Godzilla Thresholds in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- Avenger of Steel:
- The Ancient One is forced to use the Time Stone to reverse time and undo the ritual that Lorelei used to boost her powers to the point where her voice could enthrall Superman from a distance, resurrecting her thralls that she had kill each other to fuel it in the process, to free him from her control.
- The only way for Superman to stop the perpetually-regenerating Solomon Grundy is to break his bones, cut up the limbs, store the limbs in separate boxes and then melt all the boxes into one large cocoon so Grundy can never put himself back together.
- In Avengers: Infinite Wars, the threat posed by the cyborg killer Durge is so serious that War Machine uses a Tank Missile against his enemy, which he only has six of in his arsenal and may not be able to replace with available tech until they can get back to Earth.
- In Boldores And Boomsticks (Pokémon/RWBY), Salem, who has been going to great pains to prevent anyone from Earth crossing an Ultra Wormhole to Remnant, learns from Cinder that there is an Absol in Beacon Academy. She tells Cinder that her priority is now to kill the Absol, even if it means breaking her cover and sacrificing their plans to claim the rest of the Fall Mantle.
- In The Bridge (MLP), 200-something Gyaos flying straight towards Canterlot with nothing else to stop them? Time to revert the ponified Godzilla back into his true form. Princess Luna was not happy about it. Thankfully, it's a heroic version of the character.
- In the Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover A Captain and a Madman
, the Eleventh Doctor (nearing his death at Lake Silencio) finds himself trapped in the Star Trek universe, but finds various clues to suggest that he existed in this universe in some form. After exhausting most of his leads, the Doctor is left with only one solution; taking Captain Picard as a companion and a credible character witness, the Doctor travels to Voyager during its time in the Delta Quadrant so that he can infiltrate and essentially 'hack' the Borg Collective, turning the Collective's full processing power to the task of determining the true nature of this universe. - In The Confectionary Chronicles, faced with the threat of the angels coming down to investigate the assault on Odin’s forces committed by Loki and his children as they try to rescue Hermione, Gabriel unleashes his full potential as an archangel to destroy Odin while his children escape, managing to time the attack so that he can depart before the angels arrive and destroy most of Odin’s remaining followers while leaving them unaware of Gabriel’s own presence.
- In Contact at Kobol, while the Colonies can’t threaten Earth itself, the escalating conflict eventually reaches a point where Earth decides that the best solution is to trap the Twelve Colonies in a time dilation field, which gives Earth five years to increase their military resources where the Colonials believe it’s just been a few months.
- In Dangerous Tenant, the danger if Wesker’s plan succeeds is so great that the Doctor is forced to modify the D-virus so that it will actively kill anyone actively infected with the T-Virus rather than just cure a dormant strain and render them immune to future infection.
- Dedicated Hearts made Fullmetal: After the timeskip, the Survey Corps and the Elric brothers have a plan to force Marley into negotiations to try and prevent as many casualties as possible. Unfortunately, the sabotages caused by Eren and the Yeagerists, coupled with several uprisings within the walls of Paradis send those plans down the drain. When the threat of the Rumbling seems imminent, Erwin and Armin convince the Elrics to create a Philosopher's Stone using the Titans they've got in captivity, as it's the only thing that would be able to match the power of the Colossal Titans within the walls.
- Earth's Alien History:
- Ra is desperate enough in the fight against TeTO that he welcomes Anubis back into the System Lords despite not remotely trusting him.
- The terrorist attacks by the Syrannites (a xenophobic sect that hates anything that deviates from Surak's teachings) get serious enough that the Vulcan government invokes the clause in the TeTO charter that revokes a religion's protected status if that religion is a public threat. As this has never been done before and sets a dangerous precedent, the TeTO general assembly is hesitant to do this, and the motion barely passes.
- Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls:
- Captain Celestia considers her Zanpakuto too dangerous to release in a populated area. Everytime she'd used it so far, forests spontaneously catch fire, lakes evaporate in seconds and mountains melt, so it's easy to see why.
- Lament. He's already unstable but in his Resurrection he loses the shreds of control he has and acts like a feral beast out to kill everything in sight. He knows about it and if he really needs to use it he makes sure there's no one dear to him around. He even has a bunker under his tower for his family to hide from him.
- FateBuild: The Mechanical Magus: Normally, the Masters and Servants involved in the Holy Grail War don't make any major alliances, and Magi don't really have much concern for Muggles as long as they don't learn about the Masquerade. Faust and Bloodstalk, however, are so dangerous, in part because their actions could expose the Moonlit World by accident, that Kirei calls a truce so that everyone can focus on taking down Faust.
- In Fractured, a Mass Effect/Star Wars/Borderlands crossover, the Reaper invasion causes the normally-benign-if-ineffective Citadel Council to be replaced by the United Defense Command, a huge believer in Straw Civilian among other things, which are all shown to be negative In-Universe. Nobody really argues because the Reaper threat is just that big, even though afterward people realize what a mess it made.
- In the sequel, Origins, problems with Faster-Than-Light Travel cause a Force-sensitive Siren to believe the line has been crossed because trans-dimensional gateways will let in an Alien Invasion so terrible that killing everyone is justified to stop the use of these dangerous drives. When the invasion is revealed to be the Flood, who proceeds to conquer two-and-a-half galaxies, some of the heroes wonder if the crazy killer might have a point once Cortana insists the only way to stop the invasion is to starve it to death by eliminating all sapient life.
- In Frozen Turtles in Space, Lord Dregg pushes Elsa so far that she condemns his entire planet to an eternal winter, and even Anna has no problem with them inflicting such a fate on Dregg's people after everything he's done.
- Hybrid Hive: Eat Shard?: Taylor's father suggests that she cannibalise the Boat Graveyard for projectiles to launch at Leviathan. She's concerned that there might be legal complications afterward, but he assures her that for attacking an Endbringer, pretty much anything goes as far as the law is concerned.
- Infinity Crisis:
- In Of Kryptonians and Queens, it is suggested that Merlin has reached this point when he summons Etrigan to oppose Morgana's latest demon incursion.
- In In Hand and Foot, the situation becomes so bad that the Defenders and the Turtles are willing to work with the Punisher despite their usual distaste for his methods.
- In Counterpart Conferences, it is revealed that the Batman of Earth-1992 has been searching the multiverse to find the missing Joker and Ra's al Ghul, having correctly deduced that they have travelled to a different Earth. While he and Alfred each agreed that Batman can't interfere in the other Earths he witnesses, they make an exception when they witness the Batman of Earth-99, who has not only killed his enemies but gone so far as to kill Superman because he was concerned about what the Man of Steel might do, Batman and Alfred agreeing that version of Bruce Wayne has to be stopped.
- The Institute Saga has the Omega Protocols, by which the different superhero teams request the support of every supervillain, to fight off a threat to the entire world. Brainiac's arrival to Earth's orbit prompts Superman to make the call.
