Bash Brothers

Fighting side by side with pride.

"Watch my back; I got'cho front."

— Gin Rummy, The Boondocks

Think about your closest friends. If you know them well enough, you also know their strengths and weaknesses. You know how they think, how they react, how they tick. You trust them to know the same about you, too. You might even trust them enough to let them fix your car — but not drive it. Hell would freeze over before you let them drive it.

In action oriented stories, two characters who are friends will work with each other during combat. Often this will present the image of Back-to-Back Badasses. If one person is big and the other short, the big guy will use brute strength and the short guy will use finesse. Maybe the big guy will clasp hands with the short guy and fling him around as though he was a weapon. Or the big guy will use the short guy as a projectile.

No matter what, they will fight in tandem. They will watch each other's back. There is something genuinely satisfying about watching the heroes take out a room full of bad guys by working together.

Characters who tend to do this are The Hero and The Lancer because they are foils to each other and so their fighting style complements the other. Even a mismatched Action Duo can be Bash Brothers with enough bonding/training.

It is not uncommon in certain stories to have two separate badasses who come together, spend some time trying to kill each other only to eventually turn their skills onto the hapless enemy who happens to piss them both off.

If the "brothers" are actually related by blood, it's a Sibling Team. Unrelated Brothers is when two unrelated characters claim to be this trope. A combative inversion is Fearful Symmetry. In a fantasy setting, they might be a Sword and Sorcerer. Not to be confused with the Smash Brothers who are, well, Super. The romantic version is the Battle Couple.

Compare Tag Team, Red Oni, Blue Oni, Moveset Clone, Heterosexual Life-Partners, Sword and Sorcerer, Student–Master Team, and Badass Minds Think Alike.

The name comes from the world of sports, where it refers to a pair of great players who end up on the same team. The first use of the term was in Baseball, where Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire formed a dangerous duo for the late-1980s-early-1990s Oakland Athletics on account of their incredible (and, as it turned out, steroid-fueled) power hitting (they would bash their forearms against each other whenever one of them made a great play, hence the name). It has since spread to other players and sports.

And yes, this trope happens with female fighting duos as well, in which case we refer to them as Lovely Angels.

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Examples

Anime and Manga

• In Air Gear, the original members of the Sleeping Forest all seem to fight in duos in ways that support each others' styles. Probably part of why they're one of the greatest Storm Rider teams in existence.
• Attack on Titan: Titan duos have this dynamic sometimes.
  • Reiner Braun, the Armored Titan and Zeke Yeager, the Beast Titan demonstrate this dynamic at the battle of Fort Slava, with the Armored providing brute force close-range attacks and protection while the Beast focuses on ranged attacks.
  • After the Time Skip Eren, the Attack Titan and Armin, the Colossal Titan. Over the course of three years, they evidently destroyed 32 ships sent by the Marleyans to spy on the Eldians. And according to Zeke, some of those ships were war ships.
• Berserk has a few moments like this in later arcs, with Guts smashing headlong into the Monster of the Week while Serpico leaps around taking care of the Mooks.
• Black Clover:
  • Asta and Yuno slowly become this over the course of the plot. It's even pointed out how the two seem to motivate each other to become stronger even in the middle of a fight.
  • Luck and Magna challenge Vetto while he's attacking the Seabed Temple. They do surprisingly well, all things considered.
  • Asta, Finral and Vanessa then take over in their place, the latter two working together to support Asta from the rear by helping him attack Vetto from impossible angles. Even after Vetto breaks Asta's arms, this does little to stop him; Finral and Vanessa then pick up the pace until Asta strikes Vetto down.
  • Gauche, Grey and Gordon are forced to work together to defend the base when it comes under attack by the Eye of the Midnight Sun. While they have difficulty at first, eventually they are able to coordinate a working strategy and send their attackers packing. Unfortunately it ends up being a Pyrrhic Victory as Valtos manages to steal the magic stone in Asta's room.
  • Lemiel and Licht prove to be an incredibly effective team during the fight in the Shadow Palace, keeping Zagred on his toes and pressuring him so that he doesn't have the time to use his Word Soul Magic.
  • As Dante slowly gains the advantage over Yami, he calls out for Asta to assist him. The duo proceed to tear through Dante's attacks, with Finral even noting how the two seem to be having fun fighting together. The fight eventually culminates in Yami giving his katana to Asta after Dante deprives him of all his other swords; Asta then uses it to finish off Dante just as his power runs out.
  • Asta and Liebe become a more literal-minded version of this trope, seeing as Asta's mother Licita adopted Liebe. Through Devil Union they become strong enough to fight Supreme Devils.
• Bleach:
  • While they're not as close friends as others, one episode had Chad and Uryu facing off against two foes. Originally, they were getting beat up hard. That is, until Uryu opted to switch opponents with Chad, seeing Chad's slow but strong style better on Uryu's opponent, and Uryu weak but fast style on Chad's.
  • Before the advent of Rukia and The Call Knows Where You Live and Ichigo turning into this unstoppable level-grinding machine, Ichigo and Chad also went bully hunting like this. They agreed years ago that if it wasn't okay to get in fights on their own behalves (and being redheaded and half-Mexican, respectively, they're major targets) they would always fight to protect each other. It's very sweet. Chad has spent the last two hundred chapters trying to be strong enough to keep this promise again. No dice.
  • As the Thousand Years Old Blood War advanced, Ichigo and Renji Abarai kinda fell into this trope. The biggest example is towards the end, when Renji explicitly promises to back Ichigo up as thanks for helping him rekindle his bond with Rukia, and immediately keeps his promise as they join a very complicated final fight that includes Yhwach and Aizen.
• Every Red Oni, Blue Oni pair in Digimon eventually becomes this, with the relationship extending to their partner Digimon — Taichi and Yamato (and Agumon and Gabumon), Daisuke and Ken (and V-mon and Wormmon), Takuya and Kouji, and Taiki and Kiriha (and Shoutmon and MetalGreymon). Masaru and Agumon of Digimon Data Squad are a surprisingly rare instance of a Digimon being this with their human partner, being that Masaru is the only Digimon lead to actively fight Digimon personally.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Gohan and Krillin are the best of friends and, particularly during the Saiyan and Namek arcs, a great example of bash brothers (though, ironically, Krillin is close friends with Gohan's father and is more of an extended uncle to Gohan). After the seven year time skip, the next generation of warriors Goten and Trunks are the newest set of bash brothers to the show.
  • Goku and Piccolo became this in an Enemy Mine situation against both Garlic Jr. and later against Raditz.
  • Burter and Jeice are the only members of the Ginyu Force who fight together rather than one-on-one, and have at least one Combination Attack. Unfortunately for them, their only on-screen fight is against Goku, who's way out of their league.
  • Goku and Vegeta play with this, but mostly in the movies (e.g Return of Cooler, Fusion Reborn and Broly) and especially the Universe Survival saga. It's a running theme that they're so hyper-competitive that their "teamwork" usually amounts to swapping in and out tag-team style, rather than fighting someone two-on-one (no matter the stakes). However, they finally use proper teamwork when they fight Gas in their respective Ultra Instinct and Ultra Ego forms.
  • Frieza and Cell wound up forming one of these after their defeats, training together and teaming up on Goku when he gets trapped in Hell in GT (not that it helps them at all).
  • Gohan and Piccolo spend a good chunk of the Tournament of Power as this. While Goku and Vegeta mostly do their own thing and only team up if they run into each other, Gohan and Piccolo make an effort to stick together and prove to be a very effective team.
  • Caulifla and Kale are the female Saiyans of Universe 6 that, unlike Goku and Vegeta, don't allow their differences in personalities to inter with cover each other's back. This equal partnership even culminates in using the Potara earrings to become a literal single fighting force.
• In Endride, despite their absolutely endless bickering and occasional fistfights, Emilio and Shun end up becoming this trope as they fight the best at each other's backs — perhaps because it keeps them within insult range during battle.
• Sena and Monta from Eyeshield 21 are the best (respectively) runningback and wide receiver in Japan, best friends, and the keys to Deimon's offensive power. Needless to say, some of the Devilbat's best plays involve the two working together.
  • Of course, there are also the Ha-Ha Brothers who show signs of this, though they're a triple package. The moves they used in their first game, and continue to use, sink the "bash" part rather well. A more conventional example would be Tetsuma and The Kid of the Wild Gunmen, showing how epic their teamwork was in their first appearance.
  • Similar examples would be Taka and Yamato of the Teikoku Alexanders (another runningback/reciever duo), and the lethal three way combo of Takami (quarterback), Shin (linebacker/runningback), and Sakuraba (reciever) of the Ojou White Knights. The last three are especially interesting as Sakuraba and Shin, and Sakuraba and Takami are Bash Brothers by themselves; when their plays begin to intersect it simply becomes more of a problem for the other team. For a literal example, there's the Sibling Team of Agon and Unsui of the Shinryuuji Nagas.
  • Despite being the leaders on the opposite spectrum for talent, Agon and Hiruma are an effective combination. Agon who runs on pure reaction is complemented by Hiruma who runs on pure mental ability. Despite their hatred for each other, they work extremely well together.
