History CurbStompBattle / ComicBooks

** One of the all-time scariest curb-stomps in terms of sheer brutality happened when Frank went after a human trafficking ring. One of the masterminds of the operation was a woman. Frank [[spoiler:confronts her in a skyscraper office, and repeatedly tosses her against the window again and again until the window comes loose and she falls dozens of stories to the street below]]. Keep in mind that this woman was directly responsible [[CompleteMonster for the brutal physical and sexual degradation of numerous young women, including one whose baby daughter was used as leverage against her good behavior]]. She had it coming.

* The end of ''Comicbook/{{Empowered}}'' vol. 4... [=dWARF=] did not even get a hit in.

** Hell, ANY battle involving The Saint of Killers. The man is a walking curb-stomp machine. Later in the series, he [[spoiler: destroys an entire unit of TANKS. Even later, he personally kills damn near every Grail soldier, to the point that said soldiers had to climb over the mountain of bodies just to see him. The Saint eventually curb-stomps GOD HIMSELF at the series' conclusion.]]

-->''The fight lasted four seconds.''

** Let's not forget when Mara Jade had a run in with one of the Emperor's elite guards, who she promptly smacked down ''with one punch'' (because she's just that awesome). We're also [[FridgeLogic expected to believe]] that with that punch she ruptured his spleen, bruised his liver, broke his ribs, and fractured his skull... ''all at the same time''! There's just something utterly ridiculous about that. To Mara's credit, she ''did'' [[LampShading berate him]] for being so easily defeated.

* Comicbook/{{Spider-Man}} vs Kingpin near the end of the ''Back in Black'' arc. For all of his talk, Wilson was entirely over his head in this fight, but in all fairness, it ''was'' a BadAssNormal vs an enraged Spider-Man.

* Another Spider-Man example: he goes up against one of Galactus' former Heralds, Firelord, and it seems that Firelord has the upper hand, because Spidey has self doubts about his skills. Once Spider-Man gets pissed, Firelord is taken out in less than five panels (never mind the fact that even former Heralds of Galactus can casually solo 99% of Marvel, Spider-Man included. Spidey's the star, so he gets to beat the unbeatable foe).

* An utterly hilarious example in ''TheIncredibleHercules'': The villain drops a Grendel-style monster on the battlefield, with the assumption that Thor and Hercules are too exhausted to fight it. He's right, but he didn't take into account ''Zeus'', who promptly proves that while he may be bite-sized and missing the majority of his memory, he's still the fucking king of the Greco-Roman pantheon. By ''flattening'' the monster with one shot of lightning.
** ''Chaos War'' was full of those - Chaos King killing Nightmare, Impossible Man, [[{{Satan}} Lucifer]], Ares, Pluto, Zeus and Hera with no effort, Zeus curb stomping Thor and Galactus and Chaos King curb stomping [[spoiler: every single pantheon on Earth]]. The epilogue in Comicbook/IncredibleHulk featured [[spoiler: Zeus giving Hulk one of the biggest beat downs in his life]].

**** Justified: depowered Ororo was sort of a badass normal, and Scott's mind wasn't focused on the duel (that's the reason why Ororo challenged him in the first place: he had been distracted by personal matters for quite some time, to the point she accused him of not being an effective leader anymore). Ororo knew she couldn't try any frontal attack, so she waited until she could ambush Scott, then incapacitated him.

** Later, in issue #22, PsychoForHire Seth (the Six Billion Dollar Bastard) curbstomps the entire team. He takes down Apollo with one blast, doesn't give Midnighter a chance to land a single blow, beats the Doctor between panels, takes Swift out before she can even enter the room, steals the Engineer's nanomachines after harmlessly deflecting her bullets, then teleports to Jack Hawksmoor and seemingly swallows him. This would have taken less than the five pages it did if he hadn't taken time to give exposition and make taunts.
* A non-violent variation occurs when Superman and TheFlash face off in a genuine test of speed. Turns out the Flash likes to hold back when they race for charity in order to keep things entertaining for the folks at home. When it comes right down to it, he leaves poor Supes in the dust...

