Basic Trope: A superhuman or abnormal character learns some sort of ordinary skill, technique or information that makes them more effective and/or badass than they previously were.
- Straight: Electro Man decides to take classes in electromagnetic radiation, electrical engineering, circuitry, and ionization in order to understand his Shock and Awe powers better, make them safer, and increase their range of use.
- Exaggerated: Electro Man finds "The Big Book Of All The Cool Crap You Can Do With Electrical Powers" and, upon completing it, effectively becomes a Reality Warper.
- Downplayed: Electro man takes classes on electricity. Although, because of the nature of his powers, he can't improve their effectiveness, he does learn how to work with what he can do better.
- Justified:
- Possessing superpowers is a major responsibility that our hero takes seriously, so this knowledge will help keep himself and others safe and benefit the world as a whole.
- Although Electro Man's super powers are amazing, he always took them for granted as being powerful, and never before considered that he could learn about the mundane parts of his power to improve the fantastic parts.
- Electro Man meets the villainous Megacoulomb, who has the exact same abilities as Electro Man but is Dumb Muscle. In response, Electro Man studies how electricity works to figure out ways to outsmart him
- Inverted:
- After delving into some Weird Science, an ordinary guy becomes Electro Man based on some pretty plausible technology.
- Someone becomes much more schooled in a scientific discipline due to experience with a related superpower.
- A meteorologist gains Weather Manipulation and becomes reliant on them, causing his forecasting skills to falter.
- Electro Man has an Imagination-Based Superpower that allows him to do virtually everything... but after getting the crap kicked out of him by the Monster of the Week every time he tries to do something clever, Electro Man decides "to hell with it" and goes full-on Tim Taylor Technology with the power, just plain bitch-slapping the hell out of the threat with the Bigger Stick that this creates.
- Electro Man's Electro Bullets are The All-Solving Hammer, and lots of plots revolve around everybody else trying to jump through a lot of hoops to find a solution to the problem only for Electro Bullets to make it moot.
- Subverted:
- As Electro Man learns more about how electricity actually works, he unfortunately finds that his earlier ability to shoot "Electro Bullets" was mostly thanks to Achievements in Ignorance and now that he knows it should be impossible, he can't do it at all. Now hindered with technical knowledge of how electrons work, his imagination has been thoroughly inhibited and his abilities are near-useless.
- Magic Fist has the ability to generate contact based explosions and it turns out that applying mundane techniques of boxing is the wrong approach. Any power his physical strength contributes is negligible and trying to follow techniques based on mundane constraints just limits him. What he actually needs is an appropriate style for his powers.
- Double Subverted: ...Until he finally figures out just how the hell he managed to create an "Electro Bullet" in the first place and uses his expertise to make them more powerful than ever.
- Parodied:
- Electro Man goes to Electro School, where he learns how to make "Electro Planes", eat "Electro Ice Cream" and seduce hot "Electro Women".
- Electro Man's mentor teaching him to use his powers the smart way is no one else than the Electro-Ghost of Nikola Tesla.
- Zig Zagged: Last issue, Electro Man learned how to fly by using electromagnetism. This issue, he forgets he can do that.
- Averted:
- Electro Man is Unskilled, but Strong and completely relies on his raw, untrained power to win.
- Electro Man's powers turn out to just look electrical but they instead run on a wholly different, Eldritch kind of energy and his knowledge of electrical engineering is worthless.
- Electro Man never thinks of seeking training in mundane knowledge that may augment his powers.
- Electro Man's enemies quite consistently have abilities that make them more dangerous to meet if you attack them with anything but Electro Bullets.
- Enforced:
- Parents complain that Electro Man is a poor role-model for children because he uses his dangerous abilities recklessly. The executives relent and ham-fist a story arc about him going to school to learn.
- The comic's artist has a Ph.D in Electrical Engineering, and the writer is tired of superheroes using their superpowers solely to beat things up - so when they start working with the Electro Man comic, the results are obvious.
- The comic's artist wants to show that while it's easier to learn how to kill than to incapacitate, it's still more rewarding to learn the latter.