• In Fist of the North Star, Kenshiro and Rei, while rescuing Airi and Mamiya from the Fang Clan, have some seriously badass action sequences together. Raiga and Fuga, the Sibling Team gatekeepers of the Cassandra Prison who pull a glorious Heel–Face Turn and subsequent Heroic Sacrifice, also qualify.
• Food Wars!: Gin and Jouichiro where this during their school days, fighting with food, political influence and brute force to crawl out as the undisputed top dogs out of 1000 highly competitive trainee chefs.
• In Fullmetal Alchemist, Alex Luis Armstrong and Sig Curtis (who befriended each other through Pec Flex) work together to curb stomp Sloth.
  • This is after Alex and his older sister Olivier got through a very long period of wearing him down; Sig only came in at the end, and the Armstrong team was pretty damn impressive in its own right.
  • Ed and Al obviously do this, too. They have a lot of practice fighting together.
  • When Ed and Ling or Ed and Greeling are working together, they generally produce shades of this even when not actively engaged in combat. With lots of bickering.
• In Gintama, this happens mostly during the serious episodes.
  • Usually, Kagura and Shinpachi team up in the serious story arcs to deal with Mooks and the occasional Elite Mook.
  • The Benizakura Arc has Gintoki and Zura Katsura in a Back-to-Back Badasses moment, fighting against space pirates hired by Takasugi and then declaring war on Takasugi with the exact same words and in the exact same manner.
  • The Rakuyou Decisive Battle Arc ups the ante by having all of the Joui Four fight together for the first time in a decade. Both the Naraku and the Harusame stand no chance.
• Ryuji and Eikichi from Great Teacher Onizuka, though Ryuji doesn't show up as much as he does in GTO: The Early Years, which was all about them and their gang, the Onibaku duo.
• Kira and Athrun from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED do this several times, coordinating their attacks and defenses to the point of near-telepathy.
  • It helps that the Freedom and Justice are designed to work in tandem with each other, thus adding an extra layer to their status as this.
• From Harlem Beat, we have Naruse-Sawamura duo both in their streetball and highschool team.
• Ian and Mitchal of Heat Guy J.
• In Hunter × Hunter it was said that two members of the Genei Ryodan / Phantom Troupe (Uvogin and Nobunaga Hazama) had this kind of relationship. They were at their strongest when they fought large groups of enemies together, though Uvogin would never admit it.
• Jujutsu Kaisen: Yuji teams up with his friends often when facing a sufficiently dangerous threat.
  • He pushes Mahito into a corner with Nanami's help, forcing Mahito to rely on Domain Expansion to turn things around.
  • After fighting Todo and getting a few pointers on how to be a more effective fighter, they both team up against Hanami after Yuji successfully uses Black Flash.
  • When Nobara is ambushed by the Death Paintings, Yuji goes to her rescue, after which the two slowly overpower the curses by using their unique advantages against them.
  • Yuji and Megumi fight together against Awasaka, a curse user affiliated with Kenjaku, in order to destroy the barrier he's protecting. Once Megumi figures out how Awasaka's cursed technique works, the duo makes quick work of him.
• While they start the series off as mortal enemies, Ryuko and Satsuki of Kill la Kill develop this dynamic when they join forces against their own mother, Ragyo. Bonus points for being literal Smash Sisters.
• In the second last episode of Kotetsushin Jeeg, both Hiroshi Shiba (the original Jeeg pilot) and Kenji Kusanagi (the sequel's new pilot) are finally given the chance to both transform into their respective Super Robots, and what follows is an epic, epic double-teaming brawl.
• Kuroko's Basketball gives us Kuroko and Kagami. Often giving them the otp name; "Kagakuro".
• Mazinger Z has Kouji and Boss. They begin at odds with each other but quickly they become good friends and fight together; Great Mazinger has Tetsuya and boss, and later in the series, Tetsuya and Kouji; UFO Robo Grendizer gave us Kouji and Duke; And finally Mazinkaiser showed more examples of how devastating Kouji and Tetsuya are when they are fighting together.
• Naruto:
  • Subverted. It looked like Naruto and Sasuke are building into this, but then Sasuke pulled a Face–Heel Turn.
  • They revisit Naruto and Sasuke becoming this again in the battle with Obito and this time they succeed.
    • Revisited and taken further in the final battle of Boruto: Naruto the Movie. Made even more awesome by the fact they mostly use physical attacks, and despite Sasuke lacking his left arm, he never slows down.
  • In Shippuden, Naruto has developed into this with Killer B, who is also this with A / the Raikage. It turns out they're not actually related — A adopted Bee because he was badass enough for their combat styles to mesh.
  • Ino-Shikamaru-Chouji is a better fit. They've been best friends for so long (since before they became ninjas), Chouji is able to pick up Shikamaru's strategies and prepare well before anyone else, Shikamaru knows just how to set up Ino's powers, and likewise Ino knows how to cover Chouji's weak points. By the time of the 4th Ninja World War, the trio's practically invincible.
  • Special mention to Gaara and Rock Lee who invoke Bash Brothers in their team-up against Bad with the Bone Kimimaro, made even cooler by the fact that, three arcs earlier, they almost killed each other during the Chūnin Exams.
  • The Ino-Shika-Cho trio even extends into their family. It's actually a tradition for three of the current generation to be put into a team together with a Sarutobi as their sensei.
  • And Kinkaku and Ginkaku. The two dead shinobi who survived being eaten by the Kyuubi for two weeks!
• Nagi and his team the Ala Rubra in Negima! Magister Negi Magi fought like this. Negi and Kotaro have been developing a style like this since entering the colosseum as a team.
• In One Piece, Zoro and Sanji are very much this. They may bicker in the midst of battle and occasionally attack each other, but once they work together (as shown in the Davy Jones games), they are near invincible.
  • Zoro and Sanji are so strong together that Chopper and Robin couldn't defeat their Shadows Jigoro and Inuppe in Thriller Bark.
  • Luffy and Ace. Helps they actually are sworn brothers.
  • The entirety of the Straw Hat Pirates are very capable at working together against foes. This aspect was heavily portrayed during the events at Thriller Bark and the Sabaody Archipelago.
  • Law and Luffy become this trope into the latter part of the Dressrosa saga with the fight against Doflamingo.
  • Sanji and Brook are Bash Brothers in Zou, to extent where Kaido's Beast Pirates flee as they're too strong.
  • In a similar vein Luffy and Zoro are Bash Brothers at the start of Wano.
• Long before Madoka was doing it, Pretty Cure's most iconic teams were all either this trope or Battle Couples depending on who you ask. Black and White in particular occasionally used each other as weapons in the first season; on one occasion two monsters threw them at each other, so the girls locked elbows on impact and torqued their bodies around each other so they both went flying boots-first back the way they came.
• Though this is noted to be rare in Puella Magi Madoka Magica, with most girls operating alone, this just makes the rare duos all the more dangerous. Mami and Kyouko were once this, but broke up after Kyouko's family died, and Mami's desire to find a new partner drives much of her motivation. By the time of Rebellion, Kyouko and Sayaka have become a fairly close pair, often employing Combination Attacks and apparently living in the same house. In Oriko Magica, Oriko and Kirika do this whenever Oriko isn't grounded by Power Incontinence. Fanon typically upgrades all of them into full-on Battle Couples.
• Ranma ½ has a antagonistic version of this as a Villain of the Week arc. Azusa Shiratori and Mikado Sanzenine are masters of Martial Arts Figure Skating, a team known as the Golden Pair for their combined skill and excellent teamwork. Outside of combat, however, the two don't get on too well, as Mikado finds Azusa's kleptomania and ditzy antics annoying, while Azusa has the personality of a Spoiled Brat and is quite willing to beat on Mikado if he interferes with her antics (giving back something she stole from a pretty girl, or chasing girls when he should be practicing). In fact, that in the anime version of the Figure Skating match she's ultimately the one who beats Mikado, causing them to lose.
  • Perhaps to highlight their Belligerent Sexual Tension, Ranma and Akane keep swinging between playing this straight and averting it. While they played it perfectly straight in the Martial Arts Figure Skating story, most if not all of their subsequent 'team battles' had them getting in each other's way and forgetting to pay attention to their enemies to squabble with each other (often over the fact Akane is Overshadowed by Awesome compared to Ranma and Can't Catch Up, yet refuses to admit this)... though, inevitably, they would pull together (if only after having been beaten once) and manage to pull off a victory, though their opponent would frequently come close to victory by taking advantage of their bickering.
• Kenshin and Sanosuke from Rurouni Kenshin.
• Played straight in Soul Eater with the Resonance or Chain Resonance Links, you want evidence? Watch episode 36.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Simon and Kamina; and later, Simon and Viral.
• The title characters of Tiger & Bunny become this once Kotetsu/Wild Tiger successfully wins Barnaby/"Bunny"'s trust in him.
• Trigun: Vash and Wolfwood. Their fighting styles are relatively similar and they have a Wide-Eyed Idealist versus Knight in Sour Armor thing going on for contrast.
• Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- gives us Fay and Kurogane, starting from their battle with Kishim. Though they are more of a Battle Couple, with what is known now.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! had two pairs: The Paradox Brothers from the Duelist Kingdom arc and Lumis/Umbra from the Battle City arc. Joey and Yugi are this in their various tag team duels (heck, even their Dark Magician and Flame Swordsman show signs of it); a major problem in the Lumis/Umbra duel is Yugi and Kaiba's inability to pull this trope off. In the anime at least, Yugi and Kaiba eventually play this straight in their confrontations with both Dartz and Zorc.
• Yusuke and Kuwabara from YuYu Hakusho were a more heroic version. This following upon several years of Kuwabara incessantly returning to challenge Yusuke to fights and getting his clock soundly cleaned. Yusuke has been known to do this with other members of his team, as well. Once very briefly with Hiei.