- In Justice League of the Rebellion, with the Seven Deadly Sins running rampant throughout Tokyo (with one of them taking Kallen's mother as a host and another taking Lelouch) and learning that the Wizard had passed on, Kallen/Queen Shazam and Doctor Fate are forced to summon the one person that knows the most about the Sins: the previous wielder of the Power of Shazam, Black Adam, who was banished by the wizard for using his power to slaughter his previous oppressors.
- Kimi No Na Iowa: In the opening days of the Abyssal War, China was being hit hard enough, with major cities like Beijing and Tianjin heavily damaged or outright razed to the ground and high-level leadership fatally wounded or killed, that the PLA was ordered to do everything, even including the Nuclear Option, to drive back the invaders. They did.
- The Lightning Strike;
- While Wanda and Strange have the Mind and Time Stones, the Avengers all agree that the Infinity Stones are only to be used as an absolute last resort.
- Likewise, Harry chooses to only use dark magic when faced with a truly serious threat, such as the Demogorge, and that only after literally every other weapon the Avengers have, ranging from Mjolnir to Tony's latest designs, has proven ineffective. When facing Thanos in the ruins of Asgard, Harry resorts to using the Eternal Flame and the Casket of Ancient Winters, which also allow him to summon Inferi.
- In The Moon's Flash Princess, before Asuna arrived with the Silver Crystal and the other SAO survivors the war against the Dark Kingdom had brought the Sailor Senshi to their physical and psychological limits, to the point Minako was about to cross it and call in powerful allies that would cause great collateral damage.
- Miraculous Escalation:
- Skitter's intervention causes Hawkmoth to consider negotiating in person with Ladybug and Chat Noir rather than sending out Akumas.
- Echidna's rampage through Paris drives Chat Noir to use his power on a living person.
- Later, when Gold Morning begins, Taylor reaches two at once: She resorts to using an akuma, rather than calling a Champion, and she uses it on the Simurgh, as a means of controlling all of the other Endbringers. That's technically twenty-one Godzillas responding to the threshold.
- The MLP Loops:
- One example where viruses got into the Equestrian Loop, creating a loop so horrifying that Sleipnir, the admin for the Equestrian Loop, personally entered the loop, rescued Twilight, fought their way into the lower levels of Hell, locked Hell from the inside, and then crashed the loop by causing the apocalypse. How horrifying is something when creating further multiversal instability is better than letting it continue to exist? Also note the Sleipnir is portrayed as one of the most responsible and levelheaded of the admins.
- There was also an example of Twilight and Pinkie Pie ending up in a Nineteen Eighty-Four-esque version of Equestria. Twilight's response?Twilight Sparkle: Pinkamena Diane Pie?
Pinkie Pie: Yes Twilight?
Twilight Sparkle: You know all those things I normally ask you not to do? Do them.
- The Night Unfurls: Kyril is this to Celestine. Despite having a vision about the Good Hunter ends up either the saviour or destroyer of her land, the latter being the more likely outcome as he is a brutal killer, she has no choice but to call for his assistance, in order to end the war with Olga swiftly.
- In The Odyssey Resurgence, SG-1 comes to appreciate how stretched the ESD's resources must be when General Landry (Stargate SG-1) tells General Adams (Independence Day: Resurgence) about the Replicators and Adams considers the possibility of turning the Replicators on the Harvesters to stop them, although Adams accepts Carter and Landry's argument that the Replicators are too dangerous to seriously consider that as an option.
- SAPR: With no time or possibility of reinforcements, Pyrrha and Jaune release the supposedly-repentant Cinder from stasis to help them stop the corrupted Amber from taking the Relic of Choice.
- Sixes and Sevens: How King Azzuri justifies letting Michael obtain a sample of the heart-shaped herb - though he stresses that the sample is all they're getting unless the Allied governments are willing to negotiate.King Azzuri: Giving you even one sample of the herb will only tempt more to come to steal from my people. But there is a madman who cannot be stopped without great effort. Maybe what you plan to do will buy those who oppose him a day. Will bring victory closer.
Michael: Thank you, your majesty.
King Azzuri: But let it be known. Tell your masters that we will not tolerate theft from our people. They may come to us, and negotiate a fair agreement. That is all we want: respect.- In Headfirst Slide, the line is crossed by Cynthia von Doom when she senses her husband's death and gives in to Chthon to use the Scarlet Witch powers so that she can defeat the emperor's guardsmen. It backfires spectacularly.
- In Spider, Slayer, Vampires and Avengers, the Heroes have together faced down villains like Glory, Sahjhan, Jasmine, the First Evil, the Senior Partners, Thanos and Magus, but Apocalypse is worse than all of them, and even together, they struggle to beat him. In the final battle, Steve using Mjolnir empowered by the Power Stone, Tony having a suit empowered by the Space Stone, Strange with the Time Stone, Wanda with the Reality Stone, Adam Warlock with the Soul Stone, Willow Rosenberg with the Mind Stone, along with Ghost Rider and Hulk, and also a boosted Thor, Hercules and Matt/Adam (Matt's demonic alter ego) struggle to take him down.
- There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton:
- In Chapter 15 of Changing of the Guard, when Ben refuses to run from Vilgax, since that would just cause him to spread chaos and destruction chasing the Omnitrix through the galaxy, and at least in Arcadia they have the home field advantage, the Azmuth A.I. unlocks the Omnitrix's Master Control so he can at least give Ben the best chance he'll get for success.
- In Chapter 35 of The Girl Who Could Knock Out the Hulk, the heroes are about to be overwhelmed by Doom's supernatural allies, so Ellie allows Thor and Strange to supercharge her enough that she can use her Ghostly Wail against them, despite the fact that doing so could potentially destabilize and melt her. Fortunately, she just loses consciousness right after taking all the villains out of commission.
- As Strange explains in Refusal of the Call, Voldemort's rising power in the British wizard community was enough of a potential threat to the global magical balance that the Ancient One actually decided to break her normal neutrality and intervene. This was only subverted by Dumbledore talking her out of it, due to already having his own plans in place.
- Thousand Shinji: When the race of killer robots known as Necrons were taking over the galaxy and killing literally everything, the Emperor of Mankind was desperate enough to agree to a truce with the Ruinous Powers and let Earth fall to Chaos. Usually he'd never, ever, consider such a scenario.
- The Trickster and the Grand Order: Igor grimly admits he never granted Magic Circuits to a guest of the Velvet Room because they would endanger themselves and the world, but mankind's extermination drives him to perform the surgery on Ren. Not only that, he gave Ren such an amount that he can rival with the most ancient, powerful magi lineages because the Wild Card genuinely needs that much firepower to his disposition.
- It also applies to Romani Archaman who's suspicious of Ren for having strange abilities he won't explain and a weird creature more akin to a monstruous beast than a familiar under his employ, but has no other Master candidates to save mankind.
