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Crossover Power Acquisition

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A murderer who kills people in their dreams using the literal Book of the Dead. Yeah... We're boned.

"Falcon PUNCH!"
—Kirby, using Captain Falcon's infamous Falcon Punch, Super Smash Bros.

When Crossovers happen, part of the fun is getting to see characters from each respective universe slug it out, pitting their strengths, cunning, and powers against each other. But what happens when a character from one universe gains powers from another? Well, that's what you call a Crossover Power Acquisition.

A Crossover Power Acquisition is when a character involved in a crossover gains a power that doesn't exist in the franchise they originate in but DOES exist in the franchise they crossover with.

A Sub-Trope of Power Creep, Power Seep. Compare Crossover Combo Villain, wherein two villains from different franchises are combined into one. See also All Your Powers Combined.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Comic Books 
  • Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: This has happened in all three volumes, but each with a different reason.
    • Vol 1: Inverted For the Turtles and Splinter. The Mutagen is incompatible with the laws of Physics in The DCU, making it inert. Meaning that staying in the DC Universe for too long will turn them back into the basic animals they were originally. However, it's played straight with the villains. While the effects aren't permanent they still Mutate into various different Beast Men. Both Ra's Al Ghul and Shredder planned to bring the Mutagen to the other villains around the world, destroying every city along with its heroes.
    • Vol 2: Once Bane crosses over to the TMNT Universenote  and takes over the Foot Clannote  he forces Baxter Stockman to create a new batch of Venom, which he has Bebop, Rocksteady and his new army of Foot Soldiers use. Bane however is given a new special brand of Venom, one mixed with the Mutagen, making him twice the size of already now even bigger Bebop and Rocksteady. With his newfound strength, he puts Master Splinter into a comanote , and it took the combined strength of Batman, Splinter and The Shredder to take him on. Donnie himself uses Venom as he tries desperately to correct his mistake of releasing Bane into his universe.
    • Vol 3: Likely because of the two previous crossover events, Krang discovers, then fights and even kills The Anti-Monitor. Then uses his corpse as his new suit. With it, he had the power to manipulate and affect the Prime Earths of the two Multiverses and combine them together.
  • Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash has Freddy Krueger getting the Necronomicon ex Mortis and using it to wreak havoc.
  • JLA/Avengers:
    • Superman is the only hero left standing in the final battle against Krona. Thor throws Mjolnir to Superman, who wields it along with Captain America's shield. At the end of the book, however, Superman can't lift it again, with Thor revealing that Odin can lift the enchantment for a short time in particularly desperate situations.
    • A two-way example happened when Monica Rambeau (then known as "Blacklight") absorbed power from a Green Lantern ring, and Kyle Rayner (then in his "Ion" phase) absorb power from the Cosmic Cube.
    • Scarlet Witch is much more powerful in the DC Universe due to her being able to tap into the wilder and more powerful chaos magic in that universe.
    • Inverted with Wally West. He loses his super speed in the Marvel Universe because there is no Speed Force there.
    • When in the DC Universe Iron Man/Tony Stark gets a Mother Box upgrading his Armor and granting him the ability to travel between the two Universes.
    • Subverted with Quicksilver, he wants to connect with the Speed Force, but it never happens.
    • Subverted with Darkseid. When the Infinity Gauntlet winds up on Apokolips and in his hands the heroes are understandably terrified at the prospect of him wielding such power. Fortunately, it is soon revealed that the gauntlet only works in its home universe.
