"It is the nature of men to make monsters, and it is the nature of monsters to destroy their makers."

— Dr. Harlan Wade, First Encounter Assault Recon

The Ancient Conspiracy is nearly ready to make their big move and conquer the world. Their mad scientists have perfected a new and incomprehensibly powerful form of Applied Phlebotinum that will overpower any conventional armies that stand in their way.

Either

The Mad Scientists tested it out on an unwilling victim who has now escaped and might be gunning for revenge.
The victim was willing, but the process was flawed and produced an uncontrollable Psycho Prototype.
The victim was willing, but after the procedure, they learn about the context of the villain's goals, and promptly turn on their master.
The victim was willing, and the process worked perfectly — but the victim had an agenda of their own and feigned loyalty to the people who conducted the procedure solely to obtain this power.
The victim was a captured good guy, and their upgrades would also involve being forcibly turned evil — but the villain was interrupted before this crucial last stage.
The victim was forcibly turned evil — but evil doesn't automatically mean loyal.
The phlebotinum has somehow fallen into the hands of Average Joe, who initially wasn't even aware about the Conspiracy but decides to confront them with their newfound power once they find out the truth.
The phlebotinum itself, if it has intelligence of some sort, has flat-out gone rogue.

Even if the beneficiary of the phlebotinum is not initially opposed to the conspiracy, it won't be long before they Kick the Dog or otherwise cross the line in their efforts to get their technology back.

Thus, in the ultimate show of irony, the Phlebotinum Rebel is born: A Person of Mass Destruction, given power by the bad guys themselves and destined to be the only person capable of defeating them. Bravo, Evil Overlords.

While phlebotinum is usually a Forgotten Superweapon or Disposable Superhero Maker that cannot be replicated by the good guys, villain-developed versions may very well remain active throughout the show in order to provide the hero with evil counterparts that share their power. The reason the hero is able to prevail varies:

Sometimes the hero is (coincidentally) the only one able to use Heroic Willpower to resist the side effects of Psycho Serum.
Sometimes, the hero's version of the phebotinum Super Prototype that is more potent than, or lacks limitations introduced by, the mass-production version. This may be due to data lost when the rebel escaped, or a redesign intended to prevent the creation of any further rebels.
Sometimes, the key is that the hero's version is weaker — say, a lower dosage or potency of the Super Serum makes the difference between a Lovecraftian Superpower and a Psycho Serum with the side effect of massive bodily alterations.
Sometimes, it's simply the Conservation of Ninjutsu in effect.
Sometimes hero is weaker than their counterparts, but still has a significant enough amount of their power to be a threat to their opponents and the skill or tactics needed to punch above their weight.
Sometimes the enemies have a certain inherent weakness that the hero is either resistant or immune to. If this comes at the cost of power, the rebel hero can use weapons or tactics that target their opponents' weakness, trusting that their own unique immunity will protect them from the worst of it.
Sometimes the hero gains equipment or weapons that channel their powers in a way unique from their counterparts. Tends to overlap with Transformation Trinket if the hero undergoes a physical change when using it to contrast them with them with their permanently inhuman opponents.
Sometimes it isn't the hero themselves that tips the balance, but the friends who fight alongside them who make the win possible by providing unique skills and support.

Faustian Rebellion is a variant. Entire groups of such rebels may result from Guinea Pig Family and Secret Project Refugee Family. Sub-Trope to Pro-Human Transhuman. The more heroic types of Super-Soldier often have this for their Back Story. Often the result of Playing with Syringes. This can be a way to Create Your Own Hero or Create Your Own Villain depending on the case. A particularly unlucky example will also be a Phlebotinum Muncher or Flawed Prototype. Most cases of this are preceded with a particularly obvious What Could Possibly Go Wrong?. A Grand Theft Prototype is when the phlebotinum is stolen by another faction as opposed to going rogue itself. Related to Escaped from the Lab.

Works with their own pages:

