When you have a superhero (or villain) with colossal super-strength, it's often customary to show just how mighty they are by having them rip chunks out of the scenery and use them as weapons. One of the more ludicrous instances of this is when they grab onto a chunk of the ground, then whip it like they're yanking a rug, sending a neat little shockwave directly at their opponent, the earth literally rippling as if made of some kind of flimsy cloth.
Compare Ground Wave.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Fullmetal Alchemist: During his battle against Riza, Envy uses one of his tentacles to pull a chunk of the ground to turn the tables on her. It's the only thing that gets her to stop emptying her bullet rounds on him.
- One Piece: Inazuma can do this, and more justified than most examples due to it being a product of his specific powers rather than being a feat of strength. Those powers involve being able to create scissors from his body and, after using them to cut up something, manipulate that cut material as though it were paper, even if it's something like a stone floor that normally couldn't be moved that way.
Asian Animation
- Lamput: In "Magic Marker", Specs Doc gains super strength from the magic marker and at one point uses his strength to pull out the road and whip it like a rug, sending Lamput flying into the air.
Comic Books
- Legion of Super-Heroes: In The Adult Legion, Saturn Woman, Brainiac 5 and Element Lad are about to tackle a mysterious saboteur when the man uses his super-strength to yank the metal flooring, knocking them off their foot and into the wall.
- Strange Tales: Issue #89, the first appearance of Marvel Comics's most famous Kaiju, the Chinese alien dragon Fin Fang Foom, Fin attacks a bunch of Chinese soldiers by grabbing up a chunk of the Great Wall of China and snapping it like a whip. This makes no sense but is totally awesome.
- Supergirl: Supergirl has done this sometimes. One of those times
◊ happened during her battle against the Anti-Monitor in Crisis on Infinite Earths #7.
Live-Action TV
- Kamen Rider ZEZTZ: Zeztz does this in his introductory episode, and this is further justified by him both being a lucid dreamer currently in a dream, letting him warp the environment as needed, and the use of the Impact Capsem that increases his physical strength.
Tabletop Games
- Mutants & Masterminds: One of Apex's favorite combat tactics is to use his gorilla body to yank chunks from the ground to destabilize his enemies.
Video Games
- Atlas Reactor: Rask has a move called 'upheaval' that does this. It's unique amongst the game's forced movement attacks in that it tosses foes away from him instead of pulling them to him.
- Brain Dead 13: Badass Normal protagonist Lance uses this on Fritz in the penultimate confrontation. He sees Fritz at the top of a huge staircase and gives the rug at the bottom a mighty pull. The rug shockwave travels up the entirety of the stairs as Lance and Fritz watch (with smugness and curiosity, respectively) until it hits Fritz, who then falls down the entirety of the stairs. As the Obscure Game Theatre says, the only way Lance would have tried that would be if he knew he was in a cartoon, and fighting a cartoon.
- Final Fantasy VII: The summon Titan's method of attack.
- Marvel vs. Capcom: This is one of the Hulk's special moves in any game he's in.
- Marvel Mystic Mayhem: Hulk's "Fearsome Flip" skill tears up the ground, damages multiple enemies and knocks them back a few hexes. Once the Soul Saga mind upgrade is unlocked it'll also stun them for a few seconds.
- Marvel Rivals: The Thing's Ultimate Clobberin' Time has him pull up the ground in front of him, throwing any enemy in his way into the air.
- Pac-Land: Pinky, like his kin, receives Super-Strength, which he uses against Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man to fling them off and separate them.
- Phantom Breaker: M's Back+SP, Rubble Crush, and its EX-Special version, Earthquake: She slams the ground with her Humongous with enough force to rip chunks of the ground to strike her opponent with them. Her Hard Style Phantom Break, Tidal Wave, has her ripping even bigger chunks of ground that move in a wave towards the opponent.
Web Animation
- Dead Fantasy: In Part III, Tifa prepares to shoot a fireball. Seeing this, Hitomi backflips, grabbing the concrete while doing so and sending a huge piece of the floor toward Tifa, blocking the fire.
- RWBY: Despite being made of glass, the dance floor at Junior's club uncharacteristically flexes to the shockwave from Yang's powerful fist strikes, rather than shattering on impact.
Western Animation
- Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog: Robotnik obtains Flying Brick superpowers, and he demonstrates them to the heroes exactly this way.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: Pulled off on a regular basis by earthbenders, who can give earth and rocks whatever consistency they want. Toph neutralizes an entire group of metalbenders this way in The Legend of Korra.
- DC Animated Universe: Superman likes to throw this kind of attack around, hemming his hands on the concrete or metal below, and then using it to destabilize his enemies. He hits Darksed with one of these in Superman: The Animated Series. He does it to Captain Atom in Justice League Unlimited. In that same cartoon, he receives a rug-pull from Darkseid.
- Space Ace: In "Wanted Dexter", Dexter is locked in prison. He notices Baby Face Nerks with Kimmy and tries to get the sheriff's attention. Having no success, Dexter throws the mug at the blaster, causing it to fall to the floor. Then Dexter grabs the rug and says, "Come on, blaster. Come to Dexter." Then he proceeds to pull the rug so hard that it creates a shockwave that sends the sheriff flying — Dexter gets the blaster and, after energizing, escapes the prison.
