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"One fist may not be able to destroy the world... but it can certainly destroy you!"
God Power keeps my pimp-hand strong!
There's just something primal and gratifying about the image of bare hands beating swords. However, it gets really, really ridiculous when the main character has to try and do that every episode.
Solution? Weaponise the fist.
Brass knuckles, possibly spiked. Armored gauntlets, with or without taloned fingertips. A set of blades strapped to the back of the fist and used like claws, Wolverine-style. Some hardcore mix of the above.
Or perhaps a deeper affectation? Perhaps a giant bear paw, with claws like knives. Perhaps a petrified fist of granite. Maybe someone even grafted the devil's own unholy mitt onto your forearm to replace a lost hand - a literal Red Right Hand, maybe. A lot harder to hide without shapeshifting, and perhaps even despite shapeshifting, but hey, it probably represents the character's inner rage or something.
May enable such various powers and Limit Break super-attacks as: Megaton Punch, Rocket Punch, or Kamehame Hadoken.
Occasionally, someone will use special combat footwear, either as a complement or alternative to this.
Subtrope of Weapon Of Choice.
Examples:
Anime/Manga
- Scryed's lead, Kazuma.
- Liza Wildman of Monster Princess/Princess Resurrection/Kaibutsu Ojou/whatever we're calling that show today.
- The Power Trio of Project Arms has these.
- Chad from Bleach, and his Right Arm of the Giant. Later he adds the Left Arm of the Devil which takes on the offensive role. The right arm acts now acts as a shield.
- Subaru and Ginga from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS have one gauntlet each from the pair of Devices that was once owned by their mother. They each get their own set of armored roller-blades as well. Much cooler than it may sound. Also, Fate's armored left gauntlet (with the "Thunder Arm" ability) is a defensive variant.
- Allen Walker from D.Gray-Man, and his left arm. Normally, it's an unsightly Red Right Hand, though he's one of the nicest guys, ever. When activated, it becomes a monstrously huge metallic paw with large, wicked claws. There is actually a scene where he points out that his claws are too big for him to make a fist. From the same series, there's also Linali/Rinali, whose special weapons are the Black Boots, which allow her such awesome speed and mobility she might as well be flying, and deliver brutally hard kicking attacks.
- Kinjo, one of the humanoid homunculi mid-way through Busou Renkin had an Alchemical Weapon Gauntlet, the Peaky Gulliver, and was capable of making that fist freakishly large and crushing anything under its weight.
- Hell Teacher Nube's hand, in which a supreme Oni is sealed, is overwhelmingly powerful on its own for ordinary (or not so ordinary) fisticuffs... but later on, Nube learns to release just enough of the Oni's power to turn it into bladed weapons, shields, gigantic "nets" made of blades and spikes and bone, or even let it take over the rest of his body to overcome particularly nasty foes.
- Chao Lingshen of Negima had one of these to suit her Powered Armor so she could stand against the more magical or ki-empowered characters. It was later parodied in the Alternate Continuity Omakes
- As mentioned above, the Daedalus Attack used in Macross is basically the Humongous Mecha version of a power fist, surrounding an aircraft carrier-sized arm with energy shields to pierce enemy armor, and then firing countless missile batteries while the arm is still inside the target.
- Tanarot from Macademi Wasshoi has a pair of oversized boxing gloves that serve as her primary weapon. This is a perfect match for her personality, which is a ball of energy bound to blow up things. She's very good with them.
- A variant is found in Bubblegum Crisis: Knuckle Bombers, which are shaped charges attached to a guard over the fist of the heroines' Powered Armor. Understandably, getting punched by this hurts.
- SHIIIIINING FINGERRRRRRRRR!!!
- Solty from Solty Rei can punch a walking tank ten times her size into the stratosphere.
- The X-Gloves worn by Sawada Tsunayoshi in Katekyo Hitman Reborn(and their predecessor, the I-Gloves worn by Vongola I.) Not only do they light on fire, but they allow flight, absorption of other flames, and the ability to FREEZE.
Comic Books
- The Fantastic Four enemy the Super-Skrull likes to turn his hands into copies of The Thing's (no, not that one) and combine rocky-skinned superstrong punches with the long reach of Mister Fantastic and sometimes adds a flame and forcefield combo to add to his punches', er, punch. In fact he once used this destructive combo-punch and his Voluntary Shapeshifting powers to impersonate Powe...I mean, Iron Fist.
- So you can't forget Hellboy's Red Right Hand of Doom!
