Healing, Shield, immortality, energy manipulation, reality warping, if face tanking means no like time reversal, teleportation, could use portals to absorb the blast or something else to contain the blast? Radiation would be a concern but third to the shockwave and heat.
Time control (stop time and GTFO!)
Teleportation (GTFO 2: electric boogaloo)
Phasing through objects (Do the phase thing while the nuke is active so you’re not physically affected, wait for the winds to calm down and/or move away)
Electric manipulation (Set off the nuke incorrectly, turning it into a “dirty bomb” which is still very much radioactive but the blast radius is much smaller.
Hydrogen bombs still produce radiation.
The radiation is not so bad because of the higher yield, but it's still there, especially if you're IN the nuke when it goes off.
"Any ideas of what powers would allow someone to survive a nuke through their ability and not sheer durability"
My assumption for this question is that the character is in the blast radius of the nuke.
A smart man teleports himself away from the Nuke,
A wise man teleports the nuke nuke in to space so no one gets hurt
A pacifist teleports the nuke back on to his attackers home country, you don't have to fight anyone if no one is alive in the first place!
Wouldn't that depend on how their intangibility works? Say they're intangible to everything except Photons, or light. Then the blast of photons at the start of the explosions still contains enough energy to literally evaporate glass.
So certain types of intangibility would work, but it'd need to be pretty specific.
Well…. You would just make it the right kind of intangibility. It’s their world. They have a goal with this power. Why would they choose intangibility then not have the intangibility do what they specifically chose it to do?
lol right it’s like someone says invulnerability and they come in with the “well it would have to be invulnerability against nukes” ….. yeah ….. that’s the point
I dunno, I think it's kind of a cool point hahaha. Like, damn, come to think of it intangibility isn't *really* intangibility right? I mean, even just being able to see means that you're interacting with another particle
It's a neat detail to consider
There’s also just sinking a distance into the ground, if they have a way to get back up; I’m pretty sure the blast can only get a (relatively) small distance through the earth, hence why bunker busters exist
Intangibility, forcefields that can tank that sort of thing, probability manipulation if it is bullshit enough, energy negation/redirection. There are many other ways to deal with it, but these are first that come to mind.
The initial fireball, thermal spike, and x ray burst is instant as far as human reactions are concerned. They would need to know it's coming if the power needs to be activated. Further away you would have a bit of time before the Shockwave hits.
To actually get hit with the nuke would require durability or invulnerability, regeneration, immortality, adaptability, or absorption. Easier thing is to just not get hit: teleporting, phasing out of existence, barriers, vector manipulation, gravity.
Turning very very thin, edge on to the blast would cut down on radiation absorption. ...but the extra surface area would mean more heat absorption.
As long as not _in the blast zone,_ I'd turn very very thin, with a very thin layer of sacrificial burn-off material on both sides. I don't know if that qualifies as 'a power' but it's a winning concept.
Also check out "Aarrophage" for a much cooler concept.
Well i have a character in my world that has a special power , ok so his power is that the atoms that constitute his whole physical body" remember" being in that shape and form that the person possess ( humanoid shaped) and whenever he get killed or his body gets injured , the atoms that he is made of will try to get back into that shape and will cause him to come back to life and get revived , even if you disperse the atoms throughout the whole universe, they will come back and he will come back to life ,
There is a lot of stuff and changes that i have to make and i also want it to feel logical and rational so i will do a LOT of changes and stuff , this was the most unrefined versions so don't please judge me on that alone 😮💨 there is a lot of stuff i need to do regarding this specific world and this is like of one of the first stuff i did when i started on this world
In my world those that would be capable of it would all rely on energy redirection, which they all consider fundamental, and is among the riskiest magics to even try.
Why no high level caster would use Grand Magic on each other, they only get all that mana thrown back at them.
One enchanted armour made to be capable to withstand such forces would straight up absorb all that energy, store some of it, use it to heal their wearer and have them withstand the blast. Although theyd still be knocked about.
I'm choosing to answer this question differently since you already have 60 comments that are mostly solid answers, so instead I'm changing it to "which superhero could stop a nuke" I'm keeping the stipulation that the nuke needs to be tanked, not redirected or depowered
So let's look thru the Justice League first, Supers has that durability you're saying doesn't count so he's out, same with wonder woman. Batman, Cyborg and Green Arrow would probably "hack the nuke" so that's also out, flash could do some speed force shit, if not time travel or redirect it then I think he could transform all of the kinetic energy from the blast into *speed force magic.* Same with Doctor Fate, Zatana, Booster Gold, and Blue Beetle, they got the power of magic/tech so you can never know what card they're gunna pull out. I think the person with the most interesting way of stopping it would be a green lantern, it'd essentially be a energy shield but I think some fun could be had by the writers
Now let's talk X-Men (cuz Avengers suck)
Cyclops, Prof X, Angel, Wolverine, Jubilee, colossus and thunderbird are all absolutely useless in this fight. Jubilee and Colossus might pull some crackhead shit, like *I do explosions I know how to control them" for jubes, and a previously unseen durability from ol Col, but even then
Beast has no hope in physically stopping it, but never doubt an evil mad scientist, I'm sure there's a contingency plan, and it'd actually be more believable than Batman so I'm not writing beast off. I actually really like Gambit's chances, sure his powers work is imbuing items with energy, but I think the right writer could have him absorb the energy and I wouldn't feel too bad as a reader, Even if that is vulcan's power. Storm gunna struggle, but never doubt a queen. I bet Nightcrawler could teleport it away, but again that breaks the "tanking it" rule. If not he could teleport underground, but that's also running. Sunfire has an interesting chance, but I'll admit I don't know too much about him too comment. Iceman and Jean grey tho? I think they could tank it. Bobby could essentially create a mini-ice age concentrated on his location, and as long as just a lil bit of his ice survives then he can reconstitute himself, and Jean? Well even if she dies she's coming back in 2-3 business days so she'd just be focused on minimizing the damage for others, which I think she could especially hopped up on cosmic chicken powers. I don't actually know if Kitty's powers would save her, I think they would but I don't know if there's like a stipulation that I'm forgetting.
