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Giant Mook

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We're gonna need a bigger boot.

Frank Martin: ...You're the smart one?
Giant Mook: No. I am the big one.
(throws Frank through a brick wall)
— Transporter 3

A minion or henchman too big, strong or tough to be an ordinary mook, but not interesting enough to be The Dragon, a member of the Quirky Miniboss Squad, a King Mook or even an Elite Mook. Giant mooks usually require more effort to kill than ordinary mooks; the hero may need to land a series of nasty martial-arts blows before they sink to their knees (they don't go flying when you hit them). Sometimes they may seem too strong for the hero to kill, but then be fortunately (for the hero) caught up in a machine.

Giant Mooks often lead mook squads. Usually the laws of Mook Chivalry dictate that they attack alone, after their underlings have been easily dispatched.

If Giant Mooks are dragons, snakes, giants, or any other sort of scary animal or dumb big villain they will usually be the Right-Hand Attack Dog, which the Hero first has to slay before confronting the Big Bad himself.

The actors who play Giant Mooks in big-budget films may be well-loved as wrestlers or as Gentle Giant actors in TV shows or independent films, but they don't rate above a line or two and a violent death in a major production. If a giant mook actually receives characterization, he is The Brute.

Video games, particularly Brawlers, First-Person Shooter and Third-Person Shooter games, are full of these. Many of these monsters start out as the de facto boss monster of the game's first or second episode or segment, having their strength diluted in their appearances later in the game.

In videogames, compare and contrast King Mook, a boss which only has the appearance of a Giant Mook. Compare Smash Mook, The Brute, Elite Mooks, an upgraded squad of mooks, and Boss in Mook Clothing. Contrast Fake Ultimate Mook, which looks like a Giant Mook but goes down just as easily as anyone else, and Mini Mook.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Actors 

    Anime & Manga 
  • In Berserk, especially the Golden Age arc, the knight companies and mercenary bands would always have one or two fighters that stood at least nine feet tall. Guts usually makes quick work of them.
  • Bleach:
    • The Gillian, the lowest class of the Menos (read: super Hollows), which are basically giant Hollows with even less common sense.
    • Fura is not just the largest Hollow seen, it barfs up Gillians like fodder.
  • Fist of the North Star: Probably half the villains from this series would qualify. No, really, a lot of the bad guys are huge.
    • Mr. Heart is the giant mook in every way, right down to his size.
    • Devil Rebirth, who appears to be at least twenty feet tall, and yet is considered a human.
    • And then we have Zeed, the first villain in the series, who strangely changes size in mid-scene.
  • The finale of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha's first season had the huge mecha-mook that appeared near the end of the Theme Music Power-Up, which required both Nanoha and Fate joining forces to take down.
  • Lionel "Leo" Jenning in the Western Shōjo manga Miriam, falls just short of being The Brute by not having any real affiliation with the main group of bad guys. However, he's a gigantic champion prizefighter who presents a tremendous challenge in hand-to-hand combat, and Douglas' encounter with him plays out much like any Giant Mook faceoff in a movie or video game would... until later, when he becomes The Big Guy Sixth Ranger.
  • In One Piece, the Marines use actual Giants as mooks dubbed the "Giant Squad" of about 8 of them.
    • The two members of the Giant Squad who have actually been named are both Vice Admirals, the third highest rank in the Marines, so at least in theory they shouldn't be mooks. But since they're only seen in action against characters on an even higher level who beat them effortlessly, they come off like mooks anyway.
    • Prior to the Giant Squad, there were Oimo and Kashi among the Enies Lobby guards. While they batted aside the lesser members of the Franky Family (including the Mighty Destroyers, who are large-size humans rather than true Giants) with laughable ease, once the Galley-La foremen and the named members of the Franky Family arrived, the tide quickly turned and they were rather brutally defeated.
  • Docrates and Cassius, two enormous brothers from Saint Seiya, who never really attained enough status in the ranks of Sanctuary to be of any significant stature among the Saints. At least Cassius got to redeem himself.
  • In World Trigger, Trion Soldiers such as Bamsters, Vandas, and Ilgars are the size of a large building and are built to spread widespread destruction rather than engage in combat. The first two are some of the easiest Trion Soldiers to defeat, but the Ilgar is a massive flying whale shaped bomb that requires heavy firepower to take down.

