History ConservationOfNinjutsu / ComicBooks

* The [[BatFamilyCrossover X-books X-over]] "Second Coming" was made of this trope and BadassDecay. One Nimrod class sentinel nearly wipes out the combined X-Men and Hellfire Club. [[spoiler: An army of them is nearly cannon fodder.]] Not to mention a combined force of [[spoiler: Bastion, Stephen Lang, Bolivar Trask, William Stryker, Graydon Creed and Cameron Hodge]] getting taken out.

* Some supervillains have discovered, to their misfortune, that this cuts both ways. Juggernaut vs an entire team of Comicbook/XMen? A city-wrecking battle in which the individual X-Men are injured, trains are derailed and buildings fall down. Juggernaut '''and''' Black Tom vs ComicBook/{{Cyclops}}? Cyclops runs rings around them while his internal monologue digresses about military history. Total property damage: One exploding pickup truck. This is especially common in CrisisCrossover situations, where small armies of hundreds of supervillains individually strong enough to give their hero a rough time can find their members dropping like flies.

** ''ComicBook/TheSupergirlFromKrypton'': Justified when Franchise/{{Superman}}, Franchise/{{Batman}}, and Franchise/{{Wonder Woman}} faced an army of Doomsday clones. Doomsday's clones don't inherit his invulnerability, nor his regeneration, reducing them to [[OneHitPointWonder one hit point wonders]]. The army is taken out with heat vision and exploding batarangs.

* ''ComicBook/MalibuComicsStreetFighter'': Guile gets into a bar brawl after a dork has the brilliant idea of spilling beer on his hair. Despite being vastly outnumbered, he kicks every single one of their arses.

* The ComicBook/AvengersVsXMen utilized this. Five of the mutants inadvertently became co-host to the Phoenix Force, and the power split evenly between them. If one fell in battle, the power would leave them as unworthy and redistribute amongst the remaining members. Eventually, only ComicBook/{{Cyclops}} remained, with the full power of the Phoenix Force (and was as difficult to defeat as you would think).

*** Speaking of Wolverine, the Hand averted this one once by ambushing him with enough ninja to cripple his movement and leave him defenseless, allowing the Gorgon to chop his head off. He gets better, then plays the trope straight for six issues of glorious payback that practically wiped the ninja clan out.

** ''ComicBook/{{Bizarrogirl}}'': Subverted. [[PlanetEater Godship]] obliterates an army of SelfDemonstrating/{{Bizarro}}s very, very quickly and easily. He also beats Supergirl and SelfDemonstrating/{{Bizarro}} down when they attack individually, but He has a harder time doing so.

** Played straight during ''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis'' with SelfDemonstrating/SuperboyPrime: he tears through the gathered teams of Doom Patrol, the Teen Titans and the Justice Society with ease, but is easily spirited away by the Flashes save for the Golden Age one. Later on, he battles an army of Green Lanterns, killing nearly 50 of them, only to be stopped and put down by the Golden Age and Modern Age Supermen. Conner Kent, who is nowhere near as strong as Superman can fight him a lot longer mano a mano than anyone can during a dogpile.

* The Wrecking Crew embody this trope since their leader the Wrecker splits the power of his magical crowbar among the Crew. The Wrecker by himself is usually a serious threat. He has given a (weakened) Thor the fight of his life and later held his own against the New Avengers. The Wrecking Crew, DependingOnTheWriter, are either serious threats or joke villains. They can go anywhere from being able to beat down [[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHercules Hercules]] to struggling with the [[ComicBook/ThePunisher Punisher]] to getting [[CurbStompBattle curb stomped]] by the ComicBook/{{Runaways}}. The Wrecker is actually aware of this trope, but willingly splits his power anyway since the Crew, [[TheStarscream occasional treachery]] from the team's EvilGenius aside, is like family to the Wrecker.

* ''ComicBook/GIJoeARealAmericanHeroMarvel'' often uses this trope, especially when dealing with the feuds between various ninja-clans associated with either the team or the Cobra. Good example from America's Elite #26, where Snake-Eyes and Scarlett battle several ''dozens of mook-ninja's'' with great success. When nasty bad guy Firefly tries to escape, Scarlett tells Snake-Eyes to "Go, I'll take care of these losers", even though there are still at least a dozen left. Of course, the battle between Snake-Eyes and Firefly is epic in every regard. During the original Marvel run, issue #91, when Larry Hama was still writing the script, there was a slightly more plausible version, where Snake-Eyes, Scarlett, Jinx and Timber face-off about twenty Red Ninjas. First sixteen go down easily, whereas the last four manage to cause grievous wounds to both Scarlett and Jinx and even cut up Snakes a bit, before going down.

