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Lightning Bruiser / Live-Action TV

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  • Connor from Angel is this, due to being a Dhampyr. Other Buffyverse characters could be described as this too, but Connor is notable because his fighting style is designed to exploit this as much as possible (unlike, say, Buffy, who, as a Slayer, is supposed to be this, but draws on her power way more than her speed or her durability).
  • Most of the Mirakuru soldiers on Arrow qualify as bruisers, but an enhanced Slade Wilson fits the bill to the point of being unstoppable (a one-off, extremely specific bluff notwithstanding).
  • The White Star-class gunships in Babylon 5. Thanks to a combination of Minbari and Vorlon technology, these comparatively small ships pack quite a punch and have the maneuverability of a fighter. They're also the only ships of that size that can open their own jump points. They're far from invulnerable, though, and many are lost during the Second Shadow War and the Earth Alliance Civil War. Also, compared to the cumbersome EarthForce ships (no Artificial Gravity or Reactionless Drive) during the Earth-Minbari War, the much larger Minbari ships were this. And let's not forget the Vorlons and the Shadows.
  • The Supes in The Boys (in particular Homelander, Mauve, A-Train, The Deep, Black Noir, Starlight and Stormfront) seem to be this by default thanks to Vought International's Bio-Augmentation making them super strong, super fast and almost indestructible. Not to mention Compound V which the Supes dope themselves with.
    • Homelander a Superman-expy (except pure evil) can fly faster than F-16 Jets going at 1500 mph, punch through people and throw baseballs into orbit. He's also impervious "every known weapon on the planet". Though he's so lazy that he relies on his Eye Beams to do all the work in most conflicts.
    • A-Train fits this trope better than most of The Seven. With his Super-Speed he can move faster than bullets and cross New York in 30 seconds. He's also strong and tough being able to pull a several-carriage train, trade blows with Starlight. The only reason Kimiko aka The Female survived getting Speed Blitz-ed by him was thanks to her own superpower.
    • Stormfront thanks to her Shock and Awe powers is a literal Lightning Bruiser. She’s strong enough to rip through concrete walls, knock Homelander around and Word of God “fling anything lighter than a 747 out of her path“ on top being fly at great speeds same as Homelander thanks to her plasma manipulation powers. She’s highly durable too being able to tank Homelander’s Eye Beams although Stormfront’s own eyes aren’t quite as invulnerable.
    • On the heroes’s side The Female moves faster then the eye can track, can causally break men (even superpowered men)’s limbs and even if she’s wounded her Healing Factor takes care of grievous injuries. Besides Starlight she’s the only other good guy who can actually fight members of the Seven and it helps that Kimiko is twice as savage and brutal as Starlight thanks to her guerrilla training.
  • Deadliest Warrior: The Samurai. Much more agile and precise than the Viking and later the Spartan, his katana and especially his kanabo meant he hit like a truck despite his size, and his steel armour was quite resilient as well. Also, the Vampires from the Season 3 finale were much stronger and faster than any human could ever hope to be, and also would survive injuries that would kill humans outright.
  • The Flash (2014) has the Reverse-Flash. He's a lot faster than Flash himself and he's strong enough to toss grown men around like rag dolls. Season 2 introduces Zoom, who's even faster and stronger than Reverse-Flash. Zoom runs circles around Flash and then effortlessly breaks his back. Season 3 continues the trend with Savitar, who is absolutely huge and strong enough to toss Flash around like a rag doll, and so fast he makes Flash look like he's in slow motion.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • Brienne is both very big and strong (the actress who plays her is 6'3" in real life) and very fast (after losing her weapon in the melee, she is able to defeat Loras by ducking inside his defenses and tackling him to the ground before he can bring his weapon to bear to defend himself).
    • If you are stronger than Sandor Clegane, he will be faster and more skilled. If you are faster or more skilled (there are almost none who could accurately claim both), he can simply brute force his way past your defenses. This is how he's become such a feared swordsman, and how he stands toe-to-toe with Gregor at the Tourney of the Hand.
    • Bronn describes Sandor's brother Gregor as "freakish big and freakish strong and faster than you'd think a man of his size." Though after Qyburn's treatment he seems to have lost this aspect, becoming more of a Mighty Glacier.
    • Drogon. As big and great as he is, this Dragon has very quick and sharp reflexes. Even when Dany was a sitting duck and hadn't fully removed the ballista bolt, Drogon quickly swivels his neck and lights up his throat to burn down Jaime.
    • In an Offscreen Moment of Awesome, Daario kills both Mero and Prendahl, captains of one of the more dangerous and organized mercenary bands in Essos, even though they draw first. In "The Rains of Castamere" he seems to kill more Yunkish soldiers than Grey Worm and Jorah combined! And then, in "Breaker of Chains", he becomes Daenerys' champion against Meereen's champion (allegedly on the ground that, of all the volunteers, he's the most expendable, but it's clearly part of his and Daenerys' extended Ship Tease). The Meereenese champion is mounted, and charges him with lance. Daario responds by throwing his knife into the horse's head, killing it instantly. Then he kills the dismounted rider with one stroke.
    • Despite defying the conventional berserker tendency and wearing head-to-toe halfplate in combat, Euron moves and hits like a storm at sea: hard, implacable, and lightning-fast.
  • In the Heisei era onwards of Kamen Rider, the main character usually receives a Super Mode that falls within this trope.
  • In The Mandalorian the titular Bounty Hunter aka Din Djarin himself is an absolute beast in battle. Besides his blaster shooting, Mando can tear through armies of Bounty Hunters, Imperials, Droids and alien monsters at inhuman speeds and soak up enemy fire with his Beskar armour and even both getting said armour, Mando can still survive an astonishing amount of pain). He's also got some impressive reflexes blocking multiple duel Lightsaber strikes from Jedi Master Ahsoka Tano herself. And all this without taking his Jet Pack into account.
