Characters struggling to figure out how their powers work in Comic Books.
- This is a recurring theme in The Adventures of D & A, as the titular duo find their way around using the SWSC's gadgets and are forced to figure them out on the fly. Especially egregious in the third story, where they're given gadgets like an electro-wrench and a transgravitational umbrella, with absolutely no training on how to use either.
- In All Fall Down, Sophie suffers from this at first, using several powers by accident until she learns to bring them under control.
- Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld:
- Even with her mother's training, Amaya is not fully prepared for combat on Gemworld. In her first swordfight, she is horrified when she kills the attacking swordsman and couldn't think straight in the heat of battle.
- Once she is given the magic of House Amethyst, Amaya has to be trained to use it to her full potential.
- In an issue of The Avengers, the villain Absorbing Man absorbs the android Vision's ability to become intangible. He promptly falls through the pier he's standing on and into the water, due to a lack of control.
- Black Alice can temporarily steal the powers of magical beings, but she doesn't automatically gain knowledge on how to use said powers.
- Blue Beetle:
- The second Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, inherited the magical (or, as it much later transpires, alien tech) scarab that powered his predecessor's superhuman abilities — but couldn't figure out how to make it work for him. He never did — which didn't stop him from having a long heroic career as the Beetle under his own steam.
- The third Beetle (Jaime Reyes), incidentally, gets along with the scarab like a house on fire. It just didn't take to Ted. It's implied by the scarab that the reason it didn't work for him is because he hung around Booster Gold too much, supposedly because of being exposed to too much of his "multiverse energy".
- Captain Atom is an interesting example. He didn't realize he had any powers at all at first; as far as he knew he just had a peculiar deformity. He realized he could fly only when he had to jump out of a rocket he had been stashed on, and then only discovered his nigh-invulnerability when Dr. Megala had Babylon shoot him. He discovered some of his other powers while experimenting and training with Megala, and discovered others as time went on. What's particularly interesting about this case is that there may be no actual limit to his powers, but he only gradually discovers this. Of course, many writers remember or forget the extent of Cap's powers as is convenient for the plot.
- The protagonists in Death Vigil typically have a hard time figuring out what their veilrippers do. Sam, despite having been in the Vigil for 12 years, still uses his shovel and pickaxe to whack the enemy around. Clara's veilripper is a quill pen. She spends a few days trying to use it as a flechette and magic wand before figuring out that she can draw with it, create portals, and read/repair other people's memories.
- Darkhawk received a cool amulet that turned him into an armored android with super-powers, but unfortunately it didn't come with an instruction manual. As a result, teenage Chris Powell ends up discovering many of his abilities by trial and error, and otherwise practicing to determine the limits of his abilities.
- Empowered gains her powers from an alien supersuit that is the very definition of "enigmatic". She found out the obvious ones (Super-Strength, vision enhancement, Hand Blast), but the other powers were discovered by accident. For example, her Wall Crawling was activated when she was thrown against a wall and she still hasn't actually "discovered" its flying abilities. It's Fanon (and suggested by Mind Screw in-universe) that the costume gives fantastic cosmic powers limited only by the user self-confidence. As Empowered has the self-confidence of a used kleenex in a dirty cesspool, you can see how it works. So yes, she unconsciously granted herself the power of being easily aroused and multi-orgasming. Kudos!
- The Super-Skrull is a recurring Fantastic Four villain who can use all the super-powers of that team, plus has a native alien ability to shapeshift. Nevertheless, he is always defeated, usually by the Four's ability to work as a team. It's been explained in canon that one of the reasons he loses to the FF is that some of them have gotten upgraded (either explicitly or via Power Drift) since he was created. For example, Sue Richards wasn't the most powerful member of the team when they copied her, so her powers are stronger than the Super-Skrull's. The Thing and Johnny Storm also had power ups. Reed has stayed the same, but his real power is his brain and he is indeed smarter than Super-Skrull. It must be noted that Sue Storm's original power, that is, the one copied by Super-Skrull, is the power to turn invisible (at the time, Sue was called "Invisible Girl"), which at the time was roughly the weakest, dumbest and most feeble excuse for a power in the Marvel universe. Her power upgrade (which Super-Skrull does not have access to) is the ability to create invisible force fields of any shape or size at will. This upgrade ended up making her one of the single most powerful (and shitfire lethal) mortals in the Marvel universe. In other words, Super-Skrull's stolen powers are one-fourth wildly obsolete.
