Supercop
Meet the cop who can't be stopped.
One step up from the Cowboy Cop who enters Hot Pursuit with no regard for their own safety or anyone else's, here you have the police who actually have the equipment, the powers, or whatever else that puts them above and beyond the capabilities of the average police officer. This is common to the point where one of the Stock Superhero Day Jobs is police work, though they don't always do both at once.
Often takes the form of a Superhero who works for the police, a Cyborg, or a Humongous Mecha. A particularly Badass Normal can even qualify.
Overlaps with the Vampire Detective.
Not to be confused with the the Jackie Chan movie (whose tagline provides the page quote).
Examples of Supercop include:
Anime and Manga
- Used in many works by Shirow Masamune:
- Appleseed's ESWAT units (mecha).
- Section 9 Public Security in Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Cyborg bodies, advanced weapons, Tachikomas, super hacker skillz, etc. It helps that most of their field operatives are former soldiers.
- Averted with Patlabor. They could be Supercops, but regulations have them stuck in the station until a crook brings out his own Humongous Mecha. For regular criminals they have to go on foot just like all other cops, and face the same obstacles.
- Dominion Tank Police probably counts. I mean, these are cops... with TANKS. Really BIG tanks, at that. And unlike the Patlabor dudes, these fellows DO move against any and all crime, with superior firepower through and through. Unfortunately for the city, they're also all Cowboy Cops... can you say 'Collateral Damage'?
- In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, most named members of the Time-Space Administration Bureau's Enforcer division would fall under this. However, special mention goes to Fate Testarossa-Harlaown, who also happens to be a genetically-engineered Artificial Mage.
Comic Books
- Marshal Law: "I'm a hero hunter. I hunt heroes. Haven't found any yet."
- Alan Moore's Top Ten series (and its spinoffs) is all about this trope.
- The Savage Dragon
- While not an actual example, Superman frequently has to remind people that he's not one of these, because since he has such a good relationship with the Metropolis PD and the citizens of Metropolis, they often treat him like one.
Film
- One word: RoboCop.
- Police Academy borders on this when the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits turn into Bunny Ears Lawyers. The animated series, definitely.
- Of course there's the movie Super Cop in which the cop was trying to get killed in the line of duty before he retired in a few days.
- ...that brings a whole new meaning to Retirony.
- The Super Fuzz movie, pictured above, with Terence Hill in the lead role.
- Nick Angel from Hot Fuzz is all but called this at certain points of the movie.
Literature
- The Night Watch from Discworld may fit in this trope. Living in a fantasy world, they've got trolls, dwarves, golems, zombies, vampires and werewolves in their ranks. And Carrot Ironfoundersson.
- Of course, criminals can also belong to any of those supernatural species, which brings The Watch back into Badass Normal territory.
- In the X Wing Series, Corran Horn discovers that his father, who was part of the Corellian Security Force all his life and got Corran into it too, was the son and the student of a Jedi Knight. Both of them did rely a bit on their Force-Sensitivity. I, Jedi also notes that Corellian Jedi, including Corran's grandfather, tended to work closely with the Corellian Security Force on the tougher cases.
- The Aurors (and also the poor forgotten Hit Wizards) of Harry Potter may fit this trope, or at least Aurors Harry Potter and Ron Weasley do, each being a Badass Normal in a world where being a wizard is "normal". Certainly Mad-Eye Moody was a legend amongst them.
Live Action TV
- Power Rangers SPD and the Super Sentai original, Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger. Cops... with Zords! And their headquarters is a Zord too.
- There's also the Blue Senturion in Power Rangers Turbo and his Super Sentai counterpart, Signalman, from Gekisou Sentai Carranger, which are Super Traffic Cops.
- In his first episode of Heroes, cop Matt Parkman is able to telepathically hear a little girl calling for help. In later episodes and seasons his uses his powers to also try to help people, even when he is no longer a cop.
- The robot Yoyo from the TV series Holmes And Yoyo.
Web Comics
Western Animation
- The animated series COPS was about a team of these.
- Inspector Gadget. In the revival series, he gets promoted to a secret agent (and becomes Lieutenant Gadget).
- From Thundercats, Mandora the Evil Chaser.
Video Games
- ESWAT Cyber Police, a 1989 scrolling shooter arcade game. Once your character achieves chief rank he gets a cyber suit with turbothrusters and armor.
- An underappreciated PS 1 classic is Future Cop: LAPD, where you play a heavily armed Transforming Mecha fighting all kinds of criminals. (and I mean ALL kinds)
- City of Heroes featured Blue Steel, Memetic Badass and the only major superhero who works directly for the police force. There were also cops in Power Armour, cops with Psychic Powers and the Awakened division of alien symbiote-infused cops. There was also nothing stopping player character concepts from being cops.
- You play one in Crackdown. Morality optional.
- Konoko. Helps that she was secretly bred to be a One Woman Army capable of handling anything the Syndicate could field.
- A rare glitch in GTA: Vice City would sometimes render a single random Police Officer invincible, there were also rumors that he could arrest you anywhere, including magically teleporting from the ground onto your helicopter and playing the arrest animation.
- Mortal Kombat has Kurtis Stryker. Just a regular guy but packs some ordnance to make up for it. Fights otherworldly monsters so he's going a bit above the line of duty.
- Chun-Li of Street Fighter is an Interpol agent, always hot on the trail of M. Bison.
- Lei Wulong of Tekken, which makes sense since he is an Expy of Jackie Chan.
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