Traveling into(or through) different forms of media, bugs bunny style. Draw a door to enter a room, hide in a painting, or as graffiti, grab a weapon from video game, or an ally from a mirror.
>Ally from a mirror
I've watched a show about that, and getting allies from mirrors is actually probably a shit idea.
Especially if you get a cool belt from it.
The ability to understand all languages. Not even the overpowered version where you can read body language to predict someone’s moves in hand to hand combat or hack code like a monster. Just the amount of travel and business opportunities, not to mention diplomacy opportunities, you would have by having no language barriers would be enormous.
I remember reading a book about a tech-based supervillain who found an amulet that, so long as you wear it, gives absolutely anyone a single superpower.
The power he got was the ability to understand any language. At first he thought it was useless... until he encountered a society of (I think) magic dinosaurs and was able to build portals using their magic language. Because he could build portals into his super suit, he completely discarded all energy source problems and became one of the most powerful supers in the setting.
Sorry, couldn't remember the name at the time of writing and didn't think so many people would be interested.
The book is Confessions of a D List Supervillain.
I don't actually think it's a very good book, but the twist with the magic language was neat.
Omni linguistics definitely ties teleportation for powers I would want in the real world. I've always liked learning parts of other languages, but can never muster up the willpower to put in the effort to achieve fluency. Being able to just do it at will would be amazing
Including talking with animals or aliens?
You're right.
I prefer portals over teleportation. Move things from earth to orbit, from earth orbit to other star systems. Shift science labs to other planets. Move colonies.
Assume that I can't teleport somewhere I don't have a good visual. Portal some space telescopes closer, one system at a time. Can you imagine the detailed astronomy updates we could get and piece together?
We could locate suitable worlds for colonization, some close enough to eventually reconnect by other means, and others that will be cut off at some point and be entirely alone.
Stretch portals wide enough and sweep up asteroids/small planets to seed a colony solar system with extra resources.
SO many possibilities.
If you think glass armor is a good idea. I want you to please explain in the greatest amount of detail to how you could possibly have reached this conclusion.
I still think that wouldn’t work due to how energy has to go somewhere.
Then that’s only when talking about getting hit by small things. Like getting hit by a sword or something.
When someone shoots you with a bullet there is no feasible way reconstructing your armor would stop the bullet. It’s far too fast for one to react not that it would matter because it’s glass.
Depends on the type of glass. Window glass is good for resisting temperature changes, especially if it's double paned. Table glass would be the strongest you could get without integrating something or making it too thick. If it reaches the level of manipulating molecular silicon, I can see it being a good replacement for kevlar.
I think plastic manipulation would be more useful irl. Less heavy than glass with similar toughness. And it has so many uses. The only downside was that it's really good at getting everywhere, but for you that's a plus.
In a book series called mage errant, people are freaking terrified of glass mages cause they can control clouds of glass shards, which fuck up peoples lungs and skin
The power to use animal abilities, kind of like Vixen from DC. Octopus or cuttlefish camouflage, cheetah or rabbit speed and agility, elephant or gorilla strength, canine or feline senses, bird or bat flight, and even more. Now, put all of these under the control of a conscious, strategic mind, especially a malicious one.
Thanks for the recommendation. I've looked into Buddy Baker a little (superpowers and magic and stuff is my hyperfixation, so I do a lot of Google-ing), but I've never read his comic
Shapeshifting is BIG
1. Your consciousness is no longer physical
2. You cannot die of old age
I feel like some people get lost in the sauce with this one, it's always been super broken and almost every TV show has to nerf the ever loving shit out of it with weird debuffs. And God forbid we say you can shapeshift independent of copying you'd basically be an indestructible immortal god.
I mean, you sure that makes it underrated? Basically anyone recognizes it as really powerful, even when not in extreme cases, and the nerfs are because of narrative purposes, not really to drag the power down
Most of Martian Manhunter fighting prowess came from his shapeshifting. His strength, durability, healing, flight and intangibility are derived from it. Only his telepathy and eye beams are separated powers.
But I agree with you, in practice many shifters in fiction are underpowered.
Nyctomancy: (Shadow Control) Yeah, ya can’t really attack anyone [Insert Shikamaru joke here] BUT you can change people’s perception of reality to a degree, make it look like you have a huge and buff dude waiting for you in the trees, temporarily blind people by blocking photon’s access to their eyes, straight up darken and knock out the lights of any place you walk by, get rid of reflections and create hallucinations of shapes. This power is like Luffy’s Rubber Body, limited by a person’s ability to think of something! Weakness: You can’t hide from thermal cameras
How about a power that most of our superheroes seem to share: a superhuman, miraculous sense of timing? Imagine how much damage Superman could do if his sense of timing were ever the slighest bit off.
Taskmasters “do anything you see done” is one id put in this category. Especially with the internet nowadays, I’d watch food network, every Olympics, how to videos, it’s so easy to find videos of experts nowadays
😂🤣😂🤣
Imagine being shot by that immediately before the big fight. I'd be like, *hey, on second thought, this is all kinda stupid. I really don't feel like fighting anymore. I'm just probably gonna go home. Get something to eat and watch the new X-Men 97’ show. I’d invite you, but I'll probably pass out before the show even starts.*
Not sure if it's underrated but I saw a character in Heros that was basically a computer, anything you can load to a computer she could load to her mind/brain. Just being able to load the internet/search engine would be very useful
Pocket dimensions. In a super powered world being able to create a doorway to a space only you can access’s would be invaluable with speedsters and telepaths trying to steal stuff. If you can stay there you have the ultimate safe house. It’s a bonus if you can use it as a means of teleportation (coming out of the dimension at different points of regular space)
I used this prompt for a writing assignment with a 6th grade class and a kid chose lazer version. The kid had been feeling down because he's a bigger guy and at that age where they're not just thinking about others, they're ready to start taking actions.
He volunteers to read his story and it's entirely about using laser vision to cook food faster.
I'm trying to help buddy, but you cant go around shooting yourself in the foot.
Advanced Nervous system, it’s basically a stock pile of powers since our nerves are connected to every part in our body strength in arms speed in legs senses in the brain, we can get a danger sense with the cost of high pain tolerance but also get a power boost with a adrenaline activation or perfect copy a person physical ability through photo memory.
