Power Corrupts: 16 Superpowers That Would Turn Anyone Into A Villain (2023)

Everyone likes to debate which one super power they would love to have most in real life. There are a ton of upsides to all kinds of great powers – just imagine the freedom of flying, or the thrill of being able to read minds. But we don’t often like to let reality get in the way of that fantasy, because if you really start thinking about it, a lot of super powers have some very dark sides to them. Sure, they'd be awesome and fun, but do you think you'd have the character and strength of will to only do good with them? Let's be real here, most of us would probably perish within the first 10 minutes of having superpowers! Or even worse, we might turn to the dark side!

We're not saying you'd necessarily become a supervillain if you had any of these powers, but we're also not saying you'd become a bastion of righteous order and justice, either. In a real world setting, with no other superheroes around, or supervillains, just you and these powers, it would be awfully hard to never, ever let the power go to your head, and maybe every once in a while use it for something nefarious. We're not even talking full on evil... just a little evil.

16 PHASING AND TELEPORTATION

Imagine being an X-Man like Kitty Pryde or Nightcrawler. The whole world is literally laid out before you because there's basically no place you can't go. Walls mean nothing when you can pass right through them, after all. And sure, you want to be a good person and follow the rules, respecting privacy and boundaries and such, but just like the Vision in Age of Ultron, the idea of using a door might get a little old after a while when there's no real borders in your world.

It'd just be so much easier to walk into a building through a wall or teleport to the spot you need to be.

Have you ever been to one of those buildings where the room you want is down a maze of hallways with twists and turns? Or heck, even in a maze? Wouldn't it be easier to skip all that? And then there's the temptation to see what's behind any locked door; given your lack of limitations, that desire would weigh heavily upon you. You could just pop in and look around -- no one would ever need to know, right? Looking for hidden Christmas presents, checking out Area 51, maybe taking a visit to a bank vault... boundaries would certainly start to get blurred when they no longer exist for you.

15 ELASTICITY

One of the goofiest powers, at least on the surface of things, is the ability to become totally malleable and stretch yourself like a rubber band. Reed Richards from the Fantastic Four and Plastic Man are essentially fully functional Stretch Armstrongs. Writers have had a ton of fun with these characters over the years, thinking of crafty and unpredictable ways for them to save the day. However, there are likely just as many ways you could turn those powers into something a little underhanded.

Elasticity lends itself incredibly well to two remarkably unheroic things – pranking and laziness. Both work thanks to you never having to technically leave the room. Being able to reach across a building to grab something or to give someone a scare, it would all be just so... easy. The other thing that would be super easy if you had the ability to stretch yourself over a great distance would be never being a suspect. Just imagine how simple it would be to distract someone by talking face to face with the cashier at a store while your right hand is sneaking off and grabbing a six pack from the cooler, or emptying a cash register. You are constantly your own alibi because, well, it's only wrong if you get caught... right?

14 TELEPATHY AND MIND CONTROL

Pardon the pun, but this one's a no-brainer. After all, few powers lend themselves to a violation of heroic principles quite as well as telepathy and mind control. How many times in your life has another person frustrated you so much that you just wished you could make them do or think what you wanted? It'd be a surefire way to win every argument, at very least. Maybe someone put you in a position where you couldn’t trust them. None of that ever needs to bother you if someone else's mind is in your hands.

You just need to be OK with the morality of taking that autonomy away from another person.

Is it ever okay to invade another person's mind and play around in there? This would be easy enough to discuss on paper, but much harder to manage if you had the ability. Not all of us can be as (mostly) noble(ish) as Professor X, and he plays around in people's heads all the time. And even he has done some pretty heinous things in his time. Just being able to make that guy who cut you off in traffic slow to a crawl and then head off in the wrong direction would be so tempting. Or you could get your boss to decide he wants to work this weekend instead of scheduling you. You'd never have to endure another person doing something you didn't approve of ever again.