* [[{{Batman}} Damian and Tim]] have had a strained relationship ever since the former was introduced, sucker punching Drake out of jealousy. After years of teasing the hostility between the two, they finally had it out in ''Red Robin'' #13... Damian got the ever loving crap beaten out of him;

--> '''Tim:''' [[BadassBoast You lost the second I started]] ''[[BadassBoast trying]].''
** It's a curb stomp battle that kind of loses its badass quotient when you consider that Tim is a full-fledged adult stomping on a (arguably infuriating) ten-year-old...

** The "Hulk vs." battles in the main title fit the description as well -- a [[HopeSpot brief moment where it looks like someone might actually take Hulk out]], followed immediately by a brutal beatdown. Only the Sentry gave him anything close to a run for his money.

** Even better - Mr. X was wielding Odin's Spear, which has been said to be as powerful as Thor's Mjolnir or even more. And he still lost.

** Ares vs Sentry in the same event with Sentry [[{{Gorn}} ripping Ares in half]].

** Frank ends up on the receiving end of one of these in the {{Joss Whedon}} written arc of {{Runaways}}. He's about to kill the kids for working with the Kingpin [[spoiler:only for Molly and her {{super strength}} give him the single most painful nutshot of all time]]. Frank's role for the rest of the arc when he appears is to hold his ground, trying desperately not to pass out, hilariously.
* If you are a normal person and you face one of the [[OneHundredBullets Minutemen]], nice knowing you.

* Mr. X vs Quicksilver in the ''[[ComicBook/DarkReign Siege]]'' finale. Mr. X (a {{Wolverine}} villain) discovers that his particular schtick - reading his opponent's mind so that he knows exactly what move said opponent is about to make - is completely useless against someone who can move at the speed of sound. He knows what Quicksilver is about to do - namely break every bone in his body with a chunk of metal debris - but he can't possibly react fast enough to prevent it.

** Also from Secret Wars, the newly empowered villainess Titania decided to make the same mistake many, many new supervillains have made over the years and pick a fight with Spidey on their first day on the job. Despite being much, much stronger than him, he wipes the floor with her, tossing her out of the building and causing her to go in to the kind of temper tantrum only a bully of her magnitude could pull off having been brought down several pegs. She had already picked another fight with She-Hulk which didn't go well for her either until she got help, she probably thought that next to her, Spidey was an easy target. She thought wrong.

** One of the all-time scariest curb-stomps in terms of sheer brutality happened when Frank went after a human trafficking ring. One of the masterminds of the operation was a woman. Frank [[spoiler:confronts her in a skyscraper office, and repeatedly tosses her against the window again and again until the window comes loose and she falls dozens of stories to the street below]]. Keep in mind that this woman was directly responsible [[CompleteMonster for the brutal physical and sexual degradation of numerous young women, including one whose baby daughter was used as leverage against her good behavior]]. She had it coming.

* In one 1980s Marvel comic, IronMan is facing off against the Comicbook/{{X-Men}}. One of the mutants uses psychic powers to knock out Tony Stark. Go team... then the Iron Man armor's onboard A.I. kicks in and proceeds to ''trash'' the entire X-Men team. That's right, they get beat up by a suit of armor with a sleeping guy inside. Ouch.
* IronMan has had his share of {{Curb Stomp Battle}}s, on both sides:

* [[TheMightyThor Thor]]'s "fight" with IronMan post-''Comicbook/CivilWar''. Elapsed storytelling space: four pages. Elapsed time: 1m 15s.

** Justified in that Bane was fighting a {{Batman}} who was already seriously wounded and completely exhausted from continuously fighting for several days with very little sleep... [[GeniusBruiserand had arranged for all of this to happen to Batman by staging the mass breakout of pretty much every inmate in Arkham, and then waiting until Bruce had finished fighting them all one at a time before introducing himself.]]

** Justified in that Bane was fighting a {{Batman}} who was already seriously wounded and completely exhausted from continuously fighting for several days with very little sleep... and had arranged for all of this to happen to Batman by staging the mass breakout of pretty much every inmate in Arkham, and then waiting until Bruce had finished fighting them all one at a time before introducing himself.

* The end of ''{{Empowered}}'' vol. 4... [=dWARF=] did not even get a hit in.

*** There was an infamous Danger Room battle between Scott and a ''depowered'' Ororo in which Ororo somehow magically manages to dodge optic blasts and otherwise win the battle. This was so ridiculous, and generated so much fan mockery, that it had to be retconned later.