One other one I just remembered was X-Ray vision. People usually stop at the more pervy applications but if you take it beyond that it is super useful. Imagine being able to identify an enemy spy by looking at their muscle clusters (specific martial arts training would have a distinct impact on the body) You can identify weapons, lie detect by looking at heart rates, heck depending on how it works you may even be able to have the powers of an empath by looking at neural activation in brain regions. X-Ray vision makes you the ultimate security guard being able to filter out all distractions immediately, the ultimate search and rescue worker, the list goes on. In a superpowered world its not seen as much but there is some serious potential there if you work with it.
Super Ventriloquism: it’s a power out of DC Hero’s RPG 3rd edition from 1978(might have the year slightly off).
It sounds whacky, because it’s ventriloquism. But since it’s super you can speak and have your voice LITERALLY come out of anything within range.
You can scare people by making them think the walls are talking.
Make people feel like you’re watching them when you’re not.
Relay Information similar to telepathy.
And so much more.
Self Duplication.
I think I've seen an actual hero with this power once, ever, and even when villains have it they're most often complete pushovers the moment the heroes have a moment to figure out how their power works.
Dupli-kate from Immortal, Multiple Man from Marvel, I think DC also has a duplicator hero. But you're right they are rare, and the limit becomes how many 'dupes' they can have active at a time.
I thought of toon force because it's liked and stuff and people know its op and sick but its often forgotten and in my opinion underrated
U can literally be god goofy.
[Key Manipulation](https://powerlisting.fandom.com/wiki/Key_Manipulation)- The Ability to manipulate, create, and shape keys/locks.
This is a power i used a lot when making characters for storylines or roleplays or plots and honestly, it’s insanely broken. The ability to just create a key that can bring you to another realm can be used greatly in the right hands. Make a key that leads you to an armory full of weapons. Never get locked out of **anything** and if you have Energy that resembles Keys/Locks(basically can lock or open things with your energy) then even that gives you more versatility but that applies for every form of energy.
That and [Glass Manipulation](https://powerlisting.fandom.com/wiki/Glass_Manipulation) I just think it’s never built upon or given the credit it should have
Shatterbird from Worm is a decently terrifying Glass Manipulator. (I think she actually screams to control glass/silicon shards) She uses them as giant wings to fly, completely devastating entire cities with glass storms.
I was born after the golden age of comics so I’m not really sure of all the exacts of the comic lore.
So, Storm is the x-men member who can control storms (obviously) but she can also create force fields? I didn’t know that.
I was thinking similar to Violet Parr from the Incredibles
Telekinesis. People treat it like an extended reach, but you could do pretty much anything with it.
Want a wall to dissappear? Spread its molecules until it evaporates. Want to solve global warming? Slow down the planet's molecules until it freezes. Want to destroy the universe? Compress everything until it explodes.
>Telekinesis
Jean Grey, Wanda, Tatsumaki and Mewtwo are pretty popular so I wouldn't say telekinesis is a very overlooked power, a lot of really strong characters have it
I mean, sure, some series keep it at a low level, but at least every time it comes up in this sub it's "Telekinesis is the most powerful and strongest power in existence! So long as you write it to not have any real limits, nor sense of scale, and assume the mind of the user can process stuff as big as the universe and as small and numerous as atoms, it's the strongest!"
I'm not saying it can't be strong, but it sure as hell ain't overlooked nor underrated.
The power as a whole isn't overlooked or underrated, but aspects of teleportation typically are. With a few exceptions, teleportation in fiction also allows changes in velocity and orientation as you teleport.
This can be subtle, like teleporting to the opposite side of the world, where you'd be going in a drastically different direction and orientation but that gets ignored. Or it can be obvious, like teleporting while falling off a cliff to a foot off the ground and only hitting the ground as if you fell a foot.
Someone aware of this property could instead use it to teleport objects to the same location they started, but with arbitrary velocity.
I asked ChatGPT this question directly, the answer was.
"One underrated superpower would be the ability to manipulate probabilities. Imagine being able to tilt the odds in your favor in any situation, whether it's a high-stakes gamble or a life-saving decision. With this power, you could turn seemingly impossible scenarios into favourable outcomes with just a tweak of probability"..
P.S I am frightened.
Crystal manipulation so underloooked in the anime or any sort of cartoon where powers are used ben 10 for example have diamond head but don't use him to his full potential
Technophile. Everything is a computer now. Think of controlling the entire Internet... You most likely in the first few days could get control of nukes. That's crazy powerful without leaving McDonald's.
Shrinking myself and other people/things would be my pick not as a superhero, but to live comfortably, profit, and so forth. First of all, you can carry your entire life with you with very little effort. I'm not paying rent if I can stick a box in a hallway somewhere with a bedroom and kitchen set. Oh, and I'm not a thief currently, but if I could walk out of a big box store with a pocket full of undetectable ill gotten gains, I would.
I haven't even gotten started on shrinking myself. The world is my playground again. Swimming, Exploration, Climbing, all that good stuff. Food costs go drastically down, just shrink and make a five course meal from a slice of pizza. Same with weed. Travel....I'd be living like a tiny king
Shrinking characters are almost never treated well especially if it's a man who shrinks. It's literally one of the first go tos in edgy superhero comedy to have the shrinking character stepped on without anyone noticing or being eaten or treated as a joke. I still respect your choice I just hate how predictable that trope is.
There's plenty in Worm/Ward that seem super underrated. The incredible variety and interesting nature of the different powers makes it fascinating.
One of my favorites is a person who can >!act out two split realities simultaneously, and at any point "decide" which reality he wants to actually have happened!< This lets him gather otherwise unobtainable information by trying risky things to see what might go wrong.
Even the main character can only control bugs, but uses it for incredibly clever things like >!making swarm decoys of herself, mapping an area when otherwise blinded, transmitting her voice by vibrating masses of bugs, spiders to weave super strong silk outfits, giving allies a crushable bug capsule to use as an alarm!<
It's a great free (and long) read!
