Awesome / Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

• Kind of easy to overlook, but Zech's first battle with Heero shows why he is an Ace Pilot. He managed to immobilize Heero's Gundam Wing with his Leo and caused it sink into the ocean. While in freefall during reentry. Keep in mind the Leo he was using was a purely terrestrial unit with only a parachute to slow down its fall, and Gundam Wing was highly mobile in the air even when it's in its mobile suit form. While he didn't manage to damage it in a meaningful way, he fared a lot better than any Leo pilot in the series.
• Episode 10 was the first real CMoA for Heero: when his sole reason for fighting was threatened if he doesn't surrender, his superior announced that they do surrender but they won't hand over the Gundam. Heero pulled out a self-destruct switch, whispered "Mission accepted" and promptly blew himself up. And he survived the explosion without any lasting injuries (so did his Gundam, for that matter; though it had to be rebuilt).
• Quatre had one when he piloted Wing Zero without the Zero System driving him permanently insane. He's one of only three pilots who ever managed that stunt but even he was sufficiently intimidated by it that he never sat in the cockpit again.
  • Heero routinely does it because he has so much emotional self-control that the Zero System simply can't use anything to Mind Rape him.
• Relena's first Crowning Moment came in the school ball episode. Heero has her at gunpoint at school, but Relena doesn't blink and basically tells him: "You'd like to kill me, Heero? Try it. But let me warn you, it would be stupid to do so when everyone's at school and enjoying themselves... Shall we dance, instead?" She utterly and completely pwns him and even ropes the cold assassin into dancing with her. That requires balls, er, boobs.
  • Then, when Relena was "forced" to join Romefeller Foundation for the safety or Sanc Kingdom. Everyone thought that they had the Rebellious Princess under their thumb, and could finally use her for publicity and whatsnot. Heero was ready to shoot her for this. Then, Relena showed her High Queen in training ID and calmly made a speech about how they should abdicate war and promote peace. In her first appearance in public, and knowing full well that Heero was ready to kill her right there. No wonder that the one who had her for this was completely dejected, and most members of Romefeller, touched by her speech, decide to stop their effort toward war.
  • Also, Relena gets one that overlaps with Tear Jerker and Heartwarming Moment in the end of the series, when she refuses to kill Lady Une as punishment for her father's death, driving until then either bitchy or serene Une to tears.
• Wing Zero's grand entrance in its debut episode: slowly transforming from Neo-Bird mode to a MS mode, complete with glowing green eyes and dramatic music.
• The Gundam Wing Zero, blowing up an entire space colony in one shot. Also a case of Nightmare Fuel.
• Also in the final arc of the series, there's a scene where Trowa is infiltrating the space fortress Libra. A pair of enemy soldiers emerge from a nearby hallway and start shooting at him. Trowa performs an incredible acrobatic jump, landing on a high catwalk a distance away...and then bows to the guys who just tried to kill him before running off.
• The entire setup of the Antarctica duel: Zechs is mad that OZ messed up his fair fight with Heero, so he defies orders to secretly rebuild the Gundam, has Noin locate the pilot, then brings him to a secluded base just so they can have their one-on-one uninterrupted. The fight itself is decently cool, but the real CMoA comes when OZ, having discovered Zechs' treachery, sends literally hundreds of mobile suits to capture everyone at the base. In order to buy time for everyone (including Heero, Trowa, and Relena) to get away safely, he charges the entire OZ fleet solo, crying "Glory to the colonies!"
• The end of episode 41 is undeniably one of the high points of the series. Two moments stand out: post-amnesia Trowa saving Noin's ass and Zechs destroying the entire Barge station with Epyon's beam saber after the rest of his attack force has been wiped out.
  • Bonus points for the English VA work: you can hear the sheer venom in Zech's voice as he takes down Barge.
    Zechs: You're not needed here. We have no need for you in outer space!
• Quatre's CMOA comes in the series when he goes after the maddened Trowa who's using the Wing Zero and is driven mad by the Zero System. He knows too horrifyingly well the effects of the System, yet he doesn't hesitate to try de-brainwashing Trowa before he blows up the colony he wants to protect. And he succeeds.
  • He gets another late in the series when he manages to master the ZERO System on only his second usage of it AND gets the other Gundam Pilots to drop their "I work alone" attitudes in order to execute precision strategies, thwarting Dorothy and White Fang's own use of the System. Heero may be the protagonist, but Quatre is hands-down the Wing Team's leader.
