Many variations of superhero powersets come with positive benefits. For example, flying comes with incredible freedom, while super speed gives almost any character an edge. However, even simple superpowers can corrupt even righteous characters like Superman, especially when writers look at them through a more realistic lens.
Dating back to ancient Greece, writers have understood that powersets like Martian Manhunter's combination of telepathy and invisibility could undermine even the best intentions. Everyone has a dark side, and the power to act with impunity can destroy anyone's integrity, and turn decent people into supervillains.
Updated on Septembder 27th, 2023 by David Harth: Superheroes are paragons of virtue. Many of them have powers that would make anyone into a villain. Normal people, though, wouldn't be so lucky. Superheroes are perfect and deal with their amazing powers in ways that regular people wouldn't. There are some superpowers out there that would make anyone into a supervillain in the real world.
20 Precognition
Precognition is a power that many heroes and villains have, often as part of a package of powers. However, the X-Men villain known as Destiny shows how easy it is for a pure precog to become evil. Destiny used her powers to manipulate events in world history. It can be argued that her goal of keeping mutantkind from extinction is noble, but countless people have died over the years thanks to her powers.
A regular person with precognition would start out small scale - lottery numbers, playing the stock market, things of that nature. However, knowing the future would poison them. How long before they started killing people before they did bad things? How many times before they started to sell the future to the highest bidder? Greed grows and precognition would make someone go further and further down a slippery slope.
19 Omniscience
Carol Danvers wasn't the first Captain Marvel. The first one was the Kree soldier named Mar-Vell. Mar-Vell had pretty standard powers, but eventually he'd gain access to the cosmic consciousness. This gave him targeted omniscience, allowing him to know everything about something when he put his mind to it. There are very actual omniscient mortals out there, with most of them being either amoral gods or cosmic beings.
Omniscience allows someone to know everything. In the real world that would drive anyone crazy. Intelligent people often lose touch with the people around them and knowing everything, all the time, would be even worse. Eventually that kind of knowledge would bring madness.
18 Mind Control
Mind control is sometimes considered a mental power, but then there's someone like the Purple Man. Purple Man controls minds, but it's more based on pheromones than anything else. Purple Man is known for being a complete monster, using his powers to make people do whatever he pleased. Some superheroes have mind control abilities, but they use them very sparingly, as there is a lot of potential for abuse.
Mind control is a power that is basically impossible not to abuse. By its very nature, mind control violates consent. Even if a person started using it seemingly benign ways - for example, making someone at a bank give them money - there are still consequences to it. Mind control makes people look like puppets to the person with the power, and that's an attitude that would lead anyone to villainy.
17 Vampirism
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Vampires are a pretty common fictional monster, and have been for centuries. Vampires became a part of comics pretty quickly, with Dracula eventually becoming a part of the DC and Marvel Universes. Vampires are often looked at as the villains in comics, with exceptions being half-vampires like Blade, who can control their bloodlust by methods other than just killing innocent people.
Vampires in the real world would be a supervillain in someone's eyes. Even just killing evil people, something that most good guy vampires try to do in comics or novels, is against the law and means killing a member of someone's family. There's a reason it's known as the curse of vampirism, as the need to constantly kill one's fellow humans would wear on a person.
16 Phasing
For an X-Man like Kate "Kitty" Pryde, the whole world is laid out before her because there's no place she can't go. Walls mean nothing when she can phase through them using her mutant ability. Pryde is generally a good person and follows the rules by respecting other people's privacy and boundaries.
However, much like the Vision in 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron, the idea of using a door might get a little old after a while when there are no real borders in their world. Walking into a building through a wall would be much easier than dealing with a locked door. Of course, that also makes it much easier to break into a bank or escape a jail cell. Phasing can eliminate consequences from someone's life.
15 X-Ray Vision
One of Superman's earliest and coolest superpowers came from a medical breakthrough that was adapted as a sci-fi novelty in X-ray vision. Characters like Robocop and Batman have effectively duplicated this ability using technology. It's handy when trying to find a bomb or something hidden, but there are a few negative aspects to the power as well.
It's hard to resist sneaking a quick peek at this year's Christmas presents, but someone with X-ray vision could just as easily pick a combination lock using the same ability. Even without looking at the inherent creepiness of the power that inspired "X-ray Specs," X-ray vision has the potential to corrupt anyone into criminal action.
