History Main / IconicAttributeAdoptionMoment

* In the beginnning of ''ComicBook/SupermanSmashesTheKlan'', Superman's powers are limited to what he had in MediaNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks (for instance, he can run fast, but can't fly), but steadily gaining some of the powers he's known for as he slowly comes to terms with his Kryptonian heritage.

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* {{Lampshaded}} - not especially flatteringly - in [[https://twitter.com/topherflorence/status/1446151707029917697?lang=en this tweet]] about how a hypothetical ''Surf {{Dracula}}'' show, in the streaming era, would probably devote its entire first season to explaining how he got the surfboard in the first place.
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** During the third act's FinalBattle, [[spoiler: Nate recovers a leather shoulder harness and pistol holster from a defeated henchman, instantly completing his ensemble, all the while the ''Uncharted'' theme motif [[ThemeSongPowerUp plays as he does so]].

* ''Series/YoungSheldon'': Young Sheldon Cooper initially dressed in button-down shirts with a bowtie. The season five finale "A Clogged Pore A Little Spanish And The Future" ended with him embracing adolescence by donning a Flash T-shirt on top of a long sleeve shirt, much like the outfits he would wear as an adult in ''Series/TheBigBangTheory''.

* In ''Film/MadameWeb2020'', [[spoiler:Cassie becomes blind and paralytic after her battle with Ezekiel. Her final scene in the movie has her on a wheelchair and wearing sunglasses, indicating that she's on her way to become like the Madame Web of the comics]].

* Elphaba in ''Theatre/{{Wicked}}'' slowly acquires each of the pieces of her iconic outfit (pointy black hat, a flying broom, and a long billowing cape) through the course of the musical. She's kneeling when she recieves the last piece, the cape, and as she does the music temporarily drops off. Then, as a particularly portentious arrangement of her {{Leitmotif}} plays, the Wicked Witch of the West rises.

* ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza 0}}'': Kiryu and Majima spend most of this {{Prequel}} in different outfits than later entries (a white suit and orange undershirt for Kiryu, a full tuxedo for Majima). They finally switch to their {{Iconic Outfit}}s in the last few scenes of the game, after the plot has been resolved and both have gotten back in with the yakuza.

*** C-3PO is shown in ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'' without his outer golden plating since Anakin couldn't afford any when building him. He gets dull gray plating in ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' after Shmi is freed and married to someone who can give her (and by extension, 3PO) a higher standard of living. He finally gets his gold plating by ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith''[[note]] Technically, he would have received it sometime during ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'', which canonically takes place between ''AOTC'' and ''ROTS''[[/note]], as he now belongs to Padmé, who is wealthy enough to afford such luxuries.

* ''Film/XMen1'': Rogue starts out with a head of fully red hair, then gains her signature SkunkStripe after Magneto's machine puts her under great stress, [[DiseaseBleach turning part of her hair white]].

* ''Series/MysteryRoad'': An episode of ''Origins'' has the young Jay discovering the straw hat that he will constantly wear in all the later-set films and TV seasons, unworn in a box in his dead father's house.

* Elphaba in ''Theatre/{{Wicked}}'' slowly acquires each of the pieces of her iconic outfit (pointy black hat, a flying broom, and a long billowing cape) through the course of the musical. She's kneeling when she recieves the last piece, the cape, and as she does the music temporarily drops off. Then, as a particularly portentious arrangement of her [[Leitmotif]] plays, the Wicked Witch of the West rises.

* Elphaba in ''Theatre/{{Wicked}}'' slowly acquires each of the pieces of her iconic outfit (pointy black hat, a flying broom, and a long billowing cape) through the course of the musical.

* After spending the first act of the show as a plucky young princess who nevertheless gets pushed around by the machinations of the adults in her life, ''Theatre/{{Elisabeth}}'' ends the act wearing her iconic Sternkleid (Star Dress), as the real Empress Elisabeth of Austria wore in her famous portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter - the first image that often comes to mind when people think of Sisi. Some productions even put her in an ornate frame to underscore the point. As she sings the final note of "Ich will dir nur sagen" (I Just Want to Tell You), a TriumphantReprise of her IWantSong "Ich gehör nur mir" (I Only Belong to Myself), she hides her face with her fan - yet another iconic object associated with older Sisi, as she often hid her face with her fan out of shyness as a young girl and out of fear of people seeing her old and no longer beautiful visage, when she was a noted ProudBeauty once.

* ''WebAnimation/DorklyOriginals'': The ''Film/SonicTheHedgehog'' example is parodied in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOVx2y21IrA "If Paramount Made Detective Pikachu",]] in which Pikachu meets a human villain resembling Mewtwo (who, for some reason, already has the tail).

* In ''WesternAnimation/RiseOfTheTeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'', the Turtles start out using their iconic ninja weapons used in most other adaptations, but they all break in the first episode, except for Donnie's bo staff. They then find magical weapons which they use for most of the rest of the series. A few episodes before the ending, they lose these magical weapons along with the bo. Then in the final episode, they use their newly-awakened Hamato Ninpo powers to create their iconic ninja weapons once more.