- In Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Supergirl crossover The Vampire of Steel, the Scooby Gang is facing a Kryptonian vampire. Since it's mightier than Supergirl — and we're talking about the Pre-Crisis version who was known to kick moons out of and back in orbit here — the Girl of Steel gets tools capable of killing or banishing a Kryptonian and tells the Gang to use them if things go South, no matter what. Note that she's usually against killing, but she's willing to make an exception for Zol-Am.Buffy: And this is...what?
Giles: I do believe I know. I'm not quite sure I'm comfortable with it. At all.
Supergirl: (nodding) These are our two last lines of defense. This is a Phantom Zone ray. Just worry about the white button. If you touch that, whatever you point this at will be instantly banished to the Zone. This one I've set to burn out its power element just two minutes after activation. That should prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. If all else fails, use this on Zol-Am. I don't want him back in the Zone. I don't know if he can infect other inmates there with vampirism, and I don't want to find out. If I don't have to.
Buffy: Yeah. One vamp with powers to change the course of mighty graveyards is all we need for now. And what's in this little box?
Supergirl: (grasping her wrist) Don't.
Giles: I know what is in there. Kryptonite.
Buffy: Kryptonite? You're serious?
Supergirl: What do you think? If even the Zone projector fails, you have to use this against Zol-Am. It must be in close proximity to him for several minutes to kill him. If it gets knocked too far away, or he manages to fly off, or lead gets between it and him... he can recover. Also, don't expect him to be too pleased.
Buffy: We can't use that against him while you're around.
Supergirl: Buffy. You'll only use this as a last resort. But if that happens, you will use it whatever the circumstances.
Buffy: But...
Supergirl: Whatever the circumstances. Am I clear? - In the A Certain Magical Index/Puella Magi Madoka Magica crossover Walpurgisnaught, when Touma learns of the abominable system the Incubators do with Magical Girls and Witches, he breaks his no-killing code with sentient beings and obliterates Kyubey.
- In White Devil of the Moon, when a combination attack of Nanoha, Fate, and Hayate's strongest attacks don't work on Queen Metalla, Nanoha is forced to load up the Silver Crystal into Rising Heart, despite the fact that Nanoha could die going all-out.
- Alex Mercer in Wolf in Sheep's Clothing is The Dreaded to anyone who knows of him, even visibly scaring Ozpin. He is an immortal, invincible EX-Class Grimm (meaning he is more powerful and dangerous than any other Grimm on the planet) that not even a nuclear bomb could kill. You can tell how desperate Ozpin truly is when he asks Alex to protect Beacon after Salem makes her move. Thankfully, Alex accepts.
- The fan-video If Mia Fey used her Trump Card against Dahlia Hawthorne has the use of Spirit Channeling in court as this for Mia, as a result of the fallout and backlash against the Fey Clan from when her mother Misty used it for the DL-6 case. But with Dahlia about to get away with murdering her step-sister Valerie in "Turnabout Beginning", she chooses to do so to channel Valerie Hawthorne and testify about who really killed her. In this case, she's relying on the spirit channeling being done in the courthouse rather than in private like with her mother.
- In An Interdimensional Meet, when the Flash, Supergirl and the Martian Manhunter are forced to fight Doomsday (here the mutated and brainwashed Jeremiah Danvers), the Flash initially tries to stop Doomsday by vibrating and trapping him inside a hill. When that fails, Supergirl takes Doomsday into orbit and throws him into deep space, hoping that his inability to fly will ensure that Doomsday can't come back.
- In What It Takes, with no way to alert Oliver to what's happening in their home as Damien Darhk takes power and Laurel is forced on the run as the city's only remaining active vigilante, Thea goes to Malcolm for help in contacting him. Later, when the city government goes so far as to release the criminals arrested because of Team Arrow, Thea finally concludes that it's time for her to return to the streets as Red Arrow.
- In Wrong Road to the Right Place, faced with both the Undertaking and pressure from the Bratva, Team Arrow reach out to Helena Bertinelli for help.
- In Twist of Fate, Moses uses his Time Master powers to defeat Teitoku Kakine by making him suffer Rapid Aging. Moses explains that he would normally not do something this horrible, but the situation they were trying to stop is extremely desperate, Kakine wouldn't get out of their way, and he was strong enough to shrug off Moses' attempts to freeze him.
- In Once And Future Witches, the Charmed Ones are forced to travel back and forth through time to stop a threat targeting Leo, resulting in the Charmed Ones of 2007 working with their younger selves of 1999 (which leads to Prue and Paige meeting), as well as Chris coming back from 2026 to help them further. In the end, the group determine that their threat is a demon trapped outside of Time seeking to form a new Triad, with part of that plan involving attacking Leo in three separate time periods aided by a warlock and a darklighter. The groups subsequently determine that the only way to stop this demon is to create a 'good' Triad to counter it, with Piper, Paige and Chris representing witches, whitelighters and Elders respectively (Chris counts as an Elder as Leo was an Elder when he was conceived).
- In the first story of the Facing the Future Series, Dark Danny's return results in Clockwork bringing in Danny and Sam's future selves and Sam getting ghost powers of her own in order to stop him.
- In Digimon Adventure 02: The Story We Never Told, Magnaangemon clearly considers the Gate of Destiny this, as anything that falls into it basically ceases to exist, even if he agrees that Blackwargreymon is dangerous enough to at least attempt to use it on him. However, after Dagomon has been driven back, Magnaangemon has to ensure that the Deadmon attacking the human world are dealt with by opening another Gate of Destiny over the whole city, despite the potential risk of innocent people getting pulled in by chance.
- Daemon from the Tamers Forever Series is considered to be such an unbeatable opponent that the Tamers' only hope is for Takato to die before Daemon can absorb the power of a god.
- In A Greater Compliment, when Charley Pollard meets the Ninth Doctor and learns about the Time War, she's horrified to think that the War pushed the Doctor to a point where his only option was to destroy his own people to save the universe; considering the lengths he went to just to save her life when Charley's existence put the universe at risk, Charley knows that the only circumstances under which the Doctor would have destroyed Gallifrey would be if he had literally exhausted every other option.
- In Mater Familias Bulma, trapped in the Capsule Corporation by a hacked Android 16 with Imperfect Cell and Gero coming there, decides to do something she admits was insane or truly desperate: add cell samples from Android 17 and 18 to the still cocooned Present Cell, hoping that, having been recovered before Gero's machine could properly brainwash him, he'll help. It works, partly because he's actually grateful for that and partly because Cell manages to disgust him.
- When Dad Gets Involved: For Sarah, the reason that she tattle on her brother Ed to their mom rather than their dad is because he's a "scorched earth policy" with the same Super-Strength as them and the willingness to punish both of them for any wrong-doings he catches them. Sarah is forced to call him when Ed falls into a cul-de-sac destroying rampage... which leaves the neighborhood more wrecked in their brawl and their dad grounding Sarah when he finds out that Ed's rage was because she torn up Ed's Evil Tim comic.
