Glad He's On Our Side

"I gotta tell you, I'm glad he's on our side, because can you imagine a criminal so neat that he never leaves behind any hair or fingerprints?"

— Detective Zach Nichols on Adrian Monk in a USA Network promo.

So that guy can lift millions of tons, fly faster than light, see through almost everything, and incinerate you with a glance? Damn, it's a good thing that he's a Super Hero because he would make one hell of a villain.

Basically, this trope is when a character expresses the sentiment that it's a good thing that so-and-so is on their side, because they would make a dangerously formidable enemy.

Sometimes this is followed up with the joke "at least I think they are" or a variant thereof. Or a less certain "...they are, right?" If the person they're talking about is some flavor of Anti-Hero, the chances double.

This is also likely to be said by someone who works with a Sociopathic Hero.

Sometimes spoken directly to the person in the form of "I'm glad you're on our side".

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• In Soul Eater, Maka says this of Ragnarok after his and Crona's Heel Face Turns when he effortlessly blocks an attack from a Giant Chainsaw and topples the Golem wielding it. Maka even goes as far as to express surprise and Fridge Horror that she once fought it. While this is not explicitly said about Stein, the sentiment is certainly there amongst his colleagues who are well aware he's a Sociopathic Hero.
• In Fullmetal Alchemist, one of the Briggs soldiers says this about Ling/Greed when he single-handedly drives off Bradley's reinforcements.
• In One Piece, the Galley-La Company and Franky Family's reaction to Luffy and Zoro taking down a tidal wave is this.
  • Earlier in the series, Zeff expresses this after figuring out Luffy's personality while defending the Baratie. He's met people like Luffy before and he tells Sanji that people like him aren't afraid of anything, not even death, so this makes them hell to fight.
• In Eyeshield 21, Hiruma tends to invoke this reaction. It's even lampshaded here when he was playing against his teammates in a school sports event. Team Japan also have Agon and Gaou which scares Sena and Monta but are relieved to have the best players in Japan on their side even if they double as the most brutal.
• Kurokawa says this word-for-word about Mikura in the Mezzo Forte OVA series.
• Dragon Ball:
  • During the battle with the Androids, Vegeta draws this reaction from the others upon revealing that he has reached the level of becoming a Super Saiyan.
  Gohan: Whoa. You know who just joined the Super Saiyan club! He is on our side, isn't he?
  • Piccolo drew this reaction from Tien after he instantly vaporized a Saibamen with ease (this was before his full Heel–Face Turn).
  • In Dragon Ball Z Kai (the dub, at least), Tien has this reaction to learning Super Saiyan Goku has outclassed the most feared tyrant in the galaxy.
  • In Dragon Ball Super Goku says this about Android #17, realizing how powerful he is (in that he can fight on par with his Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan form) and he's glad that he's not his Blood Knight self anymore.
• In Dr. STONE, Gen says this word for word about Magma, who until recently was their enemy and was perfectly willing to destroy petrified people so they couldn't be revived for Tsukasa's army.
• In Naruto Kiba remarks that Kankuro, one of the Sand Ninjas that betrayed and fought against the Leaf Village not long ago, was a terrifying enemy, but he's glad he's on his side now. For reference, Kankuro saved Kiba from being killed by Sakon and Ukon, then goes on to kill both of the brothers, showing how powerful and ruthless Kankuro is.
• In Fairy Tail, Lucy combines this with Tempting Fate when Juvia (a former enemy of hers from Phantom Lord) seemingly takes down Vidaldus Taka during the Tower of Heaven arc. Unfortunately, Vidaldus not only manages to No-Sell Juvia's water ability, but manages to possess her, turning her against Lucy.
• In the first season finale of Sonic X, the power and apparent brutality of the "Eggsterminator" mech leave Dr. Eggman's robot sidekicks taken aback and remarking, "I'm glad he is on our side!"
• Inverted in the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga: Yugi only says this once the Dark Magician is no longer on his side.

