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{{trope}}
[[File:oshgfp resize.jpg|link=Aquaman|frame| "Command the [[Cthulhu Mythos|creatures of the deep]]" [[Who's Laughing Now?|doesn't seem so dumb now, huh?]]]]
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* A number of characters in ''[[One Piece]]''.
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** Baroque Works Member Number 3, Galdino. His power allows him to create an endless supply of candle wax from his body. He was also able to make this wax hard as steel and make keys out of it, but its greatest use didn't come in until he {{spoiler|used it to stop the flow of the warden's impossibly corrosive and utterly deadly poisonous flood in Impel Down. Even Crocodile mentioned how odd it is when some powers meet.}}
** Kin'emon's unnamed Fruit lets him create clothing. ''Any'' clothing he can imagine, he can create. At first glance, one might think he could become rich as a fashion designer, but no such luck, as the clothing only lasts until the wearer removes it. To his credit, however, Kin'emon (who's ability as a swordsman have proven [[Badass Normal| good enough to survive a fight with Trafalgar Law]]) can use this rather creatively to disguise himself, in one episode successfully impersonating Donquixote Doflamingo.
** Charlotte Cracker from the Whole Cake Island Arc, Big Mom's second-in-command; his ''Bisu Bisu no Mi'' lets him create and control... biscuits. Seems like something you could use to feed an army, maybe, but Cracker is a master-craftsman who ''really'' loves his work, and can use it to create a powerful - and inexpensive - army of golem-like creatures made of biscuits. Plus he can make the biscuits hard enough to be used as armor or shields.
*** His brother Opera seems even sillier, his Devil Fruit power giving him the ability to create and manipulate cream. Except he can also change the heat of the sugar within the cream, meaning he can scald enemies with boiling hot liquid, a pretty dangerous power there.
** Some Devil Fruits have the potential to give users phenomenal powers, but are wasted on users who are idiots. One good example is Giolla's Ato Ato No Mi, which can turn people into art. It seems silly, yes, but when you look at this is an automatic OTK if it hits; the user would likely have no trouble defeating ''any'' of the Emperors of the Sea, as the only way it can be countered or undone is if the user does something ''really'' dumb. And Giolla, well, she's really dumb, fooled by Brook into undoing it on his violin and sword-cane by convincing her he simply wanted to add music to her "exhibition". [[Too Dumb To Live|Doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened after she did so.]]
* ''[[The Law of Ueki]]'' bases its entire setting on this. Nearly every power (with precious few exceptions) is weak or weird, but with proper application can become deadly.
* Everyone in ''[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure]]''. Powers like healing, making maps and summoning zippers have all deadly combat applications when in the hands of a stand user. In a world full of guys who can stop time, have super strength, and can even reset reality, it's amazing to see what such seemingly under-powered abilities as controlling sound effects and drawing manga can do.
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* [[Aquaman]], who is absolutely ''not'' as weak as [[Memetic Mutation]] would have one believe. A combination of [[Required Secondary Powers]] (he can swim like a fish and punch people while under [[Water Is Air|500+ atmospheres of pressure]], which is [[Superman]] level asskickery) and [[Fridge Horror]] (he commands ''everything'' that lives in the ocean; guess where [[Godzilla]], [[Cthulhu Mythos|Cthulhu]], and the [[The Bible|Leviathan]] live?) have had many writers portray him as horrifically powerful and outright feared by heroes and villains alike, and for very good reasons.
{{quote|"He could control every creature that lives in the sea. But I don't think either of you know what that really means. Do you know, do you understand, do you have any idea how much life there is in just one single square mile of sea? I don't think you do... and if you multiply that by lots of miles in every direction... I'd never seen anything like it in my whole life... [[Go Mad from the Revelation|and God as my witness, I hope to never see it again]]."}}
* Heck, some of Aquaman's fellow Detroit League members qualify for this trope. How many comic-book loving Tropers don't think much of Vibe because of his vibrational powers and [[Ethnic Scrappy]] tendencies? [http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p278/lammal412/Vibe1.jpg Check out this example of sheer power.] [http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p278/lammal412/New/Vibe2.jpg And how about] [http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p278/lammal412/New/Vibe3.jpg this sequence] [http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p278/lammal412/New/Vibe4.jpg in which he stabilizes time eras] during ''[[Crisis on Infinite Earths]]''? "You was sayin', Tropes?" [[Memetic Mutation|OUTRAGEOUS!]]
