9 Comic Book Characters Who Are Useless Without Technology

Green Lantern
Gadget: Power Ring
Since the end of the Golden Age, the various Green Lanterns have been relying on sophisticated rings developed by the Guardians of the Universe to do most of their dirty work. Before they were festooned with their fancy finger jewelry, John Stewart was an out-of-work architect and Kyle Rayner was a starving artist, making them both about as useful and heroic as a drunken hobbit.

Green Goblin
Gadget: Goblin Glider and Goblin Grenades
In the comic, his green skin and incredible agility made him a little more exciting, but strip the movie version of his suit and glider and all you're left with is a half-dressed, totally insane Willem Dafoe running wild through the streets of New York. Coincidentally, that's the title of the next VH1 reality show.

Doctor Octopus
Gadget: Mechanical arms
Peel the electronic arms off the Doc's spine and all you're left with is a nearsighted fat man with a bowl cut and a hideous sweat suit. The comic book version of the character could control his getup with his mind, but never displayed any other telekinetic powers, making him about as threatening as a TV psychic when he's not sporting his tentacles.

Dr. Doom
Gadget: Metallic armor, various weapons of mass destruction
Take away his metal armor and the hideous scars on his face and Victor von Doom is your run-of-the-mill mad scientist. Without all of his fancy toys, Reed Richards should be able to squeeze the life out of the good doctor, catch the bus home, and get intimate with Invisible Woman, all without missing the first couple of minutes of Lost. Of course the movie version of Dr. Doom had more significant powers, but they apparently weren't enough to make that movie suck any less.

Booster Gold
Gadget: Power suit, flight ring, and force field belt
The Green Lantern only needed a high-tech ring to do his business, but Booster had to steal a whole superhero starter kit from a museum in the future to get his operations underway. All of his abilities, including superstrength, flight, force field creation, life support, and even time travel, would vanish if he was to ditch the super suit for something from the Men's Warehouse. He would still have great hair, though.

Blue Beetle
Gadget: Alien scarab
Originally, the scarab from which the Beetle draws his abilities was thought to be magic. Later he finds out it's actually a gadget dropped on earth by a race of superadvanced aliens who happen to be the sworn enemies of the Guardians of the Universal that created Green Lantern's ring. The whole thing is like a very special episode of Project Runway. But without his suit, Jaime Reyes would just be the average Texas teen who plays football, roots for the Cowboys, and eats chicken-fried bacon five nights a week.

Green Arrow
Gadget: Bow and arrow
Oliver Queen didn't just walk into Wal-Mart to pick up a bow like us regular jerks, he created a custom rig with a quiver full of technological arrows that range from awesome (tear gas tip, grappling hook, exploding) to incredibly silly (a boxing glove? Seriously?). Without his arsenal he would have to get a job showing tourists around Colonial Williamsburg, where he could do little to no crime fighting. Or maybe it would just push him to get a gun like the rest of the modern world.

Batman
Gadget: Utility belt, Batmobile, Batpod, tricked-out Batcave
Without all of his wonderful toys, Bruce Wayne would still be a successful business man and a renowned philanthropist, but he would be helpless to stop the colorful array of supervillains trying to turn Gotham into a heap of rubble. And while a handmade Italian leather belt might look better with a tux, it's seriously lacking in the Batarang department.

Iron Man
Gadget: Mark III suit
Anybody can act tough when they're wearing a suit that's pretty much a fighter jet, but the soft, fleshy part on the inside we all know as Tony Stark wouldn't be much of a match for the Mandarin without his fancy exo-skeleton. Something tells us smart-ass comments aren't quite as effective as his usual repulsor-ray-and-uni-beam-projector combo.