Teen Titans (animation)/Awesome

Starfire

• Given that it's the first battle of the series, it's no surprise she gets one in "Divide and Conquer", punishing Cinderblock for underestimating her with a well placed boot to the head, all in her cheerfully character-defining way.

Starfire (cheerful voice): "I'm sorry to disappoint you... (eyes start burning green) but I am stronger than I look!"

• The episode "Haunted" provides a truly hardcore example of this trope. She, Cyborg, Raven and Beast Boy have been locked in the Tower's infirmary by a psychotic (albeit on an accidentally-inhaled hallucinogen) Robin, and though each is trying their best to batter through the walls and air ducts, nothing seems to be working. Raven, mentally linked to Robin, suddenly gasps out, "I can feel him... he's not going to make it!" Starfire looks horrified for a moment, then narrows her eyes and declares, "Then let us end this battle now!" as she swoops down, digs her nails into the inches-thick steel floor, and rips up a swathe of it like a can of beans.
  • Earlier in that episode she has a similar moment. Robin has just been confronted by his team, who are swearing that Slade - whom he thinks he's fighting - is not there. It reaches a peak when he snarls, "I have to stop him. I'm the only one who can. And I'll take down anyone who gets in my way!" Raven, Cyborg and Beast Boy stare at him in horror, but suddenly Robin is electrified by a flash of green. He yelps and topples forward... to reveal Starfire, her fist smoldering, having just shot not only her leader, but her love interest.
• In the origin episode "Go!", it is revealed that Starfire escaped to Earth while en route from Tamaran, having been taken as a slave/trophy by the Gordanians. Her captors are so afraid of her that she is locked in the securest cell they have... which she proceeds to break out of. She then beats the crap out of the entire crew, blows up the ship, and jets off to Earth. But it doesn't end there: terrified and in literally alien surroundings, she battles Robin, Cyborg and Beast Boy simultaneously, to the point of picking up a sedan with her foot and flinging it at Robin, while wearing handcuffs that prevent her from firing starbolts. There's a lot of other badassery from her in this episode--chief among them kissing Robin to learn English, then pushing him to ground and growling, "If you wish not to be destroyed, you will leave. Me. Alone." And she's the sweetest character on the show!
• Defeating Blackfire (amped up with the power of the Jewel of Charta) in a brutal one-on-one battle for the crown of Tamaran.

Blackfire: "You'll always be my little sister." Starfire: "I am not so little anymore!"

• The Cat Fight with Kitten and starbolting Fang in the face:

Starfire: "Keep your legs off my boy!"

• A brief moment in "Betrayal", during the attack on the Tower: Starfire grabs a Sladebot by the arm, rips him apart, slams the remains into another robot, and continues to plow through at least three more, putting them all down in one hit. With her bare fists. In a matter of seconds.
• Heck, her very first episode with Blackfire had one. After being the passively long-suffering victim throughout the episode, Starfire watches at the end as Blackfire cheerfully flies off to make her getaway, and Robin tries reassure her that Blackfire won't get away with it. Cue Starfire's clenched fists and glowing green eyes right before she launches into the air like a missile to chase down her sister...

Starfire: "No, she will not!"

• • The ensuing battle proves to be epically amazing, particularly the song playing in the background when Starfire flies through a storm of Blackfire's starbolts to reach her target, complete with Glowing Eyes of Doom. And when the starbolt hits Blackfire's hand, cut to Starfire rising up in front of her, poised to strike.
• She instantly computed the number of molecules in a kilogram of oxygen.

