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Cool Versus Awesome

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Before you ask, yes, this is an actual movie.

"Samurai and zombies!? You don't have to say any more. I'm fucking there!"

Pirates are cool; so are ninjas. So pirates fighting ninjas must be awesome. And why not make them all fight some robots while we're at it? Oh and don't forget the zombies.

Related to the Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot and Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs, this trope is a case when two types of cool things battle it out. Unlike an Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, this is not a case when two specific characters Duel to the Death. Though a battle can qualify as both, if the two characters are two different character types.

Bonus points if the two don't exist in the same time-period, place, or universe.

A Massive Multiplayer Crossover often invokes this. A Versus Title is a sure sign of the trope at work and such a work is a good draw for those who are Just Here for Godzilla.

A Super-Trope to Fur Against Fang, Pirates vs. Ninjas, Fight Dracula (because a character needs to be awesome themselves to fight him). It's not directly related to Elves Versus Dwarves, though; as that trope is not about literal elves and dwarves fighting but about traits of two opposing sides. Can overlap with Behemoth Battle if both fighters are giant-sized. Frequently the subject of a Hypothetical Fight Debate.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Many kinds of Shōnen and Humongous Mecha anime and manga (especially Super Robot shows) in general run on this trope.
  • Attack on Titan is basically Steampunk teenage warriors with dual-wielded super-sharp swords and rope grapples, pitted against Nigh-Invulnerable man-eating giants that are hellbent on wiping out humanity. Sorry, it's probably best to just give you a second or two to let the awesomeness of that last sentence soak in.
  • The initial part of New Grappler Baki pits five Fight Clubbing legends - the title character, a teenage Yakuza boss, and masters of karate, kung fu and jujutsu - against five death row inmates who singlehandedly escaped their respective prisons (and survived their attempted executions in some cases). And all of those ten have superhuman abilities.
  • Delicious in Dungeon has a badass knight, a Fragile Speedster master thief, an Chef of Iron dwarf and an incredibly strong Black Mage vs an enormous fire breathing dragon. The first group wins.
  • In Dragon Ball every single fight is this trope, very early in the series it was humans vs monsters with a few robots thrown in and then it's Martial artists vs Demons. In the next series we got aliens get involved and it turns out main hero Goku was alien all along and then we got androids and a big green bug man made of the cells of our heroes the "Z-fighters". finally in the last sagas wizards, Demon Kings, bubble gum-monsters and Gods show up but by now the Z-fighters have learned to take this stuff as normal.
  • The entire Fate Series franchise runs on this. Seven (sometimes eight) mages summon replicas of famous heroes from history and make them fight each other. Even during the early stages when most identities are unknown and fighters are trying to keep secrets, we have such amazing moments as Alexander the Great breaking up a stand-off between King Arthur, Gilgamesh and a mysterious Black Knight (Sir Lancelot) in Zero. Which eventually escalates to Gilgamesh in an Ancient Sumerian/Indian spaceship dogfighting against said Black Knight possessing an F-15 fighter jet while at the same time, King Arthur and Alexander the Great are fighting Cthulhu. Stay Night's various routes offer their own share of badass confrontations, often revolving around "who can stand up to Berserker Hercules?" with "who can survive against Gilgamesh?" afterwards.
  • Ga-Rei mainly revolves around Mafia sorcerers versus state-funded agency of Mons summoners. It's... less awesome than it sounds.
  • Getter Robo does this every other day. It starts with a Super Robot vs. giant cyborg dinosaurs and goes up from there.
  • Show Within a Show example in Gintama with the movie Alien vs Yakuza. Hijikata was very moved by it. The manga itself have example of Samurai vs Alien, Samurai vs Robots, or Samurai vs Space Pirates, and the classic, Samurai vs Ninja.
  • Grenadier: it opens with samurai vs. riflemen, and just the first episode also includes riflemen and machine guns against one six-shot revolver plus Improbable Aiming Skills. It goes from there: revolver vs. magical weapon, revolver vs. super-weapon, revolver vs. magical lance, ...
  • Hellsing. The good guy are the titular Hellsing agency of Vampire Hunters who are led by a Lady of War and use a Battle Butler with Razor Floss, a company of Private Military Contractors, a Friendly Neighborhood Vampire police officer girl who uses a BFG and the Dracula who became a Humanoid Abomination. They fight against Sturmbann Millenium - a lost SS battalion of artificial half-vampire Nazi veteran Super Soldiers whose leader is a Colonel Kilgore cyborg and chiefs of staff are a Herr Doktor, a One-Man Army werewolf, a Master of Illusion witch and a Friendly Sniper magical sharpshooter girl. And the third side of the conflict are Church Militant fundamentalist Catholics with a genetically modified Vampire Hunter priest complete with katana-wielding nuns! It's as awesome as it sounds.
