superhero that can travel through time

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The Strongest Time-Traveling Superheroes, Ranked

Superheroes have all sorts of powers, from flight to being bulletproof, but there's one superpower many would argue to be the very best of them all: the ability to travel through time. Throughout the years, there have been a ton of superheroes who have this ability. Some acquired it naturally, while others learned how to manipulate the space-time continuum through the use of some insane technology.

Let's face it: it's not easy to break out of one time and enter into another, but there are some who have done it. Leaving the obvious villains like Doctor Doom aside, the superheroes of Marvel, DC, Image, and other comic book universes have figured out time travel and have used it to help achieve their goals. Not everyone who jumps about in time ends up mucking it up and creating events like the Flash, but there are those who travel through time without creating much of a fuss.

Here is a list of popular superheroes that can control time, but it's up to you to determine who is the best! Whether you prefer Marvel's time travel stories or prefer the ones form DC, make your voice heard. Vote up your favorites and see which superhero jumps to the top as the greatest time-traveling superhero of them all!

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10 Best time-travelling superheroes of all time

Get confused in time with these best time-travelling superheroes ever

Time travel is having something of a moment in current superhero media, and that's not just because Avengers: Endgame used time travel as a key plot device. But none of that would be possible without the help of the best time-travelling superheroes of all time.

So what better time than now to look at the best time-travelling superheroes ever?

10. Waverider

The almost-forgotten hero from the alternate timeline of DC Comics ' 1991 event Armageddon 2001, Matthew Ryder escaped a dystopian dictator and certain death by traveling into the past with the ability to "read" potential futures of people just by touching them.

Unfortunately, while he prevented his future from happening, he did so by accidentally causing the creation of his dictator nemesis a decade early, setting in motion events that led to the Zero Hour crossover years later.

In recent years, Waverider has returned in spirit as the namesake of Rip Hunter's time ship in DC's Legends of Tomorrow - a unique live-action transition, to say the least.

9. Iron Lad

The Young Avengers' first leader sought to balance the scales for things that he'd do later in life - time travel can get weird, when it comes to cause and effect, remember - by adopting the guise of Iron Lad before he grew up to become the villainous Kang the Conqueror.

As Iron Lad, he managed to lead the team's short-lived first incarnation before fate - or the time-traveling equivalent - asserted itself, taking him to his destiny as one of the Avengers' most famous, and most deadly, foes. His career may not have been the longest, but his aim was true…

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8. Deathlok

The original Deathlok was Luther Manning, a man from the post-apocalyptic future world of 1990 - well, he was created in 1974 — who traveled back to the present to find himself teaming up with the Thing and Nick Fury (after earlier clashes, of course) to try and undo the world from which he came.

Since most of us will recall that 1990 was not the year society collapsed into dystopian ruin, we'll have to assume he succeeded.

Good job Deathlok!

7. Guardians of the Galaxy

No, not the current team, but the original 1969 lineup which decided to try and save the world of the 31st century by travelling back to our time and recruiting some more heroes to the cause.

Along the way, they had numerous chances to accidentally screw up things, but always managed to avoid it - even when that meant avoiding spilling the beans to Vance Astrovik, the future New Warrior known as Justice, that one of their members was… Well, an alternate version of himself. All that and they defeated the Badoon invasion that was the reason behind their formation.

Members of this version of the team even appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, with writer/director James Gunn pointing to the potential of future film stories featuring the characters.

One of the two most time-travel-y X-Men, Lucas Bishop didn't really intend to be a time traveler; instead, it was more a matter of doing his job as one of the XSE (Xavier's Security Enforcers) and following a bad guy through a time portal.

Like Rachel Summers, he watched as the future he'd arrived from became more and more likely, but unlike Rachel, he decided to do something about it… Namely, try and kill Hope, even if that meant traveling through time again and hunting down Cable to make sure it happened (actions that got him on our time-traveling villains list, as well). He failed, of course, and realigned himself with the X-Men once again.

5. Green Lantern

What's that? You don't tend to think of Green Lantern as a time-traveler? Clearly, you've never heard of Pol Manning, Earth's Greatest Hero in the year 5700 — better known, perhaps, as Hal Jordan. The surreal existence of Manning is one of the stranger pieces of Green Lantern lore: When in need of a hero to save the world, the governments of the Earth of 5700 would simply kidnap Jordan from his own time, wipe his memory and give him the temporary (fictional) identity of Manning before returning him to his rightful time, place and mindset.

Sure, Jordan may not have been in control of - or even fully aware of - his time traveling double life, but that doesn't mean that he didn't serve as a Time Cop as well as a Space Cop when the situation demanded it.

4. The Flash

With the creation of the wonderfully-named Cosmic Treadmill, The Flash mythos gained a whole new dimension as the speedy superhero was suddenly given the ability to travel through time, meaning that his adventures could take place any when as well as any where.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before this ability would end up being exploited in the wrong way, leading to a butterfly effect mix up that created Flashpoint and the New 52, but for that brief period before everything went wrong, the Flash could be relied upon to clean up messes all through time.

Time travel has even played a significant role as a plot element in CW's The Flash too.

3. Superboy

For a teen who'd grow up to become the world's greatest superhero, it's almost disappointing to discover that it took three time-traveling teens from the 30th (later, 31st) century to introduce Clark Kent to the mysteries of the timestream.

Once the Legion of Super-Heroes entered his life, Superboy became a regular passenger on the cross-time express, either by Time Bubble or under his own steam but somehow always managing to stay away from any knowledge of his future self's actions, which may end up being his most impressive feat, considering just what Superman ended up accomplishing during his long career.

Now, the current Superboy, Jon Kent, looks to be the latest inheritor of the mantle to adventure alongside the Legion of Super-Heroes.

To try and get into the reasoning behind Cable and his various time-travel escapades would be both exhausting and confusing, so let's just leave it at this: At no point during his entire decades-long career as the X-Men family's favorite techno-organic enforcer has he managed to entirely undo the time stream by needlessly slaughtering another superhero, even with the amount of heavy artillery he carries around at all times.

Cable was played by Josh Brolin in Deadpool 2, a movie that hinged on his time-traveling nature (and provided the fuel for an all-time-classic mid-credits stinger scene).

1. Booster Gold

Perhaps comic books' top time-traveling superhero, Booster Gold may have started off his superheroic career with one simple time jump, but since then, he's teamed with Rip Hunter - who may or may not have been Booster's son - to protect the timestream from unwanted changes, only to fall victim to the rewriting of all DCU history via the New 52, where he's traveled into the past to meet Jonah Hex, and later went back to the future as part of Justice League 3001.

Booster recently returned to the DC Universe as part of Heroes In Crisis - another story in which time travel played a role. He'll next appear in the era-spanning Legion of Super-Heroes: Millennium this September.

It might be dangerous, but is time travel one of the most useful super powers ?

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Top 10 Superheroes That Can Time Travel (Marvel and DC)

Wouldn’t it be nice to be one of the many superheroes that can time travel? I mean, wouldn’t it be amazing to move forward and backward through time at your leisure? You know, to set up or change history how you see fit. Although in our world this isn’t possible, in the world of comic books, it’s very possible. There are a select few superheroes that can time travel as they see fit.

They can prevent catastrophes from happening, stop massacres before they are even a thought, and change the course of history without so much as blinking an eye. But who are they? In the world of comics, who are the “time travel” superheroes?

10. Bill and Ted

Depending on your definition of a superhero, Bill and Ted might just fit this list. The movie sees the duo meet future versions of themselves. If this sounds confusing, let me explain. Bill and Ted are the founders of the metal band Wyld Stallyns and as the founders are responsible for creating a utopian future built around the band. Sadly, Ted’s father doesn’t see merit in their pursuit of music and threatens to send him to military school should he flunk history.

Fearful over losing their utopian future, the character Rufus is sent back through time to aid the two in school. Unwilling to believe Rufus is from the future, Bill and Ted from the future also travel back to the past as proof. Look, I know it’s a stretch to think of Bill and Ted as superheroes, but you know what? Without them and their music, the future wouldn’t be what it is. Therefore, traveling back to ensure its survival makes Bill and Ted a lock for this superheroes that can time travel list.

9. Doctor Strange

The Dr. Strange reference is a little different than the other references you’ll see on this list. And how? Simple. Most other characters will reference the comics. Dr. Strange will reference the movies. Inside the MCU, Dr. Strange possesses the Time Stone. The Time Stone, of course, allows the user to manipulate time.

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In the first Dr. Strange movie, Strange uses the Stone to undo the mess that Kaecilius had created. Basically, he used it to rewind time and bring the world back to how it was before Kaecilius called upon Dormammu. The scene I refer to is both impressive looking and impressive thinking.

8. Deathlok

Like almost every other time-traveling character on this list, Deathlok is from a post-apocalyptic future that nobody would ever send a postcard from. Unlike most other characters on this list, Deathlok was created in the mid-1970s. This means that he is one of the original time – traveling heroes who come back to change their own future.

The first version of Deathlok was an American soldier who was fatally injured and then reanimated as a participant in the Deathlok project. What makes Deathlok so interesting as compared to so many others is that his battle is not only with those responsible for his future. In addition to fighting those responsible for his future, as a cyborg, he also struggles to maintain a portion of his own humanity.

7. Waverider

Created by Dan Jurgens and Archie Goodwin, Waverider is a DC time traveler who first appeared in 1991. As a time traveler, Waverider is capable of traveling time at will and predicting with accuracy a person ‘ s future by simply touching them.

Waverider hails from a future not worth ta l king about. When he received his power to travel time, he left his world and landed in the present day. Once in the present day, he successfully prevented his terrible future from happening. Sadly, as a by-product of doing this, he inadvertently set off a series of events that led to the Zero Hour event a few years later.

Next to Cable, in the massive history of X-Men superheroes that can time travel, none are as known as Bishop. In fact, he’s so well-known that he was included in the 2014s Days of Future Past movie.

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Bishop comes from a terrible future where mutants are hunted for being, well, mutants. As a mutant from the future, Bishop wants nothing more than to prevent his future from happening. To do this, he travels back to the present day. Once in the present day, he takes to the side of Charles Xavier as a bodyguard. On the side of Xavier, he becomes a literal reminder of what the future holds should the X-Men fail.

5. Green Lantern

If you didn’t know that the Green Lanterns actually possess the ability to travel through time, you’re probably not alone. Although all Green Lanterns can do it, most choose not to because of the sheer amount of willpower it takes to do so. Alas, they can and that’s precisely why they’re on this superheroes that can time travel list.

Take Hal Jordan for example. In a story that saw him take the name Pol Manning, Hal is brought through time to the future to help bring down a government. Even though he didn’t immediately remember traveling through time, Hal Jordan did do it and therefore his inclusion on this list took very little thought.

4. Iron Lad

Iron Lad is a newer character in the comic book world. First appearing in Young Avengers #1 back in 2005, Iron Lad looked to be an integral part o this version of the Avengers. Unfortunately, as it was later revealed, Iron Lad turned out to be a young version of Kang The Conqueror.

As Iron Lad, Kang looked to set his own future up perfectly. This meant that he sought to create perfect alignment for everything that he was to do later in life. It became complicated for Kang after Iron Lad realized that he didn’t want to become the villainous version of himself that the future holds.

3. The Flash

As one of the fastest and most powerful characters in all of comics , it comes as no surprise that The Flash makes this list.

The Flash is able to travel through time with the help of his aptly named Cosmic Treadmill . This means that he is able to help or hinder any moment in time as quickly as he can get to Mach Speed. And he has.

The Cosmic Treadmill has helped him in altering the timeline in both Flashpoint and Crisis on Infinite Earths. These events, as you well know, changed the course of DC’s history forever.

2. Booster Gold

If you don’t know who Booster Gold is, allow me a moment to explain. Booster Gold is literally a hero from the future who travels back in time (with the knowledge of what’s about to happen) to prevent crimes that are about to happen. And he does this so he can reap the glory and accolades that come with it. If it sounds underhanded, shady, and slightly amusing, it’s because it kind of is.

Booster Gold possesses no inherent powers . Instead, he uses retired superhero equipment from days gone by to fight his battles. Of them, the most notable i s Rip Hunter’s Time Sphere, a Legion Flight Ring, Brainiac 5’s Force Field Belt, and a Power Suit. Shady tactics aside, Booster Gold is one of the most famous superheroes that can time travel.

1. Cable

Speaking of famous superheroes that can time travel….Of the many mutants who fall under the X-Men umbrella, Cable is one of the most popular and important. Cable is the offspring of Scott Summers and Madelyne Pryor. When he was born, he was immediately sent to the future by his parents.

And why? They feared that if he stayed Apocalypse would hunt him down and kill him. And why? Apocalypse feared that Cable was the mutant responsible for bringing him down.

Because Cable is from the future, he knows exactly how and why things have happened. As such, it’s his mission to return to present-day in an effort to stop all that causes his dystopian future.

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Time-Keepers

The Time-Keepers are powerful beings of pure knowledge who become the guardians of all of time, steering it to its proper end without interference.