Another factor is that no-one understands the FF's powers better than the FF themselves, so they know exactly how to counter them. On the other hand, the Super-Skrull is shown to be extremely effective when fighting other enemies, since he's ruthless enough to use his powers in ways the FF never would, like stretching parts of his body into razor wire to decapitate enemy soldiers. Xavin, another Skrull with similar abilities, can barely use more than one power at a time. Although in the Secret Invasion tie-in, it was shown that while Xavin can only use one power at a time, s/he became better at using them individually than his teacher could. In Secret Invasion, it is revealed that the Skrulls now have the idea to copy any superhuman's powers, appearance, and memory perfectly. As revealed in the sub-series New Avengers. (written by the same dude), they really, really worked very, very hard at it. - The heroine of Ghost took some time to learn to manage her intangibility: how not to walk through her garments; how not to drift while sleeping and wake up deep underground.
- Parodied in the Great Lakes Avengers, with the Grasshopper. After spending a couple of pages setting him up as an important character, revealing his identity, origin, and mandatory superhero romantic troubles, he decides to exit the scene by engaging the "Maximum Jump" capability of his super-suit. It launches him into space and he dies.
- Green Lantern:
- Subverted in the Post-Crisis origin story of the Hal Jordan Green Lantern, Emerald Dawn. In this story, Jordan stumbles about with his newly bestowed power ring, barely defeats a powerful villain and realizes that he is out of his depth with the weapon. To solve that problem, Jordan asks the ring if there is another member of the Green Lantern Corps he can talk to for help. The ring whisks him away to meet Tomar-Re, who recommends that Jordan come to GLC headquarters on the planet Oa for the optional training program. Jordan, naturally, takes that advice.
- This appears to have been retconned somewhat in the new Secret Origin of Hal Jordan. Hal gets the ring and uses it to fly and make a few constructs without much difficulty, but is not aware of the full functional capacity of the ring. He is then forcibly brought to OA for mandatory training.
- When Mongul steals a yellow power ring, the first thing he does is order the ring to tell him everything it can do, then spends 96 hours practicing before using it for supervillainy. It fails to mention the administrative override Sinestro builds into each ring.
- Green Lanterns: Jessica Cruz has never been properly trained in her new powers before being forced to protect the Earth alongside Simon and it shows. Not only does she struggle to make constructs in the early chapters, she actually notes at one point in her Internal Monologue that she had asked her Ring to tell her everything about itself, where she learned little tidbits like the "morphology" type and serial number of her Ring and how many other people had it before her. But not how to make constructs, which she apparently needs to learn for herself. Funnily enough, averted with Simon, who is the one who keeps gaining New Powers as the Plot Demands and getting confused by them. The reason being Jessica is the cautious planning type who tries to learn as much as possible before she acts, while Simon just hasn't thought to ask the Ring these things because he's more impulsive.
- Liz Sherman from Hellboy can't control her fire powers at a young age, accidentally killing several people, including her parents. She joins the B.P.R.D. because they can teach her how to use her powers, or at the very least have ways to keep her from hurting people again.
- Hex Wives: When Becky sheds blood by accidentally killing Danali's cat, and thereby activates her magical powers, she starts to fly. She then crashes to ground because she has no idea how to control her flight.
- In The Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos spends a few months after getting the Gauntlet acclimating to its power, doing a few small tests to see what he can do before going about his plan to woo Lady Death. When his daughter Nebula steals the Gauntlet from him later in the series, Adam Warlock notes she's getting Drunk on the Dark Side and quickly burning out from misuse of the Gauntlet.
- Iron Man
- Way back in Tales of Suspense #39, when Tony Stark first put on his first Iron Man armor to escape from a Vietnamese prison camp, he takes one step in his armor and falls flat on his face.
- In Iron Man #200, Obadiah Stane puts on his brand-new baby, the Iron Monger suit, to fight Tony (wearing his brand-new Silver Centurion armor), because he knows it's Tony coming after him. However, Stane has no experience, so he has to rely on a remote computer to assist him in the fight. When Stark realizes this (as he's been detecting strange transmissions throughout their fight), he destroys the building that's been transmitting to Stane's suit, leaving Stane outmatched.
- Averted with Iron Man's first match with Firepower in #230, as Jack Taggert's been training extensively on a simulator, and the real suit's capabilities totally overwhelm Iron Man; Stark had to design a new armor with new features specifically intended to negate Firepower's advantages.
