Follow TV Tropes

Following

Facepalm of Doom

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fa31_24.jpg

"THIS HAND OF MINE GLOWS WITH AN AWESOME POWER!"
Domon Kasshu, Mobile Fighter G Gundam

Sometimes, you need to let the Big Bad have it right where it hurts. Sometimes, you just gotta burn that smirk off of The Dragon's face in the most direct and painful manner possible. Sometimes, The Hero deserves to know just how powerful you are when you're Drunk on the Dark Side.

Sometimes, you just need to give them the Facepalm of Doom for massive damage.

The Facepalm of Doom, named so because it is a Facepalm... of Doom, is basically when you grab someone by the face, or sometimes just by the head, but usually the face, and proceed to unleash the pain by releasing some kind of energy, activating a weapon contained in the hand, or in a more bloody series, slamming the victim against the floor or crushing their head outright. As you can imagine, such a move is probably extremely painful and is usually pretty high up there in terms of power. Due to the nastiness inherent in assaulting someone's visage, as well as the frightening potential for Eye Scream, this trope is generally indicative of The Unfettered, an Anti- or Unscrupulous Hero, the Obviously Evil, or someone who has had their Berserk Button mashed extremely hard or otherwise reached their Rage Breaking Point. It is essentially the bare-handed equivalent of shooting an opponent executioner-style, and carries many of the same connotations.

