Showy Invincible Hero

"No, really! That was an awesome attack! I could have been killed. [beat] Well, maybe I am exaggerating a little bit. I could have at least gotten a bruise or maybe a small scratch..."

— Vegetto, Dragon Ball Z

So you have a setup for an epic action show, but you've raised the stakes so high that even one loss will be devastating. Maybe Evil Only Has to Win Once. You could try to fake it with an apparent loss in the middle of the episode, multi-part series or perhaps a bittersweet victory when a character has a Heroic Sacrifice, but otherwise you can't have a genuine loss.

This would likely mean an Invincible Hero if any suspense was played up, so the show doesn't play up the suspense. The audience generally knows the hero will win regardless, but their interest is maintained in the how they will win as well as other elements, resulting in it still being entertaining. However, the author's character writing must be on point or careless use of this could result in a God-Mode Sue.

Superhero comics' take on this trope have varied. In early Silver Age comics, there wasn't any doubt that the hero would survive and save the day, the question was what bit of clever logic (or Ass Pull, depending on the writer) they would use to overcome the villains (who themselves were often pretty showy). In modern times, superhero comics usually make the inevitability of the hero's victory interesting by shifting tension away from winning or losing, and focusing on other problems.

Compare with the Comically Invincible Hero who follows a similar philosophy of entertainment over suspense with the highlight of their inevitable victory being how hilarious it is. Quite often, the two go hand-in-hand.