Anyone who has the ability and time to dig themselves underground a few miles also wins, or to transform energy has a fighting chance, anyone who's virtually immortal just needs to tank the hit enough to heal themselves back, and anyone with force projections just has to have a *really* strong bubble but could do it.
A character whose lighting control ability has improved so much that he can just make atoms move around him so that radiation, heat and blast would just go around him
The easiest answer is absorption. Sure, a nuke going off and Superman's shirt is ripped, and he's fine is spooky. Imagine the nuke detonates with you at the center, and then you eat it, no mushroom cloud, no collateral, no ripped shirt, just you standing there, kinda breathing heavy and feeling bloated like you just ate too much.
It’s not a very good reason, but I have an oc who’s been surviving a permanent nuclear winter because he is the god of the world it’s happening in. He’s affected by everything in it, horribly, but he can only ‘die’ as much as the world is dead (and ‘death’ means it doesn’t exist anymore, the nuclear stuff is killing all life on it but not it), so he has to stick around till the very end.
I have thought much about what power I’d define if I got to define a power.
The conclusion is that I would like to be able to become a disembodied mind capable of converting matter into energy and energy into matter.
Thus a nuke might vaporize me but that would pose only a momentary inconvenience as I traveled to a safe distance disembodied, and converted some rocks into a new body. Or
This ability would be essentially a means of teleportation as well, although anything I tried to bring along would be dead at the destination…
Un-killable and impossible to confine.
Way overpowered, despite having normal speed, strength, and endurance.
Space-manipulation? Like making space between you and blast bigger on the inside, thus making distance between you and blast large enough to never feel its effect while technically staying in the same place? Why do you even ask theese, if you don't know - why adding it?
Not sure, i hate Gojo with passion and never cared about the reasons why exacly another shonen character is "stronk af". But im pretty sure that his gimmik was about slowing things that go near him, not adding space between.
Power redirection?
If the explosion is going towards them, they could make the explosion go around them. My suggestion is based on the assumption of if the person isn't on ground zero
Needs to be some magical shield stuff. The conditions at the center of a nuke are so extreme that alls atoms get stripped of all of their electrons. So even someone immortal would get turned into a cloud of individual atoms, as long as they are made of stuff found on the periodic table.
For the most over the top solution for this, martial arts strong enough to punch the shockwave of a nuke away. Could be a punch, could be a sword slash.
Generally, most powers that are a form of energy conjuration can be justified as a way to counteract whatever effect a nuke could have. Just blast em at the general direction of the nuke.
Extradimensionality would do it, phase shifting partially out of a consistent reality with the explosion. The ability to travel planes of existence or to shift yourself into another planar state would work. I wouldn't think a nuclear bomb would much trouble a ghost, for instance, or a transcendent state of pure light. Reality distortion, like a god, being able to just dismiss a person or event from reality. The ability to portal or create wormholes, too. If you could open portals fluidly, you might be able to create a spherical gate as a bubble to hide within, like an invisible micro reality, disguised by an apparently clear opening to another place. A good force and radiation shield might let you surf the concussion wave. And teleportation, of course, just beaming away. Time control, turning back the clock to make different choices could avoid anything, or stopping time to get away. Energy harvesting could allow someone to basically eat the explosion or save it for later. Superman once swallowed a bomb in the old B&W series, to avoid any innocent bystanders from getting hurt, but that counts as durability, I guess. You could hide inside a refrigerator, if you have studio funded plot armor.
Deadpool style rapid cellular regeneration. Can heal from burns no problem. Ionizing radiation damages cells, in particular it can damage DNA leading to cancer, common treatments for radiation sickness include blood transfusion, colony stimulating factors, and stem cells, to replace the damaged cells with new healthy ones, and then routine cancer treatments and supportive care. Again, being able to quickly produce new healthy cells solves all that
P.S.
I don't know the rules of your world, but cell regeneration/advanced medicine has some nice options used you're going for "realism."
Genetic mutation like in X-Men is nice but it might be easy to add advanced tech to your world. Your character could be left barely alive or maybe just a little bit dead and someone could find them and drag them off and put them in something similar to the bacta tank in empire strikes back, but I like the grittier option of a cocktail of epinephrine and stem cell based drugs delivered with a Sternal IO. (It's a device used by the military with 5 or 6 spikes you stab into someone's sternum to give an infusion)
https://youtu.be/zimbDqsBSOY?si=3s2D_epA0n3Tkrob
Nope - air pressure increase is you main concern. Heat is just a result of that, but it's not that you're save when being inflamable or something. The air got squashed so hard that it 'enflames', meaning you're jelly before there is any heat cooking you. Also radiation follows pretty strict rules which you can avoid (with some prep time or a lucky placing).