Comic Books

• This trope typically comes into play in most superhero comics in which Beware the Superman is averted.
• Superman: In the first issue, Action Comics #1, a group of politicians/law enforcement types say this of Superman at the end. In another, much later comic, Batman provides his own analysis.
  "It is a remarkable dichotomy. In many ways, Clark is the most human of us all. Then... he shoots fire from the skies, and it is difficult not to think of him as a god. And how fortunate we all are that it does not occur to him."
• Atomic Robo: "Jenkins is... Well, he's on our side. You'll come to appreciate that."
• In Watchmen, when Dr. Manhattan goes public during The Cold War, one character comments on his powers by saying "God exists. And he's an American". He later makes clear that he's aware how terrifying this statement is.

Fan Works

• Code Prime:
  • During the Black Rebellion, after the Four Holy Swords watch Optimus Prime take down twelve Gloucesters single-handedly, Asahina remarks "Sure glad he's on our side."
  • After seeing the one-sided slaughter Grimlock unleashes on Shockwave and V.V.’s forces in the Geass Order, Ohgi silently thinks to himself that it’s fortunate that the Dinobot fights for the Autobots.
• Date A Live: Altered Timeline: This is Tohka's reaction when she sees Kotori's attack on the Diabolus, involving her blasting her flames into it repeatedly, to the the point that flames are bursting out of it.
• The Good Hunter:
  • Implied in Chapter 8. The merchant, Laurence Miles, thinks it's best that he stay on Klaus's good side, for the mercenary is very skilled at handling sharp objects, and he has a vested interest in keeping his head on his shoulders. While not said outright, Laurence is definitely glad that Klaus is working with him, not against him.
  • In Chapter 18, Talbot internally notes that he's glad that he is on the Hunter's good side, for the Hunter is entirely capable of offing both him and his wife in one go, yet is cordial enough to be drinking tea with them on a sunny afternoon.
• Hermione Granger, Demonologist: After Hermione's classmates get taught a vicious lesson about bullying her, they try to warn Theo that she's dangerous. He just laughs, agreeing that she certainly is dangerous, but pointing out that he was clever enough to befriend her from the start, instead of harassing her, and therefore he has nothing to worry about.
• The idea behind Hero Class Civil Warfare is to show how Izuku would be terrifying as a villain, and that everyone should be very glad that someone with his analytical skills never went down that path.
• The Night Unfurls: Chapter 6 of the original has Olga saying this to Claudia regarding the Hunter, how lucky they are for the Hunter to fight for them and not against them, after she found out that he possesses "powers beyond their ken".
• Shadows over Meridian: Many Phobos loyalists share this sentiment about Jade and the Shadowkhan, acknowledging that they could suffer the wrath of the Shadow Realm along with the rest of Meridian if something happened to their Queen, which gives them every reason to follow Raythor and Phobos' orders to protect her at all costs.
• In Supernova (One Piece), the Straw Hats have to clear a blockade made by Baroque Works in order to get to Alabasta. After Nico Robin, who had joined back in Whiskey Peak, brutally sank several ships, Vivi promptly declared this trope. This leads to a humorous moment when Robin promptly lampshades how she's being called the scary one after Nami and Luffy have had their turns.
• In the One Piece fanfiction This Bites!, after the SI Jeremiah Cross and his friend Soundbite sabotage a Buster Call into imploding at Enies Lobby, Old Lady Kokoro states in genuine fear for the whole world to hear that she is very, very glad she is on Cross's side. Later on, after Cross provokes Hogback into revealing his medical malpractices and Moria's zombie army to the whole planet, the Boa sisters concur with Kokoro.
• In the Temeraire and Assassin's Creed fanfic Trade Winds, protagonist and narrator Desmond Miles finds himself in the Alternate Universe of the Temeraire series, and upon becoming a sailor, begins gaining a reputation for "fighting like a demon" when repelling boarders or helping to capture ships, thanks to the fighting abilities he's gained from his Assassin ancestors. This follows him onto the Allegiance, when he proves himself once again executing a too-high Leap of Faith with a sword to kill an enormous sea serpent and breaks his legs in the process. While he's laid up, his shipmates start to uneasily express that they're glad he's on their side, despite his apparent bloodthirstiness and the persistent rumors that he has a pact with the devil.