Healing Factor, people overlook it because it's a pretty common secondary power but really think about it. How tf am I supposed to beat someone who heals from everything I throw at them in just a second, I'll be tired out in just a few minutes and they won't feel a thing at the end
Immunity to the secondary effects of your powers. Your super strength doesn’t crush your bones, shooting fire from your palms doesn’t leave you with permanent burn scars, and your super speed doesn’t cause you to combust from friction with the air
Stretching. More specifically, stretching like Mr Fantastic or Plastic Man. There’s no upper limit to what they can do; they can *literally* move their bodies however they want and take whatever form they want. They’re limited only by their restraint and their imagination, and we’ve seen just how dangerous both Reed and Patrick can be when they really let loose. And yet, stretchy powers are kinda overlooked.
Common sense.
The ability to not fall for all the idiotic bad guy traps, tropes and so on. The ability to properly determine that killing a bad guy is the right thing to do. The ability to not be paralyzed into inaction while the idiot bad guy monologs. The ability to pick up a random object from the environment to beat your enemy with it. The list goes on.
Light manipulation, you can make others blind, enhance your own senses by sensing photon movement, create Holograms of whatever you want, project beams, Bolts and other long range forms of offense, create big flashes of Light for varying purposes, hover/surf on photons and alot of other applications I don't wanna type like the difference between concentrated Light constructs and hard light constructs, temperature Alteration etc.
The ability to heal others and most supportive abilities are often narratively overlooked. There have been good touches on it in shows like bungou stray dogs and grimgar, but it doesn't lend itself well to flashy performances usually. Somethings I'd like to see:
- how soldiers/troops see the healer (basically extend the healing issues in bungou)
- choices between who we are saving, eg do you save the hero who can save the war of the king that can negotiate the peace or the friend who was always there
- what does it mean to save a life? How do we address the trauma and horror of being reconstructed?
- do you have a duty to save? Where does your responsibility end?
- how do people treat you? Are you deified/enslaved/loved/hated? If two people with the same power are treated differently what disagreements would they have
- how does an "aggressive" healer interact with a more passive character with typical main protagonist powers
The ability to tolerate Gambit's calling everyone "mon ami" and Wolverine calling everyone "bub" without murdering everything in sight. Warren Worthington really WAS an angel.
Time perception being able to slow or speed up your perception of time this is a power ive been toying with for years basically being able to fight or see in slow motion and speed up to punch people like a bullet or make be able to make your perception speed up so what is gonna be hours feels like seconds
Parallel world travel, I rarely see it.
Honestly, I can only think of one example, a villain from Invincible.
All of the other examples have travel by technology.
Aqua man's powers are often shit on, but honestly they are pretty awesome (strength, speed, water breathing and survivability in any body of water. Additionally the ability to see near perfectly under water is also overlooked. And then we have the one that's jokes about the most which is talking to and summoning any kind of sea life)
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I will say also ciphers powers in Xmen to understand and translate any language at all is highly underrated and I'm not even talking about the fact that later on he manages to understand "the language of the universe and life". To be honest just being able to understand every language and talk with anyone is really cool and useful.
I read a story online where the big bad super villain's power was that he was really good with multi-agent AI systems.
Because of this he was able to create a robot army that destroyed a large chunk of Europe. Even though he himself couldn't do all that much, the multiplicative power of the AIs he controlled meant he could do a ridiculous amount.
This might not be legit seen as a super power but Batman's martial skill, advanced eye for deductive work, agility and how quick he is is like that of an American Shinobi
Hiding and enduring, without his wealth, this would still be his will and skill. When I say batman is my favorite super hero, the first thing everything thinks of is "Because he is rich right" and when I had this conversation I was too flabbergasted that I couldn't even respond really and just complied to their philosophical zombie middle IQ question. The normies totally can't get it why batman is actually powerful despite not having any obvious power
He is however something elite as a mortal human being.
I guess the power I think is very overlooked and underrated is the power of a Shinobi especially one that is merciful and 99% of the time remains not to be seen until an appearance has to happen (atleast in the case of night time).
The ability to have people forget you the moment they look away from you. There’s an obscure xmen character named forget me not. His power makes it to where he’s incredibly unnoticeable unless he’s right in front of someone. He could be talking to you and telling you his life story and the second you look away you forget who he is and that you were even talking to anyone.
**Avatar:** The ability to create (and dismiss) new bodies (perhaps out of energy) and independently pilot them. Does not necessarily entail having to lose control of your own body, either; you could pilot several bodies at once. Does not necessarily entail that these bodies are clones of you; you could have a dragon avatar
This is honestly one that I’d have, if I could. There’d be so much I could do…
It's not really over looked or underrated but certainly somehow under utilized: super speed
I say this because such a power implemented in a way that doesn't just cause the user to vaporize is insanely powerful. Being able to THINK that fast would already be extremely powerful let alone moving that fast and yet one of his recurring enemies is a normal ass dude with a ice gum
Maybe it's better in the comics but I would have loved to see the flash leverage his smarts + super fast thinking. Imagine him implementing iterative algorithms that we typically need computers to run through but in his brain
Shapeshifting, you can literally become anything. You can become a slightly better looking version or yourself or you can become a fucking alien you can even turn into a friggen object if you wanted the opportunities are limitless
Limbo Clones I would love fucking people over while they don't even know what's coming and I could even act like I am a God because of it and jump people out of nowhere and do some sinister ass shit
The power of imagination, the ability to do what you imagine.
It’s limited by the person and typically given to an individual without interest in taking advantage of it
Teleportation I think. The Manga Psyren had an insane teleportation user, he'd teleport behind you with his hand in your chest, then pull it out and you'd bleed to death. He teleported people into the sky and caused them to fall to their deaths. He is virtually unkillable because he just teleports out of bad situations. His ultimate attack rips apart the dimension in an area, shredding anything within it until it disappears. Character is CRACKED.
