Before you ask, yes, this is an actual movie.
"Samurai and zombies!? You don't have to say any more. I'm fucking there!"
— The Spoony One, reviewing Samurai Zombie Nation
Pirates are cool; so are ninjas. So pirates fighting ninjas must be awesome. And why not make them all fight some robots while we're at it? Oh and don't forget the zombies.
Related to the Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot and Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs, this trope is a case when two types of cool things battle it out. Unlike an Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, this is not a case when two specific characters Duel to the Death. Though a battle can qualify as both, if the two characters are two different character types.
Bonus points if the two don't exist in the same time-period, place, or universe.
A Massive Multiplayer Crossover often invokes this. A Versus Title is a sure sign of the trope at work and such a work is a good draw for those who are Just Here for Godzilla.
A Super-Trope to Fur Against Fang, Pirates vs. Ninjas, Fight Dracula (because a character needs to be awesome themselves to fight him). It's not directly related to Elves Versus Dwarves, though; as that trope is not about literal elves and dwarves fighting but about traits of two opposing sides. Can overlap with Behemoth Battle if both fighters are giant-sized. Frequently the subject of a Hypothetical Fight Debate.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Many kinds of Shōnen and Humongous Mecha anime and manga (especially Super Robot shows) in general run on this trope.
- Attack on Titan is basically Steampunk teenage warriors with dual-wielded super-sharp swords and rope grapples, pitted against Nigh-Invulnerable man-eating giants that are hellbent on wiping out humanity. Sorry, it's probably best to just give you a second or two to let the awesomeness of that last sentence soak in.
- The initial part of New Grappler Baki pits five Fight Clubbing legends - the title character, a teenage Yakuza boss, and masters of karate, kung fu and jujutsu - against five death row inmates who singlehandedly escaped their respective prisons (and survived their attempted executions in some cases). And all of those ten have superhuman abilities.
- Delicious in Dungeon has a badass knight, a Fragile Speedster master thief, an Chef of Iron dwarf and an incredibly strong Black Mage vs an enormous fire breathing dragon. The first group wins.
- In Dragon Ball every single fight is this trope, very early in the series it was humans vs monsters with a few robots thrown in and then it's Martial artists vs Demons. In the next series we got aliens get involved and it turns out main hero Goku was alien all along and then we got androids and a big green bug man made of the cells of our heroes the "Z-fighters". finally in the last sagas wizards, Demon Kings, bubble gum-monsters and Gods show up but by now the Z-fighters have learned to take this stuff as normal.
- The entire Fate Series franchise runs on this. Seven (sometimes eight) mages summon replicas of famous heroes from history and make them fight each other. Even during the early stages when most identities are unknown and fighters are trying to keep secrets, we have such amazing moments as Alexander the Great breaking up a stand-off between King Arthur, Gilgamesh and a mysterious Black Knight (Sir Lancelot) in Zero. Which eventually escalates to Gilgamesh in an Ancient Sumerian/Indian spaceship dogfighting against said Black Knight possessing an F-15 fighter jet while at the same time, King Arthur and Alexander the Great are fighting Cthulhu. Stay Night's various routes offer their own share of badass confrontations, often revolving around "who can stand up to Berserker Hercules?" with "who can survive against Gilgamesh?" afterwards.
- Ga-Rei mainly revolves around Mafia sorcerers versus state-funded agency of Mons summoners. It's... less awesome than it sounds.
- Getter Robo does this every other day. It starts with a Super Robot vs. giant cyborg dinosaurs and goes up from there.
- Show Within a Show example in Gintama with the movie Alien vs Yakuza. Hijikata was very moved by it. The manga itself have example of Samurai vs Alien, Samurai vs Robots, or Samurai vs Space Pirates, and the classic, Samurai vs Ninja.
- Grenadier: it opens with samurai vs. riflemen, and just the first episode also includes riflemen and machine guns against one six-shot revolver plus Improbable Aiming Skills. It goes from there: revolver vs. magical weapon, revolver vs. super-weapon, revolver vs. magical lance, ...
- Hellsing. The good guy are the titular Hellsing agency of Vampire Hunters who are led by a Lady of War and use a Battle Butler with Razor Floss, a company of Private Military Contractors, a Friendly Neighborhood Vampire police officer girl who uses a BFG and the Dracula who became a Humanoid Abomination. They fight against Sturmbann Millenium - a lost SS battalion of artificial half-vampire Nazi veteran Super Soldiers whose leader is a Colonel Kilgore cyborg and chiefs of staff are a Herr Doktor, a One-Man Army werewolf, a Master of Illusion witch and a Friendly Sniper magical sharpshooter girl. And the third side of the conflict are Church Militant fundamentalist Catholics with a genetically modified Vampire Hunter priest complete with katana-wielding nuns! It's as awesome as it sounds.
- High School D×D has devil versus fallen angels versus Norse Mythology gods versus a Badass Normal human army and your protagonist is a perverted human-turned devil/dragon.
- Is This A Zombie? has Vampire Ninja vs Zombie, Magical Girl — uh, Guy/Zombie, Vampire Ninja and Necromancer vs Vampire Ninja Magical Girl Megalo person.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has Hamon users vs Zombies and Vampires, and also Aztec Super Vampires, later it's about Stand users vs other Stand users and ghosts with endless winks to rock music.
- The end of My Bride is a Mermaid features a massive brawl involving mermaid Yakuza, songs of mass destruction, gigantic eels, and the Terminator himself — in a Sailor Fuku — firing laser beams out of his eyes while flexing while stuff continues to explode in the background.
- Due to its Fantasy Kitchen Sink nature, Negima! Magister Negi Magi has had Ninja vs. Mage, Mage vs. Demon, Mage vs. Samurai, Mage vs. Vampire, Vampire vs. Samurai, Vampire vs. Martial Artist, Vampire vs. Demon, Mage vs. Swordsman... well, you get the idea. And then the time travel, teleportation, petrification, plant control, and summoning come into play...
- The culmination of one of Negi's master plans was to have normals donning magic gear and fighting against robots. That's Mage Army vs Robot Army!
- Viewed at first glance, Neon Genesis Evangelion appears to be about Humongous Mecha vs. Cosmic Kaijus. Of course, then it gets complicated.
- One Piece: Brook vs. Ryuuma. An animated skeleton swordfighting a samurai zombie. Hell, much of the Thriller Bark arc is literally Pirates vs. Zombies. The zombies were technically pirates as well, and they included the aforementioned samurai, zombie furniture, and a zombified demonic giant, which can be piloted like a giant robot.
- Pokémon the Series often gets by with this, especially whenever the Olympus Mons make the scene. The movies in particular are all about showcasing massive battles between some of the most powerful creatures from the games, whatever the rest of the plot might be about. One movie makes a point of advertising that fan-favorite legendary Mewtwo shows up to face the then-last Pokémon, Genesect*, while another brings in damn near every single legendary Pokémon.
- Not that the regular anime doesn't indulge in this a bit. The mainline anime series has had, via the mons battling in major battles, Cannon Turtles vs Fire Breathing Dragons, Fire Birdmen Kickboxers vs Fire Breathing Dragons, Persian Ice Birds vs Fire Breathing Dragons, Super Saiyan Fire Monkeys vs Raijins, Gangster Crocodiles in Shades vs Berserk Dragons, Frog Ninjas vs Abominable Snowmen, Frog Ninjas vs Grass Dinosaur-Dragons, Frog Ninjas vs Super Mode Fire Breathing Dragons, Giant Bug Samurai vs Magical Mermaid Seals, Animalistic Homunculi vs Metal Slime Gestalts, Werewolves vs Wolf-Werewolf Hybrids, Island Guardian Deities versus Extraterrestrial Dragon Wasps, and Superpowered Magical Jackal Warriors versus Titanic Four-armed Colossal Giants. And those are just some of the coolest and most awesome sounding things without context.
- In The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World, Rosie challenges Tougo to a duel for the right to travel with Princess Teltina and aid her on her quest to destroy the Seeds of Magic, a challenge Tougo takes him up on. And so begins a fight between a Hot-Blooded Toku hero and a classic Japanese RPG hero with their best gear in a continually escalating fight that ends with Tougo sending Rosie flying with the wind from the Great Kizuna Sword.
- Shaman King has, amongst other things, samurai ghost and zombie martial artist versus Humongous Mecha angels.
- Gate is full of this. The basic premise is that a magical portal to another world suddenly opens up in modern Tokyo, and the city is attacked by an invading army of monsters and medieval soldiers from a fantasy world. Japan defeats the invading army with its modern weaponry and tactics, then sends its Japanese Ground-Self Defense Forces through the gate to secure it from the other side, defeat the ones behind the invasion, and establish diplomatic relationships wherever possible. This leads to some interesting conflicts, such as fire-breathing dragons versus fighter jets, or a free-for-all between 3 foreign spec-ops teams and a halberd-wielding demigoddess.
- Vinland Saga pits the renowned Norse warrior Thorkell the Tall against the up-and-coming assassin Garm, and both are notorious blood knights. Most of the fight takes place off-panel, but the fight ends in a draw.
- When the right kind of deck is in play in Yu-Gi-Oh, this can end up in effect. However one of the most memetic examples originated from the 5D's series, where you had Mystical Dragons powered by Mesoamerican mythology (supported by decks of demons, bird people, robots, and scrappy warriors) vs Norse Gods and decks based on their entire mythology. As the M.C put it in the dub: Dragons! Gods! DRAGONS VERSUS GODS!
Comic Books
- Marvel and DC often do this, especially with Dracula since there is no more copyright law applicable. Batman seems to be a regular feature of this sort of thing, fighting Judge Dredd, Aliens, and Predators semi regularly.
- Not to mention Batman and Superman Vs. Vampires and Werewolves.
- Superman and Batman vs Aliens and Predator.
- Aliens have fought: Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Judge Dredd, Wildcats. Predators have fought Batman, Superman, Magnus Robot Fighter, Judge Dredd, the JLA, and Tarzan. That's not even counting two Witchblade, Darkness, Aliens and Predator 4-ways, one of which was better than the other.
- Batman/Fortnite: Zero Point sold its third issue on this by advertising a battle between Batman and Snake-Eyes of G.I. Joe fame. It had the same effect in-universe as the various fighters all stopped what they were doing to watch Batman fight Snake-Eyes.
- There's a mini-arc of Gold Digger (Antarctic Press) in which a princess and her spec ops team pilot an ersatz Voltron against a group of pirates and their GaoGaiGar lookalike. The fight lasts three issues and includes triple-wielded katanas, evil twins, and a guitar riff that can stop time. Did I mention that all of the characters involved are leprechauns?
- Judge Dredd has fought both Predator and Aliens.
- X-Men:
- About half the plots can be described as this. Mutants vs. Robots. Mutants vs. Aliens. Mutants vs. Dinosaurs. Mutants vs. Mythological Monsters. Mutants vs Demons.
- Lockheed is a one foot high purple alien dragon whose race is at war with the insectoid and parasitic Brood and who has often fought Sentinels and N'garai, so Alien Dragon vs Alien Giant Insects, Giant Robots and Demons.
- Batgirl (2009): Batgirl was once visited at college by Supergirl and, after deciding not to have a Slumber Party or pillow fight (Damn), the two of them went to see a cliched, over-acted, badly produced Dracula film. Unfortunately, elsewhere on campus a research project had gone other than planned and twenty-four Draculas leapt off the screen and began rampaging across the campus, forcing Batgirl and Supergirl to suit-up and stop them.
It was Batgirl and Supergirl fighting twenty-four Draculas!
Batgirl: [while being strangled by Dracula] "Hopefully you won't hold this against me."
