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  • In the fourth issue of the third Avengers series, the team had become massive due to all the reserves being called in to fight Morgan Le Fay three issues prior. The team, which by then consisted of over forty superheroes, was called out to face the low-level supervillain called Whirlwind. Whirlwind danced rings around the Avengers, who kept tripping over each other and accidentally hitting their teammates instead, and got away laughing. By contrast, when Whirlwind later faced Justice and Firestar by themselves, they were able to defeat him easily.
  • The Avengers vs. X-Men crossover utilized this. Five of the mutants inadvertently became co-host to the Phoenix Force, and the power split evenly between them. If one fell in battle, the power would leave them as unworthy and redistribute amongst the remaining members. Eventually, only Cyclops remained, with the full power of the Phoenix Force (and was as difficult to defeat as you would think).
  • Blake and Mortimer: Completely averted with the Swordfish: One is enough to near-completely outgun several battleships and an aircraft carrier (while it gets shot down, the heroes had another that was being fixed and finished the job), and when a dozen show up they wipe the floor that much faster.
  • Democracy: 10,000 Athenians VS 100,000+ Persians. There were also 1,000 Plataeans who helped the greek army, but they are not mentioned.
  • The Flash:
    • One storyline had a Speed Force enhanced bunch of ninja going up against various Flashes and other speedsters. They realized almost too late that the more ninja they took out of the action, the faster the others were getting...
    • In a Flash vs. Quicksilver video, Flash and Quick seem to be running and fighting at the same speed. Finally, Flash gets pissed and circumnavigates the globe in a few seconds to lay the final blow. An episode of DEATH BATTLE! showed the same thing, where the two were fighting evenly before the Flash decides to stop holding back, pulls Quicksilver into the Speed Force and pummels him senseless.
  • There's a Ghost Rider storyline that justifies this. Lucifer splits himself into 666 different bodies; when one body dies, the remaining ones gain more power, until only one remains with all of the Devil's hellish force.
  • Daredevil:
    • #57: 100 armed Yakuza soldiers hopped up on MGH against an unarmed, civilian clothed Matt Murdock. Even the FBI agents who have the situation under surveillance know they'd just be in his way.
    • Ninja Army vs. Bullseye.
  • Subverted in Doomsday Clock #12. The Russian People's Heroes team and Black Adam's faction, both of whose ranks consist almost entirely of C-List Fodder or worse, attack Superman. Surely the Man of Steel will wipe them all out effortlessly, right? Instead, even Superman can't keep up with the relentless group attacks, especially when he's trying to protect civilians, and he gets beaten to a bloody pulp until he's forced to beg for Dr. Manhattan's help.
  • G.I. Joe:
    • G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel) often uses this trope, especially when dealing with the feuds between various ninja-clans associated with either the team or the Cobra. Good example from America's Elite #26, where Snake-Eyes and Scarlett battle several dozens of mook-ninja's with great success. When nasty bad guy Firefly tries to escape, Scarlett tells Snake-Eyes to "Go, I'll take care of these losers", even though there are still at least a dozen left. The battle between Snake-Eyes and Firefly is epic in every regard. During the original Marvel run, issue #91, when Larry Hama was still writing the script, there was a slightly more plausible version, where Snake-Eyes, Scarlett, Jinx and Timber face-off about twenty Red Ninjas. First sixteen go down easily, whereas the last four manage to cause grievous wounds to both Scarlett and Jinx and cut up Snakes a bit, before going down.
    • G.I. Joe (IDW): When Cobra forces first appear in the series, a single "blueshirt" Cobra Trooper (not even a Viper) neatly mops the floor with Snake Eyes. Pretty soon, though, the Joes are easily taking down Cobra forces, and it's clear that their only advantage is the M.A.S.S. device and their ability to catch the Joes by surprise.
  • Despite each individual member having their own power source (which, technically speaking, all drain from the same source, which is however essentially infinite), the Green Lantern Corps is painfully prone to this trope.
