Badass Transplant

She's got a leg up on everyone else at the firing range.

The Badass Transplant is when a character's awesome abilities aren't innate, but equipped. The hallmark of a Badass Transplant is that the part transplanted is significantly more badass than the rest of him, or even the source of his abilities entirely, and not something he obtained naturally. It might be mechanical, magical, or even possessed.

If the transplant is from a particularly powerful entity, it might result in a Deadly Upgrade, a Superpowered Evil Side, or turn on its wielder. Frequent overlaps with Artificial Limbs, Artificial Limbs Are Stronger, Arm Cannon, and Superhuman Transfusion. Acquiring one may be the motive for someone Working for a Body Upgrade.

Although organic parts almost always apply, weapon upgrades don't unless used previously by a proven badass. (For example, Mega Man X getting an upgrade isn't a Badass Transplant, but getting Zero's Z-Saber is; the saber itself is badass.)

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Berserk, Guts replaces the left forearm that he lost during the Eclipse with a metal replacement that can smash opponents senseless and mount a repeating crossbow. As a bonus, it's got a built-in cannon.
• In Blue Ramun, the Garicalege are a group of Fantastic Terrorists who traffic in the magically curative blood of the Blue Doctors of the Silkdeep Empire. Multiple high-ranking members of the Garicalege have swapped out their limbs for transplants from wolves, lions, and even dragons in order to make themselves stronger, faster, more powerful, and more lethal in combat.
  • Rowan, the leader of the Garicalege, has replaced his left arm with a hulking, clawed transplant from a Fire Dragon.
  • Rowan's 2nd in command Tisuodo is able to summon a dragon/snake headed prosthesis to replace his missing right arm.
  • An unnamed subordinate is shown with digitigrade legs that enable him to run faster than a normal human.
• In Buso Renkin, Kazuki's powers stem from the Kakugane he uses as an artificial heart.
• In Claymore, all Claymores become badass due a piece of yoma flesh which is transplanted into their body. The transplant gradually alters their body until they become the half-yoma warriors.
• The Dragon Slayers of Fairy Tail were taught by dragons to use their Elemental Powers like a dragon would, but the Second Generation Dragon Slayers such as Laxus, Cobra and God Serena instead have these abilities due to Dragon Lacrima implanted into their bodies. Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest takes it further by revealing Dragon Lacrima is created from the processed hearts of Dragons, with Laxus' in particular belonging to the Lightning Dragon King Elexion, who happened to be killed by Georg Raizen of Diabolos (who in turn preserved the heart with the intent of selling it off, which is how Laxus' dad Ivan got it) before having his flesh devoured by the Dragon Eater Kirin.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • Scar has his older brother's arm, tattooed with alchemical markings that allow him to destroy anything with a touch. Said brother transplanted that arm on Scar's by himself, with alchemy, to save a young Scar from bleeding out after having been horribly mutilated by Kimblee in the Ishbalan massacre.
  • The main character, Edward Elric, wears a prosthetic arm that he can transmute into a wrist-mounted blade.
  • Then there's Ling getting Greed injected into him.
• Inuyasha:
  • Inverted with Sesshomaru, who goes through a bunch of replacement arms (including a dragon claw) all which were weaker than his original arm, before giving up on the idea. He only needs one, anyway. Then his body regenerates a new arm for him deep into the manga.
  • Played straight in the movie Swords of an Honorable Ruler with Takemaru, who grafts Sesshomaru's severed left arm onto his body as part of his partnership with the demonic sword Sou'unga.
• The Kamen Rider Spirits version of Riderman. Prosthetic arm? Check. Rope Arm (to grab things at a distance; think Link's Hookshot)? Check. Power Arm (a giant claw)? Check. Drill Arm (go on, guess)? Check. Machine Gun Arm? Check. The ability to chain them together to break through some nigh-unbreakable armor? Score one for the (nearly-)normal guy.
