It depends, how does the device work? If the writer fails to explain that, maybe he is just not doing his job very well?
Modified Ura-nage, Torture RackThe "Power Nullifier" is not a plot device that holds up to much scrutiny. Still, if an explanation must be had, perhaps it alters reality in some way? Or converts the biology of those it effects to baseline human (if so, the villain would be missing a bet—such a device would be worth billions to the medical community...)
Marvel's Superhero Civil War had the best take on the power nullifier that I've seen; it had to be encoded to an individual's specific genetic structure, was prohibitively expensive to create, and only worked on that one individual.
Individual power-nullifiers always made more sense to me than, say, a blanket "superpowers nullified" field.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Are you familiar with a character from DC Comics named Cameron Chase? She is a seemingly normal human who has a latent ability to dampen the superpowers of others meta-humans. When you consider that she hates superheroes with a passion and works for a living skeleton named Mr. Bones, she comes off as a combination of Hypocrite and You Are What You Hate!
Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!In Marvel, there was the Morlock Leech who could temporarily nullify the powers of others. As far as I know, his powers only worked on mutants (makes as much sense as anything like this could, really), and on an occasion when he tried to do his thing to Rogue (who, as you'll remember, absorbs the powers of others), it did temporarily knock out her powers, but it knocked him unconscious, too.
I could buy a mutant nullifier on the grounds that mutant powers all stem from the same source, the X-gene.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I read a prose superhero story (i.e. without pictures) once with a guy called The Ordinary Man, whose power is that he can make other people ordinary. The only superhero it didn't work on was a Captain Ersatz of Aquaman, since, for his species, superhuman strength is completely ordinary.
I could buy any power nullifier that works by tricking the brain into forgetting how to activate the power, provided that's how the power works. And the work is interesting enough to let it happen.
Fight smart, not fair.With Superman, you'd somehow have to change his environment or change his biology, because being super-powerful is just naturally how his biology reacts to his environment.
While I've never read a story where it's been done, you could theoretically deplete Superman's powers by keeping him in total darkness. This has been postulated in-story before, though, and it was said that, since his cells act as solar batteries and he's been soaking up sunlight for as long as he's been on Earth, he'd have to be in complete dark for years before he'd start feeling it (so good luck with that).
Wonder Woman would be in a similar situation, wouldn't she? Being super-strong is normal for an Amazon. You could arguably say the same for any of Marvel's mutants, since the X-Gene occurs naturally in them. If you had something that could undo mutation, I wonder what it would do to someone with blue eyes...
Then you would have to explain how Superman can supposedly pull planets yet fall to a power nullifier device. How they deal with supernatural and magical foes such as the Spectre, Deadman, Silver Surfer and Sorceror Supreme? Unless you are Dormammu, Reed Richards or Galactus, I don' know if that is even possible.
"Fan, a Mega Man character."Since Deadman's power comes from being dead, wouldn't a ray have to bring him back to life or destroy his spirit to depower him?
But has he ever been hit by a power nullifying ray to begin with? You can't call foul on something that has never happened. Exactly on which power nullifier are we talking about here, by the way? Which is this all encompassing power nullifier you keep coming back to?
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No love for Doctor Doom? He's got a much better shot of inventing a magical nullification device than Reed does, because unlike Reed he actually accepts that it exists.
His possession powers evidently come from a Hindu goddess. Rama Kushna.
Which just brings divinely inspired powers into the mix, adding more problems. Captain Marvel, anyone?
edited 21st Oct '12 10:10:54 AM by Eagal
There was also red sun energy, which starts draining his energy immediately. Kryptonite does the same thing, but also poisons him.
In Superman vs Aliens, he was trapped on a space station long enough to bring him down to normal and become impregnated by a face-hugger. He spent the whole story trying to get back to Earth's solar system, and when he did, the chest-burster was trapped in his invulnerable body trying to break out.
But wait a minute. Since xenomorphs absorb attributes of their hosts eg, shouldn't it have absorbed Superman's ability to absorb power from yellow sunlight and/or received a dose of power from him?
And that would have created a xenomorph with the strength, speed, and flight abilities of Superman.
Ukrainian Red CrossYes, the efficacy of the "denying Superman yellow solar energy" varies from writer to writer, unfortunately. Given that solar energy is solar energy, regardless of what wavelength is visible to us, it really shouldn't matter WHAT color it is. John Byrne had it that Kryptonians actually absorb solar energy regardless of what color it is, but the yellow type (because it's from a younger star) super-empowers them (so would energy from a blue star make them even MORE powerful?). Silver Age stories frequently had Superman under alternately colored stars (usually colors that stars don't really come in) that expanded, contracted, or otherwise altered his power set. Again, scientifically, it shouldn't really make a difference, but if we demanded that everything make realistic scientific sense, we really couldn't enjoy comics at all.

If superheroes receive their powers from different sources then how can they get struck by the same power nullifier device?
edited 20th Oct '12 1:43:46 PM by GAP
"Fan, a Mega Man character."