Power Incontinence in Webcomics.
- In Aurora, Alinua was a born with an intricate green birthmark that carries the Chimeric Plague. With it comes immense life-based powers that get stronger with age. Alinua says that eventually she will lose control of her powers and unleash the Chimeric Plague, killing herself and anyone in close proximity.
- Axe Cop: Ask Axe Cop #7
reveals that Electric Man was in the habit of levelling entire cities when he ran so fast he'd fall on his face and accidentally shot lightning and earthquakes. They got him an insulating metal suit so that he wouldn't do that, though he'd still fall over. - Ben of Breakpoint City can't control his lightning blasts without the gloves given to him by the superhero organization.
- The Chosen Four shows Ness loses control of his PSI as a result of emotional trauma, becoming an Unstoppable Rage. Department Store Spook learned that the hard way.
- As healer Shul in City of Somnus explains, some measure of Power Incontinence is perfectly normal as a Dream Weaver grows into his or her powers. Too bad Paollo is twenty three and still takes out a chunk of dream world while slaying a monster. He's very worried about his utter lack of control.
- Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures:
- In the webcomic's world, incubi and succubi are essentially a race of shape shifting empaths who feed off emotions more than they do souls. Unfortunately for those individuals who mature to a point where this function becomes active without someone in the know to instruct them, these individuals may suffer from crushing migraines due to the influx of constant emotional downpour around them. Thankfully this can be for the most part filtered to allow only the desired emotional energies to flow through 'but' despite this the cubi in question will always be 'very' susceptible to the emotions around them such that whatever emotion they may be experiencing at any given time will be kicked into overdrive so that even the slightest bit of anger becomes blinding rage for those who lack restraint.
- Illusionist Cubi clan leader Diamanika can't stop appearing as the subject of other people's thoughts. This makes introductions awkward (quoth Dan: "Mom?!"), until the new acquaintance can learn what she actually looks like.
- Debugging Destiny uses this to balance powers that would otherwise be too powerful, like Alexander's ability to win any fair contest, or Ignacia's Hypnotic Eyes.
- Demon Hunter Kain: The cause of Zandalee's "hallucinations" is not knowing how to control her supernatural perception, which isn't helped by the drug regimen she was on to help her stop hallucinating.
- Devil May Care: Being the open book that he is, speaking from the heart comes easy for Rangi. Thing is, he's a Nice Guy who's job is to make people do bad things, so he will sometimes give good advice by accident. This is demonstrated at the beginning when he tries to make a father paranoid and peek as the contents of his daughter's phone, only to retract at the thought that this would violate their shared trust. Since shoulder angel and shoulder devils are able to influence people if they speak genuinely, this can make his job a little harder by accident.
- In Draconia Chronicles, Xihanil is shown accidentally setting a table on fire when she's cross about having to work overtime at her old job as a cook at a pub. In a later strip, it's shown that this is endemic to fire dragons, and it was the basis for a Jim Crow law against them.
- Kili of The Dragon Doctors has such powerful spiritual senses that they went totally out of control when she was a child; she's been branded with magical marks on her face and body that suppress her spiritual vision to keep her from going insane. What remains of her power is still immense, since it turns out these tattoos completely negate the powers of ordinary shamans.
- Faen in Drowtales has the ability to feel the emotions of those around her, and at times can control those emotions. Which would be pretty awesome if a) she could turn it off, b) she didn't live in a Crapsack World, or c) she weren't essentially Purity Personified. Eventually, the constant Mind Rape drives her slightly nuts, she accidentally kills off a significant number of people, and she ends up fleeing to the surface world, at which point the main character follows her.
- Elliot and Ellen from El Goonish Shive experience what is perhaps one of the most literal forms of this possible; to the extent that Elliot is instructed to use his transformation powers in the privacy of a bathroom at every opportunity so as to prevent "accidents". In fact, anyone who gains their magical powers "improperly" will have some form of Power Incontinence until their magic power stabilizes.
- Summer Mighty in Everyday Heroes has trouble controlling her eye beams.
- Foxy Flavored Cookie:
- Pucho has the ability to cause objects to break with a touch but he doesn't have total control of this ability so there is a danger he may harm somebody if he touches them. During his human life as Dante, he once accidentally caused a man's ribcage to explode when he grabbed the man to stop him from harassing Luna.
