[[http://coelasquid.deviantart.com/art/Cthulhu-VS-the-Flying-Nun-86275733 http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Cthulhu_VS_the_Flying_Nun_by_Coelasquid.jpg]]
[[caption-width:500: Go [[TheFlyingNun Flying Nun]].]]
-->''"He's a god; it'll take more than one shot."''
-->-- '''Lady Eboshi''', ''PrincessMononoke''

-->''"Let's show this prehistoric bitch [[WhereDoYouThinkYouAre how we do things downtown]]!"''
-->-- '''Peter Venkman''', ''{{Ghostbusters}}''

So, along comes the EldritchAbomination: incomprehensible, [[GoMadFromTheRevelation insanity-inducing]] gods; alien beings that don't even notice humanity, let alone care; technological beings whose thoughts encompass the universe. You know the type. Eternal, infinite, impossible to even understand, let alone oppose...

And then along come a couple of plucky heroes, who didn't get told that the Abomination is impossible to beat (and even if they were told, they wouldn't care). Through some combination of skill, brains, courage and occasionally raw world-shattering power, maybe some kind of incredibly circuitous strategy, maybe trap, and/or sheer dumb luck, or hey, WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer they go to work and... they ''beat'' the abomination.

In short, you just killed a God. Not a [[{{Mooks}} Mook]], not an [[EliteMooks Elite Mook]], not TheDragon... ''a'' '''''[[GodOfEvil GOD!]]'''''

This appears in quite a few videogames (especially RPG's), where the FinalBoss is inevitably some kind of UltimateEvil [[SealedEvilInACan unleashed upon the world]], or the BigBad has [[AGodAmI ascended to godhood]] and gone OneWingedAngel... only to be defeated by the heroes by whittling down its health points. Particularly jarring if the Horror in question is allegedly so powerful that the {{Precursors}} were only able to [[SealedEvilInACan seal it away]], or if the heroes claim it was defeated via ThePowerOfFriendship (when it's obvious they won via the Power Of {{BFS}}, MoreDakka and Nuke-Level SummonMagic). Sometimes you actually do kill God, which is commonplace in JRPGs.

A common HandWave in video games (RPG's in particular) is to have something happen that relates to the story and limits the BigBad's power and/or brings the heroes up to its level... They ''then'' pummel it with [=BFSes=] and Nuke-level magic.

Maybe the heroes may have found some rules that the power in question has limits or a NecessaryDrawback, and then proceed to [[TryingToCatchMeFightingDirty exploit it ruthlessly]]. Maybe [[WorfHadTheFlu Cthulhu Had The Flu]]. Sometimes what they defeated was just ''part'' of the being in our reality at the time, in which case reducing its HitPoints to 0 just temporarily banishes it; they were FightingAShadow.

This is generally the result of whenever you put an EldritchAbomination in the same room as a SuperHero, or anyone or anything else capable of hitting ForMassiveDamage. Do ''not'' expect this trope to appear in any CosmicHorrorStory worth its salt, except perhaps as a HopeSpot.

Compare PowerCreepPowerSeep, StrongAsTheyNeedToBe, NewPowersAsThePlotDemands, GodsHandsAreTied, DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu, AlwaysABiggerFish, SummonBiggerFish (the latter two are when it's essentially Yog Soggoth punching out Cthulhu), LovecraftLite.

Contrast BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu, DidWeJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu, PunchPunchPunchUhOh.

Also see DoNotTauntCthulhu and DidYouJustPutACollarOnCthulhu.
----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* Masaru/Marcus of ''DigimonSavers''/Data Squad literally punches out a god. As an ''encore''.(he's also known for frequently punching giant Digimon and actually harming them! in fact, he's the only human character to do anything like that)
* The very soul and fiber of ''TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' is woven with this sentiment. Do the impossible, see the invisible! ROW ROW FIGHT DA POWAH! Touch the untouchable, break the unbreakable! [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avRuZ4QLWek&feature=PlayList&p=F7FDDBE14B540A78&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=4 ROW ROW FIGHT DA POWAH!]]
** And then arguably subverted at the end by [[spoiler: Simon's refusual to bring Nia (who he just goddamn married five minutes before), and all the others back from the dead]].
*** or if the writers didn't want to go down resurrection road.
*** As Yoko said, Simon isn't a god. For that matter, the Spiral Power is never demonstrated as being useful even for normal healing.
**** It can be, so long as the wielder wants to heal someone badly enough. That's probably the only possible reason [[spoiler: why Kamina was able to muster up enough energy to pull off a Giga Drill. He most likely was dying, then just...stopped himself from dying long enough to help Team Dai-Gurren win the day.]]
***** Actually, in Chapter 15 of the manga, it is shown that [[spoiler:Kamina's vital signatures have already flat-lined...even as he's he's aiding Simon and Team Dai-Gurren. This more likely than not means that one's Spiral Power, at least for a limited time, can ignore the obvious side effects of death (literally, he's a walking corpse as he opens a can of whoop-ass on the enemy). This could also extend to Nia, who literally willed herself to keep existing until she married Simon (which should qualify her for an awesome title), and possibly Kittan as well, during his CMOA (though he's still able to dynamic application of Spiral energy, probably because Kamina's willpower was probably more directed at keeping his corpse moving for a few seconds more.]] So while Spiral Energy can ignore death, it hasn't been shown to actually artificially create life, nor permanent biological regeneration.
**** Doesn't change the fact that Simon probably stopped [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the Spiral Nemesis]] with that one act. [[spoiler: You bring back Nia, you bring back Team Gurren, you bring back Kamina...but where the hell does it stop? Everybody gets everything they want and [[http://www.kiwisbybeat.com/minus119.html things turn out like the finale of]] {{minus}}, but with a bit more DivideByZero.]] That's right. Simon saved the universe ''by refusing to do anything.''
**[[spoiler: Simon's hand to hand battle with the Anti-Spiral at the end of the second movie.]]
* The [[EnemyWithout berserked defense program of the Book of Darkness]] in ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'', a [[HumongousMecha gigantic bio-mechanical monstrosity]] that had destroyed countless worlds in the past and is considered to be impossible to kill due to its reincarnation cycle, which lets it reform itself somewhere else whenever it dies. It went up against Nanoha's massively overpowered party, consisting of a mage that had merged with the cleansed Book of Darkness, the four guardians the Book of Darkness created to defend itself, and five other mages that are able to match said guardians in battle. All of them were throwing around {{Eleventh Hour Superpower}}s, {{Finishing Move}}s, {{Super Mode}}s, and {{Wave Motion Gun}}s like no tomorrow, backed by a CoolStarship packing an even bigger WaveMotionGun, ''and'' [[ThemeMusicPowerUp accompanied by Nana Mizuki's insert song for the season]]. The nigh-indestructible destroyer of countless worlds never even stood a chance.
** Not quite. Even though they did defeat it, it was only temporarily and it took [[spoiler: Reinforce sealing herself away for all eternity]] to finally put an end to it.
* Several of the main duelists in ''{{Yu-Gi-Oh}}'' are able to (or come close to) take out the legendary Egyptian God Cards with a series of impressive, but otherwise mundane, card combos. Examples include:
** Yugi uses Marik's own Slifer infinite combo against him to deck him out.
** Joey ''nearly'' took down [[spoiler: Marik's Winged Dragon of Ra with his Gearfried the Iron Knight, but he falls into a coma before he can give the attack order.]]
*** In the English dub. In the manga and the Japanese anime, [[spoiler: he ''dies.''.]]
****[[spoiler: [[IGotBetter He gets better.]]]]
** During their final duel, little Yugi managed to take down all ''three'' of [[spoiler:Atem's]] Egyptian God Cards with a combo involving his Magnet Warriors, a feat that had the distinct honor of forcing the otherwise-stoic Kaiba to acknowledge the little twerp as his better.
*** Also in the final duel, Yugi manages to simultaneously increase the Silent Swordsman's power while decreasing Obelisk's power so that the two of them manage to destroy each other. Near the end of the duel, he seals away Monster Reborn, and then reveals that he did so when [[spoiler:Atem]] tries to resurrect Osiris, preventing the resurrection and enabling him to directly attack him and win the duel.
**In fairness to Cthulhu, two of these examples wouldn't work. In the first example, the infinite combo shouldn't have worked in the first place; in the last, the God Cards were all destroyed thanks to monster and Trap Card effects (y'know, those things that aren't supposed to work on them).
* The [[spoiler:Obsidian Lord]] from ''{{Mai-HiME}}'' and his accompanying star have been said to have influenced Earth's affairs for many centuries, but the star eventually [[FaustianRebellion gets blown up by the same powers it granted]] and he gets destroyed too.
** Furthermore, in ''{{Mai-Otome}}'', [[spoiler:Arika manages to defeat Nina, who was at the time, powered up by the Harmonium and capable of destruction of apocalyptic proportions, with almost disappointing ease]].
*In ''SailorMoon'', Sailor Moon defeats the personification of Chaos itself as well as its four incarnations. (No, not [[{{Warhammer 40000}} THOSE four incarnations of Chaos]].)
**Naked, no less, while jumping into a metaphorical [[{{SharkPool}} Shark Pool]].
* In ''TheSlayers TRY'', Lina and company destroy a fusion of the highest ranked demon and god from another plane, bent on remaking all planes of existence free of strife. Granted, they had access to a prophecy on how to destroy it.
** Does slaying Dark Lords (Especially one that literally plays with the souls of humans) that have godly levels of power count if you channel the supreme god and creator of your multiverse to do it? Because Lina does this. Twice. And the second time she [[spoiler:screws up and is possessed by said creator of the multiverse]] .
** Don't look now, because at the end of Evolution-R, she just killed the fragment of Shabranigdo she had destroyed in the first season but that got resurrected ... again. That's right, Lina has now been personally responsible for the destruction of a one-seventh fragment of the ultimate evil god of her world ... twice. Take that, Cthulhu. (Lina actually defeats Shabranigdo twice in the novels as well, although the events surrounding her second victory are very different from those of the anime.)
* In ''SuzumiyaHaruhi'', the main male lead stops a RealityWarper with the power to create and unmake worlds from unmaking existence by [[spoiler:kissing her]]. Which makes this more: "[[spoiler:Did you just make out with Cthulhu?]]".
** Also, in the novels Kyon domineers over [[spoiler:the Data Overmind, which has ''nearly'' godlike powers by threatening to provoke Haruhi into recreating the universe with him, to a place where the Overmind would not exist.]] Which is in someways more impressive than just Punching Out Cthulhu. [[spoiler:After all how many mortals have ever made a God back down in fear?]]
** During the production of the SOS student film, Kyon comes dangerously close to punching out Cthulhu in a [[WouldntHitAGirl much more literal sense]], but is stopped by Koizumi.
* In ''CodeGeass R2'' episode 21, Lelouch uses his EvilEye on [[spoiler:the "collective unconsciousness", a gigantic mass of souls without physical bodies, which his father Charles says has been referred to in the past as God]].
** Though the [[WordOfGod guide]] states that the people/collective unconsciousness already wanted a tomorrow implying that Charles' plan was doomed from the start and Lelouch actually didn't do anything until Zero Requiem which was the will of the collective unconsciousness. If you rewatch the scene you can clearly see that Lelouch asks it in the form of a request, and even uses please.
* In the first two seasons of ''[[FutariWaPrettyCure Pretty Cure]]'', the Dark King was a borderline CosmicHorror, the very embodiment of ultimate annihilation, whose goal was to destroy everything and reduce the universe and all dimensions to a state of eternal void. The only ones standing in its way were a [[{{Determinator}} spunky]], HotBlooded, [[{{Malaproper}} slightly dyslexical]] BigEater; and a quiet, bookish, selfless TeenGenius. Their names? [[RedOniBlueOni Nagisa Misumi and Honoka Yukishiro]]. And guess what? They defeated the Dark King in direct combat. ''Three'' times! The Dark King has probably made himself into the laughing stock of every EldritchAbomination everywhere...
*''PrincessMononoke''.
--> [[spoiler: '''Eboshi''']]: Now watch closely, everyone. I'm going to show you how to kill a god. A god of life and death. The trick is not to fear him.
**Subverted in that killing said loving nature god only let out an infinitely more pissed off ''destructive'' god. So more a case of "You idiot, you let out Cthulu!"
* In ''{{s-CRY-ed}},'' after [[spoiler:being thrown into The Other Side, Mujo]] comes back with a borderline CosmicHorror form, proclaiming that his lifelong hunger for power is finally satisfied. The heroes... [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome are unimpressed]].
* Guts from ''{{Berserk}}'' takes on [[TheLegionsOfHell an entire army of eldritch abominations]] armed only with a broken knife.
** And in the manga, Guts is attacked by Slan of the Godhand but manages to fight her off thanks to his EvolvingWeapon. It is averted somewhat, as the body Slan was in was only a construct made from what was available ([[FanDisservice e.g troll guts]]), and he didn't actually kill her.
** Later, Guts manages to wound Emperor Ganishka, an absurdly powerful being made of mist, in an act that not even an army of ''demons'' could accomplish, thanks to said EvolvingWeapon.
* GetterRobo punches out (or Getter Beams, or axes, or drills, or...) absurdly powerful baddies every Tuesday, and sometimes on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
* 'DragonBall' and it's sequels has the characters fighting and killing cosmic horror level beings, and thing s which are named gods on occasions. (e.g. Earth's god is quite easily beatable) What counts and what not might be up to discussion.
* In the Kyoto Arc of ''MahouSenseiNegima'', the BigBad was successful in summoning a massive Demon God of 1600 years ago which wasn't even scratched by the best attacks of the main character. It seemed like nothing can stop it now. Then Evangeline appeared and demonstrated just how powerful she was by taking it out with one shot. The scary part is, based on Rakan's PowerLevel chart, the Demon God was, far, far, ''far'' stronger than anything Negi faced even after nearly 200 chapters.
** Perhaps subverted because, if all the stories about her are true, Evangeline herself is a Cthulhu. The demon had a fearsome reputation and great power but so did Evangeline.
** And then there was Nagi, who, when faced by a being known as the Mage of Beginnings and the Lifemaker that had just wiped out his entire party with one attack, proceeded to take said being out with what looked like a super-powered {{Shoryuken}}.
