Awesome / Gargoyles

Gargoyles

"WE LIVE AGAIN!"

Awesome Moments pages are spoiler-free. You were warned!

• "Awakening, Part 1": What does Hakon do when Goliath awakens just as he's climbing the castle's highest tower? He swings his sword at him while being dangled over the ledge, and the gargoyle stops it with his bare hands. Hakon doesn't cower, he doesn't despair, he sees that his attack still drew a trickle of blood, and he roars to his soldiers: "FIGHT, MEN! THEY ARE NOT INVINCIBLE!"
• "Awakening, Part 2" - The moment where the gargoyles awaken from their 1000-year sleep in Manhattan. As a YouTube comment put it; "[M]ost epic yawn ever." What's really awesome about it? This is a Moment of Awesome for Xanatos, as well, for his sheer audacity: After hearing the legend about the curse on the gargoyles and its escape clause, he bought up the castle, disassembled it, and had multiple helicopters transport everything up to his corporate skyscraper (so tall it rises above the clouds) in New York, stone by stone, just to see if that would work — and it did. Screw the "impossible" Curse Escape Clause, Xanatos has money!
• "Awakening, Part 4": Elisa proving beyond any doubt that she can hack it as the gargoyles' ally by not only leading a trio of goons away from the currently-petrified Goliath, but also single-handedly defeating them through the use of wits and deception.
• "Awakening, Part 5": Goliath himself has an awesome moment when Demona has a rocket launcher pointed at him and ranting about how she betrayed the castle and her reasons for it. Even though the safe thing would be to placate the lunatic by agreeing with her, Goliath does not hesitate for a second to stand up to her and refute her hate with reason and moral authority with "There is both good and evil in all of us, human and gargoyle alike. You should know that more than anyone!" He then turns around, and points out, for the first time, and not the last, that it was all Demona's fault.
• Hudson has one that takes up most of the episode "Long Way to Morning," in which he spends a night holding Demona off of himself and the badly-injured Goliath by the use of clever tactics.
  • Hudson's Determinator-like qualities are best shown in his response to Goliath's protest that he can't face Demona (who at this stage has a laser rifle). His response? "Oh, I can face her. I just can't beat her." On paper, it sounds dull, but then he reveals that the whole thing was just to stall her long enough for dawn to come, freeze them all in stone for the day, and heal the incapacitating wound she dealt Goliath earlier.
    "But I know something you don't, something that comes only with age. I know how to wait."
• Broadway's Moment of Awesome occurs any time he sees someone use a gun after "Deadly Force" where he accidentally shoots Elisa.

  Broadway: What's this?! A new kind of gun? A new way to KILL PEOPLE?

  • An Elisa Moment of Awesome may be when she admits (despite all of the above) that she erred in leaving her service weapon in its holster hanging on a stand in another room, and will be more careful with it in the future.
  • A Moment of Awesome for the show as a whole, as well, since she does in all episodes afterwards. Furthered since it proves a moment for Broadway as well- any time he's confronted with guns in the future, he deliberately destroys them. It becomes part of his character, and isn't just forgotten.
  • Make that the Moment of Awesome for all of Disney! They combined Darker and Edgier with Bloodier and Gorier and made it clear why they did it.
• In Temptation:
  • Brooklyn has a moment where his talent for tactics arises when he is fighting both Demona and a mind-controlled Goliath. After wrestling for the Grimorum Arcanorum, Demona orders Goliath to kill Brooklyn but even though she holds the book necessary to make that command, he does not respond. Brooklyn instantly quips, "You hold the book, but I hold the spell" as he reveals that he tore out the exact page for that spell while Demona just fell into his trap to make herself vulnerable to Goliath.
  • Elisa gets one of her own, when she frees Goliath from the spell despite there being no way to break it: "All right, big guy. I'm holding the spell. That means you have to do what I say. I order you to act for the rest of your life exactly as you would if you were not under a spell."
• Lexington repairing the Pack's helicopter, and building a motorcycle out of spare parts. Pretty awesome for someone that has been sleeping since the Middle Ages.
• "Leader of the Pack", where a huge hole is shot through Coyote, and we see Lex through the hole holding a big ass gun, asking "Who's next?"
  • Xanatos is a man who managed to get a whole trope named after him, and this line from "Leader of the Pack" is what sets him apart from all of the other villains (Lex Luthor, Doctor Doom, etc) like him.
    "Revenge, as they say, is a sucker's game."
