Superpowers: Could They Happen?

I've been fascinated with superheroes and superpowers ever since I was a little girl, creating my own and playing pretend. Though the one thing I've always wanted is for these powers to be real. So that's what I'm sought to find out; could these powers actually exist in the real world, what would these abilities do if they were real, what would they do to the human body and is having this power even possible for the human body to handle?

The power I'm going to talk about during this article is Pyrokinesis or the ability to control fire.

With pyrokinesis, the user can manipulate, shape, and create fire, and all the things that it entails. There are some good and bad things about having this ability. For one thing, think of all the uses fire can have on a… weekly basis? Not every day, but weekly probably. You can burn or melt (or cook) anything, attack anyone who is attacking you, and, for some, even have flight caused by the fire! Looking at you, Human Torch!

The bad things about this ability are for one, people with this ability aren’t guaranteed to have fire immunity. You’ll have to have that or along with your power, have some form of regenerative power. Next, with all powers, control and discipline are always needed and are extremely important. Being impulsive or emotionally-influenced can cause catastrophic damage. Remember what Uncle Ben said: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Also, the Fire Triangle needs to be addressed. Fire needs Oxygen, Fuel, and Heat to burn; if one of those things is not there, no fire! And ultimately, the user can be overpowered by another person who has water, ice, or cold controlling abilities.

If this power existed in the real world, there would be a lot of burn victims in hospitals all over the world with 3rd-degree burns. Unless you have the above-mentioned fire immunity or regeneration powers, your flesh is a great fuel source for the Fire Triangle. Also, as any burn victim will say, fire and heat hurts! You will feel it every time you use your power and of course, that means you will feel the aftermath of it as well! To make matters worse, if you had the Human Torch type pyrokinesis and your whole body was engulfed in flames, you would be in so much pain that you wouldn’t even think about flying! And without those regeneration powers, you will… actually not die if you put yourself out quick enough probably but you will be suffering in a lot of pain and wishing you didn’t have this power.

There are no actual accounts that I could find of someone in our world having Pyrokinesis (that kinda sucks) but I did find out about spontaneous human combustion. SHC happens when a person abruptly bursts into flames not from an external heat source, but from a chemical reaction within. The first known account of this happening was in 1663 when a woman burst into flames while she was sleeping.

Hundreds of accounts of this happening have come up since all with the victim almost completely consumed by the fire in their home. Something interesting about the scenes of the incident is that the victim’s extremities are often intact when found. Other than the head and torso, the hands and feet may remain unburned.

As much as I don’t want to say it, I don’t think the human body could be able to handle this ability. What are the chances of a person who has this ability having fire immunity or regenerative powers? It’s a one in a million shot! Maybe even more! Even with spontaneous human combustion, that isn’t pyrokinesis and no one else in the world has ever had this power. For this ability to happen you would need to have a heck of a lot of chemical reactions happening in your body, whether it be just in your hands or your entire body. You would need to have glands in your skin that will excrete the fire so that it won’t stay on the inside and burn you from the inside out. And, again, you will need fire immunity.

There's a lot of stuff needed for this dream of mine to come true. Maybe in the future, human evolution will cause us to maybe have this ability and not die from constant burning! But until then, we can only dream.

I’m going to make this an ongoing series of articles, where I talk about superpowers and how they could be real. So come back next time I write to read more about superpowers!

Thank you so much for reading, keep being awesome, and have a good day! :)