15 Most Powerful Time Traveling Superheroes (Marvel & DC)

Time Travel is one of the ultimate abilities, and when combined with reality-altering powers, makes a character almost unstoppable. Let’s have a look at 15 of the most powerful time-traveling superheroes from Marvel and DC to see how they stack up.

Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange’s ability to travel through time has changed slightly in his different appearances in the comics and films but initially used a Time Stone to do so. This enabled Doctor Strange to look at future timelines, picking the best one to exist in.

However once the Time Stone was destroyed, it is easy to assume that Doctor Strange and the Masters of the Mystic Arts lost the ability to time travel anymore.

Even without the Time Stone, recent films have introduced the concept of Sling Rings, two-finger mystical rings which can be used to create an Interdimensional Portal. 

Iron Lad

Sharing a suit of armor very similar to Iron Man’s, Iron Lad has time traveled from an alternate universe by using his suit to create temporal divergences.

The Neuro-Kinetic suit is 40th-century technology and responds to thoughts giving superhuman abilities such as superstrength, durability, video communication, time travel, offensive attack capabilities using concussive blasts, and flight.

Waverider

A time traveler who was merged with the time stream, Waverider can travel through time easily, while also being able to access the time stream and also monitor it.

He can also see others’ auras, and through physical touch can even predict their future.

Waverider can also fly at superspeed, approaching the speed of light while also having power over the quantum realm, being able to form quantum energy beams that can be directed at will.

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 of multiple timelines. This allows him to hop from one reality to another.

He can of course run at super speed, being able to dart in and save many from death while also escaping unharmed.

Deathlok

Michael Peterson, experimented upon by the use of the Centipede Device, Peterson has many powerful abilities.

This gives Michael Peterson superstrength, heightened durability and speed has come to possess various superhuman abilities. He has also been transformed into a cyborg, giving him many abilities like enhanced vision, stamina, intelligence, and regenerative healing.

Deathlok has the ability to find and guide characters through portals and has done so for other heroes like Captain America. Godwulf’s actions eventually caused Deathlok to turn on him, and Deathlok stole his time gauntlet, giving himself a time-traveling ability.

Superman

Superman’s time-traveling abilities were seen when Superman had a peak power arc, and there was an editorial decision to reduce these powers hence why Superman no longer has this ability.

However, when he did have it during the Silver Age of comics, Superman just flew at the maximum speed which is said to be faster than light, allowing him to affect his past and future realities, even being able to bring others with him.

On top of this, Superman has all the regular powers like super strength, flight, and almost total invulnerability among many other abilities.

Cable

Being sent to the future as an infant, Cable has time-traveling powers as seen by his ability to return back to the present as an adult.

His time in the future has allowed him access to a wide range of incredibly advanced technology, and he also is a mutant imbued with many powers including being one of the most powerful psychics. 

However, these cybernetics are a big benefit: they give Cable many powers due to the interfacing with machinery. Cable can hack computers and also has time-traveling capabilities with a teleporter, making him a very formidable character.

Cable has demonstrated the extent of his time traveling prowess to save the baby later named Hope from several X-Men villains by taking her into the future.

Timeslip

Also known as Rina Patel, Timeslip discovered she had a time-traveling ability when concentrating on what it would be like to join the New Warriors, subsequently finding herself immediately a member of the team in the future.

The ability to travel through time is not her only ability, as she can slow down time as well, showing her ability to manipulate reality.

This function leads to her downfall, as her attempts to prevent the harmful effects of the bomb set by Volx in order to strip all superhero and villain powers away, results in her losing her own powers.

Godspeed 

Another character benefiting from Speed Force, Godspeed is a supervillain and an antihero that can kill victims by circling them, which also enables him to steal the Speed Force from a fellow speedster.

He can create clones at a personal cost, while being able to go at an amazing 10 times the speed of light, giving him access to time travel.

Booster Gold

Hailing from the future, Booster Gold is a unique superhero who is not shy of showing off his skills as well as his knowledge of upcoming events that he has due to being from the future.

