Bullying A Dragon / The DCU

The DCU

Comic Books

Comic Books

• Batman:
  • In Batman: Devil's Advocate The Joker is sent to a regular prison, for a crime he was framed for. Another prisoner is displeased with some of the Joker's actions. He starts threatening him, boasting that he has killed over thirty people. This is an extremely unimpressive number to someone like The Joker and it predictably ends badly for him. In his defense though, he may have thought that while Joker was an Ax-Crazy mass-murderer he was an unskilled fighter. The Joker's level of combat skill largely depends on the writer. That being said, pissing off a psychotic mass-murderer is still a dumb move.
  • Batman: No Man's Land:
    • In one part, Bane arrives in Gotham and picks up a female sidekick, and is quickly accosted by a gang who demand he turn over everything he has. That's right, these guys actually try to mug a huge, masked muscleman. (And he's carrying a chain gun now.) Suffice to say, they quickly regretted it. In some interludes to the story there was a Running Gag of a criminal trying to rob people with an empty gun, with everyone knowing there's no ammunition left in Gotham. The last of these interludes has him try it on the Joker.
  • Joker's Last Laugh: In yet another move where doing this to the Joker backfires, this comic is kicked off by a doctor trying to scare the Joker by faking a cancer diagnosis. Needless to say, the doctor comes to regret lying to the Joker real quickly.
• Damage: It was established in the original series that the titular character's "parents" were actually employees set to watch him until the superpowers he'd been genetically engineered for showed up. Given that, later retcons that his foster-father physically and sexually abused him — according to one comic, badly beating him directly after he'd accidentally blown a friend's hand off — make the guy look extremely stupid.
• Happened in an issue of Jack Kirby's Demon series, where a creature like Frankenstein's monster created by a mad scientist was subject to a street gang throwing bricks at him and taunting him. When they captured a girl who had been in psychic communication with him (don't ask), all he had to do was stand up and the gang quickly retreated.
• Harley Quinn: Some people oddly think it's a good idea to insult or threaten her, even though it's implied to be common knowledge that she's crazy and dangerous. Such people are lucky if all they get is a punch in the face.
• After growing fat off of the despair the damned provide, Despondeo in Hellblazer: Rise and Fall got it in his head to challenge Lucifer Morningstar for the throne of Hell. It ended with him getting his neck torn open as he was choked with his own spilt entrails before being caged for his insolence. If it weren't for a young John Constantine summoning him, he would have faded away into nothing eventually.
• Two lesser supervillains (the Warlock of Ys and Kudlak the Sorcerer) have the brilliant idea of attacking the Justice Society of America building. This would already be a monumentally stupid idea. To make it worse, it was a mixer with the Justice League. And to add the cherry to their sundae of idiocy, their entrance ruined the teams' Thanksgiving dinner.
• During the JLA (1997) / Wild Cats Wildstorm crossover, Mr. Majestic threatens Superman that if he tries scanning anyone with his powers, Majestic will tear off his head. Next panel is an almighty boom, followed by Majestic going flying. Then Superman calmly replies he understands.
• Secret Six:
  • A handful of carnies attack Bane during his date, which goes as well you'd expect. But instead of retreating when the 7-foot giant takes out half their number casually, they try to kill his girlfriend.
  • Likewise, the Nazi idiots who keep trying to fight Deadshot, who found them intensely irritating but Not Worth Killing... which means he merely went for Eye Scream. When they attacked him and his girlfriend, Deadshot only refrained from killing them because he had promised not to kill anyone that night. His girlfriend happily stepped in, and that was the end of the mess.
• Superman:
  • The Prankster is a guy with no superpowers whose only real goal is to pull the biggest practical jokes on the largest number of people possible... and his favorite target is the most powerful being on Earth. And he never stops trying! Then again, everyone is aware of Superman's Thou Shalt Not Kill policy — and Superman isn't physically abusive towards non-powered villains who don't try to accost him.
  • Lex Luthor's favorite sport. Granted, Superman would probably never actually do anything - but that doesn't change the fact that Luthor is harassing a guy who could kill him in any number of ways before he could even blink, let alone try to stop him. At least Lex is wise enough to pack kryptonite but he bets a lot on Superman not vaporizing him from a distance no matter what he does.
  • "Luthor Unleashed": After one battle, Lex realizes that his scalating violence is finally exhausting Superman's last bits of patience when his nemesis comments that it must be Luthor's lucky day, since he has never been so tempted to cut loose on anybody, but a sudden emergency breaking out means he must leave right now instead of pummelling Lex.
