Tricked-Out Gloves

"I love the Power Glove. It's so bad."

Gloves that enable the wearer to do cool stuff. It may be used as Phlebotinum-Handling Equipment.

See also Power Fist (basically the weaponized brother), Tricked-Out Shoes (the shoe counterpart), Super Wrist-Gadget (and Gadget Watch), Electric Joybuzzer, Arm Cannon, and Ring of Power. High-Class Gloves are for elegance instead of cool abilities but on a character who is Silk Hiding Steel they could be both. See also Magical Accessory for other pieces of cool stuff enabling jewelry and trinkets.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Roy Mustang from Fullmetal Alchemist has gloves that allow him to create large amounts of fire by snapping his fingers, since his gloves have an alchemical circle inscribed on the back of the hand, allowing him to transmute the air around his target into flammable gases, and is made out of a special cloth, which allows him to make sparks (and ignite aforementioned gases into a fireball).They're also utterly (yet entirely understandably) useless if they're wet.
  • Most of the other State Alchemists also wear gloves/gauntlets with their specialty Alchemy circle inscribed. Alex Louis Armstrong would be another notable example, with his dual purpose, cestus-esque gauntlets. Just as good for punching as using alchemy!
• Bleach: Rukia's skull symboled glove that lets her separate Ichigo's soul from his body to fight Hollows (he later gets a license, letting him do it himself) and the Quincy Sanrei Glove which makes using their abilities harder but is good for training (especially if they take it off but only for a while, then it's very bad).
• Blarouse from Tower of God has a launching glove for her Boomerang Ball.
• Subaru's Swordbreaker, a sleek glove introduced in Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force that serves as a defensive complement to her Power Fist. Its main purpose is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, as she showed during her melee with Veyron when she caught his Divider with her glove and proceeded to crush it.
• Durarara!!: Celty gives Shizuo special gloves that protect him from sharp blades.
• Lt. Surge from Pokémon Adventures has (supposedly) fingerless gloves that insulate electricity, allowing him to easily handle his electric Pokemon. After Red beats him, he takes them for himself and puts them to good use by enabling him to preemptively charge his Pika's Thunderbolt before even releasing him from his Pokeball. It's revealed in "The Mt. Silver Training" that the gloves actually have an invisible lining on the fingers to only make them LOOK like fingerless gloves, which is about as literal as you can make a Hand Wave as possible.
  • Years later, Black has his own set of insulating gloves he can use to handle electricity or alternatively provide a better grip for himself. This time, they're actually just black, full-fingered gloves.
• Plunderer has Jail Murdoh's Ballot, a set of gloves that allow him to conjure iron in whatever form he wants.

Comic Books

• The DCU:
  • Usually overshadowed by his utility belt, but Batman has more than a couple spare tools in his gloves. Played straight with Nightwing, who carries all his gear in pouch rings on his gloves and boots in lieu of the belt. When Azrael took up the role of Batman, his metallic gauntlets had a number of (much more lethal) gadgets built in; these later become part of Manhunter's arsenal.
  • Lady Tiger Fist, an enemy of the Batman of Japan in Batman Incorporated, initially appears to have a tiger on each side of her chair and is stroking the back of their necks. It turns out that they're headless robot tigers, and she's wearing robotic tiger-head gloves which bite.
  • In the Elseworld story The Nail, the Joker is handed a pair of high-tech gloves with functions like energy blasts and telekinesis, which he uses to kill Robin and Batgirl while forcing Batman to watch. After his death, Batman and Catwoman (having taken up the identity of Batwoman) each wields one of the gloves during the final battle.
  • The Love Glove, a member of the second Brotherhood of Dada in Doom Patrol has the ability to use several magical gloves from the psychedelic Glove Tree, such as the Love Glove, the Shove Glove, and the Tech Glove.
  • Hyssa's Fist, a demonic gauntlet that appeared in one issue of Superboy (1994) during the Day Of Judgement Crisis Crossover. It increases the wearer's abilities and gives them energy blasts, but also causes vivid hallucinations that corrupt them. When Guardian wears it he thinks he's back in WWII and Superboy is Captain Nazi Jr; and when Kon-El wears it he begins turning into Black Zero.
• Marvel Universe:
  • The Infinity Gauntlet is built to hold six different cosmic artefacts at once. When completed, it basically makes you omnipotent — can't get much more tricked out than that.
  • Baron Wolfgang von Stucker of Hydra wields the Satan Claw, a metal gauntlet that amplifies his strength and emits powerful electrical shocks.
• Goldenglove I and II from Astro City, with gloves taken from a UFO crash.
• Emerald Gauntlet from PS238. His gloves (and those of his father) act like Green Lantern Rings, fitting for a Green Lantern Expy. Another student, Angie, has her "Power Glove", which contains all kinds of tools an 11-year-old Gadgeteer Genius finds useful, like various screwdrivers, a dremel... and a squirt gun.
• In American Flagg!, Mandy makes Raul a pair of cybernetic gloves. Their only real feature is opposable thumbs, but when you're a housecat, that's enough.

