Ascended Fanboy

"To become a crime fighter you have to study Batman movies. But even better than studying his movies is if you can follow him around and do what he does in real life."

—Axe Cop

Some fans are a cut above the regular Otaku. For most, it's as simple as being hired to work in the industry that deals with the media you love, but in fiction, it can take a whole new meaning. The Ascended Fanboy is that lucky one-in-a-million with a hobby based on something imaginary which doesn't stay imaginary—it turns into reality, and he becomes a part of it himself.

A variation is where it's imaginary to us but not in the context of the world, such as a mecha fan, in a world full of mecha, getting to pilot one.

For those lucky few, they receive the Call to Adventure, and ask: "How high?" Naturally, it's never so easy or glamorous as they thought it would be, but they've got the right stuff, and a whole lot of Beginner's Luck to last them until it comes out.

As a side effect, they're usually Genre Savvy, sometimes to the point of excess. Of course you know, he could be wrong.

Often a former The Team Wannabe.

See also I Know Mortal Kombat, which often results in this. If the fan gets to work on a show about mecha rather than piloting a mecha, that's Promoted Fanboy. Contrast with Loony Fan.

This has nothing to do with that kind of ascension, at least unless the fan really likes Daniel Jackson.

Subtrope of Audience Surrogate.

Compare Promoted Fanboy, Even Heroes Have Heroes.

Examples of Ascended Fanboy include:

Anime & Manga

  • Gai Daigoji of Martian Successor Nadesico, although he's quickly supplanted in skill by the less eager Akito. Akito's greater skill might be due to the fact that he trained throughout the series, and Gai dies in the third episode.
  • Noa Izumi from Patlabor yearned for joining the Special Vehicles Unit because she was such a Mecha Show fangirl her dream was piloting a giant robot, even if she knew Labors were not at all like Mazinger Z, Getter Robo or Mobile Suit Gundam. Still she got pretty disappointed when she was told that no, a Labor does not fly.
  • Corrector Yui is about a Magical Girl Otaku that is attempting to write such a story herself. Of course, the Call to Adventure makes the perfect inspiration.
  • Gun-otaku Kohta Hirano from High School of the Dead. Slightly subverted as he'd actually very good at handling weapons he gushes over, he just didn't expect to need these skills in real life in order to fight zombies. Is often told that some of the things he claims (like being trained by Blackwater USA during a trip to America) make him sound like a manga character.
    • One part of Blackwater's business is firearms and tactical training. All you have to do is pay a few thousand dollars and they'll teach anyone how to shoot military weapons like a professional. Many Japanese gun enthusiasts go on overseas trips just to go shoot guns, especially in Guam.
  • The manga Ratman revolves around an interesting subversion. The story takes place Twenty Minutes Into the Future. Advances in technology have ushered in the era of superheroes. Shuto Katsuragi wants nothing more than to be a great superhero. But things don't go exactly as he planned, as he is kidnapped and tricked into becoming the world's first Anti-Hero.
  • The professor from the one-man-band short film Negadon: Monster of Mars (See it, if just for the CGI alone.) After accidentally killing his daughter during a test run, he squirrels away the giant robot Miroku after the army is embarrassed by the disaster and cancels the project. Though he doesn't want to ever use the robot again because of the terrible memories, it has been kept in prime working condition, and certainly a few of its abilities couldn't have been thought up(or approved) by stuffy PR-hound regulation-happy army generals so he most likely continued work on it on his own free time. When normal military hardware proves ineffective against Negadon, he brings out the mothballed mecha. Also he looks disturbingly similar to Otakon, only 30 years older.
  • Mikami Teru of Death Note is a particularly disturbing example of this, being a lawyer who is overjoyed to be chosen by his "god" to kill those people he judges to be unjust. "SAKUJO!", indeed.
  • The protagonist of Forbidden Kingdom fits the bill perfectly. Until he decides to go home.
  • Most of the cast of Digimon Tamers are Ascended Fanboys: Takato, Henry, Kazu, and Kenta were all fans of the Digimon TV show and games before finding out that Digimon were real, and Takato's partner Guilmon is his fanart come to life. Rika was also a card game champion, but her focus on winning and apathy toward everything else made her more of an obsessive player than an actual fan of the franchise. Juri who claimed to not like the card game but was a closet fangirl and even had very rare cards.
  • Aoba from Jinki Extend is an Ascended Fangirl who loves mecha anime and building models based on them... and ends up piloting a mech herself.
  • The Genre Savvy Momoko/Blossom of Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z always wanted to be a transforming, justice-defending Magical Girl.
  • Heavily subverted in The Twelve Kingdoms, where the main character Youko's classmate Yuuka Sugimoto seems like one of these at first -- it doesn't work out so well, she ends up working for the Big Bad, and eventually she learns An Aesop of some sort and goes back home.
  • Akio Suzuka in Koi Koi 7 was and still is a major Sentai fangirl. After the incident that gives her cyborg superpowers, this allows her a chance to be one of her heroes.
  • Anime/Gundam
    • Subverted by young Chang in Mobile Fighter G Gundam, who painfully finds out that Falling Into the Cockpit of a Gundam isn't how he thought it would be. AT ALL.
    • Traigically played with in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny. Meer Campbell was a Naive Everygirl who fangirled the Idol Singer Lacus Clyne and had a similar singing voice, so she often sang her songs. She was later scouted by Dullindal's people, who offered her the chance to become Lacus's Body Double after she goes into retirement; Meer immediately accepted, thinking she could finally something for the people who need Lacus's support... but as the series progressed, Meer developed * serious* mental and emotional issues, which later brought her her downfall.
    • Even before that, we have a rather disturbing version in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Clotho Bauer is a videogame nut and psychotic criminal who, along with Shani Andras and Orga Sabnak, was made a Psycho for Hire Tyke Bomb and Gundam pilot. Heck, Clotho even yells videogame quotes in the midst of battle!
  • Mobile Suit Gundam 00: Graham Aker. Just... Graham Aker.
  • Subverted by Gainer Sanga of Overman King Gainer. While Gainer is a huge fan of giant robot fighting games, he's only piloting a giant robot to save his friends who are going on Exodus, since he understands the difference between Real Life and a video game. It becomes a plot point when his video game rival turned Rival in real life, Cynthia Lane, doesn't understand the difference and is shocked when her fight with Gainer ends with Gainer injured.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh GX, Judai (Jaden in English) actually becomes excited when he learns that Shadow Games can make his favorite trading cards come alive when he plays with them, let alone when he learns he can save the world using his deck.
  • Usagi in Sailor Moon is a subversion. She was a fan of Codename Sailor V for much of the early story, but being given her own superpowers doesn't stop her from just wanting to be normal. It comes across as particularly weird how she still acts like a standard-issue Fan Girl in spite of this.
  • Deconstructed in 20th Century Boys. Kenji's childhood fantasies of evil alien invaders are used by a cult as the basis for taking over the world themselves, forcing him to step into the role of the hero he always saw himself as in the scenarios. It... doesn't work out too well.
  • In the "Shanghai Dragon" segment of the Genius Party(2007) anthology, a snot-nosed 5-year old outcast discovers a device that can make his doodles come to life. When alien invaders attack, he remembers his favorite Sentai tv series, but I won't spoil what happens next.
  • Renge from Ouran High School Host Club is a huge otaku who came to Ouran in the first place because Kyouya resembles a character from a dating sim that she obsesses over. She is a part of a romantic comedy, even if Kyouya's not her prince and she isn't the heroine, and she has a blast with the Host Club. Kirimi is too, in a way, despite being a little girl ("reversed harem," indeed).
  • In the Monster Rancher anime, the games exist in the show's version of Earth. Main character Genki is a big fan of the games, and when he gets a mysterious CD in the mail, he inserts it into his brand X, PlayStation-like game console (a reference to the actual game in which you put in various various CDs to acquire the game's various Mons), and the next thing he knows he ends up in the world of Monster Rancher where he travels with a girl named Holly and her assistant Suezo (one of the game's monsters) fighting baddies, and finding mystery discs that contain various monsters.
  • In Blassreiter, Malek becomes a tragic example when he becomes a Amalgam just like his racing champ hero, Gerd Frentzen.
  • One Piece
    • Luffy's entire backstory is essentially him fanboying over Shanks, then deciding he's going to be even better than him and putting that into action. He is more likely to find his opponents' destructive powers of doom SOOOO COOL than to find it terrifying. In particular, he seems to like mechas and giant robots (a trait even his shadow-zombie Oz shared). In an ultimate ascended fanboy moment, Mr. 3 made him a wax battle suit so he could hit his poisonous opponent without ending up like he had when he'd tried punching the guy with bare fists. He practically cries from happiness at the opportunity.
    • Arc villain Hodi was a huge fan of Big Bad Arlong and the Sun Pirates when he was younger.
    • In a Real Life example, The Rootless, the band who created One Day, the 13th opening, wanted to do an opening for One Piece since they started.
  • In Eureka Seven, Renton idolizes Holland and Gekkostate, and is thrilled when one of their members literally crash lands in his yard and he eventually gets to join them. Of course, this joy is short lived. It Got Worse, then a lot better.
  • In Neon Genesis Evangelion, military otaku Kensuke Aida is convinced that mechas are the coolest thing EVAR and spends nearly the entire series expecting to become a pilot, even begging Shinji to pull some strings (despite the fact that Shinji has no influence whatsoever). He's never picked, of course—but his jock friend Toji, who strongly dislikes mechas and NERV, is.
  • The World God Only Knows
    • Keima Katsuragi, though he hates it because real girls are inferior to 2D ones.
    • Later on, Elsie, who is a fan of the pop-idol Kanon, has to take her place when the real girl is put into a coma by Vintage. Luckily Elsie has a magic robe that can change her appearance and has memorized all of Kanon's songs and dances, but there are still a few...inconsistencies.