Custodians of the Timestream

The Time-Keepers are the creation of He Who Remains, the very last director of the Time Variance Authority (TVA) existing at the final common endpoint of all surviving realities in the multiverse, just prior to the heat death of the universe. The Keepers serve two purposes: First, they are a gift to the future, teaching those of the next universal cycle how to avoid the errors of the past; and second, they serve as living batteries of chronal power, the accumulated (and growing) energy of the TVA’s eternity of existence, which is used to ensure quality of life for retired TVA employees.

Unfortunately, the three entities that hatch from He Who Remains’ nurture pods are immediately flawed—even warped. Dubbed the Time-Twisters, they travel backwards through time, seeking the origins of the universe, heedless of their destruction of each era through which they passed. The Twisters’ backward spiral interacts with Earth every 30 centuries, a cosmic upheaval upon their departure reducing it to cinder as they left.

Zarrko the Tomorrow Man’s Timescope observes their destruction of 80th century Earth, and he realizes that the 50th century Earth that he had conquered (Earth-7613) would be next to fall. Zarrko brings Earth-616’s Thor Odinson, AKA Thor , and his allies Jane Foster and the Warriors Three to his kingdom, then announced a great reward for anyone able to destroy the Twisters. After the Twisters casually wipe out Zarrko’s army, they are informed that the worlds they had visited were not better off via the gift of learning as they had assumed, but had instead been utterly destroyed. Unconcerned (feeling the knowledge they sought was worth the sacrifice of a million worlds), the Twisters ignore Thor and his allies’ assaults as they departed, destroying Earth-7613. Zarrko, Thor and Thor’s allies travel to the Citadel at the End of Time, arriving moments before the Twisters’ hatching. They show He Who Remains what his creations had become, and he terminates the incubating Twisters, preventing their existence.

He Who Remains then replaces the Time-Twisters with more perfect versions—the Time-Keepers known as Ast, Vorth, and Zanth. However, this reality created two divergent branches of reality. In one reality, Reality-794282, He Who Remains aborts the Twisters and creates the Keepers; and in the other, Reality-761243, he does not abort the Twisters, and thus never creates the Keepers. Ever since, the two divergent branches of reality shift back and forth in dominance, with the Twisters and the Keepers competing for dominion at the end of time, and thus being able to shape the next reality. At some point, He Who Remains banishes a mysterious fourth Time-Keeper, who becomes known as the Oracle of Siwa, to ancient Egypt in 2950 BC.

The Keepers set themselves up as custodians of the timestream, authorizing the installation of Uatu the Watcher ’s extradimensional portal, allowing him to view other realities. They also appoint Immortus as custodian of the segment of time between 3000 BC and 4000 AD.

Vast Temporal Powers

The Time-Keepers have great power to manipulate temporal energy. They can age entire armies to dust or reverse aging to before the point of life (virtual immortals such as Asgardian gods can resist these effects). They can summon beings from any point in the timestream, sending them to do their bidding. They can travel through time and into various alternate realities, form powerful energy shields, project force blasts, and grant power to others.

The Throne of Judgement

The three Time-Keepers work together using the power of the Forever Crystal, which allows them to remove countless realities from existence within seconds. They claim to have authority that not even the cosmic arbiter known as the Living Tribunal can judge.

The fourth Time-Keeper, the Oracle of Siwa, operates independently of the other three. Siwa can see flashes into the timestream but cannot time-travel like the others.

Forever Foes

The sole divergent counterparts of the Time-Keepers are the Time-Twisters, with one each existing in one of the two final divergent realities at the very end of time. The Keepers and Twisters each manipulate events in the multiverse to ensure their own survival and domination of their counterparts. The Time-Twisters originally sought knowledge at the beginning of time, heedless that they destroyed the time periods through which they passed.

Foreseeing that the Avengers pose a threat to the Time-Keepers’ existence, they instruct their time custodian Immortus to break them up. However, he becomes impressed by them, and instead defies the Time-Keepers’ order. Also seeing that Rick Jones poses a threat, they amass an army of destructive alternate-reality Avengers to oppose him. Defended by Immortus’ hostile divergent counterpart Nathaniel Richards, AKA Kang the Conqueror , the mysterious Gustav Brandt, AKA Libra (formerly of the Zodiac Cartel), and the Kree ’s Supreme Intelligence , Jones gathers the Avengers from various time periods to his side. Immortus seemingly destroys the Time-Keepers, but they survive his assault.

Tentative Allies

The Time-Keepers only true allies are themselves as time will tell that their time custodian Immortus turns on them. They also serve the TVA as their living batteries of chronal energy, supporting their eternity of existence and providing them a life in retirement.

Base of Operations

The Citadel at the End of Time, the Oracle of Siwa

Current Members

He Who Remains

The Proper Timeline

The Keepers directed Immortus to destroy or break up the Avengers (to prevent them from becoming a threat to the Keepers’ existence), but Immortus became so impressed with the heroes that he resolved to observe and shepherd them instead, defying the Time-Keepers’ wishes.

After the end of the Kree / Skrull War , the Time-Keepers confronted Immortus, accusing him of failing to hold up his end of the bargain, and showing him the potential futures of Earth-9812 (Avengers: Galactic Battalion) and other realities where humanity devastated all other life throughout the galaxy. They instructed him to prevent these events or they would destroy humanity itself. They later charged Immortus with slaying Wanda Maximoff, AKA Scarlet Witch , a Nexus Being whose children would be dangerously powerful, though Immortus instead worked to prevent her from bearing children.

At some point, the Time-Twisters gained ascendance over the Keepers and, posing as the Keepers, they guided Immortus to eliminate a number of realities that would decrease their dominance in existence at the end of time. They also had Immortus guide the eventual transmutation of a particular Nexus Being into a power source. Immortus chose the Scarlet Witch to fill this role, but eventually she threw off his control and rejected her increased power. The Twisters intervened, allegedly with the intent of stopping the accumulated energy from jeopardizing all future timelines. They transferred the Scarlet Witch’s vast expelled energy into Immortus, rendering him an immobile receptacle for temporal energy which they could then manipulate.

Around this time, the Keepers apparently attended Eon ’s funeral and threatened to confiscate Uatu’s extradimensional portal after the Living Laser passed through his portal and caused a number of divergences. They most likely traveled back in time from their Citadel from a point when they retained dominance, though it is also possible that this was actually the Twisters in disguise.

Still posing as the Keepers, the Twisters later determined that there were four major Nexus Beings, one each in four different alternate realities, who might prevent their existence. Enlisting the aid of beings in each of these realities, they plotted to destroy these Nexus Beings (which would theoretically lead to those realities’ destruction) to ensure they would maintain dominance over the Keepers. Due to Immortus posing as the enigmatic Whisperer and secretly opposing their efforts, they only succeeded in destroying one of the Nexus Beings, and as a result, the Time- Twisters vanished from existence. Released from their control, Immortus used his accumulated power to become a temporal wave that threatened to re-write all reality. Uatu and the TVA successfully neutralized Immortus’ threat, and the Twisters re-formed; however, the Keepers then appeared and exposed the Twisters’ falsehood. The Twisters melted back into pods and the Keepers regained ascendance, taking the pods back to the Citadel at the End of Time and continuing to watch over the timestream .

Following a decision not to interfere with a power struggle in Kang ’s Chronopolis, the Time-Keepers confronted Immortus, showing him that his actions, despite their intent, were actually leading to the future of Earth-9812. Immortus’ further delaying efforts—including engineering the so-called Crossing to keep the Avengers on Earth until the coming of Onslaught —amounted to naught, and the Keepers ordered Immortus to slay Rick Jones to prevent his awakening of the Destiny Force in the rest of humanity. Jones was defended by Kang, Libra , and the Kree Supreme Intelligence, allowing Jones to use the Destiny Force to summon Avengers allies from various time periods. Immortus subsequently destroyed Chronopolis and converted its power source into the Forever Crystal, with which he could easily eliminate realities detrimental to the Keepers’ existence: those “damaged” by humanity. Nonetheless, the Keepers resolved to destroy all but the minimum number of realities necessary to secure their existence. They took the Forever Crystal to their Citadel at the End of Time to power their chrono-cannon, and they slew Immortus when he opposed them.

As their foes confronted them, the Keepers summoned legions of dark and destructive alternate-reality Avengers to oppose Jones’ cross-time Avengers, and they further neutralized Kang by catalyzing his evolution into Immortus; however, Rick Jones summoned an expanded army of valorous Avengers to oppose the Keepers’ army, evening the odds. Resisting the Keepers fiercely, Kang forced a divergence between himself and Immortus, splitting himself into two separate beings and causing a powerful temporal backlash that stunned the Time-Keepers. Nonetheless, the Keepers prepared to fire the chrono-cannon, but Rick Jones accessed the Destiny Force and shattered the cannon. As the three Keepers struggled to recover, a triumphant Kang emptied his weapons’ power packs into them, apparently destroying the Time-Keepers. Kang’s other self, the newly diverged incarnation of Immortus, departed for a new life independent of the slain Time-Keepers. Those who served the TVA against Immortus (including those who apparently perished) are believed to have been restored to their native timelines.

The Keepers were later seen as prisoners of the virtually omnipotent Akhenaten ; if these were not a chronologically earlier incarnation, it may indicate they have recovered from their seeming death. Alternatively, this could have been the disguised Twisters, whose fate following the Keepers’ apparent demise is unrevealed.

The fourth Time-Keeper, able to see flashes into the timestream but no longer able to time-travel, became known as the Oracle of Siwa. When Ramades —the son of another Kang incarnation, Rama-Tut—plotted to conquer the modern era, he first visited the Oracle of Siwa to ask if the moment was right for his conquest; the Oracle confirmed it to be so. The Oracle’s legend is noted in its legitimization of the rules of Queen Hatshepsut, Egypt’s first female pharaoh circa 1500 BC, and of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC. The Oracle was so feared that the King of Persia once dispatched an army 50,000 strong to destroy its temple. The men were lost in the desert forever.

When Ramades banished the modern heroes of the Fantastic Four back to ancient Egypt, Reed Richards, AKA Mister Fantastic , recalled the legend of the Oracle and correctly surmised it to be a Time-Keeper. The Oracle revealed Ramades’ involvement, origins, and motivations, after which Reed’s father, Nathaniel Richards, arrived and transported the FF members back to their own time, where they defeated Ramades. At some point, before becoming frozen in Limbo Ice, the apparent last Time-Keeper warned Kang of the timelines all converging into an Adam Warlock, AKA Magus -dominated future.

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Eileen Gonzalez

Eileen's primary literary love is comic books, but she’s always on the lookout for her next literary adventure no matter what form it takes. She has a Bachelor's in media studies, a Master's in digital communication, a smattering of published short stories, and a seriously cute dog. Follow her on Bluesky .

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Arana and Spider-Man 2099 Dark Tomorrow cover

In Alex Segura’s YA novel Ara ñ a and Spider-Man 2099: Dark Tomorrow , Anya/Araña is on the trail of a stolen artifact when said artifact unexpectedly blasts her into the early 22nd century. There, she meets Miguel, the former Spider-Man 2099, who is no stranger to time travel. But Miguel gave up being a hero after traumatic personal losses, and it will take the gravest crisis imaginable to convince him to put on his costume and be a hero one more time.

Since time travel is integral to the plot, reading this novel got me thinking about the different ways time travel has appeared in superhero stories — some good, some bad. Along the way, Segura was kind enough to answer my questions about Dark Tomorrow and time travel stories in general. If you care about spoilers, read freely: there are none here — at least, none for Dark Tomorrow .

Just a Jump to the Left…

Time travel stories predate comics by at least several decades. Encyclopedia Britannica cites books like H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine and even Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol as early classics in the genre. The Time Machine was adapted as a comic book in the Classics Illustrated series, which Segura cited to me as a story that resonated with him as a young reader.

“I love [time travel stories], honestly,” he said. “The idea of hopping around time has always been of interest”

It has also been a part of the superhero experience since the early days. In the 1940s, Batman traveled back in time to pal around with D’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers in Batman #32 and into the near future to show what the world might be like if the Nazis were to win World War II in Batman #15. (Granted, this last one was less a story and more an attempt to scare the audience into buying war bonds.)

Time travel became a common plot device in the 1950s and ’60s, when stringent self-censorship precluded more violent kinds of stories. That’s how we got nonsense like Action Comics #148, in which Superman travels back in time to cheat Indigenous people out of the land Metropolis sits on, and Green Lantern #8, in which Hal Jordan is drafted into fighting villains in the 58th century because humans of the future are too pathetic to do it themselves (but not too pathetic to kidnap a 20th-century man and give him amnesia).

But there were more serious stories too. In the poignant yet retroactively hilarious Avengers #56, Captain America traveled back to the 1940s to convince himself that his sidekick Bucky was really dead. (Bucky was not, in fact, dead.)

