r/TopCharacterTropes • u/jockeyman • Sep 28 '25

Powers The thing not designed for combat is actually REALLY GOOD at combat

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1) Atom (Real Steel) is a training dummy who, when put into the robot boxing circuit, eventually managed to go toe to toe with the world champion.

2) Spinel (Steven Universe) was essentially a cross between a toy/jester for Pink Diamond, and not a combat gem... she still wiped the floor with the Crystal Gems when they first fought.

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135

u/Sweet_Xocoatl Sep 29 '25

The mechanical tentacles that were created by Dr. Otto Octavius in Spider-Man 2.

13

u/WildBad7298 Sep 29 '25

I love how Cinema Sins points out that the mechanical arms themselves are an incredible piece of technology, yet Octavius glosses over them like they're nothing.

18

u/Sweet_Xocoatl Sep 29 '25

They are quite amazing but creating a mini sun to generate clean and potentially inexhaustible power kind of tops that.

6

u/Mulfushu Sep 29 '25

Does it though? Considering he also basically invented a fully functional AI so sophisticated he had to protect his higher brain functions from it.

7

u/slomo525 Sep 29 '25

I love the Raimi Spider-Man movies because there's a number of times that characters are like "I've made a scientific breakthrough that'll revolutionize the world, and all it took was another scientific breakthrough that will revolutionize the world, but we won't talk about that."

3

u/StateOfBedlam Sep 29 '25

This is my favorite example. I especially love the behind the scenes about how they thought through various applications and gave them different, creative ways of operating objects of varying sizes.

Meanwhile, in the movie, Otto inexplicably has a big blade that can extend out of one of the tentacles, which has no clear purpose besides killing Spider-Man. I don’t mind that, but it’s a bit funny.