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{{trope}}
[[File:serum.jpg|link=Captain America (comics)|
{{quote|'''Victor Mancha''': ''Wait, Back up. Your secret origin is drugs? Doesn't that kinda set a bad example for little kids?''
'''[[Cloak and Dagger (
|''[[Runaways]]''}}
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.
Heroes nowadays may get such treatments only once, often involuntarily (due to [[Playing
[[Power-Up Food]] is the case when the abilities come from common foodstuffs. Applied to enough people at once, and it becomes a [[Mass Super-Empowering Event]]. If (as in the case of [[Captain America (comics)]], pictured left) only one person gets it, it's a [[Disposable Superhero Maker]]. A [[Superhuman Transfusion]] (especially if it's from someone who drank Super Serum) usually has the same effects.
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}}
* ''[[
* ''[[
▲== Anime & Manga ==
▲* ''[[Eighth Man (Anime)|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 (Manga)|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.
** As do Kiba and Akamaru's battle pills, which had been mostly abandoned by the ninja corps due to the side effect of ''not being able to move for three days'' after a ten-minute dose.
* [[Osamu Tezuka]]'s superhero Big X (best known in the West for various cameo appearances he put in in various ''[[Astro Boy]]'' productions) got his powers from a [[Super Soldier]] serum his father was forced to develop for the Axis Powers during WWII. The drug was injected & came in two stages, one shot to make him [[Nigh Invulnerable]] & another turned him into a giant. In the anime this was changed to a pendant that emitted special EM waves due to [[Media Watchdogs]] concerns about the similarity to the then-emerging Heroin epidemic.
* ''[[
** The Fishman Island arc has the [[Fantastic Drug]], Energy Steroid. One pill doubles the user's strength but cuts years off their life. {{spoiler|That last part is quite literal: constant abuse ages Hody's crew from their prime to old men within a day.}}
* The origin story of the hero of ''[[City Hunter]]'' is a bizarre instance of attributing cool powers to an actual illegal drug. According to the story, Ryo was born in poverty in Central America, and ended up [[Playing
* {{spoiler|Ako's artefact}} as revealed in chapter 304 of ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]''.
* The drugs used by the Extended in ''[[Gundam Seed]]'' and ''[[Gundam Seed Destiny]]'', which also double as a [[Psycho Serum]]. It has profoundly negative effects on the user, including fatal withdrawal symptoms.
* In ''[[
== Comic Books ==
* In the [[Marvel Universe]]:
** [[Captain America (comics)]] got his powers this way, and [[No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup|failed attempts to recreate the Super-Soldier serum]] are common plot points in both the regular and [[Ultimate Marvel|Ultimate]] universes.
*** For instance, the 1950s impostor Captain America used a Nazi German variant of the formula to enhance his body. However, he learned the hard way that is not enough; the subject taking the serum then has to have it activated and stabilized in his body by a radiological treatment using "Vita-Rays" in order to take it into his system safely.
*** Omega Red was a failed Soviet attempt at making the serum as well as giving Red tendrils in his arms made of carbonadium (an alloy of adamantium). While Omega Red did gain most of Caps powers, he is basically constantly dying and has to drain the life-force of others in order to live (fortunately for him his mutant powers along with his tendrils can do just that). Apparently something called the "C-Synthesizer" will cure him of his condition.
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** The Sentry is a metafictional send-up of many [[Comic Book Tropes]]. Not only did he get his powers by taking "the Professor's secret serum", but comics-that-never-happened from the 1980s showed it blossoming into a full addiction metaphor. Later, it's revealed that he originally drank it hoping to get high.
** Patriot (Elijah Bradley) from ''[[The Avengers (Comic Book)|Young Avengers]]'' is the grandson of Isaiah Bradley, the [[Retcon|"first"]] Captain America, but his mother was conceived before Isaiah was experimented on, so he did not inherit his grandfather's powers. When Iron Lad came to recruit Elijah's brother, Elijah claimed to have gained superpowers through an emergency blood transfusion, but really was gaining powers artificially with MGH (Mutant Growth Hormone), an illegal street drug that causes brief periods of super-human abilities. Once discovered he stopped taking the MGH but went into battle anyway, was grievously wounded... and got an emergency blood transfusion from his grandfather, thus gaining superpowers.
** Vintage Heroes [[Cloak and Dagger (
** A recent [[Retcon]] in ''[[
** More in the superpower-causers-equalling-drugs: There was an article in one issue of Year In Review, a tongue-in-cheek in-universe magazine, about Pym poppers, kids who took Pym particles to shrink and grow. This always backfired.
** As far as anyone at this point is able to understand, pretty much everything in the [[Ultimate Marvel]] universe involving superpowers are derived from attempted recreations of Captain America's Super Serum. Which in turn was reverse engineered from {{spoiler|Wolverine, in the same experiments that created mutants.}}
* The various [[Norman Osborn|Green Goblins]] and Hobgoblins from [[Spider
* In [[The DCU]]:
** [[Hourman]] got his powers from the "miraculous vitamin" Miraclo, which gave those who took it superhuman strength and speed for exactly one hour. Miraclo turned out to be addictive, and both the Golden Age Hourman and his son who [[Legacy Character|took up his mantle]] had to fight the addiction. (He currently takes a non-addictive "homeopathic" version of Miraclo.)
