History Main / LightningCanDoAnything

* ''Series/LoisAndClark'' has Superman's powers shared with others by lightning strikes at least twice.

* '' Series/{{Wishbone}}'' had a very silly example of this in its ''Literature/{{Frankenstein}}'' episode. David builds a robot which [[InstantAIJustAddWater comes to life and escapes his garage]] after a nearby lightning strike and starts running amok in Oakdale. (By running amok, we mean knocking over trash cans and the like while yammering a prerecorded environmentalist message; it's too small for anything else.)

* In ''Film/MisfitHeights'', Dr. Zoltar uses a lightening rod device to charge some corpses with electricity, animating them as zombies.

* ''Literature/MaxAndTheMidknightsBattleOfTheBodkins'': While interrogating the Bodkin archer, [[TheProtagonist Max]] learns that Boris created a magical mirror from the Pits of Doom in [[spoiler:the Land of Knot]] to get back to Byjovia. As he was passing through it, however, a lightening bolt struck the mirror, shattering it into countless crystals[[spoiler:, one of which became Queen Neralia's scepter crystal]], and killing Boris.

** If lightning zaps a pig, it becomes a Zombie Pigman. And in the 1.8 update, a villager struck by lightning becomes a Witch.

* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' once featured the utterly insane Larsen Pork Products man. His confrontation with Luanne took place in a pig slaughterhouse. On the conveyor belt, he was accidentally electrocuted and cured of the voices in his head. His clarity was short-lived, as he was almost immediately...well, slaughtered.
* Subverted when it turns out there's one thing Lightning CAN'T do: Hurt Characters/{{Wonder Woman|TheCharacter}} when she blocks it with her METAL BRACELETS. Immediately lampshaded by the Flash:

** In "Meet the Meteor", the castaways, upon learning that a severe tropical storm is coming to their island, decide to take advantage of the lightning from the storm to destroy a meteor whose rays have been found to accelerate the aging rate in all living things around (which means the castaways themselves are doomed to be aging fifty years by the end of the week and essentially dying), and fashion a lightning rod, under the Professor's direction. The storm hits, Gilligan javelins the rod into the meteor, a bolt of lightning streaks down and strikes the rod, and the meteor is destroyed, saving the castaways from the fate of dying of old age within the week.:

* Subverted in ''Series/LaverneAndShirley'' when Carmine survives a lightning-strike, which makes him think that he has a charmed life. He begins to take foolish risks, including planning to perform a deadly stunt, until Mr. De Fazio reveals that 1700 people a year survive lightning strikes (which was about the number in 1957).

* Subverted on ''LaverneAndShirley,'' where Carmine survives getting hit by lightning, and thinks he has a charmed life and can't die. So then he's about to form a deadly stunt, but luckily he finds out that about 1700 people also survived getting struck by lightning every year.
* In the 2003 series ''[[Series/OneEightHundredMissing 1-800-MISSING]]'', 21-year-old Jess Mastriani had acquired PsychicPowers after being hit by lightning.
* In ''Series/AceLightning'' (a mixed media show both live action filmed and CGI animated, so it also counts as WesternAnimation) the characters of Mark Hollander's video game were brought to life by a bolt of lightning. (It turns out in the end that [[spoiler:Mark's particular game was specifically modified with advanced coding by the Master Programmer: all it needed was a boost of extreme power to start the process off, that power being the lightning bolt.]])

* Gwen [[PropheticName Raiden's]] [[ShockAndAwe lightning powers]] on ''Series/{{Angel}}'' have a remarkable array of uses, from hacking through computer systems to [[{{Fanservice}} making Angel horny]]...
* Series/{{Black Lightning|2018}} can do anything with his electricity, including fly.
* Averted in ''Series/BykerGrove'' - teenage Jemma was helping a pensioner to clear up her flooded house, and touched a faulty electrical socket (she was stupidly trying to watch TV while the house was still flooded). A matter of mere seconds and one big [[BangBangBANG bang]] later, and Jemma was dead.
* The ''Series/{{Dinosaurs}}'' episode "If You Were a Tree" had an in-universe story that Grandma was telling Baby where a dinosaur portrayed by Earl Sinclair get struck by lightning while trying to push a large tree down. It resulted in him and the tree switching souls, leaving the tree enjoying life as a dinosaur while in Earl's body and Earl trapped inside the tree's body while unable to be heard by any dinosaur he begged for help. Another lightning strike near the end of the episode undoes the soul swap. [[LampshadeHanging Baby found the idea that lightning could swap the souls of a tree and a dinosaur and that lighting would hit the same tree twice like that hard to swallow]].