This versatility is part of what draws Segura to time travel stories: they “can range from the funny to the painfully emotional,” he told me, “and I love the idea of affecting your own future or going back in time to see what things were like. The story possibilities are endless.”

As superheroes made their way into other genres, they took their tales of time travel with them. An episode of Freakazoid! has the titular hero prevent the Pearl Harbor attack, which somehow results in Rush Limbaugh becoming a decent person. In his 1978 film, Superman reverses the Earth’s rotation, which also reverses time and allows him another chance to save Lois Lane. (It goes without saying that that’s not how science works , but okay, fine.)

And then there’s the star of The CW’s The Flash , Barry Allen. Oh, Barry. Damn it, Barry .

With Great Power Comes Great Irresponsibility

The Flash may be more closely associated with time travel than any other hero (which I’m sure upsets Booster Gold, a 25th century ne’er-do-well who traveled to our time to become a heroic gloryhound). Early on, he learned he could travel through time by running on the Cosmic Treadmill. Some of his biggest foes — Reverse-Flash and Abra Kadabra — and his closest allies — his wife Iris West and their grandson Bart Allen — come from the future. Barry would later abuse his ability to time travel in both the comic Flashpoint and the TV show The Flash , when he rewrote all of reality to bring his murdered mom back to life.

This storyline is where I started to view time travel tales differently. Even more than Ray Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder , this is the story that made me realize the ethical pitfalls of time travel.

Unlike Eckels, the hapless protagonist of Bradbury’s classic story — or even grief-stricken Superman impulsively reversing the Earth’s rotation by a couple of minutes — Barry Allen makes a conscious decision to change the past. As Reverse-Flash gleefully puts it, “You traded the life of your mother for the rest of the world!”

Reverse Flash beats up the Flash while telling him that the timestream troubles they've been experiencing are all Flash's fault.

And Barry’s action is not without consequences. In both the comic and the TV show, the lives of Barry’s friends turn out vastly different — and sometimes worse — than how they were before.

As Segura points out, consequences are another reason that time travel makes for such a fascinating subject. In particular, he cited the “emotional stakes” — the inevitability of revisiting painful events or dead loved ones, or of seeing future events you may not like — as being especially high and therefore especially interesting. I can certainly agree, but personally, I have trouble sympathizing with a supposedly heroic character who willingly (and, in the TV show, more than once) messes with something as dangerous as time because he can’t handle being sad or accept his mistakes.

Obviously, Barry has the right to be upset over his mother’s death, even years after the fact. But you don’t get to ruin countless lives just because you can (it seems unlikely that Barry’s friends are the only ones who got screwed over, out of all the billions of people in the world). He allows his grief to make him selfish, even villainous. Who else but a villain tries to remake the world as they see fit? Go to therapy like the rest of us, bud.

Fortunately, Dark Tomorrow is more judicious in its use of time travel: Anya doesn’t do it on purpose, and Miguel only did so when the world was in danger. But Segura acknowledges that Miguel’s pain, much like Barry Allen’s, could have driven him down a darker path.

“[I]t’d be weird if he wasn’t” tempted to go back in time and prevent his personal tragedies from occurring, Segura says. “But I think one of the lessons Miguel learned early on was the fragility of time travel, and how the timeline tends to right itself or protect itself against major attempts to alter it….At his heart, Miguel is a scientist, and has probably grappled with these questions regularly when caught up in his time travel adventures!”

In other words, the heroes of Dark Tomorrow are not trying to remake the world in their image, so to speak. They’re just trying to save it, and in the process of doing so, they could end up changing a few things — probably for the better, but who knows what tomorrow will bring?

In the Not-Too-Distant Future…

So why do we still like all these time travel tales? Or, in my case, all of these tales except for those starring Barry Allen?

I think it’s a combination of everything I’ve covered: it’s high-stakes, it’s emotional, and it’s just plain fun. The appeals and temptations of time travel may be stronger for a superhero than for your average character, making for even richer storytelling. Righting wrongs is the superhero’s main reason for existing. If presented with the chance to use time travel to fix past mistakes, they’re sure to feel pressure to do so — and, in some cases, succumb to that pressure.

In Dark Tomorrow , the time travel is in part a simple necessity: Araña and Spider-Man 2099 exist a century apart, so the only way that they — Marvel’s two Latine Spider-people — could go adventuring together is through time travel shenanigans. But Segura believes it serves another purpose: to compare two very different worlds with surprisingly similar problems.

“Miguel’s Nueva York might seem shinier and more convenient than our New York, but as we dig deeper, we see some of the same problems crop up — and some of the same class issues and social situations,” Segura says. “It really helps hammer home the theme that you can be a hero whenever you are, and it takes the same kind of passion, dedication, and sacrifice.”

By opening a door to the past — or the future — time travel stories don’t just entertain us: they teach us the critical lesson that people are people, no matter where or when they were born.

For more time travelin’ superheroes, check out these lists about heroes wrecking the timestream and getting stuck in the past !

Book Banning County Commissioners Censor Honor for Girl Scout's Banned Book Library

The Untold Truth Of Time Travel In Marvel

Ever since Doctor Doom forced the Fantastic Four to go back in time in order to retrieve Blackbeard's treasure in " Fantastic Four" #5 (1962) , time travel has been an increasingly convoluted story trope in the Marvel Universe. There have been time-traveling villains like Kang the Conqueror and Zarrko the Tomorrow Man who keep returning to the past in order to rule it, but heroes have engaged in their own shenanigans: Doctor Strange's use of time travel through magic, for example, set the precedent for him getting the Time Stone as part of the Eye of Agamotto in the MCU . Time travel stories have gotten stacked on top of other time travel stories. People have come back to the present to prevent apocalyptic futures, but that trick never works.

Stories that try to explain how time travel works in the Marvel Universe tend to only make things more complicated, especially when they're repeatedly retconned. Characters like Immortus, the Time Keepers, and the Time Variance Authority have tried to establish some rules, with generally mixed results. Of course, time travel can get pretty confusing even under the best of circumstances, but the details are even hazier in the Marvel Universe, where there are no time paradoxes — instead, whenever someone attempts to go back or forward in time, they pop into Limbo and create a divergent reality. These alternate realities make up the multiverse and make everything extra confusing. With all that in mind, let's unravel a few of the more interesting stories regarding time travel in the Marvel Universe.

The Time Variance Authority: bureaucracy in inaction

The Time Variance Authority was introduced in "Thor" #371 as a time agency that sent freelance operative Justice Peace to stop an immortal killer named Zaniac . The members of the Authority were later revealed to be a group of cloned bureaucrats living in the Null-Time Zone, filling out forms in triplicate and making sure no one broke any temporal rules. One middle manger, the wonderfully named Mobius T. Mobius, arrested the Fantastic Four for time infractions, but Reed Richards escaped and took the file on his reality with him as he scampered off.

When one of his supervisors realized that the file was missing , Mobius tried to find Richards; failing, he kidnapped the rest of the Fantastic Four, including their new recruit Ant-Man. The whole mess was resolved when the FF convinced Mobius to look for another job, he went for a job interview with Kang the Conqueror, and an offer was made. The TVA then counter-offered, making Mobius a happy man and keeping the FF's reality safe.

Speaking of reality, a desperate TVA once employed the Watcher to fix the problem of Immortus manipulating the nexus beings of various realities so he could become the undisputed master of time. The Watcher suggested altering Immortus so he would be incapable of harnessing as much energy as he did, and disaster was averted. The TVA took credit for everything, of course.

The Time Keepers are in it for themselves

Much like Schrödinger's cat, the Time Keepers existed in a constant state where they were either the time-pruning Time Keepers or else the reality-devouring Time Twisters. In either case, they weren't very nice. They were meant to be a gift of a future universe by He Who Remains, the final director of the Time Variance Authority . Instead, the Time Twisters devoured entire realities, killing trillions in each timeline. Understandably annoyed by all this, Thor convinced He Who Remains to undo their creation , but instead he simply changed their genetic makeup, turning them into the Time Keepers instead.

The Time Twisters managed to reemerge, manipulating Immortus into collecting nexus energy for their own purposes. When this plot was foiled by the Watcher, the Time Keepers made sure the Time Twisters wouldn't emerge again.

However, the Time Keepers' mission was to make sure that humanity didn't become a harmful force. They saw the Avengers as the key to achieving this goal, and tried to make them get rid of their servant the Space Phantom and deal with the Scarlet Witch before she became too powerful. They used Immortus as their servant too, but he often helped the Avengers.

Eventually, the Destiny War between Kang and Immortus revealed the Time Keepers were less interested in preserving the multiverse than they were in preserving their own survival. At the end of time, Kang finally managed to kill them , assuring his own freedom as well as Immortus'.

The time pest: Zarrko the Tomorrow Man

Dr. Artur Zarrko, otherwise known as the Tomorrow Man, is a scientist from the 23rd century. Like many mad scientists from peaceful eras, he was bored and wanted to collect weapons from the past for conquest, so naturally he came to the 20th century and stole a nuclear weapon — making himself one of Thor's first villains . Zarrko was never quite as ambitious or competent as Kang the Conqueror. He wasn't much of a hand-to-hand fighter either, preferring to use his robot friends, like the Servitor, to carry out his bidding.

When Zarrko stole the weapon, Odin helped out his son by giving Mjolnir time-traveling abilities, as if Thor wasn't tough enough already. Thor went to the 23rd century and got the weapon back, giving Zarrko amnesia in the process. Loki, in turn, helped out Zarrko and brought him back to fight Thor, but Thor beat him again, even with many of his powers taken away.

When Zarrko and Kang were competing over the 20th century, Kang manipulated the Avengers, Spider-Man, and the Inhumans into defeating Zarrko for him , leaving behind an empty suit.

In yet another story that never happened, Lord Thor of a potential future who ruled Earth with an iron fist realized his error. Zarrko helped him figure out where it all went wrong and they corrected the error. Of course, this type of story is a good example of a frequent contradiction in Marvel: did Lord Thor's reality became a divergent one, or did it disappear altogether?

The granddaddy of time travel: Dr. Doom's time platform

You have to hand it to Victor Von Doom: he unleashed a crazy time-travel scheme on the Fantastic Four in his very first appearance , inventing a platform that made them disappear into a past era to steal Blackbeard's treasure chest. In a wacky series of events, Ben Grimm actually became Blackbeard and Reed Richards cheated Doom by bringing the chest back, but not its treasure.

This was the first of many times the platform became a crucial component of a Marvel Comics story. For example, the Fantastic Four used it again and met another time-traveler, Rama-Tut, in ancient Egypt . They wouldn't be the last ones to visit that era, either: Captain America asked the Avengers to accompany him back to the past to make sure his best friend and fellow soldier Bucky Barnes really died during World War II; as you may have already guessed, all sorts of weird things happened, like the Avengers materializing when they were supposed to be phantom observers. Immortus was involved, of course.

Years later, Cable and SHIELD's George Washington Bridge argued over the time platform after Doom disappeared and they wound up in World War II-era Latveria. Cable destroyed it, but death is always temporary in the comics, even for time platforms, and it was eventually rebuilt. Many centuries later, Kang found it.

The many faces of Kang the Conqueror

You can't talk about time travel in the Marvel Universe without talking about Nathaniel Richards, who's had a number of time-spanning identities. The descendant (or something — probably) of Reed Richards' father, who had the same name, he was born in the 30th century. Intervention from his future self, aka Kang, influenced Nathaniel into becoming Iron Lad and forming the Young Avengers . He fell in love with Cassie Lang, daughter of Ant-Man, but eventually realized he had to go back to his era . Still a teen, he became Kid Immortus after Cassie died, trying to merge with Doctor Doom and Annihilus to destroy the Fantastic Four .

Richards discovered Doom's time platform, using it to become Rama-Tut and conquer ancient Egypt. After the Fantastic Four defeated him, he fled and encountered Doom. This encounter influenced this potential descendant of Doom (it's complicated) to adopt a new, armored persona: the Scarlet Centurion . The Centurion altered time such that he controlled the original Avengers, but a newer lineup defeated him and sent him to the 41st century.

That's where he'd become Kang the Conqueror, mastering that world before turning his attention to other planets and timelines. Eventually, Kang got bored with conquest. He went back to Egypt for a while as an older Rama-Tut , then decided to become Immortus, master of time in Limbo. Confused? Don't worry — even Nathaniel probably has a hard time keeping track of it all.

Tony and Vic's excellent Arthurian adventures

When an unscrupulous Stark Industries employee sold electronics components to Doctor Doom, a furious Tony Stark intervened and called off the sale. That led to Doom stealing the components anyway — and Iron Man confronting him. However, in a plot twist, a disgruntled underling of Doom's sent both of them back into the past using the good ol' time platform – and promptly wrecked it.

Where did they go? Camelot . Doom was trying to get there in order to get mystical training from Morgana Le Fey, the powerful sorceress and enemy of King Arthur. Iron Man allied himself with Arthur. Doom headed up Le Fey's army of the dead, but when Iron Man realized that Le Fey was responsible for this invincible army, he confronted her directly, and Doom and Iron Man had to work together in order to construct a crude time machine. They left with a grudging respect for each other's genius.