  • Justice League/Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers has Braniac uses Zedd's monster-growing grenades on his drones, and later, steals the Rangers' Power Coins and Zords. In response to this, the Rangers raid the Justice League's archives for weapons and equipment from various heroes and villains; in particular, Kimberly gets Green Arrow's arrows and Hawkgirl's mask, Jason gets Azrael's sword, Billy gets Prometheus' helmet, and Tommy gets Lex's battlesuit.
  • Justice League/Predator has Predators altered to gain the powers of the Justice League.
  • Marvel Versus DC: Subverted. Wonder Woman briefly wields Thor's hammer Mjolnir, but gives it up to make her battle with Storm fair.
  • Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
    • After discovering Tommy's deception and imprisoning him, Shredder has Baxter Stockman transfer ownership of Tommy's morpher and power coin to himself, allowing Shredder to become a Power Ranger.
    • In issue #3, Rita and Shredder find a way to block the Rangers from morphing, but the Power Coins remain active. The Rangers get around this problem by giving their coins to April and the Turtles, allowing them to become Power Rangers in the original team's place. The Rangers on the other hand take use ninja gear, weapons, and tactics given to them by Splinter to continue contributing to the fight against the villains. They also contribute in the Humongous Mecha battle by taking Donatello's technology and enlarging Metalhead, culminating in combining Metalhead and the Dinozords together into the Turtle Megazord.
    • In Vol. 2, the villains brainwash Casey Jones and give him a morpher of his own to become "Ranger X". The Turtles later find even more damaged morphers, revealing that Krang had taken them from a team of Dimension X Rangers that he had defeated; and they use them to gain Ranger powers that aren't tied to the Mighty Morphin' team. Meanwhile, the villains disable the regular Rangers' morphing again, which they get around this time by adding the Turtles' mutagen to the process and morphing into dinosaur mutants. On the villains' side, Krang has taken his usual practice of piloting a Mobile-Suit Human and scaled it up by stealing the Megazord and modifying it for his own use. The heroes counter this with another round of borrowing and combining each other's Humongous Mecha, with Zordon and Alpha in Metalhead and Shredder (as the Green Ranger again, in an Enemy Mine with the Rangers and Turtles) in the Dragonzord to form the Dragon Turtlezord.
  • Planet of the Apes/Green Lantern has the conflict start from Cornelius obtaining the Universal Ring, a power ring with control over all seven colors of the emotional spectrum, sometime after the events of Planet of the Apes (1968).
  • RoboCop Versus The Terminator: RoboCop creates a new body and weapon for himself with future technology from Skynet in the final half of the story. This crossover is also a rare example of this trope being applied as a retcon, as the plot is instigated by the discovery that Skynet gained sentience by interfacing with Alex Murphy's cyborg brain.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Collide sees Mega Man transform into Super Armor Mega Man with the power of the Chaos Emeralds.
  • Star Trek/Green Lantern: Many Star Trek characters gain Lantern rings.
  • Superman/Fantastic Four: Superman enters the Marvel Universe looking for Galactus, being tricked into thinking that Galactus was the reason for Krypton's destruction. In his pursuit, Galactus turns Superman into his newest Herald. According to Reed Richards, Superman with the Power Cosmic is now the second most powerful being in existence. Even if remotely true, then that is very high level of power, even for Superman.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Ghostbusters: When the Turtles, Casey Jones, and April O'Neil accidentally end up in the Ghostbusters' version of New York due to an error with Harold Lilja's teleporter, it also unwittingly unleashed Chi-You, a god-like being that was imprisoned in limbo by his sister Kitsune. Due to the Ghostbuster's universe's different laws of physics, he manifests as a Class-7 Spirit with the power to possess multiple people at once and turn them into monsters. Because the rest of the Pantheon he is a member of and the various rules that they are all bound to do not exist there, he takes the opportunity to use his godlike powers to subjugate the mortals of his Earth before he is captured by the Ghostbusters (with the turtles help).