Contrast Failure Hero, compare Escapist Character, The Ace, and Combat Aestheticist.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Akagi fits. Due to the way it's narrated and the fact that it's a prequel to another story, Ten - The Blessed Way of the Nice Guy, where Akagi already is a legend, you are supposed to know that Akagi always wins. The story is about how he became a legend. And looking badass while doing it.
• Dark Schneider from Bastard is this most of the time.
• Sebastian from the anime version of Black Butler can do absolutely anything that Ciel orders him to but he tends to do considerably more than is actually necessary. When ordered to win an ice sculpting contest, he builds Noah's Ark and designs it so that the top will split open to reveal another statue inside of it that consists of dozens of animals. Then when ordered to retrieve a stolen diamond he defeats the thieves while winning an ice skating contest that wasn't even happening and ends it by sailing through the broken on the statue of Noah's ark he made earlier.
• Train Heartnet of Black Cat uses his over-the-top Charles Atlas Superpower and Improbable Aiming Skills to wipe the floor with any opposition he comes across. Always with some improbably flashy move, and usually while being a light-hearted Troll. A character's power is estimated with how many pages their Curb-Stomp Battle does last. Only the Big Bad and The Dragon can drive him to a pinch, but the latter falls to his Secret Art and the former needs a god-tier Healing Factor to gain the upper-hand.
• Captain Tsubasa: You don't see Tsubasa Ohzora lose a match (except his first match against Hyuuga), but you still enjoy him overcome hurdles in a match, with him either trying to outplay his tricky or tough opponents or having Tsubasa pull through despite a Drama-Preserving Handicap. There's also a time where he curb-stomps a match practically on his own, just to showcase that he definitely belongs in the Primera División, not the Segunda.
• The number of things that can threaten vector-manipulating Accelerator from A Certain Magical Index in a physical contest are few and far in-between, at least as far as anything that's not magic is concerned (due to the fact that the vectors of magic spells are alien to his scientific calculations and require more work to analyze and reflect). Similar to the Alucard and Momonga examples, however, a big part of his appeal is how awesome he is at countering and brutally crushing his foes in combat, and uniquely Accelerator's conflict is more about his own personal one towards his inner demons and struggles to become a better person after his heinous acts near the beginning of the series.
• Teresa from Claymore, especially in the final fight against Priscilla.
• Dante from the Devil May Cry anime is supposed to be this since he pretty much waltzes through every fight in the series. Somewhat justified as the series is supposed to focus on Dante's day-to-day jobs so he never goes up against any major threats. However, many people found it more to be an example of a Boring Invincible Hero. The supposed major threat he goes up against in the last episodes is quickly disposed of once he gets serious.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Vegetto. He effortlessly dominates Buu even when turned into a piece of candy, and mocks him the entire time. It does help that Buu had been quite an Invincible Villain until that point, making someone beating him at every turn extremely satisfying. The only reason he doesn't just destroy Buu as soon as he can is part of a plan to free everyone Buu has absorbed by this point.
    • It's averted in Dragon Ball Super though, since Vegetto is facing an opponent actually worth his effort this time around, and he's aware he has a time limit of an hour at most. He still holds the upper hand throughout the battle.
  • Gotenks is a subversion. He's similar in power to Vegetto, but spends so much time showing off that his Fusion Dance inevitably wears off before he can get serious. This flaw continues into Dragon Ball Super.
  • Goku for most of the Red Ribbon Army Saga. Outside of a couple of close calls with General Blue and Tao Pai Pai, Goku dominated almost every foe he came across. It wasn't a question if Goku was going to win, but how much humiliation he was going to heap upon his opponent before he kicked them to the curb.
  • Gogeta has made three appearances in the franchise, and in each of them, he was completely in control of the battle he was fighting. Against Janemba, he effortlessly destroys him, but looks really cool while doing so. Against Omega Shenron, he's so much more powerful that he spends most of the fight playing jokes and pranks, and only fails to kill the dragon because the fusion unexpectedly ran out early. Against Broly, whenever Broly demonstrates a new level of power, Gogeta just powers up further himself. By the time he hits Super Saiyan Blue, Broly can't even touch him, and is overpowered both in skill and raw strength.
• Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children makes it clear that Tifa, Yuffie, and the rest are at the peak of human ability, but Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo are superhuman. Meanwhile, it takes all three of them working together to challenge Cloud. The three of them or one Sephiroth. Or Bahamut.
• Kenshiro of Fist of the North Star is possibly the archetypical shonen example. There's never any question that he'll win, or even that his opponent will put up a fight; it's all about the catharsis.
• GaoGaiGar, at least until the Primevals arrive.
• Golgo 13 wouldn't have a career (and we wouldn't have a series) if he ever failed. The series has gone on for as long as it has on equal parts this trope and his steady recession from the spotlight (his stories are now largely about the people hiring him).
• Grenadier: Rushuna Tendo always wins, but damn if she doesn't look hot while doing so.
• Mamoru Takamura of Hajime no Ippo is an example in all of his unimportant matches. He usually steamroll KO's his opponents in the first round, sometimes it's just shown in a stillstanding picture. In one of his matches (the one before his World Match), this trope is even used by Takamura on purpose, as he wanted to come off absolutely invincible to the audience, which is why he only used his weak hand to defeat his opponent. All of his serious matches don't fit this trope, however.
• Hareluya II Boy: You never wonder whether or not Hibino is going to succeed or not. You only wonder to what degree of funny and awesome his successes will be.
• Alucard of Hellsing is so ridiculously invincible that it's clear from the beginning no opponent is any real threat to him. Of course he has so much fun massacring the bad guys that it's hard to care. The drama instead comes from the storyline and in fact, his unbeatable nature is the driving force behind a lot of the antagonists', motives. Both Anderson and Walter fail to beat him and the only other person who could stand up to him, The Captain, who is a werewolf, never fights him, but is defeated by his fledgling, Seras (though he did give Millennium the means to kill him and Millennium's whole point is to fight and die...)
• Jormungand: Koko's Badass Crew usually demolishes their foes in clever ways, which only serves to make the two times they're genuinely challenged all the more stark.
• Kirby: Right Back at Ya!: Kirby often got into many sticky situations due to being a Super Gullible Kid Hero with an appetite he just can't control and he would often get knocked around at the start of most fights. However, once he inhaled and copied a foe's powers, his opponent was often as good as DEAD. Since this effectively made him a walking Deus ex Machina, you could pretty much say that the fun from his fights came not from seeing if he'd win or not, but what ability he'd use to kick butt. And since he used over 20 abilities in that show, things never got stale.
• Mobile Suit Gundam AGE, despite being a Real Robot Genre series, plays with the magically self-evolving AGE system, which always upgrade with new gimmicks regularly just to let the heroes become showy and overly powered. AGE-2 Double Bullet comes into mind here.
• My Hero Academia: All Might is seen as this In-Universe — as the local Paragon and world-renowned top superhero, the masses are instantly put at ease since they know he'll defeat the villain and rescue the civilians with his sheer power somehow. Unfortunately, the truth is a little bit more complicated — his condition is rapidly deteriorating.
• Whenever Saitama of One-Punch Man takes the field, it's a given that his opponent will be (usually) dispatched with just one punch. The only thing at stake is who gets hurt and how much damage is done before he arrives.
• Momonga and all of his strongest followers are a Villain Protagonist version in Overlord (2012). They are overpowered enough compared to the setting that their victory comes as a foregone conclusion, but nevertheless it's always awesome. It helps that Momonga knows over 700 spells, so he handily averts a Boring Yet Practical Limited Move Arsenal.
• The Prince of Tennis: Ryoma already starts the series as a skilled tennis player, but his evolution in strategies and Defeating the Undefeatable makes it worth watching.
• Problem Children are Coming from Another World, aren't they?: Sakamaki Izayoi. The only subversion happens when, after winning a fight against a Invincible Villain with powers similar to his own, he holds back an Eldritch Abomination alone until reinforcements arrive and he finally retreats to tend to his wounds.
• Subverted in The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World. All of Tougo's attacks are obnoxiously loud and flashy and he's a One-Man Army able to wade into the toughest dungeons with ease. But he soon meets his match in the more dangerous monsters created from the Seeds of Magic as well as the World's Strongest Man, Rosie Mist. As the threat level increases, it becomes clear that Red is not as invincible as he first appears and takes his lumps with everyone else.
• Space Adventure Cobra: Cobra is a lot like this. You don't ever doubt he'll handily win and hand the bad guys their rear. The only question is : "how will he do it, and how cool will it look?"
• Takuto of Star Driver, as of writing, has not lost a single fight, but that's okay, because he wins each one in a different way. A different awesome way. And the villains have even started incorporating his inevitable curbstomps into their plans… After getting his Mid-Season Upgrade, the battles become much more samey.
• Both subverted in the absolute cruelest and most heart-rending way possible and later played straight in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Kamina appears to be going this route in classic Super Robot fashion, but he's killed ruthlessly in episode 8 after letting his guard down. After the Time Skip (specifically in Part IV), however, Simon plays it straight, never getting so much as a scratch on him.
  • This starts long before the timeskip; basically as soon as Simon gets over Kamina's death nobody save the Anti Spiral King and Lordgenome could touch him.
• Rimuru Tempest from That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime. Thanks to his absurdly large pool of skills and magical abilities, he outclasses almost everyone else in his world in terms of raw power, and even with the few he doesn't (like Milim Nava) he usually finds a clever workaround to get them on his side (such as exploiting Milim's goofball and childish nature to make her more interested in eating delicious food than fighting to the death). Interestingly, being a Nice Guy who prefers diplomacy to fighting wherever possible he sometimes goes out of his way to invoke this trope by demonstrating just how overpowered he is in the hopes of getting his opponent to back down and talk things out. Most of the story is spent on him trying to forge a prosperous nation and trade hub throughout the world to advance the cause of human-monster coexistence, a situation where he has to use his brainpower (and the helpful aid of Great Sage/Raphael) and his still-strong-but-more-vulnerable subordinates more often than his own god-like power directly to achieve his goals since he's not interested in being seen publicly as a tyrant throwing his weight around.
• Time Stop Hero: Kuzuno Sekai is perceived to be this by his peers because he is seemingly so fast that he can avoid any danger and defeat any enemy in an instant. In reality, he is not fast, he can freeze time, and has to work for his victories without anyone to help him except for his golem Gankichi, the only one who can move with him when he freezes time. As the series progresses, he starts facing tougher situations and gets hurt even with his ability.
• As far as a Transformers series goes, Transformers Victory's Star Saber is one of these. The people who worked on his toy outright describe him as a Super Robot akin to the likes of Mazinger Z or Getter Robo.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Judai Yuki almost always wins, but his variety of Fusion Monsters (and the few occasions where he works around it) make a rather entertaining show.