- In Blame It on the Brain, this is invoked in various ways, ranging from some Nibblonians choosing to bring the Brainspawn back to stop Onespawn (a single Brainspawn that has mutated itself in various ways) to the Omicronians joining forces with Earth to try and attack the main threat.
- Kimberly T's Gargoyles: In "Deadly Moon", when Fox, Anne, Bethany, Alexander and Owen are all imprisoned, Alexander is in danger of either starving to death or getting an infection. This drives Fox to try intentionally triggering her Were-Fox state, seeing it as their only option to escape.
- Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Vivienne Graham at one point goes into a Berserker frenzy where she's unable to tell friend from foe, and her rampage gets so bad, San reluctantly resorts to triggering Vivienne's traumatic memory of when Ghidorah's middle head ate her alive in the hope the shock and fear will make her stop attacking. San feels so bad about doing this that he goes into a mild Heroic BSoD afterwards.
- Petrification Proliferation: upon learning that Slytherin's monster was a basilisk, Dumbledore shuts down Hogwarts for the remainder of the term, evacuates the students and informs the DMLE, who promptly recalls every Auror and Hit Wizard aside the bare minimum patrol from Azkaban to inspect the school for nests and eggs. This is because, for the quite small population of the Wizarding World, a single basilisk is effectively the equivalent of a nuke, and had the beast managed to kill the students before being slain, the effect would have been worse for them than the nuking of London would be for the Muggle United Kingdom-hence it being illegal to not report a basilisk sighting and the British Ministry mobilizing everything they had to make sure there weren't any more at Hogwarts.
- Persephone: Hiccup tells Stoick that his mother's alive out of desperation that Stoick will at least spare Astrid and the dragons and hopefully change his mind about the Red Death.
- Invader Zim: A Bad Thing Never Ends: Dib considers having to ask Zim for help against Aldrich in the finale to be this trope, though Fizzmitz states that he has a currently undisclosed other option that's actually worse, so he's keeping it in reserve for now.
- Jackie Chan Adventures: Olympian Journey: During the climax of the Poseidon arc, the threat of the Six-Eared Macaque running amok with Poseidon's essence is enough to galvanize the Eight Immortals and kick the slow-moving Celestial Bureaucracy into high-gear, leading to the Immortals repairing the Armor of the Gods and giving it to Sun Wukong in the hopes that the true Monkey King can defeat him.
- Queen of All Oni: After the Near-Villain Victory of Operation Steel Lighting, Captain Black organizes an emergency Plan B to be used in case Jade is ever on the verge of utterly defeating the heroes again. When this happens during Operation Endgame, the plan is triggered, revealed to be reanimating the statue of Lo Pei and unleashing him. Tellingly, one of the codes needed to put this plan into action actually is "Godzilla".
- Shadows Awakening: During the penultimate battle in the Forge of Shadows, Daolon Wong is empowered to the point of nearly defeating the J-Team singlehandedly. This forces Jade to remove the Tiger Talisman, which has been keeping her growing corruption by the Queen in check — this allows her greater control of her powers, enough to fight Wong evenly, but risks her being fully corrupted by the Queen. In fact, the Queen grows strong enough to separate from Jade entirely, thus becoming the new Big Bad.
- The Ultimate Evil: It's made clear that the Demon Sorcerers view using the Book of Ages as this due to the potential risks of reality being destroyed, but they don't have any other choice if they want to escape the Netherworld.
- In The Hyde Factor, with Ron, Wade, and Kim and Ron's families being held hostage and unlikely to be released alive, Kim allows her dark alter-ego Faye to take over completely.
- Shen vs. Kai: When Kai activates his Oogway Jombie, it's always this trope. Oogway is the most powerful spirit in Kai's Jombie collection, but having to rely on him at all is a Berserk Button for the chi-stealing yak, and he gets pissed when the Wolf Boss actually manages to make him desperate enough to use Oogway in a fight.
- Life After Hayate mentions the Time-Space Administrative Bureau's General Order #27: "The capture of or possession of dimensional flexure equipment by any non-Bureau person or group is unacceptable. Any normal rules of engagement may be suspended at the discretion of the guard force as necessary to prevent it falling into the hands of others." Leti Lowran stresses to the Wolkenritter that this is the one circumstance where they can do anything if they think they have to.
- Later on the story mentions the Carneades Protocol, which amends the normal rules of engagement to include the statement "any level of collateral damage necessary to complete the mission is acceptable." It is essentially the Godzilla Threshold given form: no matter how much damage you might be able to do if you put your mind to it, your failure is considered worse.
- In The Other Side (memoriaeterna), when the other half of the heroes survive the Snap, the heroes still manage to find a way to travel back to retrieve past versions of the Infinity Stones. Although committed to their goal, when Peter, Wanda and Strange learn of the sacrifice required to retrieve the Soul Stone, Wanda and Strange each reject the idea of Peter sacrificing himself to get it, openly stating that they’d prefer to go back to Titan to take the Soul Stone from Thanos or try and accelerate the restoration of the Soul Stone in their present despite the risks of such an approach, as anything’s better than sacrificing themselves when they have options.
- A Crooked Man: The Illuminati attempt to gather the Infinity Gems to use against Ginnungagap. However, Ginnungagap has already taken from them (except the Mind Gem as Xavier is on good terms with Ginnungagap) and given them to more responsible people.
- In The Science is Not Impossible, when Megamind accidentally travels to an alternate timeline where he and Metroman basically had each other's childhoods, he reveals that he actually did have a plan that could have legitimately killed Metroman that he never bothered to use back home because he freely concedes that he never seriously wanted his foe dead; lure Metroman into space and then trap him in a black hole.
- Cheshire: After the Black Queen incident, Marinette decided that the situation is dire enough that she starts recruiting allies. Given her significant trust issues, as well as the fact that this requires distributing some of the other kwami she's collected, this is a major risk on her end.
- Crimson and Noire:
- Gabriel almost crosses this in chapter 42 when Style Queen captures and dissolves Adrien and he decides to use the Peacoke Miraculous to save him. Nooro is barely able to talk him out of crossing the Threshold by reminding him that not only the Guardians could have warned the heroes about his Alter Ego Cobalt Plume but that the Peacock Miraculous now carries the same damage the Butterfly Miraculous used to have. Gabriel relents when Nooro convinces him to let the heroes rescue his son rather than let the latter see his father suffer the same illness that his mother suffered before her disappearance.
- In the following chapter, two thresholds get crossed. The first is Tikki using Miraculous Cure without Crimson Beetle to mitigate it, which comes with the risk of Paris reverting back to prehistoric time. The second is having Lady Noire absorb the corruptive energy of the akuma empowering Style Queen, then unleash it as a Black Storm without any prior training with energy bending, with the plan being to balance the storm and the cure to revert Paris right before the akuma attack.
