Cool Versus Awesome

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Both are cool, and their battle is awesome!

Samurai and zombies!? You don't have to say any more. I'm in! —Spoony reviewing Samurai Zombie Nation

Pirates are cool; so are ninjas. So pirates fighting ninjas must be frickin' awesome! And why not make them all beat up 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 (like a wizard mounted on a T-Rex fighting a horde of zombies).

Bonus points if the two don't exist in the same time-period, place, or universe.

Fur Against Fang is a subtrope. Elves vs. Dwarves, despite how it sounds, is not; though it can be applied to whichever two sides are fighting. A Massive Multiplayer Crossover often invokes this. A Versus Title is a sure sign of the trope at work.

Examples of Cool Versus Awesome include:

Anime and Manga

• Many Shonen and Humongous Mecha anime and manga (especially Super Robot shows) in general run on this trope.
• Bleach's new filler arc consists of the Gotei 13 fighting against their clones, yes, it is just THAT awesome.
• Due to its Fantasy Kitchen Sink nature, Mahou Sensei Negima 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 end of Seto no Hanayome 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.
• Getter Robo does this every other day. It starts with a Super Robot vs. giant cyborg dinosaurs and goes up from there.
• 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. A ragtag group of (French?) mercenaries, English Knights, and Dracula vs. Nazi vampires, Nazi zombies, Nazi Eldritch Abominations, the Ninth Crusade, and then some. You may now overdose on awesome.
• Ga-Rei manga mainly revolves around Mafia sorcerors versus state-funded agency of Mons summoners. It's... less awesome than it sounds.
• Shaman King has, amongst other things, samurai ghost and zombie martial artist versus Humongous Mecha angels.
• No Fate Stay Night or Fate/Zero yet? It has Assassin vs Saber vs Rider vs Archer vs Berserker vs Caster vs Lancer vs Avenger (in one of the previous wars). And all classes are represented by historical, mythological or legendary character (or sometimes original fictional one). Hell it could be described as Epic vs Gar.
  • Even then nothing comes close to the awesome absurdity of Gilgamesh in an Ancient Sumerian spaceship vs Berserker's F15 fighter jet.
• One Piece: Brook vs. Ryuuma. An animated skeleton swordfighting a samurai zombie. Crazy Awesome.
  • Hell, much of the Thriller Bark arc is literally Pirates vs. Zombies.
• Viewed at first glance, Neon Genesis Evangelion appears to be about Humongous Mecha vs. Kaiju. Of course, then it gets complicated.
• Erza Scarlet vs Erza Knightwalker in Fairy Tail is basically Fairy Tail VS Rave Master.
• Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? has Vampire Ninja vs Zombie, Magical Girl Uh guy/Zombie, Vampire Ninja and Necromancer vs Vampire Ninja Magical Girl Megalo person.

Art and Images

• Goku vs. Superman
• Darth Vader vs. Dr. Doom

Comic Books

• Marvel Comics and DC Comics 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.
• There's a mini-arc of Gold Digger 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?
• Most League of Extraordinary Gentlemen stories are like this, but the primary selling point for the first volume is the fact that it involves Professor Moriarty fighting Fu Manchu.
• Judge Dredd has fought both Predator and Aliens.
• About half the X-Men plots can be described as this. Mutants vs. Robots. Mutants vs. Aliens. Mutants vs. Dinosaurs. Mutants vs. Mythological Monsters.
• In her self-titled solo series, 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 in most recent comics have tended towards this, especially since he teamed up with his own zombie-universe severed head to fight dinosaurs, some of which become zombies, and then later are 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.
• Marvel's various "Thor vs. Hercules" miniseries, one of which included the two of them disguised as one another.
• The entirety of Nextwave can be described thus. Crazy Awesome Supers and their even more crazy awesome robot-supremacist robot fighting Pantsless Kaiju, Samurai Robots, Cannibal Drop Bears, laser eyebeam-shooting Stephen Hawking clones and much much more!
• The comic book Zombies vs. Robots and its sequel Zombies vs. Robots vs. Amazons.
• The Dandy's Arena of Awesome embodies this trope.
• Hellboy: King Arthur versus the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
• ROBO-BEAR VERSUS CYBER-GORILLA!!!
• The graphic novel Dinosaurs vs. Aliens

Fanfic

• 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 anchient death priests, pitted against airships. And then a giant flying zombie Octopus...

