Death Battle / Tropes N to Z

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• Neck Lift: Certain fighters with Super-Strength (or just a lot of brawn) will occasionally show this off by grabbing their foe's neck in one hand and lifting them off of the ground with that one arm.
  • In their second fight, Superman grabs Goku by his neck and lifts him up in the air to hold Goku in place shooting eye beams through his eyes and his brain.
  • Hercule to Dan a couple of times during his No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
  • Sweet Tooth to the Joker as he's about to finish him. It backfires on him, badly, since that's exactly what Joker wanted.
  • Sauron manages to hold and lift the Lich King by the throat at the edge of a cliff after disarming him. Lich King breaks free by telekinetically grabbing his sword, striking Sauron back and floating back to the fighting ground.
• Neck Snap:
  • At one point during Ivy vs Orchid, Ivy wraps her whip sword around Orchid, strangling her and clearly trying to break Orchid's vertebrae, but Orchid shapeshifts into a feline and manages to escape.
  • Batman knocks Captain America into the air and fires his grappling hook. The cable wraps around Cap's neck and hangs him from a lamppost, snapping his neck.
  • In Yang vs. Tifa, Yang uses a Recoil Boost-powered neck snap to kill Tifa.
  • In Red vs. Blue, Tex kills Grif by snapping his neck.
• Negative Continuity: The show practically runs on this trope. The planet and even the universe has been destroyed yet everything is fine in the next episode. Not to mention that some of the losers appear in later episodes with virtually no explanation. The only episodes that remotely tried anything close to continuity was Goku VS Superman where Vegeta mentioned beating Shadow and the second one where were Superman uses the Namek Dragonballs to undo all the destruction that happened in the first one. Deadpool is also aware that he's being put in another Death Battle, although that's due to his powers of Medium Awareness. This is usually justified by most episodes being simulations, barring cases like Chuck Norris Vs Segata Sanshiro where they transcended said simulation and are still going even in the present day, Macho Man Vs Kool-Aid Man which did happen for real and has been done repeatedly by Randy Savage and Kool-Aid Man, and Excalibur Vs Raiden since Wiz and Boomstick actively get involved by attempting to assist their respective favorites (Excalibur for Wiz and Raiden for Boomstick).
• Nerf: The very rules of Death Battle hit many fighters with the nerf bat, and the animation gives them the buff bat to make fights look fair.
  • Sonic's speed is addressed but heavily downplayed, allowing Mario the chance to attack him more frequently.
  • Doomguy's Plasma-resistant armor didn't stop him dying to a plasma grenade, and his incredible speed was reduced to lumbering. In addition, his strategy was taken from his comics use of simplistic "rip, tear, repeat", when his Quake III bot file reveals that he's actually incredibly alert and skillful, swapping between fighting styles at a moment's notice.
  • Master Chief was able to throw a plasma grenade while inside a bubble shield, which is impossible in-game. ^note  Chief knows that the energy sword can block bullets. A Red Elite did it to him once
  • Zelda's Sheik form was explained that said Sheik form is just an alternate appearance for Zelda, anything Sheik can do, so can she. Nonetheless, none of her Sheik moves/abilities are present in the fight.
  • Mortal Kombat!Raiden's staff was mentioned but not used.
  • Both Cloud Strife and Link were only allowed to use their most famous weapons, armor, and items. They also weren't allowed to use summons. In the rematch, this is not the case not that Cloud needed to use summons to win.
  • Cloud inherited weaknesses from inferior noncanon versions of himself but Link inherited strengths instead, from Links who are canonically different people. Cloud's ribbon was mentioned & then ignored, allowing Link to freeze him (though it was for a very short time, as the ribbon clearly activated. From this, it is possible that the ribbon detects status effects and removes them instantly). Both this and the above were reverted for the above rematch.
  • Neither Batman nor Spider-Man were allowed to do pre-battle research on each other and were depicted with their standard equipment only. Batman was allowed his Shock Gloves during his duel against Captain America, even then they didn't affect the match at all since Cap's shield could block electricity.
  • Pikachu wasn't allowed to have Ash command him, nor was his ability to paralyze showcased in the fight (mainly because this ability is chance based and Blanka is already resistant to electricity).
  • Blanka was assumed as an electric type which seals his victory over Pikachu by letting him resist paralysis, iron tail, and electricity.
  • Word of God is they nerfed Superman's speed^note Alpha Centauri to Earth in 20 seconds, or several hundred-million times faster than light after they figured out just how fast the fight would be over. Keep in mind this was after deciding to exclude Silver-Age Superman stories. The nerfing for Superman was removed in the end of the rematch with God Goku to show that an un-nerfed Superman fighting Goku would be a pretty short and straightforward fight; With Superman being indestructible even a God Kamehameha could not make him flinch, let alone harm him. With Superman willing to kill, he simply fried Goku's brain with a precise blast of heat vision.
  • Metal Overlord is given the ability to fire lasers capable of annihilating the entire rest of the respective armies in seconds. Metal Overlord doesn't exhibit the ability to shoot that sort of laser in-game, so either he copied it from someone else, or it was for dramatic effect to give the battle a faster and more decisive end. However he could fire other projectiles and energy blasts.
  • Wild Pokémon can't have outside influences, which meant no Mega Evolutions, and no moves requiring TMs, HMs, tutor moves, or egg moves. Further, any Pokemon assumed to be wild Pokemon aren't allowed any EV/IV training. For the battle royale, they could not use moves that are super effective through a secondary type (using Ice on Grass). Since both Charizard and Venusaur can't learn Sunny Day through leveling, they can't counter Rain Dance, which Blastoise can learn through leveling. The Lucario was also wild and could only use its natural level-up moves, fortunately its diverse level-up movepool gave it enough versatility to take down Renamon.
  • Since Segata's limits and mortality are not fully shown, his battle shows him to be just as overpowered as Chuck Norris despite Segata losing to a zombie horde and Sonic the Hedgehog in the past. To be fair, Chuck also has this inconsistency and also doesn't have a perfect win/loss record: especially his (temporary) death to Bruce Lee. The hosts preferred to use the more memetic traits of both warriors.
  • Some fighters like Batman and Deathstroke were allowed to wail on their opponents for a prolonged period of time while their opponents, Spider-Man and Deadpool, spent most of the duel enduring their foe's onslaught. Granted, the former two do have reasonably superior skill and knowledge that would let them perform such feats realistically, but it was also showing how unlikely their victory would be, since their foes could endure all of their attacks.
  • Snake and Sam were only allowed to carry a limited amount of weapons, with Snake having no automatic weapon while Sam was allowed his SC-20K M.A.W.S. Both fighters had no 'heavy weapons' or traditional explosives. Sam was allowed to have an EMP while Snake wasn't allowed his Chaff Grenades. They were also both given the rare treat of outside help, in the form of Mission Control (Otacon for Snake, Grimm for Sam).
  • Some fighters who have limited energy or exhaust themselves quickly will do so at a much faster rate during the final animation; this is so that A) the weakness is more obviously seen by the audience, and B) to make the animation more entertaining:
    • Goku's ability to absorb the spirit bomb is only film canon, yet was used to allow Goku to recharge for the final confrontation against Superman, as he was exhausted otherwise.
    • Robocop's draining battery would increase the suspense, especially when he's almost shot to death by the Terminator's raygun.
    • Gamera was able to heal up after Godzilla burned down the city, allowing him to endure the match longer.
    • Gaara's sand armor, according to some fans, wouldn't have drained his chakra so quickly. However, prolonging the fight wouldn't have affected the result much and would have instead increased animation costs.
    • Iron Man's suit's battery was damaged by an energy blast, forcing him to change suits mid-battle so that multiple suits could be depicted.
    • Ratchet and Clank got nerfed in their battle by only having a few of their many weapons (let's face it, the hosts couldn't possibly cover them all), and Ratchet's wide array of armor disregarded entirely. Not like they needed them to win.
    • Lucario and Renamon are both nerfed as neither of them are allowed any trainers, tamers, moves or forms that cannot be learned naturally.
  • Kirby didn't use his copy essences deluxe, didn't combine abilities, didn't create helpers, & didn't turn his abilities into stars to throw at Buu to turn him into an inanimate star. Buu didn't become an inanimate star when eaten. Kirby still won.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Mentioned as part of the reason that they used the modern (I.E. post Crisis) Superman in the fight against Goku was because the Silver Age Superman invented entirely new powers every other issue.
• Nigh-Invulnerability:
  • Many combatants on this show have been able to survive alot of damage but some are so powerful that they seem immune to damage despite technically being mortal. Kirby's fleshy body allows him to survive almost anything (including being flattened paper thin by a golem and escaping from a planet destroying explosion), though in the games and anime he can still be knocked out. Astro Boy has survived the heat of the sun and atomic disintegraters without much damage; though he still has limitations, especially with his joints.
  • But Superman surpasses everyone in defense by surviving basically anything that isn't kryptonite, red sunlight or magic: though this is only when he is exposed to sunlight (which is why he was 'killed' by Doomsday during their nighttime duel). He has survived; a supernova explosion, held a black hole in his hand and was crushed between two planets. And in his rematch against Goku, even a God Kamehameha didn't faze him. The only reason why Superman shows no pain here is because he fears Goku might destroy the planet again, and so unleashes his full indestructible nature. He was never in danger of dying in a fair match against Goku.
  • Wolverine has been implied to be indestructible thanks to his adamantium skeleton. This, combined with his near immortality and healing factor, makes him almost impossible to kill. However, even adamantium has weaknesses and limitations. Coincidentally, Raiden's sword is capable of exploiting two of these weaknesses: high vibrations and molecular destabilization.
  • Mario's Metal Mario, Mega Mario & Star Mario forms and Sonic's Super Sonic are all indestructible. However they all have a time-limit and so Sonic could just run away and wait for Mario's powerups to fade.
  • Super Shadow was able to survive any of Vegeta's attacks. However when Shadow ran out of energy his transformation ended, making him mortal again. Vegeta, who was still in his Super Saiyan 2 form, easily killed normal Shadow. Mewtwo was also hindered by being unable to harm Shadow in this state, but is able to work around it because the super form does nothing to protect Shadow's mind. It's a hell of a lot more effective against Ryūko, with his Chaos Blast being the finishing move, though it's noted in the post-fight analysis that Shadow didn't need it to take the win more often than not.
  • Both Venom and Bane have levels of this with Bane being able to survive a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from Batman with Superman's powers and Venom in the fight proper being able to tank bullets and a point-blank explosion.
  • Zero has been shown to survive ramming a shuttle into Space Colony Eurasia which exploded with a force of 100 Trillion tons of TNT, approximately the estimated explosive energy of the asteroid that caused the dinosaur extinction. This was one of the many reasons for his victory, since it meant that Metal Sonic and his Overlord form couldn't even put a dent on him.
  • Because of his fourth wall breaking ability and physiology that is bound to Toon Physics even in the real world, Mask can simply choose to not be hurt by anything. Short of him actively choosing to die the only way to kill him is to force the one wearing the mask to take it off and revert them back into a normal mortal before killing them.
• No Body Left Behind: Enough examples for its own page.
• No Flow in CGI: The series does what it can to avoid this but some obvious lack of flow exist in the 3D battles.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
  • With her fast, powerful strikes with dual tonfas, Black Orchid is an expert in delivering devastating melee combos. The same kind she lets Ivy have when the fight moves in to close-range.
  • Also how the fight between Akuma and Shang Tsung ends; Akuma catches the transformed Tsung mid-move to finish him off with the Raging Demon.
  • Vegeta vs. Shadow features this between the two fighters' superpowered modes; but as pointed out in the post-match analysis, it's actually a subversion, as the volley of attacks Shadow launches at Vegeta barely leaves a dent.
  • Kirby vs Majin Buu has this whenever Kirby manages to hold the Advantage Ball, almost always dealing out a series of fast, brutal attacks to Buu. However, they aren't enough to actually finish the regenerating Buu, who only needs to land one solid strike to make Kirby lose his tranformation.
  • Both Shao Khan and M. Bison unleash brutal beatdowns against each other, Shao Khan especially shows no mercy against Bison when he's down.
  • After alot of comedy and luck, Hercule doesn't hold back and gives Dan a vicious beating that only stopped after Dan swallowed a capsule containing a jukebox.
  • Tifa and Yang unleash dual ones during their battle. Tifa unleashes all of her LimitBreaks on Yang one after the other but not only does Yang survive it all, Tifa manages to also tear some of her hair out. Yang power up all the way in retaliation and utterly wrecks her before snapping her neck.
  • Superman and Goku's rematch becomes this towards the end, with Superman utterly dominating Goku, who only gets a few shots in once Supes stops holding back.
  • At the end of Beast vs Goliath, Goliath pins Beast down, claws him multiple times, and rips him in half.
  • Bane delivers a brutal one to Venom for the majority of their fight by smashing Venom into walls and shooting bullets and a rocket at him before Venom reveals he wasn't affected at all and completely turns the fight around.
  • When the fight descends to Earth after the destruction of the Autobot Ark, Optimus unleashes one of these on the Gundam, repeatedly punching, kicking and throwing the mech around. Amuro manages to recover and turn the tables, but then Optimus busts out the Matrix of Leadership, which promptly obliterates everything of the Gundam (including its pilot) save for the head.
  • Once Akane's plane gets shot down, the soul of Godzilla takes over Mechagodzilla, who delivers a brutal beat down on the Dragonzord with its maser cannons, arm blades, claws, and finishing by throwing the Zord into a building. This forces Tommy to summon the Zords and form Dragonzord's Fighting Mode.
  • Tex delivers these to both Sarge and Grif, even snapping Grif's neck. Sarge does survive after Caboose accidentally kills Tex, but dies from Tucker's grenade shortly afterward.
• "No. Just… No" Reaction:
  • During the rundown on Toph, when he learns that she is so good at feeling people's movements that she can even tell if a person is lying, Boomstick has this reaction:
  Boomstick: A woman who can always tell when I'm lying? No thank you!
  • At the end of Toph's rundown, he again has this reaction when he learns that her Seismic Sense can locate people across the world:
    Boomstick: She knows when I've lied and where I've been? Women should not have these powers.
• No Kill like Overkill:
  • Many episodes, though mentioned in the finale of "Thor vs. Raiden", as Lampshaded by Boomstick.
  Boomstick: ... Thaaaat seemed a bit overkill...... I liked it!
  • He does it again in the finale of Batman vs. Spider-Man:
    Boomstick: Daaaamn, that was brutal! Show it again!
  • In the battle royale against the Ninja Turtles, Raphael kills Donatello by stabbing him with his sai not once, not twice, but twenty-five times.
  • In Naruto vs Ichigo, the finishing blow is this. Naruto uses his Six Paths: Ultra Big Ball Rasenshuriken on a now-powerless Ichigo after Mugetsu fails to kill him, and follows up with a Tailed Beast Bomb. Ichigo gets completely obliterated as a result.
  • In Optimus Prime vs. Gundam, Optimus' beam from the Matrix of Leadership that was capable of destroying the planet-sized Unicron was approximately 40 TNT yottatons of power. That's more than enough to destroy the Gundam a sextillion times over.
  • At the end of Pokemon vs Digimon, Wargreymon's Terra Force uses all the energy in the atmosphere to vaporize both Red and Charizard.
  • Goku Black VS Reverse-Flash's kill embodies this trope, as Thawne phases his hand through Goku Black's chest, before proceeding to drag Black face-first across the entire planet with SuperSpeed multiple times over, tearing off all the skin from the entire front half of his face. Thawne then proceeds to hurl the Saiyan into the sun with enough force to explode it.
• No-Sell: Sometimes a character has an ability or item that grants them immunity from certain things. Superman, for example, is immune to having his mind read thanks to his proficiency in Torquasm Rao, while Cloud's ribbon protects him from status effects.
  • In Starscream vs Rainbow Dash, the only hit Starscream landed on Rainbow Dash was with his null ray, which shuts off electronic devices. It's good against giant robots, but Rainbow Dash is organic, so it has no effect on her.
  • In Kratos vs. Spawn, this plays a big role in deciding the victor; Spawn can only be killed by weapons forged entirely in another plane of existence, and out of his entire arsenal, only Kratos' Blade of Olympus would qualify.
  • Ivy vs. Orchid has Orchid using her flashing No Mercy on Ivy, who, having a larger cup size, laughs it off. However, Ivy quickly learns that it works both ways.
  • Subverted with Scorpion, who only had to block a normal Hadoken. At the Netherrealm, he didn't even flinch at Ryu's final strongest attack. This does vaporize his outfit however...and his skin.
  • Nightmare tanks a point-blank blast from Guts' Arm Cannon to the face and laughs it off (he did consider it an impressive move, however).
  • Done both ways in Iron Man vs Lex Luthor. Iron Man's Modular Armor is unable to hurt Lex Luthor's Warsuit, but once Tony puts on the Endo-Sym armor, Lex's attacks get absorbed by it.
  • Doctor Doom is completely unaffected by Darth Vader's Force Choke, thanks to the former's armor being protected from reality-warping powers as well as his mind being protected by sheer willpower.
  • Superman in the rematch tanks Goku's God Kamehameha by simply walking right through it.
  • WarGreymon tanks all but the most powerful of Mega Charizard X's attacks thanks to having a shield and armor made of Chrome Digizoid, the most durable metal in the Digimon world and stronger than even titanium.
  • Due to his Zoni powers, Clank is completely unaffected by Light Jax's flash freeze.
  • Venom survived Bane's beatdown with no damage what so ever because of his incredible durability and malleable body that could easily absorb the impact of his fist.
  • Natsu being the Fire Dragon Slayer meant that none of Ace's fire attacks could really harm him aside from some knockback.
  • Portgas' ability to turn his body into fire means Natsu's Dragon Fire magic and martial arts weren't even able to harm him. Lightning magic, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely...
  • In Naruto vs Ichigo, Naruto uses his Six Paths Ashura Kurama avatar to no-sell Mugetsu. He then promptly obliterates a depowered Ichigo to finish the fight.
  • Thanks to having experience with Combat Pragmatist opponents and fighting blinded, Jack is pretty much unaffected by Afro's cigarette-in-the-eyes attempt to blind him.
  • In Darkseid vs. Thanos fight, Darkseid is immune to the Badass Fingersnap Cessetion Of Existence power of the Infinity Gauntlet as the Gauntlet only works in the universe it originates from. Meanwhile, Darkseid's true form is that of the concept of tyranny itself, not something easily removed from any universe. Thanos could spend all of eternity snapping away Darkseid's avatars, but never truly harm the New God himself, meaning the only two outcomes of the fight were either an endless stalemate or Darkseid winning by manipulating Thanos into coming to Darkseid's home universe (though Thanos was still durable enough not to be immediately obliterated by his very presence).
  • In Cable vs. Booster Gold, due to the power of Booster's force-field, none of Cable's attacks are able do to any noticeable damage. Not even Cable's Mind Control was strong enough to bypass it, which Booster even lampshades before crushing him into paste with a separate force-field.
  • In Shadow vs. Ryūko Matoi, Ryūko attempts to use the Scissor Blades' Alumni Mode to crush Super Shadow. In response, Shadow removes his inhibitor rings and shatters the Scissor Blades, then proceeds to vaporize Ryūko with Chaos Blast.
  • In Trunks vs. Silver, Trunks attempts to use the Key Sword to disable Silver's Super Form, but Silver successfully resists it, just before the climax of the fight.
• No Sense of Direction: It is mentioned that Roranoa Zoro has no sense of direction. While not mentioned in the video, he has in fact, gotten lost in a straight hallway with only two exits. His death battle with Erza Scarlett begins with him accidentally bumping into her and asking for directions to his destination. It ends with him wondering how he ended up in the middle of Metal Slug's battlefields immediately after he kills her.
• No, You: Boomstick to Wiz when describing Balrog's weaknesses.
  Boomstick: Yeah, he isn't the brightest shed in the tool, if you know what I mean.
  Wiz: "Tool in the shed."
  Boomstick: YOU'RE A TOOL!
