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Superpowered Evil Side
(aka: Superpowered Neutral Side)

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Superpowered Evil Side (trope)
Jason Blood, born of man
A hidden evil lies within
Spoken verse awakens sin
And frees the demon Etrigan

"But I'm not my 'kind', not anymore — your shadow leeches saw to that. I'm half Toa of Light, half Toa of Shadow. This was what you wanted, wasn't it? Toa consumed by darkness, Toa not hampered by things like mercy or morality. Well, now you can choke on it."
Toa Takanuva, BIONICLE

The fight's not going so well for our hero. He's wounded and at the end of his strength, and his barely scratched opponent looks down at him and sneers. And then the hero somehow suddenly taps into a massive hidden power source within him and unleashes a can of whoopass on his opponent.

Unfortunately, it's not exactly the hero anymore. He's got glowing eyes, some new Facial Markings, a different way of talking, some new threads, and a lot less compunction about ripping someone in half. It's his Super-Powered Evil Side. Think of it as the Enemy Within when it's not the enemy, or as Jekyll and super-Hyde.

Interestingly, notwithstanding the name, this character isn't necessarily evil — he just seems like it because a superpowerful version of a normal person who has no compunctions about randomly destroying things registers objectively as "evil" on most people's scale. To be technically accurate, this is more of a Super-Powered Alter Id — this personality is the physical manifestation of the character's basic drives without having to deal with the inconvenience of higher thought processes and morality — but sometimes this character will have traits of actually being evil or even worse.

Keep in mind, of course, that as the Id not only represents one’s most base and primal desires, it also represents the instincts to survive, so once it’s let out of the subconscious it's not likely to want to go back in. Thus, the hero faces the very real threat of not returning to normal, each bout of Alternate Identity Amnesia causing him to get more worried about the next. Generally speaking, though, he's usually safe unless he starts thinking Evil Feels Good.

The narrative purpose of having a super-powered evil side is that it provides a way of saving a hero who is otherwise beaten but without making the hero look disproportionately powerful. It answers the question "why doesn't he just do that all the time?" with "because then the evil would take over." Additionally, if it leads to a Face–Heel Turn, it can serve the same purpose as Good Is Dumb in reverse — it justifies taking one member of the Five-Man Band or whatever and making him a match for his entire team while he has given in to evil. Alternatively, the evil side may escape his mind/body altogether, becoming a very dangerous Evil Counterpart.

This is the converse of With Great Power Comes Great Insanity, seeing as in this case, with great insanity comes great power.

One possible variation on this trope makes the Evil Side the original personality. This creates the odd situation of an "Evil" super-powerful monster whose "Good" not-as-powerful personality is dominant for whatever reason.

This is sometimes the reason to Beware the Nice Ones. Compare with Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass, Demonic Possession, Jekyll & Hyde and One-Winged Angel. Frequently overlaps with Sealed Evil in a Can and Sealed Badass in a Can. Contrast Heroic Resolve, My Name Is Inigo Montoya, and Helpless Good Side, although that last one sometimes goes hand in hand with this. May be caused by The Corruption. One possible way of Taking A Level In Badass, and in many ways, this is what The Berserker does.

Sub-Trope of Enemy Within and Super-Powered Alter Ego. May overlap with Split Personality. If the Super-Powered Evil Side is triggered by the character's anger or rage, then it is a type of Hulking Out. Split Mind, Split Powers rarely overlaps with this trope, as the evil side usually has their own powers on top of the ones the good personality has.

noreallife


Example subpages:

Other examples:

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    Fan Works 
Ah! My Goddess
  • Ah! Archfall!: Played Straight. Even before he had his Archs, Jago was a competent fighter but when things got rough, he could use his dark power side, known as "Papa Jupiter". At his most basic level, Jupiter can boost Jago's fighting power to the point where he can plaster ten grown men. At the full extent of his powers, he is AT LEAST as powerful as either the Almighty One or Lady Hild (possibly more so). Unfortunately at this level of power, he has no problem with killing people, even those he cares about (though he prefers enemies as they tend to fight back). As the story progresses, it's revealed that Jupiter taking over is the only thing that Jago is REALLY afraid of. This is brought to a head during the Deity Games when he faces a mirror that reflects a person's worst fears as sees the result of what a fully unleashed Jupiter can do; he devastates the world, crucifies Lamb and Damascus, beats Lind to death with a rock and uses his knife to murder their infant son. The psychic torment this causes is so great that it actually makes the mirror shatter.

Crossover

  • The Bridge (MLP): Monster X's Kaizer Ghidorah transformation serves as this. Monster X is a Noble Demon, while Kaizer Ghidorah is a bundle of hatred and rage. Monster X is roughly equal in strength to other kaiju like Godzilla and Gigan, while Kaizer Ghidorah can curb-stomp them.
  • Child of the Storm:
    • Harry has a dark side that starts appearing after Chapter 50. While not strictly another personality, it's certainly another side of him. According to Carol (who's had a look inside his mind), like all the experiences that should have screwed him up have been locked away in a box in his mind, constituting his dark side. It's frighteningly cold, ruthlessly calculating, and while not explicitly more powerful, Carol describes it as The Unfettered, while others describe it as being frighteningly reminiscent of a young Magneto. In one early appearance, it resulted in Harry putting an entire HYDRA assault team at his mercy and nearly forcing a Psychic-Assisted Suicide after their leader took a child hostage, only being talked down by Jane. Then, a chapter later, it led to him telekinetically ripping Gravemoss' ribcage open and tearing his heart out (not that it had any long-term effect). Unsurprisingly, Carol keeps a close watch on him, as Harry does on himself, being invariably horrified by what he's done when it sinks in.
    • Towards the end of the first book, Harry's protection is revealed as a fragment of the Phoenix Force, and the start of Ghosts of the Past shows that he can tap into it. Considering the already mentioned dark side and that the Phoenix has taken him over to protect him, appearing in the gear of the Dark Phoenix and destroying everything in its way, this is rather worrying — while the Phoenix is broadly benevolent or at least, Lily, the White Phoenix of the Crown, is, the power itself is a) morally neutral, b) incredibly volatile. As a result, Loki's fear is that the two will combine and turn him into the Dark Phoenix. This fear turns out to be entirely justified.
    • Bucky's Winter Soldier persona functions as this. He's still got the same abilities and skills, the Soldier persona is just much more ruthless, focused, and economical.
  • A Loud Among Demons (Helluva Boss & The Loud House): As the story goes on, it is implied that Lincoln has a mode demonic side due to his curse that causes him to think and act more like a demon. And in the "Truth Seekers" chapter, his shadow takes on the form of a demonic jackalope when it fully takes over.
  • Shadows over Meridian (Jackie Chan Adventures & W.I.T.C.H.): Despite having performed a Split-Personality Merge with the Queen, Jade still somewhat has one of these — when she enters the bloodlust that comes with her new Oni biology, signified by her eyes glowing brighter and fangs sprouting in her mouth, she slips into a mindset much more like purely the Queen.
  • Welcome to the Dark Side, Charlie Brown! (Peanuts & Spider-Man): Happens when Venom uses a portion of his symbiote to turn Charlie Brown into a villain called Payback!

Date A Live

Fate Series

  • Taiga has a variation in Fate Game Night when she wields her shinnai, which she's stored all her negative emotions in (particularly hatred and anger), turning it into a pseudo cursed sword. Though its main weakness is that while she does become far stronger, the shinnai contains only a finite amount of power; once her hatred runs out, she turns back.

