Ray Gun: Difference between revisions

 

Compare [[Pure Energy]].

{{examples}}

== Comic Books ==

* The ray guns in the old serials like ''[[Flash Gordon (comic strip)|Flash Gordon]]''.

* [[An Ice Person|Mr. Freeze's cold ray]] in ''[[Batman]]''.

 

== Film ==

* The <s>laser</s> antimatter guns in the [[Rocky Horror Picture Show]].

* [[Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow]] has Dex build one for the protagonist. It's unreliable and the shots are a parody of [[Special Effects Failure]]: goofy slowly spreading rings straight out of period comics and cheap science fiction. However, it's very impressive at melting Totenkopf's robots.

 

== Literature ==

* In [[Isaac Asimov]]'s book they use "atomic ray guns" that apparently boil the blood of any organic thing hit until it explodes.

* One [[Biggles]] story mentions these as a possible explanation for the inexplicable crashes of multiple Allied aircraft flying a particular supply route. It turns out to be something rather simpler: {{spoiler|Japanese intelligence officers were slipping packets of chewing gum laced with a powerful narcotic into the cockpits of the planes, causing the pilots to pass out at the controls.}}

* Arthur C. Clarke, always a stickler for hard science in his short stories, subverts this. A group of pub patrons lampshade this trope while arguing whether ray guns can even exist, prompting one to tell a story within a story of an astronomer that {{spoiler|uses a highly polished mirror to reflect his wife's headlight beams back in her face when she's driving home from one of her trysts - attempting to murder her by driving her off a dangerous road. Unexpected outcome ensues. Note - it wasn't the tryst that annoyed him - is was the light pollution from her hieadlights interrupting his studies of the heavens that drove him to such measures.}}

* Northwest Smith uses a "Heat Gun" in the stories by C.L. Moore.

* Used in the tagline of [[The Chronicles of Professor Jack Baling]]: Brilliance. Madness. Ray Guns.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* ''[[Red Dwarf]]'''s bazookoids are basically mining lasers used as weapons.

* Common in ''[[Power Rangers]]'' and ''[[Super Sentai]]''. The best-known would probably be [[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]' Blade Blasters, which also become dirks.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* [[Mekton]] has an elaborate construction system for equipment from switchblades to planet-killing space fortresses, including a dizzying array of "Beam Weapons" (ray guns).

** Also, it works by ''tearing off the flesh of its victims one layer of molecules at a time. First skin, then flesh, then muscle, then bone...''

** The standard Imperial raygun are classified as 'las weapons'. They fire a laser beam capable of blowing a man's arm off. Though they're [[Running Gag|unfavorably compared to flashlights]].

* ''[[Traveller]]'' naturally offers a range of laser, plasma, and fusion weapons to meet all your needs.

 

== Video Games ==

* All three ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]'' games have the "Ray Gun" item. Unlike some other energy weapons though, it only has 16 shots.

* ''[[Call of Duty]]: World at War'', of all games, has a ray gun, by name, available randomly in the Nazi Zombies bonus mode and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDjR3vkOQeU sneakily hidden in one of the singleplayer levels], along with its larger cousin, the Wunderwaffe, on a downloadable map. The former fires green rays surrounded by rings, and the latter some sort of electricity. Both have a very retro [[Raygun Gothic]] look to them, and are very good at killing zombies.

* [[Team Fortress 2]]: One of the Soldier's many, many alternate weapons is now a small handheld ray blaster or a larger ray gun.

** The Engineer and Pyro now have ray guns of their own, although predictably the Pyro's new primary still has range issues.

 

== Web Comics ==

* The prisoners in ''[[The Lydian Option]]'' collect a variety of ray guns from the corpses of other escapees.

* Scarlet of ''[[Sequential Art (webcomic)|Sequential Art]]'' manages to make a ray gun out of a [http://www.collectedcurios.com/sequentialart.php?s=199 movie prop] belonging to Art, this comes back to [http://www.collectedcurios.com/sequentialart.php?s=282 haunt him later.]

 

== Web Original ==

* Yaeger's pistol, the ''Lumiére'', in ''[[The Mercury Men]]''.

 

== Western Animation ==

* An episode of ''[[The Tick (animation)]]'' had a ray gun which turned people into some guy named Ray.

* [[G.I. Joe]], where such weapons were prominent on both sides.

 

== Real Life ==

** Apparently ''radar'' originally came to the attention of the British government after they put out a request for proposals for directed-energy weapons.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Guns and Gunplay Tropes]]

[[Category:Rule of Cool]]

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Weapons and Wielding Tropes]]