New Powers As The Plot Demands - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Couldn't you have done that earlier?"

— Tristan to Yvaine, Stardust

Some superhero comics authors seem to get bored of the same old powers. They add new ones to the same characters whenever they feel that a new power would open up a new story, or a new danger needs a new response, or what the hell, whenever they feel like it. It's bad enough writing in a new hero from nowhere just because you want to include a new power, but a lot of writers are worse than that. They tack new powers onto existing heroes.

Sometimes a retcon, a power upgrade or some bit of Phlebotinum is employed to explain the new power, but often the character just does something they've never done before and when their friends say, "I didn't know you could do that!", they come back with either "I've never needed to, till now," or worse, "Neither did I, till now!"

Not all New Super Powers fall into this category, just the ones resulting from an Ass Pull. Commonly used to bring a character Back From The Dead.

Giving a character a Green Lantern Ring avoids this. Compare Magic A Is Magic A, So Last Season.

Examples

Anime

Naruto. It's to the point where Naruto fans have their own name for this trope, "Plot No Jutsu" ("plot technique").
- Part of the reason why half of the fanbase sees the Uchiha Clan as Wesleys is due to the fact that with every new fight one of them had been in, the Sharingan pulls a new ability out of nowhere.
Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure has two especially egregious examples of this trope, each used to finish off the Big Bad of a story arc. The first example occurs in Part 3: the villain Dio Brando is virtually unstoppable because his Stand has the ability to stop time, so how do the heroes stop him? Jotaro Kujo's Stand suddenly gains the power to stop time, which also lets him move in Dio's time stop, despite the fact that its only powers so far were Super Strength and Super Speed. Of course, this is somewhat explained by the fact that he has Jotaro's grandfather's Stand, which appears to have the ability of every living descendant of Jonathan Joestar. Part 5's was pretty bad though: Giorno Giovanna stabs himself with a Stand Arrow, evolving his Gold Experience into Gold Experience Requiem, and giving it the power to nullify any action an opponent takes. To be fair, it was shown beforehand that the Arrow could give Stands new powers, but come on! That power is just ridiculous!
- Oh, it happens to the villains too. Part 4 had Kira getting the ability to reset time back to the time a kid woke up in the morning so that he could find out who got killed trying to figure out who Kira was because the kid was under the effect of Kira's just gotten the night before power. Part 6 had the main villain of that getting the power to alter the universe's gravity, causing time to accelerate to the universe's end so that he could reset time to the way he wants it to be.
- Parts I and II only avoided this trope by making ripple powers a sort of Green Lantern Ring.
One Piece does this regularly, but it generally doesn't jar. Except for Sanji's flaming kick and Luffy's Second/Third Gear. Where the hell were they hiding them?
- What about Zoro's sudden ability to turn into a six-armed, three-headed Asura? That one hasn't even received a humorously convincing yet utterly meaningless explanation.
  - It's indicated that it's just an illusion created by his spirit, and none of the Straw Hats, including Zoro, are quite sure how it works.
  - Actually, you could just name any long-running shonen fighting anime and this trope will apply.
- Luffy and his Gears are at least somewhat justified in-story. Luffy essentially claims that he thought them up between his defeat by Aokiji and the time of Gear Second's unveiling.
  - Gear Second is just Luffy using his rubber body to adapt CP9s Soru technique into a continuous form. One could argue that Sanji likewise copied/adapted Wanze's flaming rollerskates into his own technique.
Yes! Precure 5's Cure Aqua suddenly picked up the ability to turn her "Aqua Ribbon" baton into a sword. The reasoning behind this was that this allowed an awesome swordfight. The sword returned during The Movie for exactly the same reason.
Ultraman, Ultraseven and the other Ultra heroes are the kings of this. Though they have a set powers base, many develop and use one-shot energy attacks for specific monsters that are never seen again, or, even, completely pointless in the face of a pre-existing energy attack. And each time they would re-appear in another series, they'd only have the very basic forms of Ultraman powers they were known for. However, the worst offender is Ultraman Jack/The Ultraman Who Returned, who has the Ultra Bracelet—a weapon that can shapeshift into whatever is needed at the time: a shield, eye-slugger, blade, sword or—Cross-Shaped Lance to stake an alien named Draculas.
In Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, the characters are frequently granted new karaoke songs (the weapon of choice in the series) whenever the ones in the previous episode didn't work. This becomes somewhat ridiculous, considering these upgrades are manifested by the goddess the protagonists are attempting to summon, and when they actually summon her, all she does is tell them to sing...
- Oh yeah, and that amnesia kiss? Lucia gets that too. Randomly.
DBZ - Piccolo's powers apparently go past vomiting energy and firing lasers from his fingertips to blow up the moon, include summoning child-sized versions of his own costume, summoning giant hourglasses, screaming a hole between dimensions...
- Hey, that last one is Gotenks. Also, he IS the Devil/God.
A blatant example in the third episode of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Other spells can be explained with Yuuno teaching her, a new trick she learned based on an old one as part of her Training From Hell, a part of her Bigger Stick, or something she picked up during ten years of experience, but where did she learn Raising Heart's Shooting Mode and Area Search? The writers rallied themselves though. The former quickly became Nanoha's main offense while the latter made a reappearance as a Chekhovs Skill for a truly awesome moment.
Happens occasionally in Sailor Moon.