- The Karma of Lies:
- After Ladybug confides in him about how much stress she's been facing lately, Luka convinces her to set a trap for Hawkmoth. Both recognize how incredibly dangerous this is, as the only thing that can lure him out of hiding is one of the Miraculi he's after, and there's a chance of him actually succeeding in his bid to capture it... but if they don't take some kind of action soon, chances are that she'll crack under the pressure and risk getting akumatized herself, which would let him seize her Earrings anyway.
- When Mayura launches her final assault, the army of sentimonsters she unleashes forces Ladybug to seek extra allies, giving Juleka and Rose the Tiger and Pig Miraculi.
- The Lament Series (ChaoticNeutral): Most stories in the series involve somebody like Gabriel, Chloé or Lila getting their hands on the Ladybug Earrings and Black Cat Ring and using them to make a selfish Wish, with the rewritten universe serving as a Self-Inflicted Hell. In Marinette's Lament, by contrast, Marinette really doesn't want to make a Wish at all. But she sees no other alternatives: Not only has Hawkmoth obtained all the other Miraculouses, he took Chat Noir out of the equation, with the rest of her friends and family also missing in action. All she has left are Tikki and Plagg, with the latter encouraging her to cross the threshold — as he puts it, it's either her or Hawkmoth, and he knows who he'd prefer to be making the Wish.
- Long Con: Once it becomes clear that Ms. Bustier won't do anything about Lila, much like how she turns a blind eye towards Chloé's bullying and expects her "model students" to bend over backwards catering to the problem ones, Alya, Adrien and the rest of their classmates decide to do something they'd normally never consider: telling their parents everything about what's going on. It's heavily emphasized that this is a step none of them really want to take, as they fear the potential consequences, but they simply can't see any other way of ensuring Lila's Karma Houdini Warranty runs out. Lila is completely caught off guard.
- Marinette's Week Off: Alya is initially determined to prove herself a Superior Successor to Marinette as the new class president, and that she doesn't need her former friend to help with anything. It takes three days of disasters before she's willing to bite the bullet and convince Marinette that she's got to bail them out... only to be bluntly reminded that Marinette's in the middle of her vacation and isn't available.
- Scarlet Lady:
- When he realizes that he can't shake Reflekta off his tail, Chat Noir ducks into a locker and removes his ring, telling Plagg to take it and find help. Fortunately for him, Reflekta doesn't open the locker upon discovering his hiding spot, sparing his Secret Identity from exposure even as she uses her powers on him.
- Normally, Kwami are forbidden from using their powers without a partner, as their magic is simply too strong without somebody to channel and direct it properly. But when Chloé is captured by Vanisher, Tikki decides to help Chat Noir out directly despite the dangers.
- During the same incident, Master Fu decides to choose another permanent hero to provide Chat Noir with some reliable backup: Marinette, who becomes the new Bee Heroine Marigold.
- During "Princess Fragrance", Tikki is so sick that she's willing to point Chloé towards the Guardian, as she desperately needs medical attention. However, Chloé shows No Sympathy for Tikki, telling her to quit whining and suck it up, so the threshold isn't actually crossed.
- "Intermission 2" features a Downplayed, humorous example: After realizing she'd fallen for her Celebrity Lies, Alya had sworn she'd never interview Lila again. But she's willing to work with her in order to expose Scarlet Lady's true nature... much to Lila's starry-eyed delight.
- During "Reverser", Master Fu temporarily transforms with the Turtle Bracelet in order to help the heroes, who are all suffering from the akuma's powers. As he bluntly informs Chat Noir, his advanced age makes it difficult to maintain his transformation, and he'll suffer a serious backlash upon dropping it, but still used it anyway.
- In Spellbound (Lilafly), when the Unseelie Court kidnaps Marinette, Adrien asks Plagg to activate "Plan Z": pouring enough magic into Adrien to let him fight a Court chief, but at the cost of permanently changing his body and making him too inhuman to ever wield a Miraculous again.
- Weight Off Your Shoulder plays with this with both Marinette and Chloé:
- Marinette initially contemplates picking a successor to pass the Ladybug Earrings to and giving up her Guardianship — along with all of her Miraculous-related memories — after Alya and her Girl Posse invade her bedroom demanding to know all her secrets. But what convinces her that she has to take such drastic measures is Bunnyx trying to reassure her that things will work out, only to accidentally reveal that Shadow Moth will eventually get his hands on the Miracle Box and enslave nearly all the Kwami. This, combined with Bunnyx refusing to help prevent this awful future, compels her to confiscate the Rabbit Miraculous before enacting her plan.
- When Chloé's Karma Houdini Warranty runs out, she finds that her best enablers are no longer useful: her exposed crimes are far beyond Ms. Bustier's classroom, so the teacher can't force her victims to forgive her, and her father's influence is fading fast after he abused his power too many times. So Chloé turns towards a potential new ally: Gabriel Agreste and his legal team. While this is clearly a desperate maneuver, with Ms. Bustier shocked by her going to such extremes, Chloé openly gloats over how she expects this to work in her favor, bragging about her intent to help Gabriel control and micromanage his son's life.
- What Goes Around Comes Around: When Shadow Moth attacks the Dupain-Chengs' bakery, Marinette responds by using Multimouse to create an army out of herself, then has each clone use a different Miraculous on top of the Mouse, effectively enabling her to wield the full power of the Miracle Box by herself... despite the dangers of using more than one Miraculous at once.
- First Order: Normally, using lethal force against any but the worst of villains is illegal and even killing a villain that's threatening to kill innocents is heavily scrutinized. Bu when All For One proves capable of simply warping any captured villains out of prison, lethal force is both authorized and recommended for any villains the heroes encounter. Initially, Izuku resists, but after Muscular goes on two more rampages, including one that killed hundreds of people, he kills the villain during their fifth and final fight.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- The Audience: In chapter 41, Art mentions this trope by name in reference to the Mane Six and the use of the Elements. He must then give a brief, summarized description to Fluttershy.
- The Conversion Bureau: The Other Side of the Spectrum has two instances of this — first is when Princess Celestia decides to consult Discord about The Bag of Tirek, which has corrupted the Mirror Universe Equestria into carrying out a genocidal campaign against Earth and humanity, which he agrees to because even he is disgusted with what Queen Celestia is doing to the humans; second is that humanity has rigged the Yellowstone Supervolcano with several nukes to detonate and likely destroy the world as part of a Taking You with Me plan, if only to avoid living as brainwashed slaves to a xenocidal tyrant.
- Cutie Mark Crusaders 10k: At the beginning of The Shadow of Grief, Luna being on the verge of getting crystallized and taken over by Sombra pushes her to willingly unleash Nightmare Moon to save herself. Even then, she still tries to get her darker half to promise not to hurt anyone first.