- Eric O'Grady, the Irredeemable Ant-Man, was pretty much completely winging it throughout the entire twelve issue run of his series; he was constantly learning how to access his various abilities (like communing with and controlling insects or flying with his suit's extra jet legs). In fact, he scarred his immediate superior's face while trying to escape after stealing the suit to begin with. Later, after he became a cadet at Camp Hammond in Avengers: The Initiative, he discovers he can grow in size, too (with the possible limitation of this only happening in response to a threat posed by someone else turning giant with Pym Particles).
- Justice League
- The Justice League suffered a multiple bodyswap in the TPB Foreign Bodies; a female villain called Psykosis was incited to do it by Kobra. It ended up with Kyle Rayner (Green Lantern) operating the body of J'onn J'onzz, J'onn taking over Aquaman's body, Aquaman in temporary possession of Wonder Woman's body, Wonder Woman in Psykosis' body, Psykosis' psyche in Flash's body, Flash in Steel's body, and Steel in Green Lantern's body. Separate to this, Superman and Batman had simply swapped bodies or so it seemed; in actuality, Batman was indeed in Superman's body, but Kobra had taken command of Batman's body, leaving Superman resident in Kobra's body. And boy howdy, hilarity did indeed ensue at nearly everyone's expense before it was over. Worth noting that Batman gets an immediate grasp on Superman's powers, and starts saving the day worldwide (admittedly, he's had a front-row seat to their use for quite a while). Only, he laments that so much power is distracting.
- In JLA: Year One, the Brain steals Flash's speed, Green Lantern's power ring, Black Canary's voice and the Martian Manhunter's 'martian-vision', incorporating their legs, right arm, vocal cords and eyes into a new body for himself. He seems to instantly know how to work each individual power, but the villain primarily relies on Green Lantern's ring, the flashiest and most "powerful" of the abilities. By overlooking the benefits of each different power Aquaman is able to overpower and kick his ass, observing that any team is only as strong as all of its members.
- After Jax from Jax Epoch and the Quicken Forbidden stole the spellbook and the magic boots and gloves, she first has some troubles with casting spells, but she does get better later on in the story.
- In the first couple of issues of Ms. Marvel (2014) the titular heroine has this problem with her Shapeshifting abilities. They start off tied to her emotional state (shrinking when she feels small, turning into Carol Danvers when she thinks of Captain Marvel) and she's unable to control them willingly at first.
- Ms. Marvel also had to deal with a literal case of this trope when a team-up miniseries had her and Spider-Man undergo a classic body-swap. It took Kamala some time to master Spidey's powers, with plenty of amusing accidents along the way. On the other side of the swap, Peter Parker figured out Ms. Marvel's stretching and embiggening powers fairly easily — but he found himself defeated by the non-super-powered aspects of becoming a teenage girl, like period cramps in math class.
- Way back in the origins of the New Mutants, Cannonball was only able to shoot himself straight ahead, and stopped mainly by running into things. It took a while for him to control his flight, much less realize he could steer himself and get any good at it. Luckily for him, he's physically invulnerable while "blasting" (and possibly immortal, depending on which retcon they're on at the moment), so he could always walk away from a crash. This was also the case with Nova to some extent, in the early issues of his first series; he could fly at supersonic speeds, but sometimes couldn't turn or stop in time to keep from crashing into things, particularly during a fight. Writer/creator Marv Wolfman also mentioned more than once (through other characters) that Nova had powers that he was completely unaware of; later series would eventually reveal these.
- Paperinik examples:
- Paperinik sometimes has troubles with his gadgets, both in PKNA and non-PKNA stories. It's downplayed in PKNA, given he has One to help him with those (but still doesn't know how to use the full potential of his Extransformer shield, and when One gets deactivated he finds out he has no idea how to fuel the PKar... Or what the fuel is), but in non-PKNA stories he has some added problems because Gyro either forgets to explain how they work or gives him a gigantic user manual he cannot possibly read.
- Actually Invoked in the non-PKNA story in which the Beagle Boys stole his 313-X car and some of his weapons... Only to get repeteadly humiliated because Paperinik knows how to use them and they don't (the paralizing pistol, for example, is single-shot).
- In her debut, Paperinika had some serious problems at using her skating boots, and the first attempt ended with a ridiculous pratfall. Averted for the other gadgets, as her supplier has the common sense to explain how to use the things and provide sensibly-sized user manuals... Or simply provides gadgets that are based on something she already knows how to use (such as her bike).
