History Main / RePower

* Amazing Man (not to be confused with 'Mazing Man) of Roy Thomas's ''ComicBook/AllStarSquadron'' in Franchise/TheDCU was introduced with the power to transform into whatever substances he touched; later these were changed to magnetic abilities. His grandson later appeared with his original powers, which were cooler anyway.
* A popular fan idea was "What if Franchise/{{Batman}} became a Franchise/GreenLantern?", because for some reason giving the [[MemeticMutation Goddamn Batman]], who already has PlotArmor like crazy, a weapon based on intelligence, creativity, and willpower is ''such a good idea''. This idea has been featured in multiple Batman-related media:
** It was done in Elseworld titled ''ComicBook/BatmanInDarkestKnight'' as an alternative to his choosing to become a tech- and detective-focused hero, and Geoff Johns answered the question in the canon DCU with "he couldn't handle it" (but did hint he'd be an excellent member of the Sinestro Corps) because a Green Lantern has to deal with his worst fears daily, and Batman has never managed to get past his--that's ''why'' he's Batman. He had a Green Lantern Ring in addition to, rather than an alternative to, everything Batman had. Bruce had gone through all the training and made all the preparations he had made before first becoming Batman, but the bat that crashed through his window in the "Batman: Year One" miniseries was scared off by Abin Sur's ship crash landing just outside Wayne Manor.

* The ComicBook/BlueBeetle has gone from magic artifact powered hero (Dan Garrett) to a smart as Batman GadgeteerGenius (Ted Kord) to alien armor-wearing hero (Jaime Reyes), to ''magical'' armor-wearing Jaime teaming up with Ted. That's four different power sets and three different characters for one Legacy Hero.
* Both ComicBook/BlueDevil and his (not)sidekick Kid Devil went from using super powered suits (in Blue Devil's case, having the suit magically fused to him) to being transformed into real devils. In Kid Devil's case, when he became a real devil, he gained fire powers and later portal creation.
* An example of the 'logical extension of existing powers' variation done in a {{canon}} storyline: during John Byrne's tenure on the ''Comicbook/FantasticFour'', he took the existing powers of the teammates and sent them in directions no one else had considered. This was especially true of Sue Richards, who had been a basic DamselInDistress for most of the previous twenty years, able to turn invisible and project force fields and little else; in his hands, she became a genuine ActionGirl, using her force fields to create platforms on while she could ride, balls she could roll at opponents, battering rams, and (in one notable moment while [[NotHimself being psychologically manipulated]]) spikes and crushing restraints. While less dramatic, the other team members also began using their powers more creatively, at least as long as Byrne was writing the book.

* A "Get our powers back after M-Day" tactic was to use Terrigen Mist with ''ComicBook/TheInhumans''. It usually gave you your original power, but in a warped (and usually temporary) manner. Former SuperSpeed user Quicksilver could vibrate his molecules faster than the speed of light, becoming able to travel through time. He also had a few MesACrowd moments by going through the same fight multiple times. His old powers eventually returned (Apparently, when EpiphanyTherapy makes you go from your new AntiVillain self to your old KnightInSourArmor self, you also snap back to the powers had in the old days.)
* An example of the second kind appears in ''ComicBook/KingdomCome'' in the form of the godlike [[ComicBook/TheFlash Flash]], who is so fast that he ''pulls the narrator into the story''.

