You could say Superman blew him away.
"I'll just put out this fire with my Super-Breath... I've got to think of a less embarrassing name for that..."
— Superman
This is the ability to expel large amounts of air from one's mouth, blowing things around as if with a powerful wind.
Theoretically, this would come hand in hand with Super-Strength, since 1) the strength of your breath relates to the strength of your diaphragm (which is a muscle); and 2) the amount of air that is breathed out is often so immense in comparison to the breather's lungs (evident by how long such super-breathing tends to last) that it would have to be under absurdly high pressure to be contained within the lungs (which, consequentially, necessitates similarly high muscular power on part of the diaphragm to push out).
Great power and control over one's breathing is also associated with Charles Atlas Superpower and Supernatural Martial Arts, the implication being that secret breathing techniques can unlock the full potential of the human body. Even in the mundane realm of real life, breathing techniques are an essential foundation of power and endurance in many physical disciplines such as boxing and weightlifting.
It often overlaps with Blow You Away (for some reason — we blame Superman) and Super-Scream. A lot of people who have this power tend to make it icy as well. If it works in reverse, it's Vacuum Mouth. See also Breath Weapon.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Dragon Ball:
- Majin Buu uses his breath to destroy a city.
- In an animated movie, Gohan uses his to put out a forest fire.
- Recoome is so above Gohan in terms of power that he simply uses his breath to blow away Gohan's Masenko attack.
- Fabricant 100: The Lung Fabricant can use his superior breathing to stay underwater and create massive air bubbles.
- Fairy Tail: Wendy and Chelia use the Breath Weapon variants with their Sky Dragon's Roar and Sky God's Bellow, respectively.
- Kongoh Bancho: How Nenbetsu Bancho really attacks. Kongoh Bancho is smart enough to realize this (by piecing together the clues in the attacks) and neutralizes them.
- Monkey Typhoon: The anime version's 49th episode features Marie, who creates a giantess illusion of herself via magical drum-playing before inflating her breasts and blowing away the protagonists.
- One Piece: Luffy's rubber body means that he can inhale as much air as he wants. His Gum-Gum Storm attack involves him inflating himself with so much air that he becomes large and balloon-like in appearance, twisting his body to increase pressure, and exhaling with a force so strong that it launches him into the air almost like flight.
- Toriko:
- Grinpatch can literally use his breath as a weapon, using a giant straw to shoot bullets or missiles of air with his lung capacity.
- Ichiryuu can also do this, which he did to deflect Toriko's Flying Forks.
- Heracles, one of the Eight Kings, uses this in both directions: she inhales once a year to take in as much air as there is water in the Atlantic Ocean, and a single exhalation was not only powerful enough to Curb-Stomp Battle Toriko, but also able to penetrate the Earth's crust with ease.
Comic Books
- In British children's comics, Billy Blow and Percy Puffer are schoolboys with this ability.
- In The DCU, this is one of the powers all Kryptonians possess when powered by the sun.
- Superman can create hurricane force winds by blowing, and also chill his breath to freeze a target. He can also breathe in large amounts of air to dispel clouds of gas by exhaling it. Superman has also the ability to survive indefinitely underwater or in space.
- In Krypton No More, Superman blasts Protector with a blow of super-heated air when they fight in the Fortress.
- In War World Superman deflects a cluster of Kryptonite-tipped missiles with a tight-focus blast of his hurricane breath.
- Supergirl: Kara is able to create hurricane force winds by exhaling air from her lungs. She can chill the air as it leaves her lungs to freeze targets. She can also reverse the process to pull large volumes of air or vapor into her lungs.
- In The Supergirl From Krypton (1959), Linda blows the dust off her bedroom... literally.
Linda: Super-Breath is handy, too, to dust out my room in one big blow!
- In Supergirl (1972) #4 Kara uses her freezing breath to put out a burning meteorite; and in the seventh issue, Linda soaks two super-strong cavemen and then petrifies them in ice with a blast of super-cold breath.
- In Supergirl (1982) #23, Linda uses her hurricane breath to push bystanders away the battlefield.
- In Supergirl (2005) #34 Why The World Doesn't Need A Supergirl, Kara fights a flame-spewing griffon. When it belches out flames on her, Kara retaliates with her freezing breath.
- In Supergirl (2016), Kara uses her super-icy breath to freeze the fist of a train hijacker.
- In Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade, Linda uses her freezing breath to freeze ice cream.
- Parodied in Girl Power. When Kara expels out a gust of extremely cold air, freezing Grace in her tracks, the member of the Outsiders complains about her "freeze breath". Kara automatically and indifferently retorts she didn't name it.
Grace: Not the freeze breath. Not the freeze breath. Not the G.D. Freeze Breath!
