New Powers as the Plot Demands: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

Some superhero comics authors seem to get bored of the same old powers. They add new ones to the same characters whenever they feel that a new power would open up a new story, or a new danger needs a new response, or what the hell, whenever they feel like it. It's bad enough writing in a new hero from nowhere just because you want to include a new power, but a lot of writers are worse than that. They tack new powers onto existing heroes.

 

Is one of the common traits of a [[Mary Sue]].

 

* Pick a [[Magical Girl]] anime. Any [[Magical Girl]] anime.

* In ''[[Naruto]]'':

** This has extended to Sasuke's allies as well. Karin and Jugo reveal miraculous healing powers when Sasuke is wounded after their battle with Killer Bee, though they did not use these abilities when Sasuke was bedridden from injuries after fighting with Deidara.

** In Chapter 562, in order to get all the five kages to fight {{spoiler|a revived Uchiha Madara}}, we learned Genma's team are able to use a watered down version of Minato's Hiraishin and they quickly use it to transport the Mizukage.

* ''[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure]]'' has two especially egregious examples of this trope, each used to finish off the [[Big Bad]] of a story arc. The first example occurs in Part 3: the villain Dio Brando is virtually unstoppable because his Stand {{spoiler|has the ability to stop time}}, so how do the heroes stop him? {{spoiler|Jotaro Kujo's Stand suddenly gains the power to stop time, which also lets him move in Dio's time stop, despite the fact that its only powers so far were [[Super Strength]] and [[Super Speed]]}}. Of course, this is explained {{spoiler|by saying that Jotaro's stand has always had a smaller version of Dio's time stop power, and what had been seen as a Super Speed attack (his trademark "''ORA ORA!''") was actually him stopping time and then punching his foes' faces repeatedly (Jotaro never realized himself what was really happening, because he managed to stop time just briefly, and so it all happened very quickly before time went back to its regular flowing). Also possibly justified in that Dio is using the body of Jotaro's grandfather and his Stand, The World, and may actually have come from Johnathon Joestar; thus it makes some sense that Jotaro's Stand would have similar powers.}} Part 5's was pretty bad, though: {{spoiler|Giorno Giovanna stabs himself with a Stand Arrow, evolving his Gold Experience into Gold Experience Requiem, and giving it the power to nullify any action an opponent takes.}} To be fair, it ''was'' shown beforehand that the Arrow could give Stands new powers, but come on! That power is just ''ridiculous''!

** Oh, it happens to the villains too. Part 4 had {{spoiler|Kira getting the ability to reset time back to the time a kid woke up in the morning so that he could find out who got killed trying to figure out who Kira was because the kid was under the effect of Kira's just gotten the night before power.}} Part 6 had {{spoiler|the main villain of that getting the power to alter the universe's gravity, causing time to accelerate to the universe's end so that he could reset time to the way he wants it to be.}}

"Now I shall use Mega-Ultra Chicken's secret ability that I just this second made up to convert my Life Points into Attack Points, merging me with the beast itself!" }}

** ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'' has Trueman, who exhibits a new power in nearly every appearance, ranging from teleportation to cloning to possession to shapeshifting to ripping through the dimensional fabric to thought manipulation.

* Parodied in an episode of ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]: Brotherhood'' where Ed, separated from Al and feeling rather desperate, tries to "CONVENIENTLY AWAKEN TELEPATHIC POWERS!" to contact him. It doesn't work.

** Ditto in the Manga.

** Plot Plot No Mi, as the fandom called it.

* Kenshiro's fighting style of Hokuto Shinken in ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'' is made of this trope, doing whatever Kenshiro happens to need at the time, including making mohawks' heads explode, giving Lin the ability to talk, making a thug's mouth move by itself to tell truthful answers to Kenshiro's questions, and even [[Crowning Moment of Funny|making a thug think he knows Hokuto Shinken, try to use it on Kenshiro, and utterly fail]].