*** It was probably a ShoutOut. Negima is stuffed with shoutouts to fighting games, especially the tournament arc.
** Then, chapter 265 has [[spoiler:Loli-chisame {{Bright Slap}}ping OneWingedAngel Negi]]. [[http://www.onemanga.com/Mahou_Sensei_Negima!/265/12/ It's as awesome]] [[http://www.onemanga.com/Mahou_Sensei_Negima!/265/13/ as it sounds]].
*The Anime version of ''Soul Eater'' takes this trope very literally [[spoiler: as the series ends with Maka defeating the Kishin, a god-like, nigh-omnipotent being fueled by madness with a single punch, fueled with the power of Courage]]!
* In ''DeathNote'', Light manages to [[spoiler: manipulate Rem, a {{Shinigami}} into violating a rule for which the punishment is death]].
** Not to mention, after he becomes the 'God of the New World' [[spoiler: ie killed L]] when his god complex reaches its height, [[spoiler: he ends up getting shot. [[BewareTheNiceOnes By Matsuda.]]]]
* Ash from the ''[[{{Pokemon}} Electric Tale of Pikachu]]'', in the fourth volume, basically kills a giant, high-level Haunter that the previous inhabitants of the area worshipped as a god. [[spoiler:He was actually trying to catch it, but the Haunter had a [[AGodAmI god complex]] from all the worship it recieved and blew itself up rather than get caught.]]
** In the {{anime}}, some of Ash's Pokemon have been able to stand toe to toe against Legendary Pokemon (OlympusMons, {{Cosmic Keystone}}s, etc.). [[{{Badass}} Charizard]] and [[ThePikachuEffect Pikachu]], in particular, managed to ''defeat'' one apiece. Granted, those Legendary Pokemon are under the command of trainers, [[SoYeah but still...]]
* Eneru from ''OnePiece'' claims to be a god, as he is made out of ''pure lightning'' and no one can touch him. In comes Luffy, who literally punches out Cthulu because he is made of rubber, which doesn't conduct electricity.
** Screw that, Wiper beat Luffy to the punch on that one. A few things of note: Wiper is not made of rubber, he's just as vulnerable as any toher human, and his main weapon is the Reject Dial, a weapon that sends attacks back at the enemy while causing [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique potentially lethal impacts to the user.]] Gedatsu enters into ''single combat'' with Eneru, and using the Reject Dial, quick thinking, and just plain BadAss [[{{Determinator}} determination]], ''actually kills Eneru.'' Eneru's lighting restarts his heart, but Wiper actually ''killed'' him!
* In {{Naruto}} a couple of characters have done something similar. Naruto himself when he faces the One Tail, [[spoiler:Minato and Hashirama]] beat the Kyuubi. Any one that has beaten a Bjuu really.
** Then there is The Sage of the Six Paths who [[spoiler:not only beat the Jubi by sealing into himself, he then went on to create the ''moon'' the seal it's body in and spit its chakra into the afore-mentioned Bjuu's.]] There's a reason he was seen as a God y'know.
* Don't forget Takashi Natsume, the titular character of {{Natsume Yuujinchou}} , who has this as one of his ''special abilities'' - He can punch out extrmely strong yukai. He doesn't use this ability much, though.
* At the end of ''[[Film/RebuildOfEvangelion Rebuild of]] [[NeonGenesisEvangelion Evangelion 2.0]], [[spoiler: Shinji and Unit 01 have started Third Impact and are spoken of as things beyond any ever seen. Then Kaworu stops that by dropping a lance on Unit 01 from above.]] Whether this counts as AlwaysABiggerFish... will have to wait for the other two films.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Comic Books]]
* Many DoctorStrange and FantasticFour comics.
** GhostRider has an ability called Penance Stare, which forces people to experience the suffering they have wrought on others. In one ''FantasticFour'' cartoon, he uses this power against ''Galactus''. This trope probably applies to every time that Galactus has gotten driven off or defeated, but this example may take the cake.
**Reed Richards (the world's top Galactus driver-offer) killed the dreaming Celestial, a SSPAAACE GOD, trying to destroy the universe, combining this with DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu.
* TheAuthority, when they killed the Maker of the World.
** And more or less literally in the first ''four pages'' of ''[[TheAuthority The Authority: Prime]]'', a miniseries of, admittedly, debatable quality.
--->'''Hawksmoor:''' What the hell ''is'' that thing?
--->'''Doctor:''' Your basic elder god, returned from a dimension it was banished to millennia ago, here to turn Earth into its own personal slaughterhouse.
--->'''Hawksmoor:''' So we're talking...
--->'''Doctor:''' Two minutes.
Of course TheAuthority count as virtually gods themselves.
*Pretty much every superhero in the DCUniverse has punched out the Evil New God Darkseid, the ruler of Apokolips including nonpowered superheroes like Batman and Green Arrow.
** Darkseid isn't quite in the CosmicHorror category though, and it is often [[HandWave hinted]] at that Darkseid isn't really trying or isn't at full power when he is fighting the Superheroes. When he consider the ease in which has taken over the world in ''FinalCrisis,'' this gives those old theories some credence.
***Or just says something about the Anti-Life Equation, which he's been searching for for at least 30 years of comic continuity. He was easily defeated time and again without this weapon, and takes over the world in a fingersnap once he has it. Guess that's why he wanted it so bad.
**** Darkseid has a history of keeping enemies alive if they've put up a good fight. This isn't as stupid as it sounds, considering his "defeats" tend to be more that the opposition's just capable enough that the current plan's no longer worth the effort, and Darkseid has had no few occasions where he converts heroes into his footsoldiers. The trouble of when he [[BrainwashedAndCrazy brainwashed]] {{Supergirl}} and when his underlings tried to use {{Batman}} as a soldier template can attest to that.
* The ''{{Legion of Super Heroes}}'' occasionally go beat up the Time Trapper, essentially an AnthropomorphicPersonification of a force of entropy. Particularly notable is the time that Mon-El (a CaptainErsatz of {{Superboy}}) ''killed'' the Time Trapper and, as a result, rebooted reality.
-->'''[[http://legionabstract.blogspot.com/2007/08/legionnaires-continuity-notes-mon-el.html Legion Abstract]]:''' Doesn't sound noble, until you think about it: for Mon, the Time Trapper isn't a person so much as he's a force of entropy; if you kill him, is it murder or experimental physics?
*Another DCU example is Trigon. Big, unspeakable, cosmic horror. Has multitudes of worlds bowing to him in abject fear. Yet, in their ''first outing'' a group of what had, up until that point, been "mere" teenaged sidekicks and new characters take him down. A couple years later, they do it ''again.''
* ''{{Runaways}}'': [[spoiler:Technically, they only have to survive long enough for the Gibborim's time on this world to run out and wait for the baddies to fade away, but given that the fight involves [[FastballSpecial Molly throwing Victor]] at one's ''face'', it still qualifies]].
* ''The Goon'' and ''{{Hellboy}}'' are both pretty much based on this trope. In the latter, while admittedly many of the supporting characters often use more traditional methods of dealing with monsters, the main character's usual approach is to punch them really hard with his [[RedRightHand giant stone hand]] and shooting them with his HandCannon. This is {{Lampshaded}} in the ''Goon/Hellboy'' crossover issue found in the ''Heaps of Ruination'' trade paperback. When confronted with the Communist Airborne Mollusk Militia, and specifically their champion, a massive octopus with a hot-air balloon strapped to his head, this bit of dialogue ensues:
--->'''Hellboy:''' Stand back! I do this for a living!"\\
'''Goon:''' Oh yeah? When I come across somethin' like this I just try ta punch it in the head -- what do you do?"\\
'''Hellboy:''' Pretty much the same thing.\\
The two heavyset heroes go on to do just that.
* Justified when Captain Atom beats up Nekron, one of three AnthropomorphicPersonifications of death itself, since the whole reason Nekron is fighting him in the first place is that Captain Atom's power comes from the life energy of the universe. (So when Cap later beats up another personification of death, the Black Racer, it's a little anticlimactic, frankly.)
* SquirrelGirl's [[MemeticBadass special ability]] appears to be punching out MarvelUniverse {{Big Bad}}s.
** As long as they are off screen anyway.
*** To quote Monkey Joe: "[Squirrel Girl] defeated Doctor Doom! In a comic by Steve Ditko. That's ''so'' in continuity, fanboy."
* RexLibris has this sort of thing as part of his job. As a public librarian. He even calls Nyarlathotep a wuss.
* In the 1970s, veteran scribes Marv Wolfman and Len Wein wrote ''{{The Incredible Hulk}}: Stalker From the Stars'', wherein the Hulk crosses paths with an {{Eldritch Abomination}} attempting to escape its prison beneath the Earth so it could conquer and enslave humanity. In this case, the Hulk doesn't punch Cthulhu out so much as rip him to pieces and burn him alive. Ouch.
** Wein also gave us ''The Lurker in Tunnel 13'', a SwampThing story featuring M'Nagalah the All-Consuming, the shoggoth-like father of life on Earth and and fountain of all human knowledge. Swamp Thing causes a cave in at the mineshaft where M'Nagalah is awaiting the proper alignment of the cosmos that will allow him to conquer the universe, destroying him in the process (at least temporarily, anyway.)
* ''Slainé'' (Mac Roth) from ''2000AD'' does this more than once. Admittedly, the biggest EldritchAbomination that he faced, the High Cythron Grimnismal, was just finishing off his regeneration when Slainé and his party arrived, and could be brought down by the cutting of a few feeding tubes.
* Circuit Breaker, in the classic ''Transformers'' comics, was able to cause the universe-ending god, Unicron, to scream in pain by attacking him with cybernetic implants she made herself. Granted, she was left catatonic afterward, but still....
* The Wretch, a little-known superhero use Satan's LiteralGenie status against him and, using a birthday card, turns Satan into a crayon. Which he puts into a packet, which contains Beelzebub, Bhaal and Lucifer crayons as well.
* In Dojon, Herbert [[spoiler:kills the Absolute Evil]] with just two fingers. Of course he can do it with anyone who's green.
*In the current Hulk Book, Red Hulk punched The Watcher and in a recent issue he Punched an Elder of the Universe to death.
* In {{Green Arrow}}, back while Hal Jordan was the Spectre, Oliver met his friend after coming back from the dead. He was stunned and Hal shrunk to normal size to approach him. That's when Green Arrow punched Spectre.
* {{AtomicRobo}} volume 3 has Robo facing down an EldritchAbomination from outside the universe multiple times across the 20th century, with the help of cars, lightning guns[[spoiler:, and Carl Sagan.]] Existing outside space and time, it keeps coming back, but the end of issue four suggests [[spoiler: that all the Robos from each Cthulu encounter have teamed up for a cross-time beatdown.]]
* In ''[[ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehog Sonic Universe]]'' #4, Shadow, Rouge, and Omega travel to the Special Zone and challenge Feist for his Chaos Emerald. When they fail (for the second time in two days) he taunts them, and invites them back tomorrow because they amuse him. Omega responds by pumping him full of every round of ammo he has. It doesn't kill him, but it does stun him long enough for the trio to grab the emerald and teleport out of there.
** It seems to be a common occurance in ''Sonic Universe''. Four issues later, [[spoiler:[[MythologyGag Sonia and Manik]]]] did this to [[spoiler:Perfect Tikhaos]].
* Conan the Barbarian does this about once a month or do, depending on the writer.
* A lot of MarvelComics fans felt this when {{Superman}} knocked out {{Thor}} in ''JLA/Avengers''.
* The Batman does this to Metron, a God. He tells Metron that he knows more than him because of his human form. Metron Shapeshifts to a Human and says "What's so special about THIS?". Batman punches him. Pow!
* Let's not forget Earth's 2's {{Superman}} finally beating [[EldritchAbomination The Anti-Monitor]] in the finale of CrisisOnInfiniteEarths by '''''punching the flaming, shrieking, enraged head that was left of him'''''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film]]
* {{Ghostbusters}}: The titular busters have to [[CrossingTheStreams Cross the streams]] to do it, but they destroy Gozer the Gozarian, an ancient god worshipped by the Hittites, Mesopotamians, and the Sumerians around 6000BC that would take on a Destructor Form from the thoughts of humans in the area and wreak havoc once it was summoned into our world.
**They didn't actually destroy Gozer, they just blew up its portal into New York City.
* ''[[ConanTheBarbarian Conan the Destroyer]]'': what to do when you involuntarily helped the return of an ancient monstrous god? Wrestle him and rip his horn with bare hands, of course!
* Spock [[spoiler: blasting the God imposter in Star Trek V.]] Say what you will about that movie, that was bad ass.
* FreddyVsJason: Lori Campbell, probably ''both series'' greatest example of TookALevelInBadass, sets the docks on fire, blowing both of them into the lake, then decapitated Freddy Krueger with a fucking machete.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature]]
* The main man himself is (temporarily) thwarted in ''The Call of Cthulhu'' when he is [[RammingAlwaysWorks run down by a steamship]] (he begins regenerating but becomes stuck in R'yeh).
*** In August Derleth's ''Trail of Cthulhu'', the above sequence is one-upped when Cthulhu is thwarted (again temporarily) by having a nuclear bomb dropped on him.
**** Of course, in TabletopRPG ''CallOfCthulhu'', they deal with this by saying that Cthulhu will simply regenerate and then you'll have to face a ''radioactive'' EldritchAbomination. So it's not recommended.
** There's also "The Dunwich Horror". The titular horror may not actually be a god (He's a spawn of one of them), the characters manage to banish him. As all three characters neither die or become cripplingly insane (They're not so bad off as to be locked up), this is probably the only happy ending in the Cthulu Mythos as penned by Lovecraft.
* Eskarina Smith kicked her way through the {{Discworld}} Dungeon Dimension creatures in ''Equal Rites''. Also, earlier, in ''The Colour of Magic'', Rincewind accidentally beats Bel-Shamharoth with Twoflower's picturebox's flash.
** Mind you, {{Discworld}} Dungeon Dimension creatures are described as being very weak against purely physical threats -- they do, however, eat magic that is used against them to become ''much'' stronger.
