History Main / HeroInsurance

* HeroInsurance/{{Film}}

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* Spoofed in the ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' premiere. After a battle, Optimus Prime congratulates the Autobots: "Megatron was defeated with only 50 humans killed in the crossfire, a new record!" Everybody cheers.
* ''WesternAnimation/MegasXLR'':
** Megas regularly destroys significant chunks of the vicinity while he smashes the MonsterOfTheWeek. It's mostly PlayedForLaughs since Coop's a lovable buffoon, and the stuff he destroys often has signs that say things like "Conveniently Empty Building" and "We Were Going to Tear This Down Anyway". Plus it takes place in New Jersey, where such destruction might actually serve as an improvement...
** There was an episode where a [[Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman Gatchaman]] / [[Franchise/PowerRangers Power Ranger]] {{Expy}} group fought Coop, after watching some videos of his blunders at piloting the robot, under the idea he was a villain. Even the team's own villain thought Coop was evil. They eventually realized Coop is a good guy, just really clumsy, and became allies.
* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'':
** The girls don't seem at all concerned about how much collateral damage they cause defeating the monsters that invade Townsville -- the monsters alone would probably cause less damage. The citizens of Townsville have apparently gotten used to this... but TheBigRottenApple metropolis of Citiesville, where the girls temporarily move to, is not so understanding:
--->'''Citiesville Mayor''': ''At what time'' did it seem like a good idea to blow up the Citiesville Bridge? [[WhatTheHellHero Do you realize that the bank robbers you captured stole approximately $400? Do you realize you did over three ''million'' dollars IN PROPERTY DAMAGE TO THAT BRIDGE?!!]]
** In another episode, when the girls' class has Career Day, Hanut's father comes in. In a deadpan style, he says that he insures buildings in Townsville from damage... and that he is a veeeeeery busy man. Of course, it's best not to think of [[FridgeLogic how unlikely it is that any insurance company would agree to insure buildings in Townsville at all]].
** And then there is TheMovie of the girls' origins, in which they almost destroy pretty much the entire town. [[GooGooGodlike From playing tag]]. Professor Utonium is actually arrested over this, and there is talk of the girls being incarcerated. Said movie also shows that Townsville pre-Powerpuffs is a horrifying dystopia of crime and violence where criminals run rampant and the police seemingly never leave their favorite store, the [[{{Pun}} Donut Thing]]. The Powerpuffs might cause a lot of property damage, but Townsville seems to think that the reduced crime rate is worth it.
** In still another episode, the Professor is horribly worried about the girls' getting injured, and so builds a HumongousMecha for them to use. They refuse to... until they come up against a bigger monster that even they can't handle. They win... but level virtually all of Townsville doing it. The Mayor thanks them, then asks them whose stupid idea the big robot suit was. When they say it was the Professor's, he decides he'll let them off as long as they promise ''never to use it again''. They're only too happy to agree, as the thing was damn finicky to work with. The suit returns in a later episode after The Mayor unwittingly activated the autopilot, and it's just as destructive as before
** Yet another episode has a garbage man ''praising'' their destruction because it's keeping him in work.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Underdog}}'' had a CatchPhrase for whenever he was confronted with the vast destruction caused during the episode: "[[RhymesOnADime I am a hero who never fails./ I can't be concerned with such details]]." For fairly obvious reasons, this was quietly dropped early in the show.
* In the universe of ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'', fully-certified membership with the OSI includes a literal license to kill.
* ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'':
** Danny apparently has no Hero Insurance since he actually feels bad about any collateral damage he causes while capturing ghosts, especially when people he knows bear the brunt of it. When he accidentally destroys a section of the mall, Tucker comments, "I sure hope they're insured." This could be either because, or partly why, Amity Park is an UntrustingCommunity.
** Straight-up deconstructed with Valerie Grey, who went from RichesToRags because the crossfire between Danny and a villain destroyed her dad's workplace, causing her to develop a grudge against all ghosts (and, ironically, become a catspaw for Danny's ArchEnemy Vlad).
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'':
** From the SuperheroEpisode:
--->'''Mayor:''' Thank you, mysterious heroes! The value of the Gemerald you saved is slightly greater than the cost of the damage you caused to this museum: A net gain for our great city!
** Leela also gives the reason for having secret identities: so they can only charge the "hero" persona for any resultant damages.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheTick'':
** Subverted. Arthur's attempt to break through the SidekickGlassCeiling ends with a climactic battle with the Tick, in which a restaurant was partially trashed. The episode ends with the reunited heroes fixing the same restaurant, with the maitre d' profusely thanking them: "When most superheroes have their brawls, they just leave a mess."
** When The Tick went to Europe for a hero exchange program, he was prevented from RoofHopping due to damaging historically important buildings.
** At one point, he's vetoed from starting a fight with a supervillain in the supervillain's evil... Apartment?... On the basis that the supervillain will lose his cleaning deposit if it gets messed up. They decide to go fight on the roof instead.
** Also subverted in Episode 3, a 70-foot tall dinosaur, whose DNA subverted a human is rampaging through town. A reporter catches another superhero on camera. "This is Sally Vacuum at the scene of the Dinosaur Neil crisis. As you can see, Neil is still growing. We have with us one of the city's superheroes, Der Fledermous." \\
"Thank you, Sally."\\
"Der Fledermous, can you tell us what the superhero community plans to do about this menace?"\\
He tales one look at the creature, chuckles, and says, "Good question, Sally. I think we'll just, um, sit this one out and wait for the National Guard."
* The Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse had its share of this as well:
** Witness [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywo6F4xYTvA this]] battle between Franchise/{{Superman}} and ComicBook/{{Darkseid}}, which is made all the funnier by [[FanNickname Supes]] monologuing about how he [[NoMoreHoldingBackSpeech usually has to hold back so nobody gets hurt]]. Gee, I guess all those buildings he punches Darkseid through were conveniently evacuated moments before?
** Conversely, the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2BvSqqmidM fight between Superman and Captain Marvel]] was conveniently set in an empty city (built by Lex Luthor as a publicity stunt for his presidential campaign and it was its opening night). Two [[TheCape Capes]] tearing up Metropolis over an argument might have stretched the suspension of disbelief just a little too much. After the fight, Superman even offers to repay the cost of the damage from the Justice League coffers, looking at Batman as he says this.
** In the Superman-Darkseid fight, Metropolis actually ''had'' been evacuated. You can see people watching the Superman-Darkseid fight, but a lot of people don't leave a city that has been evacuated. Also, given the fact Darkseid had pretty much invaded Earth in full force at this point, well... if they're gonna get killed, might as well enjoy the superhuman slugfest beforehand.
** Also, see the fight against ComicBook/SolomonGrundy in ''Wake The Dead''. Supes makes his appearance by punching Grundy through a line of cars, into the distance and into a gas line, and, while he chats with the League about strategy, there's a gigantic explosion far away in what is apparently a populated urban area. This just marks the fight getting more and more out of control and, of course, more collateral damage, almost all of the big things involving Superman.
** However, there is a subversion in "The Greatest Story Never Told". After the League's battle with Mordru leaves whatever city they're in utterly demolished by collateral damage, the League helps clean up. Booster Gold, who had been criticized by the others for being too arrogant of a hero to actually ''be'' a hero (and himself coming to believe this over the course of the episode) and being relegated to crowd control, leaves the scene with [[StandardHeroReward the woman he was helping during the episode]], saying that he only does crowd control.
** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d when Superman was supposed dead and Lobo showed up to fill the vacancy. Showing why he's not the best replacement for the ''real'' FlyingBrick, his strategy for defeating a baddie is by simply ''piling cars'' on top of him. When the rest of the League waves him off from adding another one once the villain surrenders, a dejected Lobo tosses it over his shoulder and ''into a building''.
** Earlier in the Superman animated series, Bizarro tries to help save the city, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero except doing more harm then good]], such as "saving" a building being demolished by throwing the wrecking ball away (which almost landed on a wedding), "fixing" a draw bridge (that a tanker was about to pass under), and "saving" Lois Lane from the real Superman (by knocking over the Daily Planet globe).
* ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'':
** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d. When Optimus Prime crashes into a truck, he apologized and says he heard something called "insurance" will cover that.
** Inverted in one episode with Henry Masterson stealing yet another autobot body. Powell, the guy who sprung Masterson from jail and gave him a job, gave his employee what amounts to ''Villain Insurance'' by pointing out that the damage was done on his company property (it was the company's ship, and the company's goods that were damaged) and that hijacking an Autobot body was not a crime, as there ''were'' no laws concerning autobots, leaving Fanzone unable to arrest Masterson since the latter technically didn't commit any crimes.
** Also played with a little bit in the live-action movie. In most cartoons, the Transformers trot around human areas with little to no difficulty. The movie shows just how destructive having giant, heavy robots mill about your back yard would be, even if they were trying to be not just careful but stealthy.
** Played with further during one scene showing Optimus Prime running along a busy road; his feet chew giant holes in the tarmac, but he doesn't hit a single car.
** This never came up in the Generation One series because they mostly fought in desert areas and even the city locations didn't have too much collateral damage. But ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'' tries to balance it out considering the Autobot heroes are occasionally seen helping to put the city back together after a battle. ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' had a segment that mocked this trope, however.
** They also get called on it more than once, especially GentleGiant Bulkhead. It's not fear that makes public opinion towards them someone ambivalent--it's the fact that they keep breaking stuff.
** Averted in Generation One's third-season episode "The Burden Hardest to Bear" where Rodimus Prime is chewed out by Japanese politicians and business men over the damage caused in recent battles. This forms the basis for his TakeThisJobAndShoveIt moment.
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'' had this factor into public opinion about him, with one member of the public complaining that he stepped on her foot and a construction worker complaining he somehow knocked a building out from under him. Not bad, for [[BadassNormal someone without any actual superpowers]].
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' played with this in its Franchise/PowerRangers spoof 'Super Strong Warner Siblings'. Even activating their HumongousMecha caused quite a bit of damage. Meshed with the RunningGag of the episode, at least...
* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'':
** ComicBook/{{Cyborg}} once used a ''building'' against Plasmus. Perhaps TheAbridgedSeries' line that "This city already has its own destructive jerks - the Teen Titans!" was closer than you'd think.
** And how many cars has Raven telekinetically thrown at villains?
** Raven has Cyborg beat in "Birthmark", where pretty much the entire city, frozen in time mind you, becomes her weapons. She used ''two buildings'' to try to crush Slade, who had superpowers at the time and survived unscathed. It's hard to believe that those buildings, or even half the cars, were empty.
** They put several holes in several buildings and wreck a road chasing a jewellery thief.
* One of [[InspectorJavert Commander Feral's]] main points when speaking out against the WesternAnimation/SwatKats to the media is the amount of collateral damage they cause. The Mayor/Deputy Mayor accept that the big VillainOfTheWeek will cause more damage with the huge mecha/giant spider/ultratank/whatever else if left unchecked. Because the Enforcers can't stop them using Feral's tactics to 'minimize damage'. Not that Feral cares. He's tried to have them arrested several times and tried to hold them accountable for city damage.
* ''WesternAnimation/VeggieTales'': In a radio interview, Larry-Boy complained about how he has a really high insurance deductible, even though most of the things he breaks while fighting crime are only worth about five dollars.
* Averted on ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' with Catman. This is the main reason he's a HeroWithBadPublicity, aside from being completely insane.
* In the premiere of ''WesternAnimation/SymBionicTitan'', the giant robot/giant monster battle creates a huge crater in the middle of the city. The heroes are dismayed by the destruction and resolve to fight future battles in remote, unpopulated areas (with limited success at keeping to that resolution). In the very next episode, we see that the city has already completed a long viaduct right through the middle of the crater and is starting to erect new buildings. A few episodes later, a drag race takes place in the construction zone, and we see that considerable progress has been made in the rebuilding. Now, just imagine if New York City had instantly begun building new roads and towers on Ground Zero after 9/11. And consider that the destruction zone here was much, much larger -- and given that people actually do die in this cartoon, it's unlikely that entire sector of the city had been conveniently evacuated. One must conclude that the people of this city are remarkably unsentimental.
* While ''WesternAnimation/HongKongPhooey'' isn't so destructive given he doesn't have superpowers, he's so popular everyone who directly suffers from a fair share of his destruction is ''pleased'' for this.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'':
** Korra catches a trio of gangster benders and she's arrested along with the thugs for causing far more damage than the thugs would have if left unchecked. [[DaChief Chief Bei Fong]] explicitly tells Korra that the fact that she's the Avatar means squat to her.
** Subverted. Tenzin steps up and offers to cover the damages as part of the agreement for Korra's bail. Another part of the agreement was that Korra would immediately be sent home, but Tenzin later changes his mind. Though not happy with the decision, Chief Bei Fong accepts it as long as Tenzin keeps an eye on Korra.
** Double Subverted later on. After Lin sees the danger the Equalists, she is more or less lenient about Korra's way of handling things.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
** The [[FanNickname Mane 6]] have caused a surprising amount of damage to poor old Ponyville. Their reasons for wanton destruction are usually caused for decidedly unheroic and mundane reasons ([[MundaneFantastic Well, mundane within the show's context at least]]) and include a flubbed spell to drive out [[ExplosiveBreeder parasprites]], [[CloudCuckooLander Pinkie Pie]] finding a ''cloning pool'', and Twilight afraid of being late for a homework assignment. However, since they're the heroes, not once are they called on it.
** Poor [[TheDitz Derpy]], on the other hand, gets some serious scorn heaped onto her by [[{{Hypocrite}} Rainbow Dash]], for whom causing severe damage to buildings is part of the daily routine, after she inadvertently trashes City Hall. Hilariously though, it's ''Applejack'' who ends up going out to earn the cash to fix it.
** The Season 7 episode "Daring Done?" examined this trope, as it deals with Daring Do dealing with the fallout for leaving destruction across Equestria when trying to save the day. However, the royalties from her book sales mean she is rich enough to pay for the damages--she just gets so distracted stopping the bad guys that she forgets to clean up after.
* Nick Logan of ''WesternAnimation/RoswellConspiracies'' causes a lot of damage while pursuing/running from aliens. Since he's part of a secret organization they have a team dedicated to keeping it all under wraps, either by suppressing knowledge or arranging for someone else to take the blame.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderman'' Spider-Man engages the Sandman who's robbing an oil tanker in the city harbor, even though there was literally no conceivable way for Spidey to defeat a colossus made of sand. In the ensuing fight Sandman accidentally sets the ship on fire and casualties are only prevented because he comes to his senses and saves the crewmen, and then sacrifices himself to protect people from the explosion. Spider-Man gives him an appreciative little speech and then leaves, oblivious to the fact that due to his pointless intervention both the oil ''and the tanker'' have been lost, and the oil spill and fire have probably spelled an ecological disaster for the city, not to mention all the hindrance from the wreckage. Somehow, nobody in the city holds it against him either. Maybe Jameson was on to something...