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E5EvolutionOfTheDaleks "Evolution of the Daleks"]] has lightning able to affect genetic engineering equipment. The Doctor reveals that, because he hugged the spire of the Empire State Building (during its construction) as lightning came through, Time Lord DNA was mixed with the Dalek-Humans and gave the (now) Time Lord-Dalek-Humans freedom, unlike the Dalek-Humans they would've been.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd "Journey's End"]]: A shock of electricity proves to be just the thing to [[spoiler:activate the Time Lord mind the biological metacrisis gave Donna, which lets her save the day]].
* In ''Dog House'', a detective has a car accident and an electric pole falls on him and his dog Digby. The electric current cause his mind to swap with his dog.
* Lampshaded in ''Series/{{ER}}''. In one episode the doctors are watching a soap opera where one of the characters appears back in the series despite having been diagnosed with terminal brain tumor. One of the doctors explains that "a lightning strike cured him" and everyone else accepts it without batting an eyelash.

* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in ''Series/TheFlash2014''.
-->'''Barry:''' Lightning gave me abs?
** (No, but it did give him a HealingFactor, courtesy of the Speed Force.) As in his comics incarnation, that "bolt of lightning" was just the means through which the Speed Force expressed itself.

* Naturally, there are two examples from ''Series/GilligansIsland'': in "Meet The Meteor" the castaways, upon learning that a severe tropical storm is coming to their island, decide to take advantage of the lightning from the storm to destroy a meteor whose rays have been found to accelerate the aging rate in all living things around (which means the castaways themselves are doomed to be aging fifty years by the end of the week and essentially dying), and fashion a lightning rod, under the Professor's direction. The storm hits, Gilligan javelins the rod into the meteor, a bolt of lightning streaks down and strikes the rod, and the meteor is destroyed, saving the castaways from the fate of dying of old age within the week. And in "Gilligan's Personal Magnetism" Gilligan is struck by lightning, which causes him to get a bowling ball stuck to his hand. The professor's efforts to remove the ball cause Gilligan to "become invisible".
* Subverted on ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' with Elle Bishop, whose power is used only to shock or start fire on clothing, and who therefore suffers whenever someone adds water to the mix.

* Subverted on ''Series/LaverneAndShirley,'' where Carmine survives a lightning-strike, and now thinks that he has a charmed life, and begins taking foolish risks... until Mr. De Fazio reveals that 1700 people/year survived lightning-strikes (which was about the number in 1957).
* Likewise, ''Series/LoisAndClark'' had Superman's powers shared with others by lightning strikes at least twice.

* ''Series/MutantX'': The character whose powers were lightning-based could do near anything he wanted with them. They disabled car alarms, started the car, unlocked purely mechanical locks, and anything else that needed to be done. All they needed to do was have him walk on water with the low-budget lightning effect going on around his feet, and he could have been Electrical Jesus. Those are all things you could do with complete control over electromagnetism (see Magneto and Polaris); maybe the lightning was just his way of focusing his control.
* When lightning strikes Jo Min-sung in the KoreanSeries ''Series/OnceUponATimeInSaengchori'' it totally destroys his ability to do math, or even to read numbers, which is a problem, because he is a financial analyst. Later, it has an equally powerful and odd effect on his relationship with Yoo Eun Joo.
* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S5E9WhatWillTheNeighborsThink What Will The Neighbors Think?]]" Mona is electrocuted by accident, and suddenly becomes telepathic as a result. Later, she loses the ability after this happens ''again''.

* The short-lived 1986 series ''Series/{{Outlaws}}'' followed the adventures a group [[TwilightOfTheOldWest from 1899]] who are [[FishOutOfTemporalWater transported to 1986]] by a lightning bolt.
* On ''Series/QuantumLeap'', lightning strikes Sam as he receives shock treatment right before he leaps; somehow this switches Al and Sam's locations, as Sam gets stuck in the Imaging Chamber, and Al becomes the leaper and ends up in 1945.

* ''Series/SeriouslyWeird'': After being hit by lightning in "Tug of Love", Harris becomes a human magnet, but he attracts everything - including things like stray pieces of paper and clothing. The one good thing is that he also attracts Claudia.
* In one episode of ''Series/{{Sliders}}'', the portal is struck by lightning just as Quinn goes through, spitting him out the other side phased between dimensions or some such -- [[{{Intangibility}} essentially, a ghost]] that only the GirlOfTheWeek could see or hear.