• Non-Lethal Warfare: Some characters have been shown to use non-lethal weapons if they practice Thou Shalt Not Kill. This is why Batman had so much trouble killing Spider-Man and Black Panther; only some of Batman's explosives could do any serious damage in the former. Batman's other gadgets couldn't kill a normal person, which is a disadvantage in a Death Battle because the rules demand the loser die, while Batman captures villains alive. If he can hit Spider-Man to begin with, the best he could do is knock Spidey out. What's worse for Batman is that even though Spider-Man lacks body armor, his superhuman body had allowed him to survive lethal attacks — meaning nonlethal weapons would have even less impact. In his third battle against Black Panther, such weaponry meant that Batman had no way to overcome the Vibranium-laced Panther Habit. He does however find a way to kill Captain America using a gadget of his (that's not technically a weapon) in his second Death Battle.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis:
  • "Eggman vs. Wily". Neo Metal Sonic destroys Wily's first machine, popping Wily out of its remains. Wily begs for his life and Dr. Eggman denies his request by stomping on him with the Death Egg Robot's foot... only to realize it's a dummy. The real Wily was right behind him in a new machine.
  • "Spider-Man vs. Batman". While Spider-Man keeps up his quips, Batman says nothing for the entire battle.
  • In their fight, Tifa Lockhart's calm and stern attitude is used to contrast with Yang Xiao Long's joking and Trash Talk and emphasizes her age and experience compared to the teenage rookie Huntress.
  • Jinx, of all people, joins this list when it comes to finishing off their opponent.
• Noodle Incident:
  • In Solid Snake vs. Sam Fisher, when going over the latter's analysis and mentioning Sam's instints occasionally overriding Anna's laid-out plan, Wiz forbids Boomstick from discussing the details of "that trip". All we know of it is that Boomstick was denied a churro.
  • At the end of Sonya's preview video, Wiz tells Boomstick he's not allowed to use his lab after what happened last time. All we know is that it ended with said lab on fire.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer:
  • Boomstick, when describing Bucky O'Hare as a funky fresh rabbit, is quick to add on "yes, that is a direct quote (from his cartoon's theme song)."
  • Wiz says, "Yes, this is real." when they showed footage of RoboCop helping Sting.
  • One of Gamera's feats was that he "blew up a Star Destoyer (no joke)".
  • Yes Spacegodzilla's a thing, moving on.
  • A "Yes, this is real." caption appears when they show footage from Scorpion's cooking show.
  • One of Guts' feats was that he "killed a demon disguised as a woman while banging her... no joke".
  • Boomstick says "I'm serious." when mentioning the time Scout killed a bear with Amelia Earhart's skeleton.
  • Wiz says as much mentioning Zero's ultimate form "Absolute Zero".
  • Wiz utters "It's canon. N-no, really." when mentioning how Shadow claimed that Kill la Kill was his favourite anime. This being just after Shadow had killed Ryūko.
• Not So Above It All:
  • While Wizard is the Straight Man to Boomstick, he's not totally sane himself. For example, he's mentioned buying more rats for genetic testing, dissected a "voluntary" Goomba, and only discounts Boomstick's "baby launcher" idea on the grounds of acquiring ammunition.
  • Also, Batman, despite being highly intelligent, is mentioned to have his mental stability barely in-check. Boomstick confirms that since he witnessed his parents' deaths as a child, uses millions of dollars to dress up as a bat, and employs young children to fight (Robin and Batgirl), he's clearly not all there.
  • Superman initially appears to be the straight man to Goku. As the fight progresses his dialogue gets progressively more snarky.
• Ocular Gushers: Zechs Merquise cries like this over the remains of Noin's destroyed Mobile Suit after killing Tommy. Zordon also cries like this, though it edges toward Black Comedy, as his tank starts flooding, due to him crying so hard.
• Off the Rails: Deadpool vs Pinkie Pie ends with the two's combined Breaking the Fourth Wall allowing them to break out of their video, jump through several others, confronting the hosts, and deciding to enjoy Pinkie's birthday party for Deadpool instead of killing each other. Wiz and Boomstick have no choice but to declare themselves the losers and let them have their happy ending.
• Off with His Head!:
  • Samus Aran finishes off Boba Fett by blasting his head clean off with a fully charged shot.
  • Michelangelo also gets his head sliced off by Leonardo shortly after he sliced off his right arm.
  • Blanka bites off Pikachu's head and eats it before stuffing the rest of him in a blender and drinking it.
  • Fox obliterates Bucky's head with a charged blaster shot.
  • It's noted that decapitating him with a holy weapon is the only way Spawn can truly be killed, but Kratos never finds this out.
  • In the climax of the battle, Deadpool shoots Deathstroke in the eye, preventing him from seeing Deadpool chopping his head off with a carbonadium sword.
  • Posthumously done to Beast by Goliath after being ripped in half.
  • Metal Gear!Raiden slices Wolverine's head off, killing him and negating his healing factor. Thanks to the Muramasa's Vibroweapon properties, it was able to overcome Wolverine's Adamantium skeleton.
  • Agent Carolina finishes off the Meta with a round of Brute Shot point blank to the back of the head.
  • Terry kills Ken by crushing his head with Star Dunk Geyser.
  • Doomsday rips the Hulk's head off after an extensive No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
  • After getting his Heroic Second Wind, TJ Combo gives Balrog a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown before literally knocking his block off.
  • Shovel Knight dies this way, with Scrooge decaptitating him with his own Shovel Blade.
  • Sub-Zero with his signature fatality tears Glacius' head off and takes his spine with it.
  • Ultron kicks Sigma's head off, only for the latter to come back in a new body.
  • Widowmaker dies by getting her head ripped off with a garrote wire, courtesy of Black Widow.
  • Ganondorf draws the Sage Sword and swiftly decapitates Dracula with it during their battle. It doesn't take however, and forces Dracula to transform into his monster form to continue the fight.
  • Deadpool manages to cut the Mask's head off at the beginning of the fight, but this ends up being fruitless as the head falls right back on The Mask's body and continues to fight like it didn't happen. Later the Mask does the same thing to Deadpool, who also doesn't die thanks to his healing factor, but remains nothing more than a talking head.
  • After She-Ra shatters Wonder Woman's bracers her true unrestrained strength emerges allowing her to swiftly throw She-Ra off of her and decapitate her with a single flying strike from her blade.
  • Jon Talbain uses his fangs to rip Sabrewulf's head off.
  • Hulk gets his head ripped off by Broly in a similar way to how Doomsday did it. Unlike Hulk's previous fight, though, it doesn't stick. Hulk goes through the Green Door, and his headless body punches Broly away, retrieves his head and reattaches it.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: While Ultron and Sigma duke it out in a one-on-one fight, their respective forces take on each other in the background, eventually being left behind when Ultron forces Sigma away from the battlefield. Ultron's takeover of the Maverick Virus ends the battle and Sigma's Mavericks end up under his control.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • In the "Master Chief vs. Doomguy" fight, when Doomguy realizes too late that he has a Plasma Grenade stuck on him.
  • Also, in "Bomberman vs. Dig Dug" after Bomberman realizes that he dropped a bomb in front of himself after Dig Dug temporarily inflated him.
  • And in "Mario vs. Sonic", Mario is spooked when he realizes that they're inside a mountain with a large amount of Bob-ombs that are about to explode while Sonic wonders what the things are. However, both Mario and Sonic survive the experience thanks to Power Ups.
  • Mario had this reaction again when his Mega Mario power up ran out. Sonic gets it twice before that: Once when he first sees Mega Mario and seconds later when the Super Sonic power up wears off.
  • There was also "Vegeta vs. Shadow", when Shadow came back to normal. He also has this reaction when Vegeta punches the moon at him.
  • This was everyone's reaction when Metal Sonic went rogue and became Metal Overlord in Eggman vs. Wily.
  • This was Starscream's reaction when Rainbow Dash leads his own missiles straight at him.
  • Goku's reaction when blasting Superman to the sun didn't kill him, but brought him to the source of his powers.
  • Lion-O when realizing He-Man is about to throw a mountain at him.
  • He-Man's reaction when the Eye of Thundera attempts to destroy him in a last-ditch effort to protect Lion-O, complete with a Big "NO!".
  • Yoshi when Riptor first comes out.
  • Bucky's expression when Fox rockets into him with his jetpack and subsequently kills him.
  • Robocop's reaction to the Terminator's hydrogen fuel cells could qualify.
  • Luigi's reaction when Tails drops a cluster of bombs down on him. And again when he tries to shoot them back with the poltergust, only for them to miss Tails and fall on top of him.
  • Zechs' reaction to the Mega Tigerzord.
  • Tommy and Saba also have this reaction when Epyon delivers the Finishing Move to the Tigerzord.
  • Boomstick when Shao Kahn absorbs M. Bison's soul and gains his opponent's Psycho Power.
    Boomstick: That can't be good.
  • Fox's reaction when he notices just a half-second too late that one of Bucky's grenades is right next to him. It costs him his cybernetic legs, but ultimately, not his life.
  • Right afterwards, Bucky gives an example when Fox rockets towards him with his jetpack.
  • At SGC 2014, there is a scene during Godzilla Vs Gamera where it looked like Gamera completely vaporized Godzilla with his mana beam. To quote Chad at the time:
    Chad: I saw that right when it looked like Gamera had won nobody in the audience was happy.
  • Ryu when Scorpion shows he's still 'alive' after getting blasted to a skeleton is this in spades. Exaggerated when he sees skeleton!Scorpion fire a massive Hellfire attack right at him...and he has no way to dodge.
  • Kirby gets these several times during the fight after seeing what Buu can do: Such as watching a Mook get absorbed, watching a stone be turned to dessert, nearly getting cut in half by a sword-wielding Buu, and just before getting attacked for the first time by Kid Buu.
  • Buu gets an epic one when he sees Kirby eat and shoot his Planet Burst attack right back at him, which is especially impressive considering his rather arrogant and smug attitude before that moment.
  • Toph when she senses Gaara unleashing his Desert Wave against her.
  • Nightmare when Guts reveals his Arm Cannon right in front of the former's face at point-blank range.
  • Hercule when he sees Dan preparing a Gadoken, mistaking it for a Kamehameha.
  • Dan when he realizes that he just swallowed one of Hercule's capsules...that had a jukebox inside...
  • Tifa when she realizes that not only is Yang still alive after being hit with her LimitBreaks, she's also powered up all the way.
  • Red, upon seeing Charizard fall down towards him, reacts with an extremely weary "Oh, gee".
  • Bayonetta gets two, the first time being Dante No Selling her Witch Time with Quicksilver even though she quickly recovers, and the second, more poignant, one when Devil Triggered Dante kills Madama Butterfly.
  • Mewtwo gets this when it sees Shadow take out an Emerald and reads Shadow's mind, realizing that Shadow's about to use Chaos Control, but is too late to stop him from doing so.
  • Metal Sonic manages to give the normally stoic and calm Zero a few of these moments. Especially when he turns into Metal Overlord by absorbing a bunch of cars — it even makes Zero say "Crap!".
  • Balrog's reaction when T.J. Combo gets his Heroic Second Wind. Turns out he was right to have this reaction when TJ easily breaks Balrog's arm and decapitates him.
  • Ichigo gets two in Naruto vs Ichigo. The first is when Naruto brings out his Kurama avatar against Ichigo's Merged Hollow form and the second is when Mugetsu fails to kill Naruto, who brings out the Ashura Kurama avatar. In the second case, Ichigo proves to be right to be worried in that situation: as he's obliterated merely seconds later.
  • Jotaro gets one when Kenshiro tells him that You Are Already Dead, thanks to the one pressure point Kenshiro pressed on him earlier. One "Nani?!" later and he goes kaboom.
  • Wiz and Boomstick themselves panic during the Deadpool vs. Mask episode. After they felt bad about sending Deadpool to his death, they realize that the letter Deadpool and the Mask sent contained the Continuity Stone to ensure Deadpool's resurrection. The episode ends with them running in fear.
• Oh, No... Not Again!: In Wolverine vs. Raiden, Raiden gets one of these when Wolverine slices one of his arms off. Given his history with loss of limbs, this didn't stop Raiden from winning the fight.
• Older Is Better:
  • Popeye is the oldest cartoon character the show has covered, and the oldest character they analyzed up to Season 8. Given his scaling due to animation tradition at the time allowing for cartoonishly impossible feats, he's also one of the strongest, arguably being THE strongest a normal human has gotten.
  • Heracles and Sun Wukong are even older than Popeye, and both were also quite powerful. The amount of mythos behind both of them due to their age, and therefore the amount of material to pull from, meant both characters had nigh unlimited power and varied, deadly arsenals that make for two nigh unstoppable fighters.
• On the Next: Nearly every episode will end with a teaser showing the two combatants preparing to face each other in the next battle. ^ExceptionsChun-Li vs. Mai Shiranui didn't give a teaser showing Starscream vs. Rainbow Dash, Dr. Eggman vs. Dr. Wily onwards didn't preview their next battles either except Pikachu vs. Blanka, which previewed Goku vs. Superman. That episode in turn did not preview He-Man vs. Lion-O, which didn't preview Shao Kahn vs. M. Bison either. The Tifa vs. Yang battle became the first in awhile to be an exception as fans were told to watch the season finale of The Industry to find out who would be the combatants.
• One-Man Army:
  • Metal Sonic/Overlord definitely qualifies. He not only took out every remaining member of both of their robotic armies, but also Eggman and Wily themselves, an entire city and presumably the whole planet.
  • The Death Battle T-shirt killed every other T-shirt in the world in record time and left nothing but a barren wasteland in its wake. Though this was to be expected given that the Death Battle shirt is an obvious Parody Sue, and Wiz & Boomstick never went over any of the other T-shirts' skills.
  • Post-match analysis this is said to be one of the reasons why Fox wins against Bucky.
  • Robocop is described as this in his preview and analysis.
  • Both Guts and Nightmare are described as these in their analyses.
• One-Winged Angel: Metal Sonic absorbs the Egg Fleet and turns into Metal Overlord... then proceeds to obliterate Eggman, Dr. Wily, all the remaining fighters on both sides, the city they're fighting in, and possibly the world. He does this again in his fight against Zero but is destroyed by Zero's Dark Hold freezing time and allowing him to slash Metal Overlord in half.
  • Nightmare transforms into Night Terror during his fight with Guts.
  • Ragna becomes the Black Beast during his fight with Sol.
  • Both combatants in Naruto vs Ichigo have these forms with Naruto's Kurama avatar and Ichigo's True Bankai. Naruto's Kurama avatar effortlessly No-Sell Ichigo's attacks and delivers a Curb-Stomp Battle.
• Only Mostly Dead: One of Ryu Hayabusa's ninpo abilities. Strider doesn't give him that chance, and sends an Option C bird to destroy Ryu's corpse.
• Out-of-Character Moment: Enforced in the series. Since it's about two combatants fighting each other to death and most likely having the loser die in the most brutal way anyone can think off, some of the characterization of the combatants are completely changed or off-character, particularly those whose Thou Shall Not Kill or Technical Pacifist morals would get in the way of their physical and intellectual capabilites.
• ©* Out of the Inferno: How the Terminator makes its entrance.
• Overcrank: The end of episode battles will occasionally slow down during the heat of the action, such as in Thor vs. Mortal Kombat!Raiden, just moments before Raiden is smashed in half by Mjolnir.
  • Used to good effect in Goku vs. Superman, moments before the Dragon Fist and Infinite Mass Punch collide.
  • Ivy vs. Orchid has Ivy preparing to finish off Orchid by thrusting her blade into the ground for it to impale Orchid, but the fight slows down as Orchid turns into the fire cat and phases through Ivy's sword, speeding back up for her comeback.
  • Guts vs. Nightmare has Nightmare perform a Flaming Sword attack on Guts while Guts attempts a punch on Nightmare. The fight slows down to show that Nightmare only grazed Guts' face, while Guts gets positions his hand to point-blank Nightmare's face with a Arm Cannon shot.
  • When Knuckles is faced with the coconuts that DK fired out, this happens as he manages to use his superior speed to avoid them... initially.
  • When Yang survives Tifa's Meteor Strike, she looks around in confusion for a second wondering exactly what just happened. The fight slows down when she spots some of her hair being torn loose and falling to the ground. The fight slows down again just as said hair hits the ground, which marks the point Yang powers up all the way in anger and unleashes a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on Tifa.
  • In Optimus Prime vs. Gundam, near the end of the fight, Optimus descends upon the Gundam intending to cleave it in two with his axe, but the Gundam sidesteps it in slow-motion, before taking the beam saber and stabbing Optimus through the arm with it.
• Overly Long Gag: In "Zuko vs. Shoto Todoroki", the analysis of both fighters leads Boomstick to bring up his own daddy issues at every possible chance.
• Panthera Awesome: The Tigerzord, as well as Black Panther. The latter is even briefly shown as the visage of a panther at one point.
• Paper Tiger: This is the deciding factor between Hercule vs. Dan: while both men are way out of their league canon-wise, Hercule can back up his talk as he's strong enough to pull three buses, punch through the side of one, tear a telephone book in half and is a legitimate World Champion while Dan is a pathetic fighter whose one canonical win was done out of pity.
• Planetary Relocation: The Moon gets knocked out of orbit in the Vegeta vs. Shadow episode. Shadow uses Chaos Control to teleport the Moon back into orbit.
• Poor Communication Kills: Let’s just say that if you were count the number of Death Battles that could’ve been averted In-Universe with basic communication, it would take a while. Combatants have been killed over offenses ranging from stolen food, refusing to heed warnings, mistaken identity, and accidentally pressing a Berserk Button or two.
• Poorly Disguised Pilot: Trish and Jeanne show up in the middle of Dante vs. Bayonetta for seemingly no reason, besides setting up the pilot episode of Screwattack's spin-off DBX.
• Popularity Power: Defied. The makers have made it explicit that they don't allow the one with the most popularity to automatically win. Even if it's the one popular with themselves as "Mike Haggar vs. Zangief" shows.
• Pop-Up Trivia: Naruto vs Ichigo features these to go more in-depth about the characters without dragging on the episode's already large run-time.
• Post-Victory Collapse: This happens three times.
  • The first example is in Fox McCloud vs. Bucky O'Hare, with Fox collapsing on his back after taking Bucky down, due to losing his legs.
  • The second is at the end of All Might vs. Might Guy, with Might Guy collapsing after killing All Might with the Night Guy. This example, unlike others, is fatal, as Guy's collapsing is due to him succumbing to the fatal drawback of opening the Eighth Gate.
  • The third and final example is at the end of Goro vs. Machamp, with Machamp fainting just after reducing Goro to Ludicrous Gibs due to the burn inflicted on it just prior- complete with a text box styled after the Generation 1 Pokémon games.
  • It's also subverted in Ryu vs. Scorpion. Ryu collapses after stripping Scorpion to the bone with his Shinku Hadoken. The subversion comes in the fact that Scorpion was still alive, and proceeded to burn a now-defenceless Ryu to ashes.
• The Power of Friendship:
  • The Pokemon vs. Digimon battle explored this via the bonds between Red and Charizard and Tai and Agumon. It proved to be one of the defining factors in Tai and Agumon's victory - while there was friendship between Red and Charizard, Wiz and Boomstick likened it more towards Master and Slave. Tai and Agumon's bond is that of equals and true friends.
  • This was also a deciding factor of Agent Carolina vs. The Meta. Carolina and Epsilon are friends and comrades in battle allowing them to coordinate effectively and cover each others weaknesses. This allows them to edge the battle over The Meta who has eight captured AI's overlapping their commands and hindering its ability to make tactical decisions at crucial moments.
  • Twilight Sparkle represents the Element of Magic, which is the most powerful of all 6 Elements of Harmony and is only achieved through feats of true friendship. Since Death Battle prevents any external help or friends, this worked against her as she couldn't use the full strength of the power of friendship.
  • As an aside, Boomstick hates this trope. He'll get sarcastic or dismissive of it when it's mentioned or even alluded to.
• The Power of the Sun: Both Goku and Superman utilize this in different ways in the final moments of their battle. Goku draws on the sun's energy to create and absorb the resulting Spirit Bomb, while Superman sits in the sun and supercharges himself.
• Power-Up: Used in the judgment of the fights. In one battle, they had White Bomberman, who collected all kinds of power-ups, go against Dig Dug, who had just about all of his abilities from the start. In another battle, while Master Chief also collects power-ups, Doomguy depends on them more. In a third, while both have a diverse array of powerups, Mario easily has more than Sonic. In each of these battles, the character who relies on power-ups more ends up the loser. They can also serve as a Chekhov's Gun. In quite a few fights, if a fighter looks to be on the verge of death, yet a power-up that their rundown specifically mentioned has yet to be used, the fighter will use it to turn the fight around. Raidens' Jack The Ripper mode and TJ Combos' Last Breath are two instances of this.
• Power Perversion Potential: Boomstick often thinks of these things.
  Boomstick: Accio money! Accio loose women! (nothing happens) ... Damn.
  
