We’re all familiar with the trope, even if we don’t recognize it as one. The Hero’s Sword is broken, often when they’ve been defeated and are at their lowest point, before being reforged - representing their return to the fight, smarter, stronger and even more heroic than before often because of their initial failure. Replace ‘Hero’s Sword’ with whatever the hero’s weapon of choice is in the show, movie, story, or game you’re currently enjoying, and you’ve got the Reforged Sword. Now let’s be clear - just because it’s a trope doesn’t mean it’s a negative. The effect on the story can be powerful if done well. When it comes to interactive stories (like video games), the effect often makes for a more rewarding experience when you finally reforge or find that rare weapon.

Sometimes we get alternate versions of weapons that aren’t Reforged Swords. Sometimes they come from alternate realities, they’re complete replacements for lost or destroyed weapons, or are just different versions of the same old boring technology spruced up a bit (machine gun crossbow, anyone?). Whether they fall into the Reforged Sword trope or not, alternate weapons are a lot of fun. so we’ve rounded up twenty from across different genres and media that we think are more powerful (or even just a little cooler) than their original versions.

20 STORMBREAKER

Thor: Ragnarok showed us both the fall of Asgard and the destruction of Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir. Without his iconic weapon the crown prince of Asgard was nearly powerless against Thanos at the beginning of Infinity War, so of course he needed a replacement.

After forging Stormbreaker, Thor shows its more powerful than his original weapon when he uses it to summon the Bifrost. In case that isn’t enough evidence for you, Stormbreaker’s handle is a piece of Groot for goodness sake!

19 BLACK LANTERN RINGS

“The Blackest Night falls from skies, / The darkness grows as all light dies, / We crave your hearts and your demise, / By my black hand, the dead shall rise!” -Black Lantern Corps Oath.

First appearing in Green Lantern (Volume 4) #25, the Black Lantern Corps are created to wipe out life in the universe. Unlike the other corps, Black Lanterns don’t derive their power from the Emotional Spectrum. Made up of the reanimated corpses of deceased heroes, villains, and civilians from the DC Universe, Black Lantern Rings are fueled by the power of the deceased and their wearers are extremely difficult to destroy. In the end it takes the creation of the White Lantern Corps, a combination of the entire Emotional Spectrum, in order to put down the threat of "Blackest Night."

18 STARKILLER BASE

Love it or hate it, the Star Wars franchise is back in theaters for the foreseeable future. The Force Awakens is in someways a retelling of A New Hope, following the same basic plot structure of the original entry in the "Star Wars Saga." One glaring example of this repetition is the creation of the Starkiller Base.

The Force Awakens introduced The First Order, the remnants of the Galactic Empire, and their bigger, better Deathstar: Starkiller Base. How do you one up a weapon the size of a moon (That’s no moon!) with enough destructive power to blow up a planet? Easy, you create a weapon the size of a planet capable of blowing up entire star systems.

17 DRAGON SLAYER

Berserk’s protagonist Guts is an…interesting character. Having survived a twisted past already by the time he’s introduced in the first issue of the manga, he’s fought his way out of countless unsurvivable situations with nothing but pure determination and a giant two-handed sword.

Well, we thought it was giant anyways. After the events of the Eclipse demons are unleashed upon the earth, and Guts begins fighting with Dragon Slayer; a sword so gigantic he needs the help of a magnetic clamp in his prosthetic arm to wield it. While Guts was capable of some pretty incredible feats using swords he wielded previously, Dragon Slayer actually absorbs some of the power of the supernatural beings it slays, making it a much more efficient tool for demon slaying than a regular sword.

16 BLACK SPIDER SUIT

Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Spiderman’s Black Spider Suit, first introduced in Secret Wars #8, is too iconic to keep off this list.

The Black-Suited-Spider-Man was a big hit with comics readers, and remains so to this day. As an upgrade from his home-made threads, the Symbiote Suit responded to Peter’s thoughts, allowed him to create webs on the fly (and forego using his home made gadgets), granted him even greater strength and spider-sense, and made him look much more fashionable. Of course it turned out the suit was actually an alien symbiote that took his body out for fun solo adventures at night, but hey - everything’s got a price!

15 GOLD KRYPTONITE

Although the idea was originally conceived by comics legend Jerry Siegel, The Man of Steel’s only weakness was actually introduced not in the pages of the comics but instead in the radio show, The Adventures of Superman.

