Marvel Universe
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Comic Books
Comic Books
The following have their own pages:
- In the final issue of Avengers Academy, the now-depowered Veil enrolls in a normal high school and is immediately set upon by the resident Alpha Bitch. Unfortunately for said Alpha Bitch, Veil still has all the combat skills she learned at the titular academy, as she eagerly demonstrates on her and her Jerk Jock buddy.
- The Avengers: Heroes Return: In the opening of Issue 2, a pair of drunks have just been kicked out of a bar and spy two ladies taking a drink of water, and decide to harass them. They're the brainwashed She-Hulk and Binary. It takes a special kind of stupidly drunk to not be concerned that someone you're planning to harass is over six foot tall and bright green. So the two idiots get thrown through a wall for their troubles. The slightly drunker of the two is still insistent on going after them for revenge.
- Captain America: One issue in the 90s had a gang of toughs pick a fight with Crossbones when he comes across them about to do... things to a captive Diamondback. Crossbones is an Ax-Crazy neo-Nazi built like a brick shithouse and has a skull-mask. He violently murders the lot of them.
- In a superpower VS superpower version, Avengers: The Children's Crusade gives us The Avengers and the X-Men, who spend a lot of their time antagonizing Wanda (Scarlet Witch) and her son Billy (Wiccan). Both teams (although especially the X-Men) are incredibly lucky that Wanda and Billy are, in fact, good people, because it is absolutely staggering how willing both teams are to risk seriously pissing off one mutant who has the power to reshape the world with a sentence and another mutant who they suspect could do the same thing. Emma Frost even goes so far as to attack Wanda's children, because that worked out really well the last time around.
- Downplayed with the Yancy Street Gang, who constantly prank and heckle Ben Grimm of the Fantastic Four. Ben tolerates this because he knows it's all in good fun, and the Gang are good at heart, often assisting the Fantastic Four against villains.
- The Incredible Hulk:
- Happens to the Hulk all the time. Most of his rampages could have been avoided had they just backed off a bit. Considering his Catchphrase (apart from "Hulk Smash!") is usually a variation of him bellowing "LEAVE HULK ALONE!" you'd think the denizens of the Marvel Universe would have cottoned on, but then you remember this is the Marvel Universe, where Dragon-bullying (and bitching about the results afterwards) is a widely accepted pastime.
- This was once lampshaded by Doc Samson, in discussion with General Ross:Samson: The Hulk keeps yelling at you to leave him alone. So my advice is to leave Hulk alone. Watch him by satellite. If he gets near a populated area, send out Hulk alerts the way we send out weather alerts.
Ross: And if America's enemies get hold of him?
Samson: Send condolence cards to America's enemies. - This was deliberately done by Deadpool when he wanted to die: as his Regenerative Factor allowed him to survive or even to resuscitate from things that would have killed Wolverine, he decided that being reduced to subatomic particles was his best bet, and pissing off Hulk by nuking him twice was the chosen method. Sadly, by the time he managed to get punched Hulk had calmed down enough that Deadpool was merely liquified, and was back in one piece in five days...
- Happens in this
◊ variant cover which is actually about bullying. The jocks can clearly see that Hulk is glaring at them with murderous intentions and yet continue to laugh and bully the kid. - His cousin She-Hulk isn't immune to this either:
- She-Hulk (2004): Issue #8 of volume 2 has a scene in which an angry mob of anti-superhero protestors have formed outside of the courthouse where Jennifer is defending two surviving members of the New Warriors. One guy recognizes her and grabs her, shouting "I've got She-Hulk!" Jen responds by changing into her She-Hulk form and asking , "Okay, you've got She-Hulk. Now what?" The guy wisely backs off.
- Solo Avengers #14: She-Hulk's story is about her trying to argue a case against the Mutant Registration Act to the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, her speech keeps getting interrupted by Titania attacking the courthouse and eventually the judges leave after running out of patience. A dejected She-Hulk is on her way out when she is attacked by Titania yet again. She-Hulk then shows Titania that her temper can be just as nasty as her cousin's by giving a vicious and well-deserved beatdown that finally cows the villain into submission. The officer escorting Titania away even tells her that if she is smart, she'll never seek a rematch with She-Hulk.
