- Being a superhero isn't
just about having powers. A true superhero has to
be able to spot solutions that no one else can, and
know things others don't. So bringing together the
allure from popular superhero universes, as well as real-world science, can you answer these riddles only true superheroes could solve? Child's Play. Congratulations. You've just discovered
you have superpowers. But, first day on the beat as a hero, you spot a car speeding
towards a bunch of children playing on the road. The driver hasn't noticed
them, as he's on his phone. The car is traveling at 60 miles per hour, meaning, including reaction distance, its stopping distance is
approximately 240 feet. But that's only if the
driver spots the kids. The children are 500 feet from the car, and you're 500 feet from the children. Without stopping, the car will
reach them in 5.6 seconds, so you have to do something fast. which of your newfound
powers is the best choice? A, super strength, B, heat vision, or C, telepathy? Let's break this down. You could use your heat
vision to blow up the wheels or engine of the car,
stopping the driving force, and eventually bringing the car to a halt. But if you do that, you might
injure or kill the driver, which isn't hero behavior. Using super strength might work
to physically stop the car, but you need to get to it first. Super strength doesn't
necessarily mean super speed, nor does it include super reflexes. So even if you reach the car in time, without accidentally
jumping high into the air, as you figured your super
strength mobility out, you'd risk running straight into it. Irregular human reflexes could lead to you hurting yourself, and the driver. The best choice is telepathy. Telepathically commanding the
driver to break immediately would leave enough time
for the driver to slam on the brakes, stopping in time, to prevent hitting the children. Whew. Unforeseeable Dilemma. After successfully saving your first citizens as a superhero, you decide to check out
what other powers you have. You're going through them
one by one when suddenly, you're blinded. Which power is most
likely to be the cause? A, radar sense, B, weather manipulation, or C, invisibility? Firstly, radar sense, also
known as echolocation, gives you the power to emit sound waves, which bounce off objects,
allowing you to build a picture of your surroundings without looking. It'd be handy if you were blind, but it wouldn't cause blindness. Weather manipulation, or
atmokinesis, lets you control and alter the forces of the atmosphere. Despite this powers most
famous user, X-Men Storm, having all white clouded eyes
at times, she isn't blind. It's just an indicator that
she's using her powers. The power most likely to make you blind is actually invisibility. Humans see because light
rays enter our eyes. But according to many
works of science fiction, invisibility bends light
around the atoms of the user. If light is being bent around
or passing through you, none can enter your
eyes, leaving you blind. You could copy DC's Kim Suskind,
who developed technology allowing her to see while she's invisible. Right out of the box
here, invisibility powers will probably need some
fine tuning to be useful. And, you know, not make you blind. Ear We Go. While hanging out with your pals, Superman, Spiderman, and Aquaman, they offer to help you test
your new super hearing power. They all stand silently at
different positions in a room and ask you to locate all
three with your eyes closed. You shut your eyes,
concentrating, and can hear two separate heartbeats giving
two of their positions away. But where's the third? All three superheroes are alive, so who's heartbeat can't you hear? A, Superman, B, Spiderman, or C, Aquaman? Everyone in the room has a heartbeat, but the only one in the
room with the ability to completely stop their own heartbeat, and hence be totally silent, is Superman. It's a rarely seen, but important ability, and Superman is only
one of three heroes who, in decades of comics, has
ever exhibited the power. That rascal is a master of hide-and-seek, but not for a super genius like you. Superdollar. As a legit hero, you'll need
a suit and some gadgets, but these things are expensive. Better ask a wealthy hero for a donation. With your powers of persuasion, you'll be able to wrangle
some cash out of them. To make the perfect investor, who's the richest superhero of all time? A, Batman, B, Black Panther, or C, Iron Man? According to Forbes,
Batman, a.k.a. Bruce Wayne, has a personal wealth of 9.2 billion. When you put this in
comparison to Iron Man, a.k.a. Tony Stark, who
is estimated to have a personal wealth of 12.4 billion, Batman seems less impressive. But neither of these guys
come close to being as rich as Black Panther, or T'Challa. As the King of Wakanda, T'Challa sits on the world's main reserve of vibranium, the stuff that makes up
Captain America's shield. Vibranium is worth $10,000 per gram. And with an estimated
10,000 tons in his vaults, that puts the wealth of Wakanda's King somewhere around a
hundred trillion dollars. I'm sure he can spare a
few pennies for a cape. International Imposters. At a party celebrating
your fancy new suit, Captain America introduces you
to other superhero captains from around the world, but
there's an imposter here. Do you know who it is? A, Captain Britain, B, Cap'n Oz, or C, Capitaine Francais? As hilarious as it might sound, Cap'n Oz is a very real Marvel
hero hailing from Australia, with similar powers to the American Cap. Captain Britain is similarly
real and possesses the power of flight on top of Captain
America light powers. But Capitaine Francais,
is completely made up. Despite sharing the red,
white, and blue colors, the character doesn't exist in any legitimate superhero universes. Get him outta here. Finding the Phony. You're just beginning to relax and enjoy mingling with the other heroes, when your impostor sense
starts tangling again. Can you sniff out which
one of these superheroes isn't a real member of
the DC or Marvel universes and needs to be thrown out? A, Dog Welder, B, Commander Cheese, or C, The Phone Ranger? Surprisingly, The Phone
Ranger is a real Marvel hero, with the astounding ability to repair and create phone technology. Wow, right? Dog Welder, meanwhile, is
an utterly bizarre superhero whose power is welding
dogs to people's faces. Yeah, he's an odd one,