* Gumball and Darwin, and to a lesser extent, the rest of the Wattersons in ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' cause all kinds of collateral damage in many episodes yet are rarely punished for it. Subverted and {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in "The Finale" when the consequences of their actions throughout the series come all at once.
* In ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'', this is one of the titular heroine's powers; she and her partner Cat Noir are basically free to do as much damage as they want in their battles against akuma because her magic powers can fix everything afterwards. Some plans do involve purposely wrecking their surroundings to defeat their opponents, up to and including slicing the Eiffel Tower in half. This power explicitly even restores anybody who's ''killed'' in the battle, since on one occasion they fought an akuma with the power to erase anybody it touches from existence. Without Ladybug's WorldHealingWave, the supporting cast would've gotten a lot smaller afterward. This is probably also why there's no apparent stigma against people who had previously been transformed into akumas.
* In ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'', the Crystal Gems regularly are in the middle of destruction of Beach City. Most citizens complain, but quickly bounce back. Only Mr. Pizza got seriously angry at one point and asked for repairs. The Gems ignored him and Steven apologized for them which Mr. Pizza accepted. It's never mentioned how the town pays for all the repair costs. In the Gems' defense, one episode explains that the Gems had actually warned the citizens ancestors about settling there since they would be in danger. The humans settled anyway and most have grown up with the weirdness, only reacting confused or in panic when directly confronted by it.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{UltimateSpider-Man}}'': In the episode "Damage", Spider-Man and his team cause an unusually high level of property damage in their latest battle. As punishment, they are assigned to Damage Control, an organization set up specifically to clean up collateral damage caused by superheroes.
* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' are pretty destructive when saving lives and fighting villains. Vehicles are some of their most frequent victims: motorcycles explode, train/subway cars get their roofs torn off, and cars get flattened. Gargoyles will leave claw marks and holes on walls whenever they climb up a building, and chunks of rock burst away from them and litter the ground when they wake up from stone sleep each morning. The gargoyles get away from all the repair bills, because they're seen as nothing but urban myths.
* This is a constant problem for the Mayor of Mega City in ''WesternAnimation/AtomicPuppet''. He's the one on hook for all the bills racked up by the battles between Atomic Puppet and their various foes after all, so he's determined to try find a reasonable way to replace Atomic Puppet, like getting the police force to step up their game or bringing in a less destructive superhero. This ''was'' averted in one episode though when Atomic Puppet was forced to pay for destroying an art museum and a wrestling stadium during two separate fights.
* A citizen of Goodhaven in Creator/RalphBakshi's Creator/{{Terrytoons}} series ''The Mighty Heroes'' lampshades this in the simplest of terms:
-->With heroes like these, who needs villains?
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Megamind}}'' acknowledges this trope. After all of the destruction caused by Titan, Megamind's Brainbots are repairing all of the damage.
* The setup for ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'' is, roughly, that superheroes in general were forced to go into hiding specifically to avoid litigation for collateral damage. That was basically the cost of the government providing them Hero Insurance.
** ''WesternAnimation/Incredibles2'':
*** Discussed with regards to the damage caused by the Underminer. The money he stole from the bank was insured and there are contingencies in place that would have covered the initial damage. Mr. Incredible's failed attempt to capture the Underminer just caused more damage beyond what was expected.
*** While explaining his PR plan to the Incredibles and Frozone, Winston mentions that they have set up insurance to cover any potential damage. That being said, he decides to send Elastigirl out as the first representative since she has a history of causing the least amount of collateral damage.
---->'''Winston:''' Let's not test "the insurance will pay for literally anything" right out of the gate.
* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanUnlimitedMechsVsMutants'' sees a literal version of this, as ComicBook/GreenArrow, himself a superhero who's really rich and owns a company like Batman, decides to throw a mutated Chemo into a building he already owned and notes he's insured.
* In ''WesternAnimation/SupermanDoomsday,'' Supes throws Doomsday through a building on more than one occasion, and eventually defeats him by taking him to orbit and slamming him into the ground in the middle of Metropolis hard enough to level the entire block. In real life, Supes would've racked up a higher death toll than all the villains in the movie put together with that move. And he may well have, as this being a direct-to-DVD release rather than a TV episode, people were being explicitly killed in the show... but he was "dead" at that point, and he ''did'' stop Doomsday, who had wiped out entire ''worlds'' on his own. To put this in perspective, Metropolis is essentially in the same place as New York City. In the comic arc that this was based on the Justice League engaged Doomsday in central Ohio, and would have been completely wiped out if Superman hadn't shown up when he did. The battle between the two stretched over a third of the country, and left more than a thousand dead in its wake. The government's position was that anything that could take that kind of punishment was a serious enough threat that even losing most of Metropolis would have been a [[GodzillaThreshold justifiable price]] for putting it down.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* In ''{{Film/Commando}}'', John Matrix has to rescue his daughter from terrorists. During this process, he steals and/or damages several vehicles, breaks into a gun shop, steals an arsenal of firearms, escapes from police custody, beats up a bunch of mall security guards, kidnaps an innocent bystander, and murders two unarmed villains in cold blood, with one of the murders occurring in front of a witness. It's hard to imagine rescuing a family member as a sufficient legal defense to cover all of that.
* In ''Film/ManOnFire'', John Creasy goes on a crime rampage every bit as brutal as the criminals he's chasing in an effort to rescue Lupita. This includes several cold blooded murders.
* After watching the ''Film/JamesBond'' movies, you have to wonder how much of [=MI6=]'s budget is set aside for stuff for Bond to drive through.
** LampshadeHanging in ''Film/GoldenEye'' when Bond is told about his car's built-in Stinger missiles:
--->'''James Bond:''' Just the thing to unwind after a long day at the office.
--->'''Q''': Need I remind you, 007, that you have a license to kill, not to break traffic laws.
** During filming of the chase scene in ''Film/TheManWithTheGoldenGun'', they actually had a guy running following the cars with a checkbook to pay for damages.[[superscript: Citation needed]]
** In ''Film/TomorrowNeverDies'', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smou7nQTcis Q makes Bond sign off]] on ''literal'' hero insurance for his remote-controlled car.
---> '''Q:''' It's the insurance damage waiver for your beautiful new car. Now, will you need collision coverage?\\
'''James Bond:''' Yes.\\
'''Q:''' ''[stares at Bond]'' Fire?\\
'''James Bond:''' Probably.\\
'''Q:''' Property destruction?\\
'''James Bond:''' [[KungShui Definitely.]]\\
'''Q:''' Personal Injury?\\
'''James Bond:''' I hope not, but accidents do happen.\\
'''Q:''' They frequently do with you.\\
'''James Bond:''' ''[signs the form]'' Well, that takes care of the "normal" wear and tear. Is there any other protection I need?\\
'''Q:''' Only from me, 007, unless you bring that car back in pristine order.
** This one is justifiable by context, as throughout the scene, Q is disguised as an Avis rental agent, going through the pretense of filling in the necessary paperwork involved in any car rental agreement. They are [=MI6=] agents, after all.
** Bond seems to have it in ''Film/TheWorldIsNotEnough'', but his allies in the Russian underworld do not, even if he is involved. After Zukovsky's caviar factory is demolished by Elektra King's henchmen (who were trying to kill Bond), Zukovsky shouts, "The insurance company is never going to believe this!" Probably because the damage was done by a helicopter equipped with a tree-cutting buzzsaw.
* ''Lethal Weapon'':
** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in ''Film/LethalWeapon3'' where they got demoted after Riggs blew up a building when he tried to defuse a bomb.
** In ''Film/LethalWeapon4'', Riggs and Murtaugh are promoted and given desk jobs because the city lost its insurance. [[spoiler:It didn't help-they caused even more damage.]]
* ''Fantastic Four''
** ''Film/FantasticFour2005'' featured the Thing tossing a car at Dr. Doom. We don't hear from the car's owner and he doesn't get called on it, but he did ask to borrow the car first.
** In the sequel ''Film/FantasticFourRiseOfTheSilverSurfer'', Sue is seen disputing a report from the cops about how many cars were destroyed on a recent mission.
* ''Film/{{Hancock}}'' has its protagonist as a {{Jerkass}} superhero whose penchant for massive collateral damage gets him a lot of flak from the residents of LA in the beginning of the movie, to the point of nearly getting him an eight-year prison term. Later, he gets asked for help by the police, who grant him a bit more lenience for collateral damage to stop the crimes.
* ''Film/DemolitionMan'': The reason John Spartan (and thus the film) is actually called "[[ProtagonistTitle Demolition Man]]" is specifically because he tends to destroy buildings on the job. Because of this the public was all too willing to believe that he's responsible for the deaths of the hostages that landed him a cryo-sentence.
--> '''News reporter:''' How can you justify destroying a $7,000,000 mini-mall to rescue a girl whose ransom is only $25,000?
--> '''Girl:''' Fuck ''you'', lady!
--> '''John Spartan:''' Good answer.
* In ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartIII'', Doc and Marty hijack a train at gunpoint to push the [=DeLorean=] up to eighty-eight miles per hour, in the process running the train off the edge of a ravine, [[EveryCarIsAPinto causing it to explode]]. Everyone is apparently okay with this to such an extent that they ''rename the ravine after Marty''. Though there is a long tradition of naming or renaming landmarks after people who came to a sticky end there, like Donner Pass.
* Neo from ''Film/TheMatrixReloaded'' destroys what looks like a good chunk of a city in his hurry to save Trinity, and before that they destroy a power plant causing a mass blackout, and before that cause numerous car accidents on a highway. And let's not forget the helicopter they smash into an office building back in the first movie. The property damage inside the virtual reality of the Matrix probably doesn't mean much, but people who get killed die for real. Of course, Neo is only the "hero" from his and his associates' point of view, while to the Matricians they are terrorists, and the justification they could provide for their destructive streaks is dubious at best, hence why they don't bother to provide it.
* Franchise/{{Godzilla}} during the 1960s-1970s falls under this trope due to him [[HeelFaceTurn becoming a good guy]]. This is hilariously [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in the Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 episode ''Film/GodzillaVsMegalon'':
-->'''Boy''': Godzilla! Bye bye.\\
'''Tom Servo''': Thanks for leveling our country!
* The eponymous female lead of ''Film/ILoveYouBethCooper'' commits dozens of crimes during the movie, including fleeing the scene of an accident she caused by reckless driving and intentionally ramming a stolen car through a house wall in front of dozens of witnesses. Through sheer luck she doesn't actually hurt anyone but there is no suggestion at the end of the film that she is going to face any consequences at all for the thousands of dollars worth of property damage she inflicted during the film. In the book version it is mentioned that she only just gets away with it thanks to Tracee's dad being a lawyer. [[http://nowyourethinkinglikealawyer.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-love-you-beth-cooper-final-exam.html This blog]] suggests that the law might have made a legal defense difficult.
* One of ''many'' tropes {{lampshade|Hanging}}d by ''Film/LastActionHero''.
-->'''Danny:''' He only took your badge because you destroyed more of the city than usual.
* ''Film/{{Speed}}'' is also a nice example of this. The amount of destruction caused by keeping the bus at its required speed looks like it should cost the city at least 100 times what paying the ransom would have cost. The airplane at the end alone... Note that the bus is owned by the City of ''Santa Monica'', but Jack Traven is a City of ''Los Angeles'' police officer, and the woman driving the bus has a suspended license and isn't even an employee of ''either''. Interesting to see who would get sued.
* Played straight and averted in both ''Franchise/{{Ghostbusters}}'' films. At the beginning of ''Film/GhostbustersII'', it's explained that the damage they caused at the end of the [[Film/{{Ghostbusters 1984}} first film]] got them sued by every local official in New York, but at the end of the film they're back to being heroes again.
* Averted in ''Film/{{District 9}}'', where [[spoiler:the guy who hacked into MNU's databases and helped expose their illegal experiments on the aliens is arrested for his computer crimes]].
* Averted in ''Film/GIJoeTheRiseofCobra''. The Joes are among the most responsible heroes in fiction, and cause almost no damage to public property. The problem is that [[strike:Cobra MARS]] COBRA isn't -- and guess who's still in the area when the dust settles? After the Joes save [[spoiler:Paris, the French]] beat them up, wreck their gear, and slap them with a [[PersonaNonGrata permanent travel ban]]. {{Eagleland}} is nicer; after [[spoiler:Ripcord saves D.C.]] all they do is hold him overnight before sending him back to the Pit. Of course, [[spoiler:the President has been replaced by Zartan; he probably didn't feel like testing the disguise.]]
* Played pretty straight towards the end of ''Film/FastFive'', downtown Rio De Janeiro was nearly leveled by that vault... Though they're already wanted criminals, and they just leave the country.
* Played with in the ''Film/TransformersFilmSeries''. The US government is implied to cover any Cybertronian-related damage. Unfortunately, the Autobots cause a ''lot'' of collateral damage in their fights. To the point that [[UsefulNotes/BarackObama the President]] sends a government official to express his concern to Prime and his team. The third film also implies that civilians are not exactly happy with all the damage inflicted on their homes and businesses (poll results show that half the world would feel safer without the Autobots; they aren't exactly in the wrong here). Additionally, Sam's dad says the government will pay for the damages to their house (caused by Bumblebee shooting at some Allspark mutations). Sam's mom decides to exploit this by demanding a hot tub to be built in the backyard.
* Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse:
** At the end of ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', a New York City official is demanding, in an interview, that the superheroes be held responsible for the damage caused by the Chitauri invasion, claiming that it was "their fight". It's entirely possible that Tony might get sued (considering his is the only name known by the public of all the Avengers and he's the only one who can ''afford'' to pay for the damages). There's also the fact that the Stark Tower (and its ARC reactor) were used to open the portal.
*** The fact that this had repercussions like [[Series/Daredevil2015 Wilson Fisk skimming on Incident reconstruction]] and [[Series/LukeCage2016 Chitauri-based weapons]] [[Film/SpiderManHomecoming flowing into New York]] also complicates the mess.
** ''Film/IronMan3'' shows that Tony did in fact get sued for the damage. A lot.
** At the end of ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'', the Nova Corps gives the Guardians amnesty for all their [[AntiHeroTeam many, many past crimes]]. They are very careful to emphasize that it only covers '''past''' crimes, and is no protection for any they might commit in the future.
--->'''Rocket:''' Question: What if I see something that I want to take and it belongs to someone else?\\
