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{{
Examples of [[{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]] in [[{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] include:
* [[The Incredible Hulk]] has been this for years and years, but it became most apparent in [[World War Hulk]] where he easily defeats people he has no business defeating, most notably [[Doctor Strange]].▼
** Doc Strange was particularly horrible because his defeat relied on Strange's choosing to use magic more dangerous to himself than to the Hulk, and to fight the Hulk hand-to-hand. Let's look at that again: [[Idiot Ball|Doctor Strange CHOSE. To fight the HULK. In HAND-TO-HAND.]] As opposed to, oh, just waving his arms and sending the Hulk to have a time-out in another dimension, ''like he's done at least once before''. Aside from Strange, Hulk beating everyone else he beats in [[World War Hulk]] was at least individually justifiable in each case, although it was still pushing the limits a lot to have the Hulk do them ''all in the same week''. You'd think a project of that size is something even the Hulk would need to space out a little.▼
== DC Universe ==
*** Well, the Black Bolt case was a tad iffy (Hulk punching Black Bolt out, I can believe. Hulk taking a direct point-blank hit from Black Bolt's mega-scream, which hits harder than a nuclear warhead, and not even feeling it? Much less believable.), but that was later retconned to have been a Skrull impersonator and not the real Black Bolt.▼
** There seem to be two competing ideas about how the Hulk should be used; one sticks closer to his original conception as "the strongest one there is" with a few exceptions. The other sees him as a perfect candidate for [[The Worf Effect]] and not much else.▼
* Batman has become a walking [[Deus Ex Machina]] in comic books and "versus debates" thanks to the words [[Crazy Prepared|"with prep time"]]. Given enough prep time, [[Memetic Badass|he is speculated to be able to defeat]]: [[Superman]], [[Fantastic Four|Galactus]], [[Darkseid]], [[The Sandman|Death]], Taxes, Tofu, and Jelly Beans. The sheer amount of times he's handed Superman alone a smackdown would qualify him here even if nothing else would.
** The 'Batman smacks down Superman' issue was subverted in ''[[Justice League New Frontier|The New Frontier]]''; initially, it appears that Batman handed Superman his cape after Superman attempted to arrest Batman, who was refusing to [[Super Registration Act|register or resign as a superhero]]. {{spoiler|1=It's eventually revealed that the two men staged it as a protest against McCarthyism and the witch-hunts of the 1950s. At Superman's urging, no less.}}
** More concretely, he made contingency plans in one arc to take each member of the ''[[Justice League of America]]'' down should they go crazy. Of course, they [[Gone Horribly Wrong|fall into the wrong hands]], and work remarkably well on all the heroes.
** Even those plans are sometimes criticized by readers. The plan against Flash, for example, relies on him vibrating through a special bullet, instead of just, y'know, moving out of the way.
*** Wasn't there an extra layer in that tactic, where firing the bullet ''looked'' like an attempt to get Flash to jink to the side and thus step on a pre-prepared trap when instead the bullet actually was the trap?
** In several stories, it's later expanded to note that every single one of the Justice League members have at least some vague plan to take out their team-members in case any one of them goes rogue. They vary in effectiveness, though. [[Green Lantern|Hal Jordan]]'s contingency plan shows one of his own moments of [[Popularity Power]] - his plan to defeat Batman was to create a jetpack, strap it to him, and shoot him as far away as possible to be sure. Despite certain obvious flaws, his plan ''worked''(even if it was entirely unnecessary for a guy that can casually exceed the speed of light and destroy planets without trying).
** The entire issue is parodied in [https://web.archive.org/web/20090501182937/http://www.qwantz.com/archive/000745.html this] ''[[Dinosaur Comics]]'' strip.
** In one alternate universe, after Jason Todd was killed Batman went ...a ''little'' more nuts than normal...and ''killed every single villain on Earth'', resulting in a utopia. ''No one thought this was unlikely.''
*** To be fair, it took him fifteen years, and relied a whole lot on murdering people in their sleep one at a time and making it look like an accident. And even then some of the more powerful villains had to be taken down by the other heroes -- Batman's main contribution was to remove so many minor villains (and major villains who had no invulnerability, such as Lex Luthor) that the rest of the superhero community was all free to dogpile on the few threats that were left.
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** Wonder Woman beat down Batman in one of her issues. A criminal Batman was after sought sanctuary in Wonder Woman's headquarters, and Batman demanded she turn her over. Wondy said no. With her foot.