Film

• Monsters vs. Aliens: you get what you came for, and then some.
• Alien vs. Ninja. Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
• The Valley of Gwangi has cowboys fighting dinosaurs.
• Pirates of the Caribbean has Pirates and Zombie Monkey vs. Evil Brit Biological Mashups... 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: Vikings (plus an adopted Space Marine) versus a giant alien lizard.
• The 13th Warrior: Vikings versus Neanderthal cannibals masquerading as mythical demons.
• Alien vs. Predator pretty much exists purely due to this trope. There are also various spinoff where one or both of them go up against one or more of Superman, Batman, Terminator, Judge Dredd, Witchblade, The Darkness, Tarzan, and Magnus: Robo Fighter.
• The a Team pits a tank against multiple drones in midair.
• King Kong vs. Godzilla.
• Toho also considered making Godzilla vs Batman in the 1960s before scrapping the concepts.
• SyFy Channel Original Movie: Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus.
• Beyond Re-Animator has a fight between a sentient severed penis and a rat.
• Part of the problem with Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is that the film's marketing tried very, very hard to promote the movie as Cool Versus Awesome, or even an Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny. Unfortunately, that doesn't work when nobody's ever heard of either character before.
• 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.
• The sequel to The Gamers movie had a short sequence in which Pirates battled pizza-delivering Ninjas... in the Wizards of the Coast offices. This game actually exists.
• Avatar at the end boils down to a blue skinned Catguy vs Colonel Badass in a Mecha having a giant knife duel.
• Pathfinder: 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.
• How to Train Your Dragon: Vikings vs. Dragons. Then, Vikings riding dragons vs. an even bigger dragon.
• 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.
• Just when you thought you've seen it all, someone decided there needed to be the impossible matchup of Dahmer vs. Gacy.
• Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl
• Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man is a classic example.
• The Warrior's Way features Cowboys versus Ninjas.
• And Cowboys and Aliens features, well....
  • See for yourself.
  • Could it get any cooler and more awesome? How about if one cowboy is the guy who played James Bond and the other is the guy who played Indiana Jones. You just know the aliens are going to get every inch of their butts kicked.
• The film Indian in The Cupboard had a brief scene featuring DARTH VADER vs. a T-REX.
• Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
• Underworld which is about Vampires vs Lycans (werewolves).
• Of course, Freddy vs. Jason pits two of the biggest horror movie icons of the 1980s against each other.
• The Batman vs. Dracula is a case of Batman fighting Dracula. It's as awesome as it sounds.
• Badasses Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee in the Way of the Dragon.

Literature

• The Dresden Files: a hundred points to wizard Harry Dresden for riding out on the back of a zombie T-Rex to face off against necromancers and their zombie armies at the climax of Dead Beat.
  • Plus several million for riding out on said T-Rex to the jaunty tune of polka.
  • Plus additional points for using a loophole in the series' rules against using necromancy. The Fifth Law of Magic prohibits raising the dead, but as Harry points out (to two people who could legally cut off his head for breaking said Law): "That only applies to raising HUMAN dead."
    • Further points because the specific skeleton is, in fact, Sue, aka the most complete T-rex skeleton so far found.
    • And sixty-five million bonus points for exploiting how necromantic zombies' power increases in proportion to how long they've been dead.
  • Along with a zombie T-Rex, Dead Beat also features ninja ghoul versus valkyrie security consultant.

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but Chinese throwing stars get you a dozen stitches.

• • Really, the whole series could be summed up as "Crazy Awesome wizard versus everything".
  • Turn Coat gives us centuries old, superpowerful Magical Native American versus prehistoric, shapeshifting, mind breaking Eldritch Abomination.
  • Changes has an epic battle of Cool Versus Awesome. Involves 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.
• Also from Jim Butcher: The Codex Alera, a.k.a. Roman legionnaires with Elemental Powers versus wolfmen versus the Zerg versus Neanderthal-elves with Bond Creatures versus empathic yetis. And the one Badass Normal.
  • In fact, this trope is arguably the entire reason for the series' existence, and Great Furies does it work out well.
  • You can take the page picture, replace the gladiator with a Roman legionary, and you've essentially summed the middle two books of the series.
• 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".
• Gandalf versus the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings, in what is literally a battle of two angels, one of whom is fallen.
• 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.