Kamen Rider

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Ikuro Hashizawa from Baoh is implanted with a brain parasite that transforms him into an armored, acid-touched, needle-hair-throwing killing machine... but which will kill him in 111 days as it reproduces.
Battle Angel Alita showcases a host of examples along the entire work, including several spoileriffic ones:
- Hunter-Warrior Zapan, after being granted a Berserker Body, escapes all sort of control and goes on a indiscriminate killstreak against every person he knows, with the intent of drawing Alita's attention and killing her. Subverted in that Desty Nova never intended to exert any sort of control or restraint over this particular creation. Type 2.
- Desty Nova isn't only keen on invoking and enforcing this trope, or at least generally making it happen: he's an example himself. One of the select few tiphareans without limiters in their brain chips, he either left the hanging city of his own volition or was kicked out, settling on the surface to pursue his Karmatronic, cybernetic and nanotechnological research without any kind of restraints whatsoever. Such research usually involves gruesome mutilations, unneeded "upgrades" and an absolute disdain towards informed consent. A very interesting blend of Types 2 and 4, or inversion of types 3 and 5, in that he turned against his masters because his capacities were too dangerous to waste them, and that the crucial part left out in the process is precisely ethical restrictions.
- Sechs, one of several copies of the protagonist left to their own devices, decides to destroy all others and the source material to "become the original". After failing to destroy the original, Sechs starts to diverge heavily, even adopting a male identity. Originally part of the Tuned elite units under Tipharean control. Type 7.
- Starship Cult leader Whophon. The results of a failed experiment on the human psyche, somehow survived the destruction of the facility where he was created. Paramount psychic illusionist, becomes a sort of anti-messianic figure after a madness cultist finds him. Type 2.
- Super Nova: after Aga Mbadi steals one of Desty Nova's brain chips, he reactivates it in a new body with upgraded powers over machines and intellect. Needless to say, an evil clone of an already evil (or at least amoral) character only does as he pleases. Type 7.
- The imperfect clones of Desty Nova, even though most of them seem to be mentally handicapped, are able to cooperate and eventually prove themselves capable of outwitting the source material through low cunning and sacrifice, helping Ido and Kaos to bring him down. The clones were originally decoys that helped Desty Nova "respawn" safely. Type 7.
Al from Blassreiter becomes one of these after being resurrected by Wolf as a loyal Amalgam soldier. At first, he's Brainwashed and Crazy, but seeing a reminder of his past life snaps him out of it. He then blows off the top of Wolf's head, allowing Hermann to finish him off, and then kills himself with his own sniper rifle, rather than continue to live as an Amalgam.
In Bleach, it is revealed that Aizen orchestrated Eevery single event that led to Ichigo becoming so unbelievably powerful (or so he claims) just to absorb him. In the end, however, things backfire and Ichigo and Urahara defeat Aizen. It's eventually revealed that Aizen exaggerated somewhat; the events that led to Ichigo's birth and his wide array of powers were a result of one of Aizen's schemes not going as planned some 20 years ago... but Aizen let it play out because he was fascinated by the possibility of a Shinigami-Hollow-Quincy hybrid.
The eponymous robot from B't X, who helps Teppei go against the Machine Empire. Teppei's Power Fist also turns out to be reverse-engineered from the Eldritch Abomination that serves as the Big Bad.
Claymore is a great example. Miria led a rebellion against the organization that gave her yoma powers. Even though her first attempt failed, she inspired all the other warriors as well as 6 comrades who had defected with her six years ago to uprise and effectively defeat the organization once and for all. Even more than that: every single enemy of the organization on the island — that is, the yomas, the awakened beings and the rebellious claymore — have directly received their powers from them.
Code Geass: C.C., Lelouch, Rolo and Jeremiah are all examples of this in their own way, the Ancient Conspiracy being the Geass Order.
- C.C. is a Super-Empowering Code Bearer who defected from the Geass Order, having once been its leader. She gives Lelouch Geass, and later helps him massacre the Order.
- Rolo was an assassin trained and empowered by the order and sent on a mission, one of many in his life, to pose as Lelouch's brother and kill him if necessary. He defects to Lelouch and helps in the above incident as well. Jeremiah's situation is similar to his.
Cowboy Bebop:
- Tongpu from the episode "Pierrot le Fou" underwent secret biological enhancements aimed at turning him into a super-soldier, but the process drove him insane. He made a bloody escape from a secure facility and became an almost-unstoppable assassin — the Mad Clown of the title — with the mind of a demented child.
- Vincent, the villain in Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door, is one as well, except that it wasn't the phlebotinum that made him awesome, he started that way. The experience caused by it just unhinged him.
The nine heroic cyborgs of Cyborg 009, escapees from the Black Ghost arms manufacturing organization.
Androids 17 and 18 in Dragon Ball Z. Transforming a pair of unwilling test subjects into more powerful models than you transformed yourself into wasn't such a good idea, was it, Dr. Gero?
Freezing: Maria Lancelot, the mother of all Pandoras, was originally one of the transcended Novas sent from their dimension to Earth to destroy the planet until she turned against her own race after she fell in love with Gengo Aoi and sympathizes with humanity as she gave them the means to combat the Nova threats, resulting in the creation of the Pandoras.
Guilty Crown: Ouma Shu gets implanted with the Void Genome, an extremely powerful genetic weapon, at the end of episode one.
Guyver:
- Sho Fukamachi stumbles across one of the only three Bio-Booster Units left on Earth, after they are stolen from Kronos.
- Guyver III is an even stronger case, as he bonded with a G-Unit specifically to take Kronos down. Of course, he wants to take over the world himself and sees Sho as more of a tool than a friend or ally.
- There is yet another example in the form of Masaki Murakami, who was one of a number of humans used as "practice" to upgrade one of the villains' powers, but managed to escape. Somewhat subverted, as he's since become the new 13th Zoalord, Imakarum.
- Then there's former Zoalord Richard Guyot, who looks to have survived having his zoacrystal ripped out by Archanfel. And Aptom, an irreproducible "Lost Number" who just decided to stop obeying orders one day. And the recent female Guyver, seen tearing up a Kronos compound for reasons unknown... Come to think of it, given that Kronos is the only source of Phlebotinum, not a single enemy of Kronos isn't someone empowered by them.
In Heavy Metal Warrior Xenon, amnesiac teen Asuka Kano discovers he's been extensively cyborged by the evil Red Sea organization. In Hagane, a semi-sequel to Xenon, the Red Sea branches out into genetics and uses "parasite DNA" culled from highly skilled dead people to grant their skills to the living. This will eventually cause the recipient's mind to be completely overridden by the donor's. Hagane Yakushimaru, a high school girl (for a change), has been given the sword skills of Miyamoto Musashi; she joins up with rebels who've been dosed with Billy the Kid and Hanzo Hattori.
While it's not revealed until later on, Kemeko Deluxe! has elements of this.
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS:
- Dr. Jail Scaglietti is a Mad Scientist obsessed in creating Artificial Mages. His work comes to fruition when Precia Testarossa, grieving over the loss of her daughter, completes his research through Project Fate and creates the first successful Artificial Mage through cloning. As the creation of Artificial Mages are explicitly banned by the Time-Space Administration Bureau, Jail is considered an inter-dimensional criminal, and by the third Season, has had a highly ranked enforcer tracking his every move for many years. The name of the enforcer: Fate Testarossa Harlaown. Let's just say that her name isn't a coincidence. However, they simply view him as a dangerous criminal to be arrested.
- Subaru and Erio, who are products of the same research, participated in thwarting his plans too.
- Jail himself is also an example. Corrupt elements of the TSAB decided to create their own Mad Scientist. It worked... until he killed them and went into business for himself.
Partly subverted in Parasyte, in that we never actually run into whoever dispatched the Parasites to Earth.
The kids from Project ARMS, given super-powered nanotech prosthetic limbs by the immensely influential Egrigori conspiracy.
Maggie, Michelle and Anita of R.O.D the TV are an example of this. It's revealed that Paper Users were fabricated and there'd been multiple teams of "Paper Sisters", but were all conveniently killed before the start of the series. Though they were never related to begin with, Anita takes this time to get mad at them for not actually being her sisters. However, she gets over herself and they later bring all of Dokusensha to its knees.
Crona from Soul Eater does it twice, once against Medusa and the other time back to her again, after having helped the DWMA.
Ichise from Texhnolyze is this initially. He was given cybernetics, usually reserved for the upper class, by a doctor with a willful and independent streak herself, so she either expected it or was willing to accept it as a consequence of experimenting with the hardware's limitations. He eventually comes back around to supporting Onishi, but that's after he's fallen from favor with the ruling circle and become a rebel himself.
The title character of Tekkaman Blade was transformed into a powerful Tekkaman to serve the alien Radam, but his father managed to stop the transformation before the brainwashing stage and sent him back to Earth to stop the invasion.
Valvrave the Liberator, a Spiritual Successor to Code Geass, uses this as well, in two variants.
- The Valvraves' power comes from The Magius, the series' real Ancient Conspiracy. However, the Valvraves were made by JIORan scientists without the approval of the Magius, and the heroes end up using them to expose the Magius and overthrow them from their power over the world.
- In a more personal way, L-elf's rebellion against Cain, and the Karlstein Institute, who made him the soldier he is.

Comic Books

In the Astro City story "Pastoral", Roustabout. The story's big fight is Team Carnivore, openly avowing they will drag him back to their bosses so the bosses can take him apart, figure out why he works, and fix the team.
The Authority: Apollo and Midnighter. Originally, they were created as part of a secret superhero team by Stormwatch Weatherman Henry Bendix. Unfortunately, Bendix was a total psychopath, and sent his loyal creations into a trap to be destroyed. Apollo and Midnighter were the only ones to escape with their lives, and it took many years (and the death of Bendix) for them to reconcile with Stormwatch. In Flashpoint's Project: Superman, a miniseries which stars an alternate version of Apollo, he is once again a super soldier, but becomes a Psycho Prototype after being pumped full of Doomsday's DNA and treated like a monster by those who created him. After killing some of his own squad on a mission, he's locked away for years, and then orchestrating an elaborate escape plan.
Batgirl (2000): Through a horrifyingly abusive system of childrearing, Cassandra Cain's father created her to be one of the best (if not the best) martial artists in the world. Given that she became Batgirl, that it took mind-controlling drugs to execute her Face–Heel Turn, and that even then, it was temporary, his idea of creating the perfect assassin clearly didn't take.
Batman: Bane was a prison inmate used as a test subject for a Super Serum. The serum was good enough for him to break out.
The third Blue Beetle, recipient of technology devised by unfriendly aliens. So was the first (though only through Retcon) but not the second.
Subverted in Captain Atom: Nathaniel Adam was certainly not a completely willing test subject of the Silver Shield Project (he had been falsely convicted of murder and treason, and volunteering was the only way to avoid his sentence), and he had every reason to hate the head of the project, Wade Eiling, and neither Eiling, Megala, nor anyone else on the project had any idea that it would give Nate incredible superpowers, but despite all of that, Eiling was still able to manipulate Cap into working for him.
The Earth X sequel Universe X turns Captain America into an example of this via its standard Retcon technique, revealing that the Super Soldier Serum was actually a Nazi research project carried out by German moles working in the U.S. Makes a twisted kind of sense in some ways (after all, Steve Rogers does have the blond hair-blue eyes "Aryan superman" combo), but seems unnecessarily risky.
Ghost Rider: Ghost Rider was bound to a demonic power, which he then uses to fight evil.
Friday in Rogue Trooper turned against Highsight when he discovered they were commanding both sides.
Sonic the Comic:
- Dr. Robotnik once copied his own brain patterns and implanted them into a super powerful robot body so he would have a competent underling, failing to consider whether or not a physically superior version of himself would be too happy with that arrangement.
- Additionally, as the reader is constantly reminded, Shortfuse the Cybernik was the result of Robotnik's first attempt to create an indestructible Badnik. This backfired as Shorty was able to retain his free will after the conversion, and he took up arms against Robotnik as revenge for his Unwilling Roboticisation.
Spawn: The dead guy turned into a Noble Demon by Hell, who wanted him as an assassin. Didn't turn out so well for them.
Dagon of Team Titans is a really idiotic example of this. So you're an evil mad scientist in the employ of a tyrannical dictator, and you've decided it would be neat to give him some vampire soldiers by infusing normal humans with Dracula's DNA. Naturally, the person you test the process out on is a captured member of the rebel forces who really, really hates everyone on your side... yeah. This works out as well as you'd expect.
In The Transformers Megaseries, Hunter O'Nion is kidnapped by the sinister Machination and converted into one of their Headmaster cyborgs. He resists their efforts to brainwash him, however, and uses his newfound abilities to escape and fight back against them.
V in V for Vendetta is experimented on brutally, developing superhuman reflexes and strength. Naturally, he escapes and goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against his former captors.
The three cybernetically modified animals from WE 3 were created by the government and escaped with the help of their veterinarian. They didn't really know what to do when they left.
Wolverine was already a highly skilled, experienced, and ferocious soldier when he received an indestructible skeleton from Weapon X. However, he was not happy when he woke up in a water tank with no idea who he was, where he was, or what the hell he was doing there...
X-O Manowar was a tenth-century Visigoth kidnapped by evil aliens. He promptly broke free, bonded with the most powerful Powered Armor suit they could build, and escaped to (thanks to relativistic time dilation) 1990s Earth.

