How Do I Shot Web?: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* One opponent in ''[[Flame of Recca]]'''s [[Tournament Arc]] managed to temporarily steal Recca's ability to summon his flame dragons. Setsuna, already a saucy and rather disobedient dragon, promptly asks why the hell he should listen to some new guy and fried him in annoyance.

* In ''[[Dragonball Z]]'', [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]] leader Captain Ginyu trades bodies with Goku. This is fairly ingenious, because he waited until he was weakened and nearly defeated by Goku before trading. And to make it even better, he inflicted a severe wound to his own body (punching himself through the chest) immediately before making the switch. However, he couldn't get full power out of Goku's body, because he doesn't know his powerup technique, the Kaio-ken. Unfortunately for him, Vegeta then shows up and beats the snot out of him before he gets it to work.

* ''[[Beet the Vandel Buster]]'' started off with the five ultimate weapons given to him by his dying heroes. Of course, he still had to learn how to use them, and after several years was only able to use one, the spear, effectively. He eventually learns to fire more than one shot with the gun, and comes closer to mastering the shield with training from its original owner (who was [[Not Quite Dead]]). With foresight he learned to work around the axe's twelve-second materialization time, and over time got better at the sword bit by bit if nowhere near able to master it. In fact, when the series was cut short at twelve volumes, Beet still arguably hadn't totally mastered ''any'' of his weapons!

 

* The main-line [[Spider-Man]] actually subverts the trope. Many of his powers are hardwired into his reflexes and instincts. As such, acrobatics, fighting, dodging bullets, and balancing are all things he can do automatically. In his introduction, he backfliped twenty feet and stuck to the side of a building mere minutes after being bitten by the radioactive spider, purely because his [[Spider Sense]] sensed a car about to run him over. Even web-slinging needed little practice purely because his reflexes prevented him from screwing up. Spidey's biggest problem tends to be the fact that his opponents are stronger and faster than him and/or have an [[Instant Death Radius]] that requires him to be smart about using his powers.

* The Super-Skrull is a recurring ''[[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Fantastic Four]]'' villain who can use all the super-powers of that team, plus has a native alien ability to shapeshift. Nevertheless, he is always defeated, usually by the Four's ability to [[The Power of Friendship|work as a team]].

** Spidey however, had no trouble figuring out how to shoot webs because it isn't actually one of his powers! That's right, Peter Parker actually designed some web fluid and shooters using his awesome powers of nerdiness. At least, not until later in the comics when he (temporarily) ''does'' get natural webbing (an idea taken from [[The Movie]]).

** The new Spiderman Miles Morales currently does not shoot web, but would really like too. He's asked Spiderwoman but she didn't answer him.

* In the 1990s [[Marvel Comics]] ''[[Sleepwalker]]'' comic series, Rick and Sleepwalker [[Freaky Friday|end up accidentally switching bodies after an encounter with one of Sleepwalker's enemies]], and Rick has to try and figure out how to use Sleepwalker's abilities, in between being attacked by supervillains and demons from the Mindscape.

* [[Spider-Girl]] didn't exactly have problems learning to use her powers, but she needed training from her [[Spider-Man|father]] and his friend Phil to really be able to master them and become a more experienced fighter.

* [[Spider-Man]]'s ally and generally lovable loser the Fabulous Frog-Man. Stealing the fully automated frog-suit of his father, the villainous Leapfrog, Eugene Patilio wholeheartedly attempts to make a difference while being utterly clueless about how the suit works. This proves to be his greatest strength, however, as [[The Fool|his frequent misfired jumps tend to knock out waves of bad guys]] and make him look like a real hero who knows what he's doing. Pretty much the only person who knows that Eugene is a bumbler in person is Spidey himself.

* Liz Sherman from ''[[Hellboy (comics)|Hellboy]]'' can't control her fire powers at a young age, accidentally killing several people, including her parents. She joins the [[BPRD]] because they can teach her how to use her powers, or at the very least have ways to keep her from hurting people again.

** In fairness, it's kind of hard to know instinctively that the super-suit ''enhances libido''. Yeah, exactly.

* Speedball from the Marvel universe spent issue after issue trying to figure out how to get his bouncing powers under control; not just turning them off when they were inconvenient, but just bouncing in the right direction. He learned how just in time.

* The [[Justice League of America]] suffered a multiple bodyswap in the TPB ''Foreign Bodies''; a female villain called Psykosis was incited to do it by Cobra. It ended up with Kyle Rayner (Green Lantern) operating the body of J'onn J'onzz, J'onn taking over Aquaman's body, Aquaman in temporary possession of Wonder Woman's body, Wonder Woman in Psykosis' body, Psykosis' psyche in Flash's body, Flash in Steel's body, and Steel in Green Lantern's body. Separate to this, Superman and Batman had simply swapped bodies {{spoiler|or so it seemed; in actuality, Batman was indeed in Superman's body, but Cobra had taken command of Batman's body, leaving Superman resident in Cobra's body}}. And boy howdy, Hilarity did indeed Ensue at nearly everyone's expense before it was over.

** Worth noting that [[Batman]] gets an ''immediate'' grasp on [[Superman]]'s powers, and starts saving the day worldwide. Only, he laments that so much power is ''distracting''.

