Reed Richards Is Useless: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"Stardust, whose vast knowledge of interplanetary science has made him the most remarkable man that ever lived, devotes his abilities to crime-busting..."''
▲[[File:Screen_shot_reeds_useless_3146.jpg|link=Fantastic Four|frame|You're [[Super Intelligence|smart]] enough to invent it. Therefore, you're surely smart enough to duplicate it, [[Shmuck Bait|changing human society forever.]] [[Status Quo Is God|Right?]]]]
|''Stardust the Super Wizard'', Fantastic Comics #14}}
▲{{quote|''"Stardust, whose vast knowledge of interplanetary science has made him the most remarkable man that ever lived, devotes his abilities to crime-busting..."''|''Stardust the Super Wizard'', Fantastic Comics #14}}
The observation that in some genres, characters can have fantastic technology far beyond our own, yet this technology only gets used to solve equally fantastic problems.
A person who controls weather will never make it rain in drought-stricken areas, or stop the rain during terrible flooding, or stop a heatwave. A person who can control fire will never douse bush fires or burning buildings, or get a job at a power station. And a supergenius (such as [[Trope Namer|Reed Richards]] of the [[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Fantastic Four]]) can save the life of starving demi-god being like [[Galactus]], but will never take a weekend to duplicate and market [[Doctor Doom]]'s burn-victim cure device (or even five minutes to find out [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1044/what-causes-piss-shiver what causes piss shivers]), or release his inventions that could solve a variety of real-world problems. All potential solutions to real-life problems will only be done in novel (fictional)
There are several typical motivations for this:
# [[Plausible Deniability|To keep the world similar to the real world.]] This is particularly common in an [[Urban Fantasy]], superhero, or other series whose setting is superficially similar to the real world. Unlike, say, ''[[Star Trek]]'' or ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', one of the key draws of the series is that it could take place right outside the reader's window, which is lost if you make the fictional world ''too'' fantastic in comparison. This is particularly common in comic books, where major modifications to the world are only done to fictional locations, and often only to current levels of technology. [http://generaleclectic123.blogspot.com/2010/08/marvelous-tales-remembering-mark.html Here's a video of late Marvel editor-in-chief Mark Gruenwald explaining the reasons for this in some depth].
# To ensure that there's some level of drama in the story. If the super science or magic can literally do ''anything'', then there's no reason the heroes can't just figure out a creative way to get them out of any jam. Goodbye potential conflict. In the case of ''[[Star Trek]]'', there were tons of things the replicators and [[Teleporters and Transporters|transporters]] should have been able to do which would have ruined the plot of half the episodes, necessitating a lot of [[Holding Back the Phlebotinum]] to maintain drama. As well, it could very easily be that the technology itself has some limitations, as "It can do anything you can imagine" is quite a bold statement for anyone to make. Other times, the [[Disposable Superhero Maker]] is [[No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup|disposable]] in the first place to avoid flooding the setting with [[
# To avoid trivializing real-life problems. If Mr. Fantastic actually does cure HIV in the [[Marvel Universe]], there will be plenty of real people still HIV-positive, and plenty of researchers still investing untold millions of dollars and man-hours to fight HIV when they finish the comic. This can make creators wary of tackling such issues, as it can be considered insensitive to have such a heavy burden in real life be casually miracle-cured in fiction. Also, in the interest of representation, physically challenged persons exist in universes where science should theoretically be able to cure their handicap. However, either the disability is so ingrained as a facet of the character's portrayal or curing them could be seen to detract from their mass-market appeal as someone that other physically challenged readers can relate to. This is probably why [[X-Men|Professor X]] always ends up back in the wheelchair after regaining use of his legs. Similarly to point one, this is generally more of a concern if the world is supposed to reflect the real world closely; if it's explicitly an [[Alternate History]] or [[Alternate Universe]], or the future, then there's greater room to play with this without potentially causing offense.
# To keep multiple titles within a [[Shared Universe]] [[Like Reality Unless Noted|consistent]] with one-another; comic book universes would approach [[Up to Eleven|a new level]] of [[Continuity Snarl]] if writers had to keep track of every published book in their universe for which major diseases/blights had been cured by the heroes and which ones weren't.
# The idea that technology which could solve serious human problems ''does'' exist, but is either repressed from the public, or otherwise not used.
This trope is often associated with the [[Fantastic Aesop]] that these problems don't have easy solutions in the real world, and any proposed sci-fi solutions will have negative side-effect or potential for abuse that justifies completely abandoning all hope of trying to solve the problem. However, as superhero comics especially have begun to explore the ramifications of their characters on real-world settings more closely over the years, this question has been raised and addressed more frequently. It is sometimes [[
Smaller-scale continuities such as newly-created [[Superhero]] universes with a single author to explore the fictional world in 1 or 2 titles are more likely to avert and examine the concept of super-technology's effect on modern society, especially if the writer is trying to make a geopolitical statement. Larger superhero continuities, such as Marvel and DC (with an average 24 titles per month), are established to have upheld this trope as their Earths have been explored in extensive detail. The trope can be inverted by having a hero "inventing" a technological revolution that already exists (for example, the [[Ultimate Universe]] Iron Man apparently invented the [[MP3]] player). Recently, Marvel and DC have been making baby steps in averting this trend (i.e. having the current Venom use his powers to cure addicts, Barbara Gordon regaining her mobility etc.).
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Also see [[MST3K Mantra]]. Do not confuse with [[Mundane Utility]].
{{Forgetfulness Tropes}}
''Please only add straight examples, no [[Subversion|subversions]] or [[Aversion|aversions]].''▼
{{examples}}▼
▲''Please only add straight examples, no [[
▲{{examples}}
== Anime & Manga ==
* In ''[[Neko-de Gomen!|Neko De Gomen]]'', the inventions made by both Kuroda and Yayori's father could change the world in many ways and make them very rich if they were to patent them and sell the designs to the proper company or the government.
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== Comic Books ==
=== [[The DCU|DC
* Despite all the interaction between humans and space aliens in the Marvel and DC Universe, one possible reason as to why those Earths aren't spacefaring civilizations could be that the necessary energy sources needed to power the starships can't be found on Earth.
** There's also the Cosmic Myth that Earth is the Center of the DC multiverse; would you WANT the guardian species of the universe's lynchpin to fly away and blow it up for the evulz?
* The biggest examples of this trope in DC, or even comics in general, have to be Johnny Thunder and his successor, Jakeem. Here are two guys who had a Genie at their command, with no limitations on the number of wishes, and they only ever used it to fight crime? How about wishing for world peace? A cure for every disease? At least for eliminating crime?
** World Peace would require eliminating free will
** There was a storyline where he started to feel bad that he wasn't doing more to solve people's non-crime-related problems and - against the advice of his elders in the [[Justice Society]] - he decided to start granting wishes for anyone who wanted his help. Lines formed around the block, near riots broke out if he tried to take a break; it soon
* [[Superman]] in general has often wrestled with the fact that he can't use his superpowers to simply force away wide-ranged problems plaguing humanity. Attempts to bring about world peace by disposing of nuclear weapons didn't fare too well in ''[[Superman IV]]'' or the premiere of ''[[Justice League]]''. His attempt to cure starvation in third-world countries is detailed in the graphic novel "Peace On Earth". This results in [[An Aesop]] being that these are things that will only be solved when all of humanity chooses to solve them. There are often short-lived [[Alternate Universe]] depictions of him going too far in forcing humanity to follow his ideals to solve these problems, thus becoming a [[Knight Templar]].
** This [http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/12/30/worst-comics-2010-superman-grounded/ review] of the ''Grounded'' story arc makes a good case [[Tropes Are Not Bad|why this trope exists in the first place]]. ''This is the problem with trying to tackle "real world" problems in a "serious" way with a character like Superman. He's basically God. He can walk into a neighborhood full of drug dealers and just magically destroy all their drugs and drive them off. In order to explain why he doesn't just do this all the time, or any number of other things that he could do with minimal effort that would drastically change the lives of every single person in the country, if not the world, writers like Straczynski resort to utter inanity. "Over there has to stand for itself, has to speak for itself, because it's only when over there becomes here that we can stop this once and for all." Read that sentence again. It means [[Meaningless Meaningful Words|nothing]].''
** Linkara's review of the Superman Grounded storyline took a further look at how the story applies to this trope and story's general stupidity. At the beginning of Grounded, one woman publicly criticizes Superman for not saving her husband from a brain tumor while Superman was saving Earth. Linkara points out that not only was Superman busy with saving millions of lives, but that there is no indication that Superman's heat/x-ray vision can treat cancer nor does Supes have the necessary medical training. http://atopfourthwall.blogspot.com/2012/04/superman-701.html
** Superman's creators wrote a story for ''Look'' magazine detailing [https://web.archive.org/web/20130115122307/http://supermanthrutheages.com/look/?page=2 how Superman would have cleared up World War II in a matter of minutes]. Naturally, nothing of the sort ever happened in the actual comic books. It couldn't. Nothing else in history would have been unaffected and the worlds would have had to diverge until the one in the comic book no longer resembled reality at all.
** This is also intentionally invoked in ''[[Superman: Red Son|Red Son]]'', where Superman changes the entire world in a few short decades. He even acknowledges that he could change the world in a day if he beat it into submission.