* [[The Joker]] has been such a popular villain in all of his incarnations (both in comic books and onscreen) over the past 70+ years that he [[Trope Namer|named]] a [[Joker Immunity|related trope]].
* [[Inverted Trope|Inverted]] in the case of [[Green Lantern|Larfleeze a.k.a. Agent Orange]] who became a [[Ensemble Darkhorse|favorite of fans]] and his [[Geoff Johns|creator]] alike following his debut. Initially he was firmly established as an [[Superpower Lottery|incredibly powerful]] [[Ax Crazy|nutcase]], being able to hold his own against the [[Green Lantern]] Corps and the [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|Guardians of the Universe]] and displayed enough power to outright kill multiple members of the Guardians even before that. However, during [[Blackest Night]] Larfleeze rarely displays such power again, being forced to run away from the Black Lanterns and even being threatened by Sinestro and Atrocitus (even though said threats don't do much to pursuade him), who are rather powerful as far as [[Green Lantern Ring|power ring]] wielding individuals go, but they simply can't logically be as powerful as Larfleeze who is effectively a [[One-Man Army|one man Lantern Corps]] by himself, let alone expect him to take as kindly to threats as he did. To be fair, Larfleeze's popularity is largely due to his [[Crazy Awesome|amusing personality quirks]] rather then how powerful he is, and he has remained entertaining despite having his abilities downplayed.▼
* Despite allegedly being [[Badass Normal|just a hair above maximum human potential]], some of [[Captain America (comics)]]'s feats have gone seemingly far beyond what he "should" be able to do. Any average human superhero or villain who goes up against him is sure to lose. Even superpowered denizens like [[Spider-Man]] and Wolverine fold before the Cap. And if that weren't enough, Captain America has actually gone rounds against Namor, Hulk, and the other super heavyweights of the [[Marvel Universe]] and STILL come out on top (or at the very least, fought these beings to a draw). Why? Because he's popular. Because he wears the red, white, and blue. And to top it all off, Marvel loves him so much that they'll never have the guy lose, just like DC is never going to have Batman lose.▼
== Marvel Universe(s) ==
▲* [[The Incredible Hulk]] has been this for years and years, but it became most apparent in [[World War Hulk]] where he easily defeats people he has no business defeating, most notably [[Doctor Strange]].
▲** Doc Strange was particularly horrible because his defeat relied on Strange's choosing to use magic more dangerous to himself than to the Hulk, and to fight the Hulk hand-to-hand. Let's look at that again: [[Idiot Ball|Doctor Strange CHOSE. To fight the HULK. In HAND-TO-HAND.]] As opposed to, oh, just waving his arms and sending the Hulk to have a time-out in another dimension, ''like he's done at least once before''. Aside from Strange, Hulk beating everyone else he beats in [[World War Hulk]] was at least individually justifiable in each case, although it was still pushing the limits a lot to have the Hulk do them ''all in the same week''. You'd think a project of that size is something even the Hulk would need to space out a little.
▲*** Well, the Black Bolt case was a tad iffy (Hulk punching Black Bolt out, I can believe. Hulk taking a direct point-blank hit from Black Bolt's mega-scream, which hits harder than a nuclear warhead, and not even feeling it? Much less believable.), but that was later retconned to have been a Skrull impersonator and not the real Black Bolt.
▲** There seem to be two competing ideas about how the Hulk should be used; one sticks closer to his original conception as "the strongest one there is" with a few exceptions. The other sees him as a perfect candidate for [[The Worf Effect]] and not much else.
▲* Despite allegedly being [[Badass Normal|just a hair above maximum human potential]], some of [[Captain America (comics)|Captain America]]'s feats have gone seemingly far beyond what he "should" be able to do. Any average human superhero or villain who goes up against him is sure to lose. Even superpowered denizens like [[Spider-Man]] and Wolverine fold before the Cap. And if that weren't enough, Captain America has actually gone rounds against Namor, Hulk, and the other super heavyweights of the [[Marvel Universe]] and STILL come out on top (or at the very least, fought these beings to a draw). Why? Because he's popular. Because he wears the red, white, and blue. And to top it all off, Marvel loves him so much that they'll never have the guy lose, just like DC is never going to have Batman lose.