- Luna has never kissed anyone because she is a succubus and the first person a succubus kisses dies. Because she is magically bonded to Pucho/Dante, she hopes that if he kisses someone it will count as her first kiss and will free her from this problem. When Pucho does finally kiss Pitika, it causes Luna to turn male and she can't turn back with her shapeshifting. She goes to Tammy for help and she summons another succubus to ask what is going on. The succubus explains that Pucho's kiss does not count as Luna's first kiss but now her body is confused because Pucho spent the night with Pituka and she automatically adjusted sex to be the opposite of Pituka.
- Full Frontal Nerdity has Frank invoke this as GM, with the logic that "Superman was always Superman, he didn't go up in 'levels'." In truth, it's a (perhaps unintended) trap to trick his notoriously Munchkiny players who don't even let him finish explaining that they haven't learned to control them yet, which is where the experience would have come in. The three botch together an apocalypse before the session's even over.Frank: I'm afraid you'll all have to roll on the "whoopsie" table again.
- The titular Ghost Kiss erases herself from the memories of anyone she kisses regardless of whether she wants to or not. Her own mother has no memory of her and refuses to believe she is her daughter due to a slip-up. She has to be careful nobody consumes her saliva.
- After losing his arm, Dies Horribly from Goblins is bestowed with a shapeshifting magical one, but the new limb also reacts to emotions, making it hard to control, as it will transform into spikes and blades when he is scared. He never learns to fully control it, especially once the arm develops an ultra-violent mind of its own and ultimately has to sever it causing it to transform into an ultra-powerful, mindlessly aggressive, multiplying evil being that sustains itself on the blood of the living.
- Gunnerkrigg Court:
- Zimmy has Reality Warper powers. They tend to spontaneously manifest by making her nightmarish hallucinations become real. Either that or the power only has one setting; it's really not clear at all how it works, or if the hallucinations are caused by the power or merely coexist with it. Although the point still stands that she can't control it. The closest she can come to controlling it is by sticking close to a Power Nullifier, which is far from a perfect solution. (Especially since her Power Nullifier of choice is subject to human needs like sleep.)
- When Parley's teleportation ability first manifested, she accidentally transported herself and the group with her into her bedroom. She was not amused. Parley eventually finds out she can control her powers by sticking close to a boy whose power is to organize the disorderly. Whom she already had a crush on. This works out well. Incidentally, he can't turn his power off, either, leading to awkward situations like instantly completing a training simulation without even doing anything.
- I'm the Grim Reaper: Scarlet has a very powerful demon inside her that when activated, is nearly invincible. The problem is that the demon is a single minded killing machine, slaughtering anything in its way, and Scarlet can’t control it when it starts creeping out and lets it take her over easily.
- Everyone at the facilities in Inhibit is there to learn how to control their variations.
- The Intrepid Girlbot:
- Raccoon #1 just can't control her Eye Beams.
- Neither can Girlbot herself control all the power and resources at her disposal. She does her best, but events always spiral out of her control.
- Karin-dou 4koma: Seren is an immortal magician of immense power with a "Spell Booster" predisposition that automatically, drastically boosts any spells she casts, rendering low-level magic impossible without her Power Limiter on.
- Knights of Buena Vista is a Campaign Comic covering Frozen, and Elsa's player did such insane Min-Maxing that although Elsa counts as a "Living God", she also has a 90% of accidentally casting magic (barring any Power Limiter).
- Jigsaw Forte from Last Res0rt learns about her Vampiric powers the hard way, right down to having to either learn to control her temper or risk letting her more... visual aspects manifest themselves. She can't turn her mind-reading off, either, which makes her have panic attacks around crowds.
- Leif & Thorn: The Woman in Black is an excellent secret agent because she's magically unmemorable. To everyone. Including her family and friends. Whether she wants to be or not.
- In the middle of the "Gackt" arc in Manly Guys Doing Manly Things, Mr. Fish (a Gyarados) learns Hyper Beam. The problem is that once he starts Hyper Beaming, he can't stop. He Hyper Beams Gackt in the face and then runs out of steam.Jared: COMMANDER! WE DON'T KNOW HOW TO TURN OFF THE LASERS!
- In Mob Psycho 100, Mob's psychic powers are an extension of his emotions; much like a person can't always keep themselves from crying or laughing, Mob can't always keep from unconsciously using his telekinesis. As a result, he's taken to extreme Emotion Suppression in an effort to control them (which has its own negative side effects); and even then, he still accidentally bends spoons or levitates objects with regularity. He also has trouble controlling the strength and precision of his telekinesis when sick and thus avoids using them at all if he's feeling unwell.