** One of the all-time scariest curb-stomps in terms of sheer brutality happened when Frank went after a slavery ring. One of the masterminds of the operation was a woman. Frank [[spoiler:confronts her in a skyscraper office, and repeatedly tosses her against the window again and again until the window comes loose and she falls dozens of stories to the street below]]. Keep in mind that this woman was directly responsible for the brutal physical and sexual degradation of numerous young women, including one whose baby daughter was used as leverage against her good behavior. She had it coming.

* ''WorldWarHulk : X-Men'' is basically the Hulk handing one of these out to every X-Men team over the course of three issues. Until he runs into a fully powered Juggernaut, the most they can do is slow him down, and even then not for very long. Unfortunately, the Hulk was madder than he'd ever been before, which made him strong enough to stop [[TheJuggernaut the unstoppable Juggernaut]].

* Mr. X vs Quicksilver in the [[ComicBook/DarkReign ''Siege'']] finale. Mr. X (a {{Wolverine}} villain) discovers that his particular schtick - reading his opponent's mind so that he knows exactly what move said opponent is about to make - is completely useless against someone who can move at the speed of sound. He knows what Quicksilver is about to do - namely break every bone in his body with a chunk of metal debris - but he can't possibly react fast enough to prevent it.

* [[TheMightyThor Thor]]'s "fight" with IronMan post-''Comicbook/CivilWar''. Elapsed storytelling space: four pages. Elapsed time: {{1m15s}}.

** A bit more balanced in their encounters in ''JLA/Avengers''. The Speed Force (Wally's power source) doesn't exist in the Marvel universe so the winner of the match depends on which universe they're fighting in even after Wally starts packing a Speed Force battery for his trips to the Marvel U.
* And then there's the Punisher. Just a few examples out of many:

* ''WorldWarHulk : X-Men'' is basically the Hulk handing one of these out to every X-Men team over the course of three issues. Until he runs into a fully powered Juggernaut, the most they can do is slow him down, and even then not for very long.
** Quite an accomplishment given that normally nobody, even guys like Hulk and Thor, can slow the Juggernaut down. He's not that fast, but he is unstoppable.

** Its a Retcon. Those races were between the SilverAge versions of those two characters back when Superman really could keep up with the Flash (life just wasn't fair for the rest of the league back then). There had been one official post crisis race between Wally and Superman but, while Superman had been reduced in power, so had Wally and Wally only barely won. It was only when Barry returned at his full power level that it had to be explained that clearly Barry must have been holding back during all those races (which is odd given that some of those races did have serious stakes and weren't just for charity.)

* TheFlash versus Quicksilver is basically a joke ever since Wally got his full powers back in the early nineties. In their first fight, Wally was owning Pietro until he had to stop to save some kids and Pietro jumped him. But Pietro had a moment of conscience, giving Wally more than enough time to drop him.

* In ''Comicbook/{{Exiles}}'', they spend two or three pages building up a fight between Mimic and an [[EvilTwin alternate universe double]] of CaptainAmerica. The fight is for the Skrull Gladiator Championship, which is the Skrull equivalent of the Superbowl. The actual fight lasts for two panels, with Mimic, [[ComboPlatterPowers a Swiss Army Knife of mutant powers]], unleashing the optic blasts that he borrowed from Cyclops. Mimic then flips the crowd the bird, and walks off the stage.

* In one 1980s Marvel comic, IronMan is facing off against the Comicbook/{{X-Men}}. One of the mutants uses psychic powers to knock out Tony Stark. Go team . . . then the Iron Man armor's onboard A.I. kicks in and proceeds to ''trash'' the entire X-Men team. That's right, they get beat up by a suit of armor with a sleeping guy inside. Ouch.

* Speaking of Spider-Man, when he had to face off against the X-Men in ''SecretWars'', he curb stomped the entire roster that had come after him, which included one of maybe three fights between Spidey and Wolverine that was portrayed accurately (here's a hint: Spidey can ignore Wolverine). Wolverine ''himself'' stated after the fight that Spidey made the X-Men look like amateurs.
* Another Spider-Man example: He goes up against one of Galactus's former Heralds, Firelord, and it seems that Firelord has the upper hand, because Spidey has self doubts about his skills. Once Spider-man gets pissed, Firelord is taken out in less than five panels (Never mind the fact that even former Heralds of Galactus can casually solo 99% of Marvel, Spider-man included. Spidey's the star, so he gets to beat the unbeatable foe).
** Of course, it was after Firelord has just hurt a child and Spidey pretty much went berserk. And quite frankly, every time villain hurts a child in Spider-Man's presence, Spidey will utterly devastate him, the only exception being [[spoiler: Lizard, who has evolved and developed himself new powers, which stopped Spider-Man from trashing him]].