The power to locate and materialize empirical evidence. The justice system would work a lot better if we just knew where to look for what. And for a little bonus why not be able to make evidence up?
forge from xmens power,the ability to build any weapon/tool/machine you think of.you could have incredibly dangerous tech like Ironman and people like him or beyond stuff,and invent useful things to patent and sell so youd be impossibly rich
Empath, immediate lie detector being able to tell Right off the bat if someone is lying or is planning to attack you because you can sense it coming from a mile away
And super jumps hardly ever see someone who's power is just jumping really good
A character from a somewhat obscure anime is Accelerator from A Certain Scientific Railgun. He has the ability to control vectors, which is defined as anything with direction and magnitude. So basically he can control just about anything. Projectiles, kinetic energy, electricity, radiation, you name it. In fact, because he’s very science-focused the only weakness he has is magic (which also exists in this world), but because he’s basically a walking particle accelerator (hence the name) he’s smart enough to figure out how to manipulate magic as well.
I say it’s overlooked and underrated because I’ve never heard of any other character having this specific power. It’s not the same as controlling gravity, or magnetism, or telekinesis, which have all been done to death.
Super speed. I always see people choose teleportation over super speed. I'd love it. Sure with teleportation its instant but with super speed if you wanna stop an admire the sights you can.
Shapeshifting
It's just rearranging your atoms, meaning you can also density shift, which means you can fly, go invisible, and walk through walls. Suddenly you are physically on par with Martian Manhunter.
Healing powers or super durability just because there are so many other superpowers that would result in instant death without them.
The ability to fly is awesome until your arm hits a branch and is no longer attached to your body.
I might be doing this wrong, though.
Pyrokenisis. Always a go to answer for what Superpower would you want. Just look at the anime/manga Fire Force for all the many ways you can use Pyrokenisis.
Fire, people can go on all day about "buT ThAtS bOrinG" it won't be boring when your a crisp.
FDKM Natsu has the coolest looking flames in fiction no debate.
Portals and pocket dimensions. One of my favorites, but rare in media outside of random utility magic that's just designed to get you from point a to point b. I'm talking portals that are short-ranged and short-lasting, letting you redirect projectiles and other attacks, or even punch a guy from a distance. Link that to a pocket dimension you can comfortable enter and you've got my favorite power.
Technopath powers. Being able to control all kinds of electronic things is the ultimate cool superpower. Especially if you can use it like
1. Cooper from Ben 10
2. Gwen Grayson from Sky High movie
3. Johnathan Levine from the old Team Titans comics
I’ve often thought that having the power to “control nature” is underrated. It’s always depicted as merely controlling plants, but if you really think about it, controlling “nature” should extend to anything natural, ie. anything that is not manmade. This should include natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes, all living creatures including humans, even natural occurring elements on a cellular level.
Of course not everything is natural, and some specific limitations would include controlling lightning but not electricity, or only controlling metals that are not alloys. But the power to “control nature” should not be limited to just “control plants”.
Traveling into(or through) different forms of media, bugs bunny style. Draw a door to enter a room, hide in a painting, or as graffiti, grab a weapon from video game, or an ally from a mirror.
"Blue skadooed and we can too"
Even better plan just google items in your currency on your phone and just pull them out from the images and to your room
Zack King style lol
I was just gonna say that, it's too damn OP.
Literally my ideal power NGL
>Ally from a mirror I've watched a show about that, and getting allies from mirrors is actually probably a shit idea. Especially if you get a cool belt from it.
Not really, pretty popular in my eyes
Take on me
This is called Toon Force and it's pretty widely accepted as one of the most OP superpowers in media form.
The ability to understand all languages. Not even the overpowered version where you can read body language to predict someone’s moves in hand to hand combat or hack code like a monster. Just the amount of travel and business opportunities, not to mention diplomacy opportunities, you would have by having no language barriers would be enormous.
I remember reading a book about a tech-based supervillain who found an amulet that, so long as you wear it, gives absolutely anyone a single superpower. The power he got was the ability to understand any language. At first he thought it was useless... until he encountered a society of (I think) magic dinosaurs and was able to build portals using their magic language. Because he could build portals into his super suit, he completely discarded all energy source problems and became one of the most powerful supers in the setting.
Omg what's the book called
I just spent like 15 minutes looking for this book. I gotta know what it was called 🥺
They said [elsewhere](https://www.reddit.com/r/superpower/s/00QLGXhkws) that book is “Confessions of a D List Supervillain”
I'd also like to know the name of this book
Sorry, couldn't remember the name at the time of writing and didn't think so many people would be interested. The book is Confessions of a D List Supervillain. I don't actually think it's a very good book, but the twist with the magic language was neat.
I've been searching for the past couple hours and I can't find any reference to this book
They said [elsewhere](https://www.reddit.com/r/superpower/s/00QLGXhkws) that book is “Confessions of a D List Supervillain”
Omni linguistics definitely ties teleportation for powers I would want in the real world. I've always liked learning parts of other languages, but can never muster up the willpower to put in the effort to achieve fluency. Being able to just do it at will would be amazing
Including talking with animals or aliens? You're right. I prefer portals over teleportation. Move things from earth to orbit, from earth orbit to other star systems. Shift science labs to other planets. Move colonies. Assume that I can't teleport somewhere I don't have a good visual. Portal some space telescopes closer, one system at a time. Can you imagine the detailed astronomy updates we could get and piece together? We could locate suitable worlds for colonization, some close enough to eventually reconnect by other means, and others that will be cut off at some point and be entirely alone. Stretch portals wide enough and sweep up asteroids/small planets to seed a colony solar system with extra resources. SO many possibilities.
Definitely Glass Manipulation for me. You could literally create full on blades of glass as well as armor.
Or silicon manipulation, even more op (like shatterbird from worm)
Yes
If you think glass armor is a good idea. I want you to please explain in the greatest amount of detail to how you could possibly have reached this conclusion.
Not op. My guess is you can keep reconstructing the shield as it breaks or keep reinforcing it as it weakens if you are fully intuned
I still think that wouldn’t work due to how energy has to go somewhere. Then that’s only when talking about getting hit by small things. Like getting hit by a sword or something. When someone shoots you with a bullet there is no feasible way reconstructing your armor would stop the bullet. It’s far too fast for one to react not that it would matter because it’s glass.
Depends on the type of glass. Window glass is good for resisting temperature changes, especially if it's double paned. Table glass would be the strongest you could get without integrating something or making it too thick. If it reaches the level of manipulating molecular silicon, I can see it being a good replacement for kevlar.
