"I just surfed a Robo-Dracula from the moon, so y'alls can just take it."
—Dr. McNinja, flipping off a baby everyone in the area.
Sometimes, when reading a webcomic, you can sense something really cool is about to happen.
Do not forget to use the spoiler tag on some of these if it gives away too much!
Examples:
To those unfamiliar with Doctor Who, in the new series, Daleks are made much more threatening, to the point where a single Dalek is a One-Man Army. And one of the doctors defeats a Dalek by kicking it.
And then, of course, there's his epic final standoff with the Jeeps where he pretty much destroys the entire fight grounds ("razed to the ground and salted!") before speeding off with Beef.
Going through the Great Outdoor Fight's wiki quickly reveals that the Great Outdoor Fight is just an annual CMoA for one or two people.
Roast Beef - a cat known for his horrible depression, low self-esteem, and generally being a complete doormat - finally has had enough and grows a backbone with much fervor and sass. (The few strips following continue the Crowning Moment.)
And then...there's this. (Oh come on. You WISH you could do this. Admit it.)
In the console-RPG webcomic ADVENTURERS!, the laser-obsessed villain Khrima had his Crowning Moment of Awesome during the third phase of the final battle, where he used an excessively powerful attack that cracked the game disk!
Amazoness: When Ess, the normally shy, bullied, joke-of-a-successor to the Queen ups and rants out loud to the assembled Amazons of Themiskyra that putting The Wholesome Crossdresser on trial for being a male in Amazon lands is inherently unfair since he has been raised as a woman and didn't admit to the truth of his gender out of fear of being caught.
City of Reality, Ian Sampson remaking/ adding to about 30 comic pages in chapter 7, and slamming all of the happy endings that could have been into not only the faces of AV and Todo, but into the player as well.
Ctrl+Alt+Del:Ethan Ryan McManus and his marriage proposal. Let's not kid ourselves; how many people would go as far as to spell out a marriage proposal to his girlfriend Lilah, by sweeping an arcade game's high scores slots and writing the initials as "LIL" "AH_" "WIL" "YOU" "MAR" "RY_" "ME"? The mind boggles at how much money he had to sink into that machine to pull it off.
Abel refuses to play Wildy's games. It's mitigated by how quickly she regains her usual smug nonchalance, but managing to take her aback at all is a commendable achievement.
Call it a stretch, but "Aragorn's" take on the final battle feels like it should be worth a mention. It doesn't hurt that he's finally roleplaying... after a fashion. The not-quite-manic expression on his face doesn't hurt.
Gandalf: We cannot hope to achieve victory through strength of arms... but we can give Frodo a ch-
Aragorn: Yeah I'm sure you've got a great plan and everything, but I'm the King here. I run stuff now. And I say we're going on the offensive. We're going to take our army and march to Sauron's castle. And then we're going to beat on him until he cries like a little girl.
Pretty well every major character (and some minor ones) in Errant Story has had at least one CMOA in the near-ten-year life of the comic, and some have several.
Sarine just about has this trope as her hat, but this one, if you know the story, is pretty hard to top.
Meji gets a pretty good one too, as she passes her final exam (or would if Professor Yukiri wasn't such a hardass).
Even Misa, who's protected by her fellow elves from ever possibly having a CMOA (although she doesn't exactly see it that way), gets her opportunity (which also qualifies as another Sarine CMOA) during the final fight with Ian.
Does nobody know about the existence of the comic Ever After? One of these happened in the first issue, Little Red Riding Hood kills an army with a saw, chopping one guard in half at one point (The guard in question had two shields), and as soon as reinforcements arrive, she kills them all, fast.
Although when she was going to kill Humpty, she was knocked out by Puss in Boots, she lost a few points.
But Mr. Boots himself got some points for managing to knock her out.
Lothar Hex of Exterminatus Now manages to have a CMOA without even needing to be conscious during a particularly heavy night. "You can't prove I ate that baby!"