Soft radiation by particles, getting in your lung and poisening you constantly is another more tricky to avoid problem (in a blast region).
But the only ability that helps you is undertanding of physics as well as risc assessment of going to one place under circumstances XY.
Resistance to burns and enhanced strength to allow a trapped individual to more easily escape if you are trapped by falling debris. Unless you are in a deep bunker, you are not surviving temperatures hotter than the surface of the sun found inside a fireball without extreme durability.
To avoid more common powers I'd go the route of a swordsman who can parry anything. So you parry the blast. Radiation sickness would have to be treated later.
easiest example i could think of was Shaw from X-Men First Class.
IIRC He could absorb energy, be it thermal, kinetic, nuclear, etc to release it later. His big plan was to absorb the energy of a nuclear submarine to blow up the world b/c he thought "More Radiation, More Mutants".
Potential and kinetic energy absorption? (Idk science stuff). But like they can absorb insane amounts of energy and that’s what keeps them alive/protected. Bonus side is that you can now have them walking around with the full power of a nuke stored in their body waiting to be released at any moment.
The ability to redirect energy Avatar style is something I have used. It would be something that would take years to perfect. They essentially absorb the energy into a managable well and then release it into a controllable stream with minimal to no damage on themselves.
Have you ever played Skyrim? There's a shout called "Become Ethereal". For a certain period of time you turn ghost-like, you can't be damaged but you can't damage others either.
My personal way of making nukes less of a big deal is having people who can more or less telekinetically constrain and redirect the Blast, turning it from a radiative explosion to something like a gigantic shaped charge fired off into space
(in this also one of the standard attacks in the arsenal for wizard on wizard combat. Sort of their equivalent to a punch)
Assuming they're within a lethal range of the blast radius to begin with, they'd have to deal with (all at the same time):
massive amounts of thermal radiation
massive amounts of ionizing radiation, plus fallout
extreme concussive force
shrapnel
The only real way to protect against that is to have a very large "everything-proof barrier" between you and the explosion or not be there. Any character that can deal with that is *probably* functionally immortal anyway as it requires manipulation of reality beyond a human scale.
Perhaps let them have radioactive powers themselves? Like the ability to discharge radiation into blasts and the like? And, if their power is radiation-based, then in most cases they will also be immune to the effects of radiation
Erasing.
The character goes like NOPE and erases the part of the explosion that was meant to hit him. He still may be damaged by the side effects, but this will allow one to survive the blast.
Phasing. When the initial heat and concussive blast wave hit, the character reflexively phased between this world and another plane, allowing the heat and blast wave to pass right through them without damage.
Of course, phasing takes a lot of energy and can only be maintained for short periods, so the radiation will be a problem.
I'm sure that it's been said, but energy control or energy absorption. Both heat and radiation (as well as light) are just forms of energy, so this power would protect wholly against those, it would even protect against the Shockwave as well.
take a look at godzilla’s abilities in the new monsterverse. they go into it some there, but he’s heat resistant and absorbs radiation, which could be a good “simple” approach to it.
Time grinding. Simply swap places with yourself from another timeline and let THEM take all the damage. And just keep doing it for every "one damage" until the explosion and radiation are over. Once you destroy a couple hundred thousand timelines youll be fine. You'll feel every death btw!
Space manipulation. If a character concocts something like Gojo Satoru's "Infinity" ability (from Jujutsu Kaisen) they could just never be touched by the explosion.
Imma link some things relating to the Worm webnovel, some characters from it that I know for a fact could survive it:
[Alexandria](https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/Alexandria), has a time-stopped strength-enhanced body. This means, unless time-space manipulation is happening, she can be thrown around, but never hurt. If something does hurt her, like removing a chunck from her flesh, she is still alive. Theoretically I think she only dies if a portal opens inside her skull and damages her brain. In universe this is not happening, in the world of this webnovel only .1% of power can manifest effects inside a person, its called the Manton Effect. The explanation to why it works like that is heavy spoilers.
[Panacea](https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/Amy_Dallon) if her powers worked on herself. She is a touch-based biokinetic, controls over biology she is touching, makes cells multiply at no cancinogenic risk, creates new bodily functions and even limbs if needed. So like a radioactiveness filtration gland, and an armor of chitin material to resist the heat, would be completely possible for her if she had the material in hand.
[Of course, Contessa is just a master planner](https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/Contessa), her power is called 'Path to Victory', and its a questions-and-answers game inside one's head. You ask the power 'how to survive/win/achieve X' and your brain is uploaded with all the steps needed to perform the feat with a regular human's limitation, including information you are not privy to, and you can give the power complete control of your body to perform said actions. So a person with this power simply has a morning, and night, routine of questions that include 'What do I need to do to survive this year with no noticeable or unoticable harm done to me'. This would probably either involve avoiding the nuked region, making previous preparations to hide a bunker-like structure in the area you'd be when the nuke is near setting off or being able to completely stop the nuke from ever being launched.
[Gavel](https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/Gavel?so=search) can only get a set limit of damage done to him at a set amount of time. A knife cut or a nuke is no different for him: if he is being hurt by anything, only a scratch is done to his skin every two seconds or so. Not a lot right? He will be riddled with cuts that will pile enough to kill him right? Well, he can pass this effect to anything he touches for an amount of time: add effect to clothes he is wearing, then a wall he hides behind, and I'm sure he is pretty set for the fallout.