  • A scene not too long after Quatre and Heero escape to Earth after Quatre's Sanity Slippage and Quatre holds up several men at gunpoint with a machine gun.
    • Speaking of said Sanity Slippage, Quatre's the only one to fly Wing Zero and not hallucinate, unlike everyone else who flew it, only to freak out minutes after takeoff.
• Otto piloting the Tallgeese in a Heroic Sacrifice.
• Treize CMOA: Taking the whole Federation by letting the Gundam Pilots "do their job".
  • Defeating Wu Fei in a sword fight, making the Arrogant Kungfu Guy having it hard.
• Treize challenge Zechs to a duel of honor. Zechs response: "NO. There's no honor in war." Then shoots Libra's BFG toward Treize. Also counts as CMOA for Treize, who had the same goal as Zechs, ready to accept the blast, just to prove to the world how meaningless war is.
  • Followed immediately by Lady Une finally waking from her coma, commandeering the Wing Gundam, and making it up to space just in time to make a Diving Save.
    • And props to Wing Gundam for SURVIVING A SUPERLASER TO THE FACE. Sure, it totaled the mech for good this time, but props to the designers for pilot safety. Seriously.
• Action Girl Lucrezia Noin gets a more subtle one right after Heero pwns OZ by blowing himself and his Gundam up rather than surrender. When Lady Une is very pissed off and about to send OZ to attack the colonies anyway, Noin remarks on that. Une is about to bitchslap her into submission (which she did earlier in the episode, when Noin openly called her out on the plan), but Noin calmly blocks her slap and says "You certainly should be more graceful, Lady Une".
• Trowa uses the traveling circus act as a disguise to hide his Gundam, and reveals it during the show at a military base. Where he proceeds to destroy everything. Just as he is about to commit suicide with his Self-Destruct Mechanism, his sister slaps him out of it.
• Watching Mooks scream out "IT'S A GUNDAM!!" is both awesome and funny at the same time. The most notable example is the Deathscythe Hell's first battle where it proceeds to scare an OZ pilot shitless before wreaking havoc on all the others.
  "The God of Death is back from Hell!"
• Lady Une freeing the Gundam pilots as well as her final speech have to count.
• Lady Une pulls an Awesome moment early in the series. After General Septum gives his speech, Une tells him "... we won't be needing you any further." Then the floor under Septum drops open , causing him to fall out of the airplane. Une smirks, then swipes out a pistol - and shoots the falling Septum in the head. A moment so awesome, the Toonami trailer used it.
• For an OZ pilot, Walker deserves mention. After providing Zechs with Tallgeese, Walker goes into battle to buy him some time and gather data on the Gundams. He saves an Alliance general and surrounds Heavyarms with his troops. However, Quatre and the Magnac Corps show up, shooting up the Aries. Utterly outnumbered and outmatched, Walker charges at Sandrock, shouting "Come get me, you monster!" Quatre catches the Aries in his heat shotels. As his mobile suit is being crushed, Walker calmly muses "Well, I always wanted to know how much this thing can take" before he dies. Not bad for a guy with one name.
• In one episode, a group of former OZ soldiers have taken a colony, including Catherine Bloom, hostage. Quatre and Trowa are outside, with Quatre having just talked Trowa down from Zero System induced madness, and the leader of the OZ group orders that Taurus Mobile Dolls be positioned around every one of the colony's entrance points to intercept them. The orders have barely left his mouth when a Taurus falls apart. Cue several Taurus Mobile Dolls falling to bits, and then Deathscythe Hell emerging from the smoke. Duo, holding the edge of his beam scythe to the OZ soldiers, who don't even have the benefit of being in mobile suits, notes that he's very good at getting in and out of places unnoticed. Which is saying something, given he's in a freaking giant robot.
• Dorothy gets an understated moment when Quinze sends a legion of Virgo Mobile Dolls to attack the Gundam pilots in Peacemillion. She predicts a total loss for the White Fang. Quinze chastises her for trying to give him orders, stating that this is not some kid's game. When the Gundams proceed to mop up every last one of the Virgos, Dorothy calmly notes that it was precisely the outcome she'd predicted, leaving the bridge, while Quinze just shudders in disbelief and terror at what he's just witnessed.
