History Main / XRayVision

* The movie ''X! The Man With X-Ray Eyes''. The main character takes eyedrops to increase the frequencies of light that he can see; he goes from seeing everyone with no clothes on to seeing organs to seeing skeletons to seeing a CosmicHorror at the center of the universe.

** One HandWave for this is that it's not X-rays, but actually a combination of his telescopic vision and microscopic vision; he looks ''between'' the molecules of whatever he's looking through. To which those with even a passing understanding of what ''makes'' an object opaque in the first place will say: NoJustNo.

In the real world, there is a technology called "[[http://www.epicwest.org/privacy/airtravel/backscatter/ X-ray backscatter imaging]]" which allows for a certain amount of selective viewing. However, it requires bulky beamshaping equipment around an X-ray tube, which is of considerable size, not counting the high-voltage power supply and ''water-cooling'' system to keep from melting the tube's cathode. And then you have to scan the beam across the target, and use large and heavy detectors to pick up the extremely faint backscattered X-rays. The smallest mobile X-ray backscatter (not counting "portal"-style backscatter machines, which can cheat in a number of ways) machine is built into a ''20-foot shipping container''. It isn't ''impossible'' to miniaturize a backscatter machine, but it would take a whole lot of really surprising breakthroughs in a whole lot of scientific fields.

Also, all those X-rays would kill most people due to all the exposure to that much radiation. Given this, the common usage of X-ray vision for [[PowerPerversionPotential voyeuristic purposes]] has even worse implications than invasion of privacy--it's downright dangerous to the women or men who are being ogled.

* At the [[SuperHeroSchool Whateley Academy]] in the webfiction ''WhateleyUniverse'', there's a boy code-named Peeper. His ''only'' power is the ability to stare at people and look through their clothes. Maybe he could do something interesting with locked box or what-have-you, but he's not interested. This makes him one of the most annoying pains on campus, as he's constantly annoying the hot girls.

* ''{{Empowered}}'''s supersuit has "imaging functions" which,among other things,grants her this power. It's detailed enough to detect an aneurysm in the head of the PunchClockVillain who was guarding her, [[spoiler:which saves his life]].

* ''{{Empowered}}'''s supersuit has "imaging functions" which,among other things,grants her this power. It's detailed enough to detect an aneurysm in the head of the PunchClockVillain who was guarding her,[[spoiler:which saves his life]].

* The title characters of ''PhineasAndFerb'' make these on one occasion. They try to mass-produce them, but [[ItMakesSenseInContext their carrot supply winds up mysteriously disappearing]].

In the real world, there is a technology called "[[http://www.epicwest.org/privacy/airtravel/backscatter/ X-ray backscatter imaging]]" which allows for a certain amount of selective viewing. However, it requires bulky beamshaping equipment around an X-ray tube, which is of considerable size, not counting the high-voltage power supply and ''water-cooling'' system to keep from melting the tube's cathode. And then you have to scan the beam across the target, and use large and heavy detectors to pick up the extremely faint backscattered X-rays. The smallest mobile X-ray backscatter (not counting "portal"-style backscatter machines, which can cheat in a number of ways) machine this troper has seen is built into a ''20-foot shipping container''. I'm not saying it's ''impossible'' to miniaturize a backscatter machine, but it would take a whole lot of really surprising breakthroughs in a whole lot of scientific fields.

* An extremely disturbing use in ''SupremePower'' where Mark Milton goes to a strip club, takes a woman home, and has sex with her - while having his x-ray vision on enough to see her bones and muscles beneath the skin.

** α particles [[strike:are the size of a]] are helium nuclei and can be stopped by ''[[WallBanger paper]]''.

How the power actually ''works'', especially if it's implied to be actual X-rays, is confusing. Whether your eyes or your glasses are sensitive to X-rays, you would still need a powerful X-ray source on the other side of whatever you were trying to see through, and even then you'd only see things that were X-ray opaque. Presumably you'd "see" things thus revealed in a "colour" for which we normal, X-ray–blind people have no name.

* Done a bit better in the video game ''GoldenEye Rogue Agent'' with M.R.I. (Magnetic Resonance Imaging: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRI ); this vision mode allows you to see the silhouettes of enemy (and allied) soldiers through walls in a vaguely transparent white, but no more detail than that. It still doesn't work like it should, though...

* The video game 007 Nightfire has a blue tinted vision mode that gives enemy's silhouettes in misty red past obstacles. They don't even try to explain that one. You can see through the clothes of female [=NPCs=] as well and [[FanService see their lingerie]].

* The video game 007 Nightfire has a blue tinted vision mode that gives enemy's silhouettes in misty red past obstacles. They don't even try to explain that one. You can see through the clothes of female NPCs as well and [[FanService see their lingerie]].

* Ultra Boy of the LegionOfSuperHeroes originally had this as his only power, but was later upgraded to "Any of Comicbook/{{Superman}}'s powers, but only one at a time".

*** from this tropers understanding the visor is actually a vastly miniaturized and more powerful backscatter x-ray machine. pretty sure a race of super intelligent space-bird-men could build something like that.

** This uses some kind of four-dimensional light, and he can control how far he sees. Great for voyeurism if you happen to be into women's cross-sections.

See also: SuperSenses. Similar to VeinOVision.

* Comic book {{Superman}} looks at a wall and sees Lois, in natural colour, tied up behind it. Or he sees a bomb inside a ship that he's swimming past. Apparently, his eyes emit something that goes right through masonry or steel, but bounces off skin, clothing, dynamite, etc. at wavelengths that look just like ordinary light. However, like real X-rays, it's stopped by sufficiently dense materials (although, [[SilverAge Pre-Crisis]], ''only'' lead stopped it).

** Another post-Crisis theory says that he can detect the minor electromagnetic energy emitted when cosmic ray particles pass through matter, and his brain just interprets it as a visual image subconsciously contructed from the energy patterns. These emissions might be partially blocked by lead (or any sufficiently dense material).
** However, in the GoldenAge and at least part of the SilverAge, it was definitely X-rays. In fact, this is where his [[EyeBeams heat vision]] originally came from; he was able to focus the X-rays enough to cook whatever he was looking at. Or in one Superboy comic, turn gold into lead. One odd side-effect of this was that, until the PostCrisis reboot, his heat vision couldn't melt lead. (This ignores the fact that an actual beam of highly focused X-rays could in fact melt lead, if it were sufficiently intense.)

** An example from [[http://danbooru.donmai.us/post/show/365926/dennou_coil-glasses-glasses_view-okonogi_yuuko-rev Siraha]] and another from [[http://danbooru.donmai.us/post/show/310151/3girls-amasawa_yuuko-bare_shoulders-blush-brown_ha Kakkii]] here (and insinuated [[http://danbooru.donmai.us/post/show/311801/amasawa_yuuko-dennou_coil-digital_dissolve-glasses here]]) -- mostly tame pictures, but definitely a '''NSFW''' website. This has even gained it's [[RuleThirtyFour own tag]] on the Danbooru system -- "Reverse X-Ray".

* The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson. Young Bill recounts how Superman's x-ray vision isn't an actual x-ray, more of cross section, and how even that was useless for looking through women's clothing as breasts would be restrained bras and other articles of clothing. Therefore Bill developed "Thundervision" which was able to loosen restrictive clothing while looking trough it.

*** [[http://www.awkwardzombie.com/comic1-091007.php Sure doesn't.]]