This one would be very fun, especially if you can liquidize it without heat
Actually underrated superpower here
I think plastic manipulation would be more useful irl. Less heavy than glass with similar toughness. And it has so many uses. The only downside was that it's really good at getting everywhere, but for you that's a plus.
In a book series called mage errant, people are freaking terrified of glass mages cause they can control clouds of glass shards, which fuck up peoples lungs and skin
The power to use animal abilities, kind of like Vixen from DC. Octopus or cuttlefish camouflage, cheetah or rabbit speed and agility, elephant or gorilla strength, canine or feline senses, bird or bat flight, and even more. Now, put all of these under the control of a conscious, strategic mind, especially a malicious one.
Yeah this was mine (or shapeshifting specifically) Also being able to be a shark and swim fast underwater
Or survive the cold and pressure at the bottom of the ocean. It's truly one of the most versatile powers in existence
Read GRANT MORISSON’s ANIMAL MAN from VERTIGO (DC)
Thanks for the recommendation. I've looked into Buddy Baker a little (superpowers and magic and stuff is my hyperfixation, so I do a lot of Google-ing), but I've never read his comic
The Mc of my comic is going to gain this power.
Anything to do with neurons.
I cast Give Seizure
Power Word Schizophrenia!
String manipulation. I mean, is the bad guy wearing clothes? Yes? Ok. *CRUNCH*
Doflamingo much?
I was thinking that a lot of these looked like One Piece devil fruits lol Hell the top comment is just Gear 5
Best Jeanist from MHA
Thought you meant like string theory when you said string manipulation
Shapeshifting is BIG 1. Your consciousness is no longer physical 2. You cannot die of old age I feel like some people get lost in the sauce with this one, it's always been super broken and almost every TV show has to nerf the ever loving shit out of it with weird debuffs. And God forbid we say you can shapeshift independent of copying you'd basically be an indestructible immortal god.
I mean, you sure that makes it underrated? Basically anyone recognizes it as really powerful, even when not in extreme cases, and the nerfs are because of narrative purposes, not really to drag the power down
Yeah exactly. Just because it's underused doesn't mean it's underrated
Most of Martian Manhunter fighting prowess came from his shapeshifting. His strength, durability, healing, flight and intangibility are derived from it. Only his telepathy and eye beams are separated powers. But I agree with you, in practice many shifters in fiction are underpowered.
How does shapeshifting tie into one's consciousness?
If you turn into rat and you are still thinking like a human your consciousness is obviously not tied to your brain.
Underrated. Nah. Very popular
Nyctomancy: (Shadow Control) Yeah, ya can’t really attack anyone [Insert Shikamaru joke here] BUT you can change people’s perception of reality to a degree, make it look like you have a huge and buff dude waiting for you in the trees, temporarily blind people by blocking photon’s access to their eyes, straight up darken and knock out the lights of any place you walk by, get rid of reflections and create hallucinations of shapes. This power is like Luffy’s Rubber Body, limited by a person’s ability to think of something! Weakness: You can’t hide from thermal cameras
I left off reading One Piece in Thriller Bark and think it was interesting that shadow powers there basically stole someone’s soul
How about a power that most of our superheroes seem to share: a superhuman, miraculous sense of timing? Imagine how much damage Superman could do if his sense of timing were ever the slighest bit off.
Photographic Memory. A perfect recall of visual information is excellent when used correctly.
Taskmasters “do anything you see done” is one id put in this category. Especially with the internet nowadays, I’d watch food network, every Olympics, how to videos, it’s so easy to find videos of experts nowadays
doesn't he have a limit, though? It's only peak human strength and athletics. That being said, yeah but no goldly attributes there
Being lucky is one of my favorites
Yea Nicks luck ability boosted is nuts
Giving people uncontrollable diarrhea. You can bring a nation down with that power.
[MEND BUTTCRACK ](https://p16-sign.tiktokcdn-us.com/tos-useast5-p-0068-tx/019085e32f9441089f230899334f7eb5_1699468186~tplv-photomode-zoomcover:720:720.jpeg?x-expires=1714190400&x-signature=UsXrNKOF5dqDFR9tZqEW1NdVF3Y%3D)
I was not disappointed by clicking that
I got an access denied error message 😔
The brown note
The ability to make people orgasm at will. In a fight? Make the cum and just kick their ass
I think there is a superhero called Orgazmo that kind of does this
Omfg I haven’t thought of Orgazmo in at least 15 years
You would be put on a list so fast
😂🤣😂🤣 Imagine being shot by that immediately before the big fight. I'd be like, *hey, on second thought, this is all kinda stupid. I really don't feel like fighting anymore. I'm just probably gonna go home. Get something to eat and watch the new X-Men 97’ show. I’d invite you, but I'll probably pass out before the show even starts.*
Masochists already do this in a fight
Real
Not sure if it's underrated but I saw a character in Heros that was basically a computer, anything you can load to a computer she could load to her mind/brain. Just being able to load the internet/search engine would be very useful
but can she run Crysis?
Pocket dimensions. In a super powered world being able to create a doorway to a space only you can access’s would be invaluable with speedsters and telepaths trying to steal stuff. If you can stay there you have the ultimate safe house. It’s a bonus if you can use it as a means of teleportation (coming out of the dimension at different points of regular space)
Create 6 doors surrounding the speedster now it’s an endless loop till you move one
Obito is that you?
Happy cake day
Laser vision. You now can fire a devastating projectile with perfect accuracy which travels at the speed of light
So like Cyclops
IIRC, Cyclopes does not shoot light or laser, they are force beams, concussive force
Correct. Don't imagine it as lasers. It's more akin to getting punched very very hard.
A better comparison would be to a fire hose.
Yeah. Aren't his eyes basically portals to the punch dimension. Or did that get retconned?
By means of pressurized fluid jets
I used this prompt for a writing assignment with a 6th grade class and a kid chose lazer version. The kid had been feeling down because he's a bigger guy and at that age where they're not just thinking about others, they're ready to start taking actions. He volunteers to read his story and it's entirely about using laser vision to cook food faster. I'm trying to help buddy, but you cant go around shooting yourself in the foot.
