History Main / EvolutionPowerUp

* ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'': In ''ComicBook/Supergirl1982'', a college teacher called Barry Metzner became a big-brained, psychically-empowered mutant.

* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' has a one-off example in the form of the Eleventh Angel, Iruel. The Angel has the ability to rapidly adapt to its environment (arguably justified by the fact that it's a colony of single cell organisms, allowing it to reproduce with greater speed) and it gets defeated when NERV manages to convince it to self-destruct by creating an environment where death is the most sensible adaptation.

** And then there are cases where it's explained that, in-universe, some Pokémon aren't really transforming when they evolve. Pokémon such as Weezing and Magneton come into being when multiple Koffing and Magnemite fuse together. There's Slowbro and Slowking, which is just a symbiotic relationship between a Slowpoke and a Shellder. While the Shellder doesn't evolve, it does change shape and gives Slowpoke new skills and abilities, but Slowpoke itself physically stays pretty much the same. In fact, it's stated that if its Shellder is ever removed, Slowbro and Slowking will revert back to being a Slowpoke. The most extreme example of small changes being labeled evolution is Type: Null, a LivingWeapon who evolves into Silvally by simply removing its PowerLimiter helmet.

** Of course, there are plays on this trope, such as [[RevenantZombie Annihilape]], which is implied to have ''died'' to evolve due to it's rage being '''literally''' to much for it's body to contain.

* Most Franchise/{{Pokemon}} have stronger forms they can "evolve" into under the appropriate stresses and circumstances. To their credit, though, the [[AllThereInTheManual official backstory]] is that Pokémon evolution "isn't like Earth's other organisms". In other words, the terms "evolution" when talking about Pokémon and "evolution" when talking about any other organism are two different things. A better term might be metamorphosis, considering ''Pokémon'' was inspired by a rather imaginative idea of ''insect'' collecting. The word "metamorphosis" was probably considered too big for the Game Boy display and [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids too complicated for the target audience]]. This is especially obvious in several insect Pokémon such as Caterpie or Weedle, whose "evolutionary" paths are quite literally pupating just like real-life butterflies and wasps.

* No discussion of this trope would be complete without the Franchise/MarvelUniverse's High Evolutionary, a man who has made a career of accelerating the evolution of various species — which, naturally, all happen to be anthropomorphic afterwards.

* [[WhatCouldHaveBeen An abandoned origin]] for ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} was that he was in fact an actual, highly evolved wolverine.
* The Franchise/XMen and other mutants, born with superpowers that activate at puberty, are essentially considered the next step in humanity's evolution. They're even classified as ''Homo superior''.

* No discussion of this trope would be complete without the MarvelUniverse's High Evolutionary, a man who has made a career of accelerating the evolution of various species — which, naturally, all happen to be anthropomorphic afterwards.

* ''Film/{{Evolution}}'' had microbes from a meteorite adapt into higher and higher lifeforms, going from one-celled to worms to grotesque bugs to dinosaur-like reptiles in the span of only a few days.

*** Giggi are small, leech-like creatures that rely on sucking blood to nourish themselves. Thei can spit poison at hunters, but it's weak. They mature into Gigginox, a ''huge'' monstrosity whose poison is far stronger and can hatch egg sacs that give birth to newborn Giggi.

** [[spoiler: [[ShaggyDogStory He evolved from a goldfish... into a goldfish.]] Dispite the fact that Bob himself had claimed evolutionary superiority before, he was very unhappy with this outcome.]]

->'''Koushiro/[[DubNameChange Izzy]]:''' I wonder why it’s called ‘evolution,’ I mean, evolution normally consists of an entire species changing slowly over a long period of time. The changes that you and your friends undergo are more like a transformation. You each transform into something too enormous to be an evolution.
->'''Tentomon:''' Well, I don’t know the answer to that myself. I can’t give an explanation, but all I’m aware of is that it isn't a transformation but evolution.
-->-- ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'' Novel

When something or someone transforms into a more powerful/advanced stage, this is occasionally referred to as evolution. While not technically correct ([[UsefulNotes/{{Evolution}} evolution is species wide, not individual based]]), this has come to be a common way to refer to it. This is especially common if the transformation is some form of AdaptiveAbility that allows something to actually modify its biology in response to stimuli. Expect LamarckWasRight to show up in such cases.

* Creator/GregBear tries to justify this in ''Darwin's Radio''. A species that evolves "[[TitleDrop Darwin's radio]]" makes abrupt and massive changes in its genome when faced with a significant problem. The radio in question has evolved so that it essentially "knows" what changes are necessary to deal with a particular crisis. One character describes this as "Evolution evolving. Species with a radio can evolve faster and better than species that can't," which ''almost'' makes sense if you think about it.
** Also, the "evolved" children actually have several atavistic traits (like color-changing face spots from sea animals and vomeronasal passages like cats) instead of growing new biological devices from nowhere.

* The whole premise of Edmond Hamilton's 1931 short story ''Literature/TheManWhoEvolved''. In the story, a man uses cosmic rays to evolve himself in minutes. In the end, he eventually evolves into [[spoiler:protoplasm, since, for some reason, evolutionary levels apparently go in a cycle.]]

* One of the early-90s ''Literature/TomSwift'' books took this trope to the limit — a human being was hit with an evolution ray, and was turned into a specific person, with his own ''memories'', from the far future.