"Worry not: Procrastination Man is here! Where is everybody? What's with all the blood?" (realizes and walks away with a Not-So-Innocent Whistle)
—Stewart Francis, "Unlikely Lines from a Superhero Movie" from Mock the Week
The Hero is ready for the Final Battle. They have their weapons. They have the courage. Everything is planned out. They are going to take down the Big Bad. They charge headfirst onto the battlefield...
...only to find that everything is fine.
Turns out, someone else had already defeated the bad guy and saved the day before the hero got there. Cue awkward moment for the hero.
This trope will often appear at the end of a Big Badass Battle Sequence, where the heroes we have kept up with during the story have defeated the bad guys and confirmed the happy ending for everyone. Then, at the last minute, a minor character or some character we don't know appears on the scene, all fired up to defeat the villain, only to be told that everything has already been resolved.
Sub-trope to Already Done for You, only it's done more from the perspective of the people who actually saved the day and not the tardy hero. Compare Late to the Tragedy, which is done in the perspective of the tardy hero, done at the beginning of a story instead near the end like this trope usually is, and the day was not saved but rather, The Bad Guy Won.
Similar to The Cavalry Arrives Late, except it's another canon character that shows up after the action instead of the traditional police/military forces. The tardy hero is often the Hero of Another Story, who went through his own quest or journey, except he doesn't get the battle glory at the end. Is different from You Are Too Late, where the hero is too late to stop the villain's victory altogether, instead of too late to stop it themself.
Examples:
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Fan Works
- Telling Lies? No, Mama: The class is already upset at Lila for lying to all of them and trying to hurt Marinette. But then, she willingly accepts an akuma to turn her into a supervillain. After the battle, Lila is exposed, the true extent of her crimes uncovered, and she is about to be arrested for aiding a terrorist, with her mother even waiving her diplomatic immunity. At that moment, the class charges in, armed with makeshift weapons and ready to take Lila on, akumatized and all, only to find she has already been purified and is being charged for her crimes.
- Downplayed in You Had Your Chance To Help Years Ago And You Blew It: The Justice League finally discovers the ongoing situation regarding Hawk Moth and his constant attacks after it has been going on for years, much to the anger of the heroes of Paris. It is quickly discovered that it's because every time someone in Paris asked the Justice League for help the member in monitor duty was Guy Gardner, who noticed through the League's scanners that (thanks to the Ladybug Miraculous fixing the damages of the Akuma attack after de-evilizing them) Paris looked perfectly okay and dismissed them all as prank calls.
Films — Animated
- In the first part of the The Fairly OddParents! Wishology special, Timmy is told he is The Chosen One because the prophecy paintings show the chosen one is a bulky brown-haired man in pink with a cap and buck teeth, and initials TT on his uniform. After Timmy has vanquished the Darkness, everyone cheers—and a man looking exactly like the guy in the painting shows up, announcing himself as Turbo Thunder, the actual chosen one. As it turns out, he was waiting for the Darkness to reappear for a long time, so long in fact, he fell asleep and slept right through the Darkness's return.
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Friendship Games: Sunset Shimmer sends messages to Princess Twilight about the random magic spells appearing in the human world, asking for aid, but receives no response. At the end of the movie, the Mane Seven plus new Twilight are hanging by the statue when Princess Twilight bursts through the portal on a rant.
Princess Twilight: I'm so sorry I didn't get here sooner! I didn't get your messages until just now because I was caught in this time-travel loop and honestly, it was the strangest thing that's ever happened to me! (Sees Human World Twilight right in front of her and gawks) Make that the second strangest.
- Shrek 2 begins with Prince Charming reaching the Dragon's Keep and trying to rescue Fiona, only to be told (by a cross-dressing Big Bad Wolf, no less) that she has already been rescued by Shrek. This causes Charming to hate Shrek and become a Prince Charmless.
Films — Live-Action
- Bumblebee: Memo tries to hold off Sector 7 while Bumblebee and Charlie go after Shatter and Dropkick, only for Sector 7 to get past him anyway. And by the time he finally catches up with them, he's told by Agent Burns that the Decepticon invasion has already been thwarted.
- Police Academy: The climax of the first film is a rioter getting in a shootout with the police cadets, which is handled by Mahoney and Hightower. A few seconds later Tackleberry arrives to the scene and, seeing that the crisis is over and he was not able to shoot anything, he starts to moan and bang his head on a squad car's hood.