Elsie: It's a Nekumaru Hellcat!
Game Show Host: Kanon, stop saying weird things!

  • Kirito from Sword Art Online. He was a gamer and after he got trapped in and escaped the virtual reality game SAO. The skills he learned from the game allowed him to beat up the guy that kidnapped his girlfriend.
  • Kotetsu T. Kaburagi/Wild Tiger from Tiger and Bunny was a superhero fanboy long before he actually became a superhero himself. When he's feeling down, he cheers himself up by old footage of his favorite hero, Mr. Legend.
  • Maho from Wandering Son is a major fan of the model Maiko. She eventually began working at the same modeling agency as her.
  • Cross a continent and an ocean to train as a samurai in Japan. That's what Stephanie from Kazemakase Tsukikage Ran wanted to do, because she was a fan of a book series. She quickly learns that most samurai are thugs or drunkards or something else disappointing. Instead of being depressed, she decides to "beat the guts" back into them.
  • Subaru Nakajima of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha is the title character's Fan Girl and pursued a career in the military so she could be like her idol someday. She ended up working with her on two major cases.
  • Hilariously averted in Heartcatch Pretty Cure. While searching for the third Precure, young fairy Potpourri finds Ban, an inspiring manga artist the girls befriended earlier, in the middle of figuring out how his third Precure would act in his comics. Inspired by his devotion, Potpourri decides he would be the third Precure. However, when Ban starts imagining how it would be like, Potpourri panics and bolts as the image hits him.
  • Hiroko in AKB 49 Renai Kinshi Jourei is a huge fan of the idol group AKB48 and aspired to join them. The plot of the manga starts to kick off after she succeeded in passing the auditions to become a trainee member of AKB48.