Films — Animated

• Ultimate Avengers:
  Giant Man: Who's the chick with the hammer? [referring to The Mighty Thor]
  Iron Man: Whoever she is, I'm glad she's on our side.
• Pocahontas: "I'm glad you're on our side."

Films — Live-Action

• McCoy says this about Uhura in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock after she and her phaser deal with "Mr. Adventure".
• Bloodsport: "I'm glad you're on our side."
• Three Men and a Baby: "Aren't you glad he's on our side?"
• To Have And Have Not: "I'm glad you're on our side." (said twice)
• Screamers: In reference to the first generation of Screamers, which hunt targets by burrowing through the ground until near their target, then bursting out to slice up their targets with high-speed cutting blades. (The irony is that they're not on their side for long).
  Soldier 1: I'm glad those things are on our side.
  Soldier 2: And our side's the good side — right?
• Wargames: The Dead Code: "Glad she's on our side."
• Back To Bataan (1945): "I'm sure glad you guys are on our side."
• Earth 2100: "I'm glad you're on our side."
• Odysseus and the Isle of the Mists: "I'm glad that you are on our side."
• Invoked in Blade (1998):
  Eric: There's worse things out there tonight than vampires.
  Karen: Like what?
  Eric: Like me.
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): "Good thing he's on our side." "For now."
• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Holga's reaction to watching Xenk singlehandedly take on an entire squad of Thayans:
  Holga: Glad he's on our side.

Literature

• Brotherband: After Hal makes some spectacles for Ingvar and Thorn gives him a new weapon and some lessons in using it, the big boy becomes a terror on the battlefield. Observing this, Thorn notes to himself he's created a monster, but luckily, Ingvar is the Herons' monster.
• In Jingo, when someone questions Vimes's decision to enlist dwarfs to his regiment, Vimes tells him, "If you've ever seen them really fight, you must've been on the same side."
• In The Fionavar Tapestry, the kingdom of Cathal is providing military aid to the kingdom of Brennin. However, there is some rivalry between the two, and the king of Cathal wants to win some points by catching Brennin unawares and forcing them to scramble to provide a proper greeting. Unfortunately for him, he is greeted on the road by Brennin's prince, who apparently knew that they were coming all along. Then, when they reach Brennin's capital, they find that Brennin's high king (the prince's newly-crowned brother) has indeed prepared a proper greeting for them...in less than two hours, since he did not know they were coming (the prince hadn't told him, leaving it as a test of his brother's defensive preparations. Less of a dick move than it sounds, since he fully expected his brother to succeed.). Faced with one brother who's a genius at intelligence and another who is a genius at organization and defensive preparation, the king of Cathal can only agree when a bystander says "Be glad that they are ours."
• In The Dresden Files, the main character Harry Dresden is this for a lot of his allies. This is made painfully clear by Harry's best friend and non-magical mortal ally Karrin Murphy when she's describing him in action during the sidestory 'Aftermath': Despite the fact she's known him for over a decade, she still finds the sight of him in battle pants-crappingly terrifying.
• A variation in Worm; after much long, painful and morally confusing conflict between the heroes and villains Taylor/Skitter is trying to change sides and be accepted by her former enemies. One of her strongest advocates is the hero Clockblocker, who is openly enthusiastic at the prospect of her being on their side, because (as he can attest from many miserable experiences opposing her,) "the alternative sucks."
• Ascendance of a Bookworm: To quote Ferdinand's number one Fangirl, "A kind man incapable of plotting or exterminating his enemies is simply no good at all.". By the time she hears this, the protagonist has witnessed Ferdinand's radical and permanent methods when it comes to exterminating enemies and internally expressed gratefulness that the man is her mentor rather than an enemy.