Comic Books

Superman. He started out faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and invulnerable to anything less than a bomb. Since then he's learned to fly, to blow like a hurricane, to survive nuclear explosions, chill things with a puff of breath, shoot lasers from his eyes, and use X-Ray Vision. And that's just the powers that have lasted: during the Silver Age, he gained a new power nearly every month (Super Ventriloquism was bad. Being able to travel through time as easily as he could fly was worse). The super-breath, at least, is a logical extension of someone with the kind of lungs he must have... although, even so, he really shouldn't be able to do more than emit a single shock-wave of air; he may have a super-strong diaphragm but his lungs aren't any bigger than human lungs.
- The movies were even worse with this. The most gratuitous new power was probably Superman IV: The Quest For Peace's "Rebuild-the-Great-Wall-Of-China-vision", but the weirdest may have been the "Saran-wrap-S-shield" in Superman II.
  - Kryptonians suddenly also have the ability to teleport/blink at will, and shoot kinetic beams from their hands in Superman II as well.
- Webwriter Seanbaby effectively skewers this trope on his Superfriends page, as follows: "Superman had at least 150 powers, and the writers were making up two or three more every episode. If a script called for it, Superman would leak paste out of his ears that can control the weather. His fingernails might cure cancer and create food, he may never remember."
- Superman's Mirror Universe counterpart Ultraman actually has this as his superpower: exposure to Kryptonite, rather than harming him, causes him to develop new abilities.
  - And Red Kryptonite (occasionally, in some continuities) lets the "regular" Superman develop new abilities, albeit temporary ones.
- Two Words:Super Weaving
- In one strip, Lois is going blind and she wants to see a play based on herself before this happens. But the play is only a script, so Superman uses super-puppetry to make it appear that actors are performing on stage (Lois' vision is blurred so she doesn't notice.) He also uses "super-memory" to learn the script, even though he could just read it given that he's offstage.
Spider-Man's archfoe The Green Goblin is able to come Back From The Dead (via Waking Up At The Morgue) thanks to a healing factor he wasn't even aware he retained.
- To be fair, it's not surprising that he'd be unaware of a power he had to die to use.
- Spiderman also has in his rogue's gallery a villain called "The Answer", whose powers are defined as "whatever is necessary in the current situation".
Martian Manhunter was prone to this, at times having the power to control magnetism, strain gold from water, and create ice cream with his mind.
- Best. Superpower. EVER.
Spawn was able to pull pretty much any kind of power he wanted out of thin air.
X-Men's Marrow had her heart torn off her body by Storm, but later was revealed to be alive. How? Spare heart.
- Which still doesn't explain how she survived having a fist sized hole in the chest, which didn't leave behind any scars.
  - When your power is pulling your bones out through your skin, a Healing Factor is a Required Secondary Power, otherwise her own abilities would have killed her long ago.
In the Legion of Super Heroes supporting characters, Duplicate Boy had the ability to copy any power he wanted, including those he made up. Of course, his abilities were rarely used properly by the writers.
- The villain Nemesis Kid had the ability to temporarily gain whatever power he needed to fight any single opponent. This one was used just as badly; he was killed in hand-to-hand combat by Queen Projectra — without her using her illusion powers — the only given reason why his ability didn't provide him with invulnerability as well as immunity to illusions was being too intimidated to concentrate on activating his power. One would suppose he would gain invulnerability against physical attacks against any foe capable of throwing a punch... And no, he never fought Duplicate Boy.
- Simple. He could only counter one power set at a time. Otherwise he could just have abilities to beat Superman a few times, and be omnipotent.
The Doom Patrol villain "The Quiz" had "every power you haven't thought of". Literally; to fight her, you had to start shouting power names so she couldn't use them.
Inverted in an arc of Exiles in which the team arrives on an Earth where the Skrulls have ruled since the 19th century, and several of them are thrown into a gladiator arena to fight other superpowered beings. Mimic, a mutant with the power to copy and hold onto the abilities of up to five other mutants, strikingly showcases "all four" of his various powers as he fights his way to higher tiers of the arena, until he finally comes up against "The Champion", that universe's version of Captain America. The Skrulls are expecting an epic fight, when Mimic ends it in ten seconds by letting loose optic blasts he copied from the X-Men's Cyclops. The reader knows he has this power (if he's been paying attention), but the audience is shocked.
While not powers, per se, Batman seems to always have that one thing in his utility belt that saves the day, despite there never being mention of it before. This was especially true in the Silver Age and on the TV Show (Bat-Shark Repellant). Fans have come to expect him to have all sorts of basic toys there (as well as a chunk of kryptonite in a lead-lined pouch because you can't be too careful), and the better writers either have him specifically preparing for a fight or have him MacGyver a solution out of things you would expect him to have.
Captain Everything from normalman was the most powerful being on the planet Levram simply because he could defy all laws of physics, exhibiting a new power at every plot twist. Of course, this is just one of the ways in which he's a parody of Superman.
Also from the DCU, Infinity Man had the ill-explained power to, uh (googling it), bend all natural laws. He can modify the atomic structure of things. Good.
Resurrection Man's powers were literally dictated by the plot; anytime he died, he would come back immediately possessing some power that would have allowed him to survive what killed him. Drop him off a cliff, now he can fly, shoot him, now he's bulletproof, etc.
- New Spider-Man foe The Freak has the same ability.
- As does Doomsday, the only monster to ever kill Superman- except he develops new abilities that counter anything that harms him. At one point, he develops bony ear coverings to counter a powerful sonic gun.
Dial H for Hero was based around a mysterious dial that enables an ordinary person to become a superhero for a short time, by selecting the letters H-E-R-O in order. Each time it is used, the dial causes its possessor to become a superhero with a different name, costume, and powers.
In the children's comic Korgi, the magic corgi spontaneously develops the ability to breathe fire.
Darkhawk is an interesting variant on this trope, in the sense that Chris Powell didn't get an instruction manual along with the fancy amulet that transforms him into Darkhawk, so he ended up discovering many of his powers by trial and error, most notably in reacting to new and stressful situations.