** This is made especially ridiculous in the animated movie, ''[[Ultimate Avengers]]'', which has the team fight The Hulk in the finale and has Cap last better than any others who engage him in a direct fight. Notably, The Hulk takes down [[The Mighty Thor]] (an ACTUAL GOD) in two blows. Cap gets thrown all over the place and manages to endure around/over FOUR. Sure, he's bleeding and disoriented afterwards, but logically he shouldn't even be conscious.
*** That's Ultimate Captain America, who is supposed to be superhuman and actually ''did'' temporarily KO Ultimate Hulk in their first fight in the comics. Thor still got nerfed all to hell, though.
** Although there are a few well-known instances of Captain America subverting this trope. There are plenty of battles where he shows up, makes an inspirational speech about determination over power, then gets his ass handed to him (most famously against Korvac, Thanos, and the Masters of Evil).
** It should be noted that Cap's shield is often described as playing merry havoc with the laws of physics. For example, it's not just indestructible (it can shrug off a direct hit from everything short of Thor with the power of Odin), but it also arrests most (if not all) of the momentum directed at it, too. One imagines that works in reverse when used as a weapon. But still, all it should take is one shot from most people listed here and Cap is down for the count.
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*** Civil War also had Captain America defeat Spider-man, and Spidey offers a debatable justtification for it.. Captain America, in canon, is one of the most experienced superhero on the planet. "There is no 'next move' to read, for him, it's all one long move from start to finish, he has it all planed out in advance while you're still trying to react to his last blow."
**** He's not really the most experienced superhero on the planet as characters like Namor, Wolverine, Thor, and Hercules are all significantly older then him and have been fighting longer. It doesn't stop him from fighting and in some cases beating these guys though.
**** Keep in mind that Spiderman's reflexes are technically precognitive. More than that, Spidey is at least several dozen times stronger than Cap, making any plausible difference in hand-to-hand skills essentially moot for the same reason even the grand martial arts champion of the 7th grade isn't going to beat even a scrub of
**** In addition to being superhumanly strong Spidey is also superhumanly ''tough'', to the point where he can take hits from people like the Rhino and Mr. Hyde and still stay on his feet. Cap may have peak human or even mildly superhuman strength (depending on the writer and the era), but he's nowhere near as strong as an entire list of people who have given Spidey their best haymaker and still not put him down. ''Maybe'' if Peter stood still and deliberately let Cap hit him right over the skull with the edge of his shield a dozen times or so he'd start staggering. Until then, no way.
** Lately Deadpool has been shown as possibly being Cap's superior. In a recent team-up, an enraged Deadpool got into a heated battle with Steve Rogers, now Super Soldier. In that battle, Deadpool managed to put a really good hurting on the former Captain America. Just when it seemed that Deadpool was finally overpowering Rogers, he was shot in the back with several tranquilizer darts to end the battle and even then Deadpool was the one still standing while Cap was the one on his knees who looked worse for wear. Considering how Captain America usually shows up other superheroes like Wolverine and Spider-Man in their own comic books, it's quite amazing that Deadpool managed to come off looking really strong against Captain America with the implication that he might have won their interrupted battle if he were to continue going all-out.
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** A later issue of Lobo's own comic implied that he was ''paid'' to throw the fight, which ''is'' in-character for him while also nicely avoiding an outright denial.
** The same series also had Wolverine's X-Men teammate Storm hand a smack-down to [[Wonder Woman]], which seemed more than a little unlikely to many objective observers; however, ''X-Men'' were selling better than Wonder Woman at the time.
*** Context on the above fight; Storm did not win by keeping the fight at range and spamming typhoons at Diana until she fell over, which would have at least made some kind of sense. Diana was able to make it to melee range and successfully connect with a kick to Storm's head, ''and Storm still stayed conscious''. When a woman with the damage resistance of an ordinary athletic human being takes a direct shot in melee from a woman who hits hard enough that she can put Superman through a wall, and its a [[Won't Work On Me]], that is bullshit of the highest degree.
*** Furthermore, Diana was defeated in the end by trying to block one of Storm's lightning bolts with her wrist bracelets, and instead had the electricity conducted into her by the metal bracelets. The problem with that: In canon, Diana's bracelets are non-conductive to energy, and have successfully blocked things like Superman's heat vision and Zeus' own lightning bolts.
** In his recent "Brainwashed by Hydra" arc, Wolverine takes on the like of Namor, the [[Fantastic Four]], and [[Stan Lee]] knows [[Wolverine Publicity|how many others]], without getting beaten or captured once.