Live-Action TV

• Inverted in one episode of Frasier with regards to his agent's skill/total lack of morals.
  Frasier: You seduced me. You lied to me. You nearly got me killed! You've shamelessly manipulated not only me, but this station, the news media and the entire city of Seattle! What do you have to say for yourself?
  Bebe: Aren't you glad I'm on your side?
  Frasier:...Yes, I suppose I am.
• Law & Order: UK DS Ronnie Brooks says this to partner Matt Devlin regarding CP James Steele after he's eviscerated him in court over errors made in the investigation.
• The page quote describes the title character of Monk, an obsessive-compulsive police consultant who is not only a brilliant detective but also so neat that he hardly ever leaves a trace. In the Season Six finale, "Mr. Monk Is On The Run (Part 1)", Monk is framed for murder and arrested, but escapes custody while en route to the county jail, shedding his orange jumpsuit and stealing a change of clothes. The Sheriff's men are confounded when they find the jumpsuit is so clean that their tracker dogs can't pick up any scent to follow.
  • In the earlier episode "Mr. Monk Goes To A Wedding", a Monterey County detective lampshades the trope after Monk makes a series of deductions: "I'm glad he's on our team."''
• The Punisher (2017). In "Trouble the Water", Frank Castle is locked up in a police station when a gang of mercenaries show up to kill him and everyone else there. The police are reluctantly forced to let Frank free to help defend them, and they watch in awe as he stalks through the woods killing their attackers one-by-one.
  Dobbs: You ever, like, see that Western where the guy comes to town...turns out he's like the Devil or Death or something?
  Bruce: Hell, who gives a shit. Looong as he's on our side.

Video Games

• In the Vorkuta level of Black Ops, when you first meet Sergei, Mason says to him, "Glad you are a friend, Sergei," due to his brute strength.
• In Mass Effect, Kaidan says this about Nihlus. He also says the same thing about the super-dreadnaught, Destiny Ascension. The first ends up dead via betrayal in the first 30 minutes of the game and the second ends up either blown up via Epic Fail or saved at the cost of quite a few Alliance ships(albeit later becoming a powerful War Asset in the third game). Notice a pattern, here?
  • Mass Effect 2 has a mega-Krogan heft a large piece of plate armour aside with next to no difficulty. While not exactly on Shepard's side, Garrus is "glad he's friendly".
• Inverted in Left 4 Dead: the Tank's not on your team, but Rochelle wishes he was.
• In Star Wars: Battlefront II, if you go on a killing streak your allies make comments. One of them is "I'm glad your on our side!" Another is, "Save some for the rest of us!" Amusingly, the better you do, the worse the AI gets.
• Final Fantasy XIV
  • The Warrior of Light's allies frequently remark that the Warrior fights like a demon on the battlefield and that they're glad the Warrior is on their side. Raubahn and Lyse say that they almost feel bad for the enemy after seeing how the Warrior plows through primals, Garlean defenses, and Allagan superweapons. Hien also describes the Warrior as "magnficent" and "a bit terrifying".
  • In Shadowbringers, the Scions note that the Ascians have never attempted to possess the Warrior of Light the way they've possessed so many others throughout history. They're also glad for it, as the idea of fighting one of their closest friends and their greatest champion sends shivers down their spines.
  • In Endwalker, however, the aforementioned nightmare scenario actually ends up playing out, as Fandaniel manages to capture the Warrior of Light and subsequently engineers a takeover of their body by Zenos. The WoL is forced into the body of a random Garlean soldier, and left to catch up with their possessed body in one of the most brutal solo duties of the entire game. And even if you succeed in the duty, the WoL only narrowly prevents their Zenos-possessed body from murdering Alisaie, Gra'ha and the rest of the Scions in short order.
• Fire Emblem:
  • In Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, protagonist Ike, leader of the Greil Mercenaries, says this of the extremely powerful lion laguz Skrimir, a loud and overexcitable Leeroy Jenkins Blood Knight who constantly proclaims that he's going to steamroll the enemy Begnion during the Laguz-Begnion conflict...until he's taken down a peg by his own aide.
  • On the Conquest route of Fire Emblem Fates, the Avatar Corrin says this of his or her adoptive sibling, Prince Leo of Nohr, an extremely ruthless and cunning Magic Knight, after he kills the dark mage Zola, who was begging for mercy. On the Birthright route, they get the chance to experience Leo as an enemy firsthand, but in the end Leo can't bring himself to seriously harm his beloved sibling.
  • Fire Emblem: Three Houses has an example on the Crimson Flower route where The Death Knight shows up on the battlefield and Edelgard, who had secretly been his superior the whole time, quickly reassures you that he's on your side this time. An odd example where the fighter in question is on your side because you joined his side, and not the other way around.
• F-Zero GX's ending song says this of Captain Falcon:
  Thank heavens he's on the right side! Or else there'd be- nowhere to hide!
• In Star Fox 64, if you destroy the boss of Katina and all of Bill's allies survive, he'll tell Fox he's glad they're on the same team.
• In Persona 5, the party recruits Futaba Sakura to take down the hacking group Medjed (which took the name that Futaba originally used). Sometime later, Futaba casually hacks into the protagonist's phone and messages Ryuji about having "crap in (his) eyes." Makoto, impressed and a little scared, says she's glad Futaba's not their enemy.

