History Main / DetachmentCombat

* Monsoon of ''VideoGame/MetalGearRisingRevengeance'' is capable of separating his entire body due to his body being made up of magnets. He can make use of this ability to avoid Raiden's sword attacks, and to attack Raiden with his various body parts both independently and from a distance.

* ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'': This is the essence of Setsuna Tokage's quirk, Lizard Tail Splitter. She's essentially very much like Buggy the Clown as detailed below

* Mr. Potato Head in ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'' can move each of his body parts separately and takes advantage of this when he has to fight. Due to his potential for sight gags though, he always gets creamed in a comical way.

* ''Anime/{{Gundam}}'' series:
** The Turn-X Franchise/{{Gundam}} from ''Anime/TurnAGundam'' has this as its most notable ability - its limbs can break off, and divide into smaller pieces, to fly around and attack the opponent from many directions at once with beam attacks and a strange power that dries-out the energy of opponent mechas. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a__a0BkR0fg Recreated on great detail]] in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsZ''

* Majin Buu of ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' takes this UpToEleven: being made of bubblegum-like goo, he can control any piece of it that's been separated from his body. Apart from using his legs to knock out Tien, he takes advantage of this so he can catch his enemies by surprise and absorb them (which he does by engulfing them in a piece of his goo and reabsorbing it into his body).

* The second boss in ''Franchise/{{Wolverine}}: Adamantium Rage'' had four bladed arms, which he would detach and fling around at will.

* Gundam series:

** In Part 1, Zeppeli explains that this is sort of how his Zoom Punch works: he temporarily dislocates his arm to extend the range of his punch, while using [[SupernaturalMartialArts the power of the Ripple]] to block the resulting pain and heal himself.
** In Part 5, Buccelatti can do this with his zippers, detaching an arm and reeling it out on a length of zipper. Also Ciocolatta can do this with some improvisation from his stand Green Day and this leads to one of the nastiest, most gruesome usages of this trope.
** In Part 6, Jolyne Kujo pulls this off while fighting [[spoiler:Enrico Pucci]] due to her ability to unravel herself.
** In Part 7, Mountain Tim can do this with his rope, Hot Pants can separate her body parts with her flesh spray, Blackmore can do this in rain (which he likes to use for sneak attack biting), and Johnny Joestar can separate his body parts with his holes. Needless to say, [[Creator/HirohikoAraki Hirohiko Araki]] is fond of this trope.

* ''VideoGame/EighthMan'' has a recurring robot enemy who can detach itself from the waist and attack you as two entities. Destroying one of the halves (usually the legs) will have the other wandering around in circles while trying to attack you; leaving it idle for longer periods of time and it will leave.

* In ''[[VideoGame/GanbareGoemon The Legend of the Mystical Ninja]]'', one boss is a daruma doll whose stacking segments try to slam into you by sliding across the screen one by one.

** Bounce Man from ''Mega Man 11'' is also capable of splitting into pieces and bouncing around the room, but he never does this on his own; it is always done as retaliation for striking him with the [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice Pile Driver]].

* The Legendary Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Zygarde has the ability to do this. It is comprised of several autonomous Cores that serve as the creature's brain and non-autonomous Cells that respond to the Cores and normally comprise its whole body. Normally it remains in its 50% form which only contains 50% of its whole cells, but it can send out a Core and some of its Cells as a canid 10% "drone" to attack for a short time.

* ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}} 6: Bloodline Rebellion'''s [[RobotGirl Alisa Bosconovitch]] can remove her arms during a battle. She can also detach her head and use it as an explosive.

* Sekibanki of ''{{VideoGame/Touhou}}''. Her spell cards has her [[LosingYourHead head]] flying off from her body to shoot at you. One series of spell cards even has her [[DoppelgangerAttack creating duplicates of her flying head to fight you with]].
* The second boss in ''[[Franchise/XMen Wolverine: Adamantium Rage]]'' had four bladed arms, which he would detach and fling around at will.