- Lampshaded: "Sorry pal, just because I got superpowers doesn't mean I don't have skill!"
- Invoked:
- Another super with powers similar to Electro Man shows up and dishes out a Curb-Stomp Battle against the hero because he knows a thing or two about how electricity works. He then offers to train Electro Man to be more effective.
- The Big Good forces Electro-Man to take lessons in order to harness his powers properly.
- Implied: Electro-Man's dossier shows that he has a Masters in Electric Engineering.
- Exploited: Electro-Man discovers entirely new abilities through his study that most people don't actually know about, adding a useful technique and the element of surprise to his repertoire.
- Defied:
- ...But Electro Man refuses and manages to beat the aforementioned character because his "Electro Bullets" make no practical sense but catch the opponent off-guard.
- The Villain of the Week has powers upon powers and Crazy-Prepared plans upon plans that make it utterly impossible for Electro Man to win through any other means that are not his Electro Bullets.
- Electro Man is told he should get boxing lessons. Electro Man strenuously refuses.
- Discussed: "You know, I don't feel comfortable around a guy who can electrocute me with a thought and doesn't know a thing about electricity."
- Conversed: Two characters talk about how Electro Man, after his training and studying, has become a vastly more badass hero.
- Deconstructed:
- The Super Registration Act forces Electro Man to be trained by the government, but they only teach him abilties which are useful to them for the purposes of assassination or warfare. Electro Man becomes so efficient and powerful that he loses confidence in his abilities, because whenever he uses them, someone is sure to die.
- An Imagination-Based Superpower needs just that, imagination. Education means logic, which trumps wonder, which makes imagination die, which means a power that no longer works well, if it works at all.
- Just like All Therapists Are Muggles, this trope runs into a variation we can call "All Electric Engineers Are Muggles": the men who can teach Electro Man how electricity works may be pretty good at figuring out the best way to establish the wiring in a mechanical gadget, but when talking about a man who is able to summon enough energy from out of nowhere (or maybe somewhere within himself) to fuel an entire city and disperse it with a wave of a hand in shapes as absurd as "bullets", they don't really have a clue. Electro Man may learn some things which can come in handy for day-to-day safety, but in terms of actually trying to unlock his "true potential", he's barking up the wrong tree.
- Being told that you're a worthless fighter because you don't know how to fight "correctly" because you can't throw a good punch (even if there's no way you could ever throw a good punch — some people just don't have the body for it, and never will) while you are a lot better at throwing lasers is insulting no matter how the other guy tries to present it.
- Reconstructed:
- After the Super Registration Act forces Electro Man to become a killing machine, he learns additional things on his off-time, and eventually gains enough control over his ability to use them for other purposes besides violence and military applications.
- Imagination and logic aren't mutually exclusive. Being educated in sufficiently weird scientific fields has given him entirely new ideas, and thus new ways to use an Imagination-Based Superpower, especially if his power already breaks rules of reality as he knew them and basically creates new rules.
- What Electro Man is able to learn from the Muggle Electric Engineers comes in handy in a future arc where he's Brought Down to Normal and has to make do with a man-portable Tesla Coil of his own design. He's also some ideas of how to improve the electrical work (and thus other effects like energy efficiency) of that Powered Armor the team has lying around...
- Probably the Running Gag of "oh, Electro Man needs to learn how to fight! He can't throw a punch for shit! No, I don't care he has brittle bone disease!" will be laid to rest by punching the big bad's teeth out mid-monologue. Maybe. One last snarking line from his trainer about how he finally got it and the fans still being unsatisfied is a possibility.
- Played For Laughs: Electro Man reads a few short Cliff Notes on electricity and somehow gains a Superpower Lottery up to and including Super-Senses.
- Played For Drama: Electro Man's Love Interest was killed because he tried to save her from his nemesis and his powers fried her alive. Now, he diligently studies so that this will never, ever happen again.
- Played For Horror: Electro Man's doctorate in electric engineering makes him a Person of Mass Destruction capable of single-handedly bringing civilization back to the Stone Age.
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