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Post by spoon on Nov 14, 2020 23:30:46 GMT -5
The answer is probably just about any super-powered hero with a significant publication history has had this happen at least. It seems like it's a pretty common storytelling device, it's just a matter of listing all of them.
The Genoshans blocked the powers of most of the casts of X-Men, X-Factor, and the New Mutants during the X-Tinction Agenda crossover. Angel had his wings amputated as a result of the Mutant Massacre storyline.
Bruce Banner seemingly had the Hulk separated out of him during Byrne's run. I think he must've been depowered a few times.
She-Hulk briefly was changed back to Jennifer Walters and unable to change back to She-Hulk during the Avengers run covered most recent CCF Podcast.
All but a handful of Green Lanterns lost their power rings at the end of the 1980s Green Lantern Corps series.
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Post by beccabear67 on Nov 15, 2020 0:32:46 GMT -5
Daredevil came to my mind, I think there were a couple of times, before and during Frank Miller. I remember the weird period where The Sub-Mariner couldn't breathe under water too.
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Post by foxley on Nov 15, 2020 0:57:46 GMT -5
A few more: Banshee lost his sonic powers for years after sustaining damage to his vocal cords. Johnny Blaze was separated from the demon granting his Ghost Rider abilities in the last issue of his ongoing series. He later became a demon hunter riding a motorcycle with flaming wheels and carrying a shotgun that shot hellfire. Bill Foster a.k.a. Black Goliath a.k.a. Giant-Man lost his growth powers after receiving a blood transfusion from Spider-Woman to cure his radiation poisoning. He sporadically displayed his growth powers after that, although that might just have been writers forgetting he was supposed to have been de-powered.
Black Canary lost her canary cry after her throat was cut in The Longbow Hunters. It was restored years later whe she was immersed in a Lazarus Pit in Birds of Prey.
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Pat T
Full Member
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Post by Pat T on Nov 15, 2020 2:39:07 GMT -5
Don't think Spider-Man has been mentioned yet. He's lost or been stripped of his powers a number of times. I think the earliest instance was in Lee & Ditko's Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1, when he fought the Sinister Six. If memory serves this loss of powers was entirely psychosomatic though. Then he lost some of his powers, like being able to stick to walls, in that Lee/Ditko issue of ASM where he was unmasked by Doctor Octopus (I forget the issue number). I think that was because he had a cold...maybe?? Much later on, during the Spider-Mobile era in the early '70s, the Tinker concocted a gas that robbed Spidey of his ability to stick to walls. I'm sure there have been other instances as well, but those are the ones I recall off of the top of my head. In the 80's, Spidey got Captain Universe powers (during Acts Of Vengeance). I don't remember why, but he was left powerless after that for a few months.
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Post by beccabear67 on Nov 15, 2020 13:12:33 GMT -5
Banshee lost his sonic powers for years after sustaining damage to his vocal cords. That reminds me that his daughter with the same power, Siryn from X-Force, got injured and lost the power for awhile as well. I think the losing of powers in full or part... and the opposite; a boost or addition in powers... must qualify as official superhero story tropes.
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Post by Icctrombone on Nov 15, 2020 15:25:46 GMT -5
Daredevil came to my mind, I think there were a couple of times, before and during Frank Miller. I remember the weird period where The Sub-Mariner couldn't breathe under water too. Miller actually went as far as explaining that everyone has the potential to have radar powers. Matt had them manifest because of the accident. I don't know if that's been ever brought up again since.
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Post by Calidore on Nov 15, 2020 18:33:35 GMT -5
I read a reprint somewhere of that Superman issue in the OP as a kid (in "From the 30s to the 70s", maybe?), but never saw the followups. Where did that storyline end up going? All kryptonite on Earth was rendered inert, Clark got a new job as a news anchor, and Supes had half his power transferred into a "Sand Superman", depowering him to the point where he was no longer able to travel through space under his own power, move planets, and other Silver Age feats. And immediately after the storyline concluded, Supes' depowering was ignored and he was back to shrugging off supernovae.
Thanks! I remember Clark being a TV reporter in some later Action Comics I bought as a kid, but didn't know that this was the switch.
So what was the Sand Superman anyway, and whatever became of it?
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 15, 2020 19:41:04 GMT -5
Daredevil came to my mind, I think there were a couple of times, before and during Frank Miller. I remember the weird period where The Sub-Mariner couldn't breathe under water too. Miller actually went as far as explaining that everyone has the potential to have radar powers. Matt had them manifest because of the accident. I don't know if that's been ever brought up again since. I loved that concept, which was demonstrated by having Stick and his white-clad compeers (I think they're called "the chaste") all sharing DD's powers. It both made Matt less special (because anyone could theoretically do what he does) and more so, because no one could say "oh, sure, he's a hero just because radioactivity gave him special powers. I'm not a big fan of retcons, usually, but as far as I'm concerned both Alan Moore's Swamp Thing and Miller's Daredevil were great reinventions of classic characters.
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Post by Icctrombone on Nov 15, 2020 20:00:39 GMT -5
Miller actually went as far as explaining that everyone has the potential to have radar powers. Matt had them manifest because of the accident. I don't know if that's been ever brought up again since. I loved that concept, which was demonstrated by having Stick and his white-clad compeers (I think they're called "the chaste") all sharing DD's powers. It both made Matt less special (because anyone could theoretically do what he does) and more so, because no one could say "oh, sure, he's a hero just because radioactivity gave him special powers. I'm not a big fan of retcons, usually, but as far as I'm concerned both Alan Moore's Swamp Thing and Miller's Daredevil were great reinventions of classic characters. I'm no DD expert but I don't think they ever mentioned the - everyone has radar- point again.