Years later, Stark and Doom both received half of a mystical artifact . When Doom stole Stark's half, he realized too late that it was waiting for both of them to be together. It was a time machine, powered by magic. Where did they go? Camelot – this time in the far-flung year of 2093. With Arthur reincarnated as a pre-teen, Doom and Iron Man were forced to team up against Stark's descendant Andros and a 100-year-old Doom. When they returned to the present, they forgot everything.

The gloriously convoluted Lost In Space-Time

The various versions of Doom's time platform really get around. The villain Dominus lured the West Coast Avengers into a trap : Stranded in 1876 , they helped the Marvel western heroes fight a bunch of their villains. Wonder Man reasoned that if they could find a way to ancient Egypt, they could use Rama-Tut's time machine to get back to the future. They stopped in 1776 to test it and nearly ran into Doctor Strange. While they were there, they ran into an ancestor of their teammate Firebird, and Hawkeye left a note in the family Bible, hoping it would be seen in the future.

When they finally got to Egypt, they were nearly killed by Rama-Tut but were saved by the Egyptian moon god Khonshu . In return for his help, they would fight Rama Tut. The Avengers almost ran into a different time-traveling version of Strange as well as the Fantastic Four while trying to get to Rama Tut's time machine, but they missed out on every opportunity to get back. They managed to secretly save both Strange and the FF so they could return to the present.

In the present, Khonshu sent his subject, Moon Knight, to tell the West Coast Avengers to look at Firebird's note. While it seemed incredible, they grabbed and repaired Dominus' time machine, went back in time, and rescued their teammates. Whew!

Days of Future Past kicks off a lot of confusion

The "Days Of Future Past" storyline that began in " Uncanny X-Men" #141 inspired a movie and multiple sequels in the comics. It essentially opened the Pandora's box of convoluted mutant time travel drama. In the then-future of 2013, an adult Kitty Pryde has her mind projected back into her 13-year-old self. She tells the X-Men that in the future, the world is a hellish place ruled by the Sentinels, who are hunting mutants. She traveled back to prevent the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly and Professor X and avert that future, and it worked — although the future X-Men were also on a last-ditch mission that utterly failed as they died.

The story continued when one of the mutants from the future, a psychic red-headed girl named Rachel, came back to the past and was revealed to be the daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey. She helped defeat a time-traveling villain named Ahab in the " Days Of Future Present " story. In an issue of Excalibur titled " Days Of Future Tense ," the deaths of the original team from 2013 are detailed: On a mission to track down their missing member Douglock, they discovered to their horror that he had been captured by the government and turned into a living computer who killed them all.

Avengers and X-Men Forever and ever

The idea of using villains plucked from different eras is one that's resurfaced in Marvel, starting with Kang's Legion of the Unliving . He plucked Baron Heinrich Zemo, Wonder Man, Midnight, and others right before their deaths and made them serve him. So why not a team of heroes from a variety of timelines? In the "Avengers Forever" miniseries, Kang was trying to resist his seemingly-inevitable transformation into Immortus. His allies were Avengers from across time: the modern-day Goliath and Wasp, Songbird and Captain Marvel from the future, a delusional Yellowjacket, a dejected Captain America from the Watergate era, and Hawkeye from when he was more of a loose cannon. That group was just unpredictable enough to thwart Immortus' plans.

The only team that's encountered time travel more than the Avengers was the X-Men. In "X-Men Forever," a being named Prosh with time-travel capabilities collected Jean Grey, Iceman, the Toad, Mystique, and the Juggernaut and sent them to alter key events in mutant history, ranging from the assassination of Graydon Creed to Toad's own mental breakdown. All of this knowledge helped them defeat the Stranger, a being who'd been manipulating the mutants for years.

Age of Ultron: everything gets worse

The idea of the Time Variance Authority might be silly ... but they have a point. Changing the timeline too many times and creating divergent realities can tear apart a fragile chronal ecosystem. Case in point: Age of Ultron . After messing around in outer space, Ultron disguised himself as a Spaceknight and made his way back to Earth, where a group of villains accidentally activated him .

Ultron attacked Earth from the future, using the Vision as his conduit point. He overwhelmed the planet with Ultron Sentinels, killing most of the world's superheroes . The world's remaining heroes tracked down Nick Fury, who had Doom's time platform, in order to attack Ultron in the future. Meanwhile, Wolverine had another idea: kill Hank Pym, the creator of Ultron , before he could make him.

Logan and Sue Storm went back to the past and Wolverine killed Pym — but when they returned to the future, they found they'd created an alternate future where the world teetered on the edge of its own apocalypse thanks to Morgan Le Fey . Wolverine went back again, to prevent himself from killing Pym , and gave him the idea of creating a backdoor virus in Ultron. It worked, and Ultron was destroyed — but it also broke the timeline , bringing characters like Angela and Miles Morales to the main Marvel Universe.

Doctor Strange has always been a time traveler

When Doctor Strange became Sorcerer Supreme, he took a number of jaunts down time travel lane. The first came when he and Baron Mordo were chasing the 40th sorcerer, Sise-Neg, through time . At each stop, Strange saw Sise-Neg do something important, like destroying the Biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah or banishing the monstrous Shuma-Gorath to another dimension (at Strange's behest). Strange himself saved Sir Lancelot, ensuring his survival in Camelot. When Sise-Neg reached the dawn of time, he realized that his role was to make things happen exactly as they had, and Strange got to watch the universe's birth .

Later, Strange and Clea visited Sir Francis Bacon in 1618 and Benjamin Franklin in 1776. While Strange was off hunting a sorcerer named Stygyro, ol' wily Ben seduced Clea — although in the next issue, a new writer revealed that Stygyro was pretending to be Ben Franklin .

Years later, Mordo and Strange renewed their hostilities when he brought Strange to 1943 . Teaming with Nick Fury, Strange foiled a ceremony to bring Dormammu to Earth with a love spell, sending Mordo adrift in time .

Vance Astro: man out of time

What's the easiest but most tedious way to travel to the future? Cryogenically freezing your body, of course. This is what Major Vance Astro did, as this astronaut went on a thousand-year journey to a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri in cold storage. In a cruel trick, faster-than-light travel had already been invented centuries before his arrival, so people were waiting for him when he arrived. But it wasn't all bad: Vance was now a man out of time, but he found that latent mutant telekinetic powers had emerged during his voyage.

Good thing too, because he learned that the alien Badoon had conquered Earth. Teaming with the last survivors of Earth's colonies, he joined the Guardians of the Galaxy. Because there always seemed to be a duplicate of Doc Doom's time platform laying around, the Earth resistance brought Captain America and the Thing to the future by accident. Cap inspired a rebellion and the Guardians joined in, with Vance taking special pleasure in meeting Cap.

Later, the Guardians traveled to the 20th century to fight the cosmic menace of Korvac. Vance didn't dare travel to Earth, for fear of meeting his younger self and causing some sort of time anomaly, but he couldn't resist trying to talk his teenage self out of becoming an astronaut and accidentally unleashed young Vance's powers. This created a divergent reality where young Vance grew up to be Justice, while older Vance returned happily to the 30th century.

The Black Knights: men out of time

If you don't have a time machine handy, magic can move your soul through time in order to take over another body. Case in point: the various incarnations of the Black Knight. The original, Sir Percy of Scandia, pretended to be a cowardly dandy to disguise his secret identity as the Black Knight, one of King Arthur's most loyal men. Sir Percy found his spirit thrust forward in time a few times. That included possessing his heroic descendant Dane Whitman's body and meeting the super-hero team Excalibur, as well as being forced into another body by his enemy Morgan Le Fey, which landed him in an insane asylum .

Dane Whitman's career as the new Black Knight was cut short when the Enchantress turned him to stone and magically transported his soul back in time to the Crusades , where he inhabited the body of his 12th century ancestor, Eobar Garrington, and decided to stay there. He eventually became the guardian of the mystic realm of Avalon, and brought the Avengers back to the 12th century to help fight the Fomor, an evil group of gods. Dane was seemingly killed sealing off the Fomor forever, but it was only his host body that was destroyed. His time-traveling spirit returned to the 20th century and his original body was restored. It wasn't his last time travel adventure, as he went back to the 12th century and met the powerful psionic mutant who would become Exodus.

The brief, sad life of Rita DeMara

Rita DeMara was a small time-crook who stole one of Yellowjacket's spare costumes and tangled with the Wasp . She later reluctantly joined the Masters of Evil and assisted during their siege of Avengers Mansion . Her heart was never really into hardcore villainy, however, as she betrayed the Fixer when he was going to attack the Black Knight, whom she found dreamy . She even briefly joined a makeshift version of the Avengers to fight the High Evolutionary. When she wound up joining Doctor Octopus' new incarnation of the Masters of Evil and stormed Avengers Mansion yet again, the group found the Guardians of the Galaxy there instead of the Avengers, along with a bunch of doppelgängers. The Masters and Guardians teamed up to defeat them and the Masters (including Rita) turned on Doc Ock.

Rita secretly followed the Guardians back to the 30th century and eventually gained their trust , becoming a full member and earning her Guardians star. While she became close with her teammates, she eventually started missing her own timeline and returned. However, she accidentally stopped in an alternate future where the Avengers were being hunted down and saw Hawkeye and the Black Widow murdered. Taking with her a mysterious teenage girl (an alternate version of Luna, the daughter of Quicksilver and Crystal), she returned to the present to warn the Avengers. Her reward was a mind-controlled Iron Man killing her.

Time travel in the MCU

The rules of time travel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are mostly the same as in the comics: if you go back in time, you are guaranteed to create a new, divergent timeline. As the Avengers discussed in "Avengers: Endgame," it doesn't work like "Back to the Future," where if you change something in the past, it can affect the future. However, you can go to past timelines, steal stuff, interact with people, and even have them follow you.

Like in the comics, there are two ways of traveling through time: science-based and magic-based. Indeed, Doctor Strange's dominion over the Eye of Agamotto, which contains the Time Stone, allows him to see multiple futures, create time loops, or even rewind time and erase it. Basically, it allows the user to break many laws regarding science-based time travel. In "Doctor Strange," Doc undid a great deal of damage in Hong Kong by reversing time and then putting Dormammu in a time loop. His examination of future timelines led to him nudging everyone toward the one timeline where Thanos was defeated.

Hank Pym may have discovered the Quantum Zone, reached when one shrinks beyond a subatomic level, but it was Scott Lang who told the Avengers that time works very differently there. Five hours spent in the zone turned out to be five years in his world. Gifted with this knowledge, Tony Stark unlocked the key to developing a sort of quantum GPS system, making targeted time travel possible — and allowing the Avengers to undo Thanos' "snap."

Time is fragile!

So what is the worst idea in the world? It's hard to say for sure, but letting an unrepentant Loki loose in the timestream with the powerful Tesseract, the Space Stone, might belong on the list. In "Avengers: Endgame," this is exactly what Tony Stark did by accident when a door flew open and he dropped the case containing the Tesseract. Loki, who had just been defeated in the Battle of New York, grabbed the powerful artifact and exited stage left.

As the Ancient One pointed out, time is fragile. Time traveling willy-nilly results in all sorts of potentially horrible new timelines. What's worse, the thread of time can really get tangled when there are too many new timelines introduced into the multiverse. Thanks to the Avengers significantly altering the 2012 timeline when they allowed Loki to escape, things got ugly.

Enter the Time Variance Authority, run by powerful beings called the Time Keepers. Just like in the comics, they have a painstaking, bureaucratic level of control over the multiverse. In the "Loki" series, a TVA manager named Mobius M. Mobius enlists this particular version of Loki to help fix the broken timelines. Of course, employing one of the most chaotic beings in the universe to restore law and order to the timeline is a totally bonkers idea, but sometimes the risk is worth the reward.

How The Flash's Time Travel Works

This is why Superman works alone.

The Time Travel in The Flash

How Time Travel Happens
Can History Be Changed?
The Consequences
What's Next?

Warning: spoilers for The Flash are in play. If you haven’t caught this DCEU inevitable intersection just yet, you’ve been warned.

Oh my, oh my, where do I begin? Welcome back once again to the CinemaBlend Time Travel Labs! Yes, it’s been a while since we've discussed the topic. However, thanks to the Sacred Timeline being broken not too long after we went over how The Tomorrow War’s time travel works , things kind of got weird. One could even say, they’ve gone multiversal; which means it’s time to talk about how The Flash’s time travel works!

Yes friends, mark down one more Mike variant to keep track of, thanks to another rip in the timeline being created by Ezra Miller ’s DC hero. If only I had the power to go back and correct my own timeline, where previous cliffhanger endings didn’t exist. Maybe that opportunity will be presented in the future, but for now fuel up on those all important calories, and let’s dash into how The Flash travels through time.

After traveling back in time during the ending of Zack Snyder’s Justice League , Barry Allen (Ezra Miller), also known as The Flash , wants to change his personal history for the better. Hijinks, and a lot of continuity breaking, ensues.