Supergirl: That's What She Said.
Batgirl: You're funny.
Supergirl: I try. - Deadpool tended towards this for a while, especially after he teamed up with his own zombie-universe severed head to fight dinosaurs, some of which became zombies, and then later were infected by the Venom symbiote. He also helped a superhero trucker fight alien raccoons, and helped Hercules solve a labyrinth created by Arcade, who was hired by a demon.
- Nextwave:
- The premise is Supers and their robot-supremacist robot fighting Pantsless Kaiju, Samurai Robots, Cannibal Drop Bears, laser eyebeam-shooting Stephen Hawking clones and much much more!
- Elsa Bloodstone fights samuroids (samurai androids) with a shovel, saying they're too cool for her to use guns on.
- Elsa is the Protagonist of the New Marvel Zombies series in Secret Wars where she adds fighting super powered Zombies to the list. Those buggers are disturbing her drinking tea.
- The new Secret Wars has Dinosaurs vs WWI Pilot in Where Monsters Dwell and Robots vs Zombies in Age of Ultron vs Marvel Zombies.
- Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Collide is a Crossover comic between Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) and Mega Man (Archie Comics), first pitting the titular heroes against each other, then against Doctors Eggman and Wily as they fight to prevent the two mad scientists from rewriting their realities. The sequel ups the ante by throwing in Sonic Boom, Mega Man X, and about a dozen other Capcom and Sega franchises, and it opens with a roboticized/brainwashed Sonic and Mega Man trouncing each other's allies and then fighting each other again.
- The comic book Zombies vs. Robots and its sequel Zombies vs. Robots vs. Amazons.
- The Dandy (1937)'s Arena of Awesome embodies this trope.
- Hellboy: King Arthur versus the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
- Brute Force: ROBO-BEAR VERSUS CYBER-GORILLA!!!
- The graphic novel Dinosaurs vs. Aliens
- The Alternate History graphic novel Block 109: Soviet mechas and Siberian berserkers Vs. Nazi mechas and new Teutonic knights.
- Dark Horse started the whole Alien vs. Predator idea, which morphed (no pun intended) into a series of video games and films.
- Dark Horse comic Aliens vs Predator vs The Terminator upped the ante.
- Hilariously lampooned in New Warriors, where the titular team was captured by a trio of highly sentient primates (a gorilla, a baboon, and an orangutan). Speedball, who had spent most of the previous few issues bothering his teammates with questions like would a shark be able to beat a crocodile, immediately begins asking the gorilla and the baboon who, in their opinion, would win in fights between a hyena and a leopard, a bear versus a rhino, etc. Both the apes are in complete agreement over who the victor in each fight would be, although they make a point of informing Speedball that such scenarios could never happen in real life. Finally, Speedball asks who would win in a fight between a gorilla and a baboon. The gorilla insists that the gorilla would win, the baboon insists that it would be the baboon. Both of them immediately begin fighting, giving the New Warriors the opportunity they need to escape, which was Speedball's plan all along.
- Forever Evil (2013): Lex Luthor's Legion of Doom against the Crime Syndicate.
- One Star Wars comic has Boba Fett versus Darth Vader. It's precisely as badass as it sounds. ** Another had Vader fighting Darth Maul.
- Attack on Avengers: The Marvel Universe VS Titans.
- Iron Man: Legacy series these days is mostly remembered for an instance of this trope in it's final story - The Pride vs The Illuminati, two secret groups of powerful and influential people, showcasing entire spectrum of Marvel superhero flavors deciding to stop working in the shadow for a moment and just duking it out.
- There is always Archie Meets the Punisher, which, while not straight "versus", inspired nostalgic throwbacks to its sheer ridiculousness with such crossovers as Archie vs. Predator and Archie versus Sharknado.
- Mars Attacks! has a series of one-shot comics pitting Martians against Ghostbusters, Transformers, KISS and Popeye.
- Arawn: Most of the major battles include various fantasy monsters. Though perhaps taking the cake is The Legions of Hell versus Night of the Living Mooks.
- Wonder Woman:
- Wonder Woman (1942): The conflict in "Siege of the Rykornians" is aliens vs. cowboys, and the cowboys get a helping hand from an Amazon Princess when the aliens prove to be rather damage resistant and in possession of drugs that weaken humans on skin contact.
- JLA: A League of One: The story has two in the form of Wonder Woman vs. the Justice League and then Wonder Woman vs. a Dragon.
- Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia: The main thing the story is known for is it's Batman vs. Wonder Woman fight.
Comic Strips
Fan Works
- Dan Versus Jumanji: A robot accidentally shots a lion's ear. So the lion attacks it and they cause havoc during their fight.
- Dungeon Keeper Ami features a sizeable undead fleet in the opening stages of the battle of Dreadfog Island. Flying undead galleons and frigats, supported by twelve ancient death priests, pitted against airships. And then a giant flying zombie Octopus...
- Fate/Stay Night: Ultimate Master gives us Ben Tennyson taking part in the Holy Grail War. In other words, we get to see Alien Super-Heroes vs Magically-summoned Heroic Spirits.
- Fantasy of Utter Ridiculousness offers a duel between Megas and Suika Ibuki. A giant robot car fighting Gensokyo's resident drunken Sizeshifter? Definitely.
- An ISOT in Grimdark pits the modern German ''Bundeswehr'' against the Forces Of Chaos. Leopard 2 Main Battle Tank vs. Bloodthirster of Khorne, anyone?
- Ashes of the Past has, as the closing ceremony of the Silver Conference, the Kamui-Johto Elite Four going up against five of Ash’s Legendary Pokémon.
- Worldwar: War of Equals has alien space lizards facing off against 21st century military forces.
- Fate/Zero Sense replaces all the servants except Saber with various anime characters and Deadpool, so this becomes a regular occurrence. Examples include Deadpool almost defeating Saber with Monty Python References, Gurren Lagann vs Eva Unit-01, Sasuke's Susano'o vs Grimmjow's Gran Rey Cero, more Monty Python references, Vash's Angel Arm vs Saber's Excalibur Angel Arm wins, Grimmjow in Resurrection vs ALL OF TEAM DAI-GURREN, Gurren Lagann vs Eva Unit-01 rematch. Gurren Lagann wins although Rider dies from his wounds. And finally, MORE MONTY PYTHON REFERENCES. The "Holy Shit!" Quotient was surpassed at the first Monty Python reference. Yeah, it's that kind of fic, and it got moreso in the sequel.
- Heck, it practically inspired the Cool Vs. Awesome Fate/stay night fanfic series. The most famous of which, Fate: Zero Sanity (which leaves the three kings of Fate/Zero canon to fight various anime characters) is no slouch in delivering, from Rider unleashing Ionian Hetairoi against Alucard's unleashed undead army with every other Servant joining together to help, Whitebeard dueling Alucard to the death during that same battle]], Saber and Maka Albarn vs. Alucard and later a serious Gilgamesh, Rinnegan Obito vs. Lightning-Flame Dragon Natsu and Black Blood Maka. The "Holy Shit!" Quotient only got bigger in the sequel with 15 Servants.
- Weiss Reacts: In no particular order, the Gurren Lagann versus the Nirvash typeZERO, the above two mechas plus the Shinkiro versus the Vox Units, team RWBY versus Hokuago Tea-Time in a music competition, Pyrrha versus Minako and Raven versus Adam. Also, Rin versus Weiss has been hinted to have happened in backstory.
- The Halo/Mass Effect crossover Guilty Sparks, which takes place during the (rather shaken up) events of Halo: Combat Evolved, sees several melee fights between Reaper Husks and Flood Combat Forms. It is exactly as awesome and terrifying as it sounds. It reaches its apex when the heroes catch a Reaper Husk specifically created for turning enemies into husks tries to huskify Flood Forms...only for the Flood-Husks to turn on them and prove even harder to fight. The sequels are sure to take it even farther.
- A World of Bloody Evolution is a crossover fic which drops Yang Xiao Long into the grim darkness of the far future in mysterious circumstances. Thanks to her Battle Aura, she's a One-Woman Army who can smash through whole squads of Ork Boyz and Chaos Cultists with ease. Weiss, who is a psyker on top of an Aura user, is even more powerful.
- The Crossover Fanfic A Gentleman's Game by Rassilon001 features The A-Team vs The Lagoon Company, very much a literal invocation of this Trope. Later, things go Up to Eleven when they team up.
- The Parselmouth of Gryffindor has Basilisk versus a dragon-riding giant spider. No, we're not making this up.
- The Final Battle in Child of the Storm presents! On one side, HYDRA, led by Lucius Malfoy, Baron Zemo, Arnim Zola (in evil AI form), and Gravemoss, a Humanoid Abomination and Evil Sorcerer, the latter of whom ends up getting body-hijacked by Chthon, God of Evil and Dark Magic, their vibranium-armoured Destroyer-armed super-sized Helicarrier, and a whole army of demons. On the other, Magneto, Namor, the Avengers (including Loki), Sirius, Lupin, Hogwarts' senior staff, a few former X-Men, Harry Dresden, the Scarlet Witch, John Constantine, the Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Blade, Sif and the Warriors Three, and the remnants of SHIELD and MI-13. And then there's Harry and his team: A teenage Asgardian, a pre-teen Wonder Woman, a teenage super-soldier with the Green Lantern ring, and a Flash-level speedster. Oh, and the Winter Soldier joins in for the second half, as do Stephen Strange, Odin, and an Asgardian army. Not to mention all the Heroes of Tomorrow. Meanwhile, the current X-Men and heroes (some mystical, some completely mundane) fight demons across the world.
- In a smaller example of this trope, Alan Scott used to be a Special Agent of SHIELD. And his chief opponent in the seventies and eighties was Magneto.
- The sequel's arcs heavily feature this:
- Forever Red: The Winter Soldier vs Sabretooth, Harry vs Maddie Pryor in a battle that upends the Nevernever, the Red Son and the Winter Guard vs Magneto, Thor vs the Juggernaut, and the Red Room vs the Dark Phoenix.
- Bloody Hell: Harry vs Dracula - Rounds 1 and 2, and Bucky/the Winter Soldier, Uhtred, Diana, Gambit, Wolverine, Carol, Alison Carter, Peter Parker, and Doctor Doom vs machine-gun wielding Grey Court Vampires. In the other half of the arc: Harry Dresden (riding Sue the undead T-Rex, Wanda Maximoff, Magneto, and the White Council, vs Selene Gallio, Voldemort, the Kemmlerites, and a lot of zombies.
- Of Dungeons and Dragons: Harry vs the Barrow Wights, and Harry, Thor, Tony, Dumbledore, Wanda, Ebenezar McCoy, and MI13 vs the Elder Wyrm.
- Mirror, Mirror: Harry and Clark vs Dr Reynolds, an Evil Sorcerer and Mad Scientist who'd drained Clark like a battery and fused with a demon to become an unholy combination of the Parasite and The Sentry in full Void mode.
- The Fallen Fortress: Harry, Hermione ( as a Spirit Advisor in Harry's head), Dumbledore, Betsy Braddock, and Sirius Black (with support from Krum and Ron) vs the Spirit of the Fallen Fortress, an Eldritch Abomination that ate everything sentient up to and including low-level gods, which is now possessing Hermione, activating her X-Gene and full Reality Warper potential.
- Also in the sequel, outside of major arcs:
- Alison Carter mentions that the Red Room kidnapped her back in 1953 with the aid of Yon-Rogg (Kree military, completely evil) and a Winter Guard composed of pre Heel–Face Turn Natasha, the Winter Soldier, Omega Red, and a blackmailed Colossus, among others. In response, Peggy Carter and Howard Stark teamed up with a young Charles Xavier, Captain Mar-Vell, Master Bra'tac, Teal'c, and a young Jor-El to get her back. The fight isn't shown, but it is occasionally mentioned that Jor-El, a Martial Pacifist, literally drop-kicked Omega Red through Mount Yamantau. Not over. Through.