- In A Dream of Dawn, Nightmare Moon's reign over Equestria is so disruptive that summoning Discord actually makes life better.
- Escape from the Moon: In chapter 15 of the sequel The Mare From the Moon, Twilight describes Daybreaker as this.Twilight Sparkle: I... asked her about that, after Starlight told me about the whole thing. She compared it to something from one of Spike's comics, actually. That most of the time, she feels like she lives in a world of cardboard, and that she always has to hold back to keep from breaking everything around her. Daybreaker is what happens when she doesn't care enough to hold back anymore, to let loose with everything she has without worrying about the consequences. And that's something that she'd only use as an absolute last resort.
- The Immortal Game: The Mane Six become so desperate to defeat Titan that Twilight comes up with one final contingency in case the Elements of Harmony fail, or they die before being able to use them. That contingency? Releasing Discord to fight him.
- I Am Going To Save And/Or Destroy Equestria: In this alternate universe, Princess Celestia and Nightmare Moon fought each other to a Mutual Kill. Without them, the sun and moon get out of wack and Equestria is overrun by the fiends of Tartarus and other villains. A group of pony survivors decide their only option is to resurrect King Sombra and hope he'll hate the villains for taking over "his" kingdom more than he'll hate them (the resurrection spell requires the subject's remains, so it couldn't be used on Celestia or Luna). Fortunately, the spell brings back Sombra's body with a human named Ambrose's soul in control, and he's willing to help them after getting over the initial shock and confusion.
- During her battle with Discord in Knights of the Realm, Twilight Sparkle resorts to removing all her restraints. Considering the last time that had happened (during training) and that in this fic she's a master of Chaos magic, it's obvious why, even facing Discord, it took her a while to resort to that.
- In A Midsummer Night's Dream chapter 8, with Midsummer Night rendered inoperable after the fight with Rasputin, the previously reluctant brothers decide that they should share Jaeger schematics with the Equestrians.
- MLP Next Generation: Know Fear!: The war against the griffons is going badly enough (even with the aid of Starburst's new powers) that Celestia decides to have one of Equestria's godly rulers (herself, the other alicorns and Discord) unlock their full power and join the battlefield as a show of force. Everyone else is horrified by the potential consequences of this, but they go through with it anyway, with Twilight being the one whose power is unlocked, and she proceeds to take on an entire griffon army by herself — only for it to turn out that the griffons already had plans prepared to neutralize her.
- A Moon and World Apart: While Celestia and Luna have their differences, there is one thing that can keep them from fighting: the threat of Discord breaking loose if they do so too close to his statue.
- Literally crossed in Persona EG. Flash Sentry and several of his friends are backed into a corner when Sunset Shimmer uses shadow versions of every persona Flash has ever used. Exhausted and about to be killed, Flash summons the only persona in his collection that he has not used yet, Gojira. Complete with Giant Foot of Stomping entrance and a giant Atomic Breath attack that nearly roasts Sunset alive.
- Pony POV Series:
- Celestia comments that The Elders would only directly intervene (rather than through Their children or Avatars) in something happening in mortal reality if it was a threat to all of existence, because that is the only situation where the damage would be greater than that caused by Them entering reality. To put this in perspective, Nightmare Paradox's "Groundhog Day" Loop plan completely screwed up the Dark World timeline and cost countless trillions of lives, and even that wasn't enough for Them to intervene. Such a threshold is finally crossed in the Finale Arc, when Discord's endgame proves terrible enough that Havoc and Entropy, at least, step in to lend aid.
- It turns out that the Equestrian military has specific protocols in place for situations like this, including Kaiju attacks, that require direct interference from the Princesses. Fittingly, it's called Article 1954.
- During the Wedding Arc, things get so desperate that Twilight and Cadence seriously consider the possibility of releasing Discord to fight Chrysalis, but only as an absolute last resort. Of course, they don't realize that he's already free...
- As the heroes prepare for one final battle with Discord, Celestia persuades Mother Deer/Harmony to upgrade the Elements of Harmony to their full potential. She comments that normally, she would not have done this for several years, until the Mane Six had fully mastered them, but considering they're about to face Discord, they need all the help they can get.
- The Powers of Harmony: The use of forbidden Lifeforce magic is considered to be an absolute last resort, due to the fact that it leaves the user an addict who grows more uncontrollable over time. During the War of the Sun and Moon, Libra had to use it to immobilize Nightmare Moon's undying army; his Echo Blair is still carrying that burden a thousand years later.
- In The Stars Ascendant, Celestia notes that had she realized just how powerful Tirek had become, she would have ordered Twilight to rip the Elements of Harmony out of the Tree of Harmony. Given that the tree had been withering without the Elements of Harmony, it might kill the tree, but Celestia felt it would have been justified in order to defeat Tirek. Fortunately, it wasn't necessary.
- The Stars Will Aid Their Escape: The last time Nyarlathotep emerged in Equestria, Celestia was only able to stop him by calling down the power of the sun and incinerating everything for miles, sacrificing the lives of every pony in the affected area (most of whom were rendered hopelessly insane by Nyarlathotep anyway) in order to stop him from spreading. And all that succeeded in doing was temporarily banishing Nyarlathotep back where he came from — he describes it as having been inconvenient.
- Triptych Continuum: A Mark Of Appeal: The Princesses' worst-case contingency scenario: In the event they are both infected with red-tinge, and it manifests in a way that will cause them to destroy themselves or the world, they plan to deliberately release Discord and plunge the world back into chaos... because even chaos is better than total death.
- In What You Knead, Naruto and Sasuke's first attempt at a Combination Attack nearly burns down Training Field 16. Later on, when Sakura recognizes Orochimaru's name from the Bingo Books she's read and realizes just how powerful a foe they're facing, she shocks both boys by invoking 'Training Field 16', declaring that they've got to use that same attack in the middle of a forest just to have a chance against their opponent.
- your move, instigator (draw your weapon and hold your tongue): As the Third Shinobi War wore on, Kushina was forced to reveal her status as the Nine-Tailed Beast's jinchuuriki and fight on the frontlines. This led other hidden villages to send their own jinchuuriki out to fight. By the time Sakura and Team 14's story begins, such clashes have become regular occurrences, with Kushina hailed as one of Konoha's greatest kunoichi... as well as The Dreaded to all other villages.
- In the story Rei Ryghts: Ace Attorney The Mech Suit’s Turnabout, Neptune has been drugged asleep and Nepgear is AWOL, leaving Rei Ryghts no choice but to transform to HDD for the first time since her defeat in Victory to stop a terrorist in a flying mech-suit from killing civilians at a robot expo. Fortunately, she keeps her sanity long enough to neutralize the threat. Later entries in the series imply that she’s gotten a better grasp on utilizing her HDD, though she still mostly refrains from transforming unless necessary.