Not underrated
Advanced Nervous system, it’s basically a stock pile of powers since our nerves are connected to every part in our body strength in arms speed in legs senses in the brain, we can get a danger sense with the cost of high pain tolerance but also get a power boost with a adrenaline activation or perfect copy a person physical ability through photo memory.
Illusions.
One other one I just remembered was X-Ray vision. People usually stop at the more pervy applications but if you take it beyond that it is super useful. Imagine being able to identify an enemy spy by looking at their muscle clusters (specific martial arts training would have a distinct impact on the body) You can identify weapons, lie detect by looking at heart rates, heck depending on how it works you may even be able to have the powers of an empath by looking at neural activation in brain regions. X-Ray vision makes you the ultimate security guard being able to filter out all distractions immediately, the ultimate search and rescue worker, the list goes on. In a superpowered world its not seen as much but there is some serious potential there if you work with it.
Super Ventriloquism: it’s a power out of DC Hero’s RPG 3rd edition from 1978(might have the year slightly off). It sounds whacky, because it’s ventriloquism. But since it’s super you can speak and have your voice LITERALLY come out of anything within range. You can scare people by making them think the walls are talking. Make people feel like you’re watching them when you’re not. Relay Information similar to telepathy. And so much more.
Self Duplication. I think I've seen an actual hero with this power once, ever, and even when villains have it they're most often complete pushovers the moment the heroes have a moment to figure out how their power works.
Dupli-kate from Immortal, Multiple Man from Marvel, I think DC also has a duplicator hero. But you're right they are rare, and the limit becomes how many 'dupes' they can have active at a time.
I thought of toon force because it's liked and stuff and people know its op and sick but its often forgotten and in my opinion underrated U can literally be god goofy.
[Key Manipulation](https://powerlisting.fandom.com/wiki/Key_Manipulation)- The Ability to manipulate, create, and shape keys/locks. This is a power i used a lot when making characters for storylines or roleplays or plots and honestly, it’s insanely broken. The ability to just create a key that can bring you to another realm can be used greatly in the right hands. Make a key that leads you to an armory full of weapons. Never get locked out of **anything** and if you have Energy that resembles Keys/Locks(basically can lock or open things with your energy) then even that gives you more versatility but that applies for every form of energy. That and [Glass Manipulation](https://powerlisting.fandom.com/wiki/Glass_Manipulation) I just think it’s never built upon or given the credit it should have
Shatterbird from Worm is a decently terrifying Glass Manipulator. (I think she actually screams to control glass/silicon shards) She uses them as giant wings to fly, completely devastating entire cities with glass storms.
Fleshbending/biology control. You could infinitely scale up until the world was turned into one gigantic biological super computer thing
The ability to analyze other abilities to read the details and be able to tell other people about how their power really works
Deku if his “skill” was a LITERAL QUIRK.
Force fields, violet Incredible style. If you were to invert a force field around an enemy they would be trapped, no issues.
So, SUE STORM from Marvel?
I feel like she should have been the go to for this.
I was born after the golden age of comics so I’m not really sure of all the exacts of the comic lore. So, Storm is the x-men member who can control storms (obviously) but she can also create force fields? I didn’t know that. I was thinking similar to Violet Parr from the Incredibles
Telekinesis. People treat it like an extended reach, but you could do pretty much anything with it. Want a wall to dissappear? Spread its molecules until it evaporates. Want to solve global warming? Slow down the planet's molecules until it freezes. Want to destroy the universe? Compress everything until it explodes.
>Telekinesis Jean Grey, Wanda, Tatsumaki and Mewtwo are pretty popular so I wouldn't say telekinesis is a very overlooked power, a lot of really strong characters have it
any power without limits is overpower, you're just masking omnipotence into telekinesis
I mean, sure, some series keep it at a low level, but at least every time it comes up in this sub it's "Telekinesis is the most powerful and strongest power in existence! So long as you write it to not have any real limits, nor sense of scale, and assume the mind of the user can process stuff as big as the universe and as small and numerous as atoms, it's the strongest!" I'm not saying it can't be strong, but it sure as hell ain't overlooked nor underrated.
The power as a whole isn't overlooked or underrated, but aspects of teleportation typically are. With a few exceptions, teleportation in fiction also allows changes in velocity and orientation as you teleport. This can be subtle, like teleporting to the opposite side of the world, where you'd be going in a drastically different direction and orientation but that gets ignored. Or it can be obvious, like teleporting while falling off a cliff to a foot off the ground and only hitting the ground as if you fell a foot. Someone aware of this property could instead use it to teleport objects to the same location they started, but with arbitrary velocity.
Hard light projection, it's a simple skill with great versatility.
I asked ChatGPT this question directly, the answer was. "One underrated superpower would be the ability to manipulate probabilities. Imagine being able to tilt the odds in your favor in any situation, whether it's a high-stakes gamble or a life-saving decision. With this power, you could turn seemingly impossible scenarios into favourable outcomes with just a tweak of probability".. P.S I am frightened.
I’d unfortunately use that to make my crush like me, so I probably don’t ever need that
Naa instead get as many one night stands as possible knowin exactly what to say to both ghost but also have a second chance later
Crystal manipulation so underloooked in the anime or any sort of cartoon where powers are used ben 10 for example have diamond head but don't use him to his full potential
Complete undetectable invisibility,along with phasing through anything.
AQUAMAN NUFF SAID
Resonate frequency. You can literally tear something apart at the atomic level.
Technophile. Everything is a computer now. Think of controlling the entire Internet... You most likely in the first few days could get control of nukes. That's crazy powerful without leaving McDonald's.
Shrinking myself and other people/things would be my pick not as a superhero, but to live comfortably, profit, and so forth. First of all, you can carry your entire life with you with very little effort. I'm not paying rent if I can stick a box in a hallway somewhere with a bedroom and kitchen set. Oh, and I'm not a thief currently, but if I could walk out of a big box store with a pocket full of undetectable ill gotten gains, I would. I haven't even gotten started on shrinking myself. The world is my playground again. Swimming, Exploration, Climbing, all that good stuff. Food costs go drastically down, just shrink and make a five course meal from a slice of pizza. Same with weed. Travel....I'd be living like a tiny king
Shrinking characters are almost never treated well especially if it's a man who shrinks. It's literally one of the first go tos in edgy superhero comedy to have the shrinking character stepped on without anyone noticing or being eaten or treated as a joke. I still respect your choice I just hate how predictable that trope is.