  • In Krypton No More, common sense should advise super-villain Protector against antagonizing and pissing off Superman. Still he defies him openly, constantly attacks him and even breaks into his home. And he manages to get Supergirl pissed off, too!
  • In an issue of Kryptonite Nevermore a corrupt bussinessman threatens Superman and even orders his men to shoot at the Man of Steel. He has no powers, abilities or anti-metahuman technology whatsoever and menaces someone who can vaporize him at a glance.
  • In The Third Kryptonian, Amalak's non-powered minions are confident that their weaponry can take several Kryptonians out. It never crosses their minds that their arms were adequate enough to hunt down desperate stragglers on the run, but now they're going to face several long-experienced heroes accustomed to dealing with anti-Kryptonian weapons and enemies more powerful than themselves. The result is a one-sided curbstomp.
  • At the beginning of Who Took the Super out of Superman?, a band of pirates is raiding the Metropolis Bay. When Superman shows up they actually try to scare him away. After taking care of them, Superman wonders why crooks keep bothering him.
    Superman: I may never understand why every bunch of cheap, grimy thugs with no thought and even less chance of success continues to waste my time with petty, ambitious greed!
  • In What's So Funny About Truth, Justice & the American Way? the Elite repeatedly antagonize Superman while mocking his refusal to kill and proclaiming their Might Makes Right philosophy, building up to a brawl where they do their best to kill him, confident Superman's morals will prevent him from returning the effort. When he does, the team is slaughtered and their leader left impotently protesting that Superman's not supposed to act like this. And Superman was still holding back and didn't kill his teammates, he was just giving them and the world a glimpse at how horrifying it would be if he came around to their way of thinking.
  • Since her creation, Supergirl has run into many idiots who thought picking a fight with the cousin of Superman was a good idea:
  • Back in the Bronze Age, 'Nasty' Luthor tried to bully Linda when both girls attended classes in Stanhope College, and was constantly putting her down and trying to humilate her when both worked as junior photographers for San Francisco station K-SFTV. And she knows that Linda is Supergirl... and short-tempered. In Demon Spawn Linda is so fed up with Nasty that she punches a wall.
  • In "Girl Power", Batman's villain Clayface challenged and taunted Supergirl. Someone who is essentially a shape-shifting mud-man taunted a girl who can punch moons. Great idea. In "Way of the World" he did it again. Out of patience, Kara froze him solid, took him up, up, UP and dropped him.
  • Catherine Grant insults, mocks and taunts Supergirl the whole time. In Day of the Dollmaker she does do it to her face. She doesn't seem bothered by the fact that she's goading someone who can rip her in half and hurl her remains out of the planet in less than a second.
  • In the beginning of Red Daughter of Krypton, Lobo picks a fight with Supergirl. Knowing he can't go toe-to-toe with her, he mocks her, taunts her, presses her Berserk Buttons... so she gets angry and fights more sloppily. She certainly got angry. And then she proceeded to pummel him savagely.
  • In Many Happy Returns super-villain Rebel ambushes and taunts Kara. Kara warns him she can kill him as soon as she looks at him. He wisely runs away.
    Rebel: So whattaya say we just finish this off with one final dance?
    Supergirl: Don't you get it, Rebel? You're not important! You never were! You were just — something to do! Something for Supergirl and me to bounce off of for a while until people and events of real consequence came along! Look — Here's the problem. You've done some bad things, but I'm really, really upset right now. So much so that, honestly, I don't trust myself. And if you attack me or I attack you... I will hurt you. I'll hurt you worse than you've ever been hurt in your whole life. I can carve you up as soon as look at you. I can break you, boil you, freeze you. I can do things you can't imagine. Things I can't imagine, until I have to. And then I'll improvise. Part of me is hoping you will attack. And part of me is praying — for your sake, and my own peace of mind — that you don't. It's up to you.
  • In Elseworld's Finest: Supergirl & Batgirl, Lex Luthor spent a good while insulting, mocking and taunting Kara after she found out about his Dark Secret. Yup, he taunted an enraged Kryptonian who wanted him dead.
  • Last Daughter of Krypton: Simon Tycho correctly guesses that Supergirl is a Kryptonian, and even so he wants to keep her imprisoned after capturing her by sheer luck. She gets broken out and stomps all over his soldiers, and he decides to blackmail her. She destroys his space station and tells him to not bother her again, and he sends his hired goons after her. At the end, his mercenaries have been crushed, his space base has been blown up, his body has been half-burned as a result of his satellite's explosion and he is still determined to capture her and force her to work for him.
