Shooting Superman: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:Superman bullet by Kerong 3533.jpg|frame|link=http://kerongrant.net/|[[Sarcasm Mode|Because it's worked so well in the past, right?]]]]

 

{{quote|'''Prince of Space''': "Enough of this! When will you ever learn? Your guns won't work on me!"

 

 

The tendency for [[Mooks]], [[Redshirt Army|the military]], and other assorted gunmen to [[Attack! Attack! Attack!|repeatedly attack]] a [[Monster of the Week|monster]], alien, or [[Superhero]] with weapons that [[Genre Blindness|they themselves should know won't work]] from either personal experience or at least from watching the news. What's worse, they'll simply stand in place and [[I Will Fight Some More Forever|try the same thing over and over again]] as the hero or other threat to their safety [[Implacable Man|advances slowly towards them]], never trying something else or turning tail to run until the last possible second.

 

 

Named for the countless times crooks and other low-level threats have attempted to stop [[Superman]] by shooting him with regular guns. Often they'll even [[Throw-Away Guns|throw their empty gun at him]] once they've emptied the magazine, to no effect. (Though old live-action Superman shows would sometimes have him duck or otherwise dodge the thrown prop guns) [[Overly Long Gag|Particularly dense examples]] will then pull out another gun and try again, or pick up a chair and smash him over the head with it... And then do it AGAIN and again until [[Fan Nickname|Supes]] has had his fun and proceeds to twist them up like a pretzel.

** His children too, when Launch attempts to save Yamcha from Tambourine she shoots him with a machine gun, the bullets just bounce off him.

** Very first episodes/chapter of Dragon Ball, Bulma panicked and shot a 12 year old Goku. Right in the head. Goku hopped up and said that hurt, and all he had was a small bump on his forehead. From the very first chapter, we have the establishment of Goku's bulletproofness.

* Lampshaded in one episode of ''[[Tokko]]''. When a handful of Muggle rookie cops are being dispatched to a phantom attack site, one of them points out that bullets don't work against the monsters. [[Da Chief]] angrily snaps back ''{{smallcaps|"I STILL WANT YOU TO SHOOT AT THEM!"}}''

* In ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'', after the titular [[Humongous Mecha]] cripples his own mech, Admiral Dozel climbs out of the cockpit & begins shooting at it with a rifle. This is more a final symbolic act of defiance, though.

** More along the lines of the trope: ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket|Gundam 0080]]'' demonstrates that even a single [[Mook]] piloted by a rookie can do significant damage to a Gundam if they use strategy and tactics. However, more often than not the enemy will just fire blindly and get trashed, with the Gundam receiving only light damage at worst.

* Alucard of ''[[Hellsing]]'', pretty much all the time. Even enemies who know he's an immortal vampire still try. Though they may imagine they have a chance of slowing him down, it's likely that all the drama surrounding his regeneration is purely for his amusement.

{{quote|"''You'll need more than guns to stop me!''"}}

* ''[[One Piece]]'' - Considering he has a three hundred million beli bounty, you'd think people would know better than to try shooting at Luffy. It's not like he hides the fact that he's made of rubber, either. Bullets that hit him tend to bounce right back at the same speed they hit him at while he just ignores them. It's particularly bad during Enies Lobby when literally thousands of marines are trying to shoot him and he doesn't even seem to notice. Maybe they're aiming for his oddly indestructible hat to go for emotional damage?

* ''[[Death Note]]'': In the manga and movie, {{spoiler|the SPK/task force members think Ryuk is writing their names, and try to stop him}}.

* ''[[Heroman]]'' - In true comic book fashion, this is how it turns out when the police and the army shoot the Skrugg, and also when the Skrugg shoot Heroman.

* [[Playing with a Trope|Played with]] in [[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]. Occasionally the bad guy will have an unassailable combo put together, but that won't stop the hero from sending in an attack, summoning a monster, or triggering whatever effect the opponent wants to activate. Most intelligent duelists are too smart to fall for the same trick twice. But a ''truly'' skilled duelist will fall into the trap ''on purpose'', only to break down the strategy at some fundamental oversight.