* ''[[Rising Stars]]'' has Laurel Darkhaven, who can telekinetically manipulate very, very small objects. Such as your carotid artery. She becomes a government assassin. She later uses the ability to control "very small things" to telekinetically sift EVERY inch of arable soil under the entire Middle East in order to make the entire region fertile again. The results can be seen from ORBIT!
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** Recently the offpanel thing is becoming mostly subverted, as she easily defeats Wolverine in a sparring match, shown mostly in silhouette but still visible, and she was also shown ripping killer Nazi mechas to shreds.
* This is a grand tradition for [[The Legion of Super Heroes]]. Most characters have only one power, and it's not always something very impressive. One of their first recruits was Triplicate Girl, with the ability to transform from one ordinary teenage girl... to ''[[Doppelganger Attack|three]]'' [[Doppelganger Attack|ordinary teenage girls]]. Useful for doing chores and [[Power Perversion Potential|pretty fun in bed]], but not much good in combat. At least, not until she became [[Weak but Skilled|a master of Tri-Jitsu]], a martial art based around the fact that you have six arms, six legs, and three potential points of attack to coordinate from.
** Matter-Eater Lad can... eat anything. Hardly a power to write home about. However, seeing as Tenzil Kem's personal definition of "stuff" includes ''laser beams'' and ''doomsday computers,'' you might want to keep him around in case you need to get rid of something. In one story he ate [[Cosmic Keystone|
*** In at least one version, being able to bite through and chew up anything meant the [[Required Secondary Power]] of acidic saliva, providing a potentially nasty ranged attack.
* [[Batman]] villain The Ten-Eyed Man is an interesting case. Fans usually interpret this as him having ten additional weak points. But as most people will attest, eyes are pretty useful. Eyes on your hands? Makes you one of the best shooters in the DC universe, due to an unerring aim.
** Makes it a bit hard to pull the trigger, though...
* ''[[Stormwatch]]: Team Achilles'' had a character whose superpower was to make plants grow really fast... and he worked as an assassin. The thing is, most people at any given time have seeds in their digestive tract from the vegetation they've eaten, and growing those up to full plants in a few seconds leads to a nasty death from internal injuries and/or choking.
* Doug "Cypher" Ramsey of the ''[[X-Men]]'' junior team ''[[New Mutants]]'' originally had the power of [[Cunning Linguist|comprehending all languages]], and that was it. Then he died and [[Death Is Cheap|came back]], with his powers expanding to all forms of "language". This includes computer language (making him a master hacker and programmer), arcane languages (letting him cast spells), body language (giving him the ability to fight all the New Mutants at the same time and win), and even the structure of buildings, allowing him to pinpoint their weak spots instantly. [[Took a Level in Badass]], indeed.
* Dove of the (Teen) Titans is a low-level [[Flying Brick]], who also has the power of "perfect peace". In the
* One of the ''[[Captain Planet]]'' comic books actually has Ma-Ti lamenting over how lame "Heart" is as a power after Wheeler makes fun of him for it. Later in the issue, Ma-Ti uses his ring to reach and understand the hearts of all the creatures in the forest to help the other Planeteers, including [[Everything's Worse with Bears|bears.]]
* Marvel's very own [[Fad Super]] Dazzler has the ability to absorb sound and convert it into light. This may not sound like much at first glace, but she can do things like blinding people with bright flashes(duh),create a strobe effect that upsets equilibrium, create holograms, and even [[Frickin' Laser Beams]]. She's also immune to sound based attacks, because they just make her stronger. This ability is shown to be obscenely powerful, as Galactus once recruited her to retrieve one of his Heralds and exposed her to unimaginable sounds, including the explosion of an entire galaxy(yeah yeah, no sound in space. He's Galactus, he has no care for your paltry human physics), to boost her to sufficient levels.