Harry Potter

  • Played with in Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Harry has what he calls a "dark" side, which is extremely good at plotting and seeing through plots... but that's it. Harry, who is familiar with this trope, is very put out when he discovers that it's no better at magic than him, and thus considers his "dark" side to be defective.
  • Mirrored: While stuck in Voldemort's form, Harry draws on the power of the horcrux. Subverted because while the horcrux gives him a significant boost it is acting in complete accordance with Harry's desires even the desire for Voldemort's death.

hololive

  • Holo-Chronicles: Has a few:
    • Pre-evolution acts as this to most anybody who undergoes it. Temporary access to the power of one's evolved trait without the training required (or being Sora) sounds cool on paper, but the subject's mind and body are usually not built to handle the Diva-class power-up it gives them just yet. The result is an extremely powerful berserk talent that is gradually hurting themselves with their own strength.
    • Vessel talents' powers are connected to various Ancient Ones (usually coming from the works of one H. P. Lovecraft), and there is generally a decent chance of them taking over. Even on its own, that's pretty insane, as they can use the extremely overpowered Cast from Sanity magic granted to their vessels for free, but this could eventually lead to the Ancient One in question fully manifesting their power in the mortal realm. Mind you, they're so strong that they snack on lesser deities just because.
    • Yoruno Sora is the epitome of Beware the Nice Ones - what happens when Tokino Sora becomes consumed by such intense negative emotions that they manage to overpower the Purity Trait's passive cancellation of such feelings. The one time she had manifested, several people died and more were severely injured, and even Kizuna Ai (the one mortal person suggested to be stronger than normal Sora. and substantially so) was only able to survive the Curb-Stomp Battle Yoruno put her through because she was on a time limit.
  • Myth's Bad Ending: Something similar to the Holo-Chronicles example above is the core of this story, with Ina being possessed by the Ancient Ones and wreaking havoc. Not only does she have the physical and magical abilities to easily defeat Calli and Kiara simultaneously while they were both fighting at their strongest, but the possession also gives her a hilariously broken Healing Factor that let her regenerate from being turned to mush by Gawr.

Jackie Chan Adventures

Miraculous Ladybug

  • Spellbound (Lilafly): Dark Cupid gets more than he bargained for when he hits Chat Noir with one of his Mind Control arrows. Since Adrien is half-fae, and his fae side is resistant to magic, the arrow merely suppresses his human side — the side that has recognisable morality and compassion and other such niceties like restraint. He proceeds to enjoy beating Dark Cupid to a pulp and would have outright killed him if Ladybug hadn't intervened.
    Faedrien: Yoſhouldn’t havdonthis.

Murder Drones

  • Murder Drones: Serial Designation U: Uzi develops one in the form of Core Uzi, an alternate identity born from her transplanted Disassembly Drone core who follows the core's programming to hunt and kill all Worker Drones on Copper 9 and feed on their oil, taking over control of Uzi's body to do it.

My Little Pony

  • Pony POV Series: Princess Luna nearly reverts back into her Nightmare Moon form as a last ditch attempt to stop Discord, but manages to snap out of it. It's later revealed that at least some ponies have a similar Super-Powered Evil Side; Rainbow Dash nearly transforms before being calmed down at one point. Unfortunately, nopony is around to calm Fluttershy down when she snaps and she transforms into the Reality Warping Mad Goddess named Princess Gaia, a Well-Intentioned Extremist who seeks to turn the world into a utopia by brainwashing everyone into being happy and turning them into foals because she perceives them as being happier at that age.
    • It's revealed in "Playtime" that Princess Gaia was simply an illusion hiding her real Super-Powered Evil Side, the monstrous Nightmare Whisper.
    • Luna explains the Super-Powered Evil Side thing a bit in "AJ's Dream": it's what happens when a single aspect of an alicorn (or being with a similar power, like a wielder of an Element of Harmony) consumes them and becomes the only part of them. Nightmare Moon was when Luna's night became the only thing that mattered to her and Nightmare Whisper was when Fluttershy was consumed by her kindness. We're also shown possible Super-Powered Evil Side forms for Applejack (Nightmare Mirror), Rainbow Dash (Nightmare Manacle), and Pinkie Pie (Nightmare Granfalloon), though all of which are Alternate Universe versions of the mane cast.
    • The final stretch of the Dark World arc introduces Nightmare Eclipse, an alternate-timeline Twilight Sparkle gone Nightmare after being consumed by the desire to make Discord suffer for what he's done, and thus created a "Groundhog Day" Loop to trap him in, deleting each world and rewinding time each time Discord is defeated so he can suffer some more... and not caring that she's casually deleting/killing millions of innocent ponies each & every time she resets the loop.
    • In addition, the end of the Mind Games arc sees Diamond Tiara transform into a Nightmare, but as a result of Discord's psychological manipulation and breaking of her spirit rather than a facet of herself consuming her. Her theme is Discord's brand of chaos, and she earns a certain eight-pointed star symbol as her new Cutie Mark.
  • Virus Z: Subverted. The overwhelming stresses of combating the zombie infection, and all the lives lost and her sister Luna falling into a coma causes Princess Celestia to transform into Daybreaker. Daybreaker forms her own separate group of survivors combating the zombie plague and… she proves to be a surprisingly benevolent and efficient leader, saving a half-dead Rainbow Dash and making her her number two, taking Rarity's survivor group in after they're displaced from their old shelter by the zombies, and co-operating with them and Discord to reclaim Equestria from the zombies and rebuild peacefully.

The Owl House

  • An Everlasting Vow: Luz develops one called Alpha, a manifestation of her animalistic side. Alpha isn't as much evil as she is primal, and is solely concerned with killing whatever threatens Luz and Amity. However, this tends to be very inconvenient, with Alpha's mindless aggression often resulting in defeats. At one point, she kidnaps Amity when she is injured and attempts to groom her, refusing to let her get medical attention. However, as the story goes on, Luz and Amity begin to reach a rapport with Alpha to calm her down.
  • Feathers like Gold and Blackberries: Luz views Sariel in this lens, rejecting the idea that the angelic alter ego is a part of her and believing that she's really an aspect of their grandfather's power and just seeks to overwrite her personality. Ultimately subverted, as it soon becomes clear that Sariel really is just Luz's angelic half who gained consciousness in order to assure Luz's safety in the aftermath of the Fall, and wishes to reintegrate into a single being so that their shared body can properly heal from those events.

Teen Titans (2003)

Unsorted

  • There are a couple among the children of The Emiya Clan.
    • Sakuya inherited part of the Angra Mainyu from her mother. Perhaps because of the diluted bloodline, it manifested itself as a slightly annoying second personality rather than a mad dark mode. The family calls them Yin and Yang to keep things simple. Yang is a bookish, modest, and generally reserved girl with mild Yuri Fan inclinations. Yin is an openly perverted, conniving, and slightly sadistic Yaoi Fangirl.
    • Haru, by virtue of being a vampire, has his Dead Apostle side. It's more of a berserk mode, but an alternate future version of him, DA!Haru showcases what it could have made him into if he ever let it get out of control.
    • Touma's ten years of torture and experimentation before being rescued left him with a cold-blooded alter ego called, ''The Ghost''. It isn't evil, but it has no moral inhibition, willing to do whatever it takes to protect those he cares for.
    • Mana Ryougi has her alternate male personality, MANA, as per her family trait. She hates being told what to do by anyone, including herself, so she mostly ignores him. Until she has her Despair Event Horizon.