Comic Books

  • The graphic artist and Green Lantern Kyle Rayner
  • To a certain extent, Ragged Robin in Grant Morrison's The Invisibles, who essentially writes herself into the story using fan fiction. King Mob also comments on how he now gets to live the crazy science fiction/espionage adventures he always dreamed of as a kid. Considering it's no secret that King Mob is just a cooler version of Morrison...
  • Batman seems to attract ascended fans, despite his constant efforts to keep "amateurs" out of "my town." Many of his fellow Bat-Family crimefighters were not actively recruited or trained by him; rather, they became involved on their own and were absorbed into the larger Bat-Family afterwards.
    • Barbara Gordon, the original Batgirl (Not counting the Bat-Girl from the 50's and 60's), was dressing up in a costume for a Halloween party when she stumbled into crimefighting. Prior to this, she was either disinterested in costumed adventuring, or was planning to emulate different superheroes (Different continuities give different backstories, but most at least agree that, whatever her specific plans were, they did not involve bats). That first encounter earned her the label "Batgirl" and she was automatically associated with Batman in the public consciousness. Only her subsequent refusal to stop got Batman involved in training and working with her.
    • Tim Drake (the third Robin) also demonstrates this trope. In his origin story he deduces that Dick Grayson must be Robin because of a signature move they both use, spends several years of his childhood stalking and photographing Robin and Batman, and finally confronts Dick and then Bruce Wayne, insisting that "Batman needs a Robin." [Note: this only applies to the comic-book Tim Drake; the DCAU Tim Drake's backstory is modified from Jason Todd's.]
    • And the fourth Robin, Carrie Kelly, who gets the job as Robin after buying the costume and forcing Batman to let her help return Gotham to its former glory. Although Carrie's number is kinda messed up cause when Miller wrote her, Stephanie and Damian had never been Robins. So one could make an argument for her being the sixth Robin.
    • Recently, Batwoman also made the leap from unaffiliated hero to partner. She was already actively engaged in crimefighting on her own, so she might not really count as a "fan," but despite her Bat-theme she had never met, worked for, trained with, or been authorized by Batman, or any member of the Bat-Family. It was only after she had been patrolling Gotham City for several weeks that she encountered Nightwing and cooperated with him to combat the Religion of Crime. He later gave her a "real" Batarang as a gift, and afterwards she is shown working and sharing information with Batman.
    • Stephanie Brown went from spoiling her father's crimes and becoming the Spoiler to coming into the Batcave with her own Robin costume to Batgirl. Despite nearly everyone telling her to quit.
    • Batman himself is arguably an ascended fanboy, although for meta reasons. In the first Batman comic, the film he goes to see with his parents is The Mark of Zorro, a character that strongly inspired his. You can Fan Wank that he ended up deliberately mimicking Zorro.
  • All the Young Avengers, but particularly Hulkling and Wiccan. Some are also Legacy Characters.
  • Victor Mancha in Runaways was a huge superhero fan. It took the main cast storming his high school field to make him realize he actually had powers of his own. Subverted as he was programmed to be like that.
  • Prime of Ultraforce was a superhero fan who actually became a superhero.
  • Eddie Bloomberg was a fanboy of Blue Devil for most of that series, and even went as far as to create his own power suit so he could be Blue Devil's sidekick, Kid Devil. Eddie officially ascended years later when he was turned into a real devil and joined the Teen Titans.
  • The Flash
    • In one of the earliest examples, Barry Allen was a big fan of the Flash from The Golden Age of Comic Books. One bolt of lightning later, you have an Ascended Fanboy, and The Silver Age of Comic Books is born.
    • As was Wally West, who dreamed of being like the Flash as a kid (helped along by a visitation from a future version of himself). Then, in an identical repetition of the accident which made Barry Allen theFlash whilst visiting his lab. And thus Kid Flash was born.
    • The first Professor Zoom is retconned as one of these Gone Horribly Wrong. Eobard Thawne was a fan of Barry Allen from the future who found ways to replicate his powers, costume, and appearance all with the intention of coming back to the past to run alongside Barry. It only goes wrong when he arrives after Barry's death when Wally has already taken over the role. Addled from time travel and the discovery that he will one day become Professor Zoom, he briefly deludes himself into thinking he is Barry and fools everyone else in the process.
  • Superman
    • Superboy-Prime is an odd example: a kid named Clark Kent who grew up reading DC Comics in the "real" world (or Earth-Prime, or whatever), turned out to have powers just like Superman (he was actually Supes's Alternate Universe doppelgänger the whole time), gets caught up in Crisis on Infinite Earths in what must have seemed like a Self-Insert Fic from his perspective, watches his universe die, goes insane, and turns into one of the most dangerous supervillains in The DCU. Phew. Taken a step further when he finally returns to his home universe, which is all he ever wanted from the beginning, only to learn that his loved ones have been reading about his actions in comic books and are now terrified of him.
    • Superman: Secret Identity is based on much the same premise, but goes in a very different direction and plays with This Is Reality for all it's worth.
  • In the Astro City story arc "Confessional", the future Altar Boy moves to Astro City with the intention of becoming a sidekick, working in a superhero bar and a private club for heroes as part of his goal. It eventually works for him.
  • Rodney Rabbit was a writer and artist for his Earth's DC Comics, particularly its top-selling superhero team title "Just'a Lotta Animals". After events are set into motion by visitors Superman and villain Starro the Conqueror, Rodney himself becomes a superhero and forms his own superhero team, the Zoo Crew.
  • Daredevil: Maki Matsumoto became a fan of Bullseye after he inadvertently rescued her when he killed the Yakuza who were planning on selling her into sexual slavery. She would later become Lady Bullseye.
  • Izzy Sinclair is a sci-fi geekette turned Doctor Who companion in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip. Destrii, her successor, is an alien who fangirls Earth sci-fi and westerns.
  • Excalibur: Faiza Hussain is a superhero fangirl who gets zapped with Skrull Applied Phlebotinum during the Secret Invasion arc and gets superpowers.
  • Dan Dreiberg of Watchmen, a longtime supporter of the masked hero Nite Owl who, with the permission of the original, takes up the name and mantle when his hero retires.
  • To an extent, almost everyone in Spider-Girl's universe, including Mayday herself. Most of them aren't obsessive but they do tend to fangirl/boy their heroes/teams of choice.
  • Evil Version: Parker Robbins was a fan of Supervillains who later ended up becoming The Hood, one of the Big Bads of the Marvel Universe.
  • Squirrel Girl was an Avengers fan rejected for having the useless power of controlling squirrels. Then she ends up saving Iron Man and defeating Dr. Doom. That would be ascended enough, but then she goes on and beats Thanos, Terrax, Deadpool, Mandarin, and others. She's not only ascended, but made her way to the very top of the Marvel universe.
  • Ironfist in Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers was a major fanboy of the Wreckers team, writing extensivly about them under the name "Fisitron". Then he got to join them for their mission to Garrus-9. This did not go well.
  • One of the primary plot points of the series 52 was the Lex Luthor Everyman Project, which could artificially grant superpowers to normal people. This led to countless citizens gaining superpowers and creating their own hero identities (including, in one Splash Panel that included over a dozen of these new heroes, the superhero Poledancer). Eventually, Luthor creates his own super-team populated by these heroes with Eliza Harmon, who idolized the Teen Titans and all things speed. When she became Trajectory and a member of Luthor's new Infinity, Inc. she never stopped hoping to eventually join the Titans, and dreamed of eventually becoming the new Kid Flash.
  • Marvel 2099
    • Subverted by Spider-Man 2099, Miggy O'Hara may have been inspired to use spider DNA in Alchemax's super-soldier experiments from reading about the original Spider-Man, but he didn't intend to test it on himself, and isn't happy with the results.
    • Also subverted with Hulk 2099: there's a crackpot group called the Knights of the Banner who worship the original Hulk and plan on exposing themselves to gamma radiation. And then Jon Eisenhart, who couldn't care less about Bruce Banner, comes blundering in and gets the effects.
    • Played straight with Punisher 2099, who was obsessed with Frank Castle's war journal, and Thor 2099, who was a Thorite priest.
  • In The New Warriors comic book, Hindsight Lad managed to track down the Warriors' secret HQ and blackmailed his way onto the team with his knowledge of several of their secret identities. He later earned a legitimate place on the team with his fact-finding skills. Much later, he betrayed the surviving Warriors by secretly leaking several of their identities to an already enraged public, out of a sense of betrayal. This lead to one former Warrior being beaten and hospitalized by an angry mob. (Why he felt betrayed or why he'd take such a drastic step to "get even" is never explained adequately. Or explained at all, for that matter.)