- The Jager Maxim of Girl Genius wears one of these into combat. Similar devices have also been seen being worn (in flashback) by Dr. Mongfish and The Other.
- Chase of Runaways wore the Fistigons, "the most powerful gauntlets ever invented" for a while. And he has recently retrieved them thanks to the wonders of Time Travel.
- Both versions of Goldengloves from Astro City use super-powered alien boxing gloves as their main gimmick.
Film
- Gamera in the film Gamera: Revenge Of Irys gains the ability to form a fist out of plasma after his real hand is amputated. He uses said plasma-fist to Punch a hole into Irys and kill him.
- Prior to the final battle, the protagonist of Turkish Star Wars melts down his golden BFS and turns it into a pair of magic golden gloves.
Literature
- In Night Watch, both Vimes and Carcer make frequent use of brass knuckles (amongst other inventions of Sir William Blunt-Instrument).
- Nails of The Lonely Winds
 wears fingerless gloves with big silver spikes mounted on them, allowing him to leave some nasty wounds on the monsters the eponymous heroes fight.
- One ''Jules de Grandin'' story has ordinary humans rendered able to punch supernatural creatures by using brass knuckles soaked in lime juice. Or So I Heard.
- In Eragon, the title character magically alters his hands so that they have lumps of bone on top, because otherwise his hands would fracture every time he hit something.
Professional Wrestling
Tabletop Games
- The Trope Namer is Warhammer 40000, where our friend in the picture above comes from (he's also a Space Marine wearing Powered Armor with Shoulders Of Doom and carrying a Really Big Gun (which is actually a Space Marine's standard issue pistol)) which features among its close combat weapons massive mechanical fists a good three to five times regular size that are loaded with servo-motors that radically increase the user's strength and wreathed in an energy field that tears apart anything it touches on the atomic level. The game also features:
- power claws, which are the same thing but with giant crushing blades instead of fingers;
- lightning claws, which are four or five giant blades in the place of the fingers (or on some other units, mounted wolverine-style on the back of the hand) wreathed in an armour-ignoring energy field in the same way as power fists;
- the Scorpion's Claw, a powered scorpion claw with a built in gun that fires thousands of molecule-thick ninja stars;
- and the chainfist, a power fist with a giant chainsaw also wreathed in the aforementioned destructive energies bolted to the knuckles, which is canonically capable of tearing through metres of nigh-indestructible adamantium with no problems. It is, however, so heavy it can only be used by suits of power armour so tough they can survive being trampled by hundred-metre-tall Humongous Mecha.
- Titan close combat weapons are often enormous Power Fists. One type is the Corvus Assault Pod, which is a combination of a powerfist and huge drill, with room to house a boarding party inside. It's used to punch a hole into the enemy titan or building, and then the boarding party comes out and kills anybody who survived being punched by a Humongous Mecha.
- Among the "components" used by Warforged in the Dungeons And Dragons setting Eberron is the Battlefist, a +1 weapon which looks like a massively oversized spiked gauntlet and increases the damage of the Warforged's natural slam attacks.
- A prestige class introduced in Magic of Eberron is basically a magitek cyborg, allows other races to replace one hand with a metal one for a slam attack of their own.
- And it's survived into the 4th edition; now an Artificer Paragon Path called the "Self-Forged", it begins with replacing one hand/forearm with a "Battlefist", a magitek prosthetic that counts as a Mace-class weapon in combat and which is used for the Path's attack powers... the second of which is effectively a Rocket Punch!
- Rifts has its own claw-based variation, usually of Wolverine-esque vibroblade claws mounted on the vambrace of a suit of armor or Powered Armor, and normally three in number.
- The RPG SLA Industries has several examples of this trope. The three main ones are the GASH Fist (a powered fist with a large blade attached, much like a katar), the ITB Mutilator (a powered fist that, for unspecified reasons, causes more damage due to vibrational actions) and the JOLT fist, which deals no damage but acts like a finger tip-mounted tazer instead.
- Exalted has smashfists, an artifact weapon that is pretty much Exactly What It Says On The Tin. In addition, Lunars can incorporate special tattoo artifacts into the full-body moonsilver tattoos that every Lunar in the Silver Pact possesses; at the expense of having to permanently attune to the artifacts in question, they can't be stolen and are always available to the Lunar, even when shapeshifted. Smashfists are among the artifacts compatible with this method, making it possible to have a literal Power Fist.
- Magic The Gathering has more than one red enchantment that follows this trope, among them Granite Grip, Stonehands, and Fists of the Demigod.
