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"If you have the need, we have the breed."
Tleilaxu Master, Children of Dune miniseries
Many Big Bads feel the best minions are homegrown ones. Tykebombs are typically raised from birth (or creation, for Sci Fi) or early infancy with the idea of serving out of loyalty. This means putting an immense amount of potential power into the hands of a wildly inappropriate user, usually a young child.
These villains would probably be more effective if said creations were not typically abused or treated badly by villains who insist they exist to serve their master, rather than being coddled and praised. This usually culminates in The Dog Bites Back, followed by escaping and eventually becoming a thorn in some hero's side. If the character is an actual child, this can complicate the hero's sense of morality of how he deals with people. Expect all but the worst of Anti Heroes to try Defusing The Tyke Bomb.
Notably this trope is derived from real life, as many cultures took to training elite warriors from early age. Medieval knights were commonly trained from early boyhood by a Knight mentor (the word boy is even derived from a word for "servant"). Middle Eastern mamluks and Turkish Janissaries were relatively similar, as are certain Asian warrior monks. This makes the trope at least Older Than Print.
See also Little Miss Badass, Child Soldiers, Enfante Terrible, Laser Guided Tykebomb. Can overlap with some types of Super Soldier, especially those brought up in The Spartan Way. For someone who's a literal bomb see Why Am I Ticking or Action Bomb.
For kids who are raised to be scientists, musicians, etc. anything other than weapons see Child Prodigy - they're usually far happier with their situation(at least in fiction. Real Life wunderkinds often suffer similar trauma and burn out before they hit thirty.)
Examples
Anime
- Crona in Soul Eater.
- Possibly Gopher; appears to be young, is explicitly called a tool by his creator Noah, and currently holds enough firepower to stand up to Maka Albarn for a while. Not long, but his comments about his body having been 'created' could make a future upgrade possible.
- Mewtwo in Pokemon, a genetically engineered mon who blew up an entire island research facility, was recruited to work for Giovanni, then got fed up and blew up Giovanni's secret gym base.
- Kirika Yuumura and Chloe from Noir were assassins trained from birth. As young teens, they have no problems with killing people. (In fact, Kirika was killing people at age five, some of them being Mireille's family.)
- The titular ''Claymores are usually child survivors of Youma attacks, the theory being that they have nothing to lose and have the motivation to become the Organization's pet Youma killing machines.
- See also the title characters of Gunslinger Girl.
- Also Pinochio, though the trope is inverted in that he is raised by terrorist leader Christiano as an assassin, but Christiano becomes attached to Pinochio as a surrogate son and tries to save him from the internal disputes that cause his own downfall.
- Fate Testarossa from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.
- From the third season, we get a rare example of Tykebombs done right. Jail Scaglietti's Numbers were all grown, turned into cyborgs, and used as assassins by him. But they all appear to have genuine loyalty and affection for him, so apparently he wasn't raising them with the 'horrible abuse' school of tykebomb training. Of course, he was also pretty good with mind control, so he might have just programmed them to like him...
- Erstin from Mai-Otome is a rare example whose loyalty was not abused, and who never changed sides, though she was sorely tempted and it broke her heart.
- There are no fewer than three tykebombs in Mai-HiME, from two different factions. One escaped at an early age ( Natsuki), but the others ( Mikoto and Alyssa) are still active when the series unfolds....
- In One Piece, eight members of the secret government organization Cipher Pol #9, were trained from young ages the martial arts known as Rokushiki (Japanese for "six powers"), pushing their bodies to superhuman levels for the purpose of carrying out covert assassinations in the name of the World Government. Most notable of the group is Rob Lucci: so fearful that legends have been made of him from his effienciency, coldness and brutality to the point that it not only was believed he was the least likely of the group to ever be defeated, but can survive a Buster Call, which to put into perspective razed an entire island.