• Kinnikuman: During the Dream Tag Arc, Kinnikuman tries to save Mongolman from the Hell Missionaries' Cross Bomber attack and gets his arm wrecked. Buffaloman offers his remaining longhorn, and it is remade into a new arm bone from Kinnikuman's skeleton. This grants Kin remarkable punching power from that arm. When it looks like Kin might fall from a cliff, the arm punches itself into the cliff wall and saves Kin.
• Naruto:
  • Kakashi has a transplanted Sharingan, and is so skilled with it that one of his nicknames is "Sharingan Kakashi". He eventually develops the Mangekyo, allowing him to send anything he looks at into another dimension.
  • Similarly, Danzo replaced his missing eye with a Sharingan. On top of that, he implanted even more Sharingan into his right arm so he could utilize their reality-altering genjutsu Izanagi.
  • The Mangekyo Sharingan allows its user to access special high-power techniques, but extensive use renders the wielder blind. The Eternal Mangekyo allows access to those abilities without the downside but requires the eyes be transplanted from another Sharingan user, preferably one with the Mangekyo activated.
  • The Fifth Mizukage's right-hand man Ao has his right eye replaced by a stolen Byakugan. This is what led to the discovery of Danzo having a Sharingan replacing his own right eye. Ao's Byakugan is considered so valuable to the Hidden Mist that he goes to great lengths to protect it, from hiding its existence with an eyepatch to applying sealing jutsu that make it nearly impossible for an enemy to physically remove it. Once Danzo discovers its existence, he becomes obsessed with stealing the Byakguan to replace his own left eye, and his Epic Fail in this pursuit is what solidifies Danzo's status as a mere Big Bad Wannabe.
  • The First Hokage's cells have become a major source of game-breaking transplants due to their impressive ability to regenerate. Aside from their use in creating Zetsu and his clones, they've also been used to:
    • Replace Danzo's right arm.
    • Replace Tobi's right arm and leg.
    • Replace the majority of Orochimaru's body.
    • Act as life support for Madara.
  • The Cursed Seal created by Orochimaru is apparently a very small Badass Transplant. It consists of his cells and allows the user to utilize Juugo's bloodline. On a more sinister note, Orochimaru can divide his consciousness among the Seals and regenerate his body using the stored cells.
  • Tobi has multiple Sharingan due to having "acquired" the eyes of multiple Uchiha that he killed and stole from during the Uchiha Massacre, though he usually just swaps them out with the used ones for his Izanagi jutsu while keeping the rest locked up. His main Sharingan, which is also his Mangekyo Sharingan that allows him to send others and himself into an alternate dimension, is not a transplant but his original. You might notice that it's very similar to Kakashi's own transplanted eye... He also stole the Rinnegan from Nagato's corpse and implanted one in himself in place of his spare Sharingan, having discovered he lacked the ability to control both eyes at once. Madara later reveals Nagato's Rinnegan was also a transplant, as they were originally Madara's eyes.
  • The Rinnegan itself is the result of a transplant. When Madara implanted himself with Hashirama's cells, their unique chakras interacted and recreated the chakra of the Sage of Six Paths, allowing the Rinnegan to manifest.
• In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Kittan uses Gurren Lagann's drill to destroy the Death Spiral Machine.
• In Tokyo Ghoul, a human young man named Ken Kaneki receives multiple organ transplants from the ghoul Rize Kamishiro and starts to develop ghoulish powers.
• Legato's People Puppets ability in the anime of Trigun is possible because he has Vash's arm (in the manga, there's another explanation: microscopic wires inserted into peoples' bodies to control their nervous systems).
• In Witchblade Takeru a young man was rather shocked to discover that the new skin on his arm is transplanted from his girlfriend. Then that she's already regenerated it. Then that she's a half-demon. It has some interesting effects, including changes on the rest of his arm. But probably worse than it would be if this wasn't the hand with which he wields his magical demon-slaying sword. Oops.
• Hiei from YuYu Hakusho and his Jagan eye. It's an inversion, though; his Jagan actually made him weaker, a lot, it did however gave him some new abilities. It eventually becomes a straight example, as Hiei eventually surpasses his original power level even without taking the Jagan into consideration.