  Boomstick: Like the mind trick thingy! Ohhh man, the terrible things I would do with that.
• Power Creep, Power Seep: Interestingly done, the animation often shows the combatants doing things much greater than they did in their own stories. Some fans consider Kirby and Superman to be good examples since their feats are sometimes inconsistent or not fully explained. Superman especially can look much weaker or stronger than normally depicted depending on if his weaknesses are exploited and as Boomstick mentions 'the writers doing whatever the hell they please'. This could also explain how Superman has fought and had crossovers with multiple other combatants on this show like Batman, He-Man, Lion-O, ect.
• Powered Armor: Samus Aran's Power Suit; Master Chief's MJOLNIR armor; the Ironman's suits; and Lex Luthor's Warsuit
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: Usually if the combatants have banter between each other (or at the very least one of them talks), it's not too unreasonable to assume these follow.
  Vegeta: (to Shadow) You've just sealed your fate, fool.
  
  Spider-Man: (to Batman) You've got a black belt in stupid if you think you're gonna beat me!
  
  Superman: (to Goku) Game? You think this is a game? I haven't even begun to play.
  
  M. Bison: (to Shao Kahn) Kneel before my Psycho Power!
  
  Shao Kahn: (to M. Bison) Prepare to die.
  
  M. Bison: (to Shao Kahn after activating the full extent of his Psycho Power) My Psycho Power knows no limits!
  
  M. Bison: (to Shao Kahn after the above) Death awaits...
  
  Ivy Valentine: (to Black Orchid) Get lost!
  
  Robocop: (to The Terminator) Come quietly or there will be... (draws his Auto-9 pistol) trouble!
  
  Robocop: (to The Terminator) Good news, scum. You're no longer under arrest.
  Robocop: (to The Terminator) You have the right to remain silent. I suggest you exercise it.
  
  Zechs Merquise: (to Tommy Oliver) I'LL BREAK YOUR FACE!
  
  Tommy Oliver: (about Epyon) Is it just me or do [Lord] Zedd's goons keep getting smaller and angrier?
  
  Majin Buu: (to Kirby) You make Buu mad! Buu make you dead!
  
  Sol Badguy: (to Ragna the Bloodedge) I'll burn you to a crisp.
  
  Ragna the Bloodedge: (to Sol Badguy during and after unleashing the Azure Grimoire's first level of power.) Restriction 666 released. Dimensional corruption imaginary number formed. BlazBlue, activate! It's my turn now!
  
  Toph: (to Gaara) Are you really that scared of a little blind girl? I'm touched.
  
  Toph: (to Gaara after surviving his Sand Coffin/Sand Burial attack) Pay attention, Sandy. I'm about to school you.
  
  Chuck Norris: (to Segata Sanshiro) You come back in here, I'm going to hit you with so many rights, you'll beg for a left.
  
  Nightmare: (to Guts before transforming into Night Terror) Impressive.
  
  Iron Man: (to Lex Luthor) I don't know, Lex. Being a god can't be too hard. I mean... I'm the most intelligent, capable person on the planet. I'm not playing god. All this time...I've been playing human.
  
  Fake Doctor Doom: (to Darth Vader) Bow before me!
  
  Darth Vader: (to Fake Doctor Doom) Don't underestimate the power of the Force.
  
  Darth Vader: (to Fake Doctor Doom) It is pointless to resist!
  
  Real Doctor Doom: (to Darth Vader) What a farce!
  
  Wolverine (to Raiden) That's it, Terminator. Now you've made me mad!
  
  Raiden (to Wolverine) Pain... this is why I fight... Hahahahah! It's time for Jack the Ripper to let 'er rip!
  
  Hercule (to Dan) Watch closely, because you're about to witness the real deal!
  
  Tifa (to Yang) Okay brat, warm-up's over. I'm gonna blow you outta the water!
  
  Yang (to Tifa asking if she's had enough) Not even close.
  
  Tifa (to Yang) Alright...let's see if you can keep up with this!
  
  Red (to Mega Charizard X) Perfect! Charizard, Blast Burn!
  
  Tai (to Red) Stop hurting my friend!
  
  WarGreymon (to Mega Charizard X) My turn!
  
  Naruto (to Ichigo) I can see you... BELIEVE IT!
  
  Jin ((after activating his Devil form, to Ryu)): OUT OF MY WAY!
  
  Optimus Prime (to Amuro Ray): Vile Decepticon! I have been in combat for countless eons!
  
  Sonic (activating Hyper Sonic form, to Mario): Now I'll show you!!
  
  Mario (whipping out a Wing Cap, to Sonic): Let'sa go.
  