    Comic Books 
  • In The Boys, the titular gang often fights giant mutants and cyborgs...and rips them to shreds with ease.
  • Drift Empire of Stone: The Stone Army are all just a bit bigger than the average Bot/Con. Though in addition to the regular mooks, there's a massive statue in their ranks as well which is used to attach the Decepticon leader.
  • In Megalex, Ram starts out looking like one, but is actually one of the Heroes.
  • Ãœber has a rare example of heroic giant mooks – the British "heavy"-class superhumans, who are twelve-foot-tall mountains of muscle encased in steel armor. They die bravely trying to defend London from the Nazi "human battleship" Sieglinde.
  • In Watchmen, midget crimelord Big Figure had a couple of big mooks at his disposal and used them to get at Rorschach in the middle of a prison riot. Little damn good it did him.

    Comic Strips 
  • In one story, The Phantom fights a hired goon called Icebear, an enormous man strong enough to be a challenge even for him.

    Film — Animation 
  • Doraemon: Nobita's Secret Gadget Museum has the robot gadget, the Medusa Head, and a DX version of the same gadget, a giant Medusa Head tall enough to reach the ceiling. The latter activates and attempts petrifying Nobita and gang after mistaking them for intruders.
  • The legendary Sumo Ninja in Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama fits in, due to being a sumo ninja. He's still beaten as easily as any other Mook...
  • Strange Magic: The aptly named Brutus is the largest of the Bog King's minions, towering over his fellow goblins. He's big enough to use the smallest goblins as ear plugs!
  • Zootopia: Mr. Big, the biggest crime lord in the city, has polar bears as bodyguards. One is even so tall he has to duck when coming through the doorway. Mr. Big, by contrast, is an arctic shrew, one of the smallest species of mammals.

