Combat Pragmatist/Comics

• Batman is the DC's poster boy for this trope.

Huntress: Did I just see you cheating?
Batman: Winning.

• • However, he still won't use a gun.
  • Alfred Pennyworth became this as the series progressed. I mean, come on, the guy was a freakin' former S.A.S. soldier! And he has helped Bruce solve cases, invent new tech, heal his (both personal and Bruce's) own wounds, and managed to fight off thugs that would typically be more physically fit than him, as well as carrying extremely powerful firearms, with his bare hands!! Though, he wishes to remain a harmless butler.
  • Being this kind of character is half the reason The Joker can threaten Batman toe-to-toe; the other half is his enthusiasm in combat.
• Rorschach from Watchmen: He uses several household items to give himself a chance to get away. To wit, he improvises a flamethrower with hairspray and a match as he flees upstairs, on the basis that people are reluctant to chase a psycho up a burning staircase. The first person up the stairs after him gets a handful of black pepper thrown directly into his eyes and his floundering gives him the time to draw his last weapon--his compressed-air-powered grappling-hook gun,
  • In the video game Watchmen: The End Is Nigh, you can control Rorschach in battle. He's not nearly as skilled a fighter as Nite Owl (who uses an adapted form of martial arts), but he makes up for it with absolutely devastating strikes, and freely uses weapons, such as nightsticks, bottles, knives and crowbars, which Nite Owl refuses to do.
  • Ozymandias fights dirty too. It's not immediately obvious, but he's perfectly willing to take advantage of any psychological weaknesses his opponent has and uses the environment for his own benefit. Of course, with him, what looks like an Improvised Weapon was probably specifically placed right there hours ago.
    • During his final confrontation with Rorschach he pulls his mask across his face to gain advantage. And people keep on harping about Dollar Bill's cape...
• Nightwing, despite being a Technical Pacifist, does this with acrobatic flair. He basically fights like Batman with a sense of humor: nose tweaks, groin kicks, and distractions in the form of ass smacks are not outside of his domain.
• There is not a force on Earth that can get The Punisher to fight fair.
• Vick "The Rain" from One Hundred Bullets is not above fighting dirty and will even use his own allies as human shields.
• Much of the G.I. Joe comic books involves this trope. Around issue #75, Tunnel-Rat emerges from a well, tunnel and mows down about ten Cobra soldiers from behind. An issue of Special Missions has one Joe save another by simply beating the hell out of a captured CIA prisoner for needed intelligence.
  • Despite being better known to the casual fan for his ninja ways, never forget that Snake-Eyes is an Army Ranger, and is more than happy to go for the grenades or machine gun as a ninja armed with melee weapons advances.
• Cerebus, being a veteran mercenary, knows better than to fight fair. Early in the series, he was face-to-face with a rebel Master Mind and as his opponent strode out onto a bridge, finally revealing his identity, Cerebus heaved a rock at his head, causing him to stumble off the bridge to his death. Afterward, this exchange took place:

Lord Julius: That wasn't exactly fair, was it? I mean, he thought you were going to fight to the death with swords!
Cerebus: He is dead and Cerebus is alive... You can't get much fairer than that.

• Throughout his adventures, Corto Maltese does his share of kicking people in the nuts and shooting them in the back.
• In the final issue of Tim Drake's Robin series, he's forced to fight Lady Shiva. Tim knows that he's hugely outmatched, so he poisons her food two days before the fight with a heart-rate dependent neurotoxin.
• The following exchange from a comic where Deadpool and one of the forgettable 90s X-Teams are facing a villain who can dampen mutant abilities:

Mutant Super Hero: All right, just because our powers don't work, doesn't mean we're helpless. We should engage him one-on one in hand to hand combat with our strongest fighters going first until he drops.
Deadpool: Or, hear me out here, or--
BLAM!

We could do that.

Mutant Super Hero: You murdered him!

Deadpool: Yeah, I'll send you my bill for that.

• Warren Ellis' series Desolation Jones has the titular character lampshade his status as as a combat pragmatist. When attacked by a fearsome S&M clad bodyguard, Jones explains that the combatant who wins isn't the strongest but the one who cares the least for holding anything back. The sickly old man then stabs his finger into the charging guard's eye socket and pulls him skull first into a wall, knocking him unconscious. He also makes liberal use of the Groin Attack.
  • Actually, most of Ellis' protagonists favor this approach to fighting.
• Jesse Custer from Preacher (Comic Book) may want to be the good guy, but he really loves his Groin Attacks.
• Parodied in Asterix in Britain. The Romans, observing that the... British take a regular break every afternoon to have tea, decide to attack at tea-time.
• Moon Knight is more than happy to use truncheons, knives and a spiked steel cestus in the fight for justice.
  • His occasional partner Marlene Alraune's fighting style seems to be: Find the sharpest object within reach and aim for the groin.
• Spider-Man has been known to fight this way, using his webs to blind/restrain his enemies as well as finding all sorts of ways to humiliate them, specifically so they'll get angry and make mistakes. In the Ultimate series, he even gave Ox a wedgie. Having been bullied in school, Spidey was of course, very ashamed of himself.
• Nikolai Dante is frequently described as the dirtiest fighter in the empire.
• This was a plot point in one Justice League of America arc - The Crime Syndicate of Amerika is impersonating the League and actually gets into a scrape with some low-level supervillains called the Rainbow Raiders. Despite being far more powerful, and the Rainbow Raiders being pathetic enough that just one superhero is usually enough to take them out, the CSA loses miserably. Why? Simple: They've never fought anyone who didn't play by the rules. Whether it's the heroes from their world or the Justice League themselves, the CSA never faced off against somebody who fought dirty and sincerely wanted to kill them.
  • Actually the CSA fought plenty of people that wanted to kill them and prevailed. The reason they were losing to Z-list villains is because of some "rule of the universe" where the CSA was destined to fail on the regular Earth just as the Justice League was destined to fail on the CSA's anti-matter Earth.
• This page of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.
• Spider Jerusalem, outlaw journalist of Transmetropolitan infamy, isn't all that great in a stand-up fight. He is, however, very good with sucker punches, improvised weapons, psychological warfare and a bowel disruptor.
• Marv from Sin City is physically capable of handling most opponents in battle but often uses whatever he can get his hands on simply because he's that damn crazy. Case in point: using a nearby hatchet to shove into a cop's groin.
• Lusiphur, the protagonist of Poison Elves, almost never fights cleanly if he can help it. He isn't above such tricks as pretending to beg for mercy in order to get the jump on a superior opponent.
• 2011 DC Universe reboot: Hal Jordan starts boasting to Batman that with his ring, he can easily take down Superman. By the time Batman blinks, Superman has Flash Stepped up to Hal and punched him out.
• In Elf Quest when the Wolfriders are attacked without warning by Guttlekraw's trolls:

There is no fairness, no grace, no nobility in the Wolfriders' method of combat. They obey but one rule: survive by any means, no matter how cruel or bloody.