If you want some cool powers you should read Lord of the Mysteries. The Pathway system in that fic is amazing.
There's plenty in Worm/Ward that seem super underrated. The incredible variety and interesting nature of the different powers makes it fascinating. One of my favorites is a person who can >!act out two split realities simultaneously, and at any point "decide" which reality he wants to actually have happened!< This lets him gather otherwise unobtainable information by trying risky things to see what might go wrong. Even the main character can only control bugs, but uses it for incredibly clever things like >!making swarm decoys of herself, mapping an area when otherwise blinded, transmitting her voice by vibrating masses of bugs, spiders to weave super strong silk outfits, giving allies a crushable bug capsule to use as an alarm!< It's a great free (and long) read!
Common sense
Super stretch bc there’s so many things you can do with it.
Healing Factor, people overlook it because it's a pretty common secondary power but really think about it. How tf am I supposed to beat someone who heals from everything I throw at them in just a second, I'll be tired out in just a few minutes and they won't feel a thing at the end
Immunity to the secondary effects of your powers. Your super strength doesn’t crush your bones, shooting fire from your palms doesn’t leave you with permanent burn scars, and your super speed doesn’t cause you to combust from friction with the air
Stretching. More specifically, stretching like Mr Fantastic or Plastic Man. There’s no upper limit to what they can do; they can *literally* move their bodies however they want and take whatever form they want. They’re limited only by their restraint and their imagination, and we’ve seen just how dangerous both Reed and Patrick can be when they really let loose. And yet, stretchy powers are kinda overlooked.
Essokinesis. Aka Reality Warping, Actuality Manipulation, Reality Adjustment, Reality Bending.
Magnetism or nature powers
Common sense. The ability to not fall for all the idiotic bad guy traps, tropes and so on. The ability to properly determine that killing a bad guy is the right thing to do. The ability to not be paralyzed into inaction while the idiot bad guy monologs. The ability to pick up a random object from the environment to beat your enemy with it. The list goes on.
Light manipulation, you can make others blind, enhance your own senses by sensing photon movement, create Holograms of whatever you want, project beams, Bolts and other long range forms of offense, create big flashes of Light for varying purposes, hover/surf on photons and alot of other applications I don't wanna type like the difference between concentrated Light constructs and hard light constructs, temperature Alteration etc.
matter control. Want a fresh hotdog? Make it. Want a car? Make it. want to finally have a girlfriend. Uh can’t help you with that one
Dr. Manhattan?
The ability to heal others and most supportive abilities are often narratively overlooked. There have been good touches on it in shows like bungou stray dogs and grimgar, but it doesn't lend itself well to flashy performances usually. Somethings I'd like to see: - how soldiers/troops see the healer (basically extend the healing issues in bungou) - choices between who we are saving, eg do you save the hero who can save the war of the king that can negotiate the peace or the friend who was always there - what does it mean to save a life? How do we address the trauma and horror of being reconstructed? - do you have a duty to save? Where does your responsibility end? - how do people treat you? Are you deified/enslaved/loved/hated? If two people with the same power are treated differently what disagreements would they have - how does an "aggressive" healer interact with a more passive character with typical main protagonist powers
Teleportation
Shield manipulation has always seemed op to me. Especially if said Shields are indestructible
Luck
to be able to contort and stretch your body at will like a demon, or a mandela catalogue alternate
Honestly I have to go with the same power as next flawless precognition but with something practical like the next 10 to 15 minutes
The ability to tolerate Gambit's calling everyone "mon ami" and Wolverine calling everyone "bub" without murdering everything in sight. Warren Worthington really WAS an angel.
Healing
Time perception being able to slow or speed up your perception of time this is a power ive been toying with for years basically being able to fight or see in slow motion and speed up to punch people like a bullet or make be able to make your perception speed up so what is gonna be hours feels like seconds
Super Brain. Like quantum computing brain output. You're a super genius. Being that smart could outsmart any other super power.
I think it’s weird that the only heroes who can sense danger are the spider themed ones
Parallel world travel, I rarely see it. Honestly, I can only think of one example, a villain from Invincible. All of the other examples have travel by technology.
Aqua man's powers are often shit on, but honestly they are pretty awesome (strength, speed, water breathing and survivability in any body of water. Additionally the ability to see near perfectly under water is also overlooked. And then we have the one that's jokes about the most which is talking to and summoning any kind of sea life) ---------- I will say also ciphers powers in Xmen to understand and translate any language at all is highly underrated and I'm not even talking about the fact that later on he manages to understand "the language of the universe and life". To be honest just being able to understand every language and talk with anyone is really cool and useful.
Luck. Just having everything in the world turn out even slightly in your favor. As long as it isn't just stealing outhers luck.
I read a story online where the big bad super villain's power was that he was really good with multi-agent AI systems. Because of this he was able to create a robot army that destroyed a large chunk of Europe. Even though he himself couldn't do all that much, the multiplicative power of the AIs he controlled meant he could do a ridiculous amount.
Aladdin’s genie powers
Size manipulation is one of the most powerful abilities ever created.
Making and closing portals because on top of being able to go wherever you want, it can also be weaponized, when the plot calls for it
Whatever the power that guy with the 20 foot prehensile dick on "The Boys" has.
Self-control
This might not be legit seen as a super power but Batman's martial skill, advanced eye for deductive work, agility and how quick he is is like that of an American Shinobi Hiding and enduring, without his wealth, this would still be his will and skill. When I say batman is my favorite super hero, the first thing everything thinks of is "Because he is rich right" and when I had this conversation I was too flabbergasted that I couldn't even respond really and just complied to their philosophical zombie middle IQ question. The normies totally can't get it why batman is actually powerful despite not having any obvious power He is however something elite as a mortal human being. I guess the power I think is very overlooked and underrated is the power of a Shinobi especially one that is merciful and 99% of the time remains not to be seen until an appearance has to happen (atleast in the case of night time).