- Even the protagonist, Monkey D. Luffy and his brother, Portgas D. Ace were technically Tyke Bombs. At least with Luffy, it was revealed that his inhuman strength, stamina and outright Determinator status was the the result of his grandfather, Vice-Admiral Garp throwing into deep ravines, cliffs and even exposing him to high altitudes by tying him up to helium balloons, all for the purpose of making him a strong Marine (likewise with Ace). Ironically, when Garp's back was turned (for several years, apparently) they ran off to become powerful pirates which even caught the World Government's attention. Had Lucci known that Luffy was trained by Vice-Admiral Garp, maybe he wouldn't have taken him so lightly, and then it wouldn't seem such a surprise when he rises from your best attack ready to retaliate.
- In the OVA Kite, the main villains have a pattern of adopting orphans, raising them, ritually molesting them, and deploying them as Tykebombs for hire. The protagonist is one of their creations, and it's shown that her master made her an orphan, while she watched. It's pretty ill.
- Eve from Black Cat, who was raised from childhood to become a bioweapon.
- In the manga, it's revealed that Train was raised to become a killer as well... by the person who killed his parents. And Train specifically sought out training from said assassin so that Train could avenge them one day.
- The Big Bad from Princess Tutu kidnapped a little human girl and raised her as a Raven, telling her constantly that she was a monster and unworthy of love. Kraehe, as he had named her, rebelled by creating her human identity, The Ojou Rue, and eventually found out about her own origins and switched sides completely.
- Every diclonius in Elfen Lied, despite being little girls, have enormous psychic power. This coupled with constant abuse and being ostracized from normal humans as well as a predisposition towards killing said humans (of course this may be a side effect of the abuse) creates a tragic and deadly experience for all.
- This troper had the impression that the young diclonius don't control their abilities very well, so just getting angry or scared can cause heads to fall. And after that it's time for lynching parties, and before long a brand new sociopath is born, since everybody really is out to get her.
- The manga makes it very plain that diclonius have a built in urge to kill normal humans. Nana, the only one that consistently resists this, is actually called a "traitor" by another diclonius precisely for this reason.
- Arguably, in Dragon Ball Z, Piccolo kidnapped and trained Son Gohan for a year to be a tykebomb against the oncoming Saiyans, and perhaps if he can use him against his father, Son Goku when he returns from his almost literal Training From Hell. However, he grew fond of Gohan over the year, and although Gohan was vital (and would especially be in later sagas), the Saiyans were too strong and it ended up with him sacrificing himself to save him.
- Played a little more straight with Frieza taking on Vegeta as a child. Admittedly Vegeta decided to switch sides a bit prematurely and thus wasn't exactly a threat to Frieza when he did, but when you consider the fact that Frieza's eventual demise was at the hands of Vegeta's son, the whole thing still seems rather ill advised on Frieza's part
- In the second season of Code Geass, Rolo Lamperouge (pictured above) turns out to be a tykebomb. His lack of experience beyond doing his duty (not to mention being rather psychotic) makes him easy pickings for being manipulated and suborned by the very person he was sent after.
- In the Nightmare of Nunnally Alternate Continuity manga, where the above mentioned character is recast as Lelouch's Evil Twin, the role of the Tyke Bomb falls to Anya.
- Let's not forget Emperor Charles. His entire kingdom is run by his children, who he raises to be loyal... or dead. Kinda doesn't work when his three most competent children try to kill him, including one whom succeeds in doing so. Even Euphemia doesn't like him.
- The Amestris government in Fullmetal Alchemist (Manga only) did this for an entire group of babies. They were raised to become the puppet ruler of the nation, and when they became old enough, they where injected with a Philosopher's stone. The survivor was named King Bradley, and made ruler of Amestris only subservient to the real ruler Father.
- Allenby Beardsley from G Gundam. She *hates* being a Tykebomb for her government, trained ever since she lost her parents, and actually falls for Domon Kasshu because he's the first one who sees her as a normal girl, not a human weapon.
- Akaya Kirihara from The Prince Of Tennis. His sempai aren't evil people *per se* (though dangerously close to the Knight Templar archetype, as much as sports manga allows), but they encourage him to use his Unstoppable Rage-induced Devil Mode when he plays, since that makes him *very* hard to beat. In the anime, Kevin Smith is also a Tykebomb.