• In "Avalon, Part One", the Magus (last seen back in "Awakening") establishes himself as anything but The Load he once was when, defending a few boats full of people, he single-handedly defeats the Weird Sisters in a magical duel.
  • He defeats them again in "Avalon Part Three" when he's a much older man. Unfortunately, he's not as strong as he once was, and he's without the Grimorum, so the magic he uses against the Sisters drains all his energy, and ends up killing him.
  • Even before fighting the Wierd Sisters, when the Princess said Constantine would hunt her to the ends of the Earth, the Magus says he would take her beyond them. The awesome part was that it's Not Hyperbole. He really did take her to a place outside of normal time and space.
• "Avalon, Part Three" has nine simple words: "Arthur Pendragon, King of all Britain. You are needed."
• "Kingdom" - when you realize it's the climax of a Story Arc of the "boy" Brooklyn becoming a "man" in the best possible sense of accepting his responsibilities as a leader. For instance, you see him wrestle with a powerful temptation to turn down Maggie's plea for help after rejecting his love, only to make the right choice even as he growls "This has nothing to do with what I want!" This especially applies at the episode's climax where the master tactician Brooklyn shows he's perhaps the only hero who could turn his own romantic jealousy into an advantage to resolve a hostage situation.
  • This episode also has Owen's awesome moment when he slugged Talon with his stone fist, while Xanatos compliments him on making the best of his disability.
  • This episode also had another one; when the gargoyles are on their way to rescue Talon you already know that there's going to be an awesome action scene. But what you don't expect is when the combat-ready main cast of gargoyles bust into the bad guy's lair through the ceiling, all of them looking extremely badass.
• Puck himself has an extended sequence of Crowning Moments of Awesome in his first appearance, "The Mirror", based on his continual 'inability' to understand what Demona is asking of him, ruining all her plans and twisting the city around just for his own amusement. Best of all, of course, is his absolutely delicious 'reward' to Demona at the end of the episode.
  • On that note, Brent Spiner's vocal performance as Puck is awesome, too; you might say that he was channeling Lore — one of the sneakiest, double-crossing characters in TV history — when reading the part.
  • Also in "The Mirror" when Elisa gets turned into a gargoyle, while the Manhattan Clan in turn are transformed into humans, making them vulnerable to Demona. Before Demona could try to take horrible advantage of the new power difference between her and the now human Clan, Elisa jumps in and easily beats the crap out of her to protect them.
• Like most of the main cast, Elisa has a few, beginning with the morning she spends in "Awakening" leading a bunch of mercenaries away from a defenseless Goliath and defeating all of them despite being outnumbered and outgunned.
  • Similarly, in "High Noon" she goes to face Demona, Macbeth, and Coldstone, in spite of being exhausted and having recently suffered a head injury, in order to protect the gargoyles -and succeeds.
• In "Protection," Tony Dracon tries to kill Elisa after discovering that she (and Goliath & Broadway) were never really willing to work with him. Goliath carries Dracon into the sky and then drops him, only to catch him at the last moment.
  Goliath: I would never join with the likes of you! You blackmail the innocent and call it protection! I should drop you right now, down into the gutter where you belong! (drops Dracon, then catches him) But gargoyle justice is not human justice.
• Xanatos' father Petros deserves one for the wedding episode "Vows". After all that happens, he simply snarks, "Well riddle me this, Mister Big-Shot Time Traveller. How are we going to get home?" (Unsurprisingly, Xanatos has a plan for this.)
  • After seeing the Stable Time Loop that shows how Xanatos used one antique coin to start his fortune, Petros gets one of the most awesome "The Reason You Suck" Speeches anywhere and the only one in the series that really seems to get through to Xanatos and make him doubt his values and methods rather than smugly dismiss his critic.
    Xanatos: (confidently) Well, Pop, did you have a good time at the wedding? (his father flips him a coin from his pocket) What's this?
    Petros: A simple American penny. It's not worth much now, but in a thousand years, who knows? It's my wedding present to you — because it's all you seem to care about.
  • You know you're dealing with a Magnificent Bastard when a conversation revealing that he created his own fortune with a Stable Time Loop is treated as an aside.
• The moment that gains Xanatos genuine respect and loyalty from the viewer like a good CMOA should is protecting Owen from Demona in "City of Stone."
• The entirety of "Eye Of The Beholder" deserves as one of Xanatos' Moments of Awesome. The most romantic un-romantic marriage proposal ever, Going through plans A, B, C, and D, throwing all his efforts behind finding and helping the werewolf'd up Fox, all while doing his best not to let on just how much he cares for her until it becomes an asset, rather than a liability. Someone give that millionaire a medal. Or a hug. Or both!
