Last night as I was going to sleep, maybe because I’ve been watching Smallville, I started to wonder about the various ways people fly in comics.
Also, what are the lamest ways in which people fly?
If two or more heroes/villains use the exact same method to fly, I suppose there’s no need to list them. For instance, the Legion of Super Heroes all had flight rings, which I thought was lame.
Anyway, what have we got? Perhaps it’d help if we group them in general categories, for instance:
Winged flight:
Angel had wings. Seems reasonable.
The Wasp shrunk herself and grew wings, but different than Angel.
Submariner had little wings on his ankles which flapped really, really fast. Lame.
Cosmic powered flight:
Jean Grey had telekinesis, which really isn’t flying, but later her telekinesis was boosted by the Phoenix Force, which I believe is a cosmic power. However, cosmic power can provide flight various ways, right? For instance, we’ve got the heralds of Galactus:
Silver Surfer had his surfboard.
Gabriel walked on air.
Firelord apparently just hung onto his little stick thing.
Terrax would levitate and fly around on a chuck of earth.
Nova presumably created thrust via her cosmic enhanced flame power.
Starhawk I think is kind of a generalized “if you have cosmic power you can fly” although his style was to extrude some solar wings or something.
Captain Marvel flew via cosmic powered Nega-Bands.
Adam Warlock had generalized “cosmic flight,” or was it via his Soul Gem?
Control of elements/natural forces:
Storm flew on a gust of wind. Kinda lame.
Texas Twister I think his name was, could fly on a tornado he somehow created beneath himself.
Magneto levitated by manipulating Earth’s magnetic field. Did he ever perfect this technique into actually flying?
Wonder Woman was soooo skilled she could float on air.
The Vision became partially immaterial, shunting most of his weight and mass someplace and floated on air, so I’ll put him here, although how he managed to control where he flew I don’t know.
Graviton manipulated gravity.
Wasn’t there another incarnation of Captain Marvel who turned herself into light or something? Lame.
Firebird uses heat generated convection currents.
Telekinesis:
Superman flies via telekinesis of some sort, doesn’t he?
Magic:
Dr. Strange had his Cloak of Levitation.
Thor would throw his magic hammer and basically just hang on. Kinda lame, but it’s magic, what are you gonna do?
Dracula flew didn’t he? I presume magically. Or did he have to transform into a bat, in which case he should be under “wings.”
Captain Britain had a magic uniform.
**Technology: **(I won’t include things that are more or less flying vehicles)
Nighthawk had a jet-pack hidden under his wings.
Iron Man had boot jets.
Wonder Man had a jet-belt.
Mr. Miracle had little flight discs on his feet, which I always thought were cool.
Guardian used an exoskeleton that could tap the Earth’s electromagnetic field to both fly and cancel his movement relative to the Earth’s rotation, making him appear to teleport.
Generalized independent flight, difficult to categorize:
Rogue inherited Ms. Marvel’s flight powers, but I don’t really know how they worked. Ms. Marvel’s powers mimicked Captain Marvel’s, but he got his from those bands on his wrists, which were cosmic in nature, I think.
Banshee somehow used his sonic scream to fly. How did that work?
Yellowjacket used to fly didn’t he? But how?
Human Torch, like Nova used his flames to provide thrust I guess, but I don’t recall seeing any flame thrust when he was hovering. How’d he do that?
The Flash vibrated his legs really fast or something.
Green Lantern. Would that be a cosmic power?
Aurora. Independent flight? Whatever that means.
Darkstar flies by opening a dimensional portal with an attractive force that balances out Earth’s gravity.
Dawnstar had wings, but could fly FTL through space, so was that a cosmic power?
Captain Marvel, the original DC version (Shazam!) could fly couldn’t he? Did they say how?
Any major categories I’m missing?