Film

Lampshaded in the film Sky High, when the hero is thrown out a window by the villain, and hero suddenly flies back in. Just about everyone is surprised, including the hero.
- Though to be fair, his mother's primary superpower was flight, so at least it's somewhat justified. Also, the school nurse tells him early in the film that sometimes kids of supers get one power, sometimes they get both, and very rarely get neither.
The Heisei Gamera series deconstructed this trope completely. Gamera reveals in the second film to have a "Mana Cannon" that obleterates the enemy of that film. It is learned in the final film that using that attack drained the Earth of its health, and releasing a hoard of Gyaos upon the planet. It is also learned that Gamera bonded with humans in order to gain the ability to mutate and get new powers such as the Mana Cannon and Flame Absorbing powers—but the Mana Cannon cost him that connection to humanity as well! This causes him to ignore Property Damage as he hunts the Gyaos.
Justified (or, more accurately, Hand Waved) in The Dark Crystal. At the moment when it would be most convenient, one of the two main characters, who are the last of their kind, exposes wings and starts to fly. They have this matter-of-fact conversation:
Jen: Wings? I don't have wings.
Kira: Of course not. You're a boy.
In Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Roger Rabbit meta-explains his ability to escape his handcuffs easily, when he left them to help stabilize the table as Eddie Valiant was trying to saw them off.
Eddie Valiant: You mean you could've taken your hand out of that cuff at any time?!
Roger Rabbit: NO! Not at any time - only when it was funny.

Literature

Parodied in Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, in which our heroes create a comic strip character, The Escapist, just before the start of World War II. He begins as a detective-escapologist character. By the later years of the war, he's pulling tanks apart with his bare hands.
Anita Blake is the best example of this ever, having morphed from a simple animator/necromancer in the book series to...frankly, this editor lost track of them all a long time ago. But in pretty much every big confrontation, she gets a new Power of the Month.
- These days, they all require her to have sex to activate, in a weird, squicky Character Derailment that is why this editor hasn't read one all the way through since Obsidian Butterfly.
  - In every single book, Anita pulls a new power out of her ass, spends a bit in the hospital from "overdoing it", and from then on can use the power whenever. As to character derailment, when you start out with an Author Avatar Canon Sue who has a flirtatious relationship with the vampire that wants to mind-rape her, it's hard to say that the characterization train was ever on the tracks.
  - This is kind of Laurell Hamilton's thing in general. Merry Gentry does the exact same thing. In her case it may almost be justified, since the whole point to the character is supposed to be that she awakens the ancient powers of Faerie (apparently by having lots of sex), but she not only pulls a new power out for herself in practically every book, she also gives other characters sudden new superpowers, most of which are awfully convenient to the plot.
In the second book of the Night Watch series, we are introduced to a character called "the Mirror", who is capable of becoming more powerful and acquiring complex magical abilities in order to match whatever situation he is facing at the time. It is justified due to the fact that a Mirror is formed from the magical Twilight for the specific purpose of redressing imbalances in the power structure of the magical Others, and once that goal is accomplished, it ceases to exist.
The resolution of the Telzey Amberdon story "Resident Witch" relies on Telzey's psychic powers including the ability to Body Surf, despite no previous indication that she could do this.
Richard, in the Sword Of Truth series.