* In a 1982 issue of ''[[Swamp Thing]]'', [[The Phantom Stranger]] makes opposing sides' ammo wet and unusable. The solution? Bludgeon each other with the guns, of course.
* It has been suggested that the reason that [[Batman]]'s villains keep [[Cardboard Prison|escaping from Arkham]] and [[Joker Immunity|why nobody has killed them]] is that there is some supernatural curse protecting them. No explanation has been given as to why DC's sorcerer heroes have not taken care of this curse (or even try).
* Speaking of Batman, it seems there is no medical procedure known to man that can fix the damage done to Harvey Dent's face that turned him into Two-Face, at least not permanently. Despite miracles of science like clones, the Lazarus Pit, and guys with reality-warping powers, cosmetic surgery seems unable to help him at all, dooming the former [[Crusading Lawyer]] to be scarred and ugly forever, with his deformity the biggest reason psychiatry can't cure his madness. [[Status Quo Is God]], it seems, and God has it in for poor Harvey.
* In one dream sequence at the end of the ''Anarky'' mini-series (1997), Anarky unleashes his device that makes everyone realize the goodness of the individual and induces mass honesty. Bruce then diverts all Waynecorp weapons manufacturing towards civilian applications, such as using Mr. Freeze's technology to advance space exploration and Poison Ivy's botanical knowledge to help find a cure for cancer. Then it starts going horribly wrong since, even with the goodness of the individual in full force, there are still jerks out there too insane to express it correctly.
* This trope was used to justify Barbara "Batgirl"/"Oracle" Gordon remaining wheelchair-bound despite the ready availability of possible cures in [[The DCU]]: she doesn't want to receive special treatment and therefore dishonor public servants who were disabled in the line of duty; either a cure becomes available for everyone, or she stays in the chair. Of course, that raises the question of why can't the numerous DC Universe cures be made available to the public. The reboot has changed this (see below)
** As [[Superdickery.com]] put it — "[https://web.archive.org/web/20181210003237/http://www.superdickery.com/6129-2/ …But the only thing that could make her whole again was a reboot of the entire Universe]".
* Lampshade hung, and almost subverted in James Robinson's ''[[Starman (comics)|Starman]]'', where the original Starman (the title character's father) dedicated his later years to turning his cosmic rod into a more general energy source that would revolutionize the world. Although a visitor from the future claimed his success led to him becoming a scientific hero on the level of Einstein, it never actually happened in the present day DCU.
* Stories set during [[World War II]] explained why the superheroes didn't just Blitzkrieg into Berlin and end the war: Adolf Hitler had acquired the Spear of Destiny, which he could use to control any superpowered being that entered the boundaries of the Reich. (The same was true of Imperial Japan and the Holy Grail.) Later, Hitler's belief in the Spear's power was discussed in an episode of ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]''.
* The [[Justice Society of America]] was unable to stop the attack on Pearl Harbor because they had been transported to another dimension by an Axis sorcerer during the attack. However, no convincing reason has been given as to why the Justice Society was unable and/or unwilling to stop the Soviet conquest of Eastern Europe.
** While it was likely intended more as a general explanation of where the team was between the Golden Age and later appearances than as a specific explanation for why they didn't get involved in any particular conflict, the team was supposed to have disbanded and gone underground in 1951 due to a HUAC investigation secretly instigated by Per Degaton, one of their enemies.
** In addition, even if they were still around and free to act the Justice Society is going to not be stopping the Soviet conquest of Eastern Europe for exactly the same reason the US Army didn't stop it in real
* In [[Alan Moore]]'s ''[[Swamp Thing]]'', the title character contemplates using his powers to restore the ecologically damaged areas of the world. However Swamp Thing states that if he would heal all of man's wounds, man would further abuse the environment to maximize profit knowing full well that Swamp Thing was there to correct all the mistakes.
* In ''[[The Spectre]]'' #7 (third series) [[Madame Xanadu]] asks the Spectre why he doesn't cure his HIV-positive friend Amy Beiterman. The Spectre responds that if he cures Amy, then there is nowhere to draw the line in curing the millions of sick people worldwide. At that point, the Spectre asks "Where do you draw the line? Abolish death itself?"
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* The super-speed teenage superhero Impulse should have had no problem with most of the villains he faced and could have rendered his base of operations, Manchester, Alabama, free of all crime. However his [[Incredibly Lame Pun|impulsive]] behavior often rendered him his own worst enemy.
* One of the biggest examples in the DC Universe is The Brain, of the original Fatal Five lineup, who remains [[Brain In a Jar|a bodiless disembodied brain]], despite the wide variety of cybernetic body parts. Although, back in the 1960's, he did have a body made out of pure energy for a while.
* One of the barriers to having the [[Elongated Man]] releasing his gingold extract (enabling his super-elasticity) to the public is that a large percentage of humans are allergic to the substance. It has also been suggested that the gingold only works if the user has a certain "x-factor" in his blood, meaning, in effect, he's a mutant who fuels his power with soda.
* There was this one Batman storyline (reprinted in Batman from the 1970's) where one of Alfred's relatives, a heart surgeon, develops a revolutionary surgical procedure. However, Alfred's uncle is so depressed with all the inhumanity in the world that he thinks about destroying information on the procedure. He promises to share it with the public if Batman successfully captures this one criminal. Batman succeeds in capturing the criminal.
* Averted with Suicide Squad's Nemesis, who uses his appearance altering technology to oust unethical (yet legal) businessmen, and turn the company over to the employees.
====New DC Universe
* Barbara Gordon (Batgirl) had her mobility restored as a result of undergoing an experimental surgical procedure in South Africa. Gail Simone in [http://www.newsarama.com/comics/gail-simone-batgirl-cure-revelations-120111.html this interview] notes that South Africa actually does a lot of work in this area, and that despite public perceptions in various cases spinal damage ''can'' be repaired and mobility regained.
* Upon regaining his human form, Swamp Thing (Alec Holland), tried to replicate the eco-restorative formula that originally gave him his superpowers. Alec then decided to destroy the formula, believing (from his own experiences as Swamp Thing) that the plant world was quite violent and that submersing the Earth in it would be a bad thing.
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* In the [[Resurrection Man]] series, it is established that the cost of one anti-ballistic personalized force field costs $2 billion to make and $500,000/day to operate.
==== DC's
* The beginning of the animated movie ''[[Superman: Doomsday]]'' lampshades this, as it shows Supes unsuccessfully trying to cure cancer; he comments how odd it is that, even with all of Kryptonian technology at his disposal and all of the unbelievable things he's done, he's never been able to help Earth beyond "being its resident strong man". Of course, his immediate reaction to every threat the movie throws at him after that is "hit it with my fists until it stops moving", so maybe that's his own fault. Contrast with [[Lex Luthor]] in the film, who is shown having completed a one-dose cure for muscular dystrophy... then starts working on a way to make it a life-long treatment so he can get more money for each dose.
=== [[Marvel Universe]]
* The [[Trope Namer]] is Reed Richards, better known as Mr. Fantastic, leader of the [[Fantastic Four]]. While Marvel has attempted to justify his lack of [[Buffy-Speak|world-changiness]] in various ways, including that his inventions are too expensive and that nobody else can understand them, the real reason is that allowing him to make a real difference would make the world far too different to reality.
** The current justification, being used in Jonathan Hickman's run on [[Fantastic Four]] and F.F. and by Bendis in the [[Ultimate Marvel]] universe, is that it's his family which prevents Reed from putting all his efforts into changing the world. He has to choose between being a loving father and husband and devoting himself to advancing humanity. It's implied that the world is ''lucky'' when Reed takes the first option since, if he doesn't or if things don't work out between him and Sue, he becomes a [[Knight Templar]] (Hickman's books) or full on villain (the Ultimate 'verse).
*** There's also that Reed's kids will go on to become pivotal figures in history themselves, so it's to the net good of the timeline that Reed actually stop to raise some instead of being a full-time working bachelor.
** ''Reed Richard's Guide to Everything'', an RPG rulebook framed as a newspaper column where Reed Richards answers the questions posed by children, has Reed outright answer why he doesn't mass produce HERBIE. The first reason, that it would cost "the average household something like three years income" and hiring a talented human would be cheaper. This makes it worse since HERBIE is superhuman and would cost a business a one time payment of less (due to social security matches and lack of biological needs) than hiring an '''average''' human for three years. The second, and more credible, is that Reed has encountered plenty of supervillains who can hijack his robots and he doesn't want to give them any ammo. Doesn't exactly answer the question on less hijackable things however.
* [[Doctor Doom]] has a healing ray machine that can regenerate full-body third-degree-burn patients to full health in a day. Being the bad guy, he hasn't released it. But Reed hasn't even tried to duplicate or reverse-engineer that project...and Reed's had possession of Doom's castle at least twice since that story arc.
* [[Iron Man|Tony Stark]] is, depending on the invention, one of the more justified versions of the trope.
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** He also has a healing ray machine that successfully regenerated [[Nick Fury]] after almost being blown apart to a basic cellular level. Tony Stark hasn't even released a watered-down version of the healing ray machine (face it, a machine like that would probably be exorbitantly expensive) to the public.