  • In Super Sons, the League of Assassins try to pick a fight with Jon, a flying kid wearing the trademark "S" of the most famous and powerful superhero on Earth. Their weapons shatter against his skin and he can knock any of them out with one punch. They continue to try to attack him and only last a short while by dog-piling him.
  • In A Mind-Switch in Time, a biker is complaining about Superman arresting his gang when his bike suddenly gets turned into a flying bike armed with a ray cannon. He immediately gets to deface every Superman statue he finds until he runs into Superman, shoots one energy beam at him... and becomes frightened when his blast gets shrugged off. Then, because he whined about Superman's bantering, Superman says he banters during fights to vent his annoyance at having to deal with time-wasting idiots.
  • It happens in The Killers of Krypton when Supergirl goes to a space bar to find clues on Rogol Zaar, and several of his followers start mocking and taunting the obvious Kryptonian by openly praising Zaar's genocidal actions and dissing Krypton. Kara beats all of them up, and she did not even need to be fully powered.
  • Strangers at the Heart's Core: The Visitors really should have called it quits when they found out the scientist they were coercing into working for them was Supergirl's adoptive father. They certainly should have run away when they sneaked into her office and found out their weapons could barely hurt her. They assuredly should have understood they should leave her family alone when she easily hurled their car bomb out of the planet. They definitely should have surrended when she found and burst into their secret lair. Instead, they shoot her father and threaten her and her mother. Result? She melts their weapons, wraps a steel beam around them, and has to be talked out of punching them into atoms.
  • In Starfire's Revenge, a bunch of bank robbers rushes at Supergirl just after she has knocked their getaway car over.
    Narrator: Startled, the occupants of the wrecked car emerge to face what they thought was an immobilized, weak Supergirl...
    Crook 1: Supergirl! I thought Starfire said she was finished!
    Crook 2: Well, there's one way to find out— Let's go get her!
    Narrator: ...Only to find out differently— as the Maid of Might slams into them...
  • In Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, Krem and his crony ambush Ruthye and Kara, even though the mercenary has learned the hard way Kara is extraordinarily strong and tough. Their ambush ends up with Krem fleeing in panic after his goon has been knocked out with one punch.
  • The Strange Revenge of Lena Luthor: A criminal gang's gaslighting scheme involves kidnapping Supergirl, dumping her into a death trap and gaslighting her into believing she has lost her powers as they drive her friend Lena insane. As soon as Supergirl sees past their rudimentary tricks, though, they are done, and their only defense is trying to run away.
  • In The Phantom Zone, a riot is caused in Gotham City by the threat of a nuclear war. As Batman is stopping a pack of looters, one thug pulls out a knife and points it at him. Batman is not impressed -or amused-, and he easily slaps the man away.
    Looter: Batman—!! L-Lemme go— I mean it— Or I'll cut ya—!
    Batman: Your hand is shaking, scum.
  • In "Supergirl's Big Brother", a conman called Biff Riggs learns Supergirl's secret identity and attempts to blackmail her, clearly not realizing what she has at least one dozen of ways to get rid of him without killing him (and both Kara and his cousin have mindwiped people for much less).
  • Superman/Supergirl: Maelstrom: Even after Superman gets rid of her with insulting ease, and even though everybody warns she is out of a Kryptonian's league, Maelstrom keeps believing she can kill him easily, and she happily agrees to go back to Earth to antagonize him again.
  • The Leper from Krypton: After getting Superman infected with an incurable disease, and conning one miliion dollars out of people who were foolish enough to believe he would freely give one cure to his worst enemy, Luthor boasts that he has gotten away with everything to Superman's face. Superman feels incredibly tempted to reach out, touch him and get him infected, but he restrains himself because it would be murder.
    Lex Luthor: "See? I conned your friends out of a million bucks! And you're stilll a candidate for a coffin!"
    Superman: (thinking) "I could pierce this protective suit...touch Luthor...and he'd get the virus! But— I can't break my code against murder!"
  • "Superman and Spider-Man": Doctor Doom spends the whole story taunting and mocking Superman, even after his anti-Superman's measures fail, believing he is protected by diplomatic immunity and Superman would not dare to violate international law. Doom does not even listen when Superman dares him to keep on trusting that imaginary lines will protect him from a pissed Man of Steel.
• Teen Titans: Beast Boy spent most of his life enduring this kind of bullying, which has had a profoundly negative effect on his self-esteem; so much so that he's afraid to let anyone know that he can make multiples of himself.