Asian Animation

• In Happy Heroes, once they bond and become friends, Careful S. and Kalo have a tendency to team up to fight monsters. They form what is known as the "Gallant Duo".

Comic Books

• Asterix: The titular character and Obelix always team up together to beat up a bunch of Roman soldiers. While sometimes they have the village to fight with them, most of the time it's the two of them (and Dogmatix).
• Astro City: The Butthead Brothers are two teen Delinquents who terrorize people with elemental powers from a space meteorite.
• Batman:
  • Batman and Robin do this quite often. It was especially common in the live-action Batman series.
  • Much less frequently, you get really astounding sequences with large chunks of the "Bat Family" (Batman, Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, Red Robin and a few more minor ones) fighting side by side.
  • Public Enemies (2004) shows that Superman and Batman are so accustomed to fight together that they do not even need to talk to each other while designing joint battle strategies on the fly.
    Superman: We're surrounded you know. I can hear them all.
    Batman: I think we can take them. Do you think we can take them?
    Superman: You always think we can take them.
    Batman: Yes, I do.
    Superman: Then let's do this.
  • Like fathers, like sons: Super Sons shows that Damian and Jon actually make just as good a team as their fathers... when they can stop arguing for more than five minutes.
  • Examined in the World's Finest maxiseries; the first time they meet with the explicit purpose of working together, they're at a function as Bruce and Clark when the guest of honor, a world-famous plastic surgeon is kidnapped. They split up and both go after the kidnapper, which so spooks the hostage that he runs out into the street and gets himself killed. When they compare notes they both observe that this happened because they didn't work together. The rest of the series is about their annual meetings to honor their failure and learn to work together until they're working as a well-oiled machine. Some of their guilt is mitigated when they learn at the end of the maxiseries that said hostage was actually the surgeon's body double who had kidnapped and replaced the real man after giving him amnesia in an attempt to steal his fortune. The real reason he was so spooked was because he was afraid that Batman and Superman would expose his scheme.
  • When Amalak launches a coordinated attack against Superman and his family in The Third Kryptonian, Batman heads towards the Fortress of Solitude right away, knowing instinctively what Superman expects him and wants him to do.
• Booster Gold and Blue Beetle.
• Cable & Deadpool, at least in the series titled that way.
• Marvel's original Bash Brothers, Captain America and Bucky Barnes.
  • Also Captain America and The Falcon.
  • Bucky and the Falcon eventually grow into it, too, during Bucky's run as Captain America.
• Green Arrow and Green Lantern.
  • Also Green Lantern Kyle Rayner and Green Lantern Guy Gardner, or occasionally other GL pairings.
• Gamora and Angela are Smash Sisters in Guardians of the Galaxy.
  • From the same series: Rocket Racoon, a gun-toting genetically-modified cybernetically-enhanced raccoon; and Groot, a lumbering tree monster who suffers from a bad case of Pokémon Speak. This is particularly true in the movie.
• Iron Man and War Machine, who have also been best friends since their (admittedly very young on Tony's side) college days at MIT.
• In Legacy, Cade Skywalker and Jariah Syn are this throughout his pirate and bounty hunting days, though on Jedi stuff Cade's fellow Padawan Shado Vao sometimes takes the role. Imperial Knights Antares Draco and Ganner Krieg almost always fight as an in-sync duo.
• The Legion of Super-Heroes has several of these pairs, notably Cosmic Boy-Lightning Lad, Mon-El-Ultra Boy, and Timber Wolf-Blok.
• Marvel also has Luke Cage and Iron Fist. Power Man and Iron Fist are perhaps one of Marvel's best examples of this trope in action: Luke is a Made of Iron Boisterous Bruiser and Danny is Weak, but Skilled with some elements of Lightning Bruiser. Ever since they were paired up for roughly two decades worth of comics they were ALWAYS seen together, until Iron Fist was seemingly killed. The duo was reunited when Danny joined the New Avengers, of which Cage had become the leader.
• Thor and Beta Ray Bill
• Sam & Max: Freelance Police aren't fighters per se, but if there are doors to bust down and bad guys with lead deficiency, they'll deliver the damage together. Moreso in the comics, but they get rare moments in the video games, too.
• The "A Dame To Kill For" storyline of Sin City features Dwight McCarthy and Marv as this. Subverted in that Marv does most of (if not all) the fighting.
  • Marv & Nancy get a moment of this in the second film adaptation. Again though, Marv does the majority of the fighting once they break into the Roark mansion, so it's subverted.
• Spider-Man and Daredevil. The two have teamed up many times and they are best buddies. It helps that they both share a number of villains. (Their first ever collaboration was against an evil hypnotist who couldn't affect the blind Daredevil but made Spidey beat him up for a while.)
  • And their shared enemies the Enforcers featured Ox and Fancy Dan, who would often tag team enemies with their astounding strength and martial arts skills, respectively. Later additions Hammer Harrison and Snake Marston would do much the same.
  • For that matter, Spidey and Johnny Storm.
• Superman and his cousin Supergirl. Since Supergirl's creation back in the Silver Age they have been partners and fought together.
  • In Krypton No More they fight an army of world-conquering aliens.
  • In Legion of Super-Heroes classic Story Arc The Great Darkness Saga, both Superboy and Supergirl take on◊ Darkseid. Darkseid. And although Superboy is taken out quickly, Supergirl lays a good whupping on the ruler of Apokolips. Reviewed here.
  • In War World Superman resorts to Supergirl to help him bring Mongul and Warworld down. The two of them fight together and manage destroy the massive war machine.
    Superman: Now there isn't a thing in all the universe that can stop him!
    Supergirl: Well, I know two "things" who are certainly gonna try!
  • In Supergirl Volume 2 #21, Supergirl and Superman fight Kryptonite Man together.
  • The Phantom Zone: Superman and Supergirl finally are reunited when they spot and attack the Zoners' space orbital cannon simultaneously. Both cousins swiftly turn the cannon into space debris and make quick work of most of Zoners by fighting together efficiently.
    While the Emerald Gladiator swears his solemn oath far below, Superman unleashes his incomparable fury on Aethyr's accomplices in the murder of Charlie Kweskill! Kru-El becomes a living bludgeon, swung with unimaginable force against Jax-Ur! The blow leaves Kru-El unconscious— and sends Jax-Ur careening through space—- in the general direction of Supergirl and a punched-out Prof. Va-Kox. The villains collide— head-on. Then, they just float.
• Watchmen: Rorschach and Nite Owl II, in the old days. The bond they forged still lasts.
• Wonder Woman and her younger sister, Donna Troy are this, and the two of them are building a similar relationship with Cassie Sandsmark, the second Wonder Girl. Donna and Dick Grayson are often written this way in the pages of Teen Titans.
• In the X-Men, Colossus and Wolverine have the "Fastball Special" (sometimes called for with "Hey bub... two words"), which basically involves Colossus throwing Wolverine at an opponent. Other characters inside and outside of Marvel have occasionally borrowed the move. Basically any combo of a character with Super-Strength and one with an Absurdly Sharp Blade or six can do this. In the extremely rare occasions that they're seeing eye to eye, Cyclops and Wolverine can do this quite well, though they end up as Red Oni, Blue Oni much more often.
• Marvel's Zapata Brothers are Mexican wrestlers, so it's only to be expected that they have an array of team-up moves. They also enjoy high-fiving during melees and switching out as if they were in a tag team match.

Comic Strips

• Dick Tracy: Tracy and his partner Sam Catchem. Sam is actually his second partner. In the early days, he was teamed with Pat Patton, who was later promoted to Police Chief.
• Mandrake the Magician: Mandrake and Prince Lothar have been superheroing together since before there were superheroes.
• Modesty Blaise: Blaise and Willie Garvin are close friends who have been working and fighting together for years. In a fight, they always have each other's backs and often pull off co-ordinated moves with the slightest of communication.

Fan Works

• In Forgiveness is the Attribute of the Strong, a My Hero Academia fanfiction, a young All for One and his little brother make an unstoppable team.
• Heroes: Surak compares Kirk and Spock's relationship to the "warrior bond-brothers" he had observed in his own day.
• Insontis II: Groping for a Vulcan term to explain his and Spock's relationship, Kirk settles on "pi'kine", which according to the footnotes, means "little shield-partner."
• Tales of the Emperasque has all the returned Primarchs, although special mention has to go to Roboute and Corax as seen during the pacification of Terran Hives, where together they pretty much rip Fulgrim's assault to shreds.
• The Mass Effect and Pacific Rim crossover Hunters of Death has John and Jane Shepard, usually fighting as a team either on the ground or in a giant robot as copilots.
• In All This Sh*t is Twice as Weird, Varric tells a story one night at dinner which paints Hawke and Aveline as a pair of Smash Sisters. He compares them to the co-Inquisitors, who are a Bash Brother-and-Sister duo and even identify themselves as being Like Brother and Sister.
• TRON — Patchwork Fic with the TRON 2.0 and TRON: Legacy canons will have Sam Flynn and Jet Bradley as this.
• Knights of the Old Republic fanfics play with the Mandalorian idea of "vod" (which can mean "brother/sister" or "friend") when it comes to Canderous and the rest of the crew, particularly Revan and/or Carth.
• Cross Cases bears several parallels between Harry Dresden and Dean Winchester, and this is one of the most significant ones. Harry and Sam take down demons, ordinary mortal pool sharks, the Hell-demon leading the aforementioned demons, and a warlock as parties to every single fight scene in the story, and also scare off Denarians. Sam even notes how much Harry's wisecracks remind him of Dean.
• Androids and Turians during the Krogan Rebellions in To Inherit the Future. The respect gained from fighting together even resulted in some Turian high brass expressing a belief that it would be nice if the Androids replaced the Asari on the Council.

Film — Animated

• Manolo and Joaquin from The Book of Life, since they were kids. Not only do they playfully fight with each other, they also fight together against a common enemy, be it an angry bull as kids or when they fight Chakal as adults.