- In the Read Or Die TV series, Junior, the son of Nancy Makuhari and I-jun leader Ikkyu Soujun, was raised up to be a tykebomb by Joker of the British Library.
- Several of the Artificial Newtypes from the UC Gundam contunity, specially Four and Rosamia from Zeta Gundam and Elpe Puru from Gundam ZZ. For that matter, also the "Druggies" from Gundam SEED and Stellar Louissier, Sting Oakley and Auel Neidel from Gundam SEED Destiny.
- Cossette, from the Excel Saga anime, was raised to become an assassin after her mother's death, with the verbal abuse included. She gets better with help from the Great Will of the Universe that revives her mother. Later on, she becomes an assassin again because she likes the smell of blood
- Rei and Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Rei was intended to pilot EVA from the beginning among other things, while Asuka was recruited from a very young age.
- Shinji himself is the ultimate example of the trope. Gendo sends him away, and when he comes back taunts him and alternates between showing some humanity and treating him like shit precisely so that Shinji will hate him and direct his feelings towards his mother, whose soul is inside the Eva, so that he can "synch" with her and eventually trigger Third Impact on Gendo's terms. Things dont go quite according to plan.
- A rare example from the (nominal) heroes, Omi Tsukiyono from Weiss Kreuz was rescued from abduction as a child by his handler, Persia, only to be raised as an assassin by him with the intention Omi would then be sent to kill Reiji Takatori, the father who abandoned him, who was also Persia's older brother. Unfortunately for Persia, Omi's paternity turned out to be rather less clear-cut than he'd imagined and he turned out to have trained his own child to be a conditioned killer. And these are the good guys.
- Flame Of Recca is almost a perfect illustration of why you should treat your Tyke Bombs properly. The Big Bad, Mori Kouran, secretly created dozens of genetically-engineered clones of his Dragon Kurei, spliced together with genes from his own daughter, Kurenai, in an attempt to create a servant that would have Kurei's terrifying flame powers, but that Kouran could go to sleep around without worrying that he would wake up with his face burnt off. Only two of his creations survived: A girl, Renge, and a boy, Aoi. Renge had flame powers and childlike simplicity, exactly what Kouran had been looking for, and so he adopted her as his daughter and spoiled her with praises. She remained loyal right through the end of the series, up until when Kouran killed her and absorbed her flame powers in order to give himself resistance to the protagonist's similar ones. Aoi, on the other hand, did not have flame powers, and so was considered a failure. He was treated like garbage, and although he did serve Kouran faithfully through most of the series (trying desperately to prove his worth), in the end The Power Of Friendship causes him to perform a Heel Face Turn.
- Several characters in Monster were orphans chosen for a psychological experiment attempting to create "perfect soldiers," which went catastrophically wrong. The titular character was even involved in two of them, having been born from parents who were paired off as the first stage of a eugenics experiment.
- Also, several characters from Gundam 00. More exactly: Setsuna F. Seiei, Allelujah Haptism, the three Trinity siblings (Johann, Michael, Nena), Marie Parfasy aka Soma Peiris, and later Louise Halevy.
- Apparently Shiro from Deadman Wonderland had been raised and made into a weapon.
- Gaara in Naruto, whose Tykebombification went a little too well...
- Apparently Naruto himself was set up in his rather sucky position because the fourth Hokage knew Madara unleashed the fox on Konoha, and knew whoever was going to deal with it would need some extra power, so he sealed a gigantic rampaging monster into Naruto, who is not happy about this. Bonus points for being sort of justified, though.
- This could apply to most Naruto ninja actually.
- Many (if not most) of Orochimaru's subordinates could be considered tykebombs, as it appears that he find many them as children, often orphans, and raises them as fanatically loyal soldiers. Some he chose because they already possessed useful special abilities, and others he modifies, either genetically, through the curse seal or by providing them with weapons, sometimes implanted like those of the Sound ninja that participated in the Chuunin exam.
