Top 10 Insanely Broken Marvel Superpowers
For this list, we'll be looking at Marvel comic book characters with abilities that are extremely powerful or impractical (from an editorial standpoint), making their role in stories complicated. For the record, we aren't saying these characters are bad or boring. In fact, many of them are great! We're simply acknowledging that the nature of their powers can be a bit of a headache.
#10: Squirrel Girl Squirrelgility and… Positive Mental Attitude?
Doreen Green has squirrel-related abilities. Think Spider-Man, just… with squirrels. This means super strength, agility, reflexes and the ability to communicate with squirrels. Apparently, we should be thankful that squirrels aren’t human-sized, because (at least according to the writers) this basically makes her unbeatable. You see… Squirrel Girl is an oddity in the Marvel universe, not unlike Deadpool. Whereas so many of her peers take themselves painfully seriously, weighed down by their chosen profession, Squirrel Girl is upbeat - almost to a fault. She’s rarely taken seriously but she’s become seriously beloved by many readers nonetheless. And operating within this silly space, she’s bested many of Marvel’s heaviest hitters, including Wolverine, Doctor Doom, Deadpool, and even the Mad Titan Thanos. The problem? It’s a running gag that excludes her from more serious conflicts.
#9: Black Bolt Ambient Particle & Electron Harnessing
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Black Bolt is feared and revered by villains and heroes alike. He’s the leader of the Inhumans, a race distantly related to humans who inhabit the futuristic city of Attilan and who, through terrigenesis, acquire mutant-like abilities. In the case of their strong, typically silent leader, the activation of his meta-genes while he was still an embryo resulted in extremely powerful abilities. The terminology and exact nature of his powers are too complicated to get into, but basically, he’s got an incredibly destructive hypersonic voice. Think Black Canary’s cry, but exponentially stronger with no off switch. A whisper is devastating; if Black Bolt shouts, his voice can literally destroy planets. Translation? He can blow just about anyone away with a single syllable.
#8: Doctor Strange Super Magic
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The thing about magic is… it’s very hard to define. Once a skilled surgeon, as Sorcerer Supreme Stephen Strange can channel vast and diverse magical forces to achieve his ends - whatever they might be. Sure, he uses this to pull off conventional superhero stuff like creating force fields, delivering energy blasts and flying, but he can also banish you to alternate dimensions and manipulate time. Add to that an unspecified and seemingly unlimited knowledge of spells and there’s really no saying what he can or cannot do. The end result? He usually needs to be removed from major conflicts due to extenuating circumstances, as otherwise, he could often simply stop a major crossover event in the very first issue.
#7: Deadpool Healing Factor
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How do you tell a serious story when your main character seemingly can’t die, even when he tries? Simple… you don’t! Deadpool is armed with a healing factor not dissimilar to Wolverine’s, just cranked to WAY up. Speaking of the old Canucklehead, Wolverine’s powers also feel problematic from a narrative standpoint. Considering everything he’s survived, it’s hard to establish stakes for the character, which is probably why they keep taking his healing factor away from him. Anyways, we digress. With Deadpool, the healing factor is so over-the-top that he needs to exist in his own, silly world, where repercussions aren’t really the point. He’s a cartoon character in an otherwise three-dimensional world, but hey, it works for him!
#6: Legion Spontaneous Mutation
David Haller, depending on who you ask, is an Omega or Alpha-Level Mutant. Rather than get bogged down in semantics, let’s simplify and just call him one terrifyingly powerful character. It’s sort of a chicken/egg situation, but basically, Haller spontaneously gains new mutant abilities, each paired with a new split personality. And if you think James McAvoy’s character in “Split” has got a lot of people in his head, you haven’t seen anything yet. Legion has hundreds, if not thousands of personalities and powers contained within a single body. And while these mutations are at times odd, they’re usually extremely powerful. Unfortunately, that which makes David so interesting, also makes him very hard to fit into larger stories.
#5: Domino Probability Manipulation
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Honestly, if you’d asked us to work Neena Thurman into the X-Men film franchise a few years ago, we wouldn’t know where to begin. How the heck do you convey “luck” as a superpower on the big screen? Well, our hat is off the creative team behind “Deadpool 2” because they pulled it off with style, grace and (quite frankly) they made it look easy. Domino effects the world around her kinetically, subconsciously causing actions to go in her favor. As you can imagine, this ability is both a blessing and a curse for writers. It allows them to write the character out of any corner, but at the same time, raising the stakes and giving her obstacles is a constant challenge.
#4: Franklin Richards Nigh Omnipotence
Mr. and Mrs. Fantastic have got some pretty cool powers, but they can’t compete with their son. An Omega Level Mutant, Franklin Richards is considered one of the most powerful beings in the Marvel universe, and that’s despite him only being a child. And really, his age is pretty much the only thing that makes him manageable - in that he can be sidelined by his parents or even have his powers dampened. But when he’s unleashed, Franklin is basically a god - and one that puts the likes of Thor and company to shame. Franklin is a powerful telepath, he can manipulate reality, harness the fundamental forces of the cosmos and create his own pocket dimensions. His own father has called him a “High Level Threat”.
#3: Sentry The Power of One Million Exploding Suns
This (quite frankly) terrifying hero is basically Superman thrown into the Marvel universe, but with a history of drug addiction, the absence of an all-important Kansas farm upbringing and a case of mental instability that makes him a timebomb waiting to go like… one million exploding suns. The thing is, Sentry is so powerful that his history seemingly only works in flashbacks, which is why we only learn about his heyday after the fact. When we meet Sentry, his superheroics have been written out of the collective consciousness in order to protect the world from his greatest enemy - his own dark side, the Void. A stable version of Sentry could easily handle most threats, and so his instability is essential to keeping him on the sidelines.
#2: Silver Surfer The Power Cosmic
Cosmic Power… cosmic problems, right? Being the Herald of Galactus comes with a whole lot of responsibility and a unique perspective. You see, if the Silver Surfer spent his time doing run of the mill hero stuff, he would leave earth with a thoroughly boring lack of crime and conflict - and us with nothing to read! When Norrin Radd was transformed into the being known as Silver Surfer, he became a noble, big picture sort of character. Imbued with the “Power Cosmic”, the Surfer is a self-sustaining, invulnerable, and capable of absorbing and manipulating incomprehensible amounts of energy. And for that to work, he also needs to be somewhat detached, more interested in the greater good and galaxy-wide threats than the issues of everyday mortals.
#1: Scarlet Witch Chaos Magic
Wanda Maximoff’s history is long and complicated. Due to the experimentation of the High Evolutionary, she has the ability to alter reality. And though this originally showed itself in the form of relatively modest magical ability in her earlier appearances, over the decades, she has been revealed to be one of the most powerful and dangerous characters in Marvel comics. As the Nexus Being of Earth-616, she has the ability to tap directly into the “Life Force” of Earth, which further amplifies her power. Even when unconscious, her mind can continue to drastically alter reality, fundamentally changing the world as we know it. She’s incredible, but also freaking tough to handle from an editorial standpoint.
