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Your average Badass Normal can take on monsters, supervillains, and cosmic horrors with nothing but intense training and sheer determination. But that other guy can blow things up with his mind. And so can the villains. How could that puny human possibly compete with that? In short, despite his amazing capabilities, the Badass Normal just doesn't seem to be Bad Ass enough. Time for a convenient power upgrade.
He may find some new Applied Phlebotinum, or discover a new power lurking within himself. Perhaps a sudden revelation reveals some otherworldly origin in his background, or he has an encounter with mysterious beings that leaves him forever changed. Or perhaps his badassness just escalates beyond the limits of normal humanity. Either way, an upgrade of this type may be required just so the Badass Normal won't become completely irrelevant compared to his superpowered comrades. If the Sorting Algorithm Of Evil leaves him too far behind, and his role seems to be reduced to getting his ass handed to him, he may otherwise have to be Put On A Bus so he doesn't get in the way.
This discovery of untapped potential can be written well, but in the wrong hands it can fester and grow out of control, creating a Mary Sue monster. This is especially true in Fan Fiction, where the rabid fan has a tendency to accelerate the power of his(or her) favorite character to a point where it exceeds that of the other characters. Giving unnecessary additional powers to an already powerful character in a world where he just happens not to be the absolute most powerful is also common. May involve Hand Waves, an Alternate Universe... Perhaps even a Wall Banger or two.
Can result in Canon Sue. Compare Took A Level In Badass, where a character who was legitimately weak gets a power boost.
Examples:
Anime/Manga
- Naruto's not really a Badass Normal, but far, far too many fanfic authors seem to think that his Superpowered Evil Side isn't enough of an advantage, and give him some sort of uber-Bloodline Limit.
- Sakura also had this and/or other power boosts happen with some regularity, and canon ultimately boosted her as well.
- Rock Lee (a perennial Badass Normal) is also often given powers, making his whole character pointless.
- Akane Tendo from Ranma 1/2 gets power boosts fairly frequently in Fanfic. She got three in the manga proper, as well:
- The legendary Super Strength Soba noodles confer herculean strength; after Akane mistakenly ate Happosai's, she was able to lift, toss, juggle, and split in half multi-ton, two-stories-tall iron bells. Unfortunately, they had the side-effect of sprouting whiskers on her face until she took the antidote.
- The Battle Dougi from the late manga, a sentient suit that unlocks the wearer's ultimate fighting potential. She was able to run rings around Ranma while wearing it.
- A magical swimsuit made from a jellyfish-like substance, which allows the user to swim like a dolphin —not only negating Akane's Super Drowning Skills, but also giving her a speed and coordination that left Ranma wallowing in her wake.
- Mwu La Flaga of Gundam SEED, a rare Natural ace pilot on a battlefield dominated by Gattaca Babies, is eventually revealed to
be a Newtype have "enhanced spatial awareness". And then there's all the hulabaloo about how SEED Mode is not a Super Mode, despite supercharging the pilot AND his Humongous Mecha.
- Arguably, the reason why Zaraki Kenpachi hasn't acheived Bankai is to prevent him from becoming this. Hasn't stopped fanfic writers from trying though. Although in case they need a reminder why thus far he hasn't done any of the special techniques the Shinigami use, it's this
 .
- Dragon Ball Z's plot essentially revolves around this. With every new Big Bad at least one of the characters must become ridiculously more powerful. This procession eventually lead to many characters having enough power to destroy the world, several times over.
- And that's just the Canon alone. Now imagine the Fan Fics.
- What many people seem to forget is that it doesn't really take that much power (relatively speaking) to destroy a planet in DBZ. In fact, just 11 episodes in, Vegeta destroys planet Arlia just because he felt like it, and this is before he ever came to Earth. Not to mention, Roshi could destroy The Moon in Dragon Ball
- And Piccolo destroyed it training for Vegeta's arrival as well.
- Though Buu threatening to destroy the universe with a temper tantrum gives a good feel for how ridiculous things got.