Comic Books

• Asterix and Obelix can bash through any obstacle the Romans throw at their Undefeatable Little Village, and it's always very funny to watch. The challenge comes from situations they can't just punch through, as well as times their foes try to keep the power-granting magic potion out of the former's hands. On at least one occasion (when the pair were in Rome), Asterix outright stops Obelix from just punching out every Roman soldier in the city because he's aware that these Legionaries will hack the Unskilled, but Strong Obelix to pieces.
• The Astro City story "Old Times" references the former method, and uses the latter, to show how growing old has affected the hero.
• Golden Age Captain Marvel essentially ran on this trope, as, like Superman, he started out immensely strong and wound up far eclipsing the contemporary Man of Steel towards the end of his run (one issue shows that being Ground Zero at an exploding atom bomb can't even mess his hair); what limited him was that he only had the eyesight and hearing of a normal man, sometimes overlooked things or made rash decisions — and, most of all, wasn't always Captain Marvel. Most of the drama in any given story came from the moments when Billy Batson was Bound and Gagged, thus unable to say the magic word and trapped as a vulnerable kid; the instant he managed to get his mouth free, the fight was usually over.
• Heroes Reborn (2021) turns the Squadron Supreme into a whole team of these (for a certain definition of hero). Whether it's Eldritch Abominations and Cosmic Entities or upgraded super-villains, there's no one the Squadron can't beat and with a lot of flash. From Doctor Spectrum conjuring the Cancerverse on Rocket Raccoon before holding him into a supernova to Power Princess summoning her gauntlet painfully out of All-Gog's belly, expect the Squadron to win in style.
• The Metabarons are all this, starting with Aghnar. They are able to win against impossible odds, especially when Aghora slaughters an entire universe in a mirror dimension. The dramatic tension of the series comes largely from the horrible tragedy that continuously befalls the Metabaron clan.
• Paperinik New Adventures: No, not Paperinik himself, but Xadhoom, who was an alien scientist who found a way to become a sun in humanoid form... and has since then spent every moment hunting and killing the race of Planet Looters that destroyed her world in the most humiliating way possible.
• The Spectre is a perfect example of this trope. Being one of the most powerful beings in the DC Universe (he's essentially the God of Revenge (or, more literally, the Revenge of God)) there's not really anything that can threaten him. Sometimes his comics have him pass judgment on morally ambiguous situations and draw suspense from the question of what his final decision will be, and there are other times when he gets de-powered so he can succumb to The Worf Effect. For the most part, though, The Spectre comics are all about watching the title character brutally dispatch horrible people.
• The main appeal of Stardust the Super Wizard, a Golden Age character with more powers than Superman, who spends most of his time taking down petty criminal organizations and terrorist factions, none of which can even visibly slow him down. The appeal of the comic (aside from Fletcher Hanks's bizarre artwork) is seeing the... creative ways that Stardust vanquishes his hopelessly-outgunned foes. In one famous example, a Mad Scientist tried to take over America with an oxygen-destroying ray. After destroying the ray and completely reversing its effects in the space of two panels, Stardust proceeded to grab the man, turn him into a disembodied head, fly into space, and throw him into the waiting arms of a giant 'headhunter' monster, which absorbs the scientist into its body as he begs for mercy.
• Superman, and the Alan Moore-created Tom Strong, count as this. There's no question they'll win, it's just how long it'll take to get them there — and what interesting moral questions the victory will raise.

