The Greatest Superpowers Of All Time, Ranked (original) (raw)

Superheroes have changed how modern pop culture thinks about superpowers after countless stories of gods, titans, and heroes shaping the world from ancient civilization. Comics, TV, and movies have explored and deconstructed extraordinary abilities ad nauseam, but fans still love fantasizing about wielding incredible superpowers like flight or telepathy.

Of course, the best superpowers in comics and movies are the ones that help superheroes win battles and save lives. Superheroes are a kind of modern mythology, and their great powers define characters like Spider-Man and The Flash as much as their decisions and personalities.

Updated on July 6, 2024 by John Dodge: Fans often discuss and rank the best superpowers from the comics, which has resulted in quite a few lists of superpowers. However, Marvel and DC heroes like Superman and Sentry are often overpowered with several incredible abilities, making it even harder to pick the best superpowers. Classic superpowers like X-ray vision and odder abilities like matter consumption are just a few of the best superpowers that have made a significant mark on the collective imagination.

55 Photographic Reflexes Make Memorization a Breeze

Notable Users: Taskmaster, Prometheus, Finesse

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Characters like Marvel's Taskmaster have made great use of their ability to replicate any move or skill with photographic reflexes. This ability is similar to eidetic memory, which allows people to recall any detail or scene from their memory with perfect clarity. Taskmaster uses his photographic reflexes to observe and master any fighting move or skill he witnesses and replicate it perfectly.

The MCU's version of Taskmaster used a computer program to analyze and replicate the movements fed to the reimagined character through her helmet. This adaptation of the ability is similar to DC's Prometheus, who used recorded footage and an advanced computer program to learn and master the Justice League's moves so he could counter them.

54 X-Ray Vision Would Make it Easy to Find Lost Items

Notable Users: Superman, Hitman, Eye-Boy

X-ray vision is an iconic but sometimes creepy superpower. It grants characters like Superman and Hitman the ability to see through objects and people. Working on the same principle as an X-ray machine, this power is traditionally blocked by lead. Superheroes use it for everything from locating hidden bombs to avoiding ambushes.

X-ray vision borrows some scientific language but isn't the same as an X-ray machine at the airport. In ordinary life, it has some obvious underhanded uses, but it also could help people find lost items or see who's at the door without a second thought. X-ray vision isn't a show-stopping offensive power, but it can save heroes from a world of hurt when used intelligently.

53 Sonic Scream Often Helps its Users Fly

Notable Users: Black Canary, Black Bolt, Banshee

Sometimes, superheroes' powers involve a concealed or hidden ability like a sonic scream that can change the course of a battle in a second. Heroes like Black Canary often rely on their advanced martial arts skills. However, she can also dish out extreme punishment to some of DC's most powerful villains due to her ear-bursting Canary Cry.

Other heroes, like the X-Men's Banshee, have trained their sonic scream to hit different frequencies. This allows Banshee and his daughter Siryn to use their sonic screams to create lift, which allows them to fly through the air at supersonic speeds. Of course, heroes like Marvel's Black Bolt have such a powerful scream that even the smallest whisper can bring down mountains.

52 Wall-Crawling Turns any Structure Into a Jungle-Gym

Notable Users: Spider-Man, Nightcrawler, Vixen

While some abilities like super-strength are widely shared throughout the metahuman community, wall-crawling is usually restricted to a few heroes like Spider-Man and his variants from the Spider-Verse. The power to run up walls or hide effortlessly on the ceiling grants characters a certain level of freedom, but this ability usually works best with other powers.

Without super-strength and endurance, climbing a skyscraper could be grueling and leave little juice in the hero's tank for the inevitable confrontation with a supervillain. Heroes like DC's Vixen can stick to walls similarly by tapping into the totemic energies of animals like spiders. Others have used weapons or climbing tools to duplicate their abilities.

51 Optic Blasts Are Incredibly Powerful

Notable Users: Cyclops, Darkseid, Superman

Optic blasts can encompass Cyclops' concussive blasts, Superman's heat vision, and even Darkseid's Omega Effect. The power to destroy something with a glance is a tempting ability for almost anyone, though there can also be drawbacks. Vision-based attacks can sometimes blind their wielders, while characters like Cyclops need special equipment just to open their eyes.

Optic blasts are unusually intuitive as heroes can use their eyes to focus and aim, so they are a good match for sharpshooting specialists like Cyclops. Heat vision and other variants of optic blasts, like Hyperion's atomic vision, can sometimes function as utility powers. Heroes can weld broken bridges and, in some cases, even repair and alter microcircuitry.

50 Intangibility Grants Access to Sealed Off Places

Notable Users: Vision, Shadowcat, Vision

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Intangible or phased characters like Martian Manhunter and Kitty Pryde can walk through walls or let bullets pass through them harmlessly. This defensive power also provides access to everything from bank vaults to secret lairs. Some characters can phase other objects or enemies into solid or protect their friends by making them intangible.