  Beerus (to Sailor Galaxia): So you have chosen death.
  Dio Brando (to Alucard): Checkmate! ^note This is as he's about to skewer Alucard with knives from all directions, but it doesn't do much.
  Alucard (to Dio Brando): If I'm a dog... then you're dog food.^note As he sends the Baskerville towards Dio, but Dio escapes via the Time Stop and counters with his Road Roller..
  Alucard (to Dio Brando, again): I'm gonna enjoy hearing you scream.^note As he releases Level 0. Really, Dio and Alucard get TONS of these.
  Alucard (To Dio Brando, yet again): You want blood, you disgusting monster? Choke on your own. ^note As he shoots Dio in the face with his twin handguns. Dio survives this, however.
  Dio Brando (To Alucard, again): I want... to rule... THE WORLD! ^note In response to the above. He stops time, drains Alucard's blood to heal, then uses his Space Ripper Stingy Eyes to destroy Alucard's Level 0 Army.
  Dio Brando (To Alucard, yet again): Face me, vampire king! Bow to your new god!^note As he flies towards Alucard for one final clash.
  Alucard: (To Dio Brando, once more): The Bird of Hermes is my name... eating my wings to make me tame.^note In response to the above.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Enough examples for its own page.
• Product Placement: The "Death Battle vs. the World" episode is really just Wizard and Boomstick gushing over the Death Battle T-shirt.
  • In a more straightforward example, the fights preceding nearly every episode on the YouTube versions of uploads have a brief message stating the company sponsoring that particular episode, with an advertisement before the battle itself.
  • In Samus' analysis, the captions read that ScrewAttack is the "Namesake of an Awesome Website!"
• Public Service Announcement: "Smokey Bear vs. McGruff the Crime Dog is built around this trope, parodies it, and then plays it straight.
  • Both mascots were created to raise public awareness to prevent forest fires and prevent crime.
  • McGruff uses his ability to stop time and tell the audience a factoid, but every time he does, he can't think of anything useful.
  • The victor tells the audience at the end of the video to click the link to help the cause.
• Pummel Duel:
  • Akuma and Shang Tsung engage in one when Shang morphs into his image.
  • This inevitably happens during "Son Goku vs. Superman".
  • Jotaro vs Kenshiro has one of these, too. with it also featuring Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs on both sides.
• Punch Parry: Superman and Goku's Pummel Duel is occasionally interrupted by one of these, with both fighters pausing.
  • Zangief's and Haggar's fight also had these. Showed how similar and matched their movesets are.
  • Balrog vs T.J.Combo had a few of these. They end up fighting with so much force during these that they inadvertently break the ring.
• Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh...: During the battle between Mario and Sonic, Mario becomes Mega Mario after producing a Mega Mushroom. Sonic, as Super Sonic, tries vainly to attack Mario, but his blows do little damage. Instead, Mega Mario punches Super Sonic away and the power of the Chaos Emeralds wears off, causing Super Sonic to return to peak physical bluish form. Now all Sonic can do is run for his life as Mega Mario gives chase. That is, until Mega Mario shrinks back down to normal size...
  • Also during Iron Man vs Lex Luthor, the Armored Avenger launches a flurry of punches on the Lex Luthor's Warsuit and he doesn't even leave a scratch.
  • At the start of Hulk vs Broly’s fight, Base form Broly delivers 2 punches to Hulk’s face that he completely no-sells, complete with an Oh, Crap! expression on Broly’s face. Hulk then launches into a vicious counter assault that ends with him throwing Broly and declaring “Disappointed”. Of course, this is merely the start of the fight that forces Broly to begin powering up.
• Pyrrhic Victory:
  • The Superman vs. Goku fight. Supes came out on top, but destroyed the world in the process.
  • Fox managed to kill Bucky, but at the loss of his closest childhood friend, Slippy Toad, who was the one who modified the tools that Fox used to obtain the win.
  • Robocop won, but has 1% of battery power left. Though what happens next is left ambiguous, it's possible that it's probably not enough for Robocop to get back home and recharge.
  • Zechs managed to destroy the Tigerzord and kill Tommy...but his beloved girlfriend, Noin, is now dead. The battle ends with him crying Ocular Gushers over the remains of her Mobile Suit.
  • Guts managed to take out Nightmare, Soul Edge and Inferno, but he was forced to go into Berserker Armor to do so. As there's nobody else around in the immediate area and Guts cannot suppress it without outside intervention (which wasn't exactly stated word for word in the analysis), the armor will slowly kill him eventually.
  • Parodied in the Iron Man vs. Lex Luthor fight: While Tony defeats Lex without any life-threatening results to himself, he still owes Pepper $5 billion in the property damages that occurred.
  • Also parodied in the Donkey Kong vs Knuckles fight. Donkey Kong kills Knuckles for digging through his banana stash and throws a banana into his collection...which is now far smaller, thanks to the fight.
  • Played straight and parodied in Dante vs. Bayonetta. Dante ends up destroying the Left Eye of the World (the thing he was hired to get) by killing Bayonetta (the Eye herself), while Jeanne kills Trish in the DBX companion fight.
  • Parodied in Flash vs Quicksilver. While Flash succeeds in killing Quicksilver, Flash jokes about how he technically lost the race, as Quicksilver technically beat him to Japan, due to being impaled on a samurai statue.
  • The police arrive at the end of Joker vs. Sweet Tooth to arrest the badly injured victor but while Joker is going to Arkham, Needles is heading to the morgue.
  • Parodied in Natsu vs. Ace. Natsu takes down Ace...but the town they're fighting in is torched down and he's thrown out on his face into the dirt without even knowing about Ace's bounty.
  • Sub-Zero rips out Glacius' spine to win the match, but it comes at the cost of his left hand being melted off.
  • Possibly in Balrog vs TJ Combo. While TJ was able to beat Balrog, he also killed Balrog on national TV. This may be mitigated due to Balrog possibly killing the referee during the fight but at the very least, TJ will be brought to court.
  • Crash Bandicoot vs. Spyro the Dragon: Spyro atomizes Crash, who had squashed Sparx like a bug earlier. Like Guts vs. Nightmare, he also had to give into his Dark Spyro side to do so, which requires outside assistance to be snapped out of -— and his closest companion and adoptive brother is dead thanks to Crash.
  • Samurai Jack manages to slice Afro to bits, but not before losing an entire arm in the process.
  • Optimus Prime manages to destroy the RX-78-2 Gundam and come out in one piece but the Autobot Ark and several within it was destroyed by the Gundam's Beam Rifle.
  • Megaman.EXE manages to claim the title of the most powerful Mega Man. However, the fight has resulted in a large amount of collateral damage which Megaman.EXE is clearly not too proud of.
  • Might Guy defeats All Might, but to do so he had to open the Gate of Death, which will kill him. The hole All Might punched through his torso wouldn't have been any easier to survive either.
  • Played for Laughs in Goro vs. Machamp. After winning, the burned Machamp strikes a victory pose... followed by a text popup from Pokémon Red and Blue mentioning that "Machamp's hurt by its burn!", after which Machamp faints on the spot. Furthermore, Goro did manage to take off one of its four arms shortly before that.
  • In the Batmobile Battle episode of Death Race, the Adam West Batmobile wins... but only because it was propelled by the blast of an explosive dropped by the Tim Burton Batmobile, which also destroyed the vehicle.
  • In the Optimus Prime vs. Thomas the Tank Engine episode of Death Race, Optimus Prime wins by destroying Thomas the Tank Engine and Lightning McQueen... which goes against his strict code of honor, causing him to commit "Robo-Seppuku" by driving off the track out of shame.
  • In Sanji vs. Rock Lee, Sanji managed to defeat Rock Lee, but at the cost of his left leg.
  • Played for Laughs in Shadow vs. Ryuko Matoi; Shadow finally manages to score a win on the show. However, as Boomstick points out in the post-battle analysis, this comes at the cost of killing his favorite anime character.
  • Possibly the most tragic example of them all is Tanjiro vs. Jonathan Joestar. Jonathan wins the fight, but finds out the truth that Nezuko was not one of Dio's zombies, but Tanjiro's sister. As he tearfully cradles a dying Tanjiro in his arms, he swears that he will protect Nezuko with his life to atone, before ending his suffering by stopping his heart. Jonathan reaches out to Nezuko, who hesitates to accept the hand from the man who killed her brother.
  • There are actually two of these for the loser in Thanos vs. Darkseid: First, Thanos manages to barely win the fight against Darkseid's avatar and disintegrates him with his Infinity Gauntlet, but this victory is immediately negated when Darkseid just instantly creates a new body and does so constantly when Thanos continues to turn them to dust. This eventually leads to Thanos facing Darkseid's true form and being immediately killed by him. Similarly, Thanos wanted to die for a long time so he can finally be with Mistress Death and Darkseid finally kills him. But he is killed by being trapped in the Omega Sanction, which grants him infinite lives that all end worse than the last, the first of them of which is him losing Mistress Death to Deadpool, who shoots him.
  • Bill Cipher vs Discord takes the cake for this trope, as the winner ultimately lost more than he gained. Bill is able to successfully kill Discord, but Discord managed to trap them both in the Nightmare Realm, undoing Weirdmaggedon in Equestria and since Bill can only escape by making a deal (something Wiz and Boomstick warned viewers against doing), chances are he might not get out for a long time. Not to mention, the fact Discord can come back to life so long as there's chaos causes the victory to border on a Meaningless Villain Victory for Bill.
• The Quiet One: Batman (in his first and second fight), Amy, Ramona, Scrooge, and Shovel Knight never say a word during their respective fights (though in the case of Scrooge and Shovel Knight, it's partially justified by their fight being fully 8 bit).
• Quip to Screen Wipe: Most fighter's analyses are capped off by the combatant in question delivering a one-liner or otherwise performing a particular feat of badassery before moving on to the next fighter.
• Raging Stiffie:
  • When discussing Erza Scarlett's various armors, Wiz brings up her "Seduction" armor, which Boomstick figures the purpose of is to make her opponents terribly aroused, commenting to take his word for it that it isn't easy to fight with an erection.
  • When the video was initially uploaded to Youtube, the announcer for the boxing match between Balrog and TJ Combo asks to be excused at the end, as he got an erection from seeing the outcome of that fight. The video was later re-uploaded with a minor change stating that the announcer has to hurl in disgust.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs:
  • Mortal Kombat!Raiden utilizes a string of martial arts strikes a few times during his showdown with Thor.
  • Obviously happens a few times in Goku vs. Superman from both sides.
  • Shortly after the fight begins, Fox and Bucky exchange a fast-paced series of melee attacks.
  • Considering what Kenshiro and Jotaro are known for, the two (well, Star Platinum does it for Jotaro) exchange these in the form of a Pummel Duel.
  • Jin tries this against Ryu early in their fight. Ryu parries every last punch before countering with a Hadoken.
• A Rare Sentence:
  • Boomstick in "Thanos vs. Darksied" when The Nomad of Nowhere suddenly showed up and turned his beer can into a living creature.
  Boomstick: Uhhh Wiz.. never thought I'd say this, but I might've had too much to drink.
  • At the end of "Shadow vs. Mewtwo", Boomstick admits that of all the possible deaths he'd see on this show, "death by spoon" wasn't one of them.
• Rasputinian Death: In order to finish his foe off, Shao Kahn has to crush Bison under pillars, smash him with a hammer, rip him in half, and absorb his soul.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: The analysis of Michelangelo is full of Take Thats over why they think Mikey is the worst turtle.
  • To a lesser extent Dan's analysis in Hercule Satan VS Dan Hibiki is also this with the hosts making fun of Dan for half of it.
• Record Needle Scratch:
  • At the beginning of their fight, both Snake and Sam draw their guns on one another. A needle scratch and the Metal Gear exclmation point popping above their heads indicate their surprise.
  • In "Deadpool vs. Pinkie Pie", the battle music scratches to a halt when Deadpool realizes that Pinkie can break the fourth wall like him.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Akuma and Evil Ryu both have these. Comes with the Satsui no Hadou. Ragna qualifies with his right eye, which is on the same side as his Azure Grimoire. Naruto also qualifies when utilizing Kurama's power.
• Red Herring: It happens on occasion, but the hosts will bring up something during the fighters' analyses that ends up having little impact on either the end-of-episode clash or the rundown afterwards.
  • In He-Man vs. Lion-O, Wiz and Boomstick spend a good amount of time bringing up He-Man's pet tiger Cringer who can transform into the tiger-dragon hybrid Battlecat, and they briefly cover Lion-O's weakness to thundrainium, a red rock akin to kryptonite. Neither of these have any impact on the fight.
  • In Zelda vs. Peach, the two explain that anything Zelda can do with her alter egos (Sheik, Tetra, etc.), she can do in her normal persona, but said abilities are forgotten shortly afterwards.
  • In Ivy vs. Orchid, Ivy's weapon was noted to have a life of its own and will defend her independent of her thoughts. Despite this, it doesn't help when she finds herself on the ropes.
  • In Robocop vs. Terminator, Both Robocop's Data Spike and Terminator's vulnerability to hacking are talked about, but neither are used in the fight itself.
  • Godzilla Vs. Gamera has one during the final battle itself, when Gamera uses his mana beam on Godzilla. For several seconds it appears Gamera has won, only for Godzilla to rise from the water behind Gamera. At the SGC Death Battle panel this was shown, Ben and Chad talk about how they enjoyed watching the crowd be faked out by that particular scene.
  • In Iron Man vs. Lex Luthor, both Iron Man's ability to have JARVIS call upon a fleet of spare suits and Lex's kryptonite-based steroid are touched upon, but neither appear in the fight nor have any impact on the verdict.
  • The Goku vs. Superman rematch spends a minute talking about Superman's new Super Flare ability, a sort of Desperation Attack that unleashes all of the solar energy he's absorbed in a massive blast, but leaves him powerless for a day afterward. It's never used. Superman beats Goku relatively easily this time around, so he's never threatened enough to need it.
  • Green Arrow vs. Hawkeye spends some time showcasing both fighters' array of arrows and highlights their explosive arrows, Green Arrow's specifically stated to be a miniaturized nuke, but it doesn't appear in the fight nor do the arrows themselves play into the verdict.
  • In Ganondorf vs. Dracula, they had a pretty grim example. Dracula has Ganondorf dead to rights, mocking him as he prepares to finish him off, but the camera then zooms towards Ganondorf's hand that has the Triforce of Power. With us the viewers thinking that Ganondorf has one more trick, it turns out that the fight truly was over because the Triforce was destroyed by then, leaving Ganondorf to his doom as Dracula rips him apart and drink his blood.
  • In Link vs Cloud (2021), this happens. In a similar way to Ganondorf vs. Dracula above, Link's attempt at blocking the last hit of Cloud's Omnislash Version 5 has him call upon the Triforce of Courage... and just like above, it doesn't work, with Cloud plowing clean through it to slice Link in half.
• Red Live Lobster: In "All Might Vs. Might Guy", when Boomstick mentions that if he had a Quirk like All Might, he'd name all his attacks after food. He demonstrates by shouting "California Roll!", summoning sushi into his hand, and follows it up with "Lobster Roll!", at which point a red, but clearly living lobster, appears, and directly attacks Boomstick's Vitriolic Best Friend, Wiz.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • Boomstick serves as the loud, impulsive, and excitable red oni to Wizard's calmer, and more down to earth (by comparison) blue oni.
  • Several matchups similarly have one fighter be much more loud, excitable or impulsive while the other fighter is calmer and typically more rational. Examples include Michelangelo vs. Leonardo, Raphael vs. Donatello, Raphael vs. Leonardo, Zitz vs. Leonardo, Vegeta vs. Shadow , Sonic vs. Mario, Spider-Man vs. Batman, Goku vs Superman, Deadpool vs Deathstroke, Toph vs Gaara, Iron Man vs Lex Luthor, Goku vs. Superman 2, Bowser vs Ganon, Jak & Daxter vs Ratchet & Clank, Shadow vs Mewtwo, Black Panther vs Batman, Carnage vs Lucy, Edward vs Aang, Ryuko vs Shadow, Star Butterfly vs Steven Universe, Iron Man vs Batman, Homelander vs Omni-Man, Testsuo vs Magneto, James Bond vs. John Wick, Asta vs Deku, Dimitri vs Guts, Gojo vs Makima, Rick vs The Doctor, and Goku vs Superman (2023) all qualifying ^note the first listed combatant between the two as the red, the second as the blue.. Respectively, the winners of each fight are blue, red, blue, blue, red, red, red, blue, red, red, red, blue, blue, blue, blue, red, blue, blue, blue, red, red, blue, blue, red, red, red, red, blue, blue.
• Retcon:
  • In the first Death Battle Q & A, Wizard and Boomstick state that they deliberately keep their appearance a secret to hide from enemies they made. Several years later however, when it was announced that there would be animated segments of Wizard and Boomstick, it was shown that the reason Wizard and Boomstick never physically appear is because Boomstick never takes off the lens cap whenever they film.
  • In "Naruto vs. Ichigo", Boomstick mourns his mother, saying she was killed by a ghost hanging inside their barn. "Macho Man VS Kool-Aid Man" shows that she's alive and well, without even a mention of her supposed death.
• Retool: Season 4 of DBX underwent a massive change as it became a Popularity Power-fueled event with a brand new host.
• Repeat Cut: The final blow of "Boba Fett vs. Samus Aran REMASTERED", showing Samus Aran shooting off a frozen Boba Fett's head is seen under three different angles.
• The Reveal: For dramatic purposes, the hosts deliberately don't give the whole spiel on some fighters' feats until the post-fight analysis, leaving how they stack up to their opponents ambiguous.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge
  • In Felicia vs. Taokaka, Tao accidentally kills a butterfly the two were briefly playing with beforehand, Felicia was clearly upset over this. At first glance, it would appear this trope would be played straight, but it soon ends up as a subversion as Felicia still dies.
  • The beginning of the duel between Fox McCloud and Bucky O'Hare has the Star Fox team patrolling space, when the Righteous Indignation appears and vaporizes Slippy's Arwing. Fox, in retaliation, blasts the ship onto a planet and lands, ready to fight the team and avenge his fallen wingmate. Being played straight, Fox puts an end to Bucky.
  • While not explicitly stated or shown, Luigi looked EXTREMELY pissed at the start of Luigi vs Tails. Most likely due to Mario getting killed by Sonic in a previous episode. Subverted. Luigi loses..
  • Tommy Oliver accidentally kills Zechs' girlfriend. Zechs proceeds to murder Tommy in a fit of rage.
  • Knuckles eats one of DK's bananas from the latter's banana hoard. Donkey Kong proceeds to fight him and eventually kill him in a rage.
  • Crash Bandicoot mistakes Spyro the Dragon's adoptive brother Sparx as an average annoying insect, and crushes the dragonfly between his hands. This drives Spyro to attack, and eventually vaporizes Crash along with Aku Aku.
• Robo Cam: Both the Terminator and Robocop have vision in these. They show weapon, armor analysis, and weakpoints on each other.
• Rock Beats Laser: Sam Fisher goes out on missions with an impressive loadout of powerful weapons and high-tech gadgets, while Snake prefers just his trusty M1911, a stun-knife, and a few other innocuous items that seemingly don't belong in a stealth mission. Sam has a distinct firepower and technology advantage early on, but Snake is able to pull the rug out from under Sam, get him down to a good old-fashioned Knife Fight, and finally emerge the victor.
• Rocket-Tag Gameplay:
  • Boomstick says that the fight between Shredder and Silver Samurai comes down to who can hit who first. Shredder turns out to be the faster of the two. Then again, he could have also just transformed into Super Shredder and steamrolled Silver Samurai, like he did in the animation.
  • The hosts note that either combatant in the Carnage vs. Lucy fight would kill the other if they managed a single decisive hit. Lucy wins out here since her vectors are fast and durable enough to block Carnage's attacks, and were also capable of creating an explosion with enough heat to vaporize him along with the Weak to Fire symbiote.
• Roger Rabbit Effect: Toward the end of the "Deadpool vs. Pinkie Pie" match, the animated Deadpool manages to break into the live-action ScrewAttack studio and confronts the real-life team.
• Rule of Cool:
  • In the second Q&A, Wizard specifically states the fights aren't representative of who wins the Death Battle; the winner is decided well beforehand through research into the combatants. The fights are purely for entertainment purposes. He further expanded on this in the livestream of Samus Aran vs Boba Fett Remastered to try and explain some of the inconsistencies during the fight scenes such as Master Chief throwing a grenade through the bubble shield when you can't do so in the game itself.