*** Rincewind knew this when he wound up in the Dungeon Dimension in Sourcery. His weapon of choice? A brick in a sock. ''It worked.''
**** To be fair, he managed to reach adulthood growing up in ''[[WretchedHive Ankh-Morpork]]''. A half-brick in a sock might not be magic, but he'd know ''damn'' well how to use it.
* The Witch-king of Angmar in ''{{The Lord of the Rings}}'' was thought to be unbeatable, because Glorfindel had prophesied "[[NoManOfWomanBorn not by the hand of man will he fall]]." [[spoiler:Funny what will happen when a woman gets her hand on a sword...]]
** Not to mention the Hobbit with the conveniently anti-Ringwraith-enchanted dagger...
*** Then again, they did [[BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu break their arms]] taking him down.
*** [[IGotBetter They got better.]] [[KilledOffForReal He didn't.]]
** Don't forget [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome Sam taking on Shelob]] (who was half- EldritchAbomination, half- GiantSpider, for maximum freakishness) ''single-handedly''. Admittedly it's left deliberately vague whether or not he actually killed her, but to even ''injure'' her was a feat ''nothing'' had ever accomplished before, and it was enough to make her back off.
* MichaelMoorcock's ''TheElricSaga'' series (and the Eternal Champion, et al.) have great fighters slaying sons of gods, and then eventually the gods themselves, in an [[LensmanArmsRace escalating arms race]].
* In the ''{{Dragaera}}'' series, Morrolan kills a PhysicalGod with a [[ArtifactOfDoom Great Weapon]], and a [[EldritchAbomination Jenoine]] goes the same way at the hands of [[spoiler:Vlad and Godslayer]]. Tazendra manages to defeat a Jenoine in single combat ''without'' a Great Weapon, and [[spoiler:Devara, in dragon form]] ''ate'' one.
* [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in the ''ConanTheBarbarian'' novels. It is explicitly stated that {{Eldritch Abomination}}s and demons lose much of their power when they enter reality. They still tend to be the strongest opponents Conan faces.
* In CSLewis' ''{{Perelandra}}'', Dr Ransom acts as the [[GoodAngelBadAngel Good Angel]] when the Queen of Venus is tempted by a literal demon towards falling from grace. With the salvation of the entire planet hanging in the balance, Ransom realizes the demon's [[DemonicPossession possession of an astronaut]] (which enabled it to enter the planet in the first place) was its AchillesHeel -- he could simply pummel the thing into submission.
* Subverted and played for a good laugh in John Dechancie's ''Red Limit Freeway''. After traveling for lightyears along roads built by SufficientlyAdvancedAliens the heroes meet a handsome, slightly androgynous man in flashy clothes. One of the heroes, convinced the man is responsible for his alien abduction, hits him with a sucker punch. Cue the protagonist: "I think you may have just punched out God." Other guy: "Nah, God has a beard."
* PhilipPullman's ''HisDarkMaterials'' trilogy sets up [[spoiler: god, AKA the Authority,]] as the enemy of free will and human interest, but in the third book he proves to have been so weakened by old age that [[spoiler: he gets turned to dust by a strong breeze.]] A more threatening villain is his {{Dragon}}, [[spoiler: Metatron, who himself can only be defeated when he is hurled into the void between universes, and thus destroyed forever]].
* John Taylor from the ''{{Nightside}}'' books does this approximately ''every five minutes.'' No sooner does he hype how much of a terrifying unbeatable badass so-and-so is, then half a page later he beats them.
** Admittedly, it's usually through the InherentGift inherited from his vanished mother [[spoiler:who eventually turns out to be Lilith, who was the ancestor of 95% of the {{Eldritch Abomination}}s in the series in the first place]]. Given that his Gift enables him to find and hit any beings AchillesHeel, it's interesting that the series managed to maintain the necessary Dramatic Tension to keep going.
* Done repeatedly in Robin Jarvis' ''DeptfordMice'', ''Deptford Histories'', and ''Whitby Witches'' series.
* In an eventually undone timeline in the third novel of the ''Dragonlance Legends'' trilogy, Raistlin, a mortal man, albeit the most powerful wizard in the history of Krynn, had killed Takhisis, the chief goddess of darkness, whose primary form was a five-headed dragon.
* In ''TheDresdenFiles'', part of Harry Dresden's backstory is that, at the age of sixteen, he beat a kind of demonic bounty hunter sicced on him by his EvilMentor. He later discovers to his shock that [[spoiler:the demonic bounty hunter called He Who Walks Behind is an Outsider--in Dresdenverse terms, an EldritchAbomination. Fully trained wizards spend centuries learning how to defeat Outsiders.]]
** To avoid accusations of BeginnersLuck, Harry's mother specifically had Harry under the appropriate signs which give him the ability to affect Outsiders in ways that normal wizards can't. Any wizard born under similar circumstances would have the same abilities.
*** Which raises the question why wizards don't go out of their way to ensure there's a crop of them every generation. Unless this was once in an eon signs or something.
*** It also had something to do with bloodlines.
**When Morgan gets his CharacterDevelopment we find out that he [[spoiler: killed a skinwalker by luring it to a military testing range in Nevada then teleporting out just before they set off a nuke]]
* In a CrowningMomentOfAwesome for humanity in TheSalvationWar: [[http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=118769&highlight= Armageddon]], [[spoiler: the U.S. opens up a portal to Satan and fires two anti-ship missiles at him. One of them gets a headshot.]] Justified, since [[spoiler:demons are just flesh and blood lifeforms, just like us.]]
* ''"I have always been fortunate in my [[TalkToTheFist enemies-" *shhhnk* "hurk -"]] [[BladeOfTyshalle "Happy Assumption Day, fucker."]]'' '''*stab*'''
* In Glen Cook's series The Instrumentalities of the Night, the main character, "too ignorant to know he can never prevail over such a thing," discovers that even the most powerful gods are vulnerable to [[spoiler: a mix of iron and silver hurled -- this is the key point -- by the newly developed gunpowder weapons]]. After a while, he's got troops trained to do it almost '''routinely'''.
* In ''SkulduggeryPleasant'', they manage to kill the Grotesquery, a creature partially constructed from the corpse of a [[EldritchAbomination Faceless One]], albeit with great difficulty and several casualties. [[spoiler: In the third book, Valkyrie kills two Faceless Ones using a weapon designed to do so. Skulduggery manages to force one back through the door to their prison using a stron gust of wind. In the process, the weapon is destroyed, and Skulduggery is dragged along with the Faceless One.]]
* In ''ParadiseLost'', Abdiel hitting Satan. Although an Angel, in ''ParadiseLost'' Abdiel is far below in glory the illustrious figures of Lucifer, Michael, Raphael, etc. His only distinction is loyalty, being the one angel to hear and reject Satan's offer to revolt. In the opening salvo of the War in Heaven, mighty Satan appears bedecked in his warrior-king regalia, ready to smite on all sides. Instead, Abdiel pops out of the fray and clocks him on the head, knocking him cold before he can strike a blow.
* In a ''NightWatch'' series novel ''Face of the Dark Palmira'' by Vladimir Vasilyev, a powerful Other (i.e. wizard) is in a magical stand-off with the agents of the Odessa Day Watch. He is punched out by a half-dazed, naked Dark Other with a regular torchiere over the head. It is explained later that the baddie attempted to maximize his magical potential by entering the Gloom (the magical dimension) half-way, which, ironically, left him vulnerable to physical attacks.
* The Everworld series of novels has several instances of humans attacking gods, with varying amounts of success.
* In the {{Doom}} novels by Brad Linaweaver and Dafydd ab Hugh, Flynn Taggart quickly realizes that the stereotypical "demons" he is encountering are nothing of the kind, by virtue of the fact that guns will kill them.
* At the end of the story ''Interlink'', Trent, the villain, and Lonny, the protagonist, fall from a plane and hit the ground, creating a crater. Lonny gets out , unharmed since Trent broke his fall, and reunites with Maggie, Kay, and Jack. Although Trent seems to be dead, [[spoiler: he gets up and is about to kill the four when Lonny tells him that his cell phone, which gave him his godlike powers and the ability to control the Interlink, shattered after the fall. Trent's eyes scream "OhCrap" as he realizes he is now only human, and is suddenly shot in the back of the head by Evan, who [[BackFromTheDead was believed to have died earlier.]] After shooting him, Evan says "God Mode...deactivated." Bad. Fucking. Ass.]]
* None of the gods actually die in Dan Simmons's ''Ilium'', but the Greek heroes send several teleporting away with injuries, [[ArthurDent Hockenberry]] tasers Hera with 50,000 volts, and Mahnmut (who is a kind of sentient non-combat android) steals a flying chariot by jumping in kicking out the goddess driving it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV]]
* The ''[[DoctorWho Doctor Who]]'' 2-parter "The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit" sees the Doctor and Rose defeat The Beast, an ancient evil who claimed to serve as the basis for the Devil in every mythology and religion in the universe. Granted, it took a whole Black Hole to do so.
** Also, this ''is'' The Doctor we're talking about here. He convinces an incorporeal, flesh-eating force to just leave him and his friends well enough alone just by getting it to look up information on him in a library. To give an idea of what that entails, the Daleks refer to him as "The Oncoming Storm".
***Rose summed it up pretty nicely.
-->Rose: Five million Cybermen? Easy. One Doctor? Now you're scared.
*** In fact, they now have dubbed him the "Destroyer of Worlds."
** Definitely not the first time the Doctor has defeated such an enemy, either; see Sutekh, Fenric, The Black Guardian and Omega.
* ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': For one villain (the Judge), all the mystical texts declare that "no weapon forged" can stop him. However, as Xander realizes, those texts [[PostModernMagik predate modern weapons]]. And thus, Buffy takes the Judge out with a rocket launcher.
** Some of their BigBad's were essentially demon gods, who they eventually had to defeat to go on to the next season. By the end they faced against The First Evil.
** Let's not forget Willow. She ''hurt'' the Egyptian God of Death when he refused to bring [[spoiler:Tara]] back from the dead. She ''hurt a god!''
** This troper would like to point out that Willow did this to Glory ''long'' before Osiris. Twice. Once in a RoaringRampageOfRevenge via [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome lightning and a bag of knives,]] and the second when she restores Tara's sanity, and blew Glory away like she was a piece of paper. Granted, Glory got back up seconds later, but seriously weakened.
* Literally occurs in ''StarTrek:DeepSpaceNine'', in which Q creates a boxing ring and begins taunting Sisko, and when Sisko had enough of it ''[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome he flat out punched Q]]''. Q remarks, "You hit me. Picard never hit me!"
*** More of an in-joke, since Picard is the Pacifist while Sisko is a gritty kill everyone type action hero. Consider that Kirk would have done the same, or had Spock try to Vulcan-Nerve Pinch him.
** Also, in the GrandFinale, Sisko takes out [[spoiler:Gul Dukat after he's imbued with eldritch power as the emissary of the P'ah Wraiths]] with an extremely crude bull rush.
*** [[JustifyingEdit Well]], an extremely crude bull rush [[spoiler: into ''the fires of hell.'']] That probably counts for something.
** This is a recurring theme in ''DS9,'' albeit mostly metaphorical. The Gods of the Dominion are the main antagonists for much of the show (although they are in fact changelings just like Odo.) And they stated that a type of radiation is harmless to humanoids but kills non-corporeal life forms, such as the Gods of Bajor in the wormhole and their EvilCounterpart, the Pah-Wraiths. You'd almost think they introduced religion into an entirely secular setting just to make this point.
** It is an accepted part of Klingon culture that ancient Klingons found the gods to be troublesome, so they slew them. According to Klingon myth their Gods were destroyed by the [[WhatKindOfLamePowerisHeartAnyway beating of the hearts]] of the first two Klingons and set the heavens on fire.
** In Star Trek: Borg, a FullMotionVideo game where Q assists the player in taking revenge against the Borg, the player is given the option to either punch Q in the face or deliver a GroinAttack to him.
* In the ''Red Dwarf'' finale, TheGrimReaper himself shows up to claim Rimmer. Rimmer [[GroinAttack kicks him in the nads]] and runs away.
* Happens damn near literally in ''{{Farscape}}'' -- the invincible space vampire Maldis is defeated in his second appearance with a couple punches and gunshots.
* In {{Torchwood}}, Owen beats Death in a wrestling match.
** Technically, he just held Death until it died of starvation for lack of souls to consume, as at this point [[spoiler:Owen himself is technically dead]].
** Let's not forget the time that Captain Jack Harkness [[spoiler: kills Abaddon by having him absorb Jack's immortal life force until he overdosed (or something)]].
* In the season 5 finale of ''{{Lost}}'', [[spoiler:Benjamin Linus kills Jacob. Yes, ''that'' Jacob; the guy who's pretty much been played as God since his offscreen introduction to the series]].
* The made-for-TV movie ''Fallen'' on ABC Family, where [[spoiler:the hero is the Antichrist, and he exists to redeem his father Satan, but instead, he kills him.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* In ''Leslie Fish's'' filk song ''Cthulhu Gone'', the Great Old Ones pack up and leave Earth, frightened by the invention of the atom bomb.
---> Where, oh where are the Old Ones gone?
---> Scrambled back to their darkling lands
---> They have fled with a rare good sense
---> The lightnings held in human hands
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykwqXuMPsoc This]] {{Ear Worm}} about narwhals has a lyric that claims "they stop Cthulhu from eating ye", then it shows a a octopus-like creture (most-likely Cthulhu) attacking a boat then being impaled by a horn of a narwhal.
* The song Intergalactic Planetary by the Beastie Boys has a music video that depicts what appears to be a robot made of Erector Set taking on what looks like Cthulhu. ErectorBot wins by punching the Eldest One into some power lines.
* This is just a tribute! You gotta believe me!
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Mythology]]
*In ''TheIliad'', Diomedes goes on a god-stabbing rampage with the help of Athena. First he slashes Aphrodite when she tries to spirit away Aeneas. Feeling his oats, he attacks Apollo two times, but Apollo just tells him to cut it out. When Apollo and Aphrodite return to Olympus complaining about Diomedes, Ares descends on the battlefield on a mission. Athena leads Diomedes towards the god of war and guides his spear cast to take him directly in the gut. Ares screams and flees the field. Diomedes thus becomes the only mortal to wound two gods in a single day.
