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What would you choose if you could have any of the superpowers you see in comic books or films? Would you choose the ability to fly, have super strength or speed, or a healing factor? 

Unfortunately, having superpowers in real life could have horrific consequences for you and everyone around you. Here are 10 examples.

1. The Power of Flight Has Bad Side Effects

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There are good reasons why Superman has many powers like invulnerability, super stamina, reflexes, and speed; he would otherwise die every time he tried to fly. Being able to fly as a sole superpower would be the Monkey’s Paw of superpowers because it has many unforeseen side effects that nullify its benefit. If you didn’t have super speed it would take forever to get anywhere. If you flew at 40,000 feet to avoid obstacles you need invulnerability to avoid freezing to death.

Flying at 40,000 feet requires super stamina because there is no breathable air. Imagine passing out from that height. Without invulnerability, you would be exposed to solar radiation. Just because you can fly doesn’t mean you know where you’re going, it could take time to master directions while flying intercontinental distance. Without super strength, speed, or reflexes you could collide with airliners, satellites, and birds at speed. 

2. Catching Falling Victims Will Injure or Kill Them

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How many times have you seen Spider-Man or Superman safely catch someone who fell from atop a skyscraper? Having superpowers like this will kill people or leave them with horrific injuries. Falling from great heights at terminal velocity, or 120 MPH, causes severe injuries or death after ground impact. Jumping from a tall bridge into water causes the same problems. 

The inertial speed of a falling body is not lessened just because a superhero catches it. Catching a falling person from a great height at terminal velocity is the same as that person hitting the ground or water at that speed. It would cause horrific injuries, limbs being torn off, and severely broken bones. 

3. Super Strength Requires Constant Physiological Control

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Having Superman’s strength does not presuppose being able to control it. Imagine the pressure you exert via your hands while holding an egg as opposed to squeezing a stress ball. Could an elephant do the same? Now imagine having the strength of Superman. Superman must control every physiological aspect of his power so that he doesn’t tear a person in half if he pats them on the back. You may not be able to control your strength or bodily reflexes in real life. Sneezing could knock down a building. You could pulverize bones every time you shook someone else’s hand. 

4. Super Strength Causes More Damage Than it Prevents

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There is an iconic scene in 1978’s Superman where the character catches Lois Lane in one arm and the landing strut of a helicopter in the other. That couldn’t happen in reality. Having superpowers does not mean the laws of physics don’t exist anymore. Along with unintentionally breaking Lois’ body by catching her at speed, the helicopter should have bent downward by its stress points due to gravity and broken off from the strut where Superman caught it. If Superman stood on a train track to stop an out-of-control train, he would destructively blast through the entirety of the train like a needle through foam, not slow and stop the train. 

5. Wolverine’s Healing Factor Causes Mental Trauma

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Wolverine’s retractable forearm claws are not true superpowers. They are weapons enabled by a rapid healing factor. Wolverine only survived the adamantium bonding surgery because of his healing factor. While his healing factor heals all injuries and slows his aging, it doesn’t protect him from the mental trauma of experiencing pain. Have you ever badly broken your bones or been horribly injured, but made a full recovery? 

You still remember those moments of pain long after healing. Wolverine has been stabbed, shot, blown up, injured, and attacked in every way. Wolverine slices the flesh between his knuckles whenever he pops his claws. His healing factor never numbs him to pain. He has a berserker rage problem and PTSD. A healing factor won’t protect you from the indelible psychological scars and memories of experiencing injury and searing pain. 

6. Controlling Lightning Causes Havoc

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Superheroes like Storm, Thor, and Black Lightning generate or control lightning. If you could have superpowers like lightning control, would you use them? Summoning lightning indoors or outside could cause explosions, fires, eardrum damage, property damage, or death. A bolt of lightning generates temperatures as high as 50,000 to 70,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The surface of the sun is 7,000 to 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Trees hit by lightning explode because trapped moisture instantaneously evaporates and expands. Thunderclaps will deafen anyone near the lightning bolt you summon, even you. Summoning a lightning bolt will also overwhelm and fry any electronics or electrical grids nearby.

7. Running at Flash’s Speed Could Kill You And Others

Characters like The Flash or Quicksilver have superpowers that allow them to run at the speed of light. The Flash can run trillions of times the speed of light via the Speed Force in the comic books. The problems with having super speed are too many to list. Running at super speed will cause sonic booms, localized shockwaves, bystander injuries, and property damage every time you run. Air molecules will collide on your body like a meteor hitting the atmosphere, so your clothes could disintegrate or burst into flames. 

You would disintegrate if your body weren’t invulnerable or had protective clothing while running. If your mind can’t process data as fast as your body’s superspeed reflexes, then you might catastrophically collide with something before you realize it. Running at super speed heats up the air around you, so you can incinerate bystanders and buildings along your path as you run.

8. Super Speed Causes Time Dilation (Time Travel)

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If you could approach the speed of light or travel close to a black hole, you would experience time dilation. In 2014’s Interstellar, the astronauts on Miller’s Planet experienced time slowly because of their proximity to a giant black hole. Meanwhile, time on Earth progressed 2,555 hours, or 7 years, for every hour spent on Millier’s Planet. Time dilation is real. If you went to the I.S.S. for six months (which travels at 17,150 MPH in orbit) everyone on Earth would age 0.007 seconds for every six months you stayed there.

You could time travel like the Flash, it would just not be fun. Super speed causes relativistic time dilation and time travel every time you run near or pass light speed. Time would fast forward every time you ran. The people around you would cumulatively age faster each time. People you know before running could end up dead for decades or centuries when you stopped. You could experience the end of time when you stopped with no way of reversing it.

9. Telepathy Causes Isolation and Mental Illness

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Imagine having X-Men-like superpowers like telepathy. Wouldn’t be cool to be able to read human minds? It probably wouldn’t unless you could control your superpowers off and on like a switch. Imagine going to an entertainment venue with 7,000 people and being bombarded by their collective thoughts being transmitted to your brain simultaneously. 

Also, the benefit of some relationships is not knowing what the other person knows constantly. You might learn dark secrets about relatives and friends that you can’t legally prove but could alter relationships and cause you emotional distress.

10. Immortality Causes Loneliness and Mental Distress

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Many superheroes like The Hulk, Superman, Madame Web, Thor, and Wonder Woman are technically immortal and could live forever. Would you want to be immortal? Unless you had immunity to sickness or disease, you could spend eternity with health problems. If you could be healthy and immortal forever, you would spend eternity watching loved ones live and die in neverending life cycles. You would have to start new families and friendships every century.

Most people don’t travel because they can’t adjust to new cultures and languages. Culture, language, and norms for every country naturally and uncontrollably evolve. Could you adapt to new societal and linguistic changes every thousand years? What would you do at the end of time as the last person on Earth as the sun becomes a massive giant and scorches the planet?

Superpowers Could Cause Catastrophe in Reality

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You should be happy to only experience superpowers vicariously through comic books or superhero films. Real life is not a film or a comic book, and having such superpowers will cause more problems than they solve.

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Allen Francis

Allen Francis is a full-time writer, prolific comic book investor and author of The Casual’s Guide: Why You Should Get Into Comic Book Investing.  Allen holds a BA degree from Marymount Manhattan College.  Before becoming a writer Allen was an academic advisor, librarian, and college adjunct for many years. Allen is an advocate of best personal financial practices including saving and investing in your own small business.