  • During Chapters 27 and 28 of BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant, Ragna enters what's basically his Unlimited Mode. He becomes far more powerful, to the point of being an unstoppable juggernaut, but he loses all sense of control and becomes an Ax-Crazy destroyer, laying waste to the Vale docks, slaughtering the White Fang, and almost killing his friends in the process.
  • In The Dark Side of the Mirror Verse, Mirror Twilight creates the same Mana Drain device as Human Twilight did, which ends up draining mana from ponies at the party she's attending, including Mirror Tirek, resulting in it overloading and exploding (as she hadn't absorbed the World Mirror's magic to prevent such a thing from happening). This, combined with her bitterness, hatred, and envy of Princess Trixie, transforms her into Nightmare Spotlight. She promptly rips Canterlot apart to create a floating stage in the sky and attempts to kill Trixie to get revenge for the wrongs she thinks Trixie has done to her, planning to move onto everypony else she feels did her wrong. All publicly before all of Equestria on a live 'show' to finally get the respect she believes she's been denied all her life.
  • In The Dear Sweetie Belle Continuity, Twilight's research indicates that all alicorns are vulnerable to this if they swing too far to an extreme of the ideal or magic they are meant to personify, explaining Nightmare Moon. It is also implied Celestia went through this during Luna's exile. Cadance forms one, the Crystal Empress, once she learns of Shining Armor and Luna's affair.
  • Kallen has one in the fanfic Fairy Without Wings. It's the Etherious side of her soul.
  • Heir: "Tom" the horcrux Voldemort accidentally made that resides in Harry's scar which has become sentient and very protective of his host is this for Harry.
  • Leviathan (My Hero Academia): Izuku Midoriya's quirk is the ability to transform into a titanic monster dubbed "The Leviathan" should he ever lose control of his emotions. The Leviathan is extremely powerful, flattening buildings with ease, but is completely and utterly uncontrollable. Izuku can give himself specific traits of the beast by moderating his emotions, but he's nowhere near as powerful as what a full transformation can do.
  • The MLP Loops: Played for Laughs. In canon, Luna went Drunk on the Dark Side, rebelled against her sister Celestia, and was banished to the moon for a thousand years. Whenever a Looper ascends to alicorn for the first time, soon after there will be a "sisters loop" where the new alicorn takes the place of Luna, with Twilight taking the place of Celestia. No matter how hard they try, the first time they experience such a loop the new alicorn will go Drunk with Power and have to be banished to the moon. Of course, this being Equestria, a lot of these dark sides are more than a little silly. Examples include "Hard Truth" (Applejack becomes obsessed with the entire country growing apples), "Danger Dash" (Rainbow Dash performs more and more pranks), "Party Pink" (Pinkie Pie won't stop throwing parties), "Flying Hatred" (Fluttershy suffers dangerous mood swings due to a curse), and "The Fashionista" (Rarity invades griffin lands in an attempt to open up more markets for her dresses). Big Mac is the only known alicorn who managed to avoid this fate on his first run, but then he hadn't actually ascended.
    Twilight: Congratulations on joining the alicorn club, it helps if you've thought of your evil self beforehand.
  • The plot of The Power of the Equinox begins when Twilight Sparkle, trapped in the crystal caves beneath Canterlot, accidentally releases from a black crystal the Entity. After it takes root in her body, she transforms into a darker and carnivorous mare who has new powers, like a powerful healing factor and phasing abilities, and she can create appendages and weapons from the black substance that's attached to her. Making a point of no longer being Twilight Sparkle, she renames herself Dimmed Star. However, while more aggressive and aloof than before, she still cares about her loved ones to varying extend, and the worst things she does are done when the Entity takes control over her mind. Rainbow Dash lampshades this trope to Spike by saying that Twilight has "pulled a Nightmare Moon".
  • In the Jackie Chan Adventures fic Queen of All Oni, the re-emergence of Jade's Queen of the Shadowkhan persona and her Start of Darkness that occurs because of it is what kicks off the entire plot.
  • In The Shadow Wars universe, a Nightmare can happen naturally or with the assistance of the Night Shadows, horrible parasitic possessors from a dying alternate universe.
  • In the Tamers Forever Series, Chaos is Takato's Super-Powered Evil Side, and the reason why pushing Takato's Berserk Button is a very bad idea.
  • In the Star Trek Into Darkness fic That Was A Good Fight this happens to Kirk as a side-effect of Khan's blood.
  • In the Death Note fanfic Zenith, Darkness, Reverie, this is Kira's purpose. Although the "superpower" in question is Kira's utter lack of morality and the willingness to wield the Death Note. Kali is arguably the more intelligent/strategically capable personality.
  • Zero 2: A Revision has the Digimon emperor being presented as Ken's dark side whenever he shows up as a result of Demon's Dark Spores. Later, in an attempt to stall the prevent the Digidestined from entering the real world and destroy his entire army and to keep the Digidestined from evolving their Digimons so that he will remain at full power to combat Demon, Umbradevimon decides to corrupt Davis, using his own jealousy and hatred for TK against him with the help of the Touch of Evil as well as 15 black gears to create Darkheart, Davis's own evil self. Darkheart at first starts out as an obedient automaton whose only purpose is to keep the Digidestined on their toes under Umbradevimon's instructions. Unfortunately just as the Digidestined decides to enter the real world and leave some behind to stall him, Demon inserts a Dark Spore to him which gives him free will and becomes a sadistic psychopath hellbent on absorbing the Digidestined just because he can do it and to become the greatest villain of all time. Umbradevimon's plan unintentionally works a bit too well as Darkheart single-handedly managed to create the Darkest Hour for the entire Digidestined a long time (13 chapters to be exact) before he finally gets taken down.