Fan Works

  • Eiga Sentai Scanranger are chosen for the team because the powers they're given rely on a deep love of movies. Later the Japanese members are also revealed to be Tokusatsu fans.
  • Erin Frame of For Good is a Buzz Lightyear of Star Command fan-turned-Star Command cadet, as well as Buzz's adopted sister.
  • The smartass artist-angel Rachael in the Neon Exodus Evangelion epilogue Apotheosis Now was based on (and named for) a popular Eyrie Productions forum member who had died shortly before the story was completed.
  • Eidolon and Shift in DC Nation are superhero-obssessed fanboys who end up being able to put on a costume and fight evil themselves. Eidolon's encyclopediac knowledge of the superhero world is the closest thing he has to a superpower.
  • DC and Rei Tanaka from the Tamers Forever Series
  • OC Ace Phoenix from the Megaman fan fic"The Omega Chronicles".
  • In the Halo/Mass Effect Fusion Fic crossover The Last Spartan, Ashley Williams becomes this indirectly when she finds herself under the command of Master Chief (who's filling the role of Commander Shepard storywise). She intensely studied the history of the Spartans and their own battlefield tactics years before meeting him and is flustered into a stuttering mess during their first off-battlefield conversation.

Films -- Animation

  • The Incredibles: After Buddy Pine is rejected as a sidekick by Mr. Incredible, he becomes Syndrome, the Big Bad super-villain of the film. He proves to be frighteningly competent, largely from being Dangerously Genre Savvy, though this proves in part to be his undoing. Even as a Super Villain, Syndrome continues to talk about Mr. Incredible as though he were a character in a favorite comic book, critiquing his actions in terms that will be very familiar to anybody who has ever been in a comic book store.

Syndrome: You sly dog. You got me monologuing!

  • In Kung Fu Panda, Po only wants to see his heroes, the Furious Five, compete for the Dragon Scroll. He doesn't imagine that he will be chosen to receive it himself.
  • Rhino the hamster from Bolt. To an even greater extent, Rhino's voice actor. Mark Walton, a storyboard artist, laid down a temporary "scratch voice" for the character of Rhino, with the assumption that a professional voice actor would later take the role. As the film moved further along, big-name actors were cast like John Travolta, Malcolm McDowell, and Miley Cyrus. But they couldn't find a professional actor who made a better Rhino than Walton; in the end, Disney ended up calling him back to record the lines professionally, resulting in one of the funniest breakout Disney characters of the decade.


Films -- Live-Action

  • Alex Rogan in The Last Starfighter.
  • In a similar vein, Kevin Flynn from Tron. He was a video-game programmer who ran his own arcade, then gets zapped into the games themselves...

Flynn: I shouldn't have written all of those tank programs.

  • And then, in Tron: Legacy his son grows up with bedtime stories about the stuff his dad did on the other side of the screen, even having action figures of Tron and Clu on his bookshelf. Twenty years later....
  • A lampshade is hung on this to some extent in Galaxy Quest; early in the film, Tim Allen, as the star of a Star Trek-styled TV show, yells at an enthusiastic fan asking questions about minutiae of the show: "It's not real! None of it is real!" Later on, when it all turns out to be real, their lives are saved by calling on the fan's knowledge.

Brandon: I just wanted to tell you I thought a lot about what you said. But I want you to know that I'm not a complete brain case, okay? I understand completely that it's just a TV show. I know there's no beryllium sphere, no digital conveyor, no ship...
Jason Nesmith: (at the same time) It's okay, now listen... Hold it... Just stop for a second! It's all real.
Brandon: Oh my God, I knew it. I knew it! I knew it!

  • The unhappy main character in Takashi Miike's Sentai parody/homage Zebraman dresses up like the title hero of his favourite cancelled TV show as a form of escapism, but eventually does battle aliens.
  • In the film Rockstar, a passionate fanboy of fictional Heavy Metal band Steel Dragon becomes the group's new lead singer after the original lead singer is fired. The film is loosely based on the story of Tim "Ripper" Owens, who started out in a Judas Priest tribute band and went on to become the lead singer of Judas Priest when original singer Rob Halford took a hiatus from the band.
  • Mark Wahlberg characters act out this trope in at least two different movies—not only Rock Star, but also Invincible, in which a devoted Philadelphia Eagles fan Vince Papale tries out for the team and makes the roster. Not only that, both firms are based on real-life individuals.
  • In Rocky Balboa one of the announcers in the Rocky vs. Mason Dixon fight said he grew up as a Rocky fan and couldn't believe he was actually calling Rocky match.
  • Also, Rudy, Notre Dame's biggest fan becomes one of its most famous players, just on pure determination.
  • Woody Wilkins in Condorman deliberately sets out to bring fame to his eponymous comic book hero by attempting all the stunts he writes about in Real Life. He convinces his CIA buddy to let him take a "routine" courier mission and winds up involved in the defection of a KGB spy. In a variation of the usual trope, he is actually Wrong Genre Savvy, which is where the Hilarity Ensues.
  • In Streets of Fire, one of Ellen Aim's fans decides to tag along, even giving the heroes crucial information about the Bombers. Then Tom Cody kicks her out.
  • In Super, Frank/the Crimson Bolts's sidekick Libby/Boltie is a huge comicbook geek and wants to become a superhero because of it. Subverted with Frank who, despite becoming a superhero, has little knowledge or interest in comics.
  • In JCVD, three fans meet Jean-Claude Van Damme, who plays his own role.
  • In American Dreamer, thanks to Easy Amnesia, Cathy Palmer lives out a life like her favorite novel heroine, and even ends up with the author of those books.


Literature

  • Irony had the last laugh on Commander Sam Vimes and Havelock Vetinari in the Discworld book Thud!. Obstructive Bureaucrat A.E. Pessimal was sent by Lord Vetinari to inspect Vimes' operations, and neither man knew Pessimal had always wanted to join the City Watch. Vimes eventually got sick of Pessimal and made him tag along to quell a potential riot, thinking it would make him see things from Vimes's point of view and shut him up. Ironically, Pessimal took to the opportunity once the shell-shock wore off, and after a display of sheer balls (trying to attack a rioting troll with his teeth!) that shocked Vimes and even the usually unflappable Vetinari, Vimes decided to poach Pessimal from Vetinari, and the Ascended Fanboy got to live his dream (and do his original job simultaneously).
  • Possibly the oldest fictional example is that Don Quixote, though rather than waiting for the Call to Adventure to come to him, he took a much more proactive approach to living out his chivalric fantasies.
  • Done by Robert A. Heinlein in 1958 in Have Space Suit Will Travel, where a boy who wants to travel in space, and even enters a contest to win his own spacesuit, gets picked up by aliens and actually does so.
  • Mike O'Neal, Jr, from the Posleen War Series.
  • Ed Greenwood in Shadows of Doom shows just how casually this may happen to any random kid around Elminster... and how it feels:

"Lord Elminster! Old Mage! Make magic for us, please! Please! A dragon flying. Only a little one, just for us!"
[...]"Nay, be not downcast, Jhaleen. I see some things, know ye, in my dreams. Things I know will come to pass, in summers still to come." He leaned close to her, and whispered for her ears alone, "I've seen thee - much taller than now, and stern - riding a dragon."
She looked into his eyes and saw truth, and her mouth dropped open in awe and trembled just a little in fear. It is one thing to dream of dragons, and quite another to know with cold certainty that someday you will be touching one. More than that; flying high above the ground on a dragon's scaly back, with empty air as high as castles beneath you, and a twisted death below should you fall.

