Superman is the archetypal superhero. He’s the genesis point from which all superheroes originate, and every hero pays some kind of homage to him. Superman popularized everything from colorful costumes to secret identities, but one of his biggest contributions to the genre was his endless array of incredible superpowers. Even among other heroes, Superman is known for having an absurd number of powers. He started with a fairly controlled list, including super strength, senses, and invulnerability, but that list massively expanded over time. Back in the Silver Age, Superman could do practically anything he wanted. Even though his powers have been rolled back slightly, he still has a huge list of abilities.
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With Superman using these powers in every facet of his life, it’s only natural that fans would wonder how sharing those powers would impact their own lives. That’s exactly what we’re talking about today. We’ll be looking at ten of Superman’s best powers and ranking them by how useful they would be to have in everyday life. We can’t all be superheroes, after all, and powers that are good for stopping crime might not be great for watering the garden. Obviously, this is a generalization, as some people could make way more use out of one power than another. Also, we’re assuming that these powers work based on comic book physics, not lame real-life physics. With all that said, let’s shop around with Superman’s powers.
10) Super-Hearing
Clark’s super-hearing allows him to listen to practically everything happening across the globe at once. He can hear even minute sounds that no microphone would be able to pick up, and hear across every pitch above and below what regular humans are capable of. Some of the definite upsides include being able to tune in to anything you want across the world. With enough practice, you could probably listen to music the same way Superman does. He can listen to every musician at once and focus on the one he’s in the mood for. It’s the world’s biggest selection, and the best way to hear indie artists. Great for live music enjoyers.
Of course, the real problem with super-hearing is that you hear everything. And you can never turn it off. Imagine a room filled with a hundred different toddlers screaming while they each play a different instrument while dogs and fire alarms howl in the background. Now imagine that’s literally all the time. Hearing every action on Earth is insane and would definitely drive someone insane almost immediately. Absolute Superman does a great job of showing the burden of hearing every atrocity but only being able to help with so many. This power will drive you crazy, even if it’s limited.
9) Heat Vision
Superman’s heat vision is one of his most powerful and implemented abilities. Superman can unleash a full-powered blast that can rip through mountains and melt cities off planets, or control it so tightly that he can burn subatomic particles. With maximum control, heat vision is one of Superman’s most versatile powers. He regularly uses it for damage, emergency welding, and even surgical strikes. Heck, if you really put your heart into it, you should learn to control your laser eyes like blazing scalpels.
Of course, while having laser eyes is absolutely awesome, genuinely what are you going to do with it? Sure, you can cook your food without a microwave, but beyond that, there aren’t too many day-to-day activities that instantaneous fire can help with. If anything, heat vision is a detriment, because it can be very dangerous. The intrusive thoughts only need to win once, and suddenly your house is on fire. Heat vision is a powerful, versatile ability for a superhero, but for an average Joe, it’s really limiting.
8) Telescopic Vision
Superman has a vast array of vision-based powers, and while X-Ray and heat vision are definitely the best known, telescopic vision remains heavily underrated. This lets Superman see at incredible distances, and while the exact distance isn’t known, he can see onto other planets, so it’s far more powerful than anyone on our Earth would need. This effectively lets Superman’s eyes operate like camera lenses and zoom better than any telescope. With this power, you’d never have to worry about needing glasses. Which is kind of funny, given how getting this power means you look less like Clark Kent.
This power is definitely awesome. Who doesn’t want to look up at the night sky and make out details of the moon’s surface? Of course, perfect vision is awesome, but it doesn’t exactly offer much else. Seeing things in perfect clarity is a great privilege, for sure, but for most people, this wouldn’t exactly be a life-changing upgrade. Telescopic vision is awesome, and I would love to pick new details out of the night sky, but this is more of a slight bonus than what people think about when they hear superpower.
7) Super-Breath
Super-breath is probably Superman’s most overlooked power. This ability lets him breathe in and out with the force of a hurricane. A single puff can knock down any house made of straw or sticks. Even better, Superman can choose to hypercool the air in his lungs, so that anything he breathes out on gets frozen solid. This can instantly put out even the strongest fires and turn a tsunami into the world’s largest ice sculpture. On a more minuscule scale, Superman can control his breath so that it’s a nice winter’s breeze on a blistering summer day. His ice cream is never melting, that’s for sure.
With super-breath, you could make it snow whenever you want, and instantly chill any frozens you buy from the grocery store. Of course, there’s only so much you can do with freezing breath, but it has one massive application that I think gives it a bump. With this, you can practically reverse huge amounts of global warming. Sure, the average person doesn’t go to the polar caps and refreeze them, but Superman thinks that we all have a responsibility to each other and our planet, and I genuinely believe that anyone who has this power could and would do that. It’s not a personal bonus, but a massive one for humanity.
6) X-Ray Vision
Superman’s second most famous visual power lets him peer through any material but lead. There’s no limit to how dense the material he can see through is, meaning that there’s no limit to what you’d be able to peer through. Of course, he can also focus this power to see through specific objects or layers. You could look through your entire house, or focus this special sight to only gaze into a specific room, and even avoid seeing people as skeletons. Superman can even concentrate this energy into a single, powerful light at the gamma level, which can short out electronics. I don’t know why you’d want to do that, but you could.