Film — Live-Action

• 300 outlines this in particular when discussing their tactics. The individual Spartan is superior to the individual Persian soldier, but their sheer numbers would overwhelm them in any situation except for the bottleneck position they chose to defend. Even then, only because each Spartan defended the one next to them that they created a near impenetrable line... of course, they don't always follow this rule, often preferring the Rule of Cool and breaking the line for slow-motion individual brawls.
  • Astinos and Stelios are this briefly on the second day.
• In Accident Man, Mick and Mac are a pair of ex-special forces soldiers (one American, one British) who always operate as a pair. Their shared training allows to act as well-oiled machine in combat.
• The films The Barbarians and Double Trouble starring the bodybuilder twins Peter and David Paul have their characters constantly bickering with each other and kicking equal amount of ass in fight scenes. This is taken even further in Twin Sitters, where their characters call backup from two other duos of twin bash brothers to save two kids from the bad guys.
• One of the central motifs of Heroic Bloodshed movies like A Better Tomorrow, The Killer and Hard Boiled is two characters, usually Sworn Brothers as well as Bash Brothers, doing this.
• In Black Hawk Down and Real Life, the two Medal of Honor winning snipers, Randy Shughart and Gary Gordon live, breathe, and die this trope. From their hilarious-slash-tearjerker Chess game, which they never manage to finish, to their exchange of looks before they both deploy to aid the downed Night Stalker, the film makes the friendship of the two remarkably clear for two fairly minor characters.
• And of course the literal brothers Connor and Murphy McManus in The Boondock Saints.
• In The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), Riddick and Kyra are a rare opposite-sex version of this, once they stop fighting each other. The Crematoria sequence showcases it nicely.
  • The Crippled Masters Lee Ho has his arms cut off in the very first scene and later on, Tang's legs are rendered useless with acid. After Lee Ho reluctantly teams up with Tang, both men, who are already formidable combatants by themselves, learn to fight together using their remaining limbs. They eventually defeat Lin Chang Cao this way.
• In Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan, Corporal Buddy Lea and Sergeant Paddy Todd already have this relationship, and go out of their way to save and provide covering fire for each other.
• In The Devil's Rejects, a pair of bounty hunters called the Unholy Two are hired to track down and capture the Ax-Crazy Firefly clan. They actually succeed and disappear afterwards with no repercussions.
• Italian Spaghetti Western and later action comedy actors Bud Spencer and Terence Hill made a career out of playing this trope. They always tended to fight side-by side in the movies they co-star in.
• Godzilla, being the Long Runner of a franchise that it is, has had numerous examples through the years, including:
  • Invasion of Astro-Monster provides the earliest example, with Godzilla and Rodan teaming up to take on the three-headed space dragon King Ghidorah.^note  The two had previously teamed up with Mothra for the same purpose in the earlier Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, but here Godzilla and Rodan go it alone.
  • This was followed about a decade later by Godzilla vs. Gigan, which provides two examples: Godzilla and former enemy Anguirus on the side of the heroes, and the sinister hook-handed cyborg Gigan alongside King Ghidorah opposing them. Following this film, every entry until the franchise was rebooted in 1984 would feature at least one dynamic duo.
  • Godzilla vs. Megalon brings Gigan back and pairs him with the god of an ancient subterranean race- and fellow industrial tool-wielder (drills in this case)- Megalon. Luckily for Godzilla, this time around he has backup in the form of cybernetic Sizeshifter superhero Jet Jaguar.
  • Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla moves back to a solo villain, but for good reason; in order to stand a chance against his walking weapons platform of a doppelganger the Monster King has to seek help from the ancient Okinawan deity King Caesar.^note or Shisa, or Seesar, or Caeser, etc...
  • Terror Of Mecha Godzilla, in the last example from the Showa era, flips its prequel's status quo by having Godzilla stand alone against the deadly duo of Mechagodzilla and his mind-controlled prehistoric ally Titanosaurus.
  • Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II in 1993 reintroduces the trope to the Heisei series, bringing old frenemy Rodan back for the '90s. After an initial dust-up, the two band together to take down a new incarnation of Mechagodzilla and rescue Godzilla's hatchling son from conniving humans.
  • Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla followed it the next year, putting Little Godzilla in mortal danger yet again and forcing his dad into a begrudging team-up with Transforming Mecha M.O.G.U.E.R.A.
  • There wouldn't be another major team-up until 2004's Godzilla: Final Wars, which saw perennial Co-Dragon Gigan in yet another team-up, this time with the mysterious and evil Monster X.
  • Godzilla vs. Kong has Godzilla and Kong teaming up after their big fight to destroy their common enemy: Mechagodzilla, who is essentially Ghidorah reborn.
• As pack animals, the Raptor Squad from Jurassic World hunt and fight as a team, best seen when hunting Hoskin's team or when Delta and Echo battle the Indominus rex. Later, Blue teams up with Mama Rex to tag-team the Indominus.
• Aragorn and Gimli did a fine example of this in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Needing to give a gate some time to be repaired, Aragorn and Gimli did a flying leap onto the ramp and proceeded to fight off an entire legion of Uruk-hai. One of the best sequences of many impressive ones in the trilogy.
• In Mad Max: Fury Road, Max and Furiosa become a formidable team, first as reluctant allies and then as literal blood brothers. The chase scene where they first start working together is set ot a piece of music fittingly titled "Brothers in Arms".
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • In Iron Man 2, Tony and Rhodey become this after finally settling their differences, taking down Ivan Vanko and his army of Hammer Drones. They continue to be this in Captain America: Civil War as they hunt down the fugitive Avengers after the group goes through a fallout.
  • Steve and Bucky were this back in Captain America: The First Avenger and become this again when Bucky is freed from brainwashing and on the run for his crime as the Winter Soldier in Captain America: Civil War.
  • Black Widow and Hawkeye in The Avengers once Hawkeye is back on the Avengers' side.
  • Thor and Captain America act at this during the battle of New York during The Avengers.
  • Thor and the Hulk also act as this during The Avengers, and continue to in Thor: Ragnarok during the Sakaarian Gladiator Games and the invasion of Asgard.
  • Rocket and Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy, best exemplified in the prison breakout scene.
  • Thor and Cap spend most of the Final Battle of Avengers: Endgame tag teaming Thanos with Mjölnir and Stormbreaker once Steve proves himself worthy of wielding it. Turns out Thor suspected Steve was messing with him in Avengers: Age of Ultron when he got it to budge and is ecstatic once he finally calls it.
  • Sam and Bucky become this as they fight against Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War, despite not getting along. This continies in their own show.
  • Spider-Man and his two counterparts when they are temporarily stuck on his universe in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
• Fulton Reed and Dean Portman in D2: The Mighty Ducks were explicitly called "the Bash Brothers" by Tibbles the Hendrix hockey equipment rep (of course a marketing guy would come up with it) as the two go have fun body-checking pretty much every opposing skater effortlessly one by one on the ice. Reed also has a big, booming slap shot that can knock goalies back; Portman sticks to the rough stuff.
• One of the tag teams in Nacho Libre did a lot of this (also incorporating high-fives and the like), apparently being twin brothers.
• Pirates of the Caribbean had this in various sequences, but the most pure form was when Will was trying to free Jack from the noose in The Curse of the Black Pearl and they raced to the castle edge. They had taken down plenty of soldiers between the two of them, but sheer numbers and guns outweighed their ability to finish their job.
• Shaw Brothers studios have their own real-life bash bros, the real-life BFF team of David Chiang and Ti Lung, being Those Two Actors in more than a dozen films.
  • The Anonymous Heroes have the two of them being a pair of orphans, Tie-hu and Meng-kang, growing up together, side-by-side, in the mean streets. One of their first scenes have Tie-hu embracing Meng-kang... with a surprise punch, which the latter deflects, and then sparring each other while laughing at their respective antics, making a mess of Meng's bedroom in the process.
  • Duel of the Ironfist stars Lung as Tang Ren-jie, the son of a murdered triad boss, and Chiang as The Rambler, a Professional Killer working for Ren-jie's father. They both end up inseparable when they survived a massive slaughterfest in a restaurant that sees them killing mooks side-by-side, which makes The Reveal that The Rambler is actually the murderer of Ren-jie's father even more surprising - the two still end up being buddies when they take on a common enemy, in-between fighting each other.
  • Have Sword, Will Travel have them playing a pair of swordsmen mercenaries who became fast friends, but spends as much time fighting each other as they did bonding over their mission.
  • The Heroic Ones has both of them being the youngest princes of a warlord, two hotheaded fighters who likes their fights as much as they like taking names against enemy soldiers.
  • The Pirate (1973) has Lung playing the titular pirate, who strikes an unlikely friendship with the local commander, played by Chiang. Seeing each other as friendly enemies, they even teamed up to take on a common foe in the middle of their final fight, before parting on good terms.
• Probably the best moment of Spider-Man 3, with Spider-Man and New Goblin team up during the Grand Finale.
• Star Trek (2009): When Kirk and Spock beam onto the Narada and start shooting up everything in sight.
• Star Wars
  • Any cooperative combat in the Star Wars prequels, especially between Masters and their Padawans. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon against Darth Maul in Episode 1 are the best example. It is because of the same thing with Obi-Wan and Anakin in Episode 3 that turned their climactic duel into a sort of Fearful Symmetry.
  • The Expanded Universe had the Mandalorians play with the trope. Their term for "friend" is the same term for "sibling." If you've fought enough battles with a Mando'ad, then you're their sibling. No, blood ties or formal adoption is not a requirement. Their culture also sees all who follow the Mandalorian way as brothers and sisters in one big, war-mongering family.
• Wrath of the Titans had the brother gods Zeus and Hades against The Legions of Hell at full power.
• In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Logan and Victor Creed do this for the first fifteen minutes of the movie. The opening sequence is a badass Montage through The American Civil War, World War I, World War II and The Vietnam War. They also come back together briefly at the end, when the take on Wade Wilson as Weapon XI as Creed wants to kill Wolverine himself.

Literature

• JR Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood is literally a group of vampires not related by blood who nevertheless live and fight together against the Omega and the Lessening Society.
• Caramon and Raistlin in the Dragonlance series.
• Harry Dresden and Karrin Murphy become this, because Harry is a magic nerd who really has no idea at all about women. It's lampshaded as pretty sad several times throughout the series.
  • The Alphas: they're a pack of wolves with human-level intelligence. Be. Afraid.
  • Harry and Thomas Raith become this. Like the Eragon example, it shouldn't be that much of a surprise that they're half-brothers.
  • Thomas and Lara Raith in full vamped-out mode cut through an army of super-ghouls like chaff. Harry describes them as matched parts of a force of nature, their stand all the more beautiful and awe-inspiring for being totally hopeless.
• In the Inheritance Cycle, Eragon and Murtagh shared the field of battle many times early in the series and developed a bond as strong as brotherhood. It wasn't too surprising when they turned out to actually be brothers.
  • A more consistent example is Eragon and Arya. It's explicitly stated that they're the other's perfect shield mate.
• Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are inseparable swashbuckling buddies. Well, they have squabbled enough to go separate ways for a while, but it never lasts. And they've always got each others' backs. Fafhrd is the big tough guy and the Mouser is the sneaky little guy.
• Drizzt Do'Urden and Artemis Entreri can operate like this, much to their mutual displeasure. They're both highly skilled dual-wielders who independently developed extremely similar fighting styles...And it took them about five minutes of conversation for each to recognize the other as what he could have been. Both don't like what they see in the other person, especially when compared to what they see as their strong points. However, if they must cooperate, they slaughter entire groups of who they're against. Often fighting back-to-back and continually moving, and with one setting up an opening for the other to exploit a second later, and it's mentioned that they move so much in sync that it's tough to tell who's who or who's doing what.
  • As can Artemis and Jarlaxle Baenre, although their fighting styles are slightly more different, with Jarlaxle's style also incorporating throwing knives, misdirection, and a Hyperspace Arsenal of magic items and wands. Additionally, Entreri is on the other side of their Teeth-Clenched Teamwork, having gone through some Character Development and seeing Jarlaxle as what he used to be, (albeit a more charismatic and witty version) and Jarlaxle, being a bon vivant and trickster to the extreme, sees Entreri as an opportunity to have a roaring good time.
• Rodrigo Belmonte and Ammar ibn Khairan in Guy Gavriel Kay's The Lions of Al-Rassan literally fight back-to-back at one point, taking out some mooks to prove their awesomeness. Later, they're forced to fight one another as the champions of the various religions in medieval Spain.
• Modesty Blaise: Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin are close friends who have been working and fighting together for years. In a fight, they always have each other's backs and often pull off co-ordinated moves with the slightest of communication.
• Argus and Ribuld from Mordant's Need are so inseparable that they are practically a single entity — and together they are good enough in a fight that they can hold their own, at least for a while, against the most skilled and feared swordsman in the world.
• Sandokan:
  • Sandokan and Yanez. Completely different in personality, but they'd die before leaving the other in trouble. Bonus points for actually calling each other brothers.
  • The Tigers of Mompracem are this on a larger scale, being pirates from many ethnic groups (mostly Malays and Dayaks) that would normally kill each other on sight (Truth in Television: Malays and Dayaks went out of their way to attack each other, with James Brooke actually using Malay forces to take down the main Dayak pirate band and Dayak forces to destroy the main Malay pirate group).
• Sherlock Holmes: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are a classic case. Just check out the "Awesome" page for the series and note the examples falling under "Holmes & Watson".
• Watchers of the Throne has Aleya and Valerian, a Sister of Silence and a Custodian. They meet for the first time when the planet they're on is attacked by a horde of demons, and spend several hours fighting side by side. When they get to talk afterwards, they quickly strike up an Odd Friendship, and continue fighting together whenever something big's going down.

