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If you could have your pick, what would be the single most useful superpower you could ever have? And would it also be the most fun? It could be anything – not just the normal Hulk strength or flying like Superman. Joe, Potsdam
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Readers reply
The best superpower would be mind control. You could bend anyone’s will to do exactly what you want. Depending on your own level of goodness, you could either create world peace or create a world dictatorship. But it would become the ultimate world that you wanted to live in. TheoGodwyb
Not super exciting, but usefulness-wise it’s up there: a voice in your head that says “warmer” or “colder” etc when you think of any object you’re trying to find. Anything from keys and golf balls to missing people, long-lost valuable treasure and so on. JoeBeeGee
When discussing what would be the best superpower with my four-year-old son, I’d said I’d love to be able to fly. He said he’d love to have infinite energy so he could do cool and interesting stuff endlessly. Luckily, he doesn’t have that superpower and promptly fell fast asleep. Happy days. busynhsmum
Definitely the ability to pause or manipulate time. You don’t need super speed or probably most other powers if you can stop everything else. Also, how many times have you looked at the alarm clock in the morning and thought: if only I could have five more minutes … or an hour? ChezBigwa
Teleportation for me, all day long. Breakfast in London, Tokyo for lunch, finishing up with an evening meal in Paris. Thirdhandluke
[It] has to be teleportation. You’d never have to pay for transport or buy tickets to get in to a venue ever again. Plus you’d be the world’s most valuable courier/smuggler and effectively be untouchable by the law. Probably more useful for villainy than heroics, but a career as the world’s most efficient organ transplant courier is on the cards at least. nickkemptown
Teleportation, 100%. People may mention flight, which is of a similar flavour, but why fly to a high place when you could appear there in an instant? Also, with teleportation at the click of your fingers, the worries about whether the railways are renationalised or not would be a thing of the past. Frank, London (with Brighton ambitions)
Teleportation. Go anywhere you want to instantly – but you could still choose to travel if you want to. Tayside2PE
In reply: For a long time I wanted this as well, but then I thought about the consequences of the conservation of angular momentum. Travelling to Australia from the UK would be deadly. InquisitiveCrow
The most useful power would be the ability to make anyone instantly forgive you for any reason. Forget an important appointment? Don’t worry about it, it’s fine. Steal food off people’s plates? No problem, I wasn’t going to have it anyway. Rob a bank? It’s all good, these things happen. Would it quickly get very unethical? Oh hell yes, but it would certainly be entertaining. Fabian MacGinty O’Neill, Mullingar, Ireland
The ability to speak any and all languages. Including computer coding languages, body language, anything that constitutes forms of communication. For clarity, I don’t mean an encyclopaedic knowledge of all languages, but the ability to learn and speak any new language encountered from observation or engagement in a short space of time. Unlike super strength or the ability to fly, this power wouldn’t make me a target or render me a pariah in society; I wouldn’t have to wear a mask to use it for good while protecting my loved ones. The majority of people wouldn’t necessarily even notice I had the power. Porthos
Time travel – so I could zip back to 1066, warn Harold and therefore avoid having to even think about trying to get a ticket to see the Bayeux tapestry. lastcosmonaut
Not sure about useful, but: the ability to see the “fundamental” truth in all situations and in all problems, including the mystery of the universe and everything. It could be wonderful, it could be overwhelming, it could be meaningless and frustrating if no one else around you understood. Eiriann1
Bullshit detecting. As soon as someone starts with it, a massive foghorn goes off and every word they keep saying is a foghorn. Until they shut up. With apologies to residents of Washington DC, who may end up with severe sleep deprivation. But probably invisibility for me, Clive. catchytitled
To be indestructible would be quite useful. No doubt it would bring its own problems to the individual, as portrayed in many screen characters over the years. They all seem deeply flawed and tortured souls – even Captain Scarlet, who was a puppet. Great power brings with it all manner of difficulties that could be considered a curse on the unfortunate “hero” bestowed with the ability. I’d still give it go, though. felipemariposa77
In reply: I’ve always wondered about being indestructible: are you left floating in space billions of years from now, when the sun expands and destroys Earth? AngryTomato
In reply: There are other worlds than this one … Runters
The ability to learn any new skill instantly, at expert level and beyond. International travel would be a lot more fun being able to speak any language; I’d be remarkably successful at anything I desired; and I would save a lot of money on AI subscriptions. InquisitiveCrow
The power to morph. It’s like a catch-all superpower hack that lets you fly (as a bird or insect), take on super strength (gorilla), super speed (cheetah), underwater breathing (fish) or night vision (owl). Then there are all the doors you could open by morphing into powerful or famous people. Laura Foulger
Telekinesis, hands down. Tidying up would be so much easier if you could do it from the sofa. stealingbiscuits
Apart from the obvious wishes such as bringing peace to the world, ending hunger and a cure for cancer, I would have liked to have had the benefit of my life experience when I was a young man. PeteTheBeat
In reply: God no – if I’d known then what I know now, I would have just crawled back under the blankets for half a century and stayed in hiding. jno50
I think the most valuable superpower would be the ability to make people change their minds. Maybe a quiet, fast move when a robber approaches you. But also the ability to have people listen when you point out the error of their thinking – as in thinking it is OK to hate all immigrants. And have people understand the error in their thinking and immediately agree they were wrong. anyaP (via email)
It would have to be the classic one: to be invisible. In our time, it would have to include heat sensors and other forms of electronic nosiness, so that being completely undetectable is included. It would be the best way to inflict mayhem and chaos on those unpleasant characters who inflict pain, mayhem and chaos on the many other people who don’t deserve it. Tying the shoelaces of dictators together while they’re speaking to the multitudes, and stretching clingfilm over the toilets of major tech figures for starters.
Which is all great fun, but just an hors d’oeuvre to decisions concerning disappearing contracts for new datacentres, the contents of bent offshore stashes mysteriously turning up in the current accounts of council housing departments with a note attached: “Not to be used to pay for shitty B&B rents but to build houses, and local infrastructure etc.” Then after lunch …
bricklayersoption
In reply: Yes to this! I recently reread HG Wells’ The Invisible Man and was impressed as never before that Griffin’s problems weren’t caused by his invisibility but by his being an immoral prick. Lollywillowes
The power to avoid having to queue. Sagarmatha1953
