Basic Trope: The Hero is a character's heroic Split Personality.
- Straight: Bob's personality changes into Ultra Dude whenever there are heroics to be done. He has no powers the rest of the time.
- Exaggerated:
- By personality: Bob is a Lovable Coward who wants nothing to do with heroics while Ultra Dude is a Big Damn Hero with Chronic Hero Syndrome.
- By conceit: Bob and Ultra Dude treat each other like two completely separate people renting the same body.
- By number: Bob has several alternate personalities, each with their own powers (or capable of using the same power(s) in very different ways).
- Ultra Dude is the Token Good Teammate of Bob's many superpowered split personalities, with the rest being Super Powered Evil Sides.
- Downplayed: Bob is a non-powered costumed crime fighter who uses Ultra Dude as a psychological compartmentalisation.
- Justified:
- Bob has an origin like other superheroes plus he is also a sufferer of Dissociative identity disorder where only certain personalities know how to use the powers.
- The technology/magic that gives Bob powers takes over his brain will doing so.
- Inverted: Bob is really Ultra Dude's alter ego for when he wants to hide his powers from power-detecting aliens or open a checking account.
- Subverted: It's revealed that Bob is in fact just summoning Ultra Dude using teleporting technology and just teleporting himself away to a safe distance.
- Double Subverted: ...the teleporter is in fact selecting Bob's friend Charlie and giving him powers, taking over his brain while doing so.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig Zagged: Ultra Dude adopts the personality of the unpowered Bob whenever he needs to hide himself but he becomes Bob by possesing the body of an unknowing man called Charlie. So Bob is an inversion of the trope to Ultra Dude but to Charlie, Bob is a split personality but because Bob has some of Ultra Dude's heroism and fighting skills, when Bob sees danger he involves himself in non-powered crime fighting and heroics making himself a downplayed version to Charlie. Eventually continued use of Charlie's body by Ultra Dude gives Charlie some of Ultra Dude's powers.
- Averted: When trekking in the Alps, ordinary veterinarian Bob discovers a magic spanner inscribed with "Whoever possesses this spanner shall possess the power of Ultra Dude", he graps the spanner and after a flash, standing next to him appears Ultra Dude. Bob and Ultra Dude move back to Bob's apartment in Brooklyn where Bob has to manage Ultra Dude's superhero escapades around his veterinary practice without actually being Ultra Dude himself.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded: "Man, if only I could have all of my powers all of the time, then I'd be able to solve all of my normal problems with no conflict at all!"
- Invoked: Bob invents a headband that gives him superpowers, he realises he'll have an easier time disguising himself and dealing with the stress if he makes it give him a whole new personality and appearance.
- Exploited: Alice dates both Ultra Dude and Bob, since neither can catch her with the other, their different personalities provides her with two different sorts of relationship and it's the only way she can have a boyfriend available for the normal amount of time.
- Defied:
- Discussed: "Is Ultra Dude really a different guy from me or do I act like a different guy and then forget when my powers go?"
- Conversed: "...so they call it a Big Mac but it's Le Big Mac", "Le Big Mac", "Right and also, in France, their favourite comic book characters aren't Superman and Spiderman, it's Captain Marvel and Thor", "Really?", "Yeah, I guess France really loves it when the superhero is actually a split personality from an ordinary guy; like it makes the fantasy better because then any guy could be a superhero and just not know it yet."
- Implied: Ultra Dude has the same body type and voice as Bob, and they are never seen together.
- Deconstructed: The toll of having your body hijacked to perform unpaid superheroics when you should be at work or at a date ruins Bob's life and the psychological issues that cause the split undermine his ability to cope until he ends up in an asylum only able to escape for brief moments of clarity as Ultra Dude before returning to his cell.
- Reconstructed: Having a Superpowered Alter Ego is a difficultly that Bob has learned to manage and which he accepts as part of his characteristics and his limitations as a person. It is shown to be handled by compromises between personalities, strict scheduling and the hiring of an outside mediator so they can communicate.
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