- Hiura in Kekkaishi
- Sousuke from Full Metal Panic, being taken in by the KGB at 5 years old, was pretty much raised to be an assassin. And then he got taken in by Majihd to become a guerrilla at the age of 8. And after that, up until his current life (16 years old), Kalinin had trained him even more. This is one rare instance, however, where he generally wasn't treated badly by the people who raised him to be a human weapon. Lampshaded in the novels, where he actually thinks to himself that he had been aware that he was always treated gentler and nicer by the other soldiers and fighters because he was pretty.
- Ennis from Baccano!, as well as many unnamed Homunculi before her, were homegrown by the Big Bad Szilard to do most of his dirty work. Additionally, while Chane Laforet might not have been born and bred as a tykebomb (rather, Huey was just wondering about the reproductive mechanics of immortals), that didn't stop him from getting ideas after discovering she had a serious drive to make him happy, regardless of consequences. Fast forward some years later and now she's a knife-wielding killing machine at his back and call.
- Hansel and Gretel of Black Lagoon probably count. They do, in fact, turn on their current handlers, but they are so fucked up that Defusing The Tykebomb is completely and utterly not an option.
- Pacifica Casull, the poison that will destroy the world, spends much of her life running and hiding because the whole world believes she is one of these. She is, but not the one they're thinking of.
Comic Books
- The original members of the Runaways were literally bred to take over for their parents, to inherit the Earth and their parents' power. It did not go well. For irony, the children rebelled because their parents had treated them well, since the children grew up with healthy consciences. Thus, they wanted no truck with parents who ritually murdered other teenagers and were willingly serving monsters who intended to wipe out all life on Earth.
- More literal tykebombs existed in the recent Sinestro Corps War in the Green Lantern comic books. The so-called "Children of the White Lobe" are psychokinetic children raised from birth to be fanatical terrorist suicide bombers, and who make use of a mineral that becomes extremely explosive when stimulated by psionic powers such as their own—usually by swallowing a small chunk and then setting it off when the time is right.
- Current Batgirl Cassandra Cain was trained from a young age to be an assassin. She was horrified by her first kill, and ran away. She subsisted on the streets, until encountering Batman and his allies.
- The Strafenkinder in Books Of Magic, sort of. The Margrave entices young, unhappy boys with lies and gifts, give them a fancy uniform and neat badges. And then send them back to their parents to explode. A few of them can put themselves back together afterwards, but the Margrave doesn't seem too concerned about those who don't.
- Michana Loomis in Nexus. Paradoxically, despite her older sister Stacy's best efforts to laser-guide her, she ended up saving Horatio from Stan in their final confrontation.
- Also Horatio's own daughters, since they were conceived by Ursula expressly for the purpose of inheriting Horatio's powers, and raised by her to be warriors. They ended being good anyway though, and saved Horatio from the Loomis sisters.
- As recently revealed in the Knights Of The Old Republic comics, Lucien Draay was raised by Haazen in this way as part of his revenge on Lucien's father Barrison.
- All the Judges in the Judge Dredd universe start their training around age 6 or so (possibly earlier).
- Kid Amazo from the pages of JLA Classified.
- Red Skull seemed to be heading down this path in the Ultimate Universe - the illegitimate son of Captain America, he was taken from his mother and raised by the United States military, and proved to be leaps and bounds a better soldier than even his father... And then he killed everyone on the compound and cut off his own face. At seventeen.
- Thanos from Marvel Comics and Gammora. Thanos raised a daughter from childhood to have a perfect assassin. As a subversion he did try to otherwise be a decent father to her, though she rebelled anyway.
- Most Sith from Star Wars Legacy. Specifically Darth Talon, who is a Tyke Sex Bomb.
Film
- Kovu from The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride.
- Possibly Darth Vader, in a convoluted way.
- Darth Maul is a less convoluted example, given that he was selected and trained from the time he could walk.
- And let's not forget the Grand Army of the Republic, an entire race of tykebombs.
- Galen Marek, anyone?
- Just about the entire Old Jedi Order was trained from infancy. The question of how the parents are convinced to give up their babies is mostly handwave
- Two words: MILITARY SCHOOL. And, the Star Wars galaxy is incredibly retro on top of that, having feudalism and slavery mixed with interstellar space-travel and intelligent androids.
- Not Handwaved?
