History Main / PsychoSerum

* The Mirakuru drug from ''{{Arrow}}''. It grants SuperStrength, but also causes outbursts of uncontrollable rage.

* The Mirakuru drug from ''{{Arrow}}''. It grants SuperStrength, but also causes outbreaks of uncontrollable rage.

** soldier Clinton [=McIntyre=] was given the ''actual'' SuperSerum against Erskine's authorization... Only for him to go berserker with pain and then having an heart attack: as Erskine and the director of Project Rebirth knew but [=McIntyre=] and the general who gave the serum didn't, the subject needed to take a series of additives ''before'' the serum and the Vita-Rays. Due him having taken part of the real deal, AIM was later able to repair his body and make it as he had taken the Super Serum;

* In ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'', the "shields" [[spoiler:Lex Luthor]] gave to {{Superboy}} suppress his human [=DNA=] [[HourOfPower for one hour]]. He gets the full range of Kryptonian powers, but since the human [=DNA=] was used to stabilize Superboy in the first place, Superboy also becomes far more unhinged and aggressive.

** Radioactive Psycho Fungus.
** TheCorruption sounds more fitting.

* The potion in ''Literature/TheStrangeCaseOfDrJekyllAndMrHyde'', which was used to turn nice-guy Dr. Jekyll into psychopath Mr. Hyde.

** Deathstroke's PsychoSerum has been shown to drive anyone else using it insane, including his wife, his daughter, and Comicbook/{{Batgirl|2000}}. At one point the serum also granted its users immortality, but this has been glossed over in recent years.

* Half the ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' episode "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E4BeautyAndTheBeasts Beauty and the Beasts]]" was based on this trope. A high school kid took PsychoSerum and turned into a big evil monster guy.

** At any rate, a Sam [[WellIntentionedExtremist willing to make sacrifices]] was a major change in [[TheHeart his character]], and it was one way or another down to the combination of PoisonousFriend Ruby and PsychoSerum.

* In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'', a certain rival guild is discovered to be using Hist Sap, a revered substance in its homeland and a powerful PsychoSerum. [[spoiler:A good deal of quests in one storyline deal with infiltrating the group to find out its secrets, during which you take some Hist Sap and ''kill a village, thinking they were goblins''. Even if you know it's coming, you can't avoid it.]]

** Hojo mutated into various monstrous forms, presumably as a result of injecting or ingesting excessive amounts of his own special Jenova cell-based PsychoSerum.

* Phazon from the ''[[VideoGame/MetroidPrime Prime]]'' trilogy of the ''VideoGame/{{Metroid}}'' series. It isn't quite clear whether to call it PsychoSerum, [[GreenRocks radioactive ore]], or malevolent fungus.

** With the use of biomechanical PsychoSerum, wizened Yoda-look alike Colossus Rhodes from ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'' can turn into a giant.

* [=FX 7=] in ''NoHero'' is based off of a psychedelic drug already. So, not only does it give you super powers but it makes you have living nightmares and many of the Levelers had to get into Downers to counter the drug. Oh yeah, there's also a chance that it could make you [[SuperPowerMeltdown explode]] when you first take it.

* The memorable ''BatmanBeyond'' episode ''The Winning Edge'' featured the aforementioned super 'roid Venom being mass produced and refined into a nicotine patch-style form colorfully known as "slappers", the hot new street drug for athletes who want a leg up on the competition and gang bangers who need a quick pick me up before a rumble alike. Just watch out for that roid rage.

* In ''Film/OzTheGreatAndPowerful'', Evanora effectively gives this (in the form of an apple) to [[spoiler: her sister Theodora]], ostensibly to ease pain. The recipient learns too late that [[spoiler: it also renders her heartless and hideous. And thus, the Wicked Witch of the West is born]].

** In ''Scanners 2'', Ephemerol 2 is highly addictive, and severely debilitating long-term to the scanners. Why they don't just use the earlier version of the drug can best be chalked down to plot convenience.
** In ''Scanners 3'', Ephemerol 3 is an untested new version of the drug. After she takes it, Helena turns evil.

** William Burnside, the Captain America of the 1950s, took a Nazi version of the Super Serum. Thanks to it he became stronger and faster than Cap, but without the Vita-Rays he was slowly driven mad.

* This is primarily why attempts to reproduce Prof. Erksine's work in Project Rebirth that created Steve Rogers' enhancements into CaptainAmerica proved a continual failure. For instance, the 1950s version of Cpa tried to do with a Nazi copy of the Super Soldier Serum, but those notes made no mention of the necessary Vita-Ray component and the raw chemicals he injected into himself drove him insane.

** Technically PCP is not a "narcotic" (that classification includes codeine, morphine and their related compounds); it's a dissociative anesthetic, originally marketed as such for surgical use. At sufficiently high doses--which, apparently, isn't much (unlike ketamine, which has similar effects but in a less horrifying manner, usually)--the user completely loses all physical sensation. Think of it as the ultimate Out of Body Experience. (Whereas with narcotics you still realize there's pain, but it doesn't ''bother'' you.) Evidently [[AlienGeometries the human mind can't cope with The Void]], so it tends to "fill in the blank" with what appear to be surreal alternate realities, or...?

* TruthInTelevision: At high enough doses, PCP & similar narcotics grant their users near super-human fighting abilities, because they [[FeelNoPain prevent the users from feeling pain]] or fear, in addition to making them crazy. This also means the druggies have no way of knowing, or caring, how badly they get hurt, which can have some pretty horrific consequences. [[AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle Don't do drugs, kids]]!

* ''Literature/TheStrangeCaseOfDrJekyllAndMrHyde''

* TruthInTelevision: At high enough doses, PCP & similar narcotics grant their users near super-human fighting abilities, because they prevent the users from feeling pain or fear, in addition to making them crazy. This also means the druggies have no way of knowing, or caring, how badly they get hurt, which can have some pretty horrific consequences. [[AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle Don't do drugs, kids]]!

* In the X-Men titles of the early 2000s (Grant Morrison's run) there was the super-steroid Kick. It turns pathetic mutant-wannabe nerds into vivisection-happy domestic terrorists. It also turned Xorneto into someone willing to recreate the Holocaust against the ordinary humans of New York, when the real Magneto would NEVER go back far (Ultimate Magneto, on the other hand). It was responsible for Quentin Quire's temporary Ascension to a Higher Plane of Existence following the chaos of Open Day. What do you expect for something made at least in part from Sublime, a 3-eon-old Eldritch Abomination?

* Season 4 of ''{{The 4400}}'' revolves around the mass release of "promicin" injections, which have a 50% chance of giving the recipient paranormal abilities, and a 50% chance of killing them outright.

* the VideoGame/{{Fallout}} series has the drug Psycho, which the player can take to increase their damage at the risk of becoming addicted to it. In the VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas comic book "All Roads", the character Benny uses it as a poison (via spiking things with enough to cause an overdose), and one user O.Ds when using it voluntarily. Though its in game effects aren't pronounced (possibly because most doses are 200 years old), Psycho is shown in the comic book and explained though terminals to cause homicidal rage occasionally. It was even designed to make soldiers more effective in combat.