Video Games
- Xenosaga featured Ziggaurat 8 ("Ziggy"), a cyborg whose left arm and both legs are visibly robotic and used to devastating effect. Shion used an odd sort of power-knuckle device equipped with various gadgets and weapons.
- Final Fantasy games often have weapons like this for the Monk or Monk-analogue. Mash/Sabin of Final Fantasy VI, Tifa of Final Fantasy VII, Zell of Final Fantasy VIII. Though sometimes they just wear really durable, cool-looking gloves. Monks in Final Fantasy XI also have the above-mentioned footwear, that boosts the power of their kick attacks (although you wouldn't know unless someone told you).
- Yang Fang Leiden only uses claws to add elemental properties or debuffs to his attacks. Then again, this is a man who used his body to make the Tower of Babil's cannon misfire, so what's a weapon gonna do for him?
- Haven't mentioned Rikku's weapons in FFX yet? All of her weapons are fists, including her best, the God Hand. And many, like any other weapon in the game, had extra properties, ranging from status effects, to element affiliations, to the vaunted No MP ability.
- Nero's Devil Hand from Devil May Cry 4. Dante has the Ifrit in the first game and Beowulf in the third - and of course, the Gilgamesh in the fourth. The later two are gauntlet-and-shoes comboes, while the first are just gauntlets.
- Fallout had the Power Fist. Fallout 2 had the Mega Power Fist which was the same except, you know, fistier. Fallout 3 returns to the original Power Fist, but also includes the Deathclaw Gauntlet, which consists of strapping the hand of the titular wasteland beastie to the end of one's arm.
- Also, in Fallout 3, one can't forget the unique weapons The Shocker (an electrical power fist) and Fisto! (exclamation mark included).
- Robo of Chrono Trigger fights with his fists, which he can replace with better fists through the game, so he mostly counts. He's also got a kind of rocket punch. Cavewoman Ayla fights completely barehanded, and so falls under a different trope.
- World Of Warcraft has Fist weapons, often of the claw variety, but they are generally overlooked and not too common to begin with.
- At least that was the case in early World Of Warcraft. Since Patch 2.4, if there's a fist weapon in end game content, it is often made of awesome and a great choice for any Ha T(since patch 3.1) Rogue and Enhancement Shaman.
- Several of Mega Man's weapons are Power Fists, such as the Hard Knuckle in Mega Man 3, the Mega Arm in the Gameboy game Mega Man V, and the Super Adapter in Mega Man 7.
- Zero's "Z-knuckle" (a chip embedded in both hands) expands his Mega Manning ability; it allows him to steal weapons from normal Mooks so he can use them for himself. And, according to official art, his Evil Twin Omega Zero also has one, and is supposedly the basis for the Giga Attacks in the X series (appropriate, since Zero in his original body AKA Omega always performs his Giga Attacks by punching the ground).
- And don't forget the God Hand!
- Its God Power keeps my Pimp Hand strong!
- Regal from Tales Of Symphonia fights with various greaves around his shins for kicking, leaving his hands purely for balance as he's sworn never to use them for killing. Not that his hands could be used since they are shackled, which he prefers. (He gets rid of them in the sequel, apparently.)
- Akihiko Sanada from Persona 3 fights with an assortment of fist weapons.
- Drachma from Skies Of Arcadia fights with various attachments to his mechanical arm. As appropriate for the Sorting Algorithm Of Weapon Effectiveness, you find various outlandish attachments of all kinds (such as a hook, an ancient magitek grappling claw and a drill), all of which are perfectly compatible with his arm, all over the place. Apparently there are a lot of other people running around with robot arms; you just never meet 'em.
- Fist weapons are a main class of weaponry in the Disgaea series. While they all look alike, their description varies between realistic knuckle-type weapons, monstrous appendages, martial-arts techniques, and comic relief (including the Megaton Punch, "Guaranteed to turn your enemies into A Twinkle In The Sky!")
- Known wielders of Power Fists in the Disgaea universe include Adell, Jennifer, and Mr. Champloo. Thanks to Magichange, Jennifer [[ actually BECOMES one]]!
- Potemkin of Guilty Gear actually both uses and somewhat subverts this. Mounted on his fists are extremely heavy gauntlets with built-in shotguns - but his instant kill attack actually involves him stripping off all the heavy metal gear he's wearing, which are actually inhibitors to prevent him from misusing his physical strength. He then punches his opponent. Once.