Live Action TV

• Angel:
  • Angel and Spike have pulled this off a few times, fighting alternately for good and evil.
  • The Groosalugg with Angel, and once with Gunn.
• The A-Team. Very much so. Hannibal knows the strengths and weaknesses of each of the other three team members, and knows exactly how to best use their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. Different as they may be, when they all fight together, it's a bad day for slimeballs everywhere.
  • Face and Murdock especially seem to be this. They have a very effective tag-team fighting style.
    • Doubly so for Murdock and B.A. They usually drive each other nuts, but together they are a force of nature.
• In the Battlestar Galactica episode "The Oath": Bill Adama and Saul Tigh make a last stand at a docking bay even though they don't pull off a victory.
• Gender Flipped version from Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy and Faith, for a short time in Season 3 — most obvious in the episode "Bad Girls". "Rise and shine, boys! It's your wake up call!"
  • In Season 9's Angel and Faith, Angel and Faith have this kind of relationship.
• Used in Chinese Paladin between Yue'Ru and Xiaoyao.
• Game of Thrones: Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon were fostered together by Jon Arryn and fought this way in the war against the Targaryens and later fought side by side when they laid siege on the castle of Pyke. When Robert found himself pinned down at Stoney Sept, Ned led the Roaring Rampage of Rescue. It's very Serious Business when Ned declares, "I will not follow you now," in "The Wolf and the Lion".
• On Glee, Puck and Finn may hate each other over what happened with Quinn, but they'll team up to defend New Directions.
• Hawaii Five-O. Steve McGarrett and Danny "Danno" Williams argue like an old, married couple — but they always have each other's back in a fight, and God help anyone who comes between them.
• Hercules and Iolaus from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
  • Xena: Warrior Princess and Gabrielle sometimes, though they usually fight separately against the same enemy, not in tandem.
• In any Kamen Rider series, expect the main Rider and the secondary Rider to eventually become this. More prominent in the Heisei shows, where it's pretty much the norm for any given show to have at least two Riders of its own, but the Showa era had a few of its own like the Double Riders when they were onscreen together, and V3 and Riderman when the latter figured out he should be fighting all of Destron and not just the one guy he had a grudge against.
  • A villainous version turned up in Kamen Rider Ex-Aid with Bugster duo Graphite and Parado. Later in the series, Parado has this dynamic with Emu.
  • Invoked in Kamen Rider Revice. One of the show's gimmicks is that the Transformation Trinket is designed to transform both Ikki and his inner demon Vice into Kamen Riders so they can fight enemies together as a team.
• Michael and KITT from Knight Rider manage to pull this off even though they're a man and a car.
• Life On Mars — Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt have been known to achieve this on occasion.
  • On occasion? Tandem desk-leaping & synchronized punching.
• NCIS: Los Angeles: G. Callen and Sam Hanna always have each other's back. They bicker sometimes and have a friendly rivalry, but always come through for one another.
• Power Rangers has a few, starting with Jason and Tommy.
• Rome: Pullo and Vorenus they start off with an Odd Friendship then turn into this, I guess killing over a hundred people side by side and changing history together will do that to you.
• Scrubs featured an Imagine Spot where J.D. visualized Turk and The Todd going up against kung-fu-fighting surgeons. The two made a formidable team... until the betrayal five.
• The Stargate Atlantis episode "Midway." A horde of Wraith decide to storm Earth, and slaughter most of Midway station staff. Who's gonna stop 'em? Two guys named Teal'c and Ronon Dex. The opening featured the two of them trying to beat each other to death but they later turn their combined badassery on the hapless Wraith.
• It's always a treat to watch the four team members of Stargate SG-1 combine to unleash maximum badassness on their enemies.
• Supernatural:
  • Sam and Dean Winchester. Raised to fight monsters, we watch them fight monsters. A lot of mutual back-watching.
  • Dean and Benny become this in Purgatory, as they needed each other to survive, and after what they went through, became extremely close. Dean even says Benny is like a brother to him.
• Super Sentai has its own share as well, such as Captain Marvelous and Joe Gibken.

Other

• To a degree with a well-trained military unit. Most special forces teams are trained this way, covering what their buddies can't. No tossing each other around though as far as we know.
  • Fighter aircraft usually fight in pairs, the wingman covering the leader.
    • And also operate in pairs of pairs — a common formation for fighter aircraft (at least in World War II) has four aircraft forming a flight, in which there are two elements, each with two aircraft constantly covering each other, and each element covering the other. Two well-known formations of this type are the American Finger Four (origin of the name: hold out your hand, fingers together. If each fingernail represents one aircraft, that shape is basically a Finger Four formation) and the German Schwarm (basically identical, just appeared earlier on). The Germans' early adoption of this sort of formation led to some early, easy victories against the Royal Air Force.

Pinball

• The Steiner Brothers and the Bushwhackers in WWF Royal Rumble.

Professional Wrestling

• Every pro wrestling tag team ever, but some tandems exemplify the big guy/little guy dichotomy particularly well: Batista and Rey Mysterio Jr. (at least until Batista's Face–Heel Turn), Rikishi and Scotty 2 Hotty, and Jesse and Festus to name a few.
• Several literal examples:
  • The Steiner Brothers.
  • Harlem Heat (Booker T and Stevie Ray).
  • The Von Erich Family in general.
  • The Armstrongs.
  • The Hart Foundation in most incarnations were related by blood or marriage with the exception of Brian Pillman.
  • The Villanos
  • Eddie and Chavo Guerrero Jr., though uncle and nephew, were only three years apart in age and say they were raised as brothers.
  • Goldust and Cody Rhodes.
  • The Wild Samoans; in fact most Samoan wrestlers have lineage going back to two or three legendary Samoan wrestling families.
    • The Usos.
  • Carly "Carlito" and Eddie "Primo" Colon.
  • Primo and his cousin Tito "Epico" Colon.
  • The Hardys.
  • The Young Bucks.
• Several others who weren't really brothers, but were in storyline:
  • Edge and Christian were billed as brothers for most of their careers. They were Heterosexual Life-Partners in Real Life.
  • The Beverly Brothers (see Mike Enos and Wayne Bloom below).
  • The Minnesota Wrecking Crew of Arn and Ole Anderson were billed as anything from nephew and uncle to cousins to brothers.
  • The Brothers of Destruction, The Undertaker and Kane.
  • Lodi and Lenny Lane were mistaken for this.
  • The Dudley Boys, though the misrepresentation was tongue in cheek and deliberate.
• Several other tag teams, while not related at all, real or kayfabe, are inseparable in the minds of fans because they never found or sought individual success. They fought together through thick and thin.
  • Luke Harper and Erick Rowan were together during most of their time in the WWE, even forming a tag team called the Bludgeon Brothers (who carried huge wooden mallets).
  • Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were Heterosexual Life-Partners for most of their careers. It should also be noted that both were members of the notorious Kliq.
  • The Legion of Doom.
  • Demolition.
  • The Midnight Express.
  • The Rock And Roll Express.
  • The Fabulous Freebirds.
  • Mike Enos and Wayne Bloom spent much of their careers wrestling as tag team partners in various gimmicks (The Destruction Crew, The Minnesota Wrecking Crew II, The Beverly Brothers, Enos & Bloom).
  • Sting and Lex Luger were frequent tag team partners and good friends in Real Life.

Myths & Religion

• Norse Mythology: In the many stories where they weren't beating the crap out of each other, Thor and Loki often wandered the countryside together, looking for asses to kick. Loki also had a great time tag-teaming with his brother-in-arms, Odin.
• The Epic of Gilgamesh: Gilgamesh and Enkidu, showing that this trope is Older Than Dirt.
• Classical Mythology has the brothers Peleus and Telamon, who were admired as great warriors and frequent allies of Heracles. Their sons would later become Bash Cousins, as Peleus's son Achilles fought alongside Telamon's sons Ajax the Greater and Teucer in the siege of Troy. While Achilles was the legendary badass who slew the Trojan champion Hector in single combat, Ajax was only slightly below Achilles in terms of skill, and nearly fought and killed Hector first.
• Older Than Feudalism: Great Ajax and his half-brother Teucer in The Iliad. Teucer hunkers down behind Ajax's shield and lays down a Rain of Arrows, Ajax finishes anyone who manages to close.

Tabletop Games

• Encouraged by BattleTech's Dual Cockpit teams, where a duo of Mechwarriors combine their talents to pilot one 'Mech, very similar to the pilot and weapons/radar officer duo in tandem seat jets. Because bonuses are granted for having both pilots in the same 'Mech fighting together, it usually ends up being the case that both pilots will stick together together outside the 'Mech as well. According to the fluff pilots tend to synchronize before long due to sharing activity outside of the 'Mech and neurohelmet patterns inside it.
• Dungeons & Dragons: in the typical Fighter-Rogue-Wizard-Cleric party, the Fighter and Rogue fight most efficiently together in a manner similar to this — the fighter directing the battle and drawing the attention of his targets while the rogue tumbles into an advantageous position to deal massive Sneak Attack damage.
• This is one way that Exalted's Solar-Lunar Bond can manifest. The bond links each Solar Exaltation to a particular Lunar Exaltation and the only certain thing about the bond, should Fate successfully bring the two together, is that it is a strong emotional bond between the two demigod-like Exalted. And a Bash Brothers bromance certainly fits the bill.
• Magic: The Gathering would frequently set up two cards that are designed to complement each other and other cards controlled by the player in this way. The most pure form is the Brothers Yamazaki from the Kamigawa set, in which the one Legendary per name on the field rule doesn't apply to them and they give each other a major boost when together.
• Star Wars Miniatures has some pairs of characters who have Synergy (combat bonuses) or Rapport (cost discounts) when used together. There is also a tournament format called "Dynamic Duo", in which players select only two characters for their squad, who must together cost exactly 100 points.
• Warhammer 40,000 has a few unit combinations that compliment each others' skills very effectively. Scout Bikers and Terminators in a Space Marine army, for instance; the Scouts have teleport homers that patch up the Terminators' lack of mobility by dropping them on the enemy on a spot that moves very quickly, the Terminators make up for the Scouts' lack of durability and close combat prowess, everyone wins. Except for the poor Tau on the other side of the field that just got a new orifice to defecate through.
• Warhammer has several 'dual' legends, consisting of two named and unique characters that canonically fit together. While Vlad and Isabella are more of a Battle Couple, the others mostly fit under this. The most famous are of course Gotrek and Felix, but there's also Kroq-Gar and Grymloq, Karl Franz and Deathclaw, Eltharion and Stormwing, and Louen and Bequis.
• X-Wing Miniatures often designs characters who are close allies in order to work together well. Jan Ors as a HWK-290 pilot can generate bonus dice for others in exchange for gaining stress, while her long-time partner Kyle Katarn's crew card means that you'll get focus tokens when that stress goes away. The reverse arrangement is also synergistic: Kyle as a pilot lets you give away focus tokens, and Jan as a crew upgrade lets you choose to make them evade tokens instead if you'd prefer. Bounty hunting allies Zuckuss and 4-LOM are designed with similar synergy in mind: pilot Zuckuss lets you get attack dice while crew 4-LOM reduces their ability to modify those dice, and if arranged the other way crew Zuckuss lets you generate stress and pilot 4-LOM lets you give it away again. This continues into The Force Awakens era: with the forthcoming "Heroes of the Resistance" box, Rey's pilot ability lets you reroll blanks that Finn's crew card will give you — as long as you have the enemy in your fire arc, anyway.

