Superpower Meltdown: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
m (update links) |
No edit summary |
||
| (10 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:Pepper&carrot superpower meltdown.jpg|thumb|430px|link=Pepper&Carrot|Here's a lesson for everyone: if someone is a witch, or has superpowers, please do ''not'' laugh at them under any circumstances.]]
{{quote|''"Remember, with great power comes great current squared times resistance.<ref>More generally, with great power comes great dEnergy/dt</ref>"''
|'''[[xkcd]]''' [http://xkcd.com/643/ #643]}}
Super powered individuals are, believe it or not, closely related to nuclear reactors. Oh sure, they don't (usually) [[Phlebotinum Muncher|eat uranium]], or even have a [[I Love Nuclear Power|nuclear accident]] [[How to Give A Character Super Powers|to credit with their powers,]] but when facing critical injuries or mental attacks they run the risk of losing control of their powers and going into a Superpower [[Going Critical|Meltdown]] the likes of which could make Chernobyl look like a radioactive cough by comparison.
Line 8 ⟶ 10:
Less lethally, if the hero/villain is only modestly powered or hit with [[Green Rocks]] to cause a short circuit, then the meltdown might only take the form of their normal power causing random effects. Like telekinesis mimicking a poltergeist rather than de-atomizing everything, or a pyrokinetic setting nearby objects on fire rather than exploding. Should their power require constant concentration to keep stable, then any effect that destroys their concentration could be potentially fatal for all involved.
A common occurrence is for a hero going into meltdown to be [["I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight|coaxed back]] from the brink using [[Heroic Willpower]], or forced to do a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] and fly away to save those nearby. If a [[Love Interest]] is nearby, a [[Cooldown Hug]] can reliably stop the meltdown. Occasionally, a hero or villain might ''purposefully'' trigger it to try and kill their rival, since the [[Sphere of Destruction]] such a meltdown generates tends to be pretty devastating. Whether this works on not depends on if [[The Only One Allowed to Defeat You|they're the lead.]]
Compare [[Spontaneous Human Combustion]], [[Load-Bearing Boss]], [[Unstoppable Rage]], [[Super-Powered Evil Side]], [[Action Bomb]], [[Power Incontinence]], and [[Taking You with Me]]. See also [[Power Degeneration]], [[Clone Degeneration]] and [[Flawed Prototype]]. Compare [[Too Much for Man to Handle]]
Contrast [[Heroic RROD]], where the meltdown is mostly contained within the hero.
Line 23 ⟶ 25:
* Miroku from ''[[Inuyasha]]'''s power ''is'' a meltdown. More precisely, he has a black hole in the palm of his hand, held at bay with an enchanted string of prayer beads, and though it's potentially the most destructive power anyone on the team has, it ''will'' eventually melt down and eat him regardless of how often he uses it, though overuse will hurry his end.
** [[It Got Worse|This got worse in the manga]] as a result of {{spoiler|Miroku absorbing a lot of [[Big Bad]] Naraku's poison. Though Kikyo purified some of it, the poison that's left cuts deeper into his body every time he uses the Wind Tunnel.}} Considering that he's continually forced into situations that compel him to use his Wind Tunnel, his only chance of survival lies in the other characters killing Naraku before his Wind Tunnel swallows him up. {{spoiler|Which they ultimately do.}}
*** This also occurs in an anime movie, in which Miroku fights a villain who also has a wind scar in his hand. To get more suction to beat Miroku, he takes a blade and intentionally makes the hole wider. You can guess [[Hoist by His Own Petard|what happens next]].
* Chiaotzu and Android 16 in ''[[Dragonball Z]]'' triggered Super Power Meltdowns to try and defeat [[The Dragon]] and [[Big Bad]] of separate arcs as part of a [[Heroic Sacrifice]]. {{spoiler|It didn't work.}}
** The villain Cell threatened to destroy the planet by triggering his own, Goku {{spoiler|teleports them both away. Ironically, while he is the lead, his [[Heroic Sacrifice]] was partly in vain since Cell survives and Gohan has to beat him.}}
*** One wonders why Goku {{spoiler|didn't teleport himself and Kaio back, without Cell...}}
*** [[
**** Thirty minutes? He had a few seconds at most.
**** Which by DBZ standards of speed and strength could easily span an entire episode or even two, and '''that''' was reached by Frieza saga itself. Since then... {{spoiler|Goku's mastered Super Saiyan, has instant teleportation and even in base form could have wiped the floor with Frieza.}}
** If you're going to count Chiaotzu and #16, shouldn't Vegeta's [[Heroic Sacrifice]] against Majin Buu count as well?
* In ''[[Zettai Karen Children]]'', Kaoru is nearly killed when her psychic powers begin to go haywire, slamming a helicopter carrying herself and others into a building and being crushed on the ground by the weight of her power. She's saved when her supervisor shows something similar to [[The Power of Friendship]]; she has the guts to then stop her own heart, resulting in the cancellation of the meltdown.
