Nanomachines / Western Animation

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• In one episode of The Batman, the Joker uses a device plugged into a machine to "convince" it to give him money. Batman destroys the machine, leaving a copy of the Joker's mind on the computer and mentally stunning the real one for a few hours. Eventually, the digital Joker decides to upload his mind into WayneTech nanomachines, creating a shape-shifting, size-changing nano-clone dubbed "Joker 2.0".
• Ben 10:
  • Ben 10: Word of God says that Ben's technology-enhancing Galvanic Mechamorph transformation Upgrade is made of nanites.
  • Ben 10: Ultimate Alien: Nanomech and the nanochips return from Ben 10: Alien Swarm, and Gwen even refers to Elena as "the Nanite Queen" once.
• One episode of Captain Planet and the Planeteers has a variation on the usual plot by having a mysterious figure appear in a small town in Latin America and give people everything they want, which it does by firing mysterious beams at nearby natural resources. Said beams turn out to be nanomachines. Unlike most examples, they were always under control of the villain, who turns out to be a spirit of environmental destruction whom the team have met before.
• In the Code Lyoko episode "Amnesia", XANA creates nanomachines that act like a virus and erase the memories of anyone infected, spreading among humans as easily as a flu bug does. They are actually seen with a microscope, looking like minute spiders.
• In the Gargoyles episode "Walkabout", villain-turned-good guy Dingo acquires a living suit made of nanomachines after helping the Gargoyles convince said nanomachines not to eat Australia.
• Central to the premise of Generator Rex. An industrial accident spreads nanomachines all over the world which a tendency to warp living things into monsters, which the titular character must deal with. Rex himself has nanites, too, but he can control his and make weapons out of them.
• The Silencerz vehicles in Hot Wheels: AcceleRacers are heavily implied to be made of a liquid nanomachine composite, given the various abilities that they can pull off, ranging from being able to disguise as other vehicles to having an Invisibility Cloak.
• Iron Man: Armored Adventures:
  • Technovore is a data- and technology-eating virus which infects a cluster of nanites, creating one of the most dangerous villains ever faced by Iron Man. Bonus Points for the fact that it's Tony who creates the virus. In its initial appearance, Tony apparently destroys it; however, a few of the nanites seem to survive.
  • Later, this comes up as Extremis, a Super-Soldier technology that S.H.I.E.L.D. has not yet perfected. Tony uses it to cure his heart, but it also gives him super-strength and control over technology.
• Justice League:
  • Alien nanomachines figure into "Dark Heart", managing to give the entire League a serious run for its money. Later on, things really get serious when Brainithor gets a hold of that technology.
  • Brainiac/Luthor is also an example. Years prior to those events (back in Superman: The Animated Series), Brainiac forced Luthor to build him a new body, and his first act in that body was to inject Luthor with a "nanoscopic payload" that carried a dormant copy of Brainiac's entire consciousness for safekeeping.
  • Amazo the android is made of nanotech, which allows him to evolve by duplicating whatever power he sees. Luthor and the Atom attempt to use this knowledge in an attempt to stop him, but he reveals that he has evolved beyond nanotechnology.
  • Deadshot is sprung from death row and recruited into Task Force X. To ensure that he completes his mission and doesn't just run for the hills, he's been infected with explosive nanites that will literally blow his head off if he disobeys.
• Kim Possible:
  • Despite the reference, the episode "Tick-Tick-Tick" isn't really a good example. The tick was visible to the naked eye, there was just one, and it didn't do anything but explode. But "nano" still sounds about a hundred times better than "mini". Just because it's big, doesn't necessarily imply it isn't made out of very small components, of course.
  • A better example of nanotechnology in the series could be the Hephaestus Project, a sort of living metal capable of repairing, modifying, and increasing in size when given the proper commands. Drakken uses this technology in Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama to create an army of robots disguised as toys.
• Max Steel: Max was just an ordinary college student until an accidental injection of nanomachines gave him super strength and endurance. Gets pretty heavy with it, too, as the show loved to sneak in more complexity than most Saturday morning cartoons get away with; the nanomachines here run on a unique form of power known as "Trans-Phasik Energy" or "T-Juice" — the flipside being that said energy is burned rather quickly in combat. The nanites have symbiotic relationship with the protagonist: if they go offline, he dies. Surprisingly not played for a plot point as often as one might think so much as an occasional inconvenience... until the show's entire third season, in which the government forces the agency to disband after terrorists steal the generator and nearly wipe out the UN with it. It is implied that the main character is living on borrowed time without the full-size power generator, and that he will die in the near future with only the portable model to fall back on. Whenever he powers up, he's burning off said time. Nice Job Killing Yourself, Hero?
• In the title sequence of Phineas and Ferb, there is a passing reference to nanobots. They become the central focus of an episode and are built to emulate any object by remote control. Perry ends up needing them to fight off Norm's attempt to conquer the Tri-State area with weaponry.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In the episode "Nano of the North", the girls must deal with a swarm of carbon-devouring nanobots invading Townsville disguised as rain. Professor Utonium shrinks them down to the nanobots' own size so that they can actually fight. When the girls start winning, the nanobots merge into their equivalent of a Humongous Mecha... which the Professor just steps on.
• In one episode of Rick and Morty, Rick reveals that he put nanobots into Morty's bloodstream which when activated would allow him to, of all things, turn into a car.
• In Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century, a villain sends his victims puzzles that, upon being solved, prick them with a needle, injecting nanobots that cause them to temporarily go insane. Being a genius, Holmes doesn't take long to grasp the concept of nanotechnology, despite being born in the wrong century.
• In the Superman: The Animated Series episode "Knight Time", Superman's foe Brainiac mind-controls Bruce Wayne a.k.a. Batman using nanomachines.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) features a recurring antagonist in Nano, a nanomachine colony that has somehow "personified" (acquired sentience) and which possesses the emotional maturity of an infant. Eventually, however, it outgrows its immature tendencies and joins the super-hero team the Justice Force.
• Teen Titans (2003):
  • Slade blackmails Robin into becoming his apprentice by infecting the rest of the Titans with nanomachines that will kill them if he should decide to activate them.
  • In "Crash", a computer virus in Cyborg's body somehow creates cell-sized "drones" that spread its influence even to Cyborg's organic parts, physically fighting off Beast Boy and Gizmo when they attempt to get rid of it.
• Microbots create the first antagonist on Earth in Transformers: Animated. A cockroach is injected with them, and it grows, bursts out of the tube it's held in, and proceeds to merge with everything metal around it and grow into a skyscraper-sized, tentacled, rather blobby monster. In a later episode, the Microbots are reconfigured to eat garbage, and again go out of control when exposed to an allspark fragment.

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