** Clark's powers were transferred to someone and back by lightning strikes near some [[GreenRocks Kryptonite]].
** In a later episode it happens again with Clark merely copying his powers to Lana, which is convenient because if it had worked like before, Clark would have been powerless to stop Lana from taking her vengeance on Luthor.
** In another episode lightning strikes at a telephone pole sending Lana's phone call into the past, giving characters a handy warning that she is about to be killed. Once again, [[GreenRocks Kryptonite]] was involved.
* ''Series/StargateSG1'''s 10th season featured an episode where Vala lost her memory after being hooked up to a device meant to probe her mind which was then hit by a zat gun.
** And in the 1st season, they had to use lightning to power the gate on a planet where the DHD was busted.
** The power of lightning was used again in ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' to power the city's shields to protect them from the storm causing the lightning.
*** Both of the above are justified by the fact that lightning strikes ''do'' carry considerable power, enough to light a 100 watt bulb for ''six months''.
** The zat guns are used as 'futuristic lightning' in ''Stargate SG-1''. Apart from being weapons, they've been used for opening and closing doors, turning machines on and off, and {{deprogram}}ming brainwashed children.
*** In ''The Crystal Skull,'' Teal'c shooting the skull with a zat gun is explained as the reason Daniel turned invisible, rather than meeting the giant aliens like his grandfather did.

* [[Comicbook/{{Shazam}} Captain Marvel]] transforms from Billy Batson (and back) by being struck by lightning after saying "Shazam!", and this is symbolized by the lightning-bolt on his chest, as well as having "The Power of Zeus." Of course, in his case, it's explicitly ''magical'' lightning and not just ordinary meteorological events.
* In the [[Comicbook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse Donald Duck]] comics there sometimes appears a fourth nephew due to artist error, called [[https://scrooge-mcduck.fandom.com/wiki/Phooey_Duck Phooey Duck]]. This is canonically explained in that the three nephews were struck by a lightning, which somehow randomly causes spontaneus cell division, effectively cloning one of the triplets in an instant, but the clone also disappears typically within 60 seconds.

** In ''Comicbook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' it was revealed that the Flash himself was the lightning bolt which struck the chemicals giving him his super speed. This was later retconned into the [[MetaOrigin Speed Force]], a cosmic force that grants super speed and just happens to ''look'' like lightning.

* In ''Man In The Iron Mask'', a short arc of ''Comicbook/IronMan'', lightning hits the armor. This, in conjunction with [=Y2K=], causes it to become [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18957_the-8-most-awkward-sexual-moments-in-comic-book-history.html Tony's Abusive Boyfriend]].
* In an early ''Comicbook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' story, lightning can ''resurrect the dead'', although only if it [[SomeoneHasToDie kills someone else first]]. Said dead person (Lightning Lad) had received his powers after being zapped by a "lightning beast". Referenced in the ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica'' story ''The Lightning Saga'', although the current HandWave is that it's [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien 30th-century technology]] that really does the trick.

** ComicBook/TheVision is created in this way, a training android created by Stark who was affected by a power surge caused by [[Characters/MarvelComicsStorm Storm]], leading to Avengers tower shutting down and said Android absorbing information about mass-and-density alteration from an experiment [[Characters/IncredibleHulkBruceBanner Bruce Banner]] was conducting on [[Characters/TheWasp Janet]]. So basically the only Avenger who didn't inadvertently bring the Vision into being was [[Characters/SpiderManPeterParker Spider-Man]]. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Nice Job Breaking It, Heroes]]!

** Electro got his powers by essentially being electrocuted by a particularly nasty lightning bolt while repairing a power line. Just as [[Characters/IncredibleHulkBruceBanner Bruce Banner]] should have been vaporized when the gamma bomb exploded and Peter Parker should have gotten cancer from the spider-bite, Max Dillon should have been fried, but instead he gains superpowers. HollywoodScience strikes again!

** In ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan'', Spider-Man attains a variant of the Comicbook/{{Venom}} costume that was intended to be used to cure cancer. When confronted with the Shocker and his sonic blasters, Spidey just gets a comfortable massage -- however, when he is fighting the suit off his very skin and just happens to be struck by the electricity from a downed power line...