* ComicBook/MsMarvel may be the queen of this trope. She lost her original powers to Rogue of the ComicBook/XMen, then gained energy-based powers for a while and now has a completely new set of powers which are mostly the same as her original set.
* ''ComicBook/NewWarriors'': All of the former mutants who [[PlotTumor lost their powers on M-Day]] and joined the latest iteration of the New Warriors got new technology to give them powers, usually unrelated to their original.
** Some of their powers were connected to their original ones, though- for example, Beak was a non-superhero X-student with all the drawbacks to birdlike physiology (hollow bones + supervillain NoHoldsBarredBeatdown = ouch) with none of the benefits (he still can't fly). He gets depowered, but as a New Warrior has a flight pack that makes him the poor man's Falcon.
** ComicBook/{{Jubilee|MarvelComics}}, who originally had the power to produce explosive balls of light, gained super strength through advanced technology. After her stint as a New Warrior, Jubilee became a vampire and has now gained superstrength and other vampire powers.
** Chamber got a double dose of this trope. Prior to joining the New Warriors, he received a blood transfusion from his ancestor ''Apocalypse''. The blood of Apocalypse fixed the damage to his body that his original powers caused. It also had the side effect of making him look like Apocalypse too. And possibly giving him latent Omega-level mutant power. Once he joined the New Warriors, he ended up gaining sonic manipulation.
* Mutator of ''ComicBook/TheNewUniverse'' and ComicBook/{{DP7}} gets new powers every twelve hours.
* Marvel's ''ComicBook/PowerPack'', a team of four children and then teenage heroes with four different superpowers, have [[PowersAsPrograms swapped them all around]], at least twice. The eldest, Alex, even used to swipe his siblings' powers for jaunts with the ComicBook/NewWarriors.
* In ''Comicbook/{{PS238}},'' [[spoiler:FlyingBrick Ron]] is apparently BroughtDownToNormal, but later gets some sort of probability manipulation. Unusual for this trope, he's explicitly stated to have always had both sets of powers, he just never used the latter ones before because he didn't realize he could. It was only after he lost the powers he inherited from his dad that he started trying to utilize the powers he'd gotten from his mom.
* Speedball, a happy-go-lucky character who once had the power to bounce around invulnerably, turned into "Penance", an angsty, masochistic energy blaster who needs to torture himself to get his powers to work. This then went the other way, as "Penance" started using his Speedball powers again, and "Penance" was explained as a psychological block he placed on himself after the Stamford incident. It eventually stops being an example, as he returns to being Speedball with both powers.
* For a time, Comicbook/SpiderMan was upgraded in ''The Other'' storyline with Wolverine-like stingers on his wrists. Yes, stingers. Lampshaded, as Peter notes ''Spiders don't have stingers!'' Another character tries to HandWave this by saying one day spiders ''might'' evolve stingers. Ironically, this probably would have been ''less'' stupid if they'd just gone with the obvious explanation; that they're not stingers, they're ''fangs'', part of the same tinkering with [[LegoGenetics his ratio of spider DNA to human DNA]] that caused him to develop organic web-shooting glands.
* Comicbook/{{Supergirl}}: A non-Kryptonian version of the character created in the nineties was prone to change powers constantly. For a while she got fire powers, then she lost them and got telekinesis.
* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':
** He was temporarily reimagined in the 1990s as an [[EnergyBeings energy being]] made of living lightning. This is actually a shoutout to a much older, non-canon alternate universe story from the Silver Age (''Superman Vol 1 #162''), in which he was accidentally split into two versions of himself, one of which developed electrical powers and became Superman Blue.

* In the ''ComicBook/UltimateFantasticFour'' storyline ''Ultimate Mystery'', Ben Grimm's rocky form was revealed to be a cocoon, and he eventually "hatched" into a new form, with his normal human appearance, Thing-level strength, and a nifty purple glow -- which has fuelled {{Fanon}} that he's now the Ultimate ComicBook/WonderMan.
* ''Comicbook/{{Venom}}'': Eddie Brock became Anti-Venom after contact with the supervillain Mister Negative caused the remnants of the Venom symbiote still in Brock's system to combine with his white blood cells. As Anti-Venom he retains some of his old Venom abilities but also gained the power to remove foreign elements and contaminants in people. Including the radiation in Spider-Man's body that empowers him. Fortunately Brock still sincerely wants to be a hero and so tries his best to avoid doing this to Spidey. Eventually, by way of some complicated circumstances, Eddie loses the Anti-Venom powers and becomes Venom again when the symbiote returns to him.
* In a ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' storyline, Spider-Man's spider-sense has expanded into full blown clairvoyance, detecting threats before the cause of the threat can even think about it. This coupled with his new found non reluctance to kill makes him ''very'' dangerous. It is even stated that his powers are still growing, "sometimes, now, he just ''knows'' things".

* ''Comicbook/XMen'':

* ''{{VideoGame/Warcraft}}'': Warcraft II's Death Knights were the corpses of human knights into which Gul'dan forcibly incorcized the souls of his warlocks, turning them into the orcs' SquishyWizard unit. When Gul'dan's apprentice Ner'zhul and his followers were defeated and remade into undead by the Burning Legion, these Death Knights turning into Liches (keeping only their signature Death and Decay spell, though far less powerful than in the second game). WarcraftIII's Death Knights are instead human lords corrupted into becoming frontline MagicKnight heroes that function as anti-Paladins, keeping the Death Coil and AnimateDead spells from II's incarnation.

** ComicBook/JubileeMarvelComics, who originally had the power to produce explosive balls of light, gained super strength through advanced technology. After her stint as a New Warrior, Jubilee became a vampire and has now gained superstrength and other vampire powers.
** Chamber got a double dose of this trope. Prior to joining the New Warriors he received a blood transfusion from his ancestor ''Apocalypse''. The blood of Apocalypse fixed the damage to his body that his original powers caused. It also had the side effect of making him look like Apocalypse too. And possibly giving him latent Omega-level mutant power. Once he joined the New Warriors, he ended up gaining sonic manipulation.

