Reed Richards Is Useless

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The observation that in some genres, characters can have fantastic technology, godlike superpowers or an incredible intelligence able to solve any problem, yet this is only used to solve either equally fantastic problems, catch supervillains or stop petty criminals. Their ability to enact actual change in the world is always limited.

A person who controls weather will never make it rain in drought-stricken areas, or stop a hurricane, or end a heatwave. A person who can control water will never douse bush fires or burning buildings, or get a job at a power station. And a supergenius (such as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic of the Fantastic Four) can save the life of starving demi-god beings like Galactus, but will never take a weekend to duplicate and market Doctor Doom's burn-victim cure device or release his inventions that could solve a variety of real-world problems (and earn their creator millions of dollars). All potential solutions to real-life problems will only be done in novel (fictional) situations — useless.

Status Quo Is God, and the status quo of the real world even more so. It's the same reason you can't stop Hitler from starting World War II.

There are several typical motivations for this:

1. To keep the world similar to the real world. This is particularly common in an Urban Fantasy, superhero, or other series whose setting is superficially similar to the real world. Unlike, say, Star Trek or The Lord of the Rings, one of the key draws of the series is that it could take place right outside the reader's window, which is lost if you make the fictional world too fantastic in comparison. This is particularly common in comic books, where major modifications to the world are only done to fictional locations, and often only to current levels of technology. Here's a video of late Marvel editor-in-chief Mark Gruenwald explaining the reasons for this in some depth.
2. To ensure that there's some level of drama in the story. If the super science or magic can literally do anything, then there's no reason the heroes can't just figure out a creative way to get them out of any jam. Goodbye potential conflict. In the case of Star Trek, there were tons of things the replicators and transporters should have been able to do which would have ruined the plot of half the episodes, necessitating a lot of Holding Back the Phlebotinum to maintain drama. As well, it could very easily be that the technology itself has some limitations, as "It can do anything you can imagine." is quite a bold statement for anyone to make.
3. To keep the hero unique. If the hero shares their technology, magic, discoveries, or other advantages with the world, they'll cease to be uniquely special. Iron Man isn't Iron Man if he sells his suits on every street corner or shares the technology so anyone can produce them, necessitating an explanation for why he doesn't. This is why the Disposable Superhero Maker is disposable in the first place — to avoid flooding the setting with superheroes.
4. To avoid trivializing real-life problems. If Mr. Fantastic actually does cure HIV in the Marvel Universe, there will be plenty of real people still HIV-positive, and plenty of researchers still investing untold millions of dollars and work hours to fight HIV when they finish the comic. This can make creators wary of tackling such issues, as it can be considered insensitive to have such a heavy burden in real life be casually miracle-cured in fiction. Also, in the interest of representation, disabled people exist in universes where science should theoretically be able to cure their disability. However, either the disability is so ingrained as a facet of the character's portrayal; or curing them could be seen to detract from their mass-market appeal as someone that other disabled readers can relate to; or it's felt that a setting where "future utopia" means "disabled people don't exist" has very Unfortunate Implications. This is probably why Professor X always ends up back in the wheelchair after regaining use of his legs. One possible In-Universe explanation is that they simply chose to live with the disability for whatever reason (for example, it gives them some advantages, or they feel it as a part of who they are). Similarly to point one, this is generally more of a concern if the world is supposed to reflect the real world closely; if it's explicitly an Alternate History or Alternate Universe, or the future, then there's greater room to play with this without potentially causing offense.
5. To keep multiple titles within a Shared Universe consistent with one-another; comic book universes would approach a new level of Continuity Snarl and Depending on the Writer if writers had to keep track of every published book in their universe for which major diseases/blights had been cured by the heroes and which ones weren't. Sometimes it's hard just to justify a side adventure going on during the Crisis Crossover, which is why Superman Stays Out of Gotham.
6. The technology does exist but is being actively kept out of the general public's hands. Reed Richards, for example, has developed countless mundane inventions that would shut down entire industries overnight, leaving countless people out of work. As a result, companies often pay him millions not to put his gadgets on the market. In addition, many super-scientists have a problem with having their life's work fall into the hands of the military or other people whom they consider to have less than good uses for it (see: Alfred Nobel and the creation of dynamite, which was a safer alternative to nitroglycerin in mining — but also safer for military usage)
7. The character may simply not be interested in mass production. In the real world, any sort of new medical device has to undergo years of rigorous testing to prove that it is both safe and effective before it can become available to the general public. Other inventions may have other concerns; your miniaturized nuclear reactor or tiny batteries have to be demonstrated to be safe and that they won't catch on fire, explode, or undergo a deadly meltdown. A character may simply lack interest in dealing with the bureaucracy involved, and may not trust anyone else to bring their products to market on their behalf. Especially given that half of the major corporations in these worlds seem to be run by villains.
8. The technology itself and/or its components are all Awesome, but Impractical, at least in regards to mass-production and/or maintenance. The Unobtanium needed to make the device work is too expensive and/or rare for it to be mass produced: a suit of impenetrable super-metal armor might be a great idea for equipping soldiers with, but if that single suit represents 80% of the known stockpile of the metal and costs more than an aircraft carrier, it's not something that can really be issued to the troops. Additionally, it's exceedingly dangerous, difficult, and/or expensive to get ahold of (such as extraterrestrial materials or exotic states of matter that require millions of dollars to produce and maintain). Often overlaps with New Tech Is Not Cheap, as while the fancy new phlebotinum can be produced in enough quantities for a single gadget-using hero to use, it can't be cheaply mass-produced for the masses yet.
9. There's a lack of reasonable infrastructure needed to mass-produce the technology. The inventions require large amounts of complicated parts that need to be handled and assembled in certain specialized ways for it to be built properly. This requires a lot of time, finances, materials, equipment, skilled labor, and clever logistics, and humanity (or whatever race) simply lacks the economic and or technological infrastructure. You can have a design for an awesome spaceship, but the amount of raw materials, processing equipment, and skilled workers required to create one would be such that only a global superpower (nation or otherwise) could try with any reasonable chance of success. For an entire fleet, only a Planetary Nation or One World Order could attempt on a practical level.
10. The inventors or creators are too busy dealing with more immediate emergencies or dangers by supervillains, especially those who use their brilliance for their own selfish ends or for dangerous ideas. It would be nice to be able to tackle some large-scale issues, but it's hard to think about that when you have to save a bunch of people or stop a mad genius from using their smarts to hurt others.
11. It just didn't come to the creator's mind.