** During the same arc Spider-Man has to save Juggernaut, who has found himself at the receiving end of one of these, with the new CaptainUniverse delivering.
** And there is also Rhino vs New Rhino, which has a large buildup culminating with [[spoiler: Old Rhino breaking new one in matter of seconds, and then killing him]].

* ''{{Ultimate X-Men}}'': Wolverine [[MurderTheHypotenuse leaves Cyclops to die in the Savage Land so he can move in on Cyclops's girlfriend]]. When Cyclops survives and makes it back, he's just a ''touch'' irritated, and Wolverine is squaring off for an epic fight...which takes all of one panel, as Cyclops opens up full-force with his {{Eye Beam}}s and leaves Wolverine in a flattened, smoking heap.

** During [[JossWhedon Joss Whedon's]] run on X-Men, which among other things made Cyclops even more badass, Scott utterly wrecked a ''Sentinel'' with one blast from his eyebeams. A Sentinel is a HumongousMecha that is specifically built to kill mutants and normally would give an entire team of X-Men a hard time. This time Scott stopped holding back -- the Sentinel never had a chance.
** However, on occasion a villain will use their brains when fighting Cyclops, and use armor made out of ruby quartz (Cameron Hodge for example). Considering that Cyclops' powers don't work on ruby quartz, this turns it into a cubstomp battle for the villain.

* One of the most satisfying examples occurs in {{the Ultimates}}. Hank Pym is sitting at a bar, nursing a drink after having brutally beaten his wife, Janet Pym. Door opens; in walks Captain America. Cap sits down, listens to Hank explain himself, and then pounds the snot out of Hank. Hank grows to 100 ft. tall. Then the real curb-stomp battle begins. Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Awesome for Ultimate Steve Rogers; the man was born for that particular moment.

* [[{{Batman}} Damian and Tim]] have had a strained relationship ever since the former was introduced, sucker punching Drake out of jealousy. After years of teasing the hostility between the two, they finally had it out in Red Robin # 13 and Damian got the ever loving crap beaten out of him;

** Quite an accomplishment given that normally nobody, even guys like Hulk and Thor, can slow the Juggernaut down. He's not that fast but he is unstoppable.

** Mr.X actually gave one to Wolverine the first time they fought.
** Ares vs Sentry in the same event with Sentry [[{{Gorn}} ripping Ares in half]]
* ScottPilgrim's fights with evil Ex 2 and 3 turned into this, with Scott being entirely outmatched for the both fights. [[spoiler:Lucas Lee (2) was destroyed doing a highly impossible skateboard stunt, and Todd Ingram (3) couldn't be defeated till he lost the rights to his Vegan powers.]]
* At the start of {{The Death of Superman}}, the monster Doomsday is attacked by the entire American Justice League (sans Superman). When Supes showed up, the League was shattered.

* Marv vs. Manute in SinCity. One would think that the fight would be epic since they're both very similar, physically. You'd be wrong. There's a reason why Manute has a fake eye in later stories.
* SquirrelGirl is a champion at this trope. Her most famous victories occurred off-panel, but in the Deadpool/GLI Summer Spectacular we see her give {{Deadpool}} the beating of his life in the space of a single page.

* MarvelUniverse: The End has Thanos, being empowered by Heart Of Universe, facing every single being in the Marvel Universe, killing them all, then taking down the Abstracts and Living Tribunal.
* {{Annihilation}} has Drax vs Thanos, which lasted one panel - enough time for Drax to rip his opponent's heart's out and for Thanos to find it interesting.
** AnnihilationConquest has Ultron doing the same to Moondragon, who was a giant dragon at the time.
* TheThanosImperative has {{Nova}} and GuardiansOfTheGalaxy with Thanos single-handely defeating the Avengers and Defenders' [[EvilTwin evil counterparts]] respectively.
* Pretty much any fight in the {{Asterix}} comics that involves a) Obelix or b) any Gaul who has taken some magic potion (usually Asterix) will qualify as one of these.
* TheFlash versus Quicksilver is basically a joke ever since Wally got his full powers back in the early nineties. In their first fight, Wally was owning Pietro until he had to stop to save some kids and Pietro jumped him. But Pietro had a moment of conscience giving Wally more than enough time to drop him.
** A bit more balanced in their encounters in JLA/Avengers. The Speed Force (Wally's power source) doesn't exist in the Marvel universe so the winner of the match depends on which universe they're fighting in even after Wally starts packing a Speed Force battery for his trips to the Marvel U.

