Markup View

Author: OmarKarindu

Mar 12th 2013 at 11:02:24 AM

I suspect this will end up as a YMMV trope to avoid ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontLike.

Film
* This happens to MikeHammer in the climax of ''Kiss Me Deadly'' as a deliberate part of the film's StealthParody of the Mickey Spillane novels. In Spillane's novel, Hammer kills the villain[[spoiler: ess]] in suitably [[HoistByHisOwnPetard ironic]] fashion, but here, [[spoiler: Gabrielle]] instead wounds Hammer in the final confrontation and he must be dragged to safety by his secretary.
* In the original film adaptation of ''TheScarletLetter'', Hester ends up marrying Reverend Dimmesdale rather than eventually overcoming the stigma of her letter on her own. The revised ending was due to the [[MoralGuardians Hays Code]] requiring couples who had sex to be married.

Western Animation
* In the first season of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', the writers had Superman succumb to TheWorfEffect quite often, inadvertently making him look like one of the weaker Leaguers. They eventually noticed and corrected course, leading to TropeNamer for the WorldOfCardboardSpeech.
** Similarly, GreenLantern's ring was used in a much more limited fashion in the early seasons. Eventually, this too changes with the writers [[LampshadeHanging lampshading]] the matter by having his fellow Lantern Katma Tui lectures John on his unimaginative use of the ring.
*** And then there's WonderWoman very belatedly getting the full powers of her lasso unlocked, finally bringing her up to par with her standard comics incarnation. ''Justice League'' was made of this trope.
*  Aquaman's powers and competence were so downplayed in ''WesternAnimation/SuperFriends'' that they led to a popular notion that he is the most useless member of the team. More generally, the "no hitting" rules imposed by the MoralGuardians of the time ended up making many of the heroes and villains look unusually ineffective. Hawkman and Solomon Grundy were probably [[IncrediblyLamePun the hardest hit]] given that they were all about melee combat in the comics.

Video Games
* A great many examples of TheProblemWithLicensedGames stem from unduly weakening heroic or even superheroic characters from other media.
* Arguably, a number of ''{{Superman}}'' games, including the notorious ''Superman64'' suffer from downplaying Superman's powers in order to provide some risk for the player character. The problem is that they go too far into this trope and also remove the ''fun'' of playing as a ridiculously powerful character like Superman.