    Film — Live-Action 
  • 21 Red List has the heroes fighting various thugs while escaping the embassy, the last one being a hulking brute where the protagonist's attempts at punching him leads to a Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh... moment.
  • In the movie 300, a particularly hideous Giant Mook among a troop of Elite Mooks gives Leonidas quite a thrashing before our hero manages to decapitate him.
  • Avengers: Endgame: Thanos's forces deploy hulking brutes tethered by collars on the battlefield, quite reminiscent of the trolls from The Lord of the Rings movies.
  • Batman (1989): Near the end of the movie, Batman is confronted with The Joker's large, muscular (and unnamed) bodyguard at the top of the bell tower. This Giant Mook proceeds to wipe the floor with Batman for the next minute or so, possibly coming closer to killing him than the Joker himself. And then Batman kills the mook himself. Comes off being unintentionally funny due to the mook looking like a big Ray Charles, the slapstick style choreography, and the rather silly way in which Batman sends the mook falling to his death.
  • Batman Returns: The Penguin has a guy like this, the tattooed strongman of the Red Triangle Gang. During the street fight scene, he dares Batman to hit him; Batman does, and it doesn't seem to hurt the thug much; then the guy realizes that Batman used the opportunity to plant an explosive device on his chest.
  • Batman & Robin: In the comics, Bane is a Genius Bruiser (he figures out Batman's secret identity, comes up with a refreshingly simple plan to beat Bats, and is generally one tough bastard). In this movie, he is basically an idiot caveman Giant Mook for Poison Ivy. Fortunately fixed in 2012's The Dark Knight Rises.
  • The Fat Bastard main villain from The Blood Rules have a pair of hulking Australian wrestlers as his personal bodyguards, specifically hired to deal with the hero, Mike. In the final battle Mike managed to kill the first, only to run out of bullets and struggle with the second which he eventually defeats via Neck Snap after getting thrashed and flung around for several minutes.
  • At one point in the Paul Walker film, Brick Mansions, the heroes meet a huge thug who forgoes using a gun to take them both on hand-to-hand. During the ensuing battle, he manages to shrug off their punches and they ultimately have to smash a cinder block over his head to knock him out.
  • Clegg: When Harry attempts to leave Wildman's estate, he is ambushed by a huge thug (listed in the credits as 'Dirty Giant') whom is only able to defeat by ramming him repeatedly with his car.
  • In Escape from New York, Snake Plissken is forced to fight a giant mook in gladiatorial-style combat.
  • Exit Wounds has Steven Seagal fighting a bunch of thugs in a nightclub, the last one (and a Scary Black Man as well) being the largest ("Here comes the sumo negro!"). He's the only mook that lasts for more than ten seconds against Seagal, though it doesn't stop the sensei from socking him halfway through the building at the end.
  • The Expendables:
    • In The Expendables 3, there's one large fellow with a huge knife who sprints into the climatic battle and tries to take Lee Christmas one-on-one. He actually manages to last several times as long as his comrades... but only because he's tough enough to take several times the beating and otherwise doesn't cause any serious damage.
    • The Expendables 2 has Barney and Christmas walk into a Bad Guy Bar to get information, where they are confronted by a huge thug... before they immediatly take him out of the fight by sucker punching him with brass knuckles.
  • God of Gamblers have a huge, oversized brute appearing alongside other enemies during the carpark shootout. As Lung took down multiple enemies, the brute managed to grab Lung from behind in a choke-hold; Lung managed to turn his pistol around and shoot the huge brute in the gut, but upon death the brute tightens his grip and leaves Lung trapped as several other mooks approaches. Luckily Ko Chun at that point had regained his memories - cue his Big Damn Heroes moment.
  • Hand of Death stars Sammo Hung (pre-fame) as the main villain's largest, tubbiest officer who can put up quite a fight and tank several blows because of his size.
  • The Heroic Ones features a gigantic Mongolian mercenary in the opening, who challenged the warlord's generals by killing four of the warlord's lieutenants. The warlord's youngest son and best fighter, Prince Li, answers the challenge - and promptly defeats the giant mercenary in ten seconds, as his Establishing Character Moment.
  • Spoofed in Hobbs & Shaw, when the titular duo infiltrates a garage filled with enemies. On the right side, Shaw takes on a dozen regular-sized mooks; on the left, Hobbs faces a muscular mechanic, taller and larger than the other mooks... but somehow goes down in one punch. Cue an Overly Long Gag of Hobbs dragging the knocked-out giant brute across the room, intersect with Shaw fighting the other regular mooks.
  • The Imperial Swordsman: The main villain have a cadre of hulking, muscular, bald-headed personal guards dressed in furs and use massive hammers as weapons. They give the main characters a much harder time in the final battle compared to common mooks, being Made of Iron and can take insane amounts of punishment. (How much? One of them gets stabbed in the back by the Action Girl, had both his eyes slashed out, and still keeps on fighting for another five minutes until he gets eventually impaled).
  • As the actor entry notes, Indiana Jones inevitably runs across a hulking henchman played by Pat Roach, who proceeds to cause him no end of trouble until dispatched with some convenient (and gruesome) environmental hazard.