'''Rhomann:''' You would be arrested.\\
'''Rocket:''' But what if I want it more than the person who has it?\\
'''Rhomann:''' Still ''illegal''.\\
'''Rocket:''' That doesn't follow. No, I want it ''more'' sir! Do you understand? ''[is shoved away]'' What are you laughing at? What, I can't have a conversation with this gentleman?\\
'''Drax:''' What if someone does something irksome? And I decide to remove his spine?\\
'''Rhomann:''' Th-that's actually ''murder'', one of... the worst crimes of all. So, ''also'' illegal...\\
'''Drax:''' ''[genuinely surprised]'' Huh.
** In ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'', after Tony fights [[spoiler:the Hulk]] in Johannesburg, he mentions that the Stark relief fund is already helping clean up the damage. And said battle even had Tony making sure to suplex his adversary into an unfinished building to make sure no one died in the collapse.
--->'''Stark:''' How quickly can we buy this building?
** One of the viral videos for ''Film/AntMan1'' shows that people are now calling for the Avengers to be held accountable for Comicbook/{{Ultron}}'s destruction of Sokovia.
** This is a major plot point in ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar''. People are fed up with all the collateral damage the Avengers cause during their missions, so the governments of the world craft a series of laws called the Sokovia Accords to keep the heroes in line. Of course, the Avengers are criticized for the damage they caused to New York while fighting the Chitauri, but the fact that they were stopping an alien invasion that was trying to kill ''everyone they encountered'' (and that the Avengers prevented the World Security Council from [[NukeEm nuking]] the city) goes unmentioned. Likewise, General Ross conveniently fails to mention his own involvement in the Harlem incident during the events of ''Film/TheIncredibleHulk''. [[spoiler:And the ensuing [[WeAREStrugglingTogether Civil War]] was due to Zemo wanting to avenge his family who died in Sokovia, framing Comicbook/BuckyBarnes to ensure team-destroying in-fighting would happen.]] However, this trope is averted when the big hero fight does happen: the Avengers duke it out in an airport tarmac far from civilians, and collateral damage is relatively light. In context, Cap's team are trying to reach a Quinjet to fly to Siberia, and Iron Man's team (not knowing the full story) come to stop them. From a writer standpoint, it's a ''much'' better option than having the heroes go at it in the middle of New York City.
*** Strangely, no one brought up that all the damage cause in ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' was caused by the fact that the organization that previously oversaw The Avengers was launching a murder fleet as part of a world domination plan.
* In ''Film/DejaVu'' the protagonist, ATF agent Doug Carlin, drives half-blind down a busy freeway bridge to see the route their terrorist suspect took (ItsALongStory) causing multiple car wrecks by doing so, which probably result in severe injury and death. Except for helpfully saying "Send paramedics" nobody brings this up again, and he faces no legal consequences.
* The ''Taken'' trilogy:
** ''Film/{{Taken}}'': Brian Mills causes considerable property destruction while trying to save his daughter. He also kills numerous bad guys, including a few captured or unarmed ones in cold blood, and shoots an innocent woman just to get her husband to give him information.
** In ''Film/{{Taken 2}},'' the hero (and his daughter) cause a [[DestructiveSaviour considerable amount of destruction]] in battling the vengeful surviving members of the human trafficking ring from the first film. Some of it includes police or government property. Hell, some of it ''includes an officer.'' (He ''was'' in league with the bad guys, but still.) You'd expect the number of crimes they commit would mean they'd be in prison until the next ice age, but we end with no talk of legal trouble.
** In ''{{Film/Taken 3}}'', Mills again causes considerable property damage. He also escapes from police custody, breaks into a building, and abducts a motorist on the road at gunpoint to get a ride into town.
* ''Film/ManOfSteel'':
** The fights in Metropolis must have killed hundreds if not thousands of people and run up a repair bill in the billions (three guesses whose MegaCorp [[ComicBook/LexLuthor is going to end up bankrolling that?]]). Some time is taken [[{{Deconstruction}} to show how terrifying it would be]] to be a civilian on the ground with buildings collapsing in every direction. However, it's still nothing compared to the total destruction of humanity.
** This extends to Smallville too. Its downtown is almost leveled by the fight there and includes an explosion at a gas station.
** Superman fights Zod and/or his warriors in Smallville and later Metropolis despite being outclassed, and so a lot of damage happens. His attempts at knocking or throwing them away are invariably countered, at one point reaching Earth's orbit. Most of the time he's smashed into buildings by their attacks but sometimes he does the same (granted, into apparently empty or unfinished ones). The damage is compounded by attempts by the US military to intervene. Superman later also willfully trashes a multi-million dollar spy drone that has been snooping on him to make a point to the military to get off his back.
** In fairness, most of the destruction is caused by Zod's forces or machines. Superman causes comparatively little damage.
** ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice'' somewhat centers around this. For one thing, Batman is pissed at Supes for destroying Metropolis--partly because Zod and his Kryptonian henchmen aren't alive to blame.
* In ''Film/PacificRim'' the [[HumongousMecha Jaegers]] cause probably billions of dollars worth of collateral damage. However, considering that it's them vs. ''[[ApocalypseHow the apocalypse]]'', you can see why people tolerate them. And it's known that standard procedure is to intercept the Kaiju long before they make landfall. For several years, the Jaegers run a near flawless record. Fighting in and thus damaging cities is avoided and would only be a lot worse without the Jaegers, as a tactical nuclear strike is the only other effective anti-kaiju weapon.
* In ''Film/TheNegotiator'', Roman takes several innocent people hostage during the incident as he fights to clear his name. The movie does not imply that he will ever face consequences for doing so. Even if you have been framed for murder, taking innocent people hostage is still a crime.
* ''Film/TheMask'': Stanley breaks out of a jail cell, assaults an officer, steals his gun, kidnaps another officer at gunpoint and steals his car, yet receives no punishment. Even worse, he committed the crime he was held for and there was good evidence of him doing so. The trope is justified because the mayor thinks Stanley is a hero who was framed by Dorian. Plus, many of those crimes Stanley committed weren't entirely his fault, and he ''had'' to escape from the cell to save Tina and stop Dorian.
-->'''Mayor''': '''''Dorian Tyrell''' was "The Mask." I saw it with my own eyes.''
* In ''Film/{{Firewall}}'', Harrison Ford's character, in the course of trying to save his kidnapped family: (1) breaks into an apartment and arrives at a murder scene, (2) gets his hands on the murder weapon, clearly leaving prints, (3) takes a bank teller hostage at gunpoint, (4) breaks into his ex-secretary's apartment and apparently forces her to help him after firing her earlier, and (5) then hacks into the bad guys' account to erase their money.
* ''Film/Gone2012'': Jill isn't arrested for illegal possession of a gun or menacing on coming back, though the police had been looking for her because she'd done these over the entire day. Possibly justified as she'd shown they were wrong to disbelieve her, and charging her would make them look bad when this came out.
* It's hard to imagine Inspector Clouseau of ''Franchise/ThePinkPanther'' fame being able to get insurance on his home, seeing how often he destroys it while roughhousing with his servant Cato. Given that he's just as destructive with everything he crosses paths with while on the job, purely by accident, one also has to worry about the insurance liabilities of the Paris police force. Dreyfus occasionally laments how much stuff his least favorite detective breaks, but never brings up who has to pay for the damages.
* The ''wuxia'' ''Film/ValleyOfTheFangs'' averts this in the hero's first fight scene; he defeats a group of corrupt inspectors in a tavern and sends them fleeing, but demolishes an entire wall in the process, the same wall he sends three enemy mooks through. The tavern's boss complains, until the hero gives the boss a massive silver ''yuanbao'' at which point the tavern boss shuts up.
* ''Film/FaceOff'': Archer commits a number of felonies while undercover as Castor. This includes though isn't limited to killing a couple guards and jailbreak. Here it's [[JustifiedTrope justified]] though as the only people to learn he's been disguised as Castor were his FBI colleagues, who wouldn't tell, so all this can be blamed on Castor (and he had little choice to stop Castor).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* Averted in ''Literature/DragonBones'': When the heroes travel through a country where people from their country are universally hated, and no one sells them anything, they ration the food, and make do with what they have, instead of stealing things. Also, after killing some bandits, they give back everything that belonged to the village people. Eventually, this pays off and people are friendlier to them. [[spoiler:When, at the end, Ward destroys a whole castle, it is his ''own'' castle, so no one can be angry at him for damaging their property.]]
* In a ''Series/TheManFromUncle'' novelization, Solo and Kuryakin actually give a woman UNCLE's insurance agency's card, to pay for the hole they cut in her floor.
* ''Literature/HarryPotter'':
** Before the [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix fifth book]], Fudge is quite committed to providing this for Harry, making several special exceptions for him to avoid him getting into too much trouble. He considers Harry, as "the boy who lived" a special case, a DoubleStandard that Snape criticizes, noting that Harry is better off being treated like any other student (a valid point, though hollow given Snape's bias to treat Harry ''worse'' than any other student). This bites Fudge in the ass when he attempts to dredge up these instances to smear Harry, at which Dumbledore points out that Fudge himself was happy to dismiss them at the time.
** In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'', after a battle in a cafe, Harry and the others take the time to actually repair the damage. Only to save their own hides. Other Death Eaters would've seen the damage and known where they were. However, it is very considerate of Hermione to pay for the food they steal while they're on the run.
* The Franchise/SpiderMan book ''[[Literature/SinisterSixTrilogy Secret of the Sinister Six]]'' features a radio advertisement for metahuman insurance, including testimonials from people who had the Hulk thrown through their kitchen.
* ''Literature/TheDogsOfWar''. The mercenaries planning a coup in a small African republic are told to take out insurance for a short sea voyage from Europe to Africa. Any survivors would swear that the covered party fell overboard, or lost a limb due to shifting cargo during a storm.
* In ''Literature/TheLivesOfChristopherChant'', when Christopher's magic first emerged, it did so rather spectacularly, trashing his teacher's house in the process. His teacher then spent the next month forcing him to fix everything that he broke.
* In ''Literature/DealingWithDragons'' a famous hero is mocked because, when he threw a rampaging giant into a lake to drown it, the resulting flood actually did more damage than the giant itself would have.
* Averted in Creator/SimonRGreen's ''{{Literature/Nightside}}'', where the protagonist, John Taylor, is now classified under Acts of Gods by the insurance companies.
* When the [[Literature/XWingSeries Wraiths]] start a BarBrawl as phase one of their latest ZanyScheme, they actually pay for the damages to the bar. Or more accurately, they rob the soldiers they had beaten up and use that money to pay for the damages.
* ''[[http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/gregory_07_13_reprint/ The Illustrated Biography of Lord Grimm]]'' by Daryl Gregory shows the collateral damage among citizens who happen to be living in a country ruled by a supervillain when it's 'invaded' for the umpteenth time by American superheroes... WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical
* In ''{{Literature/Shadowboy}}'' , Hero Insurance is a literal requirement to be a licensed hero with individual premiums for collateral, liability and medical, depending upon the hero's destructiveness and durability.
* Averted in ''Literature/LockwoodAndCo'', where the heroes' negligence makes them ineligible for their fines to be covered by the [[ParanormalInvestigation ghost-hunting]] [[GovernmentAgencyOfFiction government agency]].
* Literature/{{Quiller}} is not allowed to steal or damage private property during the course of a mission, and he's always griping about how his expenses are scrutinized minutely. This is sometimes used as a {{handwave}} as to why the British spy doesn't just Film/JamesBond his way out of a situation.
* In ''The Specialist'' by Gayle Rivers the mercenary protagonist is recruited for a mission into Beirut. He doesn't take out insurance but mentions there's nothing to stop him from doing so, as no insurance company would be told he was thrown off a Druze command post with a knife between his shoulder blades. The most violent death that would happen to him officially would be a car accident.
* In the superhero novel ''Just Cause'', this trope is parodied by playing it straight: the titular organization does in fact have insurance to cover damages caused by their battles, as do most other superhero organizations. The "most" part concerns protagonist Mustang Sally, as the previous group she was a part of trashed a science hall in the first few chapters in a failed attempt to get a supervillain.
* Similarly, if not as explicit as ''Just Cause'', insurance is mentioned in the ''Wearing the Cape'' series, as are rules of engagement that EXPLICITLY say make every effort to avoid civilians in superhuman fights. And woe to the superhero who tries to play the ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight clause without an ironclad excuse.
* ''Literature/WordsOfRadiance'' (second book of ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive''): A more low-key version. Shallan manages to convince a gang of deserters to protect her caravan from another gang of deserters, promising them clemency for their crimes in return, despite the fact that there's a kill-on-sight order out on them. Once she gets to civilization and speaks to Highprince Dalinar, he agrees without a second thought, noting that he's never liked hanging soldiers, deserters or not. She does snarkily remind the deserters that it's only clemency for ''past'' crimes, not any future ones.
* In ''Literature/SuperPowereds'' and ''Literature/{{Corpies}}'', such things are handled by the Department of [[DifferentlyPoweredIndividual Variant Human]] Affairs, a federal agency that licenses Supers, who have gone through the four-year Hero Certification Program at one of the five universities that offer it, to be full-fledged Heroes. Only Heroes are allowed to actively engage criminal Supers and [[PowerIncontinence Powereds]]. Any other Super, who tries his or her hand at vigilante justice, will quickly find him- or herself in jail. Only Hero actions are covered by the DVA. Also, there is a reason the HCP is a TrainingFromHell. Only the best of the best Supers are permitted to become Heroes (no more than 50 are licensed per year in the entire country), and the DVA comes down hard on Heroes whose carelessness causes needless destruction and casualties. Heroes can find themselves restricted to non-combat activities or even have their license revoked permanently. Also, no HCP accepts an applicant with a criminal record, [[spoiler:although one makes an exception in ''Corpies'', when a trusted Hero vouches for her]].
* ''Literature/VillainsDontDateHeroes'': Standard policy seems to be to blame any destruction the heroes cause on the villains they were trying to stop. This annoys the villain Night Terror to no end, as she had a strong policy of no collateral damage, and the hero Fialux causes more damage in a couple weeks than Night Terror did in her entire career.
* ''Literature/TheHenchmansSurvivalGuide'' solves this from the opposite end. All hero and villain activity is restricted to Little Big City, and one of the conditions of living, or visiting, is signing paperwork to waive your rights to sue for damages.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