An even better example in this comic. The most obvious joke they could have made in this comic, used for the only time so far for the most amazingly badass moment ever.
This is even more awesome because it's a Chekhov's Gun. One of the earliest strips had the set up, but subverted it with Virus Breaking the Fourth Wall to say, "Nah, we're not gonna do the Python bit yet. Maybe next time," with the payoff coming four years later.
Hell that whole section of the comic was a moment of awesome. The crew are attacked by two dragons and Lothar, uncharacteristically, pushes the rest of the gang to safety and takes the full brunt of the fireball himself... the awesomeness continues as the gang reacts in horror to the horrific burning of Lothars... hat. Which hits his Berserk Button and makes him tear the two dragons to pieces by his lonesome in a Gory Discretion Shot.
Oh, no. No, no, no. See... that Stephen is a "manifestation" created by the bad guys (although he does get some good and creepy lines in). The good guys later beat up Stephen Colbert... off-panel. There's just so much awesome in here that that's not even a big thing for them. Like when:
Kath, with little established combat ability and faced with trained Men in Blackhas mace.
In the face of fiction becoming reality and the world as we know it coming to an end, they are joined by these allies, rallied by this speech, and... well... keep reading; it doesn't let up. If you've read the archives, "The Ways the World Ends" will up the Holy Shit Quotient practically every page.
they guilt a would-be world-ruler by letting a teammate pretending to be a previous antagonist yell at her for outdoing him
Friendly Hostility: Leslie Rudd gets several throughout the pirates arcs, including his "who hates their mother more" competition with Collin, and blasting his travelling companions awake with Motorhead and informing them that he had found the pirates pretty much overnight.
Collin: My mom hasn't spoken to me for three years.
Leslie: Ha. My mom tried to sell me for two bags of heroin when I was six.
Geeks Next Door: Barry, the resident Cloudcuckoolander, goes to an anime convention he got banned from the year earlier to meet a girl he met online. And then proceeds to declare his love for her by RICKROLLING THE ENTIRE CONVENTION Read it here.
First Step of One Thousand Miles, Stephanos's fight against the archangel, especially this page.
Alas, the link above seems to be broken; not knowing which page was intended, this Troper offers this page as a potential replacement.
Tip of a Quill ([1][2]): winning at chess while somewhat occupied by fighting a rather large flying serpent that has its coils around him, all in mid-air (and he apparently without the ability to fly). Quite frankly, this Troper thinks that Stephanos is awesome in general.
"ARGH! QUEEN TO F7!"
Zhan
From Chapter 3 - A Deviant Cause Zhan has become a fast fan favourite, and people have been quoting his cry from pages 25 and 26.
Billie of It's Walky! got one in her fight with Sal. Even though she loses the fight and Sal's not really trying to hurt her, the fact that she was willing to stand up to a super strong psychopath just so she'll stop trying to rekindle her relationship with Billie's boyfriend, and the fact that she's able to deliever one solid punch to Sal's nose before collapsing makes it a crowning moment nonetheless.
The side SEMME characters get one when, with all of the main protagonists absent (beside Mike and their base under siege, refuse to stand down in the face of defeat. Arguably, Mike standing with them makes it even more awesome, since he generally hates them all. [3]
Jack: Jack's revenge on Drip after the latter's actions towards Fnar made the former very, very pissed off. Mmmm, near-complete destruction of one's physical existence bar one tiny bit to keep the rest from regenerating.
It is established early on that physical displays of affection from an angel can heal Jack's damaged memory. This leads to the following exchange when the Angel Reckonin', despite just having had his wings torn off gets frustrated enough with Jack's emo angst to decide that Jack needs to stop moping about and remember and face his past.
Reckonin': Stand up, Jack. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that there are many ways to physically show someone that you care for them...
Jack: I don't understand w-
Reckonin': [Punches Jack in the Face] STOP YOUR DAMNED WHINING!!