Who's Time Traveling?

Barry Allen, Barry Allen, and… Barry Allen? Three different variants of the Scarlet Speedster are in play here: one from Present Day, one from an alternate 2013, and one that’s endured an undefined amount of time traveling back through the Speed Force.

From When To When?

Get your notepads ready, as The Flash has quite a bit of time travel to pin down. From 2023, Barry Allen zooms back to 2004, to prevent his mom’s death. That action causes us to zoom forward to a newly rewritten 2013, and eventually back to a new variation of 2023. I’ll explain that later.

The Purpose Of Their Trip

Barry Allen just wants to save his mother Nora (Maribel Verdú), which opens a can of worms throughout time. As a result, two different Barrys try and correct the timeline through several different trips, as the new spin on Man of Steel’s Kryptonian invasion leads to the deaths of Batman ( Michael Keaton ) and Supergirl (Sasha Calle).

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How Time Travel Happens In The Flash

If you’re a fan of The Flash in pretty much any medium, you know that the Speed Force is key to Barry Allen’s ability to travel through time. Provided that poor Barry has fueled up on enough calories to keep his status as a snack hole in check, traveling faster than the speed of light, or even time, isn’t a problem.

By running fast enough to outpace the passage of time, Barry creates what’s called a “Chronoball.” Think of it this way: if the timeline was controlled by a mouse, The Flash is the trackball that scrolls to the point in time you want to change. The visual representation of this process actually works in that very way, as time is like a film that can be rewound through this process.

Once Barry Allen sees the moment he wants to change, he stops and allows himself to sink into that moment through a portal. Strangely enough, this takes into account something that Back to the Future's time travel gets right, as the exact physical location of the moment in question is also taken into account when our hero travels. Of course, there are still plenty of ways he can be thrown off course, especially if a mysterious presence that couldn’t possibly be an aged and bitter version of himself tries to stop him.

Can History Be Changed As A Result Of Time Travel In The Flash?

Michael Keaton, Ezra Miller and Sasha Calle in The Flash

Oh, boy howdy, it can… but to a point! Thanks to one can of tomatoes, Nora Allen lives! Which sets off a cascade effect in The Flash’s story that wildly alters the story we thought we knew. In his world, Kal-El never made it to Earth, and his cousin Kara Zor-El/Supergirl is imprisoned by the Russian government.

So this universe has no Superman to call its own, and General Zod ( Michael Shannon ) and his Man of Steel invasion force are about to succeed. And to cap it all off, Eric Stoltz actually finished filming Back to the Future , rather than being cut from all but one frame of Robert Zemeckis’ influential sci-fi classic .

However, history is only so flexible, as the DCEU has its own version of “Fixed Points in Time,” dubbed “Inevitable Intersections.” Events titled as such cannot be changed, and in the new “Nora Lives!” timeline, Supergirl and Batman are destined to die by General Zod’s hand.

What Are The Consequences Of Time Travel In The Flash?

The DCEU was always going to be changed after The Flash’s events. But this story actually invokes a rather interesting concept that throws everything out of whack: “Retrocausality.” As Bruce Wayne explained with some dry spaghetti, if you alter one point on a timeline, the entire thing snaps.

This causes a ripple effect that basically changes the past and the future, thanks to that action. Once Barry saved Nora from her mysterious, and still unsolved, murder, it threw events off on either side of that inflection point. Which, once again, creates the ultimate no-win scenario for Barry Allen, in which he has to choose the life of his mother or the fate of planet Earth.

Also, if you’re a fan of how Star Trek: First Contact’s time travel works , you’ll notice that Barry Allen is protected by a temporal wake. As his mind doesn’t adjust to the new timeline, he’s as clueless as we are when Bruce Wayne all of a sudden looks like George Clooney in The Flash’s surprise ending .

In DC’s world, if you’re a time traveler, you apparently can never go home, as apparently each change breaks that spaghetti anew. So maybe in the sequel, we can see Val Kilmer 's Batman reappear to give Barry Allen a thumb up for whatever his next adventure may be.

More Time Travel To Come

Ezra Miller and Sasha Calle in The Flash

You know something? It actually felt good to be back at it in the CinemaBlend Time Travel Labs. Which means that, conditions permitting, I think this might be the start of keeping this little corner of the universe back on the rails.

Though since we’re in a multiverse, there’s still those versions of myself that are waiting to teach everyone how time works in Timecop and Loki Season 1. Come to think of it, I think I need to take a long, hard look at cataloging my multiversal selves and the assignments they’re awaiting.

But not before diving into another upcoming time travel assignment! Next time, prepare to dust off your fedoras and crack out your bullwhips, as we’ll hopefully be looking at how Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’s time travel works. In the meantime, I’m about to try and answer yet another outstanding question about this strange new world: can we blame the awkward Max rebranding on Barry Allen?

Mike Reyes is the Senior Movie Contributor at CinemaBlend, though that title’s more of a guideline really. Passionate about entertainment since grade school, the movies have always held a special place in his life, which explains his current occupation. Mike graduated from Drew University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science, but swore off of running for public office a long time ago. Mike's expertise ranges from James Bond to everything Alita, making for a brilliantly eclectic resume. He fights for the user.

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25 Superheroes Who Can Teleport You With Ease

Wouldn’t it be spectacular to move from place to place with just a thought?

There is a wide range of powered beings, and the varieties of powers that these people have are countless. Of these different powers, there are some that almost everyone seems to want. Out of that, Teleportation might just be one of the most coveted superpowers out there. The ability to move in and out of a place without breaking down doors or cracking some security code. This power would be the absolute best for stealth missions, and in the wrong hands, it could create havoc.

In the right hands, however, this power could be an advantage. The following heroes have been using their powers to help people and transport their team wherever needed. Imagine the applications for covert operations or if you want to save people in immediate danger.

What is Teleportation?

The most common definition for Teleportation is the ability to instantly be transported to any place. This could adhere to close distances or far-off ones. Ideally, someone who can immediately disappear and reappear in a different location is said to have the power to teleport. Some different teleportation types are Quantum field manipulation, dimensional rift opening, magic portals, and many more.

Now that we know the definition, aren’t you wondering how many of our heroes can move from place to place instantaneously?

Let’s take a look at some of your favorite teleporting superheroes!

First Appearance: December 1939 Teleportation Ease: 65%

We kick this list off with Shazam, the Wizard’s Champion and technically the youngest JLA member. Upon getting his powers, Billy Batson was taken to the Rock of Eternity, where the Wizard was waiting for him. The Rock of Eternity is in a pocket realm outside Earth.

Shazam achieves teleportation by entering the Rock of Eternity and exiting at a different place altogether. This follows that Shazam doesn’t inherently have the power to teleport, but since he is linked to the Rock of Eternity, he can use the facility at any given time. With his super speed, this teleportation would seem almost instantaneous.

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#24 Green Lantern

First Appearance: March 1968 Teleportation Ease: 70%

A Green Lantern is all about willpower. With the right amount of willpower, it is said that they can do anything under the sun. The main power set of a Green Lantern includes energy projection, energy constructs, flight, and even hyperspeed.

Something that is not stable, though, is teleportation. It is almost unheard of when it comes to Green Lanterns. However, there is one who proves that it is possible – Guy Gardner. He could teleport another injured person by concentrating and willing it to happen.

Green Lanterns can also perform time travel to a certain extent, and, if used correctly, that can be turned into teleportation. Another Lantern, Porter, is shown to open portals that he can use to teleport through massive distances. However, this all demands tremendous amounts of willpower.

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#23 Etrigan The Demon

First Appearance: September 1972 Teleportation Ease: 78%

Etrigan is a demon prince who is bonded with Jason Blood. They have walked the Earth for centuries and have fought together on multiple occasions. The funniest and probably the best thing about Etrigan is that he can only speak in rhymes. An artistic demon, this one.

The Demon Etrigan has mastered magic and can recite spells to do almost anything. He can use these spells to dissipate and materialize anywhere else he wants. For the most part, he has been a good guy, but you can never be too sure with this demon.

Etrigan’s teleportation powers are limited to himself, and he cannot teleport others.

#22 Heimdall

First Appearance: October 1962 Teleportation Ease: 80%

Heimdall is the gatekeeper of Asgard. Given that the magic floating city has been destroyed several times, his job has been shaky. Heimdall has much potential to be a great hero but spends most of his time as a supporting character.

As the keeper of the Bifrost, Heimdall can use it to transport anyone and anything anywhere in the world. Thor used this as a standard mode of transport to quickly go from Asgard to Earth.

Heimdall needs to be there to operate the Bifrost and isn’t able to teleport himself. However, he plays a crucial role in aiding Thor in many missions and getting him out of trouble if he ever needs help.

#21 Constantine

First Appearance: June 1985 Teleportation Ease: 84%

The Hellblazer is one of the coolest characters in the DC universe. John Constantine is your run-of-the-mill demon hunter that has seen far too much and gone through worse. The British demon slayer doesn’t care about anything or anyone, but he is almost one of the best magic users among our heroes.

He has helped fight off major mystical threats to the planet and is the Justice League Dark Team leader. John channels his magic through spells, and he can create teleportation portals as well.

However, this does require a spell which could take a little time. Constantine is experienced in battle and knows how to time it perfectly.

Love this man.

#20 Zatanna

First Appearance: November 1964 Teleportation Ease: 88%

Zatanna is the daughter of Zatarra, the Golden Age Hero. Born with the ability to use magic, She quickly learned from her father and became one of the most powerful wielders of magic on the planet. Zatanna works her magic through spells, which is done by reciting something she wants, except the letters and words are all backward. She uses this backward magic to do anything she can think up, and teleportation is made possible through this.

All Zatanna has to say is “tropelet,” and then think of the place she needs to go, and a portal will open. She and anyone else she wants can easily walk through this portal. The only drawback is that a spell has to be conjured for her to teleport.

#19 Miss America

First Appearance: September 2011 Teleportation Ease: 90%

America Chavez was made familiar to most during the events of the new Multiverse of Madness movie. Miss America is a frequent member of the Young Avengers and has been a part of almost all Superhero teams.

She received her powers through a medical experiment trying to rid America and her sister of a genetic disease from the XX Chromosome. However, the owner of the island where these experiments were taking place had other ideas. This eventually left America fending for herself and understanding that she had the power to open star portals to anywhere in space-time and even the multiverse.

She can travel across dimensions by simply opening these portals, but the power takes a lot of concentration, and she even loses control from time to time.

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#18 Brother Voodoo

First Appearance: September 1973 Teleportation Ease: 90%

Brother Voodoo is among the lesser-known characters on the list. However, his powers are just as formidable as the rest. Jericho was born in a Haitian village and was separated from his brother at a very young age. He arrived again to aid his cursed and dying brother by learning the ways of magic from Papa Jambo. He quickly became proficient and became an incredible sorcerer.

Brother Voodoo eventually joined the Avengers and even became the headmaster of the Strange Academy at one point. Heck, he became the Sorcerer Supreme after Dr. Strange. Among his many abilities, his magic allows him to teleport from one place to another at the speed of thought. He achieves this in the same way that Dr. Strange does.

First Appearance: January 1986 Teleportation Ease: 90%

Cable is known as a badass time-traveling mutant, and you have to admit that the man is just plain cool. He was born to Scott Summers and Jean Grey, and if it wasn’t for the Techno-virus that Apocalypse infects him with, he might just have been the most powerful mutant of all.

Most of the abilities Cable possesses result from technological advances. He cannot use his power to the full extent as he must constantly concentrate on stopping the virus from reaching his heart. However, he is still formidable and stands outside the traditional mutant. He uses a device made by Forge that lets him teleport whenever he wants, and occasionally that even means back and forth in time.

Cable isn’t your average mutant. The man is not to be trifled with.

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First Appearance: March 1982 Teleportation Ease: 90%

Cloak is one-half of Cloak and Dagger. Cloak and Dagger are two teens who received their powers when they were forcibly given a new concoction of heroin. This changed Cloak’s appearance and engulfed him in darkness and a hunger for human life that could only be sated by Dagger’s glowing presence.

The primary ability that the cloak possesses is teleportation. The access to the Darkforce Dimension opens him up to a variety of powers, mainly teleportation. Cloak achieves teleportation by entering the Darkforce Dimension, traveling a short distance, and coming back out, having covered a large distance. This all happens in just a few milliseconds, making it seem instantaneous.

Together, these two are almost unstoppable.

#15 Lockjaw

First Appearance: December 1965 Teleportation Ease: 91%

Lockjaw is the loyal pet of the Inhuman Royal Family. He received his powers when the Surgeon Supreme brought his mother to Attilan and impregnated her with her mutated genes. This experiment aimed to see if the Terragen mist’s powers would also work on canines. Hence, Lockjaw was born.

The main power of Lockjaw is the ability to teleport across space-time and even dimensions. This happens through psionic discharge paired with an energy release from his antenna. Lockjaw can teleport up to 12 dozen people at a time as long as they’re standing within 14 feet of him or touching him.

