Raising the bar on first person shooters and bringing it down on alien skulls.
"Is that a crowbar? (picks it up) Oh my God, this is friggin' perfect! Now I can beat the snot out of people!"
A type of Improvised Weapon.
Crowbars are actually awesome, yet practical — they are very sturdy, fairly easy to obtain, heavy enough to be used as clubs without being too heavy to carry, and have two bladed points that can do some nasty damage either by swinging or thrusting. Plus, they can be used as lock bypassers.
In Videogames they serve two purposes, both as a weapon and tool. When used as a weapon, you can use it to cave in your opponents skull or you can just point yourself to a nearby wooden crate or breakable door, and your first impulse will be to smash it to pieces, rather than pry it open. As a tool it can be used to bypass certain things, such as boarded up or locked doors, windows and the like. Or any other thing that needs to be pried off or open.
See also Wrench Whack.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Durarara!!'s Kida Masaomi uses this to take on the entire Yellow Scarves.
- Nyaruko: Crawling With Love!:
- Nyarko of wields her "unspeakable bar thing" the same way others would use swords (and occasionally throws it). It's probably meant to be a reference to the crowbar's prominence of Lovecraft-inspired games like Call of Cthulhu, though some fans have suggested it's a subtle nod to Nyarlathotep's Egyptian origins, since the crowbar resembles the "was" staff carried by pharaohs (and such was one of Nyarlathotep's 1,000 forms).
- Crowbars seem to be the Weapon of Choice for the show's heroes, as Nyarko's allies Kuko (Cthuguha) and Hasta (Hastur) wield them on occasions, usually when they don't have access to their Elemental Powers.
Comic Books
- The Mutant leader tries to kill Batman with a crowbar in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
- A crowbar is Billy Butcher's Weapon of Choice in The Boys, despite the fact that his Super Strength more or less makes it redundant.
- This was the method of choice for The Joker in A Death in the Family to kill Jason Todd, with a time bomb delivering the Coup de Grâce. And years later, after coming Back from the Dead, Jason a.k.a. the new Red Hood reveals his identity to Joker and the readers by returning the favor.
- In The DCU, Crowbar is a member of the supervillain team the Cadre. His weapon of choice is an energized crowbar that can fire energy blasts, as well as being used as the traditional blunt instrument.
- In Marvel Comics The Wrecker is a thug whose favored tool was a crowbar who when robbing a residence that held a temporarily depowered Loki lucked into receiving the magical power from the Norn Queen that Loki sought resulting in it empowering his crowbar and granting him immense strength and endurance. He also has the ability to divide his power between others to form the Wrecking Crew, all with their own construction site weaponry.
Fan Works
- Ashes of the Past: A crowbar is Brock's weapon of choice when confronted by any unruly Unown. And it works, seeing as how his doing so allowed him to save the woman he loved from being pulled into another dimension by them.
- Super Power Beat Down, episode "The Joker & Harley Quinn vs. Deadpool & Domino": The Joker beats up a drugged Deadpool with a crowbar. Naturally, he can't resist the Mythology Gag:
Joker: Ah, the memories...
Film — Animated
- Batman: Under the Red Hood features The Joker using a crowbar to mercilessly beat Jason Todd in lieu of the laughing gas or other gimmicky weapons he's typically associated with using. During the climax, Red Hood has a crowbar ready to return the favor.
Films — Live-Action
- 28 Days Later's Jim uses a crowbar in one scene near the end, where he bashes a soldier's head in.
- Don wields one at the beginning of 28 Weeks Later.
- Art of the Dead: When Louis attacks her with an axe in the garage, Kim grabs a crowbar to defend herself. After dropping it, she manages to grab it gain and slug him with it.
- Walter uses a crowbar to destroy a car in The Big Lebowski.
Do you see what happens, Larry!
- A character gets stabbed in the eye with a crowbar in Carver.
- One of the intro victims in Cornered! is beaten to death with what looks like a crowbar.
- Michael in the remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004) as they enter the mall.
- Crowbar is one of the many things used to pin Freddy against a wall in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare.
- In Girl House, Loverboy has an Imagine Spot where he attacks with a crowbar a woman who accuses him of sexual harassment.
- The initial antagonist of I Spit on Your Grave, I Piss on Your Grave is killed with a crowbar.
- Killdozer!: In the final confrontation, Kelly attacks the bulldozer with a pry bar: smashing one of its headlights to provoke it into pursuing him.
- Pro Wrestlers vs. Zombies has Roddy Piper using it as his mélêe weapon for a good bit of the movie.
- Sands of the Kalahari: During their final showdown in the cave, Bain attacks O'Brien with a short jimmy bar.
- In Shallow Grave, Andy, one of the two hitmen looking for Hugo, likes to use a crowbar to beat information out his victims.
- In Stiletto, Raina kills Lee by driving the tyre iron end of a lug wrench up though his jaw and out the top of his skull
- In Vampires vs. Zombies, Jenna stabs the Jeep driver with a crowbar she finds in the back of his Jeep.