Compare Neck Lift.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • In Alive: The Final Evolution, the normally Idiot Hero protagonist goes Let's Get Dangerous! on a powerful enemy and does this using his heat powers. The formerly Bishōnen enemy is left with permanent scars on half of his face and later adopts a rather large Eyepatch of Power.
  • Baccano!, in which the immortals, most notably Szilard, "consume" one another by placing their right palm on someone's forehead and essentially vacuuming up their entire body in an exceptionally grisly manner...
  • Baki the Grappler: Dorian's ultimate technique is a tiny bomb hidden in his palm so he can blow someone's face off with it.
  • Baoh; The main character is capable of producing corrosive acid from his hands which is quite capable of melting people alive, leading to more than a few instances of this.
  • Guts from Berserk does this to a scummy knight of the Holy Iron Chain during the "Retribution" arc, actually lifting him off the ground by his face despite his heavy suit of armor. After interrogating him, he then throws the knight at a horse-riding enemy, still gripping him by the face, just before taking the Dragonslayer to the both of them.
  • The Big O: The eponymous mecha's signature attack (Sudden Impact) can work like this by it grabbing an opponent's head and retracting the pressurized pistons inside the arms and subsequently releasing them for massive damage.
  • Bleach: A sign that there's a large imbalance of power is when one combatant grabs their opponent by the head and violently throws them away. Grimmjow does this to both Rukia and Ichigo, while unleashing a Cero at point-blank range. Ichigo's inner Hollow does this to Ichigo during their Battle in the Center of the Mind and the inner Hollow later does this to Ulquiorra, a tit-for-tat response to Ulquiorra having earlier performed the same move on Ichigo. Ichigo eventually becomes powerful enough to grab Aizen by the face and drag him to a battlefield of Ichigo's choice; the man-handling and violence of being thrown to the ground doesn't hurt Aizen anywhere near as much as the damage Ichigo does to his pride. Especially given that Ichigo cut of Aizen mid-sentence when the latter was mocking his demand that they fight away from bystanders, claiming Ichigo was too weak to get to make such requests.
  • Buso Renkin: After becoming a homunculus, Papillon kills his jerkass younger brother by grabbing his face and consuming him through an orifice in his palms — he just sucks them right in, leaving behind nothing but their empty clothes.
  • Code:Breaker: Rei Ogami uses this to deliver his Hellfire to bad guys that he seeks to punish.
  • Kallen's Guren Mk-II and its derivatives from Code Geass come equipped with a right-handed Radiant Wave Surger which she uses to blow up any Knightmare Frame in contact. There's a reason why people call her the daughter of Domon.
  • In Session #5 of Cowboy Bebop, "Ballad of Fallen Angels", Vicious does this to Spike after the latter disarms him with a bullet in the shoulder (thus using his still good arm). Then, Vicious uses this grip to throw Spike through a stained glass window.
  • Hei of Darker than Black uses this to fry people's brains so often that it's practically his signature move.
  • Dragon Ball Z:
    • Broly loves doing this, as do several villains in the Dragon Ball series.
    • Goku does the top of the head variation during his fight with Kid Buu. He combines it with a ki attack that goes right through the Planet of the Kais.
    • Syn Shenron, in Tenkaichi, grabs people by picking them up by the face and unleashing a volley of ki blasts straight into the face of whichever unlucky schmuck stupid enough to challenge him.
  • Fairy Tail:
    • During the Nirvana Arc, Cobra grabs Natsu by the face when he tries to launch a Fire Dragon Roar before blasting him with poison into his mouth. Natsu complains it felt like he tried to melt his face off.
    • During the Grand Magic Games, Natsu grabs Rogue by the face and slams him into Sting before setting his hand on fire and blasting the two of them. Good thing for Rogue he was tough enough to take it.
    • During the Alvarez Empire Arc, Mirajane using Satan Soul: Algeria grabs Heine Lunasea and Juliet Sun by the faces before slamming them into the ground and unleashing enough magic power that it creates a mushroom cloud, decisively defeating them both.
  • In the second Fatal Fury OVA, Terry has a nightmare of Krauser doing this to him.
  • Fist of the North Star: This is how Falco executes Jakoh. More exactly, he melts his face off.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist:
    • Scar kills his victims in this manner; he grabs them by the head and makes their bodies disintegrate. Somewhat justified in context, however, as the arm he uses is covered in alchemic symbology tattoos that is used to "deconstruct" the matter of an object (or creature), but because it is alchemy-based he can only use it on things that he understands at least some of the material makeup of, and as his religious faith forbids the study and practice of alchemy, he is only able to use it in the most, well, direct manner.
    • In addition, Kimblee does this as well in the 2003 anime version, making his victims explode. As a matter of fact, Scar's eponymous injury is the result of Kimblee performing a Face Finger Poke of Doom on him.
    • Brotherhood-only villain Isaac McDougal manipulates water molecules with his alchemy. While he only needs to touch his opponent's skin to flash-boil or flash-freeze them, he prefers to go right for the face whenever possible.
    • This is how Ed beats Pride: by grabbing his face, physically and metaphysically, and ripping his soul out of his body.
  • Araya Souren from The Garden of Sinners absolutely loves this trope. Even losing his arm afterwards won't stop him from subsequent attempts.
  • In Ghost in the Shell (1995), the Spider Tank grabs the Major's head and attempts to crush it, but it gets blown to hell by Batou just before its victim's cybernetic skull can crack.
  • Gundam works:
    • This is one of the Signature Moves of the School of Touhou Fuhai (The Undefeated of The East) in Mobile Fighter G Gundam, represented by protagonist Domon's Shining and God Finger attacks and Master Asia's Darkness Finger. The novelization explains its function and origin a bit, saying that it was made to adhere to Buddhist tenets of Thou Shalt Not Kill, and works by sending Ki into an opponent's head via the palm and the three central fingers, shorting out their motor functions and disabling themnote . SD Gundam G Generation even retroactively gave "Finger" attacks to Master Asia's previous Gundams, Kowloon and Shuffle Heart. Similar attacks have appeared elsewhere in the franchise as homages to G:
    • The Destiny Gundam's MMI-X340 "Palma Fiocina" palm beam cannon; despite the name, Shinn never used it as a ranged weapon in the seriesnote .
