Power Corrupts was the first Superlink product released for MnM. It has been quite some time since its release and the discussion has largely died down. I've held off on this review, hoping that what I had to say and how it might impact opinion of the book would stand in comparison to other Superlink products.

Below I will look at each power and comment on how it fits or fails to fit into MnM. Some of my comments merely list how the power could be built with existing powers - which is not to say the power is thus illegitimate. That judgment is a more subjective issue of looking at how many hoops one has to go through to construct the same concept in MnM's core rules. If it's easy to do, the new power is not really valid, if it's hard to do then the new power has more of a valid place in the game. Several of my other comments talk about balance issues - some of these how that the power is simply not acceptable, other show ways it can be abused that a GM should disallow, but don't suggest that properly using the power would be a problem.

Ability Shift
This power lets you shift your stats and powers around. Combined with a single rank in many items it might very well be something of an unlimited supply of different powers for a relatively cheap cost. Imagine for example, getting your PL in this power, and then spending 70 points on one rank in every power you can come up with. You now have in essence, your PL in ranks in all of those powers provided you only use a limited number of them at a time - enough that those you aren't using cost enough to buy up those you are currently using.

Where it gets worse, is you can use the affects others power and do this do someone else if they fail a Will save - re-spending their points at your discretion. That is in effect a VERY cheap way to do what should be done through Drain and Boost (which can trigger to work together). Now imagine buying the duration to permanent. As long as where you spend the points is items they already have - you can rewrite the details of the character at whim.

These concepts are just a little too easy to abuse, so this power should be viewed with extreme caution.

Addictive Metabolism
While seemingly good on the surface, take a look at what happens in ten days. Automatic death if the victim hasn't overcome increasingly difficult to make saves... saves that can go beyond the stacking limits.

Atomic Control
The immunity to Radiation this power grants should come as a stunt, listed as a core aspect of the power it increases the cost more than it should. Likewise the ability to sense reactions - this is just the detect feat, bought as a power when it should be just a stunt.

The radiation aura flaw is a discount for buying the energy field extra. Sure it's permanent, but it also has area. Rather than a flaw, it should be an extra. Likewise for the leak flaw, save that this flaw is not permanent so it should cost even more. Two flaws here which in the normal MnM rules are multiple extras.

Banish
The only solid problem with this power is its limit of being used within 5 rounds of the power that it acts against. In traditional occult genre thinking you can always banish a summoned creature if you put together the proper ritual.

Blindsight
This is a feat in the core book, so why is it here as a power? New senses in MnM are built as feats - super or otherwise, not powers. If this does something really different from Blindsight it should be renamed and put as a feat where it belongs.

Catalyst
This is some form of Energy Control variant when you get down to it. It includes a free nullify power on powers who's effects can be classed as using chemical reactions. The affects living extra makes no sense - it's effectively an energy blast that works off of Fort rather than damage and uses the DC of a power save. But the results are classed as damage, meaning one has to suppose, you go back to the results of a failed damage save.

Command
This is super Charisma and 'Mental Protection' affects others with the flaw -minions only-. The one unique catch is that the mental protection will stay even when outside of range. It likely costs more than it should given the above.

Computer Projection
This is Datalink with a flaw that your body goes into a coma like state when you use it. That flaw makes it cost one more point than Datalink. Which is the reverse of what should happen. It also includes Mind Control with the flaw - AIs only, enough to bring it's cost to one less than what is listed rather than the two less that it would be without such. It also lacks the range of datalink, which then brings its cost down again - or should, but doesn't. Oddly enough, Datalink is listed as an extra for this power. It has a stunt to damage computers which should be an extra.

Confession Burn
The most broken power in the book. With one rank in this power you can do amazing amounts of damage. The damage done is not based on your ranks in the power, but rather how evil the victim was. The damage numbers are in fact quite high, enough to routinely kill regular crooks. As it is entirely frontloaded even in a PL 1 game this power could be used to kill PL 20 super villains if they were really evil. In short, this power completely ignores any concept of the Power stacking rules.

Consume
This is nothing more than disintegrate with the extras of Growth and Healing and a flaw that they can only be used after enough hardness has been disintegrated, and then only used once until another so much is disintegrated. How much is fixed, not set by your ranks in the power or even how much healing or growth you get. There is a stunt which is nothing more than the strike power, and a change to the wording of the flaw that it now can also be based on how many hits have been done to living victims.

