History Main / RePower

* In ''Comicbook/{{PS238}},'' [[spoiler:FlyingBrick Ron is apparently BroughtDownToNormal by an Argonite laser, but later gets some sort of teleporting powers instead]].

* At the end of series 1 of ''Literature/SkulduggeryPleasant'', [[spoiler: Valkyrie loses her ElementalPowers and [[{{Necromancer}} Necromancy]] and gains ShockAndAwe powers. [[RealityEnsues Naturally at first]], [[HowDoIShotWeb she has no idea how to them properly.]]]]

** ComicBook/{{Jubilee}}, who originally had the power to produce explosive balls of light, gained super strength through advanced technology. After her stint as a New Warrior, Jubilee became a vampire and has now gained superstrength and other vampire powers.

* ''Literature/{{Worm}}'' has second triggers, instances where parahumans undergo enough stress for their powers to transform. For example, [[spoiler:Grue]]'s ability suddenly allowed him to copy the powers of any parahuman it was touching.

##* An example of the second kind appears in ''ComicBook/KingdomCome'' in the form of the godlike [[ComicBook/TheFlash Flash]], who is so fast that he ''pulls the narrator into the story''.

* In ''VideoGame/InfamousSecondSon'', protagonist Delsin Rowe has this in tandem with PowerCopying: he can only use one set of powers at a time, meaning he constantly has to RePower himself to switch between their movesets.

* Pico, from the ''Roleplay/GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse'', was originally a shrinking hero in the mold of DC's Atom. He later somehow gained [[FlyingBrick superhuman strength, invulnerability, and the ability to fly]], though only while shrunk down to a few inches tall.

* DC's ComicBook/ResurrectionMan has this as his power, combined with DeathIsCheap. Whenever he dies he resurrects immediately, and each time, he gets one other superpower for that life. By the time of the ''ComicBook/DCOneMillion'' miniseries, he has invented a device to kill him instantly and painlessly, so he can switch between powers whenever he wants.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* Akemi Homura in ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica''. Justified by this universe's magical girl system giving them powers appropriate to their wishes. To elaborate: [[spoiler: At first she wished to turn back time and protect Madoka. This gave her TimeTravel, TimeStandsStill, and a BagOfHolding with room for [[HyperspaceArsenal enough weapons to arm an entire country]]. Then, after the CosmicRetcon, Madoka [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence didn't need any protection anymore]], and her wish became null. She's still a magical girl, but with powers similar to Madoka's, including wings and an EnergyBow.]]
[[/folder]]

* ''ComicBook/JokersLastLaugh'' featured a character called Multi-Man whose power was: upon death, come back to life with [[SuperpowerLottery an entirely random second power]]. The Joker kills him over fifty times to get him to have the right power to kick off a prison breakout. And then a couple of ''good guys'' off him another dozen times to get him to roulette up a power to animate dead guys so they can have [[PuppeteerParasite Mr. Mind]] use the corpse's powers to break them out of the NegativeSpaceWedgie they're stuck in. [[WhatTheHellHero He totally calls them on it]], which makes the whole thing a lot more palatable.
* An example of the second kind appears in ''ComicBook/KingdomCome'' in the form of the godlike [[ComicBook/TheFlash Flash]], who is so fast that he ''pulls the narrator into the story''.

* ''ComicBook/WildCards'':
** John Fortune loses his [[HealingHands healing powers]] after his body is purged of the wild card virus. In the latest book, [[spoiler: John enters into a symbiotic relationship with Sekhmet of the Living Gods, and gains the ability to... change into a fire-breathing lioness. Yup, that's quite a change]].
** The Sleeper gets a new set of powers ''every time he wakes up''. Thanks to terror at what he might end up as, he only sleeps every few weeks, with the aid of amphetamines (which tend to turn him into something terrible anyway, albeit more predictably).

** This was lampshaded in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'' where he and GreenLantern teamed up to fight Sinestro.

