History Main / ManOfKryptonite

* ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'', who was revealed to have records of strengths and weaknesses of his teammates in the ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica'' (and possibly other members of the superhero community), thus knowing the countermeasures for when a hero should go rogue.
* During ''ComicBook/BlackestNight'', Dove became this for Black Lanterns.

* ComicBook/{{Daredevil}} got himself one during [[ComicBook/DaredevilCharlesSoule Charles Soules' run]]. Muse is an Inhuman with the ability to cancel out all sensory information around him, making him nearly invisible to Daredevil.

* ComicBook/{{Dazzler}} is one to anybody with sonic attacks, since she can absorb any sound and convert it to [[LightEmUp light]]. Basically, the louder you are, the stronger she gets.

* The demon Nightmare from ''ComicBook/DoctorStrange'' fears one being above all others: the monster Gulgol, who never sleeps and is therefore utterly beyond Nightmare's dream-manipulation powers.

** In the ComicBook/New52, the Rogues got upgraded from tech-using baddies to outright metahumans (at first). In order to give him a new edge against the Flash, one of Captain Cold's new powers allows him to create a field of inertia around him that drastically dampens the Flash's speed.

* Count Vertigo is basically this to ''ComicBook/GreenArrow'' and most of his family. Vertigo emits a wave of some kind of energy that induces vertigo in anyone within his line of sight, which renders archers like Green Arrow, as well as anyone reliant on their aim, basically unable to get a clear shot on him. ComicBook/BlackCanary (Green Arrow's on-again/off-again love interest) is sometimes depicted as being [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman an especially good counter to him]], either because her SonicScream can somehow counter his vertigo wave leading to BeamOWar, and/or because she's a badass hand-to-hand fighter so she can just get close and punch the crap out of him (as Green Arrow and Black Canary invert GuysSmashGirlsShoot, he's not nearly as much of a fighter when up close; he's not ''useless'', but Vertigo affects him much worse than it does Canary).

* ComicBook/IronMan to anyone with ShockAndAwe powers, since he can just absorb it and get a temporary power boost. As well, Tony has developed numerous "Buster" armors to battle certain foes. Nine times out of ten, though, he severely underestimates them, especially the Hulk.

* In Creator/StanLee's ''The Last ComicBook/FantasticFour Story'', Earth is threatened by the Cosmic Tribunal, a bunch of aliens with vast PsychicPowers. Reed sics a race of literally ''mindless'' alien monsters on them (implied by John Romita Jr.'s art to be the Mindless Ones from ''ComicBook/DoctorStrange''), and the monsters mop the floor with them until Reed calls them off out of pity.
* Nemesis Kid, a ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' villain, ''consciously'' adapts whatever power he needed to defeat a single foe. If he guesses wrong, he's screwed. He ended up having his neck snapped by a vengeful Queen Projectra; he adapted immunity to her illusion powers, but she used the martial arts training her husband (the aptly named Karate Kid) had given her over the course of their marriage to kill him with her bare hands.
* The ComicBook/MartianManhunter is vulnerable to fire. The first supervillain he fought was the Human Flame. Funnily enough he was then completely forgotten for nearly fifty years (probably because of his silly suit with flame spouting nipples) until he was brought back for ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis''.
* In the Franchise/MarvelUniverse, there are a couple of heroes being living weaknesses for a vampire. One are [[ComicBook/TheMightyThor Asgardians]] -- Dracula once found hard way their blood gives a temporary power boost but with devastating side-effects. The other is ComicBook/{{Runaways}} member Karolina Dean, whose blood is basically a liquid solar energy -- a vampire who once tried to bite her got obliterated from the inside. ''X-Men'' member Husk, who has the ability to change her body's form and properties by shedding her skin can turned herself into a spiky wooden form when she needs to fight vampires, making her both immune to vampire bites and armed with what she needs to stake them.
* Marvel's Loki in his first appearance had a weakness to water. The hero was ''ComicBook/TheMightyThor'' who could make it rain at will which is precisely how Thor beat him during that issue. The weakness was [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness quickly dropped for this exact reason]].
* ''ComicBook/PinocchioVampireSlayer'', where the main character's nose alone is the instrument of vampire destruction.
* People with ShockAndAwe powers, particularly Chain Lightning, to [[ComicBook/{{Shazam}} the Marvel Family]]. Although they are normally invulnerable, a big enough electric attack can simulate the magic lightning and force them to transform back into their normal forms.
* ''ComicBook/SonicTheComic'' had a villain named Megatox, who is entirely composed of Mega Mack (the pink "water" that floods the Chemical Plant Zone in ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2''). In ''STC'', Mega Mack is an extremely poisonous substance specifically created by Robotnik and his minions as a weapon against Sonic, making Megatox particularly deadly to the Blue Blur.

* ComicBook/{{Zatanna}} is a magician who casts spells by speaking them backwards. At one point in her solo series, she encountered a low-level thug named Backslash who has a magical sword that gives him the ability to rewind short bursts of time, turning her backwards speech into forwards speech and completely invalidating her powers. She is only able to stop him by speaking in palindromes which are the same back and forth, such as "Nurses, run!" and "Ogre, flog a golfer, go!".