[[folder:Advertisement]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'':
** Averted on at least one occasion where Edward finishes a battle that causes impressive collateral damage, only to be made to clean up after himself by irate shopkeepers. Fortunately, he lives in a setting where powers are as good at fixing messes as they are at making them.
** In another instance, he wrecks a woman's balcony during a big fight. He apologizes mid-battle, and promises to come back and fix it. Later he does fix it (to the woman's surprise) although given his sense of... style, it's debatable whether it's better than it was before.
** Double-subverted when he and Roy have a WizardDuel. [[spoiler:Mustang and Edward end the episode cleaning up the damage with shovels, no alchemy in sight]].
* In ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' the reason why the Bebop crew is always starving or using sub-par equipment is because a good chunk of the cash they make off of their bounties is used to pay for the collateral damage they tend to leave in their wake.
* ''Manga/OnePiece'':
** Averted. The heroes are pirates to begin with, so if they destroy buildings the Navy will respond to it. Normally, the Straw Hat Crew is able to survive their encounters with the Navy. However, if they do commit a serious crime their bounties could increase.
** Also averted when Luffy wrecks a restaurant staffed mostly by former pirates, who make him work off the damage.
* Averted in ''Anime/{{Moldiver}}'', where not only does the city have to pick up the tab for repairs after superbattles, it contracts them out to the lowest bidder -- who happens to be the BigBad in his civilian identity, and who is driven to distraction by the escalating levels of damage cutting into his profit margin.
* ''Anime/TheBigO'':
** The titular robot, a HumongousMecha whose pilot is sometimes guilty of causing just as much damage, if not more, while fighting the MonsterOfTheWeek than the monster could cause all by itself. Sometimes entire blocks are razed, but the massive destruction is never really brought up. It's lessened a little by the fact that Paradigm City is fairly underpopulated -- a lot of the buildings are entirely deserted, or ruined anyway.
** It's not just fighting monsters either. The act of just ''deploying'' Big O and returning it to its "hangar" causes ''huge thousand-feet-deep craters'' to be dug all over the place, and nobody seems to care.
** The manga version of ''The Big O'' hangs a {{lampshade|Hanging}} on it: Beck's flunkies, who lack OffscreenVillainDarkMatter, are seen working construction repairing some of the damage afterwards in order to make some quick money.
** Hinted that the main reason Dastun wants to find out the identity of the black Megadeus is to put an end to the constant damage. This was likely the job of all those maintenance men during the Season 2 finale arc who [[spoiler:fix the near completely ruined Big O before the final battle]]. It would certainly explain why damage never carries over, given how fast they are! It's implied that constantly having to dig out from under rubble is why a lot of people have ''jobs'' in that universe. That doesn't do anything for all the times Big O makes a huge hole in the road, though...
* Lampshaded in ''Anime/SailorMoon'' episode 13 when Sailor Mars wants to blast some airplanes being used by the villain and Luna replies that she could never afford to pay for the damage. The joke actually made it through to the Creator/DiC English dub.
* Despite not quite being the genre for this, ''Manga/HeIsMyMaster'' subverts this by having the main character's lack of Hero Insurance driving the plot.
* Lampshaded in ''Anime/YuGiOhTheMoviePyramidOfLight''. After Anubis' defeat, Kaiba leaves in a huff, and Grandpa says, "I'm glad he didn't bring up the damage you all did to his Duel Dome, because I really don't think his insurance is gonna pay for it!"
* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in ''Anime/DaiGuard'', where the company that owns the title giant robot is responsible for all collateral damage the robot causes, and numerous insurance-related forms have to be signed before it can be deployed. It's FURTHER lampshaded in one episode where by the time all the paperwork is completed, Dai-Guard has already been deployed and beaten the MonsterOfTheWeek. And when one considers that the only other way to destroy the monsters besides the eponymous giant robot is with ''nukes'', the insurance complaints seem rather inane. In-story they're ''still'' cleaning up after the first monster's rampage '''twelve years later'''.
* ''Manga/{{Trigun}}'':
** Vash The Humanoid Typhoon. However, it's not without its {{Lampshade Hanging}}s. Two of the characters are insurance society representatives who stick around to keep an eye on him and fail miserably at keeping him out of trouble, and in the fifth episode of the anime, a character mentions that "Class G Property Damage" contributed to Vash's enormous bounty.
** In the end, the Bernardelli Insurance Company just washes its hands of Vash, and declares any and all damage caused by him "Acts of God." Justified, since he accidentally [[spoiler:blew a chunk out of one of the moons; at that point, you can't really call him anything else]].
** This trope is arguably deconstructed, alongside the TechnicalPacifist trope, with the July 5th incident, the primary source of the bounty on Vash's head. Vash somehow managed to avoid killing a single soul when he blew up an entire city... but it probably would have been kinder if he ''had'' vaporised the population, because almost every last man, woman and child either died of thirst/starvation or was murdered for their supplies by their desperate fellows.
* ''Manga/DragonBall'':
** Usually averted. Particularly in the movies. While battles usually take place in remote areas by default, Goku has often made a point of taking a fight outside of the city to prevent this kind of thing.
** Played straight when Androids 19 and 20 [[spoiler:aka Doctor Gero]] come calling. Goku tries to get them out of the city out of concern for the civilians. Android 20 ''destroys the city'' with his EyeBeams. Leading to this exchange:
--->'''Goku:''' How could you do this?! Leave these people out of it!\\
'''Android 19:''' [[ActuallyPrettyFunny There are no people left to leave out]].
** The titular Dragon Balls are a sort of ultimate insurance company as they can be wished for complete reparation of any damage caused during battles (including destroyed PLANETS), and are more than once used for just that.
--->'''Announcer:''' Please don't destroy the arena again.
* In ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'', explosive destruction of the first Anti-Spiral ship causes significant damage to the surrounding city, blame falls on Simon for destroying it. Subsequent confrontations involve increasingly elegant ways to prevent said damage from occurring. It wasn't a problem before that either, as there were no cities and most fights were in giant deserts/wastelands like the old ''Transformers'' cartoon, and latter [[spoiler:in space]].
* ''Manga/{{Bokurano}}'':
** Averted in the [[DeconstructedTrope most mean-spirited manner]]. After learning that their ''first'' giant robot battle has ''killed two thousand people and leveled a mountain'', several of the children get notably upset by it and want to break the {{masquerade}} and tell people about it.
** Plenty of people die and plenty of damage is done when Zearth fights. In fact [[spoiler:one of the protagonists father gets crushed while they're fighting, right when he was thinking how [[StrawNihilist a few thousand peoples lives don't matter when it saves the majority]] and how he and his dad are a few of the strong. Kodama dies soon afterwards himself]].
** In the end, a military official notes that while he knows Zearth was the instrument of mankind's salvation, to the vast majority of people, it will probably be remembered as a terrible monster that terrorized the planet.
* Averted in ''Anime/GaoGaiGar''; the villains realize early on the potential of handicapping the heroes by bringing fights to populated areas. The heroes respond by inventing a device to [[PhantomZone create a pocket dimension]] in which to fight the villains. That said, if the story of the episode needed to have more of a rousing conclusion, GGG does have a small army of Tool based robots ready to repair any damage done.
* ''New Manga/GetterRobo'':
** Subverted, where a big deal is made of the property damage when a battle moves into the city.
** And again in the manga. When Shin Getter Robo accidentally blows up a city and puts one of its pilots into a coma from the trauma, people aren't happy.
** And once more in ''Shin Manga/GetterRobo VS. Neo Manga/GetterRobo'', where the massive amounts of property damage caused by [[TheyKilledKenny Musashi's]] HeroicSacrifice causes the government to abolish Getter Energy research. Though played straight afterwards, as even though Neo Getter run on plasma energy, they still cause property damage while fighting monsters and are never called on it.
* Check the end of the second ''Anime/ProjectAKo'' film. The kind of use would be a spoiler. Check the ''beginning'' of any episode. A-Ko causes massive damage just by ''running to school''.
* Averted in ''Manga/LinebarrelsOfIron'', the main character ends up not only destroying large parts of the city, but believes that he is a "hero of justice" and as such gets very miffed when the authorities cover up the battles as malfunctioning mecha. He eventually blows over about this, destroying more of the city with his humongous mecha whilst demanding why no one will praise him for saving their lives, oblivious to the fact that he his in fact being a bigger threat to people's safety than the bad guys. After his friend is killed by another humongous mecha, he goes into a rage and nearly obliterates the city in his rampage. Later he is called out on his behaviour, being told to his face that his selfish actions have done more harm than good, and that if anyone is to blame for his friend's death, it's him.
* Averted in ''Manga/{{X|1999}}'', the good guys create a barrier/parallel dimension to protect the battle zones which in this case can't be considered collateral damage, tearing down the buildings is the primary objective of the bad guys. If the good guys die, the area retains the damage from the battle. Note that the good guys have an unimpressive track record for "winning". Also, it's not just "death" that dissolves the barrier. Loss of HeroicSpirit, like that endured by [[spoiler:Subaru]] still results in the damage being permanent. Also, in the manga, one holy site gets blown up without the heroes ever showing up.
* Horribly messed up in ''LightNovel/ShakuganNoShana'' battles take place in barriers similar to ''X'' but the writers can't make up their mind about whether time passes normally outside the barrier or not, after the battles end, human lives are consumed to repair the collateral damage. Depends on who wins. Bad guys use human lives to repair the damage. Good guys use the bits inside "Torches" (the remnant echos of humans whose existence has been consumed by the bad guys).
* Generally averted in ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' where the Shinigami have the ability to stand on air, which they generally use to keep their battles high above the cities to lower the collateral damage. In the latest arc they've even gone as far as replacing the town with an exact replica of it so they can have an all out war without worrying about breaking anything. They have broken things before, like during Ikkaku's fight with [[spoiler:the arrancar Edorad Leones]]. However it was mentioned that Soul Society fixes everything afterwords, with the costs being taken out of the budget of the squad responsible. (Though that does beg the question of who pays for damages caused by Ichigo's fights...)
* ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'' does a HandWave saying that the people of the magic world in a city known for its dueling and gladiator fights are used to this sort of thing and have measures in place to deal with it. Apparently up to and including buildings being chopped to pieces. Naturally, this doesn't stop Negi from worrying about it anyway. The implication seems to be that the loser(s) of the fight is made to pay for the damages. One has to wonder what happens if the loser ends up dead, if that's the case.
* Averted in ''Anime/{{Basquash}}''. In his attempt to bring back basketball with his mecha, his attempt at a slam dunk being blocked by Iceman ends up destroying a good chunk of the stadium, landing him in jail for a year. Cue TimeSkip and Dunk Mask becoming ShroudedInMyth.
* ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}''. Though, the poor innocent villagers probably ''would'' make Lina pay for the damage... if they could catch her. Averted; in fact it's a running gag. She's basically what you get if you turn [[Manga/{{Trigun}} Vash the Stampede]] into a sorceress and take away the insurance girls. While the audience/readers and her close friend know she is a hero, her path of destruction has made her a feared villainess in her world, to the point a SympatheticInspectorAntagonist got away with arresting her with the charge of ''being Lina Inverse''. Even when she does something truly heroic and redeemable, she blows it by losing her cool and nuking the town she just saved. She rarely gets to claim her reward because it will likely be the down payment on rebuild the town from the ground up around the huge crater she just made.
* ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'':
** Soun Tendo is on the city council, but one has to wonder if that really helps given the amount of destruction his "son-in-law" and friends dish out on a regular basis. Even though there are those "Do Not Smash Wall" and "Do Not Crush Pole" signs everywhere.
** In FanFiction a common nickname for Ranma and friends is "Nerima's Wrecking Crew" or "Demolition Crew". Joke stories often have companies that want to renovate call Nabiki Tendo to have set up a fight between Ranma and some rival that takes place in their building. Allowing them to collect the insurance money, and renovate.
** One FanFiction even featured the Nerima ''Building'' Crew trying in subtle ways to help save their best source of business.
* In ''Anime/SCryed'', Alter powers can't ''not'' cause damage, as they rely on the surrounding matter for both energy and mass to make the Alter forms, and the Alter Users don't have much control over what matter gets used.
* Averted in ''Anime/{{Zambot 3}}'' about as far as it can go. Many battles happen in cities that had been destroyed in ''previous'' battles and the people of the Japan don't take too kindly to the heroes.
* ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'': Nanoha flees the scene of her first battle when she hears sirens, not wanting to get in trouble for the damage caused by the MonsterOfTheWeek. Averted after the final battle of A's: the TSAB works on repairing the damaged areas of the city.
* Averted in ''Manga/FairyTail'', as [[DestructiveSaviour the massive property damage the members of the titular guild cause]] is the main reason they aren't more wealthy or influential despite the considerable power of their mages. In fact the council regulating them would have probably ''disbanded them'' several times if [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections their leaders wasn't friends with (an increasingly small number of) council members]]. Hell, Lucy even states that no matter how high-ranking and well-paying the missions she completes are she's never getting most of it as long as her partners Natsu and Gray keep breaking crap. Eventually, the Magic Council starts actively looking for a reason to disband them. It ultimately fails as the threats and escalate and Fairy Tail are more or less the only people capable enough of facing these monstrous individuals and organizations.
* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'':
** Deconstructed (like everything else). The series often lampshades how often that not only are the [=EVAs=] really costly to repair and maintain (it costing about enough money to bankrupt a small country to repair a severely damaged EVA after one battle), but how much time, effort, and money it takes to repair New Tokyo-3 as well as disposing of the dead Angels (Ramiel sits in the middle of the city for rotting for weeks on end).
** ''End of Evangelion'' opens on the image of Tokyo-3 after all of the battles had come to an end. With funding drying up, Tokyo-3 hasn't seen any repairs recently and most of the civilian population has fled.
** It's not even a question of funding. The destruction of Eva-00 was a bigger explosion than any of the previous battles. We know Shinji's friends fled, but it's also a case of InferredHolocaust, even with the population in shelters.
** There's almost nobody living in the city to begin with. Misato appears to be the only person actually living in her building, most wide shots of the city show little, if any, traffic, and almost every classroom in Shinji's school is empty... and this is ''before'' things start getting bad. Dialogue halfway through the series suggests that the population is down to actual NERV employees and a few diehards. It's only in the Rebuild movies that Tokyo-3 is ever depicted as having an appropriate population level for a city that size.
* Perhaps no anime series depicts this trope as often as ''Anime/DominionTankPolice''. Throughout the series, the main characters routinely cause enormous amounts of property damage in the city while attempting to apprehend criminals, sometimes failing to make an arrest in the end. This never results in any member of the tank police being arrested, fired, or disciplined, other then occasionally getting chewed out by a supervisor.
* Justified in ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}'': It turns out that someone actually ''does'' pay for all that property damage [[PersonOfMassDestruction Shizuo]] causes: his manager (not Tom, but another guy above both of them), who docks it from Shizuo's salary in return. Shizuo's honestly surprised that he still gets paid at all ([[UltimateJobSecurity or that he even still has a job]]).
* Both PlayedForLaughs and somewhat {{deconstructed|Trope}} in ''Manga/ChronoCrusade'', depending on the chapter/episode. Sister Rosette is a HotBlooded DestructiveSaviour, so she's quite often shown crashing her car into the sides of buildings, destroying buildings--heck, the very first storyline shows her crashing a ship ''into the Statue of Liberty''. However, it's shown that her supervisor in the Order of Magdalene ''constantly'' chews her out for it (even saying they could write a book based on her damage reports), and it's explicitly mentioned that the Order has to help pay for the damages as well as bribing the local media not to mention their involvement with the damage. Also, when civilians are shown badly injured in the aftermath of one of her battles, she's shown being shocked and upset.
* ''Anime/PantyAndStockingWithGarterbelt'': Panty and Stocking must have this in spades considering how destructive their fights with the Ghosts are. Then again, everyone in this universe appears to be MadeOfIron.
* Subverted in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny''. While seemingly played straight with Kira getting off scott-free with all the destruction he causes in the Battle at Orb, Shinn's family are revealed to have been killed in collateral damage, and this is the cause of all his malice towards Kira as the pilot of the Freedom throughout the series.
* {{Exaggerated|Trope}} in ''LightNovel/DirtyPair''. The Lovely Angels' recklessness in their cases mingles with FinaglesLaw to frequently cause the destruction of cities, if not entire planets; nevertheless, the Central Computer of their employer infallibly clears them of blame every time. Which isn't enough to keep them from being hated and feared by most of humanity.
* At the end of the LXE arc of ''Manga/BusoRenkin'', Kazuki attempts to reach Victor's regeneration capsule before he awakens by using Sunlight Heart to rocket to the roof of his school, blasting through floors in the process, as he was inside when he came up with this idea. Because of this, Kazuki ultimately caused more property damage than the entire LXE.
* Aversion: As a result of the numerous destructive car chases in ''Manga/GunsmithCats'', Rally "The Wrecker" has been blacklisted by every auto insurance company in Illinois.
* Averted for laughs in the ''Manga/{{Kochikame}}'' action based episodes and TV specials. Kankichi Ryotsu defeats the villain and saves the day, but gets billed by the owners for property damage he caused or blamed for it. Notably the Fuji TV station [[BitingTheHandHumor (the show's broadcaster)]] being destroyed multiple separate times. Thanks to NegativeContinuity or possibly Ryotsu's gambling winnings, everything's back to normal and forgotten in the following episode.
* Averted in ''Anime/TigerAndBunny''. Damages incurred by a superhero must be paid for either by his/her sponsor company or the hero him/herself. In the very first episode [[DestructiveSaviour Kotetsu]], the protagonist, is berated for damaging a monorail track in order to stop a hijacker. And in episode 5 he is brought before a judge who rules that his company be fined for the property that was destroyed during one of his rescue attempts in episode 4. To be precise, the city pays for any damage deemed necessary for the hero to capture a criminal and/or protect civilians. However, anything the city deems unnecessary is billed to the hero's sponsor company. So a hero who pulls a chunk out of the road in order to stop a bystander being shot would not be charged, but a hero who stomps a car's roof in when he could have just run around it would be charged. All of the heroes in the show are employees or owners of companies which use the hero's "brand" to generate money, so that they don't personally have to pay these charges (and also to generate a living wage for them, as they aren't directly paid to be heroes). One of the reasons co-protagonist Wild Tiger is nicknamed the "Crusher for Justice" is due to his habit of smashing things up with his super strength and earning himself a constant stream of large bills for his sponsor company to pay. The show actually begins with [[spoiler:his original sponsor company going out of business due to the large bills he receives. The only reason he agrees to be in a partnership with Barnaby is because the next company to hire him tells him to do it or quit, and implies that no other sponsor company would agree to take on a hero who's fame (and ability to generate money) is waning but continues to rack up such large bills.]]
* In ''Manga/PsychicSquad'' Kaoru, a special ESPer working for a government agency, is requested a help from a FriendlyEnemy WellIntentionedExtremist organization to help them in a particular task. When they damage a passenger plane to drive one of their evil enemies out of it, Kaoru freaks out for them being so reckless and for gambling with the passengers' lives. When they point out to her that she does the same thing regularly when going on missions, she replies that in that case she is backed up by the said government agency which controls and compensates the damage.
* ''Manga/DGrayMan'' usually plays it straight, but it's averted when Allen gapes at a massive hole Lavi puts in a building using his Size-Shifting Hammer and Lavi carelessly mentions not to worry about it and that Komui will 'foot the bill.' Apparently the Vatican have very deep pockets, considering the damage the Exorcists tend to create during their fights.
* One of the reasons Train and Sven from ''Manga/BlackCat'' are so poor is because most of their bounty money is used to pay for the damage they cause when catching criminals.
* ''Manga/BlueExorcist'':
** The series tends to gloss over this kind of thing, though it does happen. Arguably, since the True Cross Order has been established for about ''two thousand'' years, they probably have this kind of thing down pat.
** Actively brought up in an early episode. Since [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Rin]] is the half-breed Son of Satan, even before his awakening he was very strong. Combing this with his HairTriggerTemper and his NiceGuy tendencies, and you get a few scenes of of Shiro yelling at him for costing him money. Not to mention he couldn't hold a job due to this...
** A short omake at the end of episode 13 shows Mephisto confronting Amaimon on the destruction he caused in his fight with Rin. Scratch that, he was just upset over the now-headless statue of him. The wrecked rollercoaster and ball pen are totally over looked.
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'':
** Averted in the anime, in "Showdown at the Poké-Corral" when Ash's herd of Tauros ram Team Rocket away and save the day while destroying a fence. Afterward, Oak makes Ash and his friends rebuild it to end the episode. Played straight in "[[Recap/PokemonS1E2PokemonEmergency Pokémon Emergency]]" wherein a massive Thundershock generated by several Pikachu ends up destroying most of the Pokémon Center, but nobody seems to get in trouble.
** In ''Manga/PokemonAdventures'', Black battles and captures the Galvantula that attacked a camera crew but destroys the filming equipment in the process. He gets thanked but still gets stuck with the bill, which White covers. He's now [[WorkOffTheDebt in her debt and is stuck working for her]].
* In ''Anime/DigimonAdventureTri'', the Chosen Children find their Digimon to be made out to be bad guys after a few fights wreck the town. Noticeably, Taichi ends up getting flashbacks to the destruction, holding him back.
* The heroines from ''Franchise/PrettyCure'' don't have to worry about this trope as it's a tradition in the series for the battlefield to return to normal, negating all the damage from the fights, after the MonsterOfTheWeek is defeated and the villain of turn makes a quick exit. Strangely enough, ''[[Anime/FreshPrettyCure Fresh Pretty Cure!]]'' is the only entry where this doesn't happen all the time, for reasons that were never explained. Made more jarring by the fact this is the first Pretty Cure series where the [[MonsterOfTheWeek Monsters of the Week]] are summoned mainly to attack civilians and wreak havoc rather than only to deal with the eponymous [[MagicalGirlWarrior Magical Girl Warriors]], and as such the level of destruction is higher compared to previous works.
* ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'' generally sidesteps the issue. Organized clashes happen in single-use pocket dimensions explicitly to avoid repair costs, and even a couple of early major antagonists are willing to play by those rules. Later on, both sides of the conflict make a point of fighting in deserted areas or in other ways to limit collateral damage - the heroes do so to avoid unnecessary damage and casualties, and the villains don't want to break the {{Masquerade}} any earlier than they have to, lest their opponents go from GreatOffscreenWar-depleted remnants to seven billion strong (even gods in this setting have to worry about [[DeathOfAThousandCuts a lot of diddly]]). When significant collateral damage is explicitly caused, it's usually discussed, such as Souna agreeing to fund and manage the school's repairs in volume 4 since it was her territory, or [[spoiler:Rias deliberately refusing to reimburse the feuding vampire factions for damage Gaspar caused since they'd been acting like dicks since the word go]].
* The protagonists in ''Anime/DinosaurKing'' cause enormous amounts of collateral damage when fighting rogue dinosaurs, or their enemies. Sometimes to [[MonumentalDamage priceless historical landmarks.]] They're occasionally berated for this by locals, but rarely actually have to pay up for it. [[spoiler:The damage is all undone using the time machine in the end.]]
* Happens at least once in ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders'', when [[TheHero Jotaro's]] first [[FightingSpirit Stand]] [[PowersDoTheFighting battle]] nearly collapses his entire school. He never faces any consequences for it; [[JustifiedTrope granted,]] nobody knows he was responsible as [[InvisibleToNormals only Stand users can see each other's Stands.]]
** In the 1993 Stardust Crusaders OriginalVideoAnimation, Jotaro's Stand, Star Platinum ''tears off the top half of a minaret'' and throws it at [[BigBad [=DIO.=]]] Once again, nobody ever calls him out on having destroyed a possibly very old and significant religious building.
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Anime/GirlsUndPanzer''. Senshou-dou matches often end up in urban areas, and collateral damage is bound to ensue. Early on, during a Sensha-dou match, a tank runs into a shop belonging to one of the members of the audience. His reaction is to {{Squee}} about how he can now renovate it with the insurance money while the others around him comment on his good fortune and pray that ''their shops'' get wrecked next.
** The same shop gets ''blown up'' in ''Anime/GirlsUndPanzerDerFilm'', and once again the same guy is cheerful while the others are envious that [[ContinuityNod it always seems that his place is hit]].
* In ''Anime/DevilMayCryTheAnimatedSeries'', Dante wrecks a bridge to defeat a demon, and has to pay for it out of the reward he got for killing the demon.
* [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-zagged]] in ''LightNovel/{{Konosuba}}'': Kazuma's party destroys a large portion of Axel's walls during the fight with Beldia. It's first a downplayed [[SubvertedTrope subversion]], since the town won't demand he recompense the city for ''all'' of the repairs, but he still has to fork over all 300 million Eris of the reward, as well as go 40 mil into debt. [[spoiler:It later turns into a DoubleSubversion, because the greedy landlord used a demon's powers to make everyone forget that adventurers don't have to pay for damages. The town eventually returns all of the money that was taken from him when the landlord's crimes are exposed.]]
* {{Subverted|trope}} in ''Manga/TheDemonGirlNextDoor''. Sakura paid off the Hinatsuki family 11 years ago for her destroying their family factory in the course of fighting [[spoiler:Ugallu]] by buying the property outright. The Hinatsukis used that money to move westwards and re-establish their business there.
[[/folder]]

