When cool things are combined, the combination is cooler than the sum of its parts. This combination is usually physically impossible or contradictory, like the title of this page. Fortunately, if done right, nobody cares (Rule of Cool!)
This doesn't always work. If the cool things somehow cancel each other out, if it's just so overwhelming the Willing Suspension of Disbelief snaps like a brittle twig, you may get left with a piece of camp that is at best funny and at worst disgusting… often falling into the realm of Cool, but Stupid. Just remember Strong Bad's words of wisdom: "Too much of a good thing is an awesome thing. But too much of an awesome thing is… umm… really, really dumb and bad."
Two relatively straightforward forms of this alluded to in the trope's name are Boxing Lessons for Superman, in which a character with inherent abilities is trained in a cool skillset (a dragon trained in ninjitsu, for instance), and Empowered Badass Normal, in which a skilled character is imbued with special abilities (a Gadgeteer Genius given an Imagination-Based Superpower)
See also Awesomeness Is Volatile, Cool Versus Awesome, Fantasy Kitchen Sink, Heinz Hybrid, Hybrid-Overkill Avoidance (avoiding this trope), Impossibly Cool Weapon, Mix-and-Match Critter, Monster Mash, Rule of Cool. May also overlap with Twofer Token Minority. See Hailfire Peaks for the level variant.
Subtropes:
- Commie Nazis: A faction mixing imagery and beliefs from multiple facets of things the audience considers evil, even when it seems contradictory.
- Cyber Ninja: A cyborg ninja.
- Cyborg Wizard: A cyborg with magic powers.
- Dracolich: A zombie dragon.
- Ghost Pirate: The ghost of a pirate.
- Magical Clown: A clown with magic powers.
- Nazi Zombies: Undead Nazis.
- Non-Human Undead: A zombie that wasn't human when it was alive.
- Planimal: A creature that is both a plant and an animal.
- Robot Athlete
- Robot Clown: A robotic clown.
- Robot Wizard: A robot with magic powers.
- Samurai Cowboy
- Samurai Shinobi
- Vampiric Werewolf: A hybrid of vampire and werewolf.
- Winged Unicorn
Examples:
- Advertising
- Anime & Manga
- Asian Animation
- Board Games
- Card Games
- Comic Books
- Comic Strips
- Fan Works
- Film
- Food and Drink
- Literature
- Live-Action TV
- Music
- Mythology
- New Media
- Professional Wrestling
- Tabletop Games
- Theatre
- Toys
- Video Games
- Web Animation
- Webcomics
- Web Original
- Western Animation
- Other Media
- Real Life