Live-Action TV

• 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 had an episode versus the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. (More precisely, Ninja Turtles the Next Mutation incarnations, meaning that Venus also got to join in.)
  • As for the Super Sentai, Kamen Rider Decade had a story arc versus the Samurai Sentai Shinkenger.
    • And an episode of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger has all three core members of Ninpuu Sentai Hurricanger turn up, demanding their powers back. The episode is actually called Pirates vs Ninjas.
• 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", which is Did Not Do the Research, as "viking" was basically just Old Norse for "pirate".
• One episode of The League of Gentlemen has Henry and Ally speculating on whether Alien could beat Species in a fight.
• 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 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.
• Doctor Who: Flying saucers vs. spitfires- In Space!
  • And earlier on we had Daleks vs. Cybermen!
• Primeval features a battle between a Future Predator against a prehistoric Gorgonopsid.

Pro Wrestling

• If we were to pay close enough attention, the WWE runs on this trope more then most of us may realize. The WWE consists of a wide array of unique characters such as a patriotic white gangsta wannabe, a mentally unhinged snake-like man, a reincarnated fusion of Conan The Barbarian and Thor, a religious acrobat, Death personified as a wrestler, and a self-centered jerk with the attitude of a rockstar, among others who do battle on a regular basis.
• Any of the matches between The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin.
• The upcoming the Rock vs John Cena match.

Tabletop Games

• 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).
  • Dragon magazine once published "Wizard/Warrior Wrasslin' Federation" comics (Nodwick spinoff) with the Ultimate Showdown: Raistlin vs. Elminster (quickly escalated to affecting relevant deities) for laughs. Now it's online.
    • Pray, let's not forget the Tyrannosaur-ship-mounted-Ninja-Pirates vs. the Titan-Submarine-mounted-Cannibal-Vikings.
• Warhammer 40000 has Super Soldiers wielding automatic rocket launchers fighting psychic space elves fighting phonetically-challenged fungus-warriors fighting The Legions of Hell fighting unkillable undead robots fighting all-consuming alien bugs fighting Space Communists... fighting regular humans with really, really nice tanks (and hats).
• 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.
• Infinite Worlds has a scary dogmatic science-dominated society fighting transdimensional nazis. And every single GURPS setting exists in this multiverse somewhere.
• Upcoming AEG game Smash-Up is built on this trope. Players choose two "factions" from eight - including Pirates, Ninjas, Dinosaurs, Wizards, Robots, Zombies, Aliens, and Tricksters - to build a deck out of and go up against decks of two others.

Video Games

• As a general rule, Fighting Games exist to allow all sorts of martial arts around the world to duke it out virtually.
• Ditto with Real Time Strategy games which features real world military / civilizations, such as Age of Empires or (duh) Civilization.
  • Samurai versus Vikings!
• The Command & Conquer series have lots and lots of this, particularly 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. Actual battlefield scenario: mortar-equipped hovercraft are launching parachute-equipped cyber-bears while getting shot at by dolphins whose sonar has been weaponized; the bears' mission is to take out a giant mecha factory before they get gunned down by a immensely-psychically-powerful Japanese schoolgirl who is being backed up by fellow young ladies in rocket packs. While on the other side of the map, amphibious destroyers are getting nailed by tesla coils and tanks the size of city blocks. Yes.
• Plants vs. Zombies is about defending your house from zombies by planting cute plants. The awesomeness of the zombies rises as you progress through the game.
  • And for ultra awesomeness, the final boss battle is a freakin' huge robot piloted by a zombie scientist that only half of fits on the screen. On your ROOFTOP.
• Darkstalkers mixes this with Monster Mash to be Fur Against Fang against Mummy against Frankenstein against Zombie against...
• Assassin's Creed plot line revolves around the rivalry between the Knights Templar and The Hashshashin
• The King of Fighters XI has B. Jenet, a Pirate girl vs. Mai Shuranui, a Ninja girl, which is quite possibly the hottest Cat Fight in gaming.
• Scribblenauts allows you to pit nearly everything that's cool against nearly everything that's awesome.
• Guilty Gear and Blaz Blue. 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.
• Kongai, a superbly balanced online card game about battles involving Samurai, Ninja, Hot Amazons, Vampires, a Barbarian Tribe, Pirates, Knights, Robots and Witches.
• Skyrim plot basically boils down to Vikings vs. Romans vs. dragons. There's also a bit of Ancient Egypt in there in the form of the draugr. What's not to like?
  • The player can become a vampire or a werewolf too!
  • The draugr are actually Nordic zombies that were said to retain some intelligence and were almost invicible. Thanks history channel and specials about zombies.
• Saints Row 2 has a minigame where you're a Cop on a reality TV show, and you have to stop randomly generated crimes. One of them is to "Stop the Fight of the Century," which when you arrive at the checkpoint, you find out is a gang of pirates fighting a gang of ninjas.