- Syndrome threatened to do this to Jack-Jack Parr in The Incredibles, until the baby turned into a demon and beat the hell out of him.
- Lady Snowblood was conceived by rape and raised as an assassin from birth by an abusive monk solely to avenge her dead mother's murdered husband and son. It Got Worse.
Literature
- The setting of most of Ender's Game is essentially a Tykebomb factory.
- Ender in particular is abused and pushed to his breaking point, just like the standard tykebomb, in an attempt to create the perfect commander. Standard mistake by the villains, right? No. It works.
- In the Discworld novel Sourcery, the wizard Ipslore the Red raised his son the "sourcerer" (a source of magical power, and much more powerful than wizards, who just manipulate it) to conquer the Unseen University, and then the world. Coin is expected to do this at the age of ten, and manages quite well before Rincewind Defuses him with his utter, comical harmlessness.
- Mara Jade Skywalker from the Star Wars Expanded Universe, minus the abuse, plus some favoritism and possibly a bit of mind control on Palpatine's part. The fact that I listed her full name should mean something...
- Moke in Star Trek New Frontier was not raised to be a Tykebomb, but he turned out to be one nonetheless. Note, Moke is not the name his father would have given him. He'd have picked something more traditional like... Thor
- Falcone in Warchild made it his personal mission to make an army of tykebombs, his "protégés". He figured a soldier raised from a young age would be absolutely loyal to him. And if they went out and made their own protégés, these in turn would also be loyal to him. After a couple decades, he'd have an army of trained soldiers with no qualms about following his orders. Unfortunately (well, for him, not so much for the kids he manipulated), no one told him it might be a bad idea to sexually abuse those kids he obtained. Of the four he tried to create, one was rescued by a Space Marine and became his greatest enemy, another killed himself, the third escaped and later murdered Falcone rather than see him escape. Only the fourth was loyal for any length of time.
- The Mouse Army in The Diamond Age. Although it isn't entirely clear whether they were intended for good or nefarious purposes originally.
- The Vorkosigan Saga: Mark. Over the course of several books, there's a lot of character development with him learning to be his own person away from the purpose his obsessive father created him for.
- Actually, a frequently-recurring theme in that series is genetically-engineered people who turn out not to be as obedient or predictable as their creator expects: the quaddies in Falling Free, Taura, the ba in Diplopmatic Immunity, etc.
- In Dune Messiah, the conspiracy against Emperor Paul Muad'Dib created Hayt to assassinate him. Later in God Emperor of Dune, the conspiracy against the God Emperor Leto II created Hwi Noree for the same purpose. Leto himself created gholas of Duncan Idaho for companionship; most of them rebelled against him.
Live Action TV
- Adria in Stargate SG-1 is a genetically engineered child that the Ori made in order to have a messenger in the Milky Way without dealing directly with the Ancients. She was also engineered to not stay a child for long.
- In the first season SG-1 found a literal Tyke Bomb which would blow up the second she was returned to her home planet. She was adopted by Dr. Frasier.
- Max and her sibs from Dark Angel were created with cat DNA mixed in and trained from birth to be soldiers before escaping and turning against their former "sponsors."
- The series Angel had Connor kidnapped only a few months after his birth and raised to his late teens in a hostile dimension, taught to become the ultimate opponent against his birth father.
- From the second season of Heroes, Elle Bishop, after her electrical powers manifested, was subjected to extreme electrical torture to see how much she could take. By her own father, no less. The end result is a sadistic and insane girl whose father sends her out in the field, referring to her as an "executioner."
- The Jem'Hadar, the Big Bad Dominion's elite shock troops from Star Trek Deep Space Nine are not quite a straight-up example as they're not necessarily mistreated by their creators nor are they ruled over irresponsibly and thus have pretty rock-solid loyalty. This loyalty, however, is achieved through an engineered, in-bred drug addiction; when they run out of that drug, they run the danger of playing this trope straight-up.
- The Remans of the Romulan Empire in The Movie Nemesis are a much more straight-up example, especially since they are essentially ruled by a kid.
