What's the best way to develop your own super powers? Click here to find out.

Look up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s ... you?

Why not? Who hasn’t dreamed about casting off the bonds of gravity and soaring through the air like Superman or sticking to the side of buildings like Spider-Man?

Unfortunately, physics has a way of ruining a good fantasy. After all, superheroes only exist in comic books and movies. People can't really fly, shoot laser beams or bench-press pickup trucks.

Or can they?

Traditionally, heroes develop their powers in unusual ways--radiation exposure, mutant genes, even deals with the devil. As a result, they can lift cars, control the weather or change their appearance. Is any of this even remotely plausible? Do any of the comic-book methods for gaining superpowers actually work?

Can a radioactive spider really give you superpowers? Click here to find out.

Superman was lucky enough to gain his powers as an accident of birth. Born Kal-El, the sole survivor of the destroyed planet Krypton, his alien anatomy is supercharged by the light of our yellow sun, giving him abilities as varied as flight, heat vision and bullet-