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Strong as They Need to Be: Difference between revisions
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This trope does not always need to involve powers relating directly to beating the tar out of things, of course. If any hero is suddenly able to call upon powers they've never shown or hinted at before, with no explanation given by him or any other character, chances are they're Strong As They Need To Be.
It goes the other way too. Characters can often be found struggling to defeat a particular foe, when considering their skill and compared to the baddies they faced in the past, it should be a piece of cake. Used to pad out time length with elongated fight sequences as well as to prevent the protagonists from defeating a villain that the writers need for later. This conspicuous decrease in power invariably is a staple of [[Shounen]] filler arcs.
Often a result of the writers letting the [[Rule of Cool]] take over. Compare with [[I Am Not Left-Handed]] and [[New Powers as the Plot Demands]]. Can overlap with [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass]], and [[Power Creep, Power Seep]], and [[Berserk Button]]. If called upon to [[Hand Wave]] or [[Lampshade Hanging|put a lampshade]] on this, the character might give a [[World of Cardboard Speech]]. Contrast [[Drama-Preserving Handicap]]. For the phenomenon of "As Big As They Need To Be", see [[Artists Are Not Architects]], [[Your Size May Vary]], and [[Telescoping Robot]].
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**** And then Darkseid got up, pressed a button on his wrist, and Superman went from "I'm not holding back and could kill you" to writhing on the floor helpless.
**** Does that mean we should ignore the fact that in the Superman cartoon Darkseid was undeniably stronger than Superman? Look at their fight in ''Legacy''; all Superman's punches did to Darkseid was make him angry that Superman would hit him.
**** But that could be because Superman was still weak after being exposed to red sunlight for several days.
**** Don't forget, however, that Superman ''did,'' in [[Superman: The Animated Series]], beat Darkseid to a bloody mess (by DCAU standards) when he and Batman invaded Apokalips. The difference is, at that point, Superman was ''still'' holding back so as not to kill him. By the time of the Unlimited finale, he was pretty much actually '''[[Thou Shalt Not Kill|trying to kill him]]''', since he knew that he probably couldn't. Remember, Supes, unlike Batman, ''will'' relax his [[Thou Shalt Not Kill]] rule when there absolutely is no other option.
** Even with the post-Crisis Superman, some writers (Mark Waid is a good example) like to write him as a being of godlike power, capable of surviving things like {{spoiler|the super-nuke}} in ''[[Kingdom Come]]'' that would kill literally anyone else. [[Websnark|Eric Burns]] [http://www.websnark.com/archives/2006/01/wouldnt_the_bla.html describes this] as Superman having his "no one can kick my ass because I'm Superman" bit set that day.
*** In the defense of [[Kingdom Come]], there ARE hints earlier in the book that this Superman is much more powerful than others. Luthor himself mentions that Supes is so soaked up on sunlight, he's now immune to Kryptonite.
*** Also, what was stated was that the bomb would have killed Superman if it had hit him point blank. [[Captain Marvel]] was presented as exactly as powerful after all, and {{spoiler|it took his sacrifice to save Superman and the others powerful enough to take it}}. (Doctor Fate & Green Lantern, who protected about half of the fighters)
** And on [[Smallville]], his powers actually ''do'' fluctuate, based on solar coronal activity, the fact that they're still developing, and the fact that he lives in a freakin' [[Kryptonite Is Everywhere|town full of Kryptonite]].
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** Thor has said that even against superhuman foes on Earth, he doesn't dare use his full strength for fear of killing them. There's clearly some ego involved in this, of course, since Earth has some superhumans who are every bit as strong and durable as Thor, if not moreso (see: Hulk, Juggernaut, Hercules, Sentry, etc).
* For another DC example, what powers the [[Martian Manhunter]] has, and to what degree, varies enormously with who's writing him and the needs of the current story. He seems to have all and only the abilities he needs to put the story where the writer wants it. Sometimes he's like a combination of Superman and Plastic Man (except weaker), and other times he is the most powerful being on Earth (as in a storyline where he turned evil and everyone was terrified of fighting him).
** For that matter, his [[Kryptonite Factor]] toward fire is alternately treated as a [[Weaksauce Weakness]] that keeps him from being too overpowered, or a [[Your Mind Makes It Real|psychosomatic]] weakness that can be overcome with willpower; the two inconsistencies go hand in hand.