* Spoofed in the fifth episode of ''[[Tiger and Bunny]]''. When Wild Tiger and Barnaby are in a pinch and [[Hour of Power|almost out of time]], their [[Powered Armor]] automatically switches to the the brand new Good Luck mode Saito installed and they manage to incapacitate their opponent just before the clock runs out. So what does Good Luck Mode actually do?

{{quote|'''Barnaby:''' So this new mode increases our power?

* ''[[Inazuma Eleven]]'' anime develops itself into this. At first, many skills the team learn come from books and manuals, but by the third season, characters repeatly pull out new things whenever the plot demands them. In the movie, the protagonists learn to use super power abilities without any explaination just so they can beat the Ogre, who's argubly stronger than the series' world cup teams.

 

* ''[[Superman]]''. This is quite possibly the largest criticism laid at his feet: he started out faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and invulnerable to anything less than a bomb. Since then he's learned to fly, to blow like a hurricane, to survive nuclear explosions (though just barely), chill things with a puff of breath, shoot lasers from his eyes, and use [[X-Ray Vision]]. And that's just the powers that have lasted: during the [[Silver Age]], he gained a new power nearly every month (Super Ventriloquism was bad - being able to travel through time as easily as he could fly was worse). The super-breath, at least, is a logical extension of someone with the kind of lungs he must have... although, even so, he really shouldn't be able to do more than emit a single shock-wave of air; he may have a super-strong diaphragm but his lungs aren't any bigger than human lungs.

*** Actually, super-breath is probably the least hard to explain away; wind instrument players master a technique called "circular breathing" to produce a continuous tone through their instrument without running out of breath. If Kenny G can produce a continuous note for 45 minutes, Superman should be able to blow hard for a minute or so.

** Superman's [[Mirror Universe]] counterpart Ultraman actually has this as his superpower: exposure to Kryptonite, rather than harming him, causes him to develop new abilities.

*** And Red Kryptonite (occasionally, in some continuities) lets the "regular" Superman develop new abilities, albeit temporary ones.

** In one strip, Lois is going blind and she wants to see a play based on herself before this happens. But the play is only a script, so Superman uses super-puppetry to make it appear that actors are performing on stage (Lois' vision is blurred so she doesn't notice). He also uses "super-memory" to learn the script, even though he could just ''read'' it given that he's offstage.

** Other silver age classic powers: super-hypnotism, super-kissing (don't ask, really), and super-mimicry.

*** 'Super-hypnotism' - though not called that at the time - was actually acquired at a very early point, certainly by 1940 at the latest (he hypnotises Lois in at least two different stories that year alone.) It's just that it's used so irregularly and the 'super' makes it sound so silly that it ''seems'' Silver Age.

** The original TV show mostly restrained itself from this, but huffed this trope twice, once to give Superman the ability to phase through walls, and once to let him split himself into <s>multiple</s> two Supermen. Both of these powers vanished after the episode.

** In one episode of the [[DCAU]], Superman teams up with Robin to search for Batman, and displays his super-mimicry, explained as him having extraordinary control of his vocal muscles, to first mimic Batman, then Robin himself. [[Crowning Moment of Funny|This completely freaks Robin out, and he demands that Supes]] [[Never Say That Again|"Never. Do that. Again."]] Superman never uses this power again.

** [http://comiccoverage.typepad.com/comic_coverage/superpowers-that-time-forgot/ There's plenty more examples from the comics.]

** The basic assumption was that, for any ability a normal man might have, Superman could do it or learn to do it much better. If a man can blow out a candle, then Superman can blow out a forest fire (never mind that his lungs aren't that big). The problem lay in that the writers didn't consider how ventriloquism or hypnotism really work, so Superman was shown ''literally'' throwing his voice, or hypnotizing people almost effortlessly.

** This didn't end with the Silver Age by the way. The modern Superman has been shown to use the psychic martial art of Torquasm-Vo which in one instance allowed him to ''alter reality''.