Line 47 ⟶ 49:
* Katsumi in [[Silent Moebius|Silent Möbius]] {{spoiler|after she finds Robert [[De Vice]] dead, her [http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/6981/katsumisuperpowermeltdo.gif grief and anger make her magical power leash out, blowing up the apartment building] in a [[Pillar of Light]] as she screams inside the fire with [[Glowing Eyes of Doom]].}}
* In ''[[Heroic Age]]'', the result of two or more Nodos fighting each other for long enough is "Frenzy", wherein the Nodos succumbs to pure rage, gains greatly amplified powers (considering what they're capable of normally, this is kinda scary), starts mutating in decidedly painful-looking ways, and generally destroys everything in its path (ships, fleets, ''planets'', etc) until eventually releasing an amount of energy comparable to a supernova, which also kills the Nodos.
* In ''[[Rosario
* In ''[[Turn
Line 64 ⟶ 66:
* In the original ''[[Squadron Supreme]]'' limited series, Nuke has a meltdown which ends up {{spoiler|killing him, as he burns up all the oxygen inside the force field that's keeping him from incinerating the countryside.}}
* In the [[Marvel Universe]], some powers have had serious meltdowns. Captain Mar-Vell was given the Nega-bands, but it should be noted that they were turned into an apocalyptic Nuclear Option in Operation: Galactic Storm and used to ''blow up the Kree Galaxy'' and effectively mutate what little life made it through. (It was just as rough of the life in the Negative Zone, as it turns out). Also, such matters as Nova Flares from [[The Fantastic Four|Johnny Storm]] (one destroyed the NYU campus, I believe) have long been staple in Marvel.
** The Nega-bomb is ironic in that it [[Lampshade Hanging|hangs a lampshade]] on the best-played example of
** Another [[Marvel Universe]] example: this was the means by which the Legacy Virus (usually) killed mutant victims. The degree of damage produced depended on exactly what the powers of the mutant in question did.
* The original (?) Quasar got his [[Green Lantern Ring|Power Bands]] because the previous two users incinerated themselves by trying too hard to control them, while Wendell Vaughn's more laid back go-with-the-flow attitude allowed him to "calm them down", so to speak.
Line 90 ⟶ 92:
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* One of the crises of the first season of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' was the fear that Ted would use his literal nuclear powers to level New York. In the end, {{spoiler|it wasn't Ted they had to worry about.}}
** Ted did have a
** In Season 3, {{spoiler|Future Sylar loses control and vaporizes Costa Verde after his son is killed.}}
** ( {{spoiler|Also Elle went all electric explosiony when Sylar starts to skullcap her, [[Cardboard Prison|shorting out the circuits of Level 5 releasing it's inmates.]] }})
** In the volume 3 finale, Meredith, the pyrokinetic, is injected with a syringe full of adrenaline by Sylar. She goes into
* In ''
* {{spoiler|Tess}} in ''[[Roswell]]'' does this, deliberately, to {{spoiler|take out a military base and protect her baby and the other alien teenagers}}. She doesn't survive.
* Willow arguably had one at the end of Season 6 of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''.
** And Illyria came within moments of having one (did have one, until it caused time to cycle back) in Season 5 of ''[[Angel]]''. It would've taken out, at minimum, all of [[Los Angeles]]. Possibly the whole state.
Line 105 ⟶ 107:
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* Extremely common in psykers in ''[[Warhammer
** In the spin-off game ''[[Necromunda]]'', rogue psykers known as Wyrds are prone to this, usually of the [[Your Head Asplode]] or [[Spontaneous Combustion|spontaneously combust]].▼
** The Orks have (or at least had) psykers of their own, called Weirdboyz. Being an ''extremely'' psychic race to begin with, Ork Psykers tended to cause other nearby Orks [[Your Head Asplode|heads to explode]]. It got worse when Weirdboyz got near each other. Of course Orks think this is funny as hell
** The Eversor Assassin, whose body is so laden with strength and reflex-enhancing combat drugs that upon death they react violently and cause his corpse to explode.
▲** In the spin-off game ''[[Necromunda]]'', rogue psykers known as Wyrds are prone to this, usually of the [[Your Head Asplode]] or [[Spontaneous Combustion|spontaneously combust]].
* Mega-[[Psycho Serum|Juicers]] in ''[[Rifts]]'' start to become consumed by their power when they near the end of their lives. First their eyes start to glow, then their whole bodies, and eventually they just burst into flame. If/when they die at any point during this period, they ''explode''.
* ''[[Cthulhu Tech]]''
* ''[[Mage: The Awakening]]'' has the phenomenon known as The False Awakening, wherein a [[Badass Normal|Sleepwalker]] who's studied under a mage believes that not only have they Awakened, they've discovered a magical path that no one else has before. In reality, they've become infected with a strange form of magical energy that pretty much allows them to go from initiate to godhood in the space of a week... before they pretty much explode from all the power and take out a city block.
* ''[[Stars Without Number]]''/''Other Dust'' had The Scream, an event that shattered humanity as a [[Terminally Dependent Society]] ([[Portal Network|jump gates]] and manufacture of many exotic materials required trained psychics, and simply training new ones was not readily possible) and struck down even those not directly affected.
