Curb Stomp Battle/Comic Books

"Batgirl: "Your arm is broken, you're bleeding to death. I'm untouched, haven't... broken a sweat. I know what you are going to do next and it... bores me. You are going to the hospital, will you be... standing up or lying down?"
 * Generally effective in comics, mostly because the characters are either a) superpowered or b) ridiculously over trained. This kind of thing can be prefaced with a World of Cardboard Speech.
 * Nightwing was captured by Shrike, a rival with a grudge who was one of the best assassins in the world. When it was finally time for Nightwing and Shrike to throw down, the former completely ignored the latter and kicked his ass with his back turned.
 * His run-in with Cassandra Cain's Batgirl (after a Big Damn Heroes moment where she bailed out Robin) went no better:

Shrike: (charges forward with blade in good hand) "GRAAAAHHH!!"

Caption (Batgirl's thoughts): He chose lying down."

"Black Canary: Batman belted him-- and I missed it?! Oh God, I'm depressed."
 * Shrike may have billed himself as 'one of the best assassins in the world', but it was pretty obvious that at League of Assassins meetings, he was the one they made get up and go outside to pay the pizza guy.
 * Cassandra Cain (Batgirl III) had a number of battles like this, at least before her epic derailment. One of the best would likely be when Spoiler convinced her to spar together. The result was a full page Curb Stomp Battle that left Stephanie bruised up and vomiting on the ground.
 * The end of Empowered vol. 4... dWARF did not even get a hit in.
 * A villainous variant appears in Watchmen when  at the same time.
 * See also: . Both fights are even more brutal and one-sided in the movie.
 * Also, Dr. Manhattan's involvement in The Vietnam War. There aren't many stranger ways to die than having your atoms estranged from each other by a blue giant in a speedo. Several of the Vietcong ended up wanting to surrender to him personally.
 * Captain Atom's thrashing of Midnighter in Captain Atom: Armageddon was one of the most enjoyable beatdowns in comic book history.
 * In an early volume of Preacher, Cassidy, who we had just learned was a super-strong vampire, fought against the Saint of Killers, an invulnerable immortal capable of murdering dozens of police officers. We had no idea how the two of them compared, but it became pretty clear when Cassidy punched the Saint and his hand broke.
 * Hell, ANY battle involving The Saint of Killers. The man is a walking curb-stomp machine. Later in the series, he
 * The fight at the end between Cassidy and seems like it's going to be one of these, Cassidy is a super-strong vampire who's taken being machine gunned and shot through the head without losing consciousness and  just a guy with a good right hook.
 * Wolverine vs. the Mafia in one storyline. A bunch of ordinary guys with guns vs. a mutant with a Healing Factor, about a century of combat experience, and adamantium claws and skeleton? The entire story is pretty much a Curb Stomp Battle.
 * Played for laughs with Batman and Guy Gardner in Justice League International: "One punch! ONE PUNCH!"
 * Played for laughs with Batman and Guy Gardner in Justice League International: "One punch! ONE PUNCH!"

"The fight lasted four seconds."
 * Brought back in Green Lantern: Rebirth when the recently reincarnated Hal Jordan floors the Dark Knight with, as Gardner exclaims with glee: "One punch! ONE PUNCH!"
 * And then Batman nailed Jordan with a revenge punch later, but held back so Hal only got knocked down, rather than losing consciousness and teeth.
 * Star Wars: Clone Wars, a back story example: Commander Rootrock on New Plympto describes a fight between a Jedi and half a dozen raiders.