- Chapter 51 shows visions of Sunniva (an ancient Asgardian Phoenix host) vs Annihilus and the Negative Zone itself and Bor vs a Reality Stone wielding Malekith. Furthermore, it also has Harry go mind to mind with Surtur - Phoenix vs Dark Phoenix, in other words.
- Coreline is what happens if you take Who Framed Roger Rabbit by way of Last Action Hero... by way of Rifts. Situations like these happen all of the time within the setting. As an example, one of the minor fights in The Shikigami Ranger and the Monster Mashers is Leatherback vs. the Dragonzord, which is being piloted by an Alternate Universe version of Sango that is a Green Ranger She-Hulk.
- In Shinji And Warhammer 40 K the Angels are more powerful and terrifying than in the TV series, and the Evangelions are more powerful (better trained pilots and NNHIS' additions). This makes for truly awesome fights.
- Sahaquiel is able to capture live nukes launched at him and drop parts of itself to the ground with those nukes inside -effectively nuking targets-, and Tokyo-3 answers with a N2 bomb-powered homing laser to defeat him).
- Rei vs. Kaworu's first fight deserves to be mentioned.
- Then Kaworu infects a massive fortress cradle with a living Angel and worms and uses to zombify parts of Tokyo-3 while deploying his own battle mechas based on Angelic biomatter and current technology to fight the Evas. Then Shinji arrives with his own army, composed of battle-hardened Chinese and Russian soldiers, psychic warriors highly skilled at killing Angelspawn, and the Terminatus Legio.
- The battle of Gotha (German soldiers and psykers vs all the horrors the Cradle throws at them) is 2 chapters of courageous soldiers armed with Bolt weaponry and psychoreactive lances vs dragons, Brutes, Angelspawn and a couple of mechasaurus.
- Asuka and Mayumi vs. Martin and Sarah is THE fight everyone was expecting (in-world, no less!).
- Then, at the same time and at the other side of the world, Shinji vs. Kaworu.
- The 7th chapter of Heart of the Inferno has a Behemoth Battle occur between Smaug and Durin's Bane at the end of Gandalf's fight with Moria's Balrog. See the author's drawing here.
- Blood on the Hands of a Healer is the result of the storyline of Re:CREATORS taking place in the world of Kamen Rider Ex-Aid. It goes on to answer the question of what happens when Combat Medics clad in video game based Powered Armor have to deal with invading fictional characters from various mediums and genres of the In-Universe pop culture. So far, the fights have included:
- A Platform Game based Kamen Rider and a Fiery Redhead princess vs a Psychotic Smirking Musical Assassin whose Signature Move is Storm of Blades. The former duo later on take on a stereotypical Magical Girl who is very the Trope Codifier for Heart Is an Awesome Power, except now said Kamen Rider has a Power Fist via the power of Mecha Games.
- The resident First-Person Shooter based Kamen Rider who later dons on a Jet Pack with More Dakka through the power of a Shoot 'em Up video game vs a Magic Knight with a Cool Horse who has Summon Magic Up to Eleven, which allows her to call upon a Badass Army. They later clash again when they team up with an RPG based Kamen Rider with a Cool Sword that can utilize fire and ice and a Super Cop with anti-gravity high-tech respectively.
- In Eye of the Storm, we have Son of Sparda vs. Servant. Half demon vs. spirit of legendary hero. While either combatant don't go all out (no Devil Trigger or Noble Phantasm), they are able to keep up with each other.
- Chasing Dragons gives us the battle of Narrow Run, in which a Dothraki ''khalasar'' of 11,000 bloodthirsty warriors is up against an army half its size made up of Westerosi knights, longbowmen from the Reach and the Stormlands and the Iron Legion, which is 90% composed of newly freed slaves trained by Westerosi sergeants in spear, short sword, shield and crossbow. Their hatred and anger toward their former captors combined with military training has turned them into very formidable soldiers. They are led by Ned Stark and Brynden Tully. The battle lasts all day, with the bodies piled for miles around.
- Next Grand World: Chapter 13 has a fight that eventually ends in Zveri Krestnyi Khod (an magical ice mammoth) fighting Another Kuuga (an monster stag beetle), with both being the size of mountains.
Films — Animation
- Monsters vs. Aliens: you get what you came for, and then some.
- How to Train Your Dragon (2010): Vikings vs. Dragons. Then, Vikings riding dragons vs. an even bigger dragon.
- Epic (2013) features Samurai (the Leafmen) vs. shark-frog-men (the Boggans).
- Not only does Batman vs. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles see Batman fight the Turtles, but one of the first fights sees him come into conflict with their archenemy, the Shredder.
Films — Live-Action
- The Godzilla franchise mostly deals with the titled mutant dinosaur himself fighting off other giant monsters and super weapons such as other giant mutant dinosaurs, bugs, dragons, gods, space monsters, robots, and cyborgs.
- King Kong vs. Godzilla, one of the most iconic examples of this, actually stemmed from a concept for a King Kong sequel that was suggested by Willis O'Brien but unfortunately never came to be: King Kong fighting a monster created by Dr. Frankenstein.
- Godzilla vs. Kong has the basic premise of the above, with state-of-the-art modern special effects and a Shared Universe (the MonsterVerse) to build up towards the showdown. The whole MonsterVerse qualifies really, but GvK plays up the trope the most. And that's without getting into them eventually teaming up to fight a King Ghidorah-powered Mechagodzilla.
- Sadako vs. Kayako featuring the ghosts of the Ju-on and the Ring film series.
- Friday the 13th:
- Freddy vs. Jason revolves around two powerful villains fighting each other.
- Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood has Jason fighting a telekinetic girl; it's known in fan circles as "Jason vs. Carrie."
- The Valley of Gwangi has cowboys fighting dinosaurs.
- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End has Pirates and Zombie Monkey vs. Evil Brit Mix-and-Match Critters... in a maelstrom.
- The Star Wars prequel trilogy has samurai wizards and clones fighting an army of robots.
- Dog Soldiers is British army soldiers vs. werewolves. And it's awesome.
- Similarly, 28 Days Later involved soldiers vs. almost-zombies.
- Outlander (2008): Vikings (plus an adopted Space Marine) versus a giant alien lizard.
- The 13th Warrior: Vikings versus Neanderthal cannibals masquerading as mythical demons.
- The A-Team pits a tank against multiple drones in midair.
- A Syfy Channel Original Movie courtesy of The Asylum: Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus.
- There's also the sequels Mega Shark Vs Crocosaurus and Mega Shark Vs Mecha Shark, as well as the unrelated Mega Python Vs Gatoroid. Apparently, The Asylum has a thing for creature features when they're not busy ripping off currently popular movies.
- Mega Shark Vs Kolossus pits The Asylum's ever-persistent ocean predator against a Humongous Mecha version of the Colossal Titan.
- Ninja Vs Shark, a legit Japanese film that exists. An Okinawan village in the Edo period is attacked by a shark monster under an Evil Sorceror's control, and it's up to a badass Ninja to save the day. Even after killing said sorcerer, the shark goes amok and needs to be put down in the twelve-minute-long Ninja vs. Shark final battle.
- Beyond Re-Animator has a fight between a sentient severed penis and a rat.
- Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 features the ultimate underwater battle... zombie versus shark! The undeath-or-death duel ends in a draw: the zombie's missing an arm, but the wounded tiger shark swims away, where he presumably goes Up to Eleven by becoming an offscreen zombie shark.
- Avatar at the end boils down to a blue skinned Catguy vs Colonel Badass in a Mecha having a giant knife duel.
- Pathfinder (2007): Native Americans vs. Vikings. Bonus points for having actually happened in Real Life — the Vikings reached America almost five hundred years before Columbus, and even tried to colonize Newfoundland, but were driven out by the natives.
- In the climactic battle, Van Helsing ends with one of these—Van Helsing turns into a werewolf and fights Dracula in his monster bat form.
- Sucker Punch: Cool chicks in revealing outfits VS steampunk zombie Nazis. Although it's a hallucination.
- The Warrior's Way features Cowboys versus Ninjas.
- And Cowboys & Aliens features, well.... The only way to make it any cooler and more awesome would be if one cowboy is the guy who played James Bond and the other is the guy who played Indiana Jones. Wait, they are?! Those aliens are going to get every inch of their butts kicked.
- Underworld (2003) which is about Vampires vs Lycans (werewolves). With automatic weapons firing ultraviolet bullets/silver nitrate rounds and exploding shurikens.
- Pacific Rim: Humongous Mecha vs. Kaiju. The director even acknowledges this.
Guillermo Del Toro: It is my duty to commit to film the finest fucking monsters ever committed to screen and it is my duty to create the greatest fucking robots ever committed to screen.
- Age of Dinosaurs by The Asylum — dinosaurs vs. the army.
- Thor: The Dark World can be best summed up as alien elves in spaceships vs space Vikings in flying longboats with lasers.
- Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: Batman going up against Superman! And then those two and Wonder Woman fighting Doomsday!
- Marvel's counterpart, Captain America: Civil War goes one step further by splitting the MCU's current lineup of heroes into two factions that battle each other.
- Jurassic Park:
- Jurassic Park (1993) has the Tyrannosaurus rex vs. the particularly large, aggressive and ruthless Velociraptor known as The Big One. The Big One doesn't make it.
- Jurassic Park III has a T. rex vs. a Spinosaurus.
- Jurassic World features that same Tyrannosaurus joined by Blue the Velociraptor to fight the abomination Indominus rex plus a final blow by the sea lizard Mosasaurus to said abomination. There's also Indominus Rex vs. Ankylosaurus. Poor Anky only lasts a few seconds.
- Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom pits Blue against the Indoraptor, a smaller, nastier, more sadistic version of the Indominus rex. Blue wins.
- In Jupiter Ascending, at least one fight scene is human/wolf hybrid Caine fighting a group of space dragon soldiers.
- Zulu: The manly British army versus the manly Zulu warriors.
- Thor: Ragnarok includes scenes with a giant green rage monster vs a huge wolf, an army of armored skeleton warriors, and a kilometer tall fire demon.
- Starcrash has a robot fight a caveman, but subverts this by being so terribly done that it utterly fails to be cool.
- The last big fight in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad is between a Cyclops and a dragon. The Cyclops puts up a staunch resistance, but in the end, it's the fire-breathing reptile who prevails.
- Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger has a cool fight between a Smilodon and the Troglodyte, which is like a big Frazetta Man/ogre thing. The Smilodon wins when it pins the Troglodyte down, mangles his arms and then rips his throat out. But the Smilodon is then in turn killed by Sinbad using the spear the Troglodyte was using.
- Parodied in Hercules Returns. The Corrupt Corporate Executive is bragging about how they've purchased the very best movies for their new cinema multiplex. While he's talking the protagonist is sorting through movie posters for Rambo Meets Rocky, Rambo Meets Bambi and then Rambo Eats Bambi.
Literature
- Jim Butcher:
- The Dresden Files: The whole series could be summed up as "pulp wizard-detective versus everything".
- Dead Beat has two awesome battles. One is a ninja ghoul versus Valkyrie security consultant. The other is Harry Dresden riding a zombified Tyrannosaurus rex into battle against necromancers and their zombie armies. Set to jaunty polka music.
"Sticks and stones may break your bones, but Chinese throwing stars get you a dozen stitches."
- Turn Coat gives us a centuries old, superpowerful Magical Native American versus prehistoric, shapeshifting, mind breaking Eldritch Abomination.