** [[
** Elongated Man gets his stretchy power from a substance called
** Johnny Quick, The [[Mirror Universe]] [[Evil Twin]] of the [[Flash]], uses an extract of his [[Legacy Character|predecessor's]] ''blood'' to give him super-speed powers.
** B'Wana Beast used a mystic elixir from somewhere in Africa, though his 'base' was at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. His mask-slash-helmet allowed him to control animals, though the elixir allowed him to [[Biological Mashup|fuse two animals into one]]... which he could control with the helmet.
** Also [[The Creeper]] got his strength and agility from a super serum, later [[Retcon|changed]] into nanocell serum. In ''[[Batman:
* The French ''[[Asterix]]'' books concern an entire Gallic town which fends off Roman domination by use of a magic potion which grants superhuman strength. In one entry, Asterix entered the (original Greek) Olympic games, only to be penalised for use of the potion (rather like steroid use in the modern Olympics, which is sort of funny since the original Olympics ''encouraged'' the use of performance enhancing drugs since it made for more interesting competitions). {{spoiler|He finally won a race by tricking all opponents into using the potion previously mixed with a blue food colorant.}}
* The [[Top Ten]] comic series, which is a [[Homage]] to comic book tropes to begin with, has a whole subculture of power-granting drugs, such as "goose juice" that gives [[Super Speed]].
* [[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]]."
* [[Daniel Clowes]] [[Captain America]] parody "The Battlin' American" has horrible addiction problems requiring him to take regular doses of the super serum. {{spoiler|The street thugs who steal it from him find this out the hard way.}}
* In the comic prequel to ''[[
== Film ==
* The lead character in the film ''Senseless'' gained [[Super Senses]] through a regimen of injections given to him as part of a pharmaceutical test.
* The protagonist John Grimm of ''[[Doom]]'' [[The Movie|film adaptation]] injects himself with a [[Lego Genetics|24th chromosome]] which boosts his physical capabilities enormously, enabling him to plough his way through a building full of ravenous mutated monsters.
* In 2008's ''[[The Incredible Hulk (
** 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 [[The Bowery Boys||Bowery Boys]] movie ''Hold That Line'', Sach mixes a bunch of random chemicals together and drinks down the mixture. The potion turns Sach into a super-athlete. Inverted later in the movie when Slip tries to replicate the formula. Slip gives the potion to the college Dean, who {{spoiler|shrinks in size}}.
* 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}}.
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== Literature ==
* ''[[Captain Underpants]]'' didn't have superpowers initially, but gained them after drinking some literal Super Serum off of an alien spaceship in book three. This simply complicated things further, naturally.
* ''[[Wild Cards]]'' plays the "
* Melange, or [[Spice of Life|spice]], drives the ''[[Dune]]''
** Not entirely. [[FTL Travel]] is enabled by the Holtzmann generator and is possible without spice, but you're running the risk of ending up inside a star or a planet 1 out of 5 times. It's the above-mentioned precognition that allows the Nagigators to plot a safe course through space.
* ''[[The 39 Clues]]'' series is all about gathering 39 ingredients, or "Clues", to {{spoiler|create a Super Serum that gives you the abilities of each of the four "branches" of the family searching for it - the cunning of the Lucians, the intelligence of the Ekaterinas, the strength of the Tomas, and the artistic talent of the Janus}} - feasibly allowing you to rule the world. These Clues include all kinds of ingredients, from harmless ones you can find in a grocery store such as {{spoiler|honey, salt, and mint}} to highly toxic substances like {{spoiler|mercury, lead, and king cobra venom}}.
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* Late in the third series of ''[[The 4400]]'', the Government trained up a squad of [[Super Soldier|superpowered soldiers]] through a programme of injections of promicin, the [[Applied Phlebotinum|neurotransmitter]] that gives the 4400 their abilities.
* A live TV example would be the sixties show Mr. Terrific - essentially Hourman again (not related to the comic book Mr. Terrific). A government agency came up with a pill that made 99% of humans sick, but gave nerdy Stanley Beamish the buffs (BFS - [[Flying Brick|bulletproof flying strongman]]). Whenever a secret mission came along, Stanley would be given the 1 hour main pill and 2 15 minute boosters - one of which he would need [[Once an Episode|in every episode]] due to power cutout.
* By Season 3 of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' {{spoiler|Mohinder has developed a serum that gives people powers and used it to give himself [[Super Strength]].}}
* In ''[[The Secret World of Alex Mack]]'', Alex is doused in the chemical GC-161, which not only gives her the power to melt, levitate things and shoot lightning bolts, but also sets the [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] to hunting her down.