** In one story arc he's on a covert mission to Russia for Nick Fury (long story) and eventually comes across a martial artist half his size who curb-stomps him. But [[spoiler:when the same guy then threatens the life of a little girl Frank swore to protect, Frank gets up off the floor and curb-stomps ''him'', to the point where he has to force himself to stop because he's frightening the girl. Frank was able to get his second wind because the girl reminded him for a brief moment of his long-deceased daughter]].

* A villainous variant appears in ''{{Watchmen}}'' when [[spoiler:Ozymandias effortlessly beats down Rorschach and Nite Owl]] at the same time.
** See also: [[spoiler:the complete thrashing he hands the Comedian at the beginning]]. Both fights are even more brutal and one-sided in the movie.

** Hell, ANY battle involving The Saint of Killers. The man is a walking curb-stomp machine. Later in the series he [[spoiler: destroys an entire unit of TANKS. Even later he personally kills damn near every Grail soldier, to the point that said soldiers had to climb over the mountain of bodies just to see him. The Saint eventually curb-stomps GOD HIMSELF at the series' conclusion.]]
** The fight at the end between Cassidy and [[spoiler:Jesse]] seems like it's going to be one of these, Cassidy is a super strong vampire who's taken being machine gunned and shot through the head without losing consciousness and [[spoiler:Jesse's]] just a guy with a good right hook. [[spoiler: It is. Jesse totally ''demolishes'' Cassidy.]]

* In ''Comicbook/{{Exiles}}'', they spend two or three pages building up a fight between Mimic and an EvilTwin of CaptainAmerica. The fight is for the Skrull Gladiator Championship, which is the Skrull equivalent of the Superbowl. The actual fight lasts for two panels, with Mimic, [[ComboPlatterPowers a Swiss Army Knife of mutant powers]], unleashing the optic blasts that he borrowed from Cyclops. Mimic then flips the crowd the bird, and walks off the stage.

* Cassandra Cain ({{Batgirl}} II) had a number of battles like this, at least before her epic derailment. One of the best would likely be when Spoiler convinced her to spar together. The result was a full page CurbStompBattle that left Stephanie bruised up and vomiting on the ground.

* [[TheMightyThor Thor]]'s "fight" with IronMan post-''Comicbook/CivilWar''. Elapsed storytelling space: four pages. Elapsed time: [=~1m15s=].

** One of the all-time scariest curb-stomps in terms of sheer brutality happened when Frank went after a slavery ring. One of the masterminds of the operation was a woman. Frank [[spoiler:confronts her in a skyscraper office, and repeatedly tosses her against the window again and again until the window shatters and she falls dozens of stories to the street below]]. Keep in mind that this woman was directly responsible for the brutal physical and sexual degradation of numerous young women, including one whose baby daughter was used as leverage against her good behavior. She had it coming.

** Also, in the tale of how Frank infiltrated Riker's Prison to kill the Mafia criminals responsible for the murder of his family, [[spoiler:he takes a truncheon to one of them and repeatedly bashes him in the head over and over and over]]. It's not pretty.

** A bit more balanced in their encounters in JLA/Avengers. The Speed Force (Wally's power source) doesn't exist in the Marvel universe so the winner of the match depends on which universe they're fighting in even after Wally starts packing a Speed Force battery for his trips to the Marvel U.

* Pretty much any fight in the {{Asterix}} comics that involves a) Obelix or b) any Gaul who has taken some magic potion (usually Asterix) will qualify as one of these.

*** Probably because Hal didn't (or couldn't) actually knock out Batman the way Batman knocked out Guy. Batman fell over but it was clear he would have been up and ready to go if this were meant to be an actual fight.