* [[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]'s archfoe [[Norman Osborn|The Green Goblin]] is able to come [[Back from the Dead]] (via [[Waking Up At the Morgue]]) thanks to a healing factor he wasn't even aware he retained. Then again, it's not surprising that he'd be unaware of a power he had to ''[[Die or Fly|die]]'' to use.

*** The mutant Lifeguard has essentially the same power. She will develop whatever power ''will be'' necessary next to save lives. So, unconscious precognitive adaptation.

*** Also in the same vein is Darwin, whose body will [[Adaptive Ability|evolve on the fly to meet the problems in the situation]], even though Darwin has no control over what evolves or how it works. Lampshaded during ''World War Hulk'' when his power decided the best defense against a rampaging Hulk was...to not be there, as illustrated by his teleporting away.

* ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes|The Legion of Super-Heroes]]'' (more uses below) took this specific version and applied it even further. Ra's Al Ghul set the Moon on a collision course with the Earth. This gave off "hypertaxis energy", which caused humans to evolve to survive a threat before it happened.

* [[Martian Manhunter]] was prone to this, at times having the power to control magnetism, strain gold from water, and ''create ice cream with his mind''.

** Might as well put Magneto in there as well. He started off with the ability to control metal magnetically, then developed the ability to fly with a reasonable enough explanation. Then, as stories became more ambitious, he was suddenly able to control the entire electromagnetic spectrum, which effectively made him invincible. Of course, then there's the ''Planet X'' story by [[Grant Morrison]], in which he's powerful enough to (somehow) control gravity and ''time.'' (Grand Unified Theory?)

** [[Grant Morrison]] used this trope by <s>an [[Ass Pull]]</s> a [[Cerebus Retcon]] in his run on ''X-Men'' by introducing "secondary mutations", which would grant entirely new sets of powers to mutants, even years after they first gained their powers. This was his excuse for turning Beast into a cat-person and letting Emma Frost turn into living diamond for no obvious reason besides [[Rule of Cool]].

*** It was extra fail on the part of Beast since his blue furry ape form was already his secondary mutation, his original mutation was still fairly human looking only with more ape-like build and feet that could work like hands plus the agility and strength. He went blue and furry (and briefly had a super-healing factor at Deadpool or Madcap level) after drinking a mutagen he created, so the ugly cat-like form makes even less sense in light of that.

** One [[Chris Claremont]] story suddenly gave Storm [[Super Senses]], because she could feel the effect everyone around her had on the local air pressure or something.

** Professor Xavier's less-seen powers include telekinesis and the ability to give other people telepathy.

** As originally written pre-[[Retcon]], [[The Phoenix|Phoenix]] was merely Jean Grey's "ultimate potential as a psi." She'd never shown that she was capable of that level of power before, and later stories brought in outside influences, but originally Jean spontaneously unlocked awesome powers when faced with death.

* The ''[[Doom Patrol]]'' villain "The Quiz" had "every power you haven't thought of". Literally; to fight her, you had to start shouting power names so she couldn't use them.

** Gives you a bit of fridge logic as to why declaring 'the power to have every power I haven't thought of' wouldn't eliminate the power and render her powerless since she can't have any power you've thought of and her root power is told to you.

** For the record, he actually ''does'' have a chunk of kryptonite. Superman gave it to Batman so he could use it to stop him if he ever went insane and became a threat.

** There's been a theory going around for awhile now that the ability to spontaneously generate whatever he needs most in a given situation is in fact Batman's superpower. This combined with his [[Crazy Prepared|crazy preparedness]] and ridiculous paranoia easily makes him the most powerful character ever.

** The movies have their share of oddly specific and convenient gadgets, too, such as:

*** The Bat-Van-Cutter from ''[[The Dark Knight Saga|The Dark Knight.]]''

* Captain Everything from ''[[Normalman]]'' was the most powerful being on the planet Levram simply because he could defy all laws of physics, exhibiting a new power at every plot twist. Of course, this is just one of the ways in which he's a parody of Superman.