    Fan Works 
  • All That Glitters: Harper loses a tool required to get the ship moving during a desperate situation, and Force Pulls it into his hand. The sequel has him as a proper student taught by a Jedi.
  • Amazing Fantasy: Izuku Midoriya is bitten by a radioactive spider, giving him powers like Spider-Man who trains him to use them.
  • Anime X Marvel
  • Boldores And Boomsticks:
    • Team RWBY discovers that human Aura-users can learn Pokémon moves when Yang accidentally uses the TM for Flamethrower. As the story progresses, the rest of the team learns moves of their own.
    • Casey and Lillie would have their Auras unlocked by Team RWBY, with Lillie gaining her semblance (based on the Pokemon ability Beast Boost) by the time the heroes break into the Aether Foundation.
  • Code Prime:
    • When Megatron learns of the existence of Geass, he first has Shockwave examine the data that he collected from Prince Clovis' Code R secret project. Then, after capturing Mao and later V.V., Shockwave is able to produce a liquid vial of Mao's Geass and V.V.'s code, and when Megatron infuses it with Dark Energon, he then uses the mixture to give himself a Dark Geass.
    • At the end of R1, in order to give the Autobots a fighting chance against Megatron's Dark Geass, C.C. forms a contract with Optimus Prime, and with the help of the Thirteen Primes through the Matrix of Leadership, they grant Optimus a Prime Geass.
    • In "Valley of Kings and Titans", the Black Wyverns, formerly known as the European Union's wZERO unit, acquire the Enigma of Combination, a Relic created by Nexus Prime, the first Cybertronian Combiner, and with it, it turns their Alexanders into Combiners, allowing them to form a Super Knightmare, the Hercules.
  • Destiny's Divide: Team RWBY (and Emerald and Neo) end up on the island of Mata Nui, where they discover that they can use the powers of Toa Mata's Kanohi masks without having to use the physical Kanohi themselves. They also find out that they can choose which mask power to use via their Scrolls. When Weiss wonders how it's possible, Blake suggests that Mata Nui is helping them.
  • Dungeon Keeper Ami: When Sailor Mercury becomes a Keeper, she gains access to a power set that is enough by itself to let Keepers become nation-level threats, giving her the ability to sense and influence everything in her territory. It also turns out to synergize quite well with her native senshi abilities (eg being a senshi means she regains magic much faster, and being able to possess minions allows her to grant Cathy access to her senshi transformation, for Super-Strength and Super-Toughness). If she could just get back to Earth, she would be in a much better position to defeat the Dark Kingdom...but there's a long road ahead, to regain her soul, before that's possible.
  • Eidolon Interloper: After Zant's Shadow Beasts return from the Ghost Zone, they display ghostly abilities.
  • Honoka's Bizarre Adventure: The girls of µ's (plus the 2nd year's classmates Fumiko Nikaido) all get Stands.
  • I'm Nobody:
    • Over the course of the fic, the Normandy crew starts incorporating Kingdom Hearts magic into their weaponry. It starts with a Moogle enhancing their weapons with magic so they can fight the Heartless more efficiently, then they incorporate Gummi blocks (those are fragments of the magic barriers that used to separate the worlds) in the Normandy, and finally Yen Sid gives them all magic enhancements as insurance that saved their lives in more than one occasions.
    • Somewhat downplayed but still present from the Kingdom Hearts side of things, as Scrooge McDuck started introducing Mass Effect technology in their worlds, the Nobody trio gets omnitools (Roxas is even taught how to hack computers by Tali), and one of the Keyblades Roxas gets, the N7 Effect, is made of Omnitool parts.
    • It also happens with other minor crossovers that occur in the series. The Normandy crew introduces to the Alliance technology both from Etherium and Barsoom.
