New Powers as the Plot Demands: Difference between revisions

** Even [[The Hero|Goku]] does this from time to time. He reads Krillin's mind when he arrives on Namek (and then never uses it again), gains Instant Transmission from the inhabitants of a planet he crashed on, and figures out how to turn into a Super Saiyan 3. And he learned all three of these techniques conveniently off-screen.

*** The first example was given some [[Lampshade Hanging]], with Krillin asking "Where did you get such an ability from?!", and Goku replying he wasn't even sure that would work. It was also reused during the Android/Cell saga.

''[[Makes Just as Much Sense in Context|"Muffin Button."]]'' }}

*** As for the Ki sensing, it wasn't that Frieza and his minions couldn't do it, but they didn't know that it even could be done. Vegeta mentioned that after he found out it was possible, he easily taught himself the ability.

** The Winged Dragon of Ra is clearly this, revealing a new secret ability ''every single time'' it gets played. A full list of its abilities: its ATK and DEF are equal to the ATK and DEF of the monsters tributed to summon it, you can pay all but 1 Life Point to increase its attack by the same amount, it can attack regardless of if any card effects would otherwise stop it from attacking, you can pay 1000 Life Points to destroy all monster on the opponent's field, and you can tribute other monsters to add their ATK to Ra's ATK. And that doesn't count the requirement one needs to have Ancient Egyptian heritage and has to recite an ancient chant in order to summon it, and the immunity to card effects it shares with the other god cards.

** Spoofed mercilessly ([[Affectionate Parody|along with everything else]]) in '[[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series]]''.

"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.

* [[Star Driver]] is particularly bad about this. Practically every single fight in the series ends with [[The Hero|Takuto]] suddenly revealing that he has some hidden power that just happens to work perfectly against whatever enemy he's fighting, and using said power to [[One Hit KO]] his enemy.

* 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?

'''Saito:''' {{spoiler|Not one bit! It makes you look cool, though.}} }}

** Also spoofed in the eighth audio drama (a comedic [[Alternate Universe]] where Kotetsu and Barnaby are actual [[Buddy Cop Show|Buddy Cops]]), where the following exchange takes place as they confront the villain.

'''Kotetsu:''' Whaaat!? ... Actually, I got the exact same powers just yesterday! }}

* ''[[Super Atragon]]'' gives us a battleship that does this: The ''Ra'' gains several the following new abilities with no explanation; most are shown exactly once:

** 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.

Although that's mostly Superman trashtalking to use psychological warfare on Doomsday, since the very things he says weakens Doomsday in no way have ever stopped Superman because being sentient in no way keeps Doomsday from overcoming that fear and fighting on anyway. There's no reason why Doomsday can't be emboldened by his ability to always return from the dead, plenty of other characters get by just fine with far less power than Doomsday has beyond the ability to return from the dead. }}

** Doomsday's power could be summarized as, each time he dies and comes back, his overall strength and power increase AND he's made immediately and instantaneously invulnerable to and has the capacity to kill or destroy whatever it was that killed him.

== Films -- Animation ==

* 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.

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

 

** In ''I, Jedi'' he has the ability to retrieve lost memories and damp down any of his senses.

** [[The Black Fleet Crisis]] gives him rather pointless ''super-architectural powers'' which would make anyone who's ever worked with stone white with envy. He goes to the beach where his father once had a fortress and finds only widely-scattered rocks.

Now the stones swirled again in the air, joined by others plucked from the sea and stripped from the face of the cliff. Now broken edge fused against broken edge, and the dark faces of the rock lightened as their mineral structure was reshuffled. Now heavy rock walls and floors thinned to an airy elegance as if they were clay in a potter's press." }}

*** He then instantly builds a tower that is perfectly camouflaged with its surroundings, has the gravity act however he wants it to, and makes door and window holes open wherever and whenever he pleases. In lieu of furniture he tells a guest to sit and forms an "air cushion" under them.

== Puppet Shows ==

* [[Justified Trope]] (or, more accurately, [[Hand Wave|HandWaved]]) in ''[[The Dark Crystal]]''. At the moment when it would be most convenient, one of the two main characters, who are the last of their kind, exposes wings and starts to fly. They have this matter-of-fact conversation:

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

 

* In ''[[Batman: Arkham Asylum]]'', the titular Caped Crusader already has his entire arsenal of weapons on the island - he just doesn't bother to activate or get most of them until the plot requires it. For instance, Batman always had the components for the Ultra Batclaw (the upgraded three-shot version of the weapon), but he doesn't bother to upgrade it until he needs to; {{spoiler|when Poison Ivy's vines destroy portions Arkham Batcave while he's inside it, it becomes the only way to leave}}. He also has the Cryptographical Sequencer on him from the beginning of the game - but it only works once he gets Warden Sharp's passcodes.