- Changes has an epic battle involving three vampires, The Fair Folk, a Knight of the Cross or three, dozens of wizards (including the new Winter Knight and the Blackstaff), a Chinese guardian spirit, an entire army of Japanese kenku ninja-spirits, and Odin versus the entire Red Court of vampires, including the Red King, armies of half-vampire acolytes, and the Lords of the Outer Night, more or less Mayincatec gods, and South American mercenaries. The fight is ended by Harry blowing up a pyramid.
- Cold Days: Santa Claus and the Erkling versus Cthulhu's buddies.
- Dead Beat has two awesome battles. One is a ninja ghoul versus Valkyrie security consultant. The other is Harry Dresden riding a zombified Tyrannosaurus rex into battle against necromancers and their zombie armies. Set to jaunty polka music.
- Codex Alera: Proof that any ridiculous premise could be made awesome — such as the Lost Roman Legion versus Pokémon. The result was Roman legionnaires with Elemental Powers versus wolfmen with Blood Magic and arbalests versus the Zerg versus Neanderthal-elves with Bond Creatures versus empathic yetis. And the one Badass Normal. Our Laconic explanation of it is Cool Vs. Awesome: The Series.
- The Dresden Files: The whole series could be summed up as "pulp wizard-detective versus everything".
- Clickers Versus Zombies by J.F. Gonzalez and Brian Keene, involves poor humanity caught between primordial genies possessing corpses and prehistoric giant crustaceans with Hollywood Acid.
- In Complete World Knowledge, details of the historic feud between submariners and zeppeliners are given. In a subversion, the author describes this as "the most pointless feud in human history".
- Dungeon Core Chat Room: You know a story is doing something right when the heroes (a team of Genius Loci) kill a giant space monster with a nuclear harpoon cannon.
- The Shahnameh: Rostam vs. Esfandiar. Easily the most badass character in the entire epic versus the invincible prince!
- Two of the books in the Skulduggery Pleasant series, Playing With Fire and The Faceless Ones, feature a detective skeleton wizard and his companions versus near immortal gods. The wizards win the first time. They at least manage to survive the attack (mostly) by the multiple fully powered gods in the next book.
- Zombies vs Unicorns, which began as two people arguing which were better.
- Played with/lampshaded (by the main character) in The Hobbit. As if an epic war between Elves, Dwarves and Lake Men wasn't enough, Tolkien throws in Goblins and Wargs.
- It takes Harry Potter five books for a duel between Dumbledore and Voldemort. Mind you, the former is triple-digit years old and can still force the latter to attack with all he's got.
- Everworld; not only do you have gods from various mythologies versus each other, but you also have: Vikings vs Aztecs, Vikings vs medieval knights (plus Merlin himself), Ancient Greek gods vs insect-aliens, etc.
- Artemis Fowl gives us a Child Prodigy Magnificent Bastard and his Battle Butler vs Fairies with laser guns.
- Pavlov's Dogs is built around the premise of genetically engineered werewolves versus zombies. What more needs to be said?
- Life of Pi includes a tiger fighting a shark. It actually makes sense in context.
- The Supervillainy Saga by C.T. Phipps more or less runs on this trope. Gary Karkofsky aka Merciless the Supervillain Without Mercy battles against a Silver Age set of villains, a Nineties Antihero Team, a Superman Substitute as well as the Justice League, a xenomorph, a Biblical Nephilim kaiju, and an Expy for Lex Luthor. This is notably, all in the first book. It's more more or less a celebration of the bizarre and incredibly convoluted continuity of comic books as well as how they can throw everything and the kitchen sink into a storyline.
- Some of novels that tie to Ravenloft setting take advantage of the setting's ability to drag anyone from any Dungeons & Dragons worlds into it to set up a fight between Classical Movie Vampire Strahd Von Zarovich and other iconic villains of the franchise. In Knight of the Black Rose it's the undead Lord Soth from Dragonlance and in I, Strahd: The War Against Azalin it's a lich overlord Azalin Rex from Greyhawk.
- In K. W. Jeter's Fiendish Schemes steampunk followup to clockpunk Infernal Devices, the climax pitted a Super Prototype Lighthouse/Guard Tower "Crabwalker" steam-powered mech against a Transhuman Expy of Margaret Thatcher who upgraded from being a steamline-dependent Cyborg Mini-Mecha to a coal-powered Giant Robot who's innards have an army of men feeding coal into her boilers.
- The Lotus War has Steampunk Powered Armor Samurai with Chainsaw Katanas versus Russian Berserkers with Tesla Tech Timeline Warhammers. One part of the climax featured a Humongous Mecha Spider Tank in a Hold the Line battle against The Legions of Hell.
- As the two best warriors in Grent's Fall, it was inevitable that Osbert Grent and the Bladecleaver would eventually battle.
Live-Action TV
- American Gladiators had some themed episodes where all the contestants were pro-NFL players or U.S. military personnel.
- The Discovery Channel's Animal Face-Off, with such matchups as Great White Shark vs. Saltwater Crocodile, Brown Bear vs. Siberian Tiger, Gorilla vs. Leopard, Hippopotamus vs. Bull Shark, Black Bear vs. American Alligator, and Polar Bear vs. Walrus.
- The season 5 premier of Buffy the Vampire Slayer gives us "Buffy vs Dracula". The King of Vampires is shown to be a true threat, master manipulator, seducer, with Buffy standing in as his long lost love. Then subverted in Dracula being a bit of a fop, easily comparable to Angel in slipping from a dour serious early season 1 style to some of the more funny and wacky hijinks of his own series.
- The premise of the Chouseishin Series can be summarized as "Sentai vs. Godzilla kaiju."
- Spike's show Deadliest Warrior seems to be all about this trope.
- Although they did skirt the obvious by having the pirate fight a knight and the ninja fight a Spartan, likely to avoid trolling.
- The guy who programs the simulations actually said that they were avoiding it because no one would agree on the right way to test it, and no one on the losing side would accept the result anyway.
- A similar concept was used a couple of times on the teen show Dude, What Would Happen?, albeit with cheap prop duels rather than computer simulations. Once they even did "Vikings vs. Pirates", meaning northmen pirates against Caribbean pirates.
- Doctor Who:
- The premise of the whole series: A Bunny-Ears Lawyer against every kind of nasty from every corner of time and space.
- "The Chase": Daleks versus Frankenstein and Dracula!
- "Doomsday": Daleks versus Cybermen!
- "Victory of the Daleks": Flying saucers versus Spitfires — In Space!
- The Flash (2014): The season 5 episode "King Shark vs. Gorilla Grodd" is based around that premise, pitting two big comic book creatures that appeared in the show before against each other. This episode is even noticable Bloodier and Gorier than usually for the series.
- Game of Thrones definitely doesn't start out like this—its conflicts are more often between frighteningly amoral sociopaths and likable noble heroes who can die at a moment's notice—but the finale of Season 6 seems to confirm that the final conflict is headed this way. On one side, there's Daenerys Targaryen, her trio of loyal dragons, and her charismatic wise-cracking dwarf advisor Tyrion Lannister, who are all poised to return to Westeros to reclaim the Iron Throne for Dany. On the other side, there's Jon Snow, the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch who singlehandedly led his Ragtag Bunch of Misfits companions against giants, barbarians, mammoths and ice zombies, and has just been revealed as a secret Warrior Prince, and one of Dany's strongest rivals for the Iron Throne.
- Jon and Daenerys actually form an alliance, but Daenerys does end up fighting the White Walkers with her dragons, so this trope still applies.
- Kamen Rider Decade, being a Crisis Crossover with a Power Copying hero, made ample excuses for various Riders to fight each other. DiEnd is particularly good for this, since he summons other riders at random points, so Zanki can show up in the world of Faiz, and so on.
- An early movie in Mystery Science Theater 3000 featured a robot fighting an Aztec mummy. Its name, appropriately enough, was The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy.
- Power Rangers has given us such conflicts as rescue workers vs. demons, time cops vs. mutants, ninjas vs. aliens, wizards vs. undead...
- Power Rangers in Space has an episode versus the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. (More precisely, Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation incarnations, meaning that Venus also got to join in.)
- Prehistoric Park had two of these occur in the final episode, capable of happening only because of time travel. Resident T-Rex Matilda vs resident woolly mammoth Martha. Matilda later got snapped at by a Deinosuchus, a 50-foot dinosaur-eating crocodile, and off-screen likely attempted to eat a woolly rhino and Phorusrhacos, the 10 foot tall flesh eating bird.
- The cult British series Primeval is about Brits versus an assortment of dangerous animals from throught tome, but also had a very vicious and memorable battle between a prehistoric Gorgonopsid and a lightning-fast and lethal Predator from the future that evolved from bats. The Gorgonopsid kills the Future Predator by grabbing its arm in its massive jaws and flipping on its back, crushing the creature under its sheer size and weight, then it gives a triumphant roar and carries the Predator's limp body away to eat it. Badass.
- In the second episode of Sleepy Hollow's second season, Abby and Ichabod conjure up a horseman of their own who immediately takes on the Horsemen of Death and War simultaneously. It is technically this trope because War participates via a mind-controlled suit of armor.
- Star Trek: Voyager episode "The Killing Game" features hologram Klingons fighting hologram Nazis.
- Star Trek: Discovery episode "What's Past Is Prologue" features Jason Isaacs vs Michelle Yeoh, as Gabriel Lorca and Emperor Philippa Georgiou duel on the bridge of the ISS Charon.
- As for the Super Sentai.
- Kamen Rider Decade had a story arc versus the Samurai Sentai Shinkenger.
- Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger opens the series with the most powerful space-faring empire vs. every Super Sentai team up to that point!
- Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger VS Keisatsu Sentai Patranger features this as a core component of the series with two Sentai teams squaring off against each other; one consisting of phantom thieves, the other consisting of the police.
- Top Gear delights in pitting one Cool Car against another, but it has also featured Cool Car v. Cool Boat (Ferrari Daytona v. a brand new carbon-fiber superboat) and Cool Car v. Cool Plane (Bugatti Veyron v. RAF Eurofighter Typhoon. And perhaps the ultimate: Cool Car vs. Cool Bike vs. Cool Train. And all of them 60 year old designs.
- The Ultra Series gives us giant alien superheroes battling Kaiju ranging from Prehistoric Monsters to aliens (both sapient and non-sapient) to Big Creepy-Crawlies to robots to demons to Eldritch Abominations to mutants to dragons to Evil Knockoffs to Sea Monsters and everything in-between. Oh yeah, the monsters also get opportunities to fight each other without ultraman interference too.
- The Wire gives us Omar Little vs. Brother Mouzone. And then both of them get a final confrontation with Stringer Bell.
Music
- Back Through Time by Alestorm has pirates going back in time to fight Vikings. They also mention having fought ninja in passing.
- Dinosaur Laser Fight by Ninja Sex Party starts out with just dinosaurs, but then goes on to include robots, sharks, and aliens. IN SPACE.
- Also by Ninja Sex Party, Rhinoceratops vs. Super Puma!
- Also by Ninja Sex Party, Rhinoceratops vs. Super Puma!
- The music video for Nana Mizuki and T.M.Revolution's "Kakumei Dualism" pits a Spartan legionnaire against a Hashshashin Ninja in a pitched sword duel among the ruins of the Roman Colosseum.
- "Khalkhin-Gol" by Radio Tapok describes the eponymous border battles between the Red Army and the Imperial Japanese Army as Samurai versus Tank Goodness.