  • James Bond movies:
    • The Classic Bond flick You Only Live Twice has numerous mooks and two giant mooks, the burly Japanese driver who takes Bond to Osato industries believing him to be an injured comrade, and Blofeld's huge, blonde bodyguard. Both take a lot of beating from Bond, in appropriate styles: the Japanese is defeated after much jujitsu and the use of a katana, the western guy after a western-style "big, loud punches on the jaw" type fight.
    • Then there was The Man with the Golden Gun, where Bond had to fight two Sumo wrestlers in one scene. He has barely beaten them, but then Scaramanga's Mook Lieutenant Nick-Nack cheated, clocking the agent on the head from behind.
    • Jaws (Richard Kiel) in The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker (although Jaws, being a chief henchman verged on The Dragon territory).
  • John Wick:
  • In The Kingdom one of these has a brutal fight with Janet Mayes (Jennifer Garner) and Adam Leavitt (Jason Bateman). He easily throws both of them across the room, and is only defeated after Janet shoots in the leg, with his own gun, repeatedly, and then stabs him twice in the groin and chest, before slamming his head into the ground and stabbing him in the head.
  • In the antique store fight in Jet Li's Kiss of the Dragon, a Scary Black Man Giant Mook is memorably introduced with his own theme song (N.E.R.D.'s "Lapdance", a.k.a. "Dirty Dog").
  • The Mask of Zorro (Banderas version) has a seven-foot Mexican soldier attack the hero. True to Mook Chivalry, all the other soldiers stand back and watch, even when Zorro picks up two cannonballs...
  • Motherless Brooklyn: One of Minna's killers is an enormous, mean-spirited brute who chases Lionel and Laura even after being shot through the foot.
  • The Protector:
    • The movie has a giant mook as a recurring antagonist. He is introduced by grabbing the hero through a wall and throwing him across a room. He later returns as leader of the Giant Mook squad (see below) and proves himself to be quite the Determinator refusing to go down and stay down even after his allies have been defeated and all his tendons cut.
    • Later in the movie we are introduced to a group of giant mooks just as big as that one, which the hero ultimately takes down by cutting their tendons with the bones of the elephant their boss killed.
  • "The Russian" from The Punisher (2004) is notable since he is the only Giant Mook from the comics to appear in the film.
  • Rambo III at one point, after Rambo has just managed to climb out of a crevice, he is confronted by a Russian soldier who towers over him and manages to thrash him around a bit. Rambo takes him out with a 1-2 combo of wrapping a rope around his neck, pulling the pin on one of his grenades, and then kicking him into a crevasse, where he's hanged and then gloriously explodes less than a second later.
  • In Robin Hood: The Rebellion, the Sheriff of Nottingham employs a brute named Brimstone as his primary enforcer: a massive bald, tattooed musclebound brute who towers over even Little John.
  • "Dredger" in the Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes (2009). Played by Robert Maillet, who also played the giant mook in the above-mentioned 300.
  • Special Female Force: One of the Big Bad's henchman is a hulking, oversized Malaysian mercenary with a gigantic gut full of Kevlard, which Action Girls Tung and Cat struggle with. Repeatedly punching his oversized midsection only makes him smirk. Tung finally manages to take him down via a Groin Attack.
  • Supercop 2 has Roger's team of operatives in the vault finale fighting the main characters. The heroine, Jessica Yang (played by Michelle Yeoh) notably gets to fight the largest of the group, a mercenary that towers over her. But Yang still wins by way of Combat Pragmatist - leaping on a table to perform a high-kick to the giant mercenary's head, smashing a bag of cash over her opponent's cranium, and hitting really low.
  • The Thrilling Sword has the heroic Prince battling the Four Immortals, the last one who's at least a meter taller and far stronger than his comrades, and gives the Prince some serious thrashing until he's defeated via Ass Shove.
  • Tower of Death have Bobby infiltrating the titular Tower and beating up every single mook in the way to reach the main villain's sanctums, the last guy being a gigantic, musclebound brute dressed in furs. Who tanks plenty of blows from Bobby and keeps getting back up, until Bobby performs a Diving Kick from the ceiling.
  • One appears in first three Transporter movies:
    • Downplayed in the first film: One of the villains is an enormous guy complete with Beard of Evil, but he's only mildly harder for Frank to defeat than the others.
    • The second movie has a Scary Black Man who's probably the hardest opponent Frank has to contend with.
    • Lampshaded in the third movie, as the page quote illustrates.
  • In Troy, Achilles fights one named Boagrius, who is enormous. The fight lasts about three seconds. Ajax could also fill this role for the Greeks in the same movie.
  • The X-Men Film Series enjoy this trope. We have Sabertooth in the first film, Juggernaut in the third, and the Blob in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Both Sabertooth and Juggernaut seem more like dumb muscle than their comic counterparts while the Blob tends to be closer to this trope in both comics and film.
  • One of the factions in Akira Kurosawa's classic Yojimbo has a giant mook with a big hammer named Kannuki the Giant (Namigoro Rashomon). Last Man Standing, the rather faithful remake (despite being set during Prohibition in America) starring Bruce Willis, also has a giant mook hanging around.