Central, the by-the-book angel, pushes Fangs off a five-story building in Been Reading Job.
The titular hero of The Japanese Beetle got his while battling Hypnotron, a seemingly invincible robot well on its way to becoming President and destroying America. Here's how he did it: [4]
Kevin and Kell: Coney's grandmother Dorothy — who has been pushing a herbivore lifestyle on her — storms out of the Dewclaw house, upset that Coney will not eat vegetables. She's wondering what's the point of Coney's protective stage — just as a predator shadow falls over her. Cue, in the very next comic, Coney grabbing the beast, eating it, and then waving to Dorothy while sitting on the pile of bones. And she's maybe three.
And then continued several pages later when Cypress tries to strongarm him into picking Arikos anyway:
Cypress: "You don't have the option to refuse."
White Noise: "Sure I do. Watch me."
And then White finally picks his lieutenant at random. He picks Qin Xu, who happens to be the only vampire (besides Jigsaw) on the show. Given that he was being told to pick Arikos otherwise, maybe it wasn't as random as it seemed.
How did The Mansion of E celebrate its seventh anniversary? By having a character reveal himself to be the local version of Satan and taser a bitch.
A Miracle of Science Several, including the main characters re-entering the atmosphere of Mars...without a ship. And surviving. While using giant wings of fire to slow their descent. Also, the finale: due to his wounds, Benjamin barely has the strength to stand, but gets up anyway just so he can fulfill the Chase Scene requirement of the memetic track. In other words: the Big Bad's been beaten, he's surrounded, but he's at the point of his mad science mental illness where he needs a Chase Scene to properly play it out. Without one, he'll probably go permanently insane or at least be harder to treat - if he doesn't decide to go out in a blaze of glory. So Benjamin risked permanent injury or death just to save the guy who's been trying to kill him. And does so in an incredibly badass manner, natch.
The best thing about the giant wings of fire? It was completely unnecessary. She only did it to impress her partner. It worked.
MS Paint Adventures: Problem Sleuth. It only takes around 40 "screens" before the first CMOA happens, and then it only goes up from there Ace Dick literally plays the game of LIFE with death, and becomes a Punisher Rip-off in game
Nervous Broad gets one during the fight with Madame Murel when she finishes her combination Comb Rave with Hysterical Dame by setting her knife on fire and throwing it between the madame's eyes. Damn.
Aw, to hell with it. The entirety of Chapter 22 (Which, incidentally, is called "Sepulchritude") is made of sheer awesome and epic. Check it out here with extra Ominous Latin Chanting thrown in for good measure.
Mega Man countering the Time Stopper, then giving Quick Man a Groin Attack while in a Humoungus Mecha.
Polka using Reset Mode.
Enker revealing he's made from the same material used to make Mets.
...and soon after, Mega Man figuring out how to defeat him; declaring, "I'm gonna kill you to pieces."
And then there's Quint...for the plain and simple fact that he's a time-displaced Evil Twin of Mega Man who fights with a nuclear powered pogo stick...and he's easily one of the most threatening characters in the strip.
Of course, we've seen excellent use of the pogo stick before when Rock uses it to land a solid hit on Allegro.
As of strip #903: Never under any circumstances, lie to Mega Man. Especially after he's copied most of your powers. Unless of course, you want another demonstration of how awesome he is. He decapitated Crash Man, the walking arsenal in quick succession, and is already moving in on Wood Man. Heck, taking on Six Robot Master's at once all by his lonesome is probably good enough.
And during the first storyline, Mega Man telling Wily to shut up mid-speech. Totally awesome, especially with his admission that the every single fight he'd been through, he'd been making it up as he went along.
Electric Man is made of this.
During Allegro's attack against Dr. Light's labratory Rock fights and defeats him in lab assistant form, because "Mega Man's been gone for a decade. He's not coming back just for you."