    Films — Animated 
  • Heavy Metal segment "Captain Sternn". While under the influence of the Loc-Nar, Hanover Fiste grows into a mightily muscled hulk and smashes through all opposition in an attempt to murder Sternn. Once everyone's gone, he turns back. Sternn then thanks him for getting him out of the trial... before shooting him out of an airlock in lieu of payment.
  • In The Iron Giant the giant is pretty powerful on his own but friendly. You do NOT want to push his Berserk Button, however.
  • Uni-Kitty from The LEGO Movie is normally a Genki Girl Cloud Cuckoolander. However, it's shown she has some pretty bad anger issues, and when sufficiently pushed she transforms into a demonic, red-furred version of herself that can fly and bite Micromanagers in half.
  • My Little Pony: Equestria Girls:
    • Sunset Shimmer in the first film is a nasty person, but she still has limits; she doesn't kill Twilight and she lets Spike go rather than trade him for the Element of Magic, when she has her chance. When she corrupts herself (with the Element of Magic) into a demon form, she has no such limitations and tries to fry Twilight and her friends without a second thought. She's immediately remorseful for what she's done after being turned back, and in later movies is able to harness the power of the Elements without becoming corrupted thanks to The Power of Friendship.
    • At the climax of My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Friendship Games, Twilight Sparkle's human counterpart transforms into Midnight Sparkle after being pressured into unleashing the magic inside her magic-absorbing amulet. With this power, she blasts open portals to Equestria all over the place, with little regard for the stability of the non-magical human world. She snaps out of it thanks to Sunset Shimmer.
  • The anime movie Tekkonkinkreet has the main character Black get saved from space aliens by his own Super-Powered Evil Side known as "The Minotaur" which then tries to completely overtake him and show him the true power "The Minotaur" can unleash.
  • In Turning Red, Mei is led to believe by her female relatives that the red panda spirit is essentially this.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In Forbidden Planet, the ancient alien civilization made a giant machine that is capable of turning thoughts into reality. It turns out that the machine works even better with subconscious thoughts.
  • Donning The Mask unleashes a person's Super-Powered Chaotic Side. However, when it is wielded by the villain, he becomes even more of a monster. In the comics, however, it unleashes a more "evil" side to a person, as the eponymous mask takes the driver's seat of their mind.
  • Nathan Wallace in Repo! The Genetic Opera is a sweet, loving, family man. Until he puts on his helmet, at which point he becomes the merciless Repo Man.
  • The version of Venom in Spider-Man 3 is Peter's Super-Powered Evil Side, and it begins to affect his personality. The catch is, Venom's just enhancing Peter's latent personality traits, so out-of-costume his evil side comes across as a massive dork, and he is generally an asshole to everyone rather than being a figure of terrible power. Now for Brock, who's already portrayed as an asshole from the beginning, it's a different story. It should be noted Evil Pete isn't that nice. He makes a reasonable effort to kill Sandman and is at least indifferent to whether Harry survives a pumpkin bomb to the face.
  • The premise of the movie Split is a man with 23 personalities kidnaps three women to sacrifice them to a Super Powered new personality called The Beast when it emerges. Most of his personalities are decent people, and he is horrified by what he has done when his original personality briefly gets in control again. The explanation given for how The Beast has superpowers is the idea that a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder can change their bodies based on their beliefs although the Twist Ending of the movie reveals that it takes place in the same universe as Unbreakable where superheroes and villains do exist.
  • Star Wars:
    • Franchise-wide: It's possible for a Jedi to temporarily become stronger by tapping into The Dark Side, but with the consequence that it can become permanent. It's also not guaranteed to work since it can backfire and lead to their making stupid mistakes due to being Drunk on the Dark Side. For example, this is how Luke Skywalker defeats Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi after being provoked into an Unstoppable Rage by Vader's use of the Relative Button. Palpatine even says it: "Your hate has made you powerful." Luke refuses to kill Vader after defeating him, though he comes very close, and if he had that would have led to becoming the new Vader.
    • Revenge of the Sith: As explained by George Lucas, this is also how Anakin defeats Master Swordsman Count Dooku... but it has the cost of causing him to edge closer to The Dark Side. Unlike his son, he gives into his anger and kills Dooku, leading to his fall to the Dark Side later on. And despite believing himself to be more powerful because of this, it leads to him trying a reckless maneuver during his fight with Obi-Wan Kenobi that results in some horrific injuries (which are the reason he needs to wear the black suit in the original trilogy).
  • Various film adaptations of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, though this is not present in the original book:
  • In Suicide Squad (2016), archaeologist June Moone inherits the powerful and evil spirit of The Enchantress, and can tap into The Enchantress's evil powers by speaking her name. Amanda Waller attempts to make The Enchantress a member of the Suicide Squad, however The Enchantress gets permanent control of June Moone early on and becomes the main villain instead.
  • Upgrade: STEM has far fewer qualms about killing people than Grey does, and it certainly can move Grey's body in ways that Grey, or most humans even with extensive training, can. It also turns out being an Enemy Within.
  • In Terminator Genisys, Skynet/T-5000 uses machine-phase matter to turn John Connor into his Superpowered Evil Side in the form of a T-3000 terminator, who is a hybrid nano-technological cyborg terminator. John was then sent back to 2014 to safe guard the creation of Skynet.

