History Main / FreakLabAccident

** Slightly changed in the [[Series/TheFlash2014 2014 TV series]] to a lightning that is the result of a particle accelerator malfunction at S.T.A.R. Labs, which results in the release of exotic energies into the city.

* Brain of ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' once had a plan than hinged on this concept. He posed as a human with a tiny mouse head; when challenged about this fact he claimed it was caused by a freak accident involving a microwave and powdered milk, reasoning that no one understands either well enough to argue against the claim.

* In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', Jack Ryder was a talk show host doing a set piece on the Joker's origin. SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker barges in and decides to have some fun by dosing Ryder with Joker Venom and throws him into a vat of chemicals similar to the one that transformed the Joker. This backfires on the Joker when the combination of the Joker Venom and the chemicals gives Ryder a Superpowered CrazyAwesome Side that calls himself ComicBook/TheCreeper. The Creeper then proceeds to ''scare the crap out of the Joker''. By the end of the episode, the Joker is begging Batman to save him from the lunatic.

* In ''Comicbook/{{Watchmen}}'', the apparatus that created Dr. Manhattan by "removing his intrinsic field", i.e. disintegrating his body, is for some unspecified reason impossible to use to repeat the process. It's not so much the effect of the device that gave Dr. Manhattan his powers, but the force of his will and mind maintaining their integrity afterwards and subsequently learning how to reassemble himself. That's an individual, possibly unique, factor that renders the result possibly irreproducible. And who ''wants'' to try to create a new Manhattan. One alone messes up the geopolitical situation seriously. What if the new guy would be even less stable and more detached from the human condition? The risks are way too great, even for the USSR to try to replicate.

* In ''Dream Park'' (by Creator/LarryNiven and Steven Barnes), a small girl who'd accidentally wandered into the theme park's R&D division managed to combine an anatomical model with pieces of model roller coaster, and the result so intrigued the staff that it spawned a "Mr. Digestion" themed attraction. The kid got a spanking and a college scholarship.

* In Kathy Reichs' ''Virals'' series, a spinoff to the Temperance Brennan novels, Temperance's niece Tory is a teenage girl who, along with her friends, accidentally contracts a genetically engineered parvovirus (a virus that normally only affects dogs) and is turned into a sort of hairless [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent werewolf.]]

* Referenced jokingly in ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' to warn one character away from [[CycleOfRevenge escalating vengeance]] against a [[JerkAss misanthropic]] [[TVGenius genius]]:
** '''Leonard:''' "Penny, you don't want to get into it with Sheldon. The guy is one lab accident away from becoming a {{supervillain}}."

* This works for villains as well. In TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks, it was shown that LexLuthor turned villainous after {{Superboy}}'s "interference" in a FreakLabAccident resulted in his life being saved, his experiments being destroyed, and his hair loss. Furthermore, when Luthor tried to retaliate with grandiose tech projects to show up Superboy, they went wrong disastrously enough to force the superhero to intervene, embarrassing Luthor enough to hate him even more.

* Inverted with {{Superboy}} (Kon-El). He was being grown and programmed in a lab to be a replacement for Superman, but a freak lab accident interrupted his maturity leaving him as Superboy.

* Comicbook/{{Spider-Girl}}'s foe Mr. Abnormal is both an {{expy}} of PlasticMan and a parody of this. His origin is that "he had an improbable accident with a chemical at a toy factory that had a unique effect with his body chemistry", as quoted from [[ComicBook/NewWarriors Speedball]].

* Carl Castanaveras in ''Emerald Eyes'' by DanielKeysMoran, was the first in a series of telepaths created by Project Superman by gene manipulation. Played straight because at the time he was created, the scientists admitted that the technology to create him didn't work yet, and only the inexplicable (at least to the scientists working on him) radiation at the moment of his conception, made the fetus viable. Averted because the source of the radiation was the time traveller Named Storyteller deliberately showing up at that moment to perform the gene manipulation that the scientists were incapable of performing, in order to make sure that Carl (his distant ancestor) existed at all.

* Not a lab accident as such, but an unpredicted side effect of a new and highly experimental procedure. In the ''{{Discworld}}'' fiction ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8774066/2/There-s-nothing-like-a-fresh-pair-of-eyes-is-there There's nothing like a fresh pair of eyes, is there?]]'', the Igors of Ankh-Morpork replace the shattered eyes of a wounded student Assassin. (One of ''those'' regrettable little accidents that happen at the Assassins' School). The donor, of corneal cells that Igor carefully nurtures into bio-artificed new eyeballs, is Quirmian Assassin Emmanuelle les Deux-Epées. Over the following few months, the pupil becomes ''very'' like Emmanuelle. In all ways.

* Not a superhero, but Cheery Littlebottom's career change from alchemist to forensics officer with the [[Literature/{{Discworld}} Ankh-Morpork City Watch]] took place after she left her previous workplace through the roof. Explosions at the Alchemists' Guild are hardly freakish; blowing up the entire Guild council, however, causes comment.

* In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', Jack Ryder was a talk show host doing a set piece on the Joker's origin. SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker barges in and decides to have some fun by dosing Ryder with Joker Venom and throws him into a vat of chemicals similar to the one that transformed the Joker. This backfires on the Joker when the combination of the Joker Venom and the chemicals gives Ryder a Superpowered CrazyAwesome Side that calls himself TheCreeper. The Creeper then proceeds to ''scare the crap out of the Joker''. By the end of the episode, the Joker is begging Batman to save him from the lunatic.

* Stinkor, one of Skeletor's henchmen in ''WesternAnimation/HeManAndTheMastersOfTheUniverse'', gains the power of stench after ruining one of Triclops' experiments in the 2002 cartoon series.

* ''Franchise/ResidentEvil''

* Comicbook/{{Man-Thing}} was also the result of a botched experiment, also {{retcon}}ned by the series' most notable author, SteveGerber.

* ''Music/DaftPunk'' claims that their onstage robot personae were created in "an accident in our studio. We were working on our sampler, and at exactly 9:09 a.m. on September 9, 1999, it exploded."

* Creator/StephenKing's ''TheTommyknockers'': a ''town'' of people is slowly turning into new versions of the aliens in a buried, crashed alien ship, including making such fun devices a telepathic typewriter and Lethal Lipstick Lasers. Let's not mention that they all turn into a telepathic hive-mind, unless you have some kind of metal in your body (one of the main characters has a metal plate in his head following a skiing accident).

It is still used frequently, despite having very nearly become cliche, making it a UndeadHorseTrope. May be [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality justified]] due to the fact that [[DeadpanSnarker superheros don't exist in real life]].

It is still used frequently, despite having very nearly become cliche, making it a UndeadHorseTrope. May be [[AcceptibleBreaksFromReality justified]] due to the fact that [[DeadpanSnarker superheros don't exist in real life]].