- Brad Pitt for the third act of World War Z. This gives him an Oh, Crap! moment when the crowbar gets jammed in a zombie's head and another is charging towards him.
Literature
- Halloween: The Mad House ends with Michael being beaten into submission with a crowbar.
- Mercy Thompson used a crowbar in two books. In Moon Called, she broke the Mac's, a new werewolf, collarbone to free herself from his grip when he started to lose control to wolf in himself. In Iron Kissed, Mercy killed Tim, after he raped her, by spearing him and then smashing his head in, holding the crowbar in only her left hand.
- Freddy is fought with a crowbar in A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Dealers.
- In Mercedes Lackey's SERRAted Edge novels, mage-warrior Tannim fights with one of these, since twenty pounds of Cold Iron, enchanted for maximum effect, will ruin the day of a lot of magical beings.
- The Zombie Survival Guide details why a crowbar is one of the better hand-to-hand weapons to use against zombies: it is strong enough to break skulls, doesn't need sharpening or loading, and, if needed, can be used to pry things.
Live-Action TV
- The Boys (2019). Just as invisible superhero Translucent is about to kill Hughie Campbell, Billy Butcher drives his car through the window slamming Translucent into the wall, then climbs out wielding a crowbar determined to finish him off.
- The cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though mostly Xander.
- The Criminal Minds episode "Hopeless" begins with the three UnSubs murdering two couples with crowbars.
- CSI: In "Ending Happy", one of the elements in Happy's Rasputinian Death is being brained by a prostitute wielding a crowbar.
- Doctor Who: In "The Woman Who Fell to Earth", Rahul grabs a crowbar to defend himself against Tzim-Sha. It doesn't do him any good.
- Motive: In "Purgatory", the killer smashes a lawyer over the head with a crowbar before tying him to a chair and planning to turn him into a Man on Fire.
Theatre
- Portal 2: The (Unauthorized) Musical makes an obligatory reference to the page image, as Cave Johnson tries to hawk his brand-new Portal Gun to the imperiled Black Mesa employees.
Do you sense the acrid atmosphere of an alien world? Is there a zombie shamblin' down the hall? Are you starting to ask yourself... "How good am I with a crowbar?"
Video Games
- The Blue Sun mod for 7.62mm High Caliber adds a crowbar as a melee weapon.
- Subverted in Amnesia: The Dark Descent. You do find a crowbar at one point, but its only use is to open a busted door. Shortly thereafter, it breaks under the strain.
- In Ashes 2063, a total conversion for Doom, the Scav has a crowbar, a more dedicated melee option than the boot knife. It deals more damage than the knife and can be swung multiple times in quick succession, or deliver a stronger whack after a short wind-up.
- A-Tech Cybernetic: One of the first weapons you can get in the game's Story Mode is a crowbar, which can be found in the room you start in.
- Bioshock: After Atlas saves Jack from his first Splicer attack, he tells him "Would you kindly find a crowbar or something?" Subverted when the weapon he ends up finding is a pipe wrench.
- BloodRayne 2: Some of the punks in the second level will attack Rayne with crowbars, when it's not baseball bats.
- One of the melee weapons in Condemned: Criminal Origins. You can also use it to pry things open.
- Kara finds a crowbar in the last chapter of Covert Front. It's useful in several puzzles, but she also uses it to kill the Big Bad when he reveals himself.
- One of many melee weapons you can use in Dead Rising 2.
- One of the first weapons found in Deus Ex is a crowbar.
- In Discworld Noir, Lewton acquires a crowbar which he can use for opening crates and similar. Attempting to use it on people will prompt him to say that "tempting as it was", it's probably a bad idea (it's not a combat game).
- In Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice, one would probably expect the recurring ultimate Bonus Boss, Tyrant Overlord Baal, to magichange into a sword, considering how almost all of his attacks involve summoning really huge ones to impale his foes. Instead, he magichanges into an ordinary-looking crowbar. A crowbar so powerful, that it can potentially max out the wielder's stats.
- A crowbar is the starting melee weapon for Thieves in Drakensang along with knives and daggers. Said crowbar is listed as an "Axe/Club" type weapon and it's not very powerful.
- In the 2D Fallout titles, crowbars are available as melee weapons that do unremarkable damage but can also be used to pry open locked containers or jammed doors.
- As a mod of Half-Life, Garry's Mod keeps the iconic crowbar in for the gamemodes Trouble in Terrorist Town and Prop Hunt.
- Subverted in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: as a Shout-Out, you can find one in Area 69, on a desk, but you can't pick it up. Some Game Mods replace the dildo with it.
- Probably the most famous example is in Half-Life: Gordon Freeman's signature weapon is a crowbar. This is commented on by the G-Man in Half-Life 2: Episode 2.
- The Joker's moveset in Injustice: Gods Among Us and Injustice 2 heavily features a crowbar as a reference to A Death in the Family.
- The original Jagged Alliance had a crowbar as a tool, but 2 enables it to be used as a melee weapon. It's pretty effective, although it's heavy and takes up a lot of inventory space, and it's best used as an Emergency Weapon for your designated door-kicker.