    • In-universe it's based on the Astray Red Frame, which can channel its battery power through its weapon-powering handplugs, generating a "lightning ball". In his first battle with Gold Frame, Lowe uses a super-charged version that blows up Gold's head, but also takes out Red's right arm.
    • The Turn X's weld-off/destruction manipulator, which Gym even calls Shining Finger. Naturally, crossover games have him and Domon fight all the time.
    • Gundam Build Fighters Try normally averts this since Sekai uses an entirely different fighting style (and since he initially isn't familiar with Gundam, he wouldn't consciously try and mimic the attack the way most of the show's Otaku cast would). However, he does use the attack on two specific occasions: in episode 4 he uses the Musha Godmaru (a Super-Deformed, samurai-styled God Gundam) and performs its version of the God Finger, and in episode 20 during his showdown with his Fallen Hero sempai, the "Jigen Haoh Innermost Secrets" attack he uses to end the fight ends with an unnamed Shining Finger-like attack.note 
  • In Hellsing, Seras gives one to Zorin Blitz during their fight, intending to crush her face. Zorin retaliates by giving a Facepalm of Doom of her own, attempting to Mind Rape Seras. This totally backfires, allowing Seras to move ahead with her previous plan.
  • In Hetalia: Axis Powers The Movie , everyone is fighting the mooks: America is boxing, Japan is wielding a stick Katana, and Russia....you guessed it.
  • This is the basis of Genthru's Little Flower attack in Hunter × Hunter: He has the ability to convert his Nen (life force) to take on explosive qualities, and by channeling it through his arms, he can then expel it through his palms. The most common thing for him to do is this trope, grabbing someone by the face and detonating his Nen (but also creating Nen armor for his hands prior, or else he'll blow them up too).
  • Used memorably in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable when Yoshikage Kira resumes killing after going into hiding breaks into an obnoxious couple's apartment. When the man attempts to kick him out, Kira, without even glancing at the man, sets his hand on his face and brutally vaporizes him as he strolls by.
  • In K: Memory of Red, Mikoto Suoh, the Red King, does this to Eric Surt, a Yakuza assassin who's tried to kill him and his followers several times. But it's subverted in that, instead of killing Eric (as he and everyone around expected), Mikoto makes Eric his Clansman, giving him powers and rescuing him from the yakuza group that's held him captive and forced him to kill for them for almost his whole life. Eric appears in the anime as a member of Mikoto's Clan, HOMRA.
  • Kanamemo: Hinata does that to Haruka to prevent her from jumping Kana (the non-lethal and non-super version, she grabbed her just by the face).
  • Lyrical Nanoha:
  • My Hero Academia:
    • Actually discussed when it's used by All-Might. His narration explains that when you grab someone's face people's natural response is to frantically try to pull your hand off. Being able to predict their next move means the move helps you take control of the fight.
    • Shigaraki tries to do this to Tsuyu during the USJ arc. A last second nullification from Aizawa saves Tsu from getting disintegrated.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion: Sachiel, the Third Angel and the first Shinji has to fight against in the Eva Unit-01, grabs the mecha's head and inflicts it what can only be described as an hydraulic pump-like pounding with energy from the Angel's forearms that comes out of the Angel's palm. It tears a hole in the Eva's head, causing a geyser of blood. Fortunately, the Eva goes berserk by itself and destroys the Angel afterwards.
  • Obito, from Naruto, uses this against the Edo-Tensei Third Hokage after having absorbed the Juubi, by latching his hand onto his face and releasing a black omni-element material through his hand as a spear. It obliterates the Third's entire upper body. He later attempts to use it on Sasuke and Naruto but is saved by Minato and Naruto's quick thinking.
  • One Piece:
    • Miss Monday attempts to punch Zoro's face into the ground at one point. He is completely unfazed, and responds by casually pulling this on her until she passes out.
    • During the Water 7 arc, Blueno attempts this on Franky, unfortunately for him he only succeeds in pissing him off and prompting Franky to give a much more effective Facepalm of Doom right back at him.
    • Whitebeard did the same thing at several points, but using his Quake Quake powers, resulting in a mini earthquake limited to the victim's head. Needless to say, nobody really got back up from that one.
    • The first thing that Bellamy is shown doing post-timeskip is crushing a man's skull with one hand.
    • Sabo, after proving himself to be alive after all, proves his strength by taking out a vice-admiral by crushing his head, complete with the iron mask he was wearing. He seems to be a fan of the move in general, as he puts it to good use later on Jesus Burgess (Blackbeard's right-hand man), complete with some sickening crunching sounds.
  • In Overlord (2012), Momonga pulls one off on Hekkeran Termite during his "battle" with the Worker group Foresight. By the standards of the trope, Hekkeran gets off quite "easily", only getting paralyzed, although Ainz could effortlessly have dealt with him much more gruesomely. Unfortunately, Ainz just happened to have other plans.
  • In Reborn! Tsuna does this to Mukuro at the end of their fight.
  • While being attacked by a teacher, Tsukune from Rosario + Vampire does this. The look on the dude's face is priceless.
  • Simon in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann does this in the crushing variety in a giant robot TO a giant robot. Considering the series, it and everything around it explodes spectacularly.
  • Happens in a flashback in Tiger & Bunny when a young Yuri Petrov activates his NEXT power and sets his father's hand alight. Rather than screaming in pain, his dad (who arguably deserved it, incidentally) starts to laugh and puts his hand over his son's face, leaving a massive palm-shaped burn. This is not enough to save him, however.
  • In Tiger Mask W, Red Death Mask uses the Iron Claw (see the Pro Wrestling folder for info) as a finishing move; his large, powerful hands enable him to easily draw sickening amounts of blood with the hold. Failing that, he has the Red Death Drop, a leaping windmill-motion Iron Claw Slam — he manages to kill a minor character with a Red Death Drop off a cliff.
  • Ushio and Tora: This is how Tora kills Towako a second time, pointing out that she came back from the dead too soon and was thus a mere shadow of her former self.
  • In YuruYuri, Chizuru uses an un-superpowered version on Kyouko so she doesn't jump her again.