* The Main Character, of the ''Literature/TheBeginningAfterTheEnd'' Arthur Leywin survives from a losing battle against Nico and Cadell thanks to Sylvie pulling a HeroicSacrifice to save him from a HeroicRrod keeping his body intact. He ends up in the relictombs in Alacrya though his core damaged beyond recognition his body become part dragon asura having affinity for Aether through this element he becomes a straight case of CameBackStrong as he become more exponetially powerful than ever thanks to gaining knowledge regarding Aether excceding other Asuras from thee relictombs.

* The Main Character, of the ''Literature/TheBeginningAfterTheEnd'' Arthur Leywin survives from a losing battle against Nico and Cadell thanks to Sylvie pulling a HeroicSarifice to save him from a HeroicRrod keeping his body intact. He ends up in the relictombs in Alacrya though his core damaged beyond recognition his body become part dragon asura having affinity for Aether through this element he becomes a straight case of CameBackStrong as he become more exponetially powerful than ever thanks to gaining knowledge regarding Aether excceding other Asuras from thee relictombs.

* An example of the 'logical extension of existing powers' variation done in a {{canon}} storyline: during John Byrne's tenure on the ''Comicbook/FantasticFour'', he took the existing powers of the teammates and sent them in directions no one else had considered. This was especially true of Sue Richards, who had been a basic DistressedDamsel for most of the previous twenty years, able to turn invisible and project force fields and little else; in his hands, she became a genuine ActionGirl, using her force fields to create platforms on while she could ride, balls she could roll at opponents, battering rams, and (in one notable moment while [[NotHimself being psychologically manipulated]]) spikes and crushing restraints. While less dramatic, the other team members also began using their powers more creatively, at least as long as Byrne was writing the book.

** It was done in Elseworld titled ''ComicBook/BatmanInDarkestKnight'' as an alternative to his choosing to become a tech- and detective-focused hero, and Geoff Johns answered the question in the canon DCU with "he couldn't handle it" (but did hint he'd be an excellent member of the Sinestro Corps) because a Green Lantern has to deal with his worst fears daily, and Batman has never managed to get past his--that's ''why'' he's Batman. He had a GreenLanternRing in addition to, rather than an alternative to, everything Batman had. Bruce had gone through all the training and made all the preparations he had made before first becoming Batman, but the bat that crashed through his window in the "Batman: Year One" miniseries was scared off by Abin Sur's ship crash landing just outside Wayne Manor.

This practice isn't used as much nowadays, because, while changing powers along with a reimagining of a character's personality is artistically nice, it doesn't make sense for a character with an [[MagicAIsMagicA internally-logical origin]]. Since many characters are largely defined by their powers, it smacks of an inability to be really creative, especially if the reimagining is to make a character DarkerAndEdgier. If this falls flat (as it often does), the results linger in the DorkAge.

** It was done in Elseworld as an alternative to his choosing to become a tech- and detective-focused hero, and Geoff Johns answered the question in the canon DCU with "he couldn't handle it" (but did hint he'd be an excellent member of the Sinestro Corps) because a Green Lantern has to deal with his worst fears daily, and Batman has never managed to get past his--that's ''why'' he's Batman. He had a GreenLanternRing in addition to, rather than an alternative to, everything Batman had. Bruce had gone through all the training and made all the preparations he had made before first becoming Batman, but the bat that crashed through his window in the "Batman: Year One" miniseries was scared off by Abin Sur's ship crash landing just outside Wayne Manor.

* Mutator of ''ComicBook/TheNewUniverse'' gets new powers every twelve hours.

[[WMG:[[center:[[AC:This trope is [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1641831902019325400&page=1 under discussion]] in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop.]]]]]]

% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1305488926021875500

%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1305488926021875500

* The title character of A. Lee Martinez's ''Monster'' narrowly survived a basilisk's poison some time ago, and a side effect of the antidote causes him to gain a different unusual ability and [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience turn a corresponding color]] each time he wakes up from a night's sleep. The exact powers vary from the useless (purple and no sense of smell) to the formidable (blue and invulnerable to violent harm). He's turned so many colors by now that he needs a notebook to keep track of what color goes with which power.

[[folder: Literature]]

[[quoteright:350:[[Franchise/{{Superman}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SupermanRepower_4622.jpg]]]]