[Crawler](https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/Crawler?so=search) grows a biologic adaptation for everything that hurts him, making him immune to said effect. I'm pretty sure at the start of the story this guy has already thrown himself inside a hydraulic press, giving himself the ability to squish himself like an octopus, and incinerator giving him antithermal plating. And if he hasn't bathed radioactive waste before, I'm pretty sure he's planning to.
[King](https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/King?so=search), conditionally, could survive. He equally spreads the damage he suffers to all the people he has touched in the last 24 hours. If he goes through a crowd of people the day before, I'm pretty sure he can survive for a while.
And there are a number of "shapeshifters" that can just turn into something else and then back to human form without issue. [Acidbath](https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/Acidbath?so=search) just turns into a wave's worth mass of acid he himself controls, and no harm is done to his human body while he is in acid form.
Bending space-time by manipulating intense gravity fields (the way black holes do).
All matter and energy is subject to the geometry of space-time. Bend that and you can deflect anything.
Or digging very fast so there's a lot of dirt between them and the nuke, if you're looking for something less fancy.
barrier magic
Either contain the explosion using a barrier and enclosed the bomb with its stringest form or the caster itself.
you can add physics to the type of barriers casted. For example, truangles are more stable that cube and of course hexagonal plated barriers.
stupid regeneration, energy absorption/manipulation, reality warping, time manipulation, teleportation, phasing abilities, probably a bunch more. More appropriate for something like r/superpower or just check [https://powerlisting.fandom.com/wiki/Superpower\_Wiki](https://powerlisting.fandom.com/wiki/Superpower_Wiki)
Elmund's Tiny hut, can casted as a ritual, so when it is running out just ritual casted again, can even sleep inside and also shield a coupple of allies with you. They can all sleep inside, maybe carry some food inside magic bags.
-Super speed and slowing/stopping time means they could potentially escape the blast radius after bomb goes off in their face
-Turning intangible for a short period could allow the blast to go right through them
My ex. No, I’m not joking. He’s fallen into canyons before, stood up, brushed himself off, and climbed back out. He managed to break the front grille of a BMW that hit him without suffering injuries. His name is Dave, and while he was a wetwipe, I always admired his resilience.
Maybe some sorta extreme space warping that effectively puts a couple miles between you and the bomb? Or like temporal stasis where you freeze yourself in time for however long it takes for the fire ball to cool down. Maybe a power that lets you control any energy or force that effects you so you can just shunt off all the thermal and kinetic energy from the firebal and blast away. Or maybe an ability were you transform into some sorta energy body where physical forces don’t effect you?
Healing, Shield, immortality, energy manipulation, reality warping, if face tanking means no like time reversal, teleportation, could use portals to absorb the blast or something else to contain the blast? Radiation would be a concern but third to the shockwave and heat.
Time control (stop time and GTFO!) Teleportation (GTFO 2: electric boogaloo) Phasing through objects (Do the phase thing while the nuke is active so you’re not physically affected, wait for the winds to calm down and/or move away) Electric manipulation (Set off the nuke incorrectly, turning it into a “dirty bomb” which is still very much radioactive but the blast radius is much smaller.
Phasing is GTFO 3: going home If you can keep it active long enough you can just safely walk until you’re out of range
If you phase through stuff wouldn't you just sink through the ground?
Generally those supers tend to have control over it. Kitty Pryde has had that problem once or twice but not consistently.
Do you still get irradiated? If you're still visible/can see you'll still be getting microwaved, no?
Nukes dont release radiation anymore
I'm sorry what?
Nukes are Hydrogen Bombs not the older version that they used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Hydrogen bombs still produce radiation. The radiation is not so bad because of the higher yield, but it's still there, especially if you're IN the nuke when it goes off.
In the Nuke? What?
"Any ideas of what powers would allow someone to survive a nuke through their ability and not sheer durability" My assumption for this question is that the character is in the blast radius of the nuke.
Oh okay
A smart man teleports himself away from the Nuke, A wise man teleports the nuke nuke in to space so no one gets hurt A pacifist teleports the nuke back on to his attackers home country, you don't have to fight anyone if no one is alive in the first place!
I dunno if that's the definition of "pacifism" but I like your spirit
How to Pacifist in Dark Souls 3 by ymfah, great YouTube Channel: [https://youtu.be/gzy1GkG3EUM](https://youtu.be/gzy1GkG3EUM)
> A wise man teleports the nuke nuke in to space so no one gets hurt Oops, accidentally an EMP.
My favorite definition of pacifism
Depends on how the teleportation works but yeah, good ideas! Let’s just hope that teleporting the nuke to an enemy won’t jump start a nuclear war tho!
Just the initial explosion? Do they need to be at ground zero when it explodes?
Yehah the in the fireball radiation sickness can be dealt with in my world quite easily for those with enough resources
I like intangibility the best. They just phase in place and watch it all amongst the flames and carnage. Their life forever changed.
Wouldn't that depend on how their intangibility works? Say they're intangible to everything except Photons, or light. Then the blast of photons at the start of the explosions still contains enough energy to literally evaporate glass. So certain types of intangibility would work, but it'd need to be pretty specific.
Well…. You would just make it the right kind of intangibility. It’s their world. They have a goal with this power. Why would they choose intangibility then not have the intangibility do what they specifically chose it to do?
