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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"Plastic Man's already down there. We don't need two stretchy guys."''|'''Green Lantern''', ''[[Justice League (
In a [[Five-Man Band]], [[Power Trio]] or other ensemble, the characters have to complement each other. One side effect of this is that, in any group of superheroes, no two of them will have the same power.
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When done well, this can be at best unobtrusive. But if the heroes got their powers from a common origin, or if their powers are granted by technology, it may seem very strange or even like a really dumb design decision. After all, [[The Power of Friendship]] is nice and all, but it'd be a real shame if the world was destroyed by a fire demon because the hero with the power of Water [[Perfect Health|was out sick that day]].
An unfortunate side effect is that if the ensemble is big enough, one of the heroes is going to get shafted, because [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?]]?
Another unfortunate side effect is that if you have to replace someone with a [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]], unlikely as it may seem, he may have to have the exact same powers as the character he replaces.
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This might go no farther than each hero having a unique "special attack" or melee weapon. We aren't meant to worry about the fact that this is a kind of inefficient way to arm your heroes, or about the guy whose weapon sucks. Not many writers can come up with a set of five melee weapons which are all really different from each other, and which are all useful against an equal range of adversaries, after all.
Often results in a [[Plot Tailored to
'''There are a few caveats:'''
* There can be a few common powers everyone has, in addition to their character-specific powers. Most of the ''[[
* You are allowed to have "paired" heroes within the group with the same powers. They can be thought of as a single person for the purposes of speciation (e.g., the Wonder Twins).
* In some teams, the whole point is that every member has exactly the same power (e.g., the [[Green Lantern]] [[The Chosen Many|Corps]] in [[The DCU]]). Power speciation obviously doesn't apply in such cases; the focus is instead on personality differences. (Although this can still result in power speciation of kind, as different personality types apply the same powers differently.)
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== Anime & Manga ==
* ''[[Tokyo Mew Mew]]'' gave each girl both an elemental-themed attack and a special power attached to an emotion that could be used in civilian form (Ichigo could turn into a catgirl, Bu-ling could create giant boulders...), as well as the common power of speaking to their animal.
* In ''[[
* ''[[Naruto]]'' may be a special case. Each character has a rather unique special ability, (except [[Badass Normal|Rock Lee]]) but all are trained in advanced level martial arts, and many of the lead cast (particularly Naruto and Sasuke) focus more on their martial arts powers than their special ability, so there's not much of a "only character X has the power to succeed here" issues. Also, most powers are passed down through families to make sure that the art isn't lost. In case that's not enough, it's a pretty safe bet that Kakashi (Copycat Ninja) or the Hokage knows the technique as well. Some of them are even inherited as a specific bloodline trait.
** A very odd aversion can be seen with the Six Paths of Pain: it gives the user control of six different bodies with their own special powers, but ''two'' of those bodies' powers are for interrogation and soul removal, but they work differently (one removes your soul to read your mind, the other removes the souls of people who give false or no information).
* ''[[One Piece]]'' has many kinds of power giving Devil Fruits, but there can never be two of the same fruit at the same time.
** Though Marine Scientist, Dr. Vegapunk found a way to copy the light based devil-fruit powers of one of the admirals, and give them to the goverment's [[Mecha
*** A quasi-example with Gecko Moria and Marshall D. Teach of the Seven Warlords of the Sea. Both have [[Dark Is Edgy|Darkness-based]] powers but are used in different ways as a [[Living Shadow]] and [[Gravity Master]] respectively.
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* Subverted in ''[[Wildguard]]'' were two of its five members have fire powers, but no one can fly - or, for that matter, has especially super strength. Cordelia Hardman even lampshades it.
* Jarringly averted in the Wildstorm comic ''[[The Monarchy]]''. In the early issues it seemed that every character on the team had the power to fly and shoot energy blasts.
* In ''[[
== Fairy Tales and Mythology ==
* This [[Older Than They Think|actually predates superheroes]]: it can be seen in [[Fairy Tale
* Used to a certain point in ''Jason and the Argonauts''.
== Fan Works ==
* In ''[[
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== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[Mutant X]]'': There were several broad categories of mutant power, and the team never consisted of more than one member in each category.
** Lexa and Brennan, both elementals, were briefly on the team at the same time, but most of the time, the trope held true. Their powers were also different enough to maintain the trope in spirit.
* ''[[Birds of Prey]]'': We are explicitly told that no two metahumans ever have the same power. Despite the fact that Huntress inherits the same ones her mother had.
* ''[[
* Possibly more reasonable when dealing with skills rather than powers, though it seems like over time, everyone on the team should get at least a ''little'' familiar with their teammates' skills. Visible in ''[[
* In ''[[
* During the first season of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', several characters in other media adaptations had powers the same or similar to primary characters, although no two characters were shown to have the same power yet in the television series. Except for Peter Petrelli, whose power is that he can manifest other's powers that he comes into contact with (which is virtually the entire cast), and Sylar, who has to <s>remove</s> examine their brains to do it. In the second season, however, West has the same power as Nathan (flight) and {{spoiler|Kensei/ Adam Monroe has the same power as Claire ([[Healing Factor]]).}}
** Even more are introduced in seasons three and four. Tracy has the ice power, which Sylar had stolen from guy offscreen. Flint has the power of fire like Meridith, though his flames are blue. Matt's father has the same power as his son. Season four had another time traveler, even though he was crippled, and it had a speedster like Daphne.