** In ''[[Blackest Night]]'', a [[Our Zombies Are Different|zombie]] MM points out "I'm as powerful as Superman. Why does everyone FORGET that?" before kicking some ass.
* The ''[[Infinite Crisis]]'' [[OMAC|OMACs]] are an interesting case. They're villains, which is unusual for this trope, and Strong As They Need To Be is their explicitly stated ability. When they sight a superhero, they'll identify the hero and reconfigure to have the powers and abilities they need to win the fight. Nearly everyone has asked [[Fridge Logic|the obvious question]], which is: Why are the bad guys going out of their way to give the heroes a fair chance? Why don't they just configure themselves with the Superman-killing abilities and lay waste to everyone? No answer has yet been given. Fan theories quite naturally abound; for example, as machine-based creatues, it's been suggested that it would take far more energy for them to hit someone as hard as Superman could ''all the time'' than to reconfigure into more limited forms.
** The fact that the Infinite Crisis Brother Eye was made by Batman would explain a lot.
* [[The Hulk]]'s level of physical might and durability varies tremendously. This one, however, has a built-in explanation: Hulk's physical might--and in [[Hulk (film)|the 2003 movie]], his physical mass and size--is directly related to how angry he gets. Hence the [[Catch Phrase]] "The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets." For example, [[Wolverine]] has fought him several times--most of the time to a standstill until he manages to get one good cut in and piss the Hulk off enough that his anger really flares up. At the same time, during the Onslaught [[Crisis Crossover|event]], in the last battle with the titular villain, Jean Grey mentally removed any blocks Banner may have had to restrain himself, and he beat the hell out of the physical form of a being that could [[Reality Warper|alter reality with a thought]]. In short: hope your first punch knocks him out.
** Similarly to Darwin below, in one story Hulk developed the ability to breathe in space by getting angry enough.
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* The Amazons from ''Amazons Attack!'', when [[Wonder Woman|Wonder Woman's]] people invaded the United States seemed to fluctuate wildly in their power. In one scene they're giving Supergirl and Wonder Girl a hard time, then Superman shows up and trounces them effortlessly, then they're taking down fighter jets with [[Rock Beats Laser|flying horses and spears]], Batman can beat them in a straight up fight, they can invade Washington DC and the army can't do a thing to stop them, then they get shot down by soldiers. They're not [[Immune to Bullets]], and they beat the US army with spears and giant bees!?
** Stygian Killer Hornets, thank you... Bees. My God.
* [[Spider-Man]] has this problem very often. His strength, while theoretically possible to mathematically calculate, is subject to plenty of fluctuation. Even his webbing is subject to this, sometimes being broken by a [[Badass Normal]] and sometimes strong enough to hold up a car or two.
** The ultimate expression of this was when he was attacked by Firelord. Panicking, dodging, and running for his life, he sees the Herald of Galactus survive everything he can throw at him unharmed, up to and including an exploding gas station. But when two kids nearly get killed by his uncaring foe, Spidey loses his cool - and proceeds to pound Firelord into the pavement, punctuating every barrage of fists with statements on the order of "Hey, you don't attack kids!" It takes the arrival of Captain America and the Avengers to snap him out, by which time Firelord is flat on his back, eyes crossed, and dazed for quite a while. Just to elaborate, this is a being on a power level roughly equal to Thor or the Silver Surfer, and leagues above the power level of Spidey or any of his usual foes.
*** Subverted when [[Spider Girl]] happened to be in similar situation, with evil god Set trapping every superhero on Earth under unbreakable forcefield. May was doing everything she could to beat him and [[The Juggernaut|even dropping a building on him didn't slow him down]]. However, when May called all her [[Heroic Resolve]] for one final attack and it was looking like this trope was going to be used....[[Groin Attack|she kicked him in the nuts]]. After that, Set admitted that he was holding back on her. Unluckily for him, that kick was painful enough to make him stop upholding the force field and released the superheroes who unleashed a giant ass-kicking upon him.