Comic Books

• Justice League of America: The supervillain Prometheus can allow a download of the knowledge and physical skills of others directly into his brain via a compact disc; his default disc includes the skills of thirty of the world's greatest martial artists.
• Marvel Universe:
  • From Captain America, Bucky Barnes got significantly more badass when his destroyed left arm was replaced with a metal one and he became the legendary Winter Soldier.
  • The Weapon X program gave Deadpool an infusion of Wolverine's DNA to cure his cancer, which had the side effect of making Deadpool immortal. Unfortunately, it also made his cancer immortal.
  • Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk got her powers by way of a blood transfusion from her cousin Bruce.
  • This is the shtick of Terror from Terror Inc. — he can replace lost body parts with limbs and organs taken from other organisms. He then gains the skills and abilities of the person or being to whom the "borrowed" part belongs.
  • This is the gimmick of the U-Men, a cult of mutant wannabes opposed to the X-Men who hunt mutants for grafts and transplants, such as x-ray eyes or electric blood.
• The Metabarons has the titular family graft Cyborg parts into their bodies which grant them greater combat skill. The Metabaron Steelhead stands above them all by getting his head shot off, and having a metallic head transplanted on him.

Films — Live-Action

• Bloodshot (2020): KT, Tibbs, Dalton, and Harting have artificial limbs which grant them increased abilities. KT has an artificial respirator in her clavicle that filters out toxic inhalants and enables her to breathe underwater. Tibbs has artificial eyes which allow him to not only see 360 degrees around him but also simultaneously see through camera drones. Dalton's artificial legs allow him to run as fast as the nanite-powered Ray and even wall run when needed. Harting's arm is stronger than a normal arm and also allows him to remotely monitor and control his technology.
• Captain Marvel (2019): Carol Danvers received superhuman powers due to a Kree blood transfusion. Subverted, as her powers came from a Tesseract-powered faster-than-light drive exploding in her face, although Yon-Rogg did give Carol some of his blood.
• The MacGuffin in DOA: Dead or Alive was a pair of sunglasses that allowed the wearer to use the combined skills of the fighters whose moves were recorded into the device.
• Evil Dead's Ash and his trademark chainsaw, starting with the second film.
• Kingsman:
  • Kingsman: The Secret Service has Gazelle with her chop-ready blade heels.
  • Kingsman: The Golden Circle provides a scenario of Charlie Hesketh with his cybernetic arm, nicknamed arm-ageddon.
• Cherry Darling in Planet Terror, pictured above, gets a machine gun/grenade launcher pegleg after losing her real leg.
• RoboCop may be considered the final form of this.
• In Spare Parts, the protagonists are kidnapped by a cult staging Gladiator Games, who cut off their right hands and replace them with mounts upon which they can attach various weapons ranging from blades to flamethrowers.