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** As her squirrel companion Tippy-Toe once pointed out in a [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]] address to fans who reacted more humourlessly to her tendency to defeat Dr. Doom:
{{quote|"Yeah, that's right. Squirrel Girl totally pwns Doc Doom. Know why? '[[Armed with Canon|Cause of somethin' that happened in a story by]] '''Steve-freakin'-Ditko'''! That's ''so'' in continuity. [[Take That|So just deal with it, fanboy]]."}}
* [[Deadpool]] once realized that this was the reason that he can never die, so [[Death Seeker|in order to die]] he decided to {{spoiler|go out and [[Take That|kill]] [[No Fourth Wall|all of his fans]]}}.▼
== DC/Marvel Crossovers ==
* A notable aversion came in one of the DC/Marvel crossovers, when the JLA went up against the X-Men. Batman, the most popularity-powered character of them all, sprang a surprise attack on Cyclops who, while he has plenty of fans, also attracts more hate than probably any other X-Man (with the possible exception of Gambit). Guess which one got taken down.
** In fairness, you did say 'surprise attack' and Batman is a specialist in stealth and martial arts while Cyclops is a glass cannon who, despite his tremendous offensive power, can be punched out as easily as any other non-superpowered athlete of his build. Moreover, the guy whose superpower is literally "vaporize anything I look at" can pretty much ''only'' be taken out by hitting him when he's not looking, which is exactly why its how he loses all the time.
== Other Titles ==
* In ''[[Fables]]'' this is one speculated source of the eponymus Fables' powers. The more popular the story about a Fable is, the more powerful they are. For example, Snow White recovered from a sniper's bullet to the skull--her sister Rose Red might not have survived since most people have forgotten her part of the fairytale-- Frau Totenkinder is one of the most powerful Fables in existance because she is every anonymous witch in folklore, and Goldilocks raises this to a level bordering on [[Blessed with Suck]] {{spoiler|when she discovers she can't heal any faster than the fish are eating her.}}
** Jack Horner, who is every Jack in fairy tales (except Jack Sprat), exploited this by going to Hollywood and making a trilogy of movies about him. He's now effectively immortal, but [[Good Thing You Can Heal|not invincible]].
** It also has the effect that Fables' powers are different in different areas. Baba Yaga is powerful in Russia, but in America, Frau Totenkinder is far more powerful, because more people know, say, Hansel and Gretel, than know Baba Yaga's stories.
▲* [[Deadpool]] once realized that this was the reason that he can never die, so [[Death Seeker|in order to die]] he decided to {{spoiler|go out and [[Take That|kill]] [[No Fourth Wall|all of his fans]]}}.
▲* [[Inverted Trope|Inverted]] in the case of [[Green Lantern|Larfleeze a.k.a. Agent Orange]] who became a [[Ensemble Darkhorse|favorite of fans]] and his [[Geoff Johns|creator]] alike following his debut. Initially he was firmly established as an [[Superpower Lottery|incredibly powerful]] [[Ax Crazy|nutcase]], being able to hold his own against the [[Green Lantern]] Corps and the [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|Guardians of the Universe]] and displayed enough power to outright kill multiple members of the Guardians even before that. However, during [[Blackest Night]] Larfleeze rarely displays such power again, being forced to run away from the Black Lanterns and even being threatened by Sinestro and Atrocitus (even though said threats don't do much to pursuade him), who are rather powerful as far as [[Green Lantern Ring|power ring]] wielding individuals go, but they simply can't logically be as powerful as Larfleeze who is effectively a [[One-Man Army|one man Lantern Corps]] by himself, let alone expect him to take as kindly to threats as he did. To be fair, Larfleeze's popularity is largely due to his [[Crazy Awesome|amusing personality quirks]] rather then how powerful he is, and he has remained entertaining despite having his abilities downplayed.
* Back in 2000, [[Kurt Busiek]] and Stuart Immonen wrote a short graphic novel, ''Superstar'', about a hero who was powered by popularity. Kind of. The hero of the story gained superpowers as long as he had the energy to spare, but it was limited and did run out. His father ended up merchandising him to hell and back (even against his express wishes sometimes) with toy lines, live shows, televising his battles, etc. Part of the cost to watch the shows or buying the merch? A small energy donation, not even enough to make you weeze from tiredness. Of course, being really popular and taking energy donations from millions of fans, he was actually rather powerful.
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