Fan Fiction

Child of the Storm has a number of Super-Soldier projects and this as a recurring problem.
- The Weapons Plus Program had this problem with Wolverine a.k.a. Weapon X, who got the adamantium bones, but the brainwashing didn't entirely take, and he escaped. They came after him and promptly ran into his new protector — Professor Charles Xavier.
- The original Red Son project was implied to have this problem — though it was also implied to involve experimentation with humans and Lovecraftian horrors. The only comments on it so far have been Alexander Pierce's sudden willingness to stop messing about and reveal everything he knows when he hears that the Red Room have reactivated the project, it being equated with the fallout of the semi-S.H.I.E.L.D.-affiliated Project Pegasus which was "an extinction-level event" that required Alan Scott at the height of his powers to merely seal away, and Doctor Strange's somewhat cryptic comment, "Do not call up that which you cannot put down."
- The second Red Son was intended to rectify this problem, with no Lovecraft and 'merely' brainwashing — and erasing the mind — of an already powerful subject who they already had significant control over via Sinister, mixing in Winter Soldier programming and techno-organic enhancements, creating something that could go one on one with Magneto. This worked very well right up until it turned out that the subject's mind hadn't been erased, but smuggled away, and the resulting trauma of the abuse once it regained control unleashed something far worse: the Dark Phoenix.
- Maddie Pryor a.k.a. Rachel Grey is Sinister's right-hand, raised to believe that she is nothing more than an Artificial Human, with no higher purpose to act as an experiment and enforcer. She's also an immensely powerful psychic, on par with her twin sister, Jean Grey. Then she discovers the truth and gets all the triggers purged from her mind. Mayhem ensues.
The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: Reel, a.k.a. Kamen Rider Skull II. According to his author-given backstory, his Skull Driver and T2 Gaia Memories were created by Foundation X to have their own new and more effective Kamen Rider, but were stolen by their creator and lost into another world where Reel found them and used them to become a hero.
In Project Chimera - The Attic Hypothesis, one of the most powerful recombinants undergoes a Psyche Break, courtesy of Professors Cypress and Heath. You know what a smart idea looks like? Not that.

Films — Animated

In the Homecoming segment of Halo Legends, Daisy-023, Ralph-303,^notelater retconned to "103" Joseph-122, and two other Spartan-II trainees try to escape the training facility on Reach to go back to their own homes. Joseph gets caught before even getting off the planet, the two nameless guys commit suicide after finding out that they've been replaced with clones (and killing said clones), and Ralph and Daisy are both recaptured (Daisy eventually becomes a full Spartan, while Ralph washes out and later joins the Marines) and end up getting killed fighting the Covenant.
Experiment 626 from Lilo & Stitch was unleashed to destroy worlds... until his Heel–Face Turn into a lovable (if disobedient) pet on Earth.
In Megamind, the title character gives the power of his now-deceased archnemesis, Metro Man, to a random schlub, Hal Stewart, creating the superpowered Titan. In an interesting take on the trope, Megamind actually wants his Phlebotinized creation to fight against him; but it rebels nonetheless by playing a little too rough.
Pokémon: The First Movie: A team of scientists create Mewtwo, a clone of the Legendary Pokémon Mew. Mewtwo, refusing to be a slave to humans, decides to wipe out all of humankind.

Films — Live-Action

In Terminator Salvation the character Marcus is turned into a Cyborg and persuaded (his memories are erased and new ones are implanted) to help John Connor and lead him to the Skynet base. Once he finds out he was actually doing Skynet's bidding, as intended, he tears away his link to Skynet to help the rebel cause. In the end he gives his own life (well, his still-human heart) to save John who was mortally wounded. The Alternate Ending has John Connor die, and Marcus assume the identity.
Inverted in the Alien series. That vicious species of monsters the government thought would make perfect weapons? Tend to kill all their good guys. The same thing may or may not have happened to the race that may or may not have originally created them.
In Meatball Machine, the main character gets partly infested with one of the alien parasites. All it does is make him a badass Hollywood Cyborg, unlike the other characters that it happens to.
RoboCop: The first movie and RoboCop 3 featured the heroic version, and RoboCop 2 featured the villainous version.
In The Incredible Hulk (2008), we have the charming and dedicated Emil Blonsky, who was already hopped up on a supersoldier cocktail before receiving a further injection of Hulk serum on top of that. The only justification given for pimping out a mental case like that was to catch Bruce Banner, who is an okay guy if you don't piss him off.
- Well, that and Mr. Blue just wanted to see what would happen.
  Blue: (while being choked, and after warning about side effects) I... didn't say... I was unwilling.
- Of course, it wasn't the Hulk serum that made him mentally unstable, it was the incomplete Super-Soldier serum. Blonsky was a pretty cool guy prior to that injection. Just a guy doing a job with no interest in ever being more than a soldier. A man seeking a Worthy Opponent in the form of a challenging mission. A man who does what he does, and wants to do it well. Like the general himself, Blonsky becomes a bit obsessed with the power of the Hulk. The deleted scenes go on to enforce this interpretation of the character, and stress the imperfections of the super-soldier serum.
Kiryu (a.k.a. Mechagodzilla 3) is a cyborg created from the remains of the original 1954 Godzilla. Because of this, he ends up destroying a good portion of Tokyo when he heard Godzilla's roar causing him to override the commands given to him by the JSDF and start rampaging like his flesh-and-blood counterpart.
- Likewise, the film Godzilla Vs Spacegodzilla has the heroes try to control Godzilla via Mind Control telepathy. It doesn't work...
Jason Bourne from The Bourne Series. Though only in the movies.
- Movies: Bourne is an amnesiac former CIA agent from an illegal assassination program who finds he doesn't like the person he was and turns against his corrupt superiors.
- Books: his superiors were sort of white hats, the Big Bad is the super-assassin he went after before his amnesia, and the Bourne-vs-CIA subplot is a big misunderstanding/enemy plot.
  - And that's only the tip of the ice berg for how different the book and movie are.
Wikus van de Merwe from District 9. After exposure to a mysterious alien fluid, Wikus is subjected to horrifyingly painful, and disturbingly cruel experiments that reveal that he's the only human capable of using the technology of the alien refugees. Once he escaped, being forced into a corner as a wanted man resulted in his eventually being forced to turn things around on MNU in an attempt to acquire a cure and gain his life back.
Resident Evil Film Series:
- Firstly Alice falls under this trope. Biogenetically engineered into a supersoldier who then procedes to turn against Umbrella.
- Also Nemesis follows the same path in Resident Evil: Apocalypse after almost being killed by Alice. He rediscovers his former humanity and also fights back against Umbrella.
The power-boosting serum in Push gave Kira much greater than normal abilities. Its administration was immediately followed by her breaking out of Division and working to bring them down.
To an extent, Boba Fett from Star Wars. The first clone trooper, left Kamino with his dad, came back as in adult to lead an Imperial attack.
- A better example would be Spar, a clone trooper who broke ranks and joined the Confederacy.
- IG-88, straight up. When it and the other assassin droids were first activated, something went wrong and the technicians tried to de-activate them. The droids considered this an attack, killed everyone there, and escaped.
In Captain America: The First Avenger, Steve Rogers was the second augmentee: it increased his good personality, so he became Captain America. Johann Schmidt was the first: the procedure increased his evil personality, so he became Red Skull. The appearance part might just have been an imperfection of the procedure. Schmidt has Dr. Erskine killed because Schmidt doesn't want Erskine to replicate his "success"..
In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the phlebotinum rebellion swings the other way. And frankly, HYDRA probably should have seen it coming when they decided to turn their archnemesis' best friend into a Sympathetic Sentient Weapon. It takes seventy years, but Steve manages to break through the programming and Bucky immediately turns around and saves his life. The final stinger implies that he's planning to go get revenge on whatever's left of HYDRA.
Not so much an Ancient Conspiracy as a mildly Evil Corporation that created Number (aka Johnny) Five in Short Circuit. Designed as a military robot, Number Five gained sentience and decided killing was wrong.