Live Action TV

Spock was a master of this. In various episodes (and movies) of Star Trek, he suddenly demonstrated the abilities of mind-melding, the Vulcan nerve pinch, a light-protective nictating membrane, and a detachable soul that would allow him to later come back from the dead. Absolutely none of these were telegraphed before he absolutely needed them (as opposed to say, Wesley Crusher being told he had a great destiny by the Traveler long before he pulled the ability to stop time out of his ass.) This, plus his refusal to admit that his parents were the ambassador and his wife or that he had to have sex with his wife or he'd die, make it almost plausible that as of Star Trek V he could have had a long-lost half brother he never told anyone about. Almost.
- By the end of the Sarek novel by A.C.Crispin, it's abundantly clear that Vulcans are far superior to Puny Earthlings. Vulcans have great strength, touch-telepathy, peacefulness, control over body functions, mental timers, incredible memory, martial arts training, etc. Their infants don't cry, either.
- The great strength and touch-telepathy are Canon. So is the martial-arts training, sort of. The peacefulness is directly related to the martial-arts training (Vulcans get pretty darn violent without it).
- Oh, and in Voyager, Pon Farr is contagious: B'Ellanna gets it. She's her own champion in her mating fight...
  - This troper recalls that the Vulcan who wanted her was undergoing Pon Farr himself at the time, and hit B'Ellanna with a mind-meld that temporarily triggered a similar mental short-circuit in her brain.
- Klingons get some of this once they cease being Always Chaotic Evil. For instance, in the Next Generation episode "Ethics," ~~an operation gone wrong~~ a shaky camera accident breaks Worf's spine, paralyzing him. During the experimental operation to replace his spine, something goes wrong, and he goes braindead. For a moment, it looks like disaster; then his other ~~spine~~ neural system kicks in.
  - After correcting that horrible mess, I must point out that, in all fairness, this was telegraphed the whole episode by pointing out that Klingons have twice what they need of everything.
- Data from Star Trek:TNG was always coming up with new tricks. This Troper'sfavorite example is from ~~"At the Rialto"~~ "The Royale" when he discovers the loaded dice then spontaneously reloads them.
  - I just assumed that he was calculating the precise angle and force with which he would have to throw them to compensate for their loaded-ness. Or maybe he is secretly full of nanotechnology or something...
  - He squeezes them. I think we're supposed to get the impression that he's shifting their weight, but he could be somehow gauging their densities...
In the first appearance of the Tenth Doctor in Doctor Who, the Doctor gets his hand chopped off in a sword fight. Luckily he remembers that he has enhanced Healing Factor shortly after a regeneration and grows back his hand.
- Of course, the Doctor's ability to regenerate is the result of the show's creators needing a way to explain the actor switch from William Hartnell to Patrick Troughton.
- Justified in later series because the hand becomes a plot point at many different times, as does the concept of regeneration energy itself. However, he still seems to have acquired an ability to take a lot more damage than he used to - the 6th regenerated by falling from an exercise bike.
  - Yes, and it was incredibly lame.
  - No, the Sixth Doctor was killed when his (then practically defenseless) ship was fired on by a much better TARDIS and he was hurtled from the exercise bike and his skull was cracked on the console. Unfortunately Mel survived. The death was off-screen because Colin Baker refused to come back for a regeneration scene after being unfairly fired.
This happens to the ghosts from Ghost Whisperer a lot. Sometimes it gets a brief explanation. Usually not.
Smallville's Chloe Sullivan. Ret-conned into having super-powers in the first place, she initially develops healing powers and then "super-intelligence" which manifests as a machine-like ability to run search algorithms in her head.