    Card Games 

    Comic Books 
  • In Infinite Crisis, Captain Marvel enemy Black Adam rams his right hand through Psycho-Pirate's face and skull:
  • The Incredible Hulk does this to Cyclops in World War Hulk to block his eye-beams, which takes Scott out for the rest of the fight.
  • In Superman stories:
    • Superman: Brainiac: The titular villain's androids grab their victims' heads and pierce their skulls with spiky, extensible tentacles hidden inside their hands.
    • In story arc Who is Superwoman?, villain Reactron clutches a cop's head as burning him to a crisp. Later in "The Hunt for Reactron" he murders one entire squad of Metropolis Special Police via this same method.
    • Bizarrogirl: When confronted by Gangbuster, Bizarrogirl grabs his head and starts to squeeze. She cracks his helmet and almost crushes his skull.
    • Superman/Supergirl: Maelstrom: After Hadrok hands over a stolen Boom Tube to her, Maelstrom grabs her minion's head and shoots an energy blast through his skull.
    • During the final battle in The Great Darkness Saga, Darkseid grabs Supergirl's face and starts crushing her skull, eliciting a pained scream out of her.
  • Spider-Man:
    • In The Clone Saga, Kaine uses this as his preferred method of murder, the "Mark of Kaine". He grabs the poor victim's face, then rips it off, leaving them dead and with a gruesome handprint as a souvenir. Ouch.
    • In Grim Hunt, Peter does something similar to one of the villains that was dogging him through most of the arc. Fittingly, it was to avenge Kaine, who was dead. Again. He got better.
    • It should be noted that the Mark of Kaine is simply a stronger version of Peter's "stick-em powers" that Kaine has thanks to his Clone Degeneration.
  • Street Fighter: Bison holds Charlie this way in the first issue.

    Fan Works 
  • The Bridge: While both in human form, Godzilla Junior attempts to grab Irys by the face, only for her to escape by firing her Breath Weapon, injuring his hand and arm.
  • The Games We Play (The Gamer/RWBY): In "Expansions" Jaune grabs Gilgamesh by the face and feeds him a Lux Aeterna.
  • In Heart of Ashes, Smaug uses his recently discovered ability to emit flames from his Human palm to grab a dwarf merchant in the face and kill the poor fellow by scorching his head.
  • Mokou grabs a mental representation of Eirin Yagokoro like this before reducing her to ash in Imperfect Metamorphosis: Rhapsody Of Subconscious Desire.
  • In the first chapter of Last Child of Krypton, Sachiel attacks Unit 01 like this when Rei's piloting it: the monster grabs the robot's face and slams an energy spike through it.
  • In the Naruto fanfic Time Braid, during one of the loops, Sakura kills Kabuto by creating a Rasengan inside his brain. Due to his Healing Factor, it's not overkill.

    Films — Animation 

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Alita: Battle Angel: On the night Alita finds that Ido is a hunter-warrior, Grewishka catches Ido by the face and presses him against a wall, forcing him to watch as Alita is fighting the murderous female cyborg. Grewishka is fully expecting his accomplice to kill Alita before Ido's eyes, only to be disappointed.
  • Batman: In The Dark Knight Rises, Bane (presumably) does this to Daggett after he outlives his usefulness.
  • In Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter, Doug and Sara make out in the shower. Once Sara leaves, Jason, who is known to get upset by teenagers getting down and dirty in Camp Crystal Lake, arrives to punish Doug by crushing his head against the wall with his palm.
  • This is how Norah Astor a.k.a. The Black Widow kills her victims in The Grief.
  • Seen in the film Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, see Literature (and it was more gruesome, beside — instead of merely burning Quirrel, Harry's touch actually caused him to crumble into ash.
  • Kung Fu Hustle: The hero uses this as a ranged attack. It first makes a crater in the ground, then creates a palm-shaped hole in a building.
  • In Taken 2, Bryan spares Murad's life so that he won't have to continue fighting off his vengeful family. How does he respond? By trying to shoot Bryan as he leaves his gun and has his back turned. How does Bryan respond? He opens his palm to reveal that he popped the last bullet in the gun, then Murad by the face and impales his head into a wall hook, killing him.
  • Terminator 2: Judgment Day: The T-800 does this to a female guard, though since he had been instructed not to kill, it is not as disgusting as it could have been.
  • One of the last victims in The Thing is grabbed by his face as the Thing digs its finger into him then starts absorbing his body from there.
  • In the final segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie, the airplane-assaulting gremlin starts to do the physical-crushing version of this trope to the interfering protagonist, but then realizes the jet is about to land, and so instead just grins and gives him a Finger Wag before flying away.
  • The preferred Finishing Move of the Blanks in The World's End.