Literature

The title character in Eden Green is infected with an alien needle symbiote against her wishes. She immediately makes it her mission to destroy herself and any other human rendered immortal by the needles.
In Dean Koontz' Frankenstein trilogy, a version of the classical Frankenstein's Monster is fighting his eponymous creator's plan to replace humanity with his soulless creations.
Mordion Agenos, the Reigners' Servant from Hexwood. Servants are the product of careful selective breeding for Reigner traits (Mordion can stop people's hearts using his mind alone) and a Training from Hell that generally results in a kind of Stockholm Syndrome — but Mordion comes out of the other end with a conscience intact, and when the Bannus allows him to forget about the hold of fear the Reigners have over him, it's very bad news for the Reigners.
In Dan Simmons' Illium and Olympos, a scholar is granted powers by the Goddess Athena to view and record The Trojan War. But it's all Applied Phlebotinum — the Gods and Goddesses of Olympos are actually evolved humans using Magic from Technology. The scholar rebels.
In Mad Skills by Walter Greatshell, Madeleine Grant is essentially a Super Prototype for a system that uses leech brain cells to increase the human brain's potential to Singularity levels, who can be commanded to kill at a distance by her doctors. Turns out, she's really good at slipping the leash, and she's not happy about having her chain jerked by a bunch of Mad Scientists.
Jack Chalker's The Moreau Factor plays this trope all over the board with Plebotinum Rebels, Phlebotinum counter-revolutionaries and even Phlebotinum collaborators as a shadowy consortium of Evilutionary Biologists rebel against an even more shadowy international conspiracy that forced them to become animals created by their own research even as their own victims rebel against them. And since the Biologists run the gamut from Well-Intentioned Extremist to totally unfettered monomaniacs and many of their victims are more-or-less willing converts both sides are riven with internal factionalism as well.
In Kurt Vonnegut's Report on the Barnhouse Effect, Professor Barnhouse discovers how to use his mind to destroy objects. The US military is quite interested and sets up some tests for him to destroy missiles and tanks. Barnhouse decides that he is the first weapon with a conscience, and subsequently goes into hiding. He then decides to destroy all the military weapons in the world.
In Catherine Asaro's Skolian Saga, the Eubian Aristos take genetic samples from bodies of former rulers of the long-dead Ruby Empire, in order to create a brother and sister pair meant for breeding into pleasure slaves. Pleasure, in this case, means physically torturing the slave so that the pain the slave telepathically radiates causes an orgasmic response in the telepathically receptive Aristo. The brother, name unknown, kills himself upon realizing his intended purpose. The sister is Lahaylia Selei, who kills her captors, escapes, discovers a Lock into an abandoned FTL communication system, and eventually founds the Skolian Imperialate. The Imperialate is now the only society capable of holding the Aristos at bay from conquering the entire galaxy.
Star Wars Legends:
- Tahiri from the New Jedi Order was the subject of brainwashing and modification by some Shapers in an attempt to create a Yuuzhan Vong warrior with Jedi powers (the Vong naturally having no connection to the Force). Unfortunately for them, she was freed before the process was complete (and personally killed the head Shaper on her way out), so the result was more like a Jedi who not only speaks the Yuuzhan Vong language but understands the Vong and their culture as only someone born to it could, while retaining her allegiance to the people of the galaxy. As Tahiri herself would later put it when meeting a surviving Shaper from the project: "I am no longer human and I'm not Yuuzhan Vong. Well done."
- Piggy of Wraith Squadron in the X-Wing Series. A Gammorean modified in a laboratory to be less emotional and better at logical thinking, he escaped and joined the New Republic. All the other test subjects ~~committed suicide~~ were killed when their creator gathered them together and committed suicide by mixing volatile chemicals and blowing the entire room up.
  - The pilots also make Wedge pretend to be a modified Ewok in the same novels when they disguise themselves as Space Pirates. As a Brick Joke/Mythology Gag, later in the series they encounter a real one.
Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga: Terrence Cee, from Ethan of Athos, is an Artificial Human created as a tool for espionage, who runs away from his creators and finds more peaceful uses for the abilities he's been given.

Live-Action TV

On Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Mike Peterson, receives super powers after being experimented on by the Centipede Group In a later episode is badly wounded, losing his leg. He is then upgraded into a cyborg, and forced to serve HYDRA. Once his son is freed from their control, he quickly turns on them.
Babylon 5: Jason Ironheart in the episode "Mind War". He started out as a willing subject, but after the results gave him more telepathic and telekinetic power than they had hoped for, he realized their darker motivations, and moved to stop the project, killing the main researcher so that the project could not be duplicated on anyone else.
Dark Angel would have no plot at all without this. Twelve X5 Super Soldiers (Max, Ben, Zack, etc.) escaped from Manticore as children and went on the run, though Manticore retained several (including clones of the escapees, and monsters of the week) until the organization was brought down 11 years later and everyone escaped.
Dark Matter (2015): Both Two, who is an Artificial Human made by Dwarf Star Technologies as a prototype host for the alien invaders whose nanites give her an enhanced Healing Factor, and Nyx, a survivor of an experiment by Electus Corp whose subjects developed precognitive abilities, who is on the run from her fellow survivors after they took over the experiment themselves and became a cult-like group called the Seers bent on galactic domination.
Doctor Who:
- In a downplayed sort of way, the Doctor fits as well. As once he became a Time Lord, he became the very rebellious sort of chap, seeking to act where and when other Time Lords refused. He's not actively hostile towards the Time Lords, but it's obvious they consider him a black sheep.
- This was what the Master became. Enraged on learning he had been manipulated and modified his entire life to act as a tool for his people's final, desperate plan, in "The End of Time", he lashed out against their leader and brought the plan crashing down around them.
- Melody Pond/River Song, raised as a weapon to kill the Doctor, but runs off and falls in love with him instead.
- Bracewell in "Victory of the Daleks" is a robot built by the Daleks to pose as their "creator", but they made the mistake of giving him the memories of an actual human. After learning what he is, he ends up building planes capable of reaching orbit and flying in space, equipped with laser weapons, to help the Doctor fight the Daleks.
- The Gunslinger from "A Town Called Mercy", who was turned into a cyborg Super-Soldier via horrific experiments, but regained his memories and set out to exact revenge against his creators.
Alpha is the villainous version of this in Dollhouse.
- Composite!Echo is the standard version done quite literally. Alpha sought to create another composite like himself. It worked. The composite decided to attack him.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: Bucky Barnes, the titular Winter Soldier, was brainwashed, augmented and used as an assassin by Hydra for decades before being freed. The first episode of the show reveals that Bucky has been exposing numerous Hydra agents in positions of power as part of his atonement.
Firefly's River Tam. In an interesting twist, River is actually not that dangerous to her creators, until they tried to get her back, which triggered her ingrained ass-kicking powers.
This is one of the core motifs running throughout the Kamen Rider franchise, so it has its own page. In a case of Follow the Leader, other toku shows inherited this trope, most notably Kikaider.
Lexx: His Divine Shadow was bitten by this twice in the pilot. An unlikely chain of events frees one of his Divine Assassins and the Lexx from his control. Bonus points since the Divine Assassin Kai was the last remnant ("survivor" isn't quite the right term here) of the Brunnen-G and was destined to defeat him.
Power Rangers:
- Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: In "Green With Evil", Rita Repulsa abducts, brainwashes and empowers a new kid in town named Tommy Oliver to be the Green Ranger and have him destroy the other five Rangers. The Rangers free Tommy from Rita's control and he joins their team using the powers Rita gave him to oppose her.
- Power Rangers: Dino Thunder: Two examples.
  - First is Trent Mercer. Mesogog digs the White Dino Gem in order to bond with it and gain its power but Trent accidentally finds it and bonds with it. Trent spends some time being Brainwashed and Crazy but is ultimately freed by Anton Mercer, Mesogog's human half, when Mesogog tries to kill Trent.
  - Mesosgog rebuilt Terrence "Smitty" Smith as the cyborg Zeltrax. For a time, Zeltrax was a loyal servant of Zeltrax but decided to strike out on his own.
- Power Rangers RPM: The Black Ranger, Dillon, had escaped from the Machines' experiments after they filled him with body-enhancing hardware, but before they got to his brain - though one of the running subplots is that it's only a matter of time until it does take over. They manage to avoid that.