!!Examples

----

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Megamind}}'' acknowledges the Trope. After all of the destruction caused by Titan, Megamind's Brainbots are repairing all of the damage.

* ''WesternAnimation/Incredibles2'':
** Discussed with regards to the damage caused by the Underminer. The money he stole from the bank was insured and there are contingencies in place that would have covered the initial damage. Mr. Incredible's failed attempt to capture the Underminer just caused more damage beyond what was expected.
** While explaining his PR plan to the Incredibles and Frozone, Winston mentions that they have set up insurance to cover any potential damage. That being said, he decides to send Elastigirl out as the first representative since she has a history of causing the least amount of collateral damage.
--->'''Winston:''' Let's not test "the insurance will pay for literally anything" right out of the gate.

[[folder:Web Comic]]

* ''{{Film/Gone}}'': Jill isn't arrested for illegal possession of a gun or menacing on coming back, though the police had been looking for her because she'd done these over the entire day. Possibly justified as she'd shown they were wrong to disbelieve her, and charging her would make them look bad when this came out.

This is a popular subject in the {{Deconstruction}}, where destructive heroes are often portrayed as [[NotSoDifferent not much better]] than the villains they're fighting. In less serious works, this trope can be {{lampshade|Hanging}}d with ActionInsuranceGag.

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/KingdomCome'' addresses this in the novelization. Heroes are impoverished and uncontrollable, so there's no way to deal with the destruction superheroes cause. No one owns automobiles due to the skyrocketing insurance, and public monuments tend to be left where they lie. Yes, there is [[NoEndorHolocaust suffering]].
* Spoofed in the late 1980s in Creator/ScottMcCloud's ''Destroy!!'', which consisted of nothing but one-frame pages depicting a battle between two superhumans which effectively totals the city around them.
* Franchise/MarvelUniverse:
** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Marvel with their ''ComicBook/DamageControl'' series -- a comic book about the company which cleans up after super battles. D.C. has been shown to clean up very specific examples of property damage, enlisting the help of subcontractors. In the after-effects of the ''Civil War'', its created-for-the-story new CEO is shown to have helped cause damage so the company gets hired to fix it. And they also dealt with the aftermath of ''ComicBook/WorldWarHulk'', explaining why New York wasn't rubble just days after it was smashed.
*** It's mentioned a few times that New York City has a huge insurance policy specifically covering damage from supervillain attacks.
** Marvel has also at times claimed that, despite having probably caused more property damage than Franchise/{{Godzilla}}, [[NoEndorHolocaust the Hulk hasn't actually killed any civilians during his rampages. Ever.]] ComicBook/AmadeusCho even claimed that Hulk didn't kill any ''military'', either.
** In one issue, Hulk and his teammates devastated a space launching bay because they didn't want America to interfere with Hulk's son. When called about it, Banner said they killed no one, and rebuilding all of this would ''create jobs!'' (If bombing expensive high-tech construction was a good way to create jobs, terrorism [[ArtisticLicenseEconomics would fix economies]]).
* A ''ComicBook/{{Superboy}}'' series begins with the wide-spread destruction of Smallville and the surrounding farms due to the titular character's battle with Parasite. Superboy recognizes that this might very well spell doom for the entire town, as the collapse of the area farms will lead to massive unemployment, work migration and bankruptcy, so he arranges the first ever ''Superboy vs. Kid Flash Race'' to raise money for repairs.
* ''Comicbook/{{Supergirl}}'': Supergirl usually tries to cleans up after her violent battles:
** In ''[[ComicBook/Supergirl2005 Supergirl vol. 5]] #12'' new hero Terra (now called Atlee) helps Supergirl take out a giant dinosaur; after the battle she uses her earth powers to repair the streets and even fix a fire hydrant. It is later revealed in the Terra miniseries that she apparently does this after every battle.
** In ''Comicbook/RedDaughterOfKrypton'', a city gets leveled and burned down because of a battle between two groups of Red Lanterns. Supergirl and her Red Lantern team want to help out with rebuilding it after the battle, but the frightened locals beg them to leave as soon as possible.
** ''ComicBook/{{Bizarrogirl}}'' provides several examples: Kara accidentally blasts her bedroom's ceiling, so she fetches a paintbrush and a paint bucket and sets out to repair the damaged surface. Meanwhile, the Justice League is helping out with rebuilding efforts after the ''[[ComicBook/NewKrypton New-Krypton-Earth War]]''.
--->'''Newscaster:''' Across the planet, the Justice League has led reconstruction efforts at sites hit heaviest by the Kryptonians — including Cairo, Paris, and Metropolis.
* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':
** In one issue, Superboy has a nice big fight scene with a robot, and then attempts to fly away. Lex Luthor of all people calls out from the crowd, asking why he thinks he can just leave Metropolis with the cleaning bill. Superman arrives and actually sides with Lex, saying that he always sticks around to clean up after battles.
** Superman himself has actually been ''shown'' cleaning up after his particularly destructive battles. After Superman got his powers back post-Infinite Crisis and he and Lex Luthor had a huge smash-up in Metropolis, Supes was shown clearing debris and doing minor construction work (i.e. welding some support beams to the side of a slightly-damaged building to prevent it collapsing) potentially saving the city millions of dollars and months or years of work fixing the damage. In the Golden and Silver Age stories, more often than not, he would repair even minor damage with super speed after he caused it.
** ''Comicbook/KryptonNoMore'': After defeating an AlienInvasion, Superman, Supergirl and Krypto helped clean up the devastation caused by the battle.
** In one ''ComicBook/SupermanBatman'' storyline, Smallville is trashed in a superfight at the climax. The next storyline begins with the entire Justice League pitching in to rebuild the town.
** In ''Action Comics'' #700, most of Metropolis is reduced to rubble after Lex Luthor's missiles are set off. In the aftermath, Superman promises Lois he will help rebuild the city, brick by brick. He has already begun on his promise by starting with the Daily Planet globe which he and Perry White view as a symbol of hope for the city.
** A [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' story has Superman being charged with, and convicted of, incredibly minor crimes that add up over the issue until they ''almost'' keep him in jail long enough for his accuser to perpetrate his evil plan.
** In ''ComicBook/MarvelVersusDC'', Franchise/{{Superman}} and The ComicBook/IncredibleHulk are teleported to the Grand Canyon. Superman is relieved since it means no one will get hurt, and no collateral damage will occur. The Hulk doesn't care, with a "Let's just get ON with it" punch.
** This issue comes up in ''ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman''. Without Superman to help clean up the aftermath, everyone in Metropolis is left trying to figure out what to do with the mess that was left. Flash and Green Lantern did help to repair the house of one family that was leveled in an early part of the battle.
* This was a major plot point in a ''Flash'' storyline where Wally gets legally barred from Keystone City because of all the collateral damage that results from his everyday crime fighting. In order to make their case the city authorities even have accountants following him around and calculating the damage done in front of him. Also explained in another issue... where's it's pointed out that Wally is GREAT at construction... as he can build a bridge in minutes. Though, he does note that it's 'quick and dirty'... but, well... he could fix it up later.
* In an earlier of Comicbook/TheAvengers where accountants were talking to the team, trying to account for all the damage caused during a fight with elemental golems. Most of the Avengers were dismissive about it, Thor left a bag of gold, ComicBook/IronMan reminded them that he was Tony Stark and could pay for it, and Cap... Cap handed over the parking ticket and the badge number of the officer who had ticketed the Quinjet when he'd made an emergency landing in an illegal zone. And the paperwork for having taken something out of a prison without filling in forms beforehand. The accountants loved him. An Avengers annual had the heroes touring a construction site. The employees knew villains would not be far behind (it ''is'' a construction site) and indeed, they showed up. Without the heroes knowing, the employees put the smack down on all the bad guys.
* In an issue of ComicBook/MarvelAdventures: Avengers the team [[LetsYouAndHimFight fights itself]] because of a hate ray, throwing some cars around and inflicting minor damage in the process. Once they are done the mayor of New York scolds them, sentencing them to... community service. Well, they ''are'' the Avengers. Fighting the next threat probably counts.
* In the "Guardian Devil" arc for Marvel Comics character Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}, DD mentions that New York City has a billion-a-year insurance policy on damages caused by superheroes.
* In the comic book series ''Comicbook/TheBoys'', a CIA subdivision is set up to take superheroes to task for the damages they incur. One character's girlfriend was graphically killed in front of him by a speedster throwing another superhuman into her, right after they traded "I love yous" for the first time. Of course, ''The Boys'' is, depending on who you ask, a deconstruction or just one long bitchfest about superheroes in general. While heroes in other genres might at least make token attempts to minimize property damage or justify it with equal contributions, the superpowered [[{{Jerkass}} jerkasses]] of The Boys just don't care and would slaughter a million civilians to apprehend a jaywalker.
* ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'', which takes a rather cynical view of superhero conventions, actually has the Authority helping out before and after supervillain attacks. Also somewhat unique in that the Authority often acknowledges that what they're doing will cause property damage and probably cost civilian lives. The characters justify it with the excuse that the bad guys would have done much worse if nobody had stopped them, but the fact that they ''openly acknowledge'' the cost of what they do is unique in itself.
* There was an amateur comic in ''Svenska Serier'' where villain and a DesignatedHero, both musclebound bricks, bust out against each other at a high-class party, tearing the place up in the process. The destruction soon rises to ludicrous levels until they suddenly call it off and don their civilian disguises. The manager of the party at the introduction, now the only apparent survivor who is sobbing on his knees in the midst of the destruction, is then approached by two surprisingly muscular suits who inform him that the insurance policy they provide would be excellent should something like this happen again.
* This trope is either [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructed]] or parodied in the Marvel ComicBook/WhatIf story ''Comicbook/ThePunisherKillsTheMarvelUniverse''. In short, Frank Castle's family is killed in the crossfire of a superhuman battle and he, with the financial support of a group of people who've been similar victims of "collateral damage", goes on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge on the [[KillEmAll superhuman community]].
* Subverted with Franchise/{{Batman}} as, being rich, he actually ''can'' afford to pay for damage. Was mentioned in the video game of ''Film/BatmanBegins'', in which Batman damages a large section of water mains to chase away some corrupt cops from a scene. As he makes his plan, Alfred notes that Wayne Enterprises will likely be making a donation to the water board the next day.
* In the after-effects of the ''Franchise/GreenLantern ComicBook/SinestroCorpsWar'', the dozens of alien lanterns who ended up on Earth decide to stick around for a bit and clean up their messes. John Stewart, a long-standing human GL -- and more importantly, an architect in his day job -- cleans up the skyscraper damage in Coast City all by himself.
* Discussed again in the first ComicBook/{{New 52}} issue of ''Green Lantern Corps'', when Guy Gardner can't get a job as a high school football coach, largely because simply having him on school grounds on a regular basis would send the school's liability insurance rates through the roof. In the same issue, it's played with a bit again in John's scene, where he tries to convince the company that hired him to design a new building to incorporate expensive measures to minimize damage if it happens to get caught in a supervillain attack or real knock-down-drag-out hero/villain fight. They disagree about whether the added expense is worth it.
* In ''Comicbook/{{Miracleman}}'', the title character tosses a car at the villainous Kid Miracleman in a futile attempt to stop him. Recalling the battle, Miracleman says that his defenders claim the car was empty. "I'm sorry, but that simply isn't true." Even worse, it wasn't a car. It was a school bus full of children.
* The "superhero kids" comic ''Comicbook/PS238'' tries to handle the social consequences of superpowers realistically, and has brought up the concept of the "Super Samaritan Laws," which were lobbied for and passed to give superheroes some legal protections from the occasionally destructive consequences of super fights, considering the fact that if they ''didn't'' intervene, worse damage would likely happen. It helps that, in the [=PS238=] 'verse, many supers have gone into private and public work that ''doesn't'' involve crimefighting, and the MegaCorp Clay Industries (founded by a metahuman super-intellect) is explicitly mentioned at one point to create 'instant-buildings' used to rapidly re-build urban areas damaged by superhero battles.
* The first incarnation of Marvel's ''ComicBook/{{Thunderbolts}}'' finished winning the hearts of [[BigApplesauce New York City]] in their first issue by staying behind to repair the damage to [[MonumentalBattle the Statue of Liberty]] caused in one of their battles. It was specifically mentioned that everyone was so happy to see a new team of heroes, that the metalworkers unions weren't going to sue their pants off for doing union work. Citizen V even alludes to the fact that superheroes cleaning up after themselves is usually ''not'' appreciated by those who would otherwise be paid to do it. Definitely a bit of lampshading for this trope.
* The ComicBook/FantasticFour had a storyline that began as something of a HumiliationConga. First, [[IncrediblyLamePun their financial wizard disapparated with all their money]], then New York "thoughtfully" let them off the bill for all the damage that's been inflicted to New York during their battles ''on the condition they handed over their HQ''.
