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{{trope}}
[[File:
In films, on TV, and in comic books, an "acid" is any liquid that can eat away at and completely dissolve skin and muscle, [[Stripped to
This stuff will never be referred to as anything other than "acid," unless it's given some [[Techno Babble|highly scientific]] name at its introduction, after which it will simply be called "acid." Expect it to show up at least once in any work involving a [[Mad Scientist]]. If this stuff is ever spilled on a person or other living creature, say hello to the [[Nightmare Fuel]].
A [[Sub
{{examples}}
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== Comic Books ==
* Three [[Donald Duck]] stories by [[Don Rosa]] involved a liquid called "The Universal Solvent". It was capable of dissolving pretty much
** 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!
== Film ==
* In Tomie:Replay, Tomie pushes Yumi, the protagonist, out of the wheelchair she was in onto a floor covered in acid.
* ''[[Superman III]]'' featured "beltric acid," which became super-corrosive if it heated up far enough. It ends up as a [[Chekhov's Gun]] in the final fight against the rogue computer.
* The blood of the xenomorphs in ''[[Alien]]'' and its sequels is made of a "concentrated molecular acid" (sic) that can eat through a starship's hull but not through the body of the xenomorph itself, due to being [[Silicon
** Notable in that its potency freaks ''everyone'' out; one character makes noises about "[[Techno Babble|molecular acid]]" in the first film, and an executive speaks of "concentrated acid" in a patronizing manner in he second - they're basically saying, "Umm... Acid '''isn't''' supposed to '''''do''''' that!"
* ''[[Aliens vs. Predator]]'' is inconsistent with the lethality of Alien blood. A hunter's arm is seared off by a splash of facehugger blood, and another unfortunate human has his skull melted by a blast of Xenomorph blood to the face. However, the first film also presents it as mild enough to use for body scarification.
** 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).
* The same fate befalls some nameless extras in ''[[The Mummy
* The DIP in ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]'' pretty much acts like
** Slightly justified. The mix of paint-thinners may very well have a green appearance, and it's not unreasonable to have it heated by the motion and such. More pain for the toon, and less viscosity.
* Averted in ''Runaway'', in which the acid sprayed by Gene Simmons' insectoid robots causes ugly black burns on the hero's skin rather than dissolving his tissues.
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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 (
* In the first ''[[RoboCop
* ''Stomach acid'' serves as this trope in the final battle of [[Innerspace]], {{spoiler|when Tuck Pendleton drops his pod into Jack Putter's stomach with [[The Dragon|Mr. Igoe]] clinging to the side. The pod survives; [[Stripped to
* ''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
* 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.
== Literature ==
* Aversion in ''[[The Riftwar Cycle|A Darkness at Sethanon]]'' - the Tsurani Empire's homeworld has very little metal, so they have had to find other means of torture, which consist of using caustic ''bases'' to blister the skin, not acid.
* In the novel of ''[[God of War (
* In ''Discworld'', the metal-dissolving aspects of this trope are applied to [[Gargle Blaster|scumble]], as well as (justifiably) to the caustic beverages favored by trolls.
* In the [[New Jedi Order]], the Jedi-hunting ''voxyn'' beasts can vomit acid (which is, unusually, not depicted as stereotypical acid, but rather mucus that happens to be strong enough to [[Body Horror|burn through faces]]), and their blood is [[No Kill Like Overkill|both acidic and a neurotoxin]].
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* Surprisingly averted in an episode of ''The Lucy Show'' of all places. [[Lucille Ball]] and Vivian Vance attend a night-school chemistry class, and Lucy panics when she gets splashed with a very weak acid... until the instructor tells her that the stuff she got covered in was effectively harmless.
* ''[[Better Off Ted]]'' had an episode which featured a biocomputer that leaked an "acid-like goo," or "ass-goo" for short that burned through several floors and desks.
* Surprisingly, ''[[The X
** The blood emits toxic vapours which cause swelling and reddening around the eyes and death by coagulation. It may be acidic, but that is incidental to its effectiveness.
* In the ''[[Tales
** Of course, only someone who had already [[You Fail Biology Forever|Failed Biology Forever]] would confuse a special purpose acid resisting membrane (eg, your stomach and presumably bits of your digestive tract) with any other part of the body. Witness the damage acid reflux can cause, and the fact that people can eat and digest the skins of other animals. Possibly even [[I Am a Humanitarian|other people, too]].