Films

Films

• DC Extended Universe
  • Aquaman (2018)
    • On a field trip to an aquarium, two of Arthur's classmates start picking on him while he's standing next to an enormous "habitat" type tank. It brings a reaction from inside the tank: an angry great white shark that rams the tank wall hard. The tank wall starts to crack, but Arthur uses his telepathy to stop the shark before it can deliver the final blow as everyone stares in awe.
    • Subverted later on when Arthur has grown up to become a famous superhero. A group of bikers see Arthur drinking with his father and it seems they are about to challenge the "fish boy from the TV" to a fight. However, it turns out they're local fans who just want to take selfies with their hero.
  • Man of Steel:
    • Even if you aren't aware he's a godlike alien, is it really a wise move to antagonize the man easily a foot taller than you and built like a brick shithouse, Jerkass trucker guy?
    • And earlier in Clark's life: "Hey look, it's that freak who pushed a school bus out of a river. Let's goad him into a fistfight." Those bullies are lucky Clark has such self-restraint.
• In The Dark Knight Trilogy:
  • Hung with a lampshade in The Dark Knight. Also falls under Didn't Think This Through, as when he has this explained to him, he immediately backs down, the Oh, Crap! look on his face growing with each word Lucius speaks.
    Lucius Fox: "Let me get this straight: You think that your client, one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world, is secretly a vigilante who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands. And your plan is to blackmail this person? Good luck."
  • Also in The Dark Knight, the clown gang don't realize they're Robbing the Mob Bank until the manager shoots one of them in the back with a shotgun.
    Manager: (cocking his shotgun) Do you have any idea who you're stealing from?!? You and your friends are dead!
  • In The Dark Knight Rises John Daggett's plans to absorb Wayne Enterprises by having Bane attack the stock exchange to bankrupt Bruce have gone sour, so he thinks it's a good idea to chew out Bane. Protip: don't try chewing out a muscular man with fists of steel and a frightening gas mask, as Bane ever-so-calmly lays one gigantic hand on Daggett's shoulder and asks, "Do you feel in charge?" Daggett then realizes that shit has hit the fan and very meekly states, "But I've paid you a small fortune." Bane then promptly breaks Daggett's neck.
• Supergirl (1984): Shortly after reaching Earth, Supergirl ran into two truck drivers. She quickly identifies herself as Superman's cousin... and the pair of truckers decide to harass her. Then she proves she has Kryptonian powers... and the idiot duo attacks her rather than backing off. Suffice it to say, they regret it.
• Superman Returns: Granted he has that "boy scout" reputation, and Lex has kryptonite present, but wouldn't you think, that if he possibly survived, especially considering his luck in the past, beating up one of the most powerful superheroes in the DC Universe would have some kind of repercussions? Of course it did.
• Watchmen
  • Rorschach finds himself getting threatened in prison by the very same inmates that he beat up and put there. After stomping one of them, he proclaims. "None of you seem to understand. I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me!"
  • There was also that guy who kept begging various costumed adventurers to "punish" him. And then he did it to Rorschach, who promptly tossed him down an elevator shaft.
  • The anti-vigilante protesters in front of Studio 54. One of them hits the Comedian in the head with a beer bottle and he flips out, beating them up and firing tear gas at them as they're trying to flee. Worse in the movie adaptation. In the comic, he "only" fires tear gas, whilst in the film adaptation he is clearly shown firing an actual shotgun into the fleeing crowd.