* ''Franchise/GreenLantern'':

*** Alan Moore gave us Sodam Yat, a Daxamite Green Lantern, back in 1986, who possessed all of Franchise/{{Superman}}'s powers, and all of Franchise/GreenLantern's as well. Granted he only appeared in a single panel, but he was a major figure in Moore's proposed ''Twilight Of The Superheroes'' mini-series.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* The obviously human Guy Gardner, an artifact-user SuperHero in the Franchise/GreenLantern Corps, suffered from this, when he was revealed to have an alien heritage with VoluntaryShapeshifting powers, mainly to give him the ability to use {{BFG}}s.
** This eventually went ''both'' ways, with Guy having his alien DNA rewritten so that he lost the shapeshifting powers. At the same time, the brain damage that kept him from using the Green Lantern ring was cured, so he went back to being another Green Lantern.
* Speedball, a happy-go-lucky character who once had the power to bounce around invulnerably, turned into "Penance", an angsty, masochistic energy blaster who needs to torture himself to get his powers to work.
** This also seems to be going the other way, as "Penance" has started using his Speedball powers again, and it's suggested that the whole thing was a psychological block he placed on himself after the Stamford incident.
** It eventually stops being an example, as he returns to being Speedball with both powers.
* Franchise/{{Superman}} was temporarily reimagined in the 1990s as an [[EnergyBeings energy being]] made of living lightning. This is actually a shoutout to a much older, non-canon alternate universe story from the Silver Age (''Superman Vol 1 #162''), in which he was accidentally split into two versions of himself, one of which developed electrical powers and became Superman Blue.
* Comicbook/{{Supergirl}}: A non-Kryptonian version of the character created in the nineties was prone to change powers constantly. For a while she got fire powers, then she lost them and got telekinesis...

* ''Comicbook/XMen'':
** ComicBook/{{Rogue}} a while back lost the powers she had derived from Ms. Marvel for so long in favor of Sunfire's flame-based powers, although that set has since also taken a back seat as her primary writers have just gotten around it by writing her with much better control of her PowerCopying ability.
** ComicBook/EmmaFrost, a traditional telepath, developed the ability to transform into "living diamond". While she's in her diamond form, she is naturally incredibly hard to kill (at one point, she was shattered, but came back to life when Phoenix found every piece of her and telekinetically fused her back together), and loses her telepathic powers until she switches back.
** Many Marvel Mutant characters have gotten what was called in-universe a "''Secondary Mutation''", and pretty much all of them qualify. Though this actually started out as making deliberate use of RequiredSecondaryPowers (this is what makes many former WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway cases considerably more badass than they used to be) but eventually bled over into being purely this trope, as powers having nothing to do with the character's original power would just... show up. However, Emma Frost's diamond skin thing proved not to be one; Professor X's EvilTwin Cassandra Nova had altered her as part of a scheme.
* For a time, Comicbook/SpiderMan was upgraded in ''The Other'' storyline with Wolverine-like stingers on his wrists. Yes, stingers. Lampshaded, as Peter notes ''Spiders don't have stingers!'' Another character tries to HandWave this by saying one day spiders ''might evolve stingers''!
** Ironically, this probably would have been ''less'' stupid if they'd just gone with the obvious explanation; that they're not stingers, they're ''fangs'', part of the same tinkering with [[LegoGenetics his ratio of spider DNA to human DNA]] that caused him to develop organic web-shooting glands.
* In a ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' storyline, Spider-Man's spider-sense has expanded into full blown clairvoyance, detecting threats before the cause of the threat can even think about it. This coupled with his new found non reluctance to kill makes him ''very'' dangerous. It is even stated that his powers are still growing, "sometimes, now, he just ''knows'' things".
* In the ''ComicBook/WildCards'' series, John Fortune loses his [[HealingHands healing powers]] after his body is purged of the wild card virus. In the latest book, [[spoiler: John enters into a symbiotic relationship with Sekhmet of the Living Gods, and gains the ability to... change into a fire-breathing lioness. Yup, that's quite a change]].
** The Sleeper gets a new set of powers ''every time he wakes up''. Thanks to terror at what he might end up as, he only sleeps every few weeks, with the aid of amphetamines (which tend to turn him into something terrible anyway, albeit more predictably).
* All of the former mutants who [[PlotTumor lost their powers on M-Day]] and joined the latest iteration of the ComicBook/NewWarriors got new technology to give them powers, usually unrelated to their original. Some of them were, though (for example, Beak was a non-superhero X-student with all the drawbacks to birdlike physiology (hollow bones + supervillain NoHoldsBarredBeatdown = ouch.) with none of the benefits (he still can't fly.) He gets depowered, but as a New Warrior has a flight pack that makes him the poor man's Falcon. However, for the other members: ComicBook/{{Jubilee}}, who originally had the power to produce explosive balls of light, gained super strength through advanced technology. Chamber, whose psionic powers kept him alive, ended up gaining sonic manipulation. And so on and so forth.
** Chamber got a double dose of this trope. Prior to joining the New Warriors he received a blood transfusion from his ancestor ''Apocalypse''. The blood of Apocalypse fixed the damage to his body that his original powers caused. It also had the side effect of making him look like Apocalypse too. And possibly giving him latent Omega-level mutant power. This hasn't really been addressed since it was mentioned though.
** After her stint as a New Warrior, Jubilee became a vampire and has now gained superstrength and other vampire powers.
* Another "Get our powers back after M-Day" tactic was to use [[ComicBook/TheInhumans Terrigen Mist]]. It usually gave you your original power, but in a warped (and usually temporary) manner. Former SuperSpeed user Quicksilver could vibrate his molecules faster than the speed of light, becoming able to travel through time. He also had a few MesACrowd moments by going through the same fight multiple times. His old powers eventually returned (Apparently, when EpiphanyTherapy makes you go from your new AntiVillain self to your old KnightInSourArmor self, you also snap back to the powers had in the old days...)