    Literature 
  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: Harry Potter + The Power of Love + Facepalm of Doom = Quirrell's face blistering and burning.
  • In the backstory of The Lord of the Rings, the elven king Gil-galad met this fate by Sauron, who grabbed him by the head and lit him on fire.
  • In a Star Wars novella, a condescending hotel clerk offends a highly intelligent droid working for a powerful Dark Jedi. The droid asks the man to lean closer because he can't hear him, then grabs his face and slowly crushes it.
  • The last creature that Molly encounters in The Taking is one of three that do this to steal souls. Their touch is described as cold and greasy.
  • In King Of Kings Gao Gai Gar Vs Betterman, this is the ultimate attack of Final GaoGaiGar, connecting with the utterly massive Goldion Finger, which is a massive hand hooked up with Goldymarg's Super AI with a hand made up of Goldion Hammer heads. You can see this attack in Super Robot Wars 30.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Essentially how The Master dies in Season 8.
  • You know how Daleks have those plunger-arms in Doctor Who? In the new series, they can crush a man's skull with them. "What are you gonna do? Sucker me to death?" Later on, four of them do it again, the resulting head is smoldering!
  • In Game of Thrones, this is The Mountain's way of killing Oberyn Martell
    The Mountain: Elia Martell. I killed her children. Then I raped her. Then I smashed her head, IN LIKE THIS!
  • In Sherlock, the assassin known as "The Golem" puts one of his massive hands over a target's face and crushes the life out of them.
  • Stargate SG-1: The Goa'uld "kara'kesh" (hand device) can be used in this manner, emitting a shockwave that can knock a group of people across a room, or, as shown when Carter used it against Seth, kill someone up close by slamming their body into the ground or another solid surface.
  • Star Trek: In "The Enterprise Incident", Spock uses the infamous "Vulcan Death Grip" to kill Kirk. However, there's no such thing as a Vulcan Death Grip. It's a trick.
  • Star Wars: In The Mandalorian "Chapter 8: Redemption", IG-11 grabs one of the Child's scout trooper captors by the faceplate and lifts him before brutally slamming said scout trooper's head into one of the speeder bikes to kill him.
  • This is the preferred method of the angels of Supernatural for killing demons. It's usually accompanied by a flash of light.
  • Super Sentai: In Taiyou Sentai Sun Vulcan, Vul Shark's Shark Jaws attack consists of grabbing the enemy's head with both hands several times.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • The clawhold submission, commonly called the Iron Claw, popularized by the Von Erich Family and Baron von Raschke.
  • There's a clawhold variant of the STO (a judo-based legsweep takedown), notably used by Kensuke Sasaki, Kenzo Suzuki, and Lord Tensai.
  • Bison Smith was known for his Iron Claw Slam, which is similar to a chokeslam (and therefore briefly incorporates the equivalent of a Neck Lift). Erick Redbeard has also adopted the move as his signature since leaving WWE.
  • Devil Masami liked to smother AJW rookies by clamping her hands over their noses and mouths, then bending their necks back in this hold. Face two palms of doom?
  • One of Canadian Mafia Princess Tiffany's signature moves was to apply a reverse Indian death lock, grab the side of her opponent's head and then cover their nose and mouth with her other hand.
  • WWE sometimes plays this trope for laughs, such as when The Big Show once eliminated a jobber from the Royal Rumble by facepalm-shoving him backwards over the ropes.
  • Since his late 2011 return, Kane has added this to his arsenal, clamping his hand over his foe's nose and mouth to suffocate them into unconsciousness. This even works on John Cena.
  • During LLF's 2017 Halloween show, Angélica outed "Lady Steel" as the officially retired Bandida, who proceeded to attack luchadoras in this manner, Pricesa Maya for "retiring" her in particular.