  • Goliath catches Xanatos in one of his trademark gambits (in this case, tricking the Clan into doing what he wants). "I don't suppose you have a Plan D?"
  • And Xanatos, of course, does. He asks politely.
• Xanatos has a Moment of Awesome in "The Cage" when he double whammies Talon for almost turning him into a bored and sad villain by killing his one and only Arch-Enemy, Goliath: he shoots the floor when Talon tries to attack him and boasts at him, "He's the scientist, you're just the experiment".
  • "Pay a man enough...and he'll walk barefoot into Hell."
  • Xanatos' Big Damn Heroes moment when he arrives in a helicopter and saves the gargoyles from the NYPD.
    Xanatos: Can I interest you in a ride?
• David Xanatos' moment is in "The Price" when he has Hudson held captive to test a magic cauldron that could make him immortal. When Hudson observes that Xanatos is terrified of growing old, Xanatos responds with a brilliant mix of his monumental arrogance and hidden mortal fear: "Nothing terrifies me, because nothing is beyond my ability to change!"
  • It's also a moment for Hudson. Even moreso for him than Xanatos, because by asking a simple question, Hudson does what no other character had done up until that point: he pushes one of Xanatos's buttons.
  • When Hudson is about to be dunked in the cauldron and Xanatos claims he's helpless without his sword, Hudson responds "Swordless maybe, but helpless? NEVER!" He stabs a Steel Clan guard with a concealed shard from his own skin, then jumps on the rim of the cauldron, tackles Xanatos to get his sword and then immediately makes the charging Owen Burnett back off with a condescending "Behave yourself, boy!"
  • "The Price" was another long episode of awesome for Hudson. Xanatos captures him, expecting him to be exactly like the younger gargoyles, and starts trying to manipulate him. Only for Hudson to slam the door on his face with an Armor-Piercing Question (above), causing Xanatos to snap for the first time in series. Then he outgambits him (see below). To crown it all, when Xanatos loses, he supposes that Hudson will destroy the Cauldron now. Instead, Hudson leaves him to it, and hands out another Armor-Piercing Question on the way out. Xanatos is visibly disturbed by this. Basically, the entire episode is Xanatos trying to be his usual Magnificent Bastard self, and Hudson deconstructing him and getting under his skin in a way that no other character had been able to do.
    Hudson: When all your scheming's done, what will your legacy be?
• Renard gets one in "Outfoxed". After Goliath goes into angry gargoyle mode after receiving a lecture from him, what does he do? Why, he shoots him of course. Made even more badass by the fact that he used a gun built into his wheelchair.
  Renard: No excuses, creature. Learn to take responsibility for your actions, and stop. Whining!
  Goliath: A gargoyle doesn't whine. He ROARS!
  (proceeds to break out of the cell and smash a security cybot)
  Renard: I am trembling in my chair.
• Matt Bluestone's Batman Gambit against Mace Malone, though it takes a turn to Nightmare Fuel at the end.
• Princess Catherine entering Mama Bear mode, and fighting off the Archmagus' forces with a laser gun. Seriously, is this the same woman who used to be such a prejudiced spoiled brat toward gargoyles? Like her friend the Magus, she Took a Level in Badass.
  • As a Scottish noblewoman of the tenth century she had never seen, let alone handled, any kind of modern weaponry before the Archmage's minions attacked, and Demona is a heck of a Starter Villain... but maternal instinct is a great motivator.
  Catherine: No one threatens my eggs.
• The ghostly Captain finally growing a pair and not only telling Hakon off verbally. But physically attacking him to stop him from killing Goliath.
• "The Hound of Ulster" gives one to Bronx, with his attack on the Banshee's One-Winged Angel form. Eventually he gets a death grip on her nostrils and forces her to open her mouth, leaving her vulnerable to a magic spear attack.
• Although it probably was crossing the Moral Event Horizon, Jackal from the Pack became awesome when he became the avatar of Anubis in "Grief", aged Goliath, Angela and Elisa, destroyed Coyote, turned Wolf and Hyena into babies and destroyed an entire town. He gets a similar moment in the episode "The Green" where he fantasizes about shattering the Mayan gargoyles during the day and reshaping Goliath's stone face to look like his.