    Literature 
  • Rachel from Animorphs has two examples: in The Separation a freak accident with a starfish morph splits her into two Rachels, a 'Nice Rachel' that's timid, ditzy, and strategic, and 'Mean Rachel' who gets all of Rachel's Blood Knight instincts but none of her restraint. Later in The Return Crayak tempts Rachel with godlike power, transforming her into a steel-clawed, indestructible killing machine dubbed 'Super Rachel'.
  • Captain Underpants: Inverted, with Mr. Krupp, the non-superpowered persona, being a Jerkass Dean Bitterman whereas Captain Underpants is The Cape.
  • In Count to the Eschaton, hero Menelaus also has houses the super-powered and amoral Iron Menelaus. Likewise with Del Azarchel/Iron Del Azarchel.
  • Myrren Kahliana in Dark Heart discovers she has one as she learns to use her magical powers. It saves her life more than once, but when it comes out, it doesn't want to go back in.
  • Date A Live has Inverse Form, a state which Spirits enter if they pass the Despair Event Horizon. In Inverse Form, a Spirit is far more powerful and also lacks any sense of restraint. Their weapon, previously referred to as an "Angel", is replaced by a darker counterpart called a "Demon King". Interestingly, it's later revealed that this is the true personality of Spirits.
  • In Deltora Quest, when Steven is in danger, he transforms into/releases Nevets, who usually rips apart nearby enemies, along with everyone else stupid enough to get near him.
  • Beranabus, in Darren Shan's Demonata series. As a result of being half demon, he was able to turn into one. He does this only once because he's afraid that this ability is one of these, in order to fight Death. He succeeds in his goal of sending it back into the demonata's universe, but dies in the process..
  • Discworld: Sam Vimes has one that he calls the Beast, which starts off as a natural part of Vimes' mind, but gains a boost in power when he's infected by the Summoning Dark, an ancient dark force of vengeance. He also has a Superpowered Good Side, his "inner watchman", that calls itself the Guarding Dark and is not only capable of keeping Vimes' own internal darkness (the aforementioned Beast) in check, but also repels the Summoning Dark when it tries to take over Vimes.
  • In the Dreamblood Duology, Gatherers are well-trained and educated priests capable of killing people in their dreams and making them enjoy it. Reapers are Gatherers who have lost control and become addicted to the dreamblood they collect as their job. Those are capable of killing hundreds or thousands of people at the same time just to get their desired dreamblood.
  • The Dresden Files have the Denarians, fallen angels sealed in silver coins. So much as touch the coin, and they get a free pass to the back of your mind, to convince you in any way they can to accept their power. Once you do, they go from backseat driver to Super-Powered Evil Side and grant you extreme power, at the low, low cost of your immortal soul. Over time, the human host starts to become as evil as the Denarian (if they weren't already).
  • Egil's Saga: When Egil's father Skallagrim is in a fit of 'shape-strength', he is even stronger than usual but also an incontrollable madman who kills indiscriminately. When Egil is twelve and playing at a ball game against his father and it looks like Skallagrim is going to lose, he suddenly becomes 'shape-strong' and kills Egil's best friend Thord, his nanny Thorgerd, and very nearly Egil himself.
  • In The First Law series, Logen Ninefingers is known as a vicious and bloodthirsty berserker called the Bloody-Nine. However, Logen is actually a pretty nice guy who really doesn't like fighting very much. His Bloody-Nine persona is an alternate personality of unstoppable bloodlust. When the Bloody-Nine takes over, Logen becomes superhumanly fast and strong as well as nigh-invulnerable. Logen hates his Bloody-Nine side, however, because he kills everything in sight, friend and foe alike.
  • In House of Leaves, Johnny Truant channels his Super-Powered Evil Side against Gdansk Man. The way in which Truant thrashes him and how the book describes Gdansk Man's wounds afterwards has led to some Epileptic Trees, such as Johnny Truant is the Minotaur.
  • Most werewolves that aren't villainous in human form get a lot more powerful and don't mind the taste of blood when transformed. Both the Kitty Norville and Mercy Thompson series have werewolf choosing their animal form for combat, and the Kitty Norville series portrays the Wolf as an alternate personality. The Wolf won't go out of its way to Kick the Dog, but it won't really care about taboos regarding cannibalism or murder.
  • In The Lord of the Rings, the bearers of the Elven Rings are terrified of acquiring a Super-Powered Evil Side should they ever come into possession of the One Ring. The One Ring would give them far greater powers than the ones they already have, but would simultaneously also corrupt any achievements that the Ring had made possible, no matter how benign their original intentions were.
  • In the Malus Darkblade series, the title character can use T'zarkan, the daemon possessing him as this, but with a twist: each time it happens, T'zarkan gains a little more control over him.
  • In The Other Kind of Roommate, Xander is very rightly this to Alex. On top of being ten times more of an aggressive and amoral personality, complete with every profanity known to man, plus a few he strings together, he's the half with chock full of the enthusiasm needed to use their powers' final setting.
  • In the Paradox Trilogy, this afflicts symbionts. The alien implant which grants a symbiont its powers can take control of the host's body in his sleep; while it isn't exactly sentient, it is full of bloodlust and hatred and will hurt anyone the host cares about if it can.
  • Subverted in Ravelling Wrath. The setup of the story is that the Blood God will enter Rinn's mind, giving her magic powers and making her want to kill Yali. Which does happen... but when Rinn finally lets the Blood God fully take over near the end of the story, there's no fight. Instead, it leads to valuable communication that helps the heroes learn the true cause of the conflict.
  • In The Reckoners Trilogy, a star called Calamity appears in the sky. Certain people start to manifest powers and are called Epics. Some of the population believe they will use their powers for good. Unfortunately, they are all villainous. It turns out that using their superpowers is makes Epics evil, because the being behind Calamity believes that power corrupts humans. This is a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. He is astonished when the Reckoners prove that corruption can be resisted and that Epics can use their powers for good.
  • In Redwall, some animals (usually badgers) can go into a berserker rage called the "Bloodwrath" which makes them extremely powerful, and able to totally ignore pain... and also no longer able to tell friend from foe, meaning it's dangerous to anyone who's nearby when they go into this rage.
  • In Skulduggery Pleasant, Darquesse and Lord Vile are the superpowered evil sides of Valkyrie Cain and Skulduggery Pleasant, respectively.
    • Darquesse is Valkyrie's True Name, and using the incredible powers that come from knowing her True Name enhances all of her negative personality traits and causes her to revel in death and destruction, seeing everyone else as ants to be crushed at her whim, before developing a form of Blue-and-Orange Morality that is even more unsettling. She's capable of destroying the world, even potentially the universe. It only gets worse once she body-jacks Stephanie, Valkyrie's evolved reflection. Ironically, developing empathy via reabsorbing the 'Kes' fragment, exploring the world, then arranging to be reborn actually ends up making her an All-Loving Hero who saves the universe, restarting it from nothing at the cost of her own existence.
    • Lord Vile was created when Skulduggery first came back to life and fell into despair over the death of his wife and child. Being undead unlocked and enhanced his latent potential for Necromancy, and he became little more than a killing machine serving under Mevolent as that gave him the most options to kill people - he didn't care about bringing back the Faceless Ones beyond getting the chance to kill a god (which he was entirely capable of). Of all the Three Generals, he was the most feared and causes an even bigger Oh, Crap! reaction than Mevolent himself, and the plan when fighting him was 'get an army, attack together, hope someone gets lucky'. He eventually came to realize the monster he'd become and hid away Lord Vile's Necromancy-infused armour for centuries. Unfortunately, being trapped alone in the Faceless Ones' realm for a year weakens his resolve to keep Lord Vile locked away, and his subconscious started to reanimate it. He made his long-anticipated return by casually slaughtering a previously unstoppable Russian assassin who'd beaten Skulduggery, Valkyrie, Tanith, and Ghastly just because they were between him and his target, then beat Skulduggery to a pulp, before vanishing after informing him that he was back to find and kill the Necromancers' new Death Bringer. When said Death Bringer, a necromancer altered into a Humanoid Abomination capable of killing millions and who just absorbed the lives of several hundred powerful sorcerers, faces him, she can beat the armour. But when Skulduggery reclaims it, it's all Valkyrie can do to prevent him from killing them both in seconds, and the only person who can fight him evenly is Darquesse. Oh, and his ultimate goal is to kill everything.
  • Star Wars: Exar Kun, Darth Vader, Ulic Qel-Droma, Darth Malak... when a Jedi falls to the Dark Side, it's time to get out of Dodge.
  • Trapped on Draconica: Halfway transforming into Mordak makes Kalak far more powerful but it also makes him a mindless killing machine.
  • Philuffy in Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle has her Abyss state, which greatly increases her strength, regeneration, and even mental capabilities. This is due to being implanted with tissue from the Puppeteer Parasite Yggdrasil, so when she first used this power it rendered her susceptible to its control. After Yggdrasil's death, this is no longer a risk. The state isn't inherently evil, but it does make her susceptible to control by horn flutes (a type of artifact that can control Abyss).
  • Villains by Necessity: Sam, courtesy of Valeriana's medallion. He grows stronger with its power and gains an ability to enter a shadow world, but also makes him grow evil and is very addictive.
  • Wild Cards:
    • The Radical has the combined powers of all other alter-egos of Captain Trips, thus making one of the most powerful aces. He's also, depending on where you stand, a Well-Intentioned Extremist or a full-blown villain. Obviously he won't let Trips take back the control of his body.
    • Greg Hartmann is an amoral, egoistic, and hypocritical politician who doesn't care about whom he uses, kills, maims, or hurts in his hunt for power. He is clearly an evil character, but he is absolutely lovely compared to his alter ego Puppetman, a complete sadist and sociopath who uses his potent emotion manipulation power to bring out the worst in everyone and only lives to revel in the violence and horror he creates.
  • In Wings of Fire, Clay thinks he has a suppressed bloodlust in him due to having attacked the other dragonets at their hatching, causing the dragons raising them to think he's a monster. It turns out to be subverted when it's revealed that Clay's "attack" was Big Brother Instinct, helping the others hatch.
  • Stormform in Words of Radiance grants the Parshendi the power to call lightning and invoke an Everstorm, but in order to enter it you have to bond with a spirit of pure hatred.
  • In The Zombie Knight, hyper states count as this when the reaper-servant pair isn't old enough and well enough synchronized to control them. For years after they first unlock the state, using it puts them in a state of self-hypnosis where they're driven solely by the desire to attack. When Harper and Darsihm (bonded for ~30 years) use pan-rozum, the fact that they were able to maintain a small "whitelist" of souls they shouldn't target was an amazing feat of control, and even that was nearly a disaster since there were hostages around whose souls they hadn't memorized.