* ''ComicBook/SheHulk'':
** There was a comic in which She-Hulk decided the Thing needed some stress relief, so she took him out to a bar for a few drinks and started a fight with him. However, the city block destroyed in the process was scheduled for demolition (and she knew it). In fact, the workers hired to demolish that city block spent most of the comic sitting on the bar roof cheering -- their contract said they got a hefty bonus if demolition was completed early, it didn't say the workers had to be the ones doing the demolishing.
** In another story, She-Hulk works as a volunteer for Green Cross, an organization dedicated to cleaning up the damage caused by [[ComicBook/IncredibleHulk the Hulk]] and other gamma-radiation cases. The Green Cross leader and founder later reveals that he was the one who dared [[{{Sidekick}} Rick Jones]] to sneak into the gamma-bomb testing area, so he feels responsible for the very creation of the Hulk.
** Similar, in the first issue of ''ComicBook/JMSSpiderMan'', Spidey ''levels down'' a building scheduled for demolition, to work out some anger issues, and the wrecking crew just call it a day.
* Deconstructed in ''ComicBook/TheUltimates'', where one of the Hulk's massive rampages results in many deaths and millions of dollars in property damages -- and Bruce Banner on trial for crimes against humanity.
* In the Comicbook/DoctorStrange miniseries ''The Oath'', after Night Nurse finishes operating on Dr. Strange after he is shot by an intruder, Strange jokes that he might still be covered under the Defenders' group health insurance plan. For reference, the Defenders were a somewhat mismatched superhero team-up that included the Silver Surfer, the Hulk, and Namor the Sub-Mariner.
* In the Luna brothers' ''ComicBook/TheSword'', the collateral damages of Dara Brighton's battles with Zakros and Demetrios are treated realistically: the public at large reacts as if the world is ending.
* Subverted in a barfight between ComicBook/{{Colossus}} of the ComicBook/XMen and the ComicBook/{{Juggernaut|MarvelComics}}, where Cain actually pays for damages afterwards.
* Speaking of X-Men, ''ComicBook/{{Cyclops}}'' always advises the team to avoid collateral damage (i.e., no throwing random cars at bad guys), or at least cut a check to affected parties afterwards, since a mere diversionary tactic could mean years of debt for a civilian.
* Also sort of lampshaded by ComicBook/{{Rogue}} in an issue of Xtreme X-Men, where she comments that "the X-Men may cause more collateral property damage than God," but they don't kill innocents.
* ''Comicbook/AstroCity'':
** Periodically {{lampshade|Hanging}}d. Characters will sometimes make passing references to the city's "great public works" program, usually in the wake of yet another superhero battle. The introduction to the "Local Heroes" TPB includes a newspaper clipping that mentions Honor Guard using alien AppliedPhlebotinum to repair damage after one of their fights.
** Likewise, the first issue of the Homage run, "Welcome to Astro City" shows that years of these events have actually caused much of the city's populace to bond together in an extremely intense way, to the point that few (if any) avoid pitching in for clean-up and rebuilding.
** Supersonic came out of retirement to bring down a robot in a clumsy manner of pure force, causing lots of collateral damage; he's angry because he wouldn't have done that in his prime, but he was indeed the only one available, no one was killed, and Astro City is great at coping with damage, so he can live with it.
* ''The Mighty Magnor'' hangs a giant lampshade on the trope. The two comic book writers who accidentally unleashed Magnor are on the hook for his ever-increasing property damages—balanced only by the ever-increasing licensing fees offered by Hollywood agents.
* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in the ''ComicBook/{{Sleepwalker}}'' comics when a city accountant is examining all the property Sleepwalker has bent and twisted with his [[EyeBeams warp beams]] and trying to determine how much money Sleepwalker's efforts are costing the city. Detective Cecilia Perez, head of the NYPD task force assigned to investigate Sleepwalker, justifies the trope when she points out that crime is down 70% in the areas Sleepwalker patrols, and notes that getting rid of him might cause more problems than it solves.
* Averted in the Creator/DonRosa [[ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse Scrooge McDuck]] story "The Cowboy Captain of Cutty Sark". While selling bulls to the sultan of Djokja during his cattle days, Scrooge is forced to retrieve said longhorns from thieves, and the resulting destruction, including 'a Scottish cowboy steaming into a port on a run-aground ship', is so costly that he's forced to give up every penny from his sale.
* Shortly before the death of ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan'', the Shield pointed out how dangerous an uncontrolled Spider-Man was when a battle between him and Boomerang did almost one million dollars in damages, when Boomerang was just robbing a jewelry store for a few dozens of thousands of dollars.
* On parting ways with the new Ultimate Spider-Man ComicBook/MilesMorales at the end of ''ComicBook/SpiderMen'', main universe Spider-Man gives him advice on being Spidey, which includes ''not'' sticking around after battles so as to avoid clean up duty. While this may be surprising for two such responsible-minded characters, it should be noted that if asked both would feel obliged to help no matter what else is going on, and considering the general crap-tastic time constraints a Spider-Man usually has on the average day, they just simply don't have that kind of time to burn.
* Averted in Creator/RobertKirkman's ''{{ComicBook/Invincible}}'' several times. Fairly early in the series, a duel between Invincible and [[SupermanSubstitute Omni-Man]] shatters entire skyscrapers, killing thousands -- so even when Invincible manages a PyrrhicVictory, he can never reveal his secret identity for fear of criminal charges or even assassination attempts against his family. The trope is averted several times later in the series as well. You'd think that a guy who publicly saved the Earth from annihilation multiple times would be forgiven when a moment's hesitation results in a city being vaporized... but that's not how humans think.
* Played straight in an issue of ''ComicBook/IronMan'', when Tony Stark and Sasha Hammer have an all-out brawl in the middle of a busy highway, destroying a few passing cars in the process. Made absolutely hilarious when Pepper shows up and smacks Sasha with one of the destroyed cars, saying the owner gave her permission to use what was left of his car to beat the crap out of Sasha.
* Consciously averted in Marvel's OfficialParody book ComicBook/NotBrandEchh, in a story where [[ComicBook/FantasticFour the Thing]] and [[ComicBook/IncredibleHulk the Hulk]] fight for six pages before an angry inspector from [[UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode the Comics Code Authority]] comes and chews them out, listing all the damage they have caused. Because the Hulk reverts to Bruce Banner just before the inspector shows up, the Thing ends up taking most of the blame, and gets stuck with the responsibility for repairing the damages.
* Used by Starscream as part of his plan in ''ComicBook/TheTransformersCombinerWars''. He secretly sent Menasor to attack the colony of Caminus, then sent his troops and Superion to "rescue" the colony (and having two {{Kaiju}} sized robots fighting caused plenty of collateral damage) and offered aid in rebuilding as a way to manipulate them into swearing allegiance to him. Windblade said it was obvious what Starscream was trying to do, but the alternative was a slow death as the colony's Energon reserves gave out.
* A problem in ''ComicBook/AllNewAllDifferentAvengers'' as Tony Stark, by this point, isn't the financial powerhouse he once was, thus the team has to go easy on smashing villains across town. Ms Marvel is ''horrified'' when Nova decides to smother a fire by bringing down the entire building, especially since it's on her turf.
* Often tackled in ''ComicBook/{{Empowered}}'', as superhero fights cause a lot of collateral damage that is only made worse by how ''reckless'' many heroes are (on one occasion Major Havoc nearly ''killed'' the girl he came to rescue).
** Most notable are two of Emp's three times using CarFu: the first time she (ineffectively) throws a car at a rampaging monster only to see the old man ''owning'' the car looking at the remains of the vehicle, and the other time, as she uses the various ''parts'' of some cars as scaringly effective weapons, we're treated to flashbacks of her time in college, where she mentions that if a superhero ''has'' to use as weapon the car of people who struggle to pay their bills the less they owe the owner is to make the most of their sacrifice. She also mentions that car insurance rates in superhuman-populates cities are ''five times the national average'' specifically because superheroes continue throwing them at their foes.
[[/folder]]

* A plot point in[[https://mobile.twitter.com/kounosuke0808/status/1264816262594482177 this story]] which is about a giant-sized man whose job is fighting kaiju sized lizard aliens. He's fallen on hard times because he's getting little action and thus less sponsorship for him and his supporters. He can't help out in other regions, which have their own heroes, because he has an insurance contract for collateral damage only in his district. His manager is able to get them the money they need by liquidating this contract, but at the risk of making him then incapable of taking any action without taking on all the cost. He does I anyway but manages to get the money he needs from a previously failed crowdfunding effort due to all the goodwill he earned.

* On parting ways with new Ultimate Spider-Man Miles Morales for the first time, main universe Spider-Man gives him advice on being Spidey, including to ''not'' stick around after battles to avoid clean up duty. While this may be surprising for two such responsible-minded characters, it should be noted that if asked both would feel obliged to help no matter what else is going on, and considering the general crap-tastic time constraints a Spider-Man usually has on the average day, they just simply don't have that kind of time to burn.
* Averted in Kirkman's {{ComicBook/Invincible}} several times. Fairly early in the series, a duel between Invincible and [[TheExpy Omni-Man]] shatters entire skyscrapers, killing thousands -- so even when Invincible manages a PyrrhicVictory, he can never reveal his secret identity for fear of criminal charges or even assassination attempts against his family. The trope is averted several times later in the series as well. You'd think that a guy who publicly saved the Earth from annihilation multiple times would be forgiven when a moment's hesitation results in a city being vaporized... but that's not how humans think.

* Consciously averted in Marvel's OfficialParody book ComicBook/NotBrandEchh, in a story where [[ComicBook/FantasticFour the Thing]] and [[ComicBook/IncredibleHulk the Hulk]] fight for six pages before an angry inspector from [[TheComicsCode the Comics Code Authority]] comes and chews them out, listing all the damage they have caused. Because the Hulk reverts to Bruce Banner just before the inspector shows up, the Thing ends up taking most of the blame, and gets stuck with the responsibility for repairing the damages.

** ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice'' centers around this. Batman (and a lot of others) is pissed at Supes for destroying Metropolis. The U.S. government is even trying him for some of the destruction.

It's even more obvious when the hero actually fails to prevent the villain's crimes--this will only add to the sense of urgency the hero faces, instead of making people think that the hero should be taken to task for doing such a poor job.

* Generally averted in ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' where the Shinigami have the ability to stand on air, which they generally use to keep their battles high above the cities to lower the collateral damage. In the latest arc they've even gone as far as replacing the town with an exact replica of it so they can have an all out war without worrying about breaking anything. They have broken things before, like during Ikkaku's fight with [[spoiler:the arrancar Edorad Leones]]. However it was mentioned that Soul Society fixes everything afterwords, with the costs being taken out of the budget of the squad responsible. (Though that does beg the question on who pays for damages caused by Ichigo's fights...)

* ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'': Nanoha flees the scene of her first battle when she hears sirens, not wanting to get in trouble for the damage caused by the MonsterOfTheWeek. Averted when after the final battle of A's, the TSAB works on repairing the damaged areas of the city.
* Averted in ''Manga/FairyTail'', as [[DestructiveSaviour the massive property damage the members of the titular guild cause]] is the main reason they aren't more wealthy or influential despite the considerable power of their mages. In fact the council regulated them would have probably ''disbanded them'' several times if [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections their leaders wasn't friends with (an increasingly small number of) council members]]. Hell, Lucy even states that no matter how high-ranking and well-paying the missions she completes are she's never getting most of it as long as her partners Natsu and Gray keep breaking crap. Eventually, the Magic Council starts actively looking for a reason to disband them. It ultimately fails as the threats and escalate and Fairy Tail are more or less the only people capable enough of facing these monstrous individuals and organizations.

** Deconstructed (like everything else). The series often lampshades how often that not only are the [=EVAs=] really costly to repair and maintain (it costing about enough money to bankrupt a small country to repair a severely damaged EVA after one battle), but how much time, effort, and money it takes to repair New Tokyo-3 as well as disposing the dead Angels (Ramiel sits in the middle of the city for weeks on end rotting before it gets completely disposed of).
** ''End of Evangelion'' opened to the image of Tokyo-3 after all of the battles had come to an end. With funding drying up, Tokyo-3 hasn't seen any repairs recently and most of the civilian population has fled.

* One of the reasons Train and Sven from ''Manga/BlackCat'' are so poor is because most of their bounty money is used to pay for damage they cause when catching criminals.

* The ''wuxia'' ''Film/ValleyOfTheFangs'' averts this in the hero's first fight scene; he defeats a group of corrupt inspectors in a tavern and sends them fleeing, but demolishes an entire wall in the process, the same wall he sends three enemy mooks through. The tavern's boss complains, at which point the hero gives the boss a massive silver ''yuanbao'' at which point the tavern boss shuts up.