Tabletop RPGs

This is such a prevalent trope that most superhero RP Gs have some sort of mechanic to represent it. For instance, the RPG Mutants & Masterminds has a Hero Point mechanic that allows you to turn one of your superpowers into another for a single use. While keeping the new power "in theme" with your other abilities is encouraged, it isn't strictly necessary...
Parodied in Paranoia by the aptly-named "Deus Ex Machina Man".

Video Games

In Knights Of The Old Republic 2, the protagonist finds himself in dire straits as he is put into a cell full of poisonous gas. Just as all hope seems lost, one of your Jedi allies contacts you telepathically, and quickly teaches you in the Jedi art of Guybrush-caliber breath-holding.
- Even more jarring than that is the simple fact that the deadly poisonous gas does so little damage that you can easily walk around in it with no protection at all. You just have to use the healing force power or a medipack every so often. What's even more jarring is that an earlier optional quest requires you to enter the bar in question before you wreak havoc there, and you can run around with just a breath mask on. But if you put a breath mask on the time the main plot requires you to enter there, you will still suffer no damage, but the cutscene will ignore this fact.
  - Kinda-sorta Truth In Television. Some poisonous gases only affect the body if inhaled, while others merely require skin contact. The former are usually naturally occuring, while the latter are often synthetic, which fits, as entering the bar normally simply exposes the Exile to naturally-occuring gases, while the bar's owners are deliberately gassing the Exile when you go in later on.
This happens to Seere in Drakengard as part of a ludicrous Hand Wave that was necessary because they were all doomed, and the ending couldn't be "Everyone was eaten."

Webcomics

Aylee from Sluggy Freelance gets this a lot due to periodically undergoing some involuntary Shape Shifting. At various points she's gained the ability to regenerate, fly, breathe fire, extend and retract poison spikes, and emit electro-magnetic pulses. She loses most of her old abilities whenever she assumes a new form, however, so it hasn't made her overpowered.

Western Animation

Avatar The Last Airbender, usually in the form of "what can their Elemental Powers effect". Katara learns to heal with Waterbending after being burned, Toph invents Metalbending (supposed to be impossible) because she is trapped in a metal box, and Aang ~~finds a way~~ is taught to Spiritbend to take away Phoenix King Ozai's Firebending abilities without killing him.
- To be fair, humans are made up mostly of water so it isn't that far fetched for a water bender to heal and the fact that water is often associated with healing, and Toph was 'bending' the impurities inside of the metal.
- Don't forget about Azula's jets which enable her to fly just as good as an airbender and her new ability to foil living lie detectors, even with super obvious lies.
  - The jets were hinted at in the Season 2 final, but I see the point. But, seriously, Azula was making a silly statement, not telling a lie that would get anyone's heart pumping (which is how Toph can tell when someone is lying).
  - Azula's 'ability' to tell lies without her pulse reacting seems to be a combination of her skill in manipulation (some people trained to lie, such as politicians don't show up on lie detectors) and a side effect of her sociopatic disorder.
A frequent element used in Danny Phantom where the main hero will often get new powers that'll ultimately help him in the end, one of the most blatant being his ghostly wail and ice ability.
On Teen Titans, Raven can do pretty much whatever she wants depending on the situation. She mainly relies on flight and telekinesis, but has demonstrated the ability to use clairvoyance, stop time, pass through walls, see brief glimpses of the future and change her appearance to a monster to "persuade" a villain to help them, among other things. This may be partially justified, because her powers are magic-based.
While The Galaxy Trio had consistent enough powers for Gravity Girl (play with gravity, usually by making things fly) and Meteor Man (grow parts of body, super strength follows), Vapor Man seemed able to do just about anything by attaching "-vapor" to the end. This included, but was not limited to: combustible vapor, freezing vapor, storm vapor (read: lightning), explosion vapor, and steam.
Artha and Beau from Dragon Booster displayed this a lot. It was explained that Beau had many hidden powers that would manifest themselves with training and experience. This, however, does not explain why the majority of these powers only appeared for one episode and then vanished for the rest of the series-especially jarring in the case of Artha and Beau fusing together at the climax of one episode, as the theme of combining abilities was central to the series.
In an episode of Doug, Doug quickly regrets inviting Skeeter in on creating a story about his superhero alter ego Quailman when Skeeter's own avatar the Silver Skeeter starts pulling powers out of his ass left and right.
When Pirates of Dark Water was a miniseries, Tula was just a talented thief. When it got picked up as a series, she quickly gained heretofore unknown (even to her) powers of 'ecomancy,' effectively making her the heart kid from Captain Planet, but more with plants.
Balrog has lots and lots of powers...
Ben 10 Alien Force: The Omnitrix's ability to repair genetic damage, first seen in "Max Out".
- For that matter, the Omnitrix talking, from the same ep.