Web Original

• Noob:
  • In the second novel Gaea explicitly says this about her Blood Knight childhood friend Golgotha.
  • Such a sentiment seems to be behind T-Man and Précieux's actions in Noob: La Quête Légendaire. They'd rather have Gaea as their leader than as an enemy, but at least T-Man still clearly hates her on a personal level after the hell she has put him through in the past.

Western Animation

• In G.I. Joe, after Storm Shadow left Cobra and joined the Joe team, his file card had a quote from General Hawk: "I'm glad he's on our side now." Understandable since Storm Shadow's skills are equal to, if not greater than, those of Snake Eyes.
• Family Guy:
  Toy Designer: I've just finished the new line of G.I. Jew toys. [pushes a button on the G.I. Jew action figure]
  G.I. Jew: You call these bagels?
  Toy Designer: Whoa, I'm glad he's on our side.
• Jonny Quest
  • "The Mystery of the Lizard Men". Race Bannon says it after Dr. Quest uses the mirror to reflect the Big Bad's laser beam back and blow him up.
  • "Treasure of the Temple". Dr. Quest says "I'm glad you're on our team" to Race Bannon after he defeats a crocodile to save Jonny and dumps a canoeload of villains into the water.
• Hanna-Barbera's 'Moby Dick'', episode "The Sinister Sea Saucer". Tug says this about Moby after Moby blows away a giant enemy manta ray.
• The Herculoids episode "The Lost Dorgyte". Dorno says "I'm glad you're on our side" to Tundro.
• In the Codename: Kids Next Door movie, "Operation: Z.E.R.O.", after Nigel uses a very unorthodox method to save the Moonbase:
  Numbuh Five: Gee, Numbuh One, I'm glad I'll never have'ta fight you. You crazy.
• In John Callahan's Quads! Lefty expresses this sentiment about Blazer, who is nothing more than a head on a skateboard that still manages to be violent, treacherous, dangerous, and somehow capable of indecent exposure.
  Lefty: I barely want Blazer as a friend. I definitely don't want him as an enemy.
• In Iron Man: Armored Adventures, after Pepper thinks up a way to get Tony into the Stark International building to recover his armor, Tony lampshades that her social skills would make Pepper a terrifying villain.

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