- In Phantasy Star Online, there's a sub-group of Hunter weapons called fists that are just gloves with photons in them.
- Several chips in the Mega Man Battle Network games are built around giving Mega Man a huge fist, often with special abilities. The Guts Punch and Bronze/Silver/Gold Fist series chips all have arrow commands you can do to make their attack or range expand, and the Cold Punch chip... well, just freezes things. In the anime, Heat Guts style also gives Mega Man a huge fist and a rock-hard punch. Later in both game and anime, Rock can take on the attributes of the series' native punching expert Gutsman, and his default weapon becomes the Guts Punch.
- The player may choose to do this in Crysis with their 'Nano Suit' in Strength Mode, and with a little file tweaking, you can send enemies ''flying'' with a single blow from your fists.
- Savyna's weapons in Baten Kaitos are all some variation of brass knuckles or fist blades. Ayme also uses certain tonfa-like weapons in this manner.
- Gracia from Samurai Warriors 2: Xtreme Legends fights with her bare hands while wearing special bracelets. Unusually for this trope, her attacks are incredibly weak, much moreso than the other characters who use some sort of weapon. She compensates by having one of the best musou attacks in the game, and exceptionally powerful and useful musou-meter-powered special moves.
- In Team Fortress 2, the Heavy recently received a pair of unlockable boxing gloves: the Killing Gloves of Boxing. They're actually a bit of a variation, in that the gloves don't directly increase his melee attack power; rather, after killing someone with the KGB, the Heavy gets 5 seconds of 100% critical hit chance, which apply to any of his weapons... But if he just keeps using the gloves, the timer resets with each kill, allowing him to rack up a chain of deadly fistings.
- Stone Melee Heroes and Villains in City Of Heroes and City Of Villains can make their own granite fists for some of the earlier attacks. There's also the Energy Melee set, which focuses on this.
- The Counter Sword in S4 League keeps a small sword in the right hand, but it's only used for the weapon's weaker attacks. Counterattacks and the weapon's uberpowerful Jump Attacks and Strong Attacks instead use a massive armored gauntlet, nearly as large as the player character.
- The Nintendo Power Glove. It's so bad.
- In the older Bionic Commando games, the bionic arm acted as a sort of secondary weapon, allowing you to block shots and push enemies around. The recent remake allows you to use it to more directly kill stuff.
- Neinhalt Sieger from the Samurai Spirits/Shodown series has a large, Steampunk power fist as his melee weapon. It's also an Arm Cannon.
- Kratos gets such a weapon in God Of War: Chains of Olympus.
- Planescape Torment seems to be unique among DnD-based video games in devoting an entire non-monk discipline to fist weapons. Many of these were Blade Below The Shoulder type weapons like katars and Wolverine-style claws, along with enchanted brass knuckles and one set of man-eating gauntlets.
Western Animation
- This was Fisto's power on He-Man. In one episode of the remake, he successfully uses it to distract an enemy so that he can punch him with his other hand. I'm still not sure how that works.
Fisto: See this hand?
(Mook glares at giant hand, Fisto punches him with his normal hand)
Fisto: Should've paid attention to the other hand.
- Lugnut of Transformers Animated can perform what fans have referred to as "the Punch of Kill Everything." His fist produces a bomb, and when he punches the ground with it (which he sometimes does with a jet engine), it sends a devastating shockwave (no, not that Shockwave) in all directions (somehow not damaging him). Of course, it can also be an Achilles Heel: hit his fist before it hits the ground, it goes off early and he takes the brunt.
- Owen Burnett of Gargoyles has a solid stone fist which he clubs people with when defending his boss, David Xanatos.
- Huey Freeman of The Boondocks uses the "Black Power Fist" (basically a taser glove) in the episode "Let's Nab Oprah."
- The (Robot) Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings, but they're pretty handy for playing golden fiddles.
Web Comics
- Sol's Weapon Of Choice in Circumstances of the Revenant Braves.
- The webcomic Dr. Mcninja featured a person who invented rocket boots. He used them to kick people, a rare example of a kicker for this trope AND a practical use for otherwise silly technology. He was killed one night by assassins because he didn't wear his rocket boots to bed
Real Life
- The stun glove, a glove that shocks anything it touches when turned on.
- The other obvious real life example would be brass knuckles/knuckle dusters/etc., which are illegal in much of the United States.
- Slightly more legal are SAP gloves, which are partially filled with lead shot or powdered metals to add more "oomph" to a punch while reducing the chances of injuring one's hand when hitting someone. They see some use among law enforcement officials.
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