Coordinate
This is a variant of Group Link (an extra off telepathy). It might best have been done as an extra to that. It allows mind linked people to share their senses. By itself it should cost the cost of group link plus one extra, but instead only costs what mind link costs. It has stunt to double the number of people in it - which can be very quickly unbalancing, and another stunt that lets range double - adjusting range is supposed to be done as an extra. The Blindsight power - which is a feat in the main rulebook - is included as an extra.

Creature Creation
Become your own Dr. Frankenstein with this entry. This allows you to build creatures, but not control them. Conceptually it seems sound, save that you can also modify already living creatures, and doing so reduces their PL by one. Flaw it right, and you have a power that each of which drains away one PL from the victim.

Danger Sense
This power can and should be done using the detect feat and combat sense power in the main book.

Determine Destiny
Conceptually a good idea, at a normal PL this power allows you to spend a Hero Point and declare anyone dead within one year with no save... If you spend 5 Hero Points, you could be assured that 5 people - say, the PCs, will be dead sometime between now and one year. Nothing can then stop that from happening. One could simply begin a campaign with a list of people who by the end of the first year will no longer be a part of that world - regardless of their PL. You could for example, with 100% certainty simply declare that the five most powerful entities you know of will be dead. There goes the multiverse's most powerful villain...

At PL 20 you can do that once per round until you run out of Hero Points, even to other PL 20 people. Instant no save death ray. There's an extra that lets you circumvent the Hero Point with a karmic backlash system instead. Obviously the power needs work in the saves department. The low PL uses of the power seem a lot more reasonable, and mimic what Wicca claims to be able to do in our real world, and something of how it claims to do it.

Dimensional Doppleganger
Like Duplication, only slightly better and for twice the cost. In this case, a small portion of your points are spent in a different way. On the other hand if you make all of your other powers extras of this power (thus making them part of this power) you can spend a large number of your points in a different way... Which effectively gives you a variant summon power of a strange nature. (This is either a man/maxer caution, or even desired for some oddball concepts - in this case I will say this oddity of the power is a good thing for allowing those odd concepts and the min/max cases should be GM correctable). Last note, my dictionary tells me it should be doppelganger.

Dimensional Shunt
This gives you a sort of pocket dimension useful for a number of tricks. It is really nothing more than Dimensional Travel with the affects others extra and one dimension flaw extra'd onto a form of deflection that can stop anything no matter how powerful it is - a game breaker that should not be allowed. It also has the ability to send people into your special dimension. They can get out, even if they lack dimensional traveling abilities - and if not for that such an attack would be a major problem. The real problem with this power is thus with it's deflection ability - which lacks the boundaries put on normal deflection. Buy this power and flaw off the travel and attack, and you have a more powerful version of deflection that costs the same.

Electromagnetic Pulse
This is the energy blast power bought as stun against electronics only and using the range as if it were an area rather than the normal area rules (this has the effect of making it effect a much larger region than it should). Normally one would use Neutralize bought with the Field extra and the One Source: electronics flaw. That would shut off electronics, but not destroy them. This power does stunning damage, which is an odd thing to do to something that has no condition of being KO'd or stunned... It has an extra to make it lethal, but with a normal energy blast you can simply pick lethal or stun.

Fade
This is a variant of blend that works against hearing and social skills as well as visual ones - but for the same cost as blend. The flaw to counteract that is that it only works on living creatures. For one extra you can have it apply on electronic monitoring as well. The Permanent flaw is listed under the heading of Uncontrolled - which is a different flaw altogether in the MnM core book.

Fear
Mind Control - Flawed for fear only. That's how you do this in the normal rules. The difference here is that they make a save to avoid fear rather than you making a power check to induce fear. In addition to that, how much they fail by determines the results, much like a damage save. Unlike a damage save however there is no method to wear them down so you will tend to get the same results over and over again. In other words there was no reason to flip how the save worked away from how it works in Mind Control - since all they really did was change who rolled the dice. For a stunt, you can be completely immune to anyone else who has this power - no such similar kind of immunity exists in MnM, where you can completely nullify the effects of a power no matter who uses it or how powerful they are in it. Get one rank of this, and the stunt, and the power is useless against you even if your attacker has 19 ranks more than you in it.

Friction Control
This is merely a conceptual build package - putting clinging, slick, and deflection together as a prebuilt concept much like Cosmic Power does for its list in the core MnM book.

Friendship Aura
This is Mind Control flawed only to 'charm' people into believing you're a friend of theirs. It has a curious stunt that lets you do mass Mind Controls. The proper way to do that is with the Area extra. The difference is that with the stunt you're limited in how many in normal range, and with area you're limited to how close within a standard area radius. Unless you first draw a crowd in close the stunt will give you more people for less points. Especially if you get it two to three times (still cheaper than the average extra).

