In Batman Beyond, Bruce Wayne had to retire due to a heart-condition brought about by his old age, hence why he needs Terry McGinnis to take on the role of Batman while he acts as Mission Control. In Batman: Beyond the White Knight, Bruce is still as strong and capable as ever, having kept in shape during his time in prison. The only debilitating condition he has here is extreme anxiety from his repressed trauma manifesting as panic attacks that would overwhelm him a few times.
For BoBoiBoy Movie 2 - Evolusi Kuasa, the comic adaptation of the animated film, BoBoiBoy Glacier's appearance is extended to a larger role in the final battle, compared to his movie appearance where he only uses an "Ice Golem" to stop a dam that Retak'ka destroys. The comic has him appear before the dam's destruction, using his "Ice Golem" to attack Retak'ka and pummel him to the ground (which Fang did instead in the original movie). When Retak'ka destroys the dam, Glacier stops him by himself with an "Ice Wave" instead.
The Conan the Barbarian comics by different publishers gave this treatment to different characters:
Zenobia in The Hour of the Dragon was just a concubine that was unable to fight, but made up for it with being smart, capable and resourceful. In the Marvel-branded Conan the King comics, she is revealed to have been trained in martial arts by her father, who was a soldier that expected a boy, and displayed her skills to convince her husband to let her accompany him in his adventures when he told her to stay back.
Natala from Xuthal of the Dusk downplays this trope; she was originally a one-dimensional, easily frightened Damsel in Distress that had to be saved from the jealouslove rivalThalis and the Monster of the Week respectively. The Dark Horse comics give her a head-strong personality and barbed tongue, on top of making her more fearless. Unlike Zenobia, she lacks any fighting skills whatsoever though.
Thoth-Amon, surprisingly enough. He spends most of the novel he appears in a vulnerable state and isn't quite an enemy to Conan, more like a Villain of Another Story. The comics on the other hand make him far more dangerous, give him a more ruthless personality and definitely portray him as an Arch-Enemy towards Conan.
The Tom King-penned Batman/Elmer Fudd special reimagines Elmer as a realistic Batman-style character who is a bit of a Cloud Cuckoolander, but is an accomplished hunter and former professional killer with a double-barreled shotgun and hunter-gained reflexes. As such, during their brief encounter, he puts up more of a fight than most of the goons Batman runs into, actually manages to fight Batman to a standstill (and is able to detect Batsy is sneaking behind him rather quickly). You get the feeling that this version of Bugs relies on trickery because Fudd is downright scary in an open confrontation.
The Jonah Hex / Yosemite Sam special not only shows how Sam is a badass gunslinger when pitted against anybody who is not Bugs Bunny, but also has an appearance from a Foghorn Leghorn who takes quite a lot of inspiration from "Rooster" Cogburn.
DC Comics Bombshells: Dawnstar was originally a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes who only had the powers of flight and flawless navigational abilities. Here, she's able to construct entities from stardust, see all of the lifetimes of her alternate selves, and invoke Heel Realizations in others by showing them the paths they could've taken and how they can be better than they are right now, which she uses to help prevent the mass internment of Japanese-American citizens.
Donald Duck took a level in badass back in the 60's in the Italian Disney comics, when he stumbled upon the suit and equipment of an old-time gentleman thief/vigilante and used it to create his own secret identity of Paperinik. At first, he just used it to get even with Uncle Scrooge and other people who crossed him, but pretty soon he started working as a superhero, keeping the streets of Duckburg safe at night. Then he took another level when he got his own series and was suddenly fighting alien invasions, mad scientists, and major disasters on a regular basis in Paperinik New Adventures.
Mowgli is an international spy who can fight wolves with his bare hands and win. In this case, though, his awesomeness compared to the original may be mostly due to the fact that we're seeing a grown-up version.