Fan Works

• Inverted in The TSAB – Acturus War. The author has stated that the TSAB will win and the point of the story is the Villainous Valour of the DRA as it tries to make the Bureau bleed as badly as possible for that victory.
• In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Smallville crossover Stakes and Fenceposts, even armed with magic, the Buffyverse villains are simply no match for Clark Kent, and he pretty much just destroys them all as a total badass.
• Akatsuki Kitten: Phoenix Corporation Overhaul: The Agents. They were designed with the idea of God Mode Sues in mind, and despite rarely shown fighting, are strong enough to knock all of Akatsuki off their feet. The fun parts come at times like an omake that involved an agent going to the Harry Potter dimension, and killing a few Death Eaters by making their blood explode, as well as the "Dancing Hitler" incident. Despite the author's expectations (and occasionally, it's hinted, her hopes) that the characters would be controversial and hated, the characters come across as individual and amusing enough that they're actually fairly popular among the readers.
• Though the fic does make efforts to avoid making him too invincible, Ben in Fate/Stay Night: Ultimate Master has moments of this. The most famous example being when he literally quashes Berserker as Way Big.
• The A Certain Magical Index fic To Ascend, where Touma Kamijou starts the original series at his maximum potential, allowing him to curb-stomp anyone and solve almost any problem without breaking a sweat.
• In Acceleration, Taylor Triggers with Accelerator's powers. As a result, she stands heads and shoulders above almost everyone; apart from a Power Nullifier character, a grand total of one opponent can beat her in a direct fight. The question isn't will she lose, but how does she pull off the win, and what the consequences will be for herself and those around her.
• The original version of the Worm Choose Your Own Adventure is meant to create these. The powers available are so powerful — three of them being even more powerful versions of what the three World's Second Strongest Men had in the original story — that unless a writer deliberately stacks the deck against himself or screws up critically, the question shouldn't be whether he can win fights, even against the admittedly impressive final villain, but how, and what the consequences of that will be. The next 4 versions, while SEVERELY less overpowered, are still fully capable of producing characters who can single-handedly kill multidimensional gods if the player optimizes their build. If they don't, they could still probably pull it off with a little help, which is probably what their "wasted" points went into.
• All four to a point, but particularly John and Paul, in The Keys Stand Alone. Because they're Actual Pacifists, the point of the story isn't that they always overwhelm their opponents. In fact, they're trying not to fight and very much resent it when they have to engage in combat, so they do their best to make every battle a Curb-Stomp Battle (albeit a non-harmful one) in an effort to discourage people from attacking them. It doesn't work.
• I Am NOT Going Through Puberty Again! plays this for all the comedy it's worth with four Peggy Sues that have all the strength and skill of their adult selves (minus summon contracts) and don't even bother to hide the fact that they've become exponentially stronger seemingly overnight. The closest thing to a challenge that any of them face (barring each other) is when Hinata faces off against Orochimaru, and even then she dominates the fight very quickly.
• Also Played for Laughs in Looping Back to the Beginning, where Class 1-A is severely over-powered thanks to having looped through their first year at UA an infinite number of times. The number of villains that are threats to them amount to All for One and a group of eco-terrorists that summon a sea Kaiju, Aizawa takes a nap while they kick the asses of the League of Villains during the USJ incident, and they have a habit of preemptively eliminating any and all possible threats at the start of the loop so they can have a normal school year.
• It Gets Worse is a Worm fic where Taylor triggers with luck-based powers, which act fully on its own with the mind of Rube Goldberg as an agent of Karma. The humor of the story is to watch someone directly or indirectly wish harm against Taylor, watch the Disaster Dominoes get set up ages in advance, and laugh as they fall one by one on the unsuspecting schmuck, no matter their power or influence.
• Many of the works of Saphroneth fall into this category, as most of the heroes tend to have incredibly powerful abilities that allow them to sweep fights. The fun comes from seeing how they win, as well as just how ridiculous the battles can get.