  • Animorphs features an Ascended Fanboy of God games. That is, of course, The Elimist.
  • Sam Yaeger from Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series starts out as a minor league ballplayer whose best days are behind him far too early. Then his love of pulp science fiction magazines really comes in handy when aliens invade, allowing him to be open-minded enough to easily deal with captured aliens and learn about their race. He eventually becomes one of the most important parts of the war effort.
  • Doctor Who
  • In Harry Potter there is Colin Creevey who, Ron says, is likely to create a "Harry Potter fan club". For most of the story, he's not involved in anything other than the D.A. lessons. In book 7, however, he fights in the Battle of Hogwarts despite being underage, and dies.
  • The Alphas from The Dresden Files were RPG enthusiasts and college students before they were taught how to become werewolves; now, they're one of the forces that makes sure Chicago stays safe for mortals. In a partial subversion, upon becoming werewolves, most of them went for "tough guy/gal" leather ensembles... only for them to a) look slightly ridiculous and b) turn out to be massively impractical when the time to shapeshift came about.
  • The DHIs in The Kingdom Keepers were all fans of Disney before they were chosen to defeat the Overtakers. Although, unlike most examples, they weren't exactly thrilled on their duties.
  • Fredric Brown's story "What Mad Universe" is about a fiction writer who reads a letter from fan. Then, a strange explosion occurs in front of him... And he is transported to an Alternate Universe where said fan is literally the Mary Sue.
  • Wild Cards character Kid Dinosaur was a fan of "Aces" and nuts about dinosaurs. Then he caught the Wild Card Virus, the manifestation of which is often influenced by the subconscious of its victim. You can guess from his name what happened next.
  • In Earthweb by Marc Stiegler, Earth Defense sponsors an arcade game simulating the fight against the planet-bombing Shivas to find new minds fit to lead the real thing.
  • In The Vampire Chronicles, Quinn Blackwood becoming part of Lestat's coven.
  • Abraham Van Helsing in the original Dracula novel is either this or Retired Badass, depending on how one reads the hints in his backstory. A "metaphysician and philsopher" who has spent a good chunk of his life gathering arcane knowledge on vampires, then throws himself enthusiastically at the chance to put that knowledge to practical use.
  • Catherine Morland believes herself to be this in Northanger Abbey when the huge Gothic novel fan gets a chance to stay in a Gothic mansion. It turns out she's actually Wrong Genre Savvy.
  • R. J. Rummel's Never Again series of novels features a rather dark version of this trope. The main character, John Banks (who is an obvious stand-in for Rummel) is a professor of twentieth-century history who gets selected as one of two people to travel to the early part of that century. The dark twist is that Banks studies wars and crimes against humanity, and volunteered to go back in time in order to prevent those events from happening.


Live-Action TV

  • Hiro Nakamura of Heroes has been a comic book junkie for years when he discovers he has superpowers of his own. It's a bit of a surprise he hasn't put together his own costume yet. He certainly wants to. He also always wanted to be his childhood hero Takezo Kensei and kiss the princess he saves. He got the chance in season 2. Hiro is also a literal Ascended Fanboy, according to his father:

Kaito: I have waited a long time for a Nakamura to ascend.

  • Stargate
    • Lt. Col. Mitchell from Stargate SG-1 can be considered such and is sometimes actually referred to as Lt. Col. Fanboy in fannish circles. He has memorized all their mission reports and will occasionally recite passages at top speed. He is known to have had the dream of joining SG-1 to learn from them, but was instead given leadership of said team after being shot down saving their lives, and Major General Jack O'Neill, the original leader of SG-1, promising Mitchell any command he wants if he's successful in his physical therapy. Partially subverted in that when Lt. Col. Mitchell first received command of SG-1 he merely inherited the group's name and its TO&E, all the original members which he idolized had moved on to other things at that point. He managed to convince most of them to come back though. Which is probably why the other SG-1 members didn't mind him taking over the team (not that Jackson or Teal'c, being non-military, could've been put in command anyway, and Lt. Col. Carter didn't return to the team until months after Mitchell arrived). In addition, the job isn't quite perfect as Daniel and Teal'c are often annoyed by his relative inexperience. Said inexperience has also led to him receiving more than his fair share of scaths during his time on the team.
    • Really, Daniel Jackson is one as well. He's not a speculative fiction fanboy, sure, but having his outlandish theories about Egyptology proven true must have tickled his fancy. Actually, he counts for bonus points on this one, doesn't he?
    • Eli Wallace from Stargate Universe, who is recruited solely because of how much of a fanboy he is. He's also heavily implied to be the intended avatar for the audience.
  • Power Rangers
    • Justin from Power Rangers Turbo can certainly qualify, especially considering his response to gaining the mantle of the Blue Turbo Ranger. Mack from Operation Overdrive might be a more pronounced example, with his specific love of adventure books and sneaking off with the morpher intended for his Adventurer Archaeologist father. Dustin from Ninja Storm is a less pronounced example; he's a comic book fan whose reaction to receiving the power was "I Knew It!! Power Rangers are real!" but motocross is still his major interest.
    • There's more. Computer/sci-fi geek Ethan from Dino Thunder looked about to faint when he found out he'd be a Ranger, and Mystic Force's Chip has been shown to be a fan of superheroes and fantasy. The main Jungle Fury Power Trio also had big grins on their faces (or at least Theo did) when their mentor brought up the Rangers, just before they were presented with their own morphers. Subverted in SPD, where fanboy Boom is almost the only one who doesn't get a morpher at some point.
  • From Super Sentai we have Gai Ikari/Gokai Silver from Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, a Super Sentai fan who, after nearly sacrificing his life to save a child, is given the Gokai Cellular and Gokai Silver Ranger Key from the three fallen Sixth Rangers, Dragon Ranger, Time Fire, and Abare Killer.
    • And now we have Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger, where three otaku are made into an unofficial Sentai team. Nobuo Akagi/Akiba Red in particular is a massive Super Sentai fanboy.
  • Detective Kate Beckett in Castle is a (closet) fan of the mystery novels of Richard Castle, who as a result of their 'partnership' has found herself the basis for Detective Nikki Heat, the protagonist of his latest novels.
  • Macy on Jonas is Jonas's biggest fan and runs their fan club. And luckily she goes to school with them and is best friends with their stylist. As a result she goes from acting like a buffoon around them to becoming one of their closest friends.
  • In the Doctor Who Easter 2009 Special, "Planet of the Dead", Malcolm comes off as one of these—even applying for the job as UNIT's Scientific Adviser because he knew it was the position held by the Doctor way back when. He nearly dies of sheer bliss when he merely gets to talk to The Doctor over the phone.