  • Chuck Norris vs. Segata Sanshiro is an exercise in insanity and one of the most loved Death Battles. When you watch stuff like Chuck punching Segata with the third fist underneath his beard, Segata performing his exploding judo-toss on Chuck into a mountain that also explodes, and Chuck splitting the world in half by launching a giant clone of Segata through it, you watch it again because it's awesome and possibly because your mind couldn't really grasp what was going on the first time around.
  • Hercule vs. Dan Hibiki is basically a toned-down Spiritual Successor. The matchup and most of the things that happen within the fight are sheer lunacy, but it's still a highly engaging duel beyond that.
  • The Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton DBX. It's almost as if the guys at ScrewAttack decided to give the animators the instructions, "Have these two idiots fight and do whatever the hell you want with them." In the end, a bald eagle voiced by Chad reveals it's the story of how Captain America became the president of the United States forever.
  • Deadpool vs Pinkie Pie is a fight between two Cloud Cuckoolanders with Medium Awareness to whom the fourth wall might as well not exist. In fact, they're so crazy awesome the rules of Death Battle cannot contain them and they literally break out of their video and leap across several other previous battles before confronting the hosts in the real world. Wiz and Boomstick ultimately have no choice but to declare themselves the losers and just let Pinkie throw Deadpool a birthday party. According to Word of God, due to Deadpool's Healing Factor and Pinkie Pie being a living cartoon character who can fall apart and just put herself back together on a whim, this was literally the more logical outcome than them finding a way to kill each other.
  • The hosts seem to think of Pidge as such, showing him running over to the enemies while he's carrying a grenade that's about to explode. In the fight itself, he decides the best thing to do when Voltron's about to get killed by the Megazord is to punch it with the only arm they have (his) and he's the one to grab the sword by flying his head over to it.
• Rule of Funny: Presumably the reason Vegeta thinks Shadow is weird considering the Earth in Dragon Ball is full of talking animals, not to mention that Shadow looks normal compared to DB villains like Majin Buu.
• Running Gag:
  • Boomstick constantly brings up either his horrifying ex-wife, or his runaway dad.
  • Characters voiced by Takahata101 meet hilariously violent deaths. Aside from Deadpool, anyway, but there's still some graphic stuff.
  • Wiz snarking at a series' Fantasy Metals as they are almost always tougher and lighter than titanium.
  • Killer Instinct characters performing a Combo Breaker, complete with announcer commentary. Additionally, comparing UltraTech to Wal-Mart.
  • Fights that have a pony fighter ending with technically no one dead. Rainbow beat Starscream but Starscream is immortal, Deadpool and Pinkie became friends instead of killing each other which brought the match to a draw, and Twilight lost to Raven but had a deliberate Ambiguous Ending to imply Twilight survived her loss with Amusing Injuries instead of dying.
  • When they mention a character that has died and came back canonically, they treat it as if it was a common cold by saying "Don't worry, they get better".
  • Throughout Season 7, dabbing would be a reoccurring action for some characters to perform, specifically so far, Miles Morales, Machamp, and Danny Phantom (And three clones as well)
  • Starting from Aang vs. Edward Elric onwards, every battle involving an Avatar character features the Cabbage Merchant, with his cabbages being destroyed by the Avatar character's opponent one way or another and him yelling out his trademark quote of "MY CABBAGES!".
  • All three of Shadow's fights have ended right after his opponent said the word "sayonara." Vegeta and Mewtwo's attempts at killing Shadow right after saying this proved successful, while Ryūko's did not, leading to her dying instead.
  • Whenever Captain N: The Game Master gets mentioned, usually when characters who have counterparts in it are on Death Battle like Pit (who in Captain N is called Kid Icarus) and Mega Man Classic, count on Wiz to make it very, very clear they're not using those versions at all.
  Wiz: (during the intro of Mega Man Battle Royale) While there are many versions of [Mega Man] to choose from...
  Captain N Mega Man: Mega! Mega! (buzzer sounds go off as Captain N Mega Man is greyed out)
  Wiz: Not that one.
  • Starting with SpongeBob vs. Aquaman in Season 9, Columbo makes frequent cameos in battles^note owing to Liam Swans favorite matchup being Columbo vs. Light Yagami, usually as a Freeze-Frame Bonus (though his cameo in Scooby-Doo vs. Courage is much easier to spot than his other ones).
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!:
  • Wily tries to bail when Metal Sonic goes on a rampage. Keyword "tries".
  • Boomstick leaves during Ragna vs. Sol Badguy because he thought Wiz was messing with him when telling him that the villain of Guilty Gear is That Man. Boom does come back after looking it up
• Sealed Evil in a Duel: Inverted in "Chuck Norris vs. Segata Sanshiro". Chuck and Segata's duel is still going on and is likely wreaking untold destruction in another universe. Boomstick pities the poor bastards who have to deal with their eternal conflict.
• Series Continuity Error:
  • Goku's physical strength peaks at 160,000 tons at SSJ4. However Vegeta at SSJ2 was shown moving the moon with a single punch. Since Goku and Vegeta are both saiyans, it is impossible for SSJ2 Vegeta to be strong enough to do this. Luckily moving the moon didn't impact his duel with Shadow.
  • In the Superman/Goku rematch, Boomstick claims that Goku cannot survive in the vacuum of space despite acknowledging that he can survive in a vacuum in the original episode. However Boomstick also mentioned that Goku cannot breathe in space and the battle against Beerus was in the upper atmosphere or at least at the border of it, not deep space. So while Goku can survive in a vacuum, he can't survive in space because he can't breathe.
• Series Fauxnale: The Superman vs. Goku fight it ended with the world getting destroyed. Wiz and Boomstick actually had to make a separate video to assure the viewers that it was really just a Season Finale, not the end of the series.
• Shapeshifting: Shang Tsung's's most well-known ability. In his fight, he transforms into Scorpion and Akuma, the latter being a mirror match.
• Shipper on Deck: In "Sabrewulf vs. Jon Talbain", Jon suffered decades of torment and angst until meeting Felicia, who shows him that not all humans are horrible.
  Boomstick: Now, we all know cats are super evil and Satan's presence on Earth, but Felicia taught him that humans actually aren't so bad. Wait, wait, so years of martial arts discipline couldn't temper his bad side, but getting laid did? You know what, I believe it.
  Wiz: As far as we know, they're just friends.
  Boomstick: Yeah I'm sure the internet can give you thirty-four good reasons why that's bullshit, Wiz.
• Shock and Awe:
  • The entire battle between Thor and Mortal Kombat's Raiden.
  • Batman's suit's taser function as well as his gauntlets.
  • Pikachu vs. Blanka.
  • Apparently, when he gets a cold, Robocop can sneeze lightning. This is not utilized at all in the battle.
  • Luigi's thunder hand is EVERYWHERE. The dude is called Green Thunder for a reason!
• Shoot the Bullet: RoboCop also proves to be a perfect marksman by being able to shoot bullets out of mid air.
• Shoryuken:
  • Ryu and Akuma, obviously.
  • Deadpool steals this for his fights with Deathstroke and Pinkie Pie.
  • Kirby uses this as Fighter Kirby. Although seeing as Kirby is using Yuri Sakazaki's voice, it would technically be the Yuri Chou Upper.
  • Ragna and Sol use the sword version of the trope, Inferno Divider and Volcanic Viper respectively.
• Shout-Out:
  • After the Koopa misses the Goomba in their aerial battle, the Goomba makes an Awesome Face.
  • When Deathstroke brings out his staff, Deadpool refers to him being a Donatello. Deadpool says he pictures himself as a Leonardo when he brings out his Katanas. He then quips some people say he's more of a Michelangelo.
  • Some of the moves seen in the Solid Snake vs. Sam Fisher fight seem lifted straight from The Raid; in particular, Snake's penultimate blow against Fisher is almost identical to one used by Rama against a Mook in the first hallway battle.
  • In the Mega Man vs. Astro Boy fight, there is a scene where Mega man slowly walks away during a Time Freeze leaving Astro behind him with a Crash Bomb next to him. This a shot for shot remake of the ending scene in this Megaman vs. Quickman animation.
  • Torrian put in a shot-for-shot fight scene from Rope a Dope 2.
  • In the Deadpool vs. Pinkie Pie fight, Deadpool admonishes Pinkie trying to sing to him with "Nope! None of that! Shame on YOU!"
  • The second half of Ryu vs. Jin takes place in the Vault of the Spring Maiden, complete with the combatants briefly dueling on top of a falling stalactite like Raven and Cinder.
  • In Crash Vs. Spyro, Crash, using his Coptor Pack, emulates Ken Masters' Guren Enjinkyaku
  • Bouncy Wario's attack on King Dedede and his clones heavily resembles Bellamy's Spring Hopper attack.
  • In Jak and Daxter vs. Ratchet & Clank, when Daxter's transformation into an ottsel is shown, Boomstick shouts in shock about Daxter "falling into the weasel pool". This is an invocation of Jusenkyo, a valley full of cursed springs that would all transform a person or creature that fell in into whatever creature was associated with that specific pool, from the now-obscure late 80s/early 90s manga & anime series, Ranma ½.
  • After knocking McGruff into a lake, Smokey calls him a "stupid dog".
  • Meta example from "Ultron vs. Sigma". The pseudo name that Chris Tergliafera uses for the credits of the episode is SupremeOverlordofIce and has a link to a page about hamsters.
  • The fight track for Genos vs. War Machine is titled K.O. Computer.
  • During Blake vs Mikasa, Wiz is revealed to have made a clone army and they aren't sure who's the real one anymore.
  • During Scooby Doo vs. Courage the Cowardly Dog, after eating some of the super-empowering snack bones and growing to the size of the planet, Scooby tries to crush Courage by punching him with a fist the size of a continent, with Courage being shown from behind looking up at Scooby's massive fist descending towards him like a meteor, in a clear homage to Asura's Wrath, specifically Asura's battle against Gongen Wyzen.
  • The finale of Goku vs Superman III has the clash of blows between the two fighters shatter the universe itself, with the last bit to fulling disappear being a cross-shaped flickering light at the point of impact in the style of the Spiral Nemesis from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
• Shown Their Work: Before every fight, Wizard and Boomstick look through the history, abilities, arsenal, and weaknesses as presented in the canon of each fighters in great detail to determine who would win. Regardless of what one thinks of the results, they can't be accused of not doing their homework. Likewise, they both show research in trying to quantify powers from video game characters in real world terms (estimating that the weight of the presumed granite pillars that Link needs the Golden Gauntlets to lift to be over 1000 tons), and knew the origins for all the types of weapons the Ninja Turtles used.
  • Interesting bit with Haggar vs. Zangief, where Zangief's bio about him training with grizzly bears is incorrect as grizzly bears don't live in Russia and that he would really be training with Ussuri brown bears, which are considerably larger than grizzlies.
  • Noting that Pikachu hasn't been particularly EV trained in any stat, due to having had a wide variety of opponents, but still giving a fairly logical estimate of his EV spread.
  • Metal Man's weakness to his own weapons is noted in the pre-fight stats, and Metal Sonic kills him with it after copying his power.
  • Boomstick also gives quite a devoted lesson about velociraptors while discussing Riptor, even surprising Wizard with his knowledge of dinosaurs.
  • In the epilogue following the Pokémon Battle Royale, it's revealed that after factoring in status problems, possible movesets, and accuracy rolls, there's over 7000 ways a battle between the combatants could play out using Pokémon's game mechanics. What really qualifies it for this trope is that they determined the percentage of those 7000+ battles that each of the three combatants would win, and set the order that the two losing Pokémon were eliminated accordingly: Venusaur wins less than 20% of them, meaning it gets killed off first, and Blastoise wins nearly half of them, cementing its victory over Charizard.
  • In the fight between Balrog and TJ Combo, not only was there some pretty impressive scientific measurement on display, they researched both the style and history of boxing, including using the "triangle theory" of the sweet science to explain why the winner's style held an advantage over the loser's style. As an "Outboxer," which relies on dodging and waiting for an opponent to make a mistake, TJ Combo held the advantage over Balrog's "Slugger" style, which sacrifices finesse and defense for straight direct strikes.
  • It pops up once again in Naruto vs Ichigo which, due to the length of the analysis and results sections of the video, overall makes it the second longest Death Battle video period, only being beaten out by Goku vs Superman, going into great detail Why Naruto ended up as the victor, even though the power boosts for ALL of Ichigo's forms were stacked on top of each other.
• Shows Damage: In some battles, most noticeably "RoboCop vs. Terminator" (especially with the Terminator's artificial skin having no resistance to any of RoboCop's attacks).
• Sidelined Protagonist Crossover: Episodes that do not involve the main characters of either work involved.
• Single-Stroke Battle:
  • While there's plenty of fighting before it happens, a homage to the trope occurs during the Strider and Ryu battle, in a deliberate throwback to the opening of Ninja Gaiden. Although it's Strider who takes the glory.
  • Zoro and Erza's duel also has plenty of fighting beforehand, but the climax ends in this as they leap to strike. Zoro ends up cutting both Erza and the mountain behind her in the background in two.
  • Raiden and Genji ended their battle like this. At first it appeared Genji had won but Raiden ended up taking the victory.
  • Obi-Wan Kenobi and Kakashi also exchanged plenty of blows with each other, as typically done in Naruto episodes, with the climax of the battle ending with this. While Obi-Wan is unharmed, Kakashi gets chopped in half from the waist up, like how Darth Maul died.
• Sixth Ranger: Tommy Oliver is this in his home universe.
• Slapstick: The DBX between Sakura Haruno and Rin Tohsaka ends with Rin getting launched through a stone ceiling and into the sky where she disappears in a twinkle Team Rocket style.
• Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness: Death Battle quite often pits a funny, light-hearted character against a Darker and Edgier counterpart, as is the case with "Yoshi vs. Riptor", "Spider-Man vs. Batman", "Deadpool vs. Deathstroke", "Yang Xiao Long vs. Tifa Lockhart", "Kirby vs. Majin Buu", "Rainbow Dash vs. Starscream", "Raven vs. Twilight Sparkle", "Leon Kennedy vs. Frank West", "Ghost Rider vs. Lobo", "Goro vs. Machamp", "Iron Fist vs. Po", "Saitama vs. Popeye", "Hercules vs. Sun Wukong", and "Stitch vs. Rocket Raccoon". With the exception of "Raven vs. Twilight Sparkle", "Leon vs. Frank" and "Ghost Rider vs. Lobo", the silly character wins. Beware the Silly Ones indeed.
• Slow Laser: As long as they otherwise realistically, the Death Battle research team tends to treat lasers as if they were moving at the speed of light for feat calculation purposes, even if they're visibly moving slower. As far as they're concerned, Slow Lasers are mostly for the audience's benefits, since it would be very difficult to portray something or someone as moving at the speed of light in real time. "Samurai Jack VS Afro Samurai" and "Ganondorf VS Dracula" both feature examples of such feats.
• Something Else Also Rises: Parodied with He-Man's suggestive "Oh~!" when he sees Lion-O's Sword Of Omens extend to its combat form.
• Soul-Cutting Blade:
  • Ragna's Blood Scythe combined with the Azure Grimoire can drain a soul with every strike. Unfortunately for him Sol has been through the Backyard, which is said to completely annihilate souls, and survived meaning his is more than powerful enough to resist its effects.
  • The ultimate fate of Silver Samurai after his death to The Shredder is to have his soul be destroyed by one of these, as per How it happened in the comics.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: In Scrooge McDuck vs Shovel Knight while Scrooge pogo-jump-decapitates Shovel Knight, a cheery 8-bit remix of Ducktales plays.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Saba can talk to birds. Make of that what you will.
• Special Guest: The preview for Smokey The Bear vs. McGruff the Crime Dog prioritized the announcement that Christopher Sabat and Chris Rager would be voicing the respective characters.
• Spider-Sense:
  • How Spider-Man manages to hold his own against Batman, countering Batman's projectiles and ambushes. While it's inconsistent and not fully reliable, it works enough to give Spidey a huge edge.
  • Toph has a similar ability, allowing her to dodge and counter almost any attack even if she herself has no superhuman speed.
  • Pinkie Pie's Pinkie sense is also mentioned in her bio. Comined with her speed, it allows her to avoid Deadpool's bullets.
• Spin-Off:
  • From the animators of Death Battle, 1 Minute Melee is a fast-paced battle of two fictional characters catering more towards those Death Battle fans who prefer the battles themselves over the research. As a result, the battles are done strictly for fun, and is not a serious comparison between the fighters. Also more recently, their new show The Desk of Death Battle Is a show that, unlike the other two, does not feature two fighters going head to head in a fight. Instead, some additional information previously not mentioned in the fight is provided by Wiz and Boomstick's intern Jocelyn, who is voiced by Lisa Foiles.
  • After One Minute Melee went off under its own publisher, Screwattack made DBX to replace it. It does the exact same thing as OMM pitting two fighters against one another, the difference being it is more tied to the Death Battle episode featuring other characters in the canon universes of the episodes' main combatants.
• Star Killing: Thanos takes part in this during Thanos vs. Darkseid opting to turn the star into a black hole in an attempt to finish off Darkseid. Darkseid easily survives it.
• Start X to Stop X: Almost all of the matchups have a common trait as the reason why they are paired up in the frist place. If there is a common element they share (for example, Flash and Sonic's Super-Speed, or Natsu and Ace's fire), then the tipping point is the skill used with it. If it's skill or career/occupation (Bounty Hunters Samus and Boba Fett), then a fight is decided through experience.
• Stealth Pun:
  • After the Bowser Vs. Ganon fight, Ganon has strung Dry Bowser's remains up into a marionette to play with, turning the Koopa King into Ganon's Puppet if you will.
  • Metal Sonic vs. Zero ends with Zero cutting Metal Sonic vertically in half. In other words, Metal Sonic got divided by Zero.
• The Stinger: It happens in season 2:
  • He-Man vs. Lion-O ends with He-Man giving a PSA about the importance of spaying and neutering pets, with Battlecat as a testimonial.
  • Shao Kahn vs. M. Bison has Boomstick singing the full-length version of the Master Bison theme, as a Brick Joke from earlier in the episode.
• Step into the Blinding Fight:
  • Batman in his first episode invoked this by using his Batarang to destroy all the lights. Spiderman's Spider-Sense effectively no sells it.
  • Nightwing invokes this by overloading the fuse box but given his opponent, Daredevil, is blind, he effectively negates any attempt at stealth.
• Stock Scream: The Wilhelm Scream makes an appearance at the beginning of the fight between Ryu Hayabusa and Strider Hiryu, when both ninjas slice through a guard keeping watch over the battlefield and screams right as he explodes in blood.
• Stock Sound Effects: Smokey Bear vs McGruff] the Crime Dog's fight uses every last cartoon sound effect under the sun for literally every move they make.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: Wizard and Boomstick, respectively, fill these roles. In words of the latter, "making jokes is my job, wiz. Stick to being boring".
• The Strategist:
  • One of the deciding factors in the "Link vs. Cloud (2012)" fight was the former being more strategically-minded than the latter. In the rematch, Cloud having answers for most of Link's arsenal forced the fight to be a contest of physicality that Link just couldn't win.
  • A factor in the "Spider-Man vs. Batman" fight. Both of them are clever strategists and while Batman is overwelming Spidey early on, Spider-Man remembers and adapts to Batman's gadgets and is able to counterattack Batman.
  • Batman's second opponent, Captain America, loses because Batman is better at this than him. Batman's fighting style clearly focuses on stealth, ambushes, and outsmarting his opponents while Cap is clearly dependent on his shield. Batman realizes this and disarms Cap. He also uses smokebombs to boobytrap the shield and to launch a lethal ambush that Cap has, at that time, no defense against.
  • Batman's third opponent, Black Panther wins, because not only is he an equal when it comes to combat skills and strategy, he also sports enhanced physical stats and reflexes, and his main win factor was that his Vibranium-weave armor was something that even the strategist Batman couldn't get around.
  • Leonardo won his first two fights because he planned ahead, choose his battlefields and refused to fight his opponent on their terms.
