History Main / BarehandedBarBending

* ''Anime/{{Hellsing}}''. Seras Victoria is training a group of Hellsing mercenaries who aren't impressed with this little girl teach them. She responds by casually bending over the tip of a rifle barrel.

* ''Film/ShortCircuit 2'' has the robotic Johnny Five pull off the pretzel variant when attacked by thieves trying to get him off their tail. Being an ActualPacifist turned TechnicalPacifist, he discards the bent beam and uses his metal-bending strength to contain one thief by rolling him up in a mesh fence.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': When Kirk confronts Khan in the ''Enterprise'' engine room in "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E22SpaceSeed Space Seed]]", Khan grabs Kirk's phaser away from him and bends/crushes it in his bare hands. During the ensuing fight he boasts that he has five times Kirk's strength.

[[quoteright:350:[[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/buffybendrifle_8.png]]]]

The beam need not be an actual beam; things such as swords or ray guns can also be bent to make a similar point that the foe has SuperStrength and is not to be underestimated. Subtrope of IntimidationDemonstration.

Not to be confused with ExtraOreDinary. Contrast SpoonBending, when such a feat is performed with PsychicPowers instead of physical strength, and PatheticDroopingWeapon, when the weapon bends down and becomes useless on its own in a comedic fashion to visualize the fact that it already was effectively obsolete from the beginning.

Not to be confused with ExtraOreDinary. Contrast SpoonBending, when such a feat is performed with PsychicPowers instead of physical strength.

[[caption-width-right:350:''oh shit!'']]

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* ''Anime/DragonBallZ'': The Saiyans have done this on occasion. Most of the times it is PlayedForLaughs.

* Exploited in an ''ComicBook/{{Archie|Comics}}'' comic. One day Archie and Jughead went to the landfill and picked up a bent iron pipe. The two of them took it to a road construction site where similar pipes were waiting to be installed. Then, when arch-rival Reggie walked by, Archie grabbed the bent pipe while Jughead yelled that the construction crew would "...be ''mad'' if you keep messing up their pipe like that." This freaked Reggie out big time.
** In another ''Archie'', Moose is trying to keep his temper rather than behaving as the CrazyJealousGuy he usually is when any other boy talks to his girlfriend Midge. He's standing in front of an iron fence with his hands behind his back thinking to himself "gotta keep muh temper...gotta keep muh temper." TheReveal comes as he steps away from the fence, showing the iron bars twisted into pretzels where he had been bending them behind his back.
* Used in ''ComicBook/PS238'' to demonstrate that Argonaut has regained his powers. [[spoiler: He hasn't; the beam he uses was gimmicked beforehand.]]

* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'':

** ''ComicBook/SensationComicsFeaturingWonderWoman'': When a LoonyFan pulls a shotgun on Diana in "Bullets and Bracelets" she grabs the gun and folds the barrels in half.

* Exploited in a ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'' strip, where Dilbert needs a steel rod bent into a U-shape. Wally's solution? Take it over to Alice, [[HairTriggerTemper known for her temper]], and tell her that it's the prestigious "Steel Spike Award" for best performance by a male employee. Within seconds, she bends it into the shape Dilbert needs.

--> She trailed off as Harry reached out grabbed a carving knife from a nearby platter -- eight inches of tempered carbon-steel blade and a four-inch tang wrapped up in a well-seasoned oak handle -- and proceeded to wad it up with one hand as easily as if it were made of tissue paper. Even when he squeezed down on the edge, the steel gave way before his skin so much as took a nick. When she examined it after he dropped the mess of twisted steel and splintered oak on the table, Hannah could even see the boy’s fingerprints impressed into the metal.

* ''Film/BlackMask'' has the titular hero [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice impaling]] a Unit 701 SuperSoldier on a set of construction bars before bending the bars to hold his opponent in place. Alas, it doesn't work - the 701 soldier simply un-bends the bar and un-impales himself to continue fighting.

* The old ''Film/Hercules1958'' movies starring Steve Reeves have at least one of them having the titular character proving why he's the strongest man alive by bending thick bars with his bare hands.
* ''Film/ShortCircuit2'' has the robotic Johnny Five pull off the pretzel variant when attacked by thieves trying to get him off their tail. Being an ActualPacifist turned TechnicalPacifist, he discards the bent beam and uses his metal-bending strength to contain one thief by rolling him up in a mesh fence.