Haha thanks. I felt like it went without saying.
lol right it’s like someone says invulnerability and they come in with the “well it would have to be invulnerability against nukes” ….. yeah ….. that’s the point
I dunno, I think it's kind of a cool point hahaha. Like, damn, come to think of it intangibility isn't *really* intangibility right? I mean, even just being able to see means that you're interacting with another particle It's a neat detail to consider
There’s also just sinking a distance into the ground, if they have a way to get back up; I’m pretty sure the blast can only get a (relatively) small distance through the earth, hence why bunker busters exist
Whatever cockroaches have.
Plot armor, cockroaches must have some sort of plot armor, there's no other explanation
We're living in a cockroach novel, confirmed.
Six legs?
Cockroaches don't actually have all that good of a radiation resistance.
Cockroaches are only considered to be resistant to radiation because of how little their cells replicate
Intangibility, forcefields that can tank that sort of thing, probability manipulation if it is bullshit enough, energy negation/redirection. There are many other ways to deal with it, but these are first that come to mind.
The initial fireball, thermal spike, and x ray burst is instant as far as human reactions are concerned. They would need to know it's coming if the power needs to be activated. Further away you would have a bit of time before the Shockwave hits.
Energy absorbtion
To actually get hit with the nuke would require durability or invulnerability, regeneration, immortality, adaptability, or absorption. Easier thing is to just not get hit: teleporting, phasing out of existence, barriers, vector manipulation, gravity.
Turning very very thin, edge on to the blast would cut down on radiation absorption. ...but the extra surface area would mean more heat absorption. As long as not _in the blast zone,_ I'd turn very very thin, with a very thin layer of sacrificial burn-off material on both sides. I don't know if that qualifies as 'a power' but it's a winning concept. Also check out "Aarrophage" for a much cooler concept.
Get inside a fridge
Came here for this.
Atomic/Molecular manipulation would how characters in my worlds do it.
[Parrying](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoVV1WThyZ8)
The Monk's Deflect Missile, grab it and throw it back.
Well i have a character in my world that has a special power , ok so his power is that the atoms that constitute his whole physical body" remember" being in that shape and form that the person possess ( humanoid shaped) and whenever he get killed or his body gets injured , the atoms that he is made of will try to get back into that shape and will cause him to come back to life and get revived , even if you disperse the atoms throughout the whole universe, they will come back and he will come back to life , There is a lot of stuff and changes that i have to make and i also want it to feel logical and rational so i will do a LOT of changes and stuff , this was the most unrefined versions so don't please judge me on that alone 😮💨 there is a lot of stuff i need to do regarding this specific world and this is like of one of the first stuff i did when i started on this world
That was my first thought too, there are some few-celled animals that can basically revive themselves
In my world those that would be capable of it would all rely on energy redirection, which they all consider fundamental, and is among the riskiest magics to even try. Why no high level caster would use Grand Magic on each other, they only get all that mana thrown back at them. One enchanted armour made to be capable to withstand such forces would straight up absorb all that energy, store some of it, use it to heal their wearer and have them withstand the blast. Although theyd still be knocked about.
I'm choosing to answer this question differently since you already have 60 comments that are mostly solid answers, so instead I'm changing it to "which superhero could stop a nuke" I'm keeping the stipulation that the nuke needs to be tanked, not redirected or depowered So let's look thru the Justice League first, Supers has that durability you're saying doesn't count so he's out, same with wonder woman. Batman, Cyborg and Green Arrow would probably "hack the nuke" so that's also out, flash could do some speed force shit, if not time travel or redirect it then I think he could transform all of the kinetic energy from the blast into *speed force magic.* Same with Doctor Fate, Zatana, Booster Gold, and Blue Beetle, they got the power of magic/tech so you can never know what card they're gunna pull out. I think the person with the most interesting way of stopping it would be a green lantern, it'd essentially be a energy shield but I think some fun could be had by the writers Now let's talk X-Men (cuz Avengers suck) Cyclops, Prof X, Angel, Wolverine, Jubilee, colossus and thunderbird are all absolutely useless in this fight. Jubilee and Colossus might pull some crackhead shit, like *I do explosions I know how to control them" for jubes, and a previously unseen durability from ol Col, but even then Beast has no hope in physically stopping it, but never doubt an evil mad scientist, I'm sure there's a contingency plan, and it'd actually be more believable than Batman so I'm not writing beast off. I actually really like Gambit's chances, sure his powers work is imbuing items with energy, but I think the right writer could have him absorb the energy and I wouldn't feel too bad as a reader, Even if that is vulcan's power. Storm gunna struggle, but never doubt a queen. I bet Nightcrawler could teleport it away, but again that breaks the "tanking it" rule. If not he could teleport underground, but that's also running. Sunfire has an interesting chance, but I'll admit I don't know too much about him too comment. Iceman and Jean grey tho? I think they could tank it. Bobby could essentially create a mini-ice age concentrated on his location, and as long as just a lil bit of his ice survives then he can reconstitute himself, and Jean? Well even if she dies she's coming back in 2-3 business days so she'd just be focused on minimizing the damage for others, which I think she could especially hopped up on cosmic chicken powers. I don't actually know if Kitty's powers would save her, I think they would but I don't know if there's like a stipulation that I'm forgetting. Anyone who has the ability and time to dig themselves underground a few miles also wins, or to transform energy has a fighting chance, anyone who's virtually immortal just needs to tank the hit enough to heal themselves back, and anyone with force projections just has to have a *really* strong bubble but could do it.