  • Superman is noted to both fight smart and efficiently. He tries to disable Goku first chance he got, destroys the Senzu Beans immediately, tossed Goku's magical extending pole when it proved it could hurt him (as it was magical), and went to the sun when his power first started to wane. Goku knows some tactics, like how he intercepted Superman's retreat with instant transmition, but intentionally avoided Superman's weaknesses (like kryptonite) due to his honor-bound nature. It also is obvious that Goku is not as forward thinking as Superman due to often relying on brute strength to defeat an opponent over strategy and his lack of formal education.
  • Brought up in Bucky vs. Fox, as Bucky is more of a strategist than Fox. Despite this, Fox won due to having more combat experience fighting on his own whereas Bucky was reliant on his team.
  • Deathstroke is noted to be considered the best tactician in the world among multiple members of the Justice League in his pre-battle analysis. In the fight itself, it's one of his main advantages over Deadpool (this included throwing him in front of a truck and using a sniper rifle to try to kill him at long range), but the Regenerating Degenerate ultimately proves to be too unpredictable even for him.
  • It is shown that Beast has on many occasions thought up brilliant strategies with which to defeat enemies in the X-Men series. Unfortunately this becomes his downfall as often he comes up with these brilliant strategies by observing the other X-Men fight instead of doing so himself. Combined with his genrally pacifist nature and lack of combat experience Goliath overpowered him easily before he could pick up on a way to defeat him.
  • Megaman's massive arsenal of weapons allowed him to be very unpredictable and adaptable; combining his projectiles including a scenario where he froze Astro with a gravity bomb and then tried to launch a crash-bomber at him but not only is Astro strong and fast enough to counter or survive any of Mega Man's weapons but he's just as intelligent and even used some of Mega Man's projectiles against him.
  • Red is this in comparison to Tai. He commands Charizard to use the terrain to their advantage, causing Greymon to get hit by a rockslide they created. With his commands, Charizard was actually able to keep WarGreymon on the defensive throughout most of the fight, but it gets deconstructed at the end: Charizard needs Red to command him effectively in order to fight because he has little to no experience fighting on his own, while Agumon is perfectly capable of coming up with effective strategies without Tai's input. The moment Red was out of the picture, WarGreymon tore Charizard X apart.
  • Bruce Wayne as Terry's Mission Control is this. After watching Batman Beyond get kicked around by Spider-Man 2099 on the side of a skyscraper, he easily deduces that the webslinger has an advantage in the air and advises Terry to bring the fight to ground level. That advice helped Batman Beyond take the win.
  • Optimus Prime is capable of commanding a thousand battles at the same time via the Omniglobe. This along with his 4 million years of experience meant that he could certainly think faster than Amuro's Newtype abilities.
  • Mitsuru Kirijo's Persona has clairvoyance and analysis abilities, which allowed her to act as Mission Control in her source game. This ability was noted by the hosts to help prevent Weiss from getting a jump on her.
• Strictly Formula:
  • Part of the package of being a nerd version of Deadliest Warrior. First is a rundown of the two (or more) battlers' stats, abilities, and weaknesses, full of commentary by Wiz and Boomstick. Next comes (usually) an advertisement for whoever financially supported the show, or else they skip to the next part, the actual battle. Finally, they recap the battle and why the victor won, before teasing the next episode.
  • The battles themselves also follow a bit of a formula. The fighters always start with the rather basic attacks, before working up in ability and intricacy. Then someone uses their ultimate attack or weapon (if applicable), and whoever uses it first typically goes on to lose the fight.
• Stripped to the Bone:
  • Chun-Li, courtesy Mai Shiranui burning her alive.
    Boomstick: Chun-Li's never looked hotter!
  • Happpens again in "Ryu vs. Scorpion". Scorpion is on the receiving end, but this doesn't stop him at all.
  • In Natsu vs. Portgas Portgas has his skin and muscle completely ripped off by the heat of Natsu's lightning magic.
  • A charred skeleton is all that is left of Batman at the end of "Batman vs. Iron Man", after Tony has the Nano Armor self-destruct with Batman inside.
• Strong as They Need to Be: Superman and Badguy rarely show their true power as both prefer to nerf themselves and have a fair fight with their enemies.
  • Superman can do this with his precise muscle control, and he does this because normally he doesn't want to kill his opponents in a match. This is how Superman can knock out bank robbers without killing them, yet also destroy planets with a single punch. Badguy is very overconfident and lazy as a fighter, and intentionally wears a headband to weaken himself to make his matches more entertaining. Summed up as the reason why Superman wins against Goku; he only brings as much power to bear as necessary in any given fight and, as long as he's not cut off from a yellow or blue star, has no known upper limit.
  • In a normal duel, Badguy is using a tiny fraction of his true power. Badguy also won in a similar manner. Even nerfed, he can destroy kaiju-sized monsters with little effort.
• Strong Flesh, Weak Steel:
  • "Starscream vs. Rainbow Dash" is an aversion. Rainbow's kicks are completely ineffective, so she uses her weather powers to deal damage. Ultimately, it's Starscream's own missiles that do him in.
  • When Bucky gets hit by a bomb, he escapes with little to no damage, but when Fox gets hit, his robotic legs are blown clean off. Fox still wins.
  • Played with in Guts vs Nightmare. When Guts is hit by just about anything Nightmare does, he's hurt, but is able to get back up anyways. Once Guts lands a blow on Nightmare however, Nightmare gets his arm chopped off and eventually has his head split in half.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Happens pretty frequently in Terminator vs RoboCop. Terminator blows up a car with Murphy on top of it, only for Robocop to walk (er, fly) out of it without harm. When RoboCop shoots a rocket-propelled Terminator into a tanker truck, it destroys his skin, leaving him in his exoskeleton. Finally, when Terminator tries to take RoboCop with him after his fuel cells rupture, RoboCop straps Terminator's body to his jetpack and sends his flying so he can explode safely from a distance.
• Stunned Silence: During Lucy's origin story in Carnage vs. Lucy, Boomstick is taken back after encouraging Lucy to kill the other orphans who just made her watch while they bludgeoned her puppy to death.
  Boomstick: Go ahead, Lucy. Tear up those little bastards.
  * The whole room gets splattered in blood*
  Boomstick: Oh. Damn.
• Success Through Insanity:
  • Deadpool vs. Pinkie Pie is a fight between two Cloud Cuckoolanders with Medium Awareness to whom the fourth wall might as well not exist. In fact, they're so crazy the rules of Death Battle cannot contain them and they literally break out of their video and leap across several other previous battles before confronting the hosts in the real world. Wiz and Boomstick ultimately have no choice but to declare themselves the losers and just let Pinkie throw Deadpool a birthday party. According to Word of God, due to Deadpool's Healing Factor and Pinkie Pie being a living cartoon character who can fall apart and just put herself back together on a whim, this was literally the more logical outcome than them finding a way to kill each other.
  • The hosts refer to Pidge as "unhinged", showing him running over to the enemies while he's carrying a grenade that's about to explode. In the fight itself, he decides the best thing to do when Voltron's about to get killed by the Megazord is to punch it with the only arm they have (his) and he's the one to grab the sword by flying his head over to it.
• Sugar Apocalypse: In Kirby VS Majin Buu, the inhabitants of Dream Land are happily frolicking to and fro... then a Waddle Doo gets turned into a piece of cake. Cue Buu going a a sugar fueled rampage.
• Summon Magic: Harry's Accio magic, which allows him to summon anything he needs; in the Death Battle against Luke Skywalker, he uses it to call his Firebolt broom to him.
• Super Mode:
  • Mario's Super Star invincibility mode.
  • Sonic's and Shadow's Super forms
  • Metal Sonic uses a Chaos Emerald to become Neo Metal Sonic, then assimilates the Egg Fleet to become Metal Overlord. The breakdown for his own death battle against Zero gives him access to Titan and Metal Madness but he doesn't use them in the fight.
  • Goku uses Kaio-ken and all four levels of Super Saiyan, whereas Vegeta only uses Super Saiyan Level 1. In the rematch he gets access to Super Saiyan God and Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan (Otherwise known as Super Saiyan Blue).
  • Mega Tigerzord qualifies as well.
  • Ryu's Satsui no Hadou and Power of Nothingness.
  • Ragna's Blood Kain Idea and Black Beast (albeit unwillingly).
  • Sol's Dragon Install, which he controls at various levels by usage of his Power Limiter.
  • Nightmare's Night Terror form, which greatly increases his strength and allows him to fly and shoot Eye Beams.
  • Yang's Semblance lets her constantly power up throughout the fight until she outright resembles a "Super Saiyan".
  • Wolverine has Beast Instinct and Raiden has Ripper Mode, both of which they activate at the climax of the fight, which increases their offensive and defensive abilities considerably.
  • Mega Man can combine with Rush to increase his strength, speed, firepower, and gain flight.
  • Charizard can Mega Evolve into Mega Charizard X, increasing his stats and giving him a Dragon-typing in place of his original Flying-type.
  • Agumon can digivolve into Greymon, MetalGreymon, and WarGreymon in that order, though if necessary he can warp-digivolve and skip certain levels.
  • Dante can use his Devil Trigger to change forms and gain powerful enhancements to his offensive and defensive abilities.
  • Captain Marvel's Binary form, which greatly increases her energy capabilities to star-levels.
  • Zero has Black Zero and Absolute Zero which restore his health, gives him powerful offensive capabilities, and allows him to fly.
  • By using Mutagen, Shredder can transform into Super Shredder, which grants him increased power, teleportation and the ability to shoot lightning.
  • Naruto has multiple. Sage Mode grants him sensory abilities and improves his speed, strength and durability, as does Kyuubi Chakra Mode (Which also grants him the ability to create limbs made out of Chakra and manifest a gigantic Kurama avatar and use the Tailed Beast Bomb). He also has Six Paths Sage Mode, which also grants him flight.
  • Like his opponent, Ichigo has many. His Bankai increases his power and speed multiple times over, as do his Hollow Mask and Merged Hollow Forms (with the latter also giving him access to the Gran Ray Cero which he can fuse with his Getsuga Tenshou). The Final Getsuga Tenshou also sort of sends him into a temporary one, with the caveat of losing all of his powers after use.
  • Jin has his Devil Form.
  • Aang and Korra's Avatar State.
  • Ghost Rider when Zarathos is unleashed.
  • Both Ganon and Dracula have giant beastly forms that they can transform into when their power is pushed to the limits with Beast Ganon and Dracula's devil transformation.
  • Machamp's Guts ability when he got burnt by Goro's dragonbreath.
  • Archie Sonic with the Chaos Emeralds has his Super and Ultra Forms.
  • Red Hood with his Venom vial.
  • Xeno Trunks has his Super Saiyan and Super Saiyan God Forms.
  • Archie Silver has his Super Form, accessed via the Chaos Emeralds.
• Super-Reflexes: Captain America, Tommy Oliver, Dante, and Bayonetta are prime examples. Deathstroke, Deadpool, Toph, Mega Man, Zero, Naruto and Ichigo also qualify. The Flash however, trumps all of them.
• Super-Speed:
  • There are many fighters with superspeed on this show, and those famous for their speed include; Both Sonics, Shadow, Rainbow Dash, Taokaka, most Dragon Ball Z characters, Spider-Man, Pikachu, Superman, Ryu Hayabusa, Strider Hiryu, Tails, Gamera, Raiden (MGS), Astro Boy, both Flashes, Quicksilver, and A-Train.
  • Out of all the fighters the top 8 fastest who had their top speed confirmed by the show are; Kirby (on his warpstar), Chuck Norris, Goku, Superman, Astro Boy, Darkseid, Megaman.EXE and The Flash; each of which can fly (or in the Flash's case run) faster than light speed. Superman is faster than Goku yet Goku can teleport instantly with instant transmission and Mortal Kombat Raiden can teleport at light speed by becoming lightning. Chuck Norris' speed is so high that he can punch his own head by running around the world fast enough, Astro Boy can circle the entire Earth within two seconds, Darkseid could travel to the edge of the universe in 5 seconds, Megaman.EXE could search every point of the cyber universe within a minute (putting him at the highest calculated speed in the show), and with the Speed Force the Flash can accelerate infinitely.
  • So far, Wally West and his opponent, Archie Sonic, are known to be the only two characters on the show whose speed is outright immeasurable, which puts them quite a bit above even MegaMan.EXE in that regard. Reverse-Flash has been outright stated to be faster than Wally West by Barry Allen, giving him immeasurable speed too. Archie Silver can also match these speeds in his Super Form.
  • Much to Wiz' incredulity, the fastest calculated speed feat in the history of the show belongs to none other than SpongeBob Squarepants, as evidenced when he unraveled the universe by pulling on a string.
    Wiz: Compared to SpongeBob's size, the string's width is about 192 micrometers. We can use that to find the volume of, say, one meter of string, and compare that to the volume of the entire observable universe! Considering it took SpongeBob about five seconds, he would have to be pulling at 8.2 times 10 to the seventy-eighth power times faster than light! (…) This... is the fastest calculable speed feat... in our show's history... And it belongs to SpongeBob SquarePants!!!
• Super-Strength:
  • While many combatants seem to have some degree of enhanced physical strength, Boomstick seems to be stronger than your average denizen of the deep south.
    Boomstick: [on Lion-O's gauntlet] ... which, in his first outing, he used to punch down a tree. Hey, that's just like how I catch squirrels for supper!
  • Even Wiz, a slim person himself, managed to punch the television screen with his human right arm.
  • In terms of strength, He-Man, Thor, Superman and Chuck Norris are normally depicted as having unlimited strength and are all strong enough to move planets. Superman and Chuck Norris has sometimes been depicted as strong enough to destroy universes or dimensions and Superman in particular has the ability to lift a physical incarnation of literal infinity. Segata Sanshiro is also depicted this way in his battle. Despite Thor's ability to lift over 1 million tons, he was physically overpowered by Godzilla. Darkseid himself can easily beat pre-crisis Superman, who could sneeze solar systems away.
  • Kirby, believe it or not, is potentially one of the strongest combatants on the show yet, once cracking a planet apart as Fighter-Kirby and possessing enough physical strength as Cook-Kirby to throw a giant frying pan plus a monster thirty times his size around the sun and back at roughly Mach 73, which he does in his anime. Keep in mind he's only 8 inches tall.
  • Hercules and Sun Wukong both have incalculable strength thanks to lifting conceptual infinity (via Hercules lifting the entire universe which at the time of both the Greek and Roman versions of the story was considered to be infinite, while Sun carried Mount Sumeru on his shoulder, which in turn was depicted by Mahayana Buddhism as holding up the infinite celestial sky, while carrying Mount Emei on the other shoulder). This caused strength to be a non-factor in their fight.
• Super-Toughness: Several characters have superhuman levels of durability. More often than not, this helps them defeat their less durable opponents.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Ultimately what decides the winner for many battles and serves as a series staple; no matter how badass, capable or above-the-norm a person may be in their own universe, if they're pitted against someone with the feats, abilities, weapons or power that either outranks, counters or works against them, then they ultimately won't come out on top.
  • After some time spent brawling conventionally, Blanka eventually takes advantage of his superior size and simply bites Pikachu's head off.
  • Dan Hibiki has never canonically won a duel. This is one of the reasons why Hercule wins. Another major deciding factor: Hercule is a Joke Character in Dragonball, yes. But he's still the world's strongest completely normal human who is Overshadowed by Awesome by a cast where the next strongest character is at the very least an Empowered Badass Normal. Compared to Dan, who's a joke in his own world where most fighters are still mildly rooted in realistic power, Hercule in a stand-up fight would completely overwhelm Dan. Hercules' willingness to cheat when things get dire was just for overkill's sake.
  • As Sweet Tooth found out the hard way, being slightly stronger and more durable than the average human won't protect you from toxic gas and suffocation. Oh, and leaving the safety of your powerful mecha to "personally" kill your opponent, because they talk you into doing it no less, probably isn't a good idea. Later, Harley Quinn hits Jinx with the same gas, but unlike Sweet Tooth, Jinx can tolerate it and goes berserk.
  • Scrooge's wooden Cane Fu is utterly useless against Shovel Knight, a knight in very tough metal armour. He bounces on him three times failing to deal any damage and gets a brutal beatdown for his trouble. Scrooge is far more successful once he gets a hold of Shovel Knight's own weapon.
  • One of the major reasons behind the outcome of "Smokey Bear vs. McGruff the Crime Dog". McGruff may be a human-sized anthropomorphic bloodhound, but trying to wrestle an 800-pound black bear does not end well for him. His blows are easily shrugged off by Smokey, and when he manages to pin Smokey down, Smokey easily uses his superior strength to turn the situation around and pin him down instead.
  • "Lara Croft vs. Nathan Drake" highlights the biggest flaw Nathan has against Lara — while his feats are only mildly lesser than hers, the biggest factor is that he never forms plans and just rolls with it. His biggest strength is being Born Lucky, but when going against someone who edges you out as a fighter, being lucky will only last so long before reality rears its ugly head.
  • "Leon S. Kennedy vs. Frank West" is essentially an experienced, highly-trained government agent versus a guy with several improvised weapons but lacks said training. This is one of the reasons why the former wins.
  • In "Goro vs. Machamp", after the latter defeats the former, Machamp poses for the camera... only to pass out shortly after. Victor or not, Machamp suffered some pretty nasty wounds during the fight, namely burns from Goro's dragon fire (which activated his Guts ability and helped nail a win, but still...) and having his lower-left arm torn off.
  • In "Optimus Prime VS Thomas the Tank Engine?", Thomas falls off the track when he encounters the track's first turn, since he, as a train engine, does not have the ability to make turns under his own power like a regular vehicle.
  • Compared to the usual format of each fight, Batman is forced to bust out the Hellbat pretty early during his fight with Iron Man. When your opponent is just as smart as you and edges you out in all physical categories several times over because of his Powered Armor, you're going to get overpowered pretty quickly if you don't pull out all the stops right away.
  • In "Tanjiro Vs. Jonathan Joestar", even after swearing to protect Nezuko with his life, Jonathan is still Tanjiro's killer, and the ending shows Nezuko rightfully hesitant to trust her only brother's killer.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: When Wiz explains that Ramona Flowers was infected with "The Glow" by one of her exes, Boomstick chimes in that he can relate.
  Boomstick: Ahh, the Glow, huh? That's a rough one. I've got it too.
  Wiz: Wait, really? You have an energy field that turns your own emotions against you?
  Boomstick: Uhhh yeah! YEAH, that's what I have. On a completely unrelated note, Wiz, how long should one's genitals normally, umm... glow in the dark?
  Wiz: Exactly zero seconds
  Boomstick: Huhh OK. Well, good thing I don't have that... problem then...
  Wiz: I think you need a doctor.
• Sword Drag: Sweet Tooth drags his signature machette on the floor as he walks toward Joker to finish him.
• Sword Fight: When both combatants have bladed weapons, expect the two to trade blows with them. So far there have been 17 examples.
  • "Link vs. Cloud", twice.
  • "He-Man vs. Lion-O"
  • "Ryu Hayabusa vs. Strider Hiryu"
  • "Tigerzord vs. Gundam Epyon"
  • "Deadpool vs. Deathstroke"
  • "Ragna the Bloodedge vs. Sol Badguy"
  • Downplayed for "Boba Fett vs. Samus Aran REMASTERED". The two did trade blows with lightsabers but the fight was dominantly between their ranged weapons and Samus doesn't even have a sword in her arsenal ^note  The reason she did in the fight was because Torrian couldn't animate her laser whip properly and giving her a lightsaber was much easier .
  • "Guts vs. Nightmare"
  • "Dante vs. Bayonetta"
  • "Zoro vs. Erza"
  • "Power Rangers vs. Voltron"
  • "The Shredder vs. Silver Samurai"
  • "Sephiroth vs. Vergil"
  • "Samurai Jack vs. Afro Samurai"
  • "Weiss Schnee vs. Mitsuru Kirijo"
  • Also downplayed in "Shadow vs. Ryūko Matoi": They do fight with swords for a portion of the fight, but Shadow ditches his blade once he goes super.
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Discussed in "Balrog vs. TJ Combo" with the "Boxing Triangle Theory". The theory goes that the various boxing styles are weak towards one type, but strong against another. While it only remains a theory as it comes down to each individual boxer's own abilities, the triangle goes as follows:
  • The "Swarmer" style boxer (represented by Little Mac) is a Fragile Speedster who uses speed to stay in close to his opponent and wear them down with fast punches. Swarmers are generally too fast for a technical boxer to stay out of range.
  • The "Out-style" boxer (TJ Combo) is a technical boxer who stays out of punching range and reacts to the opponent's own movements. They generally have the advantage over the slower "Slugger-style" boxer.
  • The "Slugger" style boxer (Balrog) is usually a Mighty Glacier who uses sheer brute strength to knock his enemy out in a few good hits. A Slugger will outmatch a "Swarmer" by having strength that usually overpowers weaker endurance.
• Take That!:
  • In "Batman vs. Spider-Man", Wiz and Boomstick go to great lengths to explain how Peter's Spider-Sense effectively makes him extremely aware of his surroundings, and thus able to stay on top of situations even when massive amounts of ammunition are being fired in his direction. When Boomstick mentions that he can occasionally be hit by a stray bullet in spite of this and asks why, Wiz attributes this to "lazy, lazy writing"... while a wallpaper of The Amazing Spider-Man appears on-screen.
  • During "Goku vs. Superman", at one point, Wiz and Boomstick bring up the fact that Superman isn't completely invincible... and while saying such, footage of Superman 64 was shown.
  • The Justin Bieber versus Rebecca Black fight wasn't about who would win in a fight as much as it was about seeing those two horribly injured. For extra measure, the fight concluded with the death of The Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, and an underaged driver.
  • There are a couple of scathing Take That!'s aimed at the people upset over Goku being defeated by Superman in the He-Man vs. Lion-O Death Battle.
    • They also made an independent video (guest starring Takahatta101) about fanboys still raging over Goku losing.
    • Even Deadpool gets in on the act during Deathstroke's analysis, specifically on the subject of Slade's kryptonite-laced flash grenade.
  • It seems that both Wiz and Boomstick have a good bit of disdain towards some alternative Mortal Kombat works; all they mention about the Sword of Shao Kahn was that it appeared in "that crappy TV show," and they start to cover Kahn's ability to transform into a giant serpent (which comes from the Annihilation film), only for both to agree on purging it from their minds and moving on.
  • Vegeta Vs Mewtwo is a lighter one at Silvermania. The fight itself still ends with the two of them working together to blow up their headquarters, though.
  • Wiz made several digs toward fans who argued over the outcome of the first ever Death Battle episode by bringing up Boba Fett's armor being cold resistant. He launches a mini-tirade about how irrelevant that one fact is to the outcome of the fight.
  • DBX did a Bieber/Black-style battle again with Trump and Clinton.
  • In the rundown for Ichigo, Boomstick goes over Ichigo's supernatural heritage, from his Quincy, Soul Reaper, and Hollow origins. He then mentions offhandedly that he's also part Fullbringer, but nobody cares about them.
  • Captain N: The Game Master gets jabs at whenever a character who appeared in that show is featured as a fighter. Usually to make clear they’re not using those versions.
  • In "Sasuke vs Hiei," after hearing the over elaborate plan Itachi did to make Sasuke stronger, Boomstick has one to the writer.
  Boomstick: Who came up with this shit?
  • During his fight with Mask, Deadpool takes the Continuity Stone and breifly shows rewrites of several Death Battle verdicts the fandom found to be controversial, in particular, Cloud vs. Link, Wonder Woman vs. Rogue, Superman vs. Goku 2, Tifa vs. Yang Xiao Long, and Gaara vs. Toph. He also throws in a dig about rewriting the Star Wars prequel trilogy.
  • In "Harley Quinn vs. Jinx", during Harley's rundown, Wiz delves into her background as a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum analyzing the Joker, where she learns of his "horrific, unspeakable history" as both a homicidal clown and Jared Leto. Cue a shot of Leto screaming as the Joker.
  • In "Scooby-Doo vs. Courage the Cowardly Dog" neither of the canines bite the dust, but instead Eustace (who had been dressed as a monster and terrorizing the mutts) ends up tripping on Courage's Dark Matter Meteor and being dragged into the 10th Circle of Hell within Scooby's Chest of Demons. Boomstick shows no sympathy for the crotchety old man and says that's what dog-killers deserve.^note While Eustace never actually killed Courage, he did create a "Legion of Doom" of Courage's worst enemies for the sole purpose of destroying Courage, so for Boomstick it still counts
• Take That, Audience!:
  • For the season finale episode of another of Screwattack's shows, The Industry, they decide to reveal the upcoming and much anticipated Mega Man vs Astro Boy Death Battle ... in a way where the 'villain' of the episode plans on revealing every future Death Battle complete with who wins on their Twitter just to attract watchers, because he says Death Battle fans don't care about how much work is put into the show and just want to be told who wins.
  • In the "Mewtwo vs Shadow"s 'Next time on ...' segment they reveal "Agent Carolina vs. The Meta", by the characters from Red vs. Blue casually talking about the fight and saying anyone who sits around talking about 'who would win?' fights are just a bunch of "losers on the internet".
  • For "Deadpool vs the Mask" the hosts sarcastically enact all the behaviors they are criticized of in general during Deadpool's analysis. They downplay his feats (which Deadpool points out), deliberately get their research wrong (which Deadpool notes) and clearly show a bias (Boomstick says he and Wiz want to "viciously murder" Deadpool). After the battle, when Wiz awkwardly tries to explain the result, Boomstick interrupts him by admitting that they stacked the deck against Deadpool in order to ensure a blowout victory for his opponent, which causes them to shamefully admit that they have lost their ability to be partial and have gone against the nature of Death Battle as a series.
• Taking You with Me:
  • The Terminator attempts this on Robocop with his generator reaching critical and most of his body gone. However, Robocop manages to strap him to his jetpack and take him out of range.
  • Gamera tries to self-destruct and kill Godzilla when the latter survives Gamera's most powerful attack. Godzilla tosses him into the air and hits him with the Red Spiral breath, making Gamera's explosion useless.
  • In the Mega Man Battle Royale, after Classic, X, EXE, and Starforce simultaneously fire their respective Black Hole Bombs and open a colossal black hole, a badly-injured Classic grabs on to X and refuses to let go, taking them both into the hole. However, while Classic is finished, X survives by being able to fully regenerate himself from his core.
  • Happens in Genos vs. War Machine, Genos tries doing this, knowing that he was about to lose and is willing to take Rhodes down with him. It fails as War Machine is only slightly damaged, while Genos' still active head is left.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Exaggerated in Zechs Vs Tommy where both characters could've destroyed the other multiple times in the times exposition and banter was exchanged.
• Talking Weapon: Saba is a sword who advises Tommy.
• Teleport Spam: If a combatant has teleportation as an ability, expect this in the fight. A notable exception is Zechs vs. Tommy, when the latter could have teleported into the Gundam and stabbed the former to death with Saba, but didn't. Not only would Tommy not necessarily have thought to do that, it would have ruined a fight between the two mechas.
• Tempting Fate:
  • This exchange before Fox and Bucky duke it out:
  Falco: (to Slippy, who is far behind the Star Fox team as they travel through space) Slippy, what are you doing!? Hurry up!
  Slippy: Don't worry.
  (cue the Righteous Indignation)
  Bucky: (spotting Slippy and mistaking him for one of Komplex's toad henchmen) Attention all hands, battle stations!
  • "Ratchet and Clank vs. Jak and Daxter": After Ratchet and Clank crash their ship into Jak and Daxter's house, Ratchet reassures the latter duo that "this isn't so bad" since the house was still mostly-intact. Almost immediately, the spaceship partially stuck within makes an explosion that utterly destroys the house.
• Tennis Boss: Happens literally in "Bowser vs Ganon"; Bowser uses a tennis racket to deflect Ganondorf's magic back at him.
• Theme Music Powerup: The music usually shifts to a song from the character's soundtracks when they get the upper hand.
  • Whenever He-Man takes the lead, "He-Man!" very audibly bellows out in triumph. Eventually gets Played for Laughs as it becomes so overused that it sounds out when He-Man just punches his opponent.
  • White Reflection plays as Zechs lands the killing blow on the Tigerzord. White Ranger Tiger Power also plays earlier in the match.
  • Deadpool invokes this trope by playing (on a stereo) his Marvel VS Capcom theme music when he decides to breakdance against Deathstroke.
  • "I Burn" starts playing when Yang's Semblance finally kicks in.
• Theme Naming: Most of the original songs for the fight animations starting with Shredder vs. Silver Samurai follow similar naming conventions by taking words or phrases associated with the fighters and putting them together:
  • Season 4's tracks have included "Shredding Silver", "Thunder of Wonder", Beyond 2099" and "One-Winged Devil".
  • Season 5, as of Optimus Prime vs. Gundam, has "Titans of Magic", "Bizarre Stars", "Crash and Burn", "Unlocking Heaven", "Resident Rising", "A Strange Fate", "Fight Like A Devil" and "Chorus of Carnage".
• This Is Gonna Suck:
  • Cringer's reaction to being forcibly transformed into Battlecat during the He-Man vs. Lion-O battle.
  • Boomstick has a more deadpan version once Shao Kahn absorbs M. Bison's soul and gains all his powers as a result.
  • He again had another moment, this one more snarky than deadpan.
    Boomstick: Oh, man! Here comes the rage from the God of War fanboys!
  • Spider-Gwen catches one of Batgirl's batarangs, then it starts beeping.
    Gwen: sigh I shouldn't have done that.
• Through a Face Full of Fur: DK's expression noticeably reddens after seeing Knuckles finish off one of his bananas.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Played With and deconstructed multiple times.
  • Thor misses Mortal Kombat!Raiden every single time he tries this, thanks to the throwing distance and the latter's teleportation. Thor notably has more success ripping Raiden in half with his hammer while he's still holding onto it. In addition, it was also pointed out in the pre-battle analysis that Thor used to lose his powers when separated from Mjolnir. Boomstick points out how problematic this is, considering his main method of attack is throwing the hammer.
  • Deconstructed with Luke force throwing his lightsabers. The first one gets destroyed, but his less used shoto-saber goes into Harry's chest. However, it should be noted that the second attempt only worked because Luke first used shatterpoint to rip open Harry's scar, disabling him long enough to deliver the killing blow.
  • He-Man throws the Power Sword at Lion-O like a boomerang; the end result is that he gets the sword stuck in the ground.
  • One of Captain America's main avenues of attack. He actually is able to throw his shield with incredible accuracy and power and can even ricochet it back into his hands like a boomerang. That is to say when he can see his target reliably which Batman has no intention of letting him do.
  • The Gundam RX-78-2 throws one of its Laser Blades at Optimus Prime. It successfully impales the Autobot, but it didn't do much to stop him.
• Tiger Versus Dragon: The Tigerzord vs Epyon battle plays of this but their fighting styles are inverted.
• Title Drop: As the quote at the top of the main page shows, Wiz will always open each episode with one.
  • Boomstick typically does a Title Drop right before the fight begins as well.
    Boomstick: It's time for a Death Battle!
• Title Scream: Not at the beginning of the episode, but before each titular battle begins, Boomstick will always proudly declare that "it's time for a death battle!"
• Total Party Kill:
  • Metal Overlord utterly eradicates Eggman, Wily, and their entire armies.
  • Implied to have happened in Fox McCloud vs. Bucky O'Hare when the Righteous Indignation was hit by a Smart Bomb from Fox's Arwing; Bucky was the only survivor when his ship crashed into a random planet. The keyword here being "was."
  • Since "Megazord vs. Voltron" is a battle to the death between two teams of Combining Mecha and their pilots, it means that this trope will happen to the losing side. The Power Rangers experience this fate.
  • During "Steven Universe Vs Star Butterfly", Star ends up releasing her full power as she fires off a widespread Mega Explosive Crystal Laser that not only instantly wipes out the Watermelon Stevens and Steven himself, but her own summons as well.
• Toilet Humor: As the hosts go over Ryu's rundown before the fight between Ryu and Scorpion, they don't know what Ryu's attack, the Joudan Sokutogeri, means in English, so Boomstick looks it up on Google Translate — and is surprised to learn that it means "Diarrhea Joke Foot", much to his amusement.
  Booomstick: What does it do, kick people in the stomach so hard that he [Ryu] takes them to Brown Town?!
• Too Many Belts: Mocked outright in Ragna vs Sol in both the intro and the fact that Boomstick jokingly states, post-fight that Ragna lost because he had 4 belts and Sol had 18.
• Toon Physics: Sometimes one of the contestants will run on this, which is a massive advantage given the "anything goes" nature of cartoons translates into Reality Warper powers allowing to do basically everything with their bodies as well as No-Sell any damage the opponent tries to inflict. Only Pinkie Pie chose not to kill her opponent; the ones facing The Mask, Popeye and SpongeBob were not so lucky.
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: Several battles are started when one fighter is just minding his/her own business and the opponent quickly confuses him for an enemy. Other times, one fighter will wrong the other by mistake, causing the opponent to retaliate.
  • The Fox vs. Bucky animation turns out to be one for Bucky O'Hare. Killing the wrong toad leads to the deaths of him and his crew members.
  • In the Tigerzord vs. Epyon fight, Tommy orders Saba to begin a check of the Tigerzord's systems to which Saba readily responds by testing the weapons immediately. Only just before the Tigerzord's cannons fire does Tommy think to check if the weapon safety systems are online which leads to the cannons misfiring and accidentally hitting Noin's Mobile Suit, killing her. It eventually leads to their own demise at the hands of a very angry Zechs Merquise and Epyon.
  • In Pokemon vs Digimon, Red, after failing to catch Agumon in a pokeball, immediately sics Charizard on him just as Tai returns instead of reasoning with the Digimon Tamer. This leads to both the deaths of Red and Charizard.
  • Dante approaches Bayonetta in exactly the wrong way for either to realize he needs her... alive. They then misidentify each other's fighting styles and assume this has to be to the death. There's a probably accidental subtlety here, as while the two characters share a strong inclination for violence, their settings reflect that in different ways. Dante is used to a proactive role where he goes out to find whatever gives him trouble, kills it, and can reasonably expect this to make the world better. Bayonetta kills constantly - but mostly just to survive, and relies on the results of vast plotting for guidance so her proclivities stay aimed in appropriate directions. Each is inclined to be a tragic figure in the other's home environment.
  • In Power Rangers vs Voltron, Hunk in the Yellow Lion notices the Rangers teleport in and goes over to say hi to them. The Power Rangers mistake the Yellow Lion for an enemy, immediately call in their Zords to form the Megazord, prompting the lions to form Voltron in response. This leads to the Megazord's destruction and Power Rangers' death.
  • In Naruto vs Ichigo, Ichigo mistakes Naruto for a Hollow, and attacks him while he's meditating. Thanks to Kurama's guidance, Naruto sees the attack coming and begins to fight back. This impulsive action leads to Ichigo's demise.
  • In Crash Bandicoot vs Spyro the Dragon, Crash assumes that Sparx the Dragonfly is just another annoying insect, and squishes him between his hands. This causes Spyro to avenge his adopted brother in a rage and ultimately ends in Crash's and Aku Aku's demise.
  • In Optimus Prime vs. Gundam RX-78-2, Amuro Ray breaks into the Autobot's Ark to explore it, unaware of its owners. Optimus mistakes the Gundam for a Decepticon intruder and attacks it. This in turn makes Amuro mistake Optimus for an enemy Mobile Suit, and a fight ensues. All this leads up to Amuro's death as well as the destruction of the Ark and the Gundam.
  • In Mob vs. Tatsumaki, Mob is just wandering around in the city and asks Tatsumaki where he is and if she goes to the local middle school, mistaking her admittedly child-like appearance for her being an actual child. Tatsumaki responds enraged and attacks him for accidentally insulting her which results in his death and her being serverely injured.
  • In Shadow vs. Ryūko, Shadow ends up cutting Ryūko off while the two are riding their motorcycles and dismisses her complaints. Senketsu tries to talk Ryūko out of doing anything rash, but Ryūko has none of it and attacks Shadow. This ends up getting both Senketsu and Ryūko killed, and the Scissor Blade destroyed.
  • In Rick Sanchez vs. The Doctor, Morty ends up rear-ending the TARDIS with the Space Cruiser, and while he says it's his fault, Rick complains at the Time Lord for not having rear-view mirrors, while The Doctor points out that they're the one who hit him, and afterwards brushes it off as minor and tries to leave. Rick sees this as an insult and attacks. This costs Rick not only his life, but also his entire existence, as he ends up being Ret-Gone by the Doctor's D-Mat Gun.
• Transforming Mecha: The Epyon and the Tigerzord both have two forms. There's also the Transformers Optimus Prime and Starscream, predictably.
• Turned Against Their Masters: It's very common for superhuman characters to be the result of some manmade creation and it's just as common for those characters to rebel against those who gifted them their powers.
  • Goombas are rebels who defected from Peach's Mushroom Kingdom to Bowser's Koopa Troop in response to years of racism.
  • Both Kratos and Spawn sold their souls to the devil, which tricked them by permanently seperating them from their families. The two rebeled and sucessfully killed almost every god and mythical creature they fought.
  • Vegeta defected to the Z-Fighters and tried to dethrone Freeza. Shadow was once Eggman's ally but has rarely shown any affiliation to the Eggman Empire after Sonic Adventure 2.
  • Luke is a leading member of the Rebel Alliance against the Galatic Empire, led by Darth Vader and The Emperor. Harry Potter, mainly in his later films, resisted the Ministry of Magic.
  • Starscream is infamous for betraying Megatron, almost on a daily basis.
  • Both Metal Sonic and Bass have resisted their creators Eggman and Dr. Wily, but Bass refuses to kill Wily.
  • Ash's Pikachu 'was kind of a dick' when Ash first owned him.
  • Shao Khan was once Onaga's bodyguard of Outworld before Khan overthrew him by poisoning Onaga.
  • Strider Hiryu resisted the other Striders after he was forced to kill his own sister in a mission.
  • Robocop's lore is about his attempts to regain his humanity after becoming a cyborg under OCP. Terminators are all loyal to Skynet unless their AI is hacked, which the Human Resistance has done multiple times. These hacked Terminators are the only examples of when the Terminator is a hero.
  • Sektor forms the Tekunin in an attempt to become the new leader of his old league of ninjas: the Lin Kuei. This is mainly due to Sektor's increasing violent mentality caused by his cybornetics. Fulgore was once Eagle, a native american who resisted UltraTech. The company kidnapped and forcefully converted Eagle into a cyborg to end his revolt. However Eagle sometimes remembers his past and so occasionally turns on UltraTech.
  • Scorpion turned on Quan Chi after realizing that his death and the death of his family was caused by him so that Quan Chi could revive Scorpion as a loyal demonic henchman.
  • Deadpool escaped the Weapon X program, who tricked Wade into allowing them to experiment a cure for his cancer.
  • This is pointed out with Gyaos when Wiz and Boomstick state that 'The Atlantians foolished decided to play god. But instead of making something safe like a dog or a bunny, they decided to create giant laser shooting murder birds. Surprise, surprise they couldn't be controlled.' Gamera was created to stop the Gyaos, but Gamera is also quite hostile to humanity. Luckily his love of children keeps him in a more heroic light.
  • Fat Buu killed Babidi after realizing that Babidi was clearly too weak to control or command Buu
  • Zero turned against Wily after fighting Sigma and somehow getting infected with a virus that swapped their personality alignments. Zero became good and Sigma turned evil.
  • Crash Bandicoot was uplifted by Dr. Neo Cortex and Dr. Nitrus Brio, then discarded as a failed experiment when brainwashing failed on him. He's been a thorn in their side ever since.
  • Averted with Rock, who became Mega Man specifically to stop his rogue Robot Master brethern, and Astro Boy, who was abandoned by Dr. Tenma but grew to love his new father Dr. Ochanomizu.
  • Lion-O tries turning Cringer against He-Man but He-man immediately realizes what's happening & knocks Cringer into the sky.
• Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: The Web series. Boomstick was ecstatic to finish "Son Goku vs. Superman". Now people will finally stop asking them to do it....but then, people started to disagree with the result, forcing a sequel in 2015, and another in 2023.