Gestalt
Here's a concept no super RPG has ever done to my satisfaction. In it's base form the ability seems well built. The only problem I see is the Large Form extra. Growth is an expensive power in MnM and this extra may offer a cheap route to get it. Consider a character with three sidekicks - all of whom have Gestalt along with the main character. This will allow a cheap way to reach a very high level of Growth. The core character can buy Gestalt up to PL, and the sidekicks need only buy it at rank 1 - so that they are only contributing to the growth. With such a method you will get Growth at an equivalent of PL 12 (even if the base character has less than a 12 PL) for the cost of three feats and up to PL in a power that costs no more than the base cost of most powers in MnM. In a standard PL game, that's a savings of 46 points. Obviously this extra should be viewed with caution - used right it is balanced, but it is easier to use it wrong. Another concern is that this ability is better than Possession, but cheaper - perhaps it should simply be an extra onto Possession, or at least modeled around that power.

Imbue Energy
It's the time delay on activation that makes this power anything different from the Gadgets power flawed to only making gadgets you already have powers for which can be used once each. That time delay can be done in normal MnM with trigger. The difference is that with trigger there will be no maximum time delay. Extras such as the ability to Imbue Others are just the boost power.

Invigorate
This is an Area affects others amazing save (fort) with a flaw limiting it to only certain types of saves. For that it costs more than the above does. This extra cost comes from, one must guess, the fact that things exposed to it for long periods of time become more fertile. The bountiful harvest extra is probably only worth the cost of a stunt, but that's a subjective call on my part.

Light Control
This power already exists in MnM. It's called Energy Control: Light. Everything listed under this power is a normal extra listed under that, or that one might often pull from the MnM book and apply to that.

Machine Merge
A cheap version of Heal, and Boost combined with the device flaw and transformation with permanent and uncontrolled on it. It could also be said to be a form of Gadgets lacking the Hero Point cost (see my comments on Reality Control for what problems this implies). While the above powers won't exactly construct this power they will come close. Mostly though, I've listed them to show where I think this power might have possible balance issues. Particularly alarming to me is the transforming effect - it happens after a fixed number of uses (not set by the power rank nor the powers and abilities of the victim) and have no save. There is a save on using the power on unwilling targets - but that is a different circumstance. The Gadgets aspect is also very troubling in it's lack of a Hero Point cost, though it does have a duration set by the ranks in the power (and not the normal MnM duration rules).

Mathematical Precision
This is nothing more than flawed Super Intelligence with a method of reducing range penalties on it far superior to any other present in the game (such as Far Shot) and working in a manner different from how range normally is normally adjusted. The ability to do complex math sounds more like a feat if anything, and the range item is simply unbalancing.

Meld
The game already has a power called Possession. This variant simply lets you keep your powers when you do it. On seeing this and Gestalt, I have to wonder why they are both in here if they are so similar. Both of them should merely be extras to add to possession letting it work a little differently, or instead one of them an extra off the other, if deemed different enough from Possession.

Meld Creature
This is conceptually the same as Machine Merge, only for organic matter. The two should have been one power with an option to pick the nature of what can be melded or merged and extras to expand that list.

Nano-Machines
This is nothing more than a package of already existing powers put together and given a label defining their special effect. Much the same as say, Cosmic Power and Sorcery are in the core book.

Non-Detection
This is a variant of blending, and could have been done up as an extra on blending simply letting you use you ranks in that power to lower the DCs of powers that sense you in the past, present, or future. That, or the Jinxing extra of Luck applied to Blending. The mechanics in fact should probably be redesigned to work closer to the way blending does - letting you make hide checks to oppose the checks of those sensory powers. On the other hand, Hide works off of Dex and that certainly is not appropriate for 'hiding' from precognition. Is the power balanced as it's written up? Probably. It's just it's use of a different mechanics scheme that puts me on alert.

Order
This power is very disruptive to the concept of d20. The concept it describes - control over order - can be simulated with the Luck power in core MnM and should be done so. The way this power simulates that concept is nothing short of extremely problematic. It lets you pick a favored die roll and keep using it for later rolls, within the limits it sets. I -believe- the limit is based on the final total of the roll and not just the die result, which somewhat balances it, but not enough. The method to the mechanic though is simply too disruptive to how d20 works. The concept of controlling and spreading order is perfectly capable of being handled by the Luck power - which also has a point cost more appropriate to what this power does.