Film — Live-Action

• The Wizard spawned one of the most famous and memetic examples: "I love the Power Glove. It's so bad." This was product placement for an actual Power Glove (see the Real Life section).
• In the climax of Beauty Investigator, Action Girl protagonist Min-feng seemingly whips out a weaponized dart-shooting gauntlet from out of nowhere (seriously, the movie never shows this weapon at any other point, she just takes it out as if it's with her the whole time) during a shootout, which proves to be extremely handy because the darts are apparently loaded with C4, allowing her to blow up vehicles full of mooks.
• The Evil Eunuch Big Bad of Butterfly and Sword has a clawed gauntlet which he launches at the protagonists in the climactic final battle. It can be summoned back to him after being launched.
• Inglourious Basterds features a gun-glove—a glove that fires when you punch someone. Truth in Television by the way.
• In Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast (1946), when Beauty gets homesick, the Beast gives Beauty a glove that lets her teleport anywhere she wants.
• Polar: In the Abandoned Warehouse scene, Duncan Vizla uses gloves with Laser Sights on the fingers to aim the automated fifty calibre machine guns he uses to ambush the hit team sent after him.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022), Dr. Robotnik uses gloves with built-in keypads (on both the back and the palm) to remotely control his robots and other technology.

Literature

• Roger Zelazny seems to like this trope: Agni in Lord of Light has a glove that allows him to use the Fire Wand without burning his hand off, and Set in Creatures of Light and Darkness has a glove that, once worn, expands to cover the entire body in an armored mesh.
• In Centaur Aisle, Smash Ogre gets a pair of metal gauntlets that drastically improves his namesake ability. They're not magical, but their solid construction allows him to apply more force. It's a very good thing he's a good guy.
• The Dreamside Road: Orson’s left glove houses the controls for all of his electrical defenses, tasers, and flashbangs, as well as for his repulsor boot.
• Warden Carlos Ramirez of The Dresden Files wears a gauntlet covered in Aztec or possibly Olmec pictograms. He uses it as a focus for a shield spell, like Harry's bracelet.

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who: In "The End of Time", Rassilon has a Gauntlet of DOOM with which he can disintegrate people who disagree with him. He also uses it to restore humanity back to normal as a power move when the Master threatens him.
• Odd Squad: A lot of villains in Odd Squad's Rogues Gallery wear these kinds of gloves.
  • Dr. Soup from the Shmumberman comics has a variant of this, wearing soup cans on his hands that enable him to shoot soup at his enemies. If they are removed from his hands, then he is rendered powerless.
  • Freeze Ray Ray, a villain with ice powers, has the ability to freeze any agent in a block of ice by firing a beam from his left glove.
  • The gloves that Sister Zero and Brother Zero both wear enable them to attack people or objects at will, based on what mathematical operation is engraved on the left glove and what number is engraved on the right glove. As such, their powers can range from having their targets No-Sell their attacks to doing collateral damage.
  • Jamie Jam wears a pair of gloves that have jam lids on them. When removed, she is able to attack people or objects and cover them in jam.
  • In "Nature of the Sandbeast", Osmerelda's story involves Dr. Dry wearing "shovel gloves" that allow him to dig under the electrical fence and get to the chicken coop where the Sandbeast's golden egg is located.
• The Inquisitor in Red Dwarf has a time-manipulating gauntlet, which can transport its user in time, freeze other people in place or erase them from history entirely, and of course has an obligatory Death Ray.
• In Runaways (2017): Chase designs weapons like this that he calls "Fistagons". They fire energy when pointing them at a target and making a fist.
• In Stargate SG-1 the "Goa'uld ribbon device".
• In Supergirl, when Winn returns from the 30th century, he reveals that, being an ordinary squishy human, the Legion made him a glove that grants him some of the powers of Nia's distant descendant Nura Nal (Dream Girl).
• Torchwood's Resurrection Gauntlet, a glove that brings people back to life, usually for a minute or two.

Music Videos

• Yet another Power Glove appearance: in the music video for "Na Na Na" by My Chemical Romance, the Killjoys wield Power Gloves and laser blasters.

Mythology and Religion

• Thor's iron gloves from Norse Mythology, needed to handle Mjölnir.