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* ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes (comics)|Legion of Super-Heroes]]'' has the character Nemesis Kid, whose power is exactly this. He develops abilities strong enough to deal with anyone he's directly fighting. If he fights a martial artist, his skills will be superior, if he fights a cosmic powerhouse, his strength will go through the roof. Naturally the only way to defeat him is to go after him in pairs because he can only adapt to one power at a time. {{spoiler|He dies at the hands of Princess Projectra, not a particularly strong fighter, whose only ability is casting illusions. He can see through them, but this does not stop her from snapping his neck for murdering her husband.}}
* Sentry has this problem, one time being able to fight with Hulk as equal, having his ass handed to him by [[She Hulk]] or [[Incredible Hercules|Hercules]] another and then going into a level where he can {{spoiler|[[Dark Reign (comics)|kill Ares, wipe the floor with Thor and destroy Asgard single-handedly]]}} or kill {{spoiler|Molecule Man}}. May be justified as his powers may depend on his emotional level or {{spoiler|how much he's infulenced by the Void}}
* Gladiator from the Shi-Ar Imperial Guard and his [[Evil Counterpart|evil]] [[Distaff Counterpart|female version]] Stronian have powers depending on their confidence, so if they fell even smaller fear, doubt or regret, they're getting weaker.
* This is actually part of [[Venom (Comic Book)|Venom]] (Mac Gargan)'s powers; when injured or threatened, the symbiote can increase in mass and strength to meet whatever threat it is fighting with equal force.
* [[Deadpool]], whose healing powers are literally taken from Wolverine, has his own healing ability fluctuate wildly depending on how powerful they need to be for the plot. This is explained away as a result of the constant battle between his cancer and his healing powers, as sometimes the cancer gains ground and sometimes the healthy cells gain ground. It even becomes a major plot point when his healing factor stays in a weakened state and he seeks medical attention to try and improve it. He is literally immortal though, since after meeting Death herself when he was having near death experiences he fell in love with her, Thanos became jealous of Deadpool and prevents his soul from passing on so they can never be together.
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** Also, {{spoiler|during the final confrontation, Agent Carver clearly pushes Nick mentally ("WHERE WERE WE?!")... but instead of jumping, as he was presumably pushed to do, Nick turns around and tele-punches Carver.}} How did he do this? No one, before or after that moment, was ever shown as able to {{spoiler|resist a push}}.
* [[Godzilla]]'s power varies from film to film. Sometimes, he's able to defeat enemies with a single breath of his atomic breath, while others, he struggles in a tooth-N-claw battle against his enemies.
** Godzilla almost always suffers a total [[Curb Stomp Battle]], and then inexplicably bounces back more powerful than before. During his "second wind" he will be immune to attacks that caused him severe injury the first time. No explanation is ever given for this.
== [[Literature]] ==
* This happens on both sides of the fence in the ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' fiction. Often [[Super Soldier|Chaos Space Marines ]]or other alien enemies of the Imperium require a lot of [[Redshirt Army|Imperial Guard]] cannon fodder to be hurled at them before they die. Then you have series like [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''Gaunt's Ghosts'', where the killing of Chaos Space Marines is almost-but-not-quite offhanded.
** This is often true of the loyalists as well.
** Guants group ''did'' shoot them in the back from ambush while they were utterly massacring another Imperial unit.
** Orcs get this treatment a lot too. Sometimes they are almost a joke and a minor threat to guardsmen unless they have a huge numbers advantage, and sometimes the same kind will be a difficult fight to Space Marines one-on-one. Same applies to Tyranids.
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== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* Pro wrestling loves this trope. The good guy will consistently get beaten and be depicted as brutalized and exhausted, until they suddenly bounce back for a victory.
* Inverted in the [[Mystery Science Theater 3000|MST-bait]] ''[[Puma Man]]'', in which the "superhero" is capable to tearing apart a car or ripping into a brick wall with his bare hands, but at the movie's climax is just ''barely'' able to overpower an elderly [[Donald Pleasence]] in a struggle.
* In the [[Buffy Verse]] as a whole the strength of vampires varies greatly, from clearly superhuman on a level that can't hope to be matched (Buffy and Angel Season 1) to being able to be beat by the [[Badass Normal]] of Angel, Charles Gunn, easily.
** When asked about the strength of [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]], [[Joss Whedon]] [[Word of God|replied]], literally "[[Shrug of God|as strong as the plot needs her to be]]".
*** Semi-averted as well, as she does get [[Took a Level In Badass|consistently more powerful during the course of the series]]. Comparing her battles in the first season to her battles in the eighth is like night and day. This is particularly noticeable after the Initiative Arc.