    • Mando's ship the Razor Crest takes after him being a repurposed military gunship that despite its age could easily give the Millennium Falcon a run for its money. The Razor Crest has managed to outpace and outmaneuver both X-Wings and Tie-Fighters. It's also durable enough to recover from crashing into a ice planet and getting further wrecked by a Giant Spider.
  • Eliot Spencer in Leverage. The guy Does Not Like Guns (but is still a pro at using them). His introduction involves a flashback of a retrieval mission in the den of some mob boss with a dozen of the latter's guys armed to the teeth. A few seconds, and tons of gunshots later, we are once again shown the inside of the den with all the guys down and Eliot unharmed. In the same episode, Eliot takes out two professional security guards before a dropped bag hits the ground.
  • In Peacemaker (2022), the team is attacked by an alien inhabiting the body of a gorilla. In addition to its strength and speed, it is trained in martial arts and can practically No-Sell pistol bullets.
  • Starbug in Red Dwarf, while it isn't supposed to be a snazzy spaceship and does takes awhile to catch up with Mile-Long Ship and Mighty Glacier Red Dwarf after getting left behind, is still a pretty good (albeit clumsy) ship. Starbug being small can manoeuvre around meteorites and destroy (after getting upgraded) Simulant ships and above all can survive crashing over and over again.
  • Many of the stronger competitors in Robot Wars qualify:
    • Chaos 2, a robot that brought many innovations to the show and the show's first double champion. Chaos 2 zipped around the arena at 20mph and could flip a robot clean over the arena wall with a powerful CO2-powered flipper. Unfortunately the robot gradually became a Fragile Speedster as time went on, as its polycarbonate and titanium armour became outmoded and self-employed team captain George Francis couldn't afford to upgrade it.
    • Razer, with 40 wins and 6 losses and multiple titles, including Best Design Award three times. Its 12mph speed meant it was decently zippy and its hydraulic crushing beak capable of impaling through any armour made it one of the deadliest robots on the show.
    • Terrorhurtz, with a devastating pneumatic axe and noteworthy maneuverability. It got upgraded for the later reboot with stronger armour and a bigger power box, qualifying it for this trope even more. Too bad it was Born Unlucky.
    • Thor in the reboot series is lighting quick like its namesake, capable of an eye-watering 30mph, and its hammer hits pretty hard too.
    • Behemoth, the oldest fighting robot in the world, competing since 1998. Originally a "mere" Mighty Glacier with very strong armour and enough pushing power to tow a Land Rover but a measly top speed of 6mph, for the reboot series Behemoth has been upgraded to go 15mph and is just as powerful as ever.
    • Bigger Brother. Arose from inauspicious beginnings to dethrone reigning champions Chaos 2, overcame Hypnodisc and claimed runner-up spot behind Razer for Series 5, 20 wins to 11 losses. Decently fast at 12mph, very well armoured with a thick cobalt titanium rear plate taken from a MiG, and a flipper capable of tossing its first two opponents straight out of the arena.
  • Clark Kent, naturally, on Smallville. This version has no compunctions about dropping into 'Clark time' and using his superspeed to take opponents out.
  • Gannicus from Spartacus fits this. He's one of the smaller characters, prone to bouncing around everywhere, but it takes an incredible amount of damage to knock him down and is shown to be surprisingly strong.
  • The original U.S.S. Enterprise from Star Trek: The Original Series is highly maneuverable at warp speed, packs a powerful arsenal of phasers and photon torpedoes, and can take a pounding thanks to her Deflector Shields.
  • The U.S.S. Defiant, first of her class, from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine qualifies. Due to being a Pint-Sized Powerhouse, she's small and fleet compared to ships several times her size, but thanks to very robust powerplants (meaning very robust shields), experimental hull armor, pulse phasers, quantum torpedoes, she can match them evenly. She's a cruiser packed into the hull of a corvette.
  • The Borg Cubes are utterly massive and dwarf any ship Starfleet fielded in the TNG era. They're also insanely fast. The U.S.S. Enterprise (another contender for this trope) was in danger of damaging her engines when giving chase to a fleeing cube.
  • Commander Saru from Star Trek: Discovery is much stronger and faster than his human crewmates, as well as being able to No-Sell phaser hits that would incapacitate a human. He then becomes even stronger after going through vahar'ai.
  • Castiel from Supernatural is this, relative to his human friends. Due to his angelic powers, he can dish out and take significantly more damage than Sam or Dean and bounce back from injuries much more quickly. In one episode, Dean has him move a very large anvil for them; in another, he slices a magical sigil into his chest and then engages in combat with no ill effects from the injury. He can also teleport, allowing him to appear suddenly behind or in the pathway of enemies before he smites them. Relative to other angels, however, he's either stronger or weaker depending on the rank/power level of whomever he's facing off with. Archangels can generally kill him with a fingersnap.
  • The Witcher (2019): Geralt of Rivia embodies this being pretty much a Cohan-esque Mook Horror Show in the majority of his fights who can shrug off most wounds and deflect crossbow bolts out of the air. With potions Geralt can hold his own against monsters like the Kikimora and Striga who are even stronger, faster and tougher than he is. For added comparison, in the first adaptation, The Hexer, Geralt is lean and mostly uses momentum of his enemies against them, staying close to the source material with Muscles Are Meaningless.
  • Wonder Woman: Wonder Woman could stop a tank with her bare hands and rescued soldiers by throwing a telephone pole at the bad guys. She could also run over 700 mph (shown in "Death in Disguise") and, for example in "Flight to Oblivion", chased down a bus and stopped it by grabbing onto the back bumper and overpowering the engine.


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