Tricked-Out Shoes

Can your Nikes do THIS?

What's amazing with shoes is the stuff you can put on and in them. Included are retractable and attachable items. Alternatively, they can be magical or run on Applied Phlebotinum.

Can overlap with Costume Porn (if the shoes are pimped out enough), Shoe Phone (if the item is actually a shoe).

Sticky Shoes is a subtrope for footware designed to hold the wearer on a surface against gravity. Compare Hat of Power, Jet Pack (which covers Rocket Boots), Tricked-Out Gloves, Armed Legs, Shoe Slap. See also Magical Accessory.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Air Gear has the Wind having ATs that retract leaving them with normal looking shoes when they aren't in use.
• Fabiola Iglesias from Black Lagoon wears shoes with heel blades, which she uses to very painful effect on an unfortunate mook at the Yellow Flag.
• In Bleach, the source of Jackie's Fullbring "Dirty Boots" are her boots. The filthier they become, the more her strength increases.
• Conan of Case Closed has shoes that deliver an electric current through his legs. This greatly enhances his kicking ability.
• Daimos: Daimos had rockets on its feet AND retractable spikes to simultanesouly kick and stab Robeasts with.
• Gunsmith Cats: Minnie-May keeps a small explosive kit in the heel of her shoe.
• Ichi the Killer fights with a special shoe that has a blade on it's heel.
• A variation in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: JoJolion: Hato Higashikata's Stand, Walking Heart, has the ability to prolong any appendage or extremity and cause them to be spiked. Hato mainly uses this ability on her shoes, causing the heels to be spiked to not only impale her enemies, but also let her walk up walls.
• Being a master criminal and all, it is appropriate that Lupin III should have tricked out shoes. Over the years they have contained concealed knives, spikes, explosives, a telephone and jet boosters, which probably doesn't leave much actual room for feet.
• Mazinger Z: In episode 18, Mazinger-Z's feet got modified to include rockets allowed the Humongous Mecha move underwater.
• MegaMan NT Warrior: Lan could attach wheels to his shoes to make them Rollerblade Good.
  • Sneakers with retractable wheels were a fad in the 90s and early 2000s. They fell out of favor for safety concerns.
• My Hero Academia: Izuku Midoriya's second hero costume upgrade (named Costume Gamma) adds special power-reinforcing iron soles that go over his sneakers. They protect his feet from sharp objects and debris while also adding a special power-blowback effect that increases the force of his kicks by responding to strong impacts in order to supplement his Shoot Style.
• Two examples in One Piece: Buggy has special shoes with hidden knives in them, and much later can use the same gimmick to shot the Muggy Balls (tiny but deadly bombs). Pirate Captain Vander Decken also wears sandals with retractable blades.

Comic Books

• Archie Comics: Being a wealthy Lovable Alpha Bitch, Veronica Lodge has enough money to occasionally buy shoes with various gadgets such as a music player. Teen Genius Dilton Doiley has also made shoes and roller skates with quirky abilities.
• Batman: In the very early comics before the utility belt was fully established, Batman would carry chemicals in the heels of his boots that could be mixed to create an explosive.
• Iron Man: The boots of Iron Man's armor have been equipped with everything from roller skates to magnets that allow him to walk on walls like Spider-Man to jet boostes that allow him to fly.
• Runaways: Chase Stein obtained the Footstigons, which like his previously owned Fistigons shoot flames. He uses them to fly.
• Spider-Man: Mysterio has used magnetic boots in order to mimic Spidey's wall-crawling.
• Trish Trash: Rollergirl of Mars: Hover Derby players wear hover shoes on the track. It had been that way since the 2070s, when hover technology was first commercialized in the universe of the comic.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Wonder Woman (1942): The Saturnians have "metal boots" which allow those currently under the effect of an reverse-gravity ray to walk on the surface actual gravity is pulling towards, instead of being repelled by it and possibly floating away until gravity fatally reasserts itself for them.
  • Wonder Woman (1987): Wearing the talaria of Hermes allows a de-powered Wonder Girl (Cassie) and Artemis to fly.
  • The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016): Before being granted the ability to fly on her own Diana relies on magic winged sandals to do so. After Zeus destroys the sandals Gaia gifts Diana the ability to fly.
• X-Men: Occasional member Dazzler has been known to have skates that stuck to her shoes.