    Music 

    Mythology & Religion 
  • Egyptian Mythology: In the Book of the Heavenly Cow, Ra sent Hathor — the matriarchal bovine goddess — to punish a group of mortals who had conspired against him. Hathor transformed into the leonine war-goddess Sekhmet and decided to just kill everything instead, and was only stopped and turned back into Hathor when Ra tricked her into getting drunk on beer dyed to look like blood.
  • Kali is this to Durga/Parvati in Hindu Mythology. Durga in warrior mode could not defeat a demon who spawned new demons from each drop of blood that hit the ground, so she became Kali, who drank each drop before it could hit the ground, then killed the demon. But then she went on a rampage that only stopped when she injured her husband, the shock turning her back to the gentle Parvati.
  • Older Than Print: Cuchulainn in Irish Mythology has a prime example of this kind of Unstoppable Rage. In the epic, Táin Bó Cúailnge, he enters a "Ríastrad" or "Warp Spasm." In this state he transforms into a horribly mutilated monster whose very appearance is enough to scare enemies away. The catch is that, while in this form, Cuchulainn may not know friend from foe. (See Sláine from 2000 AD to see just how mutilated he looks.) In some stories, Cuchulainn must wear a special girdle or harness to keep his body from tearing itself apart when the warp spasm takes him.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Delirious will swap out his green attire for red attire when one of his enemies has made the mistake of making him really angry, using more heelish tactics and weaponry, and even spitting poison mist in people's faces.
  • There are hints that this is what is happening when Finn Bálor puts on the Demon war paint for big matches.
  • This was Mick Foley's schtick for a while in the WWE: when he needed a "boost" for a match, he'd come out as either his Mankind or Cactus Jack persona.
  • This trope is a tradition in Japanese pro wrestling, where many wrestlers unveil an evil persona to face a special threat or to play mind games with a rival, and sometimes get in storyline overcome by these personas and turn fully heel because Evil Is Not a Toy. Among them there are Keiji Muto's "Great Muta" and his many emulators, The Great Sasuke's "SASUKE", Hard Gay's "Super HG", BxB Hulk's "Killer Hulk", Gamma's "Gamma Daio", Kikutaro's red mask, and many others.
    • In 1996, Japanese wrestler Jushin Thunder Liger, who traditionally played the role of a face, unveiled his "Kishin Liger" heel persona, when he wrestled heel wrestler the Great Muta, who mid-match ripped Liger's mask off, revealing his "oni face". Liger's wrestling style would become notably more aggressive and heel-like in this persona.

    Puppet Shows 
  • An episode of Mr. Meaty had Parker (who is normally calm under pressure because he just blissfully takes all those insults people kept throwing at him in) turn into a Hulk-like monster due to being unable to hold all those insults in any longer.

    Roleplay 
  • In the DCU role-playing universe of JLA Watchtower/DC Nation, Fauna, a sweet, quiet Granola Girl shapeshifter has this problem if you push her too far. Also, the more complicated her shapeshifting or extensive the use of her other abilities, the more feral she becomes.
  • Simon from Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues has an evil split personality known as the Dark Dragon. While both of them are capable of manipulating plasma, Dark Dragon is capable of doing so to a much stronger degree than Simon and also lacks the inhibitions that make Simon hesitant to use his power.
  • In the fandom role-play Infamous: After the Blast and all of its subsequent storylines, the (debatably) main protagonist, Felix Shane, is revealed to have this. Originally thought to be a form of Dissociative Identity Disorder or something similar, it's later revealed that Felix Shane does not, in fact, have any alternate personalities. Instead, he actually WANTS to murder all the time, but holds that side of him back whenever possible. However, when he does let it out, he becomes significantly more powerful, as he's no longer holding himself back. This side of him is his Psych/3rd "personality." Contrast with his Shadow/2nd personality, who has the same effect but is released through his indomitable rage.

    Tabletop Games 
  • In Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, there is a prestige class called Frenzied Berserker. Once they've Frenzied, which is like a Barbarian's Rage but moreso, they attack until either the frenzy runs out, they are incapacitated/dead, they pass a will save, or there's nobody nearby.
  • Exalted has a couple instances where the characters go temporarily insane on some level:
    • The Solar Exalted might have this particular category nailed; one of their abilities — Ascendant Battle Visage — places them into a battle trance that physically changes them to reflect their Battle Aura, and grants them intense and brutal combative skill. Remaining in this state too long, however, sends them into an Unstoppable Rage, at which point they become even deadlier, and fight until either they're dead or everything else that might be considered an enemy is dead.
    • The Ghost-Blooded (in the 1st edition at least) could learn a certain Arcanos called Lower Soul Ascendant, which fits this trope to a T — increased physical power at the cost of embracing sociopathic behavior.
  • The Chronicles of Darkness keeps much of this:
    • In Vampire: The Requiem, vampires have the Beast within, which compels them to feed.
    • In Werewolf: The Forsaken, werewolves have two degrees of rage: one where they have to kill something, and another where they have to kill everything.
    • In Princess: The Hopeful, a Noble that gives into despair and becomes corrupted by the Darkness becomes what's known as a Dethroned: a being of the Darkness so incredibly powerful, it twists part of the Dark World itself into its own Mental World.
  • This crops up in the various Old World of Darkness Role-Playing Games, especially those featuring Vampires and Werewolves.
    • One Tag Line for the original Vampire: The Masquerade was "A Beast I Am, Lest A Beast I Become" — leeches had to allow themselves little atrocities like controlled blood-drinking to avoid being consumed entirely by the madness of their inner blood-hunger. However, while in the thrall of such a state, vampires can ignore wound penalties, which is a significant combat asset.
    • Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Werewolves, on the other hand, don't tend to view their own berserk frenzies as "evil" (after all, Rage is a gift from Luna... and they have plenty of reason to be really, really pissed off). However, if they give in to their Rage too fully, they can enter a state called "Thrall of the Wyrm," just like a normal frenzy, except that it's inescapable, and tends to provoke rather horrific behavior (typically either cannibalism, rabid dismemberment, or... erm... defilement).
    • In Changeling: The Dreaming, changelings can get magic ("Glamour") from normal humans in two ways — the first is by inspiring them to do something incredible. The second is to "ravish" them — make them feel despair. One example of this involved convincing a small child that the Fae in question had just murdered the Tooth Fairy.
    • Wraith: The Oblivion: Wraiths have got their Shadow, a second personality usually existing within the wraith trying to make them give up their struggles and descend into nonexistence or permanently hand over control of their body. Depending on the Shadow, this might take many forms, some direct and some seemingly helping the wraith. The latter type often has ways to enhance the wraith's body when temporarily in control — better attributes, more magic powers, or even items appearing only during the Shadow's catharsis. Such wraiths then always have the ability to let their Shadows handle combats too tough for them but are generally loathe to do so because there's no telling what else the Shadow might do while in control.
    • Kindred of the East: Being a kind of vampire, Kuei-jin must keep their amoral lower soul (P'o) under control, lest it takes over them in a frenzy of carnage. It's not an easy thing to do since each Kuei-jin's P'o is out of balance, compared to the living. Some Kuei-jin Dharma try to make good use of this evil side, though.
  • And to round out White Wolf's systems: In Scion, the Scion Companion supplement adds the Tuatha Dé Danann to the playable pantheons. One of their pantheon-specific abilities? The "Rí­astrad" mentioned in the above mythology entry.
  • Highly common in Warhammer 40,000:
    • One of the reasons Space Marines (Grey Knights in particular) are required to pass such rigorous and often deadly mental trials as a method of prevention. The most obvious are the Blood Angels Chapter and its successor chapters, whose members are known to succumb to a condition called the Black Rage which increases their already Super-Soldier levels of strength and vitality and turns them into frothing berserkers who seek only death, often organised into aptly-named Death Companies led by skull-helmeted Badass Preachers.
    • The Eldar however create one of these intentionally, inducing a form of split personality disorder so that in battle they can fight with unhindered skill and brutality while retaining absolute control over themselves the rest of the time.
    • Then there's Chaos, which, being The Corruption and Always Chaotic Evil personified, fully embraces the added power this trope provides with no concern for the consequences, because "sanity is for the weak". And then there's the Possessed Marines, who have a Super-Powered Super Evil side.