Rip Hunter has even let slip that it was Booster Gold who trained Rip, although the complicated machinations of time travel obscure exactly how this happened.

With the assistance of his robot AI Skeets, Booster Gold lived up to his name and stole many important artifacts from the Metropolis Space Museum, including Rip Hunter’s Time Sphere, a flight ring from the Legion of Super-Heroes, and Brainiac 5’s Force Field Belt.

He has super strength from a power suit, and the Force Field Belt gives him a type of physical and energy resistance, with an additional forcefield helping him survive underwater or in other hazardous environments.

His goggles can see in different wavelengths, and he can fly due to the flight ring that combines nicely with his time travel abilities.

Doctor Manhattan

After being trapped in a test chamber that disintegrates his body, Jonathan Osterman eventually reforms into Doctor Manhattan as a hairless, naked superhero with his signature blue skin.

Doctor Manhattan can teleport himself to far-off planets, being able to survive on Mars with no equipment needed.

Doctor Manhattan is invulnerable to harm and is very powerful, being able to reconstruct after being completely vaporized by other villains.

His complete control over atomic particles enables him to have super strength, never tire or need to eat, sleep or drink and can teleport not only himself but anyone else over massive distances.

His existence in multiple dimensions helps him see the past, present, and future all at once as he has mastered the fourth dimension. Doctor Manhattan can also phase through any solid objects, vaporize anything, and basically manipulate matter in any way he wants.

This extends to Doctor Manhattan being able to erase and recreate reality as he sees fit, creating entire timelines.

Green Lantern

The Green Lantern is a label that has applied to many characters, notably businessman Alan Scott and test pilot Hal Jordan. They get their powers from a Green Lantern Ring which is also known as a Power Ring.

These rings grant the wearer powers and abilities, scaling by the amount of willpower that the bearer has.

Time Travel is possible with the Power Ring, however, the further forward in time the Green Lantern wants to go requires even higher levels of concentration and willpower. 

The ring also grants so many other abilities almost unrivaled for any other object. The ring can grant energy protection, and force fields allows for an energy construct creation, imbues the wearer with superhuman strength, and phasing to allow someone to warp through a wall.

Further abilities include an environmental playback, invisibility and light refraction, the powerful emerald sight ability, energy twin and energy absorption, the power of flight, the creation and entering of wormholes, and spatial warps.

There are also additional powers of limited cellular regeneration, electromagnetic scanning, a galactic encyclopedic knowledge gain, a universal translator, material alteration, and various security protocols.

Franklin Richards 

The son of Reed and Sue Richards from the Fantastic Four, Franklin is one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel universe, being able to reconstruct reality even after the multiverse collapsed.

Described as having ‘god-like’ abilities, his powers flowed from the cosmic radiation that made his mother and father so powerful, but went further with Franklin. His powers were so vast, and made worse by Annihilus, that Reed was forced to put Franklin into a coma.

These powers have since defeated Ultron, resisted the symbiote, and also allowed him to see alternate futures in his dreams.

Abducted and taken into the future by Reed’s father Nathaniel, Franklin learned to control his psionic powers although he remained so powerful that he was able to create an alternate universe unconsciously to save the Fantastic Four and many of the Avengers.

Rip Hunter

Rip Hunter gets his time traveling prowess from the Time Sphere, which along with his membership of the Timemasters and later the Legends and Time Bureau puts him at the top of the pile with regards to proficiency with time travel.

Using his intellect to be a master engineer as well as an expert investigator, Rip Hunter shows his multifaceted genius through his mastery of martial arts where he has taken down many skilled opponents, although he is not all-powerful when up against very large enemies.

Lucas Bishop

A mutant born in a dystopic future that has shown he can travel back in time via an intertemporal portal.

His powers include being able to absorb the vast majority of types of energy, making him almost impervious to magic, sound, light, psionic energy, psychic beams, and also any environmental damage being aimed at him.

Bishop’s resistance to psionic, cosmic, and other types of common energy types out there makes him highly resistant to most enemies whose powers are based in these fields.

His possession of time travel devices further enhances his powers as one of the tops most powerful and flexible superheroes.