Video Games

• Any co-op game gives players the option for this, from Resident Evil to Kirby.
  • Mario Kart: Double Dash!! is built on doing this in a racing game. Each kart has two racers: a driver and a support. They function as one when one person is playing, but if two players decide to go co-op on one kart, racing ability is expanded with one player driving and both players mashing the control stick to achieve miniturbos. The first player can pass items he gets back to the second player, who focuses on using them and can also punch left and right to move the kart a little in those directions to dodge things, attack other players, and steal items.
• Ace Attorney:
  • The fight's a bit more metaphorical in Ace Attorney, but Detective Badd refers to his partner Prosecutor Faraday as his "battle-buddy" due to the many legal battles they've fought together.
  • Phoenix and Edgeworth fall under this too; they may usually fight against each other in court, but there are several times when Edgeworth helps Phoenix achieve the proper verdict and its obvious how well they work together, with Phoenix jumping to illogical (but correct) conclusions and Edgeworth helping him back up his claims.
  • Apollo and Klavier are this, starting the first time they encounter each other in court.
• Schwarz and Jude in Agarest Senki 2 to the point they even have a Finish Strike together.
• Army of Two plays this to the letter.
• Asura and Yasha rarely see eye-to-eye as part of their Red Oni, Blue Oni dynamic, but by game's end, it's patently obvious that they have had nothing but respect and compassion for each other.
• In Banjo-Kazooie, the titular pair invoke this trope despite one-half of the duo being female; they perform almost all their moves by working together, and are actually literally inseparable all throughout the first game.
• Batman: Arkham Knight made this a gameplay element. Build up enough of a hit streak during a fight where an ally is also in the melee, trigger a character switch, and the two characters will perform a ridiculously cool cooperative maneuver to take out one of the opponents before control switches to the second character.
• BioShock 2: As Subject Delta, you are probably the biggest, meanest, and most well armed and armored thing that ever walked through the halls of Rapture. In the last level you get the 11th-Hour Superpower plasmid that is rightfully described as "It's Bring Your Daughter To Work Day". Together with Eleanor even hordes of Brutes, Alphas, and Houdinis don't last against you for more than a few seconds.
• By the end of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Captain "Soap" MacTavish and Captain Price. Yuri takes Soap's place in the later missions of Modern Warfare 3 after Soap dies. Though, to a lesser extent.
• Double and especially Triple Techs from the Chrono games.
• Bill Rizer and Lance Bean from the Contra series.
  • In Hard Corps, each character is different and nicely compliments each other if done right.
  • Sunset Riders has this.
• The Cursed Crusade features the Templar Knight Denz de Bayle, and the Spanish mercenary Esteban Noviembre, who is either computer controlled or the second player character. There are several moves that require both of them, including having one hold onto an enemy so the other can kill it, or them healing each other.
• Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening: Dante and Vergil against Arkham. They even say "Jackpot" at the same time.
• Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten actually integrates this into gameplay with Valvatorez and Fenrich. Apart from starting with a very high likelihood of initiating team attacks with each other, all three of Fenrich's passive abilities are based on Valvatorez's status or positioning (ie. getting a 30% stat boost for standing next to him).
• Donkey and Diddy Kong in Donkey Kong Country, Diddy and Dixie Kong in Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, and Dixie and Kiddy Kong in Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!.
• Billy and Jimmy Lee from Double Dragon are famous for this thanks to the game's co-op availability, which allows two players to play as both of them and kick ass.
• Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2 featured this as a mechanic; on the story mode world map, letting two characters with a pre-existing relationship occupy the same space would give one or both of them a stat boost in combat, implying they were looking out for each other.
  • The upcoming Battle of Z will do this by having simultaneous four-player cooperative battles. The game trailer even suggests making teams out of Goku's whole family, or just of a single character's many forms.
• Dragon Ball Xenoverse: This will be the case if your Time Patroller happens to be male. The Time Patroller (regardless of their gender) will team up with certain warriors through out the various quests. The story mode has three particular examples: First, Son Goku who you team up with the most, and during the normal ending, the Time Patroller and Goku defeat the Final Boss together; second, Trunks who is the Time Patroller's partner; and finally SSJ4 Gogeta who claims to have formed the ultimate tag team with the Time Patroller.
• Dragon Quest:
  • Dragon Quest V: The Hero and Prince Harry are captured by The Dragon and forced to work as slaves for ten years until they manage to escape. Afterwards, both youths spend a time adventuring together during the first part of the Hero's journey in adulthood. After they go their separate ways, Harry still shows an interest in tagging along, but is too caught up in his duties to do it.
  • Malroth acts this way with the Builder in Dragon Quest Builders 2. If the player isn't inside the boundaries of a town, Malroth will always be by their side, assisting in both resource gathering and combat (complete with the ability to perform a Co-op de Grace being unlocked part way though Chapter 2). When Malroth is removed from the player's side (first due to being imprisoned on suspision of being a spy, and then for feeling betrayed over the fact that the builder did nothing to stop said imprisoning), multiple NPCs will comment about how their near-perpetual smile seems to have faded.
• Dynasty Warriors has several:
  • Gan Ning and Ling Tong evolve from mortal enemies into a grudging version of this. Perhaps most notably at the battle of Shi Ting in DW6, where if you kill one half of the pair the other will become enraged and go into hyper mode. Even before that, they were featured in the opening to Xtreme Legends.
  • Guan Xing and Zhang Bao.
  • Yue Jin and Li Dian.
  • Xu Zhu and Dian Wei.
  • Guan Yu and Zhang Fei.
• In Dynasty Warriors: Gundam, Yazan Gable and Gym Ghingnham are portrayed this way, as part of a Villainous Friendship. This actually makes some sense, given that the both of them are massive Blood Knights who simply love fighting for its own sake. One random event has the two of them show up as a team in identical Musha Gundams, happily crowing about how awesome these weapons are.
• Final Fantasy IX:
  • You get four neatly-labelled ones, with the four-way split of your team of eight, being Zidane and Quina, Garnet and Eiko ( true sibling summoners), Freya and Amarant and Steiner and Vivi. Special mention goes to Steiner and Vivi because of their in-game sword magic command combination.
  • Double Bash Brothers moment when Zorn and Thorn decide to mess with Eiko and Mog.
  • There's an implied Bash Brothers relationship between Blank and Zidane, but because Blank isn't one of your main characters, it never appears.
  • One iconic moment sees Steiner and Beatrix protecting Alexandria together by bashing in the heads of many, many Mistodons.
• Fire Emblem: Awakening allows the player to make any two characters into Bash Brothers or Smash Sisters with the Pair Up / Dual system. The more often you do it, or they even stand next to each other, the more often they'll either defend each other from enemy attacks preventing all damage, or double team a enemy offensively. Do it often enough between a male and female duo and they'll eventually get married.
• The multiplayer campaign options of the Gears of War series features a storyline that kept the main character Marcus with his buddy Dom. A big part of the gameplay involves you yelling at your co-op buddy to cover you while you move forward.
• CJ and Sweet in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Tommy Vercetti and Lance Vance in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The latter didn't work out so well in the end.
• In Grand Theft Auto V, Michael and Trevor may spend much of the storyline at each other's throats, but they're old friends, and they're a force to be reckoned with when they cooperate. The same goes for Franklin and his childhood buddy Lamar (Franklin does have to bail Lamar out of trouble more than once, but the latter's still no pushover). And when you put all four of them together, like in Ending C, well...
• Some sections of Half-Life 2 and Episode 2 and nearly all of HL2: Episode 1 have Gordon and Alyx working in tandem.
• Halo:
  • Halo 3 has the Arbiter fighting next to Master Chief for much of the game in single player, and all of the game in co-op. You can even include a pair of unique, though undeveloped Elite characters online and play four person co-op. This is in contrast to Halo 2 where the game has no in-universe reason why a second Spartan accompanies you on the campaign.
  • Also from Halo, the Hunters always come in pairs. In most of the games, they are identically equipped and colored. Halo 3: ODST changes this: Hunters can either come in the standard blue armor and fuel rod cannon that they had in Halo 3 or in gold armor and with an explosive fuel rod gun like all Hunters had in Halo: Combat Evolved.
• Sora and Riku in Kingdom Hearts II.
  • Also most of the main Final Fantasy gang, both during the Coliseum tournaments and the battle of Hollow Bastion. Cloud and Leon get special mention in a Back-to-Back Badasses moment.
    Squall Leonhart: [standing back-to-back with Cloud, surrounded by heartless] Think you can handle this many?
    Cloud: Well... Might be tough if one more shows up.
    Squall Leonhart: Hm. Then that'll have to be the one I take care of.
    Cloud: What, you're fighting too?
  • Donald Duck and Goofy. They had been partners years before they even met Sora, and they still have use of their bond, now that creatures of pure evil, led by a bunch of maniacs, are attacking.
• Ralf Jones and Clark Still from Ikari Warriors and The King of Fighters.
• Commander Shepard and Garrus Vakarian in Mass Effect, acknowledged in-universe in the third game. (It becomes a Battle Couple if they're romanced.)
  Shepard: There's no Shepard without Vakarian.
• Conversed by NPCs in Mass Effect: Andromeda. The player character Ryder has an opposite sex twin^note A brother named Scott if a female Ryder, and a sister named Sara if a male Ryder who is also your successor as Pathfinder. Due to events at the beginning of the game involving a Negative Space Wedgie, they are in a coma for the first half of the game and recuperating until they get abducted during the final battle. During the post game, Jaal and Liam discuss how awesome it will be when both Ryders take to the field.
• In Vile's story mode in Mega Man X Maverick Hunter X the final boss is X and Zero fighting together. Sometimes they'll strategically swap places, but they'll also release attacks together or release them from opposite sides of the screen to trap you. When the boss health bar gets low enough, one of them will fall, but that's really not a good thing ...
• A few instances in Mortal Kombat:
  • Liu Kang and Kung Lao can be a bit catty with (and regarding) one another, but are loyal and steadfast allies in practically every timeline.
  • Kenshi and Ermac became this for a short time in the original pre-Netherrealm Studios timeline, as Ermac's various souls had decided to work for good.
  • The Netherrealm Studios timeline made infamous mortal enemies Scorpion and Sub-Zero into these, having them finally reconcile and work together as genuine allies.
  • The modern timeline also has Jax and Johnny Cage as these, despite how much Cage annoys Jax. This also extends to the Special Forces junior team, where Cassie and Jacqui are Smash Sisters to Takeda and Kung Jin's Bash Brothers.
• Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi: James and Wilfred. "Thanks, brother. I love you. But if you try and hold me to that statement, I'll deny it."
• Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones in the Ring of Fire battle against The Bash Brothers incarnate. To beat them, you have to anticipate that they'll help each other when one is in trouble.
• Alex and Ryan in River City Ransom. In Japan, they're known as Kunio and Riki and they continued to team up in later games (such as in Nekketsu Kakuto Densetsu and Nekketsu! Street Basket) whenever they were not competing as rivals.
• Sacrifice has the Hachimen, even though it's not a fighting game, they're exactly the same thing.
• Samurai Warriors also has several:
  • Tadakatsu Honda and Ii Naomasa.
  • Lady Hayakawa and Kai.
  • Todo Takatora and Otani Yushitsugu.
• Mario and Luigi do this for pretty much every Bros. move in the Mario & Luigi RPGs. And when you start doing the Advanced moves...
  • AND in Super Mario RPG, Bowser and Mario can do this with some of the Koopa King's weapons being various gloves used to throw Mario himself.
  • In Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Popple and Bowser (as "Rookie") do this with new team attacks during their second battle with the Mario Bros. One of the attacks even involves Bowser throwing Popple.
• Any Combination Attack in a Super Robot Wars game that's not featuring a Battle Couple is usually between Bash Brothers. A standout example is Elzam Von Branstein and Sanger Zonvolt, (proof that Real Men Ride Each Other...)
• In Super Robot Wars Z, the game started the thing in which whenever Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny and Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam plays a part in any gundam related game, usaully Shinn and Kamille will be this due to Shinn basically being a slightly less stable version of Kamille.
• Joey and Kurou form a tag team during their duo battles in Arkham City, their friendship is one of the three-cross series friendships in Super Robot Wars UX
• Super Smash Bros.: Popo and Nana, the Ice Climbers.
• Team Fortress 2: There's a reason why the Heavy and Medic pairing is one of the most iconic.
  • The Scout grew up with Seven older brothers who would roam Boston and get in fights. His speed training was for getting to the fights before they ended.
• One of the attract cinemas for Tekken 5 shows Kazuya and Heihachi battling an army of Jack cyborgs, until Kazuya throws an exhausted Heihachi their way to secure his escape.
• The Bielert brothers, Oscar and Emile, from Valkyria Chronicles are somewhat literal Bash Brothers.
• World of Warcraft has a few of these as bosses, forcing the players to defeat two enemies working together, effectively turning them into one meta-boss encounter. The Eredar Twins in Sunwell Plateau and more memorably the Twin Emperors of Ahn'Qiraj are boss encounters with two powerful enemies, the battle commonly known as the Bug Trio of Ahn'Qiraj, as the name implies, pits three enemies against the players, the final battle of the Death Knight wing of Naxxramas is against the Four Horsemen-Sir Zeliek, Thane Korthazz, Lady Blameux, and Baron Rivendare (who replaced Highlord Mograine), and from the Crimson Halls of Icecrown Citadel, the Blood Prince Council (super upgraded and revived versions of Blood-Princes Valanar, Taldaram, and Keleseth).
  • Cataclysm's Blackwing Descent raid instance has you fighting the reanimated Nefarian after he also brings his sister Onyxia back to life. Just to drive the point home, they attack twice as fast by just being in close proximity to eachother.
  • 2v2 Arena matches pit two pairs of Bash Brothers against each other.