Beast Boy

• In the episode "Betrayal", he holds his own quite well against Slade one-on-one. Slade had also regularly beaten Robin around in the previous season, despite Robin being shown several times to be the most competent fighter on the team.
  • The REAL crowning moment is the look of shock and fear in Slades eye as Beast Boy doesn't back down.
• This troper cheered when after The Brain finished gloating and reciting his Speech Of Doom to the captured Robin, it cut to Beast Boy surrounded by fallen robots, who growls, "Now try and follow me." and then proceeds to blow the remains to smithereens using his section of the T-Ship.
• Taking out his anger at Terra on everything in his path in "Aftershock: Part 2", starting with "a robot army and a giant Franken-thingy" and ending with Slade.
• During the fifth season, Beast Boy is taking on the Brain's right hand ape, Monsieur Mallah, while also using the form of an ape. After getting knocked around and insulted for a while, Beast Boy turns into a triceratops and knocks Mallah out cold, even saying something to the effect of "Now who's dumb?".
• "The Beast Within."
  • Because even when he's going crazy and out of control and is doubted by his team, Beast Boy remains a hero who WILL NOT let someone get away with attacking his friends.
  • And in that same episode, he made Robin (yes, the very person trained by Batman) flinch. It may seem minor to others, but to this troper, this was a sight to see.
  • Even later in the episode, Robin was seemingly about to KO Beast Boy while in his "beast" form. Before throwing a KO disk, Robin pronounces "Sleep Tight". Guess who ends up being the one to "sleep tight".
• In "Calling All Titans", one second, he's screaming at the sight of Cardiac, and the next, Beast Boy glares and launches himself at the thing.
• Every single second of "Titans Together". Arguably one of the best episodes of the series.
• Becoming 'The Beast' when Slade comes for Raven in "The End".
• Using his lack of Shapeshifter Baggage as an attack against Trigon. He does this by flying inside Trigon's ear as a hummingbird, then immediately transforming into a whale.
  • Made even more awesome when you consider that earlier in that episode Beast Boy says jokingly (or at least the audience assumes so) he'll use his "patent wet willy maneuver" on Trigon. And then he actually does it.
• After several seasons of Beast Boy wanting a moped, he finally rides one in style in "Employee Of The Month".
• In "Revolution", when Mad Mod captures the Titans, he remarks on the absence of Beast Boy, only for him to land from the sky as a flying squirrel, crawling all around Mod and tickling him into letting go of the cane.
• Beast Boy turning into an alien dog in "Betrothed."

Cyborg: "How did you know you could do that?" Beast Boy: "Lucky guess!"

Raven

• Slade is the unfortunate victim of Raven's truly brutal CMOA. After Slade tells the other captured Titans, "This won't hurt a bit", Raven announces herself with a Badass "Wanna bet?", bowls him over like a speeding train, cuts off his escape with an icy, "I'm not finished with you", telekinetically reach into the ground, pull Slade back up, tells him, "This time, I have a message for you...", and then mercilessly flings him about the room like a rag doll, crushes him in all of the rubble she's made beating the living crap out of him, and then sends him running back to Trigon with his tail between his legs. Good thing he's already dead, because he definitely would have been after that.
• In "The End: Part One" even while Raven has accepted her fate and the end of the world, she still manages to take out some of her anger on Slade as he escorts her to the chamber in which she is destined to summon Trigon to Earth. She speaks to him, with a kind of bitterness you don't ordinarily see in Raven, and show that his own army shows more obedience to her than him.

Raven: You're a fool. Whatever he promised you, he won't deliver." Slade: "Dear child, you don't know what you're talking about." Raven: "You think I don't know my own father?" Slade: "You are merely the portal. An insignificant pawn in Trigon's game." Raven: "Then I guess we have that in common. And once he gets what he wants... you'll be insignificant, too." Slade: "Shut your mouth! (His minions grab him) Get off me! Do as I command!" Raven: "Come to think of it, Slade, you're already insignificant. Even your own army won't listen to you."

• Raven denouncing Trigon as her father in "The End: Part Three" - and then proceeding to totally own him.

"You may have created me, but you were never my father. Fathers are kind. Fathers protect you. Fathers raise you. I was protected by the monks of Azarath. I was raised by my friends. They are my family, this is my home, and you are not welcome here! Azarath Metrion ZINTHOS!"

• In Season 1's "Nevermore", Raven loses her temper after being taunted and tossed around by Dr. Light. She commands him, "Don't come any closer." After another taunt from the good doctor, she lets her demonic side loose, towering over Dr. Light and dragging him toward her with writhing tentacles of shadow. She pulls him into her cloak, despite his cries of surrender, and when he emerges a moment later, his suit is ripped up and he's mumbling about the traumatizing darkness. Creepy? Yes. Moral Dissonance? Possibly. Awesome? Absolutely.