** Tony has also made attempts that were unsuccessful due to things not his own fault. For example, he once tried to build a huge, highly-advanced space station with his own money and then donate it to the world to jumpstart private private space industry. AIM then infected it with a bio-weapon that kept anybody from ever using it. Tony's also made several attempts to invent various forms of clean energy and sell them. Either it turns out they didn't work as well in practice as they did in the lab, supervillains blew them up and publicly discredited the technologies, or Tony finds out the technology can be too easily abused to make weapons and has to retract it. The writers really like frustrating Tony whenever he tries to do something besides blast supervillains with repulsors, its annoying.
** Pretty much the entire 'Stark Reliant, Inc.' period of Fraction's IRON MAN run can be summed up as 'Tony makes yet another attempt to invent and release a widely beneficial technology, and the Hammer family yet again blows it up and ruins the entire attempt, second verse, same as the first, this is the song that never ends.'
* The graphic novel ''The Death of [[Captain Mar-Vell]]'' hung a lampshade on this by claiming that every (mortal) sentient race has a disease similar to cancer, and many of the races had already found a cure for their race's version of the disease. Furthermore, when Rick Jones appeals to the superheroes who are scientists and doctors to find a cure for Mar-Vell's cancer, they find themselves uncomfortably realizing they could have made this kind of effort beforehand for others.
* The fictional African nation of Wakanda is, due to a surreptitious abundance of [[Unobtainium]] as a natural resource, a first world nation. This does not extend to any other part of Africa we see, though this is probably why writers don't show it very much, although to their credit from fairly early on they attempted to justify it by having the Wakandans have a policy of isolation that goes back centuries. Furthermore, the Wakandans have also cured cancer but are holding out on the rest of the world; when Mar-Vell was dying of cancer, the Wakandan King was there and said he could do nothing. Sorry, Mar-Vell!
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* [[Iron Man]]'s enemy, Ezekiel Stane, discovered a way of reducing the energy consumption of the body to only 7%, the best use of this: Repulsor bolts from his hand, [[Cut Lex Luthor a Check|is not like he can fight the hunger or something.]]
* [[Spider-Man]]'s webbing. Real life spider silk is, pound for pound, stronger than steel, tougher than Kevlar, as flexible as yarn, and incredibly lightweight. It's also prohibitively hard to manufacture, as spiders don't "farm" well. Peter Parker somehow has managed to manufacture synthetic spider silk that's cost-effective enough for him to always be in supply; while it does dissolve after about an hour, no adhesive company seems interested in buying the formula and tweaking it to last longer.
** His Spider-Tracers are another example, small "bugs" that he uses when he needs to [[Trick and Follow Ploy|track down a foe]], which he has attuned to his own Spider-Sense. There was even a short arc where he had temporarily lost his powers and considered marketing them after adapting them to more conventional frequencies.
** Parodied in ''[[Avengers Academy]]'': Spidey explains to the students in class how [[Ambition Is Evil|he was wrong for trying at first to use his powers for financial gain]] instead of [[Comes Great Responsibility|helping people]] and the students ask why he didn't just patent his webbing and make millions that he could donate to needy charities. Spidey counters that he'd have to give up his secret identity to patent it, but one of them points out he could have used proxies in the form of shell companies to hide the source of the webbing.
*** Or, alternately, Peter could just
*** Another alternative would be for Peter to patent and market his stuff as Spider-Man... through a lawyer, holding his power-of-attorney, who would represent 'Spider-Man' at all business dealings while using attorney-client privilege to avoid telling anyone who Spider-Man was. Of course, this would require finding [[Daredevil|a trustworthy lawyer who already knew Spidey's secret identity]].
** Finally starting to get averted with Peter working at Horizon Labs. While he hasn't patented and sold his webbing, he is inventing stuff that not only helps out with his crime fighting but is also patented and sold to civilians for more mundane applications.
** Anybody care to share what are some of these "more mundane applications"?
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* In the case of [[Storm]] and other characters with weather-manipulation powers, it's been suggested that continual use of their powers would destabilize weather patterns (as demonstrated in one battle between the X-Men and Alpha Flight where one members self-generated blizzard wrecked havoc on the weather cycle). Most weather controllers aren't creating weather out of nothingness, they're manipulating the existing environment, and drawing resources such as airborne moisture towards one location simply draws those resources away from other areas in need.
* Project Pegasus, a division of the US Department of Energy devoted to discovering alternative energy resources, has a method of converting solid radioactive waste into harmless material. This invention alone should revolutionize nuclear power and earn billions of dollars. The ramifications of such technology among the world has yet to be explored.
** Although we do see nuclear power plants somewhat more often in Marvel Comics than we see them in the contemporary United States, and also see somewhat less plots involving resource scarcity, so the ramifications of that technology (more widespread use of commercial nuclear power) might actually be occurring in-setting.
* One Spider-Man issue had Doctor Octopus hijacking a shipment of HIV-infected blood, so he can try out a possible cure. He manages to steal the blood, get to his lab, fight off Spidey (who thought he was making a bioweapon) multiple times, and run the test...and it fails. Doc Ock is too depressed to put up a fight anymore and surrenders, and Spider-Man never learns what he was actually trying to do: {{spoiler|save his ex-girlfriend, who died from AIDS a few days afterwards.}}
* Unlike Oracle, no one wonders why the [[X-Men]]'s Professor X is still in a wheelchair. This is because he doesn't seem to really ''care''. He was moved to a healthy clone body under highly unusual circumstances, but his spine was broken later.
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* In one storyline in the X-Men during the late-80's, a bunch of COLLEGE STUDENTS first try to kill Xavier by mutant bashing him. Failing at that, they then booby-trap his university office with an ANTI-TELEPATHY DEVICE! The apparent implications of ordinary people having access to such advanced technology is never explored. But incidents like this are very widespread in the Marvel Universe, raising the question of why Reed seems disinclined to put most of his technology on the market. Availability of advanced technology is very erratic and driven solely by writer's whims. As a rule, gadgets that can be used to harm superheroes outnumber more practical consumer devices by a fairly wide margin.
** Similar to the inconsistency of the first ''Marvel 2099'' line where a common crime was organ theft. However, at least one issue mentioned that cloned organ transplantations were available to the public (the way it was mentioned also suggested that the cloning procedure was a rather routine operation), thus rendering organ theft redundant.
** Depends on how much the cloning procedure ''costs''. Remember that the economy of Marvel 2099 is a dystopian cyberpunk hell, where large underprivileged segments of the population cannot afford (or are not allowed to purchase) things that are routinely made available to prosperous and middle-class citizens, and are left with the black market as their only recourse.
* [[Damage Control]], a company that repairs the damage to New York caused by superhero battles, is implied to be highly effective as New York can be devastated in one issue yet return to normal by the next storyline. However, Damage Control seems unable to treat real world disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and 9/11.
* During the ''[[Secret Invasion]]'' storyline, Norman Osborne creates a weapon to kill Deadpool that could also theoretically cure cancer. In an absolutely spectacular display of idiocy, he never thinks to release this to the public and thus generate obscene amounts of money and good publicity.
* Given the reckless use of their superpowers in early appearances, it is a surprise that the X-Men and Fantastic Four were not "useless" if not downright dangerous as superheroes (https://web.archive.org/web/20130908114623/http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/linkara/at4w/33215-all-star-comics-8-and-the-fantastic-four-1 and http://atopfourthwall.blogspot.com/2010/11/x-men-1.html).
* In the comic book review show ''[[Atop the Fourth Wall]]'' host Linkara points out that Reed Richards seems too busy with inventing useless stuff like air signals that can change their own writing as opposed to something useful like curing cancer.
* Doesn't Professor X occasionally use his telepathy powers to help bring people out of comas?
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* Before he became the Sorceror Supreme, [[Doctor Strange]] was a brilliant yet arrogant neurosurgeon. When one charity approached him to help them cure a disease, Dr. Strange refused as there was little if any money involved.
* There was this one Marvel webcomic focusing on a documentary exploring whether or not Galactus was a myth. There were commercials advertising products only available in the Marvel Universe. This troper never read the comic book, only read about it. If anyone knows the name of the story, please share it.
* One arc of [[Power Pack]] has the Power's mom in the hospital, barely clinging to life, after being injured by a super-villain shoving her aside with super strength. When Katie decides to be [[Lonely Together]] with the various heroes the group has met and she invites [[Cloak and Dagger (comics)|Cloak and Dagger]] as well as some Morlocks to Thanksgiving dinner with them. Dagger's healing abilities and the Morlocks knowing fellow Morlock [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Healer]] are never mentioned. Used literally when Reed Richard's son is working with Power Pack and his parents are either out of town/off planet or subjected to [[Adults Are Useless]].
* Then we have [[X-Men/Characters/80s Members|Rogue]]. The poor girl was [[Blessed With Suck]] due to [[Power Incontinence]] for most of her career, being unable to touch another person without her power stealing their powers and memories, and while this is ''usually'' a temporary setback for the victim, using it on Ms. Marvel caused a permanent transfer, the stolen memories (which she often could not distiguish from her own) bringing her to the brink of madness. She has never found out exactly why that happened, and her greatest fear is the possibility that it might happen again. Yet despite the fact that every [[Evil Genius]] in Marvel seems capable of building a [[Slave Collar]] that nullifies mutant powers, nobody on the heroes' side (not Xavier, Reed, or Stark) seems able to duplicate such a device for someone like Rogue who ''wants'' a way to turn her powers off.
