Awesome / Metroid

Against all odds, Samus Aran eradicated the Metroids on Zebes and defeated Mother Brain, the leader of the Space Pirates. And so their plans were thwarted.

Works with their own subpages

• Super Metroid
• Metroid Fusion
• Metroid Prime Trilogy
  • Metroid Prime
  • Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
  • Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
  • Metroid Prime: Federation Force
• Metroid: Zero Mission
• Metroid: Other M
• Metroid: Samus Returns
• Metroid Dread
• Metroid (Manga)
• Metroid: Samus and Joey

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General

• Even in the instruction booklet for the original Metroid game, Samus Aran was played up to be a man... or at the very least, a cyborg, with such lines as, "Even the Space Pirates fear his armor" no matter what language you read it in. But it was also hinted that Samus has a secret you can only find out if you're fantastic at the game, and sure enough, beating the game in a very short amount of time treats players to Samus stripping away said armor to reveal... a chick in a bikini. Take that, Damsel in Distress archetype!
  • Hell, Samus herself is a walking Awesome Moment. An orphaned human raised by powerful Precursors who has fought through her trauma to become one of the most powerful and feared entities in the entire universe, to the point that some refuse to believe this so-called "Samus Aran" actually exists. As a Living Legend who has destroyed planets, liberated entire peoples, and still has time to save the animals, Samus definitely lives up to what you'd expect from one of the first female protagonists in video games.
• Ridley's a walkin' CMoA as well, albeit for reasons in which YMMV. He's the monster who murdered Samus' parents to begin with. Not only does his mere presence send her into a PTSD-induced breakdown when she first meets him again, but he outright taunts her throughout the encounter by describing the pleasant sensation and feeling of devouring her mother's body. Even when Samus thinks she's killed him, he constantly manages to return like a terrible demon she'll never be rid of; at one point, he gave Samus a serious fight while he was little more than a walking corpse, and it takes a planet-sized explosion after exploding and falling into lava to canonically kill him. Only for him to come back as a clone courtesy of the Galactic Federation. Twice.
  • Every time you fight Ridley is a moment of Awesome in itself. Unlike every other boss in the series, Ridley has no weak point or special tricks to help take him down. Just a lot of health and really hard-to-avoid attacks. The only course of action in every Ridley encounter is to attack relentlessly, and it never gets old.
  • Fighting Ridley wraps back around to being a CMoA for Samus once you learn her childhood encounter with the monster gave her a tremendous case of PTSD. This isn't exactly something that can be fought off; the trauma from a graphic event like K-2L massacre and the deaths of her parents is something that would linger even if Samus didn't have something that would always remind her of it, and Ridley's presence is not only a walking reminder of that terrible day, but he's the exact reason it happened. The fact that Samus has fought him several times with this condition and (for the most part) didn't completely lose her mind, even as he just kept on coming back, is not just impressive — it's commendable. And it makes it even more badass when she finally takes him down for good in Super Metroid, ensuring that he will never menace the galaxy again and that no more children will have to suffer through the same pain she did.

Other Comics and Manga

• Any of the Captain N: The Game Master comics which star Samus as the clear Ace of the cosmos. A bad-ass Amazonian mercenary, Han Solo Distaff Counterpart who appreciates the finer things in life: like love, money and big guns.
  • You can experience the hilarity and unmitigated awesome that is Captain N's version of Samus right here. From the issue: 'Money Changes Everything'.
  • Aran and Princess Lana being imprisoned on the penal colony of RX 338. In one page◊, Samus becomes more awesome than Richard B. Riddick and Walter Kovacks, combined.
  • Retroactively, that scene becomes even more impressive. That alien that Samus picks up and swings around Super Mario 64-style? That's Kraid. He was a lot smaller in the NES days, but try imagining Samus doing this to the Kaiju-sized Kraid that we know and love today. No wonder she's so highly regarded as a badass.
  • That's not even the best part. Not only does Samus proceed to set up a prison break, she scares Kraid into becoming her diversion and even while lasers are being shot at her from all directions, she drags Lana into an escape shuttle and takes off. After having beaten two guards and her enemies. Suitless.
  Samus: (to Kraid) A month in solitary, or a month in the hospital! It's your choice...