"Attention all cars, this is dispatch, we have Pirates vs Ninjas, repeat, Pirates vs Ninjas."

• • Related: "Chainsaws are standard issue for cops, right? Go "catch" that purse-snatcher!"
• Elves vs. Werewolves in Dragon Age Origins. And you can choose which one to help.
• The whole point of Capcom vs. Whatever.
  • 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 the Superheroes 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 Catgirl, 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 separated games or can't co-exist at all.
  • Namco X Capcom somewhat exceeds all of the above with it's cast.
  • 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...
  • And, finally, 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...
    • Now we have Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3, with B.O.W.s and Lawyers oh my!
  • Street Fighter X Tekken is the latest installment so far which 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.
• Ogre Battle has ninjas, vampires, werewolves, knights, amazons, valkyries, wizards, witches, so on and so on.
• Adventure Quest 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.
• In Prototype, when the Badass Normal Specialist Cross takes on Alex Mercer, the one responsible for killing entire platoons of Marines and capable of taking out Heavy Armor, man on man (Well, until Blackwatch send reinforcements in the form of SpecOps Soldiers). The end result is basically a tie (Mercer is incapacitated by Cross, but escapes when Cross turns away to use his radio to call for an Extraction Helicopter).
• Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
• The central conflict of Fallout: New Vegas is basically the US Army versus the Roman Legions versus an ersatz Howard Hughes and his army of killer robots, with a 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.
  • Arguably, in Fallout 3, with the two groups retaining advanced military technology from the pre-war days: the Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave.
• Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare features John Marston versus a horde of undead zombies. Fuck. Yes.
  • You almost feel sorry for the zombies.
• Mass Effect 3. Thresher Maw versus Reaper. Thresher Maw wins.
• 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.
• 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.
• Touhou: Take your pick: Shrine Maiden versus Vampires, Ninja Maid versus half-ghost samurai gardener, vaguely-lesbian Witches versus Immortal Aliens, Dumbass Fairy versus The Judge of The Dead, Shrine Maiden versus Gods, Witch allied with Mad Scientist versus Nuclear-powered Raven from Hell, Paparazzi versus everyone... explained by Gensoukyou being the last refuge for fantasy.
• According to the Game Informer article, in Mass Effect 3, we will have a Reaper fighting a Colossal Thresher Maw.
  • It's just as awesome as you can imagine it being.
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: Act 4 culminates in a showdown between Metal Gear REX and Metal Gear RAY. Made even cooler because RAY is a newer, upgraded model and REX is a decaying, outdated model, and it ends in a tie.
• Eternal Champions. The roster contains a ninja, Cyborg kickboxer, Kung Fu Wizard, acrobat, Bounty Hunter, caveman, Gladiator Games from Atlantis, a Vampire scientist, and Gentleman Thief.
• Half Life essentially boils down to a a crowbar wielding theoretical physicist vs an army of alien monsters, some of which are hinted at being Eldritch Abominations.
• Jump Superstars series has Dragonball Z, Naruto, D Gray Man, Bleach, Rurouni Kenshin, Shaman King, Gintama, One Piece, Hunter X Hunter JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Katekyo Hitman Reborn and a few others.
• Rise of Legends: Clock Punk mecha versus Mayincatec Ancient Astronauts vs. Arabian Nights sorcery.
• Kid Icarus: Uprising has a short arc that is essentially Greek(ish) gods versus alien invaders.