Lockjaw has traveled to many places and been a part of almost every hero team in the Marvel Universe.

Who wouldn’t want a trusty dog that can teleport?

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#14 Gateway

First Appearance: May 1988 Teleportation Ease: 91%

Gateway is a mutant and an honorary member of the X-Men Team. There is not much known about this unofficial X-men, except that he is an Australian Aboriginal mutant with the power to teleport objects or people from one place to another. He was held captive for many years by the Reavers, who used his powers to pillage.

Gateway agrees with his spiritual force that he can open dimensional warp tunnels but spin his bullroarer over his head. He calls these teleportation gateways and often uses his powers to help the X-men. However, the native Aboriginal never felt at ease in the city and eventually returned to his life as a hermit.

#13 Captain Atom

First Appearance: March 1960 Teleportation Ease: 91%

Captain Atom has a very similar origin story to that of Dr. Manhattan. He was part of a science experiment that ended up in an accident and was turned into an energy being. Captain Atom is tied to the Quantum field, allowing him to teleport from one place to another.

Quantum teleportation works so that the atomic structure of something is broken down to its most basic components, slips into the quantum field, and reassembles in an entirely different location.

Quantum manipulation is the primary ability that Captain Atom possesses. However, his powers are known to be unstable, so he must use his powers cautiously.

#12 Franklin Richards

First Appearance: November 1968 Teleportation Ease: 92%

The son of Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman is expected to be compelling. However, Franklin Richards was born with abilities that dwarf his parents by a hundred times. We’ll not attempt to list powers here because it would take forever. The kid can create and manipulate pocket universes with just his thoughts and imagination. How insane is that?

Part of this unending list is the ability to teleport. Franklin has demonstrated the power to teleport anywhere in the known multiverse. Like many of his latent abilities that he is yet to get a handle on, teleportation is something he needs to work on as well.

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#11 Sideways

First Appearance: Feb 2018 Teleportation Ease: 92%

Considered to be a rip-off of Spiderman’s design, Sideways is a DC hero who gained his powers during the events of the Dark Multiverse. Derrick James was in Gotham when an earthquake sent him through a rift and made him end up in the Dark Multiverse.

He discovered that he could open a rift with his hands and teleport back to Gotham. Sideways is a metahuman who can open dimensional rifts, go through them, and appears wherever he needs.

Unlike some other heroes on this list, Sideways’s powers are not instantaneous. It requires focus and the use of his hands to open these rifts, which can be a bit of a disadvantage in battle.

#10 Spectre

First Appearance: February 1940 Teleportation Ease: 92%

The Spirit of Vengeance is one of the most powerful beings in the DC universe. He is the divine Hand of God and was put on Earth to exact God’s vengeance on anyone who deserves it.

Spectre has a power set that we do not know the limits of and, for the most part, only uses it when he has to. Even though he is so powerful, he does not interfere unless necessary. His divine powers make him omniscient and allow him to teleport and appear anywhere with just a thought.

No less than a God, Spectre’s teleportation powers seem to have no limits, but for some reason, it is not a power that he uses too often.

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First Appearance: May 1975 Teleportation Ease: 94%

Are you familiar with Colossus? The giant, shiny mutant that looks like a metal statue? Yeah, that one. Turns out he has a little sister, and she might just be cooler than he.

Magik was born with powers different from her brother, and these were based on magic. Like all people born with an affinity to mystic arts, she too battles her inner demons but is a hero at heart.

Her teleportation powers are almost as good as the other toppers on the list. She can teleport anyone or anything across space and time, and there appears to be no limit to the distance that can be covered. However, Magik needs to use something called Stepping disks to teleport. These disks are tied to limbo because of her demonic possession and therefore appear without her even summoning it.

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First Appearance: September 1986 Teleportation Ease: 95%

Wiccan is one of the two sons of Wanda Maximoff. He is said to have powers that rival even his mother. Wiccan was born with magic-based powers that are very similar to Wanda Maximoff and have close ties to chaos magic. However, Wiccan seems more in control of his powers than his mother, who is prone to mental instability.

Wiccan has a massive arsenal of powers, and among them is teleportation. He can use spells to transport himself or anyone touching across large distances in an instant. In addition, he also possesses the ability to summon anyone or any object he wants to his location in an instant.

How cool is that?

#7 Dr. Manhattan

First Appearance: September 1986 Teleportation Ease: 96%

Dr. Manhattan became pure energy after he was exposed to an accident when studying the quantum field. This gave him powers that do not seem to have any limit. His powers continue to grow and expand to the point where he can create universes.

Among his many powers are reality manipulation, time manipulation, and so on. The ability to teleport is at the very bottom of what seems like an endless list. It would be funny if an omniscient being could not do it. He can disappear and reappear so fast that it may seem like he is in two places at once.

However, Dr. Manhattan very seldom uses this power as he does have the power to be in two areas at once by creating more versions of himself.

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First Appearance: October 1980 Teleportation Ease: 96%

Victor Stone was a typical teenage athlete who got turned into a walking computer during an accident at his father’s lab. An explosion caused half of his body to disintegrate, and he was on the brink of death when his father decided to merge him with a mother box.

His mind is a computer and is said to be more powerful than any other computer in the universe.

A staple power of mother boxes is that they can open boom tubes or portals at will. These portals can take you wherever you want to go in an instant. Cyborg acquires this very power as the mother box is merged with him.

Now, he can teleport to wherever he wants.

#5 Nightcrawler

First Appearance: May 1975 Teleportation Ease: 97%

The blue-skinned mutant is a core member of the X-Men and is considered one of their machine’s most vital members.

Nightcrawler was born with the power of teleportation. He could simply think it, and poof, he is there. He can even teleport anyone who is touching him. However, there is a limit to the number of people that he can teleport at a time. Another drawback with his teleportation is that he needs to see where it is going. Nightcrawler’s powers work so that he enters another dimension and then pops back to a different location on Earth. This happens all in a matter of milliseconds.

Nightcrawler’s powers have been instrumental in many of the X-men’s missions.

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#4 Scarlet Witch

First Appearance: March 1964 Teleportation Ease: 97%

Wanda Maximoff has had different origins over the years but staying true to the original, she is the daughter of Magneto. She is a mutant that has access to chaos magic. The Scarlet Witch has showcased the powers of reality warping, mind manipulation, and even Telekinesis.

Just like Dr. Strange, Wanda is one of the most powerful wielders of magic on Earth and was even considered for the post of Sorcerer Supreme.

She uses her chaos magic to teleport similarly to Dr. Strange. The witch masters the art of astral projection and can move instantaneously. However, her powers are sometimes very unpredictable, affecting her magic application. Wanda cannot perform teleportation as quickly as Dr. Strange, but it’s pretty close.

#3 Dr. Fate

First Appearance: May 1940 Teleportation Ease: 98%

The DC universe does not have a Sorcerer Supreme, but if it did, Dr. Fate would have a firm grasp on that chair. Dr. Fate is an agent of the Lords of Order, and one of them, Nabu, essentially lives inside the helmet he wears. With the guidance and power of Nabu, Dr. Fate has access to anything he can imagine, and his magic’s limits are unknown.

Dr. Fate can use his magic to open portals that can transport himself and others to a place of incredible distance in an instant. When his powers are usually employed, it comes out in the shape of his fate symbol, and the same happens here too. A door shaped like his symbol appears, and you can just walk right in.

With the amount of power he possesses, it’s a shame that Dr. Fate is mostly just used as a supporting character.

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First Appearance: October 1980 Teleportation Ease: 98%

The Daughter of Trigon, Raven, is a core member of the Teen Titans and a resident user of dark arts. However, unlike her father, who would use his powers for world domination, Raven uses them to protect her world. Raven’s mystical arts allow her to do almost anything she can think of.

One of the critical powers that her team has relied on her for is the ability to create portals. This has helped the Titans and other heroes she has worked with to carry out their missions to perfection.

Raven can use this power whenever she wants, but it takes a small toll on her afterward. We see Raven use her teleportation powers during the Justice League Dark War events as well.

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#1 Dr. Strange

First Appearance: July 1963 Teleportation Ease: 99%

From slaying interdimensional demons to bending time, there aren’t many things that the Sorcerer Supreme cannot do. Said to be one of the most powerful beings in the universe, Dr. Strange’s magic gives him access to a wide array of powers. Among them is teleportation.

In the MCU, we see Dr. Strange do this with a lot of ease using his sling rings. With them, he simply waves his hands and opens portals that he and anyone with him can pass through.

However, the comic book version of the character does not even need this fancy ornament. Strange’s magic and astral projection allow him to show up at any location, whenever he wants. He is even said to move at the speed of thought.

Honorable Mentions

Lila Cheney
Captain Comet

With this, we come to the end of our teleporters list. Which is the first place you would go if you discovered you could teleport?

Which Marvel Hero Can Teleport?

Dr. Strange can teleport with ease. He can use his sling rings or even cast spells that would allow him to teleport.

Who in DC Can Teleport?

Cyborg can teleport. His connection with the mother box inside him allows him to open and close boom tubes as and when he pleases.

Which Villain Can Teleport?

Mephisto can teleport with ease. He can slip in and out of dimensions, which can be seen as teleportation.

Is Deadpool Able to Teleport?

Deadpool does not possess the ability to teleport. However, in the X-Men Origins movie, he is shown to have this ability stolen from John Wrath.

Is There a Spiderman That Can Teleport?

No, Spiderman cannot teleport. However, a character called Sideways who looks like Spiderman can teleport.

Does Doctor Strange Teleport?

Yes, Doctor Strange uses his magic to teleport.

Can Moon Knight Teleport?

No, Moon knight possesses much power, but teleportation is not part of his power set.

Can Sentry Teleport?

No, Sentry can move at incredible speeds but cannot teleport from place to place.

Who Is the Most Powerful Teleporter in Marvel?

Nightcrawler is the most powerful teleporter as he does not require other spells or technology to do so.

Visit us at averagebeing.com for more fun articles and writeups!

Later, fellow comic nerds.

Jeremiah de Rozario, A content Writer on averagebeing.com

X (Twitter)

Jeremiah de Rozario is a professional songwriter and a comic nut. He has been an avid songwriter for over three years and has vast experience writing comics and pop culture. The people close to Jeremiah say he lives in a bit of fantasy land, as his career choices point us all in the same direction. Comics have taken Jeremiah on adventures since he was a child and continue to be where he draws most of his inspiration and life lessons. We know, weird! From stories of heartbreak, love, evil, and perseverance, comic books have it all. These fantasy stories have taken new and exciting turns on both paper and the big screen, and the little boy with his Incredible Hulk comic could not be happier. Jeremiah started his journey as a writer with Averagebeing and has written numerous detailed articles that deep dive into comic theories, TV shows, and the current happenings of this exciting world. If he isn't writing new songs, he is reading as many comic books as he can find. If you need a breakdown of your favorite comic hero or supervillain, Jeremiah is here to spill the tea.

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First Marvel Heroes To Travel Through Time

Certain classic Marvel Comics heroes and villains first discovered time travel and broke through the walls of reality before anyone else.

Time travel can be messy. It can also be the core of a very entertaining story. In Marvel Comics , time travel has very definite rules. When traveling back in time, one goes to an alternate past that diverges the instant the time traveler arrives. When traveling into the future, the traveler goes to one of many possible futures.

RELATED: First DC Heroes To Travel Through Time

Editor Mark Gruenwald put the rules into writing. He established that paradoxes couldn't exist because of the nature of Marvel's laws of time travel. The first heroes to travel through time may not have realized this until much later. Even in the present, less intelligent characters don't completely understand how time travel works.

10 Blonde Phantom Was Kidnapped To The 30th Century

Blonde phantom #21 (1949) by al gabriele & harry sahle.

In Blonde Phantom #21 , Louise Grant, the Blonde Phantom, was at a "future fair" exhibit by an eccentric millionaire, Mr. Kall. Mr. Kall was from the future and used the fair to kidnap many people from the past and take them to the 30th century. There, the future people put the kidnapped people from 1949 in a zoo for an exhibit on primitive humans.

The Blonde Phantom escaped and confronted the leader of the 30th-century world. She overpowered him with hypnosis and her stronger will. She forced him to free the kidnapped people from 1949 and send them home. She also took him back as her prisoner.

9 Captain America Chased A Robot Through Time

Captain america #73 (1949) by ken bald.

It's a commonly-known retcon that the Captain America in stories published after WWII is not the original. That means that this particular Captain America is a separate hero from Steve Rogers. He does hold the notoriety of being the first Captain America to travel through time, drawn by Golden Age artist Ken Bald.

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Cap and his friend Alan Tremont chase an evil doctor named Wolf Turber who's abducted Alan's sister. They end up chasing Turber through time. Turber is looking to conquer another time and rule it with Alan's sister as his queen. Captain America overpowers Turber in the far-distant future, revealing him as a 31st-century robot.