Music

  • Perhaps the ultimate music example was at the opening concert of The Who's Quadrophenia tour. After playing 70 minutes into the set, Keith Moon passed out (and then a half hour later, after being revived, passed out once more). So the story goes, after playing through one more song without Moon, Pete Townsend famously asked, "Can anybody play the drums?" Enter one Scot Halpin, age 19 who had not played the drums in over a year but got up on stage at his friends' insistence. He finished up the show with them, competently playing three numbers before taking a bow with the band and being taken backstage and given a Who concert jacket (which was unfortunately stolen later that night).
  • Electric Light Orchestra's lead singer and Face of the Band Jeff Lynne conceived the band's idea with Roy Wood to be a sort of sequel to The Beatles, taking rock music in the direction "that The Beatles had left off." He later worked with former Beatles members on various projects, including The Traveling Wilburys and producing the "Threetles"[1] singles "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love".
  • Once upon a time, a high school student posted trap covers of Vocaloid songs on Nico Nico Douga under the handle Piko. Not only does he now have his own singing career, he also now has his own Vocaloid.
  • After the death of original Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Hillel Slovak, the band auditioned new guitarists until they discovered John Frusciante, a teenager who knew how to play every single one of their songs and was quite skilled on his own. He joined the band and was an integral member for many years before leaving to work on his solo career. Today, he is hailed as one of the greatest guitarists in the history of music.


Video Games

  • Travis Touchdown of No More Heroes. "MOE~" In the second game, Travis meets his own Ascended Fan, Kimmy Howell.
  • Metal Gear Solid
    • Subverted with Otacon, a lonely Otaku who is determined to become one of these by building himself a real life Humongous Mecha like in the Anime he loved—of course, it turns out that the mecha is going to be a new type of nuclear weapons platform and he'd let his desire to live in fiction overshadow his logic. And then it's Double Subverted when Otacon ends up becoming the sidekick of an action hero-esque soldier and ends up living the otaku fantasy after all.
    • Otacon's the most obvious, but this actually applies to most of the cast. Ocelot is a Spaghetti Western Otaku who was modelled after Lee Van Cleef, can do ridiculous gunplay tricks with his revolver and pull off complicated Man With No Name-style backstabbing Batman Gambit, and wears spurs all the time. Major Zero is a James Bond fanboy who is also a British spy going by an intitial codename ("O") and ends up masterminding a Cold War assassination gambit to kill another superspy. Snake makes various references to movies throughout the games, even giving his name as Iroquois (meaning "rattlesnake") Pliskin at one point, and he's based heavily on Eighties Action Hero characters. The cutest example is probably Little John, a little boy who loves ninja manga and sci-fi about robots, and discovers at the end of Metal Gear Solid 4 that his dad is a robot ninja. Score.
  • Super Robot Wars
    • Ryusei Date is a Humongous Mecha otaku who pilots the machines he's admired so much. In Original Generation, he gains an Evil Counterpart, Tenzan Nakajima.
    • Noriko usually joins him in squeeing over all the Super Robots the heroes are carting around. And then she pilots the Gunbuster.
    • Super Robot Wars Z gives us a rare villainous one in the form of THE Edel Bernal.
  • Shingo Yabuki from The King of Fighters idolized Kyo Kusanagi so much that he vigorously trained so that he could join him in the titular tournament. While he may never shoot fire (somebody apparently never told him that Kusanagi powers are hereditary), he was strong enough to win a few tournaments and survive against Riot of the Blood Iori.
  • Sakura Kasugano from Street Fighter trained to catch up to her idol Ryu, and eventually fought him. She was even able to use the Hadoken, an impressive feat for a martial arts student with no training partner. Scarily enough, in one comic continuity before she started fangirling Ryu, Sakura was a huge fan of E. Honda, the sumo wrestler, and training to be like him. Including lamenting just how much weight she still had to gain. She still respects Honda, as shown in her Sub Boss fight with him in Alpha 3... just not so much.
  • Viewtiful Joe is Captain Blue's biggest fan, and grew up watching Blue's movies and collecting his action figures. Needless to say, he hogged Captain Blue when those were offered to him. And let's not even get started on his Squee at meeting the Tatsunoko heroes in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. Nor his Squee towards the Marvel heroes in Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
  • Inverted in Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice. Almaz is a descended fanboy after his hero-idolizing tendencies gave him the wonderfully suicidal idea that he should follow in legendary hero Aurum's footsteps and go slay the Overlord of the Netherworld. No more than a couple of chapters later, he's now unwillingly serving as the lab rat of the Overlord's son, and wondering what the hell he was thinking. There's also the fact that the "hero" in question is actually the Big Bad of the game.
  • Alex from Lunar the Silver Star Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete, who is a worshipper of the Dragonmaster Dyne, is a textbook example of this trope as he gets to be the dragonmaster and save the girl and the world.
  • Fire Emblem
    • Between the 9th and 10th games, Kieran (the most patriotic character in the series, including the ones who fall under My Country, Right or Wrong) is promoted to 2nd in command of the Royal Knights (one of Criema's highest military positions).
    • In the fourth game, one of the substitute characters is a pegasus knight named Femina. The girl had been raised hearing stories about the amazing knight Sigurd and his companion Ferry; she doesn't get to work with her idols since they're dead, but becomes one of the companions of Sigurd's son Celice.
  • The Engine 001 action RPG Voyage for Vengeance has a man in one of the cities who loves Shadowrun so much that he started his own shadow running organization which the player can eventually work for.
  • Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII: He starts out as a fan of the legendary Sephiroth who goes out to join the same organisation of SuperSoldiers, doesn't even make it to said organisation and spends a lot of time delusionally thinking he did, and somehow ends up leading the only group that can save the world from a now even more powerful Sephiroth.
  • According to the Ultimania guide, as a child Seifer Almasy from Final Fantasy VIII saw a movie about a knight protecting a sorceress, which inspired both his "romantic dream" of becoming a sorceress's knight and his decision to train with the gunblade. The hero of the movie was played by Laguna Loire, the father of Seifer's rival Squall Leonhart.
  • Morgan LeFlay from Tales of Monkey Island has apparently been following the career of Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate, since he first defeated LeChuck, and is honored to cross swords with her idol.
  • Liberty Lad from Freedom Force starts off as an obnoxious Loony Fan that follows the heroes around and needs to be protected in a quasi-escort mission. Eventually he ends up taking a bullet for his hero that possesses superhuman endurance and is largely immune to bullets, gets a magical operation, and turns into Liberty Lad.
  • Stephanie Morgan of Backyard Sports says in the original Backyard Baseball that she wants to be in the hall of fame next to Cal Ripken Jr. In the 2001 version, Morgan and Ripken are both playable, so you can make this happen yourself.
  • Jann Lee from Dead or Alive. He's that good and arrogant in using his Jeet Kune Do because when he was little, he used to watch Bruce Lee movies all the time as a mean to escape the harsh reality of being bullied by the locals for being a weakling. He Took a Level in Badass as a result.
  • Mass Effect
    • Mass Effect 2 has Legion, a geth who is implied to look up to Shepard; it used a piece of his / her old armor for field repair to its platform, and becomes kind of evasive if you ask why. Compare to Conrad Verner.
    • Kasumi as well. Cerberus tried to find her and when she found out she did some investigating to find out they have Shepard brought Back from the Dead, and from there she offered a fee, introduced herself to Shepard as a fan, left the emotional baggage other crew members have behind and only asked that Shepard consider helping her on a heist to recover her lover's grey box.
  • Left 4 Dead Zoey is fan of zombie apocalypse films, now she faces of a real zombie apocalypse.
  • Raz, the protagonist of Psychonauts, basically memorized all of the in-universe True Psychic Tales comics before getting a chance to actually become a Psychonaut.
  • Goombario from the first Paper Mario introduces himself as Mario's number one fan. He joins Mario in his quest as his first partner.
  • According to the collector's edition strategy guide for Fallout: New Vegas, there are hints of this for the young Caesar. He starts out a fan of comic books (he may mention the Grognak the Barbarian series in-game), action/adventure, and history, which culminates in finding texts on the nitty-gritty of the Roman Empire: "Such adventure! And intrigue! And cool uniforms!" He proceeds to swipe it whole-cloth for his own would-be empire.
  • 9-volt and 18-volt from Wario Ware are the biggest Nintendo fanboys, making Nintendo microgames and owning everything Nintendo worked on. And 9-volt was working for Wario untill DIY for unknown reasons and 18-volt still works for him.
  • The player Loganius from Champions Online with his character Duratok Gorehowl. He won an official costume contest and his price was being made an official character. Players can now buy a "Sidekick Device" that summons an NPC Duratok to your side for the duration of one hour.
  • Luke Triton, in the Professor Layton games, is a variant on the trope. In Unwound Future, he remarks that he's a big fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories and has read them all many times... which makes his role as The Watson to the Professor's Holmes all the more fitting.