** Averted with Iron Man's first match with Firepower in #230, as Jack Taggert's been training extensively on a simulator, and the real suit's capabilities [[Curb Stomp Battle|totally overwhelm Iron Man]].

* Eric O'Grady, the Irredeemable Ant-Man, was pretty much completely winging it throughout the entire twelve issue run of his series; he was constantly learning how to access his various abilities (like communing with and controlling insects or flying with his suit's extra jet legs). In fact, he scarred his immediate superior's face while trying to escape after stealing the suit to begin with. Later, after he became a cadet at Camp Hammond in ''Avengers: The Initiative'', he discovers he can ''grow'' in size, too (with the possible limitation of this only happening in response to a threat posed by someone else turning giant with Pym Particles).

** The *third* Beetle (Jaime Reyes), incidentally, gets along with the scarab like a house on fire. It just didn't take to Ted.

*** It's implied by the scarab that the reason it didn't work for him is because he hung around [[Foe Yay|Booster]] [[Booster Gold|Gold]] too much, supposedly because of being exposed to too much of his 'mulitverse energy'

* In the [[Silver Age]], Superboy stories, Ma and Pa Kent were shown helping Superboy hone his powers. Particularly true with flight. Unlike in Smallville, he figured out the thrust mechanism early on but had trouble with steering. In the [[Modern Age]] New Krypton storyline, Superman was shown to be an elite soldier because of his extensive experience using his powers, leading to him training fellow soldiers in the New Krypton military. Supergirl, by contrast, was able to activate all her powers but struggled with holding back.

* [[Captain Atom]] is an interesting example. He didn't realize he had any powers at all at first; as far as he knew he just had a [[Chrome Champion|peculiar deformity]]. He realized he could fly only when he had to jump out of a rocket he had been stashed on, and then only discovered his [[Flying Brick|nigh-invulnerability]] when Dr. Megala had Babylon shoot him. He discovered some of his other powers while experimenting and training with Megala, and discovered others as time went on. What's particularly interesting about this case is that there may be [[Physical God|no actual limit to his powers]], but he only gradually discovers this. Of course, many writers [[Power Creep, Power Seep|remember or forget the extent of Cap's powers]] as is [[New Powers as the Plot Demands|convenient for the plot]].

 

 

* Michikyuu Kanae in ''[[Kyon: Big Damn Hero]]'' never had a chance to learn how to slide properly. {{spoiler|[[Fridge Horror|In hindsight, it's probably better she didn't work out how it works.]]}}

* ''[[Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality]]'': Harry spends several chapters conducting scientific experiments to figure out how Hogwarts works. In fact, he concocts a big series of experiments to have Hermione perform... {{spoiler|And then quickly has to scrap the lot once the first one shows his fundamental assumption was completely wrong.}}

* In ''[[With Strings Attached]]'', all the four struggle with their magic when they first get it, especially Paul, and they undergo a continual learning process throughout the book.

 

 

* The Objects from ''[[The Lost Room]]'' have shades of this, when someone even knows what they do or how to activate them. This is doubly true for the abilities of Object combinations, which don't always have anything to do with combining the abilities of the individual Objects.

* The pilot of ''[[The Invisible Man (TV series)|The Invisible Man]]'' involved Darian being implanted with a gland that can turn him invisible, after which he has to be taught how to activate it, and then he experiments with it and learns to do things the scientists who developed the gland didn't even think were possible.

 

 

* In ''[[Vagrant Story]]'', {{spoiler|Grissom}} takes a few moments to notice he [[Came Back Wrong]] and now has cool undead powers:

{{quote|"...Please, a moment. My body is not... cooperating."}}

** [[World of Warcraft]] also has this apply to the ability to pay to change your talents, or buy an alternate set of talents. As such, players may be quite good at using their current talent tree, but may neeed some adjustment while switching to others, as a Warrior might be quite good at the DPS Arms tree, but not as good with Fury (which is also DPS), let alone tanking with Protection without quite a bit of practice.

* In ''[[Breath of Fire III]]'', Ryu is born as a baby dragon, and his first few shapeshifts between human and dragon forms (which occur outside of actual combat) are [[Involuntary Shapeshifting|completely uncontrolled]]. Although the player gains the ability to transform at will during battle, it is not until [[Time Skip|later]], when he reaches adulthood, that he has full control over his transformations.

* The full capabilities of the Monster in the Darkness from ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' have never been revealed. The in-comic reason is speculated to be that he's too... childlike to know his full potential.

** Xykon implies once or twice that he actually knows the exact limitations and capabilities of the Monster in the Darkness, even if the Monster doesn't; he's repeatedly stated that the Monster is his trump card, and he has no intentions of bringing it out until its planned debut, or until things go completely out the window, whichever comes first.

* In ''[[Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki]]'', the main character Yuuki is selected to be the next Valkyrie, and is flung into several fights with no idea how to use her new powers. She's forced to more or less play it by ear early on. That's not the least of her problems, though...

* In ''[[Freak Angels]]'', [[Cloudcuckoolander]] Arkady's apparent hobby is figuring out just ''what'' she and the other titular psychics can do with their powers. She's recently perfected teleportation. {{spoiler|1=It's implied that all the Freak Angels doing this together is what caused [[The End of the World as We Know It]].}}