Pro Wrestling
- Professional Wrestling in general is built around this trope, combining sport rivalries with various gimmicks, from superheroes to delinquents to supernatural figures, to utterly crazy people, sometimes mixed with various additional rules, be it Mêlée à Trois, fight in a cage or lumberjack match.
- For many, the idea of the The World's Greatest Tag Team against The Kings of Wrestling was enough to justify purchasing Glory by Honor IX. Keep in mind this was the show where Tyler Black was going to leave the promotion with its World Championship if Roderick Strong didn't stop him.
- One of Dragon Gate USA's first angles revolved around a "sibling" rivalry between Dragon Gate and Chikara, particularly Mike Quackenbush, Yamato, Jigsaw and CIMA.
- In the WWN, this was the initial marketing idea behind EVOLVE, hence the abundance of versus titles. EVOLVE also set up the first SHINE main event of Sara Del Rey vs Jazz.
- Sabu went down south to attend a Pro Wrestling Syndicate event in 2013 when he learned it would feature John Morrison wrestling Jushin Thunder Liger. The sight of Sabu had fans chanting "Triple Threat" but they'd have to wait for that.
- The Shield vs The Wyatt Family at Elimination Chamber 2014 and a week later on RAW — both instances had the crowds literally chanting "THIS IS AWESOME!" before the match had even started. And it lived up to it. It's worth mentioning that both groups were heels (villains) at the time.
- So Savio Vega's handpicked challenger attacks Glamour Boy Shane after failing to win the World Wrestling League's Heavyweight title belt from him while Vega explains to Shane how much harder things are going to get once El Patron Alberto comes. Do the fans boo? No, they cheer. El Mesias announcing his return to WWL and how the three of them were going to be in triple threat title match only made the audience happier.
- Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Bobby Roode for the NXT Championship was every NXT fan's wet dream, since they were the most popular wrestlers on the roster, in no small part due to their theme songs. The dream has finally come true at NXT TakeOver: San Antonio.
- The two biggest matches on the card for Survivor Series 2017 were dream matches: one was The Shield vs The New Day, which soundly woke up the crowd as the opening match, and AJ Styles vs Brock Lesnar, which ended up being widely regarded as match of the night.
- For the match between Skylar Marie and Luscious Latasha, special referee Veda Scott wore mismatched socks. This subverts WTH, Costuming Department?, since the camera work showed that one of the socks depicted a Flying Saucer using a Tractor Beam to pick up dinosaurs!
Sports
- June 21, 2003: Lennox Lewis vs Vitali Klitschko for the unified world heavyweight championship. In one corner was Lennox "the Lion", arguably the greatest heavyweight boxer in history and the ruler of the 1990s heavyweight scene, considered dominant among even other legends competing at the same time such as Holyfield, Bowe, Tyson, Foreman, and Holmes. In the other was "Dr. Ironfist", another contender for the greatest and the then-#1 contender who, along with his younger brother Wladimir (who admitted that Vitali was the better of them), would proceed to rule the next dozen years of the heavyweight division. Both were massive men (Vitali at 6'7 and 249 pounds and Lennox at 6'5 and 257 pounds) and some of the hardest punchers in the history of the sport, on top of being highly skilled technicians famous for administering completely one-sided curb-stomp battles on nearly all of their opponents. At the end of their respective careers, Lennox had beaten every man he'd ever foughtnote and Vitali was basically undefeatednote ... except for this night. The two giants (both literally and figuratively) were in a unique situation as they were nearly equally Strong and Skilled, whereas in their other matches they enjoyed a strength/size advantage, a skill advantage, or both over their opponents. So the match-up soon devolved into an utter war in which both fighters dished out and received Megaton Punch after Megaton Punch interspersed with bouts of wrestling in the clinch, pushing each others' stamina and durability to their absolute limits. Ultimately, while Vitali dominated the early rounds and was ahead on all the score cards at the time of stoppage by 4-2, he sustained a cut that Lennox repeatedly worked until Vitali's face was drenched in blood and he could hardly see, with a chunk of his upper face about to fall off. Lennox was bruised and cut himself (noticeably across his nose) but in a much better position than Vitali, who could have been blinded had the fight continued. The doctor wisely called off the fight before the two could go out for round 7, leaving Lennox Lewis as the victor. Vitali lobbied extensively for a rematch from literally the minute he heard about the stoppage, but Lennox, probably recognizing he had nothing to gain and had already pulled an improbable victory out of his ass the last time, decided to retire.
Tabletop Games
- Munchkin where you can have an elf cleric vs a plutonium dragon, a dwarf wizard vs a demon bull and a halfling warrior vs a floating nose among others.
- The original Dungeon Master's Guide included rules for running crossover battles between D&D heroes and characters from other early TSR games, including Boot Hill (Wild West gunslingers) and Gamma World (post-apocalyptic mutants).
- Warhammer 40,000 is basically the setting for an epic scale Guilt-Free Extermination War between:
- Powered Armor-clad, medieval Super Soldiers wielding automatic rocket launchers and chainswords.
- Hyper-advanced psychic vaguely-Celtic martial-artist space elves.
- Murderously psychotic, scantily-clad space evil-elf vampire Space Pirates.
- Phonetically-challenged, fight-happy green-skinned and hyper-muscled British Football Hooligans.
- The Legions of Hell with spiky evil versions of the above Super Soldiers.
- Unkillable Egyptian zombie robots.
- All-consuming alien bugs.
- Mini-Mecha-piloting Japanese Space Communists
- Catholic space Nazi commissars leading regular humans in a Soviet military-expy, with really, really nice tanks (and hats).
- Hell. When an army of Badass Normal (usually) trained from birth in the worst conditions with near unlimited number equipped with ballistic-proof flak vests and limb-cutting long-ranged semi-automatic laser rifles are the absolute worst army in the setting, you know your setting is metal.
- Warhammer, the fantasy-themed older sister of the above mentioned game, has an all-out war between loads of different factions. Thor-worshipping Holy Roman Empire with Steampunk technology vs. ultra-manly, axe-loving, demon-worshipping Vikings! Lion-riding, spell-slinging Atlantean elves vs. psychopathic Velociraptor-riding, Canadian pirate elves! Drunken revenge-obsessed Dwarfs vs. sneaky, spider-loving Goblins with Lower-Class Lout accents! Arthurian Magic Knights vs. cannibalistic anarchist Beastmen! Three meter-long Mayincatec Lizardmen vs. Nazi rat-people with crazy wunderwaffe powered by Green Rocks!
- Eberron includes, among other things, Bedouin elvish nomads battling an industrialized Germanic nation fielding zombies and skeletons with dinosaur-riding halfling barbarians caught in the middle.
- Feng Shui features this a lot, given its timehopping Secret War setting. Shaolin monks battle evil cyborg demons from the future, transformed animals fight evil sorcerers that can turn them back into their regular animal form, maverick cops and heroic triad gangsters fight intelligent cyborg apes and their minions who like to BLOW THINGS UP. And that's just for starters.
- Basically the premise of Monsterpocalypse. Want to see Cthulhu fight off the Martians? How about huge ninjas taking on a Horde of Alien Locusts? Maybe you'd like to see Oversized dinosaurs take on a Humongous Mecha or two? You can have them, and that's only the first set!
- As one person said, "Exalted is robots versus dinosaurs!" More aptly, it's glorious golden demigods and keepers of the earth, shapeshifting social engineers, a magically-empowered martial dynastic empire and fate's ninjas versus the undead servants of oblivion, mad fairies from beyond reality, demon-kings who gain power from acting like B-movie villains, Communist cyborg soldiers from another dimension, and each other.
- Smash-Up is built on this trope. Players choose two "factions" from eight - including Pirates, Ninjas, Dinosaurs, Wizards, Robots, Zombies, Aliens, and Tricksters - shuffle those two factions together, and compete with the other factions to take over buildings and landmarks. Get ready for Dinosaurs and Ninjas versus Aliens and Pirates! Later expansions add even more factions, each with their own gimmick.
- Strike Legion is this trope. To quote the page's trope entry: it is entirely possible to have a Legion strike team made up of Commander Shepard, Master Chief, Spider-Man, Gandalf, Kenshiro, and a xenomorph wearing Powered Armor and driving Evangelions which wield Reflex Cannons, who take on legions of Immortals, vampires, Godzilla, Space Marines, Alex Mercer clones, and Dark Jedi.
- A Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG tagline for Shadow Specters pits the Noble Knights against Vampires.
- The Discworld Roleplaying Game setting "Port Duck" is mostly a pirate setting. But there are a lot of Agateans (the Fantasy Counterpart Culture of the Far East) around, and the local law enforcement is comprised of an Agatean martial artist. The setting notes acknowledge that there are two kinds of swashbuckling tradition in play here...
When the two styles collide, serious devotees of combat rules can test fencing against kung fu, high points heroes can compare swinging from the chandeliers with running up the walls, and everyone else can see whether “Arrrh, there, ye lubbers!” is more or less deadly than “Hah so!”
- There was a supplement published for True20 (and later adapted to Fate) called Mecha vs. Kaiju, which predated Pacific Rim by several years.
- Army vs Aliens is a dice game that includes, in addition to the aforementioned combo, Pirates vs Ninjas, Robots vs Dinosaurs, and Zombies vs Wrestlers, all of which can be used in any combination during gameplay.
- The Ixalan setting from Magic: The Gathering has vampire conquistadors vs Mayincatec dinosaur-riders vs merfolk with elemental powers vs an interspecies alliance of pirates.
Theme Parks
- Godzilla vs. Evangelion: The Real 4-D takes the aforementioned Godzilla and Neon Genesis Evangelion and brings them together to see Shinji, Rei, and Asuka clash against Godzilla. And then King Ghidorah arrives to force an Enemy Mine.
Video Games
- AdventureQuest Worlds has an ongoing conflict between Pirates and Ninjas, in addition to the recent Darkovian conflict between Safiria's vampires and the Lycans. And that's just the beginning.
- Age of Mythology throws Classical Mythology, Egyptian Mythology and Norse Mythology into a Mêlée à Trois. Armies of Greek hoplites backed up by centaurs and minotaur heavies, up against Egyptian footsoldiers with sphinxes, mummies and giant scarab beetles, taking on Viking warriors fighting alongside trolls, valkyries and wolves. The expansion adds Atlantis as a civilization, and the Titans; massive super-units capable of devastating whole armies single-handedly note .
- Age of Wonders: Planetfall can pretty intense with this. It's entirely possible to have a evil psychic undead Cyborg riding a T. rex get into a fight with a shapeshifting lizard person armed with a Laser Sword and a Jet Pack.
- Assassin's Creed's plot line revolves around the millennia-long rivalry between the Assassin Brotherhood and the Templar Order as they influence the course of world history.
- Baldur's Gate II: the mod Ascension changes the end fight for the expansion Throne of Bhaal. The final boss summons the soul of every other boss of the expansion to the max of his or her power, forcing the main character to fight again with terrible foes, earlier introduced as merciless generals that razed cities with bloodthirsty armies. All at once. Furthermore, the two main villains of Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn are resurrected as well (but with an option to convince one of them to turn side). One of the main companions of the protagonist is also forced to morph into a murderous out of control beast, that turns hostile and must be killed, unless the wave of other enemies is defeated in time. The main villain of Baldur's Gate I might come in as well as an enemy.
- In Bioshock Infinite, both the Founders as the Vox Populi make heavy use of Motorized Patriots, basically the 1912 variant of the Terminator, as Elite Mooks. There are times when you can summon one of the Founders to counter those of the Vox Populi, resulting in a giant motorized Abraham Lincoln (the Vox) and George Washington (the Founders) duking it out in the streets, spouting lines as "Blood... is the price... for liberty!" or "The Lord judges. I act." while emptying their miniguns at each other.