Supergirl: Arctic Breath. At least that's what my cousin calls it. Argue with him about it. - Being an alternate universe Supergirl, Power Girl also possesses super breath. She's used it to ice her way out of restraints
, freeze and destroy a seemingly indestructible monster, and reveal a cloaked base by covering it in ice and give an unwanted chill to a guy who made the mistake of flashing her.
- Bizarro and Bizarrogirl, on the other hand, as imperfect reverse-clones of both Kryptonian cousins, have "flame breath" that heats air. It's Bizarro's Vision-based attack power that lets him freeze anything.
- Disney Ducks Comic Universe: In one Uncle Scrooge comic, the ducks stumble onto a mountain hermit who has somehow developed a powerful enough set of lungs to sculpt solid rock. He draws breath to expel the ducks, only to be tripped up when he inhales the nephews' bubble gum, causing a tremendous but non-lethal explosion. Instead of being angry, he finds it great fun, and Scrooge recruits him as a doorman at the money bin, whose job it is to expel solicitors - en masse and at great velocity.
Hee-hee! Wotta deal! All this fun, plus all the bubble gum I can chew!
- Bigby Wolf from Fables, who is an updated version of The Big Bad Wolf. His super-breath probably originates from him being the son of the North Wind.
- The Incredible Hulk: The Hulk has occasionally displayed this ability. The Incredible Hulk (1968) issue #282 has him using it to push back a poisonous gas Arsenal deploys to kill his cousin She-Hulk.
- The Sensational She-Hulk: In issue #16, She-Hulk puts out a campfire she and her friends used to keep warm by blowing it out.
Fan Works
- Bestowal: Discussed but ultimately averted. During an argument with Sir Nighteye, All Might closes his eyes and takes a deep breath ad then exhales, at which moment he feels a strong breeze and something crashing into the wall. He briefly wonders if he can now breathe air blasts, which would have been more useful when he had two lungs, but then it turns out Gran Torino kicked the other guy into the ground.
- In the Hellsister Trilogy, Superman quite humorously displays this:
Clark Kent, in a black tux, held onto Lois with one arm, waved with the other, and winked at Linda. She smiled shyly at him. Linda didn't have to guess whose super-breath had guided those flowers just where he'd wanted them.
- In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Izuku manifested his Super Breath at ten years old, first using it in the story to blow away the Sludge Villain who was trying to suffocate him. He considers using his ice breath against the Villain but decides against it out of fear of being labeled as a Vigilante. He later discovers how to use his Super Breath to generate blocks and sheets of ice rather than just chilling everything it comes in contact with. Unfortunately, the first time he does this he's so happy about his success that he accidentally freezes his instant ramen solid.
- To You of the Future - I give you every song...: Miku, who is an android designed to sing, blows out a lot of air to put out the fire on the cake in the Christmas party... and accidentally knocking everything down.
Films — Animation
- The 3 Little Pigs: The Movie: How Big Boss blows away Wally and Beemo's houses, although when he tries it on Feeno's house, like the original, he can't muster up a strong enough breath to take it down. When he tries to give it a second go with a bigger breath, a particularity sadistic bee decides to get itself inhaled and sting him from the inside, causing Big Boss to try getting in some other way.
- Pegasus from Hercules (1997) demonstrates this in a few scenes, most notably when he helps Phil set up the training area by blowing on grass like a leaf blower, and later when he blows out the ever present Flaming Hair on Hades' head. Could be justified in that he was created from clouds and thus has an association with air and wind.
- Poseidon uses this to stop Hercules from ascending Olympus in Hercules (Pure Magic). He quickly runs out of breath and collapses.
Films — Live-Action
- In The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, the Baron's companion, Gustavus, has this ability in addition to super hearing.
- In Asterix & Obelix Take on Caesar, Obelix blows away a swarm of spiders by exhaling on them rather than try to cross the pit they're filling (as he'd rather not touch them). Note that he never demonstrated such an ability in the comics.
- In Constantine (2005), after telling a helpless Constantine his plan, Gabriel blows, sending him crashing through a door.
- DC Extended Universe: In both Justice League (2017) and Zack Snyder's Justice League, Superman gains frost breath powers after his resurrection. He freezes Steppenwolf's axe with a sustained blow in the former, while in the latter, he only needs a small puff to freeze the axe.
- Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Themberchaud has trouble with igniting his Breath Weapon, but a mere exhalation of his is enough to send the whole party flying backward, above the Thayan assassins pursuing them, before they even see the red dragon.
- Ilya Muromets: The Wind Demon has this, causing immense havoc even at just half strength.
- Superman Returns: Superman uses his breath to blow out a house fire, and then later on a much larger fire in the broken gas lines of Metropolis.