Films — Animation

• In Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Flint's first invention is spray-on shoes, which solves the dilemma of having to tie your laces. Unfortunately, they don't come off. Ever.
• In The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, the Mysterious Mercenary Pursuer Dennis tries to kill SpongeBob and Patrick with spikes that come out of the bottom of his boots. Even better, his boots have the phrase "Your head here" and an arrow pointing downward on them.

Films — Live-Action

• The Dark Angel, also the Big Bad of Angel With The Iron Fists wears boots with retractable poisoned blades, which she uses to kill a failed minion, although for some reason when fighting the titular Angel she seems to have forgotten about it. The film itself is a campy Bond-knockoff and the blades seems like a Shout-Out to the then-recent From Russia with Love (below).
• Marty McFly's self-tying Nikes in Back to the Future Part II. Which have now been made for real (except for the self-tying part) and are being auctioned off to support Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's Charity.
• Batman:
  • Batman & Robin has the infamous "Batman on Ice" scene, where ice-skate blades coming out of Batman's and Robin's shoe soles (activated by them tapping their feet together) to pursue Mr. Freeze's mooks over floor he iced.
  • The more popular Batman movie Batman Begins has a brief scene in which Bats removes a sonar-device from the heel of his boot and uses it to attract hundreds of bats to his location, distracting a SWAT team.
  • In The Dark Knight, the Joker has a blade hidden in the tip of his shoe.
• Jade Fox in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has a spring-loaded shoe-knife.
• Van Damme's hero from the first Cyborg have spring-loaded blades hidden in the tip of his boot, which he used to cut a few throats in the film (with Van Damme's trademark split-kick, of course).
• In From Russia with Love, Spectre agents develop a weapon that fits a hidden, retractable poison blade into the sole of a shoe, to give it a "nastier kick".
• Goldfinger had Bond wearing one shoe with a trick heel where he concealed one of the miniature radio tracers given to him by Q.
• The Goonies: Data and his Slick Shoes.
• In If Looks Could Kill, one of the spy gadgets given to Michael Corben is a pair of Nikes with the capacity to stick to walls.
• In the Kingsman film series, Kingsmen carry shoes with a retractable poisoned blade a la From Russia With Love. The blade pops out by clicking the shoes' heels together and the poison kills in seconds.
• L.A. Story: Harris K. Telemacher has a pair of shoes with roller skate wheels that pop out when he presses a button. He uses them to skate through an art museum.
• Casey Alexander from No Retreat No Surrender 3 hides a spring-loaded blade in the tip of his shoe. When tied up to a fence and subjected to torture, he managed to trick his captor into getting close, then taps his heel on the ground which protrudes the blade allowing Casey to eliminate his guard via kicking the jugular.
• Slam Dunk Ernest revolves around a pair of absolutely gaudy basketball shoes that give him magic super b-baller powers. Oh, and they're apparently sapient.
• In the Street Fighter film, Bison wears boots that allow him to levitate (whereas in the game he's telekinetic). How this actually works is never fully explained other than Bison boasting it involves electromagnetism.
• The Thunderbolt Fist have the main villain's legion of four Elite Mooks, all who wears shoes with hidden metal studs they use on the hero Tie-wa in the final fight. One of them even comes dangerously close to severing Tie-wa's throat with a near-miss neck-kick.
• Undercover Brother. The title character had two pairs: one was elevator shoes with extendable heels that raised him into the air, the other had an extendable CD drive/cellular modem in the heel that he used to send data to the BROTHERHOOD.
• In the Wild Wild West film, the Gadgeteer Genius Gordon modifies one of Jim West's shoes with a switchblade. He uses it at one point during the fight on Loveless's train to kill a man strangling him from behind. In a later fight, it gets cut off by a guy with blades in his arms.
• The Young Rebel ends with a lengthy fight where the hero have to battle two expert fighters, one who favours kicking and wears a pair of shoes with nails embedded in the sole. This ends up working in the hero's advantage - missing a kick, the enemy fighter got his shoe embedded in a tree stump, and his Left Stuck After Attack moment allows the hero to score a killing blow.