** The Illiad is one of the Greek legends not (re- ?)written for making Athens, and it's goddess Athena, looking good. And you see Athena is really, really, a goddess you don't want near you (look at the fight between Hector and Achilles : Achilles had surnatural invulnerability and STILL Athena cheat for him, at least two times (blocking Hector's javelin in flight, giving Achilles more weapons...), and that's after tricking Hector into fight
*One of the two Navajo war gods, Naayéé Neizgháni, has a name that means "He Kills Hostile Gods" or, in other words, "He who punches out Cthulhu." How tough is he? Death himself had to ''reason'' his way out of getting killed by him.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games]]
* Following in Moorcock's example, every single monster in the various Monster Manuals of ''DungeonsAndDragons'', up to and including demons and horrors from the Far Realm, can be defeated by bashing it to zero hitpoints (in every edition).
** Not all of them can be attacked with normal, everyday weapons, however. Some can only be defeated by spells and magic weapons.
** Both the first edition and third edition of D&D's ''DeitiesAndDemigods'' assigned hit points and combat statistics to god-like beings. The ''d20 Call of Cthulhu'', a sister product to D&D, allows players to specifically fight and to kill Elder Gods. Their stats are tough enough that only epic D&D characters -- themselves nigh-unto gods -- could stand a chance against them, though. (Monk classes fit this trope literally: Being unarmed classes, and epic-level Monk could REALLY punch out Cthulhu)
** Averted in the 3.5 book Elder Evils with at least some of the evils. They don't have stats and can't be fought directly, you can thwart efforts to rouse them or make them manifest. In some cases, this does involve battling their spawn which are statted but still usually require high level or epic level characters to beat. If one of the actual Elders does arise/manifest/wake up, the world is screwed.
** Averted by the Fourth Edition. Evil gods are given full stats, but they ignore attacks by characters who are not themselves also epic level and thus on a path towards immortality themselves. Even with damage from an epic-level threat, they cannot be killed by normal means, as they "discorporate" when they take enough damage to be considered bloodied. Each god's listing comes with a few idea seeds for ways the being might be slain, but that's left to the dungeonmaster's judgment. Lower-level "aspects" of the gods can still be punched out, though.
** Note, however, the rules for killing the Tarrasque in Dungeons and Dragons. First you reduce its HP to 0. Then, to make it stay dead, you cast ''[[LiteralGenie Wish]]''. If, as is sometimes done, the spell is removed as a {{Game Breaker}}, the beastie is coming back no matter what.
*** Unless you seal it away in a can, of course.
* [[AvertedTrope Handily averted]] by just about every other ''Call of Cthulhu'' [[TabletopGames [=RPG=]]]. In the original rulebook by Chaosium, Cthulhu had no stats other than "devours 1D6 characters per round"; in the ''{{GURPS}}'' version ''Cthulhupunk'' (which mixes modern-day ''Call of Cthulhu'', CyberPunk and HighTech Sci-Fi genre), a note indicates that vaporizing the big guy with an A-bomb would only get rid of him for two days, after which he would return... ''[[ILoveNuclearPower radioactive]]''.
**I believe that it actually stated he ate 1D6 ''players'' per round. So you get to kill off your gaming buddies if you fight him. Fun!
* Making certain entities statless for this reason shows up in a number of other [=RPGs=], such as ''Unknown Armies'' and ''Planescape''. In ''[[TheWorldOfDarkness Vampire: The Masquerade]]'' there is only one rule for fighting [[CainAndAbel Cain]], the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast first vampire]]: "You lose".
---->"Tenth level disciplines require no roll to activate and no blood to be expended in their use. They work because the GM wants them to." - '''Gehenna, Time of Judgement'''
* The ''{{Warhammer}}'' games have numerous examples of this. Of course, being ''Warhammer,'' there are also plenty of examples where Cthulhu ''[[BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu punches back]]''...
** This methodology is pretty much the standard way of dealing with daemons among the Imperial Guard and the Tau in ''[[{{Warhammer 40000}} 40k]]''. Confronted with eldritch horrors dredged up from the very base emotions of the universe, coming to destroy, rape, and consume everything they can lay their eyes on? ''[[FiveRoundsRapid Shoot it.]]'' With ''[[NukeEm very, very large]]'' guns. Handled a wee bit more realistically in that it takes a real lot of firepower to bring one of these down, and even then they just are banished to the Warp and can be re-summoned. Meanwhile, the C'tan {{Physical God}}s just need new bodies built for them if the shells are destroyed, although it is said that neither of the two active ones are at full power yet.
*** The C'tan can actually be [[CherryTapping Cherry Tapped]] to death with sniper rifles, due to their crappy save and sniper weapons always wounding half the time.
** Hey, what happens if an "blank" (person with negative Warp presence) gets close to a Chaos god?
*** Blanks or Pariahs can sap the footsoldier demons and possibly remove them for good but the more powerful demons have examples of overloading their blankness in the fluff. A Chaos God would simply rip the blank to shreds without even realising.
****Actually, there are different forms of the "Nulls" in 40k, such as the human blank, the necron pariah, and then the sometimes mentioned Human pariahs, which are the true soulless enteties (While blanks merely create an absence or "null" of warp energy) and are most comonly seen utilized as Culexus Assassins, and could suck the soul from a greater daemon as easily as a farseer (With a smile might I add). However it is unknown to what effect they would have on a true chaos god. Regardless the pariahs and other blanks are supposedly a masterful ploy by the necrons to use humans against the warp its self
** {{Eisenhorn}} managed this one throughout his career, but the most notable is when he destroyed the [[OneManArmy daemonhost]] [[PunnyName Prophaniti]] so thoroughly that even its warp presence was extinguished. With nothing more than a force staff and his own balls-out badassness.
** The Ultramarine Space Marine Chapter Master, Marneus Calgar literally punches out the Avatar of Khaine, the bloody handed war god of the Eldar.
*** On a similar note, Ragnar Blackmane of the SpaceWolves manages to single-handedly stop Magnus the Red, daemon prince of Tzeentch and primarch of the ThousandSons legion, from entering the material realm by throwing the Spear of Russ right into his eye and thereby closing the portal that was threatening the planet. Oh, and is it worth mentioning that he was still a Blood Claw when it all happened?
** One of the most devastating examples by the Tau, a non-psychic race whose only skill lies with making really good guns: La'Kais, after making his way through the Imperial Guard, the Ultramarines and the Word Bearers takes down a Lord of Change with a sniper rifle. All in his first day of live combat. Granted he got hit with PTSD, but it's still impressive for a race who has relatively little experience with Chaos.
* ''{{Exalted}}'' has a good number of [[EldritchAbomination ineffable, horrifying beings]] out there on the periphery, all designed so that your characters will inevitably beat the snot out of them. A lot of ''gods'' in Exalted are weak enough for starting characters to kill them without much trouble (granted, many gods are "Least Gods", whose dominion encompasses things like individual blades of grass). ''Scion'', by the same company, follows the same design philosophy.
** Exalted is a game where you gain the ability to punch Cthulu in the Kidneys at chargen. You go up from there. Some of the only monsters this player is scared of facing are the neverborn, with over 100 Health levels (You start with 7. 25 is considered a lot), with every stat and ability of at least 15- Compared to your limit of 5; and the Kukla. He's a dragon with a tail the size of a mountain range. 'Nuff said.
*** Well, no. You can easily destroy big dumb brute monsters, beating tyrannosauruses to death with your fists, etc, but local equivalents of Cthulhu generally possess enough magic powers to kill whole parties of starting-level characters with contemptous ease.
*The cover of Summoners for Mage: the Awakening probably deserves mention here.
* The tabletop roleplaying game ''CthulhuTech,'' which is a mashup of ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' and ''CallOfCthulhu'', both averts and works this way. The Old Ones themselves pretty much automatically win if they actually bother directly fighting any number of protagonists, and the awakening of Cthulhu would officially screw over not just the human race, but an alien race trying to invade as well. Even the avatar of Hastur, horribly crippled to work within our limited sets of dimensions and weakened by improper summoning, is set as outgunning every other army on the planet combined. [[DeusExitMachina Thankfully, he stays at home]]. On the other hand, you can easily beat up a few HumongousMecha or even an [[NeonGenesisEvangelion Engel]] with luck and some simple soldiers, or survive exposure to the infinite dimensions without being fried instantly. Seeing an Old One directly ''can't'' even drive you irreparably and instantly insane on its own, and lucky individuals can stroll up to the body of Cthulhu, take a picture, and leave without taking a single point of insanity.
* The boardgame ''Arkham Horror'', a spin-off of the ''CallOfCthulhu'' RPG, involves the players trying to close interdimensional gates opening around the town of Arkham. If they fail, a Great Old One awakens and the players have to fight him. It's possible, but extremely difficult, to defeat the Great Old One (unless it's Azathoth, who [[RocksFallEveryoneDies automatically ends the game with a loss for the players]] if he awakens).
* In the early Call of Cthulu by Chaosium the Headbutt skill allowed you to stop anyone acting for one turn. A starting character had a 95% chance of pulling this off.
* ''Every single'' character story (as distinct from character ''back''story) this troper has heard involves the player rolling an insane number of natural 20's so that his character ended up killing Cthulhu, or the Tarrasque, or some other unbeatable foe. And then he did it again next week.
* ''Munchkin'' has a Cthulhu version, as well as a variety of others. It has been stated in the Internet-based epic rules that with these rules in play, at high levels, you can have enough personal power to kill a radioactive Cthulhu and his clone. Presumably, by this point you have six hands, and they're all on fire.
* ''{{Monsterpocalypse}}'' features the [[LawyerFriendlyCameo Lords of Cthul]], who have "We were inspired by HPLovecraft" written on them in the maddening tongue of R'lyeh. Complete with tentacles. In the backstory, they're avatars of cosmic forces and are here simply because they like making people dead. These avatars can be taken out by tank fire, kamikaze cyborg alien birds, and 60-foot-tall HighlyVisibleNinja bodyslamming them.
* In ''{{Witchcraft}}'', humans can grow powerful enough to eventually take on Gods, Archdevils, Archangels, powerful monsters, and other horrible things from beyond. However, special mention goes to the non-magical dreamer guy that crushed a god. Turns out taking on a lucid dreamer in the dreamscape is a good way to get yourself killed, no matter what you are.
* This Troper's RPG group was playing a {{Rifts}} campaign where the players had ascended, literaly, via plot point, to (technicly minor) godhood. Final boss fight, the newborn Great Old One whose awakening would destroy Earth. The plan to use the Ark of the Covenant against it didn't go so well and the GM really wasn't expecting us to win, till one of the players realized they'd been holding onto a [[ChekhovsGun Knife]] of [[KryptoniteFactor Child Sacrifice]] picked up along the way. Vs. a baby EldritchAbomination? Took a few tries...
* [[VikingBattleForAsgard Skarin]] managed to punch out Hel, the QUEEN OF THE UNDERWORLD!
* In MagicTheGathering, this can happen to ''the players themselves.'' See, you are a "planeswalker," which is basically a wizard with godlike powers. And a [[HitPoints life total]]. Most creatures with an attack power higher than zero can, if left alone, bring that total down to zero, effectively "killing" you. Now, this is perfectly acceptable when the creatures are [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=193767 angels]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=39734 demons]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=43711 dragons]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=83977 elementals]], and so forth, but becomes a little stranger when we start talking about [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=29781 elephants]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=4302 lions]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=29877 tigers]], and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=83115 bears]] (oh my,) and becomes outright ridiculous when [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=27250 insects]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=97100 rats]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=29979 squirrels]], and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=74257 little girls]] enter the picture.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games]]
* In fact, just about any game that includes some sort of metaphysical or otherwise supernatural force as an antagonist will have the heroes beating it into submission like they would the random encounters right outside the first town.
* The final boss of the ''AnotherCenturysEpisode'' trilogy is [[spoiler:Shin Dragon, from the ''GetterRobo'' series, which is capable of obliterating celestial bodies like Jupiter's moons with ease and can punch holes in reality.]] You can potentially beat it with anything in the game, from [[GetterRobo Shin Getter]] all the way down to [[MobileSuitGundam the RX-78 Gundam]] or [[SuperDimensionFortressMacross a VF-1 Valkyrie]].
* In ''[[BaldursGate Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal]]'', the final battle pits the epic-level protagonist and his party against [[spoiler: Amellisan, traitorous priestess of Bhaal,]] charged up with about 99% of Bhaal's power. Your protagonist has the reminaing 1%. You win.
** This is to say little of the BonusBoss. [[spoiler:Demogorgon, the creature imprisoned at the bottom of Watcher's Keep, is the Prince of Demons himself and therefore the most powerful demon lord in the Dungeons and Dragons cosmology.]] Of course, given the way planar mechanics work, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero killing him just sends him back to the Abyss]] [[BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu where he can wreck havok freely]].
* Happens for both the protagonist and antagonist in the first ''BloodRayne'' as both Rayne and Jurgen Wulf can do significant damage to Belial before time runs out and he gains convenient plot-armour with which to smush the both of you. If you find a place to hide so that Jurgen ignores you and focuses almost solely on Belial (he'll still come across you every now and then while gathering weapons), he'll nearly beat him before the time expires, at least 70% on the hardest difficulty IIRC. Since for some reason blades do more damage than guns, as usual, Jurgen will eventually fail in this battle without your help, despite the fact he moves too fast to take damage from the clumsy devil.
* Don't forget ''BreathOfFire III'', where [[spoiler:the final boss is Myria, the resident creator goddess]].
** She isn't a [[spoiler:real goddess]], since at the end she says "[[spoiler:If there is a god, answer me! What should I have done with the Brood?]]".