** Another example with Yugi involves a duel against [[Innocent Bystander|Leon]]. [[Manipulative Bastard|Leon's brother]] [[Big Bad|Ziegfried]] slips Leon a [[Game Breaker|banned card]] (with [[Screw the Rules, I Make Them|extra-broken rewritten rules]]), and Leon activates it without knowing. To keep the banned card in play, Leon [[But Thou Must!|'forces']] Yugi to discard half his deck. So Yugi beats the rewritten banned card with a long and ineffectual combo that purposefully mills his own deck down to a single card, making it impossible to discard [[Exact Words|"half his deck"]]. [[Oh Crap|The look on Ziegfried's face]] is priceless.

** [[Played for Laughs]] in another story, where a group of train robbers keeps encountering Al one-by-one and deciding that firing their machineguns at the big suit of armor is a good idea, DESPITE Al attempting to warn them. As it wears on, Anime!Al just keeps trying, while Manga!Al is a little more snarky (in the sense of "It worked out so well for your three friends...").

 

== Comic Books ==

** Subverted a few issues later, when several supervillains stage a prison break. Even though they are pretty successful (some stop rioting out of fear of Batman), they all stop immediately after Superman arrives. They just give up and go back to their cells. Even the guy who stole Green Lantern's ring just walks up and gives it back (although he'd been instructed to do so, as the ring had already been sabotaged).

* Ironically, one of Superman's recurring enemies, Bloodsport, knocks Superman around by shooting him with weapons powerful enough to stun, and in some cases even hurt, him. This is justified; Bloodsport has a literal [[Hyperspace Arsenal]] that can give him any firearm he can imagine.

* ''[[Luke Cage, Hero for Hire]]'' - Marvel super hero Luke Cage has super strength and unbreakable skin. Whenever someone tries to shoot or stab him, he'll just stand there and say "unbreakable skin." (Note, in the [[The Seventies|70s]], when Cage was a [[Blaxploitation]] parody, he'd say "Unbreakable skin fool/turkey." And in the [[Darker and Edgier|Max]] line, he says "Unbreakable skin motherfucker."

** A running gag is that people, mostly [[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider Man]], will say that he needs [[Clothing Damage|unbreakable pants.]]

* In instance after Marvel's "Civil War" crossover has a pissed off Thor pick a fight with Iron Man over Iron Man cloning him. Iron Man opens up by shooting at Thor with his repulsar rays and uni-beam, which Thor shrugs off like they weren't even there. Iron Man then decides to try fighting the Thor hand-to-hand even though his armor's weapons failed to scratch him. [[Curb Stomp Battle|It goes as well as you would expect.]]

** In Stark's defense, he was wearing armor designed to take on The Hulk in full "HULK SMASH" mode. If Thor hadn't been in possession of the Odinpower at the time (making him a God among Gods), it might have worked.

 

== Film ==

** More pointedly still is the description of Wolverine as "unstoppable" while they are coming up with this (deeply, ''deeply'' flawed) plan to stop him. Apparently nobody working for Weapon X understands irony.

* Done really oddly in ''[http://www.somethingawful.com/d/movie-reviews/syngenor.php?page=1 Syngenor]''. Some [[Mooks]] stand and shoot at the [[Super Soldier]] monsters that are ''supposed'' to be [[Immune to Bullets]], only to find that... [[Informed Ability|bullets work on them]]. But then they get killed anyway because they keep standing still so that the surviving monsters are able to lumber up to them and attack at close range.

 

== Literature ==

* In ''[[Lilith's Brood]]'', the Oankali have a [[Healing Factor]] that renders them [[Nigh Invulnerable]]. This does not stop certain humans from trying to shoot them. [[Too Dumb to Live|Repeatedly.]]

* In John Ringo's "Space Bubbles" seiries, the good guys do this a lot. After the first Dreen war, the found that small caliber weapons were enifective against the larger Dreen. So when they go exploring space, what do they bring? Small caliber gatling guns, capable of shooting a whole lot of bullets that do nothing in a short period of time. While on this first mission, they encounter aliens with shells that only Bergs .50 cal can penetrate. Later, they go off on a mission again, still wielding the same underpowered guns.

