History Main / BrokenFaceplate

* The ''Film/SpiderManTrilogy'' invoke this trope at least twice. Spidey's mask gets ripped when he's on the receiving end of a beatdown.

* See also: InCaseOfBossFightBreakGlass.

* ''VideoGame/SpiderManPS4'' - the mask of Peter's new, armored suit gets cracked about halfway through the final boss battle. [[spoiler: Peter briefly tries to hide his face, only for Octavius to reveal he already knows it's him.]]

* Played for laughs in ''Series/Loki2021 Loki]] Season Two'', when Mobius finds the suit he's about to wear to go outside to a temporal loom that will spaghettify him at the smallest leak, ''has a crack in the helmet.''

* ''Webcomic/{{Spinnerette}}'' has a situation where a North Korean superhero raids a research faculty in the USA intending to steal a superweapon. the american general tells him, smugly and unwisely, that his platoon of SuperSoldiers are wearing power armour and protection that makes them invulnerable to superpowers. The supervillain Colonel Glass then smiles wickedly and points out that his name is Colonel Glass. What do you think my superpower is? He then notes the soldiers are wearing vision-enhancing lenses in their faceplates. which from the point of view of a supervillain who can manipulate glass and turn it into, say, razor-sharp shards propelled with some force, is rather convenient. He then proceeds to blind each soldier in one eye. Because he's feeling merciful.

* The Bulldozer units in ''VideoGame/PAYDAYTheHeist'' can have its faceplate broken when shot at enough times, allowing you to do massive damage afterwards. in ''VideoGame/PAYDAY2'', Bulldozers have several layers of faceplates and when you break them all, you can see the unit's face.

* This trope is how you tell a mook has died in ''Film/{{Equilibrium}}''.

* ''Series/{{Farscape}}''. A CatapultNightmare has Crichton dying this way in "Dream a Little Dream".

** In ''Anime/GundamBuildFighters'' Episode 20, in the after credits scene, this involves TheReveal of [[spoiler:Aila]] being the lady with the helmet to Reiji.

** faceplate was all that was left of him after his death. Coincidentally, on that occasion he was also consumed by the destruction of Unicron. During his funeral, Windblade placed the faceplate on his (empty) coffin.

** In the GrandFinale of [[ComicBook/TheTransformersIDW the original IDW comics timeline]], this was inverted: his faceplate was all that was left of him after his death. Coincidentally, on that occasion he was also consumed by the destruction of Unicron. During his funeral, Windblade placed the faceplate on his (empty) coffin.
* In ''ComicBook/UltimateFantasticFour'', the titular foursome have to wear helmets on their journey into the N-Zone due to the dimension's atmosphere being lethal to humans. When Reed and Ben encounter Nihil, he springs a trap that shatters their faceplates. [[RubberMan Reed]] spreads his hand over his helmet to keep it sealed shut. Ben isn't so lucky, but fortunately, it turns out that he ''can'' breath in the N-Zone's atmosphere. Though in Ben's words: "this air tastes like crap."
* ''ComicBook/{{Wonder Woman|1987}}: ComicBook/TheContest'' ComicBook/{{Artemis}} breaks the faceplate on the helmet of one of Julianna Sazia's musclebound cyborg henchmen in during her first outing as a hero

* In ''Film/{{Automata}}'' the Automaton Pilgram 7000 series and up have built in faceplate-like masks that are often graffitied, shot at, broken, or [[TheSingularity when fully sapient simply removed]].

* In ''Film/{{Gravity}}'', Shariff's death is confirmed not only from the large hole in the visor of his helmet, but from the hole in the back of the helmet and straight through the head in between.

* Several examples in ''Film/TheLastDaysOnMars'' (2013). PatientZero staggers back to the expedition base, [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat somehow surviving a fall that should have killed him or punctured his spacesuit]]. As he's dragged out of the airlock, a crewman takes off his helmet and we're shown the hole in the faceplate just before the FacialHorror of his dessicated features is revealed, and he attacks the crewman as an enraged alien fungus-infected zombie. Later a ZombieInfectee pulls off her space helmet to stop a colleague rescuing her. He tries to put the helmet back on, but sees the faceplate has been smashed. Later he comes across a member of the relief team dead in his spacesuit, after hearing their SoundOnlyDeath. The final version is when the SoleSurvivor has to headbutt another infected victim, [[TheEndOrIsIt raising the possibility that he also might become infected]].

