Hand Blast



""Therearesomestupidlittlehumanswalkingaroundhahahahaha, theyareveryweakIwilldestroythemallwithmy... powerfulhands!Hahahahahahaha!""

- Freiza, DBZ in a nutshell

Hand Blasts are a Stock Superpower where the character shoots blasts of energy out of their hands, palms, wrists, fingertips or fists. "Energy" in this case is a broad term, and can encompass nearly anything: a heat ray, laser bolts, concussive force, whatever. The subject simply points his hand (or finger) at a target, and a Bright Ray O' Doom shines forth. Sometimes requires activating with the other hand.

Differs from Ki Attacks and Kamehame Hadoken in that the Hand Blasts are not tied in to the subject's Life Energy or Mana; the energy source is often an external power source or some other form of Applied Phlebotinum. Many instances of this trope imply that anyone can fire the blasts if they simply had the right equipment or circumstance.

May overlap with Arm Cannon if the entire arm/hand is weaponized.

Subtrope of Energy Weapon. See also Breath Weapon, Full Contact Magic, and Eye Beams.

If this is specifically through the palms, see also Power Palms.

Anime & Manga

 * Androids 16, 17, and 18 from Dragonball had this.
 * Amigiri of Darker Than Black has the power to shoot concussive force from his hands.
 * in Kiddy Grade have this as their main attack.
 * Mazinger Z: In one of the first episodes, Mazinger-Z shot missiles from its fingertips. This weapon was quickly ignored for obvious reasons.
 * Great Mazinger: Great Mazinger's Thunder Break. The Humongous Mecha gathered lightning bolts from the atmosphere and blasted its enemy with it. Tetsuya came up with a bunch of variations: Great Mazinger shot a continued stream of electricity from its forefingers, launched lightning bolts from its open palms -or fingertips-, powered up its sword with it...
 * UFO Robo Grendizer: Grendizer's backhands shot energy beams.
 * Pretty Cure Passionato Harmony of Suite Pretty Cure does this.
 * Sailor Venus' Crescent Beam emanates from her fingertip.
 * This is the signature weapon of The Pacifista from One Piece.

Comic Books

 * Iron Man's signature attack are his palm-based repulsor beams.
 * On the evil side in the Marvel Universe, Doctor Doom.
 * War Machine not only has his palm-based repulsor beams, but also guns on the wrists of his armor. Of course Iron Man created the armor for him.
 * Quantum and Woody each have a metal wristband that allows them to shoot energy blasts based on the quantum energy that they've been transformed into. Quantum fires a heat beam while Woody fires beams of force.
 * The Sentinels are Humongous Mecha that typically fire Hand Blasts in their mutant-hunting endeavors.
 * Cyclops' brother Havok fires concussive beams from his hands.
 * Rusty from The Big Guy and Rusty The Boy Robot.
 * The Astro City villain HandGun had an arsenal of specialized gauntlets which fire different types of energy beams. When he's killed, his wife is stuck wondering what she's going to do with all that gear...
 * Empowered can do this, when her suit works -- which is never guaranteed.
 * Spider Man B-villain The Shocker fires vibrating waves out of his gauntlets.
 * A-list villain, Norman Osborn/Green Goblin, has seldom-used, but surprisingly powerful finger lasers.
 * Starfire of the Teen Titans, as well as her evil sister Blackfire, has this as her main superpower.
 * One way or another, this is probably the most common ability in the Legion of Super Heroes.

Film

 * In the 2007 Transformers film, Ironhide whips out two huge cannons from his forearms. In fact, almost every projectile weapon used by the robots are like this, produced from their own arms and directly connected to their body.
 * More of a Shapeshifter Weapon. Ironhide's BFG's were mounted on his forearms, while the rest either used handheld guns or the replaced their hands with guns. By Dark of the Moon, almost everyone is using a handheld gun.
 * Done in Star Wars by two entire lines of CIS Battle Droids.
 * The ABC Warrior robot in Judge Dredd was armed with machineguns built into its hands. Cue the slaughter of faceless judges.
 * This is one of the key features of the device in Cowboys and Aliens.
 * Really? No one has put up Iron Man?