Webcomics

• Invoked in The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, where to counter Frans Rayner's use of the Conservation of Ninjutsu against the McNinja clones, Dr. McNinja switches sides and fights alongside a shocked and confused Rayner, who has no choice but to accept this or else give up and let the clones kill him.
• Steve of Coga Suro is delighted both times he gets to invoke this trope — once in the future with his older self [citing the need for a double-Steve combo move] and again in the sequel with his son.
• Girl Genius:
  • Bill and Barry Heterodyne. Alone they were heroic, powerful Sparks. Together they changed the world, and their family's legacy, for the better. And despite their disappearance remain almost universally loved and feared.
  • Aldin and Jiminez Hoffman as well.
• It's hinted that Piro and Largo from MegaTokyo do this in some online games, such as the Endgames MMORPG.
• The titular heroes of Nip and Tuck are implied to be this, especially here.
• Ciro and Kareem from Project 0, bust into an enemy stronghold and divy up how they complete the mission. apparently they've been doing this for a long time.
• Torg and Riff from Sluggy Freelance do this during the "Dangerous Days" arc, though only after they get done shooting and yelling at each other first.
• Tower of God: Anaak and Hatz as well as Rak and Khun.
• Unsounded:
  • Emil and Elka fight their way through all sorts of horrific situations, and even though they don't always win they do keep surviving things no one would be expected to. As a matter of fact they've been declared dead back at the capital.
  • Flashbacks prove Duane and Lemuel were just about unstoppable together on the battlefield.
• Gray and Rowan from Weak Hero prove to be quite a team when their backs are to the wall, with Gray surprising opponents with his underhanded tactics while Rowan follows up to knock them out.

Web Original

• Karate Duo Number One! (Number one!).
• In the Superhero Web Serial Novel Gamer Girl (2016), close quarters brawler Gamer Girl and long range support Fangirl fight in tandem to compensate for each other's weaknesses on the battlefield.
• "Poppy Brothers Juuunior!" "Poppy Brothers SEEENIOR!"
• Frollo and Gaston from The Frollo Show operate on this principal even when there's not any sort of fight to be had.
• In The Leet World, Player and Chet.
• The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny video, Haloid. Even more in Haloid's spiritual sequel, Dead Fantasy, most notably with Ayane/Kasumi and Yuna/Rikku, but really all the characters did this constantly.
• The Freelancers North and South Dakota are show to be a perfect male/female example of this in Red vs. Blue.
• Madness Combat prominently features the B-team duo of Sanford and Deimos. Originally starting as just a pair of featureless grunts, the series shows that they developed a strong sense of coordination that makes them together as lethal as Hank despite having no appreciable special abilities. They also display a friendly, 'bro'-like camaraderie both on the field and off it, with Sanford as the Straight Man and Deimos as the Plucky Comic Relief who cheerfully pesters him.
  • After Demios' unfortunate demise, Sanford buddies up with a MAG-nified Hank to watch the big guy's back.