*** ... which might also be a parody of the ''Superman'' comic writers' tendency toward [[Forgotten Phlebotinum]].

* [[Resurrection Man]]'s powers are ''literally'' dictated by the plot; anytime he dies, he'll come back immediately possessing some power that would have allowed him to survive what killed him. Drop him off a cliff, now he can fly, shoot him, now he's bulletproof, etc.

** New Spider-Man foe The Freak has the same ability.

** As does Doomsday, the only monster to ever kill Superman- except he develops new abilities that counter anything that harms him. At one point, he develops bony ear coverings to counter a powerful sonic gun.

*** Until he is finally undone by the one thing that he evolved that made him weak: Sentience.

* In the children's comic ''Korgi,'' the magic korgi spontaneously develops the ability to breathe fire.

* ''[[Darkhawk]]'' is an interesting variant on this trope, in the sense that Chris Powell [[How Do I Shot Web?|didn't get an instruction manual along with the fancy amulet that transforms him into Darkhawk]], so he ended up discovering many of his powers by trial and error, most notably in reacting to new and stressful situations.

** [[The Greatest American Hero|This sounds familiar.]]

* The DC villain Paragon has the power to mimic the superpowers of any superhero near to him. But he can also add a twist the originator cannot perform, so he thinks he is superior because he can use any power better.

* In a non-superheroic example, Thorn from ''[[Bone]]'' displays more and more ludicrous powers as the plot goes on, everything from simple [[Psychic Dreams for Everyone]] to seeing invisible ghost circles to super-strength to ''flight''.

* Seth, the ridiculously powerful metahuman sent to kill and otherwise maim the members of ''[[The Authority]]'', might as well be a walking [[Green Lantern Ring]]. Having been designed to take down the most powerful superhero team in the world, he is given just about every superpower that his creators can imagine, at one point stating that he has powers "that [his enemies] don't even have names for".

* [[The Mighty Thor]] was explicitly intended to be the most powerful superhero in the Marvel Universe, and in the early days this seemed to mean "modeled after the [[Silver Age]] [[Superman]]." He whipped out abilities like time travel and even super-ventriloquism on occasion (making his lame-ass early villains even less challenging) before his powers became more clearly defined (and his villains got much more dangerous).

* The eponymous [[Empowered]] has on at least three occasions demonstrated powers she had no idea her suit possessed: Clinging, surviving in space, and very possibly flight. She's not aware of the third.

* NICOLE of the ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' Archie comic series (and to a lesser extent, the ''[[Sonic Sat AM|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' animated series), a small handheld device with utilities ranging from a translator, laser device, a protective forcefield and a scanner that can devise info and history from almost any object or area. In later issues NICOLE was evolved into the powerstation for New Mobotropolis from which [[God Mode Sue|she can transport or materialize almost any entity to the heroes' convenience]], though at least by this point her multiple powers are becoming less of a surprise.

* Spoofed in ''[[Tomorrow Stories]]'' with Splash Brannigan. "He followed them into the painting! I didn't know four dimensional ink could do that!" "Well duh! It can probably do whatever story purposes require."

* ''Herbie The Fat Fury'' got various superpowers from eating lollipops. These powers could be literally anything, from invulnerability and super-strength to hypnotism, talking to animals, time travel, and knocking out uncooperative indian chiefs.

 

 

* Lampshaded and played for laughs in ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]?'', Roger Rabbit meta-explains his ability to escape his handcuffs easily, when he left them to help stabilize the table as Eddie Valiant was trying to saw them off.

{{quote|'''Eddie Valiant:''' You mean you could've taken your hand out of that cuff ''at any time''?!

'''Roger Rabbit:''' NO! Not at any time -- only when it was ''[[Rule of Funny|funny]]''. }}

* The Heisei ''[[Gamera]]'' series deconstructed this trope completely. Gamera reveals in the second film to have a "[[Wave Motion Gun|Mana Cannon]]" that obliterates the enemy of that film. It is learned in the final film that using that attack drained the Earth of its health, and [[Gaia's Vengeance|releasing a hoard of Gyaos upon the planet]]. It is also learned that Gamera [[Friend to All Children|bonded with humans]] in order to gain the [[Green Lantern Ring|ability to mutate and get new powers]] such as the Mana Cannon and Flame Absorbing powers—but the Mana Cannon cost him that connection to humanity as well! This causes him to ignore Property Damage as he hunts the Gyaos.

