Bottomless Magazines: Difference between revisions

 

== Exceptions ==

* In volume 1 of the ''[[Read or Die]]'' manga, Yomiko whirls to face a henchman, only to find that she's out of paper -- [[Mexican Standoff|but he's out of bullets, too, and they both take a moment to reload before continuing]].

* Mostly averted in ''[[Trigun]]'' as we often see Vash reloading with speedloaders (a cylinder's worth of ammunition held ready for loading like a magazine). How he never seems to run out of these is another question, just like the "finite rounds in infinite magazines."

 

 

* Subverted in ''[[100 Bullets]]''. Most of the plots revolve around a protagonist who is given a finite supply of untraceable bullets. [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Guess how many]].

* A '''[[Runaways]]''' arc one dealt with time travel to the 1900s. One of the villains there had a particularly nasty pair of magic revolvers that hit its target every time. He ended up being killed when he wasted his shots on a undead hero who couldn't be killed so easily.

* ''John Wick'' is magnificent about this. Despite single-handedly killing 77 people over the course of two hours (it's that kind of movie), John is ''always'' shown reloading his weapon. Not only that, he's also shown as having a maximum ammunition capacity -- it becomes a plot point in the Red Circle shootout that John has had to go through so many Mooks that he's actually run out of spare magazines before he finishes his assault, leaving him vulnerable to [[The Dragon]] and eventually forcing him to abort the mission. The most memorable example is in the lobby of the Red Circle when John is attacked by so many Mooks in rapid succession that he doesn't have a chance to reload, resulting in a sequence where he aims his pistol directly at the forehead of a nearby Mook, clicks on an empty chamber, kicks the Mook into a nearby pillar in frustration (and to keep from being shot), ejects his magazine, slaps in a fresh one, works the slide, and ''then'' shoots the Mook in the head while said Mook is still trying to recover from having the wind kicked out of him. All in less than three seconds.

 

* Averted in [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]]'s ''Warrior Woman'', in which gladiators using slingshots are handicapped by being given a fixed number of stones (fourteen); the crowd chants the number of shots taken.

* The ammo in the father's revolver is a constant concern in the [[After the End|Post-Apocalyptic]] novel ''The Road''. He starts with only a few bullets and at one point gets so desperate that he fashions fake bullets out of spent casings so that he can bluff people.

 

 

* Averted with [[Energy Weapons]] no less in ''[[Firefly]]'' for at least one character who discovered that, although [[Awesome but Impractical|a hand laser looks pretty cool]], it starts giving the "low battery" warning after only three shots or so.

* Averted on the old ''[[Batman (TV series)|Batman]]'' TV series, where the villains are shooting at Batman behind smoke; when the smoke clears, it's revealed that not only does Batman have a shield, he knows the villains are now out of bullets and can attack them.

 

 

* Warhammer 40,000 has a few exceptions: combi-weapons are boltguns with a one-shot special weapon attachment, the Manticore missile launcher gets four missiles and then is done, the Black Templars get the Holy Orb of Antioch (a one-shot super-grenade), and a few other one-shot powers.

** The spinoff game Aeronautica Imperialis has limited ammunition for every weapon. Yes, even rayguns.

 

 

* Ammunition is a precious commodity in the various ''[[Resident Evil]]'' games, most notably in ''Code Veronica'' where there is simply not enough ammo to kill everything - fortunately, it's also the first game in the series where [[Emergency Weapon|the knife]] is truly useful.

* Averted in ''[[Star Wars Battlefront]]'' and it's sequel. This is actually very strange, as the source material commonly portrays most of the weapons as having unlimited ammunition, or at least very large magazines.

 

 

* A Season 2 episode of ''[[Red vs. Blue]]'' subverts it hilariously.

{{quote|'''Simmons:''' Ah crap, I'm out. Give me some ammunition, Grif.

 

 

* Averted ''hard'' in ''[[Darwin's Soldiers]]''. The characters spend a fair amount of time reloading and several of their enemies have been killed because they ran out of ammo.

* Averted and subverted in ''[[The Mercury Men]]''. Although The League’s zap-gun-of-choice - the ''Lumiére'' - resembles a modified six-shot revolver, so at first glance this trope appears to be played straight, the blueprints on their website reveal that each of the six glowing ''mercury pin'' bullets is actually good for 24 shots, for a total of 144 energy blasts per full reload.

 

 

* The Avalon [[Story Arc|Arc]] of ''[[Gargoyles]].'' Elisa empties her handgun at the [[Big Bad]], and for the rest of the adventure is handicapped by not having more ammo for it. Several times during the arc, she pulls her gun in reflex to a threat, only to remember she's out of shots.

* Averted in ''[[Code Lyoko]]'', in which early on, Odd is equipped with a certain amount of "Lazer Arrows", and once he's out, he's out until Jérémie restocks his arrows. Through Season 1, barely any episode went by without Odd running out of arrows at some point. Jérémie, however, is eventually able in Season 2 to upgrade Odd's virtual form, enabling his gloves to hold 10,000 arrows apiece.