Webcomics

• 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.
• 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...
• 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.
• The "Ninjas vs. Pirates" wallpaper from the Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures download page is a uniquely Amberish take on the subject. There's actually a funny story behind it...
• Saudia Arabia and Somalia's fight in Scandinavia and The World, considering that Somalia is a pirate, and Saudi Arabia is a 'ninja'.
• Fontes' Rants: What if Chuck Norris and Captain Falcon had a Pokémon battle?
• The Order of the Stick here joins the Pirates Vs. Ninjas issue.

Haley: Ah, Ninja vs. Pirate, the age-old debate. Belkar: And by "age-old" ahe means "showed up on the internet like two years ago, at most."

• 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?"
• The Unspeakable Vault of Doom presents: "The Duel of the Eon. Cthulhoo vs. Godzy". Later they had a lunch together, though.

Web Original

• Kibo wrote FAQ, this trope is invokes, covering "Kibo vs. ..." for Superman, Jesus, Xibo, Bill Gates and Picard.
• This video features a duel between Dark Yugi (played by LittleKuriboh) and Dark Yugi (Played by Dan Green). And it's SUPER SPECIAL AWESOME.
• 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.
• Aliens vs Predator: Infographic.
• Spoony made a Deadliest Warrior spoof called Deadliest Character, featuring Megazord against Mechagodzilla. Linkara represents Megazord, and The Angry Video Game Nerd, as Dr. Fanboix, represents Mechagodzilla. And it is awesome.
• Questionable Content "Undie Jitsu" has Pintsize (a PC-bot) steal Faye's panties and pretend he's an Underwear Ninja. Faye responds by sticking a bra 'round her head like a pirate eyepatch, thus becoming, in Pintsize's words, "A Bra Pirate! The nemesis of all Underwear Ninja." Marten's response? To paraphrase, "WTF?"
• Epic Rap Battles of History has Chuck Norris vs Abraham Lincoln, among others.
• Invader Zim Vs. Haruhi Suzumiya. Enjoy.
• Pirates versus Ninja by MonkeySeed on Deviant ART.
• The Darkness of Stupid Mario Brothers invokes this trope on purpose by recruiting Pirates against Ganondorf's Ninjas. That said, the entire show can run on this upon occasion when we're given Solid Snake Vs Tommy Vercetti, Shadow Mario/The Darkness Vs Wario, Fire Mario Vs Mr. L, and UPS vs FedEx
• 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").

Western Animation

• There are some storylines in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 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.
• A recent LEGO line called Ninjago pits heroic ninjas (with cool tornado powers in tv spots) against armored skeletons that ride motorcycle-like vehicles.
• There's one episode of Samurai Jack that's titled "Samurai vs. Ninja". And it's Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
  • Many of Samurai Jack's adventures invoke this trope: Samurai vs Viking Rock Monster, Samurai vs Blind Archers, Samurai vs Scotsman Barbarian, etc.

Real Life

• Older Than Feudalism: The Battle of Zama. A climactic battle between two of the mightiest empires in history commanded by the two greatest generals of the Sword and Sandal era. On the Carthaginian side is the Magnetic Hero, Hannibal Barca. On the Roman side is the Cincinnatus type Scipio Africanus. Who will win? Rome. To put the Battle of Zama into perspective, you have Roman legions being led by an eccentric general who really should not have this position under normal circumstances versus the aforementioned Magnetic Hero leading a diverse mercenary army and War Elephants. By all accounts it was epic.
• Waterloo, with the real-life (And significantly more Badass) Redcoat Army under the Iron Duke Arthur Wellesley up against the Grande Armee under Bona Fide Magnificent Bastard Napoleon Bonaparte (Who also happened to be l'Empereur) in the final battle of the 26-year long French Revolutionary wars.
• Octopus vs. shark. Toothy menace of the deep? Not so much.
• USN vs IJN on the vast "un-Pacific" Ocean in World War II. They were by far the two most powerful navies in the world at the time, fighting the largest naval war in history.
• The Coat of arms of Mexico Eagle vs. Snake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Mexico
• The Battle Of Leuctra: The Theban Sacred Band versus The Spartans. The Thebans won.
• Tennis rivalries - and sports rivalries in general - pretty much run on this trope. Federer vs. Nadal in the present and Sampras vs. Agassi in the past are examples. The 2007 and 2008 Wimbledon Men Singles Championship matches were noted for featuring two players in their prime fighting tooth and nail for every point.