Since then we’ve seen a few different varieties of Superman’s Achille’s Heel, Red, Blue, White, even Anti-Kryptonite, but none are as dangerous or as powerful as Gold. While most types of the alien mineral have an adverse effect on Kryptonians, Gold Kryptonite’s ability to not only remove their powers but do so permanently makes it the most dangerous alternative to plain old Green-K.

14 ANDÚRIL

Aragorn points the Andruil sword

In the Peter Jackson version of The Lord of the Rings, Aragorn’s sword fits perfectly into the ‘Reforged Weapon’ trope. However in Tolkien’s original work it isn’t quite so neat! The shards of Narsil are actually reforged into Andúril before the Fellowship ever sets out from Rivendell.

Regardless, in both versions of the story Andúril, and, as an extension of the metaphor its wielder Aragorn, is a bigger, better version of its previous incarnation Narsil. Look at Aragorn and we see a wiser, more noble version of his ancestor, capable of succeeding where Isildur failed. The symbolism might be obvious, but that doesn’t make it less effective. Remember, tropes aren’t necessarily bad!

13 THE MASTER SWORD

The Master Sword has been a staple of Zelda games since it was first introduced in 1991’s A Link to the Past. In order to obtain the Master Sword players have to complete the first three dungeons in the game and collect three pendants, after which they can enter the Lost Forest and collect the legendary weapon.

In all of its incarnations the Master Sword has proven itself worthy of the name as its usually the only weapon capable of vanquishing evil, even when evil wields the Triforce! It also shoots sword beams, which is pretty sweet compared to the boring close range swipes of the other swords found in game. Seeking out legendary weapons has become an essential ingredient of the RPG formula, and the quest for the Master Sword is truly a pioneer of the trope.

12 HULKBUSTER ARMOR

Featured in the MCU in Avengers: Age of Ultron, the Hulkbuster Armor is one of Tony Stark’s most powerful suits. Since its initial appearance in the comics Stark has given the armor more than one upgrade and the Hulkbuster Armor is now a separate suit entirely. However, just like in Age of Ultron, in its first appearance it was much more modular.

Each piece snapped on overtop of a base suit, allowing Tony to adapt to the situation at hand. What makes this suit so much more powerful than the original is its ability to do exactly what its name suggests: Bust Hulks.

11 JUSTICE BUSTER ARMOR

Which came first, the DC version or the Marvel? In this case it was definitively Marvel, but the application of the Justice Buster Armor suggests its actually more powerful than its Marvel counterpart.

Donned by Batman during the "Endgame" story arc of the Caped Crusader’s "New 52" title, the Justice Buster Armor does (like Hulkbuster before it) exactly what its name suggests: Busts Justice Leaguers. With countermeasures designed by Bruce for each individual member of the Justice League, he uses it to great effect when the team is compromised by Joker toxin. Sure Tony, take down your Hulk. Bruce has got the rest of it handled.

10 THE ELDER WAND

Someone holding the Elder Wand in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Wands in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter are all fairly powerful. Most witches and wizards have to use them in order to channel their spells, with only a handful of elite wizards able to cast more than simple magics without them.

Harry’s wand had a unique relationship with Voldemort’s, which stopped the evil wizard’s spells from working properly. Still, it’s the Elder Wand that takes the cake for most powerful alternate weapon in Harry Potter. As it’s one of the three Deathly Hallows, it’s essential to becoming the Master of Death. It’s also objectively the most powerful wand in Harry Potter, based on the fictional history of the tool.

9 HALO 2 ENERGY SWORD

The deadly weapon of elite…erm elites in the Halo franchise have been around since the first entry in the series, but only became wieldable in the second onwards.

In the modern age video games (especially shooters) are constantly balanced and tweaked by developers post-launch in order to fix overpowered or underpowered weapons. In the days of video games past, however, there were no such adjustments. And so the insane distance at which you could attack a target using an energy sword  -- seriously, it was like you could cross an entire map with one button click -- didn’t change until the introduction of Halo 3, making the Halo 2 version of the sword by far the most powerful.

8 WEAPON H

What do you get when you combine Weapon X with the Incredible Hulk? Weapon H, of course!

Colloquially known as the "Hulkverine," Clayton Cortez turned on his men in favor of destroying a village of civilians. For his betrayal, he was abducted and given to the Weapon X Project, who turned him into Weapon H. Infused with the DNA of Amadeus Cho’s Hulk and Old Man Logan, Hulkverine is the Hannah Montana of the two Marvel mainstays (the best of both worlds!). He bears a resemblance in size and strength to the Hulk, and has the retractable claws, healing factor, and enhanced senses of Wolverine.

