History Main / ChildProdigy

* James-Michael from Creator/SteveGerber's ''ComicBook/OmegaTheUnknown'', thanks to having been [[spoiler: raised by robots]].
* Jack B. Quick from ''ComicBook/TomorrowStories'' is a rural Black Comedy version of this.
* In ''ComicBook/UltimateFantasticFour'', Reed Richards built a teleporter when he was a child. It's how the Baxter Building found him.
* Sapientín from ''ComicBook/ZipiYZape''.
* In ''ComicBook/Robin1993'', [[Characters/RobinTimDrake Tim Drake]] started out as a PlayfulHacker amateur photographer who had figured out Batman and Robin's secret identities by accident when he was ''nine'' and is expected to eventually surpass Bruce as the World's Greatest Detective. Tim also takes after Bruce in regards to being a CrazyPrepared ScienceHero who relies on {{Batman Gambit}}s against foes he knows he can't take in a fair fight.
* Subverted in ''ComicBook/SpiderMan2022''. Bailey uses web fluid dissolver to get out of Peter's webbing when Peter tries to ditch him. Peter's first assumption is that Bailey made the dissolver. Bailey balks at the notion. He's only ten years old and wouldn't have the know-how to make something like that on his own. He shows the dissolver's capsule to Peter to prove that it's Peter's handiwork as evidence of their previous partnership after Bailey was RetGone from memory and record.
* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: Gerta von Gunther is something of a MadScientist prodigy, whose youthful inventions include ''shark mermaids''.

* ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'': Jason Fox is only ten years old, but he builds model rockets that provoke diplomatic incidents with China, can write viruses that crash the Internet, does math equations (involving ''integrations''), ''for fun'', apparently built a "miniature warp engine" during science camp. That said, he's also [[DitzyGenius rather lacking in common sense]] and [[ComplexityAddiction tends to cook up unneccesarily complex solutions to various problems]].

* ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'': Jason Fox builds model rockets that provoke diplomatic incidents with China, can write viruses that crash the Internet, does math equations (involving ''integrations''), ''for fun'', apparently built a "miniature warp engine" during science camp, and is 10 years old.

* ''Manga/AssassinationClassroom'': Nagisa Shiota is gradually revealed to have a natural, seemingly superhuman talent... for ''assassination''. In a setting where KillingIntent is a very real thing, his ability to appear completely, totally harmless right until he has a knife against your throat is treated as practically a superpower, and he rapidly picks up the advanced techniques the professional assassins around him use. Unusually for this trope, the adults in his life have to consider whether or not to encourage his prodigious abilities, since, despite the series premise, they don't want any of these students to actually become killers for hire, just stop Koro-sensei.

* Garrett Durrell from ''Literature/BootCamp'' was reading at two and solving square roots at six. His parents and teachers lavished praise on him until he was eight, when he started using his intelligence in ways his parents disapproved of. He couldn't connect with his classmates because IntelligenceEqualsIsolation, and when he was twelve he started SkippingSchool because he could get good grades with very little effort. His problems ultimately lead to his parents sending him to Lake Harmony, an abusive boot camp, when he's fifteen.

* Subverted in an episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderCriminalIntent''. A young boy appears to be a prodigy, but it's eventually revealed that while he did have above-average intelligence, he wasn't a true academic prodigy in the way everyone thought he was. His father had become convinced his son was a genius when he was little and had basically forced him to pretend to be one for years (albeit unwittingly, as he [[BelievingTheirOwnLies still believed it was true]]). Played straight with some of the other kids in the program the boy was attending; it's comparing their work with his that leads Goren to realize the truth about the boy.

* Subverted in an episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderCriminalIntent''. A young boy appears to be a prodigy, but it's eventually revealed that while he was certainly a smart kid, he wasn't that level of genius. His father had become convinced his son was a prodigy when he was little and had basically forced him to pretend to be one for years. Played straight with some of the other kids in the program the boy was attending. It's comparing their work with his that leads Goren to realize the truth about the boy.

* [[http://heuna.tumblr.com/post/2415073898/kim-ung-yong-%EA%B9%80%EC%9B%85%EC%9A%A9-a-child-prodigy-but-happiness Kim Ung-Yong]] of South Korea was reported with an IQ of 210 in the mid-1960s. He was a guest student in physics at Hangyang University at three (both his parents were professors there) and appeared on Japan's "World Surprise Show" at four composing poetry, speaking four languages, and solving integral calculus problems. NASA paid for him to attend Colorado State University and then hired him at age 11. He worked there until he was about 17, later saying it was monumentally boring and he missed his mother. He went home and changed fields entirely. Today he is a professor of civil engineering at a college near his hometown.

* Anais Watterson, the younger sister of the title character to ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'', is only four but attends junior high with her 12- and 10-year-old brothers (in fact, she's their upperclasswoman and they're too dumb and self-centered to know that for most of their lives, as shown in the episode "The Others"). She's one of the smartest characters in the world of Gumball (more often than not, [[StraightMan the only character who has any sense at all]]), known for being a physics club member, even though she's still playful and childish, and [[WomenAreWiser she at first struggles to stoop down to enjoy hanging out with her idiotic father and brothers]]. There are a couple of episodes in which she fools the whole family into fighting each other, while she's at home reaping the benefits that everyone else is too oblivious to realize and a flashback In "The Choices" even shows her correcting a spelling mistake on her armband ''as a newborn'', much to family’s astonishment.