- The Burial at Sea DLC lets us pit the aforementioned Motorized Patriot against the mascot character of BioShock, the Big Daddy. The winner? Turns out a bunch of metal and plaster is no match for a gene-spliced cyborg with a drill hand. On the other hand, a Tear-summoned Samurai can hold out pretty well against Splicers.
- Dishonored's The Brigmore Witches DLC pits Daud, a professional assassin, against a coven of magic-wielding witches.
- Guilty Gear and BlazBlue. The former has pirates (in a raincoat or sailor-fuku), police (that're dressed in something like priest clothes), assassins, an American Ninja and a whole lot more. The latter has what is essentially the Joker as a Smooth Criminal, cat-people, cyborgs, vampires, a Mad Scientist, and more.
- And it gets taken Up to Eleven with BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, which pits the casts of Blazblue, Persona 4 Arena, Under Night In-Birth and none other than the four heroines of RWBY against each other in a massive tag-team multiple universe clash!
- Broforce was always this, having characters from various movies fighting such things like giant robots or colossal helicopters, but it went Up to Eleven with Alien Infestation updates, which introduced a new fraction - tiny-veiled Xenomorphs. So, if you ever wondered how would heroes like the Bride, Machete, Rambo, Blade or RoboCop fare against Aliens, you will be very happy to find out. And then after the alien infestation is stopped, you get to literally storm Hell itself and go kick some demon ass.
- Bugs vs. Tanks is about a shrunken platoon of WWII German officers fighting against killer ants in their tiny Panzers.
- The whole point of the Capcom vs. games.
- X-Men vs. Street Fighter has Mutants vs. World Warriors.
- Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter has Mutants vs. World Warriors vs. Hulk vs. Spider-Man vs. Captain America vs. Shuma-Gorath vs. Blackheart.
- And then, Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes went "LET'S GO CRAZY" and added to the mix an Artificial Human, (Mega Man) a Succubus, (Morrigan) a ninja (Strider Hiryu) a mecha warrior (Jin and Blodia), and a Symbiote (Venom) to the mix, aside of the already Badass Normal Captain Commando and War Machine.
- And then came Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and threw in, among other creatures, a Cat Girl, a mummy (Felicia, Anakaris) another Artificial Human with a mecha, a miniature robot, (Tron Bonne and a Servbot) a cactus-man (Amingo), and a pirate (Ruby Heart) who happens to be the main character of the game.
- The SNK crossovers had World Warriors vs. Orochi servants vs. sword masters vs. Aliens vs. school students vs. Succubus vs. Vampire vs. a demon... too bad that a lot of these fights are in separate games or can't co-exist at all.
- Tatsunoko vs. Capcom has Superheroes vs. World Warriors vs. a Humongous Mecha vs. a Ridiculously Human Robot vs. a photographer vs. a Maverick Hunter vs...
- Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds upped the ante: World Warriors vs. Succubus, Catgirls and Chinese vampires vs. zombie killers vs. mutants vs. devils vs. physical gods vs. eldritch abominations vs. knights vs. Spider-Man vs. a humongous mecha vs...
- Street Fighter X Tekken is allows you play as fighters of the two series as well as an electric superhero, two anime cats, a robot, and Pac-Man with a wooden robot.
- Civilization pits planet Earth's most influential and powerful leaders against each other in a bid for global domination. The game presents such scenarios as Genghis Khan vs George Washington, Nebuchadnezzar II vs Emperor Napoleon, English longbowmen vs Roman legions, and Japanese samurai vs Viking raiders. Armies from across time clash on the battlefield, artists and musicians compete to make their nation the greatest, and powerful leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Alexander the Great vie for the allegiance of other nations as they compete to see who can build the greatest empire on earth.
- Civilization: Beyond Earth does this with its Affinity system, which defines how your faction progresses "down" the "tech web" in order to adapt to the alien planet they're on, while building a Badass Army in the meantime:
- The Supremacy path is cybernetic augmentation up to Brain Uploading to become Transhuman. In the process they become an unholy fusion of Cybermen, Terminator and The Borg, with some insectoid motifs thrown in as well.
- The Harmony path is Bio Punk, Half-Human Hybrid development, Organic Technology, controlling local alien wildlife as combat steeds, and interfacing with the local Genius Loci. In short, they are the Na'vi mixed with Predator, or perhaps, more ominously, the Yuuzhan Vong.
- The Purity path is about not adapting; No Transhumanism is Allowed, Terraforming and big guns taking its place. With conservatism, isolationism, Sigil Spam and Roman stylistic influences in clothing as well as Diesel Punk-esque Hover Tanks with More Dakka and infantry in bulky Powered Armor (with big guns), do we have an early predecessor of the Imperium of Man here? Worse. They're not busy Doing in the Scientist.
- The Command & Conquer series have lots and lots:
- When you get tier 3, you can start to pump out really awesome stuff like dual barreled tanks with rocket launchers, alien tripods with EMP and triple lasers and stealth robots armed with dual lasers and flamethrowers.
- The spin-off Red Alert series takes the Rule of Cool and turns it Up to Eleven. For the third game, you have a three-way battle between:
- The Allies, a United Nations expy with shotgun-toting riot-police troopers, machine-gun armed hovercraft, huge fleets of bombers and attack aircraft, battleships that can turn to mobile land-fortresses, gunships armed with freeze-rays, trained attack-dolphins, and more.
- The Soviet Union, with longcoat-suited conscripts, armored war bears, heavy troopers with lightning guns, armoured juggernauts the size of houses, zeppelin bombers, and molotov-cocktail-throwing biker troops.
- The Empire of the Rising Sun, with samurai foot-soldiers with laser-katanas, ninjas, hyperactive teenage girls in flying rocket suits, a girl with psychic powers, and more mecha than you can shake a stick at.
- Darkstalkers mixes this with Monster Mash to be Fur Against Fang against Mummy against Frankenstein against Zombie against...
- Deep Rock Galactic is a game where ragtag teams of Space Dwarves are hired as mercenaries by a mining conglomerate to guard operations from terrifying space spiders with luminescent blood on the deadliest planet in the galaxy.
- This is basically the Dominions series' main selling point. You want Ancient Egyptian Lizard Folk Necromancers ruled by a half-man, half-scorpion god-king fighting evil monkeys who worship a sentient blood fountain? You can do that!
- Elves vs. Werewolves in Dragon Age: Origins. And you can choose which one to help.
- There's also dwarves versus Darkspawn with a mess of golems with dark secrets involved, and magic-hating Templars trying to keep a lid on mages to keep them from turning to Black Magic.
- In Dragon Age: Inquisition, you can come across a dragon fighting a giant on The Storm Coast. Even your party members practically Squee when they see it.
Iron Bull: Okay that's BADASS!
Sera: [laughs] Can we stick around and watch?
- The backstory of Elden Ring revolves around The Shattering—a Forever War between the demigod children of Marika over the right to mend the Elden Ring. These include (but are not limited to): a Lady of War with Artificial Limbs that channels the power of an Eldritch Deity of Rot, a Four-Star Badass Magic Knight that waged war on the very concept of the stars (and won), a man that merged with a gargantuan world-eating serpent and carries the strength of every warrior he's consumed, and much, much, more!
- The Elder Scrolls:
- In Lord Vivec's Sword-Meeting With Cyrus the Restless, the Tribunal deity Vivec, of Morrowind fame, clashes with Cyrus the Restless, hero of the spinoff game The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard. In it, Cyrus claims he can use the Pankratosword in order to get Vivec to hand over a valuable treasure. It's a bluff, but it works. Upping the "coolness" factor is that Cyrus is said to be an incarnation of the HoonDing, the Redguard/Yokudan "Make Way" god, making this god vs. god as well. Even within Redguard itself, Cyrus slays a dragon, defeats a Sload necromancer, and matches wits with a Daedric Prince.
- In the backstory, the Sack of Alinor, the final battle in the Tiber Wars, pitted armies of Altmeri Magic Knights against Tiber Septim's Roman-style Imperial Legions and an ancient Dwemer Humongous Mecha powered by the soul of a "dead" god which warps reality merely by being activated. As you might have guessed, the Altmer did not win.
- Skyrim:
- The Civil War sub-plot boils down to The Roman Empire vs. Horny Vikings.
- The player can become a vampire or werewolf, and you fight dragons. There's also ninja assassins, wizards, demons, shadowy goblin-like elves, evil Nazi elves, and giant dwarven robots. You can even fight mammoths, saber-toothed cats, and giants!
- In Lord Vivec's Sword-Meeting With Cyrus the Restless
- Kongai, a superbly balanced online card game about battles involving Samurai, Ninja, Vampires, a Barbarian Tribe, Pirates, Knights, Robots and Witches.
- ELEX pits a technology-loving religious police state with access to plasma guns and mecha suits against a band of druidic viking warriors who can cast magic, plus Mad Max baddies.
- Comes up often in Endless Space and Endless Space 2. For example in the second game, a war between the two human factions can be summed up as Space Soviets vs. Space Vikings.
- Eternal Champions. The roster contains a ninja, Cyborg kickboxer, Kung-Fu Wizard, acrobat, Bounty Hunter, caveman, gladiator from Atlantis, a vampire scientist, and Gentleman Thief.
- The central conflict of Fallout: New Vegas is basically the frontier-era US Army versus the Roman Legions versus an ersatz Howard Hughes and his army of killer robots, for control of Las Vegas which includes a casino run by the Rat Pack and a gang of Elvis Impersonators. Enter the One-Man Army (namely, you) either tipping the balance in favor of one of those sides, or beating them all and taking over for yourself.
- In Fallout 3, with the two groups retaining advanced military technology from the pre-war days: the Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave.
- From the Mothership Zeta add-on in Fallout 3, you have both a cowboy and a samurai that can team up with you to take on a small army of aliens.
- Continuing the fine tradition started with New Vegas, Fallout 4 can potentially end with futuristic knights with a Cool Airship and an American Humongous Mecha giving the Curb-Stomp Battle of a lifetime to a cabal of Mad Scientists with their armies of Terminators. Or alternatively, you can smack down both of these two armies with your own army of American revolutionaries with wind-up laser muskets and old howitzers. The other main faction is a group of stealthy Underground Railroad types working to free enslaved synths from The Institute.
- For Honor is a huge Mêlée à Trois between medieval European knights, Shogun-era samurai warriors, and Norse vikings which takes place in a fictional world where these three cultures live close enough to each other to go to war.
- When Fortnite became a Dream Match Game with it's Collaboration events, we can live in a World of an Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny featuring the Avengers, the Birds of Prey, Ralph, the Jedi, the Bat-Family and John Wick (with more to be added in the future) against the Black Order, Thanos and others.
- The Godzilla game for the PS3 will pit the classic Heisei incarnation of Godzilla against his Legendary incarnation.
- Guns, Gore & Cannoli: The first game pits Vinnie against The Mafia, who themselves are against the Zombie Apocalypse, with the US Army fighting all of them once they begin their quarantine operation. The second game has Vinnie teaming up with the US Army via an Enemy Mine situation against the mysterious Dark Don Syndicate, who turn out to be working alongside Those Wacky Nazis.
- Half-Life essentially boils down to a a crowbar wielding theoretical physicist and the rest of Black Mesa's security and science personnel vs The United States Marine Corps vs Black Ops agents vs one army of alien monsters vs another army of alien monsters, some of which are hinted at being Eldritch Abominations.
- Before the start of the series, there was an interdimensional war between a race of psychic Eldritch Abominations and a post-Singularity Multiversal Conqueror Empire. The Empire won.
