Brandon Sanderson is one of the premiere fantasy writers of our time, and certainly the most prolific; between the Mistborn books, The Stormlight Archive, his Secret Project novels, and more, he is never not working on something.
And because of that, we pay attention whenever he says something, even if what he's saying doesn't matter very much to his work. To wit: what does Brandon Sanderson think are the top five superpowers? Sanderson talked about that with Wren Weichman of the YouTube channel Corridor Crew.
So what are Sanderson's pics?
5. Charging stuff (Gambit from X-Men)
Naturally, Sanderson comes at this very systematically, judging powers based on how much he'd want to have them, how fun they are to write about and how fun they are to read. At the back of the pack is Gambit's power to charge objects, which then explode.
"Gambit, as a package, is a fantastic superhero," Sanderson says. That said, he has a problem with how Gambit's powers were depicted in the 1990s X-Men TV series. "Gambit just basically had grenades. If you can replace your superpower with a belt of grenades, then it's not actually a really interesting superpower"
Sanderson likes the idea of doing creative things with the power. Could Gambit hold a stick and use it to light a dark room, for example? Give Sanderson a run on X-Men and find out.
4. Healing factor (Wolverine/Deadpool)
Who wouldn't want to be able to heal from any injury? This is the power Sanderson would most want to have himself. That way could guarantee that he'd live long enough to "finish the Cosmere."
I also raised an eyebrow at this quote from Sanderson: "I've read too many stories about how terrible immortality is, [although] I'm not sure it would be that terrible." Hey, there are real people trying to live forever in our world right now. So far, so weird.
3. Flying (Superman/Storm)
This is another power that Sanderson would like to have himself, because who wouldn't? Obviously it'd be fun to fly through the air at will.
That said, Sanderson doesn't think flying is very interesting to write or read about. In his Mistborn books, Sanderson created a magic system called Allomancy that involves pushing and pulling different metals towards you. Using this system, Allomancers can simulate flying, something Sanderson finds much more interesting.
2. Controlling metal (Magneto/Vin)
Speaking of metals, Sanderson loves the idea of a superpower that grants someone the ability to control it, like Magneto from X-Men. Again, this is not surprising if you've read his Mistborn books, where the magic revolves completely around manipulating metals.
Interestingly, Sanderson says that he was inspired to create Allomancy after watching Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace and seeing Jedis fling stuff around using the Force. He wanted to dig into how exactly something like that would work, and thus Allomancy was born.
1. Portals (Doctor Strange)
Sanderson loves the idea of making portals both because it's incredibly useful and visually cool. He was thrilled to play with portals when he took over The Wheel of Time. "I'd love to have it, it's fun to write about, and people have done interesting things with it."
This interview was very typical of Sanderson, which is to say that he approached the sorta silly question of "which superpower is best?" with a lot of thought and specificity. Do you agree with him? What superpowers would you want to have? Would you eat a bunch of metal if it gave you the power to make nails fly across the room like the characters in Mistborn? All worthy questions.
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