  • The Incredible Hulk: The Hulk can spend a comic battling one superhero or villain, but when faced with the entire army of them then he takes them out like flies. Conversely if Hulk is on a team, he never seems to pull out quite the same levels of power/rage. Perhaps justified as Hulk's rage would increase if he felt bullied by a large group of people as opposed to facing a single opponent, thus producing more rage, which would increase his strength accordingly.
  • Infinite Crisis: The O.M.A.C. Project does this with the O.M.A.C. units; a single O.M.A.C. is a formidable enemy for Superman, two O.M.A.C.s were formidable enemies against Batman and Sasha Bordeaux, three were completely obliterated by Rocket Red detonating himself, and nearly a million O.M.A.C.s were taken out by an Electro Magnetic Pulse.
  • In JLA/Avengers, the combined strength of Superman and the Martian Manhunter is not enough to knock out Thor in the first fight. Later, Superman finds the strength to put Thor down by himself after a very short (but very brutal) fight.
  • A Silver Age JSA/JLA crossover had the Thunderbolt fall under the control of Johnny Thunder's evil Earth-One counterpart. While the Thunderbolt is one of the most powerful beings in the universe, when fighting the JSA, it was easily defeated when it split itself into six beings to take on each member. Justified because its power was spread evenly between all six bodies.
  • Zig-Zagged in Justice League/Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers as the Rangers easily overpower Batman, but the fight is ground to a halt when The Flash enters and disarms the team.
  • The Hand, a group of elite ninja in Marvel Comics, is almost nothing but cannon fodder. The willingness to die seems to be more important in membership consideration than skill, considering how many hundreds (perhaps thousands) of these guys characters like Wolverine and Elektra have waded through. These were, at least in part, the inspiration for the Foot Clan, below.
    • Their earliest appearances, during Frank Miller's run on Daredevil, more or less codified the trope. Daredevil and Elektra would periodically face whole armies of Hand mooks and win fairly easily, then the Hand threw a few elite swordsmen at them and gave them a serious fight, and a little after that they produced a named super-ninja for a downright difficult boss fight.
    • The trope was later somewhat handwaved in a Wolverine comic "...[the mooks] have to be careful they don't chop one of their own by mistake. While I can hit anyone I please."
    • The Hand averted this one once by ambushing Wolverine with enough ninja to cripple his movement and leave him defenseless, allowing the Gorgon to chop his head off. He gets better, then plays the trope straight for six issues of payback that practically wiped the ninja clan out.
  • Marvel Universe's Wrecking Crew's leader the Wrecker splits the power of his magical crowbar among the Crew. The Wrecker by himself is usually a serious threat. He has given a (weakened) Thor the fight of his life and later held his own against the New Avengers. The Wrecking Crew, Depending on the Writer, are either serious threats or joke villains. They can go anywhere from being able to beat down Hercules to struggling with the Punisher to getting curb stomped by the Runaways. The Wrecker is actually aware of this trope, but willingly splits his power anyway since the Crew, occasional treachery from the team's Evil Genius aside, is like family to the Wrecker.
  • Justified in the Marvel Universe supervillain team The Wrecking Crew. They share their strength among each other, so if they act as a team, they are individually weaker. If it's just The Wrecker, the original source of power, acting alone, he is far more formidable as he is not sharing his strength with 3-4 other men.
  • In The Negation #11, Obregon Kaine reminisces on a lesson from his training days as he watches hundreds of superpowered Australians thoroughly fail to defeat General Murquade: "It doesn't matter if you're fighting ten enemies or a hundred...just worry about the one you're killing now!"
  • On full display in Revival during the finale. A sword-wielding ninja attacks a group of US military with assault rifles. The ninja cuts them down easily until challenged by their commanding officer to single combat, which grinds to a stalemate.
  • Red Robin: When Tim was ambushed by a single member of the Council of Spiders he managed to very nearly kill Tim. When Tim later faced the same individual along with five more Council members he's able to avoid injury entirely, wound most of them, and drop a ceiling on their heads while protecting a civilian. Somewhat justified as the Council members are used to working solo and become a hindrance to each other in the close quarters they were in the second time around and Tim was better rested and not taken by surprise.