Peaceful Aura
This is a variant Mind control. That said, it keeps up a continuous command which a person can break through one round, and still be under and have to try and break through the next. Can that be done with core rules Mind Control without jumping through too many hoops? It is in essence Mind Control with no range, area, one command only and trigger (anyone who tries to break the command). That way of building it costs less than the version in Power Corrupts, and is actually a fairly simple construction.

Personal Dimension
Dimensional Travel with the flaw 'One Dimension' would handle the basic concept of this power. Where it gets problematic is how this power lets you set the rules of that personal dimension. Dimensional Travel would not normally let you do that. There are two major problems with this power: One is that unlike Dimensional Travel you can suck people into your world - and there is no default way for them to leave. Given that in your own dimension you can be much more powerful than normal (breaking stacking limits for your PL) - this is a game stopper. The other is that you can have an army of minions there who's PL is higher than the minions feat allows. In fact they can be equal to your PL, and nothing says they cannot be taken out with you, or get powers of their own with which to leave...

Petrification
This power already exists in the core MnM book under the heading of Transformation, with the Inanimate extra.

Poisonous Metabolism
This is Energy Field based off of Fort but with the difficulty of a damage save instead, and a flaw that it only triggers on contact with your body fluids (such as blood). The switch from Damage save to Fort save without changing the number on the DC makes this power a violation of how MnM works. In effect, it's giving you five free ranks, meaning that if you take it at PL 10 you have the equivalent of a PL 15 Energy Field (save for issues of Protection). That's a major violation of the stacking rules.

Probability Control
The same comments I had with Order apply here as well. The genre concept can be handled by the mechanics listed under the Luck power, the mechanics listed in this power are a violation of how MnM works.

Proscribe
This power is the same as Peaceful Aura, only with a different command. Like Peaceful Aura it is nothing more than a normal way to put together a Mind Control power. This power costs notably more than it would if you built it with Mind Control, especially considering that it has a lower duration than Mind Control.

Rage
This is Boost with affect others and a flaw of giving them the Berserk weakness while the Boost is in effect. Or rather, it is Mind Control flawed to touch and one command only with the Boost extra triggered to go off on a successful Mind Control.

Reality Control
This is nothing more -so it seems at first- than Variable Effects without the Hero Point problem unless you try to change it more than once in a round.

This power is severely under-costed, even at the highest cost as yet seen in MnM.

Variable Effects without a Hero Point cost is the same as having that many ranks in every power in the game with the flaw 'using more than one at a time means you must split ranks between those in use'. If you only allow in core-MnM Powers that is about 100 points per rank. So the Hero Point limitation is clearly lowering the cost quite a bit.

In the case of Reality Control the splitting ranks flaw is changed to 'One at a time'. This makes it equivalent to having that many ranks in one power under each category listed on page 93-94 of the core MnM book with the 'One at a time' flaw and then one 'secondary power stunt' (page 95) for each of the remaining roughly 91 powers in the game (plus another 2 per power you allow in from any other source). That means it would cost about 182+ points plus 8 points/rank. This is why this power is under-costed - it's missing a little under 182+ points of it's cost.

Sensory Link
An ESP variant. I'm not sure if this should be a new power, or an extra on ESP. With ESP you need to know the place you're looking at or be able to describe exactly where it is. With this power you need to know someone there, be able to see them normally, or try to pluck into an available mind at the destination. I am uncertain if you see what they see, or see what they could see (there's a big difference - who makes the spot checks and who controls the field of vision). Conceptually it's a good power and a player of mine has been trying to get this effect for some time with a combination of ESP and Mind Link. We've found that very clunky and I don't see immediate major balance issues with this power, so for me this one is a go.

Solid Step
Flight with a very unusual flaw can perfectly simulate this. Given that this power costs more than it should. You might at first think that isn't Running just flight with a flaw - however running adds to your base speed while flight does not, providing the difference.

Spirit Sense
See the Feat Detect, bought to detect Spirits, in the core MnM book for the first half of this power. The second half of the power - the ability to call spirits - is unique and as far as I can tell not possible to simulate with the core MnM rules. You could simulate the actual game mechanic benefit it gives you with Postcognition, but this wouldn't bring forth an actual spirit. The final part of the power works sort of like Turn Undead in DnD in terms of it's theme, but without the effects of Charisma. This could probably be handled with Mind Control. Thus it is probably a valid power. It's cost however seems quite high, for no discernable reason.