- Marvel Comics also has Super Hero hate groups. SUPER HERO HATE GROUPS. These people should just form a "Drink-A-Gallon-of-Bleach Club"; it'd be safer.
- Secret Wars (1984): Owen Reese, the original Molecule Man, had the power to control molecules. This makes him incredibly powerful, even if his personality has all the aggressiveness of a puppy. One of the dimmer supervillains tries to bully him early on, with predictable results. Towards the end of Owen used his powers to transform a chunk of Battle World into a self contained space ship in an effort to get the remaining villains home. Dr. Octopus pointed out the futility of trying to reach Earth at sublight speeds, and when Molecule Man demonstrated his power by putting a whole galaxy together, Octopus loses it and attacks him, with the same outcome as before.
- In the early days of Marvel, people kept trying to attack the Silver Surfer, accusing him of being responsible for anything bad that occurred and generally insulting him. The Surfer may be overly perfect in some incarnations, but he's also a borderline Reality Warper who used to help his boss eat planets, and EXTREMELY dangerous when angered. For some reason, this never occurred to them.
- Spider-Man:
- One of the long running gags in the mythos was that Flash Thompson was both a totally fanboy of Spider-Man and the daily-tormentor of Peter Parker. During the Civil War storyline in Marvel in 2006, where Peter had revealed his identity to the world, Flash decided to challenge Peter to a dodgeball match in front of the children at the school they taught at because he refused to believe that Peter could possibly be Spider-Man. It ended with Peter kicking the dodgeball full force into Flash's face, giving a shiner on each eye. Of course, for this to happen, decades worth of Character Development had to be stripped away from Flash, who previously had matured from his high school days and become a close friend of Peter's.
- J. Jonah Jameson devotes all of his resources to labeling Spidey as a menace to New York that needs to be put down. Nevermind that if Spidey really was the monster Jameson claims, Spidey could have easily killed him years ago.
- The Kingpin makes a habit of challenging Spider-Man in hand-to-hand combat and generally provoking him. Justified because the first time they fought Kingpin won... But then again, Kingpin has merely Charles Atlas Superpower and Spider-Man can lift ten tonnes, move freakishly fast, and has his Spider-Sense. He doesn't learn until "Back in Black", when one of Kingpin's hitmen mortally wounds Aunt May and Spidey for once doesn't hold back, effortlessly beating him within an inch of his life (or, in the What If? version where the bullet killed Mary Jane, punched him through his chest). More humorously, he once thought he could defeat Spider-Man in a poker game (turns out, the Spider-Sense can tell if he's being bluffed, and the other superheroes only invite him to their charity games).
- The Kingpin once made the mistake of thinking he could handle Hydra like it was just another gang war. In the space of five minutes, Hydra had emptied out his bank accounts, bombed his businesses across New York and sent a helicopter gunship to shoot up his office. Their head agent mocks Fisk on how "you are merely a criminal, and we are conquerors."
- Linked to Spidey is Shocker, as demonstrated in The Superior Foes of Spider-Man. He's viewed as a joke and a coward by the rest of his team, especially Boomerang who constantly insults and bullies him. This wouldn't be so bad if Shocker wasn't a veteran supervillain wielding a pair of powerful sonic gauntlets that can kill people if they're cranked up enough. Even worse, it soon becomes clear that Shocker is the only one of them who actually knows how to fight. Sure enough this backfires horribly against the gang when Boomerang's jabs go a step too far, causing Shocker to snap and effortlessly beat the shit out of them.
- Another Spidey Foe example is from the Gauntlet arc, where the original Rhino had given up his criminal ways for love (with encouragement from Spidey). Along the way, he passed up a challenge from a new Rhino (sporting what was essentially the Rhino armor from The Amazing Spider-Man 2), who wanted to solidify his reputation and status by defeating the original in combat. Rhino told him he could have the mantle. Armored Rhino ended up killing the original's girlfriend in order to goad him into his desired fight. Rhino destroyed the pretender before he could get his armor fully in gear. And then he told Spidey he'd never forgive him for talking him out of handling the other Rhino while his lover was still alive.