* In ''Literature/TheMartian'', [[spoiler:after the seal around one of the Hab airlocks rips and the pressure blasts the airlock out, with Mark inside it,]] Mark has the faceplate of his helmet shattered. He is trapped in a pressured environment with a slow leak, and needs to {{MacGyver|ing}} a way to seal it before he can go anywhere. [[spoiler: He ends up cutting the left arm off his suit, tucking that arm against his chest, sealing the hole where the arm was, then using part of the suit's arm as an emergency patch, using the camera on the other arm to see.]]

** ''[[Series/PowerRangersLostGalaxy Lost Galaxy]]'' - During the final battle with Trakeena, Leo uses his SuperMode armor to grab her and fires at point-blank rage. At first, his teammates aren't sure he survived, but he staggers out of the rubble with half his visor blown off, and gives an epic thumbs up.

* In ''Breakaway'', the pilot episode of ''Series/Space1999'', astronaut Nordstrom flips out on the Moon's surface, is zapped by a laser barrier and is thrown to the ground, cracking the faceplate of his helmet on an inconvenient rock. He survives it, but it doesn't really get any better for him.

* In a rather strange inversion, ''Series/UltramanZ'' [[spoiler:has [[HybridMonster Destrudos]], transformed from [[HumongousMecha Ultroid Zero]], whose head breaks into half after the robot absorbs seven kaiju DNA to complete its mutation into the said monstrosity. The right part of Ultroid Zero's head half hangs onto several spikes on its right shoulder, where as the left one hangs on the head]].

** After beating Firefly, Batman punches out one of the eyepieces in Firefly's helmet, revealing part of his burnt up face.

* In ''Videogame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSun'' the Nod campaign starts with a pan shot to a fallen Nod trooper, who's helmet is blown open. Unlike most other instances of this trope, if you look closely you can see the remains of the guy's face (it ain't pretty). This is intentionally juxtaposed with Nod Propaganda being broadcast over the trooper's transmitter, which leads into the actual intro.
* In ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution'' while infiltrating the TYM headquaters in Hengsha, [[PlayerCharacter Jensen]] comes across a TYM employee who just got caught in an industrial accident. He is trapped in a room full of toxic gas, and something smacked him across the head and broke the clear visor of his HazmatSuit. He has a secondary rebreather beneath that, but it is clearly not as effective without the suit's seal, and the man is running out of time.

** A news report in ''[[VideoGame/StarcraftIIHeartOfTheSwarm Heart of the Swarm]]'' symbolizes a report on [[spoiler: Jim Raynor's faked]] execution with a shot of his suit with a bullet through the faceplace.

** Near the end of the season, [[spoiler:the Meta manages to drive a spiked A.I. containment unit into Tex's visor, smashing a large round hole into the front of it and absorbing her into the unit.]] [[note]]Rooster Teeth supposedly intended for this iconic image to be used on the DVD cover, until they discovered the trope was also being used in ''VideoGame/HaloReach'', which was being released at nearly the same time. They decided to change it to avoid seeming like they were ripping off the idea.[[/note]]

* [[spoiler: Mistress Butterfly]] of ''Webcomic/Collar6'' cements her status as a BigBad by shattering the cyclops like faceplate of a [[TheWorfEffect supposedly powerful]] member of the association called a Judicatrix.

* ''Webcomic/{{Spinnerette}}'' has a situation where a North Korean superhero raids a research faculty in the USA intending to steal a superweapon. the american general tells him, smugly and unwisely, that his platoon of SuperSoldiers are wearing power armour and protection that makes them imvulnerable to superpowers. The supervillain Colonel Glass then smiles wickedly and points out that his name is Colonel Glass. What do you think my superpower is? He then notes the soldiers are wearing vision-enhnacing lenses in their faceplates. which from the point of view of a supervillian who can manipulate glass and turn it into, say, razor-sharp shards propelled with some force, is rather convenient. He then proceeds to blind each soldier in one eye. Because he's felling merciful.