* ''Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth'' tries to maintain the bleak, hopeless atmosphere of the Mythos, and the player spends much of the game either unarmed or with insufficient ammo, forced to run away from the monsters trying to kill him. However, at the end, the main character ends up fighting and ''killing Dagon'' (the 100-foot tall Deep One god) with a battleship's main cannon. When examining a statue of Dagon later on, he even cockily remarks "It's a statue of Dagon, minus the missile I lodged in his face". He later goes on to kill a pair of Flying Polyps, and Mother Hydra herself. And before that, he had single handedly taken out a no less a creature than a ''Shoggoth'' (yes, a freaking Shoggoth!). So it's kind of jarring that, after such a string of incredible victories, and [[spoiler: finding out he's [[HalfHumanHybrid half super-being]]]] he decides to [[spoiler: kill himself ''because'' of his alien heritage, which he just can't come in terms with]] at the end of the game.
* ''{{Castlevania}}'' lets you beat the crap out of '''Death''' on a regular basis, not to mention some of the more notable Bosses like the personification of chaos in ''Aria of Sorrow'', and all sorts of high-level demons.
** [[http://castlevania.classicgaming.gamespy.com/Images/myth/CTHULU.gif Cthulhu is even an enemy in one of the games!]]
*** A ''minor, recurring'' enemy at that. It actually is present in multiple ''Castlevania'' games, but is generally named Malachi. And never a boss.
* ''ChronoTrigger'' in which a teenaged boy and his friends amass enough power and allies to be able to destroy, in direct combat, a being that renders planets nearly uninhabitable and shatters civilizations.
**And one of your party members (the most awesome one) fights with her fists, so yeah.
** Though the sequel ''ChronoCross'' takes on the issue.
** Lavos is very much a Cthulhu. He resides under the sea (technically below the earth under the sea, which is just land after the continents shift) from an ancient era, humankind was influenced by his presence, most notably when a group of mages discovered he outdid their old power source, the Sun. Bonus points for his symbol having power and being unwisely summoned by Magus.
* ''MortalKombat'' has Raiden, the God of Thunder. However, he is no stronger than every other fighter, human or not.
** The first game explains this somewhat, as it is said that he was only allowed to compete in the tournament after taking a mortal form. Eventually, however, the creators just said "the hell with it" and would go on to introduce more gods to the series like Fujin and Shinnok, who are also no stronger than every other fighter.
* ''CityOfHeroes'' usually avoids this -- big threats need big groups of superpowered individuals to take on -- but there are a good few moments where really big threats can be taken out with rather questionable means. The comic strips, for example, have two instances of superpowered hordes being taken out by flashbangs on arrows, in the first case a bunch of ancient deathless ghost mages, in the second case a group of psychically enhanced and deranged lunatics about to tear apart a powerful hero. In-game, while not common, it's quite possible for a group of "natural" origin heroes with powers on a normal human's level to take down Lanaru or Ruladak, beings that make up major aspects of a sentient dimension's awareness. That's made worse by requiring that group to spend upward of six hours going through the lore behind those opponents, describing how they literally broke their planet. Even more fun is going home and getting your backside handed to you by a next-gen SWAT team.
** Then there is Hequat, Goddess of the Mu, who can be taken on and defeated by a lone villain. (They do at least say that she is in a weakened state, which is why you have to go and attack her ''now''.)
* Pretty much the point of ''{{Diablo}}''.
** There's quite a contrast between the end of the first game, [[BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu where it doesn't really turn out that well in the end]], and the second game, where you mow your way through ''all three'' of the [[DemonLordsAndArchDevils Great Evils]], along with over 9000 of their minions, and pretty much anything else that inconveniences you.
*In Warriors Orochi, you get to punch out the Serpent King Orochi, of course he returns. He becomes even more badass in the sequel when you see just how many people he punched out, including an example where Orochi himself punches out a Cthulhu even bigger than himself-The Gods.
* An "Did You Just [[spoiler:Make Out With]] Cthulhu" example (see also the ''SuzumiyaHaruhi'' example) occurs in the good ending of ''{{Disgaea 2}}'', when Adell stops the real Overlord Xenon, [[spoiler:Rozalin]], by [[spoiler:Frenching her]]. [[spoiler:Did You Just Make Out With Cthulhu]] is now its own trope (sort of) - see DivineDate.
** A straighter example would be when Adell pulls a GetAholdOfYourselfMan on [[spoiler:Rozalin's SuperpoweredEvilSide]], an OmnicidalManiac that just finished thoroughly trouncing a level 1200 (in standard RPG levels, by the way) overlord without even breaking a sweat. Did He Just BrightSlap Cthulhu? Yes, and it ''worked''.
** Also in ''{{Disgaea 2}}'' you can fight and ''defeat'' Laharl (the aforementioned level 1200 overlord). To put it into perspective, Laharl is the protagonist of the first game with enough power to blow up a planet out of hand. And in the PSP remake of the original you can fight Zetta, who is stated to be the most powerful being in existance. Then there's Baal or The Dark Sun...
** In the [[{{Disgaea 3}} third game]], Raspberyl prevents Mao's unleashing of his REALLY evil side (a borderline CosmicHorror in his own right) by [[CoolDownHug hugging him]]. TWICE.
** Basically, in the Disgaeaverse, there are a number of characters who are fully capable of punching out Cthulhu.
* ''{{Doom}}'' is one of the legends in this department. The hero, an ordinary SpaceMarine, with an arsenal of powerful but in no way supernatural weapons, kills his way through hell, defeating archedemons and such.
** It ends with Hell exploding. The Marine does not go in for half measures.
* In ''Dragon Warrior VII'', after you've beaten the game, you could enter two bonus dungeons, the boss of the first of which is God. He will be at the end of the second dungeon, where you can ask him to be a resident of your immigrant town. You can fight him infinitely many times there.
* Hastur from ''Earnest Evans'' is, indeed, taken down by a puny human whip.
* Subverted in ''{{Earthbound}}'', in which [[spoiler: Giygas's final form cannot be killed through sheer damage but instead only through Paula's 'Pray' ability, which calls upon [[SpiritBomb even the player to help win the battle.]]]]
** [[spoiler: Which makes him the strongest boss ever created, as it's the only one who had the player themself step in to help. [[DeusexMachina This was what killed him.]]]]
* Averted in ''TheElderScrolls III: Morrowind''. The plan ends up not being about killing Dagoth Ur, which would never work according to others, but severing him from the source of his power - the heart of the dead god Lorkhan.
** The aversion makes the trope possible, many, many times; a player with high unarmed can literally punch out Cthulhu over and over. It keeps him disabled for longer than deadlier weapons.
** Happens in the ''Bloodmoon'' expansion to ''Morrowind'' too, but probably justified since [[FanWank the Daedric Prince Hircine is patron of the hunt and is probably giving the protagonist a really fair fight]].
** Not to mention that the protagonist only fights an aspect of Hircine. Hircine is even kind enough to [[AffablyEvil let you choose]] which one, believing that facing all of them at once would be [[http://www.imperial-library.info/tsomw/bm_12a.shtml 'less than sporting']].
* Averted nicely in ''TheElderScrolls IV: Oblivion'' when the player finally confronts the BigBad, Mehrunes Dagon. As you're up against an evil god the actual fighting is left to your companion, the descendent of a god himself. The best your character can do is stagger Dagon for a few seconds to buy time for [[spoiler: Martin]] to complete his transformation. Unless, of course, you bring Wabbajack into battle with you, but whether or not it this counts after you lower Dagon to the health of a deer is debatable.
** Played straight in the expansion however. [[spoiler: You take down an equivalent deity the old-fashioned way in his own domain, and then take his place.]]
*** The protagonist of ''Battlespire'' ends up killing Mehrunes Dagon's avatar, sans divine help. Which means that [[spoiler: Martin]] sucks.
****That was an ''avatar''. Oblivion's Mehrunes Dagon is ''the real thing''. No suckage at all.
** [[spoiler:It's implied that defeating Jyggalag doesn't actually kill him, it just frees him from the curse that forces him to turn into Sheogorath, and that Sheogorath/Jyggalag planned this all along.]]
*** It's repeatedly been mentioned in game that it is not possible to kill a Daedra, you can only destroy their physical form.
* Justified in ''EternalDarkness'' -- humanity defeats the Ancients, but [[spoiler:they have not one, but ''two'' {{Eldritch Abomination}}s backing them up -- one's behind the scenes, and one is summoned to do the actual ass-kicking.]]
** Actually, once you've played the game three times, you find that thanks to the nebulous reality-bending of the situation, you defeat all three simultaneously (despite it being a rock/paper/scissors relationship), and the only one left is dying anyway.
*** One could argue the interpretation [[spoiler:is that the remaining god is in fact recovering to overtake earth. The game in fact explains only the corpse god Mantorok is still alive, "festering in its tomb...plotting".]]
* Kefka, having usurped position as the sole source of magic in the world of ''FinalFantasyVI'' and [[AGodAmI become a god/Become God]], is defeated largely by blasting him with magic. Particularly jarring, as the Warring Triad, the gods who had this position before he took their powers, were largely immune to magic. Well, before he demoted them.
** Bit of a clarification. The Warring Triad projected a field which absorbed all magic while they were in ''perfect'' alignment. It was the precise combination of their powers that negated magic, not an innate quality of the powers themselves. Kefka upset that and drained off the raw power of magic from them, but was still vulnerable to magical attack.
** This is the case with most final bosses in the FinalFantasy series. Notable examples are II, where the heroes basically off Satan, and IX, which concludes with killing Necron, the god of death (or something like that, the game is [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere not particularly clear as to what he is exactly]]).
** Although more than a few {{Big Bad}}s are merely [[AGodAmI ascended villains]], several of the games also adhere more closely to the EldritchAbomination motif:
*** ''FinalFantasyIII'': The Cloud of Darkness is an actual God which manifests as a roughly female avatar from a swirling, multicolored fog. It has no purpose, no reason, other than to consume all the reality of the World of Light itself. It's beaten back by four kids with a penchant for onions.
*** ''FinalFantasyIV'': Zeromus is a grotesque, shapeless ''thing'' with a vaguely crustacean appearance, and the embodiment of the primal force of Hatred itself. Although Cecil and company defeat it, it claims to be eternal, or, at least, that [[AsLongAsThereIsEvil it will exist as long as humanity does]].
*** ''FinalFantasyV'': Neo-Exdeath is a ''melange'' of {{Eldritch Abomination}}s [[SealedEvilInACan sealed or sent to sleep]] within the Dimensional Rift. Its appearance is as of dozens of corpses and demons blindly sewn together.
* Sephiroth, from ''FinalFantasyVII'' is said in a Word of God case to be "the strongest character in the Final Fantasy VII universe. There is nothing above him, and it would be impossible to make a character stronger than he is." He's defeated a couple of times by sword combos. Albeit lengthy, very impressive sword combos that attack him from virtually every angle. The eldritch abomination part comes in when you consider Jenova.
** However he never really dies, since he came back for Advent Children, and can probably come back again. He can be defeated, but he will come back, that makes him terribly dangerous.
** Far stronger than him are the Weapons, in particular the Ruby Weapon, which can instant kill two characters, has incredible defense, and looks kinda like a eldritch abomination with all the tentacles. He can be defeated with a single level 7 character. It's pretty easy, with the right materia and heat resistance. Takes half an hour, but what can you do? It is an unstoppable force representing the life force of the earth.
** Averted in ''KingdomHearts'' and its sequel where he is much harder to 'beat', since you don't really kill him.
* While the final boss is totally a OneWingedAngel, a great deal of the side quests in {{Final Fantasy XII}} basically amount to this trope. Particularly Zodiark, who is of the SealedEvilInACan variety, and Yiazmat essentially a huge, ancient dragon with 50 million hit points.
* ''FinalFantasyXI'' In the ''ChainsofPromathia'' [[ExpansionPack expansion]]/storyline, [[spoiler: You eventually fight the [[FinalBoss Twilight God Promathia]], who is attempting to [[OmnicidalManiac eliminate all life]]. To make this slightly more reasonable, you do have two almost-gods helping you in the fight.]]
* ''Final Fantasy Tactics'' has a cabal of six {{Eldritch Abomination}}s (seven if you include Elidibus) that are either [[SealedEvilInACan sealed in magical crystals]] or using said crystals as a gateway into the mortal realm, and each of them is defeated by a group of mere mortals. If you fight them with a Monk in your party or with the Monk's "Brawler" ability equipped, you can literally punch each of them out of existence.
* [[BigBad Chaos]], the FinalBoss of the original [[FinalFantasyI Final Fantasy]], can be killed in a [[OneHitKill single punch]] by a high level [[BareFistedMonk monk]], making this a ''literal'' example of this trope.
* This ended up happening in ''[[SaGa Final Fantasy Legend]]'' when the heroes got pissed at The Creator for daring to toy with his own creations.
** Not to mention that that series had a tendency to base bosses on various mythical deities, and not just the final ones. In the second game you beat the crap out of Venus and Odin (who had been [[DeathIsCheap resurrecting]] [[UngratefulBastards you for most of the game]]. On the final world [[spoiler: a reanimated statue of Isis joins your party, and you take on a security system built by the ancient gods]]
* ''FireEmblem 10'' requires you to kill a god with a mercenary and his posse. Granted, one important member of said posse [[spoiler:is a vessel for the equal and opposite half of that god]].
** You still have to land the killing blow with TheHero's InfinityPlusOneSword, or else the aforementioned god will simply regenerate. Justified because [[spoiler: Ragnell was one of two swords created by the goddesses back when they were one deity. It is also powered up by said equal and opposite god during Ike's finishing attack.]]
*** [[spoiler: Even that doesn't kill Ashera. It does destroy her physical form for a several hundred years and during that time Yune is able to recombine with her and they become Ashunera again.]]
* At the end of Irrational Games' brilliant ''Freedom Force'', the team must contend with [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Timemaster]]. Timemaster cannot be defeated until you've destroyed his four Energy Crystally Thingies, but once you have, the Lord of the Timelines is in for a good face-kicking.
* Basically the stated goal of ''GodOfWar'' is to... punch out the God of War. Sure, Kratos needs to go on a very long quest to retrieve a MacGuffin to give himself temporary godlike powers, but ultimately those "godlike powers" turn out to be "make me really big so I can beat this guy up."
** As the original Greek Gods didn't always defeat human heroes (Ares in particular got beat up by Hector in one book of the Illiad) this is not entirely unreasonable.
** ''GodOfWar 2'' basically takes this to the extreme: Kratos punches out gods, the gods parents, and everyone that gets between him and the gods. All because he ''hates Zeus''. And because Zeus is totally a jerk.