* Downplayed with Kitty Pryde, another mutant who has had [[Power Incontinence]] problems from time to time. In the most extreme case where she was stuck in an intangible state and could not become solid again, Reed made an honest attempt before admitting he had no idea how to help her. Then [[Doctor Doom]] showed up and claimed ''he'' had the solution - and he did, [[Villainous Crush|all he wanted in return was one date with Storm.]]
==== Ultimate Marvel Universe ====▼
* This trope is more often averted in the Ultimate Marvel Universe than in the regular Marvel Universe (Earth 616). However, the aversions to these tropes are handwaved rather than made a main part of the story. However, these trends could have very well been undone in the event of mass superhero casualties and global destruction caused by the Ultimatium storyline.▼
* [[Hand Wave
** Justified with Reed Richard's teleportation/dimensional crossing technology which has led to Earth being invaded by aliens and zombies on a couple of occasions.▼
* [[Hand Wave
* Averted with Thor who uses his weather control powers to help African farmers, and super-strength to rebuild Bosnia. Storm of the X-Men also used her powers to bring rain to a recession-hit farm area as part of a college project.▼
* Before the Ultimate X-Men broke up, Jean Grey's primary focus at the school was using her telepathic powers to help the mentally ill.▼
* Although they were villains, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver disarmed both India and Pakistan of their nuclear weapons. The supervillain duo also exposed corporate corruption.▼
* Before Professor X and [[Magneto]] founded the X-Men, they offered their mutants to help government/industry solve numerous problems (i.e. the energy crisis, ending world hunger etc.). Government/industry declines the offer, not wanting to upset the status quo.▼
=== Wildstorm Universe ===
* Deconstructed in ''[[Planetary]]''. The world is run by a secret cabal headed by a thinly veiled version of the Fantastic Four, and the Reed analog purposely keeps their discoveries and inventions from the world (and purposefully seek and confiscate/cover up the technology, magic and similar of others) for personal gain {{spoiler|and to keep humanity weak in preparation for a highly advanced alien race to take it over}}. Planetary itself was founded because this really pissed certain other beings, like the Fourth Man, off, and is dedicated to excavating as much weirdness, lost technology and similar as possible with the aim of sharing it with humanity.▼
* [[Warren Ellis]] and his successors examined the trope in ''[[The Authority]]'', which was Jenny Sparks' attempt to fill the shoes of both a disbanded [[Stormwatch]] and The High's group. At the end of the first story arc, after defeating a teleporting clone army of [[Flying Brick
* Century child Gaia Rothstein of the 21st century was said to have the power to reverse global warming or make famine history, but had such attempts subverted by the apocalyptic destruction of World's End. As a result, Gaia sought refuge by bonding herself with the planet Earth.▼
* The Wildstorm Universe has inconsistency with exploring the ramifications of superheroes sharing their superscience with the public. In ''WildC.A.T.S'' (2002), the titular characters made limitless extradimensional energy available to the public. Later on in the Authority: Revolution maxi-series (2005), the Authority (as rulers of the United States) tried to force auto-manufactures to make bio-diesel cars (being an inferior energy source compared to the WildC.A.T.S extradimensional batteries).▼
=== Miscellaneous ===
* Both used and averted in ''[[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]'': by 1958, Earth has been invaded by Martians, there was a huge scale Air-War in Europe prior to World War I, and Britain was controlled by IngSoc from 1945 through 1953, yet absolutely none of this has had any effect on the Cold War, World War II, or, in fact, anything regarding the general course of history. Of course, this is what happens when you combine all of fiction into one universe.
* In ''The Boys'' the superheroes, for the most part, really are useless. When The Seven try to avert the comics' version of 9/11, they fuck it up catastrophically {{spoiler|with the Brooklyn Bridge being destroyed instead of the south World Trade Tower}}. The message, of course, being that the military and other trained rescue organisations are the real heroes {{spoiler|who in The Boys, the US military had shot down the airplanes heading for the Pentagon and North World Trade Center Tower, thus reducing the 9/11 death toll from over 3000 to around 1000}}.
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* In ''[[Judge Dredd]]'', the availability of superscience to the public varies from storyline to storyline. In some issues, organ theft/traficking are major crime operations. In other issues, hospitals regularly provide cloned organ transplantations to patients (thus making organ theft/traficking redundant).
* In ''Supreme Power: Nighthawk vs. Hyperion'', Nighthawk lures Hyperion to Darfur in hopes that Hyperion will become more proactive on the country's suffering. Hyperion kills Sudanese President Al-Hamas, although the disposed President assures Hyperion that another brutal ruler will just replace him. The story ends with superpowered Africans ordering the titular characters to leave, saying that two people can't fix a country of millions of people.
* Gyro Gearloose from the [[Disney Ducks Comic Universe]]. Over the course of time, [[Depending on the Writer|the many different writers]] did let him invent just about ''anything'', from simple mechanical contraptions which could theoretically also work in [[Real Life]], to [[Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness|ultra-soft science fiction stuff]] like e.g. [[Time Machine
* In ''Sultry Teenage Super-Foxes'', the US military develops an "alchemy ray", which they test by turning dog poop into gold...and then the head scientist remarks that it's considered "too theoretical" for them to get more funding. [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara]] flips out at this, pointing out that such a device is '''infinitely''' useful since it could be used to safely dispose of nuclear waste (among other uses). Of course, the machine is destroyed in the accident that creates the titular heroes, rendering the whole debate moot.
* Interestingly averted with Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck, whose discoveries were later discovered in the real world. Donald Duck discovered a carbene called methylene (along with a particular reaction it caused) 20 years before scientists in the real world did. Scrooge McDuck also created a method of retrieving sunken ships that was later duplicated in the real world. Furthermore, Scrooge McDuck served as a major inspiration for Osamu Tekuza's (father of anime and manga) art style, as seen in ''[[Cracked.com]]'''s [http://www.cracked.com/article_19021_5-amazing-things-invented-by-donald-duck-seriously.html 5 Amazing Things Invented by Donald Duck].
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* In the graphic novel The Network (which was about a television network devoted exclusively to covering superhero news) one of the news headline explained "The heroes have the ability to end poverty and hunger. So why don't they? Find out in an exclusive interview with the Champion."
* Human brains can be transplanted into humanoid robots in Judge Dredd's Mega-City One. However, the cheapest model is $120,000 and over 80% of Mega-City One's residents are on permanent welfare.
▲=== Ultimate Marvel Universe ===
▲* This trope is more often averted in the Ultimate Marvel Universe than in the regular Marvel Universe (Earth 616). However, the aversions to these tropes are handwaved rather than made a main part of the story. However, these trends could have very well been undone in the event of mass superhero casualties and global destruction caused by the Ultimatium storyline.
▲* [[Hand Wave|Handwaved]] in Ultimate Fantastic Four where it was stated that Reed Richards finished plans for a five-sensory television that was requested by the Baxter Building's corporate financiers. Two Japanese companies were also bidding over Reed Richards microscopic house technology. However, the time frame in which such technology would be made available to the public wasn't explained.
▲** Justified with Reed Richard's teleportation/dimensional crossing technology which has led to Earth being invaded by aliens and zombies on a couple of occasions.
▲* [[Hand Wave|Handwaved]] in Mark Millar's ''[[Ultimate X-Men]]'', stating that Beast was researching cheaper alternatives to high-priced Western pharmaceuticals in the Third World. However, Beast's devastation dealt to him by the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants presumably causes him to halt such research.
▲* Averted with Thor who uses his weather control powers to help African farmers, and super-strength to rebuild Bosnia. Storm of the X-Men also used her powers to bring rain to a recession-hit farm area as part of a college project.
▲* Before the Ultimate X-Men broke up, Jean Grey's primary focus at the school was using her telepathic powers to help the mentally ill.
▲* Although they were villains, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver disarmed both India and Pakistan of their nuclear weapons. The supervillain duo also exposed corporate corruption.
▲* Before Professor X and [[Magneto]] founded the X-Men, they offered their mutants to help government/industry solve numerous problems (i.e. the energy crisis, ending world hunger etc.). Government/industry declines the offer, not wanting to upset the status quo.
▲* Deconstructed in ''[[Planetary]]''. The world is run by a secret cabal headed by a thinly veiled version of the Fantastic Four, and the Reed analog purposely keeps their discoveries and inventions from the world (and purposefully seek and confiscate/cover up the technology, magic and similar of others) for personal gain {{spoiler|and to keep humanity weak in preparation for a highly advanced alien race to take it over}}. Planetary itself was founded because this really pissed certain other beings, like the Fourth Man, off, and is dedicated to excavating as much weirdness, lost technology and similar as possible with the aim of sharing it with humanity.