Films — Live-Action

• Alita from Alita: Battle Angel is shown to be borderline invincible from the very first fight. She handily defeats a trio of cyborg assassins (the first one Alita beats to a pulp, the second one gets her head literally stomped into a steel bulkhead, the last is a giant who gets his arm sheared off with a single kick) and then after that, hardly anything Iron City offers poses any credible threat to her. She is only defeated once in the entire film, and not because her opponent overpowered her but because her own body failed as it couldn't handle the extremes she wanted to push it. Her Berserker body makes her even more unstoppable than she already was, and it has a Healing Factor to boot.
• The Bourne Series: Jason Bourne. The thrill of those movies isn't from whether or not he'll succeed, but how. Case in point, any action hero can fight off a surprise attacker, but only Jason Bourne can do it with a pencil.
• Commando: John Matrix. He shoves cars, defeats an entire army, successfully brawls with dozens of police officers at the same time and blows lots of shit up. In a bid to give the movie a Worthy Opponent (and hang a lampshade), Bennett even says that either he or Matrix could single-handedly take out that army.
• Ip Man. Until the final fight nothing gives him trouble, and even the final villain isn't too big a problem. Not so much in the sequel, where one character fights him to a clear draw, and another manages to keep him on the ropes and even knock him down once. Even less so in the third film, where the fight against one foe isn't about actually winning so much as trying to stand his ground for 3 minutes.
• John Wick downplays the "invincible" part, but fully embraces the "showy". John is a One-Man Army, effortlessly dispatching waves of mooks with a stylized combination of Gun Fu (preferably headshots) and hand-to-hand combat. However, a select few people give him serious trouble throughout the movie. In particular, his first fight against Kirill in the Red Circle ends with Kirill throwing him off a balcony. After he gets stabbed in his final fight with Viggo, he's in bad enough shape that it's implied he's ready to die until Heroic Willpower kicks in and he drags himself to a vet to stitch himself up.
• Superman in the climax of Justice League. While he spends most of the movie dead or recovering from his resurrection, when he shows up during the final battle it's the moment that turns the tide in the heroes' favor. Steppenwolf, who can fight Wonder Woman and Aquaman to a standstill, is unable to land a single punch and gets trounced with zero effort.
• In Thor, the title character has to be Brought Down to Normal to be given a fair fight. While he has his powers, he pretty casually decimates an army of Frost Giants, shoves the Destroyer's energy blast back in its face without taking a hit, and while Loki does initially begin the fight by kicking him around, it's because Thor refuses to fight until Loki starts threatening Jane Foster. At which point, Thor tackles him through a wall and lays his hammer on his chest. The point of that first movie was to show a god discovering humanity.

Literature

• This is pretty much what makes Artemis Fowl so enjoyable. The main character should be, by any standard, a Marty Tzu, but it's so much fun to see him pull out his schemes that it won't bother you.
• Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM). Since the series is presented as his heavily-edited memoirs, there is no question as to whether or not he'll survive, but rather just how much more the universe can throw at him. Interestingly, he's an Invincible Hero from the perspective of everyone In-Universe, only the reader (and his lover/boss Inquisitor Vail) know just how scared he is.
• Being a World of Badass, Honor Harrington is a surefire breeding ground for these, though usually deconstructed to some extent.
  • The titular heroine, being a Lady of War Determinator Sociopathic Hero Four-Star Badass, is one of the prime examples. Deconstructed in that it's largely Blessed with Suck for her as a person, because of the enormous physical and emotional toll her stellar career took on her, making her a clear-cut example of the Broken Ace by the end of the main timeline. Numerous times lampshaded In-Universe, from the Old Lady's own nickname — The Salamander, taken from the fact that she's always where the flames are the hottest, to a certain bit character niting that while serving with her is certain to bring awards and promotions, these are often posthumous.
  • Victor Cachat, full stop. An archetypical Super Spy on the outside, the books that go deep enough to show his inner world, clearly paint up a tired and uncertain young man only held up by his iron will borne out of his sense of obligation towards his nation, and a certain amount of Superpowered Evil Side.
• The protagonist of Imaro is the biggest and toughest of the big, tough Proud Warrior Race he hails from, routinely overcomes impossible odds just by being incomparably strong and having unbreakable Heroic Willpower and quickly becomes the best there is at anything he puts his hand to. He gets some depth from his emotional scars, but mostly, it's just fun reading about him being an over-the-top badass.