* The ComicBook/IncredibleHulk personifies this trope; he can spend an entire comic battling one superhero or villain, but when faced with the entire army of them then he takes them out like flies. Conversely if Hulk is on a team, he never seems to pull out quite the same levels of power/rage. Perhaps justified as Hulk's rage would increase if he felt bullied by a large group of people as opposed to facing a single opponent, thus producing more rage, which would increase his strength accordingly.

* ''Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}'':

* The Wrecking Crew embody this trope since their leader the Wrecker splits the power of his magical crowbar among the Crew. The Wrecker by himself is usually a serious threat. He has given a (weakened) Thor the fight of his life and later held his own against the New Avengers. The Wrecking Crew, DependingOnTheWriter, are either serious threats or joke villains. They can go anywhere from being able to beat down [[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHercules Hercules]] to struggling with the [[ThePunisher Punisher]] to getting [[CurbStompBattle curb stomped]] by the ComicBook/{{Runaways}}. The Wrecker is actually aware of this trope, but willingly splits his power anyway since the Crew, [[TheStarscream occasional treachery]] from the team's EvilGenius aside, is like family to the Wrecker.

* A Silver Age JSA/JLA crossover had the Thunderbolt fall under the control of Johnny Thunder's evil Earth-One counterpart. While the Thunderbolt is one of the most powerful beings in the universe, when fighting the JSA, it was easily defeated when it split itself into six beings to take on each member. {{Justified|Trope}} because its power was spread evenly between all six bodies.
* One ''Comicbook/TheFlash'' storyline had a Speed Force enhanced bunch of ninja going up against various Flashes and other speedsters. They realized almost too late that the more ninja they took out of the action, the faster the others were getting...

* [[ComicBook/{{Shazam}} The Marvel Family's]] powers work like this; The more that are active, the more their powers are divided amongst them.
** It goes back and forth for them. Sometimes they're splitting the same power source, sometimes they each have their own.

* There's a Comicbook/GhostRider storyline that justifies this. Basically [[{{Satan}} Lucifer]] splits himself into 666 different bodies; when one body dies, the remaining ones gain more power, until only one remains with all of the Devil's hellish force.
* In ''TheNegation'' #11, Obregon Kaine reminisces on a lesson from his training days as he watches hundreds of superpowered Australians thoroughly fail to defeat General Murquade: "It doesn't matter if you're fighting ten enemies or a hundred...just worry about the one you're killing now!"
* Some supervillains have discovered, to their misfortune, that this cuts both ways. Juggernaut vs an entire team of Comicbook/XMen? A city-wrecking battle in which the individual X-Men are injured, trains are derailed and buildings fall down. Juggernaut '''and''' Black Tom vs Cyclops? Cyclops runs rings around them while his internal monologue digresses about military history. Total property damage: One exploding pickup truck. This is especially common in CrisisCrossover situations, where small armies of hundreds of supervillains individually strong enough to give their hero a rough time can find their members dropping like flies.

** ''Who Is Superwoman?'': Reactron killed dozens of Kryptonians when he and Metallo wreaked havoc on New Krypton. But when he ambushes Supergirl she is able to fight back and drive him away.

* Subverted in an early issue of ''Comicbook/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|Mirage}}''. Leonardo does battle with practically the entire Foot Clan and gets his ass kicked. Although, he did manage to put up quite a fight. This is actually an example of the Law breaking down as noted above, as Leonardo was increasingly worn down by one wave of Foot ninjas after another, while each successive group of ninjas was fresh.
* [[ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis The O.M.A.C. Project]] does this with the ComicBook/{{OMAC}} units; a single O.M.A.C. is a formidable enemy for Superman, two O.M.A.C.s were formidable enemies against Franchise/{{Batman}} and [[BadassNormal Sasha]] [[ActionGirl Bordeaux]], three were completely obliterated by Rocket Red [[TakingYouWithMe detonating himself]], and nearly a million O.M.A.C.s were taken out by an ElectroMagneticPulse.

