History Main / TheGlovesComeOff

* ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare2019'': After his first mission, Garrick will rant to Captain Price that the terrorist attack could have been avoided, but his team was stopped by procedure and bureaucracy. Captain Price recruits Garrick largely by promising that if he joins Price's team, the gloves will come off. Later however, even [[EveryoneHasStandards Garrick is disturbed by]] [[spoiler:threatening the Butcher's wife and child to get him to cooperate]] and questions Price how far [[HeWhoFightsMonsters they're willing to go]]. Price replies that Garrick wanted the gloves off, and now they're off. Turns out once you take the gloves off, you can't really put them back on.

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* ''FanFic/RosarioVampireBrightestDarkness'':

* ''FanFic/FantasyOfUtterRidiculousness'':

* In ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'', when you meet Mordecai (one of the {{Player Character}}s from the first game) he sends you off on a quest to recover Bloodwing (his pet Hawk-like creature, which served as his action skill in the previous game) while he covers you with a rifle which deals slag damage (increasing the damage you deal to enemies but not doing much to them). [[spoiler: Jack reveals that he's [[FaceMonsterTurn slagged her]], then proceeds to blow her head off with an ExplosiveLeash when you subdue her]]. This angers him so much that he switches to an explosive rifle and completely annihilates a group of enemies you meet on the way out of the area.

-->'''Handsome Jack:''' The kiddie gloves are coming off, tighten up the big boy pants 'cause things are gonna get really, really bad for you Vault Hunters.

* In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', asari Spectre, Tela Vasir provides a villainous example. At first, she's simply trying to escape from Shepard and Liara, to ensure they don't get some vital data on the [[ArcVillainShadow Broker]], a powerful KnowledgeBroker who she gets valuable intelligence from, only fighting back by setting the Broker's men on them. After taking a load of abuse throughout the chase, it becomes clear to her that she won't be getting away without killing the two of them. At this point, she starts hitting back, ''[[FoeTossingCharge hard]]''.

* In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', asari Spectre, Tela Vasir provides a villainous example. At first, she's simply trying to escape from Shepard and Liara, to ensure they don't get some vital data on the Shadow Broker, who she gets valuable intelligence from, only fighting back by setting the Broker's men on them. After taking a load of abuse throughout the chase, it becomes clear to her that she won't be getting away without killing the two of them. At this point, she starts hitting back, ''[[FoeTossingCharge hard]]''.

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* ''[[Series/WonderWoman1975 Wonder Woman]]'': In "The Boy Who Knew Her Secret", Wonder Woman and The Shapeshifter are in their climactic battle. They go back and forth, throwing each other across the barn they're fighting in and breaking lots of wooden fencing. Then Wonder Woman has had enough and TheGlovesComeOff. She flips him, visibly saunters towards him while taking a punctuated breath, and delivers two backhand shots across his face. Finally, she kicks him into the glowing pyramid and that's all she wrote.

When a character is pushed hard enough, they can reach the point where defeating the enemy in front of them is their one and only goal. Everything else, even their own survival, becomes secondary. The reason for this varies. Perhaps their enemy has sent them into an UnstoppableRage. Maybe they've realized that the won't be able to defeat their opponent unless they focus on winning to the exclusion of all else, or they've reached the GodzillaThreshold and now they have nothing to lose by going all out. Whatever the cause, the character will cast off anything holding them back, heedless of what it may cost them later.

* The Allies in World War II.

* ''Series/{{Supergirl}}'': Franchise/{{Superman}} refers to [[ComicBook/MartianManhunter J'onn J'onnz]] as being even more powerful than him. There's no evidence of this til Red Kryptonite turns Supergirl evil. When he has to take her down, he does it in less than a minute.

* Twilight Sparkle in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' is largely pacifistic and tends to lean in favor of sealing away foes or swaying them to the side of good. When sufficiently pushed, particularly when her [[BigBrotherInstinct friends or family are threatened]], the gloves will come off pretty quick and she'll start blasting FrickingLaserBeams to blast her foe into submission. "Princess Cadance" [[spoiler:(actually Queen Chrysalis)]] was on the receiving end of one of these in ''A Canterlot Wedding'' (it's unclear if Twilight was going for ''killing'' blows or not), as was Lord Tirek and Starlight Glimmer.

* ''ComicBook/{{Ultimatum}}'': Magneto has flooded New York and sent the Brotherhood to wreak havok among the survivors, causing loads of deaths. He also killed Charles Xavier personally. The heroes are more than willing to KILL him for this. Wolverine made it clear at the start of issue #5. In the end, he begs for mercy, but finds none.

*** First after the Huendo Meundo arc when he [[spoiler:unwillingly TurnsRed after being "killed" and turns into an extremely powerful hollow]] until he's snapped out of it.

* This happens a good deal with Gary Karkofsky a.k.a Merciless: The Supervillain without Mercy in ''Literature/TheSupervillainySaga. Basically, the majority of the time he's a AscendedFanboy that jokes around with 80s and 90s pop culture references. Then sometimes someone does something that ''really'' ticks him off and he starts dropping bodies.

* ''[[Series/WonderWoman1975 Wonder Woman]]'': In "The Boy Who Knew Her Secret", Wonder Woman and The Shapeshifter are in their climactic battle. They go back and forth, throwing each other across the barn they're fighting in and breaking lots of wooden fencing. Then Wonder Woman has had enough and TheGlovesComeOff. Two backhand shots across his face later, she kicks him into the glowing pyramid and that's all she wrote.

** There are a rare few moments where Harry Dresden just completely cuts loose on his opponents, usually using a spell called ''pyrofuego'' [[note]]literally "fire-fire," which is pretty indicative of what happens: ''lots'' of fire.[[/note]]. The first time happens in ''Literature/GravePeril'', and the second happens in ''Literature/SmallFavor''. Then there's the book ''{{Literature/Changes}}''. And by the book, we mean ''[[UpToEleven all of it]]''.

* In the ''Fanfic/PonyPOVSeries'' [[BadFuture Dark World]] arc, it's revealed that Traitor Dash (the corrupted Rainbow Dash) had a multitude of abilities she developed but never used, including a SuperMode called Ender Dash, that she kept hidden and never used. She did this so that if she ever took Discord's DealWithTheDevil to kill Twilight in exchange for him [[ResetButton restoring everything to how it was before his reign]], she'd have enough surprises to do so. When Twilight frees herself and leads a rebellion against Discord, she finally does just that. After her HeelFaceTurn, she's a bit more lenient about using it.