Green Lantern: The Pre-Crisis Bizarro Green Lantern was a Bizarro duplicate of Hal Jordan who was a complete coward to contrast Hal Jordan's bravery and was unable to actually use his power ring because he couldn't use Hal's green power battery to recharge his ring (since his ring can't work on green objects in contrast to a Green Lantern power ring ordinarily having no effect on yellow objects) and declined Bizarro's offer to use the duplicator machine to create a yellow power battery. A modernized version of Bizarro Green Lantern would later appear in the "Escape from Bizarro World" arc of Action Comics before his ring would whisk him away to participate in the Sinestro Corps War unfolding in Geoff Johns' run on Green Lantern. This Bizarro Hal Jordan isn't indicated to be cowardly and is able to use his power ring without any issue.
Link's Uncle is more of a badass in this adaptation than in the original game. Instead of being overrun and killed in the very first room of the dungeon, he is struck down by no less than Agahnim himself.
In the end, Princess Zelda herself kills Ganon with a silver arrow.
Sif, Thor's wife and goddess of plenty in Norse Mythology, is a genuine Action Girl in the comics.
Hela was, at most, a Non-Action Big Bad in mythology; in the comics she's an Evil Sorceress who can even hold her own against Thor.
Hades was, if anything, a Retired Badass in mythology, and it was the same in Marvel's history (where he's called Pluto). However, he was hit with this and Adaptational Villainy for a while, coming out of retirement and trying to defy Zeus' non-interference edict. He's been an occasional enemy of Thor and Hercules, but seems to have called a truce with both for now.
The short In the Interim... from Issue #4 features Epic battle-damaged, trident-wielding Spike riding Celestia in the middle of the fight against the giant Cockatrice attack. And he ends up saving everyone! A far cry from the Butt-Monkey who usually sits out on most of the mane six's adventures. Issue 7 in the main story has this to Spike as well. However, in the 10th Anniversary Edition Short, where it's revealed Spike wrote the comics in-universe, a Straw Fan denounces the Cockatrice attack as a fabricated event.
Issue 8 does this to the citizens of Ponyville. Usually in the show, the best they can do is panic while the mane six deal with whatever problem falls upon Ponyville. With the mane six gone and the Princesses rallying them, however, they're able to keep the Nightmare Forces at bay.
While H. P. Lovecraft's original Deep Ones were described as "degenerate fish-frogs" who have trouble moving around on land and are only a threat due to sheer numbers and relationship with bigger eldritch critters, Alan Moore's Neonomicon treats us to a seven-foot armored-skinned man-coelacanth with the physique of a bodybuilder who can pull down wrought iron gates and fight an entire SWAT team to a standstill single-handed.
Whilst Claire, Steve, and Chris were already zombie-killing badasses in Resident Evil – Code: Veronica, they upgrade into full-blown Shonen anime protagonist territory in the comic adaptation. Full-fledged Gun Fu antics and crazy stunts become the norm, with Chris in particular killing a Hunter with one punch, beating a Bandersnatch to death with his bare hands, killing the Gulp Worm by letting himself be swallowed by it before blasting a way out with his shotgun and then tossing a grenade into the hole after himself, and riding a giant spider whilst stabbing it to death with his knife.
EVERYONE in Scooby Apocalypse. Even Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy Doo gain many levels as they try to survive this apocalypse.
Sonic himself gets a lot of this in the Archie comics compared to the games. While the blue blur has always been a powerhouse, in the games Sonic’s Super-Speed has definite limits (being unable to outrun a black hole in Sonic Colours) and he’s often rivalled by Knuckles, Shadow and especially Metal Sonic. Archie Sonic on the other hand is closer to The Flash being able to: vibrate his body allowing him to become intangible, create tornadoes, go invisible and causally move in an attosecond. Then there’s Archie Sonic’s Super Mode which thanks to Chaos Magic lets him manipulate matter, change reality, rewind time, resurrect the dead and make wishes; none of which Super Sonic can do in the games.
Antoine D'Coolette of Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) series. In the Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) series, he was a Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey who tend to let out a Girly Scream now and then and was pretty much The Load. This changed when Issue 46 came out and he ended up dating Cyborg Bunnie Rabbot. By this point, he started growing braver and braver, becoming a competent swordsman, being tough enough to survive over a year in an Alternate Universe, slugging Evil Sonic unknowingly at one point and impressing his dying father enough that he gave his blessings for him and Bunnie to be married. Then he goes and nearly gets killed saving Prince Elias and his family.