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== Fan Works ==
* Or, in this case, clairvoyance in ''[[With Strings Attached]]''. The Hunter calls Ringo's mindsight “the single most valuable ability” amongst the four—beating out [[Super Strength]] / [[Nigh Invulnerability]], [[Making a Splash|complete control over water]], and [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|unlimited shapeshifting]]—because he can see anything. Including atoms. With perfect clarity. At any distance, up to and including ''the surface of the sun''. Knowledge is power, indeed.
* In ''[[Luminosity]]'', Elspeth's powers all relate to effective communication. By the end of the novel, she can {{spoiler|''
* [[The Wild Thornberrys|Eliza "Shaman" Thornberry's]] [[Speaks Fluent Animal|ability to speak to animals]] in the [[Mega Crossover]] ''[[The Secret Return of Alex Mack]]''. At first glance it may not seem all that impressive, but either she's very persuasive, or it has some degree of Command to it, because she can get animals to fight for her -- like when she shows up for the final battle with an animal army numbering in the hundreds. ''Batgirl'' thinks she's the scariest person around.
== [[Literature]] ==
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* In the ''[[Xanth]]'' novels by [[Piers Anthony]], everyone has a magical power, but many of them are nearly useless. Some of these seemingly useless abilities turn out to be much more powerful than previously realized.
** Useless abilities are referred to as "Spot On The Wall" powers, meaning that they do useless things like making a colored spot appear on a wall. One character literally has that power, but it turns out that she can use her power to make mosaic images with amazing detail. Furthermore, she doesn't even have to know what she's making in order to create it. In one scenario, she makes an image of an "operations manual" to a device in order to learn how to use the device.
** Irene's power is to make plants grow faster, which is actually a pretty useful ability, but seemingly mundane. However, Xanth is full of a ridiculous number of plants with very specific powers, and armed with the right seeds Irene can produce virtually ''anything''. Her talent is re-evaluated to Magician-quality - the most powerful rank on Xanth's power scale - a couple of books after her first appearance.
** There's no specific criteria for a Magician level talent in Xanth (except, by definition, {{spoiler|every one of Bink's direct descendants}}), Magicians tend be seen as powerful with the application of their talent.
* The eponymous item in ''[[The Sword of Shannara]]'' and its sequels. It's power, which is hidden for much of the first book, is revealed to be {{spoiler|telling the truth about whatever it touches}}. Lame right? Well, no not quite. You see, the Sword not only {{spoiler|''tells'' the truth, it forces whomever its touching to ''accept'' that truth}}. This comes in pretty handy as [[The Big Bad]] is {{spoiler|revealed to be [[Dead All Along]] and deeply in denial about it}}. Bye bye Brona. But that's only one use right? Wrong again. The Sword shows up in almost every book in the series, proving to be the perfect antidote to every [[Manipulative Bastard]] and [[Evil Mentor]] out there. It {{spoiler|saves Par from being possessed by Rimmer Dall}} in ''[[The Heritage of Shannara]]'' by {{spoiler|revealing the latter's lies}}, and {{spoiler|sends the [[The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara|Ilse Witch]] into a [[Heel Realisation]]-induced [[Villainous BSOD]]}} after revealing {{spoiler|the lies she has built her life on}}. So what's a lame power again?
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** Power of various emotional Estates are ridiculously powerful when combined with the animistic nature of Mythic Reality, especially in 1st & 2nd edition. Suddenly, gravity doesn't ''like'' you anymore.
** In 3rd edition, Persona miracles can let you affect the "borders" or your Estate, making things more or less like the important traits of it. For example, if the Power of Hope states that one of the properties of Hope is that "Hope springs eternal," then Persona miracles of Hope can make things immortal.
* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]''
** Mentioned in the [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?]] page, but the in
*** Also, in-universe, one article in ''[[Dragon]] Magazine'' told the story of a heroic and legendary wizard who, after his death, [[Who's Laughing Now?| was revealed to have been a diviner.]] The article also included his spellbook, which included new Divination spells that were ''very'' useful.