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* ''WesternAnimation/OswaldTheLuckyRabbit'' does this often.

* One of the characters in the 1986 film "The Young Taoism Fighter" uses this.

* MFEnterprises' Captain Marvel could separate any of his limbs from his body by yelling "Split!", as shown in the page pic; to reunite, he'd shout "Xam!". (No relation to [[ComicBook/{{Shazam}} Fawcett's]] or [[ComicBook/{{Captain Marvel|MarvelComics}} Marvel Comics']] characters with the same name.)

* Steve Ditko worked on a hero that combined this power and being a RubberMan. His name was Jigsaw, not to be confused with [[Franchise/{{Saw}} two]] [[Comicbook/ThePunisher villains]] sharing that name.

* HollywoodCyborg Garrison Kane of Creator/MarvelComics could send his limbs out to attack people. A disembodied hand slapping him in the face managed to severely gross out ComicBook/{{Deadpool}}.

[[caption-width-right:350:Aren't you glad we don't have characters this silly any more? Oh, wait...]]

* The Puzzler from ''{{Superman}}'' could split into living puzzle pieces, which she could then propel at her foes.

* The zombie character Rottytops from ''VideoGame/{{Shantae}}'' can fight baddies by detaching one of her legs and whacking them with it. She can also throw her head, and have her body teleport right under her head and reattach with her head.

* MFEnterprises' Captain Marvel could separate any of his limbs from his body by yelling "Split!", as shown in the page pic; to reunite, he'd shout "Xam!". (No relation to [[ComicBook/{{Shazam}} Fawcett's]] or [[ComicBook/CaptainMarVell Marvel Comics']] characters with the same name.)

* "Arm-Fall-Off Boy" of ''Comicbook/{{Legion Of Super-Heroes}}'' infamy. It should be noted that Arm-Fall-Off Boy was just a joke in the comic's letters page, but he became a CanonImmigrant in at least one 'boot.

* Parodied in ''Film/TheSuicideSquad'' with [=TDK=], played by Creator/NathanFillion. [=TDK=] turns out to stand for The Detachable Kid whose power to have his arms come off and fly around slapping soldiers, which is as useful as you'd think. [[spoiler:He's one of the CannonFodder {{Decoy Protagonist}}s just there to be killed while the actual Squad storms the island.]]

%%* The villain in the ''Series/{{Angel}}'' episode "I Fall to Pieces" could do this.

* Creator/NathanFillion plays [=TDK=] in ''Film/TheSuicideSquad''. [=TDK=] turns out to stand for The Detachable Kid whose power to have his arms come off and fly around slapping soldiers is as useful as you'd think. [[spoiler:He's one of the CannonFodder {{Decoy Protagonist}}s just there to be killed while the actual Squad storms the island.]]

[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/CaptainMarvelMFEnterprises https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/split2.jpg]]]]

* Creator/NathanFillion plays [=TDK=] in ''Film/TheSuicideSquad''. [=TDK=] turns out to stand for The Detachable Kid whose power to have his arms come off and fly around slapping soldiers is as useful as you'd think. Sadly [[spoiler:he's one of the cannon fodder [[DecoyProtagonist Decoy Protagonists]] just there to be killed while the actual Squad storms the island.]]

* In ''Fanfic/AGoodCompromise'', the USS ''Black Prince'' is a ''Hephaestus''-class advanced escort, a variant of the ''Prometheus''-class, so naturally it has multi-vector assault mode. The fic deals with some of the practicalities of having three independently operated sections: each section requires an independent warp core, and coordinating the three sections is more than a mortal captain can handle, so ''Prince'''s shipboard {{AI}} Edward, is in charge of flying Beta and Gamma. Tyria Sark uses MVAM in part 3 [[spoiler:to even the odds against a squadron of Jem'Hadar attack ships]].