    Gamebooks 
  • Fighting Fantasy has Mutant Orcs, gigantic version of orcs with bulging muscles and higher stats compared to the common orcs. Legend of Zagor describes them as having an arm as large as half their body.
  • The Lone Wolf books have the Gourgaz, huge axe-wielding lizardfolks leading giak troops. The toughest fight of the first book, Flight from the Dark, is against one.

    Literature 
  • Animorphs: Hork-Bajir are all close to seven feet tall, but they're just regular Yeerk Mooks. In Book 45, however, we meet Grath, leader of the elite Blue Band squadron. At close to eight feet tall, Grath gives Rachel a brutal fight, taking her on one on one (something most Hork-Bajir cannot do), while coming off as no different from any other Yeerk Mook in the personality department.
  • The Bible. The Philistines had giants soldiers. (Goliath was one of these giants, but he was too important to be considered a Mook.)
  • Ogres in City of Devils are often employed as security guards. They're twelve feet tall, sport massive tusks, and can frighten most people off just by eating.
  • Full Metal Panic! has quite a few of these. The first comes in the form of the KGB lieutenant who first appears in Gauron's introductory scene. A generic, huge, muscled Mook, he's even lampshaded mockingly by Gauron to have been brought there by the colonel for the specific purpose of intimidating him (due to his big size and angry manner). Then there's Dunnigan, who is again, muscled and huge. He tends to use brute force and strength, which was also the reason for his downfall when fighting Sôsuke. This is, however, subverted with Gauron, who is one of the tallest (along with the KGB lieutenant and Dunnigan) and most muscled characters in the series. Despite initially looking like a rugged, Giant Mook that won't last very long... he turns out to be one of the longest running (and very important) antagonists in the series.
  • The Goblins of Goblin Slayer have the Hobgoblin. While normal Goblins are tiny and prefer to rely on a sneaky Zerg Rush style of combat, they call in the much beefier Hobgoblin when things get too hairy.
  • Harry Potter:
    • Half-Blood Prince: by all accounts, the action at Hogwarts at the end of the book was dominated by an anonymous, huge, blond Death Eater.
    • In Deathly Hallows, this Death Eater is given the appropriately Giant Mook-ish name of Thorfinn Rowle.
    • Also, quite literally, all the giants Voldemort got on his side.
  • The Lord of the Rings
    • The cave trolls in books and films certainly qualify.
    • Even more so the Orc Chieftain (the one that injures Frodo).
    • Not to mention the Great Goblin in The Hobbit.
    • Dragons have this role in The Silmarillion, and one of the most massive examples on this page appears in the form in the form of Ancalagon The Black, the first winged dragon, who made other dragons look tiny by comparison. To call this guy "Fucking Ginormous" was a reeeally big understatement. How big was he? He managed to crush Thangorodrim (Highest mountain in Middle Earth, about 6,000 feet taller than our very own Mount Everest) by falling on it.
  • Star Trek: The Return (1996) part of the Shatnerverse series of books. Picard encounters a Borg drone, one that was ...
    ...unlike any Borg Picard had ever encountered... It was bipedal, but three meters tall, with piston-like legs and thick crushing disks for footpads, digging into the soil. Propellant gases hissed from its leg joints as it began to stalk forward. Two pairs of arms swung forward, searchingly, manipulators opening and closing with molecularly sharp carbon cutters and whirling blades. Their target: raw materials.
  • In David Eddings' The Tamuli Klael brings in an entire army of these from one of the worlds he rules. They're initially all but unbeatable.
  • In The Traitor Son Cycle:
    • Thorn's forces include giant Rukh, trolls and wyverns.
    • The Odine have an honest-to-god dragon in their ranks.
  • In Wars of the Realm, when a demon immerses himself too far into doing and enjoying evil, he devolves into a monster called a droxan—a huge half-bear half-dragon creature replete with Spikes of Villainy. Droxans are used by the less degenerate demons as nearly unstoppable Beasts of Battle that love to destroy everything they see.

    Live-Action TV 
  • B.A. Baracus (Mr. T) of The A-Team usually wipes the floor with any pitiful Mook fool enough to try confronting him. However, he meets a stumbling block in two (unrelated) episodes with an Asian Giant Mook (same actor each time) who can take his punches without flinching, and then proceeds to throw The Big Guy around.
  • On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when Harmony forms her own gang she includes a Giant Mook in the form of Mort.
  • Actor Rubén Aguirre who was famous for his height is frequently cast as this in more episodes of El Chapulín Colorado that one can count. The joke normally is that Chapulín (played by Roberto Gómez Bolaños who was shorter than average) has to fight him.
  • Cercei Lannister in Game of Thrones has The Mountain (well, actually some sort of resurrected version of him) as her personal bodyguard. He's little more than a brute to the Lannisters, but he's too damn huge and deadly to be considered "just a Mook" by everyone. He is not nicknamed The Mountain for nothing.
  • Genseishin Justiriser: Bulgario first pops up as a Monster of the Week, but when it reappears in the penultimate episode, it's become a mass-produced Robeast for the Daruga Imperial Army. In Chousei Kantai Sazer X, the Megarion mecha the Daruga Army used returns as a mass-produced giant robot for Neo Descal.
  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981): The towering and muscular David Prowse makes a brief but memorable appearance as the guy who literally guards Hotblack Desiado's body.
  • Leverage: The random security guard from "The Schaherezaede Job". Standing roughly One Head Taller than the rest of Alexander Moto's security detail, he gives Eliot a surprisingly tough fight and is knocked out. He then wakes up and attacks him again, forcing Eliot and Parker to blow him up, dropping him thirty feet into a vault and knocking him unconscious. Again. The plan goes wrong, Moto rushes in, and just as you're thinking it can't get any worse, the Mook wakes up, dusts himself off, and proceeds to ready himself for a rematch. Moto got his money's worth with this guy.
  • The evil Mutant Rangers in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers are just morphed Putty Patrollers and three of them (the Green, Blue, and Black ones, specifically) are grown to giant size and fight the Zords.
  • Person of Interest. Reece comes across a seven-foot tall member of the Aryan Brotherhood about to kill that week's POI.
    Reece: Pick on someone your own size. [realizes how big he is] Well someone a little... closer to it.
  • When King Mondo grew to giant size a second time in the final battle in Power Rangers Zeo, he grew several Cogs along with him.
  • Super Sentai has Humongous Mecha-sized Mooks:
    • Samurai Sentai Shinkenger is the first series to use this trope in almost every episode. While Giant Mooks did occur in previous series, they were rather rare. Shinkenger is the first series in which this trope is a frequent occurrence.
    • The Sugormin, the Elite Mooks from Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger are able to grow giant sized, as well as turning into a glider for the Monster of the Week to fly on. Basco to Jolokia, one of the villains, is able to turn past Sixth Rangers into mooks. Some of them have the power to grow giant on their own, resulting in this trope.
    • The Vaglass Megazords in Tokumei Sentai Go Busters. There are three basic types, Alpha, Beta and Gamma. Whenever one is sent out, they have parts from the Monster of the Week grafted onto them. Alpha Types even have the ability to release Bugzords, giant versions of the regular mooks.
    • The Zorima, the mooks from Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger pile up on each other to merge into the dinosaur-like Giant Zorima, becoming this trope. The Cambrima, the Elite Mooks of the show, can grow giant themselves.
    • In Ressha Sentai ToQger, the Shadow Line's Kuliner trains act as these, being able to transform into Humongous Mecha called Kuliner Robos that are usually piloted usually by the Mooks. The main baddies have their own versions too, which they use for giant-sized fights against the heroes rather than turning gigantic themselves.
    • In Shuriken Sentai Ninninger, Kyuuemon Izayoi summons a Giant Yokai Gashadokuro using his Yo Shuriken. They most just serve as extra muscle in fights, but six of them can be merged together with two Sealing Shurikens to create an Advanced Yokai Oboroguruma.
  • Takeshi's Castle had two of these, Jumbo Max (for a few episodes), and Yoroi Chuu (For the rest of the entire series).