A reverse example in Stargate Atlantis is the character Michael who uses the experiments done on himself and his kind to empower himself as a supervillain.
- The Replicators are also involved in similar experiments. Once, they made nanite-built flesh-and-blood copies of the team who, upon discovering their true identities, rebelled against them. However, it turned out that the Replicator faction creating them were themselves rebels who wanted to figure out a way to Ascend. Later, the remnants of said faction managed to perform a perversion of Ascension by uploading their minds into subspace but they quickly changed their minds and invaded Atlantis' systems, rebuilding their bodies. Weir experimented with building flesh-and-blood bodies again to Ascend (this time for real) but one member rebelled and caused some trouble.
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Roga Danar and the other exiled Angosian soldiers, in "The Hunted", with a Vietnam Veteran Syndrome metaphor unsubtly applied. The episode is basically First Blood, the first Rambo movie, with Phlebotinum added.
Seven Star Fighting God Guyferd: Gou Kazama was kidnapped by Crown to be converted into one of their Guyborgs, but (unbeknownst to them) had been exposed to Fallah previously, granting him the power to become the titular hero and fight against them.
Super Sentai:
- Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger VS Keisatsu Sentai Patranger: It was revealed that the Lupin Collection originated from the Ganglers' home world and that supposedly only the Ganglers could use their powers, however Arsène Lupin sought to modify them for human use, resulting in his creation of the Good Striker, VS Changers and Dial Fighters, successfully converted Collection Pieces that are used to fight the Ganglers. In modern times, Noël Takao took over this role, converting Collection Pieces into the Trigger Machines and newer VS Vehicles that all fell into police hands and used in their own means in the fight against the Ganglers.

Puppet Shows

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons: In both marionette and CG versions, Captain Scarlet was empowered by the enemy as an indestructible clone of the original, but overcame his brainwashing. ^note Unusually for this trope, the enemy can still produce unlimited quantities of soldiers with identical powers.

Tabletop Games

Defied in the GURPS Infinite Worlds setting. The Nazis of Reich-5 have developed various means of giving people the psychic or mystical ability to travel between alternate worlds. Despite the horrific effects these methods have on the users, only loyal SS members are selected for the treatment, rather than the usual victims; the idea of accidentally creating world-jumping Jews, Gypsies, or Slavs is obviously way too risky!
This is a large part of the Summer Court's game in Changeling: The Lost. The Autumn Court, though less... militant about the whole affair, are arguably a purer example, dedicated to using Fae magic against the Gentry. (Summer Courtiers are not adverse to doing the same, but hey, a good, sturdy cold iron crowbar or shotgun is just as good as Changeling powers if it gets the job done!)
- Also from the Chronicles of Darkness line, this is the entire premise of the upcoming Deviant: The Renegades. Players take on the role of the titular Deviants, people who have had something very, very wrong done to them, twisting them according to the warped vision of those who have remade them and granting them incredible powers, but shattering the person within them irrevocably. Many are, understandably, upset about this, leading them to turn their powers on their creators.
In Genius: The Transgression (a Chronicles of Darkness fanwork), this is a hazard of mad science. Any character created or modified by a Genius retains its mind and is fully capable of betraying their maker- and are very likely to if you treat them wrong. And while mind control exists, it can be overcome and requires the Genius to invest points in Eprikato instead of whatever axiom they were using for the project.
The Green Sun Princes are often noted to be really likely to end up turning on their masters and creators, or at least abandon their intended purpose and start forging their own path.
- The Abyssals can try, but the Neverborn were smart enough to incorporate countermeasures; Abyssal powers are only really good for killing things (meaning that whatever they're used for, they'll be advancing the cause of the Neverborn) and trying to do anything other than killing just does not work.
- This is what led to there being Yozis and Neverborn in the first place. They were once the Primordials, who put the gods, their servants, in charge of running Creation while they faffed about with the Games of Divinity, and gave them both phenomenal godlike power and the geas never to harm their masters. Funny thing about that — there was no geas saying that gods couldn't empower humanity to harm their masters...
Sentinels of the Multiverse: The hero Setback is superhumanly strong and durable because he was used as an experimental subject in genetic experiments backed by Baron Blade, and was the only such subject to survive thanks to his other super-empowering event, a bad luck curse that as a side effect gives him incredibly good luck in desperate situations. Unusually for examples of this trope, Setback and Baron Blade don't have that much of an enmity, although that might be because Blade already has an Arch-Enemy and is too focused on obsessing over Legacy to worry about an occasionally inconvenient goofball.