** Illusion is the same way. Even a low level illusionist has the ability to create voices in crowds, pass unreadable messages, and make documents that appear to be whatever paperwork is required, which while not spectacular in straight combat are ideal for running a rebellion. At higher levels, incredibly complex illusions can be created with a nigh-impossible saving throw, or can manipulate foes by substituting their reality for another or causing them to die of a fright-induced heart attack. ([[Your Mind Makes It Real]] applies in all these situations.) The problem here that something like 2/3rds of the creatures in the game are flatly immune to 90% of the spells in the illusion school, the same issue with Enchantment has this same issue.
** In 4E, there's Warlords (and to a lesser extent, Bards) with the "grant free melee/ranged basic attack" gimmick. Hey, cool, a free attack that usually has a lower to-hit chance than most abilities, and one roll of weapon damage instead of potentially between 2-5 rolls plus all sorts of bonuses. Nice, not great. And then Essentials came out, whose character classes usually base around turning someone who only has melee/ranged basic attacks into a [[Person of Mass Destruction]] suddenly lashing out three times their equivalents' damage ''per attack'', and a Warlord that could grant an extra attack or three just cut the average encounter time in half...
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* Various ghosts get various powers in ''[[Ghost Trick]]'', but the one who takes the cake for this trope is {{spoiler|Missile, upon his second death. Now, badassery in this game isn't dishing out pain, but rather saving lives. This character has two powers with which to do that. He can swap the location of two objects... if they're the same shape and about a couple meters away from each other. This makes him the only one able to stop someone from being shot ''after the gun has fired.'' The other power he shares with the protagonist, upon contact with a corpse he can travel to 4 minutes before their death. And he can do this [[Save Scumming|over and over]]. How does he use this power? Travelling to the death of someone who technically died 10 years ago (it's complicated), take [[The Slow Path]] to a few minutes before Missile himself died, and convince someone to help in the hopes of saving the lives of '''''everyone'''''. Oh, and did we mention that Missile is a puppy?}}
== [[Web Comics
* [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=499#comic This] ''[[Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]]'' combines this with [[Precious Puppies]], {{spoiler|[[Chest Burster]], and [[Tele Frag]]}}.
* [[Ninja|Junpei]] of ''[[Megatokyo]]'' claims that [[Magical Girl]]s follow a "code of love," which is much more dangerous than the ninjas' code of honor, and results in "much destruction of urban area". Considering that magical girls have been shown to possess super speed, super strength, super athleticism (balance and so forth), teleportation, [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|and shrinking]], he may be right. Considering that the closest thing this setting has to a [[Big Bad]] is an immortal [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old]] [[Dark Magical Girl]] who controls hordes of zombies and destroyed one of the most complicated MMORPGs in existence when she was ''bored'', then he's definitely right.
** Three so-far-unnamed [[Magical Girl]]s are "potentially catastrophic grade." The zombie master mentioned above [[Oh Crap|is not one of them]].
** While we are on the subject of Magical Girls, let's talk abut Yuki Sonoda. Her power is stealing things. Even she doesn't think her power is any good, but at one point she steals a [[Rent-A-Zilla]]. And it seems to obey her perfectly.
