"What's mine is yours, what's yours is mine."
"Let our powers cross the line."
"I offer up this gift to share."
"Switch our powers through the air."
Simply put, when characters switch powers with each other.
— Power Swapping spell Charmed (1998), "Love Hurts"
When stories treat superpowers as a gimmick, powers tend to get copied, stolen, or removed. The reason is to apply a sudden twist on power rules: regardless of the uniqueness of each power, they're still a transferable asset in superpower fiction. Thus, there will be stories where powers are shuffled between different characters and result in a massive case of Power Incontinence. Expect much unpredictability and a wide range of individual reactions.
Often, this power helps characters walk In Another Man's Shoes when having to deal with new abilities. Sometimes, the power swap may include a Personality Swap if Personality Powers are in play. If the power is connected to a physical attribute, this can result in a Transferred Transformation or a Physical Attribute Swap. The ultimate version of this is All Your Powers Combined.
Sub-Trope of Powers as Programs and Role Swap Plot. Related to Power Copying, Power Parasite, and Power Nullifier, the latter two are applicable in switching out a super-powered person with the user to depower them. Compare with Midfight Weapon Exchange. Contrast with "Freaky Friday" Flip, where characters' minds have been swapped between bodies (often resulting in Power Incontinence), but the powers themselves are unaltered and remain in the correct bodies.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The power that Enrico Pucci has for most of Stone Ocean is being able to turn Stands and people's consciences into disks that he can extract with his Stand, Whitesnake. As most people are capable of manipulating those disks after taken off their owners, one could theoretically equip himself with the Stand of another person or change powers with them, but Pucci usually uses the disks to enpower the inmates of Green Dolphin to do his bidding. However, at the end of the part, Emporio manages to apply this trope by inserting into himself Wes' Stand, Weather Report, to defeat Pucci once and for all.
Comic Books
- DC Comics:
- Absolute Power (2024): The events of the comic revolve around Waller stealing the powers and abilities of every hero and villain in the DC Universe (using the technology of the Brainiac Queen). By the end, the heroes have mostly regained their powers, but some have gone to the wrong people. Some heroes have their powers swapped around. Others, like Plastic Man, have lost their superpowers to random people around the world. The plan to recover all of the missing powers continues in Justice League Unlimited (2024).
- Batman Fortress ends with Superman giving his powers to Batman, rendering himself powerless in the process.
- Doom Patrol (1964): Issue 95 has Larry and Rita switch powers due to an experiment that was intended to restore them to normal, making it so that Larry becomes able to change his size and Rita has a negative spirit come out of her body. To ensure everyone in the team swaps abilities, the same experiment puts Robotman out of commission and forces him to stay behind and watch the team in action on the monitor while sitting in a wheelchair, while the Chief joins Rita and Larry on the current mission by wearing an exosuit that enables him to emulate Robotman's abilities.
- Fire And Ice When Hell Freezes Over: In the wake of the events of Absolute Power, Fire and Ice ended up swapping powers so that Bea got ice powers and Tora got fire powers.
- Legion of Super-Heroes:
- In one issue, Dynamo Boy (who happens to be The Mole for the Legion of Super-Villains) discreetly turns on a device that changes the power of several Legionnaires.
- In another issue, a group of Legionnaires has their powers randomly switched to disorient them.
- The third issue of the comic tie-in to the Legion cartoon has a bunch of Legionnaires hit by this when their powers are messed with. Legion applicant Infectious Lass accidentally unleashes a virus that causes her and several Legionnaires to swap superpowers.
- Issue #24 of Teen Titans Go! (2003) has the Titans' powers/abilities switched around by the Master of Games’ magic amulet. Robin gains Starfire's, Starfire gains Cyborg's, Cyborg gains Beast Boy's, Beast Boy gains Raven's, and Raven gains Robin's.
- Marvel Comics:
- Cloak and Dagger: A variant; Cloak and Dagger have abilities fueled by Darkforce and Lightforce energy. During the Spider-Island event, Mister Negative inverts their natures, so their powers remain the same but come from a different element. They even come with each force's needs: Dagger, similar to Cloak, even gets the "hunger" for light and starts dying from the lack of it, and Cloak now feeds Dagger his light. Their powers are also switched in Secret Wars (2015) Runaways.
- Fantastic Four: In Mark Waid's run, Reed Richards once switched Johnny and Susan's powers in a ploy to trick aliens into thinking he depowered her. An accident switching them back knocked all of their powersets out of them, which then randomly jumped between civilians throughout New York City, and they had to be tracked down and taken back.