* ''Film/{{Hulk}}''. The Incredible Hulk bends back a tank's cannon so it's pointing at the wide-eyed crew.
* In ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', Batman bends the barrel of one of the Bat-Vigilanties' guns with one hand (the whirring sound that accompanied the act indicated [[PoweredArmor mechanical assistance]]).
* ''Film/RoboCop1987'' features another instance of the titular hero bending a crook's gun barrel with one hand. Both this and the ''Dark Knight'' example have characters with mechanical SuperStrength to justify it on their end, but WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief is still required, because the gunmen would have to be equally strong to hold the weapon steady while it was being bent.

* Literature/{{Animorphs}}: When the Venber are first encountered, one of them is seen bending rebar like spaghetti in arctic conditions.

* In one of ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' novels, Thomas helps Harry intimidate some of Marcone's thugs by twisting a couple of barbells together.
* In the second ''Literature/AlexRider'' book, TheDragon bends a crowbar with her bare hands to prove a point (and that was before she knew who Alex really was).
* In one ''Literature/ManKzinWars'' anthology, a human telepath sneaks aboard a kzinti ship [[MasterOfIllusion disguised as a kzin]]. He ends up in a duel with a kzin, preceded by a contest of this trope to determine the handicap. He ends up selecting a bar one grade thicker than his opponent's, and projecting an illusion bending the bar and then straightening it again, relying on the kzinti lack of curiosity to keep his deception undiscovered.

* ''Series/TheAdventuresOfSuperman''
** Superman regularly bends the villains' guns after they get done ShootingSuperman; when the guns are rifles or shotguns Superman often twists them into knots.
** In one episode a pawnshop specializes in items Superman has previously bent, but it turns out they're counterfeit: the store owner uses a bench vise to artificially bend the merchandise
* In an episode of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' our protagonist shows a werewolf hunter what's what by bending the barrel of his rifle into a neat curve.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': When Kirk confronts Khan in the ''Enterprise'' engine room in "Space Seed," Khan grabs Kirk's phaser away from him and bends/crushes it in his bare hands. During the ensuing fight he boasts that he has five times Kirk's strength.
* In the short-lived 70s' superhero teamup show ''Series/LegendsOfTheSuperheroes'', [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever Giganta]] makes an appearance. Since the show had an extremely limited budget, special effects to display her [[SizeShifter growth power]] were out of the question, so her super-strength is demonstrated by her [[CoconutSuperpowers bending a prop metal bar]] instead.
* ''[[Series/TheIncredibleHulk1977 The Incredible Hulk]]'' did it often in his show.
* In the ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' episode [[Recap/SupernaturalS02E21AllHellBreaksLoosePartOne "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part One" (S02, Ep21)]], Sam tries to loosen one of the spokes from the steel tractor wheels by repeatedly banging on it with the fireplace poker. Jake simply grabs the spoke with his bare-hand and pulls it off the wheel.
* In ''Series/WonderWoman'', our heroine is occasionally shown taking the guns out of her enemies' hands and bending them or snapping them in half. One instance involved a poker.
* ''Series/DoctorWho''. In "Paradise Towers" [[DumbMuscle Pex]], who is proud of his survivalist skills and dismayed at Mel's refusal of his services, snaps a lightpost from the wall and bends the metal with his hands.
-->'''Mel:''' ''(deadpan)'' Pex, if you could bend that back into shape and put it back where it came from, you ''might'' be more use. But you can't, can you?

* ''Manhua/MyBelovedMother'' have Milan, the ''robot'' caretaker and MamaBear to protagonist Sinbell, intimidating bullies trying to attack Sinbell by bending a bar one of them is trying to attack Sinbell with.

* In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' and ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamOrigins'', Batman does this when he uses his disarm and destroy technique on pipe-armed henchmen. The intimidation aspect is subverted when the henchmen [[SuicidalOverconfidence continue attacking]].

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' had Maxine in pursuit with a genetically altered human-dinosaur hybrid. She tries to fight him off with a metal bar she finds, only for the dinosaur man to bend it.
* In ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}'' there's a class of robots who have this as their sole purpose: they bend girders. The main character Bender is one of them. When the Planet Express crew attend robot Olympics, this trope is shown when several brawny robot competitors in a bending competition twist several extremely large girders labelled "unbendable" into very intricate knots. This impresses Bender, knowing that he would never be able to keep up with that kind of strength.

* When the scientists of 1939 Griffin Rock find [[WesternAnimation/TransformersRescueBots the Rescue Bots]] have entered their time portal, they run the bots through a battery of tests, including ordering Heatwave to bend a large metal beam.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars''[[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS1E22HostageCrisis , "Hostage Crisis"]]: When Anakin, who is currently without his lightsaber or any other weapons, tries to wrestle the blaster away from Bane's assassin droid the droid bends the barrel into a U shape right as Anakin gets to where he could shoot the droid with it.