Puberty Superpower: Difference between revisions

This in turn was possibly influenced by the folklore about poltergeist manifestations being associated with adolescents, which in turn has been interpreted as a metaphor for sexual awakening.

 

Contrast [[Growing Up Sucks]] where a character possesses a power throughout childhood, but ''loses'' it at puberty instead.

{{examples}}

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]''

** The X-Men spin-off '[[New Mutants]]' is explicitly this trope; all team members have powers that appeared with puberty, a varying number of years in the past (Xian's the longest ago (she's 19), Rahne's only a month or two before (at 13)).

** ''[[Generation X]]'' is about a group of powered teens at Xavier's spin-off school.

** Exceptions to the [[Puberty Superpower]] tend be extreme. The shapeshifter Morph, as explained in ''[[Exiles (Comic Book)|Exiles]]'', was born a fairly squishy mass of a baby. Nonetheless he counts himself lucky, since his power allowed him to quickly shift into a more normal appearance and live a fairly happy family life.

* Franklin Richards is a major [[Marvel Universe]] exception who, even more dramatically than Superbaby, shows the dangers of a child who possesses (literally) [[Reality Warper|world-shaping power]].

* ''[[Power Pack]]'' is an exception, where the Power siblings gain their powers from an alien, with Alex at 12, Julie at 10, Jack at 8, and Katie at 5 when the comic first started.

* Lampshaded by Molly Hayes in ''[[Runaways]]''; when her powers developed, she kept trying to talk to her parents and friends about the weird things her body was doing, but they all thought she was just talking about normal puberty.

* Averted in ''[[Supreme Power]]'': toddler [[Alternate Company Equivalent|Hyperion]], upset by a barking puppy, incinerates it with his eyes.

* In Valentino's ''[[Normalman]]'':

{{quote| '''Normalman:''' When did you get your super powers?<br />

'''Sophisticated Lady:''' Puberty. }}

 

== [[Film]] ==

** They just [[Dawson Casting|look 21]].

* Cruelly averted in ''[[Scanners]]'', where the telepaths of the title are quite capable even [[Fetus Terrible|before birth]]. This guarantees that when they grow up, they will have [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|a host of psychological problems]], and - because they've been able to hear the thoughts of others their whole lives - a deeply flawed sense of self.

* The whole point of the Disney movie ''[[Film/Up Up And Away|Up Up And Away]]'', where the middle child of a superhero family is quickly approaching his 14th birthday. All superheros receive their powers before this age. If they don't, then they remain ordinary humans. His younger sister, though, got her [[Eye Beam]] powers at the age of two (now imagine for a second a two-year-old who can shoot lasers out of her eyes), so 14 is just a cut-off age. He remains a human at the end but comes to term with it, and his best friend suggests he still becomes a masked hero [[Badass Normal|but without powers]]. On the upside, he can touch [[Kryptonite Is Everywhere|aluminum foil]].

** In order not to cause his father (a respected local hero named Bronze Eagle) to be embarassed at having a normal son, the kid fakes having superstrength (by rigging a patio door to fly off its hinges when he opens it) and flight (by throwing a ball at a tree and running away). His grandfather (a retired hero named Steel Condor) sees right through him and urges him to tell his father the truth.

** They also get a smaller burst of power from hormones during puberty, as happens in High Wizardry: Kit has a growth spurt, and Nita is getting a little bit of growth up top.

* In ''Bras and Broomsticks'' by Sarah Mlynowski, Rachel Weinstein's younger sister gets magical powers before her. This is explicitly because of puberty; her sister was an "early bloomer".

* Mostly averted in the novel ''[[Starcraft]]: Ghost: Nova'' with the titular character who is an extremely-powerful [[Psychic Powers|telepath]] and [[Mind Over Matter|telekinetic]]. While, normally, psychic individuals are required to be turned over to the Ghost Academy, Nova is from one of the Old Families of Tarsonis, and her father uses his considerable influence to keep her "gift" hidden. It's mentioned that she's been able to do things from infancy and always appears to know what people are thinking and feeling. However, it's not until she's in her teens that her powers start approaching "critical". When her parents are killed in front of her by a bunch of rebels, she literally goes nuclear, wiping out the rebels and any innocent bystander nearby, as well as shattering the penthouse dome, which is rated for nuclear strikes.

 

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

* Notable exception: Characters in ''[[The 4400]]'' were granted superpowers by {{spoiler|people from the future}} at various ages, from childhood to old age. The one in-show exception is Isabelle, who was conceived and implanted into Lily's body during her abduction, and shows extremely powerful abilities as an infant and even some powers while still in the womb. Indeed, the character of Isabelle never really goes through puberty at all, as she is [[Plot-Relevant Age-Up|aged]] from an infant to adulthood in an instant at the end of the second series.

* Betazoids (a naturally telepathic race) in ''[[Star Trek]]'' gain their mind-reading powers at puberty, except for a few rare exceptions who tend to be mentally unstable from not being able to "tune out" the mental noise around them.

** Endora brags that Samantha was able to fly on her own by age five, but then adds that Samantha had been precocious for her age.

* ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'' claims that half-witches come into their powers on their [[Dangerous Sixteenth Birthday|16th birthday]], before which Sabrina's aunts had engaged in an elaborate [[Masquerade]] to keep the other world a secret from her -- though this does not jive well with the later implications that witches are generally comically bad at dealing with things in the usual mortal way, and that deliberately avoiding magic is unhealthy for a witch. This is also [[Retcon|retconned]] in ''[[Sabrina the Animated Series]]'', where a 13-year-old Sabrina has full knowledge of the other world.

** That or the cartoon was just following the path of the original ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch (Comic Book)|Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'' comic books, where Sabrina is shown with her powers even as a child (in a few "Little Archie" stories).

** No, it's made clear that hers has manifested before that, the Haitian's just been wiping her memory. It's implied to be how she survived the fire when she was a baby.

* ''[[Spaced]]'': The comic Tim is working on is about an orphaned kid who is exposed to some weird chemical by an amoral 'Doktor' as part of some twisted experiment. Absolutely nothing happened and the Doktor destroyed his research. Then when puberty hit, the dormant chemicals in his bloodstream activated and the orphan kid mutated into the comic's titular Bear.

* Slayers in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' fit this model too. They suddenly become a Slayer around thirteen or fifteen. {{spoiler|Right up until Willow breaks the 'one girl' system}}.

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* Played straight [http://www.webcomicsnation.com/eddurd/everydayheroes/series.php?view=single&ID=72716 here] in ''[[Everyday Heroes]]''.

 

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* Danny in ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' made light that he was gaining "evil puberty" powers once he received the Ghostly Wail. His powers from the beginning onset also reacted to his growing teenage body (example: his nervous emotions towards a girl triggered an unexpected intangibility).

* {{spoiler|Inverted}} in ''[[Transformers Animated]]''. {{spoiler|Sari realizing her robot heritage and upgrading herself with the Allspark key actually ''causes'' her to go through puberty.}} It's never really explained how this works, nor is the disorienting nature of {{spoiler|going from eight to a teenager in an instance}} addressed in any way.

** Since Sari is a {{spoiler|Cybertronian, it was probably just an upgrade to her body; happens all of the time in [[Transformers]].}}