Western Animation

• Adventure Time: Finn and Jake took on a Giant Spellcasting Undead King with a Magic Gauntlet, Magic Tiaras and Sweaters. And won.
• Joey and AP from Atomic Puppet. As Atomic Puppet, they're a two-in-one superhero who take on anyone that threatens Mega City and make them pay with a one-way trip to the Sun.
• From Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • The series pretty much makes Aang and Sokka to be this, as well as Unrelated Brothers.
  • "The Blue Spirit" had Aang and Zuko.
  • "The Boiling Rock" had Sokka and Zuko.
  • Katara and Zuko in "The Southern Raiders". They are seen training back to back in the finale as well, but don't actually fight together as Azula challenges them to one-on-one duels instead.
• Memorably happened in one episode of Batman Beyond where Bruce, rejuvenated by a few dips in a Lazarus Pit, fought some mooks alongside Terry, with an electric guitar version of the Batman: The Animated Series Theme blaring in the background.
• Ben 10: Omniverse has Ben and Rook Blonko.
• The Bots Master: There are a few BOYZZ that always work as a team.
  • The Street BOYZZ always fight as a pair and usually high-five each other after the job is done.
  • The Sports BOYZZ, led by All Ball, are four sports-themed robots that love fighting and playing sports together.
• Fangbone and Bill from Fangbone! work together to fight Venomous Drool's monster and other forces of evil. Fangbone even refers to Bill as his "battle-brother".
• Justice League would seclude a handful of characters together so they could take on bigger threats. The most common was Green Lantern and The Flash, though Superman and Wonder Woman would occasionally get in.
• In The Legend of Korra, Mako and Bolin are actual brothers, and hand out asskicking like a pro team. They've graduated to this status in Books 3 and 4, since they hardly spent time with each other in previous books.
  • Korra and Asami are this too, mostly in Book 3 when Mako and Bolin pair off.
  • Lin and Suyin, once they settle their differences, are almost always fighting together in major battles, such as double-teaming P'Li in Season 3 or helping cripple Kuvira's Humongous Mecha in Season 4.
    • Wei and Wing, who are also actual brothers, are this every time they accompany their mother Suyin.
• We only get to see it in brief flashbacks, but My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has Princesses Celestia and Luna taking down Discord and King Sombra. There was also Tirek, but they may have acted more as commanding officers rather than taking action personally in that case for all we know.
  • In the Crystal War timeline from "The Cutie Remark, Part 1", Maud and Pinkie Pie are literally Smash Sisters.
• In Rick and Morty, the titular brothers in the Show Within a Show Two Brothers fight various, increasingly bizarre threats side-by-side.
• Samurai Jack featured a fight with Jack and the Spartan King against an octopus-like machine in Jack and the Spartans.
  • Likewise Jack and the Scotsman.
• Luminara and Bariss Ofee in Star Wars: Clone Wars. Their lightsaber fight against the battle droids showed them to be perfectly synchronized.
  • Other expanded universe material unveils that the two of them specifically learned to fight like this.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars gives us more of these moments between Obi-Wan and Anakin. They work in perfect tandem whenever they go up against a foe together, Dooku being the most often.
• Superman and Captain Marvel. Their initial efforts to take out the more experienced and ruthless Black Adam separately doesn't work well for the pair. However, once they start working together, they eventually find their rhythm and proceed to lay down a beautiful beat down on him. It was a pleasant contrast to other animated showings of the characters where the two heroes end up fighting each other.
• The SWAT Kats live this trope, though only rarely are they actually fighting in the same room at the same time. When they do, T-Bone acts as The Big Guy and goes at baddies with fist swinging, while the slighter Razor relies on a quicker, more acrobatic fighting style. The rest of the time, their approach to a problem will still always depend on their teamwork (whether it's air/ground, or piloting/weapons). If one kat is in serious trouble (or worse, unresponsive), the other will get very distressed and might channel that into a "this is for my buddy!" attack.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In the 2007 TMNT movie, Splinter even said that when they work together and are in the right rhythm, they are unbeatable.
  • Raphael from the 2003 cartoon is very dedicated to this trope. While all the Turtles cooperate in battle, he stands out as an especially reliable back-watcher. In nearly every fight, Raph will prevent an enemy from nailing one of his brothers from behind. Lampshaded by Donatello in one occasion:
    Raph: Watch your back, brainiac!
    Don: (laughs) Isn't that what you're for, Raph?
  • Turtles Forever takes this to the apex with the '03 Turtles eventually fighting in tandem with the '87 Turtles, and the '03 style of straight ninja fighting is contrasted with the '87 slapstick style, with both being equally efficient.
• Teen Titans:
  • Robin and Slade during an Enemy Mine. Although it works so well because they know each other's styles so intimately and are similar — back in Season 1, they kept falling into Fearful Symmetry.
  • Also, Robin and Red X.
  • Cyborg's got the sonic if Robin's got the boom.
  • Cyborg and Beast Boy even have their own variant of the Fastball Special.
  • Robin and Starfire, occasionally.
• Transformers: Animated:
  • Prowl and Captain Fanzone team up when they go to Dinobot Island and have to fight off a slew of mutated creatures. The episode first shows how Fanzone's willing to work with the Autobots despite disliking them for being machines. Fighting alongside Prowl is probably why Fanzone starts actually liking the Autobots, or at least tolerating them. In a later episode he even sides with them against Powell.
  • The big guy-little guy team of Bulkhead and Bumblebee. They've been close friends ever since attending Autobot Boot Camp together, and are usually seen watching each others' backs on and off the battlefield. The two have even developed their own variation on the Fastball Special utilizing Bulkhead's wrecking ball hands and Bumblebee's smaller stature.
• Transformers: Prime:
  • The villains Knock Out and Breakdown, whose introductory episode had them nearly take down the entire team, including Optimus, by themselves. They are extremely close friends outside of battle too, contrasting the fractured and "out for themselves" Decepticon forces.
  • The main reason the Autobots are able to match the Decepticons despite being at a disadvantage both in firepower and numbered forces is because they have bonded closely as a team. Each of them can pair off with the other in combat. The third season episode "Evolution" not only features an epic Bash Brothers with previously at-odds characters Wheeljack and Ultra Magnus, Optimus asserts that their bond as a family is what makes them more dangerous than an entire army.
  • Optimus and Megatron always become this whenever they are both thrust into an Enemy Mine situation against a greater foe.
• Dr. Girlfriend's Moppets in The Venture Bros. are dwarfs who fling one another around...
• Xiaolin Showdown: Omi and Chase Young. Though after Season 2, this could apply to the four dragons as a whole when they use Dragon X-kumei, or Wudai Orion.

Real Life

• In the US, there is an old saying, "A friend will help you move, a good friend will help you move bodies, and a brother will have the bodies moved before it occurs to him to ask why the hell you need bodies moved."
  • Another variant: "A friend will visit you in jail, a good friend will bail you out, but a bro will be sitting beside you going 'Damn, that was fun!'".
• Many Ice Hockey forward lines embody a three-brother party. One of many examples would be the "Crash Line" of the New Jersey Devils teams of the 90s and early 2000s. The Crash Line was composed of Bobby Holik, Randy McKay, and Mike Peluso; the average weight of a Crash Line player was 215 pounds. Needless to say, the Crash Line was a dominating, physical and ultimately instrumental part to the Devils' championship success. They were extremely successful and provided the "grind line" defensive template that is used to this day.
  
  The "grind line" terminology was derived from the Detroit Red Wings — who, after being destroyed by the Crash Line in the 1995 Stanley Cup Finals, quickly adopted the same techniques and established the original Grind Line of Kris Draper, Joe Kocur, and Kirk Maltby. This line led them to two straight Cups in 1997 and 1998 (and another Cup in 2002 after Darren McCarty had succeeded Kocur on the line) and permanently encoded this technique in the essence of the game.
• In the late 1980s, Bob Probert and Joey Kocur of the Red Wings were sometimes referred to as "the Bruise Brothers".
• When they both played for the Oakland A's, Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco were nicknamed "The Bash Brothers" for their one-two punch when put together in the line-up.
• Recently in the NBA, a variant of the term has entered use for describing the Golden State Warriors guard pairing of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson — The Splash Brothers, referencing the pair's incredible three-point shooting.
• This in turn led to Oklahoma City Thunder bigs Steven Adams and Enes Kanter being called the "Stache Brothers", from their very notable facial hair.
• Military units in real life, particularly when performing CQB (Close Quarter Battle) maneuvers, such as rescuing hostages.
  • Despite the common depiction of a Cold Sniper acting alone, dedicated snipers are always deployed with a spotter, someone who can confirm the kill because the actual sniper is too preoccupied with making the shot itself. They are also one to advise on which bullet to use and what modifications to make depending on the situation, as well as double-check the distance to the target.
  • In fact, in many situations the spotter is the more experienced soldier, as the spotter's work is more complicated, which is saying something since doing the actual shooting isn't simple point-and-shoot to begin with.
• In social situations there is a strategy involving using the Wingman, a friend that can give even the most skilled of Casanovas an added edge. Generally, they give a mutual benefit to each other by highlighting each others' strengths, as well as ensuring that neither are completely alone.
• The United States and Australia. The Boisterous Bruisers of the English-speaking world, priding themselves primarily on how awesome they can be rather than how "civilized" they are. The Australia-US alliance is one of the strongest in the world — possibly stronger than even the US-Canada and US-Britain ones. Since World War I, the US and Australia have always fought beside each other (even if the US was late to the party the first two times, one implies the other).
  • ...But that still doesn't mean you should shake a stick at the US-UK Special Relationship. After the two stopped fighting, they instantly agreed to bury the hatchet and become pals, and now either side can be guaranteed to back the other up. Some conflicts aside, the two will always be found together, pulling the other's butt out of the oven once shit hits the fan. There's always some guaranteed Ho Yay between the two leaders of the respective countries — except during the two periods in which the UK has had a woman occupying No. 10. And the first of the two women of Downing Street was Margaret Thatcher, widely seen as matching any man for toughness.
  • The Anglosphere is built around this, military-wise. Each of the above-mentioned countries can and have engaged in some truly impressive feats during countless battles through numerous wars. The US and Canada had bi-national special forces units during World War II, Canada and Great Britain fought together in the trenches to great success during World War I. Australia and New Zealand (and Newfoundland) fought heroically at Gallipoli (though that ended tragically, they earned the respect and admiration of the Turks). America and Great Britain, as mentioned above, have numerous conflicts in which they did this, as have America and Australia. Australia and Canada also did this at Kapyong during The Korean War, proving how awesome they could truly be. It helps that the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have numerous military (and non-military) treaties and agreements that help to enable this trope. On top of NATO and The Commonwealth of Nations, there is the UKUSA Agreement, AUSCANZUKUS, Five Eyes, ABCA Armies, Combined Communications Electronics Board, just to name a few. All of this adds up to make these nations a terrifying Bash Family.
  • Put best by the Michael Joseph Savage, Prime Minister of New Zealand: "It is with gratitude in the past, and with confidence in the future, that we range ourselves without fear beside Britain, where she goes, we go! Where she stands, we stand!"
  • People often forget this, but the alliance older than US-Britain, US-Canada, or US-Australia? The United States and France. The reason being is that France was the United State's first ally, going all the way back to The American Revolution — even if it was originally a political move to screw over Britain. Of all the alliances both countries have had, this one is one of the longest. In fact, one of the most iconic "American" icons, the Statue of Liberty, was donated to the United States by France. Time and again, both countries have come to the other's aid in their time of need, and the solidarity between the two is very well-known. Much like the US-Australia relations, they may not always get along well, more so because of the US' predominantly Anglo-Saxon culture, but at the end of the day, they always help each other out.
• The UK and France. While inhabitants of both nations profess to dislike the other intensely, with still popular offensive nicknames 'Frogs' (derived from the French eating frog's legs) and 'Rosbifs' (the latter derived from the famous British love of roast beef and habit of burning in the sun), and sporting contests being a source of intense rivalry, the two nations are much closer than either would like to admit, with five centuries of English Kings having land in France — and de facto French Kings ruling England — from 1066 to the fall of Calais breeding a special connection. French used to be an expected language of anyone who was anyone in England, and is still the most commonly taught foreign language in the UK, while the reverse is true in France — and it is now near required for success in the business world. Millions of inhabitants of both countries go on holiday to the other each year and hundreds of thousands of citizens of both countries reside in the other. And following about 800 years of kicking the crap out of each other, from The Crimean War onwards, they've gone from reluctant allies to, following the World War I and World War II, tighter than brothers — and while they enjoy winding each other up, they will be the first to support each other in the event of a tragedy.
  • To illustrate, France responded to the 7/7 bombings by labelling the attackers 'savages' and instantly offering 'immediate, full and total collaboration of French services in helping you identify the authors of these crimes.' Britain, meanwhile, responded to the 2015 Bataclan gun attacks with similar promises and at a scheduled football friendly between England and France played at Wembley a matter of days later, usually an occasion of intense rivalry, the entire stadium was lit up in red, white and blue, the motto of the French Republic was emblazoned on the side, the usual giant St George's Cross at the home end was replaced by a French tricolore, the stadium was filled with banners along the lines of 'we stand by you' and after the impeccably observed minute of silence, the English fans all joined in the singing of La Marseillaise -- fittingly, a stirring call to arms. Barely two weeks later, the previously reluctant British Parliament, which had defeated a previous motion along the same lines two years before, voted to extend air strikes against ISIS to their heartlands in Syria and RAF bombers were in the air within the hour. They may bicker incessantly, but if you go after one of these countries, you'll face the immediate vengeful wrath of the other — and since both are still among the most powerful nations on the planet, this is not a fight you want to pick.
• Sweden and Finland from about the 13th to the early 19th century.
• Very much Canada and the Netherlands post World War Two.

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