* ''Webcomic/ImTheGrimReaper'': This happens to Brook twice. First is when Scarlet shoots him in the head in order to break his mask. The second is during their second fight, when she manages to punch him and actually hurt him a little.

** During Optimus's death sequence in ''Anime/TransformersArmada'', his faceplate cracks apart up-close before he crumbles into dust.
** Later, in ''Anime/TransformersCybertron'', Optimus Prime's mouthplate is shattered again during the final battle, although he remains alive, victorous. Galvatron is the one who dies this time.

Often a type of ArmorPiercingAttack, this is a non-{{fanservice}} SubTrope of ClothingDamage, and SisterTrope to HatDamage if non-fatal. May invoke OminousCrack where it's not fatal for added drama.

* ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice'': Towards the end of the fight between Batman and Superman, the helmet of Batman's PoweredArmor gets broken enough to partially expose Batman's face, and the [[GlowingEyesOfDoom white eyes]] and [[BadassBaritone voice changer]] don't work well anymore. Along with the rest of the armor, the broken helmet is seen again in ''Film/ZackSnydersJusticeLeague'' as a ContinuityNod.

* In ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution'' while infiltrating a TYM factory in Hengsha, [[PlayerCharacter Jensen]] comes across a TYM employee who just got caught in an industrial accident. He is trapped in a room full of toxic gas, and something smacked him across the head and broke the clear visor of his HazmatSuit. He has a secondary rebreather beneath that, but it is clearly not as effective without the suit's seal, and the man is running out of time.

** During the Moon buggy chase, the MauveShirt lieutenant commanding Roy's escort is KilledMidSentence by a BoomHeadshot smashing in his faceplate.
** While investigating a space station laboratory, an astronaut is attacked by an [[ManiacMonkeys escaped lab monkey]] who [[CruelAndUnusualDeath smashes in his helmet and chews off his nose]]. The protagonist desperately tries to cover the massive hole with duct tape, but he's dead by the time they get him back to his own spacecraft.
* In the original ''Film/{{Alien}}'', the first thing the face-hugger form does is go for the helmet, secreting acid to melt through the faceplate to [[FaceFullOfAlienWingWong impregnate the host within]]...

* The remake of ''Anime/DoraemonNobitaAndTheBirthOfJapan'' have Doraemon and gang battling the masked villain, Gigazombie, whose mask later gets split vertically into two by a flung spear, revealing Gigazombie's true face to the heroes for the first time. [[TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse Turns out Gigazombie looks like an ordinary person under that sinister mask]].

* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'''': Revelation''

* ''Anime/PumpkinScissors'':
faceplate was all that was left of him after his death. Coincidentally, on that occasion he was also consumed by the destruction of Unicron. During his funeral, Windblade placed the faceplate on his (empty) coffin.

* Happens to Cpt. Mitchell in one of ''VideoGame/GhostRecon: Advanced Warfighter 2'''s later missions, also [[InterfaceScrew wrecking your HUD]].

* Comicbook/{{Galactus}}'s CoolHelmet is occasionally cracked during battles, though this can happen with opponents who are much weaker than he is, like ComicBook/{{Thor}}. On one occasion, ComicBook/{{Thanos}} was able to [[ClothingDamage blow off most of his armor]] revealing a [[HumanAlien human-looking form]] beneath his armor, though this is [[YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm just what the human mind perceives]].

* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'': In [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS2E20TwilightOfTheApprenticePartII "Twilight of the Apprentice"]], [[spoiler:Ahsoka manages to take Darth Vader by surprise and damage his mask, revealing his right eye.]]

* In ''Manga/{{Trigun}}'', a sign that Vash is [[BerserkButton genuinely pissed]] is that he aims to kill, hitting the eye portion of Monev's transparent faceplate and cracking it, though Monev survives the shot.

** ''Series/TokumeiSentaiGobusters'' takes this trope UpToEleven. In Mission 14, Hiromu and Ryuuji both get smashed visors. This shows how strong the [[MonsterOfTheWeek Metaroids]] are getting... the episode happens to be the debut of the [[SixthRanger 4th and 5th rangers]]. It also happens to Ryuuji in mission 46. It happens to all three main Rangers in the finale.

-->-- '''Immortal Corrupter, [[{{Music/Gwar}} GWAR]]'''