Pinball

• Johnny Mnemonic has a magnetic glove that captures balls in order to place them on the Matrix for an award.

Podcasts

• Quest in Show: Prose Ethlina has dragon-scale climbing gloves. They are sharp enough to cut through rock like it were cake. When on a mission to burgle the queen’s chambers, she uses them to scale the castle wall.

Professional Wrestling

• There is/was the "Coal Miner's Glove" Gimmick Match, where said glove was on a pole (or hidden in one of several boxes). If you got the glove you could put it on and hit your opponent with it. Presumably that's better than just hitting them with your fist.
  • Even a "normal" glove allows you to punch harder by reducing the damage to the skin on your knuckles, and thus the pain.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons has had many magical gauntlets and gloves over the years with a variety of powers.
  • As well as a few spells — Gauntlet ('wall of force'-like impenetrable glove), Khidell's Glamour Glove (protection vs. contact poisons and magic).

Video Games

• The Legend of Zelda has had many glove items over the course of its history:
  • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link has the Handy Glove, allowing you to break blocks with your sword.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past has the Power Glove, enabling you to lift light-colored rocks, and the Titan's Mitt, enabling you to lift dark-colored rocks. Both are required to access certain areas.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has the Silver Gauntlets, allowing you to lift rocks and move large blocks; and the Golden Gauntlets, allowing you to lift and throw aside huge rock pillars.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and Oracle of Ages have the Power Glove, an upgrade to the Power Bracelet allowing big blue statues to be lifted, and let you lift and throw giant statues that are found in a few places.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords and Oracle of Seasons have the Magnetic Gloves, allowing you to attract or repel magnetized objects.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap has the Mole Mitts, allowing you to dig rapidly through earth.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has Digging Mitts and Mogma Mitts used for digging.
  • Link: Faces of Evil and Zelda: Wand of Gamelon also have the Power Glove, which allows your sword strikes to function as bomb explosions, but at the cost of 10 rubies per use.
• BioShock 2: The Hack Tool does Exactly What It Says on the Tin, in addition to deploying sentries.
• Precis from Star Ocean: The Second Story has one attached to her backpack.
  • Pickpocketing gloves.
• Crimson Viper from Street Fighter IV has gloves that can emit electrical bursts as part of her spy equipment, coupled with a pair of fire-spitting Tricked-Out Shoes.
• The Time Manipulation Device in Singularity.
• In Ratchet & Clank, Ratchet gets several gloves that dispense different projectiles, from bombs to mines to Robotic Beehives.
• The Wraithguard gauntlet from The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind allows you to handle the Tools of Kagrenac without dying. It's a Dwemer gauntlet with protective enchantments and one of the best gauntlet armor ratings in the game.
• Runescape has several kinds of special gloves like basic ice gloves needed to pick up some of the hot items.
• Team Fortress 2 has a few of these:
  • The Heavy seems to be a collector of Tricked-Out Gloves. It helps that he's the bruiser of TF2. His Gloves of Running Urgently increases movement speed. His Killing Gloves of Boxing grant him critical hits for a short time if he scores a kill with them. He also has gloves that make people explode, gloves made from bear paws, oversized metal gauntlets that protect him from bullets, and pointy brass knuckles that turn him into a Lightning Bruiser. Hell, his default gloves, as well as his Christmas Mittens, allow him to kill people with a Finger Gun!
  • There are cosmetic items that qualify, such as the Medic's Quadwrangler, which supposedly "siphons blood from your heart, where it is not needed, to your shooting arm, where it is!"
• The Oni Gauntlet from Onimusha series, most notably Warlords and Demon Siege. It allows you to absorb souls.
• The Gauntlets of the Necromancer in Heretic blast constant green rays of harmful magic at the user's will. When enhanced by the Tome of Power, the rays become red, reach farther, and transfer the target's life force to the wearer.
• The demon-summoning COMP in several Shin Megami Tensei games is wrist-mounted.
• The Portal-inspired Twin Sector replaces the Portal gun with a pair of telekinetic gloves, one of which attracts objects and one of which repels them.
• Torvald from Paladins wields a massive, runic stone gauntlet that he made himself. While it looks large enough to be a Power Fist, its shoots energy beams and projects shields instead of punching. For his Ultimate, his gauntlet fires a massive blast that sends enemies flying over the horizon.
• Wizardry IV's backstory includes the Mythril Gauntlet, a glove that is the only thing powerful enough to allow its wearer to safely handle the Amulet without being disintegrated.
• "Power gloves" are worn by the heroes of JumpStart Adventures 6th Grade: Mission Earthquest. They provide the game menu for the player but don't seem to have any kind of useful function in-universe.
• Mega Man Zero 4 has the Z-Knuckle, which allows Zero to rip weapons right out of his enemies' hands (usually while destroying the enemy in the process) and use them.
• Alexander in The Watchmaker (2018) has a glove that grants him magnetic powers.
• Warcraft III has the campaign-only Gloves of Spell Mastery, which allows the emulation of the Spell Breaker unit's Control Magic spell, which instantly turns a summoned unit to your side.
• Half-Life: Alyx gives us the Gravity Gloves, or "Russells" as their inventor likes to call them. As their name implies, they're similar in function to (and may well even be related to) the Gravity Gun, allowing the player to draw small objects towards them with remarkable accuracy. They also have LED displays for health, ammo, and resin.
• HAAK: In the first area, the Sanho Ruins, Haak locates some gloves that are able to be used in melee combat, and can also shoot out energy grappling hooks.
• No More Heroes III: The Death Glove gives Travis the ability to use special attacks from Travis Strikes Again, as well as functioning as a Transformation Trinket for his Full Armor form.