- Power Pack: In the original series, the kids could swap their powers around or give them all to the same person. The Snarks at one point also take all the kids' powers and give them to one of their own. Downplayed, however, by the fact that the kids don't automatically know how to handle the powers given to them, and have to relearn after each swap. This does mean the kids have to experiment to get the hang of them, with the occasional by-product of the new owner figuring out new ways to use the power in the process.
Fan Works
- The Normal One: In "Walk a Mile", after both express a feeling that the other brother has easier powers, exposure to a Kryptonite-powered laser temporarily switches Jon and Jordan Kent's powers. This lets Jon experience what it's like to have the same powers as their dad, with all the self control that requires, and Jordan experience what it's like to have unique mental powers with no expectations, but also no experiences to compare against. In spite of the differences, they also find a lot of commonalities between their experiences, such as not being able to turn certain powers off.
Films — Animation
- The Pirate Fairy: The girls have their talents swapped due to Zarina's rainbow-colored pixie dust: Tinker Bell becomes a water fairy, Rosetta becomes an animal fairy, Fawn becomes a light fairy, Silvermist becomes a fast-flying fairy, Iridessa becomes a plant fairy, and Vidia becomes a tinker fairy (to her horror).
Films — Live-Action
- Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer: After encountering the Silver Surfer, Johnny becomes able to absorb the others' powers and switch them with his by touching them. It also comes with swapping their physical attributes, such as Ben's rock-hard skin. In the climax, the others give Johnny the powers of the entire team so that he can take on Doctor Doom after the villain stole the Surfer's board and powers.
Live-Action TV
- Charmed (1998): In "Love Hurts", Leo is fatally injured from a fight with a Darklighter. To save him, Piper trades her powers with Leo's using a power-switching spell, so she can use Leo's Healing Hands (which Whitelighters cannot use on themselves). But it also works on Phoebe and Prue. With all four powers switched, the gang has to master them before the Darklighter catches up. In the climax, Prue uses the same spell to briefly swap powers with the Darklighter and kill him with his own Touch of Death.
- Elseworlds (2018): A reality-warping incident causes Barry Allen and Oliver Queen to switch lives and abilities, but not bodies. The two have to be more like each other to better use their abilities in this state, so Barry has to be more angry and ruthless while Oliver has to be more joyful and lighthearted.
- Lab Rats: In "Chip Switch", Adam, Bree, and Chase switch their bionic chips to try out different abilities. Adam gets Bree's speed, Bree gets Chase's intelligence, and Chase gets Adam's strength. After landing in trouble, the siblings try to switch back their chips, but accidentally get the wrong powers.
- Legends of Tomorrow: In "The Fungus Amongus", the sixth-season finale, Spooner discovers that she has the ability to swap people's metahuman powers around. She uses this to help her friends fight back against an alien invasion, giving Sara's Healing Factor to Behrad and giving Nate's Steel powers to Ava, for example.
- Misfits: Invoked variation. The Mass Super-Empowering Event of the show causes all affected characters to develop Personality Powers, generally causing Blessed with Suck, Cursed with Awesome, and, in the case of Alisha, Negative Ability. Drug dealer Seth gained the ability to swap others' powers, with or without their consent, and uses this to make money as a power dealer. The main characters sell their powers and buy new ones in the Season 2 Christmas Episode, but do not swap with each other, and remain with their new powers for the rest of their time on the series. Notably, this development explains how Simon became Superhoodie, with a completely different power set from his original one. Played for Drama when:
- Curtis's power to time travel out of regret is given to a Holocaust survivor, who attempts to use it to kill Hitler. This goes horribly wrong since the elderly man is no match for Hitler at his physical prime, and his dropping his cell phone in the past gives rise to a bad alternate future.
- Curtis gets pregnant in his Gender Bender female form, swaps out his powers a second time, and gets the even-worse ability to raise the dead as zombies, killing himself to stop the zombie virus from spreading.
- Space Cases: In "Both Sides Now", Davenport temporarily gains Reality Warper powers and decides to swap all her students' genetics around, so that Harlan becomes an Andromedan, Rosie becomes a Uranian, Bova becomes a Mercurian, etc. Consequently, they all end up with each other's powers, except for Thelma and Radu (who become mere humans.)
- The Thundermans: In "Thundermans: Secret Revealed", after Max took their powers, he had a change of heart and gave the powers back to his parents and younger siblings. Unfortunately, they get the wrong powers and have to fight the Big Bad and his fellow villains. Hank got Barb's electric powers. Barb got Billy's super speed, Billy got Nora's eye beams, Nora got Chloe's teleportation, and Chloe got Hank's super strength and flying. They had to adapt to these powers quickly as they were fighting the bad guys.
