Basic Trope: We are told that a female character is equal or superior to the male characters in combat skills or other action plot-relevant matters, but her actual performance does not bear this out.
- Straight: Amazing Girl has a black belt in karate and is an expert shot, but never gains a clear victory except against Mooks or a Designated Girl Fight. The rest of the time, she needs to be bailed out by her male teammates, or scores an assist at best.
- Exaggerated: Amazing Girl has phenomenal cosmic powers and is a Grandmaster of the ancient art of Awesome Fu, but spends 95% of her time captured and tied up by the villains.
- Downplayed:
- Amazing Girl is a good fighter, but the only time we see her fight, she's fighting a way stronger opponent to demonstrate that this opponent is truly strong.
- Amazing Girl has an outstanding record of victories when it comes to fighting. However, she's a Guile Hero/Combat Pragmatist who uses underhanded tactics to win her fights.note Unfortunately, in a direct confrontation or against an extremely powerful opponent, she doesn't stand a chance.
- Amazing Girl is hailed as a powerhouse on the battlefront by other characters, but in practice, she's a Cowardly Lion who only resorts to physical fighting as a last resort. However, she's useful in other ways.
- Amazing Girl is an incredible fighter... with a weak immune system. More often than not, she's too handicapped by some external factor to be of much use in a fight.
- Amazing Girl is said to be an outstanding fighter, but ends up being only as competent as her less-trained male teammates.
- Justified:
- Amazing Girl's previous victories were against chumps or in a rules-oriented tournament setting; she's not prepared for the much more powerful/ruthless opponents the plot is throwing at her now.
- Amazing Girl was raised with the mindset that she shouldn't outshine her male friends, and is subconsciously holding back.
- Due to either a fault of her powers or self-esteem issues, Amazing Girl loses all of her powers, abilities, and skill when up against anyone even close to her level if anyone (other than her opponent, of course) is watching.
- Her "reputation" was just lies.
- Amazing Girl is an adrenaline junkie who quickly grew bored with effortlessly smashing the rank-and-file mooks, so just for kicks she lets them defeat and capture her for the hero to save at one point, getting her 'fix' as she watches the death-trap inch closer to killing her as the hero races the clock. Put her up against an opponent who can match her skill, and she'll gleefully jump into combat, with varying results.
- Amazing Girl was The Dreaded, until someone found her Weaksauce Weakness. Everywhere she goes, her reputation precedes her, and her enemies are too scared to fight without her weakness.
- Amazing Girl is a Miles Gloriosus who, despite all her boasting, has always been a weak coward who writes checks her ass can't cash.
- Amazing Girl is an Action Girl, but she's been fighting nonstop for days on end with no sleep or food. She's completely exhausted by the time viewers finally get to see her.
- Someone decides to take a hostage, which causes Amazing Girl to hesitate, leaving her vulnerable to a stab in the back.
- Inverted:
- Amazing Girl is described as being untrained and less powerful than her male teammates, but in actual results turns out to kick just as much butt as them.
- Amazing Dude is described as an equal to his amazon teammates. Except he turns out to be more of The Load while the amazons are fully competent.
- Subverted:
- Amazing Girl's ineptness turns out to be her deliberately dogging it to fool The Mole into underestimating her.
- Alternatively, Amazing Girl is Famed In-Story as a skilled fighter, but is introduced as a delicate maiden who frightens easily at the first confrontation. Then they hurt Mr. Fluffers, and Amazing Girl beats them all in a Curb-Stomp Battle.
- Amazing Girl is forced to take a level in badass when the rest of the team is kidnapped.
- Amazon Girl is getting frustrated at the, admittedly understandable, fact that people keep mistaking her for the way-out-of-her-league Amazing Girl.
- Double Subverted:
- But the mole was holding back deliberately too, and the male members of the team have to bail her out again.
- None of the villains are dumb enough to make that mistake twice, so, short of a Wounded Gazelle Warcry, Amazing Girl remains a useless moeblob for most of the season.
- The level was actually Energy Donation from her teammates. Once they are free they take their energy back and Amazing Girl losses her level.
- Amazon Girl is shocked to discover that the real Amazing Girl is actually below her league.
