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. A character who has only recently been empowered is fully justified in not knowing what he can do.

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 and finally Strong As They Need To Be.

Examples

Anime

Pick a shonen fighting anime. Any shonen fighting 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.
- This is especially true for Sasuke in general. For someone who's not an uber-fanboy/fangirl of his it can be mighty frustraing seeing him pull out one brand new jutsu after another with little explanation as to how he learned them when in contrast Naruto goes through umpteen TrainingfromHell arcs only to get his new abilities rendered unuseable except by plot sanction thanks to last-minute drawbacks.
  - It also applies for the Uchihas' tag-alongs. After Sasuke is grieviously injured by Killer Bee(twice), his teammates Karin and Juugo reveal never-before-seen miraculous healing powers that would have been mighty useful in an earlier arc, back when Sasuke was covered in bandages and bedridden for days after his fight with Deidara.
  - The Deidara example, at least, has some plausibility... with Karin, at least. The reason why she didn't do it after the Deidara example was simple. He was injured and defenseless, and had Suigetsu and Juugo left long enough, the redhead would have raped him, which I believe she stated as a goal! Of course, since its female on male, its considered comedy, and not at all deeply disturbing.
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.
- 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.
  - Even Zoro's Asura had a little bit of foreshadowing. He managed to briefly use something similar when he was still fighting his way through Enies Lobby before the Tower of Justice. So really, Chopper's upgrade is the only one that came completely out of nowhere.
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.
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.
- Don't forget the original Dragonball, where he can stretch himself up into a fifty-story monster thingy, and even just stretch his limbs as far as the size of the screen will let him. The only other time he uses that ability is the Garlic Jr. filler arc.
  - That doesn't really count, he used it in his first fight.
- Don't forget all the stuff with ki, such as sharpening and steering it.
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. Generally when a new batch of enemies appear the Sailors tend to get a power-up.
Ichigo's recent transformation seems to fall into this category - it certainly brings him back from the brink of death.
- Although it has been hinted that he's becoming more of a hollow as he stays in Hueco Mundo, and wasn't entirley unexpected, it's still a bit of an Ass Pull. Like the Naruto fandom, Bleach fans called this 'Plotkai'
- Bleach also has an extremely blatant example in Yammy. Being the tenth Espada, he wouldn't stand a chance against any of the good guys, who have already beaten numbers 4-9. However, he releases his zanpakuto and reveals that in his released state that he is the zeroth Espada, the strongest of all arrancar, conveniently making him far more powerful than the combined forces of Chad, Rukia, and Renji just as they were about to face him.
- Hitsugaya in the most recent chapter is a particularly egregious example, pulling a never-before-seen or even alluded to power out of his arse to beat a particularly tough opponent.
Soul Eater has quite a few of these, both in manga and the anime — most blatantly in the last four episodes of the anime, where Black Star, Kid and Maka suddenly aquired Deus Ex Machina-like superpowers in that order after being beat to the floor by the villains.
Many creatures in the Pokemon anime would learn new attacks when the plot required it or evolved at just the right time.Justified on some occasions where Ash specifically taught some of his Pokemon attacks (like teaching Swellow Aerial Ace or Pikachu Iron Tail).
Subverted in Narutaru (manga only, the anime didn't get to it), when Shiina gets control of the entire earth as her shadow dragon. However, it's not actually an upgrade, she never controlled Hoshimaru in the first place, so that's actually her getting a power.
In Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, this is effectively the main purpose of Mokona's 108 Secret Abilities power.
Neuro's 666 tools of the Demon World and 7 Tools of the Demon Emperor. That's 673 different powers he can pull out of thin air whenever he needs to.
Kogarashi from Kamen No Maid Guy has a large platter of various powers, many of whom only show up once to advance the plot (and cause massive amounts of comedic havoc for everyone else in the vicinity) and are never touched on again. The sheer bizarreness of most of these powers — like knowledge of every gourmet recipe in the universe and the ability to paralyze people with his voice — makes most of them fall squarely under the Rule Of Funny.

