Power causing insanity in comic books.
The following have their own pages:
Other
- Inverted (or not) in The Authority, where the Doctor gives up his powers to a previous Doctor, who was relieved of his duties for being a psychotic maniac. However, every Doctor gets new powers added to the ones of the previous Doctor, all the way back to the first one. The current Doctor has access to the ancestral knowledge and wisdom of every previous Doctor, granting him empathy with every living thing—which he dealt with by shooting heroin. As soon as the full extent of the Doctor powers kicked in, the villainous Doctor was overwhelmed by the empathy for every living thing in existence. At which point the Authority burned him alive and kicked his head off.
- Warren Ellis' Global Frequency not only invokes this, but explains it in terms of the surgical alterations required to keep the superstrong bionic arm or whatever from physically tearing the body apart. "They gave him a mirror."
- In Gold Digger, dragon hybrids between the tribes (Platinum, Gold, Copper, and Iron) are extremely rare and extremely powerful. Every single one has gone insane, however, with the sole exception being one of the comic's supporting cast, D'bra. And then, most dragons believe her temper is a sign that it's only a matter of time.
- Grifter: In the original WildStorm continuity, Grifter spent several years suffering from mental illness after being exposed to Gen Factor before Zealot helped him regain his sanity.
- In Hellboy, losing control of one's powers and/or humanity was a major theme of the series, especially for Liz Sherman and Hellboy himself. That is to say: Liz burned her family to death by accident as a kid, and Hellboy doesn't and can't and won't use his flashier superpowers, since they mostly involve ending the world, but occasionally they get stolen, one way or another. His crown, his Name, his right hand, ALL THE BLOOD IN HIS BODY...
- A rather mundane case of this appears in Incorruptible. Max Damage becomes stronger and physically tougher the longer he stays awake. If he stays awake for say, a week, his powers reach Physical God levels. However, he is still vulnerable to the usual effects of sleep deprivation and stimulant drugs. The result is someone who is mentally exhausted and/or strung out and strong enough to topple buildings — an unnerving combination. Dealing with the numbness his invulnerability brings with it for years has also taken its toll on Max's sanity. Given that the premise of the story is Max's attempt at a Heel–Face Turn to save the world from an evil Superman, this causes even more problems. He needs to be strong enough to fight the Plutonian yet not let his insanity push him back toward a life of evil.
- The Mask is this trope. Summary of every Mask story: Person finds the mask, puts it on, discovers they're a Nigh Invulnerable Voluntary Shapeshifting Reality Warper, starts using their powers in pursuit of some logical goal, loses sight of their goal and engages in wanton violence For the Evulz, is either tricked into removing the mask or removes it after a What Have I Become? moment.
- Mega Man (Archie Comics): Happens to Mega Man in issue #3, which leads to a brief Heroic BSoD.
- In Powers, a naturally occurring variant occurs in "The Sellouts" storyline, in which a never-aging Superman Substitute gradually loses his connection with humanity and goes insane, declaring himself to be a God. It's discussed that this may partly be a result of his ever-increasing level of superpowers, which go way beyond anything seen before (to the extent that the government has lied about exactly how powerful he is in order to prevent hysteria about him), and partly because, despite the fact that he doesn't look very old, he's at least over a hundred years old and has gone senile.
- Sonic the Comic: Super Sonic, unlike the benign Super Mode seen in the source material, is Sonic's Superpowered Evil Side who can wipe the floor with nearly any threat to his wellbeing... but will just as readily attack his friends as well.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
- Knuckles' ancestor Dimitri ends up becoming the insane Enerjak after absorbing 11 Chaos Emeralds worth of power, one of the most powerful and evil villains in the series. A later retcon revealed that Enerjak was an echidna who grew mad with power after ascending to a higher plane of existence and, unable to destroy him, scattered his essence throughout the Chaos Force, allowing him to inhabit future echidnas who used Chaos powers.
- Knux's dad Locke, obsessed with the prophecies surrounding his son, genetically engineered himself and infused Knux' egg with energy from the Master Emerald in an attempt to fulfill those prophecies. They're more or less estranged, now, because of this.
- Knuckles himself isn't safe from this:
- After appropriated Dimitri's mantle of Enerjak to avenge his race's decimation at Eggman's hand, he quickly degenerated into "technology = evil" and attempt to wipe out all cybernetics from the planet, including those of the Dark Legion and his own girlfriend Julie-Su. This was caused by Dr. Finitivus, a scientist who tried to drain Knuckles' Chaos power earlier, only to have it backfire and transform him. He then decided to go and screw over the entire echidna race by deciding everyone needs to die in a fire.
- In the (non-canon) "25 Years Later" storyline, Knux ends up becoming "Chaos Knuckles" (a form he took up in the normal canon without much ill effect), and ends up trying to change the world, as well. The result was the almost complete destruction of his friendship with Sonic and the loss of his right eye.
- In the future of an alternate universe, Knuckles not only tried to change the world, but he succeeded in conquering it after harnessing the power of all the emeralds. He ripped the souls out of nearly all the main characters (Eggman, Sonic, Shadow, Tails, his own mate, etc.), sunk a continent, and then decided to try and amuse himself by conquering other dimensions. He uses the souls of his victims to create his Prelate Army. Oh, and he took on the name Enerjak in this timeline because "Enerjak the Hero" sounded cool.
- Sonic's evil Mirror Universe counterpart Scourge gets noticeably more unhinged upon going super. Once seeing that his own world (which he conquered) nor Sonic's own will accept him as King, says he's going to spindash both worlds in half just because he can, and will do this to one world after another until one gives him "the respect he deserves."
- On Mobius Prime, when Amy Rose used the Ring of Acorns on herself, she became her older Sonic Adventure self. On the Mirror Universe world of Moebius, when Anti-Amy did it, she went certifiably insane.
- In The Umbrella Academy, there is Vanya, who only becomes able to use her great and extremely unstable powers after being tortured. Not exactly a recipe for a sane and stable person. Not to mention the fact that she ends up deciding to destroy the world after unlocking her powers, and blows up the moon.
- W.I.T.C.H. has the Heart of Kandrakar, an artifact of immense power that may drive its Keeper mad just by being that powerful. While the protagonist, Will, is a sane and well-adjusted person and her extreme jealousy has a good Freudian Excuse, the Big Bad of the second story arc was the previous Keeper and has been driven mad, and Will has the occasional moment of slight (and useful) madness.
- In Zenith, the alternate Earth Maximan, who had been superpowered since the 40s, ended up going completely insane and killing everyone on his version of Earth. That said, most of the '60s superheroes became somewhat less than rational by the time of the early '90s.