- In one issue of The Sensational Spider Man, some rowdy sailors picked a fight with the Rhino, because they apparently decided that antagonizing a drunk, pissed-off supervillain who is ten feet tall and can knock down buildings was the best use of their shore leave. Black Cat's timely intervention was the only thing that kept Rhino from turning these idiots into a red smear on the ground.
- One issue opens following Venom after his latest imprisonment, with a Jerkass prison guard apparently thinking it's a good idea to go on a power-trip by turning up the sonics in Venom's cell at random intervals to laugh at the captured villain's pain. Unsurprisingly, the first thing that Venom does when he breaks out is find that particular guard and brutally murder him by crushing his skull.
- Ultimate Marvel
- Ultimate Spider-Man
- Flash challenges Peter to a fight, not knowing about his powers. Parker tries to dodge him, catches his fist to stop his attack... and breaks his hand by accident. Even after this, Flash continues to harass and try to attack Peter at every opportunity. His buddy Kong gets in on the action too (which helps Kong realize Peter is Spidey). Peter never retaliates. The first time they try doing this when Gwen Stacy is around, she actually draws a knife on Flash.
- After Ultimatum, Kitty Pryde joins the school, where Flash and his band of merry morons make a game of "throw stuff at the mutant" (since Kitty can't do anything without getting arrested).
- Ultimatum
- Xavier is alone in the mansion, with Magneto. A crippled man against a man with powers that rocked the whole planet. Nobody will come to help him, as in the White House. Nobody is keeping Magneto powerless, as in the Triskelion's cell, and he's wearing that helmet that blocks Charles' telepathy. Still, Xavier remains Defiant to the End. What happens next note is no surprise.
- Dr. Strange thought that he could defeat Dormammu all by himself (remember that Ultimate Dr. Strange is not the "Sorcerer Supreme", but just a TV celebrity who knows a pair of spells and that's it). Again, what happens next is no surprise.
- Ultimate X Men: Colonel John Wraith is cartoonishly abusive to the group of superpowered slaves that he makes do grunt work, this goes on to include the X-Men. Often torturing them and treating them like attack dogs. To the shock of no one, his team has no actual loyalty to him and this goes on to blow up in his face.
- The Ultimates: Subverted. Cap is giving Pym a well deserved beating, after his domestic abuse of the wasp, and goads him into becoming a giant to have a fair fight. Pym obliges, and it would seem that he got the upper hand, but no: Captain America beats him to a pulp nonetheless, giant size and all.
- Spider-Men II: Many years ago, Wilson Fisk, enforcer of the Rigoletto family, was jailed. Some other prisoner threatened him that Rigoletto is not there to protect him... and Fisk bites the guy's nose off.
- Ultimate Spider-Man
- X-Men:
- It happens very frequently to mutants. X-Men was supposed to be about how racism is wrong. It always seems to come across as bullying a dragon since most of them can easily kill you. Yeah, there are some that don't have good powers, and picking on them is kinda like racism. Picking on the guy that can shoot lasers from his eyes? Not so much. It's like the difference between someone picking a fight with a Jew, and picking a fight with a Jew while he's holding a loaded shotgun. In fact, this happens to the Friends of Humanity so often, you start to wonder just why joining them seems so appealing.
- Many evil mutants only became evil because of how they were treated because of their mutations. Apocalypse, probably the biggest Mutant threat to the Marvel Universe, only wants Mutants to shine because in his youth he was rejected by many people because of his grey skin, and forgot about his incredible strength and power.
- It even happens within the mutant community. X-23 (Laura Kinney) gets a bit of harassment from some of the other younger mutants in Utopia at the beginning of her solo series, even though her tormenters know damn well she could tear them to shreds if she wanted to. And they're doing it because she just finished a stint on X-Force, Cyclops's licensed to kill black ops attack team.
And then there's what she did to Zander Rice in X-23: Innocence Lost when she was actually pushed too far. Rice tormented her for thirteen years at the Facility, including cases of physical abuse that went way off the deep end and into outright Cold-Blooded Torture. When Laura's mother finally had enough and orchestrated her escape, Laura went looking for Rice. She could have easily killed him in less than a second, but oh no, that was too good for him. When she cornered him, Laura put away her claws and went to work on him bare-handed for ten fucking minutesnote . Keep in mind Rice's project bred her specifically to be a living weapon and the perfect assassin, so he was entirely aware of Laura's capabilities. Somehow he still decided subjecting her to constant abuse and letting her know he was taking his hatred of Wolverine out on her was a good idea.