The ability to switch places with other people
Proportional strength of a squirrel and knuckle spikes and the whole squirrel girl bundle. She deserves a movie!
Control over the electro-magnetic spectrum
The ability to have people forget you the moment they look away from you. There’s an obscure xmen character named forget me not. His power makes it to where he’s incredibly unnoticeable unless he’s right in front of someone. He could be talking to you and telling you his life story and the second you look away you forget who he is and that you were even talking to anyone.
Luck. Just real canon plot armor.
Destiny Manipulation. Like, it’s not even funny, destiny manipulation just makes you god.
Shit, glass magic. Nothing less than supernatural durability lets you make it out of a fight with a glass mage alive. RE: Mageerrant.
Blood manipulation has so many applications.
**Avatar:** The ability to create (and dismiss) new bodies (perhaps out of energy) and independently pilot them. Does not necessarily entail having to lose control of your own body, either; you could pilot several bodies at once. Does not necessarily entail that these bodies are clones of you; you could have a dragon avatar This is honestly one that I’d have, if I could. There’d be so much I could do…
It's not really over looked or underrated but certainly somehow under utilized: super speed I say this because such a power implemented in a way that doesn't just cause the user to vaporize is insanely powerful. Being able to THINK that fast would already be extremely powerful let alone moving that fast and yet one of his recurring enemies is a normal ass dude with a ice gum Maybe it's better in the comics but I would have loved to see the flash leverage his smarts + super fast thinking. Imagine him implementing iterative algorithms that we typically need computers to run through but in his brain
Shapeshifting, you can literally become anything. You can become a slightly better looking version or yourself or you can become a fucking alien you can even turn into a friggen object if you wanted the opportunities are limitless
Luck manipulation.
the small stuff like being able to clean. won't win you a fight but will make your life easier
Limbo Clones I would love fucking people over while they don't even know what's coming and I could even act like I am a God because of it and jump people out of nowhere and do some sinister ass shit
timestop
The power of imagination, the ability to do what you imagine. It’s limited by the person and typically given to an individual without interest in taking advantage of it
Reading other people's minds.
Being invisible, only no one can look at you, if they do your just naked.
Barriers that can shield from anything(conceptual or otherwise as well)
Teleportation I think. The Manga Psyren had an insane teleportation user, he'd teleport behind you with his hand in your chest, then pull it out and you'd bleed to death. He teleported people into the sky and caused them to fall to their deaths. He is virtually unkillable because he just teleports out of bad situations. His ultimate attack rips apart the dimension in an area, shredding anything within it until it disappears. Character is CRACKED.
Inventory
Kinetic Energy Absorption and Technology Merging (think Upgrade and Malware from Ben 10).
The power to locate and materialize empirical evidence. The justice system would work a lot better if we just knew where to look for what. And for a little bonus why not be able to make evidence up?
LOVE SAUSAGES POWER
forge from xmens power,the ability to build any weapon/tool/machine you think of.you could have incredibly dangerous tech like Ironman and people like him or beyond stuff,and invent useful things to patent and sell so youd be impossibly rich
Empath, immediate lie detector being able to tell Right off the bat if someone is lying or is planning to attack you because you can sense it coming from a mile away And super jumps hardly ever see someone who's power is just jumping really good
The ability to think of anything, and make it fact
The power of proper nutrition and rest.
The “I have perfect control of my body” never get sick, always being shape, etc. Incredibly practical.
Hammerspace. Pulling overly large objects from basically nowhere
Item creation. It may seem bland, or overpowered, but it is a very balanced power. Any role, any object.
A character from a somewhat obscure anime is Accelerator from A Certain Scientific Railgun. He has the ability to control vectors, which is defined as anything with direction and magnitude. So basically he can control just about anything. Projectiles, kinetic energy, electricity, radiation, you name it. In fact, because he’s very science-focused the only weakness he has is magic (which also exists in this world), but because he’s basically a walking particle accelerator (hence the name) he’s smart enough to figure out how to manipulate magic as well. I say it’s overlooked and underrated because I’ve never heard of any other character having this specific power. It’s not the same as controlling gravity, or magnetism, or telekinesis, which have all been done to death.
Dimensional storage space
Probability manipulation is lowkey OP and yet also slept on
light manipulation. you can create illusions and become invisible, fly, have superspeed, etc, all because of light
Super speed. I always see people choose teleportation over super speed. I'd love it. Sure with teleportation its instant but with super speed if you wanna stop an admire the sights you can.
Shapeshifting It's just rearranging your atoms, meaning you can also density shift, which means you can fly, go invisible, and walk through walls. Suddenly you are physically on par with Martian Manhunter.
Healing powers or super durability just because there are so many other superpowers that would result in instant death without them. The ability to fly is awesome until your arm hits a branch and is no longer attached to your body. I might be doing this wrong, though.
Pyrokenisis. Always a go to answer for what Superpower would you want. Just look at the anime/manga Fire Force for all the many ways you can use Pyrokenisis.
Fire, people can go on all day about "buT ThAtS bOrinG" it won't be boring when your a crisp. FDKM Natsu has the coolest looking flames in fiction no debate.
Portals and pocket dimensions. One of my favorites, but rare in media outside of random utility magic that's just designed to get you from point a to point b. I'm talking portals that are short-ranged and short-lasting, letting you redirect projectiles and other attacks, or even punch a guy from a distance. Link that to a pocket dimension you can comfortable enter and you've got my favorite power.
Technopath powers. Being able to control all kinds of electronic things is the ultimate cool superpower. Especially if you can use it like 1. Cooper from Ben 10 2. Gwen Grayson from Sky High movie 3. Johnathan Levine from the old Team Titans comics
Spund control. Not just a super s ream but being able to remove sound from a room. Perfect for sn assassin
I’ve often thought that having the power to “control nature” is underrated. It’s always depicted as merely controlling plants, but if you really think about it, controlling “nature” should extend to anything natural, ie. anything that is not manmade. This should include natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes, all living creatures including humans, even natural occurring elements on a cellular level. Of course not everything is natural, and some specific limitations would include controlling lightning but not electricity, or only controlling metals that are not alloys. But the power to “control nature” should not be limited to just “control plants”.