Basic Trope: A fan of something suddenly gets able to join that world.
- Straight: Bobby Buford is a massive superhero fan who gains superpowers in a freak accident, so he decides to become a hero as well.
- Exaggerated: Bobby is the only superhero in his world and won the Superpower Lottery so he remakes the entire world to be like the comic books he loves.
- Downplayed: Bobby commits minor acts of heroism with his powers, but continues to keep a low profile.
- Justified: The freak accident granted the deepest wish of whoever was involved and Bobby wanted to be a superhero.
- Inverted:
- Bobby was an established superhero who was Brought Down to Normal, so he reads superhero comics to reminisce about the glory days.
- Bobby, a hater of superheroes becomes a supervillain.
- Subverted: Bobby is told he has the chance to gain superpowers after his accident, so he attempts to become a hero, only to find out that he doesn't have any powers after all.
- Double Subverted:
- ...until his powers awaken at the last minute.
- Bobby just decides to go with Good Old Fisticuffs and being a Badass Normal. Even with Superpowers, it's good to have something for back up.
- Parodied: Bobby doesn't actually gain powers, but he thinks he did and attempts to be a superhero anyways.
- Averted: Bobby thinks the accident would give him powers like the heroes he idolizes, but it doesn't.
- Enforced: People often gain superpowers like this but most people are uninterested in using them so only the ones who want to be superheroes do so.
- Lampshaded: "Wow, imagine if someone boring got these powers."
- Invoked: A Heroes "R" Us group caused the accident in order to gave Bobby his powers because they knew his love of superheroes would make him a great one.
- Exploited: Bobby knows that people randomly gain powers all the time so he studied superheroes in the off-chance he'd get them.
- Defied: Bobby just wants to be normal because he believes that being a superhero isn't all it's cracked up to be, so he hides his powers.
- Discussed: "I dread what would happen if Bobby actually had super powers."
- Conversed: "This main character of this comic is a comic book fan who gained his own powers and became a hero. I wish it would happen to me."
- Implied: Bobby doesn't talk about comics or act Genre Savvy, but will occasionally make off-hand statements about other superheroes.
- Deconstructed: Bobby's idealism about how superheroes should act ends up hurting more people than he helps.
- Reconstructed: ...but he later learns how to use his powers responsibly and ends up being seen as The Paragon due to his idealism.
- Played For Laughs: Bobby frequently makes Genre Savvy quips and ShoutOuts to other series while fighting crime.
- Played For Drama: Bobby suffers a Heroic BSoD from not being able to live up to the heroes in his comics.
- Meta: Bobby is a huge fan of Captain Justice, and then, when a studio sets to work making a Captain Justice movie, they cast Bobby as him.