    Video Games 
  • The last scene of the prologue in .hack//G.U.//rebirth features not-Tri-edge doing this to the main character during their Curb-Stomp Battle, complete with Haseo's first-person view of it.
  • In BlazBlue, Ragna's immensely narmy defeat of Mu-12 happens like this.
  • From Bloody Roar (At least in the Primal Fury installment), one of Gado's Beast Drives is exactly this. He grabs his opponent by the face and lifts them into the air before letting off a one-handed Kamehame Hadoken and slamming them head-first into the ground.
  • At the end of Borderlands 2, if you let Lilith kill Handsome Jack, she grabs him by the face and kills him with her Siren powers.
  • Gwyn, Lord of Cinder has this as a move in Dark Souls. He'll grab your character by the face and lift you up before blasting you across the room.
  • One of Chuck Greene's special moves in Dead Rising 2 can involve this. Chuck grabs a zombie's head (whether it's a Facepalm of Doom or not depends on whether the zombie is facing Chuck) and viciously slams its head into a nearby surface, usually resulting in Your Head Asplode.
  • If Adam Jensen from Deus Ex: Human Revolution grabs your face, he's about to break your neck.
  • Happens at the end of Devil May Cry 4. Except instead of grabbing the face of the False Savior and then releasing the energy, Nero uses the Devil Bringer to project an even bigger hand which is closer to the Savior's scale. Then he just crushes its face.
  • In Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice, Mao has the Blast Finger attack, which is probably a Shout-Out to the Shining Finger, considering the nature of the series.
  • Dissidia Final Fantasy has a pretty impressive one in Jecht's "Triumphant Grasp" HP attack (known as "Jecht Finger" in Japan). He charges, ON FIRE, down at you, GRABS. YOUR. FACE, and then causes an explosion in his hand. This causes him to shake out his hand from the pain, and this is the guy who kicks a meteor into your face and can plant his huge sword half-way into the ground with one hand!
  • Mage Hawke pulls this in the Dragon Age II Destiny trailer, despite the fact that you can't actually do that in-game and it was definitely not the climactic move of the fight.
  • A fairly low-level female Brawler grappling move in Dungeon Fighter Online involves using one hand to pull in a target on a (very short-ranged) chained hook while loading the other hand with something gunpowder-based and converting the grab to a face lift. Nasty, surprisingly hard for other foes to interrupt and can result in igniting multiple targets when the explosion hits.
  • Dwarf Fortress, being Dwarf Fortress, allows your adventure character to pull one off. On top of the usual take-downs or throwing them by the head, it brings the additional joy of allowing you to follow it up with gouging and pinching off bits and pieces of their face, including eyeballs. In fact, if you want a viable wrestling character, it's either this or chokeholds. Regular dwarves occasionally do it as well, but usually just snap limbs, or die trying.
  • Lü Bu's Ex Attack in Dynasty Warriors 7 is to grab his opponent in the face and slams him/her to the ground. In the eight game, his EX Musou attack has him drag an enemy on the ground by the head.
  • Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core has Genesis do this to Angeal and set off a point blank magical explosion. It seems to only knock him out for a minute, as he turns up soon after looking no worse for wear.
  • Fire Emblem: Three Houses: When Dimitri is massacring the Flame Emperor's soldiers, he grabs one by the face. Since Dimitri has freakish super-strength as a result of his Crest, it's certain that this happens when you hear an offscreen crunch.
  • Guilty Gear:
    • One of Testament's throwing moves is to grab his opponent's face and impale the victim with spikes extending from his palm.
    • In -STRIVE-, one of Sol Badguy's new moves has him go into his Dragon Install form and charge forward with his hand outstretched. If it connects, he'll grab his hapless opponent by the face and slam them into the ground in a fiery explosion.
  • Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: Master Xehanort does a back-of-the-head version of this to Ventus at one point. In the CG version of that scene, he grips Ven's head hard enough to crack his whole helmet before freezing and dropping him to the ground. Ouch. He'll also rarely try it on you while you're fighting him with Terra, though you can escape with button mashing before you get frozen.
  • Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords: Darth Sion leads with this and eventually moves on to a Neck Lift in an unusually visceral beating for the Star Wars universe.
  • Mega Man X:
    • According to the Day of Sigma OVA included in Maverick Hunter X, Sigma gets his signature scars on his eyes when X pulls off one of these on him. It should be noted that X's attack looks a lot like Shining Finger, due to X being voiced by Mark Gatha (who also voiced Domon Kasshu) at the time.
    • Sigma pulls this on your character in the hard mode of X8.
  • Surprisingly played straight and inverted at the same time in Metroid Dread, where Samus gives this to five Chozo Soldiers and Raven Beak. Three Chozo Soldiers get their faces slammed into the ground with Samus' hand before she pries their jaws open and blows them to organic soup with X parasite filling. The inversion happens with the last two Chozo soldiers and Raven Beak, since it's their life energy getting sucked into Samus via her awakened Metroid powers. Raven Beak barely hangs on after being drained along with his ship; the two Chozo soldiers and their X cores get sucked dry, leaving nothing behind.
  • In Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and its sequel, Talion can grab an orc by the face while the Wraith either makes it explode or brainwashes it into a loyal mook. Once converted, loyal orcs continue to bear a handprint mark on their faces.
  • One of the consumes for the claw power in [PROTOTYPE] and [PROTOTYPE 2] involves Mercer or Heller grabbing the victim's head, and shoving it into their torso.
  • Resident Evil:
    • Official artwork and the title screen for Resident Evil 3: Nemesis both show the titular monster grasping Brad Vickers' lifeless body this way. It seems to be a Shout-Out to the Sagat example above (both properties are from Capcom).
    • In Resident Evil 4's Separate Ways campaign, one of Saddler's attacks involves grabbing Ada's face and slamming her head into the ground. Fail "Press X to Not Die", and it crushes her skull.
  • In some of the Soul Series games, Astaroth was able to grab a prone opponent by the face, squeeze their head, then stand them upright. The attack was pretty weak, but it prevented your opponent from getting a wake-up attack.
  • In StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, Kerrigan uses one to turn Mensk's face into a psionic bomb, which inevitably explodes, killing him and taking out the entire room and parts of the (outer) walls. Good thing everyone else present either wears Powered Armor or happens to be a psionic demi-goddess quite capable of ignoring little things like that.
  • Street Fighter:
    • one of T. Hawk's specials is grabbing his opponent by the face, leaping into the air while windmilling them around (still by the face) and slamming them to the ground.
    • Sagat gets a simpler one starting from his first Zero appearance - no leaping or windmills, just grab and knee as many times as you can buttonmash in.
      • An even earlier example from Sagat comes from his promo art in Street Fighter II where it would later be depicted as him killing Gou Hibiki, Dan's father.
    • Now, M. Bison/Vega does it as his 2nd Ultra, right before he gives you "The Psycho Abortion".
    • Seth's forward throw does this as well, picking the opponent up by the face, and smashing them face first with a heel kick.
  • Super Smash Bros. Brawl: Ganondorf's side-B special move utilizes this. In addition to the "energy attack" part of this trope, he also literally picks his opponent off the ground by the face before exploding their face with dark fire (if the two of them are on the ground), or grabs their face and them slams them back down into the ground (if done in the air) Ouch. It's one of the few things Brawl did to distinguish him from Captain Falcon, of whom Ganondorf is otherwise a Moveset Clone and merely delivers an uppercut or overhead punch with the same command.
  • Yoshimitsu in all of his Tekken appearances, and his predecessor in his Soul Series appearances too... basically, a life-drain attack that consists of grabbing the opponent by the face and sucking out their life-horse. An alternate version, however, allows you to ''heal'' them by channelling your own life-horse into them... nice way to show off. Though, in some games, if the opponent blocks it the effects are instantly reversed. Yes, this means that if the opponent reverses the healing version, he heals you.
  • Yakuza 0:
    • Kuze does this to Yoneda as punishment for killing their only source on Makoto's whereabouts — grabbing his face and slamming his head into the floor hard enough to shatter his skull, killing him on the spot. To emphasize just how strong Kuze is to do that, Kiryu fought the victim earlier and slammed the guy's head face-first into a urinal hard enough to shatter the latter, and the guy shrugged it off (plus getting dropkicked out of a building later).
    • Kiryu's Brawler grab throw is a less lethal version of this.