Literature

 * The Cobra cyborg warriors in Timothy Zahn's Cobra trilogy have a laser built into each hand.
 * All of the powers in Gone are said to focused in the hands, however not all are hand blasts.
 * Harry Dresden pulls this when deprived of his staff and blasting rod. And it is awesome.

Live Action TV

 * The Mighty Strobe in The Specials has this. Amok has something similar, except their source is more random, due to a slight case of Power Incontinence, meaning they can sometimes come out his dick.
 * Stargate SG-1: The Goa'uld hand device, useful for energy pulse attacks and brain scrambling.
 * The wrist-mounted plasma repeater Kull Warriors carry as well.
 * Numerous examples from various shows of the Ultra Series. The eponymous characters of the shows might have a signature energy attack activated by forming a plus sign or an L shape with their arms, along with some less powerful Hand Blast attacks.
 * The a signature attack used by eponymous hero of Ultraman. Activated by forming a cross with his hands.
 * Ultra Seven has an attack called Wide Shot, with his arms in an L-shaped pose.
 * Ultraman Jack of Return of Ultraman has his own Specium ray.
 * The eponymous character of Ultraman Tiga uses various hand blast attacks. Including a signature attack from his right arm by forming an L shape with both arms.
 * Ultraman Nexus has signature plus-style and L-style energy attacks. He can also shoot small energy projectiles. His Evil Counterparts also have similar attacks.
 * The eponymous character of Ultraman Mebius uses and attack called "Mebium Shoot", with his arms forming a plus sign, similar to the orignal Ultraman.

Tabletop RPG

 * Dungeons and Dragons. The Color Spray spell fires a fan-shaped spray of clashing colors from the caster's hand. It can cause victims to become blind, stunned or unconsciousness.
 * Most attack spells in Role Master are launched from the caster's palm.

Video Games

 * Samus Aran from Metroid has a Power Armor with an Arm Cannon replacing the right arm. That cannon can shoot missiles or blast the enemy with a dozen of different rays: Plasma Beam, Wave Beam, Hyper Beam, Phazon Beam...
 * The Blaster archetype in City of Heroes runs on this. For at least half of the power sets, the first few powers involve firing fire, ice, radiation, energy, etc. from the hands.
 * Vectorman has energy guns in the palms of his hands.
 * The Boss from Jumper Two attacks by shooting red (which you must avoid) and blue (which you must reflect) energy balls from his hands.
 * Red Faction: Armageddon has this, coming from the Magic From Technology nano-forge.
 * Appears several times in the Rolling Thunder franchise: Maboo in the NES version of the original, Gimdo in the Genesis version of Rolling Thunder 2, and Dread in the second phase of his final battle.
 * Inazuma Eleven 2 has the Ganymede Proton hissatsu technique which uses a Hand Blast for soccer of all things; the user stands behind the ball, facing the opposing team's goal, and directs the beam at the ball to send it flying at the goal. Apparently it's technically not a handball if you don't directly touch the ball with either hand, or maybe Rule of Cool just takes precedence over the other rules.
 * One of the Weapon Styles in DC Universe Online

Webcomics

 * Project 0: Noor is the first seen using these, the others might be able to too.
 * In El Goonish Shive, Lord Tedd seems to have this.
 * The mysterious girl in the beginning of Sarab has a gauntlet that does this.
 * Wayward Sons: A number of characters' powers can be used for this.

Web Original

 * Chaka of the Whateley Universe has picked up one of these from watching a ninja use a Ki attack on her. She calls it the 'Chaka Chaka Bang Bang'.
 * Plenty of Energizers like Golden Girl can do it too.

Western Animation

 * Space Ghost uses his power bands to fire stun rays, heat rays and so on.
 * Shego's "plasma" blasts from Kim Possible.
 * While not really a thing ghosts usually do, Danny can fire ectoplasmic blasts or "Ghost Rays" from his hands.
 * Finn from Adventure Time has the Gauntlet of the Hero until it's destroyed.
 * Big Guy and Rusty The Boy Robot: Rusty does it, and actually makes a shotgun style cocking of the arm before doing so.
 * Before he became an attorney, Birdman was a Winged Humanoid superhero who shot power blasts from his hands. They were solar-powered, so savvy villains often tried to trap him in dark places.