- River Tam of Firefly was taken at an early age to be made into a Brainwashed And Crazy psychic Super Soldier. As with most Alliance dirty tricks, it didn't quite work as planned.
- Dean and Sam Winchester from Supernatural were both trained as hunters from a young age.
- Icheb from Voyager was genetically engineered to produce a virus that would destroy any Borg cube he was picked up by.
- The Borg are bred into the collective artificially, in addition to assimilating others.
Tabletop Games
- In Exalted, the Deathlord known as the Dowager of the Irreverant Vulgate in Unrent Veils only has one Abyssal Exalt: a young girl called the Shoat of the Mire, who is always a member of the Dusk Caste, the Abyssals' ultimate warriors. Since Abyssals are usually stuck at the age they Exalted at, the Shoat will remain a young girl for the rest of her existence. Should one Shoat die, another will take her place.
Video Games
- Cammy and the rest of the "Dolls" in the Street Fighter series.
- Metal Gear Solid does this a lot, although usually deals with the psychological repercussions, too. Raiden was six years old when he held his first AK, the three Snake triplets were all raised from their cloned conception to be extremely good soldiers, and in Portable Ops Gray Fox is revealed to have been raised in a twisted isolation tank as part of the 'Perfect Soldier Project'.
- Meanwhile, Revolver Ocelot (ADAM), called "Adamska" by his fellow Russians, as well as Big Mama (EVA). Both were trained from young ages to be Super Soldiers, as well as to blend perfectly into various nationalities. Ocelot, being half-Russian and -American, could act as a spy for either country with relative ease. EVA, meanwhile was raised by the Chinese and trained to act and speak flawlessly like a American. In The Last Days Of FOXHOUND, this is spoofed with Ocelot's lines: "I've been working for [The Philosophers] since I was born," and "I've been trained to be an X-Tuple agent from the age of four."
- For an example made by the good guys, the main character of the Halo series was trained as a warrior from the age of six.
- In fact, an entire army was trained of them. Most are dead, though.
- Both of the Fable games revolved around this trope.
- Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII. He was engineered by Shinra scientists to be the perfect soldier, implanted in the womb with alien DNA to endow him with superhuman strength and intelligence. The procedure killed his mother in childbirth, though she remained Not Quite Dead. He was then raised by his "surrogate" father (who never told him they were actually related) and grew up to be one of the world's most famed war heroes... until he discovered (most of) his secret origins, went Ax Crazy, and decided to destroy the planet and become a god in the process. He damn near succeeded.
- Sephiroth's remnant, Kadaj, also qualifies. After Sephiroth's defeat, he wills this guy (and two others) into existence with the mentality and appearance of a teenager, for the purpose of insinuating Reunion and bringing Ol' Seph back from the Lifestream, and sacrificing his own body in the process. It's unknown how much Kadaj actually knew of what would happen. He was pretty much programmed to press for it to happen. He also wanted his mommy, which is kind of hard to explain. Loz and Yazoo also count, but they don't get as much screentime.
- Final Fantasy VI has Celes and Terra. Justified in Celes's case, as the Magitek infusion process is said to be incredibly dangerous and painful when used on an adult. The last one they tried it on was Kefka, and that didn't turn out well.
- Terra herself was captured as an infant and raised as a tykebomb due to her natural gifts.
- Final Fantasty Tactics had Rafa and Malak, who had their village destroyed, so they could become these after their elders refused to let the villain use them for his own purposes. Rafa turns and Malak follows shortly.
- Ramirez from Skies Of Arcadia was made by the Silver Civilization to hunt down the Moon Crystals by infiltrating the Valuan Armada. Unfortunately, being Raised By Wolves as he was, exposure to the world beyond proved too much to him and he ended up as the Battle Butler of charismatic Big Bad Galcian - the very man he was sent to thwart.
- Taken a bit further with Galcian's training and indoctrination of Ramirez (he was just young enough for this trope to still qualify). Somewhat subverted, as it appears that Galcian genuinely cares for and respects Ramirez, acting as a father figure.
- Considering what Ramirez did to his predecessor, who also acted fatherly towards him but eventually stabbed him in the back (and failed epically), one might say Galcian has a very good reason for doing that...