• Goliath and Xanatos' VR battle in the All Just a Dream episode "Future Tense". Xanatos Cues the Sun, triggering the gargoyle's natural stone sleep. Goliath realizes that it's not the real sun, and doesn't even bother shedding the stone, he just attacks. Xanatos fights back with a jackhammer, reducing Goliath to a disembodied stone head and a cloud of rock dust. Xanatos hold up the head and says "Alas, Poor Goliath", and is taken by surprise when Goliath combines Pulling Himself Together with Reverse Shrapnel, winning the fight, and then he strikes a Victory Pose by breaking free of his stone skin.
  • This is followed up by Lexington's creepy turn as the villain. "All gone... Bye-Bye. Sorry about that!"
• The sheer nerve of Elisa to pull her sidearm on Oberon in "Ill Met By Moonlight". What's more, it works. She threatens an all-powerful deity with an empty handgun and he actually backs down.
• In "The Gathering Part One", the first confrontation between Xanatos and Oberon is absolutely awesome, with Xanatos whipping out a laser from behind the bed to keep Oberon from taking away his son. Oberon proceeds to (in a completely bored tone) order Boudicca the gargoyle beast to restrain Xanatos, which he does, at which point Oberon tries to console Xanatos by pointing out that he was at least brave in his utterly futile attempt to save his son against impossible odds. Xanatos' response? An angry yell while he knocks Boudicca, a gargoyle beast built like a cross between a wolf and a wild boar, clean off of him and flying away with a single goddamned punch. All so he can try and charge Oberon again. Oh, and not only that, he's not even in his mecha Goliath suit!
• In "The Gathering Part Two", Owen gets his other major moment when he reveals himself to actually be Puck in disguise. And then proceeds to casually beat up the King of the Fey, while engaging (or pretending to engage) in casual exposition.
  • Everyone gets one in the battle with Oberon but overarching it all is that Titania hints that it all might have been The Plan on her part.
  • Titania's Moment of Awesome is defiantly the following exchange:
    Titania (Oberon's wife): In Avalon, Oberon's word is law.
    Katherine: Does that mean he's always right?
    Titania: Not while he's married.
  • There's also Oberon's assault on Xanatos Enterprises, where he stands up against the combined resources of the gargoyles, Xanatos, Xanatos' father, Fox, Renard and Puck. He throws out every bad guy battle line in the book, and makes every one of them cool.
    "Oberon does not compromise. Oberon COMMANDS!!!!"
    "I am vulnerable to iron. You have hurt me. Hurting me was a MISTAKE!!"
    "This altercation is OVER!"
    "You cannot thwart the will of Oberon!"
  • And then there's Fox's Mama Bear moment when she blew Oberon into a wall with suddenly-present magic. All Puck could say was, "You hurt him with that one... Do it again!"
• "Possession" has a slew of CMOA's for characters, especially ones who normally don't receive one (I.E. Lexington's rather epic plan at the end, the fact that Xanatos's still-infant child finally Took a Level in Badass, to a ridiculous extreme, Coldstone's (as well as the other Cyborg gargoyle's alliances drawn permanently), and Puck going from chaotic to true neutral at the end, actually helping the heroes out for a change is rather epic.
• "Turf" was one long CMOA for Angela. Any other story with multiple male characters fighting over one female would have her throw out a token, ineffective "Stop! I'm not worth it!" but otherwise stand by helplessly and wait to be claimed by the winner. Not Angela. After putting up with their bickering for most of the night, she finally gets fed up and tells them she is not some kind of trophy, they need to grow up and focus on stopping the turf war rather than on their own petty squabbles, and "The winner does not get to keep me!" And that is awesome.
  "Oh, and another thing... STOP CALLING ME ANGIE!"
• Many consider the Moment of Awesome of the whole series is the last two minutes of the last episode of season 2, "Hunter's Moon", when Elisa jumped up to Goliath and kissed him on the lips.
• Vinnie in "Vendettas." While it was a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment and a Breather Episode, Vinnie definitely got his crowning moment here. He buys a BFG, hauls it halfway across the city, gets in a variety of unfortunate mishaps, and all to shoot Goliath in the face with a banana cream pie to get revenge for the ways that the gargoyles affected his life, though they weren't aware of it. Sure, it may not sound like much, but remember—he's the only one to ever swear revenge on Goliath and then succeed in carrying it out. Not only that, but the episode shows that he can be quite a Determinator when he wants to be.
  • Also, Vinnie standing up to John Castaway in "The Journey" and telling him flat-out that "this isn't right...this just isn't right."
• In "Vendettas", Hakon's spirit teams up with Wolf, his descendant, to hunt and kill Goliath and Hudson. Wolf and Hakon are defeated, but it is Hudson who gets the honour of avenging his Clan and all the inhabitants of Castle Wyvern against the "Clan-Slaughterer", tricking him into getting the axe his soul is bonded to stuck in a car crusher, where the axe is destroyed and Hakon is finally consigned to the after-life.
