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* Three [[Donald Duck]] stories by [[Don Rosa]] involved a liquid called "The Universal Solvent". It was capable of dissolving pretty much anything—except diamonds. In real life, unless you're an alchemist, the term 'Universal Solvent' usually refers to ''water''...
** Technically the Universal Solvent in the stories doesn't dissolve anything. It compresses the atoms of anything it comes in contact with, turning all matter into a superdense powder. Granted, this is only mentioned in the first story.
* [[Batman]] loves this stuff; it's used to kill the villain in his very first story, ''The Case of the Chemical Syndicate'', and is the comic-book source of Harvey Dent's scars as Two-Face. Deconstructed in Dr. Scott's [https://web.archive.org/web/20131115171351/http://www.politedissent.com/archives/893#comments article] on an issue where Batman counteracts The Joker's acid by spraying the target with a strong base. Hello exothermic reaction!
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** This is actually a nod to the previous AVP fluff, where the Predators are said to have antacid blood that neutralizes the Aliens' acid blood. It will damages their skin but stops once it reaches their blood.
*** Still inconsistent, though. In the first AVP comic Broken Tusk gives the 'scarification' ritual to Machiko Noguchi -- who is a human being -- and yet doesn't melt through her forehead when he slaps on some Xenomorph blood, straight from the gore-dripping severed limb of a recently-dead Xenomorph.
* ''[[Richie Rich (comics)|Richie Rich]]'', where Richie uses the acid (disguised as a tube of toothpaste) to help break Cadbury, his [[Battle Butler|butler]] out of jail.
* In ''[[Gremlins]]'' 2, there is a bit with a beaker of acid labeled "Acid: Do Not Throw In Face". One gremlin throws it in the face of another, who then assumes a ''[[Phantom of the Opera]]'' mask and cape.
* The goop that Jack Napier falls into in Tim Burton's ''[[Batman]]'' is puke-green and has the consistency of a milkshake. Its later described as "acid". Later in the same film, the Joker's trick flower squirts acid strong enough to eat through thick metal in seconds (when he sprays it on the bolts holding up the church bell).
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* Played straight in ''[[Saw]] III''. In the infamous "Angel Trap" scene, Kerry has one minute to grab a key (which, contrary to Jigsaw's warning, never actually dissolves) inside a beaker of highly corrosive acid and free herself from a harness before it tears open her ribcage. By the time she finally retrieves said key, her hand is horribly mangled and the acid is dark red. {{spoiler|What makes the scene even scarier is that the key actually doesn't free her, so she still dies.}}
** An even more ridiculous usage of the substance tops off ''Saw VI'', dissolving a man from the inside out in about ten seconds.
* In ''[[
* The Tall Man is killed in ''[[Phantasm II]]'' when the fluid he uses to reanimate corpses is tainted with hydrochloric acid and then injected into him, melting him from the inside-out. If that wasn't improbable enough to bother all of you chemists, this somehow causes his [[Eye Scream|eyeballs to explode.]] Of course, this may be justified as the Tall Man's physiology is alien.
* In ''[[The Rock (film)|The Rock]]'', VX nerve gas is shown to be a corrosive acid. Crosses over with [[Poison Is Corrosive]].
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* ''The House on Haunted Hill'' in 1959 had a tank full of acid in the basement as big as a swimming pool, still caustic enough to reduce human bodies to skeletons.
* A janitor is killed by having his head dunked in a sink that was randomly full of acid (or some kind of corrosive chemical) in ''[[Hospital Massacre]]''.
* In ''[[
* ''[[Alien]]'' knockoff flick ''[[Deep Rising]]'' features giant worms with stomach acids so strong that they get their nutrition by merely engulfing and digesting their prey alive. The acting effects of this are shown in one particularly gory sequence appropriately know as [[Body Horror|"half-digested Billy".]]
* The 1985 B-grade horror flick ''Attack of the Beast Creatures'' features a whole ''river'' made of acid, which coincidentally looks exactly like normal water. When one person tries to cross it, his body gets dissolved until only the skeleton remains. It's never made clear how such a large body of highly corrosive acid came to exist, nor how the tropical rainforest on the river bank manages to prosper.
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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* [[Dungeons
** Earlier editions have it too, with spells such as Acid Fog, and a black dragon's Acid Breath. And whenever the stuff is illustrated, expect it to be a bright green.
* A very common damage type in [[Mortasheen]], as well as a more specific Corrosive type of damage that specifically does heavy damage to metal (Perfect for the [[Mecha-Mooks]] the game has as its main villains)
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* In the ''[[Monkey Island]]'' games, grog is so acidic that it dissolves the pewter mugs it is served in {{spoiler|as well as the locks on cell doors.}}
* In ''[[Uninvited]]'', the servant ghost kills you by engulfing you into his "misty form", which covers you in a thick, sticky goo that turns out to be acid that not only hurts like hell, but turns you into a "lifeless lump of flesh".
* In [[
* In the Flash game ''Crush the Castle 2'', acid projectiles play the trope 100% straight. They are green and hissing, will completely dissolve almost any substance it touches, and will leak down, dissolving any objects beneath that the target point directly contacts. This can create a chain reaction which can bring down entire structures by itself. Oddly, though it can disintegrate solid iron, it will not eat through the much softer earth once it reaches down that far, and a few kinds of rock walls are impervious to it. Human targets are naturally dissolved.
* Several ''[[Gauntlet (1985 video game)|Gauntlet]]'' games have puddles of green acid as enemies.
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== Western Animation ==
* The Batman/Superman episode ''World's Finest'' both subverts this and plays it straight, kinda. When the Joker leaves Superman and Batman trapped in one of Luthor's laboratories (with a chunk of kryptonite slowly killing Superman), Batman begins looking for ways to escape. He finds a container of hydrochloric acid. Batman notes that while it will take a week for the acid to eat through the wall of the room they're in, it will [[Artistic License Chemistry|destroy the kryptonite]] almost immediately.
** To be fair, what the acid did was dissolve the kryptonite... and thus allow it to flow down the drain and out of the room.
** Similarly, Superman's Anti-Kryptonite suit is supposed to be designed to resist corrosion by acid, yet is destroyed by it anyway.
* In ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'', Jimmy's "[[Call a Smeerp a Rabbit|dog]]" Cerbee actually has acid as waste, which dissolves anything he relieves himself on.
* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'': Radioactive Man's actor is [[Memetic Mutation|famous on the Internet for]] getting washed away by a sea of Hollywood Acid while [[Goggles Do Nothing|(understandably) complaining that his protective eyewear is not serving its ostensible function]].
** Homer was also about to quaff a beaker of acid, but it was knocked out of his hand by Frank Grimes. It splashed all over the wall, creating a hole big enough to drive a car through. Grimes was then chewed out by Mr. Burns for destroying the wall.
*** And for wasting his precious acid.
== Real Life ==
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* The term [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Super Acid]] is used for any material that is more acidic than 100% pure sulphuric acid. Some particularly corrosive chemicals can protonate and dissolve hydrocarbons, something that does not occur in a normal acid environment for example.
* [[wikipedia:Chlorine trifluoride|Chlorine trifluoride]] - not technically an acid, but it burns through flesh, glass, rock and concrete like nobody's business. When mixed with water it explodes and forms hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acids as ''byproducts''. [[Even Evil Has Standards|Too nasty]] even for [[Those Wacky Nazis]].
{{quote|"It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and [[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick|test engineers]], not to mention asbestos, sand, and water — with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals — steel, copper, aluminium, etc. — because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here|a good pair of running shoes.]]"
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]
[[Category:Hollywood Style]]
[[Category:
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