- In Dead Rising, Carlito is revealed to have set up adoptions for infected orphans all over America at the end of the 72-hour story.
- In Bio Shock, the player character turns out to be a Tykebomb.
- Though not raised from birth, the SeeDs in Final Fantasy VIII are generally trained from a relatively young age, with the youngest accepted students being only five years old and the oldest being fifteen. Ostensibly they're being trained as supercharged mercenaries, but in reality they're being prepared to wage war against the Sorceresses.
- Super Robot Wars Original Generation gave us The School, a facility that "reconditioned" children, both physically and mentally, to become Humongous Mecha pilots. Eventually, the high mortality rate(or an unknown number of subjects, only four survivors are known of) and the development of mecha training programs that could be safely used on normal people, The School was eventually closed down.
- JC Denton in Deus Ex is a clone raised from birth by "foster parents" employed by Page Industries, who are murdered by a MIB when they become attached to him and Paul. He was raised to be a nano-aug for UNATCO, who are pawns of Page Industries, until his brother, Paul (having already defected), confronts him at an airbase and persuades him to examine the details more closely. JC does so, and in the process is labeled a traitor due to his actions. He then rescues Paul from eventual demise at the hands of a killswitch, turns on his former masters with the help of what remains of the Illuminati, unifies the Hong Kong Triads (who aid him), and canonically merges with Helios (in place of Bob Page, whom Helios decided wasn't worthy) to restore order and usher in a new, enlightened age.
- What makes JC's background confusing though, is that if you read some of the datacubes lying around Area 51, they imply that JC's history wasn't the one mentioned above, but instead he was born a couple years before the game, had growth acceleration, and implanted memories. If you look at the "decanting tanks" in one room, one of them have your name on it, states that you were born a few years earlier, and had a assigned birth date to you. Which is the real theory is anyone's guess.
- Jaffar from Fire Emblem 7 was allegedly found as an infant sleeping atop a pile of corpses, and groomed to be a powerful assassin by the local assassin's guild. Nino was probably a failed attempt at making one of these as well, although she turned out to be too softhearted, and in fact is who triggers Jaffar's humanity and his Heel Face Turn.
- Cynder, from The Legend of Spyro almost fits this. Her egg was stolen by the Dark Master's forces before her birth and she was raised within his evil influence, given seriously souped up powers and an adult form and sent out to help the Drk Master take over the world. And she is a total Bad Ass.
- Interestingly, the "Fury" attacks of Spyro (and Cynder in the third game) make them pretty much elemental tykebombs.
- The Zener Children in Second Sight were meant to not only prove the reality of psychic warfare, but also to act as the first generation of psychic super-soldiers loyal to the Soviet Union. However, the project was a failure: more than half of the children who learned to use their powers successfully were hideously disfigured by their medication, and the others were judged far too disconnected from the outside world to be of any immediate military use.
- Plus, in a subversion of standard Tykebomb fare, the research staff treated the Zener Children very well, and continued to do so even after the project's funding was cut.
- The main character in Overlord 2 started out as a Creepy Child in the little town of Nordberg. The Minions eventually found him and brought him back to the Netherworld. Then Gnarl raised him for 13 years to become the Overlord that they needed. The Minions being in charge of his early development goes a long way to explaining why the new Overlord is more explicitly evil than his canonically Noble Demon father the previous Overlord.
- In FEAR, both the Point Man and Paxton Fettel were raised as these. In additional, Project Harbinger involved all of Team Dark Signal, including Michael Bekett, the player character in Project Origin were raised as psychic Tykebombs, and Wade Elementary is a school devoted to creating Tykebombs through use of drugs to generate psychic abilities.
Web Comics
- Shade Tail in El Goonish Shive
 was created with this in mind, but the indoctrination didn't take, and she eventually escaped as a total innocent with Shape Shifting powers.
- Bell from the Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi is strongly hinted to be one of these. Project Rowdy also seems to be a government project that resurrected the Rowdy Ruffs to serve this very purpose (the Ruff resurrection happened before the canon resurrection by Him, which explains the difference).