• Constance's "delimbification" of a Steel Clan robot in the comic. "Like I need the gun."
• Delilah gets one in the comics when she exercises free will for the first time, first telling off both Angela and Goliath in one go, and then informing Thailog that she wants nothing more to do with him. Remember, this is the same clone who was heavily implied to have been programmed as a sex slave for Thailog - she used to call him "Master!"
• The last quote of "A Lighthouse in the Sea of Time". Just the way that it's read and written gets across the episode's pro-literacy aesop perfectly.
  "The written word is all that stands between memory and oblivion. Without books as our anchors, we are cast adrift, neither teaching nor learning. They are windows on the past, mirrors on the present, and prisms reflecting all possible futures. Books are lighthouses, erected in the dark sea of time."
• Goliath saving all of humanity from Demona's genocidal plan. After all the horrible harms and terrible wrongs he and his kind had to endure from humans, he could had taken the easy way out and allowed a new gargoyle age to flourish, but instead he choose to do the right thing even if it was unrewarding and difficult.
• "M.I.A." has a glorious reunification of a Gargoyle Clan that has been separated for fifty years. It also has Gargoyles taking down Nazis. What more needs to be said?
• "Heritage" gave one to Bronx when he saves Elisa from a bear and, after a brief scuffle, sends it running. Even if he doesn't get much screen-time compared to the other Gargoyles, it still shows that Bronx is a capable fighter on his own.
• "The Silver Falcon" gives one to Broadway when he awakes from his stone slumber, finds that everyone is gone, and (because he is still semi-literate) can barely read the discarded note that is the only clue as to where they went. And he does!
  • Without even appearing in this episode, Mace Malone showed that he was a Magnificent Bastard in his prime. He stole the diamonds, disappeared, and left Dominic Dracon to spend decades searching for the stolen loot. He anticipated every place Dracon would look, and his treasure hunt ended with:
    Dominic [reading Mace's note]: I feel sorry for you Dominic. After all these years you still haven't learned that crime doesn't pay. Your old pal, Mace Malone.
  • This makes it all the more awesome that Matt Bluestone outsmarted him.
• Gruoch standing up to Demona and admonishing her for her paranoid betrayal which only led to the extermination of the remaining gargoyles in Scotland by those she trusted over her long-time ally.
• "The Reckoning" gives one to Angela. Demona has always been a sadistic, selfish, conniving bitch who looks down on others not sharing her world views and outright ignores any criticism calling out her irrational behavior, but she gets epically chewed out by a furious Angela when Thailog revealed Demona had been playing her in an attempt to turn her. Angela effectively tore down Demona's poor excuses, bluntly saying it was all just for petty vengeance. Just from that and the hateful tone she said it in, Angela made Demona cow down.
  Angela: I understand perfectly. All this was a charade to turn me against my father! To trap and destroy my clan! You are capable of anything. I HATE you.
• In "Walkabout", Dingo of all people saved the world from the Matrix! And he didn't do it with weapons or brute force, but with words. The guy really has it all to be a true hero, which he official become at the end of the episode.
• Even the non-canon Goliath Chronicles season has its share of awesome moments.
  • It's pretty cathartic to see David Xanatos chew out Doyle for kidnapping his son Alex and trying to pin the blame on the Manhattan Clan in "Ransom".
  • The near the end of the episode "Genesis Undone", when Thailog of all people shows up for a Villainous Rescue / Big Damn Heroes moment.
  • "Angels in the Night"
    • The gargoyles save a train full of people (including the District Attorney) and finally gain the acceptance of the New Yorkers? Awesome.
    • Goliath's final line to Castaway: "Go ahead, coward...show me exactly how you feel about Gargoyles! This is your big chance....SHOW ME!"
    • Brooklyn's idea to save all the people aboard the train by using the Quarrymen’s jet packs like retro-rockets by jamming them into the side of the second car, while defying a few laws of physics was inspired.

Real-Life Examples:

• The January 2024 Kickstarter campaign to reprint the Marvel and SLG comics in trade collections exceeded its goal of $50,000 by over 1,750% ($925,001 to be exact). Also qualifies as a heartwarming moment as not only is it a phenomenal achievement in its own right, but it’s a testament to the loyalty of fans (longtime and new) towards the franchise, their love of it, and how badly they’ve been wanting Weisman to continue the series the way he intended it.