* The [[Meaningful Name|Henshin One-Shot]] in [[Kamen Rider Faiz]]'s [[The Movie|movie]] ''Paradise Lost'' allows the user to be able to use [[The Rival|Kamen Rider Kaixa's]] [[Transformation Trinket|Rider Gear]]. But, like it's name states, it's only good once. [[Oh Crap|After that,]] {{spoiler|it causes the Kaixa Gear to dissolve into dust}}.
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== 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.
* Part of the extensive, complex, long and dangerous process of creating [[Warhammer
** In [[James Swallow]]'s ''[[Blood Angels
== Video Games ==
* The video game ''[[Galerians]]'' was centred around a [[Tyke Bomb|boy]] named Rion, who had powerful latent psychic abilities he needed to consume drugs to use. His addiction caused him to waste away slowly.
* Another video game
** 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.
** Not to mention that the original game was a victim of [[Blind Idiot Translation]], which makes using the English version as a source for canon info [[Dub
* 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.
* [[Super Mario Bros.|Mario]]'s Fire Flower.
* [[Prototype (
* Runescape has the Combat Potion made from Harralander herbs which can improve your stregth and reflexes but most of all the herb in general has energy stimulating properties.
* [[Inazuma Eleven]] has Aquas of the Gods (Ambrosia) is the
* ''[[
* In ''[[Freedom Force]]'', the Domain's secret weapon is Energy X, which they have used to conquer all dimensions except this one. In order to have some fun, Lord Dominion decides to give Energy X canisters to Earth's worst criminals and watch them tear apart the planet. An alien named Mentor steals the ship containing the canisters and takes it to Earth, hoping to give it to good people to defend themselves and the others. The ship is shot down in orbit, and the canisters fall all over Patriot City and other parts of the world (Bullet is exposed all the way in Vietnam). Both good and bad people get hit with Energy X and transformed into superheroes and supervillains, respectively. Apparently, a super's blood can also act as super-serum, as Liberty Lad gets his powers from a transfusion of Minuteman's blood.
== 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.
* In ''[[Girl Genius]]'', the
** 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]] ==
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* Super Chicken, in his segment on ''[[George of the Jungle]]'', had even more fun with this. The hero drinks a concoction known as Super Sauce... [[Power-Up Food|from a martini glass]]. Whether it really gives him any powers is also up for debate.
** The double-strength and triple-strength varieties of Super Sauce definitely have ''some'' effect. They cause the mild mannered Henry Cabbot Henhouse the Third to ''explode'', hospitalizing him and any schmuck who happens to be standing at Ground Zero with him.
* As ''[[Underdog (
** Sometimes, Underdog says "Energy Vitamin Pill" instead of "Super Energy Pill." This may have been an exhortation for children to take their daily vitamins. Then, perhaps because the notion of popping pills for speed and strength became bad, later broadcasts omitted the pills and had Underdog spontaneously (without explanation) recovering his superpowers.
* One episode of ''[[Mighty Mouse]]'' ends with the titular hero contently smelling a flower. Some over-zealous Self-Appointed [[Moral Guardians]], however, asserted that the Mouse was snorting opium poppies, and this eventually snowballed into the urban legend that Mighty Mouse gets his powers from cocaine (!).
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* An explosion of "meta-gas" during a gang feud on ''[[Static Shock]]'' gave Static and a bunch of other troubled teenagers in Dakota different powers. One [[Teen Genius]] [[Monster of the Week]] learned how to control it, and could grant himself different short-term powers through short-term exposure.
* Parodied in the classic [[Looney Tunes|Bugs Bunny]] [[Wartime Cartoon]] "Super-Rabbit", among other places.
* It's not technically
** The movie implies that the ability to get super-strength from spinach was a family trait. In the original comics, the Sea Witch ''does'' try it on Alice the Goon. It's uncertain if it actually worked, partly because Popeye added milk to his spinach diet to make himself even stronger and {{spoiler|partly because the Goon [[Hilarity Ensues|fell in love with Wimpy]] shortly after, leading the way to her sympathizing with Popeye and the gang. The last fight she has with Popeye breaks up rather quickly, as he sees the Goon has a child and won't hit a mother.}}
** There actually was one episode where after Bluto starts sobbing about how he Popeye always beats him up, Popeye responds by feeding Bluto some of his spinach, causing Bluto to power up, and he immediately launches into a song about what a great guy Popeye is, while pausing to clobber him at every pause in the Melody.
* In the ''[[
== Real Life ==
* 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
* Scientists have actually developed a reliable supersoldier serum. However, it [https://web.archive.org/web/20120430082909/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45890174/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/scientists-make-supersoldier-ants
* 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.
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[[Category:Superhero Tropes]]
[[Category:Artistic License Pharmacology]]
[[Category:Magic and Powers]]
[[Category:Transhuman Tropes]]
[[Category:
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[[Category:Super Title Index]]
[[Category:Power Source]]
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