* Deconstructed in ''VideoGame/Fallout3'', two superpeople known as the Mechanist (Hero who fights alongside an army of robots) and the [=AntAgonist=] villain who fights alongside an army of giant ants). The residents of Canturbury Commons, the town in which they stage most of their dramatic battles, fear for their lives and property. They generally wish that BOTH of them would just go away, except for the town's only child. He thinks they're awesome and actually has suggestions on how you could join them as a third superperson, complete with your own army.

* ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'' does a HandWave saying that the people of the magic world in a city known for its dueling and gladiator fights are used to this sort of thing and have measures in place to deal with it. Apparently up to and including buildings being chopped to pieces. Naturally, this doesn't stop Negi from worrying about it anyway. The implication seems to be that the loser(s) of the fight is made to pay for the damages. One has to wonder what happens if the loser ends up dead, if that's the case.

* ''{{LightNovel/Slayers}}''. Though, the poor innocent villagers probably ''would'' make Lina pay for the damage... if they could catch her. Averted; in fact it's a running gag. She's basically what you get if you turn [[Manga/{{Trigun}} Vash the Stampede]] into a sorceress and take away the insurance girls. While the audience/readers and her close friend know she is a hero, her path of destruction has made her a feared villainess in her world, to the point a SympatheticInspectorAntagonist got away with arresting her with the charge of ''being Lina Inverse''. Even when she does something truly heroic and redeemable, she blows it by losing her cool and nuking the town she just saved. She rarely gets to claim her reward because it will likely be the down payment on rebuild the town from the ground up around the huge crater she just made.

* Justified in ''{{LightNovel/Durarara}}'': It turns out that someone actually ''does'' pay for all that property damage [[PersonOfMassDestruction Shizuo]] causes: his manager (not Tom, but another guy above both of them), who docks it from Shizuo's salary in return. Shizuo's honestly surprised that he still gets paid at all ([[UltimateJobSecurity or that he even still has a job]]).

* [[Anime/PantyAndStockingWithGarterbelt Panty and Stocking]] must have this in spades considering how destructive their fights with the Ghosts are. Then again, everyone in this universe appears to be MadeOfIron.

* Averted for laughs in the ''{{Manga/Kochikame}}'' action based episodes and TV specials. Kankichi Ryotsu defeats the villain and saves the day, but gets billed by the owners for property damage he caused or blamed for it. Notably the Fuji TV station [[BitingTheHandHumor (the show's broadcaster)]] being destroyed multiple separate times. Thanks to NegativeContinuity or possibly Ryotsu's gambling winnings, everything's back to normal and forgotten in the following episode.

* In ''Manga/ZettaiKarenChildren'' Kaoru, a special ESPer working for a government agency, is requested a help from a FriendlyEnemy WellIntentionedExtremist organization to help them in a particular task. When they damage a passenger plane to drive one of their evil enemies out of it, Kaoru freaks out for them being so reckless and for gambling with the passengers' lives. When they point out to her that she does the same thing regularly when going on missions, she replies that in that case she is backed up by the said government agency which controls and compensates the damage.

* In ''FanFic/MoreThanHuman'', the city of Townsville has higher tax rates to pay for the large amount of damages done by monster attacks and by WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls fighting back.
* The story Fanfic/EigaSentaiScanranger {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this, as Tony Stark and Sasha Hammer take a high speed ride down the interstate while Tony barely bother to glance at the road. Later, when this devolves into your aveying the rangers' backers also supply the people and resources to fix everything that gets broken during their fights.

* Touched on in [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5353683/1/The_Girl_Who_Loved The Girl Who Loved]], where it turns out that most Tokyo based Supers donate the profits from their toy deals to charity to keep people from coming after them about property damage.

* ''FanFic/UltimateSleepwalker: The New Dreams'' has the title character using his [[RealityWarper warp]] [[EyeBeams vision]] to repair some of the property damage caused by his murderous fight with [[EvilCounterpart Psyko]].

** Witness [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywo6F4xYTvA this]] battle between Franchise/{{Superman}} and ComicBook/{{Darkseid}}, which is made all the funnier by [[FanNickname Supes]] monologuing about how he [[WorldOfCardboardSpeech usually has to hold back so nobody gets hurt]]. Gee, I guess all those buildings he punches Darkseid through were conveniently evacuated moments before?

This is sometimes [[{{Handwave}} handwaved]] with the heroes actually ''[[LampshadeHanging mentioning]]'' that they've got insurance that will cover this--and is actually a specific rule featured in the old Comics Code--but it's unclear how any insurance company could do this and still turn a profit. Logically, they shouldn't be able to pay for the on-panel destruction unless they are also collecting mammoth premiums from many other superheroes who ''don't'' make big claims. So whenever Superman punches through a wall, somewhere, a less-violent hero like Oracle sees her premiums go up? That money has to come from somewhere! Other times the handwave comes from the fact that the hero [[{{Fiction500}} is a billionaire]] and could pay for the rebuilds.

This is a popular subject in {{Deconstruction}}, where destructive heroes are often portrayed as [[NotSoDifferent not much better]] than the villains they're fighting. In less serious works, this trope can be {{Lampshaded}} with ActionInsuranceGag.

* {{Lampshaded}} in [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=c16SwjH6yNs this Mercury Insurance ad]].

** The manga version of ''The Big O'' hangs a {{Lampshade}} on it: Beck's flunkies, who lack OffscreenVillainDarkMatter, are seen working construction repairing some of the damage afterwards in order to make some quick money.
** Hinted that the main reason Dastun wants to find out the identity of the black Megadeus is to put an end to the constant damage.
** I thought this was the job of all those maintenance men during the Season 2 finale arc who [[spoiler:fix the near completely ruined Big O before the final battle]]. It would certainly explain why damage never carries over, given how fast they are! It's implied that constantly having to dig out from under rubble is why a lot of people have ''jobs'' in that universe.
** That doesn't do anything for all the times Big O makes a huge hole in the road, though...
* {{Lampshaded}} in ''Anime/SailorMoon'' episode 13 when Sailor Mars wants to blast some airplanes being used by the villain and Luna replies that she could never afford to pay for the damage. The joke actually made it through to the Creator/DiC English dub.

* {{Lampshaded}} in ''Anime/YuGiOhTheMoviePyramidOfLight''. After Anubis' defeat, Kaiba leaves in a huff, and Grandpa says, "I'm glad he didn't bring up the damage you all did to his Duel Dome, because I really don't think his insurance is gonna pay for it!"
* {{Lampshaded}} in ''Anime/DaiGuard'', where the company that owns the title giant robot is responsible for all collateral damage the robot causes, and numerous insurance-related forms have to be signed before it can be deployed. It's FURTHER {{Lampshaded}} in one episode where by the time all the paperwork is completed, Dai-Guard has already been deployed and beaten the MonsterOfTheWeek. And when one considers that the only other way to destroy the monsters besides the eponymous giant robot is with ''nukes'', the insurance complaints seem rather inane. In-story they're ''still'' cleaning up after the first monster's rampage '''twelve years later'''.

** Vash The Humanoid Typhoon. However, it's not without its {{Lampshade}} Hangings. Two of the characters are insurance society representatives who stick around to keep an eye on him and fail miserably at keeping him out of trouble, and in the fifth episode of the anime, a character mentions that "Class G Property Damage" contributed to Vash's enormous bounty.

* Averted in ''Manga/LinebarrelsOfIron'', the main character ends up not only destroying large parts of the city, but believes that he is a "hero of justice" and as such gets very miffed when the authories cover up the battles as malfunctioning mecha. He eventually blows over about this, destroying more of the city with his humongous mecha whilst demanding why no one will praise him for saving their lives, oblivious to the fact that he his in fact being a bigger threat to people's safety than the bad guys. After his friend is killed by another humongous mecha, he goes into a rage and nearly obliterates the city in his rampage. Later he is called out on his behaviour, being told to his face that his selfish actions have done more harm than good, and that if anyone is to blame for his friend's death, it's him.

** Deconstructed (like everything else). The series often {{Lampshades}} how often that not only are the [=EVAs=] really costly to repair and maintain (it costing about enough money to bankrupt a small country to repair a severely damaged EVA after one battle), but how much time, effort, and money it takes to repair New Tokyo-3 as well as disposing the dead Angels (Ramiel sits in the middle of the city for weeks on end rotting before it gets completely disposed of).

* Both PlayedForLaughs and somewhat {{deconstructed}} in ''Manga/ChronoCrusade'', depending on the chapter/episode. Sister Rosette is a HotBlooded DestructiveSavior, so she's quite often shown crashing her car into the sides of buildings, destroying buildings--heck, the very first storyline shows her crashing a ship ''into the Statue of Liberty''. However, it's shown that her supervisor in the Order of Magdalene ''constantly'' chews her out for it (even saying they could write a book based on her damage reports), and it's explicitly mentioned that the Order has to help pay for the damages as well as bribing the local media not to mention their involvement with the damage. Also, when civilians are shown badly injured in the aftermath of one of her battles, she's shown being shocked and upset.

* ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'' generally sidesteps the issue. Organized clashes happen in single-use pocket dimensions explicitly to avoid repair costs, and even a couple of early major antagonists are willing to play by those rules. Later on, both sides of the conflict make a point of fighting in deserted areas or in other ways to limit collateral damage - the heroes do so to avoid unnecessary damage and casualties, and the villains don't want to break TheMasquerade any earlier than they have to, lest their opponents go from GreatOffscreenWar-depleted remnants to seven billion strong (even gods in this setting have to worry about [[DeathOfAThousandCuts a lot of diddly]]). When significant collateral damage is explicitly caused, it's usually discussed, such as Souna agreeing to fund and manage the school's repairs in volume 4 since it was her territory, or [[spoiler:Rias deliberately refusing to reimburse the feuding vampire factions for damage Gaspar caused since they'd been acting like dicks since the word go]].

* [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-zagged]] in ''LightNovel/{{Konosuba}}'': Kazuma's party destroys a large portion of Axel's walls during the fight with Beldia. It's first a downplayed [[SubvertedTrope subversion]], since the town won't demand he recompense the city for ''all'' of the repairs, but he still has to fork over all 300 million Eris of the reward, as well as go 40 mil into debt. [[spoiler:It later turns into a DoubleSubversion, because the greedy landlord used a demon's powers to make everyone forget that adventurers don't have to pay for damages. The town eventually returns all of the money that was taken from him when the landlord's crimes are exposed.]]

** {{Lampshaded}} by Marvel with their ''ComicBook/DamageControl'' series -- a comic book about the company which cleans up after super battles. D.C. has been shown to clean up very specific examples of property damage, enlisting the help of subcontractors. In the after-effects of the ''Civil War'', its created-for-the-story new CEO is shown to have helped cause damage so the company gets hired to fix it. And they also dealt with the aftermath of ''ComicBook/WorldWarHulk'', explaining why New York wasn't rubble just days after it was smashed.

** Marvel has also at times claimed that, despite having probably caused more property damage than Franchise/{{Godzilla}}, the Hulk hasn't actually killed any civilians during his rampages. Ever. Amadeus Cho even claimed that Hulk didn't kill any ''military'', either.

* This trope is either [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructed]] or parodied in the Marvel [[AlternateContinuity What If]] story ''Comicbook/ThePunisherKillsTheMarvelUniverse''. In short, Frank Castle's family is killed in the crossfire of a superhuman battle and he, with the financial support of a group of people who've been similar victims of "collateral damage", goes on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge on the [[KillEmAll superhuman community]].

* The first incarnation of Marvel's ''ComicBook/{{Thunderbolts}}'' finished winning the hearts of [[BigApplesauce New York City]] in their first issue by staying behind to repair the damage to [[MonumentalBattle the Statue of Liberty]] caused in one of their battles. It was specifically mentioned that everyone was so happy to see a new team of heroes, that the metalworkers unions weren't going to sue their pants off for doing union work. Citizen V even alludes to the fact that superheroes cleaning up after themselves is usually ''not'' appreciated by those who would otherwise be paid to do it. Definitely a bit of {{Lampshading}} for this trope.

* Subverted in a barfight between Colossus of the ComicBook/XMen and the Juggernaut, where Cain actually pays for damages afterwards.
* Speaking of X-Men, ''Comicbook/{{Cyclops}}'' always advises the team to avoid collateral damage (ie, no throwing random cars at bad guys), or at least cut a check to affected parties afterwards, since a mere diversionary tactic could mean years of debt for a civilian.
* Also sort of {{Lampshaded}} by Rogue in an issue of Xtreme X-Men, where she comments that "the X-Men may cause more collateral property damage than God," but they don't kill innocents.

** Periodically {{Lampshaded}}. Characters will sometimes make passing references to the city's "great public works" program, usually in the wake of yet another superhero battle. The introduction to the "Local Heroes" TPB includes a newspaper clipping that mentions Honor Guard using alien AppliedPhlebotinum to repair damage after one of their fights.

* ''The Mighty Magnor'' hangs a giant {{Lampshade}} on the trope. The two comic book writers who accidentally unleashed Magnor are on the hook for his ever-increasing property damages—balanced only by the ever-increasing licensing fees offered by Hollywood agents.
* {{Lampshaded}} in the ''ComicBook/{{Sleepwalker}}'' comics when a city accountant is examining all the property Sleepwalker has bent and twisted with his [[EyeBeams warp beams]] and trying to determine how much money Sleepwalker's efforts are costing the city. Detective Cecilia Perez, head of the NYPD task force assigned to investigate Sleepwalker, justifies the trope when she points out that crime is down 70% in the areas Sleepwalker patrols, and notes that getting rid of him might cause more problems than it solves.

* The story Fanfic/EigaSentaiScanranger {{Lampshades}} this, saTony Stark and Sasha Hammer take a high speed ride down the interstate while Tony barely bother to glance at the road. Later, when this devolves into your aveying the rangers' backers also supply the people and resources to fix everything that gets broken during their fights.
* In ''Fanfic/HellsisterTrilogy'', ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} endeavors to move her battles away from inhabited places. When this isn't posible, she repairs the damage caused by her fights. Commented by her enemy [[EvilTwin Satan Girl]]

* The setup for the film ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'' is, roughly, that superheroes in general were forced to go into hiding specifically to avoid litigation for collateral damage. That was basically the cost of the government providing them Hero Insurance.

** {{Lampshaded}} in ''Film/LethalWeapon3'' where they got demoted after Riggs blew up a building when he tried to defuse a bomb.

* The movie ''Film/{{Hancock}}'' has its protagonist as a {{Jerkass}} superhero whose penchant for massive collateral damage gets him a lot of flak from the residents of LA in the beginning of the movie, to the point of nearly getting him an eight-year prison term. Later, he gets asked for help by the police, who grant him a bit more lenience for collateral damage to stop the crimes.

* Franchise/{{Godzilla}} during the 1960s-1970s falls under this trope due to him [[HeelFaceTurn becoming a good guy]].
** This is hilariously [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in the Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 episode ''Film/GodzillaVsMegalon'':
--->'''Boy''': Godzilla! Bye bye.\\

* One of ''many'' Tropes {{Lampshaded}} by ''Film/LastActionHero''.

* Averted in ''Film/{{District 9}}'', where [[spoiler:the guy who hacked into MNU's databases and helped expose their illegal experiments on the aliens is arrested for his computer crimes.]]
* Averted in ''Film/GIJoeTheRiseOfCobra''. The Joes are among the most responsible heroes in fiction, and cause almost no damage to public property. The problem is that [[strike:Cobra MARS]] COBRA isn't -- and guess who's still in the area when the dust settles? After the Joes save [[spoiler:Paris, the French]] beat them up, wreck their gear, and slap them with a [[PersonaNonGrata permanent travel ban]]. {{Eagleland}} is nicer; after [[spoiler:Ripcord saves D.C.]] all they do is hold him overnight before sending him back to the Pit. Of course, [[spoiler:the President has been replaced by Zartan; he probably didn't feel like testing the disguise.]]