- In Zoom: Academy for Superheroes, Marsha Holloway is eventually revealed to have this power. It's glittery with a rainbow effect.
Literature
- One of the heroes in How The Six Made Their Way In The World is a man who can blow gale-force winds out of his nose.
- Little Wolf: As with his counterpart in the original fairy tale (see below), Bigbad Wolf could do this sort of thing in his younger days. However, he's out-of-practice in middle-age, as shown when he tries to blow down a bunch of scout tents when the scouts hide inside them, only to fail miserably.
- Older Than Radio: The Big Bad Wolf in the folk tale The Three Little Pigs and most retellings can destroy the first two pigs' straw or wooden shacks by huffing and puffing and blowing it down. That said, he's not quite strong enough to blow away a proper brick house.
- Trapped on Draconica: The Dragonkin Rana has this power as her Breath Weapon.
Live-Action TV
- In the Community episode "Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps", an Angelic Beauty Shirley appears and blows away the Devil (the Dean).
- My Hero (2000): As an homage to Superman, Thermoman has "Thermo-breath", which can add or remove heat with his breath, as well as simply exhaling powerful gusts.
- Power Rangers: Auric the Conqueror from Zeo and Kapri from Ninja Storm both have this power, though both have only used it once (Auric against Prince Sprocket and Kapri against Tori).
- In Smallville, Clark has this power, naturally. He also discovers this from sneezing when he becomes sick in "Sneeze".
- Max and Phoebe of The Thundermans can alternate between freeze breath and heat breath (usually to thaw whoever they froze).
Video Games
- Kirby:
- Kirby has various breath powers, the most used being a puff of air the size of his body. He also has super-inhaling powers.
- Whispy Woods primarily fights by blowing air at Kirby. In later appearances, this expands to blowing tornadoes that home in on Kirby, air puffs that explode into several "shrapnel pieces", and an inhale like that of Kirby and Dedede.
- In the Marvel vs. Capcom series, Phoenix Wright sneezes for an attack that's used to send enemies into the air.
- Flurrie of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door fame has the ability to blow high winds either in the field, an incredibly useful and often required ability, or in battle, which sends the enemies flying out of the fight, and thereby robs you of experience for them.
Webcomics
- This is the signature power of the main character in The Easy Breather, demonstrated in this page of her webcomic.
- In Kevin & Kell, Kell's family is descended from The Big Bad Wolf, and also can huff and puff with the best of them.
- In One-Punch Man, Carnage Kabuto repels one of Genos' hand laser beams by blowing it away.
Web Originals
- If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device: Custodes seem to have hyper-powerful lungs, but we have only been shown their capacity once during one of Whammudes' vox-logs. Powerful enough to destroy a fungal infestation, blast himself out of a tight dead-end pipe along with some unknown horror that had pinned him in there, and utterly destroy the ears of people listening to his blown-in microphone.
- Whateley Universe:
- The supervillain Lycanthros pulls this one out when he's losing a battle. Lycanthros is a werewolf-type villain, but his boss, The Necromancer, may have whipped this little gem up for him.
- Champion, the greatest hero Chicago has ever known, has cryo-breath as one of his powers. The original Champion didn't.
Western Animation
- In Arabian Knights, Raseem has this as well as Super-Strength.
- Aang in Avatar: The Last Airbender; a natural offshoot of his airbender powers. He'll use it mostly if his hands aren't free. In fact, in the second episode he takes out a pair of guards escorting him — with both hands tied behind his back. After telling them that he could do exactly that.
- Hurricane Harry from Cool McCool.
- Howler in Drak Pack. The cartoon's premise is that a pack of descendants of traditional movie monsters Fight Evil to make up for said ancestors' crimes. Howler is a descendant of the Wolf Man, so presumably he has super-breath by association with The Big Bad Wolf.
- Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law: Peter Potamus, with his Hippo Hurricane Holler.
- The Demon of Wind in Jackie Chan Adventures (and the mythological frog creature on whom he was based).
- Krypto the Superdog has this standard Kryptonian power, and it's heavily showcased in the episode "Superdog, Who's Superdog" in which Krypto remarks on how even his lungs have muscles.
- Stripperella: The titular character has this ability, used in "The Evil Magicians" to launch a troublemaking monkey out of a tank by blowing down the barrel.
- Totally Spies!:
- The episode "Mime World" has Enemy Mime villain Jazz Hands transform himself into a giant. He then blows wind at the titular spies, forcing them to act out the "walking against the wind" routine.
- "Virtual Stranger" has the Walking Tornado, a wind-themed villainess. Unsurprisingly, she can blow strong winds.
- Underdog has "atomic breath".
- Hay Lin in W.I.T.C.H. (2004).