21st century popular culture has been dominated by superheroes, with movies, television, and comic books teeming with weird and wonderful characters displaying incredible superpowers and abilities. Marvel and DC are the most well-known sources of superpowered characters — with the likes of Superman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, and Wolverine amongst the most popular heroes — but they’re far from the only ones these days.
That’s resulted in many superpowers entering the cultural zeitgeist, many of which we’d all love to have. Can you imagine the benefits of having Superman’s power set in the real world? Good heavens! In this piece, we’ll take you through what we believe are the 15 best superpowers ever depicted in fiction.
15. Invisibility
One of the first superpowers most people mention when they think of the one they’d most like to possess is invisibility. There are undoubtedly good reasons for that; you could get into places without paying, play tricks on your friends, and save a lot of money on clothes.
However, given the sordid mischief you could get up to, it’s a pretty creepy ability to possess. You wouldn’t want everyone you know feeling paranoid in the shower.
Examples of users: The Invisible Man, Sue Storm, and Violet Parr.
14. Shapeshifting
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to gain the same attention and admiration as your favorite actor, musician, or sports star? Well, shapeshifting would make that happen. It allows you to alter your body to look like other people — but there’s more to it than that.
Top-tier shapeshifters can alter the makeup of their anatomy, shifting the organs around, growing extra limbs, and much, much more. It’s a far more helpful power than many people think.
Examples of users: Mystique, Beast Boy, and Clayface.
13. Flight
Is there anyone on the planet who wouldn’t love to fly? We’ve all had the dreams, right? It would be a super-convenient, fantastic, and cheap way of traveling from A to B.
Imagine the wind in your hair, the terrific views, and the speed at which you would move as the crow flies between your starting point and destination (even if an ocean splits those two locations). Yeah, flight would be a fun superpower to have.
Examples of users: Superman, Hawkman, and Archangel.
12. Teleportation
Like flight, teleportation provides a hugely convenient method of transportation, with the bonus of being near-instant.
Imagine being able to get out of a tricky situation immediately, teleport a loved one to safety, get to work on time if you were running massively late, or whisk yourself away to an exotic location without the need for flights and passports at the drop of a hat. It would be so cool.
Examples of users: Nightcrawler, Azazel, and Blink.
11. Superstrength
Superstrength is the quintessential superpower and the one possessed by the most fictional characters. It’s precisely what it sounds like, granting users the ability to perform extraordinary feats of strength.
That doesn’t just mean being able to beat anyone in an arm wrestle or lift a car off the ground. Characters with superstrength in comic books have lifted buildings, mountains, moons, and even planets.
Examples of users: The Hulk, He-Man, and Mr. Incredible.
10. Super Durability
Possessing super durability means having the ability to shrug off the kind of impact that would badly injure or kill an average person. In fiction, it can range from taking minimal damage from such hits to being utterly impervious to them and feeling no pain.
Being bulletproof or able to tank the direct impact of a nuclear explosion would take away so much of the worry of living in a dangerous world.
Examples of users: The Juggernaut, the Thing, and Colossus.
9. Super Healing
Like super durability, super healing allows those who possess it to shrug off damage that would otherwise kill them — albeit in a different way.
With super healing, individuals still take damage, but it doesn’t last, as the cells within their body regenerate. While it means quick healing from cuts and broken bones, some characters have healed from being obliterated to a single cell. Super healing at its most potent can make individuals immortal.
Examples of users: Wolverine, Deadpool, and Claire Bennet.
8. Telekinesis
Telekinesis is the ability to physically manipulate objects and the environment without touching them. It can range from simply being able to move said things to intricately being able to alter or damage them at the molecular level.
Practical uses for telekinesis could include lifting heavy objects in industry and moving items in hard-to-reach places, carrying out surgery, or, you know, slicing someone in half.
Examples of users: Manchester Black, Carrie White, and Ebony Maw.
7. Technopathy
Technopathy is the ability to communicate with, hack into, and manipulate electronic machinery. For instance, wielders of the power could talk to a smart speaker, hack into a computer, or turn a television on with their mind.
This ability could bring all kinds of benefits, from adding money to a bank account to gaining access to secret information or saving you the effort of getting up to turn the kettle on. Of course, with nefarious ambition, they could also access nuclear codes.
Examples of users: Cyborg, Micah Sanders, and Brainiac.
6. Magnetism Control
Given the amount of metal in modern society, the power to control both it and magnetic fields would be potent. Metal manipulation could be used to do anything from picking up a spoon to preventing a car from crashing.
However, with complete control of magnetic fields, it could also be used to do things as intricate as manipulating the iron in people’s blood and erecting powerful magnetic forcefields for protection.
Examples of users: Magneto, Magneta, and Suyin Beifong.
5. Superspeed
Flight and teleportation are great ways of getting around quickly. However, there’s something that little bit more stylish about simply being faster than everyone else — and that’s the luxury superspeed grants you.
Being able to think, react, and move within tiny fractions of a second would be amazing. You could run rings around other people, get from one place to another incredibly quickly, and put it to heroic use. In the comics, the Flash evacuated over half a million people from a city to save them from an explosion after the explosion had started.
Examples of users: The Flash, Quicksilver, and Dash Parr.
4. Telepathy
The ability to read other people’s minds would be helpful, but the ability to control them would be amazing (albeit incredibly intrusive and easy to abuse).
Imagine being able to take all of the information from the mind of a doctor, rocket scientist, or world-class quizzer or going for a job interview and controlling the person interviewing you into hiring you. You could use the ability to become incredibly rich and powerful. Unfortunately, you wouldn’t feel very good about yourself for doing it.
Examples of users: Professor X, Apocalypse, and Emma Frost.
3. Energy Manipulation
One of the most underappreciated superpowers in fiction is the ability to manipulate energy. The entire planet is powered by various types of energy — heat, light, electrical, nuclear, magnetic, and kinetic, to name a few — and being able to control them would be epic.
You could power your appliances, heat your home, and fire concussive blasts as offensive weapons — if you were inclined to do so, that is.
Examples of users: Johnny Sorrow, Vulcan, and Monica Rambeau.
2. Time Manipulation
Time manipulation is the ability to control time for your benefit. The various ways of doing this include traveling forward or backward in time, slowing or speeding up the flow of time, or stopping time completely.
Imagine being able to meet your great great great great grandparents or your great great great great grandchildren. Imagine going back to see the dinosaurs. Or just stopping time so you could play silly tricks on your friends. It would be awesome.
Examples of users: Hiro Nakamura, Kang the Conqueror, and Thanos (or anyone) possessing the Time Stone.
1. Reality-Warping
Without a doubt, the best superpower is reality-warping. It allows the wielder to alter the very fabric of reality to suit them, from changing water into wine to turning an entire New Jersey town into an idyllic sitcom-esque environment (we’re looking at you, Wanda Maximoff).
Moreover, reality-warping could be used to grant yourself any other ability, so it’s effectively like having every other superpower on this list.
Examples of users: Scarlet Witch, Doctor Manhattan, and Mister Mxyzptlk.