Raven: "What's the matter? Afraid of the dark?"

• • This is even given a Continuity Nod in a later episode - when Dr. Light fights the Titans again, all Raven has to do is show up in front of him with tentacles and say "Remember me?" to get him to beg to be taken to prison.
• In "Nevermore", she fuses with all her personality sides to become a white-clad giantess and takes out the demonic version of her own anger rampaging in her mind.
• What Malchior did to Raven in "Spellbound" was absolutely awful; I think we're all agreed on that. Which is what makes Raven's comeback in the climactic battle of that episode even more awesome than it already would have been to begin with. I wonder if Malchior ever realized that in giving her the tool to let him out, he also gave her the power to put him right back where he came from. Cue the Ironic Hell for Malchior.
• In "Switched", when Raven and Starfire are, well, switched, Raven can't use Starfire's powers because they're linked to powerful emotions Raven usually represses. The starbolts, for example, are powered by "righteous fury". Even during the finale battle with Puppet King, she can't get them to work. And then he tries to destroy the puppets containing the spirits of the other Titans. Blam.

Robin

• Defeating Slade in the first season finale by using his Arch Enemy's greatest weakness - his obsession with himself: "New deal, Slade — I lose my friends, and you lose your apprentice. And I know how you hate to lose."
  • To clarify, the only reason Slade had any say over what he could do was because he had infected the other Titans with nanites that would eat them from the inside out. If Robin didn't do what Slade wanted, he would activate the nanites until he complied. To get around this, Robin infected himself with the same nanites to force Slade to back off for good.
• In "Apprentice: Part 1" when the whole team is surrounded by dozens of bad guys and he takes down ALL of them, not even giving the other Titans a chance to fight.
• This exchange:

Slade: "Who knows... I could become like a father to you." Robin: "I already have a father." (cue bats and Batman music)

• Robin pulling out a sword in "The End: Part Two" and using it to thoroughly slice up Trigon's flame demon minions. Awesome.
• His Colossus Climb assault on Brushogun in The Movie is particularly badass.
• "Lady, you are not my mother." Oooh BURN!
• In "Masks", Robin emerges from the opening of a tunnel cut into the side of a cliff, jumps off said cliff, fires off a grapple line to rescue Starfire (who's unconscious and falling beneath him), twists around in midair and then sends another grapple line to snag the Sladebot flying ABOVE him (trying to escape with a stolen disk).
• The lengths to which he goes for Starfire in "Betrothed" are pretty impressive. Highlights include climbing up to her top story balcony by scaling the wall with bird-a-rangs and later fighting off dozens of armed Tamaranian guards in the way of his timely interruption of her wedding.
• In "Haunted", Robin, just inches from dying, finally figuring out how to defeat his hallucination of Slade after an entire episode of being on the receiving end of one of the show's most brutal beatdowns. And with a Bond One-Liner as well!

"Lights out, Slade."

• In "X", when Red X breaks into a vault while leaving Robin in a room with a laser cannon with its sights aimed on him, Robin tears off the cannon from its mount and uses it to break down the vault.
• Robin calling out Cyborg for quitting his team to join Titans East:

Robin: "So this is my fault?" Cyborg: It's not ABOUT you!" Robin: "No! It's all about YOU! Because that's all YOU care about! You talk about being a man, but if you can turn your back on us after everything we've been through, you're nothing but a spoiled child!"

• Robin giving Terra one last chance in "Aftershock" to redeem herself leads to this awesome line:

Terra: I don't need you to save me!" Robin: You can only save yourself."

Cyborg

• Cyborg gets a pretty awesome moment in "The End: Part One," when he leaps in front of Slade and a horde of flame demons trying to storm the Tower, declares that "No one's getting in here!", punches a button in his arm and turns himself into a freaking tank with huge versions of his sonic cannon on both arms. And then blasts away at the whole swarm. It doesn't do a thing to slow Slade down, but it was a worthy effort anyway.
• The end of the episode "Only Human". That was when he proved to himself that 100% was a just a suggestion.
  • To further explain this, he's fighting the powerhouse robot Atlas, who in an arm lock gets him to his max and then beats him, sending off Cyborg in shame. It takes an inner conflict with his mechanical limitations and his human determination, but our boy goes back for a rematch. During the fight they end up in that same arm lock, and he's again at 100%. But this time through Heroic Will, he pushes forward until his reader is at 110% before the screen cracks and goes all the way to 160%, and he emerges victorious. He even goes to turn a previous insult into a Badass Boast.