** In ''Film/{{Taken 2}},'' the hero (and his daughter) cause a [[DestructiveSavior considerable amount of destruction]] in battling the vengeful surviving members of the human trafficking ring from the first film. Some of it includes police or government property. Hell, some of it ''includes an officer.'' (He ''was'' in league with the bad guys, but still.) You'd expect the number of crimes they commit would mean they'd be in prison until the next ice age, but we end with no talk of legal trouble.

* In ''Film/TheNegotiator'', Roman takes several innnocent people hostage during the incident as he fights to clear his name. The movie does not imply that he will ever face consequences for doing so. Even if you have been framed for murder, taking innocent people hostage is still a crime.

* ''Literature/HarryPotter''

* Averted in Simon R. Green's ''{{Literature/Nightside}}'', where the protagonist, John Taylor, is now classified under Acts of Gods by the insurance companies.

* ''[[http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/gregory_07_13_reprint/ The Illustrated Biography of Lord Grimm]]'' by Daryl Gregory shows the collateral damage among citizens who happen to be living in a country ruled by a supervillian when it's 'invaded' for the umpteenth time by American superheroes... WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical

* {{Lampshaded}} in ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}''. In Billie's first battle with a demon, she hits an empty seat in a movie theater with a fireball, and wonders, "Now help me out here, I'm new at this. Who pays for that?" But mostly averted with the No Personal Gain rules, the sisters must cover damage done to the home out of their own pocket. They {{Lampshade}} it by noting one window repair man likes their business.
* Also {{Lampshaded}} in ''Series/{{Angel}}'': after a SuperWindowJump he comments that the demons were now good guys who "own a number of restaurants with pretty expensive windows"

** It has also often been {{Lampshaded}} throughout the show's run. Early on, battles took place in the "abandoned warehouse district", presumably because abandoned warehouses are just ''begging'' to be blown up (or possibly because the city residents wisely abandoned the district when they noticed how often megazord battles took place there). Additionally, one warehouse was apparently still in use, as its smokestack was destroyed [[StockFootage every week]] by the Dragonzord, yet it was remarkably [[ResetButton good as new]] the next week - perhaps they really ''did'' have hero insurance?

** {{Lampshaded}} in the episode "Flooded". While assessing the damage after yet another fight with a demon has caused extensive damage to her house, Buffy asks: "I've trashed this house so many times. How did Mom pay for this?"

** {{Lampshaded}} earlier in "Ted" when the gang worries what punishment Buffy will receive for killing the eponymous character [[spoiler:who turns out to be not dead, since he was a robot]]

* In ''Series/BandOfBrothers'', during Operation Market Garden, Easy Company comes across a Dutch bell tower that the Germans are using to conceal their tanks from the advancing Allies. They ask a British tank commander to fire through the tower, which would destroy the buiilding but also hit the German tank on the other side. The British commander refuses, citing that they are under orders to minimize collateral damage in friendly countries. This ends up costing the British tank crew their lives, as they are sitting ducks once they round the corner into German crosshairs.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'': During the First Age, the Solars' Hero Insurance is backed by the authority of Sol Himself and the rest of the Heavens. Whole Cardinal Direction obliterated in your fight? Doesn't matter, things can be rebuilt and the Sidereals make sure that the collateral victims reincarnate into a favorable life. [[spoiler:Like everything else heroic, this is ultimately {{Deconstructed}} -- the Solars eventually don't even see mortals as real people.]]

* {{Deconstruction}}ed in the ShootEmUp ''VideoGame/ASPAirStrikePatrol''. If you think you can be like ''Film/TeamAmericaWorldPolice'' and blow up everything in your way, enemy or civilian, you're going to be proven wrong ''very quickly''. International news will cover your "exploits," anti-war demonstrations will protest your actions, and you'll get a NonStandardGameOver as the Coalition pulls out.

** At the end of the last piece of [[DownloadableContent DLC]] for ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', s/he (both Paragon and Renegade) was forced to [[spoiler:destroy a mass relay to slow down the Reaper invasion. It went supernova, wiping out an entire solar system and killing 300,000 batarians. Admiral Hackett notes that while he knows s/he did it for the right reasons and will try to slow down the fallout, s/he will have to face trial for mass murder and terrorism, and it's doubtful that the Council (who don't believe him/her about the Reapers) or Udina (who hates Shepard) are going to give him/her any protection.]] There are limits even for Spectres. [[spoiler:It all becomes moot before the third game begins, since the Reaper invasion took out the entire Batarian civilization in the first hours. Although Shepard ''is'' in custody awaiting trial as the game begins.]]

* Lan/Netto commits so many felonies during the course of the ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'' series that the LetsPlay of it actually harps on the fact. It's actually less egregious than other examples because he very rarely breaks physical stuff - Lan mostly sneaks somewhere he is not allowed to be in pursuit of of the current villain. And because he manages to save the day, officials can let it slide. The sequel series ''VideoGame/MegaManStarForce'' {{Lampshades}} hero insurance in the 2nd game, Omega-Xis mentions being considered a hero is something to be proud of, and that because of it, people won't mind if they cause damage.

* {{Lampshaded}} in the 2001 enhanced remake of ''VideoGame/SpyHunter'': in the first half of the game, you fail a mission objective if you cause too many civilian casualties (about 4), but they don't prevent you from moving on to the next mission. In the second half of the game, it's explained the agency's insurance provider has altered their policy, and ANY civilian casualties are no longer acceptable (although if you complete enough of the other objecties, you can usually advance).

* {{Lampshaded}} in ''VideoGame/MarvelUltimateAlliance 2''. A collectible allows the player to hear a commercial for an insurance company that specilizes in superhuman related damages.

* {{Lampshaded}} in ''A Day in the Life of a Super Hero'', where the main character assures an irate truck driver that his Super Hero Insurance "will definitely cover stuffed toy elephants crushed beneath [him] by being hurled from a bridge."

--> AltText: "If superpowers were real, you would probably be some dumbass watching them do the amazing stuff, waiting to be killed by some supervillain, or even worse: you'd be a collateral dammage in their fights and noone would notice you."

* [[http://www.evil-comic.com/archive/20060420.html Parodied]] in EvilInc. One of the services the titular company provides is "Battlefield Location and Booking" which seeks out abandoned locations for villains and heroes to battle to avoid lawsuits from any property damage and casualties. This could also be considered an inversion since, as the name of the company indicates, it's the ''supervillains'' who are in charge of this service. If there's one thing supervillans probably will hate more than superheroes, it's ''lawyers''.

* In ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' the [[HumongousMecha GOFOTRON]] crew doesn't seem to get in any trouble when they slice a [[AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever giant broccoli monster]] into pieces, and one of said pieces crushes all the InnocentBystanders.

* TurnedUpToEleven with Atomica in a recent story in ''Webcomic/FafnirTheDragon''. A SuperHero in a {{Stripperific}} costume who, apart from the MostCommonSuperpower, is ImmuneToBullets (which causes bullets the robbers [[ShootingSuperman shoot at her]] to riccochet into every nearby hostage), SuperStrength (which allows her to use a bankvault door as a shield to protect hostages from gunfire... only to drop it on top of them when she goes of to pursue one of the robber), the ability to melt guns (which sets the robbers on fire) and the ability to gently knock out a robber with a thrown object (at the edge of the curb, where his head gets crushed by the police car). Her being TheDitz, she never actually notices and thinks she's a [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age Superhero]] and the StrawmanNewsMedia praises her all the way.

** Megas regularly destroys significant chunks of the vicinity while he smashes the MonsterOfTheWeek. It's mostly PlayedForLaughs since Coop's a loveable buffoon, and the stuff he destroys often has signs that say things like "Conveniently Empty Building" and "We Were Going to Tear This Down Anyway". Plus it takes place in New Jersey, where such destruction might actually serve as an improvement...

** And then there is TheMovie of the girls' origins, in which they almost destroy pretty much the entire town. [[GooGooGodlike From playing tag]]. Professor Utonium is actually arrested over this, and there is talk of the girls being incarcerated. Said movie also shows that Townsville pre-Powerpuffs is a horrifying dystopia of crime and violence where criminals run rampant and the police seemingly never leave their favorite store, the [[IncrediblyLamePun Donut Thing]]. The Powerpuffs might cause a lot of property damage, but Townsville seems to think that the reduced crime rate is worth it.

* ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'': Danny apparently has no Hero Insurance since he actually feels bad about any collateral damage he causes while capturing ghosts, especially when people he knows bear the brunt of it. When he accidentally destroys a section of the mall, Tucker comments, "I sure hope they're insured." This could be either because, or partly why, Amity Park is an UntrustingCommunity.

* The Franchise/{{DCAU}} had its share of this as well:
** Witness [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywo6F4xYTvA this]] battle between Franchise/{{Superman}} and Darkseid, which is made all the funnier by [[FanNickname Supes]] monologuing about how he [[WorldOfCardboardSpeech usually has to hold back so nobody gets hurt]]. Gee, I guess all those buildings he punches Darkseid through were conveniently evacuated moments before?

** Also, see the fight against Solomon Grundy in ''Wake The Dead''. Supes makes his appearance by punching Grundy through a line of cars, into the distance and into a gas line, and, while he chats with the League about strategy, there's a gigantic explosion far away in what is apparently a populated urban area. This just marks the fight getting more and more out of control and, of course, more collateral damage, almost all of the big things involving Superman.

** {{Lampshaded}} when Superman was supposed dead and Lobo showed up to fill the vacancy. Showing why he's not the best replacement for the ''real'' FlyingBrick, his strategy for defeating a baddie is by simply ''piling cars'' on top of him. When the rest of the League waves him off from adding another one once the villain surrenders, a dejected Lobo tosses it over his shoulder and ''into a building''.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SupermanDoomsday,'' Supes throws Doomsday through a building on more than one occasion, and eventually defeats him by taking him to orbit and slamming him into the ground in the middle of Metropolis hard enough to level the entire block. In real life, Supes would've racked up a higher death toll than all the villains in the movie put together with that move. And he may well have, as this being a direct-to-DVD release rather than a TV episode, people were being explicitly killed in the show... but he was "dead" at that point, and he ''did'' stop Doomsday, who had wiped out entire ''worlds'' on his own. To put this in perspective, Metropolis is essentially in the same place as New York City. In the comic arc that this was based on the Justice League engaged Doomsday in central Ohio, and would have been completely wiped out if Superman hadn't shown up when he did. The battle between the two stretched over a third of the country, and left more than a thousand dead in its wake. The government's position was that anything that could take that kind of punishment was a serious enough threat that even losing most of Metropolis would have been a [[GodzillaThreshold justifiable price]] for putting it down.

** {{Lampshaded}}. When Optimus Prime crashes into a truck, he apologized and says he heard something called "insurance" will cover that.

** Cyborg once used a ''building'' against Plasmus. Perhaps TheAbridgedSeries' line that "This city already has its own destructive jerks - the Teen Titans!" was closer than you'd think.

* Averted on ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddparents'' with Catman. This is the main reason he's a HeroWithBadPublicity, aside from being completely insane.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderMan'' Spider-Man engages the Sandman who's robbing an oil tanker in the city harbor, even though there was literally no conceivable way for Spidey to defeat a colossus made of sand. In the ensuing fight Sandman accidentally sets the ship on fire and casualties are only prevented because he comes to his senses and saves the crewmen, and then sacrifices himself to protect people from the explosion. Spider-Man gives him an appreciative little speach and then leaves, oblivious to the fact that due to his pointless intervention both the oil ''and the tanker'' have been lost, and the oil spill and fire have probably spelled an ecological disaster for the city, not to mention all the hindrance from the wreckage. Somehow, nobody in the city holds it against him either. Maybe Jameson was on to something...
* Gumball and Darwin, and to a lesser extent, the rest of the Wattersons in ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' cause all kinds of collateral damage in many episodes yet are rarely punished for it. Subverted and {{Lampshaded}} in "The Finale" when the consequences of their actions throughout the series come all at once.

* A citizen of Goodhaven in Ralph Bakshi's Creator/{{Terrytoons}} series ''The Mighty Heroes'' lampshades this in the simplest of terms:

* The United States during UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror has entire offices set up in Iraq and Afganistan solely to compensate people for the loss of limbs, property, or loved ones.

* {{Deconstruct}}ed in the ShootEmUp ''VideoGame/ASPAirStrikePatrol''. If you think you can be like ''Film/TeamAmericaWorldPolice'' and blow up everything in your way, enemy or civilian, you're going to be proven wrong ''very quickly''. International news will cover your "exploits," anti-war demonstrations will protest your actions, and you'll get a NonStandardGameOver as the Coalition pulls out.

* A ''ComicBook/{{Superboy}}'' series begins with the wide-spread destruction of Smallville and the surrounding farms due to the titular character's battle with Parasite. Superboy recognizes that this might very well spell doom for the entire town, as the collapse of the area farms will lead to massive unemployment, work migration and bankruptcy, so he arranges the first ever ''Superboy vs. ComicBook/KidFlash Race'' to raise money for repairs.

* ''TabletopGame/MasksANewGeneration'': Halcyon City, the setting for the game, not only has a significant super-powered population but is also such a WeirdnessMagnet that the city has super-fast construction crews on standby to repair any damage that the villains or monsters of the week may cause.

* Player characters in virtually ''all'' tabletop [=RPGs=] owe most of their ability to get away with literal murder and other less-than-virtuous activities (except where the [[GameMaster GM]] thinks it would be entertaining) to this trope in the name of escapism and saving valuable playtime. It's all just imaginary damage anyway, so if the group doesn't feel like dealing with it there's no ''actual'' harm (save possibly to the players' {{willing suspension of disbelief}}) in simply ignoring it and moving on. Handwaves optional.

* ''Series/TheBoys2019'': Superheroes have quasi-immunity like cops while on the job. They can still be sued or charged for acting outside that. However, when you are also backed by a multi-billion corporation and its marketing ''and'' legal departments, it is very easy to make people remain silent with their complains or by outright forcing them to never mention anything by signing an agreement outside of court. And those few that insist of still making fuss over the damage, destruction or manslaughter get simply buried under litigation Vought can easily afford for years. On top of that, Billy Butcher points out people simply ''want to'' believe that Supes are the good guys and thus ignore the collateral damage and all the problems of their vigilantism. A-Train kills Robin by recklessly speeding past while she's just barely in the street (one foot off the curb, as Hughie says). Later he lies and claims she was in the middle of the street while he was speeding past pursuing bank robbers. He can't be prosecuted so long as it was part of his crime-fighting, and this is explicitly said to be like the semi-immunity law enforcement officers have while performing their duties, so the idea appears to have been codified by law in the show's universe. It's said he could still be sued, but Hughie's father says it would be too hard to prove he did anything wrong. Mostly their reputation protects them, though superheroes are shown carefully covering up actual blatant crimes they commit.

* The United States during UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror has entire offices set up in Iraq and Afganistan solely to compensate people for the lost of limbs, property, or loved ones.

* ''Series/TheBoys2019'': A-Train kills Robin by recklessly speeding past while she's just barely in the street (one foot off the curb, as Hughie says). Later he lies and claims she was in the middle of the street while he was speeding past pursuing bank robbers. He can't be prosecuted so long as it was part of his crime-fighting, and this is explicitly said to be like the semi-immunity law enforcement officers have while performing their duties, so the idea appears to have been codified by law in the show's universe. It's said he could still be sued, but Hughie's father says it would be too hard to prove he did anything wrong. Mostly their reputation protects them, though superheroes are shown carefully covering up actual blatant crimes they commit.