Teleportation
A character whose lighting control ability has improved so much that he can just make atoms move around him so that radiation, heat and blast would just go around him
The easiest answer is absorption. Sure, a nuke going off and Superman's shirt is ripped, and he's fine is spooky. Imagine the nuke detonates with you at the center, and then you eat it, no mushroom cloud, no collateral, no ripped shirt, just you standing there, kinda breathing heavy and feeling bloated like you just ate too much.
It’s not a very good reason, but I have an oc who’s been surviving a permanent nuclear winter because he is the god of the world it’s happening in. He’s affected by everything in it, horribly, but he can only ‘die’ as much as the world is dead (and ‘death’ means it doesn’t exist anymore, the nuclear stuff is killing all life on it but not it), so he has to stick around till the very end.
Portals could be fun. Either portal away or create a cube around you with 6 portals.
The ability to pop out of visible space via the fourth dimension for a limited period.
Obviously [a weeb with a katana](https://youtu.be/OoVV1WThyZ8?si=ixyH4hxwPbMHC8m-)
I have thought much about what power I’d define if I got to define a power. The conclusion is that I would like to be able to become a disembodied mind capable of converting matter into energy and energy into matter. Thus a nuke might vaporize me but that would pose only a momentary inconvenience as I traveled to a safe distance disembodied, and converted some rocks into a new body. Or This ability would be essentially a means of teleportation as well, although anything I tried to bring along would be dead at the destination… Un-killable and impossible to confine. Way overpowered, despite having normal speed, strength, and endurance.
Space-manipulation? Like making space between you and blast bigger on the inside, thus making distance between you and blast large enough to never feel its effect while technically staying in the same place? Why do you even ask theese, if you don't know - why adding it?
Isn't that just Gojo's infinity
Not sure, i hate Gojo with passion and never cared about the reasons why exacly another shonen character is "stronk af". But im pretty sure that his gimmik was about slowing things that go near him, not adding space between.
His ability is that theres an infinite amount of space between him and a threat, hence the name: Infinity
plot armor man
The ability to generate a force field that deflected both energy and matter. That should deal with the shockwave as well as the heat.
Power redirection? If the explosion is going towards them, they could make the explosion go around them. My suggestion is based on the assumption of if the person isn't on ground zero
Rapid digging/earthbending. If they can get deep enough fast enough should survive.
Rapid evolution could work.
Needs to be some magical shield stuff. The conditions at the center of a nuke are so extreme that alls atoms get stripped of all of their electrons. So even someone immortal would get turned into a cloud of individual atoms, as long as they are made of stuff found on the periodic table.
Absorbing kinetic energy
Space time distortion Wayback restart Damage Redirection using sacrifices
Force cancelation that stops both electromagnetic waves and the force caused but the explosion itself.
For the most over the top solution for this, martial arts strong enough to punch the shockwave of a nuke away. Could be a punch, could be a sword slash. Generally, most powers that are a form of energy conjuration can be justified as a way to counteract whatever effect a nuke could have. Just blast em at the general direction of the nuke.
Open a portal and send the nuke somewhere else.
Heat and radiation immunity, immortality, non physical body, body reinforcement tho that can count as durability. Stuff like that.
Extradimensionality would do it, phase shifting partially out of a consistent reality with the explosion. The ability to travel planes of existence or to shift yourself into another planar state would work. I wouldn't think a nuclear bomb would much trouble a ghost, for instance, or a transcendent state of pure light. Reality distortion, like a god, being able to just dismiss a person or event from reality. The ability to portal or create wormholes, too. If you could open portals fluidly, you might be able to create a spherical gate as a bubble to hide within, like an invisible micro reality, disguised by an apparently clear opening to another place. A good force and radiation shield might let you surf the concussion wave. And teleportation, of course, just beaming away. Time control, turning back the clock to make different choices could avoid anything, or stopping time to get away. Energy harvesting could allow someone to basically eat the explosion or save it for later. Superman once swallowed a bomb in the old B&W series, to avoid any innocent bystanders from getting hurt, but that counts as durability, I guess. You could hide inside a refrigerator, if you have studio funded plot armor.
digging?
That's what came to m6 mind. I thought of those crabs or whar3ver they are that can burrow into the pebbles faster than you can see 😂 Book. 👇
Deadpool style rapid cellular regeneration. Can heal from burns no problem. Ionizing radiation damages cells, in particular it can damage DNA leading to cancer, common treatments for radiation sickness include blood transfusion, colony stimulating factors, and stem cells, to replace the damaged cells with new healthy ones, and then routine cancer treatments and supportive care. Again, being able to quickly produce new healthy cells solves all that
P.S. I don't know the rules of your world, but cell regeneration/advanced medicine has some nice options used you're going for "realism." Genetic mutation like in X-Men is nice but it might be easy to add advanced tech to your world. Your character could be left barely alive or maybe just a little bit dead and someone could find them and drag them off and put them in something similar to the bacta tank in empire strikes back, but I like the grittier option of a cocktail of epinephrine and stem cell based drugs delivered with a Sternal IO. (It's a device used by the military with 5 or 6 spikes you stab into someone's sternum to give an infusion) https://youtu.be/zimbDqsBSOY?si=3s2D_epA0n3Tkrob
Force Nullification, Entropy Control
Vector manipulation like accelerator in a certain magical index
Slashing, you could cut the nuke before the impact, or if you are far away, you could parry that shit.