"Damian: I will not lose to you.
 * The Battle of Derra IV is another example that gets mentioned fairly often in the Expanded Universe.
 * That's not quite a Curb Stomp Battle. More of a Kick the Dog moment because the Imperials were attacking a lightly defended supply convoy and treat it like it's a great victory. Granted, the Rebels had trouble getting supplies afterwards, but still, it's hardly a glorious victory.
 * Let's not forget when Mara Jade had a run in with one of the Emperor's elite guards, who she promptly smacked down with one punch (because she's just that awesome). We're also expected to believe that with that punch she ruptured his spleen, bruised his liver, broke his ribs, and fractured his skull... all at the same time! There's just something utterly ridiculous about that. To Mara's credit, she did berate him for being so easily defeated.
 * In Exiles, they spend two or three pages building up a fight between Mimic and an alternate universe double of Captain America. The fight is for the Skrull Gladiator Championship, which is the Skrull equivalent of the Superbowl. The actual fight lasts for two panels, with Mimic, a Swiss Army Knife of mutant powers, unleashing the optic blasts that he borrowed from Cyclops. Mimic then flips the crowd the bird, and walks out of the arena.
 * The fight between Bane and Batman in Knightfall is definitely this, ending with Bane snapping Batman's spine.
 * Justified in that Bane was fighting a Batman who was already seriously wounded and completely exhausted from continuously fighting for several days with very little sleep... and had arranged for all of this to happen to Batman by staging the mass breakout of pretty much every inmate in Arkham, and then waiting until Bruce had finished fighting them all one at a time before introducing himself.
 * Jean-Paul Valley, taking up the Mantle of the Bat, paid Bane back during their rematch. Once AzBats severed Bane's Bottled Villainous Reserve, that was it.
 * In one 1980s Marvel comic, Iron Man is facing off against the X-Men. One of the mutants uses psychic powers to knock out Tony Stark. Go team... then the Iron Man armor's onboard A.I. kicks in and proceeds to trash the entire X-Men team. That's right, they get beat up by a suit of armor with a sleeping guy inside. Ouch.
 * Iron Man has had his share of Curb Stomp Battles, on both sides:
 * The Silver Centurion armor had an edge in both technology and pilot experience compared to the Iron Monger, but Obadiah Stane had remote support, as well as hostages, to keep things even, and his own suit was a brute. When Tony freed the hostages and destroyed the remote support, however, Stane had no chance.
 * Tony's Stealth suit was good enough against regular, unarmored mooks, despite lacking any offensive weapons. Against the Crimson Dynamo and the Titanium Man, not so much (even with limited repulsors). Let's just say Tony was extremely lucky to survive that battle.
 * Iron Man was totally overwhelmed by Firepower, whose pilot, Jack Taggert, had been training extensively for the sole purpose of killing Iron Man. Firepower appears to succeed, and in the next issue Tony is willing to leave Iron Man "dead"... until Firepower starts attacking Stark's business interests. Taking the lessons from his last match, the "new" Iron Man curb-stomps Firepower. Most readers will probably assume that Taggert soils himself in the process.
 * Spider-Man vs Kingpin near the end of the Back in Black arc. For all of his talk, Wilson was entirely over his head in this fight, but in all fairness, it was a Badass Normal vs an enraged Spider-Man.
 * Speaking of Spider-Man, when he had to face off against the X-Men in Secret Wars, he curb-stomped the entire roster that had come after him, which included one of maybe three fights between Spidey and Wolverine that was portrayed accurately (here's a hint: Spidey can ignore Wolverine). Wolverine himself stated after the fight that Spidey made the X-Men look like amateurs.
 * Also from Secret Wars, the newly empowered villainess Titania decided to make the same mistake many, many new supervillains have made over the years and pick a fight with Spidey on their first day on the job. Despite being much, much stronger than him, he wipes the floor with her, tossing her out of the building and causing her to go in to the kind of temper tantrum only a bully of her magnitude could pull off having been brought down several pegs. She had already picked another fight with She-Hulk which didn't go well for her either until she got help, she probably thought that next to her, Spidey was an easy target. She thought wrong.
 * Another Spider-Man example: he goes up against one of Galactus' former Heralds, Firelord, and it seems that Firelord has the upper hand, because Spidey has self doubts about his skills. Once Spider-Man gets pissed, Firelord is taken out in less than five panels (never mind the fact that even former Heralds of Galactus can casually solo 99% of Marvel, Spider-Man included. Spidey's the star, so he gets to beat the unbeatable foe).
 * Of course, it was after Firelord has just hurt a child and Spidey pretty much went berserk. And quite frankly, every time villain hurts a child in Spider-Man's presence, Spidey will utterly devastate him, the only exception being.
 * Spider-Man got into another two in Brand New Day, during The Gauntlet arc, first being on receiving end, when Mr. Negative threw him several streets away with one punch and then and delivering, once he found out the Kravinoffs have  - he goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge and the people that almost killed him suddenly go down like flies.
 * During the same arc, Spider-Man has to save Juggernaut, who has found himself at the receiving end of one of these, with the new Captain Universe delivering.
 * And there is also Rhino vs New Rhino, which has a large buildup culminating with
 * An utterly hilarious example in The Incredible Hercules: The villain drops a Grendel-style monster on the battlefield, with the assumption that Thor and Hercules are too exhausted to fight it. He's right, but he didn't take into account Zeus, who promptly proves that while he may be bite-sized and missing the majority of his memory, he's still the fucking king of the Greco-Roman pantheon. By flattening the monster with one shot of lightning.