13 TELEKINESIS

See Also

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When you think about the ability to corrupt, you think big. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and all that. But it's probably smaller things that have an easier time corrupting you because the leap to determine whether it's okay to do what you're doing is much easier. So, say you have the powers of Jean Grey and you can move things with your mind. We're not talking the Phoenix force here, just some telekinesis. You can't reach the TV remote without getting up, so you float it to your hand. Nice and easy. Now here's the thing about just thinking a thing into your grasp; why wouldn't you do it all the time?

Most people have a hard enough time finding motivation to get up and do stuff. If you almost never need to get up, the temptation to make the world come to you would be intense. If your first instincts don't need to be tempered, maybe they won't be. Someone steals a parking spot from you now, you just cuss them out in your car. But if you have the power to lift their car and put it on a lawn, that might seem like a better option. It's a slippery slope when you can do whatever you like.

12 STRENGTH

The go-to power for so many superheroes and a defining characteristic when it comes to what we mean when we even think of a superhero, super strength has nearly limitless upsides when you're saving the day. There's a reason the Hulk's main power is his brute force. It's the same for Superman, the Thing, Shazam, Sentry and probably a few thousand more. Lift a car, stop a collapsing building, uppercut an enraged bear into the stratosphere -- there are just so many heroic uses.

Of course, as the old phrase goes, "might makes right." So super strength affords just as many opportunities for villainy.

Impulse control is a big issue amongst us normal humans, we just can't help ourselves sometimes. You get caught up in the heat of the moment and your baser instincts rise to the occasion and make you think you should act out. And a lot of times, it's only a fear of reprisal that keeps us in check; but if that was eliminated, what's stopping you from throwing a fit whenever something doesn't go your way? If you could Hulk Smash, wouldn't you Hulk Smash? If you wanted things a certain way, and literally no force on Earth could stop you from having your way, then might really would make right... right?

11 X—RAY VISION

You knew this power was going to be on the list, because how could it not? One of the classic abilities of Superman that was born of a time when the very idea of X-Rays was super sci-fi and cool, it was a neat little trick that writers and audiences alike really enjoyed. The power has stuck around for a long time in one form or another – even characters like Robocop and Batman effectively use a similar ability thanks to technology. It's handy in a pinch when you're looking for a bomb or a shooter hidden in a room, or when you can remember where you left the keys to your car. And then there's the realistic side of x-ray vision which is less heroic and more advantageous to you just having a good time.

No one's saying you'd be a degenerate with x-ray vision, but come on... let's be real here. Curiosity didn't kill the cat for no reason. It's hard to resist snooping, especially when you know you won't get caught. So maybe you just sneak a quick peek at something you shouldn't for... "scientific purposes." Maybe you see what gifts you got for Christmas, or the combination to a safe, even? The possibilities for temptation are endless, and humans, in reality, are only so strong.

10 SPEED

The first time we saw Quicksilver do his speed thing in Days of Future Past was awesome. It seems like a lot of fun to be able to live life at a different pace than everyone else, and it would have so many advantages. How many times have you said you need to run out quick to get something and ended up taking over an hour? If you could literally just run out, grab milk and be back in seconds, that would helpful beyond belief. But it could also make you a bit of a jerk.

Super speed means almost never being accountable for anything.

Forget an anniversary? Now you can cover your butt with a present no one knows you got 10 seconds ago. You can cover for anything you forgot to do at work or home any time you want. Covering your own butt for simple things may just be a little disingenuous, but you can go bigger. Rob a bank on the west side of town and within seconds be seen on a security camera on the east side of town as an alibi. You'll forever be the "I didn't do it" person and never be held responsible for anything unless you want to be.

9 INVISIBILITY

In the original story of The Invisible Man, the titular subject is a dangerous person. In later iterations the character is often a criminal and it makes sense when you think about it. If no one ever acknowledges you, if they can't acknowledge you, you'd really start feeling incredibly isolated and likely bitter. In comics, a character like Sue Storm or the Martian Manhunter make heroic use of their invisibility all the time, sneaking up on a foe or vanishing to avoid an attack. But imagine if the creepy guy at work could be invisible. You'd never feel safe using a bathroom again.