Films
Films
- In Hulk, after Bruce Banner is captured and contained in a purportedly Hulk-proof room, Glenn Talbott, needing a blood sample, enters the room, and shocks Bruce repeatedly with a cattle prod to try to get him to change into the Hulk. At this time, Talbott is wearing a cast and a neck brace, because earlier in the movie, when Bruce changed into the Hulk, he used Talbott as a melee weapon to beat two other people into unconsciousness. Luckily for Talbott, this attempt fails. Unluckily for Talbott, his next attempt is successful and he ends up in the grave.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- The Incredible Hulk (2008): Blonsky, hopped up on super-soldier serum, advances on the Hulk unarmed, taunting him, "Is that all you got?" after watching him tear apart an armored division. Blonksy promptly gets kicked into a tree, breaking about every bone in his body.
- The Avengers
- Tony Stark, in his typical reckless way, casually shocks Bruce Banner in the middle of a conversation to see if Banner will respond by Hulking Out. Luckily, Banner seems more incredulously amused than annoyed.
- Before the climatic battle, Tony Stark says to Loki, "Let's do a headcount here: Your brother the demi-god; a Super-Soldier — a living legend who kind of lives up to the legend; a man with breathtaking anger management issues, and a couple of master assassins — and you, big fella, you've managed to piss off every single one of 'em.".
- Loki is later in the midst of a Villainous Breakdown, and chooses to intentionally berate and antagonize the Hulk to his face. Cue one of the most hilariously one-sided Curb-Stomp Battle against Loki's favour.
- Iron Man 3: Tony challenging a terrorist — one known for pulling off daring, devastating public attacks — to attack him at his home without a plan behind it beyond "Come at me, bro" was not his finest hour. Tony isn't thinking clearly at this point, and the boasting was more about making himself feel in control. Plus, he'd just put the finishing touches on his Mk 42 suit, which combined with the first point meant he actually thought he stood a pretty good chance. It actually goes fairly well in Tony's favor. He's able to take down two of the helicopters, only screwing up the last one due to being caught by wreckage.
- On the other hand, the last Mandarin attack that sent Tony's bodyguard and best friend Happy to the hospital and kidnapping Pepper could be considered this. Mandarin is provoking the man who ended the alien invasion, after all.
- In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the Illuminati tried to take down Wanda Maximoff, arrogantly thinking they "can handle [the] little witch". Wanda brutally massacred them. Even worse is the fact that Wanda was mind-controlling a weaker version of herself, meaning that the Curb-Stomp Battle would've been much worse had she confronted them in person.
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: In one of the flashbacks to Rocket's past, The High Evolutionary kills Rocket's friend Lylla, causing a devastated Rocket to scream in anguish. The High Evolutionary imitates Rocket's crying and tells him that he won the "crying contest", enraging Rocket and causing him to severely maul The High Evolutionary, including clawing off most of his face.
- Happens briefly in Spider-Man when Peter is a called "a freak" by a jock after he beats Flash Thompson up.
- X-Men: Apocalypse:
- The last time anyone saw Magneto, he easily and ruthlessly defeated the entire security detail of the White House after dropping a stadium around it. Erik's neighbors in Poland think they've found Magneto when he stops a several ton piece of steel mill equipment cold on reflex. Confronting this guy and threatening his kid to detain him sounds like a great idea. Played with in that Erik is willing to come quietly, as long as they don't hurt his kid; the cops intend to agree to his terms, but one of them has an arrow nocked on his bow when she starts controlling the animals...
- On the subject of Magneto, let's not forget Mitchell Laurio, who took nearly perverse pleasure in tormenting an imprisoned Erik in X2: X-Men United. A date with Mystique (in disguise, of course) and several ounces of iron in his blood later, Laser-Guided Karma kicks in.
- The X-Men Film Series:
- From underground cage fighters to ill-informed mooks to belligerent locals, every movie in the series with Logan/Wolverine in it has at least one character who crosses this line with everyone's favorite clawed Canuckle-head.