Nature of Nature's Art has its share - hardly surprising, since it's a martial arts comic. Examples by arc:
Secretary: XZ/Nutsedge kicking SV's ass in the midterms tournament. SV's epiphany and discovery of the power he's been seeking all along. SV breaking out of a small cave-in his teacher dropped on him. And one for the writer, for being so willing to write such a polarising character as SV.
Piffany disabling an evil cleric in Nodwick. With smily faces. Actually, that needs more emphasis. Piffany, who isn't the sharpest axe in the armory (actually, more of a staff), defeats a priestess of the darker powers by COVERING SAID PRIESTESS IN GOSH-DARNED SMILY FACES.
Sara taking charge of the spirit-crushing drama on her Reality Show by having Rich drive up on his motorcycle, live on the air, as the devil and "V For Victory"-flash the audience with a shout of "YEAH, BITCHES," before riding out with Sara.
Pv P's Brent takes up golfing. Notable for coming on the heels of a major plot event of his own, and quite a reversal from his usual curmudgeonly personality.
From Sam and Fuzzy: Through the entire run of the comic, Sam has been utterly incompetent, at one point managing to dislocate his arm merely by waving. Through a series of events too crazy to go into detail on, he became the only person who can become the Ninja Emperor and revive the Ninja Empire. Once Sam created a ruling council, Blankface was planning to kill him and make it look like an accident. And then this comic happened.
Actually, not burning down the store made sense because then Galasso would have collected the insurance and rebuilt the store. Although, Sydney didn't think of that so it was fridge logic at the time.
The actual phrase "Crowning Moment of Awesome" is used in this strip. The walls of fiction and reality are breaking down! I don't know what to believe any more!
Also when Katarakis sabotaged the disarming of the Jupiter bomb. To record the discovery of the bomb, and make Deep Time set it off early, he CARVED IT ON HIS CHEST.
Take us to Starslip For those who are unfamiliar. The last several years Mennon has been trying to get back to a worldline where he saved Jovia. He abused a stable timeloop to give him more processing time to find the path back. He just let is go so he can save his family and friends and EARN not scheme a way to his love.
Terinu Teri blows up the Cannon Ship's power core. While he's strapped into it.
Rufus, on life support and dying of a virus decimating all Vulpine, snarls in his doctor's face to let him try the cure first, rather than risk an untested vaccine on Melika.
Teri again, backstabbing Princess Titalia's personal guard and holding a knife to her throat to get the cure for the above.
Thunderstruck: Grant Grogan's death scene. Also, just about any time Saxony does one of his magic tricks.
In This page of Triquetra Cats, a villain's CMoA (taking down M-P in a matter of minutes) is met with one from Vyolette as she morphs into a full demon form
Recently in TwoKinds, Laura, the pacifist, gets one by using the General's magic focus as a garrote.
Let's not forget Cassie fighting two powerful demoness mages with guns at once and by herself in this strip. Made even better by the fact that everyone in the comic (and the viewer as well, up to this point) considers her to be nothing more than an amateur mage.
The Zombie Hunters Charlie's single-handed rescue of Katie. As summed up by Sammie: "And FUCK, Charlie! You punch zombies in the FACE! Like, in the face! There should be an award for that!"
In Joe and Monkey during an particularly dramatic arc involving the kidnapping of Megan the main characters little sister by an Child killer [and possible rapist] Kleptobot hunts down the kidnapper and rescues the Chloroformed Megan. and Monkey then drives the Kidnapper to insanity.
CNN and news media in general ... if you're going to write a story titled "Biff! Bam! Kapow! Comics aren't just for kids anymore!" please rename it to "Patronizing Thoughts On A Medium I Only Know Stereotypes About Which I Happened To Acquire Decades Ago".
After many people, on this very wiki, give up on VG Cats because of...well, let's just say questionable quality and leave at that, he manages to rank up a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming. How awesome is that?