This trope is often associated with An Aesop that these problems don't have easy solutions in the real world, and any proposed sci-fi solutions will have negative side-effects or potential for abuse that justifies completely abandoning all hope of trying to solve the problem. However, during times when superhero comics especially begin to explore the ramifications of their characters on real-world settings more closely, this question is raised and addressed more frequently. It is sometimes lampshaded as making people "too dependent" on superheroes: good thing that Jonas Salk didn't feel that way.

Smaller-scale continuities such as newly created Superhero universes with a single author to explore the fictional world in 1 or 2 titles are more likely to avert and examine the concept of super-technology's effect on modern society, especially if the writer is trying to make a geopolitical statement. Larger superhero continuities, such as Marvel Comics and DC Comics, are established to have upheld this trope as their Earths have been explored in extensive detail. The trope can be inverted by having a hero "inventing" a technological revolution that already exists (for example, the Ultimate Marvel Iron Man apparently invented the MP3 player).

An explanation that is often used is that the invention is a product of The Spark of Genius; either the inventor couldn't remember how it works after they come out of their inventing frenzy, or their notes were incomprehensible, or it simply doesn't work for anyone else because it is really Magic-Powered Pseudoscience or something similar. This is more commonly found in Deconstructions, such as Wild Cards, where explaining this sort of plot element is a part of the purpose of the story.

Closely related to Misapplied Phlebotinum. See Plausible Deniability and Mundane Utility for aversions, and You Are Not Ready for a Deconstruction. Antonym to Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome. Compare Super Prototype, Superman Stays Out of Gotham, Forgot About His Powers and Dudley Do-Right Stops to Help. When gods are the ones not doing anything, it's The Gods Must Be Lazy. When applied to supervillains, see Cut Lex Luthor a Check.

Examples:

• Anime & Manga
• Comic Books
• Fan Works
• Films – Live-Action
• Literature
• Live-Action TV
• Tabletop Games
• Video Games
• Webcomics
• Web Original
• Western Animation