    Toys 
  • Takanuva gets one of these in BIONICLE, after having some of his Light drained by a Shadow Leech.

    Visual Novels 
  • Akai Ito: Tsuzura's fox-mage mode. It's even played as what-do-you-mean-it's-not-rape the first time she taps into it and can't control it.
  • Aoi Shiro: All who wield the <<Sword>> are prone to this, but Sword-Demon Kaya (your Back from the Dead Rather Wrongly big-sister-figure) especially... leading to a lot of Nightmare Fuel Bad Ending.
  • Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc plays with the trope.
  • DRAMAtical Murder:
    • Aoba Seragaki has the ability to control other people and enter their minds with his voice alone but the more he uses this ability, the more a darker, more powerful side of him that wants to destroy everything in its path threatens to consume him completely. In the True Ending, though, it's revealed that his "evil" side was actually more lonely and misunderstood than evil and happily remerges with Aoba after Aoba fully remembers and accepts him.
    • Aoba's potential Love Interest Koujaku turns out to have one as well. His Power Tattoos cause him to go into a massive Unstoppable Rage in the Bad Ending, reducing his mind to a bestial state. This is also what caused the death of his family when he was younger.
  • Hatoful Boyfriend has, during Anghel's endgame, a boss fight with Himnesia, which looks like a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere. But dissect the things Anghel says there and elsewhere, and other characters' motivations, and official art, and some fans come to the conclusion that Himnesia is his evil side. And that he's a representation of the plague implanted in Anghel.
  • Many characters in the Nasuverse have an "inversion impulse", the desire to go psycho and unleash the full power of their bitchin' superpowers on the world in an orgy of murder, due to their monstrous bloodlines.
    • The Big Bad in the Tsukihime fighting game Melty Blood uses his powers to summon Doppelgangers of several characters superpowered evil sides, leading to characters fighting their dark halves; probably the biggest example being Nanaya Shiki, the evil murderous side of Tohno Shiki from the original VN.
    • One particular exception to this "evil doppelganger made by the Big Bad" is Archetype Earth: She is a fragment of Arcueid's subconscious, and if she wakes up and takes over her host, she can show how utterly powerful Arcueid could have been compared to her usual self, such as casually trying to destroy the world on a whim.
    • In the Heaven's Feel route of Fate/stay night, Sakura Matou lets loose a Super-Powered Evil Side powerful enough to kill most of the other participants of the Holy Grail War, as well as create a Super-Powered Evil Side of Saber.

    Web Animation 
  • Dreamscape: Keela's released form, which gives her Black Eyes of Crazy, her scythe grows HUGE, and she turns totally evil.
  • Flippy from Happy Tree Friends subverts this. Whenever he's reminded of the war he served in (strongly implied to be a fictional equivalent to the Vietnam War), his Split Personality appears and starts gleefully and efficently killing everyone around him. However, the episode "Double Whammy Part II" reveals that the good side is just as badass, to the point where he manages to (temporarily) kill the evil side. He just doesn't have a reason to utilize these skills most of the time, lacking the evil side's bloodthirst.
  • Red vs. Blue: A fairly goofy example occurs in Episode 40: in order to fight off a horde of "noobs" in Battle Creek, Caboose gets in touch with his "angry side", which results in him gunning down the noobs while shouting bizarre threats like "I will eat your unhappiness!" and "Your toast has been burned, and no amount of scraping will remove the black parts!"
    Caboose: Now I'm thinking about kittens... chickens covered in spikes... that... makes... me... an-gry... YYAAARRRRGGHHH!