** [[Godzilla]] could be similar at times. The most famous examples would have to be his gravity-defying drop kick, and his sudden ability to ''fly'' at the end of one movie by curling up his body and firing his atomic breath backward so he shoots through the air like a rocket. Additionally, Godzilla randomly decided he had magnetic powers in the climactic battle of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla.

* Considering all of the above examples, it comes as a surprise that 1984's ''[[Supergirl (film)|Supergirl]]'' completely averts this trope. Supergirl has all the powers she's supposed to have, but no "extras" are added.

* Horribly abused in ''Midnight Movie''. Try to escape through a window or door? The killer makes them impenetrable. Try to call for help? He disrupts phones. Try to get the attention of someone on the outside? He makes it so no one can see or hear you. All that, combined with him being [[Made of Iron]], being able to teleport, and being able to find people wherever they hide due to literally sensing fear and you've got one of the most unfair [[Slasher Film]] villains in history.

 

== Literature ==

* Happens to nearly every plot-relevant magician in Raymond E. Feist's ''[[Riftwar]]'' series at some point or other. The meta main character, Pug, seems to experience as much of his development by being forced into new powers by circumstance as by study and learning. Nakor also exhibits this frequently later in the series, though it's implied that he has known his new 'tricks' for a long time and simply did not choose to use them for whatever reason.

* [[Anita Blake]] is the best example of this ever, having morphed from a simple animator/necromancer in the book series to... frankly, this editor lost track of them all a long time ago. But in pretty much every big confrontation, she gets a new Power of the Month.

** The only seemingly-inexplicable examples were Hellfire and Soulfire, but those turned out to be justified.

 

* This happened a couple times on the 1950's [[Superman]] TV series. Discussion above in the Comics section.

*** On a completely unrelated note, "Detachable Soul" would be a [[Good Name for A Rock Band]].

** Klingons get some of this once they cease being [[Exclusively Evil]]. For instance, in the ''Next Generation'' episode "Ethics", a shaky camera accident breaks Worf's spine, paralyzing him. During the experimental operation to replace his spine, something goes wrong, and he goes braindead. For a moment, it looks like disaster; then his other neural system kicks in.

* In ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'''s season 3 episode "Lovers Walk," Willow and Xander have been kidnapped by Spike. Oz manages to locate them with his highly refined werewolf sense of smell... While in his human form, which had never been shown to possess any supernatural abilities prior to this.

* In the Spanish series ''Los Protegidos'' the villains get new superpowered kids as the plot demands.

 

== Puppet Shows ==

{{quote|'''Jen:''' Wings? I don't have wings.

'''Kira:''' Of course not. You're a boy. }}

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* ''[[Changeling: The Lost]]'' includes the Goblin Vow merit, which basically combines this with [[Dangerous Forbidden Technique]], allowing the person to make impromptu deals with various abstract things to gain new (temporary) powers in exchange for either doing something, or refraining from something. Breaking the deal is [[Disproportionate Retribution|ill-advised]].

* This is one of the tropes that ''Badass'' is built on. Buying new powers just requires a flimsy exposition sequence between action scenes (a journey of self discovery about being a dinosaur the whole time, a training montage of you learning kung fu, whatever). Or if you've got "Little do you know I am actually a ROBOT!", you can buy new powers in the middle of fight scenes just by declaring that you were secretly a robot (or a ninja, or a mad scientist, or a shark, or whatever) the whole time.

* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' has this in the Chameleon prestige class and the Factotum. The Chameleon, at second level, has a bonus feat he can change daily to whatever he has the requirements for. The Factotum has a pool of Inspiration Points, which he can use for a buttload of stuff, such as arcane spells, sneak attack, ignoring spell resistance, as needed.