- Parodied:
- The bad guys all want to fight Amazing Girl, because they know she's an easy victory.
- The writers have characters mention Noodle Incident after Noodle Incident where Amazing Girl did awesome things, supposedly between last episode and this one.
- Zig Zagged:
- Amazing Girl is competent and powerful in her solo series, when written by Writer X; in the team book, and guest appearances written by anyone else, she's not nearly as effective or independent.
- Amazing Girl is genuinely competent and powerful... when she's not subjected to Worf Had the Flu, which unfortunately for her the writers love to do. However they're careful to provide well-thought out and fully justified reasons for each use of Worf Had the Flu that would have the same effect on any male character, and on the rare occasion when she's not subjected to it she's genuinely amazing.
- Averted: Amazing Girl is exactly as competent and powerful as you'd expect from her described background.
- Enforced:
- "Our primary audience is twelve-year-old boys who want to see the awesome male Superhero characters, and Amazing Girl is just there as a sop for the Periphery Demographic, so don't waste time making her look competent when she can be making the male characters look more awesome instead."
- "We thought of Amazing Girl as a powerful character able to easily kick people's ass. Turns out that isn't exciting, so let's apply The Worf Effect to play up the next villain instead."
- Lampshaded:
- "Wait, did you just send Amazing Girl to spy on the enemy camp? All right then, any volunteers for the rescue mission?"
- "Yeah, that Amazing Girl. Heck of an Action Girl, all right."
- Invoked:
- Astounding Man looks for a sidekick who has an impressive reputation, but won't outshine him.
- Amazing Girl's enemies bribe her to take it easy on them, and she takes it a little too far.
- Exploited: The Big Bad does everything they can to make sure all their battles are with Amazing Girl. So they'll win every time & the other heroes won't screw up their plans.
- Defied: Amazing Girl spends extra time going through Training from Hell and upgrading her powers so that she won't be a burden to the rest of the team.
- Discussed: "Y'know, if it weren't for her Most Common Superpower, I'd vote to kick Amazing Girl off the team. She's not nearly as good at combat as an ex-Special Forces operative would normally be."
- Conversed: "I hope they give Amazing Girl some better plotlines this season. I get tired of seeing a supposedly competent ex-black-ops agent getting captured and tied up by the villains all the time."
- Plotted A Good Waste: Amazing Girl throws fights so that her enemies underestimate her. She only loses when she knows that the male heroes can handle the situation without her; when the Big Bad challenges her to a duel, thinking that she's the weakest, she kicks his ass.
- Deconstructed:
- Amazing Girl's constant failure to live up to her potential and reputation causes her self-confidence to erode, further worsening her ineptness. Even the other members of her team finally notice that she's not really contributing to battles and needs constant rescuing, resulting in her being kicked out of the group.
- Amazing Girl being utterly useless in battle costs the team several key victories, bringing the villains much closer to victory than they otherwise would be, and leads to her Undignified Death.
- Reconstructed: It turns out that Amazing Girl's function as The Heart of the team has a purpose, as the group turns into a fractious mess of backbiting and petty feuds without her to smooth things over. The team begs Amazing Girl to come back; in her downtime, she's been training/got a power boost, and is allowed one crowning moment of awesome at her return... before status quo kicks in and she returns to faux territory. She decides to shift into something less action-y.
- Played For Laughs:
- Amazing Girl is a Miles Gloriosus and a complete pushover in actual battle: and everyone but her knows it.
- Amazing Girl is said to be an awesome fighter, but she never gets the chance to prove it because she always manages to miss the fights with the supervillains for varying stupid reasons such as her car breaking down or having to do overtime for her day job.
- A monster is rampaging downtown and the citizens are in need of help. That's when Amazing Girl appears. Civilians cheer for joy, the music swells triumphantly... Then as soon as the monster spots her Amazing Girl screams and tries to run as it grabs her, eats her alive and belches out her shoe.
- Played For Drama: Amazing Girl is a danger to herself and other because she only thinks she can fight.
Amazing Girl swore that she could get back to Faux Action Girl on her own, but you'd better go with her just in case.