- This Bites!:
- For most of the story after Alabasta, Vivi fiddles with the Sirocco-charm container that her father gave her whenever she is faced with a particularly terrifying enemy, as if contemplating crossing a threshold there is no going back from. As we find out during the ride to storm Enies Lobby, it contains the seed of an active Logia Devil Fruit, hence Vivi's hesitance to actually use it unless she's absolutely certain it's necessary. She finally crosses that threshold mark during Strong World, where she's left desperate to help the Straw Hats get an edge on Shiki and thus eats the seed, becoming a wind-based Logia.
- Cross contemplates appealing to B.R.O.B. to save Merry, but given their Jerkass God status...
- He finally caves and makes a bargain shortly before Enies Lobby, and as it turns out, it does agree to give Cross a chance if he puts on a good enough show. And if he doesn't, it will still consent to saving Merry... if Cross considers the Ivankov treatment. No one objects when Cross refuses, although when it comes to the very last minute, Cross shows that he would be willing to go that far if there were no other choice.
- Cross gave Luffy one specific task that blatantly falls under this trope for if he failed to rescue Ace before the Government transported him to Marineford. Or, in other words, if he failed to stop the war. The task in question? Murder Shiliew of the Rain with extreme prejudice in the hope that it would cause Blackbeard’s death and, in the same vein, keep Blackbeard from stealing Whitebeard's powers.
- Almost the first thing that Cross does when he discovers the call-in function of the SBS is blacklist Donquixote Doflamingo, citing that person as someone too toxic to even give a chance to dig their own grave. During the Marineford Misery arc, Cross allows that person to speak on the SBS; specifically, he lets him make his canonical Written by the Winners cynical speech over the SBS for the whole world to hear, just to add a little more retaliation against the Navy and Government for going through with the war.
- In AAML: Diamond and Pearl Version, when preparing for his battle with Paul at Lake Acuity, Ash is taking the battle so seriously that he brings back a few of his old powerhouses rather than relying on his current Sinnoh team, facing Paul with Pikachu, Chimchar, Buizel, Charizard, Snorlax and Sceptile. During the battle itself, Ash is eventually pushed so far that he orders Snorlax to use Self Destruct- a move he'd never normally use- to take out Paul's Magmortar.
- In Ashes of the Past, Blast Burn is treated like this, as its nature as a Fire Type equivalent of Hyper Beam means the only thing more destructive is the local equivalent of a nuclear strike. Exactly because of its power, any Pokémon that learns it has an artificial mental block created to prevent it from using it on their own volition, and must be ordered to do that.
- Early on, Charizard mentions Victini using V-Create was the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, putting it on par with an actual nuclear strike.
- In Symbiosis, the act of calling the Elite Four from the Pokémon League is a sign that everything has gone to hell. Team Rocket successfully mind rapes and mind controls Sabrina and forces her to kill everyone in her gym and destroy Saffron City. It gets so bad that Agatha and her massive Ghost Pokémon entourage have to be called in.
- In the Personality Conflicts series, one storyline involves the resurrection of Shadowborg (Beetleborgs), who attempts to attack the Hillhurst house while the Beetleborgs and Flabber are assisting the Turbo Rangers. Once the monsters realise that Shadowborg is present, they summon all four Astral Borgs to confront him as they recognise that Shadowborg would be too powerful for just one Astral Borg. Even with the numerical advantage, Shadowborg kills three of the Astral Borgs and only fails to kill Dragon Borg because the Beetleborgs showed up at the last minute, the distraction throwing off Shadowborg's aim so that what would have been a fatal blow just caused a serious wound.
- In Queen of Harts, when the Zeo Rangers' attempt to break Tommy Oliver of his brainwashing by Prince Gasket fails ("King for a Day"), Zordon and Alpha have to call in backup in the form of Kimberly Hart, the original Pink Ranger and Tommy's current ex. Although Zordon and Alpha are able to provide Kimberly with enough energy to restore her old Pink Ninja powers, they warn Kim that this won't last long, but she ultimately accepts the risk as the only way to bring Tommy back to himself.
- In Here There Be Monsters, two old, giant-sized enemies of Captain Marvel, Mister Atom and Red Crusher, are rampaging through America after crushing the combined power of Canadian and USA land forces. The President sends the Air Force out, but he is painfully aware that if an aerial bombardment does not work, and the Marvel Family fails to appear, he might have to drop a nuke.
- Bequeathed from Pale Estates: After seeing Joffrey's madness firsthand, Lyarra is so distressed at the idea of her father still going through the Arranged Marriage between him and her younger sister Sansa (he actually wasn't planning to, but she didn't know that) that she writes a letter to Catelyn Stark, begging her not to let it happen. Catelyn, after verifying the story, writes back, vehemently agreeing with her and with Ned when he tells her he's not accepting the betrothal.
- Chasing Dragons: For Braavosi ships, raising a black flag is this, as it's an order to fight to the death, and is only given if there's no other choice, such as at the Battle of Tyrosh, when they're overwhelmed by the Tyroshi fleet and have nowhere to go.
- Sonic X: Dark Chaos crosses the threshold a few times.
- Episode 63 has a villainous example. Sonic, Shadow, and Eric turn into their Super forms and are on the verge of defeating Tsali once and for all. So what does Tsali do? He summons Lord Maledict himself for backup. Cue Maledict showing up, rescuing Tsali, and utterly curbstomping Sonic and friends.
- When Dark Tails nearly annihilates the fleets of both sides, both the Demons and Angels separately devote all their attention to taking him down, to the point where the Demons reactivate a galaxy-destroying superweapon just in case. And then Dark Tails achieves godhood in Episode 75 and nearly decimates the entire galaxy, they both decide to take it on together — the threshold is taken to the the point where Jesus Christ and Satan pull an Enemy Mine and decide to (temporarily) help each other.
- In The Five Enterprises, Q of all people is pushed to this point after some initially-unknown force attacks the Q Continuum, neutralises every other Q, and then erases Earth from history. With only a microsecond to act as the other Q transfer all their power to him, Q focused all of his thoughts on 'Enterprise', which results in him preserving Deep Space 9 (the last place he visited in the corporeal world before the attack) and all five of the existing Federation ships named Enterprise, from Captain Christopher Pike in the original to Captain Picard's Enterprise-D, as the only hope to restore the timeline.
- In Eros Turannos, after Padme is basically placed under house arrest and constantly monitored by Vader on the Emperor's orders, she is eventually pushed to such desperation that she makes a deal with Vader where she’ll have sex with him in return for a chance to talk privately with her friends because she has nothing else to offer him.