Cyborg: I'm only human."

• His first confrontation with Brother Blood, which involved fake defection and sacrificing the chance to be fully human again.
  • The best part of which is this moment: "Sorry. I got new friends.... PSYCH!"
  • His Final Battle with Brother Blood, when they both realize that it's not a mechanical brain but just a badass strength of spirit that allows Cyborg to resist his Mind Control.
    • And then he proceeds to hack into Blood's mind, hijack his Psychic Powers and reconstruct himself by tearing apart the Cyborg-Copy robots that had been surrounding him.
• "Cyborg The Barbarian" - killing hordes of green slimy bug-things with his sonic cannon is standard procedure. Killing the same amount with a goddamn sword, thus being a Badass Normal, is what makes this a moment of awesome.
  • In the same episode, Cyborg grabs an incoming sword attack between his palms and snaps it in half. Note that this is with one his hands heavily crippled and exposed to the air, thus making this at least a partial Barehanded Blade Block.

Terra

• When she makes her Heel Face Turn in "Aftershock: Part 2", declares to Slade "YOU CAN'T CONTROL ME ANYMORE!", and proceeds to blast him into a freaking volcano, which actually kills him... for a while at least.
  • Ironically, This Troper thinks her Face Heel Turn contained a lot of wicked awesomeness, namely forming what amount to Earth Elementals to fight the Titans, as well as the simple fact that she fought all five Titans at once... and won.
• Also, her "surfing on rocks" performance in "Titans Rising," even if she was just doing it to show off, it looked so awesome!
• Her sacrifice at the end of "Aftershock: Part 2" using all of her powers to stop the volcano from destroying the city, complete with Crowning Music of Awesome too.
• That scene in "Aftershock: Part 1" where Terra has a short one-on-one fight with Robin. At one point, he grabs her arms from behind and slams her into a nearby fence. Proving she's no pushover, Terra immediately turns the tables on him, grabs his arms and slams him into the fence.

Slade

• Robin and Slade during their Enemy Mine moment in the Teen Titans season four finale, where they took down dozens of demons in perfect sync, showcasing their eerie similarities. They even have the same boot prints.
• In the episode "Birthmark", Cyborg rips a huge metal pillar off the wall and swings it at Slade. Slade burns through it

Cyborg: Whoa!" Slade: "'Whoa?' That's it? No clever comment? I was looking forward to that."

• In "The End: Part 3", where he travels to the Underworld to get his body and soul back from Trigon. Perhaps the best bit comes from his confrontation with Trigon's giant demonic guard, who tells Slade that he "cannot hope to defeat pure evil!" Slade's response? "Actually, I'm not such a nice guy myself." He then proceeds to activate a bomb that blows the guard to smithereens.
  • The bit immediately afterward, where Slade takes his soul, as well as the guard's giant flaming ax, and just before leaving, pauses to toss the guard's severed head a Bond One-Liner: "Don't get up. I'll let myself out."
  • Later in the same episode, Slade gets to confront Trigon himself and tell him off.

Slade: "For the record, I'm nobody's servant."

• • Special mention must be given to the moment when Slade leaps out of nowhere and slices off one of Trigon's horns with a flaming two-headed axe.
• This little exchange in "The End: Part 2" might just be the Crowning Moment of Awesome for Slade and the writers of this show. Truly underrated.

Cyborg: "We already tried fighting him (Trigon). Look where it got us!" Slade: "I don't expect you to win. I don't even expect you to live. Only endure."

• How about the entirety of "Haunted"? He beat the ever-loving crap out of Robin, and he wasn't even there!
  • He also socked Raven in the face through a psychic connection.

Red X

• His Big Damn Heroes moment in "X".
• Kung-Fu on Motorcycles I kid thee not. 4:40 in, and watch as Red X takes awesome to a new level.
• Not to mention how he single-handedly defeats all the rival racers. Said rival racers being nine villains in their tricked-out cars. And Red X does it in forty seconds.