Literature

• Isaac Asimov's David Starr, Space Ranger: Martian hip-boots have built-in hidden containers for small useful items.
• Bruce Coville's Book of... Magic II: The titular Blue Suede Shoes, which know all the old dances and will help the wearer dance them perfectly. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of effort for the shoes to learn any new dances, and they also have something of an effect on the wearer's personality.
• Doc Savage was a man Crazy-Prepared enough to carry equipment everywhere in his body, including components for a small bomb on the heels of both of his boots (interestingly, it used a binary explosive: both boots carried chemicals that became explosive when combined).
• The Dreamside Road: One of Orson Gregory’s boots has a repulsor that allows him limited flight and helps him jump great distances.
• In several of the Modesty Blaise stories, Modesty and/or Willie have trick shoes with secret compartments in the heels (or even heels that detach and then can be combined into a useful gadget), which sometimes get overlooked when they're being searched for weapons. In A Taste for Death, Willie has a pair of shoes with lockpicks hidden in the sole, and a pair of combat boots where the soles contain the blade and handle of a knife.
• Pale: Avery enchants her sneakers with air runes to let her jump high in the air, giving her a massive mobility advantage.
• Splinter of the Mind's Eye. One of the hostile miners Luke and Leia encounter on the planet Mimban has Armed Legs - he wears boots which extend blades when activated.

Live-Action TV

• CHiPs had an episode involving a series of broad-daylight jewelry store robberies. A woman would walk in to the store posing as a potential customer and would eventually ask to see some of the more high-end merchandise. The woman wore platform shoes (it was The '70s, after all) with small roller skate wheels hidden in the soles that would pop out when activated. When the store employee came back, she would then grab the items and the skates would allow her to make a fast getaway.
• Deadliest Warrior: the retractable shoe knife used by the KGB.
• Doctor Who: In "Spyfall", among a number of spy gadgets that the head of MI6 shows companions Ryan and Graham is a pair of shoes with built-in laser guns. The shoes later come in handy in the second part of the story.
• Get Smart has a Shoe Phone. Maxwell Smart has also occasionally had other things in the heels of his shoes, like Cyanide Pills or guns firing nuclear bullets.
• The Goodies: In "2001 and a Bit", while reinventing the game of cricket, Graeme's son Tim invents automatic cricket shoes that will carry the wearer between the wickets with no effort on the wearer's part.
• Partway through Kamen Rider Drive, Kiriko receives special boots based off of the Drive suit which can be powered, enhancing her running, jumping, and kicks (much like Case Closed, above).
• In an episode of LazyTown, Robbie Rotten gives the town hero Sportacus a pair of robotic boots that can apparently make him slide far and zoom across distances. The problem is, they’re controlled by Robbie... and so are Sportacus’s feet.
• Jim West in The Wild Wild West TV show had a blade in the tip of the shoe and whatever the plot demands in his heel.

Music

• Joe Scruggs' "Late Last Night", a children's song describing dreams about trying on different shoes and performing various activities, begins with a verse about bouncing in spring-loaded shoes. The video depicts them as glittery boots with Spring Coils grown out of the outsoles, and reveals that they materialize from white sparkles of undisclosed origin.

Myths & Religion

• Older Than Feudalism: The Greek god Hermes is depicted in artwork wearing winged sandals, which actually let him fly.