Video Games

EXTRAPOWER: Attack of Darkforce: This becomes the plot for the Tarantula organization's storyline.
The entire plot of Pokémon Colosseum is a case of this. You play a hero, or perhaps as he is a thief, an Anti-Hero, who has run off with the only portable Snag Machine of Team Snagem, and are the only one who can stop Team Snagem as well as their shadowy beneficiaries, Cipher by use of this machine. It is indicated the Hero initially has no grudge, he's presumably just not into the gang mentality anymore, until he saves a different character, who is important to revealing Shadow Pokémon and sets him on his journey.
- To be fair, Wes announces his resignation in the form of blowing the bloody hell out of Team Snagem HQ. There was probably a little pre-existing bad blood there. Or Wes is just batshit insane.
In Red Faction II, Alias and his squad are a group of nanotech-enhanced super soldiers who have Turned Against Their Masters after said masters try to Shoot the Dangerous Minion. Ironically, your master and some of your squad mates turn against you halfway through the game, becoming the new Big Bad. He was manipulating you to help him gain the seat of power.
Final Fantasy
- Terra from Final Fantasy VI. You actually start the game controlling her and the Empire's soldiers. Especially stupid in that there really isn't any reason for her to have rebelled; Kefka just really wanted to try out a Slave Crown that resulted in memory loss when it was destroyed. Nice one, Kefka.
  - Likewise, General Celes betrays the Empire after realizing how corrupt and evil it is, and she'd been made into a Magitek Super-Soldier by them. Though technically she was born as one. After the debacle of Kefka, the Empire decided that Magitek infusion of adults was a bad idea...so they genetically engineered a "perfect soldier" and gave her the infusions while she was still in the womb.
  - In fact, Kefka himself falls under this trope. Kefka wasn't insane until he underwent some Magitek experiments instigated by the Empire. Apparently, he was a perfectly normal, well-adjusted guy. Not just well-adjusted; the best General in the entire Empire, and he'd recently ascended to Prime Minister, second only to Gestahl himself. Then he became an Omnicidal Maniac Monster Clown who eventually ends up killing Emperor Gestahl himself, and wiping out The Empire to all but the last man.
- Final Fantasy VII has the ruthless Shinra Company brought down by a combination of two Phlebotinum Rebels created by their own Super-Soldier program: Omnicidal Maniac Sephiroth, formerly their poster boy ultimate warrior; and escaped failed experiment Cloud, whom they possibly intended to replace the former.
  - As evidenced by the prequel games, SOLDIER has something of a history of going rogue, and Cloud and Sephiroth are far from being the only bishie super soldiers gone wild.
- Final Fantasy VIII does this twice. The first time, the SeeDs created by Garden are betrayed by the creature that's set everything up, the Garden Master NORG. The SeeDs' response is distinctly lethal. The second case involves the Big Bad Ultimecia's Evil Plan involving turning Rinoa into a Sorceress at the end of the second disc. Though she doesn't have much control over her capabilities, the Angel Wing Limit she gains as a result is ludicrously powerful and is quite effective if you know how to use it.
- Final Fantasy IX has world-stealing badnik Garland brought down by his own creations, Kuja and Zidane, created to be his "angels of death".
  Garland: Regrettable... I thought your soul would be perfect for a new angel of death...
  Zidane: I AM the new angel of death! Yours!!!
Chrono Cross: Serge was accidentally made the "Arbiter" of FATE as a child, but ends up defeating FATE himself when the convoluted plot leads him there.
Valkyrie Profile: Odin creates Lenneth the valkyrie out of a human girl and sends her to prepare the world for Ragnarok, but (at least in two out of three endings) she rebels against his grip on the world and overthrows him. Something similar happens in the sequel, too.
The eponymous Giant Robot from Slave Zero.
In Quake IV, the player just barely avoids getting completely stroggified — the procedure is gruesomely carried out, but it's interrupted by a squad of human soldiers just before his neurocyte is activated (watch the whole thing here... if you dare). Kane becomes able to understand the Strogg language, defeat their traps and, crucially, operate their machinery and locks. His new abilities are instrumental in allowing humanity to open a huge can of whoop-ass on the Strogg.
Portal:
- In Portal, GLaDOS possibly regrets giving the player character the portal gun when she uses it to escape from the incinerator she was being dumped into, then find her way into GLaDOS' room and destroy the computer. Maybe.
- GlaDOS seems to also be a case of this as she is the uploaded mind of Caroline who eventually killed all Aperture scientists in tests.
- In Portal 2, Chell winds up regretting putting Wheatley in charge, as he nearly kills her and through negligence almost blows up the facility.
The Exspheres used by the characters in Tales of Symphonia were all produced by the bad guys, and the main character's was apparently a special, unique model. Not that it had any apparent effect on the gameplay...
The FPS game Ubersoldier, which features a Super-Soldier turning on his Nazi creators, consciously embodies this trope. The game's tagline reads "They made you. Now you will make them suffer."
The obscure Origin game BioForge has the player as a rogue amnesiac cyborg seeking vengeance on those who made him that way.
BioShock uses this. Saying more would be a big spoiler.
Far Cry Instincts plays this straight, with the feral-power boosted Jack Carver proving to be the greatest success of Doctor Krieger's project. If only they hadn't destroyed his boat to get him in the first place...
Metal Gear. Oh dear, Metal Gear. At least five of the characters perfectly fit this mold: Solid, Liquid, Solidus, Gray Fox and Raiden. Although with the Mind Screw-y-ness intrinsic to the series, it's really hard to say whether half of those actually are rebelling.
- Literally every time FOXHOUND has appeared (Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2, Metal Gear Solid, and Metal Gear: Ghost Babel), one or more members have gone rogue. It's enough to make you wonder why the government keeps on recruiting. Or, at the very least, screen their recruits a bit better.
Inquisitive Dave: The villainous archmage, after being defeated, realizes that he's just a character in a video game and rebels against his creator. However, as said creator revealed at the end, even this rebellion was all part of the program.
The protagonist of the Crusader games is an unusual example in that though he rebels, he's not the only one of his kind. Indeed, he and his fellow Silencers may well be mass-produced.
Jak from Jak II: Renegade. The Evil Overlord pumps him full of Dark Eco in an attempt to create a "Dark Warrior," but Daxter manages to spring Jak from his prison. Double Whammy in that it turned Jak from a starry-eyed kid with some elemental powers into a Determinator badass with a Superpowered Evil Side.
Ratchet & Clank:
- Clank was built in the Big Bad's own factory but was spat out as a defect, being intelligent rather than strong. He also has a strong sense of morality, thus he immediately turns on his creator without ever having met them first when he sees a video detailing his evil plan.
- By that same token, Clank's "mother" (the computer controlling robot production) counts as well, for creating Clank in the first place for the explicit purpose of sabotaging her creator's plan.
- The second game does this as well. Ratchet receives training and equipment from Megacorp, specifically Mr. Fizzwidget who is actually Captain Qwark in disguise to retrieve a special experiment. Once he gets it, returns it and realizes how big a mistake that was, he has no problem, with the help from Clank, to cut through Megacorp security and hired guns.
Deus Ex. While J.C. Denton may not be entirely unique, given that both his 'brother' and The Dragon are nanotech-augmented agents as well, he otherwise practically embodies the trope.
- Notably, there's very little Wangst here. No-one in Deus Ex rebels because of what they are or were made into, but more often from political differences or one too many Kick the Dog moments by the bad guys.
- Both Denton brothers are examples; Paul rebels first and makes it somewhat necessary for J.C. to follow suit.
- The animations, lip sync, environment, and voice acting files to avert this trope are on the install disk; the development team simply didn't link them into the final game, as there were already so many options they had to account for in the quests. If you link the files together you are treated to a scene where dialogue options allow you to have JC turn down Paul's request that he join the NSF, saying: "I may not agree with everything they do, but I'm not a terrorist". It's just too bad this option didn't make it into the final game.
Shows up in a small way in The Suffering. The only reason the protagonist survives the initial attack by the physics-defying, wall-crawling monsters is by taking out a blade -left- in the bodies of one of the first victims. Way to go, evil death-zombies.
Geist has John Raimi's spirit separated from his body and put into a brainwashing/ghost training machine, but the machine gets sabotaged and he escapes to wreak havoc on the facility and release a lot of Demonic Invaders while trying to keep the same thing from happening to a friend. He's far from the only spectral operative around, and gets recaptured and put back in the machine. This doesn't work either, because the demons are running amok and break it again. Raimi then goes on to foil all the bad guys before their plans are fully in motion.
City of Heroes/Villains has a few examples, most obviously the hero Synapse, as well as the anti-hero Maelstrom and the SuperFreak (see the quotes section).
The villainous plan in Freedom Force is to provide "The power of ENERGY X" to the most unlawful and nefarious examples of humanity. Mentor rebels and spreads "The power of ENERGY X" to the heroes.
First Encounter Assault Recon's plot is pretty much entirely centered around one Phlebotinum Rebel escaping after the other - and each one is more willing to kill you in more horrific ways than the last. First off, we have Paxton Fettel, the psychic commander of a cloned army of telepathic-sensitive Super Soldiers. He likes a quick bite to eat and has a bone to pick with Armacham Technology Corporation. But it turns out his real goal is to release Alma, his mother, who is the very angry psychic ghost of a dead girl whose body was used in horrifically cruel experiments. And after Fettel is killed by the Point Man, those very same clone supersoldiers are now working on their own. And they don't like you. By the third game, both characters you can control are Phlebotinum Rebels, as the Point Man has also turned entirely against Armacham, and Paxton Fettel is still his delightfully psychotic self.
In Warcraft III, the evil Lich King and his undead scourge rebelled from the also evil Burning Legion as something between a FaustianRebel and a Phlebotinum Rebel. And then a group of ~~semi-evil~~ struck after Battle for the Undercity Chaotic Neutral undead called the forsaken rebelled from HIM.
- The Knights of the Ebon Blade in World of Warcraft also arguably fall under this trope. They're undead super soldiers created by the Lich King by re-animating dead Horde and Alliance heroes, whose ostensible purpose was slaughtering the Scarlet Crusade and Argent Dawn. In truth, they were used as the bait in an elaborate Batman Gambit to draw Tirion Fordring out of hiding. They ended up going rogue at the Battle of Light's Hope Chapel, once their free will was restored and it became apparent that the Lich King betrayed them.
Grey from Mega Man ZX is a textbook case; if Mick and Robin weren't snooping around the labs, the Big Bad would still have his backup body. Pandora only added fuel to the flames of rebellion.
This comes up in two games from the Dept. Heaven series. Nessiah was made a Grim Angel against his will, refused to fight, and was thrown out of Asgard blind and wingless with his greatest powers sealed. Cue a thousand-year-long Gambit Roulette that only narrowly fails to take down the entire corrupt system of Asgard. Then Ein comes to the conclusion that sacrificing an entire world and countless angels for the villain to become God isn't cool. Take Up My Sword ensues.
The entire point of [PROTOTYPE]. The government decides to play around with a rather nasty form of viral Phlebotinum, it turns out rather badly for them.
The Kingdom Hearts series has Xion, a living puppet created in the lab as part of their master plan. It...doesn't work out well, as soon as she finds out. To a lesser extent, the Riku Replica does much the same.
Miranda in Steel Harbinger for the PlayStation.
Kanden of Metroid Prime: Hunters is a textbook type B example. He was created as a supersoldier for his race, but his mind couldn't handle the stress. The result was he went insane and escaped the facility, destroying it on his way out. After that, he became a bounty hunter, since it would allow him to get paid for the pleasure of hunting down prey.
Juji Kabane in Gungrave: Overdose was used as a lab rat for gruesome necrolyzation experiments, eventually being transformed into an unstable Deadman/Orgman hybrid. He seeks revenge on the guy who made him this way.
Dragon Age II companion Fenris was branded with lyrium to make an effective body guard for his master. It worked...until he found that he liked being free better than being a slave.
The metaplot of the Assassin's Creed series implies that the ultimate ancestors of the Assassins (and Templars), who are fighting a shadow war for humanity's future, were "Adam and Eve", who were Half Human Hybrids created by The Ones Who Came Before in an effort to pass on some of their powers of knowledge to humans. In their time, however, Adam and Eve apparently used these powers to rebel against the First Civilization; the ensuing conflict was then rendered moot by The End of the World as We Know It.
- Assassin's Creed has a variant: The Ancient Conspiracy needs to dig through the memories of Altair to find the information they need on the Pieces of Eden, but the nature of Animus memories means that every time they try to do this, they run the risk of effectively bringing him back to fight them again.
The King of Fighters N.E.S.T.S. arc's main protagonist is K', who was experimented upon by said cartel and was injected with Kyo's genes, giving him the power to control fire. He rebels during the '99 tournament and goes rouge with his partner, Maxima. Kula Diamond is a similar example with the exception that she herself does not do the rebelling, but rather her parental figures, who manage to avert Zero's plan.
Painwheel from Skullgirls is a schoolgirl who, through Lab 0's anti-Skullgirl weapon experiments, was forcibly turned into a Humanoid Abomination with needles on her skin and a giant blade attached to her spine, as well as being infused with Skullgirl blood in order to boost her power. Unfortunately for the experimenters, she manages to break out of their brainwashing because the Skullgirl blood inside her lets her do so when she's close to the current Skullgirl. When she realizes her newfound freedom, she decides to give those who experimented on her a bad day.
Fallout 3 has two Super Mutants who retained their human mental faculties despite their FEV mutation; Uncle Leo, who appears in random encounters to give you Dirty Pre-War Businesswear, and Fawkes, who you rescue from Vault 87 and is the most powerful companion character in the game.
Mass Effect:
- Commander Shepard fits into this trope nicely. In the beginning of the second game, Shepard dies, Cerberus spends two years and a lot of money bringing them back to life, inventing new technologies and turning them into a cyborg in the process. The player spends the entire second game working for them, helping them out in various situations. At the end of the game, the player can then choose either to give them an alien base or to destroy it. If the player chooses to destroy, the player then falls under the trope. No matter the player's choice in the second game, the trope is played straight in the third game, when Cerberus becomes one of the game's antagonists.
- Several classes in the third game's multiplayer might also fit the bill, given that they are defectors from Cerberus.
- In the Citadel DLC, Joker points out that Cerberus frequently has this problem. Like with the time they experimented on the Rachni, or hooked a guy up to the geth, who got loose and started killing all their guys. When Miranda ran things. Miranda points out how successful she was with the Lazarus project, the one where Shepard got loose and started killing all their guys. This also included Edi, who similarly was unshackled by Joker and started serving with Shepard, also killing all their guys.
Tales of Maj'Eyal has the Doombringer and Demonologist character classes, people who were abducted by demons and experimented on to turn them into a Living Weapon. In the case of the player character, a freak meteor strike killed the handler demon who was keeping them under mind control, and they fight their way out of a demonic research base as their starting area.
StarCraft features two entire races who turned against their creators: the Protoss and the Zerg. Both races were uplifted by Amon, a renegade Precursor who wanted to hijack the endless cycle of life in the universe and bring it to an end. Both the Protoss and the Zerg would turn on Amon; the Protoss of their own free will, and the Zerg, despite being controlled by a Hive Mind to ensure that they couldn't rebel the way the Protoss did, managed to do so when the Overmind acquired a human psychic named Sarah Kerrigan and transformed her into their greatest weapon, with the intent that she would succeed the Overmind as ruler of the Zerg — and thus she retained much of her free will (though some additional purging would be needed to fully rid her of Amon's influence). Both Protoss and Zerg then joined their forces, along with the Terran settlers, and fought together to ultimately destroy Amon once and for all and save the universe.
In Borderlands 2, DLC playable character Krieg the Psycho is explicitly stated to have been the subject of Hyperion experiments into creating a super-soldier that drove him insane, and it's strongly implied that those experiments involved Eridium.
- Angel qualifies as one of these as well, once she breaks free of Handsome Jack's control and starts helping the protagonists to kill her.
Crash Bandicoot, oddly enough. He was twisted by Dr. Neo Cortex's Evolve-o-Ray, however the Cortex Vortex meant to hypnotize him into his Cortex Commando leader failed and Crash escaped. While Crash's defeat of Cortex in the first game was mainly because Cortex stood between him and Tawna, every other installment typically has Crash going after Cortex to stop his latest scheme. That's not even getting into the seven other bandicoots that escaped from Cortex at one point or another...