14 Elasticity
People who can stretch like rubber bands might seem goofy on the surface, but Reed Richards's elasticity combined with his genius makes him one of the most powerful members of the Fantastic Four. Plastic Man's power to take on almost any shape is similarly underrated and can be deadly.
Elasticity lends itself incredibly well to two remarkably unheroic things – pranking and laziness. Reaching across a building to grab something or give someone a scare is much easier for someone with enhanced elasticity. They could also commit crimes with an extended hand while creating an alibi with someone face-to-face, further increasing their criminal potential.
13 Teleportation
Like Kitty Pryde's phasing ability, Nightcrawler's teleportation gives him easy access to sealed rooms and secret locations. He uses teleportation to help his friends in battle and save them from captivity when needed. However, other mutant teleporters, like the criminal Vanisher, have shown how this type of power can also corrupt.
Anyone with the power of teleportation could skip through a maze-like series of hallways to reach their destination quickly or even avoid the daily commute to work. However, it would also be incredibly easy to break into secure government facilities or steal money from bank vaults without anyone even knowing they were in there, or drop inconvenient foes into volcanoes. Teleportation is subtle enough that a smart person could keep it secret, which makes it doubly dangerous.
12 Telepathy
Few powers lend themselves to a violation of heroic principles quite as well as telepathy and mind control. Mutant powerhouses like Professor Xavier have used their telepathic ability to manipulate the minds of others. He often did it to protect his X-Men or keep them hidden, though he's also used his abilities for less than altruistic purposes.
Telepathic abilities come with the added responsibility concerning the morality of taking that autonomy away from another person. Superheroes like Martian Manhunter must wonder if invading another person's mind for the greater good is okay. Not everyone with telepathy would be able to avoid the temptations that come with manipulating another person's mind.
11 Telekinesis
Jean Grey may be an omega-level telepath, but she's also an incredibly gifted telekinetic. Even when not powered by the Phoenix Force. This means she can move objects with her mind, which is another power that could potentially lead to extreme laziness if not outright supervillainy.
However, the ability to telekinetically grab a snack from the fridge can dangerously escalate in any situation. Someone like Jean Grey may use her power with restrictions, but villains like Manchester Black have no problem using their minds to crush someone's heart if they look at them funny. Powers like telekinesis can turn everyday bullies into powerful supervillains.
10 Superhuman Strength
Super-strength has nearly limitless upsides and this power has become a defining characteristic for most superheroes. There's a reason the Hulk's main power is his brute force. It's the same for Superman, the Thing, Shazam, Sentry, and even Spider-Man. Lifting a car to save a trapped civilian, stopping a collapsing building, or fighting a dangerous supervillain are just a few heroic uses for super-strength.
Unfortunately, impulse control can be a big issue among normal humans in the heat of the moment. This is an even bigger problem for characters with super-strength who could destroy a city block in a rage. Heroic characters like Colossus have learned how to control their strength, though villains like Bane revel in proving their incredible strength to others.
9 Invisibility
In cinematic versions of The Invisible Man, the titular subject is almost always dangerous. In the comics, characters like Invisible Woman or the Martian Manhunter consistently make heroic use of their invisibility. They can sneak up on a foe or vanish to avoid an attack. However, a few characters have demonstrated creepier uses of invisibility.
In The Boys, Translucent is a member of The Seven who uses his invisibility to fight crime alongside his corporate superteam. However, he also spied on his female teammates and stalked sorority houses, showing that invisibility is a power that requires a high degree of morality.
8 Power Rings
Through force of will, a Green Lantern can manipulate the emotional power in their ring to make powerful energy constructs and travel through space. While Hal Jordan employed a giant fist or a cartoony mallet to thwomp his bad guys, imaginative Green Lantern ring-bearers like Kyle Rayner showcased more creativity with their constructs.
Green Lanterns are just one facet of the emotional spectrum, and others have highlighted the corruptive nature of power rings. Sinestro built his yellow corps with members who could inspire fear, while rage fueled the Red Lanterns. A multiversal power ring even corrupted and controlled its host with its own dark will on DC's Earth-3.