And even if you're not a creeper, wouldn't it be so easy to slip out of work without your boss seeing you sometimes? Or eavesdrop on a conversation you're not meant to hear? Or just follow someone you're pretty sure is up to no good? And that's just the stuff you could do that's still legal. Taking things up a notch, how hard would it be to convince yourself that a crime isn't even being committed if no one sees you? If you take some cash, or sneak into Area 51, could you convince yourself it was a bad idea? Some of us could... but not all.

8 POWER RING

The Green Lantern has always been a cool character. Through force of will, a Lantern can manipulate the power in their ring to make a construct of anything they can imagine. Back in the day this was often something hilariously weird like a giant fist or a cartoony mallet to thwomp a bad guy right in the noggin. As time went by, things got more in-depth and crazy. In the Green Lantern movie, he busts out fighter jets. There's a lot you can do with a power ring, be it Green or Red or any of the other rings introduced throughout the years.

The fun thing about power rings is how well DC explores how they can be misused.

In fact, they made an entire color spectrum of rings to point out all the ways you can be corrupted by them. The red rings are fueled by Rage, the orange by Greed, yellow by Fear and so on. All the negative emotion you associate with doing wrong have their own power ring out there. With these stories, you can pretty much lay out how your fear and anger and anything else you feel could cause you to not be heroic so much as a monster with a cool costume.

7 LASSO OF TRUTH

One of Wonder Woman's more fun tricks, the Lasso of Hestia compels people to tell the truth. It's a simple enough power that has come in handy more than once in the past, and if we're being honest, couldn't we all think of a time when it would have come in handy in real life, too? When fighting crime, you obviously have a need for getting truth out of people, but knowing you have the ability to compel honesty means you have the ability to be extremely manipulative. You can always get what you want if no one is able to not just deceive you, but keep secrets from you.

When you know everyone's secrets, you tend to have a lot of leverage, and that makes it a lot easier for you to get the things you want in life. Now, you may not decide to use a lasso of truth to learn insider trading secrets or do any kind of government espionage, but even just figuring out where somebody was all night last Friday after they got off work may be enough of an abuse of this kind of power. Is it fair for people to have secrets or not? The way you answer that might just suggest how easily this power would corrupt you.

6 SHAPE-SHIFTING

Probably all of us have fantasized at one time or another about being someone else. And even if not a specific other person, just a different version of ourselves. We all have perceived flaws we recognize that we'd like to do away with, after all. Maybe you wish you were taller, or thinner, or Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Maybe you want red hair, or green eyes. A character like Mystique uses her shapeshifting ability at first to try to fit in because her normal appearance is unusual. But in time, it just becomes easier for her to get anything she wants by exploiting that power.

It would be so easy, wouldn't it? You could get nearly anything you want by becoming someone else.

You want to gobackstage at a show? Become the star. You want into a bank vault? Become the manager. You want nuclear launch codes? Become the leader of a nation. This is one of those powers that has a limitless scale of uses. From something as small as sneaking into a private conversation to enriching yourself to having a fully destructive influence over the course of world events, anything would be at your shape-shifting fingertips. Maybe you don't want to destroy the world, but could you resist the small stuff?

5 IMMORTALITY

There's a common thread among stories about immortals that's super depressing. You live long enough, you have to see everyone you ever cared about grow old and die. Maybe you endure that a few times, probably until you learn to stop caring about other people. On a long enough timeline, the lives of people around you will necessarily become less and less significant. Right now, the life of your spouse or best friend may be right in stride with your own. Maybe you spend literally half of your life with this person; their influence on you would be profound. But if you live 5000 years, or 10,000, that person's influence would be insignificant, a mere flash in the pan to your whole existence. So too would be the influence of every single person.