- Code Name Hunter has Prince Matthew Mousira. In Queen Moraine's own words:
- "My grandson is a magical time bomb. No, everything is not fine."
Web Original
Western Animation
- Danny Phantom had one villain attempting to clone Danny, in the process creating Danielle, an "imperfect" (younger, female) clone who had his powers but risked clone degeneration by using them. She stayed loyal to the villain... until he basically told her to her face that he didn't care about her except as a stepping stone to create a perfect clone of Danny.
- Slade from Teen Titans had designs on grooming Robin into a Tykebomb. When that failed, he moved on and succeeded with Terra. Then he pushed her too far and suffered the aforementioned explosive retaliation.
- X-23, a modified clone of Wolverine, in X-Men: Evolution (who later became a Canon Immigrant to the print comics)
- When the cartoon series She-Ra: Princess of Power was created to be the Distaff Counterpart to He Man And The Masters Of The Universe, it of course needed to explain why Prince Adam/He-Man suddenly had a twin sister (Princess Adora aka She-Ra) no-one had seen or heard of before. So... It seems Adora was kidnapped during infancy by the villain Hordak, who whisked her away to another dimension and raised her himself. She remains loyal to Hordak well into her adulthood, until an encounter with her brother leads to her Heel Face Turn.
- A rare example of a Tykebomb for good is Terry McGinnis from Batman Beyond as revealed in the Fully Absorbed Finale.
- Azula from Avatar The Last Airbender is the Tyke Bomb of her father Evil Overlord Ozai. This is one of the most successful examples, as Ozai made sure to "coddle and praise" her rather than "abuse her and insist she is made to serve him" (that's what Zuko is for.)
- The Justice League episode "Wild Cards" features a Tykebomb of sorts in the form of Ace, who was raised to be, essentially, as terrifying as possible. The Royal Flush Gang in this episode are arguably a mega-Tykebomb. In Justice League the Gang originated in Cadmus, whose specialty is creating and raising up super-powered opponents just in case the League starts abusing its power or, as the case may be, Lex successfully schemes to make it appear as if the League has. From their (chronological) introduction in this episode, they go on to become a staple of the Batman Beyond Rogues Gallery.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles character Karai is turned into one of these in the 2003 cartoon. An orphan found and adopted by the Shredder at an early, he turned her into one of his most loyal and capable liutenants. The Shredder, surprisingly enough, turns out to be a rather good parent (at least from her account) and the ensuing loyalty she feels to him is at the core of her character arc.
Real Life
- An English king (probably Edward III) is quoted as having said, "To train a longbowman, start with his grandfather."
- Edward III was also a Tyke Bomb himself, forced to fight for the father he hated at the age of twelve, crowned by rebels at the age of fifteen. When he was eighteen, he dismissed the courtiers who had done this to him with extreme prejudice.
- Tragic examples: All too many Real Life Child Soldiers and mercenaries...
- The Khmer Rouge of Cambodia apparently used real-life Tyke Bombs as their enforcers. They made them torture and kill small animals starting at a very young age, and gradually moved them up to dealing out pain to people. By the time they were twelve or so, they could execute a starving peasant as if they were squashing a fly, and obeyed the commands of Khmer Rouge cadres like trained dogs.
- They're now training literal "tyke bombs" in Afghanistan.
- Two Words: Lyoto Machida (starting at 4:08).
- Above video removed for terms of use violation, apparently...
- During Moor occupation of Spain and Portugal a large number of the sultan's top soldiers were the saqalibas, East European men kidnapped as children during occupations and invasions of their lands and raised as devoted and effective soldiers. They were educated in The Spartan Way, didn't live in misery, and were destined to important military charges. They became a hell of a lobby with whom the pretenders to the throne had better be on good terms.
- This goes for the Ottoman Sultan's Janissary corps as well, typically conscripts from Greek or Bulgarian Christian families who were taken during adolescence, circumcised, converted to Islam and given elite combat training. Because the Sultan's mother was invariably a member of the previous Sultan's harem, the Sultan was considered "half slave" and the Janissaries received their pay from him personally.
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