Tabletop Games

• One of the original gadgets in the James Bond 007 game is the shoe escape kit.
• Traveller, The Space Gamer magazine #49 article "Tools for Terrorists". When activated, Blade Boots will extend an 80 mm long blade from the toe, allowing the wearer to attack as if using a bayonet and doing 2d6 Hit Points of damage. The wearer can use either Brawling or Unarmed Combat skill as a bonus to hit and the blades can be coated with poison if desired. They're available starting at Tech Level 5, weigh one kilogram and cost 250 credits.
• Dungeons & Dragons's Forgotten Realms setting, Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue.
  • Dagger boots are boots with a claw-shaped blade sticking out the front. They do 1-4 Hit Points of damage.
  • Bladeboots have a concealed blade that extends out from the toe when the heels are clicked together (think From Russia with Love). The boots can be used to attack, in exchange for not being able to run with the blade extended.
  • Orc-Spiker Boots have a socket at the toe to which various devices (such as stilettoes) can be attached. Attached blades can be used as weapons.
  • Spiked Footings are shoes with stiletto blades sticking out of the toe.

Toys

• BIONICLE:
  • In the first iteration, Kopaka Nuva could split his Ice Blades in ice skates, Gali Nuva could use her Aqua Axes as flippers, Onua Nuva could use his Quakebreakers as rollerblades, and Nuju Metru's Crystal Spikes could be used as snowshoes.
  • In the second iteration, Kopaka could split his Frost Shield into Avalanche Skiis, Gali could split parts of her Elemental Trident to become shark fins, and Pohatu could use his Stormerangs as Jetarangs when attached to their feets.