** In "Escaping Expulsion", [[Characters/TheOwlHouseAmityBlight Amity]]'s skill in Abomination magic allows her to easily overwhelm both Abomatons by manipulating their body mass.

* ComicBook/{{Aquaman}} villain The Thirst drains water from his surroundings and people, putting Aquaman at a serious disadvantage.

** ''Smallville'' Clark also has to deal with one of the main Superman invocations of this trope, Metallo. His condition is played for maximum BodyHorror as he's unwillingly transformed into this and still retains enough of his human form to express his horror. Making things worse, he had a FreudianExcuse already for hating Clark (he saved the life of someone who later killed Metallo's sister), and being transformed into a ManOfKryptonite cyborg broke his mind. Later he showed up using Red Kryptonite as a power source and had a mild HeelFaceTurn, as the mental effect of Green Kryptonite had played a part in his mental breakdown. The switch to Red K gave him enough sanity to realize what he had done and try to be heroic.

** Monkey D. Luffy is, famously, a RubberMan; consequently, he turned out to be a Man of Kryptonite for God [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Eneru/Enel]], a [[ShockAndAwe lightning-powered]] villain who was otherwise [[MadeOfAir undefeatable]].

** More commonly on the show, since KryptoniteIsEverywhere was a plot point (it arrived in a meteor shower alongside Clark, and proved to be an incredibly useful {{Unobtainium}}) it served as a MetaOrigin for many villains. Kryptonite radiation would grant people superpowers, so a lot of people unknowingly had kryptonite in their bodies; as Green Kryptonite also induced chemical imbalances in people's minds, many of these people became unstable [[SmugSuper Smug Supers]] who used their powers dangerously. In one case, the Season 10 episode "Harvest," Clark and Lois got trapped by a village of religious fanatics who all unknowingly had blue kryptonite in their bodies, so Clark was BroughtDownToNormal in their presence. Originally, Lana herself was unintentionally this at the beginning too, as she had a Kryptonite necklace that made Clark barely able to stand in her presence, which most thought was just because he had a crush on her until they realised it was serious.

* Comicbook/{{Aquaman}} villain The Thirst drains water from his surroundings and people, putting Aquaman at a serious disadvantage.

* People with ShockAndAwe powers, particularly Chain Lightning, to [[Comicbook/{{Shazam}} the Marvel Family]]. Although they are normally invulnerable, a big enough electric attack can simulate the magic lightning and force them to transform back into their normal forms.

* Black Alice is this to anybody with magical powers, even those as powerful as Comicbook/TheSpectre. She can temporarily [[PowerParasite drain the powers]] of any magical being into herself.

** In ''ComicBook/ElseworldsFinestSupergirlAndBatgirl'', ''Comicbook/TheJoker'' pumps kryptonite-based drugs into his bloodstream. So, his body gives off K-radiation which hurts and weakens ''Comicbook/{{Supergirl}}'' when she fights him.

** Logan is always at a severe disadvantage when up against a mutant who can manipulate metal like Magneto (The movies being explicit about it), because of his adamantium skeleton. In fact, Magneto singlehandedly kicked off Ol' Canucklehead's entire years-long Bone Claw/Feral arc after violently divorcing Logan from his adamantium in ''ComicBook/FatalAttractionsMarvelComics''. This was actually an added weakness- initially Magneto's powers only worked on magnetic metals- iron, nickel, and cobolt and their aloys and adamantium wasn't magnetic. By the 90s, however, Magneto's powers had grown to give him control over all metals regardless of whether or not they were actually magnetic.

* ''ComicBook/XMen:'' Colossus's ability to turn his skin into metal makes him another easy target for metal-manipulating foes like Magneto, who can fling him across the battlefield with minimal effort.

** Wolverine was also intially a Kryptonite Man for mechanical foes like the Sentinels, as he originally was indetectible by machines like motion sensors and cameras. Eventually, this power was removed and it hasn't been referenced in years.

* Pinocchio Vampire Slayer, where the main character's nose alone is the instrument of vampire destruction.

** This trope is the basis of original Venom Eddie Brock's new identity Anti-Venom, whose primary power is to destroy the Venom symbiote. However, Brock also has more general "purification" powers that remove any foreign or artificial enhancements from others. In essence, he's a Man of Kryptonite for ''everyone'' who doesn't have just an armor or an explicitly genetic basis to their abilities.

** The Trope Namer is a villain called the Kryptonite Man.

* '''ComicBook/XMen:''' Colossus's ability to turn his skin into metal makes him another easy target for metal-manipulating foes like Magneto, who can fling him across the battlefield with minimal effort.

* In the Franchise/MarvelUniverse, there are a couple of heroes being living weaknesses for a vampire. One are [[ComicBook/TheMightyThor Asgardians]] -- Dracula once found hard way their blood gives a temporary power boost but with devastating side-effects. The other is ComicBook/{{Runaways}} member Karolina Dean, whose blood is basically a liquid solar energy -- a vampire who once tried to bite her got obliterated from the inside.

* ''ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica'': Per Degaton, a villain who can accelerate time, is one to Hourman, a hero with a literal HourOfPower.

* Per Degaton, a villain who can accelerate time, is one to ComicBook/{{Hourman}}, a hero with a literal HourOfPower.