Getting into locked rooms, evading bullets, and escaping traps are just a few of intangibility's useful applications. Combined with powers like invisibility and teleportation, intangibility becomes even more potent. However, phasing is a power limited more by a lack of imagination than anything else. In the hands of a master, it's an underrated and potentially deadly power.

49 Technological Interface Makes Hacking Super Easy

Notable Users: Cyborg, Deathlok, Iron Man

Anyone who's had trouble with a cell phone or a laptop will see the benefits of being able to interface with any kind of technology. Heroes like DC's Victor Stone/Cyborg and Marvel's Deathlok gained the ability to access computer systems, online networks, and automated machinery—manipulating them in their minds.

Cyborg could inject a struggling mother's bank account with cash or shut down an enemy's robotic systems with a snap of his fingers. Tony Stark developed advanced AI programs and security cracking technology to take control of other computer systems from inside any of Iron Man's incredibly powerful armors.

48 Body Manipulation Has a Variety of Uses

Notable Users: Plastic Man, Mister Fantastic, Elongated Man

Distinct from shape-shifting, body manipulation lets heroes like Reed Richards stretch their bodies, and Plastic Man takes on various shapes. By becoming a living straightjacket, Richards has restrained much stronger opponents. The Elongated Man can access almost anywhere by sliding under doors, and having a silly putty body makes many heroes nearly impervious to harm.

Of course, body manipulation also has its limits. When Mr. Fantastic or Elongated Man stretch themselves too far, they can weaken their bodies or even risk snapping like a strained elastic band. Body manipulation is a surprisingly potent superpower; using it well is a sign of imagination and intelligence.

47 Shapeshifting is an Ideal Power for Spies

Notable Users: Mystique, Martian Manhunter, Beast Boy

While some Marvel shape-shifters like Wolfsbane can only assume one alternate form, others like Mystique use their powers primarily for disguise. Some heroes, like the Martian Manhunter, can transform into entirely novel lifeforms and stretch and reshape their bodies to grow new organs or claws and gills as needed.

There are different versions of comic book shape-shifters as well. Beast Boy can literally become any animal, but he can't transform into organic steel like Colossus. Both could be considered shape-shifters. The sheer flexibility associated with shape-shifting makes it an incredibly useful power despite being one of the least-defined meta-abilities in comics.

46 Enhanced Senses Clue People To Their Surroundings

Notable Users: Daredevil, Superman, Wolverine

Characters like Daredevil, Wolverine, and even Superman are known for their enhanced senses. These senses can vary from superhuman hearing and smell to microscopic vision. Characters like Spider-Man and Daredevil even arguably have extra senses, like DD's radar and Spidey's infamous spider sense.​​

These powers are subtle, but they can be life-changing. Characters who have mastered their enhanced senses can usually avoid the added distractions or temptation to be a snoop. Even without complementary powers like Wolverine's claws or Superman's wide array of powers, enhanced senses are incredibly useful.

45 Electrical Manipulation Could Solve Some Energy Problems

Notable Users: Black Lightning, Electro, Lightning Lord

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Electrical manipulation is a surprisingly flexible power. Electrically powered heroes like Black Lightning and Static can shock foes and throw lightning bolts around, but they can also generate magnetic and electrical force fields. Electricity is everywhere, and its power is limited by a writer's knowledge of physics and imagination.

Villainous characters like Electro and Livewire can also control electricity and manifest an energy form. They can travel along power lines for nearly instantaneous transportation. Electrical manipulation traditionally comes with a vulnerability to water thanks to its extreme conductivity, but that's a small price for a potent and overpowered ability.

44 Cosmic Awareness Unlocks the Universe's Greatest Mysteries

Notable Users: Uatu the Watcher, Metron, Captain Mar-Vell

Marvel heroes like Captain Mar-Vell and his children Genis-Vell and Phyla-Vell have all been gifted with Cosmic Awareness. The unique ability is an overwhelming knowledge and understanding of the universe. Such a complete understanding of time and space can threaten almost anyone's sanity. However, it is a gift that exceeds even the power of the Infinity Stones.

Cosmic awareness is a reliable form of intuitive precognition and lets its beneficiaries steer the course of events if they can filter the nearly infinite knowledge pouring into their minds. However, powerful villains like What If...?'s Infinity Ultron have shown that Cosmic Awareness in the wrong hands can also be incredibly dangerous.

43 Power Absorption Lets People Use Multiple Powers at Once

Notable Users: Rogue, Chaos Nation, Parasite

While some characters can mimic metahuman abilities, others use power absorption to steal life force and gain incredible gifts. Marvel's Rogue and DC's Parasite are the most well-known examples of this powerset. Both characters are extremely dangerous and have gained vast power by stealing abilities from characters like the original Ms. Marvel and Superman.

The presence of other superhumans makes this ability incalculably powerful. However, stealing life like an energy vampire could also give a person tremendous strength and longevity. Lone Star Press's Chaos Nation embodied the desire to steal as many lives as possible to grant himself immortal power. The seductive power can bring out the worst in some, but it's still very useful.