Live-Action TV

• The Avengers: John Steed and Emma Peel never lose. They're not even challenged very frequently by the diabolical masterminds who oppose them. But that doesn't matter — what matters is that they both look incredibly cool while they're doing... well, anything.
• Burn Notice: The same applies to Michael Westen. Oh, yeah. He's gonna get the guy. But the appeal is in watching him and his buddies pull it off. It also helps that the "showy invincible hero" part only applies to the daily A-plot, while the season-long B-plot is about his own struggles dealing with the season's Arc Villain as part of his attempts to get back into actual spy work (where he often meets a lot more opposition and failure).
• Columbo: The title character is one. Once you know what the show is like, you know he's got the criminal anyway. The fun is watching him nail the bad guys bit by bit.
• Doctor Who: The Doctor rarely loses, and even when he does, odds are he'll repay the favor later. Of course, given the sort of things his enemies tend to get up to, the ripple effect, if not the plan itself, would probably change history such that the universe would end (or never have existed as of the Season 5 finale). While he rarely loses and his companions rarely die, some seasons do leave the survival of any and all people introduced in the current episode up for grabs. In other seasons, not so much. It's Depending on the Writer.
• Doctor-X: Michiko Daimon's catchphrase is "I never fail", and she never does. The questions are instead how things degenerate to the point that she's needed to swoop in and save the patient when Teito's regular doctors have failed, what unorthodox method she uses, and how she'll inevitably butt heads with the hospital administration along the way.
• Ken Hayakawa from Kaiketsu Zubat. He is '#1 in Japan' at everything, including the special skill of the villain he's presently fighting. It isn't a matter of how he'll win, it's all about how freaking awesome he's going to look doing it.
• Leverage: Similar to Burn Notice above, it's never a question about if Nate has the upper hand, but rather how he's going to get around the glitch in his plans (and whether it's truly a glitch, or was part of his plan all along).
• This is most of the appeal of watching MacGyver. If the title character's in a strait jacket and handcuffs while poachers are about to release some kind of nerve gas into the air supply of a zoo, the question is never, "is he going to fail?" Rather, it's "How's he going to use a paper clip, his pants, four Tic-Tacs, a blender that doesn't work, a teaspoon's worth of peanut butter, a blender that does work, and a handful of wet dirt to jimmy himself loose, disable the pumps, and beat the bad guys before time runs out?"
• The original Mission: Impossible was a team of Showy Invincible Heroes. Sure, there might be a hiccup or two along the way, but you know the M.I. team will always achieve their goals. The real fun is in seeing how the simultaneous parallel plots ingeniously come together in the final act to deliver the bad guys' comeuppance.
• Monk may sometimes doubt his own ability to solve the case, but we never do. The interest lies in watching him solve the cleverest crimes on the basis of what seem to be the thinnest inspirations, and on anticipating the moment when he'll finally explain everything and catch the killer (who is almost always a horribly smug jackass) red-handed. ^note This only applies to solving cases. Practically everything else is a huge challenge for him. The fun doesn't just come from watching him do what he's good at.
  • Also averted with the one case he failed to solve; the murder of his wife and seeing him finally do so is all the more gratifying.
• Psych is similar in the vein of Monk. We all know that Shawn Spencer will solve the case and save the day, but his and Gus' hijinks with the police, the often convoluted and strange circumstances of the cases, the personal relationships and growth Shawn and the cast go through was what made the show fun.
• Super Sentai and its counterpart Power Rangers. It's never a question what will happen in battle, but how impressive the megazord will be and how big of an explosion will follow.
• Westworld Season 3 shows Dolores being always one step ahead of everybody including the two antagonists, Serac and Rehoboam. Not even Maeve who developed technopathic abilities from the two previous seasons can't beat her despite gaining the upper hand by destroying Dolores' right arm with her drone. The only time Dolores felt defeat is in the last episode when she was betrayed by her own copy, who felt that she deliberately abandoned her at the mercy of Serac's men. However, it's subverted at the end where after being captured by Maeve and later, plugged into Rehoboam's mainframe, Dolores immediately hacks into the database in order to allow access for Caleb to shut down Rehoboam for good despite slowly losing all of her memories. Even at her death, Dolores still comes out victorious.

Pro Wrestling

• This was pretty much the entire point of Goldberg's character, especially in his WCW run. He built up a win streak of almost 200 wins straight, and the entire appeal of that streak was in seeing who he could beat next, how quickly he could do it and what new moves he'd bust out to do so. And when the streak finally ended, it was due to arguably the most extreme cheating in the history of pro wrestling: Kevin Nash won by having Goldberg zapped with a cattle prod^note And yes, Goldberg did take the actual zap — and immediately regretted it, making it clear that in an actual match Goldberg still would've been unbeatable.
• John Cena tends to float into this territory sometimes; often times it's just the Invincible Hero, but when he DOES start selling properly (usually in an I Quit or Last Man Standing match) and goes into full-on Determinator mode, it can be downright scary how much legitimate punishment he can absorb before finally getting the upper hand back and even the smarks start wanting to watch him get back up. Easy enough to say it's all part of the script, but then you remember he usually returns from a legitimate injury in between a third and a quarter of the time he logically should...