* ''ComicBook/GIJoe'' often uses this trope, especially when dealing with the feuds between various ninja-clans associated with either the team or the Cobra. Good example from America's Elite #26, where Snake-Eyes and Scarlett battle several ''dozens of mook-ninja's'' with great success. When nasty bad guy Firefly tries to escape, Scarlett tells Snake-Eyes to "Go, I'll take care of these losers", even though there are still at least a dozen left. Of course, the battle between Snake-Eyes and Firefly is epic in every regard. During the original Marvel run, issue #91, when Larry Hama was still writing the script, there was a slightly more plausible version, where Snake-Eyes, Scarlett, Jinx and Timber face-off about twenty Red Ninjas. First sixteen go down easily, whereas the last four manage to cause grievous wounds to both Scarlett and Jinx and even cut up Snakes a bit, before going down.

* Justified in the MarvelComics supervillain team ''The Wrecking Crew''. They share their strength among each other, so if they act as a team, they are individually weaker. If it's just The Wrecker, the original source of power, acting alone, he is far more formidable as he is not sharing his strength with 3-4 other men.

* ComicBook/UltimateMarvel

* ''GIJoe'' often uses this trope, especially when dealing with the feuds between various ninja-clans associated with either the team or the Cobra. Good example from America's Elite #26, where Snake-Eyes and Scarlett battle several ''dozens of mook-ninja's'' with great success. When nasty bad guy Firefly tries to escape, Scarlett tells Snake-Eyes to "Go, I'll take care of these losers", even though there are still at least a dozen left. Of course, the battle between Snake-Eyes and Firefly is epic in every regard. During the original Marvel run, issue #91, when Larry Hama was still writing the script, there was a slightly more plausible version, where Snake-Eyes, Scarlett, Jinx and Timber face-off about twenty Red Ninjas. First sixteen go down easily, whereas the last four manage to cause grievous wounds to both Scarlett and Jinx and even cut up Snakes a bit, before going down.

* SpiderMan also has this habit to a lesser extent. He has fought the ComicBook/FantasticFour and ComicBook/XMen more than once and holds his own rather well despite the fact that individual members can and have done well against the wall-crawler in one-on-one fights.

* ''ComicBook/UltimateGalactusTrilogy'': Captain America lands in the middle of an unending army of deadly Heather Douglas clones, all of them armed to the teeth. Of course, they do not stand a chance.

* Subverted in an early issue of ''Comicbook/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|Mirage}}''. Leonardo does battle with practically the entire Foot Clan and gets his ass kicked. Although, he [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome did manage to put up quite a fight]]. This is actually an example of the Law breaking down as noted above, as Leonardo was increasingly worn down by one wave of Foot ninjas after another, while each successive group of ninjas was fresh.

* Some supervillains have discovered, to their misfortune, that this cuts both ways. Juggernaut vs an entire team of Comicbook/XMen? A city-wrecking battle in which the individual X-Men are injured, trains are derailed and buildings fall down. Juggernaut '''and''' Black Tom vs Cyclops? Cyclops runs rings around them while his internal monologue digresses about military history. Total property damage: One exploding pickup truck.

* Zig-Zagged in ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueMightyMorphinPowerRangers'' as the Rangers easily overpower Batman, but the fight is ground to a halt when the Flash enters and disarms the team.

* [[{{Shazam}} The Marvel Family's]] powers work like this; The more that are active, the more their powers are divided amongst them.

* TheHulk personifies this trope; he can spend an entire comic battling one superhero or villain, but when faced with the entire army of them then he takes them out like flies. Conversely if Hulk is on a team, he never seems to pull out quite the same levels of power/rage. Perhaps justified as Hulk's rage would increase if he felt bullied by a large group of people as opposed to facing a single opponent, thus producing more rage, which would increase his strength accordingly.

* {{Justified|Trope}} when Franchise/{{Superman}}, Franchise/{{Batman}}, and Franchise/{{Wonder Woman}} faced an army of Doomsday clones. Doomsday's clones don't inherit his invulnerability, nor his regeneration, reducing them to [[OneHitPointWonder one hit point wonders]]. The army is taken out with heat vision and exploding batarangs.
* On the subject of Doomsday, this trope tends to work in his favor as well, especially with those who uses him right - he's trashed two iterations of the Franchise/{{Justice League|of America}}, an iteration of the Comicbook/SuicideSquad and, in his early days, mowed through an army of Green Lanterns. He's practically ground to a halt when Superman steps in.

* [[ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis The O.M.A.C. Project]] does this with the ComicBook/{{OMAC}} units; a single O.M.A.C. is a formidable enemy for {{Superman}}, two O.M.A.C.s were formidable enemies against Franchise/{{Batman}} and [[BadassNormal Sasha]] [[ActionGirl Bordeaux]], three were completely obliterated by Rocket Red [[TakingYouWithMe detonating himself]], and nearly a million O.M.A.C.s were taken out by an ElectroMagneticPulse.