    Webcomics 
  • In Alice and the Nightmare, Alice is implied to have something like this — whenever she gets angry, her eyes start to glow and she spills red dust (sign of dream magic) around. It seems that the medicine she takes daily keeps it at bay.
  • City of Blank: Rex has one which comes out when he's unconscious and near death, which is capable of using his various Red Blank abilities. This version of Rex has a complete disregard for human life, and even the lives of many blanks, and seems to resent Rex somewhat, though he also cares about him. It's eventually revealed that he's been a part of Rex since the beginning, and is implied to have also taken over his body in the presence of unmasked humans back before they got a face. Oddly, Jericho doesn't seem to have one, despite being a Red Blank as well, but he does seem to be less callous in flashbacks, back before he learned to use his abilities.
  • Roger in College Roomies from Hell!!!. Unleashing his werecoyote side is often the Roomies' only way out of a tight spot, but he has trouble controlling it, and he's been warned by another werecoyote that sooner or later he'll be unable to change back. He actually has a second werecoyote form that is a stronger embodiment of this trope.
  • 8-Bit Theater:
    • Black Mage encounters himself in the Castle of Ordeals, where the Light Warriors have to face symbolic representations of their own flaws. However, the only thing that could represent Black Mage's flaw (Pure Evil) was himself, as nothing else was evil enough. Then it turned out that even his own duplicate didn't quite represent some of the more evil things he'd done, which corrected itself as the real Black Mage ran through them by becoming even more evil (as well as powerful). He then absorbed his own evil and power back into himself, eventually unleashing it to destroy four other incredibly evil beings, whose own evil and power he then absorbed, giving him an evil aura as well as incredible magical power.
    • Later omniscient superwizard Sarda (a.k.a. The Omnipotent Jackass) has absorbed Black Mage's Super-Powered Evil Side. Lampshaded thus:
      Sarda: Who knows what kind of sadistic and impossible stuff I'll do now.
  • El Goonish Shive:
    • While "Fallen Grace" (a.k.a. "Dark Omega Grace") falls much closer to the Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass type, she still deserves mention here. Not only is Fallen Grace actually willing to use her shape-shifting powers as a weapon — unlike the pacifistic (NOT Technical Pacifist) Grace — she's also got access to the Lespuko Spurs; special claws that retard healing, thus neutralizing the advantage of the Healing Factor. She's also got horns, Hellish Pupils, and a whole lotta spikes.
      • It's unclear how much of Fallen Grace is her actually losing it due to her lespuko DNA, and how much is her just finally snapping after years of abuse. She demonstrates complete control of her Omega form after the Painted Black arc, and a few moments later on imply that her "normal" personality is at least partially an act now.
    • Once magic trade-offs are explained to Elliot, he points out he could trade an Evil Costume Switch for more power. Which he eventually does. "Evil" Cheerleadra still has Elliot's goals (and not, for instance, an implanted desire to take over the world or something, which she could just resist), but she is much more ruthless in doing so. Essentially, she's a bad guy because, unlike regular Elliot, she's not constantly worried that she might be.
  • Graveyard Greg of the Gaming Guardians has two separate and unrelated evil sides. Not only is he a werewolf, with an animalistic but self-aware wolf personality, but he's also possessed by a voodoo spirit that can take control of him at times. Greg has retained control by pitting them against each other, until they decided to team up to suppress him, becoming a zombie wolfman that calls itself "Mange".
  • In Goblins, Dies Horribly has a magical, green arm that acts as a sort of Empathic Weapon most of the time. But when Dies is severely threatened, the arm tends to take over his body and slaughter everything in the immediate vicinity in creatively gruesome ways.
  • In Gnoph, Will's symbiotic partner Lyss usually acts as a Bond Creature; but when he passes out and she takes full control of his body, she acts like an example of this trope, due to being Ax-Crazy and having no compunction against killing (or eating) humans.
  • In Hazard's Wake, Araceli has a superpowered dark side that is not necessarily evil, but leads to overkill when it manifests.
  • Played with in Homestuck: both of Gamzee's personalities are Ax-Crazy Omnicidal Maniacs. They're just kept merged and stable due to Gamzee's addiction to sopor slime. Rose's temporary grimdark transformation may also count.
  • In Jack, the eponymous character, a personification of the sin of Wrath and the Grim Reaper, will occasionally enter a kind of "Wrath Mode". In this state, he will be overcome by his sin and gain a boost of power. He later absorbs and seals the sin of Lust, who talks to him, hassles him, and will sometimes help him in fights through his cloak.
  • Last Res0rt has Jigsaw, since apparently all vampires in her galaxy can transform during their Unstoppable Rage.
  • In some of Zeurel's Original Character Tournament entries such as Law Of Talos and Escape From Nevara, Black Ace is this to Spoiler.
  • Webcomic/Lone: All witches have this. It's called an effigy, and it's a part of their soul presumably corrupted by the demonic essence that gives them their magic. Lone's is particularly, and it's constant attempts to take over her body are actually the cause for her seemingly weak magic. It finally succeeds at the end of Season 1, and not only paralyzes the Demon Twins but rips Red Lone's soul out of the afterlife to act as its puppet. Although we haven't seen any others, Lone's effigy seems to be the manifestation of all the trust issues she doesn't have but logically should; it thinks that everyone, from her friends to her family to her master, will end up hurting her (which is kind of a fair assumption in some cases), and the only people it seems to care about are Lones. It also resents Lone, due to the fact that the first time it took over, Lone actually let it due to rage over a bully killing her cat, but not wanting to take responsibility for the ensuing chaos. It also talks using we/us pronouns, and uses the same pronouns to refer to Lone, which can get confusing.
  • Franken from Noblesse slips back to his Mad Scientist persona when he unlocks his power, which allows him to curb stomp absolutely everyone. His Slasher Smile has to be seen to believe it.
  • Subverted in The Order of the Stick: It initially looked like the comic was going down this path when Vaarsuvius made a deal with three fiends in order to save the lives and souls of his/her family. Having successfully rescued them from a dragon, (s)he then proceeded to use epic magic to slaughter as many as a quarter of the black dragons in existence, in what was widely held to be a Moral Event Horizon by the audience. The next strip reveals that, contrary to what the devils said earlier, the power-up had no effect on Vaarsuvius' ethics and that whatever atrocities (s)he just committed were all of his or her own doing. The fiends had lied to her in order to induce a nocebo effect.
  • The Nations as People series Polandball has Germany. Though Germany's normally depicted as an amicable Straight Man and elder statesman, when he gets really pissed (usually at Greece for not paying debts or Poland for existing), he morphs into the Reichtangle, an enigmatic figure representing the German Empire. The Reichtangle is a rectangle where everyone else is a ball, and usually appears saying "Guten tag" before murdering everyone else.
  • The talkative Lovable Coward RGB of The Property of Hate has Negative, a Shadow Archetype both visually and in that he acts completely opposite to how RGB normally does.
  • In Rise of the Heroes Andrew LaCondore slips into a twisted version of himself after submerging and drowning at sea. It is referred to as an 'Overlord' form by Cate. Needless to say, it comes with a crazy amount of strength and the ability to manipulate dark flames.
  • In Roommates Goblin King Jareth has one. Technically it's his original personality, but his love and gratitude for the girl he choose, the camaraderie he feels for his friends, and his own desire to change make him suppress it. Not that it helps much, even his "Good" side is an "easily entertained but frequently bored trickster" (great intentions but sucks in this whole good thing) the "Evil" one is an "amoral ruthless fae lord" (Fourth-Wall Observer meets The Fatalist and his role in the story tends to be: Villain).
  • Demons in Slightly Damned have a berserk form that they can change into which greatly increases their strength and power at the cost of being consumed by uncontrollable rage such that they attack everything they see (including themselves if they are alone) and usually causing them to die from exhaustion, so they only do this when they are likely to die anyway. Buwaro was born with a condition that causes him to go berserk involuntarily when he isn't asleep or wearing a special pendant.
  • Used in Snowflame: Possessed by the Odd Job God Goddess of Cocaine, Snow Flame is the Super-Powered Evil Side of Fabian Orozco, a former drug trafficker.
  • Sweet Home (2017): Each infected person develops one of these. They serve as a means of determining exactly how those that were infected will end up mutating. Hyun's in particular is very eager to play mind games with him.
  • Trace Legacy of TwoKinds has two of these. Whenever he gets extraordinarily pissed off, his memories of his old life cause a person shift (visually represented by his eyes and part of his hair turning red). However recent comics have seemed to show this side is merging with its current persona. (As the racist evil side is shown defending Keidran, which is something only his normal persona would do.) On the other hand, utilizing Black Magic results a different but even more psychotic personality (visually represented by his eyes and parts of his hair turning black). While Templar!Trace is a complete reversion to his old evil personality and goals, Dark!Trace retains all his current goals and desires... at least at first.
    Templar!Trace: ... they should have a festival for me... These Keidran don't deserve anything.
    Dark!Trace: Are you the one hurting Flora? No matter... I'll just kill you all and sort it out later.

    Web Original 
  • In Tales of MU, the side of Mackenzie that some fans have taken to calling Kenzie is two details off from being a textbook example of a Super-Powered Evil Side: First, Kenzie is triggered by hunger instead of desperation in battle. Second and more distancing, the closest thing to a superpower Kenzie has over normal Mack is being willing to hurt people that are trying to kill her.

    Web Videos 
  • In Danganronpa: The Wonderful Abyss, Indigo has an alternate personality, although is unaware of it. Whenever this personality takes over, which occurs in response to Indigo being under heavy stress, it uses its psychic powers to lash out at people.
  • In the "Angry Video Game Fag" by Ebeeto, Ebeeto "transforms" into The Angry Video Game Fag whenever he is angered enough. The transformation comes complete with a video-game-inspired cutscene.
  • Spoony treats Dr. Insano as this in Kickassia.
  • Dark Nella from The Nostalgia Chick. Technically she's supposed to be a Cosmic Horror possessing a clone of Nella, but one episode randomly has Nella start to turn evil again before the Chick forces her glasses back on.


 
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Alternative Title(s): Superpowered Alter Id, Superpowered Neutral Side, Jekyll And Super Hyde

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Sasuke's cursed mark

The first time Sasuke used the Curse Mark, it turned the quiet, caring loner into a sadistic maniac out to massacre the Sound Ninja Zaku Abumi because the latter hurt Sasuke's teammate Sakura Haruno.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (16 votes)

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