▲* [[Warren Ellis]] and his successors examined the trope in ''[[The Authority]]'', which was Jenny Sparks' attempt to fill the shoes of both a disbanded [[Stormwatch]] and The High's group. At the end of the first story arc, after defeating a teleporting clone army of [[Flying Brick|Flying Bricks]] from the island of Gamora, team leader Jenny Sparks states that the Authority is going to present Gamora's captured [[Cut Lex Luthor a Check|tissue replication and teleportation devices]] to UN inspectors. She hopes this will pressure the inspectors to make the technology available to the public after 5-10 years of testing. Later, [[Mark Millar]]'s "The Nativity" arc explicitly asks the question "Why do super-people never go after the real bastards?". The Authority, like the Stormwatch superhumans, did devote their time to solving the problems of humanity; The Engineer in particular. She developed a cure for a certain strain of leukemia and spent her spare time developing renewable energy. Jack Hawksmoor led his endorsements to companies who promised to pay their workers a decent wage. The Authority are also pretty thorough about addressing the crimes perpetrated by humans rather than superhumans, such as totalitarian regimes. However, this backfires: they are accused of presenting "unfair competition" for medical and industrial companies, and blamed for mass redundancies. Moreover, after the "Coup D'Etat" storyline The Authority become the unelected government of the USA. In the process, the Authority unintentionally causes mass civilian casualties in fighting the armed resistance. Furthermore, the Authority unsuccessfully tries to legalize hemp production and require all auto engines to run on bio-diesel by the end of the year. Amidst these failures, the Authority steps down as unelected rulers of the United States.
▲* Century child Gaia Rothstein of the 21st century was said to have the power to reverse global warming or make famine history, but had such attempts subverted by the apocalyptic destruction of World's End. As a result, Gaia sought refuge by bonding herself with the planet Earth.
▲* The Wildstorm Universe has inconsistency with exploring the ramifications of superheroes sharing their superscience with the public. In ''WildC.A.T.S'' (2002), the titular characters made limitless extradimensional energy available to the public. Later on in the Authority: Revolution maxi-series (2005), the Authority (as rulers of the United States) tried to force auto-manufactures to make bio-diesel cars (being an inferior energy source compared to the WildC.A.T.S extradimensional batteries).
== Film ==
* Discussed throughout '[[Cracked.com]]''{{'}}s [http://www.cracked.com/article_19037_7-movies-that-ignored-world-changing-discoveries.html 7 Movies That Ignored World-Changing Discoveries].
* In the [[Superman (film)|''Superman'' films]] our hero has a Fortress of Solitude filled with "the accumulated scientific knowledge of dozens of different worlds". Rather than flying around stopping accidents and robberies, wouldn't he make a far greater contribution to mankind if he just used that technology, to, say, cure cancer? Looks like Luthor was right about him: "Gods are selfish beings who fly around in capes don't share their power with mankind."
** The first film has Jor-El's order to not interfere in human history, giving reasons like over-reliance from humanity and making a target out of his loved ones. And the one time he tried a direct approach was in ''Superman 4'', the lesson here apparently that trying to force humanity forward will result in people trying to capitalize on your attempts.
* Discussed in the ''[[Iron Man]]'' [[Iron Man (film)|movie]]. Tony Stark's power cell is stated as being able to generate 3 gigajoules per second of
** The second film averts this trope though - in the opening sequence shows Ivan Vanko [[Hard Work Montage|building the first Whiplash suit]], and various newspaper clippings are shown that mention, among other things, new technological advances developed by Stark Industries made available to the general public. Tony Stark's [[Badass Boast|claims]] that he has privatized world peace and created the most peaceful time in human history further cements this aversion.
*** Additionally, the real reason for Justin Hammer's entire plan, which included breaking an [[Evil Genius]] out of jail to develop his [[Mecha-Mooks|Hammer Drones]] is to [[Cut Lex Luthor a Check|secure a defense contract.]]
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** But why won't Tesla make use of the technology, especially since his lab was just destroyed by [[Thomas Edison|Edison]]'s goons? He considers it an abomination, even though it could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. Factories would be unnecessary. You would just need to make 1 of everything and then keep copying it, as long as you have enough power.
*** So the machine - if available everywhere - would actually create something akin to a post-scarcity economy (endlessly replicating fuel would create endless power) and change society beyond recognition in ways we still find hard to fathom. If enough people had the machines, Tesla wouldn't even really be "rich" in our sense of the word.
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''[[Back
* The ''[[Men in Black (film)|Men in Black]]'' possess enormous amount of confiscated advanced technology. While they ''do'' release some of the technology to the public, holding the patents on numerous alien technologies sold to the
* In ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'', Scotty (with a little help from the future) quickly modifies a transporter so it can send people across vast interstellar distances. This is used, of course, to get Scotty and Kirk onto the Enterprise (which has been travelling away from their starting point for hours at [[Faster-Than-Light Travel|high warp speeds]]). So the transporter modification is used to resolve a dramatic point in the plot, but no-one seems to realise it could also be used for [[Casual Interstellar Travel|mundane travel between star systems]].
** In ''[[Star Trek: Insurrection]]'', [[Perfect Pacifist People|the]] [[Space Amish|Bak'u]] had discovered and settled down on a planet with incredible rejuvenating powers, but rather than considering sharing it, they keep it for themselves for... some reason. To many, this [[Designated Hero|makes them look more unsympathetic]] than [[Designated Villain|Starfleet Admiral Dougherty and the Son'a]], who ''are'' planning on bringing these powers to billions of people.
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{{quote|'''Raoul Puke''': So the Neweyes fart tells them that he can use the time machine to travel back in time to grant the wishes of all the children of the world. I would have used it to stop 9/11... unethical jackass. I mean, the Kennedy assassination? The bombing of Pearl Harbor? Really? None of these are more important than entertaining whiny little bastard children? Well, while you're taking requests, [[Godwin's Law|here's a kid named Hitler]]. He just wants to start his own Third Reich and bring joy and happiness to the world. Why don't you grant him that wish? Huh? HUH?}}
* ''[[Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (film)|Charlie and The Chocolate Factory]]'': Willy Wonka can make an entire meal come out of gum, an ice cream that stays cold and doesn't melt in the sun, build a chocolate palace without a metal framework, teleport things into TV screens, and has anti-gravity technology - yet he only applies his know-how to candy. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by Mike Teavee in the 2005 movie: "Don't you realize what you've invented? It's a teleporter! It's the most important invention in the world! And all you think about is ''chocolate''!"
* ''[[Scooby
** The gang goes to visit a friend who has made a video game based off their adventures only for them to discover that he has invented a laser that can digitize and rebuild matter (ala ''[[Tron]]'') but instead of testing it as a possibility to solve world problems like hunger or extended/more efficient space travel he store real items in his game for lazy coding; {{spoiler|And eventually Mystery Inc. is transported in and out as well showing that even living things could be moved over great distances.}}
*** Velma says at the end that the professor is a suspect because he "...could make a quarter of a million dollars..." at the competition the game and invented laser was being entered into instead of pointing out he could take control of the world with a sustained and protected power source and a few petabites of memory.
** The Phantom Virus, the title "ghost," is sent out from a virtual world and acts upon real objects with super natural powers. It knows to chase the real Mystery Inc. but leaves the virtual ones alone until they interfere showing some semblance of AI. Same with the virtual Mystery Inc. who have chosen to stay on the most diverse level.
* ''[[Space Camp]]'' has a sentient, AI robot which is capable expressing emotions and bypassing failsafes to launch a shuttle, but NASA itself is still counting on the shuttle and mindless computers.
** The ''entire plot of the movie'' is driven by the fact that the AI is a failed prototype not approved for field service because it has an incomplete understanding of natural language and thus occasionally misinterprets orders, sometimes to disastrous result.
* Averted in ''[[The Incredibles]]'', where [[Big Bad|Syndrome's]] evil plot is to sell his inventions to the public, thus making super-powered beings obsolete.
** He also says he's made his fortune already selling some of his inventions.
* In defence of the ''[[Transformers (film)|Transformers]]'' series, Optimus Prime says explicitly that [[You Are Not Ready|humanity is not ready]] for the Autobots' advanced ''weaponry''. The same is ''not'' said about the Autobots' ''other'' significant technologies, such as (apparently) FTL travel, mindblowingly advanced computer miniaturisation, robotics, and fabrication. This is particularly egregious since in the first film Simmonds ''expressly'' says that ''much of humanity's'' best 20th century
** In the prequel comics (of arguable canonicity), it's revealed that there are hostile alien races out there that were able to threaten ''Cybertronians''. Naturally, Optimus would rather humans avoid going out there before they're ready to defend themselves.
** There is also a non-canonic novel that actually has the US launch an advanced spacecraft based on Megatron's tech simultaneously with Apollo 11. While Armstrong is busy crawling to the Moon, the other spacecraft accidentally discovers a wormhole and is sent halfway across the galaxy. {{spoiler|They don't make it back, though}}.
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* Averted in ''[[Megamind]]'';{{spoiler|when [[Face Heel Turn|he becomes the hero]], Megamind uses his advanced technology to rebuild the damage to the city caused by the super-battle against Tighten.}}
** In the sequel short, he proceeds to {{spoiler|sell all his evil inventions at a garage sale}}.
* The video ''[http://www.cracked.com/video_18175_why-batman-secretly-terrible-gotham.html Why Batman Is Secretly Terrible for Gotham]'' by ''[[Cracked.com]]''{{'}}s Dan, Katie, Michael and Soren not only made a case of batman’s [[Superhero Paradox]], but implies that Bruce Wayne Is Useless Too: In all his comics, animated and movie incarnations, he is an entrepreneur who is part of Fiction500. If he really wanted to stop crime, he could have tried to boost Gotham’s economy and then crime would naturally fall. They remember the monorail that Bruce’s father built (and Batman himself destroyed) in Batman Begins and the [[Sinister Surveillance]] implemented to stop Joker in [[The Dark Knight]]. They compare Bruce Wayne to an Enron [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] that is using the corporation’s winnings to finance his hobbies (fight crime in his own terms).