Literature

• Corum kicks off the transition of the titular Corum from a pampered noble into a walking disaster zone when he loses his hand and his eye, which subsequently get replaced by the Hand of Kwll and the Eye of Rhynn, which allow him to see into other dimensions and call up undead servants from them. He has to give both up in the end, and settles for a man-made silver prosthetic in his second trilogy of adventures.
• Cradle Series: The most common way of dealing with a missing limb is to replace it with a limb from a compatible Remnant. Remnant prosthetics have a number of unique properties, depending on the exact type, and often come with a binding, which is essentially when a Remnant used a specific technique so much that it became engraved in their soul. The binding lets someone else use an extra technique. When Lindon gets his arm cut off during his duel with Jai Long (as an alternative to being killed outright), he attaches an arm with a Hunger binding. At first this is only moderately useful, but eventually he is able to upgrade it into a full Cannibalism Superpower that lets him steal power and even memories from enemies.
• In Fate/Apocrypha, Saber of Black (Siegfried) transfers his heart and sacrifices his life to a dying homunculus to save him. The reason this doesn't kill the homunculus is because, as an Artificial Human, his soul is described as a "blank canvas" that can integrate the heart safely, and in exchange he even gains the ability to transform into Siegfried for a limited amount of time. However, it turns out each transformation results in Siegfried's heart slowly overwriting his current existence permanently and shaving at his lifespan, and ultimately it turns him into an actual dragon.
• Machine Man has Dr. Charles Neumann, who begins with one, then a pair of powerful prosthetic legs that can not only leap tall buildings In a Single Bound, but also kick down reinforced steel doors. His team also designs powerful arms that end up attached to the Security Guard, Carl.
• Deliberately invoked by Tsavong Lah in New Jedi Order. His people, the Yuuzhan Vong, use transplanted limbs all the time, but after Lah's foot gets torn off in a duel, he goes for something special. He kills a Vua'sa (a nearly unkillable predator from his homeworld) with his bare hands and tears off one of its feet to replace his own. His subordinates were... impressed, to say the least.

Live-Action TV

• Kamen Rider:
  • Riderman from Kamen Rider V3 is apparently a normal dude in a powered suit... with a prosthetic right arm from the elbow down. Said arm can change forms into a rope-based arm, a giant claw, and a drill — at least in the live-action versions of him. He's not nearly as powerful as V3 himself, but makes up for it in effort.
  • The Alternate Universe version of Riderman from Kamen Rider Decade adds a new weapon to his arsenal: an extremely powerful Arm Cannon.

Mythology & Religion

• In Celtic Mythology, Nuada, the first king of the gods, lost his arm in battle. He later was given a new arm made of silver that worked and moved just like a real one. This is how he came to be known as "Nuada Silver Arm."

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • Among the artifact-level magic items available are the Hand of Vecna and the Eye of Vecna, which were formerly body parts of a powerful lich. To use one of these items, a character must first remove the appropriate part from his or her own body. Rumors of an artifact called the "Head of Vecna" should probably be disregarded as the invention of a sadistic PC with a sick sense of humor.
  • There are also dozens of grafts and symbionts, plus the Half-Golem template, most of which grant some sort of special attack or defense.
• Eclipse Phase: The cyberlimb isn't all that awesome, since its sole source of advantage is that it's slightly more armoured than your regular arm, but a cyberlimb plus with cyberclaws, a hand laser, and implanted nanotoxins is a thing you don't want to get hit with.
• You can do this in Genius: The Transgression. It may be a sin against Obligation, but who needs a Karma Meter when you have a massive death talon for your left arm?
• In Hunter: The Vigil, this is the Cheiron group's specialty. What do you want? Demonic eyes that can see into the very depths of a man's soul? Trivial. A personal defence swarm of angry magical insects embedded into your arm? Child's play. A rotten human hand that can shoot fire, and hypnotize those that look at it? Why the hell not?
• The Golenau of Princess: The Hopeful inhabit specialized Vessels composed of a mixture of flesh and clay, and each flesh part allows the Golenau to borrow certain of its "donor's" skills. For this reason, Stormwracked are known to sometimes hunt down and kill six or seven victims, taking one body part from each in order to create an exceptionally skilled Vessel.
• Warhammer 40,000:
  • Space Marines obtain their superhuman abilities via surgical procedures that implant various new organs inside which also give them new features like acid breath and bulletproof ribcages. So important are they that dead Marines are always retrieved from the battlefield in order to save their geneseed which will then be implanted in new Marines (if circumstances allow, otherwise the Apothecaries just rip them back out).
  • Amongst the humans of the Imperial Guard, Commissar Yarrick lost an arm fighting the Orks on Armageddon. So what does he do? He rips off an Ork Warboss' klaw and now uses that as a replacement limb.