Radio

• Older Than Television: The Lone Ranger, as well as any superhero radio adaptations.

Sports

• The Harlem Globetrotters. Their games are sports-themed theater in which they always win. The appeal is watching them perform Awesome, but Impractical stunts and tricks to beat their boring, conventional opponents. Their long-time rivals the Washington Generals only won a single game, apparently by accident, and the audience reacted with horror at the fact that they were Not So Invincible After All.

Tabletop Games

• Exalted is the king of this trope in tabletop gaming, where the heroes are expected to be very showy (up to and including getting bonus dice on their actions if they're showy enough when they do them), and largely invincible. The trope does not hold with respect to major antagonists. Many of them outclass player characters as much as the latter outclass common Mooks.
• The Smallville RPG takes this to an interesting place by making all PCs, and even most NPCs, impossible to kill (well, unless the Player chooses to have them die for dramatic reasons) so that all the drama is carried by character interactions, and the interest by how they go about building and destroying beliefs and relationships.
• It may be worth noting that if a game simply makes player characters hard or impossible to kill (whether intrinsically so through its rules or by providing explicit options to "cheat death"), that's actually not in and of itself this trope or its cousin already. It takes more than mere immortality to make a character actually invincible...simply because they can always easily stay alive, even in perfect health, and still lose in the end. (This actually does seem to be a concept that some gamers and even game designers have trouble wrapping their heads around — the "if you can't die, there's no challenge!" meme is an old and pretty entrenched one.)

Video Games

• Asura from Asura's Wrath is very much this when it comes to most enemy mooks. Subverted in some fights with the 7 Deities, where at first he seems to lose, but as his anger builds, he eventually goes into this territory. A number of plot-mandated defeats occur at times, but are followed by, literally, climbing out of the afterlife and starting a new fight with the next Deity, reinforcing this trope.
• At least canonically, the titular protagonist of Bayonetta seems to be this when not under the player's control, with only Father Balder, Aesir, and Singularity ever really worrying her. The game itself is Nintendo Hard, but a competent player will certainly feel like the invincible, unshakable dominatrix that Bayonetta is when they master it.
• Dante of Devil May Cry is practically the personification of this... in the cutscenes anyways. Ingame, you can make the cutscenes look tame by comparison.
• It is implied that the incarnation of the Doom Marine in Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal is canonically invulnerable at worst, and at best, has all the cheats on. It's further implied that his Berserk power-up, which is a One-Hit Kill for nearly everything, is his default state and that he uses weapons simply to make his mission of demon-murder sporting.
• The battles in Final Fantasy VII (and maybe other installments in the series as well) can be like this. Most of them are easy, but oh so flashy if you want that. The final battle against "Safer Sephiroth" is an inversion in that the villain is going to lose for sure, almost certainly on your first try, but he's so showy he still manages to come across as godlike. The more-final duel between Cloud and Sephiroth is also an example, as it is unlosable but you're probably going to win it with Omnislash, which you may not have even seen before that. And yes, it is showy.
• Master Chief of Halo fame fits this trope quite well in the original trilogy, though less so starting from Halo 4. Inverted with the protagonist of Halo: Reach: the Fall of Reach is guaranteed; the fun is in seeing how awesomely you lose.
• Metroid Dread places the player in the shoes of space bounty hunter Samus Aran. Despite the opening cutscene beginning with her on the wrong side of a Curb-Stomp Battle, the rest of the game features Samus at her absolute best. In gameplay, Samus has an arsenal of abilities, weapons and counters that can allow the player to remain virtually untouched if they're good enough. In cutscenes, Samus shows no signs of panic or distress; when confronted with the towering Kraid, she stands unflinchingly as he struggles to bite and claw at her, counters his attacks and stands in his mouth firing missiles into it, and then calmly dodges his last-ditch desperation attack. There are rarely other moments in the game where she is any real trouble, but these moments typically result in her growing only more confident and powerful.
• James Heller from [PROTOTYPE 2] is basically a walking WMD and there's pretty much nothing in the game that poses more than a minor inconvenience. It doesn't make it any less cool to beat tanks into submission with their own turrets. Alex Mercer from the first game is a downplayed example in that he's not nearly as invulnerable in gameplay, though he's probably intended to be this in the story given he shrugs off everything up to and including a nuke.
• Modern era Sonic the Hedgehog games like Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Colors, and Sonic Generations turn Sonic into this, seeing as how much of the fun comes from running through the levels almost nonstop and looking awesome doing so. Sonic Lost World deconstructs a lot of this in the cutscenes as it shows what happens when Sonic pulls this trope without thinking.
• Kerrigan in StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm already is a Magnificent Bitch leading a Horde of Alien Locusts, and becomes a full-blown Game-Breaker and Physical Goddess who literally kills and consumes Eldritch Abominations for snack by the second half of the game. Very little missions have her in an actual position of inferiority, but it's so much fun to destroy entire armies with her that you most likely won't complain.
• Mario and Link are Nintendo's main examples of this trope.
  • Their next biggest two examples, Samus and Kirby seem to invoke it even more than the main two. Both have build up a reputation that even though their victory is guaranteed, they're going to make it a spectacle for the player with the former usually blowing up an entire planet and the latter killing a god or Eldritch Abomination.
• Wario is like this in his adventure games (Wario Land, Wario World and Wario: Master of Disguise). It's obvious from the start that he will win, as the guy is either literally invincible or so damn tough he may as well be. But the appeal is watching him beat up hordes of monsters near effortlessly or use his invincibility and the comical reactions he can receive from enemy attacks to navigate the levels.