  • The Infinite Loops runs on this trope. Considering that the premise of this Massive Multiplayer Crossover includes characters visiting other franchises in "fused loops", it's expected by any and all loopers that they can and will obtain powers from other settings. It's more notable when a looper cannot obtain powers from other settings (like the Post Guy) or certain powers are specifically programmed by the Admins to be unobtainable (Exaltations or Time Lord tech.)
  • Intercession: After working at it for years, Taylor's shard manages to get a handle on using magic. It gives Taylor a severe headache, though, until she gets a matched wand to ease the process. On the other hand, the shard allows her to use magic even in situations where a regular witch would be helpless.
  • JoJo's Alien Adventure: Ben Tennyson becomes a Stand user after being sent to the time of Stardust Crusaders. When it becomes clear that DIO has taken an interest in the Ultimatrix, Joseph and Avdol begin discussing training Ben in Hamon as a protective measure.
  • Lighting Candles: Tadashi Hamada, who was an ordinary engineering student from a non-magical world in his film, comes back as a fire spirit/kitsune after his canonical death in a fire in a similar manner to Jack Frost in Rise of the Guardians, with one big difference: Tadashi still remembers and wants to protect his loved ones, even though they can't see him. As a former science geek, he has trouble embracing his instinctual magical abilities and fears hurting others, but eventually, he too becomes a Guardian of Childhood and gains believers.
  • Lulu's Bizarre Rebellion:
  • Mischief (MHA): Several MHA characters gain access to abilities or items from the Marvel Universe.
    • Tenko's hero costume features several Stark technology gadgets.
    • Ochako gains the power of the Ten Rings.
    • Tenya receives the Ebony Blade.
    • Tensei is the new Ghost Rider.
    • Melissa uses the Green Goblin's glider amongst other gadgets, as well as Pym Particles.
    • Setsuna becomes Venom's new host during the I-Island arc.
  • The Mountain and the Wolf: This happens quite often:
    • The Wolf arranges for Jaime to have his golden hand possessed by a (likely Slaaneshi) daemon, making it able to move and change shape.
    • Theon Greyjoy gets hit with the Call to Glory spell during the Battle of Winterfell, turning him into a Champion of Chaos and making him physically larger, stronger, giving him super-eyesight, and restoring his genitals. His confidence levels are still just as low though.
    • Many of the Westeros characters who join the Wolf (Ironborn, Wildlings, Dothraki...) exhibit Chaos mutations such as tentacles or horns. Ramsa, Littlefinger, both Gregors and Euron get brought back to life with all kinds of new gifts and mutations to serve their new masters.
    • The Wolf trades away Westeros dragonglass to the Chaos Dwarves, as it keeps its One-Hit Kill properties against Warhammer's undead.
  • Mutant Storm: The plot is set off when, at the end of book 5, Harry's X-gene awakes, giving him Teleportation and Intangibility.
  • The Omnitrix Hero: The premise of the story is that the Omnitrix and all its powers came into the possession of Flash Sentry.
  • Queen of Blood: Taylor Hebert dies in the locker she triggered in canon, but revives three months later as a vampire, inheriting the power of Dracula from Castlevania.
  • A Red Rose in the Blue Wind: Attempted unsuccessfully. Ozpin decides to see if he can unlock Aura powers in Sonic, only to find that he can't despite Sonic obviously possessing a soul.
  • Shattered Skies: The Morning Lights: The magical girls from the Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Pretty Cure, and Madoka Magica universes build "Augmented Magical Power Devices" with the help of technology from the Nanoha universe and assistance from the Nanoha cast. Other than having communicators, energy shields, and basic life support functions, each AMP Device is customized to the unique abilities and needs of its user.
  • to forget is unforgivable: After commiting suicide, Midoriya Izuku becomes a cursed spirit, and because he haunts Katsuki, the blond ends up having cursed energy as well on top of his quirk.