 

 

== Toys ==

* The writers of ''[[Bionicle]]'' tried to avoid this trope with their main bad guys, the Makuta. Since at one point, a huge variety of differently colored and shaped Kraata slugs could be [[Merchandise-Driven|bought]], they had to come up with 42 different powers for each kind. Since Kraata are basically physical forms of the Makuta's essence, the writers decided to give these powers to them. Fans complained that by doing this, they robbed them of their mysteriousness and took away from their badassery... though it ''is'' an [[Unpleasable Fanbase]].

** They played this trope straight with Artakha, though, keeping the complaints in mind. Tren Krom also seems to show off unknown powers (and ''body parts'') at times, but in his case it is justified, since he is just this side of a god, and we barely know him. In the case of the Toa Nuva gaining new powers, it is [[Hand Wave|handwaved]] that they're a special kind of Toa, who have not yet learned all of their abilities.

 

== Video Games ==

* May come up in [[Persona 3]] depending on your dialogue choices. {{spoiler|Assuming the protagonist wasn't just hitting buttons randomly (which you can fess up to), or using her women's intuition (which you can ALSO confess to), how DID he/she know which switch controlled the breaks to the train car? Lampshaded in the manga, which revealed the Male MC had a hidden love for trains.}}

* Literally in ''[[Psychonauts]]''. Barring three which aren't plot-important, that you get by levelling up, the game basically hands you a new power at the exact time you reach an obstacle that can only be overcome with that particular power. After the first couple of times, they don't even bother giving you some kind of training course to justify it; they just hand you the merit badge and let you get on with it.

 

== Web Comics ==

* ''[[Axe Cop]]'', having sprung from the imagination of a young child during playtime with his much older brother, tends to have characters randomly gaining powers left and right. Sometimes its explained, and sometimes it's "the secret technique no one knows" or something one of the characters "always had". The adult drawing the strip and crafting it into structure plays such moments for all the laughs they're worth. This truly meets its apex when Axe Cop gains the ability to fly ''by asking his creator to make give it to him.''

* In ''[[Sonichu]]'', [[Author Avatar]] Christian Chandler displays this trope in increasingly absurd ways, up to and including spontaneously bringing his [[Distaff Counterpart|twin sister]] to life through the combination of a [[It Makes Sense in Context|a torch made from Pixelblocks and an ancient Cherokee ritual]].

 

== Web Original ==

* ''[[Italian Spiderman]]'' has this in spades. He can teleport, outrun motorbikes, make chickens lay eggs (or cigarette packets), control spiders, summon penguins, fly, and his mustache can be detached and used as an exploding projectile.

* [[Robert Brockway]] of ''[[Cracked.com]]'' points out how pieces of [[Phlebotinum]] in a [[Science Fiction]] story gain New Powers as the Plot Demands, making technology [[Clarke's Third Law|hard for the viewer to tell from magic]]. This is one of the [http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-realizations-that-will-ruin-science-fiction-you/ 4 Realizations That Will Ruin Science Fiction for You].

 

== Western Animation ==

** Katara healing with Waterbending isn't so much her inventing a new power as self-teaching herself one that already exists in-setting; the Northern Water Tribe's waterbenders have been using Waterbending to heal for generations.

** In the case of metalbending, another character mentions that metal "is just purified earth" (that is, metalbending is only impossible because it hasn't yet been tried by a bender of sufficient skill and power). Toph isn't actually there for that speech, but they do try to illustrate that she's realizing roughly the same thing of her own accord.

* A frequent element used in ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' where the main hero will often get new powers that'll ultimately help him in the end, one of the most blatant being his [[Dangerous Forbidden Technique|ghostly wail]] and [[Elemental Powers|ice ability]].

** Although the hero does tend to continue using the same main set of abilities, and only uses the extra ones on special occasions.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Superhero Tropes]]

[[Category:Magical Girl Tropes]]

[[Category:Magic and Powers]]

[[Category:Power]]