Human life, to an immortal, would become like the lives of insects: fleeting things that fade away in nearly a blink. One person's whole life would be to you like a Tuesday 10 years ago. And that means your ability to empathize would grow less and less over time. Without even meaning to, you'd eventually just become cold and indifferent to the lives of others. How dark is that?

4 HEALING FACTOR

(Video) Minecraft But You Choose Your Super Power

It seems like the ability to heal from nearly any wound, like our good friends Wolverine and Deadpool, couldn't possibly be bad. In fact, it's super helpful, right? Most super powers you could list require some agency, but healing is just a passive power. What's the harm in that? It's just something that happens to you as you go about your day to day life. Well, that's kind of the problem.

When nothing ever really stops you, you have no reason to stop.

Deadpool and Wolverine would absolutely be more cautious in their day to day lives if they weren't very nearly immortal. When you have no reason to fear anything, you get a little brazen, even cocky. Maybe you pick fights or get into risky situations because you know you're going to get out of it better than anyone who tries to stop you. And if you're a criminally minded type -- someone who thought "if only there was some way I could rob a bank and get away with it" -- you're going to find a lot more motivation to do that kind of thing when you know getting shot as you make a run for it is mostly meaningless.

3 TIME TRAVEL

Some powers have such incredible implications, it's almost unfair to even imagine what you would do with them. Time travel is absolutely at the top of that list. For every awesome thing you could do with this ability, there are a dozen terrible ones. They didn't make that movie The Butterfly Effect for nothing! If you could travel through time like Cable, how could you ever be sure what you did when you traveled was right? How could you know you weren't making the world worse? What if you change things in a way that makes it so you were never even born? What if you stop Hitler and he gets replaced with a guy that's even worse? And that's just the unintentional stuff that a good person might try.

If your morals are a little looser, who's to say it's not a good idea to go back in time and maybe get your hands on some gold that's destined to be destroyed or lost in some catastrophe? What if you buy the Mona Lisa the day after it was painted for a handful of shiny rocks? What if you introduce rock and roll to your parent's high school prom?

2 WEATHER MANIPULATION

There are a lot of obvious ways to use a power like Storm's in the world of superheroes. When you need to lay down the law, you shoot someone with a lightning bolt and they're going to remember you. That scene in Thor: Ragnarok when Thor summons the lightning against Hulk was intense, right? But in the real world, what good does weather manipulation do? Well, it does a lot of good, or bad, depending on how you look at it. Imagine never having to endure a bad storm ever again. It's always sunny in your neighborhood for as long as you want it that way. You could make or break every barbecue in your neighborhood for the rest of your life. And it's always going to be raining on the neighbor's house if they start getting on your nerves.

Admit it – if it's raining on your one day off to hit the beach and you could change it, wouldn't you? But what would that really do?

You want to winter down south but still have a white Christmas? No problem at all, welcome to the first snowfall in Jamaica's history. Sure it could mess up the environment, crops and agriculture and the basic instincts of animals, not to mention everyone else's day, but admit it – if it's raining on your one day off to hit the beach and you could change it, wouldn't you?

1 ALTERING REALITY

Not a lot of characters are fully able to change the nature of reality, but some, like the Scarlet Witch, certainly can. To simply wish that something was other than it is and make it so -- that's how Marvel managed to completely change its universe and do away with a ton of its mutant characters. It's also how any regular joe in the real world would not just do as they saw fit, but do so without consequence.

The ability to alter reality is by far the most insidious power, because there is no downside to it. You can be punished in some way for any misuse of another power, even if it's just due to people hating or fearing you. But this makes everything you do normal. What you do becomes the way things are and no one is ever any the wiser. You didn't change the world in anyone else's eyes because to them, this is how life always was. You become the living embodiment of The Matrix, setting the course of reality for everyone, only there is no Neo who will wake up and save the day. There's only you and what you say is right. You're basically a god. That's a heck of a burden.