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Post by berkley on Nov 15, 2020 20:14:03 GMT -5
Miller actually went as far as explaining that everyone has the potential to have radar powers. Matt had them manifest because of the accident. I don't know if that's been ever brought up again since. I loved that concept, which was demonstrated by having Stick and his white-clad compeers (I think they're called "the chaste") all sharing DD's powers. It both made Matt less special (because anyone could theoretically do what he does) and more so, because no one could say "oh, sure, he's a hero just because radioactivity gave him special powers. I'm not a big fan of retcons, usually, but as far as I'm concerned both Alan Moore's Swamp Thing and Miller's Daredevil were great reinventions of classic characters.
Yeah, and unfortunately, because those were done so well, everyone thinks that's reason enough to re-invent any character whatsoever. But just because it worked a couple of times doesn't mean it's a good idea every time.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 15, 2020 20:40:32 GMT -5
I loved that concept, which was demonstrated by having Stick and his white-clad compeers (I think they're called "the chaste") all sharing DD's powers. It both made Matt less special (because anyone could theoretically do what he does) and more so, because no one could say "oh, sure, he's a hero just because radioactivity gave him special powers. I'm not a big fan of retcons, usually, but as far as I'm concerned both Alan Moore's Swamp Thing and Miller's Daredevil were great reinventions of classic characters.
Yeah, and unfortunately, because those were done so well, everyone thinks that's reason enough to re-invent any character whatsoever. But just because it worked a couple of times doesn't mean it's a good idea every time. That is absolutely true! I cringed whenever DC introduced some new elemental (like Firestorm being a "fire elemental") or had characters travel through an elemental realm (like Animal Man through "the red"). A great joke is rarely funny more than once, and it's also true of comic-book plot twists.
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Post by Duragizer on Nov 15, 2020 22:13:51 GMT -5
All kryptonite on Earth was rendered inert, Clark got a new job as a news anchor, and Supes had half his power transferred into a "Sand Superman", depowering him to the point where he was no longer able to travel through space under his own power, move planets, and other Silver Age feats. And immediately after the storyline concluded, Supes' depowering was ignored and he was back to shrugging off supernovae.
Thanks! I remember Clark being a TV reporter in some later Action Comics I bought as a kid, but didn't know that this was the switch.
So what was the Sand Superman anyway, and whatever became of it?
IIRC, the Sand Superman was an extradimensional entity that was brought to Earth in the same accident that neutralized the kryptonite on Earth. It latched onto Supes who was caught in the explosion; he collapsed on a beach, and the Sand Superman formed out of the imprint he left in the sand. I don't know what became of the Sand Superman. I haven't read too many Bronze Age Superman comics.
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Post by berkley on Nov 16, 2020 0:14:54 GMT -5
Have Marvel's Thor and Hercules been mentioned yet? Losing their godly powers has been a long-standing and repeatedly (over)used plot device for those two.
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Post by foxley on Nov 16, 2020 4:29:27 GMT -5
Yeah, and unfortunately, because those were done so well, everyone thinks that's reason enough to re-invent any character whatsoever. But just because it worked a couple of times doesn't mean it's a good idea every time. That is absolutely true! I cringed whenever DC introduced some new elemental (like Firestorm being a "fire elemental") or had characters travel through an elemental realm (like Animal Man through "the red"). A great joke is rarely funny more than once, and it's also true of comic-book plot twists. It's not restricted to DC. Remember when Marvel decided that Spider-Man did not get his powers from a radioactive spider, but was actually a spider totem?
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Post by Dizzy D on Nov 16, 2020 4:32:13 GMT -5
Longterm depowering/power decreasing has also been used a lot in the X-Men:
- Xavier's telepathic power were lessened over the years from their insane Silver Age versions. They did do something a bit different there though; Xavier's power didn't change; Magneto changed the Earth's magnetic field making long-range telepathic communication harder.
- Nightcrawler was injured in the 80s during a fight with future Sentinel Nimrod, due to these injuries he could no longer teleport in quick succesion and even a single teleport exhausted him for a long time. He was cured about 5 years later by accident during a fight with Dr. Doom.
- Jean Grey has gained telepathy (original presented as a gift from a dying Xavier, later retconned into an ability she always had), lost telepathy (when she returned in X-Factor), gained her telepathy back again (about 50 issues into X_Factor), then lost her telekinesis (when Claremont returned to the X-Men in the 2000s), before returingint to have both powers.
- Elisabeth Braddock/Psylocke has had a lot of different power-sets over the years; originally introduced as a regular human, she later gained precognitive abilities. Near the end of Captain Britain, she also developed telepathic abilities (as well as wearing a Captain Britain costume for a very short while that gave her superstrength, a protective forcefield and flight). Once she appeared in the X-Men, her precognitive powers were no longer mentioned, she was now only a telepath. She had some mystical ability to teleport through shadows for a short while during the late 90s. Several years in, she switched powers with Jean Grey (when Claremont returned in the 2000s) giving her only telekinesis for a long time. She recently returned to telepathy and Captain Britain powers again.
- Storm was depowered for a couple of years in the 80s, while sticking with the X-Men as their leader.
- M-day (an event in 2005) depowered a lot of mutants, but most of them (at least the ones that were more than Z-listers or single appearance characters) regained them within a short time. The only ones who remained depowered for a longer time, while still having a role within comics were Jubilee (who used The Wizard's gloves for a short while as a replacement, before later being turned into a vampire, before being repowered in the recent Generation X series, a 10-15 years later.), Rictor, who remained depowered for a while within X-Factor while still being active as a member, and Dani Moonstar who probably was repowered about 15 years later.
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