Where, exactly, is the trope namer? i.e. Captain Planet And The Planeteers ? Also, I wanted to point out that maybe 'Heart' isn't so lame after all: http://www.lukesurl.com/archives/1294

Title should read "What Kind Of Lame Power Is Heart Anyway", and not "[...] Lame Poweris Heart Anyway" (notice capitalization/space).

Removed:

• For the record, Marluxia's power being "Flower" or "Plant" is a common misconception - his actual power is Death. Which is why his weapon is a scythe, and why he's constantly surrounded by flower petals - those are a Japanese symbol of death. It also explains his Desperation Move, Death Sentence, which puts a countdown over your head that will kill you instantly unless you reshuffle your deck before it hits zero. This knowledge combined with his disturbingly evil plan and his downright alarmingly manly voice makes him actually one of more intimidating members to this troper.

Can someone confirm this as his power rather than just (admittedly, dark when you think about it) symbolism? The 358/2 Days manual specifically refers to Marluxia's ability as the control of flowers...

The Lost Room has a bunch of items with various effects. Some are useful, others are not. The comb stops time, the flask suffocates people, and the glass eye can heal. On the other hand, the wristwatch cooks eggs, the pencil creates pennies, and the radio makes you three inches taller.

It's fun to just twist a trope into a couple anothers:

—8<—cut—here—

Wheeler: "It's useless, that's what it is! Ma-Ti is the weakest one of all! Haw haw haw!"

• >BLAM!<* WHEELER falls over.

MA-TI blows off the smoke from the barrel of her pearl-handled Colt revolver, twirls it and flawlessly slides back into her gun belt.

Ma-Ti: "I Heart pearl-handled Colts."

WHEELER writes in agony while clutching his thigh-wound resulting from the gunshot:

Wheeler: "You didn't have to SHOOT me! I was only kidding! I thought you had HEART!"

Ma-Ti: "I Heart irony."

—8<—cut—here—

It's not a totally bad Trope. Satire works great when performing such out-of-character changeovers while keeping it somewhat true to the original Trope. In a literal sense, anyway...

...but I hated that "Planeteers" nonsense. So why not mix in a couple Western-genre tropes to make Ma-Ti a badass? ;-)

Is there a more mundane/non-superhero version of this? Like, say you've got a group of geniuses, and the one girl on the team excels in art. Of course, she thinks it's pathetic, especially compared to the "cool computer geek". Does it count?

◦For that matter, Reed's stretching powers can seem a tad useless in a lot of situations (he's never displayed the kind of limitless shapeshifting abilities of, say, Plastic Man). But Reed's real super-power is being the most brilliant scientist on Earth.

I (and several other people) disagree. Reed's real, bona fide, Game Breaker superpower is his downright supernatural ability to still be considered a good guy when it's glaringly obvious he's one of the biggest jerkasses in the whole Marvel U.

Search your feelings. You know it to be true.