** ''[[Angel]]'' tended to do this a lot as well. Particularly notable with Connor, whose abilities seemed to correspond directly to how inconvenient it would be. When he's on their side, gets beaten up by practically everything not an ordinary vampire. When fighting against them, took out almost the entire team single handed, twice.
* In [[Smallville]]'s [[Grand Finale]], Clark flies up to Apokolips, a planet with engines on it, and shoves it all the way back into space saving the day and exhibiting about a billion times the super strength he's ever demonstrated in the TV series. This is [[Silver Age]] level power for Superman and even that character was normally moving inert planets when he moved something that massive.
* In [[Supernatural]], {{spoiler|vampirized}} Hunter Gordon Walker was strong enough to rip off two vampire's heads and could even {{spoiler|kill his partner with his bare hands}}, but when fighting Sam, his strength appeared to be downgraded.
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* In ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 4'', Snake's barely able to fight after being stabbed in the shoulder, but spends a good five minutes in a microwave corridor intended to vapourise anyone who entered immediately after suffering a heart attack, and is still just about able to kick away Scarabs.
* In ''[[Devil May Cry]] 4'', Nero's [[Red Right Hand|Devil]] [[Power Fist|Bringer]] normally can only pull Nero to a big opponent and not the other way around. However, under certain circumstances it can abruptly become much more powerful, such as being able to punch the massive fire demon Berial a long way.
* ''[[God of War (series)|God of War]]'': Kratos has this all the time. It's particularly notable in the second game when the Colossus of Rhodes stamps on him, and he ''tosses it away''. But there's a wall in the way? Must go all the way around this convoluted route rather than just, I don't know, knock a hole in it. Or in the first game, when your method of getting through a gate with thin bars that something else already ripped a hole in is to push over a 60 foot high statue.
** Maybe Kratos has extra powers when attacking statues?
** In God of War 2, his insane strength might be justified that in the beginning Kratos still has all the powers a full-fledged god can brag about, he doesn't brag "Fear the new god of war" while beating the first mooks for nothing, still the trope applies for the rest of the second game and the sequel as well, in God of War 3 Kratos stripped of all his powers he gained on the previous game, can take the pressure of Chronos -- a being who dwarfs the Colossus of Rhodes -- trying to squash him and push him away, after this display of strength it makes one wonder why Kratos needs to face through all the puzzles and locked doors at all.
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* [[The Powerpuff Girls]] are notorious for this. One episode will have them <s>swatting skyscraper-sized monsters with ease (often with just one of the girls doing the dirty work)</s> proving themselves to adult heroes as the mightiest supers in their entire universe, and another will have all three girls get beaten down by a gang of ordinary thugs.
** Not to mention one time where an overweight nerd was able to trap them in toy packaging. I mean, SERIOUSLY?!
* Ladies & gentlemen, [[The Tick (animation)]]. This trope is a perfect description of his "drama power."
** The in-story description of it is "nigh-invulnerability." The Tick is always the exact right amount of invulnerable to keep the plot going. So he's much more vulnerable during slapstick scenes.
* ''[[The Simpsons]]'': Comedic example: Mr. Burns. He's always depicted as frail and weak, but just ''how'' frail and ''how'' weak depends on [[Rule of Funny|whatever makes the joke work]].
** Also, of course, [[Flanderization|how late the season is.]]
* Mesmero from [[X-Men: Evolution]]. In his first appearance, he's a strong enough telepath to fight Xavier to a draw, but in his next episode Xavier defeats him easily. For most of his appearances he's a [[Squishy Wizard]], but in the ''Dark Horizon'' [[Season Finale]] he can suddenly take on Wolverine ''and'' Sabertooth at the same time. Possibly justified because Mesmero's powers were granted by Apocalypse, and the old mutant may well have adjusted how much power he let his minion use based on how much he thought he'd need.
* As noted above, Gladiator powers are based on his confidence and his appearances during Phoenix Saga in ''[[X-Men (animation)|X-Men]]'' really shows it. At his first appearance he simply ''ignores'' Juggernaut punching him and then threw him to the ocean with one hand. Later, feeling conflicted about fighting Rogue against his [[Wouldn't Hit a Girl|personal code]] allows her to knock him out with one punch.
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