*** Also his father, who apparently sired him specifically to take out any other Olympian that rebelled. Zeus is ''fully'' capable of this level of Jerkass, especially in this game series. Number Three is coming out, people, and it looks like the Titans are just letting him come along for the hellride as they continue their ancient war against the weakened Olympians, but Kratos is going to do the work. Going beyond DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu for Did You Just Crash Reality, in fact, as the Deicide goes for the hat trick.
*** Possibly more impressive than the above is that he [[spoiler: KILLS THE FATES!]] This isn't even possible for Olympus.
****This Troper got the impression that it was possible, but no one but the Ax-Crazy Kratos would even CONSIDER it, seeing as how the Fates pretty much control time and... well Fate. No one knows what the hell will happen now.
** WordOfGod has it that ''GodOfWar 3'' will eventually explain why the greek pantheon of gods no longer exists. Based on what we've seen in the franchise up until now, we're guessing Kratos basically just punches out the '''entire''' population of Mount Olympus.
* Most of the big bosses in ''{{Kirby}}'' games can only be described as an EldritchAbomination, but of course Kirby thrashes these folks on a regular basis.
** The anime actually implies that he's a ''good'' EldritchAbomination, so perhaps it's not so surprising.
* In ''[[TheKingOfFighters King Of Fighters 97]]'', you take down the legendary {{Orochi}}, who is treated as the equivalent of a world destroying god in this series.
* In the SNES strategy game ''[[{{Langrisser}} Der Langrisser]],'' the party, which starts off as only a pair of friends from a small village, eventually grows powerful enough to [[spoiler: challenge Lushiris, the Goddess of Light. More accurately, the main character can one-hit kill her if built right]]. Rohga puts it quite bluntly, in fact: [[spoiler: "Holy shit... Incredible! You've even killed a deity!"]]
* Occurs in the endgame of ''LegacyOfKain: Defiance'', where Kain uses the newly aquired power of the Soul Reaver blade to take down the Elder God.
* At the end of the prehistoric chapter of LiveALive [[spoiler:The shaman is eaten by a gigantic dinosaurish thing that the villagers worship as a god. It spits out the shaman's skull and then Gori throws it at him. It's also possible to kill the dino-god with two attacks from the StaffChick]]
* In the ''{{Lunar}}'' game ''Lunar 2 Eternal Blue Complete,'' the party of heroes defeats Zophar, the God of Darkness, by whacking at him with weapons and magic -- and the power of Humanity, of course.
* ''Anybody'' in ''[[CapcomVsWhatever Marvel vs. Capcom]]'' can beat Onslaught. Even {{Badass Normal}}s like Jin Saotome, or any StreetFighter. Keep in mind that in the comics, Onslaught is more or less the most powerful psionic being in existence, and killed a lot of people before being taken down, which in itself required the efforts and HeroicSacrifice of several incredibly powerful characters.
** The best fighter against Onslaught is the [[JokeCharacter robot girl]]--not woman, girl--whose day job is maid. That's right, MegaMan's sister Roll. It's fun to take her in against Onslaught and wipe the floor with him.
**Was anyone else just a tiny bit peeved that they had the '''''nerve''''' to give Thanos the Infinity Gauntlet; effectively making him omnipotent, and then make him suck? Tier rankings place him at 5th to last, only out-sucked by a nerfed Zangief and 3 JokeCharacters.
** Before that, in ''Marvel Super Heroes versus Street Fighter'', one of the playable characters is Shuma-Gorath, who in the comics is an incredibly powerful EldritchAbomination but of course had to be severely toned down to maintain [[PVPBalanced balance]]. Same for Blackheart, son of Mephisto himself.
* ''[[MarvelUltimateAlliance Marvel: Ultimate Alliance]]'' has the same issue. Your little super team fights nearly every supervillain in the Marvel Universe over the course of the game. As a result, a skilled player can defeat Mephisto, Galactus, Gladiator, Ymir, Loki, and [[spoiler: Dr. Doom coupled with the stolen god powers of Odin]] all with ''BadassNormal Nick Fury.''
** Then again, one of Fury's alternate costumes IS Samuel L. Jackson.
** This does reflect comic book "reality", in which BadassNormal heroes regularly trounce super-powered foes that in a realistic fight would leave them as a stain on the floor.
** Somewhat justified in that the fight with Galactus consists entirely of the team running for their lives, and then distracting him while the [[DeusExMachina Silver Surfer]] turns Big G's own powers against him. And the fight with Mephisto is impossible to win until [[spoiler:the X-Man you didn't save forces him into the void with him/her.]]
** With Galactus it's more of a case of [[BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu Breaking Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu]] because [[spoiler: at the end of the game he's seen [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel swearing revenge while enveloping the entire Earth with his hand]]]]
* The final confrontation of ''MassEffect'' pretty much consists of [[spoiler:exposing the resident EldritchAbomination, the Reaper ''Sovereign'', and letting the Human Systems Alliance shoot the bajeesus out of it]]. However, given that [[spoiler:it was only ONE of a race of Eldritch Horrors, and it was being attacked by the combined forces of half the space-faring species in the galaxy, and even then it only barely worked]], it's relatively justified.
** It's also assumed, in the game, that the thing didn't just reveal itself from the beginning precisely because it was afraid that something like this would happen.
*** Not assumed, it's said outright. By the [[spoiler: Prothean VI]] very near the end of the game.
* This is the whole point of every game in the ''[[{{Shin Megami Tensei}} Megami Tensei]]'' series. In ''[=SMT2=]'' you can even make Cthulhu one of your [[OlympusMons mons]].
** [[{{Persona 2}} Persona 2]] In which [[spoiler: the last boss literally IS Nyarlathotep himself, and while he wins in Tsumi/Innocent Sin, in Batsu/Eternal Punishment he loses and you literally Slice, Shoot, and of course PUNCH the ever loving crap out of him before he is forced to retreat.]]
** ''[[{{Persona3}} Persona 3]]'' [[spoiler:sets this up for the latter half of the game... And then subverts it after the presumed final battle with a HopeSpot, as it turns out the EldritchAbomination ''was'' [[AsLongAsThereIsEvil impossible to kill after all]]. Only the ThePowerOfFriendship and a HeroicSacrifice manages to ultimately [[SealedEvilInACan drive it off]], and even then it's implied to only be temporarily]].
*** Cue the ExpansionPack where [[spoiler: our heroes do the next best thing and fight the EldritchAbomination whose job is to summon the undefeatable Nyx so that the process would not repeat itself. Unfortunately, [[AsLongAsThereIsEvil it's composed of the despair and hate floating in the collective unconscious]].]]
** ''{{Persona 4}}'' [[spoiler:takes this trope more literally than Persona 3 does - the protagonist literally kills Izanami, ''one of the Japanese gods of creation'', single-handedly (Izanami herself says before dying "Power enough to erase ''my'' existence...").]]
** ''[[ShinMegamiTenseiNocturne Nocturne]]'' averts this with its bonus ending. [[spoiler:The final boss is Lucifer -- yeah, ''[[{{Satan}} that]]'' Lucifer. But he isn't going all out on you, he is just testing if you are ''good enough''. Because once you've 'defeated' him and showed your potential, you become his [[TheDragon Dragon]] and lead the ArmiesOfHell in a battle against ''[[RageAgainstTheHeavens God]]''. That means he probably had to set the bar pretty high...]]
* The final boss of the Xbox remake of ''NinjaGaiden'' wields the Dark Dragon Blade, which is supposed to give him the power of the "Devil incarnate". While he is a rather tough fight, our {{Charles Atlas Superpower}}ed [[HighlyVisibleNinja Highly Visible]] {{Ninja}} {{Badass}} protagonist still defeats him anyway. Admittedly, Ryu was using the True Dragon Sword, which was meant specifically to counter the DDB, but still. Ryu also takes down multiple Greater Fiends, each of which is worth quite a number of regular fiends in power, as well as [[spoiler: the released Archfiend]].
* This is the entire point of the old Bungie game ''Pathways Into Darkness'' -- you play as a special forces operative sent to nuke a gradually awakening [[EldritchAbomination Sleeping God]] unconscious before it can awake fully and unleash unimaginable havoc.
** The last game in Bungie's ''{{Marathon}}'' trilogy averts this by having the protagonist [[spoiler:travel through dimensions and/or back through time to prevent the EldritchAbomination from ever being released in the first place.]]
* Subverted in ''Peasant's Quest'' (from ''{{Homestar Runner}}''): [[spoiler:"beating" the game consists of the protagonist getting closer than any hero ever has to killing Trogdor - deflecting one gout of flame, stabbing your sword an inch or two into Trogdor's nigh-impenetrable hide, ''hearing The Burninator speak'', and finally being almost effortlessly devoured. A really cool monument is built to honor this feat.]]
** In episode 5 of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, [[spoiler: Strong Bad actually does defeat Trogdor by hitting his weak spots, which Rather Dashing failed to notice. Sure, Strong Bad transforms into a big, muscular version of himself with a gigantic knife (displayed in ridiculously awesome next-gen graphics) to accomplish this, but he's still just hitting him... And then it turns out that it was all a dream and Trogdor is still destroying the countryside.]]
* Played for laughs in the first episode of ''PennyArcadeAdventures'' ''On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness''. [[spoiler: Inciting Gabe to tackle a very Cthulian being, Tycho asks "Do you want to punch a god?" Gabe: "..." Tycho "..." Gabe: "..." Tycho: "..." Gabe: "Yes!"]]
** Then ''again'' in the second episode. [[spoiler: PC: "Gods? Again?" Gabe: "Yeah, it's like... I don't ''mind'' fighting gods? It's just I'd like a little warning first."]]
*** [[spoiler: Just to put things in perspective here? The first God is defeated through a combination of a radio tube, absolutely pure ''urine'', and the soul of a ''mime''. The second is defeated with a ''giant robot doll'' piloted by a thirteen-year old girl.]]
* In ''PerfectDark Zero,'' Joanna Dark defeats Zhang Li with early-21st-century weapons [[spoiler: though the knife/machete comes in handiest]] despite the fact that [[spoiler: he uses the Graal to gain superhuman powers and "become a god"]].
* In the ''{{Pokemon}}'' games, you are able to capture legendary one-of-a-kind (per game) {{Mons}} that are often forces of nature. The last game contains Arceus, who apparently ''created the universe''.
** This makes it more [[OlympusMons Did You Just Stuff Cthulhu Into A Little Tiny Ball]], unless we want to start with the sealing in a can stuff.
*** Don't forget that to capture {{Mons}} you have to attack them, lower their health, and give them status effects. So it still Punching out Cthulhu, more or less.
**** Two words: Master Ball. Apparently, what amounts to an exaggerated can created in a lab is ''more powerful than God''.
***** All Poke Balls act as a PowerLimiter. Of course, how it's supposed to work on the creator of the Pokemon universe is another matter...maybe Arceus was just toying around?
** The anime, or at least the movies, handles this more realistically, with only the "weakest" legendary Pokemon (e.g. Celebi, Jirachi, Manaphy) capable of being harmed by humans. The more powerful legendaries (e.g. Mewtwo, Kyogre, Darkrai) are more-or-less invulnerable to anything less than other legendaries, and the ''truly'' powerful ones (e.g. Dialga, Giratina) are essentially indestructible.
*** The second movie also gives us ''world-ending'' consequences for capturing the three Legendary Birds.
* The SoBadItsHorrible 2D fighting game ''Pray For Death'' had Cthulhu himself as a '''normally playable character'''. SoYeah.
* Your final opponent in ''PuzzleQuest'' is Lord Bane, the god of Death ([[spoiler:who responds to his defeat by basically saying he'll just regenerate in a century or so and wipe out your descendants... just like he did last time.]])
** If you happen to have a [[ExtremeOmnivore certain companion]] with you, he ''eats Bane''.
* In the first ShadowHearts game there are two different villains who try to summon a God, the first to destroy the Japanese army and the second to cleanse the Earth of sin by destroying the wicked. By the start of the second game the new villains refer to the hero Yuri as "Godslayer".
** Not only Yuri, but [[ActionGirl Koudelka]] (in the manga) also manages to control a CosmicHorror by [[MemoryGambit hypnotizing herself]], before she possesed by that CosmicHorror. She then used the CosmicHorror power to beat up the SmugSnake that tried to destroy te world using that CosmicHorror power.
* The videogame ''ShiningForce'' subverts this in the final fight with the Dark Dragon. Even after depleting its hit points, it's still not technically ''dead'', and the best that can be done is for the main character to stab his sword into the back of its head, and hold it there while the rest of the party escaped the collapsing castle.
** The final boss of ''Shining Force 2'' is a demon who is effectively the equivalent of Satan. More humorously, there's an exploit involving the master's monks where you cast their buff skill, earning 48 exp, than leave the battlefield. You can keep doing this till the monks are lv99, at which point, they will be stronger than said demon, leading to a literal [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu Did You Just Punch Out Satan]].
* At the end of ''SilentHill3'', Heather takes down God. With a lead pipe.
** It should be noted, however, that the games are hardly clear on what exactly ''is'' the "God" of the town's religion, and indeed it's entirely likely to be yet another hallucination (which is one of the more reasonable EpilecticTrees concerning the game).
** The local EldritchAbomination gets punched pretty much once per game, but what the result is depends on which of the endings you get.
*** And in the [[spoiler: UFO ending]], [[spoiler: aliens laser-carpet-bomb Silent Hill itself (i.e., the ''entire town'') from orbit]].
* ''SonicTheHedgehog'' and his friends have gotten really good about this in recent games.
** The first non-Robotnik final boss Sonic fought was the watery god of destruction, Chaos, in the first ''Sonic Adventure''. Granted, he didn't actually ''destroy'' Chaos, but he did use himself as a projectile and shot through his brain a couple of times.
*** Kinda justified, since at that point Sonic and Chaos were using the exact same power source, just a different attitude to activate them.
** Metal Sonic becomes nearly as powerful in ''Sonic Heroes'', absorbing Chaos's and all the heroes's lifeform data. Super Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles take him out with ease [[{{Narm}} because they're SONIC HEROES!]]
