Will Smith’s superhero has an image problem and a drinking problem... but he also has a Larry Niven problem, according to one deleted scene from the film. (See above.) Actually, Hancock can have sex, he simply has to be very, very careful where, and how, he ejaculates. In this deleted scene from Hancock (which had the original title of Tonight, He Comes) Hancock has brought a cute young thing back to his trailer, and they’re getting busy. But then Hancock gets close to his climax, and warns the woman to back way, way up. Hancock gets off — and we see his semen riddle his ceiling with holes, almost like bullet holes. (Comics afficionados will not be surprised to learn this scene is ripped off from a Garth Ennis comic.)

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3) Rogue from the X-Men

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Poor Rogue. She’s got the cool Susan Sontag hair, and the leather jumpsuit, and the hot boyfriend... but she can never touch anyone. Whenever she does touch another person, she absorbs their memories, strength and physical abilities. She also steals people’s superpowers with her touch. She’s tragically untouchable. The sexual frustration is so horrendous, it drives her to get rid of her powers in X-Men 3.

4) Beautie in Kurt Busiek’s Astro City

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Beautie is one of the members of the Honor Guard, one of the main superhero teams in Astro City, Kurt Busiek’s fictional superhero town. She’s always looked like a Barbie doll, but we’ve never known much about the robot girl — until Busiek published the Astro City Character Special: Beautie last February. There, we see some “pick-up artists” try to hit on Beautie, only to be told that she has no genitalia. None whatsoever.

5) Various Cyborgs

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At least the first few versions of Deathlok in Marvel Comics don’t appear to have been “anatomically correct” — because nobody thought a combat cyborg needed to have any equipment down there. Ditto for Robotman, from the Doom Patrol. And Vic Stone, aka Cyborg, from the Teen Titans. But the hordes of comic book sex-perverts are pretty certain that the Vision, the android member of the Avengers, did in fact get it on with the Scarlet Witch when the two of them were married.

6) Superman

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We already mentioned Larry Niven — and Niven famously thought way too much about the implications of Krypto-sperm. Besides the speeding-bullet properties of the sperm themselves, there’s the fact that Superman might cause an injury if he got too excited during intercourse — and according to the movie Mallrats, the sperm would probably tear Lois Lane’s fallopian tubes apart as well. Some self-proclaimed experts also believe Wonder Woman is incapable of having sex with a normal human, for similar reasons.

7) Spider-Man

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Spider-Man, meanwhile, has a slightly different problem: He can have sex. But prolonged exposure to his ummm... radioactive bodily fluids eventually kills his wife Mary Jane in a future dystopian story, Spider-Man: Reign by Kaare Andrews.

8) Deadman

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A surprising number of superheroes are dead, either undead or ghosts... and most of them never get laid. In particular, Deadman is insubstantial except for when he takes control over a living body. (And his ethics might prevent him from using someone else’s body as a vehicle for sex, I’m guessing.) There’s also the Spectre, who’s basically the spirit of vengeance — he can become tangible, but I’m highly doubtful he ever gets any. (Although the Ostrander run on The Spectre did get a bit saucy at times.)

9) Ben Grimm from the Fantastic Four

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Turns out The Thing’s hero name is slightly ironic — because it’s hinted at various times that he has nothing but more rocks under his little shorts. His girlfriend, Alicia, dumps him and starts dating Johnny Storm, the Human Torch. She makes it pretty clear that this is the first time in ages that she’s gotten any action — meaning she wasn’t getting any when she was with Ben. Poor Ben.

10) Negative Man from the Doom Patrol

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Yep, the Doom Patrol are the rulers in the “can’t have sex” sweepstakes. Negative Man is basically a radioactive mummy who has to wear protective bandages at all times, and (I think) can never touch anybody without the bandages in the way. Similarly, Fuji from the Stormwatch series is a hero who’s molecularly stable, and if he takes off his containment suit he turns into a radioactive cloud of plasma and probably dies.

There are also some other heroes whose bodies just aren’t compatible with anybody else’s. Like Mogo, who’s an entire planet and a member of the Green Lantern Corps. Who can Mogo have sex with? Element Lad from the Legion of Superheroes was celibate for a long time because he was the last of his kind, but did finally find love with a member of the Science Police who took a sex-change drug.

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Thanks to Douglas Wolk for research help! Thanks also to Patrick Hester, Terry D. Johnson, Wesley Chu, The Worst DM, Keith Manuel, Graylin Rane Fox, Michael Weyer, Glenn Hauman, Lucius Cook, Tasmanian Tiger, Jeffrey Cuscutis, Bryant Alexander and everybody else who helped with this.

A version of this article previously appeared in 2008.