*** Indeed. Gastric acid is predominantly hydrochloric acid with some potassium chloride and sodium chloride. The only thing keeping that from eating through your stomach is a lining of acid-resistant mucus and production of bicarbonates to act as extra cushion. Failure of either of those protective systems is what causes stomach ulcers (which is a fancy term for when there isn't enough of said cushion and your stomach starts eating itself, resulting in open aggravated internal sores). The show still fails horribly, though, in that [[Did Not Do the Research|if the acid 'trapped' in the soap was eating through her skin, it would eat through the soap as well,]] nevermind stink like nothing else, and be noticeable well before she tried using it. Considering that lye has been used in soap production and still is in some brands, disposing of the body via turning it into soap should have destroyed everything (except maybe the teeth) and made perfectly good usable soap without even recognizable DNA to pick up.
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** The fact that one of her husbands eye balls was in the soap and still moving and looking at her as she died may indicate that there was an element of the supernatural to the soap.
* The live action ''[[Batman]]'' had an inspired variant in a Riddler story when the villain gets a special wax. It is the perfect safe-cracking tool: a powerful corrosive that is potent enough that a pocketful of the stuff will quickly and silently penetrate thick steel doors or concrete walls in minutes and yet is perfectly safe to handle until you expose it to direct flame. In fact, you'd almost wonder why Riddler didn't [[Cut Lex Luthor a Check|make a bundle simply auctioning the stuff to other criminals]].
* In the ''[[Friday the
* Clark Kent, in the 1950’s ''Superman'' series, was lowered into an enormous vat of acid by chortling villains, who then walked out to arrange their next evil deed. Naturally, Superman then emerged, his costume soaked, but unharmed. Presumably, Kent’s glasses and clothes were dissolved.
* The Columbo episode ''Mind Over Mayhem'' features a killer who disposes of certain key bits of evidence- a wallet, file folder with papers, and a metal can containing heroin- in a vat labeled "contaminated acid". It looks like water until the items drop in and starts to boil.
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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
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* Reptile from ''[[Mortal Kombat]]''. His fatality in ''Ultimate MK3'' has him vomit a gallon of "acid" on his opponent, melting their flesh clear off their skeleton. He also has acid fatalities in ''Mortal Kombat 4'' and ''Deadly Alliance''.
** And don't forget the "Dead Pool" from ''Mortal Kombat 2''.
* ''[[
* Any falling sand clone that features acid has it behave this way. [[The Powder Toy]] has acid not only dissolve everything it touches except diamond, but it's also [[Incendiary Exponent|flammable]].
* The Mac game ''Spin Doctor'' had droplets of bright green acid that activated when you passed over them and chased you.
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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 (
== Webcomics ==
* Subverted in ''[[8-Bit Theater
** "[http://www.nuklearpower.com/2002/03/15/episode-128-the-acid-would-be-healthier/ The Acid Would Be Healthier]"
* In a ''[[Wonderella]]'' strip, [[Captain Ersatz|Jokerella]] threatens her with ''citric'' acid (which ''can'' be harmful in its pure form, but it's not exactly [[The Joker|Joker]]-level evil).
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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
* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'': Radioactive Man's actor is [[Memetic Mutation|famous on the Internet for]] getting washed away by a sea of
** 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 ==
* Real acids actually do some of the things commonly attributed to Hollywood acids. Most notably, common acids do dissolve ordinary metals, producing flammable hydrogen gas in the process(though plastic, glass, concrete, and most other common materials are basically unaffected). The stronger ones can also burn flesh, and produce some very nasty fumes, like smelling vinegar but far stronger. Most acids won't dissolve flesh, though, that's actually what bases are for. However, most of the common acids are clear liquids that look just like water, and they certainly don't bubble continuously for the sake of it.
* Hydrofluoric acid is probably the most dangerous acid someone not working in a lab could get a hold of and reasonably store. It rapidly penetrates the skin and proceeds to destroy the human body from the inside out by reacting readily with calcium. To make matters worse because calcium is used in the propagation of action potentials (those thingamajigs that let you feel pain) many people don’t realize they’re dying until it’s too late.
** Also, it's poisonous, when it reaches the blood stream and it doesn't become less corrosive nearly as fast as other acids when diluted.
* The term [[Exactly What It Says
* [
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{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]
[[Category:Hollywood Style]]
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