** The sequel, ''[[Batman: Arkham City]]'', lampshades Batman's apparent habit of going into danger unprepared.

Batman: Tried it. The extra weight slowed me down. }}

* To keep the four [[Spider-Man|Spider-Men's]] abilities consistent in ''[[Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions]]'', [[Marvel 2099|Spider-Man 2099]] gets spider-sense, while Spidey Noir gets improved web-shooting abilities; the changes are [[Lampshaded]] by the characters.

*** Except for the ice powers. He ditches everything for ice, for some reason. Season 3 did this with more than just Danny, though -- Danny got ice powers and temporary weather powers, while Kitty got some bizarre kiss-the-men-away power that seemingly came out of nowhere. Johnny better be careful not to upset her now.

** Played for laughs once. The [[Batman Cold Open]] [[Monster of the Week]] fired an energy beam at Danny, and he generated a reflective shield instinctively. Once the beam rebounded, he remarked:

* On ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'', Raven can do pretty much whatever she wants depending on the situation. She mainly relies on [[Flight]] and [[Mind Over Matter|telekinesis]], but has demonstrated the ability to use clairvoyance, [[Time Stands Still|stop time]], [[Intangible Man|pass through walls]], see brief [[Seers|glimpses of the future]], create monsters and [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|change her appearance to a monster]] to "persuade" a villain to help them, [[Villain Teleportation|among]] [[Demonic Possession|other]] nasty [[Mind Rape|things]]. This may be partially justified, because her powers are [[Functional Magic|magic-based]], and she's the daughter of an all-powerful [[Satan|demon]] [[God of Evil|lord]].

** As a villainous example, Brother Blood fits as well (in fact, his powers seem remarkably similar to Raven's, apart from the [[Mind Control]]). Also overlaps with [[Power Creep, Power Seep]], as he goes from a psychic with a [[Compelling Voice]] (in his first appearance) to a near-god who can take all the Titans at once effortlessly and is only stopped by [[Deus Ex Machina]] (the season finale).

** Bender seems to gain a piece of hardware whenever the plot requires, or if the writers need some sort of joke. [[Hammerspace|They all seem to]] [[Telescoping Robot|come from his chest]].

** Although not a superhero, in one episode Steven Hawking breaks up an argument by suddenly shooting lasers out of his eyes.

* An episode of ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'' centers around Blossom discovering that she has ice breath ability, conveniently in time to stop a flaming asteroid from crushing the city. In what might be a deconstruction, she actually notices that her new power is ostracizing her from her sisters and doesn't ''want'' to use it to stop the asteroid. She later uses the ice breath in later episodes, although not really more than her other powers.

* In ''[[Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures|The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest]]'', Hadji conveniently discovered his "latent" telekinetic abilities in the second season (along with a good many other revamps).

** When you consider who his boss is, this might make sense. The Monarch is the type of guy to go on about how their costumes will "strike fear into the hearts of those who oppose us" without thinking to tell them what they actually ''do.''

* Roger from ''[[American Dad]]'' is one of the best examples of this trope you can find, to the point where even ''Roger'' is surprised to find out he has certain powers.

* ''[[Transformers]]'' does this on occasion. In the [[Transformers Generation 1|the original series]] Optimus Prime revealed he could mentally control pieces of his body after being disassembled by Megatron. Ironhide sprayed a huge variety of liquids from his sprayer-hand, from glues to liquid nitrogen to firefighting foam to oil to paint, and each liquid would be just what was needed for the situation. ''[[Beast Wars]]'' had Blackarachnia show off telekinesis after becoming a Transmetal 2 (for one quick scene and never again), and there were so many instances of New Weapons As The Plot Demands (in one episode Cheetor pulls a massive missile launcher ''bigger than he is'' out of nowhere, fires it once (missing his target and accidentally hitting Optimus), drops it and forgets about it. The various Japanese ''Transformers'' series are even worse about it.

* Near the end of the first season of ''[[WITCH (animation)|WITCH]]'', Will spontaneously uses the ability to have the Heart of Candracar duplicate itself to fool the bad guys. She never uses this again.