While nothing major, there are a ton of real-world applications that this power can solve. You don’t realize how many devices and setups humanity has made specifically for the express purpose of seeing something out of our reach until you consider it. With this, you’d almost never have to worry about something being in a spot you can’t see. You could search for your lost phone without leaving the couch. Hear a rumbling in the back of your dryer? A quick glance will tell you if something is stuck without needing to finagle and rearrange everything. This is definitely a very useful power that I’d love to have.
5) Invulnerability
Superman is almost invincible. He can take an unbelievable amount of punishment without even batting an eye. This invulnerability is so incredible that he can shrug off blows that would level the Earth’s crust without more than a twinge of pain. Obviously, the closest the average person could hope to get to this type of damage is getting hit by a bus. With Superman’s invulnerability, you could get absolutely flattened by an eighteen-wheeler and get back up like it never happened at all. If anything, I’d be worried about the truck.
This is the strange line between almost unnoticeable and revolutionary. On the one hand, being confident that nothing on Earth can hurt you is an incredible feeling of safety. It’s the world’s greatest airbag. On the other hand, people generally avoid situations that would put them in that kind of danger already. Most people don’t wind up getting hit by trucks or shot. Still, this power ensures that even if that happens, you’ll be absolutely fine. It’s a power that’s easy to forget you have, but easily the best accident-proofing imaginable. Heck, it erases the pain of stubbing your toe on a chair leg, which is a massive win in my book.
4) Super Strength
Superman is very, very, very strong. Like, impossibly, unbelievably strong. There’s literally nothing on the planet that he cannot lift. Superman has been juggling boulders since his first battle against Lex Luthor, which is far more than any normal person would have to do. Just think about how many small problems in life can be solved with raw muscles. Car runs out of gas? Don’t call AAA, just carry it to the nearest gas station. Need to move? You can snag all your belongings like you’re trying to make one trip in with the groceries.
Super strength can legitimately help people through life on the sole value of the confidence it gives, just like invulnerability, only this power is a whole lot more active than reactive. Of course, it also has a pretty big downside. You always have to be careful about everything you do, or you might accidentally launch the TV remote into orbit when you mean to toss it across the room. Super strength can solve a whole lot of problems, but everyone remembers Superman’s world of cardboard speech, and that kind of control can definitely weigh on a person.
3) Flight
Flying is the ultimate transportation. Superman actually started only able to leap great distances, but that quickly developed into flight, with Superman soaring through the air like a bird or a plane. Flight is even way more versatile than it might seem on the surface, as it allows you to create your own leverage in any direction. Tripping becomes impossible when you develop an omnidirectional sense of balance. Of course, the biggest and most obvious advantage to flying is that you can go wherever you want, whenever you want.
One thing you definitely don’t want to overlook is that Superman flies really, really fast. He’s famous for outracing a speeding bullet, but he’s a whole lot faster, able to clear continents in a matter of moments. Even assuming the average person goes slower to protect themselves from the elements or sonic booms, that still means that you could travel across the entire world for whatever you want. You could decide you want Italian and go straight to Italy. Flight is the ultimate freedom, because it truly unmoors you from needing to stay in any one place.
2) Super Speed
Without a doubt, super speed is one of the most requested and talked about superpowers that people would want in real life. Superman might not be the Flash, but he is one of the very few people who can give him a run for his money. Superman can see, react, and move fast enough that time seems to stand still around him. He can stretch a single second out to what seems like minutes, and a minute can be hours.
Obviously, this is an insanely awesome power. It’s literally just more exponentially more time in the day. Everyone wishes they had more time to do what they really want, or to finish what they need to, and with Superman’s super speed, you’d have more time than you know what to do with. The only caveat with this power is that it could very easily make life boring. Suddenly, waiting fifteen minutes is an eternity, and a normal conversation could seem to drag on for days on end. Superman seems to be able to control his perception to a point, but still, super speed runs the risk of becoming just as much of a curse as a blessing.
1) Super Intellect
One of Superman’s most inconsistent and overlooked powers, and the one I genuinely believe to be even more useful than super speed in some ways, is his super intellect. Back in the day, Superman wasn’t just a hero. He was a scientist without peer. He was even officially recognized as smarter than Batman, for Pete’s sake. Superman solved just as many problems with a scientific invention as he did with one of his many superpowers. His mind was enhanced to the point where he could design and build miracle machines that could do practically anything. Heck, he has literally created devices that recreate his other powers, and with this ability, you could too.
This power doesn’t just make Superman smart. It also makes him a genius at learning and adapting, meaning that he can master just about any discipline he sets his super mind to. Every other power on this list offers almost entirely personal benefits, but this power can legitimately change the world. With Superman’s level of super intellect, you could change our world into one that operates like DC’s within the course of a single lifetime. All you need is the drive to start, and the know-how to improve the world. With this power, you’d have that in spades.
Overall, most of Superman’s powers would be awesome to have, but not all that helpful to everyday life. Still, I think we can all agree that superpowers are awesome, and we’d all love to live out our childhood fantasies with any one of Superman’s incredible abilities. The Man of Tomorrow has some of the greatest powers in comics, and they will always hold a special place in our hearts.
Which of Superman’s powers would you want to possess? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts on the ComicBook Forum!
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