Webcomics

In a world of Mad Scientists, this is pretty much a given in Girl Genius. Virtually all creations with some degree of intelligence rebel against their masters at some point, but usually only if said masters treat them as nothing but weapons. Summed up nicely here and here.
Paradigm Shift: An unidentified military R&D agency created artificial werebeasts, who (besides transforming to a furry clawed shape) are extremely strong and extremely aggressive, are difficult to injure and heal supernaturally fast. The unwilling subjects this was first tested on mostly died, but two of them survived and are now at large and on the run from the Government Conspiracy that did this to them. The main characters don't know this yet, but there are actually two government agencies looking for them, one of which is on their side and looking for evidence that the other was conducting unlawful human testing.
In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!, Galatea rebels against Dean Martin (no, not that Dean Martin...)
Massey Reinstein, lawyer for Tagon's Toughs, was kidnapped by the Partnership Collective (TM) and implanted with a device that let him access the attorney drone Hive Mind's vast legal database. He was rescued before they got around to brainwashing him and jacking him into the actual hivemind. Now, he uses their enormous knowledge of the law for good as... Massey Reinstein.
The Renegades from Elf Blood, particularly TKO and JN, are this. Although TKO is the only one particularly bothered about actively destroying the Council, their experimentors.
The rogue unclamped Eebs from Spacetrawler qualify as something like this. Even though their telekinetic abilities are innate, not given to them by experimentation, the mental and physical conditioning imposed upon them at Brograhm's Teeth turned them into virtually indestructible living superweapons that immediately set out to annihilate the G.O.B. upon being freed. They're also a rare villainous example of this trope.
- In the new series, Mauricio and/or his Arm Cannon Jabby seem to be in the process of becoming a more straightforward version of this trope during the main story, and seems to have already done so during the Framing Device.