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.
- One presumes he simply super-compresses the air in his lungs - his muscles are incredibly powerful after all - you can compress air a great deal and release it at normal pressure. it will even be a great deal colder when it is released in the way. ...this actually works quite well...
- 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.
  - Let's please not forget the memory wiping kiss.
  - That's easy to do; just don't let him kiss you.
  - 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.
- Other silver age classic powers: super-hypnotism, super-kissing (don't ask, really), and super-mimicry.
- The original TV show mostly restrained itself from this, but huffed this trope twice, once to give Superman the ability to phase through walls, and once to let him split himself into ~~multiple~~ two Supermen. Both of these powers vanished after the episode.
  - The second was partially subverted when Superman realized each of his two selves had much weaker powers than normal, and had to recombine himself into a single Superman in order to save the day.
- In one episode of the DCAU, Superman teams up with Robin to search for Batman, and displays his super-ventriloquism to first mimic Batman, then Robin himself. This completely freaks Robin out, and he demands that Supes "Never do that again."
- There's plenty more examples from the comics.
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".
The mutant Lifeguard has essentially the same power. She will develop whatever power will be necessary next to save lives. So, unconscious precognitive adaptation.
The Legion Of Super Heroes (more uses below) took this specific version and applied it even further. Ra's Al Ghul set the Moon on a collision course with the Earth. This gave off "hypertaxis energy", which caused humans to evolve to survive a threat before it happened.
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.
- Well, technically that would not be an inacutate discription of Spawn's abilities. However, this is not as bad as most of the examples on this page because it's actually justified by the nature of his main powers as cannon from the beginning. You see, after he returned from Hell, he was given a large but finite amount of power. Every time he uses any of his powers, he gets just that much closer to being pulled back to hell. That's why he often actually resorts to Guns, a plank of wood, whatever.
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.
- X-Men also has Darwin, whose power is called "reactionary evolution"; that is, whatever power he needs, he gets. Lampshaded during World War Hulk when his power decided the best defense against a rampaging Hulk was...to not be there, as illustrated by his teleporting away.
- Might as well put Magneto in there as well. He started off with the ability to control metal magnetically, then developed the ability to fly with a reasonable enough explanation. Then, as stories became more ambitious, he was suddenly able to control the entire electromagnetic spectrum, which effectively made him invincible. Of course, then there's the Planet X story by Grant Morrison, in which he's powerful enough to (somehow) control gravity and time. (Grand Unified Theory?)
- Grant Morrison actually gave this trope a Cerebus Retcon in his run on X-Men by introducing "secondary mutations", which would grant entirely new sets of powers to mutants, even years after they first gained their powers. This was his excuse for turning Beast into a cat-person and letting Emma Frost turn into living diamond for no obvious reason.
- One Chris Claremont story suddenly gave Storm Super Senses, because she could feel the effect everyone arround her had on the local air pressure or something.
In the Legion of Super Heroes, Tyroc had the power to warp reality with his screams. (Of course, this made the "screaming" part just color.) He could do nearly anything, from teleportation to pyrokinesis to... making it rain glue. The character was soon written out; common wisdom is that the writers had no idea what to do with him.
- 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 (shark-repellent bat-spray). 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.
- In the lastest movie the Joker apparently had Hostages and Moles as Plot Demands as well as Schrodinger's bomb planted hospitals and boats.
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.
- Resurrection Man's power was just that he came back with a new power everytime he died, the method of his death didn't effect what power he came back with, as evidenced by him being shot about 50 times at the end of an arc until he came back with a power deemed useful by the assassin.
  - Depending On The Writer? In one issue a Mad Scientist had him tortured to death, and he came back female. This was specifically stated to be because women have higher pain thresholds than men.
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.
- This sounds familiar.
The new Warriors had an enemy/ally named Helix, who adapted to any threat against his body, be it disease, telekinesis, spider webs, or a beat down from multiple super sonic flying, nigh invulnerable, super strong enemies. As soon as he was out of range from whatever threatened him, his body dropped whatever adaptations it developed.
The DC villain Paragon has to power to mimic the superpowers of any superhero near to him. But he can also add a twist the originator cannot perform, so he thinks he is superior because he can use any power better.
In a non-superheroic example, Thorn from Bone displays more and more ludicrous powers as the plot goes on, everything from simple Psychic Dreams For Everyone to seeing invisible ghost circles to super-strength to flight.