* In full effect on James Robinsons' ''[[ComicBook/NewKrypton World of New Krypton]]'' arc in Comicbook/{{Superman}}. One Kryptonian? One of the most powerful characters in the DCU. 80,000 Kryptonians? So much canon fodder.
** Inversely, how do they show off their power? They all go off and beat Doomsday into the ground.
* Repeatedly invoked by multiple superheroes when they face a large gang of {{Mooks}}. Comicbook/SpiderMan, Franchise/{{Batman}}, ComicBook/CaptainAmerica and ThePunisher have all been surrounded by assorted groups of street thugs, ninjas, terrorists, convicts, etc., and almost always come out on top. Another variation on this trope was used in an early Spider-Man comic where three police officers burst in to help Spider-Man against a large gang of thugs. The cops are almost as effective against the overwhelming number of hoods as Spider-Man himself.

* Played straight during ''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis'' with Superboy-Prime: he tears through the gathered teams of Doom Patrol, the Teen Titans and the Justice Society with ease, but is easily spirited away by the Flashes save for the Golden Age one. Later on, he battles an army of Green Lanterns, killing nearly 50 of them, only to be stopped and put down by the Golden Age and Modern Age Supermen. Conner Kent, who is nowhere near as strong as Superman can fight him a lot longer mano e mano than anyone can during a dogpile.
* Despite each individual member having their own power source (which, technically speaking, all drain from the same source, which is however essentially infinite), the [[GreenLantern Green Lantern Corps]] is painfully prone to this trope.

* TheHulk personifies this trope; he can spend an entire comic battling one superhero or villain, but when faced with the entire army of them then he takes them out like flies. Conversely if Hulk is on a team, he never seems to pull out quite the same levels of power/rage.

** In a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwcQY-d0I_g Flash vs. Quicksilver]] video, Flash and Quick seem to be running and fighting at the same speed. Finally, Flash gets pissed ''and circumnavigates the globe in a few seconds'' to lay the final blow. An episode of ''WebVideo/DeathBattle'' showed the same thing, where the two were fighting evenly before the Flash decides to stop holding back, pulls Quicksilver into the Speed Force and pummels him senseless.

* Repeatedly invoked by multiple superheroes when they face a large gang of {{Mooks}}. Comicbook/{{Spider-Man}}, Franchise/{{Batman}}, ComicBook/CaptainAmerica and ThePunisher have all been surrounded by assorted groups of street thugs, ninjas, terrorists, convicts, etc., and almost always come out on top. Another variation on this trope was used in an early Spider-Man comic where three police officers burst in to help Spider-Man against a large gang of thugs. The cops are almost as effective against the overwhelming number of hoods as Spider-Man himself.

*** Speaking of Wolverine, the Hand brutally averted this one once by ambushing him with enough ninja to cripple his movement and leave him defenseless, allowing the Gorgon to chop his head off. He gets better, then plays the trope straight for six issues of glorious payback that practically wiped the ninja clan out.

* Played with in a recent ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'' comic where Kingpin faces the heroes with an army of ninjas (more ninjas then usual, according to one kid). During the fight, Molly (a superstrong girl who was very upset about punching Punisher, who had no powers to protect him, and had sworn off fighting anyone without powers) asks if ninjas had powers so she could fight them. She is given the answer, that, because they were ninjas, they counted as double, the implication being that heroes in the Marvel universe cut loose when fighting ninjas.

* On the subject of Doomsday, this trope tends to work in his favor as well, especially with those who uses him right - he's trashed two iterations of the Franchise/{{Justice League|of America}}, an iteration of the SuicideSquad and, in his early days, mowed through an army of Green Lanterns. He's practically ground to a halt when Superman steps in.

* In full effect on James Robinsons' ''[[ComicBook/NewKrypton World of New Krypton]]'' arc in {{Superman}}. One Kryptonian? One of the most powerful characters in the DCU. 80,000 Kryptonians? So much canon fodder.

* Repeatedly invoked by multiple superheroes when they face a large gang of {{Mooks}}. {{Spider-Man}}, Franchise/{{Batman}}, ComicBook/CaptainAmerica and ThePunisher have all been surrounded by assorted groups of street thugs, ninjas, terrorists, convicts, etc., and almost always come out on top. Another variation on this trope was used in an early Spider-Man comic where three police officers burst in to help Spider-Man against a large gang of thugs. The cops are almost as effective against the overwhelming number of hoods as Spider-Man himself.