    Pro Wrestling 
  • Most teams of AAA's mascot division were made up of a luchador with a miniestrella using a similar gimmick, but the opposite was also possible with mini estrellas popular to have a "large" version.

    Roleplay 
  • In The Gamer's Alliance, the Dominator is a demon colossus, a rare demon breed, which is unleashed during the siege of Vanna to break through the city's walls.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Warhammer basically has Giant Mook as a unit type. Several armies have the option of fielding large monsters or constructs, such as Trolls, Kroxigor, Rat Ogres, Minotaurs, and the like which are extremely powerful and tough, but few in number. The (non-rat) Ogre Kingdoms are in fact an army made up almost entirely of Giant Mooks.
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • Squad leaders. A squad member that has better stats and gear than a normal unit, but is still part of a squad as opposed to the more powerful independent characters.
    • Da Orks play this trope straight — since Orks gain social status as they grow larger and stronger, the "Nobz" who lead squads/mobz are noticeably bigger than their underlings, though not as big as the Warboss in command of the army.
    • The Imperial Guard also deploys Ogryns, which are their equivalent of Ogres. By and large, they're dumb and even their "BONE'eads" are still pretty dumb as they all come from former and long forgotten prison planets that stress "being big" and not "smart". They literally believe that the Emperor has a direct chain of command that is never wrong and the Commissar is the direct line to them... which is bad when said Commissar falls to Chaos. The Ogryn are too dumb to realize anything is amiss. Ogryn are stupidly loyal and serve as perfect body guards, with one dragging a Rhino (a massive armored personnel carrier) all the way to his injured Commissar because he said "the med-kit is in the Rhino" and assumed it meant "bring the Rhino to him".
    • Chaos Space Marine armies that employ daemons, which inevitably includes some very big ones, which of course are the strongest.
    • Eldar use Wraithguard, who though perhaps not as skilled as the most elite of their Aspect Warriors are some of the toughest infantry on any army list and carry guns that open miniature portals to the Warp inside their targer. Incidentally, while they play the trope straight while compared to any normal Eldar, they have their own giant version, the aptly named Wraithlord, who absolutely towers over anything short of a titan on the battlefield and can kick twice as much ass (mostly because it's toughness actually forbids most units from harming it).
    • Like the Orks, the threat level of Tyranids is sorted by exactly how tall and wide said threat is. This even translated to a rule where enemies facing the tyranids gained the rule "Shoot the Big Ones!" where they can ignore targetting priority if they are targeting a monstrous tyranid creature. Almost every small creature has some form of "giant" equivalent; Gaunts are the "giant" version of Rippers, while Warriors are the "Giant" version of Gaunts. Raveners have Trygons and even the Carnifex (previously THE giant mook for the Tyranids) have the Tyrannofex. Going up one scale higher and we have the Hierophant Biotitan, who is basically every other creature listed here squished into one skyscraper-sized bug.
    • Shortly after the Thirteenth Black Crusade, under the guide of Primarch Robotue Gulliman and Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl, the Loyalist Space Marines have the Primaris Space Marines. Primaris Marines are bigger, stronger, and less prone to genetic quirks than their older Brothers making them more reliable compared to, for example, a Blood Angel Marine. The Primaris is far less likely to suffer from the Red Thirst nor will he succumb to the Black Rage.