- Heroes of the Storm has this Up to Eleven. It's a MOBA Massive Multiplayer Crossover from Blizzard's franchises like StarCraft, Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, and even to the classic games like the The Lost Vikings fighting together or against each other in different maps with unique objectives that can quickly and radically change the gameplay.
- For example, Jim Raynor, Thrall, Uther, Jaina Proudmoore and Tyrael can team up to fight against antagonists like Arthas the Lich King, Kerrigan the Queen of Blades and Diablo himself! Even Enemy Mine and Teeth-Clenched Teamwork are possibilities! What's not to like?
- There's a compatibility patch allowing to combine High Noon Drifter and Strange Aeons, two otherwise unrelated Doom mods, which results in the protagonist of High Noon Drifter visiting the levels of Strange Aeons and fighting the local enemies with his own arsenal. In other words, you're a Gunslinger from The Wild West fighting against Cthulhu Mythos cultists and monsters.
- Horizon Zero Dawn is about a cavewoman fighting mecha-dinosaurs. Also she can ride them.
- The sequel features the same cavewoman and her newfound crew now fighting against transhuman astronauts.
- J-Stars Victory VS. Spirit detectives vs. Super Saiyans! Wandering swordsmen vs. Hamon masters! Class presidents vs. soul reapers! Pirates vs. ninjas!
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle draws upon the entire manga series' cast of characters, making for a battle royale between vampires, super-vampires, Japanese Delinquents, rock stars, priests, dogs, serial killers, mob bosses and comic artists...and that's not even half of the roster!
- Jump Superstars series has Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, D.Gray-Man, Bleach, Rurouni Kenshin, Shaman King, Gintama, One Piece, Hunter × Hunter, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Reborn! (2004) and a few others.
- Kid Icarus: Uprising has a short arc that is essentially Greek(ish) gods versus alien invaders.
- Last Armageddon centers around a group of classic fantasy monsters fighting off alien invaders.
- LEGO Star Wars Free Play: Darth Maul vs. Darth Vader.
- Further LEGO Adaptation Game(s) later take this trope Up to Eleven, thanks to the implementation of Custom Avatars and LEGO Dimensions.
- Mass Effect centers around alien vs. robot fights. One of the coolest in-game combinations comes in 3, where the heroes summon a gigantic Thresher Maw (that is, gigantic by Thresher Maw standards) to fight a Reaper. The Thresher Maw wins.
- 3 also has references to a Reaper-aligned infantry vs. krogan cavalry battle. To elaborate: the Reaper infantry are murderous cyborg zombies who make the Borg of Star Trek seem gentle. Krogans are one of the most badass races in the galaxy, capable of enduring virtually any kind of punishment and surviving, whose idea of a coming of age ritual involves fighting their planet's most brutal wildlife, up to and including going five minutes in the ring with a Thresher Maw. Also, for this battle, they are riding cloned dinosaurs. That sound you just heard was your soul exploding from pure awesome.
- In the final battle hundreds of kilometer-long mecha-Cthulhu versus a fleet of thousands of cool starships representing basically the entire galaxy's combat forces. And that's just the space battle.
- The Matrix: Path of Neo during the Breaking the Fourth Wall segment has the Wachowski siblings compare Neo and Smith's final battle to Hulk vs. Galactus.
- Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker: Ever wondered who would win in a fight between Snake and a Rathalos? Look no further.
- Monster Hunter: World:
- The game introduces a "Turf War" mechanic, wherein two monsters who happen to meet while wandering around the map may engage in a brief but brutal fight for supremacy. This leads to such fights as Anjanath (a fire breathing T-rex) manhandling giant lizards in its jaws... but getting manhandled in turn by Rathalos (a fire-breathing wyvern), who proves exactly why it's the apex predator of the area. This even includes Elder Dragons fighting each other in certain maps.
- The first major update to World brought with it Deviljho, a Memetic Badass monster known for its extreme aggression and strength. Sure enough, it gets into Turf Wars with most of the major monsters... most of whom it utterly devastates, including the supposed apex predators. But this trope really comes into play when it meets World's own Memetic Badass, Bazelgeuse, who proves to be the one monster capable of fighting Deviljho to a draw. And then the Iceborne expansion upped the ante by reintroducing the Savage Deviljho, who's even better at beating the snot out of almost everything else than its vanilla variant (except against Bazelgeuse and their Seething variant, same as before.)
- Mortal Kombat:
- Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe should be a perfect example of this, pitting Midway's iconic Kombatants against DC's stable of legendary heroes, however, as Matt McMuscles points out in his Wha Happun? episode on Midway Games, this pretty much was a deconstruction as DC Comics stymied Midway by forcing them to not let their heroes take lives or even prevent showing their villains taking lives on screen.
- Mortal Kombat 9 and Mortal Kombat X include guest fighters into the mix. As if the main roster of characters weren't awesome enough, you can also have Freddy Krueger vs. Kratos and Jason Voorhees vs. the Predator.
- The DLC pack for Mortal Kombat X throws Leatherface and a Xenomorph into the mix, which means one can now recreate AVP: Alien vs. Predator and Jason vs. Leatherface in video game form.
- 11 follows suit with The Terminator, Spawn, The Joker, RoboCop, and Rambo. But it also offers an extra one: Shang Tsung is modeled after his movie appearance, and thus it spawns possible cool showdowns between any combination of Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Arnold Schwarzeneggernote , Keith David, Richard Epcar, Peter Weller, and Sylvester Stallone. For added fun from the first MK movie, alternate skins for Raiden, Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade feature the voices of Christopher Lambert, Linden Ashby and Bridgette Wilson.
- The Mount & Blade series shares much of the same appeal as mentioned in the Total War entry above, and while it's watered down a little since they're from Fantasy Counterpart Cultures, that's mitigated by the fact that the player can actively fight alongside them. Want to lead hordes of deadly steppe-raised horse archers against Viking-esque Sea Raiders (or vice-versa)? It's doable.
- The Sword of Damocles mod adds several new factions and some special mercenaries. What about the late Western Roman Empire versus Ottomans who worship a Lovecraftian entity, or pagan Scottish highlanders and Welsh longbowmen versus late-renaissance Venice borrowing cues from the Ancient Greeks? You can also have the Black Army of Hungary versus African tribesmen, or medieval Byzantium versus Samurai. It's awesome.
- The Sword of Damocles mod adds several new factions and some special mercenaries. What about the late Western Roman Empire versus Ottomans who worship a Lovecraftian entity, or pagan Scottish highlanders and Welsh longbowmen versus late-renaissance Venice borrowing cues from the Ancient Greeks? You can also have the Black Army of Hungary
- Ogre Battle has ninjas, vampires, werewolves, knights, amazons, Valkyries, wizards, witches, so on and so on.
- Pirates Vikings and Knights features 17th-century Pirates, Scandinavian Raiders and medieval Knights, fighting each other for gold, glory and wenches.
- Primal Carnage pits a Five-Man Band of crazy badass mercenaries against dinosaurs!
- Quake III: Arena, by virtue of being a Massive Multiplayer Crossover with many Original Generation characters. You have soldiers vs. space marines vs. reptiles vs. robots vs. Strogg vs. Stone Cold-like bikers vs. an eye with two mechanic legs vs. transhumans vs. physical gods vs. former porno-stars vs. intergalactic hunters...
- Quake Champions is a continuation of the above, and even includes WWII soldiers and undead knights...
- The Game Mod Quake Champions: Doom Edition attempts to replicate and expand upon Champions by also including scientists, cowboys and kung-fu, katana-wielding fighters among others.
- Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare features John Marston versus a horde of undead zombies. Fuck. Yes. You almost feel sorry for the zombies.
- The final stage of RefleX: Humongous Mecha vs. Cool Ship powered by the core of another mecha that grants it wings, boosted firepower, and a limitless Attack Reflector vs. two Brain Uploading-powered Cool Ships firing homing lightning bolts of doom.
- Rise of Legends: Clock Punk mecha versus Mayincatec Ancient Astronauts vs. Arabian Nights sorcery.
- Saints Row:
- In Saints Row 2, one of the things you might have to do during the "FUZZ" activity is "break up the Battle of the Century": a fight between ninjas and pirates
- Saints Row IV is basically crime gangs vs aliens. Uh... well a gang that's led by the President of the USA. He/She also gets super-powers while trapped in a VR simulation.
- Scribblenauts allows you to pit nearly everything that's cool against nearly everything that's awesome.
- Sonic and the Secret Rings and Sonic and the Black Knight pit everyone's favorite speedy hedgehog against the likes of an evil genie and King Arthur, respectively.
- Space Pirates and Zombies has space pirates. And zombies. (And bounty hunters!)
- This isn't used in the truest sense in Splatoon, but Splatfests (events where players chose a team and fight against an opposing team) have had some of the matchups over the years count. For example, the first game's North American "Prehistoric vs. Future" Splatfest, which was translated as "Dinosaurs vs. Robots" in Spanish regions.
- Super Robot Wars is this trope. All anime of Super Robot Genre and Real Robot Genre that already run on this trope can now clash against one another and Original Generation villains, who are not to far behind. Better, we have bad guys forming alliances, fighting one another, heroes from different series doing combination attacks, good guys being caught in Mêlée à Trois between two evil fractions.
- Super Smash Bros. Come on, seriously, intergalactic bounty hunters, super soldiers with IQ's of 180, and space mercenaries couldn't possibly get together without invoking this.
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl finally lets fans of the "16-bit" generation of consoles pit Mario and Sonic against each other.
- The 3DS and Wii U iterations have paved the way for a full-on cross-company battle royale: Sonic returns, and is joined by Capcom's Mega Man and Namco's Pac-Man! And that's before even delving into the possibilities Mii Fighters open up. Ryu, Cloud and Bayonetta as Downloadable Content ante up this aspect.
- It also has a Goddess, an Angel, an Electric Mouse, a dragon, a princess using magic, a dark magician, a dinosaur, an adorable Eldritch Abomination who looks like a balloon, an alien swordfighter, a penguin with a giant hammer, a giant fire-breathing turtle and the world's most famous plumber.
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate adds all of the above and throws in squid kids, an evil space dragon, a fat crocodile king, a pair of vampire hunters, a wrestling cat, and a piranha plant.
- One of the main attractions of the Total War series, especially Rome, Medieval and Empire.
- In a historical-based Real Time Strategy game, irregular wars that never historically happened do break out with alarming frequency. Spanish conquistadors holding the line against Mongolian horse-archer raiders? That can happen. The Independence-era United States attempting to conquer, or being conquered by, the peoples of the Indian subcontinent? Can happen. Viking warriors invading Aztec Mesoamerica? Possible. Carthage conquering Rome and moving north to fight the Celts? Plausible. Scottish highlanders storming Cairo? ... Has been done already, but the point still stands.
- The popular Medieval II: Total War mod Thera is a bigger example of this, as it adds a number of Fantasy Counterpart Cultures to a Low Fantasy setting. Celts? Pirates? Samurai? Orcs? Medieval Transylvania? One gets the feeling the mod was pretty much designed with this trope in mind.
- Total War: Warhammer and its sequel, meanwhile, take this to a whole new level.
- Like any good crossover fighter, Playstation All Stars Battle Royale. Big Daddy, Kratos, Sweet Tooth, Heihachi, Colonel Radec and Raiden are just a few of the badasses occupying the roster. That's a Humanoid Abomination with Bio-Augmentation, a God-killing Spartan, an Ax-Crazy Monster Clown, a Determinator Badass Normal karateka, a Colonel Kilgore with lots of firepower and a Cyber Ninja with an Absurdly Sharp Vibroblade.