- Darker Than Black stars one. He was known as "The Black Shinigami" even before he ended up with his sister's powers, and in one flashback he completely owned a Contractor in a straight-up fight using only a choke wire, throwing knives, and sheer Bad Ass ninja skills. He still has the aforementioned skills, but now he can also zap the crap out of people.
Comic Books
- An awful lot of Fan Fiction tends to give Batman powers, typically so he can "stand up" to Superman. Some comics do this, too, usually as a one-issue gag or an Elseworld. One Elseworld gave him a Green Lantern Ring—because, as the eventual Demotivator titled "Overpowered" mused, giving the goddamn Batman a weapon based on intelligence, creativity, and willpower◊ seemed like such a good idea at the time.
- This used to come and go for 'Captain America', with him gaining and losing superhuman levels of strength depending on the writers, before it was finally decided that his iconic status in the Marvel Universe was partly founded on him being a slightly-above-pinnacle of human physical ability (being the Living Symbol of America didn't hurt either). I guess that that Super Serum wasn't all that super, though given what Steve Rogers was before then it's still damn impressive. Steve Rogers' power was eventually set at a hair above normal (non-mutant) human maximum.
- This is not the case for the Ultimate Marvel version, however, who was clearly superhuman from the get go.
- Ultimate Origins #1 reveals that, apparently, Nick Fury's incredible badass-ness comes from having been a successful test subject of the Super Soldier Serum. On the one hand, you'd think just being Samuel L Jackson would be enough; on the other, this kinda makes it easier to swallow things like dodging automatic weapons fire in close quarters, or holding his own against Wolverine until Captain America dropped the mutant with a taunt and a grenade. And most of his awesome is in his badass planning, anyway.
- This is at least partially true for the normal Nick Fury, who is Bad Ass and... virtually immortal.
- This happened to a huge number of DC Universe's Golden Age superheroes, either the characters themselves or their legacy successors. Originally, non-powered mystery men were a popular character type back in 40s and all of DC's characters were supposed to be in self-contained continuities. As time passed, the shared universe ties between the characters' series grew stronger and the non-powered character just didn't seem that impressive compared with the powered characters. Since a lot of these characters are fairly obscure, most people didn't really care much if they were reworked. All-Star Squadron was particularly guilty of this.
- The most famous example is Black Canary. Before joining the Justice League, Black Canary had no superpowers, but one issue immediately after joining the Justice League, Black Canary suddenly acquired the Canary Cry, a sonic projection weapon emitted from her mouth. This conflicted so much with her traditional Badass Normal nature, that her solo series and the smaller scale Birds of Prey constantly use Kryptonite Is Everywhere to force her to solve problems without using superpowers.
- Happened to Green Arrow II, Connor Hawke, as of Green Arrow and Black Canary #14, when the genetics manipulation of Dr Sivana granted him with a Healing Factor. It says a lot about the Character Derailment going on in that title that it isn't the reason most fans hate the series for.
- The Atom - Gained ability to increase strength with radiation. Later successors could change size.
- Stars and Stripes - Star Spangled Kid got Starman's cosmic rod and technology, while Stripesy built a mech for himself. Their successor, Stargirl continues to use Starman's technology.
- Wildcat - Got nine lives, legacy successors got cat related powers and could turn into a werecat.
- Firebrand - Legacy successors got fire manipulation powers.
- Liberty Belle - Acquired ability to project sonic vibrations from her hands.
- Phantom Lady - Legacy successor could become invisible.
- The Sandman - Legacy successors had all sorts of super powers.
- Congo Bill - Gained the power to turn into a gorilla.
- Crimon Avenger - Legacy successor is a spirit of vengence with magic guns.
- Red Tornado - Legacy successors could manipulate wind in the form of tornados.
- Blue Beetle - Inverted this and then played it straight. The first blue beetle (Dan Garrett) had super powers from a magic scarab, the second (Ted Kord) couldn't make it work, but the third (Jaime Reyes) goes back to using the scarab.
Film
- King Kong vs. Godzilla gives the gorilla a size upgrade and electrical abilities so that he can stand up to the atomic dinosaur.