 * Chaos War was full of those - Chaos King killing Nightmare, Impossible Man, Lucifer, Ares, Pluto, Zeus and Hera with no effort, Zeus curb stomping Thor and Galactus and Chaos King curb stomping . The epilogue in Incredible Hulk featured.
 * Ultimate X-Men: Wolverine leaves Cyclops to die in the Savage Land so he can move in on Scott's girlfriend, Jean Grey. When Cyclops survives and makes it back, he's just a touch irritated, and Wolverine is squaring off for an epic fight... which takes all of one panel, as Cyclops opens up full-force with his Eye Beams and leaves Wolverine in a flattened, smoking heap.
 * The thing about Scott Summers is that, given the nature of his powers, a fight with him where he knows the fight is happening should logically come down to one question: are you vulnerable to his optic beam? Because if you are, the fight should basically consist of you going down. The nature of Scott's power is such that if he can see you, he's already hit you. So if you can't resist his optic beam, your only plausible options are 'surrender' or 'strike by surprise from behind' or some such tactic.
 * There was an Danger Room battle between Scott and a depowered Ororo in which Ororo manages to dodge optic blasts and otherwise win the battle.
 * Justified: depowered Ororo was sort of a badass normal, and Scott's mind wasn't focused on the duel (that's the reason why Ororo challenged him in the first place: he had been distracted by personal matters for quite some time, to the point she accused him of not being an effective leader anymore). Ororo knew she couldn't try any frontal attack, so she waited until she could ambush Scott, then incapacitated him.
 * During Joss Whedon's run on X-Men, which among other things made Cyclops even more badass, Scott utterly wrecked a Sentinel with one blast from his eyebeams. A Sentinel is a Humongous Mecha that is specifically built to kill mutants and normally would give an entire team of X-Men a hard time. This time, Scott stopped holding back -- the Sentinel never had a chance.
 * However, on occasion a villain will use their brains when fighting Cyclops, and use armor made out of ruby quartz (Cameron Hodge for example). Considering that Cyclops' powers don't work on ruby quartz, this turns it into a curbstomp battle for the villain.
 * The Final Battle with  in Planetary goes like this. Primarily because of
 * One of the most satisfying examples occurs in The Ultimates. Hank Pym is sitting at a bar, nursing a drink after having brutally beaten his wife, Janet Pym. Door opens; in walks Captain America. Cap sits down, listens to Hank explain himself, and then pounds the snot out of Hank. Hank grows to 100 ft. tall. Then the real curb-stomp battle begins. Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Awesome for Ultimate Steve Rogers; the man was born for that particular moment.
 * Even better, Cap demands that Hank enlarge so Cap can cut loose on him.
 * The Authority's previously invincible Apollo was subjected to an unexpected curb-stomping at the hands of two members of The Americas (who were a satirical stand-in for the Avengers), Thor and Captain America parodies. The comic contains several panels which allude to man-rape and sodomy, although the authors state that these scenes were deliberately made ambiguous.
 * Apollo gets his revenge two issues later, when he rips apart entire army of marvel-powerups parodies, including those two that got him earlier. Manwhile Jack and Doctor curbstomps other villaionous versions of Marvel superheroes, with former making city of Paris eat his opponents alive and Doctor turning his opponents bones into cologne.
 * Later, in issue #22, Psycho for Hire Seth (the Six Billion Dollar Bastard) curbstomps the entire team. He takes down Apollo with one blast, doesn't give Midnighter a chance to land a single blow, beats the Doctor between panels, takes Swift out before she can even enter the room, steals the Engineer's nanomachines after harmlessly deflecting her bullets, then teleports to Jack Hawksmoor and seemingly swallows him. This would have taken less than the five pages it did if he hadn't taken time to give exposition and make taunts.
 * A non-violent variation occurs when Superman and The Flash face off in a genuine test of speed. Turns out the Flash likes to hold back when they race for charity in order to keep things entertaining for the folks at home. When it comes right down to it, he leaves poor Supes in the dust...
 * It's a Retcon. Those races were between the Silver Age versions of those two characters back when Superman really could keep up with the Flash (life just wasn't fair for the rest of the JLA back then). There had been one official Post Crisis race between Wally and Superman but, while Superman had been reduced in power, so had Wally and Wally only barely won. It was only when Barry returned at his full power level that it had to be explained that clearly, Barry must have been holding back during all those races (which is odd given that some of those races did have serious stakes and weren't just for charity.)
 * The Flash versus Quicksilver is basically a joke ever since Wally got his full powers back in the early nineties. In their first fight, Wally was owning Pietro until he had to stop to save some kids and Pietro jumped him. But Pietro had a moment of conscience, giving Wally more than enough time to drop him.
 * A bit more balanced in their encounters in JLA-Avengers. The Speed Force (Wally's power source) doesn't exist in the Marvel universe so the winner of the match depends on which universe they're fighting in even after Wally starts packing a Speed Force battery for his trips to the Marvel U.
 * Damian and Tim have had a strained relationship ever since the former was introduced, sucker punching Drake out of jealousy. After years of teasing the hostility between the two, they finally had it out in Red Robin #13... Damian got the ever loving crap beaten out of him;