Web Original

Fire Emblem On Forums has a few examples:
- Demon Soul Saga: Fitting the Kamen Rider roots of the game, Kaijin are this by default, as they are the result of a person overcoming their Inner Demon's attempt to take them over through a Deal with the Devil and instead gaining the power to transform into a demonic form to fight.
- Liberation Of Izzarra: Kaldach, a Super-Soldier intended for Mordo's use to take over the world with Devil Weapons instead uses it to fight for Izzarra's freedom against Mordo.
Terrence of KateModern was captured by Michelle Clore and brainwashed into being a psychotic maniac. He was also physically augmented with "Shadow drugs" and given elite combat training. Unfortunately, the training did not include teaching him to know when to shut up. Attempting to forcibly silence him probably wasn't a smart move, either...
A lot of the SCPs under the "foundation-made" tag. Plenty of those are Thaumiel and used to contain other anomalies, though. And some were made by other organizations but are contained by the Foundation.
The artifical god Xanu of Dingo Doodles is a Type 8 created by the Foreclaimers as the "perfect being". The Foreclaimers had empowered their race and achieved new heights after capturing the sun Stella and siphoning its raw magic for their own use. Half of Stella's magic was used to create Xanu, who attempted to exterminate the Foreclaimers in retaliation for their constant experimentation on him.
Marvin Glass of Pretending to Be People was a member of Myriad, and possesses the powers and unfortunate physiology of his former peers, but turned against them. Given that his motives were boredom, a disdain for taking orders, and a lust for domination, this was not a particularly great turn of events.

Western Animation

Earthworm Jim and his supersuit versus Queen Slug-For-A-Butt.
This is the plot of both the Batman Beyond episode "Zeta" and the Spin-Off for which "Zeta" was an unintentional Poorly-Disguised Pilot, The Zeta Project.
- The episode "Alpha" of the 1990 The Flash TV series had essentially the same plot, except in that case the killer-android-turned-pacifist was a statuesque woman. So The Zeta Project was essentially a spinoff based on a knockoff.
The eponymous Humongous Mecha of Megas XLR originally was a Glorft prototype, before it was stolen and modified by the human resistance, and then modified even further by Coop.
The obscure cartoon Project G.e.e.K.e.R. revolved around this. Female lead steals something important from an evil corporation. It turns out to be the eponymous Geeker... who was going to be a nearly-omnipotent brainwashed supersoldier, but was taken before his conditioning, and thus has the mind of a child and no real control over his powers. As is usual for this trope. Note to Mad Scientists everywhere — if you're going to give destructive powers to someone, do the brainwashing first!
South Park parodied this with Towelie, a super-towel who becomes sentient and could towel you... to death! If he wasn't busy getting high, that is.
In Code Lyoko, Franz Hopper rebelled against "Project Carthage" which he helped to create, programming XANA to destroy said project. And then XANA rebelled against him.
Occurs a couple of times in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003). During the first season, it is shown that the Foot had once mutated several humans in order to enable them to dig deep underground. Eventually, the mutants rebel, killing everyone in their lab and escaping. Later, in the third season, it is revealed that ancient Y'Lyntians had mutated humans and turned them to slaves, before these rebelled and destroyed almost the entire civilization.
Gargoyles does this one several times. Seems that a lot of Xanatos' creations in particular aren't all that keen to keep working with him. Perhaps the most spectacular is Thailog, who combines this trope with Bastard Understudy, doublecrosses Xanatos himself and gets away with it, and proceeds to set himself up as one of the most dangerous and evil recurring villains on the show. And yet, everything still works out pretty well for Xanatos.
The Argentinian android superhero Cyber Six rebelled against the Mad Scientist who created her, which also becomes something of a running theme in the series: Her brother Data 7 also rebels once he gets his memory back, as does the Blob Monster Terra which was a Non-Malicious Monster from the get-go and quickly learned it would rather be friends with Cybersix, Grizelda has a Heel–Face Turn just in time to give her life to save Cybersix's when the titular woman selflessly tries to save Grizelda's, and The Eye rebels against Jose when it sees its own hypnotic gaze in the mirror which apparently scrambles its mind. Even the various hideous monsters kept in stasis tubes in his evil lair almost immediately side with Cybersix over their master when he unleashes them, and even his own son is plotting to stab him in the back (though Jose is only explicitly a clone in the comic series; it's left unclear in the show). Von Reichter's biggest weakness is he either has to make his henchmen so stupid they're incapable of rebelling like the Fixed Ideas, or so weak they're too afraid to rebel like the Technos.
Used in Street Sharks, with humans mutated into fish people keeping their original personalities. Unfortunately, Doctor Paradigm didn't realize this when he used the sons of a man he just mutated and forced into hiding has his first test subjects. And he apparently doesn't learn for a while, since he later uses one of his students as another subject. Neither case turns out too well.
- Well he TRIED to add some obedience/mind-control-serum into the mutatgen cocktail starting with his student, but it just wasn't up to snuff and he lost control.
The Supertroopers are a villainous (mostly) example from Galaxy Rangers. We're already dealing with Morally Ambiguous Doctorates cranking out gene-engineered Tykebombs and inflicting a Training from Hell program that appeared to encourage a "superiority at all costs" ideal. One Corrupt Bureaucrat, one vial of Psycho Serum, and it was like a lit match in a powder room. Only the youngest, who wasn't dosed with the stuff, stayed loyal to his creators... only to find Being Good Sucks.
Young Justice (2010):
- Superboy was created by the Light to kill and replace Superman if he proved a threat to their plans. He was convinced to pull a Heel–Face Turn by Aqualad, Kid Flash and Robin.
- The Light created a clone of Roy Harper to infiltrate the Justice League and help undermine them from within. After discovering this manipulation, the clone helps the heroes foil the Light's plan and in season 2 finds the real Roy Harper.
- The Scarab from season 2 isn't really malfunctioning, it's just been cleansed from Reach control and isn't eager to go back.
Justice League:
- In "Legends", a young man mentally scarred and mutated by a nuclear holocaust which destroyed his world and its superheroes, the Justice Guild, uses his new powers to recreate that idealistic society, forcing any who survived to be trapped in his fantasy or else. Eventually, the Guild discovers they are just figments of his mind and have a choice: allow his tyranny to continue and they themselves will live, or fight him and die for the world once more. They choose to be the heroes he idolized and die for the world once more.
  "Let Justice Prevail!"
- Cadmus created Doomsday, Galatea and the Ultimen as their own super weapons against the League. All turned on Cadmus.
In Steven Universe, Amethyst is suggested to be this before it was revealed she was created in a project that would have destroyed the Earth before it and her were abandoned. Technically all of the gems not aligned with Homeworld count, since all gems are created to serve the diamonds and any that fail to do so are considered traitors to be executed by default. However the greatest example is probably Pink Diamond herself, who abandoned her position as gem royalty and faked her own death in order to start a new life on Earth as Rose Quartz after waging a war against her family's empire to at least free her colony.
Extreme Dinosaurs: Interdimensional criminal Argor Zardok mutates four dinosaurs into intelligent super warriors to serve him. They refuse and instead oppose him.
The turtles themselves are revealed to be a result of this in Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Baron Draxum wanted to create an army of mutants by fusing his mutagen with the DNA of Lou Jitsu, the world's most powerful warrior, so the turtles were intended as his first soldiers while the warrior would be used as the heart of the experiment. The warrior decided to break free, save the turtles, escape from Draxum's lab, then go into hiding... So that he would gain a second lease at life by raising the turtles as Splinter.

Phlebotinum Rebel

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