Cmndt. Eric Lassard: [Seeing Tackleberry's whining] What's wrong with this man?Cadet Leslie Barbara: There was gunplay, sir, and he missed it.
Literature
- In The Faraway Paladin, Will and Menel battle a ferocious chimera in a fierce and pitched battle to open a path to fight the demon commander entrenched in a fortress. But once they finish, they discover that Reystov the Penatrator, whom they'd hired to help them in this expedition, had snuck around them and slain the general while Will and Menel were fighting. Reystov even calls them "slowpokes" for taking so long.
- The Winnie the Pooh story "A Search is Organdized [sic] and Piglet Nearly Meets the Heffalump Again" ends with Eeyore searching around. Rabbit asks what he is looking for and Eeyore replies that he is looking for Rabbit's lost friend, a bug named Small. However, Rabbit informs him that Small has already been found (by Pooh, Piglet, and Christopher Robin).
Live Action TV
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In the fourth season episode "A New Man", Giles, who's been feeling left out of Buffy's life, finds out a demon is set to rise, and when he can't find Buffy, gets Willow and Xander to come along...only to find no sign the demon has arisen. When Willow points out the Initiative probably took care of it, that Riley (who Giles only just learned earlier was Buffy's new boyfriend) is part of the Initiative, and every else knew about it (even Spike) except Giles, Giles gets pissed off.
Video Games
- At the end of the final mission of Saints Row 2, after the Boss had already killed Dane Vogel, their lieutenants Pierce and Shaundi show up, ready for action... only to be greeted by an incredulous "Where have you been?" In their defense, the Boss themselves had reached the Final Boss by flying a goddamn assault helicopter into his penthouse, while Pierce and Shaundi initially weren't even part of the hit and so had to drive through the ensuing traffic chaos and then make their way up on foot.
- In Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Spider-Ham appears in Madame Webb's sanctum ready to help out against whatever threat has cropped up. Alas, he does this in The Stinger, long after the Big Bad has been dealt with by Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, Ultimate Spider-Man and Spider-Man Noir.
Web Comics
- The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: The chapter "AWOL MD" features a flashback
to Mayor Chuck Goodrich's first day in office. Chuck encounters a demon attempting to raise an army of the undead, and stops him by making a Deal with the Devil: if the demon refrains from raising any zombies, then he can have Chuck's soul as soon as he's no longer mayor. The deal is made and the demon disappears... at which point a demon hunter of the Belstein clan appears, wielding the ancient sword capable of banishing demons for 100 years, and he asks if Chuck has seen a terrible demon anywhere nearby.
Web Video
- In Scootertrix the Abridged: The Movie, Discord's escape causes a breakdown of reality that results in characters from a bunch of other My Little Pony abridged series winding up in Twilight's library. Twilight tries to convince these other ponies to help her universe, but the only one who agrees is the Applejack from The Mentally Advanced Series: she heads back to her own universe to obtain the Spear of Nidhogg, an artifact capable of killing Discord. AJ does return with the Spear, having completed an epic quest to obtain it, completely offscreen — but arrives almost immediately after Twilight and her friends vanquish Discord without it. (For extra irony, some of the other alternate-universe ponies who had left without a word, actually did return in time to help in the fight.)
Western Animation
- Craig of the Creek: At the end of "Jessica the Intern", after Kit and Jessica have warded off the Sticker Chips-hungry zombie kids, Craig arrives with a solution to the problem, but they tell him it's already been solved before he can even say what it is. Kit also calls him out for running like a coward before instead of helping them.
- Jackie Chan Adventures: In the Grand Finale, Finn, Ratso, and Chow are all seen coming out of the food court commenting that they missed the end of the fight between Shendu and his son, Drago.
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: After becoming queen, Glimmer is saddled with numerous responsibilities and is unable to join her friends for a mission in the Crimson Waste. When they get trouble from the Horde, she decides to head over with her new, long-range teleportation. Unfortunately, Glimmer winds up teleporting to the ocean instead and arrives immediately after the battle has concluded, much to her dismay. Despite Adora's attempts to assure her the mission was a success, Glimmer is still upset that she missed out.
- Transformers: Prime: After using the Forge to restore Optimus from the brink of death, Smokescreen is shown rushing towards Megatron’s fortress after it’s been demolished, lamenting that he’s missed the action.