8 Mister Fantastic, Human Torch, And The Thing Created The Legend Of Blackbeard

Fantastic four #5 (1962) by stan lee, jack kirby, joe sinnott & stan goldberg.

The first time-travel story of the Silver Age introduces the most used method of time travel in Marvel Comics. Doctor Doom's time machine is the invention that marks him as one of the leading intellects in the Marvel Universe.

Doom Captured the Invisible Girl and used her safety to force the rest of the Fantastic Four to go back and retrieve Blackbeard's treasure chest. During the trip, the Thing's disguise created the legend of Blackbeard before Doctor Doom retrieved the trio. Reed Richards outsmarted Doom , replacing the jewels inside the chest with chains.

7 Thor Chased Zaarko, The Tomorrow Man Using The Power Of Mjolnir

Journey into mystery #86 (1962) by stan lee, larry lieber, jack kirby & dick ayers.

Zaarko traveled from the year 2262 to steal an experimental cobalt bomb. He flees from Thor , who manages to only chip off a small piece of metal from Zaarko's time machine. Thor summons an audience with his father Odin for the power to chase Zaarko through time. Odin instructs him to use the power of his hammer, Mjolnir to trace the piece of metal back to its source.

RELATED: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Thor’s Hammer In The Comics

Thor arrives in 2262, where Zaarko rules like a tyrant with the only weapon on Earth. Thor uses a decoy to occupy Zaarko, so the Thunder God can get an advantage in the battle. Zaarko flees, threatening to drop the cobalt bomb. Thor crashes the ship, reclaiming the bomb.

6 Iron Man Went Back To Meet Cleopatra

Tales of suspense #44 (1963) by stan lee, robert bernstein & don heck.

Stan Lee, Robert Bernstein, and Don Heck tempted Tony Stark with history's greatest beauty in Tales of Suspense #44. As Tony Stark went back in time as the Mad Pharaoh's prisoner with his mystical chariot charm. He escaped soon after arriving and donned his Iron Man armor and drove off Roman soldiers. He then protected Cleopatra's barge from a Roman Galley.

Cleopatra tasked Iron Man with defeating the returned Mad Pharaoh. In doing so, the villain fell on a sword. Iron Man turned down Cleopatra's offer to stay in the past with her. Using the Mad Pharaoh's charm, he returned in 1963.

5 Invisible Woman Journeyed With the Fantastic Four To Face Pharaoh Rama-Tut

Fantastic four #19 (1963) by stan lee, jack kirby, dick ayers & stan goldberg.

Chasing a cure for Alicia Master's blindness, the Fantastic Four returned to Doom's castle to use his time machine. They journeyed back to Ancient Egypt and found it ruled by the time-traveling Pharaoh Rama-Tut. He came from the year 3000 in a time machine built from an ancestor's plans.

Rama-Tut enslaved the heroes, taking a romantic interest in Invisible Woman. When the team broke free, Rama-Tut fled back to his time machine. Unfortunately, Doom's time machine couldn't transport the radioactive cure for blindness.

4 Doctor Strange Journeyed To Save Cleopatra From A Wizard

Strange tales #124 (1964) by stan lee, steve ditko & george bell.

Doctor Strange found a hooded woman roaming the streets, mesmerized and unresponsive. Investigating, he determined that she was from some point in the past. With the aid of his mentor , the Ancient One, Doctor Strange traveled in his astral form back to Ancient Egypt.

There Strange discovered an evil sorcerer intent on overthrowing Cleopatra. Doctor Strange defeated this sorcerer, but almost became stranded in time. Rescued by the Eye of Agamotto, Strange returned Cleopatra to her own time. Making no reference to Iron Man's encounter with Cleopatra, Lee and Ditko brought this tale to readers.

3 Immortus Took Captain America And Rick Jones To 18th-Century London

Avengers #10 (1964) by stan lee, don heck, dick ayers & stan goldberg.

Immortus struck a deal with Baron Zemo to capture an Avenger. Immortus lured their young ally, Rick Jones, into a trap, imprisoning him in the Tower of London in 1760. Captain America and the Avengers arrived to force Immortus to free Rick. Immortus abducted Captain America to the 18th-century Tower of London.

RELATED: Every Partner Captain America Worked With In The Comics (In Chronological Order)

Captain America overpowered Immortus's medieval soldiers and freed Rick Jones. He returned to the Avengers to help defeat Zemo, Enchantress, and the Executioner. The Enchantress cast a spell, reversing time by a few days, so they could avoid this humiliation.

2 Kang Took Hawkeye, Quicksilver, And Scarlet Witch To The Future

Avengers #23 (1965) by stan lee, don heck, john romita & stan goldberg.

The Avengers were without Captain America who'd left the team feeling that he had failed as their leader. It was at this moment, depicted, that Kang abducted the remaining members. He took Hawkeye, Quicksilver , and the Scarlet Witch to the future where he was conquering the kingdom of Princess Ravonna. Kang hoped his defeat of the Avengers would persuade Ravonna to marry him.

Captain America taunted Kang to join his teammates. Together, they battled Kang despite overpowering odds. Their defiance gave Ravonna the resolve to resist Kang. In the end, Kang's own commanders betrayed him. Kang allied himself with the Avengers to save Ravonna's life.

1 Hulk Was Transported To A Post-Apocalyptic Future

Tales to astonish #75 (1966) by stan lee, jack kirby & mickey demeo.

In the Silver Age , the U.S. Military hounded the Hulk . After getting a weapon from the Watcher, he ran afoul of the army building Banner's latest weapon, a massive "T-Gun." No one realized that it was a means of time travel.

With his intellect heightened by the Watcher's weapon, Hulk headed to the White House, guided by Rick Jones's thoughts. The T-Gun sent the more intelligent Hulk into the future. There he found a ruined Earth where futuristic soldiers attacked him, some led by Thor's foe, the Executioner. An extended story arc with Hulk battling against both armies began.

NEXT: First DC Villains To Travel Through Time

10 Superhero Movies That Broke The Formula

Classic superhero movies operate by a formula, but groundbreaking films like Watchmen have forever changed the genre.
Chronicle and Hancock offer unique, realistic takes on superhero figures, pushing the boundaries of traditional superhero stories.
The Avengers revolutionized cinema with its team-up concept, while The Dark Knight set high standards for superhero movies as prestige cinema.

One common criticism of superhero movies is that they're far too formulaic, but time and time again, the genre has re-invented itself with movies that break the mold. There is something of a classic playbook many superhero movies operate by, especially in the modern day, dominated by the MCU's winning formula . But a great many of the most famous comic book movies have dared to try something different, forever altering the comic book adaptation landscape by allowing others to follow their lead.

Once upon a time, superhero movies were thought to be too niche, languishing in obscurity as specialty films with a limited target audience. Now, that couldn't be further from the case, with many Marvel and DC films regularly breaking records for the highest box office of all time . Beyond allowing the genre to enter new territory in terms of popularity, formula-breaking superhero films have increased the scope of tone, themes, and representation possible within a big-budget release.

The Incredibles

A four-quadrant movie with a focus on family.

By the time of The Incredibles , superhero movies were just barely beginning to prove that they were worth investigating for adult audiences, with successes like 1989's Batman and edgy trials like Ang Lee's Hulk pushing the boundaries of what was considered family friendly. In the animated space, superheroes were still somewhat squarely written off as kid's stuff, with only the quality of the DCAMU just barely breaking ground as a cartoon franchise worth taking seriously. The Incredibles proved that superheroes could find genuine success in all audiences at once, appealing to bored kids and entertainment-seeking adults alike.

The focus on family The Incredibles has is the crux of its success. In a way, the film manages to be the best Fantastic Four movie ever made, despite not existing in the Marvel universe, having a loving take on a superhero family that clearly cares for one another while still feeling realistic. Surprisingly dark while undeniably safe and still able to tell an amazing story, The Incredibles moved the medium of animation, particularly in 3D, forwards as a respectable medium through which to tell noteworthy superhero stories.

Faithfully adapted a beloved book

There aren't many superhero movies that can squarely place their inspiration on a single comic volume, but Watchmen undertook the herculean task of adapting famous graphic novelist Alan Moore's most critically-praised material. Certainly not meant for kids, Watchmen is by far the best movie directed by Zack Snyder , forever moving forward the possibilities of what a comic book adaptation could accomplish. After the film came and went, the possibilities of what a superhero movie could accomplish were forever broadened.

Not only was the film able to faithfully adapt the legendary novel, but it actually made some improvements to the plot. Rather than a random giant squid monster, the alien threat Ozymandias pits humanity against is Doctor Manhattan himself, better tying in the characters to the narrative at large. True to Moore's vision, the film explores the dangerous practice of idol worship superheroes imply, and presents a dark alternate history that explores the legacy of heroes on real-world politics, governments, and self-consciousness.

One of the most realistic takes on a superman figure yet

The trope of an evil Superman has been done to death, with figures like Homelander and Omni-Man taking over pop culture's perception of a Kryptonian powerset applied to the real world. But Hancock offered a glimpse at a more morally-ambiguous superhuman, with one of the most realistic interpretations of what such a being's life might look like in the real world. Not based off of a pre-existing comic, Hancock brought the world of superheroes down to earth in a way that hadn't been done before or since.

Rather than being a stalwart idealistic hero or a slowly-corrupted martyr, Will Smith's Hancock is painfully human. He's prone to getting angry, losing his cool, and often acts irrationally even as he tries his best to do the right thing. Beyond the presentation of the titular character, Hancock continued to break the mold by developing into a curious mystery and love story between two powered beings with intertwined fates. Even if it was ultimately detrimental to the film's narrative, Hancock 's willingness to take risks opened up new avenues for future films to explore.

Took telekinesis to the extreme

Like Hancock , Chronicle explored a far more grounded take on what having superpowers would realistically do to a human psyche, although it takes things in a far darker direction. Following the times of a trio of teen Seattlites that suddenly gain powerful telekinesis, the film's varied cast offers what such power would look like through the lens of a variety of life experiences. Beyond its thematic direction, Chronicle also broke new boundaries for the superhero genre by being the first found footage movie to exist within it.

Toeing the line of horror, Chronicle 's unhinged protagonist is utterly reprehensible, but disturbingly relatable. Misinterpreting his newfound power as a sort of divine justification for succumbing to his darkest ambitions, Andrew serves as a dangerous example in allowing oneself to believe that might is right. Between the thought-provoking tragedy of its narrative to its utterly unique presentation, Chronicle is a uniquely genre-bending venn diagram between superhero, horror, and coming-of-age movies.

Imagines Clark Kent as a disturbed child

If Chronicle flirted with the idea of being a horror movie, Brightburn fully embraced the concept of a superpowered horror villain with open arms. Unlike most evil Supermen, Brightburn imagined a Clark Kent that snaps upon getting his powers as a child, exponentially increasing the creep factor by juxtaposing the innocence of a kid with the terrifying power of a Kryptonian. Even if not an official DC story, the film wears its comic book inspiration on its bloody sleeve.

Utterly subverting the superhero genre, Brightburn pulls no punches on the terror of a set of parents forced to reconcile with the fact that their beloved adopted child isn't who he seems. Granted, Brightburn doesn't fully live up to the promise of its premise, hitting credits faster than a speeding bullet without having thoroughly mined the concept of an evil alien boy. Regardless, it's still an undoubtedly original film that has yet to be copied in concept or execution.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Made huge strides in the mcu.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is considered one of the MCU's best movies , and for good reason. Unlike most of the more successful films in the franchise, the second Captain America installment doesn't rely heavily on cameos from other heroes of world-ending threats. Instead, it blends genres by cross-breeding with an espionage thriller, setting a more grounded tone than the vast majority of MCU fare.

The personal stakes of Captain America: The Winter Soldier makes its narrative so effective, with Steve Rogers' best friend and the organization he swore loyalty to both turning against him, turning Captain America into a fugitive in the eyes of the very government he swore to represent. It goes without saying that the film is also a master class in action choreography, boasting some of the best blocking and editing of any Marvel Studios film. From the more realistic tone to the dire straits of the plot and the first-class fight scenes, Captain America: The Winter Soldier honed Marvel's tired formula to a razor-sharp edge.

The Avengers

The first major cross-movie team up.

One of the most successful films ever made, The Avengers made history in more ways than one. Not only was it the first successful distillation in different characters from various standalone films into a single cohesive universe, but it was the first major team-up movie since 2000's X-Men . Audiences hadn't seen anything like The Avengers by the time of its release, and it forever altered the trajectory of cinema as a whole.

Not only have other superhero franchises been desperate to sow the same harvest the payoff of The Avengers represented, but the cinematic universe bug went on to bite non-comic book IPs as well. It certainly helps that the film is genuinely well-made, with a compelling villain, incredible performances, and genuine chemistry between its main cast. The Avengers not only changed the landscape of superhero movies, but Hollywood filmmaking in general.

The Dark Knight

Unequivocally proved superhero movies could be prestige cinema.