  • She later uses the Zero System to control a squadron of Virgos. She loses, but she also does what nobody else could claim: she completely resists the Zero System's Mind Rape, to the point she doesn't even twitch.
• Episode 18 has Treize deliver a magnificent demonstration of the value of human soldiers above that of mobile dolls. In a Leo, he challenges three Leos piloted by mobile dolls to a duel. When Chief Engineer Tsubarov orders the dolls to kill him, Treize orders the Mission Control soldiers to kill him. Three soldiers immediately leave their terminals and pull guns on him. Then Treize effortlessly destroys all three mobile doll Leos.
  Treize: It's over. Chief Engineer Tsubarov, there's a lot more to wars than simply fighting with mobile suits. We claim victory. I retract my order. Mobile dolls and humans both take their orders from humans. I ask that you place more value on them and love them, Tsubarov.
• The end of Episode 25 when Deathscythe Hell and Altron enter into battle for the first time. Duo and Wufei note that the Gundams are only 75% complete, but still instantly begin slashing their way through the dozens of mobile dolls that are surrounding them.
• Episode 32, Deathscythe Hell vs Wing Zero, with Deathscythe coming out on top.
• The end of Episode 39, Trowa and Quatre are being attacked by Mobile Dolls, the former is out of ammo and the latter is piloting a Sandrock Gundam that hasn't been properly customized for space combat yet, when out of nowhere the Deathscythe Hell deactivates its cloacking system and proceeds to destroy all the Mobile Dolls in a few seconds. Really any time that the modified Deathscythe does this qualifies.
• Episode 48 sees Wufei accusing Treize of being heartless, and fighting just to feed his ego. "How many people have died for you?! HUH?!" Treize responds with "Do you really want to know?" then he lists the total up until yesterday. Then he contacts Lady Une for the list of people who had died up until that minute. The grand total is in the thousands and includes both sides. Then he counts off the names of everyone who ever died for him, from the leaders of the Earth Alliance to rank and file OZ soldiers.
• Episode 49, the series finale: when Heero fires his BFG at the giant space fortress hurtling towards earth as he begins to burn in the upper atmosphere while yelling "I will... I will... I will survive!" Not to mention when he appears moments later flying away from the massive blast in his jet mode in ultra dramatic style. This is amazingly awesome because of the fact he pretty much screams it (at least in Japanese); this is coming from a guy who has never raised his voice prior. To top it off, for the majority of the show he didn't care whether he lived or died as long as his mission was completed. Watching that scene was so... Squee.
  • The final duel between Heero and Zechs. There's really nothing more epic than seeing two rivals still going at it on an exploding piece of a space station heading towards Earth.
• From Endless Waltz:
  • Heero having finally arrived, with Wing Zero, at the compound where Relena and Mariemaia are:
    Heero: Let me confirm: your shelter shields are activated?
    Dekim: What are you planning?!
    Heero: Your shelter is secure, isn't it?
    Mariemaia: Of course it is! See for yourself how powerless you are!
    Heero: Roger that. (fires BFG.) BOOM
    (Cue to Mariemeia's Oh, Crap! mugshot)
  • Relena intercepting Lady Une's slap for Mariemaia and delivering one herself.
  • A retroactive moment for Treize; even after he has been dead a full year, just sharing his name is almost enough to allow Mariemaia and Dekim Barton to conquer the world. The only reason it doesn't work is because Treize's soldiers are so loyal to his vision that when Dekim oversteps that vision they kill him. How many characters can claim to nearly take over the world from beyond the grave?
  • The scene of Zechs reappearance after his assumed death. "Zechs Marquise?! I thought you were dead!" "That's right, I was. But I found that I cannot quietly sleep in my grave, while Treize's spirit is still roaming among us."
    Zechs to Dekim: This is Wind. I'm destroying MO-3.
  • Duo Maxwell was faced with two Gundam-class machines, each using AI based on his friends Heero and Trowa. He takes both of them down at the same time with little effort, pausing only to coolly comment "Maybe next time you should use my data."
  • Zechs, Noin, Duo, Trowa, and Quatre fight an entire army of mobile suits and manage to take down numerous opponents without actually killing a single soldier. The only reason they don't outright win the battle, as Quatre notes, is because they aren't killing anyone.