7 Healing Factor
Heroes like Wolverine and Deadpool can heal from nearly any wound, allowing them to take on more serious villainous threats. In most cases, healing is a harmless, passive ability but can also have a darker side. Deadpool and Wolverine still feel the pain in various degrees of the injuries they deal with every day.
However, characters like Marvel's Madcap don't feel pain and can quickly regenerate from almost any injury. Madcap discovered his abilities in a bus accident that left him with survivor syndrome. His inability to feel pain or take his own life led him down a dark path with nothing to lose and a bottomless, nihilistic guilt over the fact that he survived.
6 Super Speed
Characters like The Flash and Quicksilver have shown fans several incredible benefits that come with super speed. While there are many positives to living life at a quicker pace than the rest of the world, there are also many negatives. The ability to run errands quickly is helpful, but as Quicksilver observed, waiting in line while living at super speed is incredibly frustrating.
Villains like Reverse-Flash or Zoom have demonstrated precisely why super-speed corrupts people so readily. Reverse-Flash uses his incredible speed to move through the timestream, altering events and escaping death, and even murdering with impunity. Likewise, Marvel's Speed Demon uses his speed to quickly pull off heists and easily get away. Super speed is incredibly freeing, but that can be very bad for some people.
5 Shapeshifting
Characters like Mystique or the alien race known as the Skrulls use their shapeshifting ability to great effect in the Marvel universe. Villains like Clayface often use their shapeshifting abilities as weapons, while the Skrulls use their powers to fit in or hide their usual appearances.
Shapeshifting gives people the power to disappear into the background or even replace people. While stepping into someone else's identity may be used for good purposes, it's also the hallmark of monsters like Patricia Highsmith's Talented Mister Ripley. Mystique's shapeshifting has allowed her to walk the line between hero and villain without consequences and it's obviously corrupted her as well.
4 Time Travel
Time travel is a power that has such incredible implications it's almost unfair. For every awesome thing someone could do with this ability, there are a dozen more terrible ones. For example, Cable travels through time to protect the future of mutantkind, but even he has second-guessed how his actions affect the future and the timeline as a whole.
Heroes like DC's Booster Gold have nearly destroyed the timeline with their good intentions, which led to serious mental struggles for the hero. Kang the Conqueror has made his name as one of Marvel's deadliest time travelers, though even he started his costumed career as the heroic Iron Lad before he fell to the pressure from his future selves.
3 Weather Manipulation
There are many obvious ways to use a powerful omega-level mutant ability like Storm's weather manipulation. A well-timed lightning bolt is always a good way to end a fight or leave a lasting impression, though there are a few villainous temptations that come with weather manipulation as well.
It's easy enough to use Storm's weather-changing abilities to guarantee a sunny beach day but equally easy to make the clouds rain on someone else's parade. Characters like the Weather Wizard use technology to take control of the weather as a villain but even they don't typically demonstrate how devastating this power can be. An extended drought can destroy entire nations and a lightning bolt in a dry forest could do untold damage.
2 Immortality
Immortals share a common and depressing thread that has the potential to turn anyone into a supervillain. If anyone lives long enough, they have to watch everyone they ever cared about grow old and die. Eventually, the lives of others feel less and less significant to powerful immortals like DC's Vandal Savage.
Human life is nothing to a 50,000-year-old immortal like Vandal Savage. While some immortals hold up life as something precious, others let their grief and pain turn into resentment and anger. They plot to ruin humanity instead of helping people grow and thrive, which can be incredibly dangerous for someone with centuries of amassed wisdom and financial power.
1 Reality Manipulation
Powerful reality manipulators like the Scarlet Witch have shown how incredibly dangerous it is to alter the universe. Her unique Chaos Magic allows her to change reality on a whim, which has led to the temporary decimation of mutantkind and the complete reworking of the Marvel Universe during the House of M event.
The ability to alter reality is by far the most insidious and corruptive power because the repercussions aren't always obvious to the individual warping reality. Scarlet Witch gave everyone their wildest dreams during House of M, and when they fought back, she just reset the timeline and disappeared. Even when they make mistakes, potential villains feel like they can always undo them, and underestimate their fallible natures. Rewriting reality would obviously corrupt even the greatest heroes.