 

== Live Action TV ==

** Other movies and TV shows that want to bounce a weapon off someone will cast a fake prop in soft foam rubber and then dub in the weighty thump of something like that hitting a person (to avoid the [[Styrofoam Rocks]] effect). A cut scene from ''[[Creepshow]]'' had Leslie Nielsen throw his gun at the waterlogged walking corpses of his victims after bullets failed to work

** In one episode of [[Lois and Clark]], a scientist shoots a clone of Superman twice at point blank range, however, this clone is undergoing severe [[Clone Degeneration]], and is losing his powers, including invulnerability. The bullets don't cause any permanant damage, but he definitely feels them.

{{quote|'''The Protector:''' Now why would I do that? If I'm [[Immune to Bullets|bullet-proof]] then there's no reason for me to duck if he throws a gun at my head. Sometimes Hollywood doesn't make any sense.}}

** Could be justified by Kryptonians having the same basic injury-avoidance reflexes as humans do, which would have protected them from harm ''on their native planet'' where they weren't invulnerable. Such instinctive reflexes would still exist in Superman, and make him duck when an object is thrown at him, even if ''intellectually'' he knows he won't be harmed. Bullets move fast enough that he can't dodge them without invoking [[Super Speed]]—an ability standard Kryptonian reflexes wouldn't allow for—so those he can ignore without instinctively ducking aside.

* In the ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' episode ''[[Prince of Space]]'', the villainous aliens constantly attack the titular hero with their laser weapons, despite his constant insistence (''and'' demonstrations) that these weapons cannot harm him.

'''Servo''': [[Never Heard That One Before|Have I mentioned that?]] }}

** Only in the American dub. The original Prince dodges and hides from the weapons, but he's not immune to them. The problem was getting a bead on him.

** There is a straighter example in the episode where Teal'c is trapped in the virtual reality of the chair. The setting is an invasion by a Kull Warrior of Anubis. The military personell keeps firing on it with ordinary weaponry (instead of doing something smart like evacuating or trapping the Kull Warrior in a corridor), completely ignoring the fact that the Kull Warrior can only killed by a special weapon. ''This includes O'Neill himself''.

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' - No matter what century it is, and no matter how many times The Doctor tells them not to, people ''always'' unload clip after clip at Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, etc. when will they learn that [[Five Rounds Rapid]] ''doesn't work''? Heck, the one time conventional weapons did work it got a [[Lampshade Hanging]]. On one occasion, the Brigadier commented, "Just once I would like to encounter an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets."

** A soldier also kills a cyberman in season two using a rocket. But are these subversions of the trope? No one had any reason to expect the spaceship, the Sontarans, or the cyberman to be immune to the weapons variously employed against them.

** In the novelization, of ''Remembrance of the Daleks'' (Seventh Doctor), but ''not'' the TV episode, recoilless rifles and shoulder-mounted rocket launchers are shown to be effective. While this subverts the trope, making the Daleks no longer invulnerable, the humans are still grossly overmatched. At least Gp Capt. Gilmour takes heed from his first experience and brings in some heavy weapons (and yet he is the Brigadier's [[Internal Consistency|immediate PREDECESSOR]].

*** Justified a lot in [[Smallville]], as a lot of criminals shoot at Clark, not knowing he's invunrable. Also, in season one this trope would be played with, as Clark was only just developing his invunrability, so he would be a suprised as the villains when Shooting Superman didn't work. For example, in "Pilot" he is suprised (and a bit scared) when he survives being hit by Lex's car, and in the episode "Hug" a [[Brainwashed and Crazy]] Lex tries to kill Clark with an automatic rifle, and both Clark and his parents are shocked to learn he can survive automatic weapon fire.

* Often played straight in the ''[[Wonder Woman]]'' TV series, thus giving Wonder Woman a chance to do her "bullets and bracelets" stunt. Hilariously subverted in the pilot, however, where Red Buttons plays a shady showbiz promoter working for the Nazis. Wonder Woman tracks down the Nazi agents, most of whom have yet to encounter her. Understandably, they therefore open fire at the strange chick in the bathing suit, with predictable results. Buttons' character, however, previously saw Wonder Woman deflect an entire magazine from a ''fully automatic machine gun''. He does unload his revolver at Wonder Woman, but doesn't even bother aiming, with an expression on his face that clearly shows he's just shooting for appearance's sake.