In the games, Amy has always been a fairly realistic character for her age. You don't expect her to be badass or whatnot, she's just a girl who's in love with Sonic. In Sonic the Comic however she's quite The Lancer to Sonic. She's far more lethal than any other version of her to date, and sports some Improbable Aiming Skills.
Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane: The Looter! The character is genuinely seen as one of the biggest losers in the supervillain community in the normal Marvelverse, rivaled only by Stilt-Man and Leap-Frog. Here, he's far more adept, and actually gets away from Spiderman for their first five battles.
Oft-mocked Spidey foe the Kangaroo beats Spidey up no less than three times in a 5-page Spidey Super Stories story, only losing because he stops to explain his origin which lets Julie bonk him on the head.
In the original comics and cartoon, Virgil didn't have any hand-to-hand skills prior to becoming Static. Here, he's explicitly stated to have trained in martial arts (though he's admittedly rusty), and uses it in tandem with his powers
In the show and original comics, Daisy was a non-powered love interest for Virgil. Here, she's a Bang Baby just like him, with the ability to effectively deconstruct whatever she's touching at will.
Richie (With no Gear persona or implied powers) and Freida actively help Virgil with his raid on the government's Bang Baby prison, wearing all black clothes and masks as they break into the prison's security.
In the show, Ebon's powers were certainly intimidating, but mostly consisted of limited shapeshifting and being able to make portals. This version of Ebon is much more terrifying to the point he's effectively a Humanoid Abomination, with his Casting a Shadow powers being notably more potent and gaining the ability to Mind Rape his victims to extract information. He also has more resistance to bright light compared to the cartoon, to the point where he's able to effectively blot out a whole brightly lit room through his appearance alone, but can still be overwhelmed by extreme light, as shown when he initially tried to rescue Adam on his own.
Street Fighter vs. Darkstalkers gives this treatment to Chun-Li. While Chunners has always been pretty badass in Street Fighter, she is frequently overshadowed by other fighters especially in later games and media where she’s gotten Badass Decay getting trounced by Juri or needing to be rescued from getting killed by Bison. As well as a greater emphasis from Capcom on her numerous outfits rather than her fighting ability. In Street Fighter Vs Darkstalkers conversely, Chun-Li is incredibly capable and in the absence of Ryu is the strongest individual World Warrior learning powerfulforbiddenKi techniques from the ghost of her mentor Gen as a final lesson from beyond the grave, she’s able to break the heroes out of the Pocket Dimension they’re trapped in and later can even overpower S-Class Succubus Morrigan in a fight. In the games, by comparison Chun-Li isn’t nearly that powerful.
Princess Toadstool/Peach got this in Super Mario Adventures. The normally prim-and-proper Damsel in Distress at that point in time was a tomboyish, full-on heroic asskicker on par with Mario himself. There is even a section where Mario gets kidnapped, and Toadstool has to rescue him, and she also escapes captivity on her own briefly.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW): The original cartoon has Bebop and Rocksteady be completely idiotic, ineffective and useless. In this comic they are still a pair of morons, who also happen to be violent murderers (even before they are mutated), strong, and bulletproof. One issue showcases how it took a total of ten fighters with varied skills and weaponry to fight them, and they still couldn't actually defeat the duo, opting instead for slowing them down long enough to make a clean getaway.
Krang gets hit with this as well, going from a Smug Snake who relied entirely on Shredder (and wasted no time berating him for their failures) to a deadly warlord who once killed a subordinate without any weapons and outside of his Powered Armor for proposing that he's helpless without it.
The original Sweeps were just mooks and often ended up as Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains; here, they are still Mooks who go down en masse, but they're a lot more deadly, storming Kimia and killing most of the crew, even tearing one bot apart with their teeth.
Wheelie goes from the the robot equivalent of a ten-year-old with a slingshot to a skilled tracker, marksman, and survivalist. (Though this is closer to what his Tech Specs suggested he should have been in the first place, "a barbaric little savage who managed to stay alive by cunning, stealth, and fearlessness.")