  • In Rising Stars, this is true, in that whenever a special dies, his power is divided among all the surviving specials, making them stronger. As the body count racks up over the course of the series, it goes from where, at the start, a few non-powered mooks could easily gun down dozens of low-powered specials to the point where, near the end, any one special can take out entire armies.
  • Played with in a Runaways comic where Kingpin faces the heroes with an army of ninjas (more ninjas than usual, according to one kid). During the fight, Molly (a superstrong girl who was very upset about punching Punisher, who had no powers to protect him, and had sworn off fighting anyone without powers) asks if ninjas had powers so she could fight them. She is given the answer, that, because they were ninjas, they counted as double, the implication being that heroes in the Marvel universe cut loose when fighting ninjas.
  • The X-books X-over "Second Coming" was made of this trope. One Nimrod class sentinel nearly wipes out the combined X-Men and Hellfire Club. An army of them is nearly cannon fodder. Plus a combined force of Bastion, Stephen Lang, Bolivar Trask, William Stryker, Graydon Creed and Cameron Hodge getting taken out.
  • In Secret Six vol 2 issue 6, Strix very easily takes care of Riddler's goons in 4 panels in issue 6. The Riddler just stands there completely dumbfounded.
  • Shazam!: The Marvel Family's powers work like this in Shazam! (2012); The more that are active, the more their powers are divided amongst them. It goes back and forth for them. Sometimes they're splitting the same power source, sometimes they each have their own.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Collide: When Sonic, Mega Man and their friends go up against literally every Robot Master Mega Man has ever fought, it looks to played straight as they seem to be going down with only slightly more trouble than regular baddies. It then becomes subverted when the heroes realize the time-bending nature of the Skull Egg Zone means any defeated Robot Master is instantly revived. The result is that the army gradually wears them down until Dr. Light's other Robot Masters arrive to take over and give them a chance to send more forces to attack the doctors directly.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Unite: Gradually subverted. The army of mooks and mini-bosses that Sigma starts with plays it straight as they go down no problem. The Deadly Six that follow up are much tougher, especially after they gain an advantage by taking over the heroic robots with their technology-controlling powers. Then after they're defeated, Sigma brings in his army of all the major Maverick bosses and they whip the already battered and tired heroes without any discernible losses. The only reason the good guys survive is Sigma grabs the Villain Ball and decides to send the bulk of his forces to get him more power and leaving only a handful to finish them, giving Sticks time to arrive with backup.
    • Played straight in the final battle. The newly-assembled army can take on the much larger of Sigma clones without issue. Then Sigma decides to join in and he's handling everyone with ease. In Sigma's case, he'd absorbed the power of dozens of worlds, boosting his strength to the point only Super Sonic and Super Mega Man could stand a chance.
  • Spider-Man has this habit to a lesser extent. He has fought the Fantastic Four and X-Men more than once and holds his own rather well even though individual members can and have done well against the wall-crawler in one-on-one fights.
  • Street Fighter (Malibu Comics): Guile gets into a bar brawl after a dork has the brilliant idea of spilling beer on his hair. Despite being vastly outnumbered, he kicks every single one of their arses
  • Superman:
    • The Supergirl from Krypton (2004): Justified when Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman faced an army of Doomsday clones. Doomsday's clones don't inherit his invulnerability, nor his regeneration, reducing them to one hit point wonders. The army is taken out with heat vision and exploding batarangs.
    • Red Daughter of Krypton: Supergirl vs the Diasporans. A batallion of them? Red Lantern Kara wipes the floor with them. Their leader? Kara almost gets killed off.
    • Bizarrogirl: Downplayed. Godship obliterates an army of Bizarros very, very quickly and easily. He also beats Supergirl and Bizarro down when they attack individually, but He has a harder time doing so.
    • Who is Superwoman??: Reactron killed dozens of Kryptonians when he and Metallo wreaked havoc on New Krypton. But when he ambushes Supergirl she is able to fight back and drive him away.
    • The Hunt for Reactron: The Science Police Squads are armed with anti-Kryptonian weaponry and outnumber the trio of heroes; even so, they get their butts kicked by Supergirl, Flamebird and Nightwing every time.