** It's also factually incorrect: [http://glitterpancake.tumblr.com/post/110382878890/bruce-wayne-outside-of-batman Bruce Wayne's philanthropic efforts in the comics] have been repeatedly and thoroughly lampshaded across multiple authors and editorial eras, and are vast and lavish to the point that you wonder how even his vast fortune can possibly pay for it all.
* The premise for ''[[Batman: The Movie]]'' and [[Batman (TV series)|the ''Batman'' TV Series]] is that that incarnation of Batman only is useful to fight supervillains (and nothing more). At the end of the movie, Batman quickly refuses Robin's idea to better the world by making a [[Freaky Friday Flip]] with the United World Organization security council, arguing that they shouldn't try to tamper with the laws of mother nature. Then happens exactly that, (but arguably, the [[Status Quo Is God]] still applies) and Batman takes responsibility just before going out inconspicuously throught the window.
{{quote|'''Batman''': Who knows, Robin? This strange mixing of minds may be the greatest single service ever performed for humanity! Let's go, but, inconspicuously, through the window. We'll use our Batropes. Our job is finished. }}
* In the movie ''[[Dungeon Master]]'', the main character has invented a pair of glasses that can control numerous electronic devices such as traffic lights, and ATM machines. He doesn't bother to market the invention, and remains stuck as a low-paid IT assistant.
== Literature ==
* The ''[[Tortall Universe]]'' series, where it is noted that, should Numair want to put out a candle, he would have to do so with his fingers or a snuffer because using his Gift would cause it to explode, making his range of use slightly limited.
* In the ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' novels, the Ministry of Magic keeps the existence of wizards secret from [[Muggles]] because, as Hagrid puts it, "They might want magical solutions to their problems." It never seems to occur to any wizard to ask, "Well, why not?" In the Muggle world, wizards could become simply one more category of useful, respected, highly-paid professionals... Of course, it could go horribly wrong. The prejudice against so-called "witches"
** While their desire to be left alone is understandable, they are being rather selfish in withholding things that, while relatively common for them, could solve most of the world's problems. Some examples: healing magic that can cure most diseases and regenerate limbs, spells capable of multiplying the world's food and natural resources, fuel-independent means of transportation... just imagine if all that were available to the general public.
** [[Word of God]] has said that this explanation is just the wizards lying to themselves; they had lived openly amongst ''muggles'' for most of history without any trouble. They only went into hiding because, in a wand vs. shotgun fight, you should bet on the shotgun.
** In a reversal, electronics and other modern technology doesn't work in magical places like Hogwarts, which is why wizards don't use the internet and all information therefore must be painstakingly researched in gigantic tomes in the library. As the first six books were set in 1991-1997, the characters wouldn't be able to just google "Nicholas Flamel" or "How to breathe under water" anyway, but they'd still have a shitload more (and better organized) information if wizards used computers.
*** Actually, the wizards are still
**** Averted in fanfic -- "Guardian" by 'Logicalmagic' has school textbooks that are sold with a miniature copy of the author's portrait on the inside of front cover, so that students who have questions about the material can simply consult the portrait for a personal tutoring session. Of course, in order to preserve the setting timeline, these textbooks are deprecated by the British Ministry of Magic's educational department and so Sirius has to import them for Harry from overseas.
*** For that matter, the Hogwarts library doesn't appear to have a reference librarian of any
* Actually explained very nicely in ''[[Young Wizards]]''. When Nita's mother develops cancer, she seeks out to heal her and it becomes the primary goal of the fifth book. It's stated that even though curing cancer is possible, it's very tricky to do. It's also stated that you not only have to heal the person, but also the cancer as well.
* The ''[[Dresden Files]]'' book ''Turn Coat'' explores this. The reason so far given is that if mages were to be part of the world they would become part of the political process. Wars between [[Muggles]] would become wars between mages; and then nobody would be able to stop the vampires. Whether this is a ''good'' reason is left open...
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She hesitated. It would have been nice to say yes. }}
* Played with in the ''[[NUMA Series]]''. ''Valhalla Rising'' starts off with a ship powered by a [[wikipedia:Magnetohydrodynamic drive|magnetohydrodynamic drive]], which is shortly set ablaze. It turns out to be sabotage to discredit the drive, and it apparently ''works''. The eponymous ship of ''[[The Oregon Files]]''' has those same drives, but it's mentioned that most countries' maritime boards banned them after "a fire" onboard "a ship" with them until they could be tested. The ''Oregon'' flies the flag of Iran, since they have "cavalier" attitudes towards maritime law. There are several revolutionary technologies in the series that don't become available to the public because of this trope. ''Valhalla Rising'', for instance, ended with {{spoiler|Pitt discovering a functioning teleporter.}} Presumably it's still a national secret.
* The main character of ''[[The Witches of Bailiwick]]'' controls weather, noted as a perfect example of
* At the end of the ''[[Wild Cards]]'' novel ''Suicide Kings'', Mark Meadows decides to start defying this trope by devoting his pharmacological genius to curing disease rather than continuing to turn himself into a superpowered [[Knight Templar]].
* Attempted in the [[Roald Dahl]] story ''[[George's Marvelous Medicine]]'' where the titular character ''does'' somehow come up with a medicine that increases the size of livestock that could in theory end world hunger. However, he never knew the recipe for the medicine, since he made it out of dozens of random items by pure accident, and all his attempts to recreate it result in increasingly bizarre results.
* In ''[[Wearing the Cape]]'', Verne-types (gadgeteers) are superhumans whose power is the ability to create Weird Science stuff, like powersuits and antigravity
== Live Action TV ==
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** One guy's saliva could cause weight loss. Companies sought him out to potentially market a revolutionary weight-loss drug. But it turns out that {{spoiler|the saliva doesn't stop working and eventually the people who were under its effects become emaciated.}}
* In one episode of ''[[Law and Order]]'', a misogynist modifies a commercially available machine pistol from semi-auto to [[More Dakka|full-auto]], turning it into a highly efficient killing machine. He uses it to shoot a group of female med students, killing 15. He pleads out by about 0:35, and in a brutal subversion of [[Your Princess Is in Another Castle]], Jack McCoy decides to go after the pistol's manufacturer for knowing their product could be easily modified and not doing anything about it. (It's mentioned that the gun has been used in a hundred-odd crimes in a few years, and in every case but six the gun was modified.) 15 counts of negligent homicide, and the city of New York wins. While everyone except the defendant is celebrating, the judge goes "Hold it!" and delivers a directed verdict of "Not Guilty", due to the people basing their case on emotion rather than fact. Immediately followed by an [[Author Tract]], in classic trope style, about how the problem can't ''really'' be solved by putting people in jail. If the original verdict had held, it would've heralded the start of a new age of corporate accountability, leading to widespread change in the L&O'verse. Can you say [[Status Quo Is God]]?
** It's a [[Ripped from the Headlines]], actually. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120711192701/http://library.findlaw.com/2001/Aug/1/126093.html Merrill vs. Navegar], to be specific.
* The [[Stargate Verse]] is full of this. While the series begins with 1995 people using 1995 technology, and the SGC really hadn't managed to collect much alien tech (let alone understand it), the end of the series has them in the possession of the full library of knowledge of two distinct intergalactic cultures, one of whom left ''detailed replication instructions for everything'', not to mention a bunch of alien allies and enough offworld colonies to solve pretty much every population problem (living space, famine, etc.) on Earth five times over. Getting public support would probably allow Earth to expand across the entire galaxy in the span of a few decades. While the later episodes indicate some of this tech is beginning to filter down (a prototype energy weapon, medical nanites in development, etc.), for the most part the government is unwilling to break the ruse since other groups consistently misuse the technology. It also helps that they're constantly in the middle of secret wars and probably don't want to reveal themselves at a "low point".
** Not only that, but they've learned from the experience of one of their former allies, the Tollan. The Tollan shared their advanced technology with a neighboring world, only to watch as that world destroy itself, devastating the Tollan homeworld in the process. There's a good reason the SGC is introducing things slowly.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* Mentioned explicitly in ''[[GURPS]]'' with the "Gadgeteer" advantage, which allows characters to invent new gadgets more easily. While Gadgeteer allows characters to make gadgets for themselves or to solve problems that arise during an adventure, in order to sell their gadgets for money (or even outfit their teammates with gadgets) they must purchase additional advantages which cost more [[Character Points]].
** Explicitly subverted in the house superhero setting, ''International Super Teams'', in which by 1990 safe and reliable fusion plants, high-energy-density power cells, and other ultratech devices exist—and have begun changing the world—because of the combined effect of supers, gadgeteers and good old-fashioned science.
* This is a general rule for superhero gadgets in ''[[Hero System]]'' as well. Devices cost character points to have; while other people are allowed to borrow them once or twice, they can't keep one unless they pay the character point cost as well.