Stage Magic
This is simply Super-Skill bought for several skills and flawed to a specific set of circumstances. It does have an exceptional ability to hide an object beyond that, but this is probably best handled as a super feat. Most of the community is aware of the problems in the cost of super-skill given that it only gives one skill where a super stat can give many. Perhaps in some future errata or edition super-skill will be changed to benefit a group of skills (I would suggest a package of related skills - the number of which being the average number of skills that an individual stat effects). I mention this because given that, this power costs a lot more than it ought to, but that expensive cost is almost legitimate within the rules of power design.

Summon
This is a needed concept for MnM, but this power handles it in a way I feel has balance issues. It bases the PL of the creature(s) called on the PL of the power. Given how sidekick and minions work it should be based on your loyalty score. The problem with using the PL of the power is that in the genre people can often summon creature vastly more powerful than them - but be unable to control those creatures. The creatures with this power can be up to equal the power of the summoner, and are normally perfectly under control. Also, creatures can be dismissed back to where they came from with no problems. Another genre violation - in the genre you usually have to figure out a way to get rid of the creature. Thus it more closely mimics an aspect of DnD summoning than comic book summoning. There are however, some viable concepts in this version which might make for extras or flaws on a better version. I have my own Summoning power on my website which I personally prefer, and you will find a few more Summon powers out there in the community. Some in the community have said that Summon can be built using Create Object and Animate. This of course only works with creatures that can be automatically controlled and have no free will. In addition, those creatures are not really alive; which is a major conceptual problem...

Super Science
This power is similar to Gadgets with a flaw capping it to a certain number per device which is not reflective of how many ranks you have and letting you get extras for vastly less than gadgets normally requires - a game stopper. It also gives a flawed version of super intelligence that only applies to certain skills. Finally the gadgets have a fixed duration that works differently than the normally duration rules and does not concern itself with how many ranks you have in the power, but rather how many unspent Hero Points you have. There is no reason for this power, given that the parts of it that are not in violation of the MnM mechanics already exist for these purposes.

Sustain
This power merely lets you use certain immunities on others if they are similar in anatomy to you. It would probably be better to just get the immunities as per the immunity extra already existing in MnM and apply the affects others extra to it. That method would also be cheaper, and would not have the flaw this version contains.

Swarm
This power already exists in the core MnM rules under Alternate Form - Semisolid. That power thus established the mechanics for how this concept should work in MnM.

Tremor
This power already exists in the core MnM rules as the Shockwave extra to Super Strength. That power already sets forth the mechanics that should be used to handle this concept, and bought by itself without Super Strength it is cheaper than this Tremor power.

Building Powers by going through hoops or just making new ones
Something I never liked of the Champions crowd was how they would try to fit everything in the universe into the existing power structure in their core rulebook rather than accept that there was room for new powers and that their engine could not handle everything with ease or even possibility.

Reading my comments above, it sounds like I'm doing just what they do. That said, I do believe there is room in the MnM universe for new powers and that we should not go through 'too many' hoops to try and build them with what is there already.

That said, there is a power design system, and a design philosophy - to the powers in MnM. New powers should follow it. Where they can very easily be recreated by existing powers the existing powers should hold precedence. Packaging existing elements together and calling it a new power is dubious, but was done several times in the core MnM book itself (Sorcery and Cosmic being chief examples). Existing powers should not be overwritten - leave that to the house rules of individual GMs.

Most of this book is nothing new. Most of it can be recreated with existing powers. Much of that can be easily done. Many of the items in this book violate the basic structure of the building blocks used to build powers in MnM. Thus the book loses a large portion of it's value as a rules supplement. As an idea supplement it makes a better standing.

The ideas are sometimes fresh. Some of them are just already well known concepts that MnM handles well as is, but some of them are new and original.

While those ideas might sometimes be new, the mechanics needed to implement them largely already exist, and the powers in this book either show that, or avoid it and create their own new methods that in ignoring the aforementioned building blocks create problems when you try to integrate them into MnM.

If you make a list of new powers, use the building blocks of MnM to construct them. Truly original powers will of course be outside those blocks. For that you turn to the design philosophy behind those blocks to add to the list of blocks what you need to get your new powers. In short - you need consistency with precedent, even when treading new waters.

I give the book a 2 out of 5 in substance, due to the severe problems on the mechanical end, but the presence of some salvageable elements. By contrast I'll give it a 3 out of 5 in style for a decent showing of ideas, good graphic design and illustration, and a generally tight package.

I only hope future Superlink products from all publishers (including the one behind this book) take a more researched and consistent with precedent approach to their rules. At the same time, a lot of them could learn something from how this book is put together - just what you want, with a little illustration to make it easier to get into, and little else. Despite a lot of white space none of it seems wasted.

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