  • High School D×D has devil versus fallen angels versus Norse Mythology gods versus a Badass Normal human army and your protagonist is a perverted human-turned devil/dragon.
  • Is This A Zombie? has Vampire Ninja vs Zombie, Magical Girl — uh, Guy/Zombie, Vampire Ninja and Necromancer vs Vampire Ninja Magical Girl Megalo person.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has Hamon users vs Zombies and Vampires, and also Aztec Super Vampires, later it's about Stand users vs other Stand users and ghosts with endless winks to rock music.
  • The end of My Bride is a Mermaid features a massive brawl involving mermaid Yakuza, songs of mass destruction, gigantic eels, and the Terminator himself — in a Sailor Fuku — firing laser beams out of his eyes while flexing while stuff continues to explode in the background.
  • Due to its Fantasy Kitchen Sink nature, Negima! Magister Negi Magi has had Ninja vs. Mage, Mage vs. Demon, Mage vs. Samurai, Mage vs. Vampire, Vampire vs. Samurai, Vampire vs. Martial Artist, Vampire vs. Demon, Mage vs. Swordsman... well, you get the idea. And then the time travel, teleportation, petrification, plant control, and summoning come into play...
    • The culmination of one of Negi's master plans was to have normals donning magic gear and fighting against robots. That's Mage Army vs Robot Army!
  • Viewed at first glance, Neon Genesis Evangelion appears to be about Humongous Mecha vs. Cosmic Kaijus. Of course, then it gets complicated.
  • One Piece: Brook vs. Ryuuma. An animated skeleton swordfighting a samurai zombie. Hell, much of the Thriller Bark arc is literally Pirates vs. Zombies. The zombies were technically pirates as well, and they included the aforementioned samurai, zombie furniture, and a zombified demonic giant, which can be piloted like a giant robot.
  • Pokémon: The Series often gets by with this, especially whenever the Olympus Mons make the scene. The movies in particular are all about showcasing massive battles between some of the most powerful creatures from the games, whatever the rest of the plot might be about. One movie makes a point of advertising that fan-favorite legendary Mewtwo shows up to face the then-last Pokémon, Genesect*, while another brings in damn near every single legendary Pokémon.
    • Not that the regular anime doesn't indulge in this a bit. The mainline anime series has had, via the mons battling in major battles, Cannon Turtles vs Fire Breathing Dragons, Fire Birdmen Kickboxers vs Fire Breathing Dragons, Persian Ice Birds vs Fire Breathing Dragons, Super Saiyan Fire Monkeys vs Raijins, Gangster Crocodiles in Shades vs Berserk Dragons, Frog Ninjas vs Abominable Snowmen, Frog Ninjas vs Grass Dinosaur-Dragons, Frog Ninjas vs Super Mode Fire Breathing Dragons, Giant Bug Samurai vs Magical Mermaid Seals, Animalistic Homunculi vs Metal Slime Gestalts, Werewolves vs Wolf-Werewolf Hybrids, Island Guardian Deities versus Extraterrestrial Dragon Wasps, and Superpowered Magical Jackal Warriors versus Titanic Four-armed Colossal Giants. And those are just some of the coolest and most awesome sounding things without context.
  • In The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World, Rosie challenges Tougo to a duel for the right to travel with Princess Teltina and aid her on her quest to destroy the Seeds of Magic, a challenge Tougo takes him up on. And so begins a fight between a Hot-Blooded Toku hero and a classic Japanese RPG hero with their best gear in a continually escalating fight that ends with Tougo sending Rosie flying with the wind from the Great Kizuna Sword.
  • Shaman King has, amongst other things, samurai ghost and zombie martial artist versus Humongous Mecha angels.
  • Gate is full of this. The basic premise is that a magical portal to another world suddenly opens up in modern Tokyo, and the city is attacked by an invading army of monsters and medieval soldiers from a fantasy world. Japan defeats the invading army with its modern weaponry and tactics, then sends its Japanese Ground-Self Defense Forces through the gate to secure it from the other side, defeat the ones behind the invasion, and establish diplomatic relationships wherever possible. This leads to some interesting conflicts, such as fire-breathing dragons versus fighter jets, or a free-for-all between 3 foreign spec-ops teams and a halberd-wielding demigoddess.
  • Vinland Saga pits the renowned Norse warrior Thorkell the Tall against the up-and-coming assassin Garm, and both are notorious blood knights. Most of the fight takes place off-panel, but the fight ends in a draw.
  • When the right kind of deck is in play in Yu-Gi-Oh, this can end up in effect. However one of the most memetic examples originated from the 5D's series, where you had Mystical Dragons powered by Mesoamerican mythology (supported by decks of demons, bird people, robots, and scrappy warriors) vs Norse Gods and decks based on their entire mythology. As the M.C put it in the dub: Dragons! Gods! DRAGONS VERSUS GODS!