    • This trope tends to work in Doomsday's favor as well, especially with those who uses him right - he's trashed two iterations of the Justice League, an iteration of the Suicide Squad and, in his early days, mowed through an army of Green Lanterns. He's practically ground to a halt when Superman steps in.
    • New Krypton: Played straight or averted depending on the issue. When Doomsday shows up, Superman, Supergirl and a dozen of Kryptonians beat him into the ground. Later, Reactron and Metallo sneak into Kandor and kill dozens of Kryptonians by themselves. And in the War of Supermen arc 80,000 Kryptonians are canon fodder.
    • Played straight during Infinite Crisis with Superboy-Prime: he tears through the gathered teams of Doom Patrol, the Teen Titans and the Justice Society with ease, but is easily spirited away by the Flashes save for the Golden Age one. Later on, he battles an army of Green Lanterns, killing nearly 50 of them, only to be stopped and put down by the Golden Age and Modern Age Supermen. Conner Kent, who is nowhere near as strong as Superman can fight him a lot longer mano a mano than anyone can during a dogpile.
    • The Great Darkness Saga: Played with. On the one hand, Superboy and Supergirl give Darkseid more trouble than all other members of the Legion of Super-Heroes put together. On the another hand, Darkseid gives up and teleports away when his mind-control upon three billions of Daxamites gets broken and they turn on him.
    • Averted in The Great Phantom Peril. Not even Superman can keep thirty Phantom Zoners at bay for long before being overwhelmed and pinned down.
    • Played with in Last Daughter of Krypton. Supergirl against dozens of Symon Tycho's mercenaries clad in Powered Armor? She stomps all over them. Reign against a whole squad of the US Army? She tears through them with insulting ease. Kara against four Wordkillers? She is in actual trouble because each is as powerful as her.
    • The Phantom Zone: Zigzagged. Supergirl is curbstomped by three Phantom Zoners. When Superman and Supergirl fight five Zoners, though, they defeat three of them and force Zod and Faora to run away.
    • Death & the Family: Averted. Supergirl and Gangbuster are quickly swarmed and beaten by the legions of giant bug mooks commanded by Insect Queen.
    • The Earthwar Saga: Played with. Any Legionnaire is an One-Man Army, but the Khunds' numerical superiority is so overwhelming that the Legion cannot stop them from landing on Earth.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Mirage): Subverted in an early issue. Leonardo does battle with practically the entire Foot Clan and gets his ass kicked. Although, he did manage to put up quite a fight. This is actually an example of the Law breaking down as noted above, as Leonardo was increasingly worn down by one wave of Foot ninjas after another, while each successive group of ninjas was fresh.
  • The "Million Zillion Ninja" arc from the original run of The Tick runs into this. The leader of the ninja clan operating in The City had turned ninjitsu into a cheap franchise operation, and as a result even if there are a million zillion ninja running around, only three of them were even remotely competent - the previous leader of the local clan, his handpicked student, and an out of towner who is utterly appalled at what the local ninja had become.
  • The Tomb of Dracula: After a lengthy process of defeating Blade's Evil Knockoff and separating the two from each other, he and Hannibal King come across a dozen of them made from themselves when they go after Deacon Frost, and defeat them with ease.
  • Ultimate Marvel:
    • Ultimate Galactus Trilogy: Captain America lands in the middle of an unending army of deadly Heather Douglas clones, all of them armed to the teeth. They do not stand a chance.
    • All-New Ultimates: Loads and loads of Serpent Skulls go against Bombshell, who is in the middle of a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. What happens next is no surprise.
  • X-Men: Some supervillains have discovered, to their misfortune, that this cuts both ways. Juggernaut vs an entire team? A city-wrecking battle in which the individual X-Men are injured, trains are derailed and buildings fall down. Juggernaut and Black Tom vs Cyclops? Cyclops runs rings around them while his internal monologue digresses about military history. Total property damage: One exploding pickup truck. This is especially common in Crisis Crossover situations, where small armies of hundreds of supervillains individually strong enough to give their hero a rough time can find their members dropping like flies.

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