- Kit Darling in Poppy O'Possum has the power to see matter at the atomic level, as well as potential interactions between substances. Unfortunately, she has no control over this power; she's been functionally blind since she was a young child, and can only manage with the help of special anti-magic glasses. Under normal circumstances, the only things she can see clearly are opossums, who are inherently Anti-Magic.
- Katia Managan, protagonist of Prequel, suffers this as she learns to control her magical abilities.
- The "Jareth's cold" arc of Roommates is made of this trope. Every time poor guy sneezed something random magic happened, he even managed to sneeze the creator into the comic.
- Witches in Serenity Rose have good control over their powers for the most part, but can conjure up creatures in their sleep. Sera creates a monstrous version of a girl she once knew, which results in a hiker losing his arm, and later results in the violent dismemberment of many of the soldiers sent to stop it. Another witch, who never consciously used his powers at all, supposedly created 100 giant fire-breathing metal horses to crush Napoleon's army. He was of course burned alive, being a witch in the 19th century and all.
- Sleepless Domain: Pop Blitz is a Magical Girl with the power to control electricity, but she's still getting the hang of controlling her powers. This is why Team Blitz has to turn down Undine's request to join them — her powers over water wouldn't mix well with poorly controlled electricity.
- Slightly Damned:
- Demons have a Berserk form that they can transform into as a last resort in battle, which gives them increased strength at the cost of their sanity and usually results in the demon killing itself from exhaustion or self harm if there is nothing around for them to kill. The protagonist Buwaro was born with a condition where he goes berserk immediately if he is awake and not wearing a magic pendant that suppresses it, as a result of his egg being damaged. Before he was given the pendant as a baby, he had to be kept asleep at all times with magic so he wouldn't go berserk. Rhea learned this the hard way when she stole Buwaro's pendant and he (temporarily) killed her in his berserk form, and would have (permanently) killed himself if Sakido hadn't gotten the pendant back on him. He still felt terrible about killing Rhea even though it wasn't his fault.
- Buwaro's angel girlfriend Kieri has the ability to turn into a rabbit as a result of a botched curse put on her by a divine guardian. The curse was supposed to trap her in the form of a rabbit, but instead it just gave her the ability to turn into a rabbit, although she frequently turns into a rabbit involuntarily, especially when she sneezes or stays in her angel form for too long. When she reunites with her brother she discovers that he had a similar curse put on him that makes him turn into a wolf, and unlike her, he suffers from involuntary Partial Transformations instead of always switching forms instantly. It is implied that this is because he is forcing himself to stay in angel form too much, because during a fight later on when Kieri is stuck in her rabbit form and has to force herself to change back she manages but keeps her rabbit ears.
- Jake has a problem with accidentally starting fires.
- Suihira has Wahida, who has the favour of the water goddess and can summon water from somewhere to wherever she is. Flooding things and cracking bottles. She has very little control over this.
- Brian from Think Before You Think can't turn off his mind-reading ability.
- Tower of God:
- Yeon Ehwa is an immensely powerful fire user, but she is not only physically clumsy, she has at times so little control over her powerful flames that she has a history of being a Team Killer. She is a little insecure about it.
- Bam in Tower of God has a case that's simultaneously mild and spectacular when he's dueling young Jahad on the Hidden Floor and has just activated a whole new level of Super Mode. He tries to create the little blue disc of energy he uses to fly around, but accidentally makes it so big it destroys the entire floor of the stadium they're on. Downplayed because he only has brief problems controlling the extent of what he was trying to do anyway, but still kind of a big effect.
- unOrdinary: All but one ability users have to activate their ability in order to trigger it. Claire, who hates her ability, cannot control her visions and they will come to her and trigger her ability active while she's trying to do things throughout the day.
- One subplot in Wapsi Square involves Shelly's inability to control her sphinx side. She's partially shapeshifting whenever she feels strong emotions, and her instincts are interfering with everyday life.
- Gail in When She Was Bad does not have a stable set of powers aside from Super-Strength.
- Wychwood: Without the collar that serves as a combination Power Limiter and Mind-Control Device, Felix has very little control over his powers and is prone to damaging his surroundings involuntarily.