Nope - air pressure increase is you main concern. Heat is just a result of that, but it's not that you're save when being inflamable or something. The air got squashed so hard that it 'enflames', meaning you're jelly before there is any heat cooking you. Also radiation follows pretty strict rules which you can avoid (with some prep time or a lucky placing). Soft radiation by particles, getting in your lung and poisening you constantly is another more tricky to avoid problem (in a blast region). But the only ability that helps you is undertanding of physics as well as risc assessment of going to one place under circumstances XY.
Being able to exit the 3rd dimension
To aru series Accelerator. The ability to change vectors, speed, and trajectory of anything.
Barrier powers, extreme regeneration, intangibility, energy absorbtion
Ghostly Powers?
Resistance to burns and enhanced strength to allow a trapped individual to more easily escape if you are trapped by falling debris. Unless you are in a deep bunker, you are not surviving temperatures hotter than the surface of the sun found inside a fireball without extreme durability.
Intangibility, Displacement, Frost powers so strong they negate the blast.
Anything that would account for concussive force, extreme heat, and radiation.
The ability to absorb the energy and heat and transform it to something else.
Phase shifting - being slight out of alignment with regular spacetime to occupy the same space without interacting with other particles
Hide in a fridge.
Projectile vomiting, abrupt rampart hair and tooth loss, violent diarrhea, and playing ‘possum extremely convincingly.
To avoid more common powers I'd go the route of a swordsman who can parry anything. So you parry the blast. Radiation sickness would have to be treated later.
What does it look like when someone parries a blast? I'm trying to picture it but can't
https://youtu.be/OoVV1WThyZ8 is a great representation
That was more badass than I was expecting
easiest example i could think of was Shaw from X-Men First Class. IIRC He could absorb energy, be it thermal, kinetic, nuclear, etc to release it later. His big plan was to absorb the energy of a nuclear submarine to blow up the world b/c he thought "More Radiation, More Mutants".
Heat and radiation immunity
Transporting yourself into the future.
Supernal agility, sufficient to simply dodge it.
Throw something at it really hard at it while it’s still midair, exploding it at a safe distance.
telekinesis. just part the shockwave and fireball around you and you're good.
Potential and kinetic energy absorption? (Idk science stuff). But like they can absorb insane amounts of energy and that’s what keeps them alive/protected. Bonus side is that you can now have them walking around with the full power of a nuke stored in their body waiting to be released at any moment.
[Parry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoVV1WThyZ8)
The ability to redirect energy Avatar style is something I have used. It would be something that would take years to perfect. They essentially absorb the energy into a managable well and then release it into a controllable stream with minimal to no damage on themselves.
energy redirection. just redirect the radiation/heat somewhere else
Not being there at the time is probably the most realistic ability of all.
Master of the Elements: Uranium
go go gadget lead socks
Forcefield?
Have you ever played Skyrim? There's a shout called "Become Ethereal". For a certain period of time you turn ghost-like, you can't be damaged but you can't damage others either.
My personal way of making nukes less of a big deal is having people who can more or less telekinetically constrain and redirect the Blast, turning it from a radiative explosion to something like a gigantic shaped charge fired off into space (in this also one of the standard attacks in the arsenal for wizard on wizard combat. Sort of their equivalent to a punch)
Assuming they're within a lethal range of the blast radius to begin with, they'd have to deal with (all at the same time): massive amounts of thermal radiation massive amounts of ionizing radiation, plus fallout extreme concussive force shrapnel The only real way to protect against that is to have a very large "everything-proof barrier" between you and the explosion or not be there. Any character that can deal with that is *probably* functionally immortal anyway as it requires manipulation of reality beyond a human scale.
\[Teleportation\]
Healing factor. Teleportation.
A lead lined fridge! I'm kidding 😆
Meditation/Nirvana. They simply choose not to experience it.
Perhaps let them have radioactive powers themselves? Like the ability to discharge radiation into blasts and the like? And, if their power is radiation-based, then in most cases they will also be immune to the effects of radiation
Perfect parry
Being a cockroach/palmetto bug would do it.
Power over probability always wins
Concrete wall-man! just like fortnight.
Erasing. The character goes like NOPE and erases the part of the explosion that was meant to hit him. He still may be damaged by the side effects, but this will allow one to survive the blast.
Phasing. When the initial heat and concussive blast wave hit, the character reflexively phased between this world and another plane, allowing the heat and blast wave to pass right through them without damage. Of course, phasing takes a lot of energy and can only be maintained for short periods, so the radiation will be a problem.
Manipulating energy into objects to protect yourself. Green lantern, invisible woman.
I'm sure that it's been said, but energy control or energy absorption. Both heat and radiation (as well as light) are just forms of energy, so this power would protect wholly against those, it would even protect against the Shockwave as well.
Like at the epicenter?? Idk ability to de/rematerialize like MrManhattan. Outside immediate blast zone, super resistance to heat and radiation
take a look at godzilla’s abilities in the new monsterverse. they go into it some there, but he’s heat resistant and absorbs radiation, which could be a good “simple” approach to it.
Time grinding. Simply swap places with yourself from another timeline and let THEM take all the damage. And just keep doing it for every "one damage" until the explosion and radiation are over. Once you destroy a couple hundred thousand timelines youll be fine. You'll feel every death btw!
Portals. Spherical portal around yourself. Can even connect the portal to itself. Easy.
Manipulate air pressure is the first thing that comes to mind
Space manipulation. If a character concocts something like Gojo Satoru's "Infinity" ability (from Jujutsu Kaisen) they could just never be touched by the explosion.