- Xadhoom's powers, originating from an artificial mutation, are the centre of multiple instances:
- When she first showed up, Xadhoom had no problems at using her godlike powers, but she once mentioned it took a while to actually learn how to use them. She also didn't learn her minor shape-shifting abilities could allow her to recover her pre-mutation looks until she pulled it by accident, and continued learning some new use of her powers until her Heroic Sacrifice.
- Before dying, Xadhoom created a copy of her memory that included the process of how to get the powers. The Belgravian government promptly steals part of the data... And, not understanding what it actually was, tried to make a volcano-controlling superweapon, triggering an eruption only on the volcanic island where their lab was located.
- Later Zoster succeeds in stealing the copy and being told by Xadhoom's holographic double how to replicate the process, and had the common sense to listen everything. He carefully replicates the process on himself, gets the powers... And is promptly disintegrated because he didn't have the self-control to hold them back, nor knew he needed it. Turns out Xadhoom created the memory to kill one last Evronian in such a way to make sure they wouldn't know if she's really dead, so they would leave the Xerbians alone... And the memory specifically held the self-control bit back.
- This happens rather often in The Amazing Adventures of Fantomius: Gentleman Thief, the prequel dedicated to the duck that would inspire Donald into becoming Paperinik: Fantomius' Gadgeteer Genius is a relative of Gyro and just as much as a Cloud Cuckoo Lander as him, and sometimes forgets to tell him something-or to include working brakes. Fantomius himself still has to figure how to dodge rose bushes.
- Paperinik sometimes has troubles with his gadgets, both in PKNA and non-PKNA stories. It's downplayed in PKNA, given he has One to help him with those (but still doesn't know how to use the full potential of his Extransformer shield, and when One gets deactivated he finds out he has no idea how to fuel the PKar... Or what the fuel is), but in non-PKNA stories he has some added problems because Gyro either forgets to explain how they work or gives him a gigantic user manual he cannot possibly read.
- Powers does this a lot, starting in the very first issue where a powers specialist police pathologist rants at length about the fact he has no idea how to do his job and has to retrain himself every day because every single powers operates on his or her own uniquely altered biology and there's no frame of reference for anything that they do. At least one hero meets an early end to his career when he kills a bystander while trying to figure out how to fly.
- The short "untold" story of young Peter Parker called "The Punch!" from the Amazing Spider-Man Family Volume 1 Issue 3 partially uses this trope for his super strength (his other powers subvert this trope). It takes place after Uncle Ben died and Peter decides to make Spider-Man a hero. He stops a robber by punching them with what he calls a "tap". However, Peter couldn't actually control his strength and the robber nearly died and had to be rushed to the hospital. Peter then goes to an abandoned building and lets loose to see just how strong he is. He wrecks the place and is shaking with fear over the amount of strength he has. He almost quits being Spider-Man because of it but realizes it is a good thing when it allows him to hold up a falling crane long enough for all the bystanders to get to safety. The story actually doesn't show how Peter learned to control his strength (just that he'll learn over time). Also, one has to wonder how Spider-Man not even trying nearly killed someone and yet Uncle Ben's killer didn't die.
- In the 1990s Marvel Comics Sleepwalker comic series, Rick and Sleepwalker end up accidentally switching bodies after an encounter with one of Sleepwalker's enemies, and Rick has to try and figure out how to use Sleepwalker's abilities, in between being attacked by supervillains and demons from the Mindscape.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Mina Mongoose first using Super Speed usually lead to her slamming into things, ultimately leading to her confronting Sonic and begging him to help practice it. She also used it to get closer to him, as she had a crush on him.
- In Issue #37 of Sonic X, Sonic and Eggman get their brains switched. They both run into this problem: Eggman can't control Sonic's speed and constantly crashes into things, and Sonic can't figure out Eggman's technology and can barely pilot the Eggmobile.
- Speedball from the Marvel universe spent issue after issue trying to figure out how to get his bouncing powers under control; not just turning them off when they were inconvenient, but just bouncing in the right direction. He learned how just in time.
- Receives a minor lampshade in a later issue of New Warriors, where he goes up against all the villains from his original run at once, and handily trounces them in a couple of pages due to now fully understanding how to use his powers.