Web Comics

  • Sol and Kei in Circumstances of the Revenant Braves are Otaku that end up with super powers.
  • Thoroughly deconstructed in Fans, where all of the heroes (and several of the villains) were of this type. It was most poignantly subverted with a character actually known in-story as Tim the Fanboy [dead link] , who had become a fan of the previous heroic fans, only to turn on them when he felt they had let him down.
  • Parson Gotti from Erfworld is sucked into the title universe at a typically ironic moment (right after saying "See if I could, like, literally escape into one of these games, I'd do it in a second. Just snap my fingers and teleport right in? Absolutely. Bam! Seeya!"). This occurs with the memorable sound effect, "PLOT!"
  • Megatokyo's Piro (the character, not the author avatar) is an Ascended Fanboy: he is currently dating the idolized voice actress of a character in one of the Dating Sims he's a fan of. He's also doing the art for the game now. Her fans actually hail him as an Ascended Fanboy at one point, electing him as their leader. Piro seems in equal parts terrified, sickened and proud, not least because their excesses are no worse than what he would have done in their position.
  • The Way to Your Heart
    • Ultra-fanboy Eizo gets many encounters with his idols in the band Orochi thanks to his friendship with Yumi, leading up to him flying with the band to Hawaii for the wedding of Shuya and Musashi and even sharing a hotel room with the band members... albeit drooling and tied up to keep him under control.
    • Yumi herself goes from knowing nothing about visual kei, to adoring Orochi's music, to dating the drummer. Quite an ascension!
  • Subverted in Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki where a Magical Girl fan becomes something akin to a Magical Girl herself and is not happy, mainly because said fan was male until these powers were activated. In fact it was Hermod's idea to hide inside a DVD because he thought a Magical Girl Anime fan would make an ideal candidate to become the next valkyrie. Obviously it didn't work out as planned.
  • Quentyn of Tales of the Questor started out as a fan of the wonder-tales about the legendary Questors, before becoming a Questor himself. He even at one point uses his fan knowledge to find a way to defeat a plague of wights.
  • El Goonish Shive has Dex, the most unkempt regular of Justin's comic shop. Upon waking up at the place he can't remember visiting and in a rather strange company he's in a "familiar" environment:

Dex: A furry... A black mage... And... haven't I seen you cosplaying as Chun-Li?

  1. Melissa herself hates this deal with passion and keeps the wand only because it was the only thing standing between her and Mind Rape... and because she suffers from popularity addiction,
  2. Melissa in fact is a witch whom students of AA are supposed to "exterminate!", but Tiffany takes any excuse explaining away evidence of this, no matter how transparent.
  3. Tiffany Winters herself is a Slayer, and an obvious Expy of another girl with seasoned last name - that is, demonstrably superhuman (her usual "warm-up" routine wouldn't be out of place in Olympics… if it was less dangerous).
  4. Several whole classes of their schoolmates are magic-using girls, just without frills and Transformation Sequences forced on them by immortal morons.

Web Original

  • Red Panda Adventures has Kit Baxter starting out as a fan and his chauffeur, than blackmailed her way into becoming his sidekick, and now his wife
  • MSF High Forum: Matoi Nanashi, a massive fan of Super Sentai and Kamen Rider is shaping up to be this. He even has gained a pair of boots that allow him to perform a Rider Kick (though none of his attempts at using it on someone have succeeded so far).
  • Warrick Kaine of The Descendants grew up dreaming of becoming a Gadgeteer Genius Badass Normal. Then one day he discovered that instead, he'd gorwn up to be Extra Ore Dinary.
  • Stereo, Phono and Minijack, the appropriately named FanBoyz, are the three biggest fans of the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, a group their classmates are sure doesn't exist. They post dance videos of themselves on the internet in an effort to get the LXD's attention, hoping to join them. Imagine their surprise when they each recive an invitation to join.
  • The Tandy Arena has Vikki Pertierra going from Warhammer 40,000 to Arena moderator, among other things.
  • Many Agents of the Anti Cliche and Mary Sue Elimination Society started out as simple fans of the Society before deciding to join.
  • Paolo emailed Harvey Morenstein asking for advice on how to do his own epic meal. The cast and crew of EPICMEALTIME road-tripped to his location and cooked with him.
  • Several current contributors on That Guy With The Glasses were fans of the show before they were picked up, even being inspired to make their own reviews after finding the site.
  • On the video game music podcast Nitro Game Injection, Suraida, the newest co-host, was originally a dedicated listener. She ended up being invited onto the show for episode #142 to fill in for one of the other hosts, returning for a few more episodes before popular demand from fans led her to becoming a semi-regular co-host.
  • A number of characters in Survival of the Fittest, both on the main site and the Minis, have watched clips of previous seasons, whether out of some degree of Bile Fascination, weird interests, or both. They tend to be Wrong Genre Savvy as much as being genuinely Genre Savvy. In addition, Virtua has Katie Tanaka, a western movie Fan Girl who ends up in its Wild West setting.
  • The Guild: Codex gets a job with the creator of The Game at the end of season 5.
  • RWBY: Ruby, who geeks out over huntsmen and huntresses, and manages to get into Beacon Academy years before she normally would be old enough on the basis of both skill and overwhelming enthusiasm.
  • Horror Fan by Michael J. Larson (on deviant ART). These ascend too... it's just not clear in which sense yet.