 

== New Media ==

{{quote|'''Rorschach''': You don't die, do you?

''Deadpool''': Nope. }}

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

** AD&D 2 rules listed as one of events calling for a Morale check (to see whether they run or try again) when NPC or monsters find themselves "Fighting a creature they cannot harm due to magical protections". There are also adjustments, such as penalty for the side who didn't manage to take down any of the foes yet. And for casualties.

** Going by D&D rules, Superman would likely have a huge Damage Reduction (which a natural 20 does not nullify), rendering them just as ineffective as before.

** Also, some more amorphous entities, like golems or the undead, are immune to critical hits. Since crits are supposed to represent getting a lucky hit through your target's defenses or directly in a weak spot, this obviously wouldn't apply to a [[Determinator]] that doesn't stop short of [[Critical Existence Failure]].

* ''[[Mutants and Masterminds]]'' encourages a GM to still have bad guys attack a player character with something said PC is immune to now and then. This is for the dual purpose of the trope being a staple in the genre the system attempts to imitate, and to avoid making immunity useless (what point is there buying immunity to bullets if it just means everybody stops using bullet based weapons).

** The game also has an 'Impervious' extra you can pay to add to your Toughness, that prevents attacks below a certain threshold from even rolling an attempt to penetrate your damage. It's intended for exactly the purpose of this trope; to allow a powerful super to just remain completely oblivious to damage from less powerful sources.

* In the Generation 1 ''[[Pokémon]]'' games, this could be the case. Because of the programming, trainers would ''always'' use attacks super effective against your Pokemon's type...even if your Pokemon's ''other'' type was immune, and even if the "attack" isn't actually an attack, such as using Amnesia relentlessly against Fighting Pokemon. As such, one could [[AI Breaker|sweep through the entire Celadon Gym]] with a Level 5 Bulbasaur because every trainer, seeing that he is Grass type, would use Poisonpowder every turn, despite the fact that his Poison half makes him immune to the attack.

* In various [[Fire Emblem]] games, the AI enemies will always attack one of your characters should someone be within range, regardless of their own accuracy against said character or whether or not they can inflict any damage at all. This can easily be played around with, allowing you to place a unit with insanely high defense in the way and allowing the enemy to repeatedly attack you, while you counterattack and your weaker characters are safely too far away/blocked off.

 

== Webcomics ==

{{quote|"Bullets are supposed to be faster than you and you know that!"}}

* Parodied in ''[[Housepets]]'' with the in-comic comic, Spot (Superdog). "And now we will shoot him with our not special guns and kill him with regular bullets!"

* In the ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'', this happened to The Shield all the time. The Shield's [[Single-Power Superheroes|one schtick]] is being completely and totally invulnerable, so naturally mooks would empty clip after clip into him to no effect. Occasionally this would escalate and they'd use grenades, miniguns, and rocket launchers on him to equally no effect. Once, one villain even ''dropped him to Earth from orbit''. To no effect. You'd think that sooner or later word would get around...

* Part of Lancer's backstory in the ''[[Whateley Universe]]''. Lancer is a PK superboy type, who grew up as an Army brat. When a troop of soldiers thought he was a supervillain holding his family hostage, they tried to kill him with everything up to a couple shots from an Abrams M-1 tank. You'd think you wouldn't try to shoot a guy who could shrug off a tank round.

 

== Western Animation ==

* In an episode of ''[[Batman: The Brave And The Bold|Batman the Brave And The Bold]]'', two crooks aim their guns at Batman... only to give up, being [[Genre Savvy]] enough to know that, no matter what they do, Batman will beat them up anyway. And if they can avoid getting beaten up, they will. Bat-Mite, however, has other plans for them.

* Queen Veranke remarquably subverts this trope when attacking [[Nick Fury]] and [[Iron Man]] in [[The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes]]. After she took down the former with a big gun, Iron Man points out she will only hurt herself more than him if she shoots at him. She answers she knows... and then reveals she already had a virus uploaded inside his armor, thus incapaciting him without a shot.

 

== Real Life ==

[[Category:Superhero Tropes]]

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]