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.
In Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday Jason can suddenly hypnotize and possess people after an ambush by the FBI leaves his body completely obliterated, apparently forcing him to "evacuate" it.

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.
The whole Flock in the fourth Maximum Ride book, and Angel throughout the series. That was one of the things that bothered this troper about the fourth book - all the random power-getting.

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. (In his first appearance, when Sarek is accused of breaking another ambassador's neck, Spock helpfully points out that Sarek is trained the ancient Vulcan neck-breaking art of Tal-Shaya. And that if he had a reason to kill, it certainly wouldn't be a breach of character. Thanks, son!) 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. Like "The Royale" when he discovers the loaded dice then spontaneously reloads them.
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.
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.
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.
- Chloe didn't develop super-intelligence so much as she gained it when Brainiac took up roost in her mind.
Heroes puts some interesting spins on this one:
- Several characters demonstrate the ability to aquire new powers from other powered people. Peter Petrelli copies them, Dad Petrelli takes them, and Sylar rips them out of their heads (killing them).
- In general, the whole series operates this trope at a higher level. If the writers need a new power, they don't give it to an existing character, but introduce a new character with the desired abilitiy. One of the benfits of Loads And Loads Of Characters is nobody much notices a few more or less.

Tabletop RPGs

This is such a prevalent trope that most superhero RPGs 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.
  - Frustratingly, they at one point featured a poisonous gas that wearing a gas mask and magically holding your breath couldn't stop.
- To be fair, said protagonist is actually relearning an old power.
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.
Wonderella totally gets like a spillion powers when tied up.
The Monster in the Darkness from Order of the Stick.

Web Original

Quite a few of the people in Whateley are vulnerable to this, Fey and Jade. Chou is something like this, except hers is more Power Creep, Power Seep. A lampshade is hung in Call the Thunder 6.
- Justified in the case of Jade. All she can do is 'possess' objects using 'spirit-selves'. After a radiation accident, she can regenerate. However, within the 'possessing objects' thing, she has QUITE a few ways to use it. For instance, she can 'possess' a cloak, and then possess something the cloak is touching, such as a metallic arm. Then, she can have both the 'cloak' and the 'arm' as herself. Or, if she 'possesses' a bedsheet, she can wrap it around her 'spiritself', and look like a girl wearing a bedsheet. Then she gets creative. Also, the author makes sure to have her expand her powers and figure out how they can work BEFORE it becomes useful, sometimes even a full-fledged novel beforehand!

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.
- These are explained in universe as extended applications of existing powers. Humans are made up mostly of water allows water bender to heal and blood bend, and Toph was 'bending' the impurities inside of the metal.
  - As This Troper recalls, she was able to bend the metal because it was "just a form of earth that has been refined and purified", so technically, she wasn't bending the metal's impurities, she was bending the metal itself.
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.
- To be fair, the Silver Sufer is known for doing the exact same thing. Power Cosmic is more or less a ticket to do this.
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.
Cathy from Monster Buster Club has so many wacky alien powers, it'd be easier to list the ones she doesn't have. She has a stretchy Mr. Fantastic body, can levitate and perform telekinesis, can glow in the dark at will, spins her forearm around like a drill... and many, many more, all conveniently described on the spot as something Rhapsodians (like her) can all do.
On Batman The Brave And The Bold, Batman uses astral projection in one episode- an ability he's never even been hinted at having before, or has used since.
- And which is just a bit out of character, seeing that Batman is supposed to be a Badass Normal, not a psychic.
  - He did explain it, and since it is something he learned from Monks, it makes sense. A black belt in everything is hardly normal.
Robot Boy does this. When the titular character "super-activates", it's as though his circuitry starts running on phlebotnium instead of electricity.