As recently as 2008, there remained those who doubted that superhero movies could ever be more than merchandising exercises preying on the nostalgia of comic book fans. Even the first entry of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, Batman Begins , wasn't compelling enough an argument to completely quell the qualms of qualified critics. But the second installment of the franchise forever proved that superhero stories were worth taking seriously as genuine prestige cinema.

For the performance of Heath Ledger's mysterious Joker alone, the film is worthy of setting new heights as to what critical achievements superhero movies could aspire to. Showing up big at the Academy Awards the year of its release, The Dark Knight was an unprecedented academic success for a superhero movie, proving that the medium could feature stories with real weight behind them. If it wasn't for the ground broken by Nolan's masterpiece, it's safe to say stories like Todd Phillip's Joker or Netflix's Daredevil would've never been told.

Deserves credit for blending comic books with hall-of-fame movies

Even if Todd Phillip's Joker might owe its existence to Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight , there's no denying that the film left its own mark on the superhero genre. More like a fascinating character study than a traditional superhero movie, Joker didn't go out of its way to follow any of the pre-existing qualifications for a superhero movie, like drawn-out fight sequences or secret identities. Instead, the film wore its cinematic influences on its sleeve.

Clearly taking inspiration from the works of Martin Scorsese, most specifically, The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver , Joker almost seemed to be on a one-movie mission to disprove the famed director's disparaging remarks about the superhero genre. Rather than idolizing its protagonist, Joker paints him in a sympathetic, yet reprehensible light, showing the low depths humanity is willing to sink to in the name of callousness. Thought-provoking and nothing like any other comic book movie, Joker entered uncharted territory for a superhero story in more ways than one.

Hit two notable firsts for superhero movies

Though the Blade films would quickly go on to run out of steam, there's no denying that the first entry in the series was a game-changing for the superhero genre. Admittedly, Blade isn't the most heady or complex film, presenting a straightforward action tale not narratively distinct from hordes of other supehero movies. But the film adapting Marvel's signature vampire killer was a smash hit despite being a pioneer in two key aspects.

Long before Black Panther , Blade dared to present the first African American superhero based on a Marvel property, with Wesley Snipe's iconic performance as the character merging fiction with reality. Secondly, the film was the first major superhero movie to be rated-R, taking full advantage of the horrific status quo of Blade's vampire-infested world, showing Blade drawing gallons of blood with his katana long before Deadpool . For these two historic firsts, Blade deserves more credit as a superhero movie that truly broke the mold.

10 Superhero Movies That Broke The Formula

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Which superhero has the silliest time travel explanation.

Time travel is inherently a silly science-fiction premise, but which superhero has the most outlandish and ridiculous time travel method?

Time travel is perhaps the ultimate and most devastating superpower. Any hero (0r villain) who can travel through time at will has the potential to drastically alter the course of historical events; they can give crucial information to their earlier selves, bring others to the future to see their accomplishments, or prevent their enemies from ever being born. Superheroes usually refrain from such dark uses of their powers, but during the Silver Age their methods of traveling through time were inherently nonsensical. The first repeat offender when it came to time travel among superheroes was none other than Superman - and his method for time travel set the standard for tossing science to the winds.

When he first debuted in Action Comics #1 in 1938, Superman possessed only a small fraction of the powers he has now. He was fast, but couldn't break the sound barrier; strong, but couldn't lift more than a large vehicle; durable, but "...nothing short of a bursting shell can penetrate his skin!" - and though he could leap quite high, he couldn't actually fly . This all changed during the Silver Age of the late 50s and early 60s, when Superman could lift planets, survive a nuclear explosion, and fly faster than the speed of light - which is where the writers at DC Comics got the idea for Superman to break the "time barrier."

Related: Superman Secretly Wants To Murder The Joker

The Silver Age Superman believed that, by flying as fast as possible, he could "...burst them time-barrier!" Sometimes this was explained as Superman flying faster than the speed of light (although scientifically, the theory of relativity would only allow forward travel into the future, not into the past). This was usually represented by Superman flying past numbers, signifying important dates and eras throughout history. Realizing that this power made all of Superman's conflicts meaningless, the writers slowly phased it out of continuity...but the same thing couldn't be said for the Flash.

The Flash has multiple methods of time travel: like Superman, he can run faster than light which allows him to travel both forwards and backwards in time. Unlike Superman, his connection to the quasi-mythical Speed Force allows him to avoid typical annoyances like physics, cause and effect, and all other scientific roadblocks as he speeds along. Later on, he would acquire the cosmic treadmill, a device that utilized Flash's running abilities to travel back in time with more accuracy.

But unlike Superman, the Flash constantly faced consequences of traveling back in time, especially during 2011's Flashpoint event . In an attempt to travel back in time to save his mother, Barry Allen woke up to a world on the brink of war between Amazons and Atlanteens, and Bruce Wayne was killed instead of his father. Eventually the Flash set right what was wrong through the same silly method of time travel as Superman - running incredibly fast. But while Superman's time travel abilities could be used as often as he wanted, the Flash's had significant consequences, which ultimately made for a better story.

Next: Flash is Officially Stronger Than Superman in One Important Way

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Time Travel Superheroes: 15 Heroes Who Can Travel Through Time
Time Travel Superheroes: 15 Heroes Who Can Travel Through Time
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The 15 Best Superheroes Who Can Time Travel, Ranked

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The 15 Best Superheroes Who Can Time Travel, Ranked
Over the years, DC Comics introduced other characters to fill the role. The most prominent of these are Guy Gardner, John Stewart, Kyle Rayner, and Simon Baz. The Green Lanterns are among DC Comics' more successful properties. They have been adapted to television, video games and two motion pictures.
Time Travel Superheroes: 15 Heroes Who Can Travel Through Time
Yes, Green Lanterns can time travel. Anything is possible as long as there is enough willpower. Hal Jordan once made a jet construct that could travel fast enough to enter the speed force, which means that he can probably travel through time. Jeremiah de Rozario is a professional songwriter and a comic nut.
Top 10 Most Powerful Superheroes Who Can Travel Through Time
9 Doctor Strange. The Doctor doesn't really need the Time Stone as shown in the MCU in order to time travel. The Master of the Mystic Arts is capable of manipulating time without it, in a variety of ways through his formidable magical capabilities. Strange is able to stop time, slow it down or he can just travel to the past or the future.
10 Best time-travelling superheroes of all time
9. Iron Lad. (Image credit: Marvel Comics) The Young Avengers' first leader sought to balance the scales for things that he'd do later in life - time travel can get weird, when it comes to cause ...
Top 10 Superheroes That Can Time Travel (Marvel and DC)
Of them, the most notable i s Rip Hunter's Time Sphere, a Legion Flight Ring, Brainiac 5's Force Field Belt, and a Power Suit. Shady tactics aside, Booster Gold is one of the most famous superheroes that can time travel. 1. Cable. Speaking of famous superheroes that can time travel….Of the many mutants who fall under the X-Men umbrella ...
10 Strongest Time Traveling Superheroes, According To Ranker
However, as the son of Reed Richards and Sue Storm, as well as also being mutant, Franklin is unstoppably powerful. Time travel is lower on the scope of his reality-bending abilities. RELATED: 10 Superpowers Heroes Hate To Use, According To Ranker. Franklin also travels through time a little differently than other heroes.
The Top 10 Time-Travelers in the Marvel Universe
OLD MAN LOGAN. More than most super-powered groups, the X-Men are no strangers to time-travelers joining their ranks. One of the more recent additions came from Earth-21923, a world in which the villains worked together and manipulated Wolverine into killing the X-Men before dividing up the whole nation amongst themselves. Afterwards, Logan attempted to live a normal, non-violent life, but ...
15 Most Powerful Time Traveling Superheroes (Marvel & DC)
Flash. While everyone knows of Flash's incredible speed, this speed is so extreme that he can even travel through time, much like how Superman can do the same by flying fast enough . Speed Force gives Flash the ability to alter timelines, as seen in such storylines as Flashpoint. He can go further and also enter hypertime, which is the stream ...
10 Marvel Movie Characters Who Time Traveled (& How)
The MCU, Fox's X-Men Universe, and Marvel Television's Agents of SHIELD have all utilized time travel in a variety of storylines, with many different characters having traveled through time. Loki, Wolverine, Deadpool, Ms. Marvel, and Kang the Conqueror are just a few of the iconic Marvel characters who have used time travel to complete various ...
10 Best Time Travelers In Marvel Comics
Most of their early adventures took place there, but by the end of the 1970s, the initial roster of Vance Astro, Martinex T'Naga, Captain Charlie-27, and Yondu Udonta had traveled back in time to the 20th century. The Guardians of the Galaxy were pioneers in time travel in Marvel Comics, opening up the doors to both the far future and to the ...
10 Strongest Time Traveling Superheroes, According To Ranker
There are plenty of other time-faring heroes in Marvel, DC, and even outside comics. These characters demonstrate a little more finesse with causality in comparison to Scott Lang's lackadaisical time jumping. Fans on Ranker have voted to determine which time-traveling superheroes reign supreme as the most powerful.
Marvel Comics: 10 Marvel Comics Characters Who Traveled Through Time
1 Miguel O'Hara. One of the most powerful heroes of the Marvel Universe to be directly tied to time travel is the future hero of the universe, Miguel O'Hara, the Spider-Man of 2099. This hero was a scientist who gave himself powers in an attempt to stop his corrupt boss from blackmailing him with false evidence.
Time-Keepers In Comics Members, Enemies, Powers
The fourth Time-Keeper, the Oracle of Siwa, operates independently of the other three. Siwa can see flashes into the timestream but cannot time-travel like the others. Forever Foes. The sole divergent counterparts of the Time-Keepers are the Time-Twisters, with one each existing in one of the two final divergent realities at the very end of time.
Have Powers, Will (Time) Travel: Superheroes and the Urge to Change the
In Dark Tomorrow, the time travel is in part a simple necessity: Araña and Spider-Man 2099 exist a century apart, so the only way that they — Marvel's two Latine Spider-people — could go adventuring together is through time travel shenanigans. But Segura believes it serves another purpose: to compare two very different worlds with ...
DC Comics: 10 DC Comics Heroes Who Traveled Through Time
4 Jay Garrick. The very first speedster and time-traveling hero of DC Comics has to be the first man to don the mantle of the Flash, Jay Garrick. The Flash of the JSA, Jay Garrick had superhuman speed and reflexes that allowed him to move at impossible speeds, leading him to become the Flash. Not only was Jay an active member of the JSA, but ...
The Untold Truth Of Time Travel In Marvel
It essentially opened the Pandora's box of convoluted mutant time travel drama. In the then-future of 2013, an adult Kitty Pryde has her mind projected back into her 13-year-old self. She tells ...
10 superheroes who can manipulate time with ease
Superheroes who hone the skill of manipulating time. 1. Doctor Strange. Known for his profound understanding of the mystic arts, Doctor Stephen Strange, also known as Doctor Strange, is a well ...
10 Superheroes Who Can Manipulate Time, Ranked Least To Most Cool
1 Franklin Richards. Franklin Richards is an omega-level mutant, meaning his superpowers are similar, or even greater, to some celestial beings. He can not only travel through time, but he can also foresee some events through his dreams. The most incredible superpower he has is the ability to convert his thoughts into reality.
How The Flash's Time Travel Works
The Time Travel in The Flash. (Image credit: Warner Bros.) After traveling back in time during the ending of Zack Snyder's Justice League, Barry Allen (Ezra Miller), also known as The Flash ...
10 Times Marvel Characters Have Time-Traveled In The Comics
For a while now, the leading Avengers: Endgame fan theories have revolved around time travel. Doctor Strange has mastered the Time Stone, actors have been spotted in their 2012 costumes on set, and the second trailer showed us the Avengers wearing new white suits that are expected to help them travel through time.. RELATED: Time Travel In The MCU & Avengers: Endgame Explained
25 Superheroes Who Can Teleport You With Ease
Green Lanterns can also perform time travel to a certain extent, and, if used correctly, that can be turned into teleportation. Another Lantern, Porter, is shown to open portals that he can use to teleport through massive distances. However, this all demands tremendous amounts of willpower. Green Superheroes: 25 Heroes Who Are Or Wear Green ...
First Marvel Heroes To Travel Through Time
It can also be the core of a very entertaining story. In Marvel Comics, time travel has very definite rules. When traveling back in time, one goes to an alternate past that diverges the instant the time traveler arrives. When traveling into the future, the traveler goes to one of many possible futures. RELATED: First DC Heroes To Travel Through ...
10 Superhero Movies That Broke The Formula
By the time of The Incredibles, superhero movies were just barely beginning to prove that they were worth investigating for adult audiences, with successes like 1989's Batman and edgy trials like ...
Which Superhero Has The Silliest Time Travel Explanation
Time travel is perhaps the ultimate and most devastating superpower. Any hero (0r villain) who can travel through time at will has the potential to drastically alter the course of historical events; they can give crucial information to their earlier selves, bring others to the future to see their accomplishments, or prevent their enemies from ever being born.

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