42 Size-Changing Regularly Comes in Handy

Notable Users: Ant-Man, Atom Smasher, The Atom

No two size-changers are the same. The Atom uses white dwarf star matter to shrink to microscopic sizes, while Ant-Man uses Pym Particles to reduce or expand the space between his molecules. Some heroes, like Atom-Smasher, gain strength and invulnerability with their increased mass, while others keep their original strength regardless of size.

A super-strong Giant-Man can clear away rubble after a hurricane, while a microscopic Atom can conduct surgery on a molecular level. While the obvious power that comes with enormous size might be more attractive to some, the molecular manipulation that comes with subatomic size is actually much more potent.

41 Invisibility Can be a Valuable Asset

Notable Users: Miles Morales, Phantom Girl, Invisible Woman

Along with flight, invisibility is the most basic power fantasy in literature. It comes in many forms, from Miles Morales' camouflage to the Invisible Woman's true invisibility. Even H.G. Wells' Invisible Man was trapped by having a permanently invisible body and a need for visible clothes.

It's a great defensive and offensive tool when characters can control this power. Spies, detectives, and criminals would all benefit from the power to turn invisible. However, invisibility has some major drawbacks associated with it. An invisible person could easily be run over in traffic or trampled by a crowd.

40 Force Fields Grant Users More than Simple Protection from Harm

Notable Users: Invisible Woman, Green Lantern, Dr. Cecelia Reyes

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Invisible Woman's ability to create force fields is one of the best defensive superpowers ever. While she can always hide, she wouldn't have any defense against stray gunshots or explosives without her force fields. Her force fields are nearly impenetrable, and she can use them as weapons, pinning her enemies against walls or even expanding microscopic force fields inside them.

Force fields can make their wielders virtually indestructible, though they tend to be temporary and can leave their owners vulnerable to snipers and ambushes. They're not a guaranteed defense like bulletproof skin, but they're a lot more flexible. Force fields can create bridges, simulate flight, and shore up collapsing buildings, making them one of the greatest all-around powers.

39 Energy Constructs Are Only Limited by the User's Imagination

Notable Users: Green Lantern, Ms. Marvel, Quasar

Quite a few characters have displayed the ability to create energy constructs, though each uses a different method. Green Lanterns wear a power ring connected to the emotional spectrum that allows them to create powerful constructs using the emerald energy of will or the yellow energy of fear. These constructs are usually limited only by the user's concentration.

A few Marvel heroes have developed the ability to generate constructs as well. Quasar used the quantum energy at his disposal to create powerful and lasting constructs as the Protector of the Universe. The MCU's take on Ms. Marvel exchanged her shape-shifting abilities for new hard-light constructs mimicing her original comic powers.

38 Immortality Lets People Amass far more Experience than Their Peers

Notable Users: Vandal Savage, Mr. Immortal

Comics are full of immortals, though their results vary widely. Gods like Thor live for an extremely long time, but they age slowly. Other characters don't age but can die from violence. DC's most powerful immortals, like Vandal Savage or one of the Endless, seem literally unkillable. However, even these characters have faced personal extinction at one time or another.

Comic book immortality seems inconsistent and unreliable, and in a universe where dead characters are regularly resurrected, it might just be redundant. In the real world, any form of immorality would be priceless, though if the immortal in question couldn't share it with others, it would isolate them and leave them alone for all eternity.

37 Teleportation Can Get People out of a Tight Situation

Notable Users: Nightcrawler, Cloak, Warp

Just like intangibility or flight, teleportation is all about freedom of movement. It grants heroes like Cloak and villains like the Vanisher instantaneous travel through alternate dimensions. Agile teleporters like Nightcrawler can also use teleportation as a potent weapon, and the Brotherhood of Evil's Warp has sent entire squadrons of soldiers into volcanoes and deep space.

Some metahumans can only teleport themselves, while others can teleport entire armies. Nightcrawler only teleports by line-of-sight, while his fellow mutant Magik can walk between different dimensions at a whim. Instantaneous travel would change everything. It could provide a path to other galaxies or just mean there was no excuse for being late to work again.

36 Mystical Prowess Lets Users Wield Powerful Objects

Notable Users: Doctor Strange, Doctor Fate, Zatanna

While it isn't a sole, specific power or ability, mystical prowess is still a useful and powerful skill in the comic book world. Heroes like Doctor Strange spent years training as a Master of the Mystic Arts before he became Marvel's Sorcerer Supreme. However, he's now the go-to hero in the Marvel universe when spells are needed, or other-dimensional threats to Earth arise.

DC heroes like Zatanna come from a long line of magi, though she uses magic in a unique way by casting spells in reverse. Doctor Fate has chosen a few different hosts over the years. However, each has gained incredible mystic knowledge and magical power through artifacts like the Helmet of Fate, the Cloak of Destiny, and the Amulet of Anubis.