* A popular fan idea was "What if Franchise/{{Batman}} became a GreenLantern?", because for some reason giving the [[MemeticMutation Goddamn Batman]], who already has PlotArmor like crazy, a weapon based on intelligence, creativity, and willpower is ''such a good idea''. This was actually done in an Elseworld as an alternative to his choosing to become a tech- and detective-focused hero, and Geoff Johns answered the question in the canon DCU with "he couldn't handle it" (but did hint he'd be an excellent member of the Sinestro Corps) because a Green Lantern has to deal with his worst fears daily, and Batman has never managed to get past his--that's ''why'' he's Batman.
** This was lampshaded in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'' where he and GreenLantern teamed up to fight Sinestro.
*** ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' did this too. Although the more lighthearted version of Batman only got green armor that was fueled by Batsy's Willpower, it was still a hell of a combo.
** Parallax called Batman "A Disciple of Fear" during the Green Lantern: Rebirth series. Later, the Sinestro Corps (or at least a yellow power ring) tried to recruit Batman. And failed.
** The Elseworld Bats has a GreenLanternRing in addition to rather than an alternative everything Batman had. Bruce had gone through all the training and made all the preparations he had made before first becoming Batman, but the bat that crashed through his window in the "Batman: Year One" miniseries was scared off by Abin Sur's ship crash landing just outside Wayne Manor.
** Also featured in ''ComicBook/AllStarBatmanAndRobinTheBoyWonder'', where Batman wants to steal the ring. "Think of what I could do with that power."
** Some fanboys have also wanted to see Superman with a ring because it's just that much more power. Clark did try out a ring during his year being powerless after ''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis'', but he was powerless in the first place because he wasn't ready to return to his superhero career so, while he could use the ring just fine, it didn't create a costume.
*** He took Guy Gardner's ring in an ''ComicBook/{{Armageddon 2001}}'' alternate future, but then he gave it back to Hal Jordan because he already had too much power, and absolute power corrupts.
*** At one point Hal Jordan gave Batman his ring temporary after they got buddy-buddy fighting the second Tattooed Man, and Batman outright admitted that he couldn't ignore his fears because they were what drove him.
** Alan Moore gave us Sodam Yat, a Daxamite Green Lantern, back in 1986, who possessed all of Franchise/{{Superman}}'s powers, and all of Franchise/GreenLantern's as well. Granted he only appeared in a single panel, but he was a major figure in Moore's proposed ''Twilight Of The Superheroes'' mini-series.
* Marvel's ''ComicBook/PowerPack'', a team of four children and then teenage heroes with four different superpowers, have [[PowersAsPrograms swapped them all around]], at least twice. The eldest, Alex, even used to swipe his siblings' powers for jaunts with the ComicBook/NewWarriors. Check out Wiki/TheOtherWiki for who's had what.
* Lightning Lass, in the ComicBook/{{Legion of Super-Heroes}}, changed to Light Lass with antigravity powers. To enforce CastSpeciation. And changed back.