- Touhou Project: Take your pick: Miko versus Vampires, Ninja Maid versus half-ghost samurai gardener, vaguely-lesbian Witches versus Immortal Human Aliens, Dumbass Fairy versus The Judge of The Dead, Shrine Maiden versus one of the Goddesses she serves and is in fact descended from, Witch allied with Mad Scientist versus Nuclear-powered Raven from Hell, Holy Frog vs. Celestial Paragon, Treasure Hunters vs. magical Dr. King, Witch vs. Liches, literal Cloud vs. sentient Noh Masks, the Crown Prince(ss) who unified Japan versus Gadgeteer Genius Kappa, Paparazzi versus everyone... explained by Gensoukyou being the last refuge for fantasy.
- The Warcraft franchise has this in spades. The most obvious example would be the Alliance Versus the Horde. That's essentially humans, Night Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Draenei and Worgen versus Orcs, Forsaken, Tauren, Trolls, Blood Elves and Goblins.
- The entirety of The Frozen Throne is built around this: Maiev Shadowsong vs. Illidan Stormrage, Illidan, Kael'thas Sunstrider and Lady Vashj vs. Magtheridon and later Arthas Menethil, Sylvanas Windrunner vs. Arthas and the Dreadlords.
- Warframe: Futuristic space ninjas vs an empire of clones vs a mega-corporation vs space zombies!
- Warhammer: Mark of Chaos has the following factions all fighting each other:
- Badass Normal armoured swordsmen, knights on horseback, steam-powered tanks and a metric crapton of BFGs. Oh, and they all worship a Thor expy, and their priests are bald, hammer-brandishing Badass Preachers.
- War-loving, bearded, massively built, demon-worshipping Viking barbarians.
- Backstabbing, murder-and-rape-happy, Velociraptor-riding elf pirates led by scantily-clad and good-looking sorceresses.
- Magitek, Steampunk, Nazi Rat-people.
- British soccer hooligan Orcs and cowardly, Butt-Monkey goblins.
- Warriors Orochi has the greatest badasses of Chinese history facing off against some of the greatest warriors feudal Japan has ever produced, plus a mischievous fox spirit, plus a Blood Knight serpent demon and his legions, plus gods and goddesses, plus Joan of Arc, plus Achilles, plus some modern badass ninjas, plus so many more, and in the third one we add in a giant eight-headed monster and time travel!
- Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus has a Nazi robot dog that can breathe fire vs. a heavily pregnant, screaming, blood-soaked shirtless woman dual-wielding machine-guns. Anya wins. And it is awesome.
- Why do you think the WWE Video Games are so popular? André the Giant vs The Undertaker vs Ric Flair vs Kurt Angle vs Eddie Guerrero vs AJ Styles in the steel cage of your choice? Too easy, why not have in one corner Robert Baratheon replete with war hammer, Nathenial Hawke, Gordon Ramsay and Commander Shepard and in the other Jack Bauer, Luke Skywalker, Siegfried and Leon Kennedy?
Web Comics
- The Adventures of Dr. McNinja has had, in no particular order, ninjas and a doctor ninja versus... robots, clowns, a flying bodybuilder, a giant Paul Bunyan who was really a child, evil ninjas, pirates, ghosts, Mexican banditos on dinosaurs, vampires, zombies, a unicorn motorcycle, a ghost wizard, someone pretending to be a robot, ninja zombies, more robots, zombie Benjamin Franklin, Dracula (Dracula also had a robot Dracula), a Danish 80s action movie hero and his ninjas, clone ninjas, ghost wizards, Mayincatec robot temple guards, future dinosaurs from space, a vengeful space ghost that explodes people, a samurai demon, sky pirates, a luchador doctor, and a king on a dirtbike. At any given point, those enemies may have fought each other as well.
- One time invoked by Ron Wizard, who deduced that a single giant robot was not enough to produce the required awesomeness to summon his people from their world - so he created another giant robot to fight it.
- The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! has had The Men in Black vs. prehistoric dragons from space and their friend the old lady in the flying Powered Armor, fighting over a bomb that can destroy the world.
- Axe Cop has had the title character and his allies (including dinosaurs, people with unicorn horns, a vampire wizard ninja and his brother who's also a werewolf) vs. aliens, vampire half-babies, Humongous Mecha, flying books, Bad Santa... This picture◊ with just about all the good guys and antagonists on opposing sides, with huge amounts of Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot in both, takes the trope about as far as is imaginable.
- Ethan Nicolle's other webcomic (besides Axe Cop), Bearmageddon, opens up with a character asking another who would win in a fight, a bear or a gorilla. They decide that it's an unanswerable question, like "can God make a square circle".
- The Dragon Doctors is about magical doctors of many different disciplines who have banded together, and they've fought against various equally unusual opponents. The docs themselves are a wizard (with healing and shapeshifting magic), a soldier/surgeon, a shaman/therapist, and a Magitek specialist. They've faced off against a horde of assassins, a serial killer who kills dreaming shamans, and Goro (the soldier/surgeon) is currently fending off an all-female Quirky Miniboss Squad consisting of a pistol-wielding shapeshifter, a mage in a ballcap, a female ogre and a lamia with a petrifying ray gun.
- Homestuck has Bro (a katana-wielding badass who flies around on a rocket-powered surfboard) versus Jack Noir (a noir-themed Humanoid Abomination with godlike powers who also wields a katana and is part dog). The resulting battle is so awesome that it ends in a tie, with the two fighting to a standstill. Jack later gets the upper hand and kills Bro but only thanks to a well timed power-up gained from Becquerel prototyping himself.
- Housekeeper: Robot Magical Girls fight Nazis with nanotechnology and supersoldiers to save Technically Living Zombies.
- Hungry City is about a vampire who wakes up during a Zombie Apocalypse, and naturally has to fight zombies.
- Narbonic: "Who would win in a fight between a giant robot foot accompanied by a rifle-toting assassin, and an army of hamsters in mechanical suits?"
- Sonic vs. Goku features a battle between the titular characters that initially started as a friendly sparring match but escalates into an epic battle.
Web Original
- Despite his insistence that he hates fanboyish arguments regarding who would win in fights between 2 or more awesome characters, Monty Oum has created some of the best examples of this trope on the Internet. Between his Haloid (Master Chief versus Samus Aran) and Dead Fantasy (the female cast of the Dead or Alive series versus the more notable female characters from the Final Fantasy games and Kairi) videos, he takes already-cool concepts and takes them Up to Eleven in terms of sheer awesomeness.
- Whateley Universe story "Ayla and the Mad Scientist" includes a holographic simulator battle that ends with Person of Mass Destruction Tennyo (aka "The Star Stalker") vs. The Queen of the Sidhe Fey (aka "The Queen To Come").
- One Ask That Guy with the Glasses question was "who would win a fight between a lion and a thousand bees"; his response was "everybody wins".
- Practically every single fight in RWBY is this. A textbook example is the main fight scene in "Painting the Town", which features a tag team of Sinister Scythe-wielding Little Red Riding Hood, Magical Girl Snow White, Ninja Belle and Goldilocks with Power Fists up against a house-sized Humongous Mecha. End result: Goldilocks won.
- SCP Foundation:
- This one story which features a clash between SCP-682 and SCP-076-2 "Able". To wit, the former is a Nigh-Invulnerable shapeshifting monstrosity from another dimension, and the latter is basically magically-empowered Guts on crack. 076-2 comes very close to actually succeeding in killing the thing, but alas, he gets munched in half and killed. When he inevitably resurrects inside his tomb, he emerges and suggests that it was the best fight he's had in ages.
- The exploration logs for SCP-1730 culminates in a showdown between a gigantic leech Eldritch Abomination, the Gate Guardian, and SCP-2845, a veritable clash between gods.
- This one story
- ScrewAttack's DEATH BATTLE! is all about various characters from pop culture fighting to the death.
- Epic Rap Battles of History lets famous people from history and pop culture rap against each other. The most famous is Hitler vs Darth Vader.
- Crash Maul brings us "The Fight for Sawmill", a One-Man Army martial artist Scout whose main power is Offscreen Teleportation, er, "Super-Reflexes", having a 10 minute long battle with a cowboy Engineer who invokes some series Revolver Ocelot vibes, and his unstoppable pet man-bear.
- The Fire Never Dies: While it has yet to happen, Word of God has made it explicitly clear that the alternate Second World War will feature a transatlantic naval war between America and Britain, the nations with the two largest navies in the world, on a scale even larger than the Pacific Theater of World War II.
- Wolf Song: The Movie uses this trope hard. multi-coloured wolves vs [[Hellhounds]], said wolves vs other (sometimes brightly coloured) wolves, wolves vs shapeshifting demon bear, and topping it off with two back to back examples in the final battle: elemental wolf vs giant hellhound followed by winged wolf monster vs that same hellhound.
Western Animation
- There are some storylines in the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series in which they fight alien dinosaurs. Robots and other mutants are also common foes.
- An episode of Justice League Unlimited pitted Aquaman against Wonder Twins Expies. This resulted in a battle in a downpour-flooded office building, between the Prince of the Sea and Shifter as a swimming tyrannosaurus.
- Ninjago pits heroic ninjas with cool tornado powers against armored skeletons that ride motorcycle-like vehicles in the pilot. These very same ninjas later utilise Humongous Mecha while battling Snake People. And they also fight resurrected pirates in a later episode... Ok, you get the point - the entire series basically runs on this trope.
- There's several episodes of Samurai Jack that are examples of this trope like: "Samurai vs. Ninja", Samurai vs Viking Rock Monster, Samurai vs Blind Archers, Samurai vs Scotsman.
- Being a Fantasy Kitchen Sink, Adventure Time gets into this quite a bit.
- The most common being magic shapeshifting dog vs. Ice Wizard. And sometimes Ice Wizard vs. Physical God/giant floating wolf head of partying.
- "Frost and Fire" is devoted to the idea "what if Ice King and Flame Princess fought?" They fight three times; Flame Princess wins the first fight, Ice King wins the second and then Flame Princess curbs stomps Ice King in the third to the point of destroying the Ice Kingdom and almost killing him.
- Archer: Invoked by Bionic Barry in Space Race. He offers to let Archer wear the space station's Alien style power loader suit to goad him into leaving his escape shuttle for a fight.
Barry: Evil Cyborg versus Space Bot!
- Ben 10 has this in spades. The hero already is by himself an Alien Shapeshifting 10 years old Super Hero. Over the course of the show, he has been put (amongst others) against Alien Cthulhu, a Monster Clown, an Evil Sorcerer and his Dark Magical Girl niece, a Mad Scientist Evilutionary Biologist, an Ancient Conspiracy of literal Knight Templar Cape Busters, Nazi-esque Scary Dogmatic Aliens and an Eldritch Abomination. The season 2 story arc of Ben 10: Ultimate Alien also gives us the aforementioned Knight Templar Cape Busters vs another Ancient Conspiracy of Ninja-like dimensional traveller worshipping an Eldritch Abomination.
- Black Dynamite's first episode features black ninjas vs alien Michael Jacksons.
- Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Magicks of Megas-Tu" has James T. Kirk defeating Satan! (Or at least an alien being pretending to be him as part of a Secret Test of Character). Bonus points for a Defeat Means Friendship moment at the end.
- Love, Death & Robots: The Secret War is the Red Army circa 1942 vs. demonic ghouls from pagan Siberia.
- Ōban Star-Racers, being a galactic racing tournament of many different beings, features human star pilots vs hulking alien warriors vs Space Elves vs a high-tech Cat Girl vs a high-flying shape-shifter vs Space Pirates vs a hyper-intelligent robot vs a giant crab-beast vs a space wizard vs an ancient bird-like Eldritch Abomination who wants to reshape the universe. This isn't even everyone, and it's all played surprisingly straight.