- Wilhuff Tarkin, Hero of the Rebellion deals with the argument:
- The Base Delta Zero Orbital Bombardment protocol reduces a planet to a lifeless husk, as it continues until all life forms have been wiped out, all liquid water has been vaporized, the atmosphere has been blasted into space, and the crust has been melted down... And even The Empire considers it a last resort in case the situation on a planet has gone that bad, with Tarkin citing an incident where a planet was being overran by a horde of Kaiju as a case where it was ordered and called off at the last moment when it was discovered a certain chemical would kill it. It's finally ordered when Tarkin discovers the existence of D'vouran, a literal people-eating planet capable of hyperspace travel.
- During a conversation with Tarkin, Thrawn claims that the Death Star is not that urgent... And when Tarkin asks what Thrawn would consider worth of the Death Star the Grand Admiral reveals the existence of the Mnggal-Mnggal, a spreading monstrosity that in the Unknown Regions is considered so horrible that a sighting interrupts any battle in the area until the infestation has been dealt with and that it has consumed an entire planet surrounded by a Mnggal-Mnggal-controlled fleet, and it's that that Thrawn would want to use the Death Star against.
- In the same conversation, Tarkin thinks he didn't expect to find out there are two planets worth of using the Death Star against.
- Official bioweapon research facilities have plasma warheads to be activated immediately to disintegrate the place if there's a leak, as anything they contain would be devastating. The fact the bioweapon facility on Falleen was illegal and thus didn't have one endangers the entire planet when they have a leak, prompting an Imperial medical officer to invoke Contingency Order 1 (see below).
- The Republic military's Contingency Orders, inherited by the Empire, are standardized and deadly answers to a desperate situations:
- Order 1 establishes that, to contain a deadly contagion that cannot be contained, the medical officer in charge can order Orbital Bombardment to incinerate everyone infected, the infection and himself. This is invoked on Falleen when an airborne flesh-eating disease is released, and Darth Vader obliges.
- Order 65 establishes that if the Supreme Chancellor turns out to be a traitor he should be arrested - or killed if he resists, while Order 66 is a kill-on-sight order on traitorous Jedi because containing them is next to impossible.
- A non-canon chapter establishes there are two different procedures to deal with Captain Harlock accidentally stumbling in their dimension and starting killing Imperial officers until he wanders back in his universe, and they both amount to the target committing suicide (either by challenging him to a Duel to the Death Harlock will win or just shooting themselves) because they know they cannot stop the Arcadia and they'd rather limit the damage as they know they can't stop him and it's better to have one officer dead rather than wrecking a perfectly good Star Destroyer and traumatize the crew. Admiral Grant challenged Harlock as soon as he was informed his ship was in the same system and died a valiant death, while Ishin-Il-Raz ordered his ship to open fire and got a perfectly good Star Destroyer wrecked before Harlock boarded it and shot him with his sword.
- Hellsister Trilogy: In the "The Apokolips Agenda" arc, virtually every Pre-Crisis hero is battling on Apokolips in a desperate struggle to prevent Darkseid from learning the Anti-Life Equation. Darkseid, who has been summoning more and more powerful villains to slow the heroes, finally reaches the threshold and resurrects Trigon, who turns all of the heroes to stone. In response, Kid Eternity, whose power allows him to resurrect a deceased person briefly by saying their name, speaks a name before he turns to stone: Jim Corrigan. Cue the Spectre materializing and killing Trigon with a single blow. Now that's Summon Bigger Fish.
- Imperfect Metamorphosis is what happens when crossing the Threshold is exactly the wrong thing to do, as the different characters implementing their own contingency plans just escalates the situation, going from "bad, but manageable" to almost Cosmic Horror Story levels. Fittingly, Cirno gets to perform the stupidest one, reckoning that her friend Rumia is in such desperate peril that getting Yuuka involved is a reasonable idea.
- In A New World, when faced with the imminent Lunarian invasion and everyone who could stop them burying their heads in the sand, Kanako arranges for Suwako to release the Mishaguji.
- In Touhou Ibunshu, the events of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil and Imperishable Night are construed as this: both times, it merely served as a delaying tactic that ultimately only helped make enough time for the heroines to step in as unexpected reinforcements. In the first, Flandre had begun to gather enormous amounts of energy in an effort to cast a massive spell to annihilate Gensokyo; Remilia delayed her by taking the energy and dispersing it as the scarlet mist. In the second, Mokou attempted to use the moon as a catalyst to energize a vast undead fairy army, and Eirin used a powerful spell to hide the moon and stop time in a desperate gambit to block her.
- In Eugenesis, Prowl and Perceptor are perfectly willing to meddle with Time Travel, knowing what time travel can unleash (in Prowl's case, from first-hand experience), simply because they feel the current situation is that bad. This earns them a serious What the Hell, Hero? from Nightbeat, although he still ends up agreeing with them. Later on, a revived Optimus Prime agrees to take part in the fight against the Quintessons, knowingly risking his life, not to mention using time-travel himself, for the same reasons.
- Age of Strife: The Nurglite incursion, which included no less than three Great Unclean Ones, almost drove Mirande to daemon summoning herself in her attempt to stop it.
- Worldwar: War of Equals: The threat of pending invasion by the Race is enough for Switzerland to abandon its long-standing neutrality and join the European Coalition, and for Israel to join forces with its Arab neighbors (primarily Egypt). After the war begins and grows desperate for some, we see more examples — when Ukraine is nearly completely overrun, its military starts using nerve gas, while President Viktor Yanukovych asks for Russian aid; Syria breaks out its chemical weapons program in light of neighboring Iraq being overrun; and China, desperately trying to Hold the Line against the Race, is the first nation to use nukes against the invading forces.
- Prior to the start of Collateral Damage (Worm), Danny killed Behemoth — and the Triumvirate still isn't sure whether it was worthwhile, since he turned the whole city of Houston into a radioactive crater, with more casualties than Behemoth's previous three attacks combined.
- With This Ring:
- When Earth is falling to an alien invasion, with the Justice League and several members of Young Justice dead, Orange Lantern gets desperate. So desperate that he wants power more than he wants to remain himself. So he summons the Ophidian, the Embodiment of Avarice, which semi-possesses his body and gives him full access to its power, but makes him obsessively focused and blocks his ability to feel any emotion except avarice.
- OL later tells Martian Manhunter that that actually wasn't his last resort: he has the Grimorium Verum, a guide book for extremely powerful demons, which he would have used to summon an actual demon if the Ophidian had fallen through.
- Re:Coded:
- The Neuron Link Program is created by Dr. Kogami as a last-ditch attempt to kill the Ignis by combining the Ignis' and origin's minds, killing the Ignis wherever they are but also leave the origins braindead. This is such a big deal that Lightning is desperate for its location and Ai is willing to die so Yusaku and the others won't die from it.
- As the Laplace is corrupting his mind into madness and kill everyone he loves, Revolver activates the Tower of Hanoi and links it to his mind before setting it to destroy the old LINK VRAINS in a desperate Suicide by Cop gambit to kill himself to stop the Laplace inside him.