** [[ShadowTheHedgehog Black Doom]] wasn't quite a god, but he was the leader of an alien race and distinctly Cthulhu-like in voice and appearance. Shadow whips his ass in super form by himself.
** [[CanonDiscontinuity It never actually happened,]] but Sonic, Shadow, and Silver teamed up to "stop the consciousness" (whatever that means) of Solaris, the god of [[TimeyWimeyBall the time-space continuum]]. Which meant smacking him in the core ForMassiveDamage.
** In ''Sonic and the Secret Rings'' this trope is also shown (quite literally), where The genie and evil villain the Erazor Djinn uses all the rings to turn into a [[BodyHorror Horrific monstrosity]] called "Alf Layla wa-Layla", and begins to recreate the world in his own image, only to be stopped by Darkspine Sonic. Meaning, you knock his own attack back at him, fly up, and start punching the holy hell out of him.
** ''SonicUnleashed'' (the [=360/PS3=] version, at least) is notable in that someone - namely, the Gaia Colossus[[spoiler:/Chip]] - literally ''does'' punch out the game's local Cthulhu; at the end of the fight, it rears back, zooms forward, and [[CrowningMoment/SonicTheHedgehog delivers the left haymaker of]] ''[[CrowningMoment/SonicTheHedgehog justice]]'' [[CrowningMoment/SonicTheHedgehog to Dark Gaia's face]], stunning him long enough for Super Sonic to deliver the final blow.
*** In the [=Wii/PS2=] version, you have to make him punch out Dark Gaia manually. Emphasis on the words "PunchOut".
*The Soulblazer trilogy has a trilogy of this trope - In Soulblazer, you kill the powerful demon/god(?) Deathtoll with the Soul Blade (admiteddly the most powerful sword in the whole world. In Terranigma, you defeat the evil god Dark Gaia with what is essentially a SPEAR, and most heinously of all in IllusionOfGaia you also defeat the evil god Dark Gaia with nothing but your own ectoplasmic arm (as Shadow)!
* Even if you use the gothic lolita in ''[[{{Soul Series}} Soul Calibur IV]],'' you can defeat a PhysicalGod who not only tamed Soul Edge, but actually created its counterpart.
* ''{{Splatterhouse}}'' sees Rick doing battle with living embodiments of evil and all that serve them... with his fists. And on occasion baseball bats and two-by-fours. Thing is, this is presented in a much more serious manner than usual - the only way Rick can do all this is that the Terror Mask is backing him up, [[spoiler:and the Mask is using him as a tool]].
* Dark Brain from ''SuperRobotWars'' and the related series ''Great Battle IV'' can travel multiple dimensions using his own powers, grows larger based on the despair of the people fighting it (which, in retrospect, may not be a good thing when fighting [[HotBlooded mecha pilots]]), and can destroy planets easily. He seeks the 12 keys of the Super Robot Wars Multiverse, and he created Dynamis the BigBad of ''Super Robot Wars R'' to search and destroy Fighter Roar. You have an assload of [[HumongousMecha giant robots]]. Guess who's not walking away from this fight?
** Same with Irui Ganeden, the spirit of the earth, in ''[[SuperRobotWarsAlpha Alpha 2]]'', and Keiser Ephes in ''[[SuperRobotWarsAlpha Alpha 3]]''.
** Well, one might say a lot of ''Super Robot Taisen'' games feed off this trope. Other games have the Super Robot team go up against villains who, in their respective series, proved to be impossible to defeat... and win all the same:
*** In the ''[[SuperRobotWarsAlpha Alpha]]'' series and in ''MX'', during the ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' storyline events, the heroes manage to defeat the Seele's Mass Produced Evangelions. Yes, exactly the monsters who, [[spoiler:after having been defeated by Asuka, simply regenerated and tore her to pieces as if nothing happened.]] The Super Robots managed to kill them all. Not only that, but, in ''[[SuperRobotWarsAlpha Alpha 3]]'', they follow it up by [[spoiler:fighting -and defeating- the fusion of the nine white Evangelions with a berserk Unit 01 and the Tree of Life... also known as God!]] And it's not even the final stage!
*** In ''[[SuperRobotWarsAlpha Alpha 2]]'' and ''[[SuperRobotWarsJudgment J]]'', during the final assault on [[EmpathicWeapon Orphan]], the Super Robots defeat [[BigBad Baron Maximillian]]'s [[DeadlyUpgrade Hyper Baronz]] from ''BrainPowerd''. [[spoiler: In the series proper, the Hyper Baronz was so powerful that all Hime managed to do was damage it somewhat, and she and Yuu had to wait it out and survive until Baron exhausted all of her energy.]]
*** In the last two episodes of ''Alpha'', the heroes also go up against Yami No Teiou, from the ''[[MazingerZ Mazinkaiser]]'' saga. [[spoiler:And manage to destroy him, when all the Mazinkaiser team could do in the series was to [[SealedEvilInACan seal it away]].]]
* In ''TalesOfLegendia'', the heroes beat [[spoiler:Schwartz]], supposedly a destroyer of universes. To be fair, she [[spoiler:needed the negative energies of people to power up, and was weakened by positive energy, ala ''Earthbound'']]. So her status might have been *very* exaggerated. Or she was just an avatar of the real one.
* In the ''{{Touhou}}'' game ''Mountain of Faith'', the first three named enemies you encounter -- Shizuha, Minoriko, and Hina -- are gods. In other words, via [[SortingAlgorithmOfEvil Sorting Algorithm Of]][[RousseauWasRight , um, Difficulty]], they are the weakest characters in the game. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] by the fact that they presumably lacked sufficient [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly Faith]], though it's not quite clear why this didn't apply to [[BonusBoss Suwako]], whom nearly nobody knew about at the time, ''including her shrine's own priestess''...
** Mistranslation. Sanae knew about Suwako. The actual line is that she isn't sure why two gods are sharing a shrine.
** It didn't affect her because, as a compromise with Kanako, faith that goes to one of them also goes to the other. Basically, the people of Suwako's nation refused to accept Kanako as their god even after she defeated Suwako, so they set up a sort of joint shrine that gathers faith for both of them at once.
** Merely [[CurbStompBattle beating the bejeezus]] out of Gods is the tip of the ''Touhou'' iceburg. Other bosses have ''absurdly'' lethal superpowers. Including Sakuya, a NinjaMaid KnifeNut with [[TimeStandsStill Dio Brando-inspired time stop powers]], EnfantTerrible Flandre with [[OneHitKill the ability to disintigrate anything, Tohno Shiki style, at range]], RealityWarper capable of manipulating life and death, Yukari Yakumo, [[DontFearTheReaper the game's version of the grim reaper]] Komachi and her boss, Judge of the Dead Shiki Eiki, [[WhoWantsToLiveForever true immortals]] [[FromASingleCell capable of fighting until they just]] [[TheDeterminator can't stand the pain anymore]] with [[ComboPlatterPowers additional superpowers for offense]] Erin, Kaguya, and Mokou, the {{Oni}} Suika, a CuteBruiser who [[GravitySucks throws black holes]], EX-Keine can [[RetGone devour the history of your existence]], Utsuho, a crow with [[ILoveNuclearPower the power of the Sun, I.E. NUCLEAR FUSION and an arm cannon to aim it with]], oh, and if we're talking lethality, [[CuteGhostGirl Yuyuko]]'s superpower of "''[[OneHitKill instantly kill any human with a thought]]''". [[TheHero Reimu]] (and/or [[TheRival Marisa]]) stand victorious over all of them. May the PlotArmor be with you!
* Tohno Shiki from ''{{Tsukihime}}'' has a power that is very conducive to this. [[spoiler: He arguably does this by making Roa DeaderThanDead, which is one hell of an achievement considering the man regenerates from just his ankles at one point; to add insult to injury, Shiki destroyed Roa's concept of existence, which prevents him from reincarnating as usual.]]
* In the backstory of ''{{Tsukihime}}'', the mage Zelretch is famous for being a True Sorceror, known for travelling between realities at a whim... and for killing Brunestud of the Crimson Moon, also known as TypeMoon, the Moon's Ultimate Being, the greatest life form created by the Moon with the total power of that celestial body behind him. The details aren't explained, but apparently it involved ''dropping the Moon on Brunestud's head''. [[BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu He might have gotten turned into a vampire for his trouble, but he still defeated one of the most powerful beings in the universe, by himself, using only raw power]]. For contrast, Type Mercury, known as ORT, is a giant crystal spider, powerful enough to override reality with its own internal MentalWorld and obliterate vampire kings in an instant. It is also explicitly the most powerful being in the present NasuVerse timeline. Types are also [[EldritchAbomination alien]] enough that even Shiki, that Cthulu-puncher extraordinaire, would be unable to kill them, because their concepts of death are so unrelatable to Gaia; the only way to kill ORT is by pure force, which ''nobody'' in the NasuVerse can currently bring forward.
** Actually, to clarify this a bit, Type Mercury/Ort technically has the "highest raw attack power". Take that how you will.
* In ''ValkyriaChronicles'', with Squad 7's defeat of [[spoiler:Maximillian. He had equipment that mimicked the powers of the Valkyria and unlike the fight with Selvaria, Squad 7 decided not to rely on Alicia's Valkyria powers]].
* Happens more than once in the ''Warcraft'' universe:
** ''WorldOfWarcraft'' raids let players duke it out with all kinds of eldritch horrors and the mightiest beings in the game lore (only short of Sargeras), only with larger numbers than usual. Granted, some of them are said to be in a weakened state or to be merely banished when defeated, and many of them put up a hell of a fight, but still...
*** In addition, many bosses are all but undefeatable if you go about fighting them the wrong way. No, the IndyPloy is ''not'' the right way to go about it.
*** Cthun. However, Old Gods are not actually gods and have been killable all along. They're imprisoned and not dead because apparently killing them would destroy the world... [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Guess maybe the whole AQ thing was a bad idea.]] Well, live and learn! (and then get Luvs)
**** Actually, the Old Gods are one of the few beings specifically [[WordOfGod confirmed to be]] {{Physical God}}s alongside Elune and Hakkar. But the gods in Warcraft universe are not immune to getting killed (though they tend to have many ways of avoiding or counteracting it).
*** Another Old God, Yogg-Saron, was added in a recent patch.
*** The Dragon Aspects were ancient forces shaping the universe who took on dragon form. As of Wrath of the Lich King, one of them -- Malygos -- can be killed by ten level-80 adventurers whittling down his hit points.
*** ThisTroper got the achievement "Did Someone Order a Knuckle Sandwich?" (maximize the Unarmed weapon skill) while fighting one of the raid bosses. The other raid members were quick to note how I had just "punched a dragon in the face."
*** [[ColossalCave CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE JUST VANQUISHED A DRAGON WITH YOUR BARE HANDS (UNBELIEVABLE, ISN'T IT?)]]
* In ''TheWitcher'' Dagon getting killed by Geralt at the [[spoiler:end of chapter 4]] is pretty inevitable, as you can get him in the bestiary by chapter 2. Interestingly, the god isn't defeated directly, but by killing his worshipers, [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly depriving him of prayer]].
** Not to mention you're also able to fight [[spoiler: the King of the Wild Hunt, a supposedly immortal personification of death itself, after beating the [[BigBad Big Bad]] if you completed a certain quest during the fourth act.]]
* In the WorldOfMana, high-tier supernatural beings are common boss battles:
** In ''Seiken Densetsu 3'', you get to fight ''eight'' God-Beasts.
** In LegendOfMana, you fight the Dragon Lord, a Demon, and the Mana Goddess' SuperPoweredEvilSide.
* X-Com: Terror from the Deep has a partially [[Justified]] version of this. The "Ultimate Alien" cannot be defeated once he wakes up, but you ''can'' kill him by blowing up the power generators to his cryogenics system first. [[spoiler:The [[StuffBlowingUp explosive result]], however, [[BrokenYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu makes the]] [[NiceJobBreakingItHero earth uninhabitable.]]]]
* The biggest threat to humans and Vasudans in ''{{Freespace}}'' is a powerful Shivan dreadnought, the ''Lucifer'', with nigh-impenetrable shields, which [[spoiler:devastates Vasuda Prime and is looking for Earth]]. It is only defeated in the last level through the use of {{LostTechnology}} by [[spoiler:chasing it in subspace with fighters/bombers and destroying its generators while its shields are down. The explosion does, however, cause Earth to be but off from the rest of the galaxy for many decades]].
** The sequel had the Shivans go BeyondTheImpossible in terms of threat level: your biggest victory in the campaign comes when you destroy the ''Sathanas'', a ship far more powerful than the ''[[FanNickname Lucy]]'' ever was, at great cost (the one ship capable of tackling the ''Sathanas'' is drydocked for extensive repairs). Then the Shivans [[spoiler:reveal that they have ''over 80 more such ships en route'' to Capella.]] TheAlliance [[HopelessWar does not walk away with a victory.]]
* The ''{{Super Smash Bros}}'' series has actually ''inspired intense forum debates'' for its bizarre use of this. According to the running backstory, Master Hand and Crazy Hand represent the twin gods of creation and destruction, yet it is still possible for players to beat them. Until ''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'', it could have been explained away as a friendly sparring match where the hands could win if they wanted to, but would rather train and play with fighters, but in ''Brawl'', [[spoiler: Master Hand is visibly subdued and enslaved by Tabuu, whom the player can also beat.]]
** A possible explanation is that [[spoiler: the two hands are essentially the gods of Subspace, while Tabuu is more of a devil figure. The hands' behaviors towards the fighters in prior games could be deliberately training them in anticipation of when they'd need their help stopping Tabuu.]]
*** ''Brawl'' is made by Mashahiro Sakurai, who also did Kirby, so it makes sense.
* Heinrich I in ''Return to Castle Wolfenstein'' is an ancient {{sealed evil in a can}}. Supposedly indestructible, the only way to defeat him was for a wizard to seal him in the ground. Of course, that was way back around the year 1000, so when the hero shows up in 1944 it quickly becomes evident that being invulnerable to swords and spears is not the same as being invulnerable to [[ThoseWackyNazis nazi superweapons]]
* The third campaign of {{Guild Wars}}, ''Nightfall'' deals on how the human heroes manage to overthrow the fallen god Abaddon, even when in the penultimate mission the other gods themselves decline to directly intervene, arguing that the humans have all the strength they need.