Video Games

• Bayonetta: Bayonetta could attach weapons to her shoes, specifically the back of her heels.
• The eponymous BloodRayne wears platform boots with literal Combat Stilettos, allowing her to maim opponents with her kicks.
• Kazooie has four pairs of these — the Turbo Trainers (for Super-Speed), the Wading Boots (for walking across shallow yet dangerous surfaces), the Springy Step Shoes (for making a Spring Jump, of course), and the Claw Clamber Boots (for walking up walls).
• In Desert Demolition Starring Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, Wile E. has two different types of these. Rocket Skates allow him to go faster, and Springy Shoes allow him to do a Spring Jump.
• Drac's Night Out is an unreleased game that was going to be a tie-in for Rebop Pumps. Dracula had the shoes as power-ups, and they would allow him to run faster and jump higher.
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess features Iron Boots, which, allow you to Wall Crawl on certain magnetic surfaces, as well as anchoring you firmly enough to withstand a rolling Goron, and, in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, sinking in water so you can walk at the bottom of a flooded area, and gaining more traction against fans. Ocarina Of Time also has the Hover Boots, that allow Link to run in the air for a second, which grants more horizontal distance than jumping, or get blasted like a bullet by a fan so he can reach areas too far to just run to.
• Cerberus soldiers in Mass Effect 3 have boots equipped with rockets. They only use them to cushion their falls after jumping from heights or to jump up onto the battlefield from unseen points below it.
• Mega Man X: Part of Dr. Light's Powered Armor enhancements are Tricked Out Leg Armors. X1's leg armor enables him to dash (a feature X has from the start in later games), X2's lets him do dash in the air, X3's enables 3-way air dash (including upwards), and with the Leg Chip he can either air dash twice or air dash after a dash jump, X4's (both Fourth and Ultimate Armor) gives him air dash and hovering. X5's Falcon Leg lets him fly (for generous seconds and makes him all but invulnerable during flight) and Gaea Leg makes him immune to spikes, not sliding during wall clinging and able to push certain blocks, X6's Blade Leg enables 4-way very fast air dash that makes him go through enemies and Shadow Leg makes him immune to spikes, not sliding down during wall clinging and a high jump that makes him do Ceiling Cling, X7's lets him glide in the air, X8's Icarus Leg gives him a higher jump, Hermes Leg gives him faster running speed and ability to dash through enemies, and Ultimate Leg combines the two.
• Mega Man Zero: The third and fourth games enable enhancements to your armor parts, including your shoes. It ranges from increasing running speed, double jumping, jumping on water surfaces, giving friction to Frictionless Ice, protection against blowing winds, dashing through enemies, sliding down walls slower, and, in case of the secret Ultima Chip, almost all of the above.
• Mega Man ZX and its sequel Advent has equippable chips that provide permanent enhancements to your character that can all be equipped as long as you have them. Two of those chips are the Wind and Ice Boots, which allow your character to resist being buffeted by winds and create friction on Frictionless Ice respectively (although the former won't save you if you happen to be airborne since, logically, your feet aren't clinging to a surface).
• Portal 2: the 'Long Fall Boots' Chell wears to prevent fall damage.
• In Ratchet & Clank, Ratchet has the Magneboots (later replaced by the Gravity Boots), which allow him to stick to certain surfaces. He also has Grind Boots, which allow him to grind down rails. The Charge Boots, present from Going Commando to Tools of Destruction, allow Ratchet to dash forward with rocket boosters in the shoes, and the Hoverboots replaced them starting with A Crack in Time.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • In the Game Gear era, Sonic had a number of specialty shoes. In Sonic the Hedgehog Chaos, Sonic could don Rocket Shoes and fly around for a short time and Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble gave Sonic propeller shoes which allowed him to move underwater.
  • Soap Shoes for Rail Grinding. Featured in Sonic Adventure 2.
• Grieve edges in SoulCalibur III are boots with blades in them, and come with a moveset that involves lots of kicking.
• In Team Fortress 2:
  • The Soldier can equip Gunboats: Steel-shoes that allow him to absorb damage from Rocket Jumps, and he also has the Mantreads, which decrease the knockback from explosions and Pyro Airblasts, as well as allow him to Goomba Stomp foes.
  • The Demoman has Ali Baba's Wee Booties and the Bootlegger, both of which adds 25 HP to his max health, 10% to his max movement speed, and triple turning control when Shield Bashing.
• Toe Jam And Earl had three different types of these in the first game. The Super Hi-tops allowed them to run faster, the Spring Shoes allowed them to make a Spring Jump, and the Rocket Skates allowed them to go extremely fast (and they could even run across the water with them).

Web Animation

• Mercury Black in RWBY uses Talaria, a pair of heavy boots with metal greaves that both store and fire his ammo. They enhance Mercury's kick-based fighting style and are strong enough to withstand direct blows from Fulcrum. By breakdancing (yes, breakdancing), Mercury can even shoot off numerous Wind Dust bullets as homing projectiles that circle his targets before crashing down on them.

Webcomics

• Schlock Mercenary:
  • Captain Tagon has a "Dorothy system" in his boots, so named because when he clicks his heels together, a string of Razor Wire comes between the boots, which is a useful emergency weapon.
  • In the "Mallcop Command" arc, the shoes that Captain Tagon wears as part of his civilian guise have Griponan soles, which allow the wearer to walk on almost any surface regardless of which direction gravity is pulling. He uses the ability to ambush the Parkata Urbatsu runners at the point they planned to gather before escaping.
• Rudy from The Story of Anima augments his kicks with steel-plated shoes.
• Unsounded: Lemuel's boots are spelled to emit fire and have a degree of propulsion that allows him Not Quite Flight.
• Parodied in xkcd, where Cueball receives a pair of enchanted shoes that allow you to outrun death itself, but which he declines because they're those weird kind of shoes with individual toes.