Video Games

• BlazBlue:
  • Ragna's replacement arm formed from the corpse of an Eldritch Abomination. And his second transplant. Though not quite to the Eldritch Abomination levels of the Azure Grimore, he receives an arm made from whats left of Lambda 11's regeneration tank.
  • Naoto Kurogane gets his right arm replaced with that made out of the blood of a vampire (twice), which allows him to use his own blood as a weapon.
• The characters in Cyberpunk 2077 are regular humans at their core, and many of them are skilled fighters and hackers in their own right, but most of their badassness comes from their advanced cybernetic implants. Netrunning would be impossible without the required implants, and not even the best Solo could force armored doors with their bare hands or deflect bullets with their natural skin, but the right implants make it possible.
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution: Adam Jensen is much more badass after having his arms replaced with bionic ones, among other things. Most of them weren't even needed to save his life and were installed for the sole purpose of making him the most badass cyborg created by Sarif Industries.
• Fate Series:
  • Fate/stay night has Shirou get Archer's arm (lovingly called GARm in several communities) in the Heaven's Feel scenario, which doubles as a Deadly Upgrade. Although oddly enough, it's still his own arm, just a bit older. That's the only reason the transplant was successful, and even then it's still going to kill him, just not instantly.
  • Fate/Grand Order: Hassan of the Cursed Arm managed to slay a shaytan and transplanted one of its arms as his current right, resulting in his namesake and allowing him to become one of the Hassan.
• Barret from Final Fantasy VII (as well as the remake) lost his arm and had it replaced with an upgradable gun-arm, which is naturally upgraded throughout the game.
• Gene's eponymous God Hand; his Evil Counterpart Azel possesses the other arm of the pair. Then Gene gets both of them as an 11th-Hour Superpower.
• In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III, the reason why Rean has a Superpowered Evil Side is because Osborne transplanted his heart to Rean and that he can do it because Osborne's not human.
• In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Link's right arm and the Master Sword it held were terminally corroded by Ganondorf's Gloom moments after the seal on the latter entity failed. The right arm of Rauru, king of the Zonai, thus Fused itself onto Link as a replacement to save his life, and it grants him abilities that differ from the Sheikah Slate from his last adventure.
• MadWorld: Jack Cayman got his right arm replaced with a mechanical one with a retractable chainsaw inside. The chainsaw itself is sharp enough to cut bullets and even a flatbed train car out of the air.
• Shepard's extensive body modification courtesy of Cerberus in Mass Effect 2 make him/her much, much cooler than normal humans.
• Metal Gear:
  • In Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Punished "Venom" Snake gets a prosthetic arm that can do a number of things with different upgrades, including sonar, a taser, and even a rocket punch.
  • Before him, Vladimir Zadornov had one just like it in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, complete with a built-in lighter and the aforementioned rocket punch.
  • In Metal Gear Solid, Gray Fox has much of his entire body reconstructed to be faster and stronger, turning him into the iconic Cyborg Ninja. As of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, the same thing happens to Raiden.
  • In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Revolver Ocelot replaces the arm that was cut off by the aforementioned Cyborg Ninja in the first game with that of Liquid Snake. Unfortunately for him, all it does is allow Liquid's spirit to possess him from time to time or, so it seems.
• Planescape: Torment has eyes that act as equipment for the Nameless One. He equips them by ripping out his old one and sticking the new one in its socket.
• Albert Wesker of Resident Evil fame was a genius and skilled soldier at first, but it was the injection of an experimental virus that gave him his super strength, ability to dodge bullets, and overall Nigh-Invulnerability.
• In Shining Resonance, Ette's Magical Eye is revealed to be actually in possession of his surviving twin sister Marion, as after Ette's death Jocahim decided to make sure it wouldn't go to waste and forcibly implanted it into Marion before brainwashing her into thinking she was Ette to make the integration process easier as his puppet.
• World of Warcraft:
  • Kargath Bladefist and the rest of the Shattered Hand orcs in Warlords of Draenor have had their left hand replaced with a weapon after breaking their original hands off to escape their shackles while in ogre captivity.
  • Similarly, Malkorok in Mists of Pandaria sports a sword for a right hand when he's fought in the Underhold.
• In XCOM: Enemy Within, MEC Troopers voluntarily get their limbs amputated... so they can replace their flesh and blood limbs with this thing◊.
• Yakuza: Dead Souls: After losing his arm to a fight with Kazuma Kiryu, Ryuji Goda got a mechanical prosthesis that also contains a Gatling gun.