    Toys 
  • Kahgarak from BIONICLE are Elite Mook Visorak, several times their size. Kranua, Kraahu and Krahli are this for the Vahki robot squads. A lot of the fusions like the Bohrok Kaita, Bohrok-Kal Kaita and Rahkshi Kaita are examples as well.

    Web Animation 
  • Madness Combat
    • A giant Man in Black(with his 6 foot caliber shotgun) is seen in the episode Consternation and takes three shotgun blasts to the face without flinching. Hank, the protagonist, only manages to kill him by ramming a chainsaw through his head. The giant is later revealed to be a Mag Agent, which are regular agents upgraded into giant Super Soldiers. More Mag Agents appear in later episodes and take longer to kill than regular Mooks.
    • Hank and Sanford face a giant Skeleton at the end of Expurgation, it's unknown if it's related to Mag Agents as they are in an Eldritch Location even worst than where they usually are.
    • Deimos fight a bunch of giant mooks in DedmosRebuilt.fla. They are smaller than mag agents but still twice the height of Deimos. He beats them up with no problem with his new powers.
  • RWBY has the chainsaw wielding White Fang Lieutenant, who is one of the very few members of said organization, who has defeated a named character.

    Webcomics 
  • Harkovast features an army of Nameless warriors, including one who is enormous. It takes out a large section of the Darsai army before Shogun shows up.
  • Homestuck:
    • Ogres and Gyclopses are this among the Underlings that the players fight. They're huge and tough — the Ogres in particular are essentially gigantic versions of the common Imps — and a danger for new players, but they're still Underlings who will be mowed over by those same players soon enough.
    • Among the Dersite and Prospitian forces warring on the Battlefield, Rooks are essentially gigantic, grotesquely overmuscled versions of the common Pawn troops.
  • Sluggy Freelance: The demon Bubbamonicus plays this role in the "That Which Redeems" arc. He's actually part of the demon aristocracy, but some of the other demons don't even know this, basically because of his lack of characterisation, which is of course a rather mooky thing.

    Web Original 
  • Whateley Universe:
    • A real Giant Mook character in the story "Boston Brawl 2". The Big Bad hires some extra muscle, including Matterhorn, a supervillain who can become a forty-foot giant. Due to the physics of this universe, Matterhorn gets his ass whupped by a 100-pound girl.
    • And in "Christmas Crisis", there's Killbot, who's 20 or 30 feet tall and regenerates from pretty much anything. Too bad for him he's fighting Tennyo.

    Web Videos 
  • The "Two-ton Chum-Chum" that appears in Sock Baby Part 2 and starts seriously kicking Ronnie's ass until Burger brings some sort of demon to life with a paper puppet to eat it.

    Western Animation 
  • In the Avatar: The Last Airbender episode "Siege of the North", after easily defeating a group of standard-issue, hammer-wielding Fire Nation mooks, Aang is suddenly attacked by a single, much larger soldier. With two hammers! On chains! Almost gets him, too. (According to the "Avatar Extras" pop-ups, his name is Kuckick.)
  • Batman: The Animated Series:
    • One notable example is Captain Clown, a super-strong robot used by the Joker in "The Last Laugh", thus qualifying as both a Giant Mook and a Mecha Mook (maybe a King Mook too) at the same time.
    • Another notable example is the aptly named "Rhino" thug in "Read My Lips". Scarface (and his ventriloquist) isn't a credible physical threat to Batman, so the huge Rhino fills the role... and doesn't contribute much else either to the plot or the drama. Rhino is actually the Ventriloquist's perennial bodyguard in the comics, and Scarface's henchman in The Batman too; given that he appears in three different continuities, maybe he qualifies as more than a simple Mook.
  • Buzz Lightyear of Star Command have Zurg's Beetles, gigantic red robots who can actually put up a fight against Buzz's team.
  • In Code Lyoko, the Kolossus appearing in three late episodes of Season 4 is very much a GIANT mook. It destroys the virtual submarine of the heroes in just one mighty sweep of his blade-arm.
  • Darkwing Duck has the villainous Fiendish Organization for World Larceny (FOWL), along with a sizable group of mooks. This group has a single Giant Mook, who could always put up a good fight.
  • Jackie Chan Adventures tended to have these for minor villain groups the gang had to deal with. Often (but not always) they were used to nullify Jade by just holding her in place.
  • In Justice League, there's a huge, nameless, red-bearded Thanagarian that showed up menacingly with a BFG. Superman just took him out with a single hammer toss.
  • Mixels has Muscle Nixel, a giant compared to the tiny Nixels, so he towers over a majority of the Mixels as well. It takes much longer to knock him down than the standard ones.
  • OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes:
    • In "Jethro's All Yours", ordinary Jethros are The Goomba, while Mega Jethro is a much more serious threat.
    • In "You're Level 100", Lord Boxman introduces "Big Darrell", a giant version of Darrell piloted by the original like a Humongous Mecha.
  • Super 4 has the Black Colossus, a fully armored Giant Mook that is the Black Baron's main enforcer. Fighting him usually involves some Colossus Climb.
  • Teen Titans (2003) sees the Titans regularly facing Slade's legion of Sladebots, but occasionally they'll face Blockers — huge Cyber Cyclops drones that appears in smaller numbers. One of them is large enough to hold Cyborg in a single pincer.