    Visual Novels 

    Web Animation 
  • DEATH BATTLE!: In "Winter Soldier vs. Red Hood", the former finishes off the latter by using his metal arm to grab his face, then crush it along with his mask.
  • RWBY:
    • This is how the fight between Weiss and the White Fang Lieutenant ends. He grabs her by the face and slams her head into the ground hard enough to knock her clean out. Then, still holding her face, he throws her up in the air and smashes her through to the next train compartment with his chainsaw. What a brute.
    • The final move in the Volume 5 "Maiden Fight" is Spring Maiden Raven using an electrified palm strike to Cinder's face, knocking her into an abyss.
    • During the siege of the Belladonna residence, Ghira grabs one schmuck by the face and rams his head into the hardwood floor. He doesn't get up again.

    Webcomics 
  • Occurs in Goblins, and is one of the first warnings that things are going to get serious. A cleric grabs a goblin by the face and casts the level 1 spell inflict light wounds. The results are not pretty...
  • Grrl Power: When Thothogoth happens to call Dabbler a "slave" in front of Maxima, she grabs his demonic face in her super-strong hand. Dabbler then tries to clarify that she is indeed his slave, prompting Maxima to start crushing with her fingers, cracks appearing over Thothogoth's cheek and horns.
  • In Mob Psycho 100, Dimple tries this against Mob as a last resort to brainwash him into laughing. Mob, being an extreme Stoic and powerful ESPer himself, is able to resist and use his repressed anger to lay the smackdown on Dimple.
  • In The Search For Henry Jekyll, Edward Hyde delivers one to one of his victims. Subverted, in that it's only fatal because Hyde slammed the victims head through a fence picket.

    Web Videos 
  • Flander's Company:
    • On her return to Flander's in season 4, Psycho Electro Carlo grabs Gladys's face with an electricity-charged palm.
    • Carla tries the same thing in season 5, but unfortunately this time her target is Thor, God of Thunder, so it doesn't end well for her.
  • In There Will Be Brawl Ganondorf does this to Link, by ramming his arm through Zelda as she went to protect him, and explodes Link's head while Link was at full health. Quite a Heel–Face Door-Slam.

    Western Animation 
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
      • In the episode "Zuko Alone", when Zuko is fighting the thuggish soldiers. He knocks one of the soldiers' weapon out of the way and then grabs his forehead and knocks him down.
      • Also, although there was a Gory Discretion Shot, it's very likely that this is how Ozai gave Zuko his scar. Examine it closely, and the burn is a clear impression of a hand.
    • In The Legend of Korra, Amon takes people's bending away by grabbing their foreheads and then bloodbending them.
  • In Castlevania, Sypha kills one of Dracula's vampire generals by grabbing his face and incinerating him with a fire spell.
  • DC Animated Universe:
    • In the Grand Finale of Superman: The Animated Series, Superman wins the climactic fight against Darkseid using this move defensively: while Darkseid is charging his Omega Effect, Superman holds his hands to Darkseid's eyes, causing a massive explosion which blackens his eyes and opens up massive, red-glowing wounds on his face. (As his next appearance in the DC Animated Universe would show, they scarred permanently.) And Darkseid is a god. Pretty good move, that.
    • Green Lantern actually gets Vandal Savage to do this to himself in the Season One finale of Justice League. When Vandal tried to attack him with an Agony Beam from his gauntlet, Lantern pushed his hand up, causing Vandal to hit himself in the face with the blast.
    • Blight does this against Mr. Freeze in Batman Beyond, almost melting through Freeze's glass-dome helmet in the process.
  • In Star Wars: Clone Wars, General Grievous uses a variation where he grabs an opponent's head with his clawed foot, smashes it into the ground and then throws the corpse into the ceiling.
  • In Teen Titans, Pantha has a non-lethal variation called the Pantha's Claw, which leaves a red hand-shaped mark on her opponents face. It's powerful enough to take Mammoth down in one go.

    Real Life 
  • There is an eye gouging technique which involves placing the palm on the forehead to gain leverage, and ramming the thumb into the above mentioned target. It's a fairly dirty move, but there is no denying it gets results when things deteriorate that far.
  • Also a method of throwing your opponent to the ground in Sambo, by pressing the base of your fingers onto your opponent's nose from beneath.
  • Jujitsu and the related disciplines have a throw which consists of placing your hand on your opponent's face, rotating the head back, and pushing down. It's amazingly effective on most people and looks practically effortless.
    • Some monkey-influenced styles of Kung Fu and Silat go one step further by having you continue the Facepalm Of Doom all the way to the floor and bouncing your victim's head off whatever surface happens to be available - such as concrete, tarmac, or your own knee.

Top