Visual Novels

• In Marco & the Galaxy Dragon, Marco loses an arm to Astaroth. Pandagraph implants one of Arco's teeth into the arm before surgically reattaching it, causing Marco to gain some of Arco's powers.

Web Animation

• Red vs. Blue: In Season 10, an Insurrectionist soldier manages to survive an orbital strike from the previous season with nothing more than a lost arm, which he replaces with a mechanical one. It's fast and strong enough to catch a grenade from the Meta's brute shot out of the air and throw it back at him.
• The Team Fortress 2 video "Meet the Medic" shows us that the Ubercharge is initiated by implanting the heart of a Mega Baboon with an implant attached in place of the trooper's normal heart (which tends to explode when exposed to the implant's charge).

Webcomics

• Zokusho Comics: Rotting Johnny takes this to a whole new level. He used to be a hitman, but someone blew his hand off. Just as he is considering exiting life via a shotgun, a mage comes to him with an offer of a new hand. The hand works great. Until it starts rotting. Then the rest of his body decides to follow the new hand's lead. On the bright side, he can now graft fresh parts on in place of the rotting ones.

Web Original

• Michael gets this twice in Ather City. Once, after he loses his right arm and gets a replacement made of brimstone, and then Nick builds him a mechanical version. Even before the transplant he was considered the best fighter in the city. After, it's hinted that he could beat anyone in the series if he wanted to. This is after almost every single character takes one or more levels in one thing or another.

Western Animation

• Zachary Foxx from Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers had half his body replaced with experimental cyberware after he was grievously injured in the pilot. Yes, the leg is good for jumping, and the arm has an Arm Cannon built in. However, Zachary is ambivalent about the upgrades; they allow him to be back out in the field, where he can attempt rescuing his wife, but he's not so sure how reliable the cyberware is as it's backfired on him a couple times in-series.
• Justice League: Aquaman starts off with two working hands in "The Enemy Below", but when his brother Orm chains him to a rock and leaves him and Aquaman's son to fall into an underwater magma stream, Aquaman cuts off his own hand to save the life of his son. He replaces it with a hook for the remainder of the series.
• Badgerclops from Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart has a robotic right arm that can morph into anything he needs, be it a laser cannon, buzzsaw, hammer, breadknife, spatula, vacuum, MP3 player, audio diary, videophone, drink dispenser, you get the idea.
• In the Transformers: Prime episode "Alpha and Omega", Megatron has his lower right arm amputated and replaced with one from a deceased Prime, just so he can use the Forge of Solus Prime to forge an evil version of the Star Saber.
• Wakfu:
  • When Qilby the Traitor reveals himself as the season's true Big Bad, he also merges with the Eliacube replacing his missing arm with one made of pure wakfu. Prior to that, he was too weak to confront the heroes. Afterwards, he shows what an adult Eliatrope who has fully mastered their powers can do.
  • Sadlygrove gets his arm bitten off by a Dragon in the Special OVA episodes. In the next season his missing arm is replaced by merging with Rubilax. As an arm, Rubilax acts as a rather snarky and useful shapeshifting weapon.

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