Visual Novels

• Leo "the Legendary Man" Shishigami in Rose Guns Days. When he is around, the question is never "can he win?" but "what kind of ridiculously awesome stunt will he pull off to win?" This is almost taken to Comically Invincible Hero at some points. This is probably the reason he is Put on a Bus for more than half of the series. Even some of the toughest characters are less than enthused at the idea of having him as an enemy.

Web Comics

• Parodied, or something, by Andrew Smith of Gunnerkrigg Court, who has the power to "create order," essentially a ridiculously overpowered version of Winds of Destiny, Change!. He can cause absurdly improbable Contrived Coincidences (if he throws a deck of cards in the air, they will land in one lined-up stack, in order), be Crazy-Prepared completely by accident, end a training simulation via a holodeck glitch that makes the desired MacGuffin inexplicably appear at his feet, stabilize otherwise uncontrollably random things like Parley's teleporting ability, and who knows what else. He could probably resolve the whole plot in one chapter with dozens of invoked Deus Ex Machinas, so his power is mostly Played for Laughs instead (Parley lampshades the fact that his power "makes everything boring"). And then when he tries to use it as a Medium, he gets mobbed by people out for their own personal Deus ex Machina and has to flee.

Web Original

• The Salvation War trilogy is explicitly about Humanity (as in, the people of Earth starting from January 2008) versus both Heaven and Hell, and it becomes quite obvious before long^note From the thread that eventually led to the trilogy, even. who's winning... but the ride is full of awesome, win and even heroic tragedy in a setting that at times seems to laugh at the idea thereof... well, up until Book 3: Lords of War, at which point it's "the morning after." What, you thought Humanity becoming the masters of Heaven, Hell, and Earth would be consequence-free?

Western Animation

• Ben 10 likes doing this from time to time. Ben Tennyson becomes one more and more as the franchise goes on. At the beginning of the show, he already had 10 alien forms, each one with its own powers. Currently, he has reach over 70 different forms, and literally as many different ways he can kick his enemies' asses.
• Bugs Bunny. Bar a few exceptions, he always outwits his foes, and it is always hilarious. Also the Road Runner. And Speedy Gonzales. And just about any other Looney Tunes hero you can think of. It's a staple of their style.
• Calling him a "hero" is questionable at best, but Dan of Dan Vs. is an example. He almost always gets his revenge on the episode's antagonist, even if it's something you wouldn't think it would be possible to get revenge on, like an abstract concept. On the rare occasion that he doesn't win, it's usually because he has a Pet the Dog moment and decides to forgive his intended victim. Still, the ways he gets revenge are always hilarious and often surprisingly badass. It helps that he's also the Butt-Monkey, so while he always wins in the end, he goes through a lot of misfortune to get there.
• The eponymous robot of Megas XLR and its pilot, Coop, in the grand tradition of the Super Robot Genre it lovingly parodies.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • When you have to build your own super-intelligent AI and program it to trap you repeatedly in order to have a little fun, and then you defeat it effortlessly, well, it's difficult for us to ever feel afraid for you. However, the show isn't about them fighting villains, but about them creating incredible things; it just happens that they sometimes fight and defeat villains in the process.
  • Also, Perry the Platypus. Even his Arch-Enemy Doofenshmirtz doesn't honestly think that there's any way Perry will lose anymore, but he wins in such hilariously awesome ways that the fans don't mind.
• The series finale of Spider-Man: The Animated Series features an alternate version of Spider-Man who's basically this; literally everything always worked out for this version of Spider-Man (to the point that he's the head of a multi-billion-dollar company and Uncle Ben is still alive), to the point where he's caught off-guard when things go wrong despite him being the most technically well-equipped version of Spider-Man present.

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