but a very real DC hero. Which leaves us with the
non-existent, Commander Cheese. Better lock him up before his army of sentient cheddar takes over the world. Winging It. With the imposters flushed out, you board a plane for a mission
with your personal pilot, but evil henchman blow up
the plane at 37,000 feet. You've got the superpowers
needed to save yourself as you plummet, but which
one of your powers on its own will be the least helpful right now? A, super speed, B, telekinesis, or C, precognition? In avoiding becoming a super pancake, telekinesis sure would be handy. You could use your mind
to pull a nearby plane in your direction to save
you or retrieve a parachute from the wreckage of your own plane. Even better, you could
levitate your way out of danger using telekinetic flight,
like X-Men's Jean Gray. As for super speed, we can
look towards The Flash. The speedster was able to
save himself from a free fall in a similar situation
by spinning his arms towards the ground so fast,
they created whirlwinds and pockets of air that
decreased his free fall momentum. Precognition might've come
in handy before taking off on your flight, as having a premonition that your plane was going to be blown up, could have stopped you boarding it. But right now, you're
already in free fall. The only thing you're likely
to predict is your own death. Knowing the outcome won't
make much difference to your ability to get help in
your specific circumstances. So don't rely on precognition to save your rapidly plummeting heinie, especially when the other
two options are available. Velocity Schma-Schmosity. You've managed to land successfully, but your pilot is still free
falling at 120 miles per hour. You can fly to her rescue and save her, but what's the safest way to catch someone who's falling so fast? A, fly up from below, B, flight down from above, or C, fly in from the side? Initially, it seems like it'd be easy to fly up from below and catch the pilot. But despite what old Superman
movies might have you believe, this would be a very bad move. The enormous difference between
the pilots downward momentum and your upwards or sideways
momentum as you swoop up or across the save her, would likely turn her
insides to pilot puree. The only way is to fly down
from above, reaching her height, then matching her speed on the way down, means that you can gently grab hold, then decelerate without
ripping her to shreds. Bus Load of Problems. After saving the pilot,
you land in a nearby city where disaster has struck. A highway bridge has collapsed
and there's a bus full of children teetering on the crumbling edge. You need to act fast, but your recent exertion has only left you with enough energy to use a single power. Which superpower do you
use from street level to save everyone with as
few casualties as possible? A, super strength, B, energy blast, or C, cryokinesis? First of all, an energy blast
aimed at a bus full of kids on a fragile collapsing bridge, I think not. And even if you used your
blast to get yourself up there, the restriction to a single
power means you'd have no super strength to
pull the bus to safety. Option A, super strength,
seems like a good plan. Surely you could just jump up to the bus and gently drag it back
onto the bridge, right? Not quite. When it comes to force, every action has an equal
and opposite reaction. The downward force on the
ground as you leap up high could crack the earth beneath your feet, potentially damaging the bridge's lower structures around you. If that doesn't further damage the bridge, you're landing almost certainly will, and the kids could fall before
you're able to reach them. So that leaves us with cryokinesis, the ability to generate and control ice. Like Frozone from The Incredibles, you could create a huge pillar of ice from the road to the front of the bus, molding the ice into the
necessary shape and density. A high density pillar could
have enough strength to tip the vehicle back onto the
bridge or hold it into place, allowing the children to
escape out the emergency door. You could even make
them a little ice slide for the way down. Pretty cool. Sinko De Hero. After the heroic rescue, you're
overpowered and kidnapped by the henchmen of Capitaine Francais, who is on a vendetta against superheroes since being exposed as an imposter. He traps you in a chair made of materials that strip you of all your superpowers. Through a thick glass
wall, you can see he's tied three unconscious people to
the floor of three other rooms. Each room is separated from the others by unbreakable soundproof walls, and every room as quickly
filling with water. Once the room fills up, they won't empty out for three hours. He gives you the choice
to save just one of them from the rising water. So paying close attention
to each person's appearance, who needs saving the most? A, this man, B, this woman, or C, this man? As you'll hopefully have
noticed by the items each person has, Capitaine
Francais hasn't caught civilians. He's caught superheroes in disguise. See that ambulant around the woman's neck? It's the Captain Marvel logo
because that's Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Captain Marvel herself. Wearing her symbol as a classy
necklace, Carol can breathe in the vacuum of space
without using a helmet, so a little time underwater
will be no big deal. As for that guy with a
sharpened hook for a hand, that's no pirate wannabe, it's Aquaman. In the 1994 comic book series, Aquaman man lost a hand
in a pool of piranas, which led to gaining
his iconic harpoon hand. His half Atlantean heritage
allows him to breathe under water, so he'll be fine too. That leaves Batman, or Bruce Wayne. His identity is pretty
obvious once you spot the batarang in his pocket. Batman has held his breath for
over six minutes in the past, but even if he could push it further, three hours is impossible for any human. Plus, unlike the other two,
to actively hold his breath, Bruce needs to be conscious. Without his bat suit, Bruce
Wayne is a little more than a filthy rich, regular Joe. It's rarely said, but in this case, it looks like Batman needs saving. Better get to it, hero. Did you prove to be the ultimate superhero by getting every answer right? Let me know how many you got right in the comment section down below. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)