Tim: You lost the second I started trying."


 * It's a curb stomp battle that kind of loses its badass quotient when you consider that Tim is a full-fledged adult stomping on a (arguably infuriating) ten-year-old...
 * World War Hulk: X-Men is basically the Hulk handing one of these out to every X-Men team over the course of three issues. Until he runs into a fully powered Juggernaut, the most they can do is slow him down, and even then not for very long. Unfortunately, the Hulk was madder than he'd ever been before, which made him strong enough to stop the unstoppable Juggernaut.
 * The "Hulk vs." battles in the main title fit the description as well -- a brief moment where it looks like someone might actually take Hulk out, followed immediately by a brutal beatdown. Only the Sentry gave him anything close to a run for his money.
 * Mr. X vs Quicksilver in the Siege finale. Mr. X (a Wolverine villain) discovers that his particular schtick - reading his opponent's mind so that he knows exactly what move said opponent is about to make - is completely useless against someone who can move at the speed of sound. He knows what Quicksilver is about to do - namely break every bone in his body with a chunk of metal debris - but he can't possibly react fast enough to prevent it.
 * Even better - Mr. X was wielding Odin's Spear, which has been said to be as powerful as Thor's Mjolnir or even more. And he still lost.
 * Mr. X actually gave one to Wolverine the first time they fought.
 * Ares vs Sentry in the same event with Sentry ripping Ares in half.
 * Scott Pilgrim's fights with evil Ex 2 and 3 turned into this, with Scott being entirely outmatched for the both fights.
 * At the start of The Death of Superman, the monster Doomsday is attacked by the entire Justice League (sans Superman). When Supes showed up, the League was shattered.
 * There's really no other way to describe the "battle" between Superboy-Prime and the former/current Teen Titans in Infinite Crisis. The Titans never had a chance.
 * Thor's "fight" with Iron Man post-Civil War. Elapsed storytelling space: four pages. Elapsed time: 1m 15s.
 * Marv vs. Manute in Sin City. One would think that the fight would be epic since they're both very similar, physically. You'd be wrong. There's a reason why Manute has a fake eye in later stories.
 * Squirrel Girl is a champion at this trope. Her most famous victories occurred off-panel, but in the Deadpool/GLI Summer Spectacular, we see her give Deadpool the beating of his life in the space of a single page.
 * Infinity Gauntlet:
 * In #4, a massive group of Marvel heroes (including Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Firelord, etc.) arrives to fight the supremely empowered Thanos, who makes the odd decision to only use the "Power" Gem during the fight thus giving the heroes a slight chance. He then proceeds to kill everybody (but they get better). In #5, he then takes down the entire Marvel Cosmic contingent.
 * Marvel Universe: The End has Thanos, being empowered by Heart of the Universe, facing every single being in the Marvel Universe, killing them all, then taking down the Abstracts and Living Tribunal.
 * Annihilation has Drax vs Thanos, which lasted one panel - enough time for Drax to rip his opponent's heart's out and for Thanos to find it interesting.
 * Annihilation Conquest has Ultron doing the same to Moondragon, who was a giant dragon at the time.
 * The Thanos Imperative has Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy with Thanos single-handely defeating the Avengers and Defenders' evil counterparts respectively.
 * Pretty much any fight in the Asterix comics that involves a) Obelix or b) any Gaul who has taken some magic potion (usually Asterix) will qualify as one of these.
 * And then there's The Punisher. Just a few examples out of many:
 * In one story arc, he's on a covert mission to Russia for Nick Fury (long story) and eventually comes across a martial artist half his size who curb-stomps him. But.
 * Also, in the tale of how Frank infiltrated Riker's Island Prison to kill the Mafia criminals responsible for the murder of his family, . It's not pretty.
 * One of the all-time scariest curb-stomps in terms of sheer brutality happened when Frank went after a human trafficking ring. One of the masterminds of the operation was a woman. Frank . Keep in mind that this woman was directly responsible for the brutal physical and sexual degradation of numerous young women, including one whose baby daughter was used as leverage against her good behavior. She had it coming.