    Real Life 
  • Tales abound throughout military history of soldiers so big and strong they were capable of such feats as using squad support weapons as rifles.
    • There was supposedly one fellow in the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War who was said to be able to doublefist squad machine guns, though this may be an exaggeration.
    • Supposedly one such soldier named Mariolle was found in Napoleon's army, where he obeyed the order to salute by raising a 4" cannon to his shoulder instead of a rifle. While the Emperor congratulated him, this incident was Played for Laughs and didn't quite result in 19th century squad support weapons. Even today, a common French idiom, "cessez de faire le mariolle" (stop doing the Mariolle thing) means "stop clowning around".
    • Alexandre Dumas' father was a general in the French Revolutionary Army, who according to legend could lift up a gun with one finger by sticking his finger in the barrel.
  • During the early modern period Grenadiers were soldiers hand-picked for their size and strength, the idea being that a larger man can throw a grenade further (hence the name), and that his size gives him the edge in vicious bayonet combat. This led some military leaders — notably the Prussian king Frederick William I — to become obsessed with tall soldiers, and to collect them (sometimes by force) from all over their territory and beyond to form Giant Mook regiments. Reportedly, Frederick William became so obsessed that he attempted a Super Breeding Program by mating some of his "Potsdam Giants" with tall women. He even attempted to stretch men on racks, but called the experiments off when too many of them kept dying.
  • Corazzieri (literally "men wearing cuirasses") are the elite guard for the italian President of the Republic. One of the many requirements to join the corp is a minimum height of 190cm (roughly 6'3'').
  • As a non-human example, the "mooks" of late 19th century naval warfare were torpedo boats. Due to increasing fear that swarms of these small vessels could sink even the mightiest battleship, a new type of warship was invented to defend against them. These were the first destroyers (short for torpedo boat destroyer), which were basically really big torpedo boats. Like all other aspects of naval technology at the time, this caused a Lensman Arms Race as it was recognized that destroyers were a greater threat to fleets of battleships than the torpedo boats they were designed to defeat...and thus even bigger destroyers were built to fight the existing destroyers.
    • Even after this more or less stabilized and a screening/scouting force of destroyers simply became a standard part of any proper fleet, another example came about in the form of the "destroyer leader", the idea being that the flagship of a destroyer flotilla should be bigger and more powerful than the rest and thus more difficult to sink. This concept lasted for over half a century before being discarded by the US Navy (the last to officially designate destroyer leaders) in 1975, by which point destroyers of all types (regular or the former "leaders") had gotten so big as to be almost indistinguishable from cruisers.
  • Many species of ants have larger workers in their colonies, known as majors, which serve to do the heavy lifting as well as defending the smaller workers in an emergency. The most extreme example of this is the Asian marauder ant Carebara diversa, which not only has major workers but supermajors as well, which can be up to fifty times the size of the minors and reach lengths of almost a centimeter. In fact it isn't uncommon to see small troops of minors hitching a ride on a single supermajor as they travel in their foraging trails.

 
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Dr. Crabulous

When arriving, Sonic encounters a giant inflatable version of a Crabmeat with a mustache called Dr. Crabulous.

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Paper Macho Sol...

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Dr. Crabulous

When arriving, Sonic encounters a giant inflatable version of a Crabmeat with a mustache called Dr. Crabulous.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (10 votes)

Example of:

Main / GiantEnemyCrab

Media sources:

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Dr. Crabulous

Paper Macho Sol...

Brutes

MAG Agent: Torture

Giant Zombie

Mega Goomba

Achilles vs. Bo...

Thor vs Stone G...

Redemption Troo...

Thor The Dark W...