Visual Novels

• Athena Cykes from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice has a three-fingered glove that wraps around her right thumb, index, and middle fingers. She uses it to interact with the holograms that the little computer around her neck, Widget, projects.
• The main premise of Ciconia: When They Cry revolves around the invention of the Gauntlet, an armored glove worn on the left arm that grants a single individual several powers such as flight, access to a pocket dimension filled with tons of weaponry, and the creation of nearly-indestructible barriers, making all current military power obsolete.

Webcomics

• Van Von Hunter: Van's sidekick obtains a pair of "Gloves of Lifting", which allows her to lift almost any load. She doesn't get any other physical capabilities you would find related to such strength (she can't punch, throw, push, or crush with super-strength), just lifting. Although lifting things and then dropping them on opponents is an option.
• Tedd of El Goonish Shive made a gauntlet designed to gradually store the wearer's magic, then give it back in a short burst.

Web Original

• Suburban Knights revolves around the search for the Gauntlet of Malachite, which is supposed to have magical powers, although The Nostalgia Critic just wants to sell it. However the glove itself is meaningless, the important thing is the gem on it, which allows one to use magic without penalty. In fact when they actually find it the gem has been moved... onto a Power Glove. Complete with Shout-Out.

Western Animation

• SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron: The SWAT Kats' Glovatrix- in the first season they were Super Wrist-Gadget, in the second season they were Power Fists.
• Invasion America had the Exotar, which gave the hero telekinetic powers.
• On one House of Mouse short, Mickey Mouse gets his trademark White Gloves mixed up with a magician's, which enables him to do magic tricks.
• Regular Show: A controller similar to the Real Life NES Power Glove was advertised in a video game tournament as a prize for Mordecai and Skips (with Rigby later replacing the latter) to compete for. It was advertised the same way. It also worked the same way, which is to say not at all.
• In Kim Possible, Shego's energy blast powers were originally said to be generated by her gloves. This was later retconned into her having genuine superpowers, along with the rest of her family.
• One episode of Danny Phantom revolved around a villain trying to obtain the Reality Gauntlet, a homage to the Infinity Gauntlet mentioned above.
• A recurring villain of Aladdin: The Series, Mozenrath, is practically built on this trope—all his magical powers come from a life-draining gauntlet.
• Inverted by the Dai Li of Avatar: The Last Airbender: their gloves are nothing more than specially cut pieces of rock worn over the hands, but since the wearers are Earthbenders they can be used for everything from finger bullets to grabbing opponents from a distance.
• In The Secret Saturdays, Doc fights with the Battle Glove, which is able to channel power into his right fist. The four crystals on the knuckles also have individual powers: freezing, heating, shocking, and sonic vibrations.
• Apollo Gauntlet

Real Life

• The Power Glove, a gaming peripheral for the NES, as famously featured in The Wizard. It's a cool-looking glove that has motion sensors in the fist itself! Sadly, its motion sensors hardly work, making it useless. At least it has a controller at the top.
  • The original version of the device (the Data Glove) created by an inventor was a better example and worked more or less perfectly, but was sadly far too expensive to be mass-produced and they were only given five months to turn it into an affordable product, resulting in the problem-filled final version of it.
  • The PlayStation and the Nintendo 64 also had a glove controller that was simply called "The Glove". It worked better than its predecessor but never had the power of memes to be able to surface from obscurity.
• How about gutting a real Power Glove and filling it with modern technology to allow it to control complex camera operations remotely? Dillon Markey of the Robot Chicken staff did exactly that.

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