    Films — Animation 

    Films — Live-Action 

    Live-Action TV 

    Multimedia 
  • Alien: If the other universe being crossed-over with has alien species that are disposable, expect at least one alien hybrid to be birthed from one. There have been tarkatan xenomorphs, parademon xenomorphs and the most famous, the PredAlien. Of course, if the aliens in question aren't disposable, then they'll inevitably find a way to get rid of their chestburster infection and subvert the trope.

    Toys 
  • There was a series of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers/Cobra Kai action figures, where Cobra Kai characters had the ninja Ranger powers (or at least wore their outfits) from MMPR's third season.

    Video Games 
  • Another Eden: A collaboration with the Tales Series involves Eden getting its own version of a traditional Tales sidequest where the heroes have to find a series of cursed weapons and then fight an Optional Boss to turn them into Infinity +1 Weapons that grow stronger the more enemies are killed, essentially giving Eden characters access to special Tales weapons.
  • Dragalia Lost features a mechanic where characters could partner with and shapeshift into dragons. Two of its crossovers were with Monster Hunter and Persona 5 Strikers; adding Rathalos, Dreadking Rathalos, and Fatalis from the former and Arsene from the latter as dragons that the cast could turn into. The Monster Hunter event also released variants of a few Dragalia characters using monster-based armor and techniques.
  • Heroes of the Storm: Referenced in the backstory for The Butcher's alternate skin "Butcherlisk". Abathur analyzed the DNA from The Butcher in order to create a new strain of Zerg, making it one of the few crossover skins that hails from the Nexus rather than an alternate timeline.
  • Injustice 2: In the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' ending, they get powered up by the same 5-U-93-R nanotech that leveled the playing field for the cast in the first Injustice. With this new powerup, they are able to beat Krang and Shredder with ease.
  • Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games:
    • In several dream events (mostly those involving some kind of race), various items from both franchises are attainable through Mario Kart item boxes. This means, for example, Mario characters can get a temporary speed boost through power sneakers, and Sonic characters can launch shells at the other players.
    • Downplayed in the Dream Figure Skating events. The Sonic-themed performance has the Chaos Emeralds being collected in the first two acts and used in the final act. While this does mean Mario characters can use them, it's part of a staged performance, so there isn't a legitimate Super Mode activated by them. The Sochi sequel would play it more straight, with all characters (including Mario characters) using the power of the Wisps to perform a Final Color Blaster.
  • Marvel vs. Capcom: A long-standing tradition going all the way back to Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter, where the final boss was an Apocalypse-enhanced Akuma.
    • Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter: Aside from the aforementioned Cyber Akuma, Dan also appears in a form modified by Apocalypse in Akuma's own ending (though it's obviously a joke ending, as Apocalypse would never waste his time on someone like Dan), and M. Bison uses the tech in Cyber Akuma's body to modify Charlie further.
    • Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Ryu gains the power of the Iron Fist, Tron Bonne gets a Sentinel to ride on instead of a Servbot, Vergil acquires the Muramasa blade, Nemesis is altered by Weapon X with metallic claws and skin, several Mega Man characters get recruited into the Nova corps, and Wesker infects several of the Marvel super heroes with his Uroboros virus.
    • Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite: All the characters, Marvel or Capcom, are able to use the Infinity Stones, and Ultron and Sigma merge together to form Ultron Sigma. And Thanos steals Ryu's Satsui no Hadou using tech from Mega Man X's world.
  • Mortal Kombat:
    • Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe:
      • Downplayed with Sonya Blade's arcade ending. She acquires a Green Lantern ring but has no means to charge it or contact the rest of the Green Lantern Corps.
      • In Catwoman's ending, she ends up gaining an Animality that turns her into a big panther.
      • Captain Marvel is empowered by the Elder Gods in his own ending in a similar way to how he got his original powers.
      • In Liu Kang's ending, Raiden made him the Captain Marvel of Earthrealm after figuring out the Rock of Eternity's secrets, bestowing him with his power alongside Fujin's and Argus's. Liu Kang's transformation phase is "MORTAL KOMBAT!"
    • Mortal Kombat X:
      • The Predator takes Shinnok's amulet upon defeating him in his ending, and learns how to use magic.
      • Not to be outdone, the Alien uses some of the MK kharacters to create a new hive in its ending, with Reptile being seen specifically, while one four-armed xenomorph's presence indicates that it was also done to a shokan.
    • Mortal Kombat 11:
      • RoboCop is affected by Kronika's power and as a result, the safeguards OCP had placed on him are removed (his suit also gets fancier).
      • Otherwise averted with the hourglass, which the guest kharacters never bother to use aside from The Joker, and even he seemingly doesn't use it to alter the timeline.
  • Power Rangers: Legacy Wars has some guest characters from Street Fighter, and gave Ryu and Chun-Li Ranger Forms. The Ranger-incarnations of Ryu and Chun-Li were also brought to Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, and later got included in the Lightning Collection of the Power Rangers toyline, where they were also joined by Ranger versions of Ken and Cammy.
  • Super Robot Wars
  • Super Smash Bros.:

    Web Animation 
  • DEATH BATTLE!:
    • "Ben 10 VS Green Lantern": Boomstick somehow manages to acquire an Omnitrix, and immediately begins cycling through the different aliens. As he does so, Wiz explains to the audience how overusing the Omnitrix can risk permanently disfiguring the user's DNA. We then see Boomstick has become an amalgamation of the aliens in the Omnitrix and leaves to pee out his face.
    • "DIO VS Alucard": When Wiz is talking about how Dio gained a Stand after being struck by a holy arrow, we see Boomstick prick himself with said holy arrow, and gain a Stand that looks like a floating can of beer with a moustache and hat, which he calls "99 Bottles". The Stand has the power to zap people and turn them into giant cans of beer.
  • Super Mario Bros. Z:
    • Episode 4 has the Koopa Bros. accidentally channel the power of a Chaos Emerald into their Combination Attack, causing it to blaze with energy and power up enough to knock out all the heroes at once.
    • Episode 6 has the rebuilt Axem Rangers connect a Chaos Emerald to their Breaker Beam, making it powerful enough to destroy a mountain. Later in the episode, Sonic is able to briefly access his Super Sonic form by absorbing a Super Star.
    • Episode 8 introduces Captain Basilisx, a high-ranking Koopatrol who was given tremendous power and stone-gaze ability thanks to the serum made by Dr. Eggman. The same episode features Sonic using a Fire Flower, causing him to transform into a powerful red "Fire Sonic" form with blazing speed and the ability to imbue his melee attacks with flames.
    • The planned final arc of the series would have had both the Mario and Sonic casts receiving Sonic-style Golden Super Modes through the power of the Seven Star Spirits from Paper Mario.

    Webcomics 

    Western Animation 

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