History Main / ShouldersOfDoom

* Heck, the primary purpose of most [[PoweredArmor power armor]] seems to be giant shoulders.

* ''TheBoys'' - The Homelander has a JudgeDredd-esque eagle-shaped pauldron.

* The necromancer from 'VideoGame/{{Diablo}} II'' has a rather iconic pauldron in the shape of a horned demon skull on one shoulder. In D3 there are [[spoiler:three necromancers who wear an updated version of the same costume, including the pauldron]].

* American football players, though they're not considered evil. (Although the ones that do a lot of tackling—mostly defense positions—have a reputation for pyschopathy, e.g. [[Series/Farscape "Oh, we call them linebackers. Or serial killers, depends on if they're professional or amateur."]])

* American football players, though they're not considered evil. [[JerkJock Usually]].

* In ''MetroidPrime 3: Corruption'', the shoulders are the housing for the Hazard Shield upgrade, visibly changing after that upgrade is acquired.

*** The non-powered combat armors also have rather bulky shoulders, with the Reinforced Mark II making both genders look like linebackers.

* The Alt Eisen from ''SuperRobotWarsCompact2'' brings new meaning to the "Doom" part, as they're actually HumongousMecha-sized titanium ball bearing launchers, the same kind of ball bearings used in Claymore mines. Still, it averts the "evil" part, as it's the male protagonist's mecha.

** ''Everyone'' in the SRX Team of ''SuperRobotWarsAlpha'' takes this and runs with it, due to their LatexSpaceSuit. The AscendedFanboy's shoulder pads are large enough to hide countries in.

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The most notable character in the movies to wear them is Darth Vader, of course. The purpose was likely a mix of intimidation factor and protection of the little organic flesh he still had.

* A fair few ''BattleTech'' 'Mechs feature outsized shoulders, with designs such as the ''[[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Atlas_%28BattleMech%29 Atlas]]'' featuring some of the traditionally largest shoulders thanks to the machine's 100-ton weight, while others, such as the ''[[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Archer Archer]]'', are some of the [[BuffySpeak doomiest]] due to the pair of enormous long-range missile launchers that make up its shoulders.
** Justified, in the Atlas case, because it was deliberately designed to look as intimidating as possible.

-->-- '''Ted Backman''', ''VideoGame/{{Half-Life 2}}: Raising The Bar''

* Completely inverted in ''[[HalfLife Half-Life 2]]'' - The Combine soldiers' armour is designed to look as purely functional and non-aesthetic as possible, to highlight the complete irrelevance of public opinion, because [[DyingLikeAnimals humans aren't worth intimidating]].

* ''KamenRider'' only started using these in the 80s with Black. Now they're part of the uniform.
** ''{{Kamen Rider Den-O}}'' in his Gun Form has particularally large ones. However, they're fully functional in that they feed energy into his gun for his FinishingMove. Climax Form has theme as well, made up of the masks of Ax and Rod Forms, but likewise, they're functional for moving down the tracks to ether the arm or the leg for a finishing move.

* The first Megazord from ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' exhibited the giant robot form of this. The Mega Dragonzord combo takes it even further. Also, Goushi from the parent Sentai ''KyoryuSentaiZyuranger'' wears large paldrons as part of his non-morphed combat gear.

* Several champions in ''LeagueOfLegends'' have quite ''epic'' pauldrons, most notably Garen, Darius, Riven, Sion, Mordekaiser, Kayle, Xin Zhao, Jarvan IV and (rather oddly) Swain, who unlike the other listed champions is a mage rather than a fighter (although not a SquishyWizard). ** Interestingly, several of these are actually arguably fairly practical or justifiable. Nautilus has ShouldersOfPower, but his entire body shape is incredibly bulky because he's wearing a suit of reinforced deep-sea diving gear. Darius's ShouldersOfPower protect his neck, which is a useful trait in a military hierarchy which he himself managed to climb through [[KlingonPromotion decapitating superiors when they failed to impress.]] Swain's shoulders serve as a perch for his bird and (presumably) protect his robes from the claws.

If they are round enough, they [[SisterTrope overlap]] with GiantPoofySleeves. See ShoulderCannon for when a CoolGun is mounted on them (for some literal "Doom"). If they're not so much shoulderpads as a pair of shoulder-mounted towers, then they're EvaFins.

* While ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' was the trope namer for EvaFins, the [[http://mechafans.com/upload/118-angel-14-zeruel.JPG original version of Zeruel]] does fits this trope.

* Somewhere between this, GiantPoofySleeves, and EvaFins is ''BladeOfTheImmortal''[='s=] Kuro Sabato, who has two giant humps on his shoulders as large as his head [[spoiler: given they're the taxidermist heads of his wife and Rin's mother grafted onto his shoulders...]]

* Major Q9 in ''TabletopGame/HeroScape'' is a soulborg with pauldrons that are the size of his freaking body and tower over his head, almost like the forbidden love child between ShouldersOfDoom and EvaFins. Deathwalker 9000 has some pretty wicked shoulders going on, too.

Animated Megs had some pretty doomy shoulders in his Cybertronian body, but his Earth-mode ones are arguably closer to EvaFins. Are Blitzwing's shoulders vertical enough to qualify for that?

* Parodied in this animation. [[http://www.youtube.com/user/haakor#p/u/16/pcbe2sOzHU8 Shoulder-pads aren’t so great when you can't fit through the door....]]

* Several champions in ''LeagueOfLegends'' have quite ''epic'' pauldrons, most notably Garen, Darius, Riven, Sion, Mordekaiser, Kayle, Xin Zhao, Jarvan IV and (rather oddly) Swain, who unlike the other listed champions is a mage rather than a fighter (although not a SquishyWizard). Justified in the case of Nautilus, whose armour (which he cannot remove) is an old-fashioned suit of heavy-duty deep-sea diving gear.
** In Darius' case this probably makes sense - the giant shoulder armor would stop people from decapitating him, which is how he [[KlingonPromotion rose through the Noxian ranks]]. Presumably, he doesn't want anyone coming up the same route to have an easy time with him.

*** The non-powered combat armors also have rather bulky shoulders.

* The necromancer from [[{{Diablo}} Diablo II]] has a rather iconic pauldron in the shape of a horned demon skull on one shoulder. In D3 there are [[spoiler:three necromancers who wear an updated version of the same costume, including the pauldron]].

* In ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' they're found on mech's used by both the good guys and the bad guys, though that's to be expected when most of the mech used by humans were stolen from Beastmen. Especially notable it [[spoiler:the Supergalactic Gurren Lagann]] which has two bigass [[ThisIsADrill drills]] for shoulder that actually come off and stack together to form one oddly-shaped drill. Of course the drill is still very effective at... [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment drilling]].

* ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'' - Batman had pretty epic shoulder pads in the nineties. They were spiky as all get out, presumably to make him look like a bit more of a badass. What they accomplished was making him look like he was shrugging all the time. Apparently they were indented to simulate the "thumb" on batwings. In a straight villain example, Jason Todd had the same thing on his "Batman" costume during "''Battle for the Cowl''".
* Pretty much every male character drawn by RobLiefeld ends up with huge shoulder pads at one time or another.

** Space Godzilla from ''Film/GodzillaVsSpaceGodzilla'', who's crystaline shoulder growths are so massive, they render him almost literally immobile.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'', with [[PoweredArmor Power Armor]] - and Advanced Power Armor, which actually has a smaller helmet ''and'' bigger shoulders. Not to mention most of the other armor's shoulder spikes (metal, tesla). ''And'' Frank Horrigan.