* ''WesternAnimation/SavingMe'': Bennett Bramble is a tragic deconstruction of the ChildProdigy. On paper, he's a genius prodigy with a bright future ahead of him. Bennett comes from a good family with loving parents who care about him and an older brother and younger sister who love him, and he will become one of the world's most successful and influential men. But in his old age, he's burned bridges with his friends and family and became one of the world's most hated and lonely old men. Bennett is very regretful about where his life went, and he made a time machine to change his fate; he went back to his younger self to guide himself into being a better person. And as we see the younger version of Bennett Bramble, we see that he's a good enough kid who does love his friends and family; he's also selfish and inconsiderate, causing him to neglect his family and be selfish with his friends. And from what we can take from the comments from Bennett's little sister Sophie and his friend Nira, it's rare for him to be overly affectionate with his friends and family. And it's not that he's trying to be cruel to his family and friends. It's just that he's not considerate of them and takes them for granted. This shows that a kid like Bennett Bramble may be a prodigy and may have a bright future, but without someone to guide him into being a better person, his genius will cause his negative traits to increase, which would eventually cause his relationship with his friends and family to deteriorate leaving him alone and bitter as an adult. Showing that a child prodigy is still a child in need of guidance so that he can learn from right and wrong and be a better person as an adult.

* ''WesternAnimation/SavingMe'': Bennett Bramble is a tragic deconstruction of of this trope. On paper, he's a genius prodigy with a bright future ahead of him. He comes from a good family and will become one of the world's most successful and influential men. But in his old age, he's burned bridges with his friends and family and became one of the world's most hated and lonely old men. Bennett is very regretful about where his life went, and he made a time machine to change his fate; he went back to his younger self to guide himself into being a better person. And as we see the younger version of Bennett Bramble, we see that he's a good enough kid who does love his friends and family; he's also selfish and inconsiderate, causing him to neglect his family and be selfish with his friends. And from what we can take from the comments from Bennett's little sister Sophie and his friend Nira, it's rare for him to be overly affectionate with his friends and family. And it's not that he's trying to be cruel to his family and friends. It's just that he's not considerate of them and takes them for granted. This shows that a kid like Bennett Bramble may be a prodigy and may have a bright future, but without someone to guide him into being a better person, his genius will cause his negative traits to increase, which would eventually cause his relationship with his friends and family to deteriorate leaving him alone and bitter as an adult. Showing that a child prodigy is still a child in need of guidance so that he can learn from right and wrong and be a better person as an adult.

** Discussed in regards to Izuku. He has AwesomnessByAnalysis skills in combat and PhotographicMemory, but his intelligence and emotional maturity do not match. During the [[spoiler:Akatani arc]], Izuku bitterly remarks that for all he's supposed to be so smart, he keeps falling for schemes that should be obvious. When he's a teenager, All Might says that Izuku is impressive, but not a genius.

* ''Series/DoogieHowserMD'': The titular character in his backstory. In the present, he's a TeenGenius instead. ''Series/DoogieKamealohaMD'' gives the pseudo-titular character, [[GenderFlip Lahela]], a virtually identical backstory as Doogie, with the leads of both series starting as second-year resident doctors at 16.

* ''Series/DoogieHowserMD'': The titular character in his backstory. In the present, he's a TeenGenius instead.

* Gabi from ''WesternAnimation/{{Doki}} is the wisest member of the team.

* The protagonist is apparently a battling prodigy in ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}''. S/he begins their journey years before most other people, at age 10-14 ([[WordOfGod 11 in]] ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' and their remakes). You not only beat everyone in your region (two for ''GSC'' and ''HGSS'') with ease, including the EliteFour and [[ToBeAMaster Champion]] but take down a gang of terrorists (two gangs in ''Emerald''). There are also various Gym Leaders who seem to be barely older than the protagonists, or even younger in the case of Tate and Liza from ''VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire'', Iris in ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' (who has become the Unova Champion two years later in ''VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2'') and Allister in ''[[VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield Pokémon Shield]]''. One particularly ridiculous example is Poppy in ''VideoGame/PokemonScarletAndViolet'', who's '''an EliteFour member''' while looking like she's a preschooler at the oldest.

* In ''ComicBook/Robin1993'', Tim Drake started out as a PlayfulHacker amateur photographer who had figured out Batman and Robin's secret identities by accident when he was ''nine'' and is expected to eventually surpass Bruce as the World's Greatest Detective. Tim also takes after Bruce in regards to being a CrazyPrepared ScienceHero who relies on {{Batman Gambit}}s against foes he knows he can't take in a fair fight.

* [[ComicBook/Robin1993 Tim Drake]] who started out as a PlayfulHacker amateur photographer who had figured out Batman and Robin's secret identities by accident when he was ''nine'' and is expected to eventually surpass Bruce as the World's Greatest Detective. Tim also takes after Bruce in regards to being a CrazyPrepared ScienceHero who relies on {{Batman Gambit}}s against foes he knows he can't take in a fair fight.

* In ''[[WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers Venture Bros.]]'' there is Master Billy Quizboy, who is a Quiz Boy, that being an underrated branch of Boy Genius. It is revealed in one episode that "Master Billy Quizboy" is actually over 30 and was this during his youth.