    Comic Books 
  • Marvel and DC often do this, especially with Dracula since there is no more copyright law applicable. Batman seems to be a regular feature of this sort of thing, fighting Judge Dredd, Aliens, and Predators semi regularly.
  • Not to mention Batman and Superman Vs. Vampires and Werewolves.
  • Superman and Batman vs Aliens and Predator.
  • Batman/Fortnite: Zero Point sold its third issue on this by advertising a battle between Batman and Snake-Eyes of G.I. Joe fame. It had the same effect in-universe as the various fighters all stopped what they were doing to watch Batman fight Snake-Eyes.
  • There's a mini-arc of Gold Digger in which a princess and her spec ops team pilot an ersatz Voltron against a group of pirates and their GaoGaiGar lookalike. The fight lasts three issues and includes triple-wielded katanas, evil twins, and a guitar riff that can stop time. Did I mention that all of the characters involved are leprechauns?
  • Judge Dredd has fought both Predator and Aliens.
  • X-Men:
    • About half the plots can be described as this. Mutants vs. Robots. Mutants vs. Aliens. Mutants vs. Dinosaurs. Mutants vs. Mythological Monsters. Mutants vs Demons.
    • Lockheed is a one foot high purple alien dragon whose race is at war with the insectoid and parasitic Brood and who has often fought Sentinels and N'garai, so Alien Dragon vs Alien Giant Insects, Giant Robots and Demons.
  • Batgirl (2009): Batgirl was once visited at college by Supergirl and, after deciding not to have a Slumber Party or pillow fight (Damn), the two of them went to see a cliched, over-acted, badly produced Dracula film. Unfortunately, elsewhere on campus a research project had gone other than planned and twenty-four Draculas leapt off the screen and began rampaging across the campus, forcing Batgirl and Supergirl to suit-up and stop them. It was Batgirl and Supergirl fighting twenty-four Draculas!
    Batgirl: [while being strangled by Dracula] "Hopefully you won't hold this against me."
    Supergirl: That's What She Said.
    Batgirl: You're funny.
    Supergirl: I try.
  • Deadpool tended towards this for a while, especially after he teamed up with his own zombie-universe severed head to fight dinosaurs, some of which became zombies, and then later were infected by the Venom symbiote. He also helped a superhero trucker fight alien raccoons, and helped Hercules solve a labyrinth created by Arcade, who was hired by a demon.
  • Nextwave:
    • The premise is Supers and their robot-supremacist robot fighting Pantsless Kaiju, Samurai Robots, Cannibal Drop Bears, laser eyebeam-shooting Stephen Hawking clones and much much more!
    • Elsa Bloodstone fights samuroids (samurai androids) with a shovel, saying they're too cool for her to use guns on.
    • Elsa is the Protagonist of the New Marvel Zombies series in Secret Wars where she adds fighting super powered Zombies to the list. Those buggers are disturbing her drinking tea.
  • The new Secret Wars has Dinosaurs vs WWI Pilot in Where Monsters Dwell and Robots vs Zombies in Age of Ultron vs Marvel Zombies.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Collide is a Crossover comic between Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) and Mega Man (Archie Comics), first pitting the titular heroes against each other, then against Doctors Eggman and Wily as they fight to prevent the two mad scientists from rewriting their realities. The sequel ups the ante by throwing in Sonic Boom, Mega Man X, and about a dozen other Capcom and Sega franchises, and it opens with a roboticized/brainwashed Sonic and Mega Man trouncing each other's allies and then fighting each other again.