* ''ComicBook/JokersLastLaugh'' featured a character called Multi-Man whose power was: upon death, come back to life with [[SuperpowerLottery an entirely random second power]]. The Joker kills him over fifty times to get him to have the right power to kick off a prison breakout. And then a couple of ''good guys'' off him another dozen times to get him to roulette up a power to animate dead guys so they can have [[PuppeteerParasite Mr. Mind]] use the corpse's powers to break them out of the NegativeSpaceWedgie they're stuck in. [[WhatTheHellHero He totally calls them on it]], which makes the whole thing a lot more palatable.
* DC's ComicBook/ResurrectionMan has this as his power, combined with DeathIsCheap. Whenever he dies he resurrects immediately, and each time, he gets one other superpower for that life. By the time of the ''ComicBook/DCOneMillion'' miniseries, he has invented a device to kill him instantly and painlessly, so he can switch between powers whenever he wants.
* Mutator of ComicBook/TheNewUniverse gets new powers every twelve hours.
* The ComicBook/BlueBeetle has gone from magic artifact powered hero (Dan Garrett) to a smart as Batman GadgeteerGenius (Ted Kord does not get the respect he deserves) to alien armor-wearing hero (Jaime Reyes), to ''magical'' armor-wearing Jaime teaming up with Ted. That's four different power sets and three different characters for one Legacy Hero.
* [[Comicbook/{{Venom}} Eddie Brock]] became Anti-Venom after contact with the supervillain Mister Negative caused the remnants of the Venom symbiote still in Brock's system to combine with his white blood cells. As Anti-Venom he retains some of his old Venom abilities but also gained the power to remove foreign elements and contaminants in people. Including the radiation in Spider-Man's body that empowers him. Fortunately Brock still sincerely wants to be a hero and so tries his best to avoid doing this to Spidey. Eventually, by way of some complicated circumstances, Eddie loses the Anti-Venom powers and becomes Venom again when the symbiote returns to him.
* Both ComicBook/BlueDevil and his (not)sidekick Kid Devil went from using super powered suits (in Blue Devil's case, having the suit magically fused to him) to being transformed into real devils. In Kid Devil's case, when he became a real devil, he gained fire powers and later portal creation.
* Due to some complicated circumstances, [[ComicBook/XMen Polaris]] once had the power of siphoning super-strength from ''emotions''. She also had disease powers when she was a Horseman of Apocalypse, Pestilence.

* In the ''ComicBook/UltimateFantasticFour'' storyline ''Ultimate Mystery'' Ben Grimm's rocky form was revealed to be a cocoon, and he eventually "hatched" into a new form, with his normal human appearance, Thing-level strength, and a nifty purple glow -- which has fuelled {{Fanon}} that he's now the Ultimate ComicBook/WonderMan.
* In ''Comicbook/{{PS238}},'' [[spoiler:FlyingBrick Ron is apparently BroughtDownToNormal by an Argonite laser, but later gets some sort of teleporting powers instead]].

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'': Phoebe was initially shown, in a vision, to have future powers of levitation and throwing electricity (sometimes called "electrokinesis"). She developed the levitation power but gained the power of Empathy instead of the electricity power. In the later seasons this is most likely due to budget concerns but Leo just stated "the future changes" as an explanation for any changes made throughout the show.

* ''VideoGame/ChampionsOnline'' has the Retcon feature, either by using the in-game money (Resources) or buying a Retcon token from the cash shop. The token resets your whole character, allowing you to pick all your powers/super stats/talents/advantages from the start. And because your appearance can be fully changed, and even your name changed with an appropriate token, this allows you to completely re-imagine your character, sans gender.

* In ''VideoGame/InfamousSecondSon'', protagonist Delsin Rowe has this in tandem with PowerCopying: he can only use one set of powers at a time, meaning he constantly has to RePower himself to switch between their movesets.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Pico, from the ''Roleplay/GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse'', was originally a shrinking hero in the mold of DC's Atom. He later somehow gained [[FlyingBrick superhuman strength, invulnerability, and the ability to fly]], though only while shrunk down to a few inches tall.
[[/folder]]

* In ''VideoGame/PersonaQShadowOfTheLabyrinth'' and [[VideoGame/PersonaQ2NewCinemaLabyrinth its sequel]], the presence of multiple Wild Cards causes the power to split: the protagonists of each game can no longer use multiple Personas, but everyone can now use a Sub-Persona that grants them new skills and extra health and SP.

