10 Star Trek Characters That Gained SUPERPOWERS

Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the last twenty years, the rise of the superheroes cannot possibly have passed you by (that's right, the first Iron Man movie hit the big screen in 2008...you're welcome). And while it took mass media a little longer to come down with superhero fever, Star Trek has been endowing its characters with superpowers for six decades.

They might not come in the form of a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man or a guy who thinks he's a bat because of his belt and bank balance, but Star Trek has had plenty of superhero (and supervillain) moments. Mind powers, super soldiers, mutations...Jean-Luc Picard even became a cyborg, twice! And then there's the time he could talk to people with his mind. No, sorry, wrong franchise...

Of course, it's a little befuddling how a show that was meant to be about ordinary people bettering themselves routinely handed out superpowers to every Tom, Will and Harry. But in the end, the message was (mostly) the same; pray to your new god! Wait, not that. It's the one that has something to do with corruption and power. You'll get the idea.

While Star Trek took plenty of liberties in building some pretty overpowered races, this isn't that list. These are the times when perfectly average Ensign Smith evolved the kind of power that would get them recruited into the Avengers or X-Men...even if it only lasted for about a day.

The OG of Star Trek supes, Gary Mitchell, gained his godlike powers alongside Dr Elizabeth Dehner in one of The Original Series' earliest adventures, Where No Man Has Gone Before. Picking up the disaster recordings from the SS Valiant, Kirk (obviously) sets a course directly into danger to find out what happened. Contact with the galactic barrier exposes Mitchell and Dehner to a psychedelic energy pulse, and the ship barely escapes in one piece.

Now, Mitchell was already giving off some strange vibes even before gaining his powers. He calls Dehner a walking freezer unit for shutting down his flirtation on the bridge and admits to once manipulating a situation between Kirk and a woman at the Academy. He doesn't exactly come across as a Steve Rogers type. And gaining superpowers does nothing to bring out his good side.

Mitchell's abilities become increasingly impressive...super-fast reading, a booming Gandalf voice, photographic memory (when it comes to passionate poems, at least) and a disturbing talent for playing dead. And strangely, Dehner finds herself warming to him.

Kirk and Spock, however, are less impressed. In fact, it's a little disconcerting to hear Spock advise Kirk to maroon Mitchell on an uninhabited planet or kill him. Until that point, Mitchell's outward tricks involved levitating a glass of water and playing practical jokes on the bridge crew. We can't help but wonder if Spock's position is a little extreme and may even have alienated Mitchell further.

Eventually, they try to maroon Mitchell, who is starting to sound more and more like Magneto on a bad day, threatening to squash them like insects. Dehner's powers also emerge, and although she initially teams up with Mitchell, she clings to the humanity left inside her and gives her life to help Kirk bring him down.

While we would have thought killing a godlike creature would be tricky, it proves deceptively easy when Kirk brings a massive rock down on top of him. Still, in an episode that's clearly about how power corrupts, the ending isn't really the most important part of this story.