* Several of the characters in the [[Whateley Universe]].▼
** Aquerna has the spirit of the squirrel, and is a joke on the campus of [[Super-Hero School|Whateley Academy]]. But in her combat final, she figured out how to use her powers to pwn one of the school bullies.▼
** Generator is practically the patron saint of this trope, since her power starts off looking ''unbelievably'' lame. But she keeps figuring out new things she can do with it (other than [[Mundane Utility|babysitting and doing the dishes]]).▼
** Gateway can only open 'gates' to other places. Then she finds out she can summon things from other dimensions through those gates. Starting with Rythax, an intelligent winged panther-like thing bigger than a tiger.▼
** Verdant can secrete stuff. But she can secrete anything she can think of, through any of her glands. She can bite you and inject the deadliest poison known to man.▼
* In the ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'', Madras had telekinetic control over fabrics, and only fabrics. That sounds like an amazingly lame power, until you look around and realize just how much fabric surrounds us every day of our lives (and the fact that most people go around covered in the stuff). Combine telekinetic control of fabric with a ten-foot-long canvas cape, and you've got one [[Badass]] crimefighter.▼
** There was a similar low-level villain in the [[Marvel Universe]] who went by the names of Gypsy Moth and Skein. She had the ability to create knots in material and control fibers—which not only gave her the ability to trap someone in their own costume, but also the power to inflict muscle contortions at the worst possible moment.▼
* Tavros in ''[[Homestuck]]''. His seemingly-useless ability to commune with Alternian fauna? {{spoiler|It works on the hordes of imps, ogres, and other such beasties that appear in Sburb, allowing him to amass an entire army of imps, ogres, and basilisks before even hitting his second gate.}} Suddenly, the guy who was mercilessly taunted for being a useless cripple before, is now probably the most powerful player in the session.
** Said powers of communion extend to {{spoiler|Becquerel, Earth's First Guardian and [[Reality Warper]] extraordinaire.}}
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* In ''[[Sidekick Girl]]'', Illumina's powers are floating a few feet off the ground and creating light, powers that she has no idea how to use practically and uses them just to show off. Then she and Sidekick Girl have a [[Freaky Friday Flip]], and the much smarter Sidekick Girl shows what these powers can ''really'' do.
** For reference, she manages to discover that Illumina can fall safely from any height—she slows into a hover rather than suddenly stopping by hitting the ground. As for light? Well, extremely high-intensity but otherwise normal light is the "flash" part of flash-bang grenades. Intense enough light can stun, as well as temporarily or even permanently blinding.
* ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'': [[Chronic Hero Syndrome|Elliot]] has the ability to turn into a [[Gender Bender|girl]]. [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2008-09-03 And if he develops more magic abilities], they ''also'' would be on the same theme, at least for a while. He later got a spell which turns him into a [[Flying Brick]] type [[Super Gender Bender|superhero]], and three "Secret Identity" forms which alter beyond recognition by anyone in right mind not only appearance, but personality so as to keep a low profile. [[First Law of Gender Bending|All of these forms are female]].{{context}}<!-- Okay, Eliot has a power. How is that an example of this trope? -->▼
* This tends to be the case on this [http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=175748 forum]. One person got the power of being Arthur Wellsley, the first Duke of Wellington. Another got heat resistance and super reflexes, allowing him to be an awesome fire fighter. One even got [[Noodle Implements|Circadian control (the ability to manipulate daylight hours by rotating the planet faster or slower), money ray (the power to create any currency), and water generation (the ability to secrete purified water from any part of the body)]] How do you do anything with these useless powers? One person said<ref>By being able to effect the earth's rotation you can manipulate sea level across the globe (since the earth's rotation causes the earth to currently bulge out a a little more at the Equator). Slowing this would cause planet-wide floods. You could level civilizations at a whim. You'd be unaffected yourself by groundwater tainting due to your water generation powers and could provide any area you wished with relief and/or immunity to the world-wide sea level crisis. Your ability to create currency means that while all other nations take a huge financial dip from dealing with rebuilding their ruined cities you can further undermine their currency through generating lots of extra cash in their denominations. Establish your own nation in the wreckage of civilization, declare your currency to be solid gold coins and produce the heck out of them making wherever you choose to rule the world's newest financial superpower.</ref>▼
* In the Spanish-language [https://web.archive.org/web/20161211232308/http://www.afrikislife.net/ A Friki's Life], an elf's gun of choice when surrounded by giant, carnivore ants: Invoking the flower fairies {{spoiler|in their circulatory systems}}.▼
** Link to the quote [http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9761486#post9761486 here.]▼
* [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing|Ashlie Jackson]] of ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'': [[Spin-Off|Evolution]] falls into this trope nicely. Her power was that if she spoke, her speech would come off as [[Ear Rape]] rather than anything intelligible, causing the listener to feel ill. How does she use this? She uses it as a distraction so that she can get a bullet into someone while they're down.▼
▲* ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'': [[Chronic Hero Syndrome|Elliot]] has the ability to turn into a [[Gender Bender|girl]]. [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2008-09-03 And if he develops more magic abilities], they ''also'' would be on the same theme, at least for a while. He later got a spell which turns him into a [[Flying Brick]] type [[Super Gender Bender|superhero]], and three "Secret Identity" forms which alter beyond recognition by anyone in right mind not only appearance, but personality so as to keep a low profile. [[First Law of Gender Bending|All of these forms are female]].