- Spider-Man:
- The mainline Spider-Man actually subverts the trope. Many of his powers are hardwired into his reflexes and instincts. As such, acrobatics, fighting, dodging bullets, and balancing are all things he can do automatically. In his introduction, he backflipped twenty feet and stuck to the side of a building mere minutes after being bitten by the radioactive spider, purely because his Spider-Sense sensed a car about to run him over. Even web-slinging needed little practice purely because his reflexes prevented him from screwing up. Spidey's biggest problem tends to be the fact that his opponents are stronger and faster than him and/or have an "Instant Death" Radius that requires him to be smart about using his powers.
- Spidey also had no trouble figuring out how to shoot webs because it isn't actually one of his powers! That's right, Peter Parker actually designed some web fluid and shooters using his awesome powers of nerdiness. At least, not until the times in the comics when he (temporarily) does get natural webbing.
- However, he did have a minor problem when his Spider-Sense got burnt out — without it, web-swinging was much tougher as he has no way of knowing what's safe to swing on or not. This story also taught him that his combat skills were sorely lacking without the precognitive edge of Spider-Sense; he spent some time training with Iron Fist to sharpen his brawling skills.
- This trope is used occasionally in the Ultimate Spider-Man comic: most egregiously, when Peter Parker startles out of daydreams in school and breaks his desk multiple times without anyone becoming unduly suspicious about it. Public school chairs... The most hilarious use of this trope is when Wolverine and Spider-Man switch bodies. Wolverine's attempts to learn how to websling must be seen to be believed.
- Played straight with Miguel O'Hara, Spider-Man 2099. Many of the events in the first three issues of his comic are of him learning how to use his new abilities, such as retractable talons, heightened vision, and — yes — shooting webs.
- The new Spider-Man Miles Morales originally did not shoot web, but eventually receives his own web shooters and learns how. It takes him a couple of tries before he gets the hang of swinging without smacking against a wall or onto a rooftop. Meanwhile, his best friend and unofficial Mission Control, Ganke Lee, faces the conundrum of "How Do I Make Web?", since it was the late Peter Parker's secret formula and he has to reverse engineer the web fluid so Miles can continually use it.
- Spider-Girl didn't exactly have problems learning to use her powers, but she needed training from her father and his friend Phil Urich to really be able to master them and become a more experienced fighter.
- Similarly, Phil Urich himself had a number of problems figuring out how to use the Green Goblin's equipment when he moonlighted as a superhero in the short-lived Green Goblin series Marvel published in the 1990s. Later, in Runaways, he knew how to fly the ship the mysterious benefactor gave Phil's group because it was based on the Goblin equipment.
- Spider-Man's ally and generally lovable loser the Fabulous Frog-Man. Stealing the fully automated frog-suit of his father, the villainous Leapfrog, Eugene Patilio wholeheartedly attempts to make a difference while being utterly clueless about how the suit works. This proves to be his greatest strength, however, as his frequent misfired jumps tend to knock out waves of bad guys and make him look like a real hero who knows what he's doing. Pretty much the only person who knows that Eugene is a bumbler in person is Spidey himself.
- Superman:
- Superboy had this problem after he first appeared during The Death of Superman saga - he had flight, limited invulnerability (fire actually harmed him) and super strength and a strange ability to blow metallic things up. The last one he had no idea how it worked and it seemingly came when he was in a panic. After learning he had Tactile Telekinesis (which allowed him to mimic Superman's abilities to a point), he started focusing more and using it a lot better. Then came the rest of his Kryptonian powers, like his heat vision, which first manifested in accidentally singeing Superman's cape (he wasn't happy about that.)
- In the Silver Age Superboy stories, Ma and Pa Kent were shown helping Superboy hone his powers. Particularly true with flight. Unlike in Smallville, he figured out the thrust mechanism early on but had trouble with steering.
- In New Krypton, Superman was shown to be an elite soldier because of his extensive experience using his powers, leading to him training fellow soldiers in the New Krypton military.
- Supergirl, by contrast, was able to activate all her powers but struggled with holding back.
- In Superman: Up, Up and Away!, Superman's return to action is not a smooth one. His powers haven't been fully replenished and he gets suddenly thrust into a fight with Intergang's goons.
- In Last Daughter of Krypton, Supergirl gets rid of Simon Tycho's organic android and starts searching for her stolen pod. Guessing it is stored somewhere in her enemy's space base, Kara tries to figure out how to use her X-Ray vision to scan the place swiftly.Supergirl: Now... Where is my pod? Try to relax... feel that tingling behind my eyes... peel back the layers. See past it all. See inside... There.
