I once tried to make a "regular Joe', who had no powers, but had simply taken to the streets to fight crime. I forget exactly what other abilities I gave him, but I know that I had used the Fighting power pool. The result tended to be kind of like an office desk jockey going up against professionally-trained fighters, even in the Skulls and Hellions. As I recall, I gave up on him when I ran out of "ordinary abilities" to give him, instead of powers outside of human capability.