▲* In the Spanish-language [http://www.afrikislife.net A Friki's Life], an elf's gun of choice when surrounded by giant, carnivore ants: Invoking the flower fairies {{spoiler|in their circulatory systems}}.
* ''[[Suburban Knights]]'' involves this {{spoiler|very literally with Mati (from ''[[Captain Planet]]''). His ring is the one thing that can defeat [[Big Bad|Malachite]] and it gives him an amazing [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]].}}▼
** {{spoiler|As it turns out, this delves more into [[Crippling Overspecialization]]. The ring was originally designed with the express purpose of counteracting magic. When it was successful in doing this by defeating Malachite the first time, it resulted in the world eventually being dominated by technology, with so little magic left for the ring to counter against that it ended up basically useless - until Malachite came back.}}▼
* Invoked at ''Luke Surl'' comic [http://www.lukesurl.com/archives/1294 strip 299].
* Done with a magical object rather than a person in [[Goblins|Goblins: Life Through Their Eyes]]. Forgath has the Anymug, an enchanted mug capable of creating any drink the owner desires. When in a fight, he uses it to create an indefinite supply of Dragon Lung, an ultra-flammable liquid.
* Paz Cadena-Blanco of ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'' can [[Speaks Fluent Animal|communicate with animals]]. In one chapter, an adversary thought this ability made her no threat to its plans. [[Genre Savvy]] readers immediately realized this enemy was about to get "smacked in the face with the [[Aquaman]] lesson." Awesomely.
{{quote|"Que no soy una amenaza?" ("I'm not a threat?")}}
== [[Web Original]] ==
▲* Several of the characters in the [[Whateley Universe]].
▲** Aquerna has the spirit of the squirrel, and is a joke on the campus of [[Super-Hero School|Whateley Academy]]. But in her combat final, she figured out how to use her powers to pwn one of the school bullies.
▲** Generator is practically the patron saint of this trope, since her power starts off looking ''unbelievably'' lame. But she keeps figuring out new things she can do with it (other than [[Mundane Utility|babysitting and doing the dishes]]).
▲** Gateway can only open 'gates' to other places. Then she finds out she can summon things from other dimensions through those gates. Starting with Rythax, an intelligent winged panther-like thing bigger than a tiger.
▲** Verdant can secrete stuff. But she can secrete anything she can think of, through any of her glands. She can bite you and inject the deadliest poison known to man.
▲* In the ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'', Madras had telekinetic control over fabrics, and only fabrics. That sounds like an amazingly lame power, until you look around and realize just how much fabric surrounds us every day of our lives (and the fact that most people go around covered in the stuff). Combine telekinetic control of fabric with a ten-foot-long canvas cape, and you've got one [[Badass]] crimefighter.
▲** There was a similar low-level villain in the [[Marvel Universe]] who went by the names of Gypsy Moth and Skein. She had the ability to create knots in material and control fibers—which not only gave her the ability to trap someone in their own costume, but also the power to inflict muscle contortions at the worst possible moment.
* This tends to be the case on this [http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=175748 forum]. One person got the power of being Arthur Wellsley, the first Duke of Wellington. Another got heat resistance and super reflexes, allowing him to be an awesome fire fighter. One even got [[Noodle Implements|Circadian control (the ability to manipulate daylight hours by rotating the planet faster or slower), money ray (the power to create any currency), and water generation (the ability to secrete purified water from any part of the body)]] How do you do anything with these useless powers?