  • The comic book Zombies vs. Robots and its sequel Zombies vs. Robots vs. Amazons.
  • The Dandy's Arena of Awesome embodies this trope.
  • Hellboy: King Arthur versus the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
  • Brute Force: ROBO-BEAR VERSUS CYBER-GORILLA!!!
  • The graphic novel Dinosaurs vs. Aliens
  • The Alternate History graphic novel Block 109: Soviet mechas and Siberian berserkers Vs. Nazi mechas and new Teutonic knights.
  • Dark Horse started the whole Alien vs. Predator idea, which morphed (no pun intended) into a series of video games and films.
  • Dark Horse comic Aliens vs Predator vs The Terminator upped the ante.
  • Hilariously lampooned in New Warriors, where the titular team was captured by a trio of highly sentient primates (a gorilla, a baboon, and an orangutan). Speedball, who had spent most of the previous few issues bothering his teammates with questions like would a shark be able to beat a crocodile, immediately begins asking the gorilla and the baboon who, in their opinion, would win in fights between a hyena and a leopard, a bear versus a rhino, etc. Both the apes are in complete agreement over who the victor in each fight would be, although they make a point of informing Speedball that such scenarios could never happen in real life. Finally, Speedball asks who would win in a fight between a gorilla and a baboon. The gorilla insists that the gorilla would win, the baboon insists that it would be the baboon. Both of them immediately begin fighting, giving the New Warriors the opportunity they need to escape, which was Speedball's plan all along.
  • Forever Evil (2013): Lex Luthor's Legion of Doom against the Crime Syndicate.
  • One Star Wars comic has Boba Fett versus Darth Vader. It's precisely as badass as it sounds. ** Another had Vader fighting Darth Maul.
  • Attack on Avengers: The Marvel Universe VS Titans.
  • Iron Man: Legacy series these days is mostly remembered for an instance of this trope in it's final story - The Pride vs The Illuminati, two secret groups of powerful and influential people, showcasing entire spectrum of Marvel superhero flavors deciding to stop working in the shadow for a moment and just duking it out.
  • There is always Archie Meets the Punisher, which, while not straight "versus", inspired nostalgic throwbacks to its sheer ridiculousness with such crossovers as Archie vs. Predator and Archie versus Sharknado.
  • Mars Attacks! has a series of one-shot comics pitting Martians against Ghostbusters, Transformers, KISS and Popeye.
  • Arawn: Most of the major battles include various fantasy monsters. Though perhaps taking the cake is The Legions of Hell versus Night of the Living Mooks.
  • Wonder Woman:
    • Wonder Woman (1942): The conflict in "Siege of the Rykornians" is aliens vs. cowboys, and the cowboys get a helping hand from an Amazon Princess when the aliens prove to be rather damage resistant and in possession of drugs that weaken humans on skin contact.
    • JLA: A League of One: The story has two in the form of Wonder Woman vs. the Justice League and then Wonder Woman vs. a Dragon.
    • Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia: The main thing the story is known for is it's Batman vs. Wonder Woman fight.