- The humans and how they treat mutants in general falls under this. Even public knowledge that several mutants not only have supernatural powers but absolutely no love for Homo sapiens doesn't stop members of either the general population, law enforcement or even military/political standing from doing things to antagonize them.
Live-Action TV
Live-Action TV
- Daredevil: This is something Karen Page has a particularly bad habit of doing.
- In The Punisher, she outright provokes and insults Lewis Wilson into gunning for her after he's already established himself as a dangerous domestic terrorist who referred to her directly by name in a manifesto. It's lampshaded by Frank, who calls it a terrible idea it was to provoke such a dangerous man into a response.
- In Season 3 of Daredevil, she confronts Fisk with the actual hope that she'll make him angry enough to snap and try to kill her, and be put back in prison for it. She does so by taunting him with the details of how she killed James Wesley, a plan that almost certainly would've gotten her killed if Foggy hadn't shown up in time. Not only does Karen's plan not work, but Fisk orders Dex to kill her, and in Dex's attempts to do so, several other innocent people (including Father Lantom) get killed.
Video Games
Video Games
- Spider-Man: Web of Shadows: The Kingpin taunts Spider-Man after he loses Mary Jane Watson, leading to Spider-Man almost unleashing the symbiote on him.
Western Animation
Western Animation
- X-Men: The Animated Series: With the powers that crop up, this tends to happen a lot. The writers of the original cartoon seemed aware of this, and supplied a harmless but visible mutant — a timid little man with fur, Neanderthal features, and claws instead of fingernails — as a recurring background character constantly harassed by mobs.
- X-Men: Evolution was probably one of the worst offenders, with one bully named Duncan trying to threaten Cannonball. Yeah, threaten the guy who you just saw blow a hole in a brick wall by accident, there's a life-lengthening move. He doesn't even have the brains to back down when the magma-creating girl threatens to burn a hole through his car. This isn't even the half of it. The X-Men team in Evolution had a mostly offense-oriented team, with about half of them having some variation on "shoot deadly stuff from hands" as a main power. Of particular note, people kept on bullying Scott, despite the fact that every time they did there was a good chance he'd accidentally blow a hole in the wall (or them).
- This is actually a rare example where it actually makes some sense. Duncan and the others, as dumb as they are, realize that Scott and the others at Xavier's institute were taught only to use their powers to save lives, and that it's not okay to blow up someone for picking on you. Notice how Duncan and the others rarely pick on the Brotherhood mutants. They know that the Brotherhood members wouldn't hesitate to beat the hell out of them for any reason.
- To complement the last point, there's also another little gem to show off Duncan's incredible intelligence. After Jean dumps him because he's a jackass he tries to get Scott expelled for using his powers... by stealing his glasses and trying to beat him up with two other friends! Eye beams! Deadly! It's like they want to die. Scott then takes them all down in about a second, with his eyes still closed. They still think that they can take him, only finally leaving when two more X-Men show up.
- As with the previous Cannonball mention, Duncan eventually bit off more than he could chew when Spyke, who had previously left the Xavier Mansion, decided he wasn't going to take anymore of his crap. What resulted was, well, a No Holds Barred Beat Down for Duncan and his gang.
- The X-Men franchise as a whole is basically An Aesop for persecution, oppression, etc. Pick something that can make someone different: race, gender, sexual orientation, etc., you name it, that's what The X-Men is about. Of course, it also happens to be literally about people with superpowers, which can make it into a Space Whale Aesop in the hands of poor writers: yeah, it's wrong to be mean to people who are different than you, but the fact that they can shoot laser beams from their eyes shouldn't be your main prejudice deterrent.
- Another example is the first episode featuring The Juggernaut. Mystique frees him from his imprisonment, intending for him to kill Xavier while she steals Cerebro. Juggernaut immediately brushes off her offer of a ride to Xavier's in favor of just stomping towards the mansion. After effortlessly demolishing Wolverine and part of the mansion, Mystique proceeds to insult him for destroying Cerebro to his face. This would've very easily have gotten her killed had the X-Men and Brotherhood not teamed up to stop him.