- ...This troper never thought he'd ever refer to King Kong as a Badass Normal, but there you go.
- This is a side-effect from the fact that King Kong was originally supposed to be Frankenstein, which would have still fit into this category for making Franky 30 stories tall.
Literature
- In the Harry Potter fandom, the character who usually gets such power ups is — oddly enough — Harry himself, despite being one of the strongest characters to begin with—likely because fans realize he is, on paper, heavily overmatched against Voldemort.
- Rear Admiral (retired) Sam Everheart, U.S.N., in the Whateley Universe, was already a retired Badass Normal before he took out a team of criminals looting a high-tech research facility and got dosed with nanotechnology. Now Hive is strong and fast enough to deal with the mutants at Whateley Academy.
- This is hinted at being the possible future path of
Lieutenant Sergeant Karrin Murphy in The Dresden Files, if she chooses to accept the offer from Big G and become a Knight of the Cross.
- In Talyn by Holly Lisle, the main character of the same name begins with limited use of something called the Hagedwar, a tool which grants the user power restrained only by how well they know how to use said tool. However, as the heat gets turned up, Talyn conveniently learns how to do such extraordinary things with the Hagedwar that she essentially becomes a demigoddess.
Live Action TV
Video Games
Webcomics
- Parodied in Shortpacked!, in which Batman has the ability to breathe in space, based on art in his action packaging which appears to depict him fighting Darkseid in space.
- Bun-Bun was already one of the most dangerous individuals in Sluggy Freelance, having him become a godlike personification of holidays took him way over the top.
- Years into Dan And Mabs Furry Adventures' run, we find out that Dan's wings were the outward signs of his 'Cubi heritage (his mother was apparently a powerful succubus, something that apparently everyone knew except Dan). Now his 'Cubi nature has fully kicked in, granting him assorted new powers ( like shapeshifting) that he's mostly still getting the hang of. (That he refused to stay at the 'Cubi academy and practice full-time probably doesn't help.) Possibly a bit of a subversion in that Dan was an at least somewhat successful adventurer already.
- Sparky from A Girl And Her Fed - already a hulking M.I.B-type, ticks fully over to this trope once The ghost of Ben Franklin reprograms the chip in his head, granting him the ability to talk to and control any net-connected computer system on Earth..
- Victor of Charby The Vampirate is looking more like this, he thinks of himself as human, others don't
- Since magic use is relatively normal in the world of The Order Of The Stick, Vaarsuvius temporarily gaining the combined powers of the three most powerful evil wizards in the underworld could count.
Western Animation
- One episode of The Batman has Batman borrowing Green Lantern's ring to fight Sinestro. He eventually hands it back to GL, saying it isn't his style.
- People like giving Bats the Lantern ring. In Batman: The Brave and the Bold he nearly puts it on for the sake of an even playing field, to the chagrin of Guy Gardner. Sinestro (before his inevitable heel-face turn) half-heartedly agrees, citing regulation, but comes to a compromise by synthesizing a suit that functions as a Lantern's ring would: on willpower. Batman says it's cool; Your Mileage May Vary.
- Since apparently no one can accept that Airbenders are Killed Off For Real in the Avatar fandom, many people write fanfic where various Badass Normal characters turn out to have airbending abilities as well. Ty Lee is a favorite choice for this.
- In Brought Down To Normal plots, there's occasionally an inversion where the formerly superpowered character still fights effectively despite losing his powers — "Brought Down To Badass Normal," perhaps — such that they were apparently an example of this trope all along. See Terry McGinnis when he operates without the Batsuit, and Green Lantern every so often.
- Superman has also had this happen to him every so often, mostly when the writers can't think of anything threatening enough to challenge him.
- Sari Sumdac. A Badass Normal in her initial mostly human form, once she gets an upgrade to seeming more machine than man, she gets nifty hand blasters and a processing unit boosted even beyond the Cybertronian standard! Not to mention temporary weapons generation.
- In one episode of Darkwing Duck, Nega Duck steals the powers of his villainous "allies". This doesn't actually make him detectably tougher, since by that time there's not much time left in the episode to defeat him in.
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