    Comic Strips 

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animation 

    Films — Live-Action 

    Literature 

    Live-Action TV 

    Music 

    Pro Wrestling 
  • Professional Wrestling in general is built around this trope, combining sport rivalries with various gimmicks, from superheroes to delinquents to supernatural figures, to utterly crazy people, sometimes mixed with various additional rules, be it Mêlée à Trois, fight in a cage or lumberjack match.
  • For many, the idea of the The World's Greatest Tag Team against The Kings of Wrestling was enough to justify purchasing Glory by Honor IX. Keep in mind this was the show where Tyler Black was going to leave the promotion with its World Championship if Roderick Strong didn't stop him.
  • One of Dragon Gate USA's first angles revolved around a "sibling" rivalry between Dragon Gate and Chikara, particularly Mike Quackenbush, Yamato, Jigsaw and CIMA.
  • In the WWN, this was the initial marketing idea behind EVOLVE, hence the abundance of versus titles. EVOLVE also set up the first SHINE main event of Sara Del Rey vs Jazz.
  • Sabu went down south to attend a Pro Wrestling Syndicate event in 2013 when he learned it would feature John Morrison wrestling Jushin Thunder Liger. The sight of Sabu had fans chanting "Triple Threat" but they'd have to wait for that.
  • The Shield vs The Wyatt Family at Elimination Chamber 2014 and a week later on RAW — both instances had the crowds literally chanting "THIS IS AWESOME!" before the match had even started. And it lived up to it. It's worth mentioning that both groups were heels (villains) at the time.
  • So Savio Vega's handpicked challenger attacks Glamour Boy Shane after failing to win the World Wrestling League's Heavyweight title belt from him while Vega explains to Shane how much harder things are going to get once El Patron Alberto comes. Do the fans boo? No, they cheer. El Mesias announcing his return to WWL and how the three of them were going to be in triple threat title match only made the audience happier.
  • Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Bobby Roode for the NXT Championship was every NXT fan's wet dream, since they were the most popular wrestlers on the roster, in no small part due to their theme songs. The dream has finally come true at NXT TakeOver: San Antonio.
  • The two biggest matches on the card for Survivor Series 2017 were dream matches: one was The Shield vs The New Day, which soundly woke up the crowd as the opening match, and AJ Styles vs Brock Lesnar, which ended up being widely regarded as match of the night.
  • For the match between Skylar Marie and Luscious Latasha, special referee Veda Scott wore mismatched socks. This subverts WTH, Costuming Department?, since the camera work showed that one of the socks depicted a Flying Saucer using a Tractor Beam to pick up dinosaurs!

    Sports 
  • June 21, 2003: Lennox Lewis vs Vitali Klitschko for the unified world heavyweight championship. In one corner was Lennox "the Lion", arguably the greatest heavyweight boxer in history and the ruler of the 1990s heavyweight scene, considered dominant among even other legends competing at the same time such as Holyfield, Bowe, Tyson, Foreman, and Holmes. In the other was "Dr. Ironfist", another contender for the greatest and the then-#1 contender who, along with his younger brother Wladimir (who admitted that Vitali was the better of them), would proceed to rule the next dozen years of the heavyweight division. Both were massive men (Vitali at 6'7 and 249 pounds and Lennox at 6'5 and 257 pounds) and some of the hardest punchers in the history of the sport, on top of being highly skilled technicians famous for administering completely one-sided curb-stomp battles on nearly all of their opponents. At the end of their respective careers, Lennox had beaten every man he'd ever foughtnote  and Vitali was basically undefeatednote ... except for this night. The two giants (both literally and figuratively) were in a unique situation as they were nearly equally Strong and Skilled, whereas in their other matches they enjoyed a strength/size advantage, a skill advantage, or both over their opponents. So the match-up soon devolved into an utter war in which both fighters dished out and received Megaton Punch after Megaton Punch interspersed with bouts of wrestling in the clinch, pushing each others' stamina and durability to their absolute limits. Ultimately, while Vitali dominated the early rounds and was ahead on all the score cards at the time of stoppage by 4-2, he sustained a cut that Lennox repeatedly worked until Vitali's face was drenched in blood and he could hardly see, with a chunk of his upper face about to fall off. Lennox was bruised and cut himself (noticeably across his nose) but in a much better position than Vitali, who could have been blinded had the fight continued. The doctor wisely called off the fight before the two could go out for round 7, leaving Lennox Lewis as the victor. Vitali lobbied extensively for a rematch from literally the minute he heard about the stoppage, but Lennox, probably recognizing he had nothing to gain and had already pulled an improbable victory out of his ass the last time, decided to retire.