* Both averted and played straight in White Wolf's superhero deconstruction ''[[Trinity Universe (game)|Aberrant]]''. "Project Utopia" is dedicated to using the new superheroes for the betterment of mankind, including greening the sahara, patching the hole in the ozone layer, getting rid of pollution, inventing new technology, toppling dictators, etc. However it is also dedicated to regulating technology, especially that created by those super-beings who are hyper-intelligent, and hiding away those it deems society can't handle.
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** ''Aberrant'''s Player's Guide provides options for keeping "super-science" from changing things excessively; basically, provides those running games the means to enforce this trope as they see fit.
** Prequel game ''Adventure!'' also has super-science. In this case, only the Inspired, the pulp heroes of the setting (not to be confused with ''Genius'''s Inspired, below), can create super-science inventions, but plenty of them are attempting to use said inventions to change the world. By canon, they largely fail; when the supers of ''Aberrant'' arrive on the scene, the world looks much the same as it does in our timeline.
*** And the d20 version of ''Adventure'' has Maxwell Mercer doing things like finding an anachronistic transistor-based computer built decades ahead of its time... and locking it away in a vault forever 'because mankind is not yet ready'. Sheesh! When did you suddenly turn into Randall Dowling, Max?
* ''[[Genius: The Transgression]]'' features many of the [[Mad Scientist|Inspired]] ''trying'' to stop being useless, but it's not going well because normal humans cause Wonders to break, dissolve, or start hungering for their creator's blood.
** This trope was played with in the [[Old World of Darkness]]. Spectacular changes like a Universal Translator or a superpowered healing magic were certainly available to player characters, especially in [[Mage: The Ascension]]. However, they were prone to malfunction because the world was a [[World Half Empty]] running on [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]] and humanity just didn't believe in the super-tech or old magic. Many supernaturals and human groups also had very good reasons to enforce [[The Masquerade]], and would make sure any Reed Richards who drew too much attention was discredited and then buried in a shallow grave. However, using your power to make the world subtly better was certainly possible. Running around the hospital ward curing folks like a [[Dungeons
** The fundamental question of Genius is "what does Reed Richards think of
* Not done with technology but with magic in most editions of ''[[Dungeons
** Averted in ''[[Eberron]]''. Low-level magic is common, but high-level magic is rare and monopolised by the Dragonmarked Houses, who exploit their inherent magical abilities for profit. Their efforts ''have'' raised the standard of living in Khorvaire's main nations, resulting in a setting closer to [[Dungeon Punk]] than your standard medieval fantasy.
** Also, the key phrasing is "enough magic". How many mages that can cast that spell do you think there are?
*** By the DMG's means of generating cities, you can pretty much guarantee one's existence in a metropolis.
*** If he also has the Craft Wondrous Item feat, he can build a self-resetting magical trap to cast the spell for him repeatedly even when he's not
*** Creating a long-distance fixed-point-to-fixed-point teleportal requires one 9th-level arcane spellcaster who knows the ''teleport'' spell and the Craft Wondrous Item feat, 75,000 gp, 6000 XP, and 75 days. If he knows the Portal Master feat as well, halve the cost and the construction time. While that looks expensive, an average sailing ship costs 10,000 gp (and takes at least a month to build), in addition to what it would cost in hiring a crew, provisions, and overhead. The portal would already pay for itself after moving enough cargo from port to port to fill only eight cargo vessels, and it could do that as fast as you could throw the shipping crates through the door instead of taking weeks of sailing time. By any remotely rational understanding of the economy of scale, every major trading nexus in the world should be linked with these things.
** Teleportation aside (as it is fairly powerful magic), less potent spells should eliminate all kinds of hazards. Even low-level curative magic should prevent folks from dying from anything which doesn't kill them outright. Remove Disease costs a low-level cleric nothing to cast and a few of them could essentially eliminate the danger of sickness in a community (especially if they understand triage). Furthermore, spell casters should be researching spells and making items which aren't related to dungeon-crawling to use in their mundane lives. However, since no player is going to get excited about "Ripen Crops II" and "Plowblade of Quick Tilling," they won't be in more recent (3.0 and later) editions. Earlier editions actually had such mundane magic from time to time.
*** Being fair, given that the typical published d20 worlds have population levels and surplus wealth entirely out of line for realistic medieval economies and more appropriate to a world in at least the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, its entirely likely that they ''are'' using ubiquitous household magic to make up the gap. In fact, it would be a [[Plot Hole]] if they ''weren't''.
* Explicitly enforced in ''[[Warhammer
** To put this in perspective for those who don't follow the setting, the Imperium consists of countless worlds, some of which are using technology that corresponds to the late Renaissance or earlier. Some humans are living in pre-agrarian societies. In one instance, Imperial citizens traded with a race of aliens, the Tau, for farming equipment. They were declared heretics and punished.
*** There are a damn good reasons for this however. Alien technology has a tendency to drive users insane, transform them into aliens, or just plain turn out to be incompatible with humans. As for innovation, well; apart from the constant and omnipresent threat of demonic corruption, there's also the fact that Imperial technology is already Sufficiently Advanced, in accordance with Clarke's Third Law, that no one outside of the Magos of Mars have a freaking clue how they actually operate. Finally, good luck coming up with something more efficient and reliable than the technology that has been tried, tested and refined by the greatest minds of the galaxy over the last ten thousand years.
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** In the first edition of the game the standard form of the Creation power could create any inanimate objects. Given the rate at which it can be used, even a low-level hero could probably have solved world hunger if he wasn't off using it to make anvils over villains heads.
** A liberal combination of Stretching, Gadgets and (depending on your opinion of him) Super Intelligence can result in you the player being Reed Richards. Subverting or playing the trope straight is up to you then.
== [[Video Games]] ==
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* In ''[[Raidou Kuzunoha VS King Abaddon]]'' you can find an "element #115", which matches to the atomic number of [[wikipedia:Ununpentium|Ununpentium]] an element where all known isotopes have a half life measured in ''milliseconds'', that can stay in your items for the entire game. What do you do with this seemingly stable form of an element too short lived to research? Make swords!
** This is a [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[X-COM]]'', a game made before the element physically existed.
* In ''[[Portal (series)|Portal]]'', Aperture Science developed several technologies that, with proper application, would have revolutionized the world. Just one, the portal gun, could have, in an instant, solved nearly every transportation and logistical problem on the planet, enabled [[Casual Interstellar Travel]], and incidentally made the company trillions. They also developed [[Brain Uploading]], [[
** In summary, Aperture doesn't change the world because
* In almost any RPG with an onscreen plot-related death, you will have at least one healing
** This is true, as seen in Final Fantasy V, where one of the main characters dies on a onscreen plot-related death and the rest of the party tries to use curative spells and items on him, but they turn out to be useless, as he dies anyway. Also, many Japanese [[RPG
** IIRC the original Pokemon in Japanese were "Dead" rather than K.O.ed. But this is from the series that describes a slug as hotter than the sun...
** This is not the case in many Western RPGS, however common a trope in Eastern RPGS. In [[Planescape: Torment]], for example, once the protagonist [[Meaningful Name|The Nameless One]] can raise party members at the end of the very first dungeon, he can ''always'' do so if that party member hasn't been removed entirely from the game by the player. Even the plotline deaths can be undone in the [[Golden Ending]], except for the {{spoiler|Nameless One's own death and acceptance of damnation.}} Given the [[Eldritch Abomination]], [[World Half Empty]], [[The Undead]], [[The Legions of Hell]], and all the other things arrayed against The Nameless One and cohorts, this isn't a [[Game Breaker]]. It's not even a [[Disc One Nuke]].
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* Justified in ''[[Fine Structure]]'', which makes this a plot point. Scientists would like to use The Script for teleportation and other discoveries, but they'll only work until the ''the fundamental laws of the universe'' are changed by Something so it can never be used again.
* The ''[[SCP Foundation]]'' could have changed the world with the SCPs...[[Justified Trope|if they weren't so dangerous]] and most of those that aren't are mostly used to help containing other SCPs. And the Serpent's Hand still consider the Foundation enemies, because they do not want to improve the world with [SCPs=].
* ''[[Superdickery.com]].com'' presents [https://web.archive.org/web/20200122033718/http://www.superdickery.com/
* [[Chuck Norris Facts|Chuck Norris' tears can cure cancer]]. Too bad
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** That's was stabilized only recently. Europe ended up dominated by the [[Mad Scientist]] who mostly curbed the usual [[Control Freak]] streak and got the special talent for... reverse engineering. Instead of building whole armies upon powerful, but one-gimmick inventions he found in his and others' crazy gadgets material for a few robust and mass-produceable systems and still had time for refining them. By the same token, found good use for a wild variety of monsters.
* In ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'', Dracula found the cure for cancer. He hid it on Mars. Also, he lives on the moon and has a teleporter.
* Justified in ''[[Mind Mistress]]''
** It's a good thing Louis Pasteur and Jonas Salk didn't feel this way.
*** The Universe wasn't so determined to convince them they should keep their inventions for themselves as is for her - every time she tries to improve the world [[Gone Horribly Wrong|it ends badly]]. She once took two kids as her studends, so they could revolutionize modern physics. One of them turned into [[Omnicidal Maniac]] and the other killed him and ran away. There is probably one attempt that didn't ended in something terrible and it was to [[Crazy Awesome|give bunch of chimps human intellect]]. That is, if you ignore that one who turned to murder. And [[Ax Crazy|the Elephant]].