▲
▲** Link to the quote [http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9761486#post9761486 here.]
▲* [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing|Ashlie Jackson]] of ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'': [[Spin-Off|Evolution]] falls into this trope nicely. Her power was that if she spoke, her speech would come off as [[Ear Rape]] rather than anything intelligible, causing the listener to feel ill. How does she use this? She uses it as a distraction so that she can get a bullet into someone while they're down.
▲* ''[[Suburban Knights]]'' involves this {{spoiler|very literally with Mati (from ''[[Captain Planet]]''). His ring is the one thing that can defeat [[Big Bad|Malachite]] and it gives him an amazing [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]].}}
▲** {{spoiler|As it turns out, this delves more into [[Crippling Overspecialization]]. The ring was originally designed with the express purpose of counteracting magic. When it was successful in doing this by defeating Malachite the first time, it resulted in the world eventually being dominated by technology, with so little magic left for the ring to counter against that it ended up basically useless - until Malachite came back.}}
* From ''[[SCP Foundation]]''; [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1487 SCP-1487 (Beautiful Bones)] is a teenage girl who strangely cannot perceive or touch flesh other than her own. When she sees a person, she sees his skeleton, and should she touch him, her hand touches the person’s bones. [[Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant|(Disturbingly, she enjoys this sensation, finding it arousing.)]] This seems interesting, but not useful, until she actually saw someone - Dr. Wright - and saw him as anyone normally would. Dr. Wright disappeared soon after, and the Foundation realized [[The Mole|they did not employ anyone with that name]] - it seems SCP-1487 might be a good way to identify someone who isn’t truly human, or someone in a Foundation facility who doesn’t belong there.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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** Pinkie Pie's special ability is making other ponies happy. While this mostly manifests in throwing sweet parties and being a delightful [[Cloudcuckoolander]], this also gives her access to the [[Rule of Funny]], allowing her to regularly perform feats that break even the magical rules of Equestria.
** A literal example with Princess Cadence, the third Alicorn in the series. She's a [[Love Goddess]] who has the power to repair the bonds between ponies and spread love wherever she goes. Compared to the [[Physical God]]dess level abilities her aunts show, this doesn't seem as impressive. Then you remember that [[The Power of Friendship]] is the most powerful magic in the world, and [[The Power of Love]] is it's close cousin. Cue her and her husband-to-be using [[The Power of Love]] {{spoiler|to deliver a [[Heart Beat-Down]] to [[Big Bad|Queen Chrysalis]] that sends her and her minions ''hurtling over the horizon''.}}
* ''[[Star Wars: Clone Wars]]'': Think Aquaman's powers are lame? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?
* The aformentioned Stinkor in the 2002 ''[[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe|He Man and The Masters of The Universe]]'' series. In this cartoon, the character got the chance to show just how lame of a power stink really was, and He-man was almost defeated. In later episodes, Skeletor treated Stinkor much better than his other minions, just because of how powerful he was. Stinkor's stench is so awful that Skeletor has to hold his nose around him. ''Skeletor doesn't have a nose''.
* [[DC Comics]]' Sportsmaster is a minor super-villain who uses sport-themed gimmicks. In ''[[Young Justice (animation)|Young Justice]]'', he's one of the most powerful villains, and [[wikipedia:Outline of sports|his repertoire seems to have been expanded greatly]], to the extent that he's effectively an evil version of Batman.
* '''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'' episode “Blundercup”, features a villain (named [[Fan Nickname|“Butterfingers”]] by fans, his name isn’t revealed in the episode) who really wants to be a hero, but feels his power - the ability to turn his body into living butter - is too lame to ever function as one. He somehow manages to pull a [[Grand Theft Me]] on Buttercup, swapping bodies with her so he can have her powers. Buttercup figures out there are ''many'' useful ways to use his power (elongation, super-endurance, shapeshifting, making duplicates of herself) and manages to defeat the villain with them. It seemed the guy was just too lazy to figure out his true potential.
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