Gizmo: Whose side are you on, barf brain?!" Red X: "Mine!"

• In "X", Red X essentially invites Robin to chase him through an obstacle course full of laser triplines or whatever. He does it backwards, without looking, and dodges every single one. While Robin is chasing him. And Robin still doesn't manage to catch him.
• Red X himself is essentially a Crowning Character of Awesome.

Group

• Robin and Starfire prove their worthy status as a Battle Couple in "Stranded" by taking out the Monster of the Week together. Twice.
• The other four Titans' Big Damn Heroes moment in "Apprentice: Part 2", starting with Starfire announcing their presence by blasting Slade with a starbolt and made even more awesome by the accompanying dialogue:

Robin: Get out of here! Go! You don't know what those beams did to-" Beast Boy: Dude." Raven: We know." Cyborg: "And we don't care." Starfire: We are your friends, Robin. We are not leaving without you."

• • Then, after Slade deactivates his probes keeping the Titans from being destroyed, he is so ticked at Robin that he tries to kick him while he is down, but then Robin grabs his leg, Slade is all "WTF?", Robin knocks him back and he and the once-again complete Titans beat the crap out of him. First, Beast Boy goes tiger and slashes at his chest, Cyborg and Starfire blast him with a sonic cannon beam and starbolts, Raven psychic grabs him by the feet and slams him to the ground and Robin finishes the job with a mean kick that breaks off the eye-less half of his mask. After the beating, Slade is covering the exposed part of his face, and he's like "did that just happen?!" This Troper will say he was on cloud nine when he first saw this.
    • Uh... to clarify, after Slade shuts down the nanites, leaving all the Titans weakened from pain, he tries to kick Robin. Who catches his leg. And throws him. Then the rest of the Titans get up and start beating the ever-loving crap out of Slade. He runs off when his mask breaks.
  • Come on, how about Round 2 with Terra? They win.
    • Win? They completely thrashed her, which she herself used to describe the beatdown she got. It just shows you don't mess with the Titans, especially all five at once, AND when they're pissed off.
• The entire final battle in the second-to-last episode "Titans Together" was one big CMOA for everyone...
  • Specifically, when Beast Boy rallies together the remaining four Titans and crashes The Brotherhood of Evil's headquarters and proceeds to challenge all the villains from every episode (except for Slade and Brother Blood)... after having seen that nearly all the other Titans are frozen. And then, when the "presumed dead" Titans also come crashing in.

Cyborg: "Lesson number one: Never throw me down a hole unless you make sure I stay there!" Starfire: "The lesson two: We never give up!" Raven: "Lesson three: Your secret lair isn't very secret!" Beast Boy: "Titans, together!"

• • As for the "honorary" Titans:
    • Gnarrk using Kole's crystal form to smash Ding Dong Daddy's car to pieces.
    • Bushido slicing through Atlas's leg in one go.
    • Más y Menos taking down and flash-freezing Professor Chang and his henchmen
    • Pantha having a good old-fashioned lucha libre match with Wrestling Star and stripping him of his mask.
    • Herald taking Malchior out of the fight by sending him to another dimension.
    • Bobby facing down Monsieur Mallah, who had just previously swatted away Cyborg and Gnarrk with ease. What makes it even better is that Raven told the kids to stay away from anyone older than them and they end up fighting one of the most powerful villains there.
    • Kilowatt absorbing Overload.
    • Aqualad and Tramm washing away General Immortus and his army.
    • Jinx getting her own back on the H.I.V.E. Five and Madame Rouge with help from Kid Flash, Hotspot and Wildebeest.
    • Thunder doing an epic flip and releasing a shockwave that knocks over Warp and Trident.
    • Argent taking down Johnny Rancid.
    • Red Star slamming both Mammoth and Kardiac against a wall.
    • Speedy defeating Fang.
    • ...and many more.
  • After the Battle Royale With Cheese (a very, very well-done one, by the way) we cut to Dr. Light robbing a bank. The camera turns around to the five members, watching him rob the bank. Cyborg says, "Maybe we 'ought to show him who he's up against." and the camera tilts upward to show ALL THE OTHER TITANS.