See also ReDitto. Compare with GotTheCallOnSpeedDial, DiscardAndDraw, and SkillPointReset.

* ''Series/{{Charmed}}'': Phoebe was initially shown, in a vision, to have future powers of levitation and throwing electricity (sometimes called "electrokinesis"). She developed the levitation power but gained the power of Empathy instead of the electricity power. In the later seasons this is most likely due to budget concerns but Leo just stated "the future changes" as an explanation for any changes made throughout the show.

* ''Literature/{{Worm}}'' has second triggers, instances where parahumans undergo enough stress for their powers to transform. For example, [[spoiler:Grue]]'s ability suddenly allowed him to copy the powers of any parahuman it was touching.

* Franchise/{{Superman}} was temporarily reimagined in the 1990s as an [[EnergyBeings energy being]] made of living lightning. This is actually a shoutout to a much older, non-canon alternate universe story from the Silver Age (''Superman Vol 1 #162''), in which he was accidentally split into two versions of himself, one of which developed electrical powers and became superman blue.

** Some fanboys have also wanted to see Superman with a ring because it's just that much more power. Clark did try out a ring during his year being powerless, but he was powerless in the first place because he wasn't ready to return to his superhero career so, while he could use the ring just fine, it didn't create a costume.

* [[Comicbook/{{Venom}} Eddie Brock]] became Anti-Venom after contact with the supervillain Mister Negative caused the remnants of the Venom symbiote still in Brock's system to combine with his white blood cells. As Anti-Venom he retains some of his old Venom abilities but also gained the power to remove foreign elements and contaminants in people. Including the radiation in Spider-Man's body that empowers him. Fortunately Brock still sincerely wants to be a hero and so tries his best to avoid doing this to Spidey.

* In ''TabletopRPG/WorldOfDarkness'' it is possible to be transformed from one type of supernatural creature to another (e.g. mage to vampire). If this happens, you lose access to your previous powers and have to learn the powers of your new "species".

* Each cycle of the EternalRecurrence that drives ''[[NexusWar Nexus Clash]]'' returns everyone to level one and allows them to choose a new class if they want.

* Due to some complicated circumstances, [[ComicBook/{{X-Men}} Polaris]] once had the power of siphoning super-strength from ''emotions''. She also had disease powers when she was a Horseman of Apocalypse, Pestilence.
* ComicBook/MsMarvel may be the queen of this trope. She lost her original powers to Rogue of the ComicBook/{{X-Men}}, then gained energy-based powers for a while and now has a completely new set of powers which are mostly the same as her original set.

* The ComicBook/BlueBeetle has gone from magic artifact powered hero (Dan Garrett) to a smart as Batman GadgeteerGenius (Ted Kord does not get the respect he deserves) to the current alien armor wearing ComicBook/BlueBeetle, Jaime Reyes. That's three different power sets and three different characters for one Legacy Hero.

* An example of the second kind appears in ''ComicBook/KingdomCome'' in the form of the godlike [[TheFlash Flash]], who is so fast that he ''pulls the narrator into the story''.

* Marvel's ''ComicBook/PowerPack'', a team of four children and then teenage heroes with four different superpowers, have [[PowersAsPrograms swapped them all around]], at least twice. The eldest, Alex, even used to swipe his siblings' powers for jaunts with the ComicBook/NewWarriors. Check out TheOtherWiki for who's had what.

** Many Marvel Mutant characters have gotten what was called in-universe a "''Secondary Mutation''", and pretty much all of them qualify. Though this actually started out as making deliberate use of RequiredSecondaryPowers (this is what makes many former WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway cases considerably more badass than they used to be) but eventually bled over into being purely this trope, as powers having nothing to do with the character's original power would just... show up.

* All of the former mutants who [[PlotTumor lost their powers on M-Day]] and joined the latest iteration of the ComicBook/NewWarriors got one of these. ComicBook/{{Jubilee}}, who originally had the power to produce explosive balls of light, gained super strength through advanced technology. Chamber, whose psionic powers kept him alive, ended up gaining sonic manipulation. And so on and so forth.

** Jubilee became a vampire and has now gained superstrength and other vampire powers.