7 DOCTOR MANHATTAN BOMB

Okay, let’s get to what we assume will be the most controversial entry on this list: Doctor Manhattan powered bombs (as seen in the movie version of Watchmen), a more powerful version of the Squid (seen in the original comic). Regardless of anyone’s opinions concerning the changes made when adapting Alan Moor, Dave Gibbons and John Higgins' classic to film, we believe the Manhattan-powered bomb is objectively more destructive than the Squid.

How so? While it’s impossible to say for certain if the bomb caused more fictional damage than the Squid, it’s true that it caused more non-fictional damage by gutting all of the nuance and subtlety of the Squid as a send-up of comic books past that ties a neat little bow on the whole critique.

6 RIVEN'S BLADE OF THE EXILE

Another of only a few video game entries on our list, Riven’s Blade of the Exile is the ultimate reforged blade.

Why? Because it’s her ultimate ability in game, and she reforges her blade when she activates it. Who said we had to be subtle? The melee fighter known as Riven actually broke her sword herself.

Having been forced to watch her comrades perish to poisonous gases while she lived, protected by the magic of her sword, she found a way to destroy it soon after. Unable to find peace, she now reforges it at will whenever she’s mad enough.

5 HUMAN CYLONS

2004’s updated Battlestar Galactica brought with it an updated version of the evil Cylons and this time, they were human.

Nearly indiscernible from real people, the android-like Cylons use their appearance to infiltrate the twelve colonies at the beginning of the series and destroy most of humanity. It’s after this point that things start to get interesting. The updated version of these evil robots are nearly immortal, but that’s just about the only difference between them and people. Which begs a question that consistently arises throughout the run of the series: what exactly makes a person a person?

4 INFINITY GAUNTLET

After a six year build up beginning with the introduction of the Tesseract in Captain America: The First Avenger, we finally got to see the Infinity Gauntlet in action last year during Avengers: Infinity War.

We’ve witnessed some of the awesome powers of an individual Infinity Stone throughout this buildup, for example the destruction caused in Guardians of the Galaxy by the Power Stone, or the Vision’s birth via the Soul Stone; but nothing is as powerful as all six of these combined into the Infinity Gauntlet. One the Infinity Gauntlet has been donned, the wearer of the weapon is able to do virtually anything they want. In Thanos’ case, wipe out half of the life in the universe.

3 ULTIMATE ULTIMATE NULLIFIER

It may come as a surprise to some, but the Ultimate Nullifier is probably not the most powerful weapon in the Marvel Universe. First used by Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four to scare off Galactus, the Nullifier’s power is actually somewhat dependent on the person who wields it (keep it away from Thano,s please).

There are a few versions of the nullifier floating around, but only one more powerful than the original: the Ultimate Universe’s Nevada Gun. Built by Reed Richards to fend off Gah Lak Tus, a swarm of sentient ships a hundred thousand miles long, the Nevada Gun teleports the energy of a big bang from a pocket universe and weaponizes it, destroying a major chunk of the fleet.

2 ENERGY BENDING

The weapon of choice for many of the characters in Avatar: The Last Airbender is bending, either with water, fire, earth, or air depending on where you were born. It’s pretty powerful stuff, which is why only non benders ever use traditional weapons.

The most powerful version of bending, however, was revealed close to the end of the series. Energy Bending, the ability to manipulate the energy within humans, was taught to Avatar Aang by a Lion Turtle (the original benders). He also taught Aang that this was the original form of bending, before the creation of the four nations and even before the first Avatar. Aang uses this alternative form of bending to bring the series to an almost perfect end.

1 GOLDEN PP7

Most people are familiar with the famous golden gun, the one shot one-kill weapon found in most of the Bond games. It’s the signature weapon of Francisco Scaramanga and was first added to the games in Goldeneye 007.

It’s a very powerful weapon, shoot someone in their pinky toe with it (in game of course) and they go down. Its only drawback is that it only has a single bullet. Enter: the Golden PP7. Having the same one shot one-kill mechanic, as well as a seven round magazine, makes it a cut above the original Golden Gun. In order to unlock it in Goldeneye, you’ll have to beat the mission Cradle on Agent difficulty in under two minutes and fifteen seconds. Good luck!