Robin: "Titans, GO!"

• It's a comedy episode, and it's a Crowning Moment of Funny episode at that, but the Action Prologue in "Employee of the Month" might be the single best one in the entire series. The panning, zooming effect as the farmhouse couple's revealed to be Robin and Starfire in disguise, the music that starts playing as Cyborg leaps out of the fake cow with a "moo yeah" to ambush the flying saucer and continues through the scene, the shapeshifting animation effect where Beast Boy changes from a pig to a hovering, diamond form and then expands out into a T-rex, the team's aerial pursuit of the saucer... it's odd that such an epic battle sequence is the cold open to a comedy episode, but it truly is epic.
• Titan East passes Control Freak's challenges with style in "For Real".
• In "Betrayal", the tower is invaded by Slade's robot army. The defenses are down, the security system is locked, the Titans are a man down and facing literally fifty-to-one odds. And it's the middle of the night.

Starfire: "They are too numerous to fight! What shall we do?" Robin: "Fight anyway."

• • And they win. By the end of it they're exhausted, emotionally drained, and the tower is a wreck - but they win.

Other

• For Mumbo, the entire musical number in "Bunny Raven", particularly the ending. It manages to take a goofy and fairly harmless villain and make him genuinely scary.
• Jinx vs. Madame Rouge, both times. That Madame Rouge is a good deal stronger than her counterpart in the comics makes it that much more awesome, since Jinx clearly isn't expending any real effort and still comes out on top (granted, she wasn't doing the actual fighting the second time, but still...).
  • Special mention goes to her appearance in "Titans Together", where she gives her former teammates some well-deserved Laser-Guided Karma by wiping them out with a gigantic energy wave.
• Kid Flash's fights against the H.I.V.E. Five and his showdown with Madame Rogue.
• Did we mention Madame Rouge? Every battle with her is filled with awesome moments. The two episodes that featured her as the sole villain show her as being on a level of Badass just short of Slade. She even gets to T-1000 her way through a fence. And she can stretch fast enough to beat Kid Flash as he as moving at superspeed! An episode with her is in fact quite like one with the Terminator: the heroes spend most of the time on the defensive against an opponent that just. Won't. Stop.
• Brother Blood definitely gets his share. When his cyborg copies invade East Titans Tower, the alarm systems are shut off so he's free to enter through the window into the main living area where Cyborg is. He then pulls off a Slow walk across the pool and proceeds to block all of Cyborg's blows and cut through to his heart/power generator with only two fingers!
  • Just to be clear, he blocks punches that have taken out extremely powerful baddies with only two fingers. And we all know how strong Cy is.
  • Honestly, Blood is pretty much a walking CMOA whenever he busts out his full powers- another example would be his final battle with Cyborg, where he tears his opponent literally to pieces with his bare hands while simultaneously holding the rest of the core team and Titans East immobile with his telekinesis. He's probably tied with Slade and Madame Rouge for being the most physically dangerous villain.
• Let's not forget Mad Mod. He manages to first capture the Titans in a fairly obvious way (by pumping knock-out gas into their tower), then proceeds to screw with their heads in a funhouse of Op Art illusions, Hypnoscreens and equally awesome Pop Culture references. He does all this despite being a fairly old man.
  • In Revolution, Mod manages to hypnotise the population of the city, replace the whole city with newspaper cut-outs of British buildings, replaces the sky with the goddamn Union Jack, creates nigh-invulnerable robots and has the gall to attempt striking Robin with his cane. He does this to trap Robin and transfer his youth into himself. Yes, that's right, an old British guy manages to attack and steal the youth out of the Boy Wonder.
• No love for Pantha? In "Calling All Titans" it seems as though she's doomed at the hands of Atlas and Adonis. In "Titans Together"? We get this:

Pantha: "This Brain. He sent the wrong opponents to try and capture me. Pantha remains UNDEFEATED!"

• Aqualad is generally only known for breathing underwater, control over water in general and communicating with aquatic life. However, in Titans East, Part 1, while he did fight an army of Cyborg-copies with water attacks, he did manage at one point to tear off one of their arms, then tear them apart with that same arm. In addition, with one punch in the right place, he made one explode. All that takes some serious strength.