Super Serum: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|'''Victor Mancha''': ''Wait, Back up. Your secret origin is drugs? Doesn't that kinda set a bad example for little kids?''

 

A hero who doesn't have his powers or abilities naturally, but has to get them from a process of digestion or injection of a specialized compound. For obvious reasons, depictions of this took a nosedive due to [[Media Watchdogs]], as depicting heroes taking what seemed to be drugs became a strict no-no.

 

Compare [[Psycho Serum]] and [[Bottled Heroic Resolve]]. See also [[Power Source]] and [[Spice of Life]]. For a similar trope in commercials, see [[Cereal-Induced Superpowers]].

{{examples}}

* ''[[8 Man|Eighth Man]]'' was a [[Cyberpunk]] [[Superhero]] who recharged himself (and his powers) through special ''cigarettes''. His were the only [[Cybernetics Eat Your Soul|cybernetics that didn't eat ones soul]] in the series. The [[OVA]] [[Revival]] ''Eight Man After'' used plain old experimental Super Serum—in contrast to the [[Psycho Serum]] all the ''other'' cyborgs had to use.

* ''[[Naruto]]'': Although his abilities don't center around them, Chouji's food pills can increase his chakra supply dramatically, allowing him to use more powerful attacks more often. These leave him burnt out afterwards at best, in critical condition at worst.

* [[Bamse]] gets his super-[[Funny Animal|ursine]] strength from "dunderhonung", thunderhoney, which is disqualified from being [[Power-Up Food]] because it is not just regular honey, but has to be mixed correctly with various herbs and spices (the working ingredient is appearently a rare flower that only grows on a single island in the Aegean, guarded by a seven-headed monster). However, something like Ralph Dibney's metagene above must also be involved, since most people just gets three days of stomach cramps from eating dunderhonung, and it seems to run in the family.

* One of the ongoing plot threads in ''[[Empire]]'' centers around discovering the secret of the production of Eucharist, a highly addictive substance that supercharges the abilities of those who take it. People under its influence can dodge bullets, and the high is described as being "[[Better Than Sex]]."

 

== Film ==

* In 2008's ''[[The Incredible Hulk (film)|The Incredible Hulk]]'', the source of the Abomination's powers is a double dose of the Marvel Universe's fabled Rebirth Project super-soldier serum , combined with a blood transfusion from Bruce Banner. This appears to have been done as part of an effort to provide visible ties between Marvel Studios' adaptations of their canon characters - in this case, laying groundwork for the ''[[Captain America: The First Avenger|Captain America]]'' film.

** Actually, even Banner's mutation into the Hulk in the [[Marvel Cinematic Universe]] is due to his experimentation with the original serum. A combination of the fact that he didn't know what he was doing (the military had told him the work was for radiation resistance) and his replacing [[Techno Babble|Vita-Rays]] with Gamma radiation led to his transformation.

* In the 2011 movie ''Limitless'' the main character uses a drug to become super smart.

* After defeating his arch-nemesis Metro Man, [[Megamind]] decides to give Metro Man's superpowers to a random guy who would become the next champion of Metro City. He extracts Metro Man's DNA from some dandruff on his cape and accidentally injects it into {{spoiler|Hal the cameraman}}.

== Tabletop Games ==

* In the ''[[Rifts]]'' [[Tabletop RPG|pen-and-paper RPG]], the "Juicer" character class gain their superhuman abilities from a constant feed of intravenous drugs. The drawbacks are addiction, permanent organ damage in two years (making removal problematic), and death within seven. Of course, as most are shock troops and mercenaries, many die in combat long before that.

** In [[James Swallow]]'s ''[[Blood Angels|Red Fury]]'', Rafen and his company come up against foes who inject themselves; Rafen is familiar with [[Bottled Heroic Resolve]], and explicitly aware that this is far more. For one thing, they rise up from apparent death with them.

 

** It actually does retain the semi-scientific stance; the only significant change between the original game and Crisis Core (for example) is that Jenova cells are ''not'' injected as a matter of course. The mako energy process was also changed from "showered with" to "infused with". It doesn't necessarily make the SOLDIER operative super-strong, but it does allow them to do things that normal humans are not capable of (jumping ''really'' high, summoning magic without materia, etc).

*** And the Jenova cells are a normal part of the procedure. The only exception I can think of is Weiss of Deepground. [[Super Strength]] is also pretty much standard, though third class operatives aren't that much stronger than the average fighter. Not sure where in the games (or [[Advent Children|the movie]] the "magic without materia" thing comes from. The closest is Zack being able to call up summons without the materia being equipped.

* In ''[[Resident Evil 5]]'', {{spoiler|Wesker}} needs a frequent and ''precise'' dose of the virus running through his body in order to keep his superpowers and still stay [[Bishonen Line|(relatively) human-looking.]] {{spoiler|This becomes the major gimmick of the penultimate boss fight, where the protagonists give Wesker [[Phlebotinum Overload|an intentional overdose of the serum,]] and send him into a [[Villainous Breakdown]].}}

* In [[City of Heroes]] the enemy group The Freakshow are cyberpunks powered by a drug called Excelsior, the [[Troll]] gang by massive overdoses of street drug Superadyne (or superdyne, or just 'Dyne), and with the release of the Superscience booster pack, players can change their costume by way of emotes that have them either drinking a potion from an Erlenmeyer flask or shooting up in the arm with a vial of the titular trope.

== Webcomics ==

* Most of the heroes from [[Heroes Inc]], a popular webcomic that makes use of public domain Golden Age characters, have taken serums that give them various powers and slow down their aging process.

** The water of the river itself can also grant superhuman strength and stamina, but it's even more likely to kill anyone who bathes in it, let alone drinks it.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* In their origins, steroids were looked as if they were this: some magic serum that gave new soldiers muscles with no training whatsoever.

* During the [[War of the Pacific]] Chilean soldiers developed a toxic drink nicknamed "La Chupilca del Diablo" (The Devil's Booze), which consisted of a mix of strong Aguardiente and ''black gunpowder''. According to that era's records, the unholy mixture caused the Chilean soldiers to go absolutely ''berserker'' and able to ignore pain or fatigue, but because of the toxic nature of the drink, this Super Serum was only used on extreme situations. For the record, that war had Peru and Bolivia teaming up against Chile, and Chile ''won that war.''

* The [[Nazis With Gnarly Weapons|German military]] from 1938 throughout [[World War Two]] used liberally a compound of the dreaded methamphetamine (then known as [http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,354606,00.html Pervitin]), under the hope it would give the soldiers and most importantly airmen superhuman performance. While the effects of meth as an insanely strong stimulant are known, the mild concentration used back then led the troopers to stay awake for weeks, raise themselves from total exhaustion, [[Deconstructed Trope|but it did not grant]] ''super''human powers.

 

[[Category:Magic and Powers]]

[[Category:Transhuman Tropes]]

[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]