- The Superman/Batman "Super/Bat" arc has a case where Silver Banshee "grants the wishes" of Batman and Superman (Superman to have a normal life, Batman to bring complete fear and order to Gotham's criminal underworld) by giving Superman's powers to Batman. It took Batman a lot of practice to use them right, and he realizes he needs sunlight to use them the best. Superman realizes that the side effect of Banshee's wish was both men did not have the means to properly use what they wished for, requiring Superman to get Batman to undo the wish before the Dark Knight becomes corrupted by his new power.
- Wolverine: In Origin, it’s revealed that the first time his claws come out, young James has no idea how to control them and is stuck for several hours with bleeding, painful pieces of bone sticking out of his hands, something that also freaks out everybody around him.
- X-Factor: Subverted when the team tracks down Alchemy, a mutant whose Puberty Superpower is the ability to transmute any matter into a simple element like gold. He was kidnapped by trolls and had to defend himself by transforming their leaders. He then couldn't change them back because he has to imagine the totality of the matter he is changing something into, and organic matter is so complex on a molecular level that he can't do it. So, he goes off for the advanced education in biochemistry needed to cure the beings he has affected.note By the time Alchemy reappeared in the pages of Excalibur, he had gotten enough education and control over his power that he was able to restore the humans he had inadvertently transformed after the trolls had kidnapped him again to try and force him to change their leaders back to normal.
- X-Men:
- Was actually a major theme of the original 1960s X-Men, and still appears at times. It could easily be argued that this trope is the basis for the X-Men as a whole, as the series has always revolved around a group of mutants who are being trained in the use of their own powers at what is quite literally a school that exists for precisely that purpose.
- Inverted with Rogue, who can use her powers quite well, but doesn't know how to turn them off (it's been pretty much spelled out that she could control them, except that some serious psychological trauma concerning both her power's first use and the effects of continued use were serving as a block).
- When Xavier removes the psychic essences that she's absorbed over the years, which have been stunting the development of her powers, so she can finally learn to control them, Rogue asks him how she's supposed to actually do that. All he can do is give a verbal shrug; they're her powers, and she's going to have to figure them out.
- Subverted with Wing from Astonishing X-Men who tells Hisako (Armor) that after discovering that he could fly without propulsion, he assumed that this meant he was invincible as well and landed with a little too much force, breaking both of his legs.
- An old X-Men villain was Mimic, a mutant who can copy up to 5 different mutants' powers. These powers become permanent if he can be around them for at least an hour. He was usually defeated due to three reasons; his copied powers were only 1/2 as strong as the original, he had no experience in using them, and he was kinda dumb. Eventually he got smarter (and did a Heel–Face Turn), and now has the original five X-Men's powers permanently (though only at the level of their teenage years; this is still formidable because he can use all five simultaneously, but it would've been downright game-breaking if he had the power-ups they've all gotten). He can also mimic an additional power on top of those five, but trying more than that would be dangerous to him.
- An AU Mimic becomes team leader in Exiles. This version had joined the X-Men and had spent years developing and mastering his plethora of powers and becoming a champion of mutants. His "main" powers for most of the comics run were Flight (Angel), Invulnerability (Colossus; couldn't fly in steel form), super agility (Beast), energy projection (Cyclops), and healing (Wolverine). Even with years of practice copying others Mimic admits that he wouldn't be stupid enough to try and copy a shapeshifter or teleporter for fear of accidentally killing himself.
- Nate Grey a.k.a. X-Man (who, ironically, was only rarely a member of the X-Men) suffered from this on a grand scale early on, something compounded by the fact that his in-built genetic degeneration meant he suffered from often explosive and entirely random Power Creep, Power Seep. He was competent enough in a fight, and had some very unusual tricks (like using his telekinesis to create an electromagnetic pulse) thanks to tutelage from his reality's version of Forge, but he mostly learned by a) making it up as he went along, and b) using his telepathy to copy techniques. However, the difference between the kid who could barely outfight Dark Beast and the powerhouse who used the multiverse as his personal stepladder, treated death as a minor inconvenience, effortlessly flattened several teams of X-Men while simultaneously keeping Apocalypse prisoner and Magneto on a psychic leash, and created his own reality is astounding.
- In Marvel's Young Avengers, teenage spellcaster Asgardian (later Wiccan) is shown to have difficulty using his powers. His boyfriend, Hulkling, helps him learn to control them with ordinary self-help books.