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* A side-story of ''[[PS238]]'' explores the logical extension of this trope, with NASA outsourcing the design of their new space rocket to Herschel Clay, a metahuman [[Gadgeteer Genius]] with a love of tinkering. Problem is, by the time their own engineers have had a chance to try to comprehend his designs Clay has already found a way to improve it. In other words, they get a new design in the mail that becomes obsolete by the time they're ready to take that one off the drawing board, and so on: They simply can't keep up with his constant improvements.
** [[PS238]] also averts this trope with the Rainmaker Project, a section of the school where students with powers that don't lend themselves well to combat are trained on how to use them in civilian life, like a kid with the ability to turn anything into food was trained to turn things like rocks into nutritious but low calorie diet foods that tasted like high quality chocolate. It's also shown that many superhumans use their powers in a variety of ways for the civilian sector; the previously mentioned Herschel, for example, has his own company that apparently produces a large number of superscience inventions for everyday life.
** By the end of Wonderburg arc we see a lot of strange stuff put into production small series to industrial scale, from rapid construction methods to very strong and/or polymorphic cloth. It's not ''cheap'', of course.
* In alternate dimensions of ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' the [[Plot Technology]] of the usual mad scientists ''were'' used to change the world, sometimes for the better and getting themselves canonized, sometimes just improved what might've been a [[Crapsack World|crappier-sack world]], and in the latest storyline what looks like a change for the worst. And in the main dimension of the series, it looks like Schlock is attempting to avert this by selling Riff's robot design to the Department of Defense.
** Riff gets called out on this (albeit inadvertently) by a character where Riff devoted his time and brainpower to building devices to help the disabled (among other things) rather than just building cool weapons for his own use.
* When Big Killhuna, a [[Mad Scientist]] from ''[[Super Stupor]]'', hears that his favourite writer, [[Terry Pratchett]], has Alzheimer's, he wants to help him by... building a doomsday device and threatening the world with it until all scientists on Earth agree to work towards a cure.
** Because he flunked out of "Useful Sciences 101"...
* ''[[Xkcd]]'' [http://xkcd.com/102/ points out the problem] in the context of time machines. Also, [http://xkcd.com/927/ one of the natural brakes] on proliferation of even seemingly trivial things.
* In the [[Whateley Universe]], there are two types of inventor mutants. The first are Devisors, who warp reality slightly to allow for physically impossible inventions, which can then never be reproduced by anyone else (or sometimes even by them) and often don't even work for other people in the case of extremely impossible stuff. Some of them sell their tech, but since only a single person can produce it, it's generally extremely expensive and supply is very limited. The second are Gadgeteers, who have a variant of psionics that allow them to intuitively understand how to make things, but can't do anything that's literally impossible. Some of them have changed the world, but apparently being good at engineering leads to being incompetent at interpersonal relations, resulting in most of them getting ripped off by the companies they sell their inventions to and either not having the resources to do any inventing, being suppressed by people who don't want the world to change because a lack of that particular technology is profitable to them, or turning evil to get back at society.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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** In the ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'' episode "Paging The Crime Doctor" Crime Boss Rupert Thorne's thugs are shown stealing futuristic looking lasers destined for a hospital.
** In the pilot episode of ''[[Justice League]]'' NASA finally lands a man on Mars.
** In ''[[Justice League]]'', the immortal [[Vandal Savage]] sent a laptop containing current technology to himself, allowing him to depose Hitler, creating a present in which Savage rules the world under the Nazi banner. However, after the good guys beat him, Hitler was dethawed from [[Human Popsicle|cryogenic suspension]], putting WWII back on track.
** In ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'', two Thanagarian law officers used advanced alien science to transform ancient Egypt from a barren desert into lush agricultural land when they crashed on Earth. After all, their ship was not going anywhere, so the least they could do was [[Benevolent Alien Invasion|make a nice home out of the hellish Sahara and attempt to improve the lives of the natives]]. The problem is that they only educated their people to the level of tool ''users'', never progressing to tool ''makers'' (This is, in Real Life, a critical sociological point), and the humans had no experience or training when it came to the maintenance or construction of the advanced alien technology. When the aliens themselves died, their wonderful utopia vanishes in a generation.
** Another aversion was in the episode "A Better World," where the Justice League decided to stop just being heroes and did solve all the worlds problems... by conquering the planet and being it's dictators.
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* On ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'', a parody of Reed Richards is shown to be a sociopathic arm of the military-industrial complex, abandoning Dr. Venture in the arctic wilderness for procrastinating and flirting with his oppressed wife; later, he withholds alien technology, needed to save the world, that was left to Venture by his father, claiming it's because Venture is not responsible enough to have it (which is a quite reasonable argument) but most likely due to him wanting all the credit. In general, there's lots of other super-science doo dads floating around in the series that the general public never gets a chance with.
** Also lampshaded on occasion: in "Tag Sale, You're It!", one of the items in the titular sale is an actual lightsaber which Rusty couldn't sell because "The Army told me they don't fight with swords, and Hasbro wasn't interested in a toy that cost $20 million in parts alone". To add insult to injury, it doesn't even work.
* On ''[[The Fairly
** Unlike Timmy, Chester tries doing this after he's granted Norm, the temporary ex-genie, as his fairy godparent. Of course having a [[Jackass Genie]] as a fairy godparent predictably doesn't turn out well for him. When he wishes the deserts would have enough water for everyone to drink or make the ice-caps warmer to make the penguins less chilly, he ends up flooding the deserts and <s>creating boiling pools of water</s> ''[[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|causing global warming]]''.
* In ''[[Xiaolin Showdown]]'', an item said to possess infinite power, and could solve pretty much any energy related problem, is used to power a time machine. So yeah.
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** It actually takes a lot of time and money to certify equipment for use in military aircraft, and even more for civilian aircraft. Part of the certification is to prove that the equipment is sufficiently reliable based on how vital its operation is to continued safe flight. Thus, there are many aircraft with equipment that is not certified for general use, but only flown on an experimental basis.
** The legal certification process would also apply to other inventions such as miracle drugs and medical treatments, automotive or robotic technology, or anything else that is regulated by most governments, which is practically everything these days.
** Remember that 'only 1 in 100,000 chance of lethal failure' = 'for every million customers, you get ten fatal accidents'. "Safe enough for test pilots/astronauts/the military/etc." and "safe enough for commercial sale" are two very very different things for a reason.
* Electric and hybrid cars may be an attempt to "replace" the petrol engine, but now [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4133668.ece petrol made from genetically engineered bugs] is being created. However, this '''will''' be used in an attempt to solve the world petrol crisis, making this a [[Inverted Trope|deconstruction]] of why this trope ''can'' be bad.
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20121118111341/http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/01/28/engineered-e-coli-bacteria-produces-road-ready-diesel/ It's also being used] for diesel as well. So looks like electric and hybrid cars may not be needed in the near-future, with possible [[Zeerust]] implications...
** There's pretty much no way that these technologies would be enough to sustain the world's need of oil should production start dropping (do you have any idea HOW much oil would be needed in a SHORT amount of time). Still, it's always nice to have stopgap solutions to make the transition process easier.
** One energy policy analyst once said that switching from petroleum energy to solar power is like "being addicted to vodka and switching over to gin." Therefore, the analyst stated that instead of trying to develop some revolutionary new power source, the solution should focus more on less energy consumption and a diversity of energy sources.
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** Not only that but they had a very real chance of conquering much of the world and, in fact, had sent out a massive armada West towards India. Unfortunately, when a new emperor came to power, he ordered the armada back and then had the ships and all the records burned. Had he not done that, we could be speaking Chinese right now. China also had vague dealings with Rome, usually through independent merchants.
*** While China has been the worlds most developed region during our history, it was only for a relatively short ammount of time. For most of our early history the Middle East was ahead of China, then the mediterranean area became the worlds most advanced region. During the middle ages China was pretty much ahead, but it lost the position ones more to the west a few centuries ago. So while the entries above are technically correct they really only take into account a small part of humanities history. For many early inventions the circumstances were simply better in the Middle East, which is why they were invented there first.
**** The Middle East also enjoyed a unique advantage of position; for the great majority of history it was the place almost every practical Europe-to-Africa, Europe-to-Asia, or Africa-to-Asia trade route all ran through. Scientific discovery was enormously enhanced by being in a position to synthesize and cross-reference everybody else's discoveries first. When transport and communication methods became advanced enough that a worldwide scientific community could form without needing to take land caravans through the Middle East first, it lost its position as the R&D center of the world.
* In the early 19th century, American physician John Gorrie developed an early model of air conditioning. However, successful lobbying by America's ice industry, and combined with the fact that early air conditioning did not control humidity, blocked the implementation of Gorrie's device.
* Countless scientific/technological innovations were suppressed in various communist* governments with purges, suppression of free markets, and blatantly false science. Notorious examples include Lysenkoism (an agricultural "science" that rejected the basic premises of heredity) and probably the worse was the Khymer Rouge (who sought to abolish all modern technology in Cambodia).
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