Western Animation

• Shao Jun from Assassin's Creed: Embers has the traditional Hidden Blade in her shoe, rather than mounted on her wrist.
• Lacer from Atomic Puppet has artificial intelligence, a variety of gadgets, can walk on walls, and can run at super speed. On the other hand, it's evil and seeks to lead machines in a revolt against the human race.
• A later season of Big Hero 6: The Series gives Honey Lemon Chem Shoes to go with her Chem Purse. Like her purse, she can fire specific chemical compounds out of the sole, which she usually uses to launch herself on an instant pillar or land safely in a cushion of gel.
• Numbuh 1 of Codename: Kids Next Door sports rocket boots, as shown in the opening titles, "Operation: G.R.O.W.-U.P." and "Operation: U.T.O.P.I.A.", which activate by clicking his heels together.
• In Iron Man: Armored Adventures:
  Tony: They're not skates! They're ...electrostatic...energy racers.
• Inspector Gadget: Gadget's shoes can turn into everything from roller skates to skis to magnets on command.
• For an episode, Kim Possible had to wear shoes that gave her super speed to keep up with the gynoid robots, the Bebes, who had returned with their own super speed capabilities. Fortunately, the pair was her exact size, so she was the only one who could wear them (oddly enough there was another pair that was Rufus' size because they were testing them on lab rats). Unfortunately, the device was also unstable, which often left her overshooting her target and stuck in hyperspeed.
• Motorcity: the Electroblades have rocket-powered skates, tying in with their hockey theme.
• Similar to the Kim Possible example, one of Phineas and Ferb's big ideas of the day were shoes that used pressure point reflexology to induce super speed. They had stable models, but Candace ended up stealing unstable versions, which didn't come off and randomly made her run of at extreme speed.
• The Raw Toonage segment "My New Shoes" features shoes with spontaneous neon bling, a personal grooming feature, an elaborate system of gears, the ability to turn into car-shaped rocket propelled shoes with a drag parachute, vertical takeoff capability with space travel, included carjack, orange juice maker, clothes washing machine, toaster, the ability to inflate several times the size of the wearer, the super speed capability to outrun a race car, retractable stilts that can reach a basketball hoop, the ability to transform into a tank, the ability to come alive and dance, displaying cartoon eyes and a personality, suggesting an advanced form of sentience, the ability to jump back onto the wearer's feet, and automatic running, jumping, and sliding features. They are also suitable for dancing.
• In Rainbow Rangers, Indigo Allfruit's Super Sonic Rainbow Sneakers let her fly.
• Samurai Jack once dealt with his sandals being broken for an entire episode. To reward him for saving his shop, a clerk at a shoe store offered him any pair. One pair were inflatable shoes that allowed him to run super fast and bounce to incredible heights. Unfortunately, he couldn't stop bouncing once he started.
• In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Stuck on the Roof", Sandy plans to get SpongeBob down from the Krusty Krab's roof through her new invention, Extend-O-Boots, which allow her to increase her leg height starting from her feet. Unfortunately, she hasn't fully tested it out yet, causing her to be sprung up to the ocean's surface, and the Extend-O-Boots end up getting tangled up on each other. The Extend-O-Boots would later reappear as part of Sandy's special attack set in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl.
• When there's trouble you know what to do, CALL CYBORG! He can shoot a rocket from his shoe, CAUSE HE'S CYBORG! - Cyborg, Teen Titans (2003)
• A Tom Terrific story arc had a group of kids scared of participating in a series of school athletic events because of a bully. Tom gives them each a pair of shoes that he says will make them far better athletes than the bully. They're plain shoes, but Tom was building up the kids' confidence. And it worked.
• Wile E. Coyote has resorted to tricked out shoes in his pursuit of the Road Runner. Guess how that turned out.

Real Life

• Many early roller skates were designed to be carried in a backpack until needed, and then tied by ropes to the user's shoes.
  • Also skis, snowboards, skysurfing boards, snowshoes, and of course, the overshoe.
  • There have also been attempts to build a shoe with hidden wheels that pop out.
  • Skate shoes, including models that combine Grind Boots.

---