While Overlord was always powerful, even back in Masterforce, here he's established as one of the most powerful cons period, having brought destruction to countless worlds.
The Transformers: Robots in Disguise has this with Devastator, who was the biggest con to fall victim to The Worf Effect, even in his debut episode. In this series, he Took a Level in Badass, rampages through the city unopposed, and easily tears Superion in half. In the Dreamwave continuity he couldn't even land a hit on Superion, and only won because of the seekers. In IDW continuity, it's the other way around, with Devastator only getting taken down during Combiner Wars by the combined (pun unintended) efforts of Superion and Defensor.
For most of IDW continuity, Devastator was the only functional combiner either side had, and as such tended to be a dominating force on the battlefield.
Hellbat debuts as one in Drift: Empire of Stone. Originally Hellbat toed the line between Dirty Coward and Butt-Monkey, one of his most notable acts being that he engaged in a gunfight, and hid behind a rock begging for his life and shooting randomly until he killed the guy. Now Hellbat's more serious and threatening. Tired of the war, he's been killing Autobots and Decepticons all to power a stone army which he intends to use to kill as many things as he can.
Superion gets a dose of this in The Transformers: Combiner Wars along with taking a level in badass. After Devastator tore him apart, he's rebuilt and upgraded by Wheeljack and the Enigma of Combination. He fights Menasor similar to how he did in the cartoon, but there it was one of the few times a Decepticon triumphed over their Autobot counterpart, and Superion needed Omega Supreme to win. Here, Superion demonstrates a number of new tricks and beats Menasor easily.
The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye has done this with a few members of the Lost Light crew. Rewind, while still tiny, is a walking database with vast knowledge, Chromedome is a gifted "mnemosurgeon" capable of mind-reading and even mind-control, Skids is a "super learner" who can pick up new skills almost immediately, Brainstorm is so brilliant he can create paradox-proof time travel, and Tailgate has become a mutant "outlier" with super strength. None of them had these abilities in previous depictions.
Dejah Thoris in Warlord of Mars, hands down. She gets upgraded from a Princess Classic that got regularly kidnapped into a more proactive Action Girl. She also had much increased focus in the comics than she does in the books, as she faded into the background in later installments after the first one.
Speed Weasel actually gets more of an upgrade than anyone else because, unlike Gabby Kinney/Honey Badger/Scout, her bone claws have Adamantium on them.
Wonder Woman (1987): Despite being an god, Ares in Greek Mythology had a tendency of getting jobbed and defeated by mortals on regular basis, was something of a spoiled crybaby manchild and regarded as a Dumb Muscle. This was because he was the embodiment of bloodthirsty and violent war, and the Ancient Greeks generally preferred Athena who represented strategic aspect of war. Here he is not only smarter and more dangerous, but also a figure analoguous with the Devil who derived his power from human conflict and nearly killed off the entire human race in his introductory arc when he almost triggered World War III, but he stepped back when he realized that if mankind was destroyed, nobody would be left to fight wars and he'd cause his own undoing. He instead focused on plotting minor conflicts to keep his power sustained and would later go on and overthrow Hades and become God of the Underworld too. It probably helps that pre-Crisis he was referred to as Mars, his better liked and more effective Roman counterpart,
Byrna "Blue Snowman" Brilyant has never posed a huge physical threat as she's a mad scientist fighting the Amazon champion, and originally used her artificial snow to hold a farming community's fields for ransom. As of DC Rebirth she is far more dangerous and given a mecha to pilot rather than a small powered suit, though Wondy still doesn't have too hard a time taking her down Byrna is a much more deadly threat to civilians and non-powered opponents.
The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016): The Duke of Deception was always incredibly outclassed by Wonder Woman and generally seemed pathetic and weak in comparison to her and his boss Ares. Here he nearly kills Wonder Woman in their first real fight, and is a much darker more menacing character overall even with his new tragic backstory.
, he takes his reputation up a notch.