• Uncertain Doom:
  • Raven vs. Twilight Sparkle ends in a way that plausibly implies that Twilight survived getting rammed into by Raven's Soul-Self, so as not to traumatize children who stumbled upon the video by accident.
  • Dragonzord vs. Mechagodzilla originally had scenes where both pilots survived life-threatening situations (Tommy being frozen to death and Akane getting shot down), but they were left out due to time constraints leaving them to this fate.
• Underestimating Badassery:
  • Both hosts aren't exactly excited about Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, or Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic featured in a Death Battle. They tend to change their tune when they witness their feats, especially Twilight.
    Boomstick: When did it become Dragon Ball Z with baby girl horse toys?!
  • Wiz is initially dismissive of SpongeBob SquarePants as a fighter based on said sponge's characterization as a dorky, wimpy, "suicidally naïve" Manchild who was often depicted as Pathetically Weak whenever a gag needed him to be… but the more in-depth Wiz goes into his analysis, the more he sees just how powerful SpongeBob can really be when he applies himself. When the little yellow sponge emerged the victor in one of the most brutally one-sided matchups in the history of the show, Wiz and Boomstick hammer in just how much of an advantage SpongeBob had over his opponent, the former even capping off the episode by referring to the fry cook as "our god."
• Undignified Death:
  • In Mewtwo vs. Shadow, the supposed Ultimate Lifeform gets skewered by a giant spoon after literally forgetting about his powers courtesy of Mewtwo's psychic abilities.
  • Captain Marvel vs. Android 18: Captain Marvel loses by having her most powerful energy blast getting absorbed by 18, getting both of her arms broken before being slammed into the ground. As she weakly tries to get up to proclaim that she can still fight, 18 stomps her head into the ground. Carol's corpse is literally depicted with her butt in the air as her skull's been caved in. To rub salt in the wound, Word of God admits they made a mistake in the research... which if corrected would only serve to make the victor deliver an even more brutal Curb-Stomp Battle.
  • Mega Man Battle Royale: While not as undignified as above Volnutt dies after contributing absolutely nothing in the battle, having been treated as a nuisance for most of it. His death is thanks to X throwing Classic at him, pushing him into a black hole where he is destroyed and mere seconds after he had become unfrozen in time. Classic himself suffers the same fate but put up a much better fight and had several awesome moments before his death.
  • Wario vs. King Dedede tops all of the above. As Wario is charging at King Dedede with a Waft ready to fire, Dedede launches a Gordo straight into Wario's butt, which causes the Waft to build up and eventually backfire, obliterating Wario from within. So you can basically sum that up as Wario dying due to a plugged fart and a Gordo up the butt.
  • Gojo vs Makima has the random Japanese citizen that's splattered into gore while on the toilet thanks to Makima's contract
• Unrealistic Black Hole: A feat that is normally demonstrated is the ability to escape or survive a black hole, as was the case for Fox, Godzilla and Lion-O's Sword of Omens.
  • One of Superman's feats was that he was able to contain a black hole in his hands to stop it from destroying everything around it. Thankfully, Superman is indestructible and was able to remove the black hole threat.
  • Mega Man's Black Hole Bomb sucks in and destroys everything before dissipating after a few seconds. Its gravity is also much weaker than a real black hole, allowing Astro Boy to escape it. The Mega Man Battle Royale has four of the five Mega Men hit Volnutt with their black hole weapons (which he himself lacks), creating an even bigger black hole. X, Geo, and .EXE survive it, but Volnutt and Rock don't.
• Unstoppable Force Meets Immovable Object:
  • The "Haggar vs. Zangief" fight was described in the commercial break as "the unstoppable force meets the immovable mayor". The unstoppable Zangief overrode the immovable Haggar.
  • In "Mario vs. Sonic", some of Mario's powerups (Metal Cap, Starman and Mega Mushroom) are used consecutively to counter Super Sonic (which Boomstick called unstoppable during the final analysis).
  • In "Wolverine vs. Metal Gear!Raiden", Raiden's Murasama could cut through any matter, while Wolverine's Adamantium skeleton and Healing Factor made him near-invulnerable. Raiden's unstoppable blade cut off Wolverine's head nullifying his healing factor, thanks to the Adamantium being weakened by the Murasama's vibrations.
  • Wiz states that this trope itself was pretty much what "The Hulk vs. Doomsday" was all about. The Hulk's unlimited rage and strength vs. Doomsday's adaptive immortality. Doomsday ends up winning by adapting to the Hulk's blunt force trauma, then using his own experienced speed to stab Hulk so many times and so fast that he wore out Hulk's Healing Factor and ripped his head off.
  • "Carnage vs. Lucy" pit Lucy's nigh-unstoppable Vectors that could cut matter with ease against Carnage's ludicrously strong Healing Factor that can put him back from Ludicrous Gibs. In the fight itself, Lucy rips Carnage to shreds several times but he easily pulls himself back no worse for the wear. Lucy's vectors overcome Carnage's insane regeneration by causing a nuclear explosion which vaporizes Carnage thanks to high temperature being the symbiote's weakness.
• Use Their Own Weapon Against Them: Scrooge McDuck's battle against Shovel Knight ends with him Shovel Knight's Shovel Blade and using it to decapitate him.
• invokedValues Dissonance:
  • Discussed in Scrooge McDuck vs Shovel Knight. One panel of Scrooge's comic has him stating that he was taught how to knife fight "Injun" style. Wiz uses this opportunity to explain that Scrooge is an old character, and that times have changed. Boomstick simply calls it racism.
  • Also discussed in Saitama vs Popeye as both hosts wince and have to stop footage of Popeye's battles against racist charactures of Japanese and Native Americans.
• Variable Mix: During the battles, the music tends to change based on which side currently has the advantage.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment:
  • Boomstick jokes that this is where Mai stores her weapons. To his surprise, this is true.
  • He jokes that Ivy is storing her age inside her breasts because they get bigger with each passing game.
• Visual Pun: Segata Sanshiro weaponizing Saturn's rings.
• The Von Trope Family: Dr. Victor Von Doom fits this trope
• Walking Armory:
  • Kratos is a solid example, possessing the Blades of Exile, Bow of Apollo, Claws of Hades, Nemean Cestus, and the Blade of Olympus. Summed up by Boomstick:
    "Holy crap, that's a lot of weapons. I like this guy!"
  • Spawn has been shown in his analysis to be carying and firing, all at once, literally dozens of rifles. However this isn't shown in the fight as Spawn is well aware that many superhumans like Kratos have defenses that make them bulletproof and unfortunately this impressive arsenal is actually Spawn's least effective weapon.
  • Season 2 gives us Ryu Hayabusa, who in addition to the Dragon Sword, possesses a bow and arrow, scythe, kusariagama, and several boomerang shuriken.
  • The Terminator is packing a hardballer handgun, a shotgun, a grenade launcher, and a minigun all on its back at the same time: and a plasma rifle inside his torso.
  • Both Samus and Mega Man both have a vast array of weapons at their disposal with their arm canons and suits, the only caveat being that they tend to lose a lot of them, either by choice or by accident, between missions.
  • Both Dante and Bayonetta have a wide range of weapons at their disposal but Dante's Pandora takes the prize with the incredible ability to seamlessly transition forms between 666 unique weapons all in the size and weight of a convenient, easy to carry briefcase.
  • Ratchet has a whole load of destructive and exotic weaponry by the end of each game, among which are various guns, lobbed explosives, rocket launchers, and then there's stuff like various Transformation Rays, the Groovitron, and more.
• Was Just Leaving: Tracer utters this phrase to excuse herself after Scout's awkward, unsuccessful attempt to hit on her. She's understandably weirded out after he greets her by calling her "hot stuff" and then asks her whether she'd hold it against him if he tells her that she has a hot bod.
• Waxing Lyrical: The beginning of the analysis on Black Orchid goes as follows:
  Wizard: While little is known about the top-secret operative codenamed Black Orchid, what we do know is: she's a killer. ("killer, killer! Ooooooh, she's a killer...")
• Wham Line:
  • During Naruto vs. Ichigo, near the end:
  Naruto: (After being engulfed by Mugetsu) KURAMA!!! (cue The Ashura Kurama Avatar coming out, to Ichigo's horror. Ichigo ends up obliterated a few seconds later.)
  • In All Might vs. Might Guy.
  Might Guy: (After getting a hole punched through his stomach) Never give up... Eighth Gate of Death... open.
  • After the ending of Hulk vs. Broly, DUMMI gives Boomstick a letter from "a strange, green man in a zoot suit", and Boomstick is aghast when he sees who it's from.
  Boomstick: DAD?!
  • In the climax of Darth Vader vs. Obito Uchiha:
  Obito: "...Too late." (cue The God Tree blooming and casting the Infinite Tsukuyomi, rendering Vader incapacitated as Obito finishes him off.)
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: Invoked with Saba's, whose accent was described as an "on-off American/British/Posh mishmash" by his voice actor for Epyon vs. Tigerzord, who mimics said accent.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In the Dante vs Bayonetta match, both Jeanne and Trish show up about halfway through to help their respective allies, but disappear after a few minutes. In fact, Wiz and Broomstick actually wonder where they went at the end. (Ultimately subverted, as it was settled in a separate match.)
• Where's the Kaboom?: Near the battle's end, Starscream shot out an armoury's worth of missiles towards Rainbow Dash who flew into the clouds out of sight. He then stands there waiting for an explosion for a few seconds only for Rainbow to lead his missiles straight to him.
• Who Needs Their Whole Body?:
  • Fox gets his legs blown off by Bucky and still wins the fight.
  • The Terminator tries to continue terminating Robocop after having his legs blown off, but unlike the above example, he doesn't win.
  • Scorpion gets reduced to a skeleton. It doesn't stop him from obliterating Ryu.
  • Wolverine manages to slice off one of Metal Gear!Raiden's arm, but Raiden still wins the ensuing duel between Super Modes. Raiden lampshades the loss of an arm, as it is not his first time losing limbs.
    Raiden: "Shit! Not again!"
  • Sub-Zero gets one arm melted off by Glacius' liquid form. And then he uses his other arm to rip out Glacius' spine.
    • Esdeath loses one of her arms to Gray's Zeroth Long Sword, but she creates a replacement out of ice. She then tears said replacement off to launch it at Gray, interrupting his Lost Iced Shell and killing him on the spot.
  • Samurai Jack loses an arm in a Single-Stroke Battle with Afro Samurai... who had lost both. He uses his remaining arm to dice up Afro.
  • Tatsumaki gets her limbs (as well as her torso) twisted by ???% Mob, but she's still able to deal a decisive blow without them.
  • Goro rips off one of Machamp's arms after losing one to the Superpower Pokemon. All this does is make Machamp angry, so it proceeds to rip all three of Goro's remaining arms off before blowing him to pieces.
  • Jon Talbain has his intenstines ripped out, which Sabrewulf then tries to use to strangle the Darkstalker. However, Talbain recovers, and proceeds to turn the tables, slicing one of Sabrewulf's arms off before ripping Sabrewulf's head off.
  • Sanji has one of his legs blown to smithereens by Rock Lee's attacks with the Eighth Gate, but that doesn't stop him from finishing the youthful beast off.
  • Blake loses an arm to Mikasa, but proceeds to turn things around and obliterate Mikasa with one of the latter's own Thunder Spears.
• Who's on First?: Done during Sol Badguy's breakdown with the series bad guy "That Man". It drives Boomstick nuts until he gets frustrated enough with Wiz to walk off set. He returns after a while once he figures out that Wiz wasn't messing with him after all.
• Who Writes This Crap?!: In Sasuke vs. Hiei, Sasuske's Sharingan eyes are explained to be absurdly powerful, but the user of a Sharingan will eventually go blind from using it too much, so Sasuke had to kill his brother Itachi and physically transplant his own Sharingan into himself, which was all revealed to be part of Itachi's plan in the first place.
  Boomstick: Who came up with this shit!?
• Win-Win Ending:
  • In an alternate joke ending, Kahn and Bison befriend each other, go on a world vacation and kill Ryu and Liu Kang.
  • Deadpool and Pinkie Pie's match ends with the two of them becoming friends, breaking out of the video, and ultimately breaking into the real world to confront the hosts before Pinkie takes Deadpool to throw him a massive birthday party. The hosts are left with no choice but to conclude that they themselves are the losers.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The Epyon's Zero system relays combat information and possible battle futures to the pilot. This puts a lot of mental strain and can send a bad hallucination at critical points.
• Wizard Duel:
  • The battle between Raven and Twilight Sparkle is essentially a duel between two characters who are primarily spellcasters.
  • The battle between Doctor Strange and Doctor Fate is another duel between two powerful spellcasters.
• World of Badass: It's a show that pits some of the greatest warriors in fictional history in fights to the death, so all the characters are badass to some extent or another. Showcases more than a few of these too.
• Would Hurt a Child: The nature of the show makes this inevitable. In all cases except Green Lantern, Tatsumaki and Mario (the second time), they fail to kill their child opponent.
  • Mario vs. Sonic
  • Luigi vs. Tails
  • Gaara vs. Toph
  • Amy vs. Ramona
  • Ben 10 vs. Green Lantern
  • Mob vs. Tatsumaki
  • A strange case is the Mega Man Battle Royale, where three of the five fighters are fundamentally children, those being Star Force Mega Man (Geo Stelar is only in 5th grade, about ten or eleven years old), and MegaMan.EXE (As Lan's twin brother, he's about 11 or 12 years old)- and Volnutt isn't much older (14 years old). In stark contrast, X is over two hundred years old. Volnutt dies first, then X and Star Force Mega Man are both vaporized by MegaMan.EXE.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Done by Starscream believe it or not. He pleads Rainbow Dash for mercy, but is actually trying to distract her to get a lock-on with his missile crosshairs. (He still misses.)
• Wrecked Weapon:
  • Raphael breaks Leonardo's ninjaken swords with his sai. However, it doesn't stop Leo from stabbing him in the throat with the jagged remains.
  • Harry destroys Luke's main lightsaber when Luke thought he had him with a force choke.
  • He-Man destroys both the Sword of Omens and the Eye of Thundera.
  • Thanks to his plasma cipher being able to generate enough heat to cut through steel, Strider breaks the entirety of Ryu Hayabusa's arsenal except the Dragon Sword.
  • Deathstroke breaks no less than four of Deadpool's katanas during their fight. The carbonadium sword, however, was not among them.
  • Guts destroys Soul Edge thanks to the Dragon Slayer's ability to cleave opponents on the Astral Plane. Since Soul Edge IS the source of Nightmare, this also secures Guts' victory.
  • After Tony dons the Hulkbuster armor, he casually crushes Lex's Kryptonite axe.
  • Yang shatters Tifa's Premium Heart at the climax of their fight right before killing her.
  • Leon destroys Frank's baseball bat, Electric Crusher and Reaper over the course of their fight, and finishes it by blowing up the Exo Suit... while the latter is still in it.
  • The RX-78-2 Gundam manages to slice apart Optimus' Ion Blaster. This doesn't stop Optimus from giving it a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
  • Wario steals King Dedede's electrical hammer and eats it. So Dedede just pulls out the magically imbued Star Hammer to continue the fight.
  • The final shot of "Weiss vs. Mitsuru" is Weiss' Myrtenaster sword lying broken on the floor, with the recently deceased owner lying offscreen.
  • Edward Elric manages to break Aang's staff, but Aang doesn't need it to finish Ed off.
  • Lobo's chain shatters Ghost Rider's.
  • In Shadow vs. Ryūko Matoi, Super Shadow shatters the Alumni Mode Scissor Blades. He proceeds to then vaporize Ryūko and Senketsu immediately after.
  • In Tanjiro vs. Jonathan Joestar, Tanjiro shatters Luck & Pluck near the climax of the battle.
  • At the end of Sauron vs. The Lich King, Sauron destroys Frostmourne when the two combatants clash. Since Frostmourne is the source of Arthas' powers and contains his soul, destroying it sealed his fate.
  • In Ant-Man vs. The Atom, Ant-Man's ants destroy Atom's Bio-Belt, leaving him open to Ant-Man's size-altering, which he promptly uses to bring Atom into the Overspace, before his Ants follow and blow Atom up from the inside.
  • In Darth Vader vs. Obito Uchiha, early in the fight, Obito's gunbai gets sliced in two by Vader's lightsaber. This only forces Obito to change tactics, and Obito later proves that he didn't even need the gunbai to begin with, as he eventually claims victory over Vader.
• Yellow Lightning, Blue Lightning: During the Thor and Mortal Kombat!Raiden fight, Raiden had the blue lightning, Thor had the yellow lightning. Note that when Raiden had one of his blue lightning bolts sent back at him, it became yellow.
• You and What Army?: Sigma asks this of Ultron after he demands the unconditional surrender of Sigma’s forces. Cue a battlion of Ultron drones descending from the sky.
• You Fight Like a Cow: Spider-Man's staple returns in "Spider-Man vs. Batman" and starts off with Spidey mocking Batman's extensive martial art knowledge.
  "You've got a black belt in stupid if you think you're gonna beat me."
• You Have Failed Me: One of Darth Vader's officers is being Force Choked to death for letting Luke Skywalker escape "...again." Subverted when Dr. Doom steps in to do the deed himself.
• You Monster!: Part way through Kirby's rundown, Boomstick declares "He's a monster!"
• Your Head A-Splode:
  • Peach ruptures Zelda's skull with her Mega Strike: Empress Peach.
  • Downplayed in the fight against Luke Skywalker and Harry Potter; while it doesn't bust his head open, the lightning bolt scar on Harry's forehead is vulnerable to Luke's shatterpoint ability, allowing him to rip it open and injure Harry greatly.
  • Fox is on the giving end of this trope, blowing Bucky brains out with a charged blaster shot at the end of their battle.
  • An inversion happens in Android 18 vs. Captain Marvel. After getting blasted into a crater by 18, Marvel tries to stand back up, saying she can still fight. Before she can finish the sentence, 18 stomps her head in, leaving the 1-star Dragon Ball and everything else around her splattered in blood.
  • Most victims of Kenshiro's Hokuto Shinken pressure point techniques have their head blow up after a few seconds. In other cases their whole body blows up instead like what happened with Jotaro.
  • Another inversion: Jinx blows up Harley Quinn completely except for the head.
• Your Mom:
  • When listing Tails's arsenal of bombs, Boomstick lists that he has "bombs shaped like magic rings, bombs shaped like mice, and bombs shaped like your mother."
  • While describing his capabilities, Wizard explains that Bowser can lift and throw massive amounts of weight, to which Boomstick cuts in: "He can probably even lift your mother, Wiz!" Wizard is not amused.
• Your Soul Is Mine!:
  • After getting blown up by his own missiles led by Rainbow Dash's "Sonic Rainboom", then getting further destroyed offscreen by her "Buccaneer Blaze", Starscream's Spark comes out of the remnants of his torso and brags about his immortality. Rainbow then eats it to shut him up.
  • This line was also said in the preview of Episode 2 at the end of Episode 1. Shang Tsung fails to deliver.
  • Unlike Shang Tsung, Shao Kahn succeeds in doing this to to M. Bison.
  • Ghost Rider (as Zarathos) inflicts this on Lobo, subjecting the main man's disembodied soul to the Penance Stare before eating it.
• You're Insane!:
  • Superman to Goku when the latter wants to fight for the sake of fighting.
  • Shadow calls Vegeta out on his sanity or lack thereof in the fight. Justified, considering that Vegeta decided to drop the moon on him, despite the fact it would likely destroy the Earth.
• Zerg Rush:
  • Stider Hiryu sends out a barrage of his option B and option C support drones to swarm Ryu Hayabusa. Ryu responds by using his ninpo arts to cut them all into scrap metal before they can even touch him.
  • While discussing Justin Bieber's fans, the Beliebers, Wizard explains that they are so crazy that they will trample and injure one another in "rabid zerg rushes." They are also described as trying to hurt Bieber, throwing objects at him during his concerts. Which, incidentally, is one thing that Rebecca Black, a Belieber herself, does to him when they engage in battle.
  • Segata can summon an army of himself, lead by a giant version of himself.
  • Pinkie clones herself an army to aid her in befriending Deadpool. The Merc with a Mouth kills all of them with his katana.
  • In Iron Man's fight against Batman, the former brings along his Iron Legion of armor suits to rush the latter. The latter traps them in a massive cloud of bats and manages to make quick work of most of them, even using some of their attacks against each other.
  • One of Sun Wukong's signature moves is blowing on a bunch of his plucked hairs and having each one of them turn into a clone of himself to rush the enemy. He uses this on Hercules, but the Greek demigod shoots the clones down with his arrows.

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