- The Last of Us Part II features a crowbar as a weapon Ellie can pick up.
- One of the usable melee weapons in Left 4 Dead 2, and the only melee weapon that deals "shredding" type damage (mutilates Common Infected but cannot cut Smoker tongues) other than the chainsaw. The series being another Valve IP, you can expect a Shout-Out:
Louis: Man, I feel like I'm Gordon Freeman!
- In Mafia The City Of Lost Heaven, Tommy Angelo can sometimes find a crowbar, usually on the body of dead workers.
- The primary weapon of Max Payne outside of his Beretta. The baseball bat is much more effective, although it is never recommended to go melee in 99 per cent of the game.
- In Mission Thunderbolt the crowbar is not only a durable tool for prying and smashing things, but one of the better early-game weapons.
- Odium. About as much power as a bat, and weaker than an axe.
- In Planescape: Torment, the prybar can be used as a club or to give a bonus on attempts to force open locked containers.
- A crowbar is one of many, many household items that can be swung into zombie heads in Project Zomboid. It's a moderately good choice, with short reach but very high durability. In an aversion of Utility Weapon, quite unusual for Zomboid, the crowbar had no non-combat use until the ability to scavenge furnishings was added. Now a crowbar can also pry up tile flooring to spruce up your base with.
- Leonard's basic melee weapon in Redneck Rampage, until the Ripsaw can be found. Usually you gotta whack his friend Bubba over the head with it to finish a level.
- In Resident Evil: Revelations 2, a crowbar is Moira Burton's only weapon considering that she really, really Doesn't Like Guns due to a traumatic firearms incident. She also uses it for its actual intended purpose in prying open stuck objects.
- Present in both Saints Row games. The best melee weapon in the original, but overshadowed by better weapons in the sequel.
- In Space Station 13, a good clout upside the head with a crowbar will knock someone out for longer than you'd expect.
- A crowbar is found in the first areas of both Sonny games. The weapon is a Shout-Out to Half-Life, which is more blatant in the second game (the weapon has the description "the weapon of free men").
- In Sunset Overdrive, the Player Character can use a crowbar as a melee weapon, among other things. Even if a different weapon has been equipped, they will still use it to undergrind around the city.
- The original melee weapon for the Scout, Soldier, Pyro, Demoman, Heavy, and Sniper classes in Team Fortress Classic was a crowbar. Engineer used a Wrench that could upgrade buildings, repair buildings, and restore the armor of teammates, Medic used a Med-kit that healed allies and infected enemies, Spy used a knife that could Back Stab enemies for a One-Hit Kill, and Civilian used an Umbrella.
- In The Walking Dead:
- Kenny kills Carver by bashing in his face with a crowbar.
- Javier is attacked by a zombie with a crowbar in its face during season 3 and can be killed by it if the button is not pressed at the right time.
Webcomics
- The aptly-named Felt member Crowbar from Homestuck uses a crowbar which, in addition to being a handy weapon, has the ability to destroy temporal artifacts and negate their effects. Caliborn also got his hands on Crowbar's crowbar, and has used it to do some major damage to both the website and his denizen.
- Duncan in Niels favors a crowbar over ranged weapons. A chart made by the author describes him as the second-best fighter in the series, but it's been noted that he usually has to hit someone many, many times before they finally die.
- Stand Still, Stay Silent: Mikkel's weapon of choice if he ever needs to fight. Unfortunately, his lousy aim is probably either the cause or the consequence of him not being trained in using an actual weapon despite years of being in and out of the military.
Web Original
- Darwin's Soldiers, the second RP. Dr. Rawlson/Dr. Jeston tries to kill Dr. Zanasiu with a crowbar. Also a Brick Joke, as earlier Dr. Shelton had opened Jeston's tool closet looking for a weapon and was disappointed to find the crowbar was missing.
- Insane Cafe 3: The Curse of the Haunted Hotel
. Strut using a crowbar then a shovel to subdue a super powered Human who had tried to pick a fight with the entire hotel.
- Tom spends a large portion of Ruby Quest carrying around a crowbar to smash things with. He does use it once to pry a crate open.
- Strippin uses a crowbar for melee combat in Rail Bros, one of the Yogscast Minecraft Series subseries.
Western Animation
- In the Harley Quinn (2019) episode “A Fight Worth Fighting For” Joker kills several of Darkseid’s parademons with a crowbar, probably in a homage to “A Death In The Family”.
- In the Robot Chicken sketch "Iron Cheney" the terrorists order the vice-president to build them weapons. He says he already has a weapon and knocks one of them out with a crowbar, calling it the "Cheney Special." The terrorists say they'll take a thousand.
Real Life
- A man drove his teenage daughter to a fight and then hit a male classmate with a crowbar.
- Two students got into a fight that ended with the victim being sent to the hospital after he was beaten with a crowbar taken from the school bus.
- A woman beats her would-be rapist unconscious with a crowbar.