    Tabletop Games 

    Theme Parks 
  • Godzilla vs. Evangelion: The Real 4-D takes the aforementioned Godzilla and Neon Genesis Evangelion and brings them together to see Shinji, Rei, and Asuka clash against Godzilla. And then King Ghidorah arrives to force an Enemy Mine.

    Video Games 

    Web Comics 
  • The Adventures of Dr. McNinja has had, in no particular order, ninjas and a doctor ninja versus... robots, clowns, a flying bodybuilder, a giant Paul Bunyan who was really a child, evil ninjas, pirates, ghosts, Mexican banditos on dinosaurs, vampires, zombies, a unicorn motorcycle, a ghost wizard, someone pretending to be a robot, ninja zombies, more robots, zombie Benjamin Franklin, Dracula (Dracula also had a robot Dracula), a Danish 80s action movie hero and his ninjas, clone ninjas, ghost wizards, Mayincatec robot temple guards, future dinosaurs from space, a vengeful space ghost that explodes people, a samurai demon, sky pirates, a luchador doctor, and a king on a dirtbike. At any given point, those enemies may have fought each other as well.
    • One time invoked by Ron Wizard, who deduced that a single giant robot was not enough to produce the required awesomeness to summon his people from their world - so he created another giant robot to fight it.
  • The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! has had The Men in Black vs. prehistoric dragons from space and their friend the old lady in the flying Powered Armor, fighting over a bomb that can destroy the world.
  • Axe Cop has had the title character and his allies (including dinosaurs, people with unicorn horns, a vampire wizard ninja and his brother who's also a werewolf) vs. aliens, vampire half-babies, Humongous Mecha, flying books, Bad Santa... This picture with just about all the good guys and antagonists on opposing sides, with huge amounts of Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot in both, takes the trope about as far as is imaginable.
  • Ethan Nicolle's other webcomic (besides Axe Cop), Bearmageddon, opens up with a character asking another who would win in a fight, a bear or a gorilla. They decide that it's an unanswerable question, like "can God make a square circle".
  • The Dragon Doctors is about magical doctors of many different disciplines who have banded together, and they've fought against various equally unusual opponents. The docs themselves are a wizard (with healing and shapeshifting magic), a soldier/surgeon, a shaman/therapist, and a Magitek specialist. They've faced off against a horde of assassins, a serial killer who kills dreaming shamans, and Goro (the soldier/surgeon) is currently fending off an all-female Quirky Miniboss Squad consisting of a pistol-wielding shapeshifter, a mage in a ballcap, a female ogre and a lamia with a petrifying ray gun.
  • Homestuck has Bro (a katana-wielding badass who flies around on a rocket-powered surfboard) versus Jack Noir (a noir-themed Humanoid Abomination with godlike powers who also wields a katana and is part dog). The resulting battle is so awesome that it ends in a tie, with the two fighting to a standstill. Jack later gets the upper hand and kills Bro but only thanks to a well timed power-up gained from Becquerel prototyping himself.
  • Hungry City is about a vampire who wakes up during a Zombie Apocalypse, and naturally has to fight zombies.
  • Narbonic: "Who would win in a fight between a giant robot foot accompanied by a rifle-toting assassin, and an army of hamsters in mechanical suits?"
  • Sonic vs. Goku features a battle between the titular characters that initially started as a friendly sparring match but escalates into an epic battle.

    Web Original 

    Western Animation 


Alternative Title(s): Cool Vs Awesome

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Ahoy there Samurai!

The future king of the pirates, vs the samurai who'll become the Shogun of Wano.

How well does it match the trope?

4.6 (10 votes)

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