Video Games
- Golden Sun: Some abilities are bestowed by items and can be given to any party member regardless of their elemental alignment (e.g. Douse summons a small raincloud and can be given to a fire Adept). Switching Djinn around also changes powers, in some cases causing two characters to switch powers.
- Pokémon: Introduced in Generation III, the move Skill Swap exchanges the Abilities of the two Pokémon.
- Twisted-Wonderland: Swing's unique magic is initially mistaken for a Power Nullifier attack when the students can't cast their own unique magic. It actually swaps his with the target's magic, and the more people are added, the more random the results. To cast the spell again, Swing has to undo the effects himself to regain his magic, including those he cast it on.
Webcomics
- Spinnerette: In Issue 25, Spinnerette, Tiger, Dr. Universe, and Greta Gravity get hit with an experimental CK mine, which rather than disabling their powers instead causes them to swap around. Spinnerette gains Greta's Gravity Master abilities and extra pounds while Greta gets Spinny's extra arms and Heroic Build, while Tiger and Dr. Universe switch their respective Super-Strength and Super-Intelligence around. Only Dr. Universe is happy with the exchange, at least until it's pointed out that he's no longer a genius, which causes an identity crisis. In an interesting aversion of No Ontological Inertia, Spinnerette still has her extra arms, but losing the Required Secondary Powers means she loses coordination and her body starts physically rejecting them.
Web Video
- Wild Life SMP: On Day 7, thanks to the Superpower Wildcard being activated for the session, each player is assigned one specific power-set. However, on Day 8, since all the past Wildcards are recycled and periodically activate and fade throughout the session, whenever the Superhero Wildcard is brought back, all the players' initially assigned powers are randomized between each other throughout the episode, resulting in temporary bouts of functional power-swapping.
Western Animation
- The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: In "The N-Men", Jimmy and his friends get superpowers after being imbued with radiation. The episode resolves and the kids lose their superpowers. Fast Forward to "The League of Villains", where Jimmy makes drinks to temporarily give their powers back. Unfortunately, they get mixed up and the team has their powers shuffled between them. Carl has Libby's invisibility, Libby has Carl's super belching, Sheen has Cindy's Flying Brick powers, Cindy has Sheen's super speed, and Jimmy is left with no powers at all since he didn't drink any serum.
- Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes: In "Bait and Switch", the characters' powers all get swapped, with a mild dose of Personality Swap thrown into the bargain.
- Loonatics Unleashed: In "The World Is My Circus", the Ringmaster captures the Loonatics and scrambles their DNA. Tech manages to destroy the machine and free them, but they've been mixed with other species and each other, resulting in everyone's powers getting shuffled around—Ace with Duck's, Lexi with Slam's, and Tech with Rev's. To his horror, Duck finds he can't control Ace's Laser Eyes and ends up disintegrating his teammate, Rev. Fortunately, Rev inherited Tech's From a Single Cell regenerative powers, so he comes back to life from a pile of ashes moments later. All six get their rightful bodies and power sets restored by the end of the episode.
- Megamind Rules!: "The Art of Destruction" has Megamind and Metro Man temporarily switching powers using the Stone of Transference, with Megamind receiving Metro Man's Flying Brick powers while Metro Man gets Megamind's Super-Intelligence. Megamind tries to fight crime using his new powers, but becomes dumber without his intelligence, while Metro Man uses his newfound intellect to come up with song lyrics.
- Miraculous Ladybug: In "Reflekdoll", Adrien and Marinette are transformed into Reflekta clones while they aren't wearing their Miraculous, and thus when Tikki and Plagg tried to bring the Miraculous to their holders, they both happened to get the wrong holder. Consequently, Marinette temporarily gained the power of Destruction while Adrien ended up with the power of Creation.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- Downplayed in "Magical Mystery Cure" when Twilight reads an unfinished spell that switches her friends' talents and cutie marks, leaving them unaware of the swap. They all struggle with each other's roles because their abilities no longer suit their personalities (i.e. energetic Rainbow Dash got Fluttershy's ability to talk to animals, but struggles to actually handle them because she isn't gentle like Fluttershy). Twilight breaks the spell by getting the pony who originally had the mark to help the friend who has it now, which in the process helps them remember their true talent and regain their memory and true cutie mark.
- In "A Royal Problem", Starlight uses her magic to switch the cutie marks and powers of Celestia and Luna to help them better understand each other. As the spell only lasts for a day, the two are forced to act out each other's roles. Celestia gets Luna's dream-travel powers to patrol Equestria's dreams. Celestia believes it's easy at first, though without experience, however, she gets in over her head and immediately calls in Luna for backup.