* ''[[Power Rangers]]'' and ''[[Super Sentai]]'' are odd about this, in that they Zig Zag the trope, both averting and playing it straight (Not counting the [[Law of Chromatic Superiority]] that gives the Red Ranger bonus gears). Often, all the rangers have the same powers, but with variations. So the red ranger might have a fire attack, blue a water attack, yellow and lightning, etc... But this difference rarely if ever comes into play - there almost never is a [[Monster of the Week]] more vulnerable to a specific ranger's powers. Some seasons skip this entirely and the only difference is in the ranger's color.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* [[Tabletop RPG
== Video Games ==
* The comic book [[Superhero]] MMORPG ''[[City of Heroes]]'' even shows some of this with the different [[An Adventurer Is You|Character Archetypes]]- ideal teams generally have at least one of each, although team structure is flexible enough that that does not always have to be the case by a long shot. One compares typical MMORPG class roles with superhero team roles...
** Interestingly, this can be subverted as each Archetype can take powersets that use the same power concepts, but with different effects; for instance, a [[Stone Wall|Tanker]], [[Glass Cannon|Blaster]] and [[Squishy Wizard|Controller]] can all take [[Playing
** Also subverted in that while the Hero and Villian archetypes overlap they still have inherent modifiers that affect their play style and team roles. For example:
*** Defenders and Corruptors have mostly the same powers with the main difference being that Defenders have stronger enemy debuffing and team buffing/healing powers while Corruptors have stronger damage output that scales up as enemy health gets lower.
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*** On the surface Brutes and Tankers may look very much the same, but Tankers have higher base and maximum HP while also being better at holding enemy aggro. On the other hand the Brute, while having the same powers as the Tanker, has the highest maximum damage output of any other archetype.
*** Stalkers and Scrappers are superficially the same, except that Scrappers are straight up melee skirmishers while all Stalkers come with the best stealth ability in the game and the [[Back Stab|assassination]] attack. Scrappers also have more HP to compensate.
* In ''[[Mega Man X
** ''[[
* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' this appears in terms of raid buffs. Practically class has some sort of buff they can give everyone else, but many are functionally the same one, and they don't stack. This means that people try to get as many different classes into the same raid in order to maximize the number of different buffs, and avoid duplicating classes where possible. It's most notable with shamans, who have an extremely powerful spell no other class possesses, to the extent that groups will wait for a very long time searching for a shaman solely to get that buff. The exception to this is paladins, who can give as many as 3 or 4 different buffs, but only one type per paladin. Blizzard is attempting to avert this in the ''Cataclysm'' expansion by giving more classes duplicate buffs, and by giving many hunter pets one of these buffs, so that the hunter can simply bring the appropriate pet instead of everyone waiting around.
* Just about every character in the ''[[Touhou]]'' series has a special ability, almost universally summarized in their Character Profiles as "Manipulation of X", yet out of all the games ([[Continuity Reboot|since the move to Windows, at least]]), the value of X has yet to repeat.
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== Webcomics ==
* ''[[
* Somewhat averted in [[
== Web Original ==
* Team Kimba, in the [[Whateley Universe]]. They're a pack of high schoolers, rather than an established super-team, but they fit this model. Like the [[Justice League]], they also have a wide range of power levels, ranging from Tennyo (so powerful there's a school rule against attacking her) down to Generator (can animate stuff, and now has regeneration too) and Bladedancer ([[Badass Normal]] with magic sword). The team has blasters, a PK superboy, a powerful mage, a [[The Avengers (Comic Book)|Vision-like]] density-changer, healers, martial artists, and a fake deviser. And there's only seven of them.
** While Team Kimba has a fairly diverse lineup more or less by "chance," most of the teams in the
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Captain Planet and
* Ben from ''[[
** ''[[Ben 10: Alien Force
* ''[[Justice League (
** Averted more generally as Superman, Wonderwoman, and The Martian Manhunters were all [[Flying Brick|flying bricks]].
*** On the other hand, in a clear example of this trope, Martian Manhunter's Martian-vision and super-speed were removed, and his super strength was downplayed. His more unique powers - telepathy, shape-shifting, and phasing through matter - were emphasized instead.
** Most of the speciation didn't have to do with super-powers. Hawkgirl was used instead of Hawkman to balance out the gender ratio, the Green Lantern John Stewart was used to add some "color" to the team, and the Flash used was the playful Wally West instead of his more traditionally-heroic predecessors.
* Similarly, ''[[Batman:
** At the end of the segment, Batman gives his opinion: "Between the two of you, I prefer to work alone."
* [[Subverted]] on ''[[Young Justice (
** For that matter, this show's version of the [[Justice League]] includes Hawkman ''and'' Hawkwoman, plus two [[Green Lantern
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
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