Basic Trope: A character's powers are normally pretty useless, but the plot contrives a highly specific situation to make them useful anyway.
- Straight: Amazing Girl's superpower is to create puddles. Fortunately, the plot makes sure that all of Emperor Evulz' guards are prone to slipping and hitting their heads.
- Exaggerated:
- Amazing Girl has the power of making the furniture clash with the wallpaper. Fortunately, Emperor Evulz is an interior decorator with a frail heart.
- A Plot Tailored to the Party, especially if several members of the party have bizarre/useless powers.
- Downplayed: Amazing Girl's superpower is manipulation of water. There always seems to be a handy source of water she can use, despite the plot not taking place in a setting where it's expected, such as a spaceship.
- Justified:
- Amazing Girl's powers are extremely situational, so the heroes' team only contacts her when her abilities can be put to good use.
- Amazing Girl knows her powers are pretty useless but still wants to do some good, so she seeks out villains who are prone to slipping.
- The entire thing is a "what if" scenario, with the person in question specifically thinking "how can I make this ability useful?" each time.
- Inverted:
- Kryptonite Is Everywhere
- An usually excellent power, for one reason or another, is put in exactly the worst situation possible, where it's useless or even actively detrimental.
- Subverted:
- Amazing Girl creates a few puddles. The guards look at her as if she's stupid.
- Amazing Girl reveals that creating puddles was only part of her power, and the she can really control water to an insane extent.
- Double Subverted:
- So she just creates more puddles, after which they slip and hit their heads again.
- That power was akin to a Limit Break, and shows up rarely.
- Parodied:
- Everyone on the Superawesome Hero Team has incredibly amazing superpowers, except for Amazing Girl, who has marginally less useful powers. Despite this, they deride her for it.
- Amazing Girl feels bad about her powers not being useful, so the team creates a fake threat for her to stop that specifically caters to her powers, so she would feel better about herself.
- Zig Zagged: Amazing Girl slips in and out of The Load depending on the sense of balance of her enemies.
- Averted: Her powers are useful and require no plot intrusion to work successfully.
- Enforced: The writer is fascinated by people with obscure talents and wants to write an aseop about how these talents are useful.
- Lampshaded: "Alright, they actually brought me along for this mission!"
- Invoked:
- Emperor Evulz is a Friendly Enemy of Team Superawesome and wants to raise Amazing Girl's spirits, so he arranges a scheme with its other members that plays to her strengths.
- Team Superawesome and Evulz (or knockoffs thereof) are hired by Make-A-Wish to let the Littlest Cancer Patient be Amazing for a day.
- Exploited: Evulz' mooks are the least competent ones out there, so The Team sends Amazing Girl against them. It keeps her busy, keeps the mooks distracted, and makes her look better.
- Defied:
- After learning her abilities are useless, she starts training to get stronger.
- Amazing Girl knew for a fact that her powers wouldn't be as much help as others, so she trained in martial arts, reaching mastery of skills to become one of the most deadly close range fighters of the heroes.
- After his first defeat at Amazing Girl's hands, Emperor Evulz takes steps to prevent history from repeating itself by equipping all his men with slip-proof rubber boots. Amazing Girl is left effectively powerless.
- Discussed: Team Superawesome holds a meeting and says, "Emperor Evulz is preparing to strike. Clearly this is a ploy to lure Amazing Girl into taking action."
- Conversed: "Emperor Evulz is on this issue's cover, so this must be one of those rare times Amazing Girl gets to do something useful."
- Deconstructed:
- Because her superpowers are so situationally specific, Amazing Girl decides against being a superhero.
- Amazing Girl gets creative with her superpowers and so becomes a superhero.
- Reconstructed:
- Amazing Girl is a "reserve superhero" and called upon only in situations where her powers are useful.
- Even with a creative mind, "creating puddles" is more limited than a traditional superpower like Super-Strength.
Back to This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman
- Implied: ???
- Plotted A Good Waste: ???
- Played For Laughs: ???
- Played For Drama: ???