:::Given the fact that humanity's ability to fuck up the plans and creations of gods is why the gods basically went into retirement, this kind of makes sense. "Well, they shat all over everything we did before, just give one of them our blessing and they'll probably find a way to fuck things up for the Big Bad as well"
** And Guild Wars 2 will involve defeating at least one of the ancient dragons (EldritchAbominations at least as powerful as the gods). In fact, getting back to the other two continents (as we'll inevitably do in expansions) will ''require'' it: Zhaitan (set up as the BigBad by the trailer) has pretty much blocked off sea travel by way of his zombie pirate Mooks, and another dragon (Kralkatorrik) is blocking the land route to Elona.
** It's quite possible that Grenth did this when he overthrew Dhuum, as well.
*The otherwise excellent ''Lord of the Rings: The Third Age'', which is set during the events of the movies but tells a distinct story, [[JumpTheShark jumps the shark]] at the last minute when [[spoiler: the party is instantly transported to the top of Barad-dur, where they fight spotlight-eye Sauron (who is a lesser god, remember), and beat him into submission using swords, spears, and arrows.]] [[WallBanger Why?]]
** Look, within the preceding five minutes you'd already havee killed fourteen ringwraiths or so. At that point, who cares?
*In ''{{Thief}}: The Dark Project'', the titular character Garrett [[spoiler: kills the Trickster, a forest god who resembles Pan. With a magical bomb.]] At least it was an inventive way to defeat the end boss, which fit well with the style of gameplay.
** Garrett even lampshades it in the stage intro to "The Maw of Chaos", saying "I've never robbed a god before".
* In DeadSpace, [[spoiler:the final boss is the HiveMind CosmicHorror that is controlling the Necromorphs; it has to be at least over 100 meters tall. Isaac Clarke is an engineer with a headful o' crazy and a [[ImprovisedWeapon cutting tool]].]] Guess who gets owned?
* Upcoming Nintendo DS platformer ''{{Scribblenauts}}'' will allow you to summon not only Cthulhu himself, but several hundred other entities to fight him. That's right, you can set up your own "Did ___ Just Punch Out Cthulhu" scenarios. [[RuleOfCool For the most fun, pit Cthulhu against God. With a shotgun. On a skateboard.]]
* In ''Ghostbusters: The Video Game'', the boys take out several entities that their scans classify as "Deity [Supreme Being]", including [[spoiler:the Imprisoned Juvenile Slor, several ascended humans such as Azetlor and Shandor the Architect and, of course, the returning Destructor Form of Gozer the Gozerian himself, aka the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (although they claim that Stay Puft is weaker than he was when they fought him before, in the movie)]].
*The final boss of ''NeverwinterNights: Hordes Of The Underdark'' [[spoiler: is Mephistopheles, the second strongest devil in the universe.]]
*The fight against the might Nihilanth in the first Half Life. A giant half mechanical psychic being of unimaginable power...taken out by a scientist wearing a fancy suit.
** Also carrys over to Opposing Force, where a living biological resource factory that literally sucks matter from our world to make more Race X...is destroyed by one Marine with a sniper rifle. Then again, Marines are incredibly badass, soyeah...
* [[FateStayNight Shirou]] vs [[spoiler:Angra Mainyu]]. Who is basically the devil. [[spoiler:Kind of. It's not his fault, and he gets better.]] He takes out [[spoiler:the Grail]] while also being busy dying horrible due to [[spoiler:his body turning into swords and his brain into swiss cheese]]. Also manages to take out Servants in single combat in several routes, which are damn near godlike.
* EverQuest has a long-standing tradition of making the game universe's gods into major or final bosses. Of course, since they generally don't stay dead in the game's storyline, some have come back for more (and more, and more) as the game has had expansion packs added to it.
* How the hell did nobody mention TombRaider yet? Apparently, you can kill ancient gods just by SHOOTING AT THEM! And I'm not even talking about a [[{{BFG}} BIG FUCKING GUN]], I'm talking about plain PISTOLS!
* ''MarioAndLuigi: Bowser's Inside Story'' has Bowser go up against a being of pure darkness [[spoiler:using his form]] that has more than enough power to destroy the world, and ''repeatedly'' overpowers it with brute strength alone. The only part the Bros. play in the battle is helping to make sure it doesn't get back up again ''after'' Bowser has knocked the core out of its gut (he wins at inhaling the thing, too). Did you just prove yourself better than Cthulhu at everything he tries?
** And then Bowser LITERALLY punches it out with a series of {{Megaton Punch}}es, resulting in one big ol' CrowningMomentOfAwesome for the brute.
* In ''[[DragonQuestMonsters Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker]]'', [[spoiler: your [[TheRival Rival]] Solitaire]] gets disqualified from the Monster Scout Championship Finals by jump-kicking your [[OlympusMons Olympus Mon]]. (A BerserkButton was involved.)
* Averted in ''FossilFighters.'' When the leader of the TerribleTrio pulls out an OlympusMons ([[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere out of nowhere, we might add]]), it's [[HopelessBossFight completely indesctructable.]] The only way to stop it is to go find an OlympusMons of your own, and pit them against one another. They annhilate each other with their godly powers, leaving the bad guy stuck (and you with the [[ATasteOfPower Aftertaste Of Power]] in your mouth).
** [[spoiler: But it's later played straight with PlanetEater Guhnash. It's justified by the fact that you're attacking his weak point, his brains, ForMassiveDamage, but it's still just one kid and a couple of dinosaurs taking out a being the size of a planet [[DeathOfAThousandCuts by scratching at it.]]]]
* In PennyArcadeAdventures Episode 1, after Tycho learns what the mimes are up to, persuades Gabriel and the Player to help stop them from incarnating an Eldritch Horror. To convince Gabriel, Tycho asks him, "Would you like to ''punch a god?''" Gabriel is immediately up for it.
** [[spoiler: They do manage to beat Eldritch Horrors in both released episodes. With naught but their fists, garden tools, and a Tommy gun.]]
* The {{Lufia}} series revolves around the hero Maxim and his descendants repeatedly killing the four [[GodOfEvil Sinistrals]] every time they reincarnate.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Web Comics]]
* ''{{xkcd}}'' [[http://xkcd.com/521/ #521]]: "Where did you get this Christmas tree?" "Nowhere." "Did you cut down the [[WorldTree Yggdrasil]]?" "...Maybe."
* ''IrregularWebcomic'' features a crocodile hunter named Steve who has wrestled with Cthulhu on more than one occasion, and has yet to lose once. He also wrestled the [[GrimReaper Death of Being Wrestled to Death by Steve]] to death. Twice. [[MST3kMantra Try not to think about that one.]]
** Don't forget the time a [[spoiler:salt-water croc ''ate'']] Cthulhu.
** Steve also successfully wrestles a [[LordOfTheRings balrog]], despite Terry's claims that it is impossible, to death in [[http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/2449.html this strip]].
* DrMcninja PUNCHED OUT DEATH.
** The [[http://www.sincomics.com/index.php?566 Seven Deadly Sins]] did so as well. Considering that the Sins arn't as powerful as you might think, this makes it more epic. Or would, if a certain Virtue didn't come in and make the finishing blow.
* ''GunnerkriggCourt'': [[GadgeteerGenius Kat]] punched the UsefulNotes/{{psychopomp}} Muut in the [[strike: gut]] beautifully sculpted abs after finding out what Muut and the psychopomps had done to tick off her best friend Annie. It didn't do anything to Muut, but more importantly nothing happened to Kat, who basically attacked (a) Death with her bare hands. As the author said, "Do you have a friend that would do the same for you?"
** Also, who can forget Annie spanking [[PhysicalGod Coyote]]?
--->'''The Headmaster:''' Do you realize how many people could slap a creature like Coyote on the rump and live to tell about it?
* In ''[[EightBitTheater 8-bit Theater]]'', Red Mage cut open the head of a being capable of boiling the atmosphere. They ''would have'' achieved this again towards the end, but [[spoiler:[[AWizardDidIt Sarda]] was beefed up from the orbs and had his power further amplified by Black Mage's [[SuperpoweredEvilSide super evil]]]].
* ''SluggyFreelance'' (mind the spoilers for each story):
** Chapter 10, "K'Z'K": Riff and Torg have just released the über-demon K'Z'K who is supposed to end the world. Then they hit him with the time blaster, freezing him in place. (But then he gets sent back in time to conquer the past.)
** "The Storm Breaker Saga": K'Z'K is about to squash Torg and Zoë personally to keep them from preventing him from conquering the past, and swipes away the ''Book of Güd'' that they were about to use against him from Zoë's hands when she says she can't read it. The power of the pictures in the book reduces him into a bug-like creature, and Zoë steps on him.
** "That Which Redeems": The TalkingSword Chaz, which when powered with the blood of the innocent can kill pretty much anything, suggests that Torg use it to destroy the [[DemonLordsAndArchDevils Demon]] [[GodOfEvil King]]. He doesn't actually follow on this plan, but during their escape, [[spoiler: the Demon King intercepts them and strikes down at them with a sword formed out of his own darkness. [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome Torg parries with Chaz]], and just that is enough to throw the Demon King off and scar him.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation]]
* ''TheRealGhostbusters'' had "The Collect Call of Cthulhu" episode, where the Busters managed to electrocute Cthulhu himself. In a follow up episode, the 'Busters take care of another Old One by sucking it into an artificially created black hole (probably not a bad way to take care of a powerful being).
** ''ExtremeGhostbusters'' had them dealing with [[NorseMythology Fenrir]], who was trying to bring about the end of the world but apparently the original crew had already captured his master Surt in an untold tale. In Ragnarok, it's Surt who actually kills the most humans.
* A ''[[TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy Billy and Mandy]]'' episode, "The Prank Call of Cthulhu", ended with Cthulhu [[SealedEvilInACan trapped in interdimensional phone lines]], sucking off his shoes in the process (an episode RunningGag). Do I even have to say it?
** "Shoes can't go through the phone, silly. They're much too big."
** And let's not forget that the whole series centers around two kids bossing around the GrimReaper.
*** Who was subdued and captured by [[spoiler:Mandy making a geriatric hamster bite him]] no less.
* The ''JusticeLeague'' episode "The Terror Beyond," [[InWhichATropeIsDescribed in which]] A Cthulhuesque EldritchAbomination tries to invade earth. Given that the beatdown is delivered courtesy of the Justice League, but especially Solomon Grundy and Hawkgirl, the "Punch" part is extremely literal.
-->(Monsters burst out of giant pods and attack.)
-->'''Solomon Grundy''': [[CrowningMomentOfAwesomeWesternAnimation Grundy crush Pimple-man!]]
** They had actually set up her [[UnObtanium Nth Metal]] mace as pretty much designed to kill {{Eldritch Abomination}}s. Aquaman's trident as well, in another badass moment for the [[WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway (oft parodied)]] King of the Seas has him ''beating back'' a legion of eldritch abominations that are trying to invade Earth.
* The near universal BigBad of ''{{Transformers}}'' is Unicron, who would have been impossible to defeat if it wasn't for the power of the Autobot [[ChekhovsGun Matrix of Leadership]], which Optimus Prime had presented earlier as being prophecied as there being a ChosenOne to use The Matrix to "Light our darkest hour."
* In Disney's ''Sleeping Beauty'', the evil witch Malificent is imbued with [[InformedAbility "all the powers of Hell."]] The prince defeats her with a sword. (Yeah, yeah, the Sword of Truth enchanted by three fairies with the equivalent of a True Strike spell, but this is Hell we're talking about here.)
** So what? You're assuming that Hell is more powerful than the Sword of Truth.
* [[SamuraiJack I'm not fat!]] [[GroinAttack I'm stout!]]
** Which ineffable god being got beaten there?
** Episode XVII: Jack has to help [[spoiler:the Scotsman, whose wife was kidnapped by a legion of cybernetic demons that wanted to eat her. The head honcho was brutally smacked down by the aforementioned wife. Then she proceeds to destroy the rest of the legion. And when Jack accidentally makes a slip about her weight, SHE BRINGS DOWN THE FRIGGIN' CASTLE.]]
*Justice League, Divided We Fall: The Flash versus the fledgeling god that is Braniac-Luthor. Judging by the way the fusion of Luthor and Braniac is implied, shortly after [[spoiler: running around the entire world in seconds for a hypersonic clothesline punch ''four separate times,'' the Flash punches every single braniac molecule out of Lex Luthor's body before simply fading out of existence due to the impossible speeds involved. Even though [[IGotBetter he gets better]] pretty much immediately]] ,this CrowningMomentOfAwesome pretty much dominates the entire story arc. And quite possibly all the others, in this troper's opinion.
* Let's not forget Azula from ''AvatarTheLastAirbender''. At the end of Book 2 where, [[spoiler: while Aang is rising into the air in the Avatar State after finally unlocking the final chakra, shot down Aang with a bolt of lightning straight to the back, which nearly killed him (dying in the Avatar State would break the cycle of reincarnation).]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* In the WhateleyUniverse, Sara Waite fights The Kellith in dreamspace with a knife. And wins. Even if Sara Waite [[spoiler:''is'' The Kellith, or one is part of the other, or they're a duality, or something.]]
** It actually makes sense in context: the 'Kellith' in the dream represents [[spoiler:the magical brainwashing her supposed high priest was trying to inflict on her.]] Of course, that technically makes it not quite an example of this trope -- but then the Whateleyverse also has Tennyo, who apparently ''eats'' {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, demons, and the like. (The jury's still out on whether she counts as one herself.)
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykwqXuMPsoc Narwhals stop Cthulhu eating ye]]
* In ''TheSalvationWar'', this trope is definitely in play. In ''Armageddon?'', the human race kills off Satan and in ''Pantheocide'' Yahweh is next on their list.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
* Vince McMahon once booked a tag-team match between himself and his son, Shane, again Shawn Michaels and God. Yes, God. And yes, of course Vince's team won.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* According to millions of Christians with very a serious underestimation of their deity's ability to hold up to natural observation, Darwin did this.
[[/folder]]
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