Llewellyn of Ozy and Millie uses his dragon breath to roast coffee.
  • In Blue Yonder, a Flash Back shows the Davenports vacationing on float -- which, the final panel reveal, are on top of a storm.
  • Karin-dou 4koma:
    • The main reason for Seren's Power Limiter is so she can put her own powers to mundane use—without it, her "Spell Booster" nature drastically amplifies any attempt at magic.
    • During her tenure as director of the International Mages' Alliance, Seren wrote a slew of joke magic books just for fun, like "Magic to Make Cats Be Friendly" and "The Encyclopedia of Magic to Make People Laugh". However, Meguru found them to be full of informative explanations of magical theory.
    • Tamaryu attempts to use her fire breath to cook but ends up setting the kitchen on fire.
  • Runewriters: Master Quentin uses the Ritual of Opening because he locked himself out of his room.
  • Many magical or high-tech characters use their powers for mundane tasks in Roommates from abusing teleportation because to lazy to open the door, to decorating, or dressing up, or cook etc. This went so far that the magicless part of the main cast imposed rules on the Monster Roommate because of it. (He isn't allowed to teleport in (because it causes clouds of glitter which is a pain to remove) and change their clothing unannounced.)
  • Metacarpolis: Emi, a former magical girl turned cleaning service maid, transforms her magical rod into whatever cleaning tool she happens to need at the moment.
  • The Whiteboard: Doc invented a teleporter, he gave it to the pizza place for instant deliveries.
  • MegaTokyo: Magical Girl superspeed can be used for fighting monsters, stealing weapons away from enemies, Roof Hopping...or cleaning. Not to mention holding a text message conversation in the middle of a fight. On a more subtle note, one girl finds it easier to keep up with her hyperactive Genki Girl friend once she gets her powers.
  • Xaneth's Crystal Ball in True Villains is the transformed eye of a God, an artifact of tremendous power that lets him scry across the continent, granting him an unmatched tactical advantage... and saving his team the two-second hassle of casting Telepathy spells to contact each other at a distance.
  • Harem of Grrl Power can duplicate herself, creating up to five bodies linked by a single consciousness. Similar to Jamie Madrox of various X-Men spin-offs, she'll use her multiple bodies to learn multiple skills simultaneously. She'll also take the opportunity to enjoy multiple items from a restaurant's menu, though she has to be careful about flavor combinations if two bodies eat at the same time.
    • Maxima says that her deployment in Iraq is strictly classified. A flashback panel shows that said classified activity includes using the power of flight for keg stands with her squad.
    • Gwen's scanning spell has weather and Twitter feeds.
  • Parimetra: Antine uses her fire powers to make herself tea.
  • Alice and the Nightmare: Rougina uses magic to do her long, beautiful hair.
  • Mario & Luigi: Cleanup Crew: Peach's first use of her magic powers? Fixing a broken door. Her second, to lock the front door of the castle.
  • Sleepless Domain
    • Undine uses her water-control power to wash dishes.
    • The Magical Girls Power Training Club, magical girls who do regular fitness training, do a thorough physical workout while untransformed, then move on to Magical Girl training. The order is deliberate. The girls' transformation has a refreshing effect so most, if not all, of the exhaustion from the previous workout is wiped away in an instant.
  • In The Sanity Circus, Bee uses magic to pack an entire bed into her suitcase. Not even for travelling - just to save space.
  • In one arc of The Misadventures of Chichi-chan that parodied Sailor Moon, the character playing Sailor Saturn was called upon to use the Silence Glaive, a polearm that can potentially destroy the world, to open a enormous can of soup. Note: This individual strip is SFW, the comic as a whole is not.
    Saturn: So lunch is an emergency now?
    Moon: Well, you're the one with the cosmic can opener.
  • Angel Moxie: "How to use disappearing magic", by Alex.
  • Max Comix: The Relámpago brothers are not exactly subtle when using their powers for common tasks.
  • Nerf NOW!!:
    • commentary had the author's comment about how if he had Tracer's power, he'd binge eat candy then rewind time to before the candy binge, allowing him to have all the benefits of eating candy without the negative consequences.
    • A series of comics explore what would happen if the main girls get the time travel powers featured in Mortal Kombat 11. While Morgan and Angie would use it to change the past or see the future (and Jane would just fuck it up), Alek would use those powers...to get some extra sleep during Daylight Savings Time.
  • Paranatural: Anyone who has a spirit can enter a mental world where time is greatly accelerated, giving the impression that everything else is slowed down. Their bodies are sped up as well, essentially giving them super speed. Max and Spender are seen using this in combat to dodge attacks, but this is rare as going into the spirit world is a bit too difficult to do in the middle of combat on a regular basis. Normally, the speed is used for more mundane things. Dr. Zarei uses it to perform surgery, Agent Day (who is blind) uses it to give her spirit time to describe what's happening to her, and Ed's spirit Muse uses it to make him do exercises.
  • Powered Armor more deadly than any gun or tank with advanced enhanced sensory equipment and a variety of other nifty specs like flight are featured heavily in We Are The Wyrecats. The intended purpose of these fearsome suits of mass destruction? Assistive technology.
  • In Awkward Zombie, Lynne kills herself so Sissel will go back in time and un-spill her soda for her.
  • In Kevin & Kell Aby uses the night vision she has as a feline to read bedtime stories to Tyler in complete darkness, to make it easier for him to fall asleep.
  • Bowsette Saga: Bowsette uses her fire breath to heat her bath and cook a fish.
    • Later in the saga, Bowsette Junior loves her new body because human hands can more easily hold pencils and crayons.
  • In Kill Six Billion Demons despite their heavy stone bodies, angels are capable of moving silently. It's noted that although according to legend their creator-deity gave them this ability to better apprehend evil-doers, they mostly use it to avoid disturbing people when going up and down stairs or walking on wooden floors.
  • Spinnerette:
    • Heather uses her spider silk as material for scarves and her own superhero uniform.
    • While Sahira isn't interested in using her Power Copying for superheroics, she has copied Heather's multiple arms to do housework before.
  • In this JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind fancomic, Prosciutto uses his Stand, The Grateful Dead (which has the power of aging), to turn himself into an old man so he can get the senior discount at a fancy restaurant.
    Waiter: And what would your grandfather like?
    Pesci: We're not related.
    Prosciutto: That's no way to speak about your dear old nonno.
    • In another one, Bucciarati uses Sticky Fingers to safely remove his head from his body so he can braid his hair without using a mirror.
      Abbacchio: I told you I can do the braid for you; Fugo is gonna get nightmares again...

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