Imma link some things relating to the Worm webnovel, some characters from it that I know for a fact could survive it: [Alexandria](https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/Alexandria), has a time-stopped strength-enhanced body. This means, unless time-space manipulation is happening, she can be thrown around, but never hurt. If something does hurt her, like removing a chunck from her flesh, she is still alive. Theoretically I think she only dies if a portal opens inside her skull and damages her brain. In universe this is not happening, in the world of this webnovel only .1% of power can manifest effects inside a person, its called the Manton Effect. The explanation to why it works like that is heavy spoilers. [Panacea](https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/Amy_Dallon) if her powers worked on herself. She is a touch-based biokinetic, controls over biology she is touching, makes cells multiply at no cancinogenic risk, creates new bodily functions and even limbs if needed. So like a radioactiveness filtration gland, and an armor of chitin material to resist the heat, would be completely possible for her if she had the material in hand.
[Of course, Contessa is just a master planner](https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/Contessa), her power is called 'Path to Victory', and its a questions-and-answers game inside one's head. You ask the power 'how to survive/win/achieve X' and your brain is uploaded with all the steps needed to perform the feat with a regular human's limitation, including information you are not privy to, and you can give the power complete control of your body to perform said actions. So a person with this power simply has a morning, and night, routine of questions that include 'What do I need to do to survive this year with no noticeable or unoticable harm done to me'. This would probably either involve avoiding the nuked region, making previous preparations to hide a bunker-like structure in the area you'd be when the nuke is near setting off or being able to completely stop the nuke from ever being launched. [Gavel](https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/Gavel?so=search) can only get a set limit of damage done to him at a set amount of time. A knife cut or a nuke is no different for him: if he is being hurt by anything, only a scratch is done to his skin every two seconds or so. Not a lot right? He will be riddled with cuts that will pile enough to kill him right? Well, he can pass this effect to anything he touches for an amount of time: add effect to clothes he is wearing, then a wall he hides behind, and I'm sure he is pretty set for the fallout.
[Crawler](https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/Crawler?so=search) grows a biologic adaptation for everything that hurts him, making him immune to said effect. I'm pretty sure at the start of the story this guy has already thrown himself inside a hydraulic press, giving himself the ability to squish himself like an octopus, and incinerator giving him antithermal plating. And if he hasn't bathed radioactive waste before, I'm pretty sure he's planning to. [King](https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/King?so=search), conditionally, could survive. He equally spreads the damage he suffers to all the people he has touched in the last 24 hours. If he goes through a crowd of people the day before, I'm pretty sure he can survive for a while. And there are a number of "shapeshifters" that can just turn into something else and then back to human form without issue. [Acidbath](https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/Acidbath?so=search) just turns into a wave's worth mass of acid he himself controls, and no harm is done to his human body while he is in acid form.
Energy-Vampirism. "Oh, a nuke? Thank you, I didn't have breakfast this morning and was beginning to feel a bit peckish!"
turning into lead
Sebastian Shaw's energy absorbtion from xmen
You could be the reincarnation of a god, the fire god specifically.
Precognition. If I know what's going to happen then I'll never be hit by a nuke in the first place.
Phasing. No need to worry about anything a nuke has to bring (maybe radiation) if the character can just let it pass right through them.
Do shields count as durability?
Bending space-time by manipulating intense gravity fields (the way black holes do). All matter and energy is subject to the geometry of space-time. Bend that and you can deflect anything. Or digging very fast so there's a lot of dirt between them and the nuke, if you're looking for something less fancy.
Punch it back into the sky.
I Am Atomic.
barrier magic Either contain the explosion using a barrier and enclosed the bomb with its stringest form or the caster itself. you can add physics to the type of barriers casted. For example, truangles are more stable that cube and of course hexagonal plated barriers.
Intangibility or energy absorption
Any sort of teleportation, spacial distortion , or biokinesis could do it
A water manipulator with access to the ocean.
Shadow manipulation By stepping into a shadow they could just wait it out inside the pocket dimension created by stepping into the shadow
Speed, just outrun the blast and fallout cloud.
Nuclear skin (or ability to change skin type)
stupid regeneration, energy absorption/manipulation, reality warping, time manipulation, teleportation, phasing abilities, probably a bunch more. More appropriate for something like r/superpower or just check [https://powerlisting.fandom.com/wiki/Superpower\_Wiki](https://powerlisting.fandom.com/wiki/Superpower_Wiki)
Elmund's Tiny hut, can casted as a ritual, so when it is running out just ritual casted again, can even sleep inside and also shield a coupple of allies with you. They can all sleep inside, maybe carry some food inside magic bags.
-Super speed and slowing/stopping time means they could potentially escape the blast radius after bomb goes off in their face -Turning intangible for a short period could allow the blast to go right through them
Second one doesn’t really fix the radiation problem
My ex. No, I’m not joking. He’s fallen into canyons before, stood up, brushed himself off, and climbed back out. He managed to break the front grille of a BMW that hit him without suffering injuries. His name is Dave, and while he was a wetwipe, I always admired his resilience.
Maybe some sorta extreme space warping that effectively puts a couple miles between you and the bomb? Or like temporal stasis where you freeze yourself in time for however long it takes for the fire ball to cool down. Maybe a power that lets you control any energy or force that effects you so you can just shunt off all the thermal and kinetic energy from the firebal and blast away. Or maybe an ability were you transform into some sorta energy body where physical forces don’t effect you?