Wrench Whack

She'll fix you good.

Wrenches are tools often associated with The Engineer and the Wrench Wench, using them to build and repair objects, whether by tightening bolts or Percussive Maintenance. Like other tools used in construction (hammers, nailguns, etc.), wrenches can be very effective weapons.

Examples of Wrench Whack include:

Anime and Manga

• Fullmetal Alchemist: Winry, who also is a Wrench Wench. Poor Ed.
• Takashi in Highschool of the Dead uses a wrench as a weapon as they enter Shizuka's friend's apartment.
• Smile from Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin has a giant wrench as his weapon of choice.
• Graham Specter carries around a monkey wrench about 3 feet long so he can use it to bash people and catch shotgun slugs out of the air.
• The Castleof Cagliostro: Lupin wields a large wrench from one of the Clock Tower's tool racks against the Count. This is a case where the wrench's size is justified: The machinery in clock towers uses big bolts, which consequently need big wrenches.

Board Games

• One of the possible murder weapons in the game Clue (also known as Cluedo). Befitting their source, it also appeared in the related video games and books as a suitable blunt instrument.

Comic Books

• In G.I. Joe comics, a large automechanic's wrench is the weapon of choice for the recent Deadnok recruit Heartwrencher. In spite of his name, the same doesn't apply to longtime Dreadnok Monkeywrench.
• In Runaways, Gert once attacked Victor with a gigantic monkey wrench Nico had conjured up earlier in the issue.
• In She Hulk, during Byrne's run, the main character was being mind-controlled by Xemu, her Bff whacked him on his braindome.
• The Goon calls the chrome-plated adjustable pipe wrench "the finest monster hunting technology 1932 had to offer."
• In Secret Six #14, Ragdoll smashes Smythe the Slaver's hand and back with a wrench before lodging it in his head. It doesn't kill him though.

Film

• One of the murder weapons in Clue.
• A sewer worker gets clobbered with his own wrench in Friday the 13 th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.
• Frank/The Crimson Bolt's weapon in Super.
• From DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story: "If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball."
• A character gets impaled through the head by a wrench in Final Destination 5.
• At the end of The Toolbox Murders remake, Coffin Baby tries to kill Nell with a wrench, but she fends him off long enough for the police to show up and shoot him out a window.
• A dead worker is shown with a wrench embedded in his face in Hatchet/Slash.

Literature

• Sergeant Julio Poertena from the Prince Roger-series uses a "big pocking wrench" to dismantle jammed power armour and hostile cannibalistic aliens with equal gusto.

Live Action TV

• Used a couple of times in Star Trek TOS.
  • In "Court Martial", Finney uses a (20th-century) wrench in a fight with Kirk, but doesn't get a good blow in.
  • In "Space Seed", Kirk surprises Khan with a whack from a (23d-century) Space Wrench. Take that, superhuman!
• In Doctor Who, the Eleventh Doctor attacks a Dalek with a large wrench, trying to provoke it into dropping the "helpful automaton" act in front of the supporting cast.
• A wrench is used to kill Laird in Battlestar Galactica.
• The killer in the Criminal Minds episode "Painless" tries to attack Hotch and Prentiss with a wrench after being shot (he doesn't feel pain) but is stopped by a second shot, this one fatal.

Video Games

• Cid uses wrenches as weapons in Final Fantasy IV. Hilariously, they're some of the strongest weapons in the game while he's in your party- even better than swords and karate.
• Ratchet and Clank: Ratchet uses the Omniwrench, which he uses for its actual purpose too.
  • Ratchet can also throw it as a boomerang or set it on fire. Furthermore, the entire Lombax species seems to favor a wrench as their Weapon of Choice.
• Adrian Shephard in Opposing Force has one (in place of a crowbar).
• Team Fortress 2: the melee weapon of the Engineer. It is used for hastening building, repairing and upgrading the Engineer's buildings. Other uses include hurting people - and the wrench is good at it, hitting critically often because Sentries do a lot of damage - especially removing Spies and their sappers from the Engineer's guns' vicinity. Variants include the Southern Hospitality, implemented with a sharp piece of metal and a spiked handguard, which cause the hit enemy to bleed, the Jag, which hastens building even more but doesn't hurt as much, and the Eureka Effect, which can teleport the Engineer back to his base at the cost of being unable to move his buildings.
  • Also the default weapon for... guess who... the Engineer in Team Fortress Classic.
• BioShock (series): the first weapon the player character gets.
  • System Shock 2 also has a wrench as a weapon. Where else do you think Bioshock got it from?
    • And if you're playing on harder difficulties, it's pretty much the best weapon available.
• Heimerdinger from League of Legends; he doesn't whack minions and champions with his wrench though, he throws them.
• Dark Cloud 2 features Max using wrenches as his primary melee weapon from the beginning of the game. It can be upgraded to many different, more combat-designed wrenches, including Smash Wrench, Drill Wrench, and Poison Wrench.
• Yosuke in Persona 4 usually has dual daggers/kunai, but can pick up a pair of spanners if you revisit the liquor shop in the TV world. They're also a great weapon for that early in the game thanks to its high critical ratio.
• Wrenches are used by Engineers in Makai Kingdom with the Tech Bash skill, and possibly as an equippable weapon.
• Rocky Wrench from the Super Mario Bros 3 airships.
• In Super Robot Wars, Super Robot Gunleon carries a number of these, ranging from ones that are appropriately scaled to fit in its hand like a human's would to a normal wrench, to wrench nunchucks, to a massive crescent wrench almost as tall as it is. Naturally, these are used to bash or crush enemies, but the largest wrench will occasionally become an enormous crushing clamp...with a beam cannon situated at the joint of its jaws.
• Wrenches appear in all Fallout games after the second one, but are only used as weapons in Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics.
  • A typical wrench used by mechanics for hurting people.
  • In Fallout: New Vegas, a particular quest implies a wrench was used to murder a NCR Engineer for his outfit. Strangely, wrenches still aren't useable as weapons.
• In Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Kazooie carries around a magic Wrench that, aside from carrying stuff around via Tractor Beams, can be used as a melee weapon.
  • And in Banjo Tooie's Grunty Indutries there were worker enemies who'd try to whack the bear and bird with their enormous wrenches.
• One of the bosses in Mole Mania uses wrenches as throwing weapons.
• Lexis in Lufia Rise of the Sinistrals has wrenches as a main weapon.

Web Comics

• In Girl Genius, Agatha clobbers Moloch, Vole and Prof.Tiktoffen with variety of wrenches.
  • Gil whacks Othar.
  • Princess Zulenna is shown early on with a bent wrench after apparently having done this to a guard who was between the Castle Wulfenbach students and the lifegliders they wanted to use to get back to the main part of the castle.
• Ed, from Fake Knight carries a wrench.

Western Animation

• In one episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Meatwad can be seen beating a homeless man to death with a monkey wrench.
• Ratchet has been known to throw wrenches at those who intrude in his med-bay.
• Dexter, particularly in Ego Trip, uses a large wrench as a weapon.