Scientist love to categorise things; elements go into periods and groups on a table, life gets kingdoms, families and species, matter comes in phases and so it goes on. It seems we have a need to take an object or concept and give it a nice neat point on a diagram.

And so inevitably, during our frenetic weekend during which we wrote The Secret Science of Superheroes a means of charting superpowers emerged.

The diagram categorises powers depending on whether they are passive (whether they are working all the time, like The Things armored skin) or active ( they need to be invoked such as Spiderman’s webslingers).

Another dimension to the chart indicates whether the power is intrinsic to the hero (i.e. it can’t be removed) or is extrinsic (meaning its something that is associated with them, think of Captain America’s shield).

Finally the reach of the power is indicated from the distance from the centre of the chart. So something that only effects the hero themselves appears in the middle, whilst a power that can affect something anywhere on the globe (or beyond) appears on the edge. And so the super hero, intrinsic, extrinsic, location diagram (otherwise known as The SHEILD) was born.

p.s. Order your copy directly from The Royal Society of Chemistry and you can get 20% off using the discount code HEROES20