Western Animation

  • This is basically the entire premise of Futurama. A lot of humor in the early episodes drew on Fry's expectations of the future as a sci-fi fanboy and how much the actual future either did or did not fit them.
  • Freakazoid!! actually has a character called Fan Boy, who tries desperately to find someone who would let him be their sidekick. Freak only manages to shake him by pawning him off on Mark Hamill. Word of God says he was based on Promoted Fanboy Paul Dini.
  • Phineas and Ferb has Irving, a clear fan boy Expy who seems to have perfect knowledge of the two brothers adventures and catchphrases... to the point that one must ask how the hell he could possibly know so much about the show's history. He started as a one-off character but is starting to appear almost as much as Phineas and Ferb's other friends. It's been extended to the point that it's been revealed he's had hidden cameras all over Danville, chronicling their adventures, including the first one.
  • In Teen Titans, the meta-tastic villain Control Freak is the Titans' self-proclaimed Number One Fan. He is a caricature of the stereotypical lank-haired, overweight geek, complete with overfondness for lightsabers and trenchcoats. One of his two feature episodes is chock-full of fandom references, up to and including online ship-wars. Control Freak is also tremendously disappointed in one of these episodes to discover that the Titans East (a group of C-listers he's never even heard of before) are substituting for the "real" Titans while they're away on a long-term mission, and thus the gadgets he'd designed specifically to challenge the Titans were wasted. As the Titans East have completely different powers, he escapes and comes up with new weapons to fight them... and becomes a fanboy of the Titans East as well once they defeat him.
  • In The Venture Brothers, Monarch Henchman 21 obviously longs to be one of these. Very closely gets there when he discovers a prototype lightsaber among Dr. Venture's yard sale. He buys it (with his boss' money) and subsequently challenges Dr. Venture's Badass bodyguard Brock Samson to a fight, only to find out the "lightsaber" is just a hologram. Such is life in the Venture universe.
  • In Codename: Kids Next Door, Numbuh 3 is an Ascended Fangirl. For the entire series she is obsessed with a range of multiple-hued stuffed monkeys called "Rainbow Monkeys". During the Series Finale it is revealed she becomes president of the entire Rainbow Monkey Corporation.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987 has Zach, a bratty kid with aspirations of being the fifth turtle.
  • From the Sam and Max Freelance Police cartoon, it's Lorne, "The Friend for Liiife!"
  • Wind Dragon, Samurai's Captain Ersatz in Justice League Unlimited.
  • Static and Gear in Static Shock are this; they are comic book geeks and get really excited when they finally meet the Justice League and get to visit the JL tower. They never really planned on becoming superheroes themselves until Static got his powers. Gear gives him the idea of becoming a superhero, and it's pretty much all for fun for the two of them until the Special Episodes. Gear wishes he had powers after a while, then figures out two seasons later that he had had them all this time, they just weren't as flashy as Static's. He immediately joins Static in fighting crime.
  • As mentioned on the Loony Fan page, Sierra of Total Drama World Tour is one of these.
  • Batman himself is revealed to be one in Batman the Animated Series episode "Beware The Gray Ghost". As a kid, Bruce used to watch episodes of the superhero TV series called The Gray Ghost with his father, and this was an influence on his decision to become a superhero. Batman reveals this to the actor who played Gray Ghost (voiced by Adam West), who expresses relief that the show did some good in the world.

Simon Trent: (amazed) So... it wasn't all for nothing.

  • The Joker himself is guilty of this in Batman the Brave And The Bold. To be fair, it was the father of modern, gimmicked supervillainy, so he had a good reason to Squee.
  • Princess Morbucks from The Powerpuff Girls was a huge fan of the Powerpuffs who was jealous that they wouldn't let her join their group. She responded by using her money to get her own suit built with the same powers, and became a super-villain dedicated to defeating the Powerpuff Girls. She's been a pretty formidable opponent in some episodes.
  • This is the entire concept of the 80s cartoon series Captain N the Game Master. Kevin Keene was a huge Nintendo gamer when he gets sucked into his TV while playing Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!. He finds out that he is the hero for Video Land and he works alongside some of his favorite game legends, like Kid Icarus, Simon Belmont, Link, Bayou Billy, and Mega Man.
  • In Extreme Ghostbusters, Garrett was a die-hard fan of the originals, which was why he signed up for Egon's class. Roland also qualifies. Being a techie, he was quite fascinated by Ecto-1 and their hardware in general. And then they suddenly become the Ghostbusters themselves....
  • An episode of South Park featured Kenny playing a video game, only to find out the game was created by angels so they could find out who would be the best person in the world at leading their army against Satan.


Real Life

  • Older Than Print: Back in 12th century Europe, a lot of knights Jumped At the Call of the Second Crusade. Why? They were raised on stories of the First Crusade.
  • Let's just say anyone who frequents this very wiki who gets their own page, or even a mention on another page (some examples being the D2 Brigade, Brain Scratch Coms, Trask Nari, and Film Brain to name a few).
  • Many of the first astronauts and rocket scientists said they were inspired by science fiction novels and comics they read as children. Wernher von Braun and the VfR may be a particularly straight, if dark, example.
  • Mae Jemison, the first female black astronaut in space, credits Uhura from Star Trek: The Original Series as her inspiration to become an astronaut.
    • Likewise, when another Star Trek fan died, her ashes were beamed up with those of James Doohan, who played Scotty.
  • Jerry Parr, the Secret Service agent who saved Ronald Reagan, became an agent because he was a fan of Code of the Secret Service, a film about a Secret Service agent played by... Ronald Reagan.


  1. ↑ the nickname given to The Beatles minus John Lennon, who went back into the studio together for The Beatles Anthology to record a few new singles
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