{{quote|When the Scream washed over Terra’s psychics in 2665 unnumbered thousands died in torment. Their brains baked within their skulls as impossible surges of metadimensional energy poured through flesh that could not hope to endure. Nine out of every ten psychics were dispatched within seconds as vital autonomic processes were scorched into cerebral ash. Hearts stopped, thoughts stopped, and life stopped with them.
Of the remaining tenth, the Scream cut away sanity but not life. Filled with terrifying delusions and whipped on by uncontrollable passions, these Crazed wrought terrible havoc on their home before they finally guttered out in spasms of incoherent suffering. The greater part of them were too weak or too crippled in reason to survive more than a few weeks of the wasteland that their madness had made of Old Terra. }}
== Toys ==
Line 126 ⟶ 130:
** The trope itself is averted, however, in that the ''real'' reason for the explosion is either an android replica of the hero specifically made to explode by the [[Evil Overlord]], or (according to the canonically-dubious [[Strategy Guide]]) a major villain disguising himself as a small-time crook to lure the hero into the area, before detonating a specially-made bomb and using the hero as a scapegoat.
** Of course, with the recently added Cyborg Booster Pack, players can now have access to a Self Destruct power, causing them to explode violently after a ten second countdown, doing immense damage to anything unlucky enough to be in range. It will usually wipe out anything below boss level. The down side? You just died. And it takes an hour to recharge.
** In the game's backstory, Overbrook (now called "Faultline") was {{spoiler|supposedly}} leveled by the earthquake machines of an archvillain known as Faultine. {{spoiler|In truth, though, Faultline was a mutant hero who wouldn't have needed them; a villain named
** A game signature hero and [[Author Avatar]] of the current head of design, Positron, like Man-Bot wears a power suit to keep his powers from doing this. Eventually he was cured, and can now finally remove his helmet.
* In the ''[[Soul Calibur]] III'' start-up trailer, Nightmare seems to have one of these because he consumed the souls of a whole army, ''all at once''. It didn't seem to hurt him though.
Line 132 ⟶ 136:
** This happens several times throughout the game, due to the fact that {{spoiler|Fei has a super-powered hidden personality called Id with a penchant for wanton destruction.}}
* ''[[Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis]]'' ends with {{spoiler|the Nazi scientist being tricked into getting into a god-making machine and putting far too much fuel in it, transforming him into a glowing, horned [[Energy Beings|Energy Being]]. [[Explosive Overclocking|Then he explodes.]]}}
* Rion Steiner in ''Galerians'' if he uses the drugs that fuel his power too much can suffer from shorting which is instant death to all nonbosses within the radius but does damage to him overtime. It can be stopped by using a specific drug. Notably there's another drug which can trigger this instantly.
* Inverted in ''[[Mega Man Zero]] 4''. The [[Big Bad]] Dr. Weil tries to crash his [[Kill Sat]] into Earth, destroying the only naturally habitable place left on the planet. When Zero tries to stop him, he merges with the [[Kill Sat]]'s computer core for the final boss fight. {{spoiler|This trope forms the ''premise'' of the last stage of the fight (the boss's second form); if Zero destroys him, the resulting
* At the end of Heavens Feel route in [[Fate/stay night]] {{spoiler|Sakura}} loses the ability to control the Grail's energy, resulting in a potentially world destroying... thingy... requiring first the use of Rule Breaker to separate {{spoiler|Sakura}} from the Grail and then {{spoiler|either Shirou or Ilya's [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to keep from getting worse.}}
* A plot point in ''[[Metroid Prime]] 3: Corruption''. After getting infected with Phazon, Samus has the ability to go into Hyper Mode and use Phazon powered attacks, which is powerful, but causes the Corruption to spread, and if the PED Suit malfunctions, the process can be irreversible, leading to devastating consequences to those around them, {{spoiler|as seen with other hunters like Ghor, whose own corruption devastated Elysia}}.
== Webcomics ==
* Near the end of ''[[Bob and George]]'', Bob attempts to detonate himself to kill the Author once and for all. He makes a [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[Heroes]]'' as he does so.
* In ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'', the supervillain Damien triggers his own
* In [[Kid Radd]], this is why {{spoiler|Radd}} is the [[Game Breaker|most powerful being in cyberspace]]. Given a long enough charge time, {{spoiler|he could wipe out every computer connected to the internet}}. Best of all, {{spoiler|[[Good Bad Bugs|it's all the result of a very minor bug in his programing]]}}.
Line 154 ⟶ 157:
** The whole "Omni Energy" outbursts thing and the self-destruct mechanism that threatened to take the ''whole universe'' along with it when it went in ''[[Made for TV Movie|The Secret Of The Omnitrix]]''
** And let's not forget [[One-Winged Angel|what it did to Kevin when he tried to absorb its energy.]]
* In an episode of ''[[
* An episode of ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' sees Wasp talked into using a transwarp generator by Blackarachnia to gain incredible power, turning him into the technorganic Waspinator. His transwarp mutation goes critical soon after.
**
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Magic and Powers]]
[[Category:Superpower Meltdown]]▼
[[Category:Power]]
| |||