Live-Action TV

Live-Action TV

• In The Flash (2014), Eddie Thawne wants to assemble a police task force to capture the Flash, who he sees as responsible for the dangerous events in Central City. Problem is, The Flash has Super-Speed. Eddie quickly realizes how out of his depth he is when he's beaten senseless by the speedster under the control of another metahuman, but he puts together his task force anyway. It's only after The Flash saves him from the Reverse-Flash does he warm up to a partnership.
• Gotham had Penguin's stepmother and stepsiblings tormenting him endlessly after the death of his father. This was despite the fact they knew he was a supposedly reformed criminal mastermind who had killed many people previously. Oswald eventually snaps and kills them all in a particularly sadistic way, even for him, and they were so awful you don't even blame him.
  • In Season 4, Penguin is on the other side of this. Penguin, Barbara, Tabitha and Butch decide to threaten Jeremiah Valeska in order to force him to hold the city ransom for fifty million dollars with his bombs. Sure, he is new to being a criminal at that point, and doesn't seem to be as unhinged as his brother at first, but by the time they decide to threaten him, he's already destroyed several skyscrapers and forced the evacuation of a major city. They really should have known that threatening him wouldn't go well for them. He simply pretends to go along with their demands before summarily attacking them with a rocket launcher.
  • In Season 5, Jeremiah is again the target of this trope, but this time, it's because he's apparently injured and unable to defend himself for awhile. To clarify, he fell into a vat of chemicals and spent ten years locked up in Arkham pretending to be comatose due to his injuries. Edward Nygma, who was a patient in Arkham during the same time period, encouraged other patients to draw on and stab Jeremiah just for the fun of it, and did it himself. It is therefore not surprising that after Jeremiah stops pretending to be comatose, he breaks Ed out of Arkham (while making him think that Oswald is responsible), and tricks him into committing a high profile crime so that the police will be too distracted to stop his own planned crimes. Since Ed was in the building where Jeremiah's bombs were supposed to go off, Jeremiah probably intended him to die with the heroes.
• The Sandman (2022), "The Sound of Her Wings": Lady Johanna Constantine hears rumors that the Devil and the Wandering Jew meet at the White Horse Tavern every hundred years, so she crashes their next meeting with two street toughs in an attempt to beat their arcane secrets out of them. It goes about as well as you'd expect trying to mug two immortal beings to go.
• Smallville:
  • Clark Kent was often bullied despite that fact that even without powers, he is still very buff and capable of punching people out.
  • In the episode "Rogue", a Dirty Cop who sees Clark using his powers uses that knowledge to blackmail him. Sure, Clark's Thou Shalt Not Kill philosophy prevents him from easily killing the guy with said powers, but he doesn't know that. All he knows is that Clark is tough enough to stop an out-of-control bus by stepping in front of it and strong enough to toss a generator across a room like a wad of paper. And yet, he keeps on provoking him and even threatening his family. Karmic Death took care of him.
  • In "Infamous", Linda Lake is dumb enough to try doing this to Davis Bloome a.k.a. Doomsday. The latter is quick to retaliate.
• Supergirl: In Adventures of Supergirl tie-in comic series, made-of-diamond villain Facet spends months trying to ruin Kara's life until Kara loses patience, takes her to the upper atmosphere and lets her go. Supergirl lampshades how dumb is to taunt someone who can fly:
  Supergirl: But here's the thing about messing with people who can fly when you can't... They choose how you land.
• Wonder Woman: One of the Nazis' favorite pastimes in the WWII era of the show and a phenomenally bad idea. One of many, many examples comes from "The Richest Man in the World". Wonder Woman has finally figured out Dunfield's plan and cornered his gang in their warehouse. She closes the door on them, smiles and expects them to give up. Instead, they shoot at her. Whereupon she lays down one of the biggest beatdowns in the entire series.
  Wonder Woman: You weren't really planning on leaving were you? [closes the door] I didn't think so.
  [Dunfield's thug pulls a gun and shoots at her to no effect]
  [Wonder Woman steps forward visibly annoyed, and in under 2 minutes, she beats, rounds up, and captures the entire gang]

Video Games

Video Games

• The unarmed generic mooks in Batman: Arkham City will actively taunt Batman if they see him but can't reach him. Made all the more hilarious when you hear prisoners comment about how the last time they met up with Batman, he left them with several broken bones.
• Injustice: Gods Among Us has the Joker (who is pretty much a normal human) pushing Superman's (effectively a god in human form) buttons to the extreme by planting a nuclear bomb in Metropolis that would explode if Superman's wife, Lois Lane, dies. He achieves his goal by tricking Superman via fear gas that Lois was Doomsday, which got him to take Lois into outer space where she and her unborn child died instantly. Superman, wracked with guilt over the death of his wife, his unborn child, and the millions of citizens from the nuked Metropolis, goes after the Joker and can barely restrain himself from killing him. The Joker taunts Superman further by saying that maybe his next family won't blow up this time. This puts Superman over the edge, as he literally rips out Joker's heart and kills him. Why did the Joker even do all this? Because he got tired of always losing to Batman and decided to pick on Superman instead. Of course, in the end, the Joker did what he intended: causing Superman to snap and break his Thou Shall Not Kill oath.

Web Comics

Web Comics

• Batman: Wayne Family Adventures: In "Just Desserts", Bruce's PTA nemesis Margie tricks him into bringing snacks rather than dessert to Duke's class party so she can "save the day" with homemade cupcakes. He counters by hiring a squad of ice cream trucks for the party. One wonders how she expected it to end when she tried to sabotage and upstage one of the richest men in the world. What's more, Duke and Bruce's conversation afterwards implies that it happens regularly.

Western Animation

Western Animation

• Batman Beyond:
  • In the first episode, Nelson taunts Terry McGinnis for not being athletic enough (the classic "loser"). When a gang of Jokerz shows up and Terry turns out to have sufficient fighting skills to chase off the entire gang, Nelson's response is "I knew McGinnis was a freak." Fortunately for Nelson, Terry (pretty much perpetually) has bigger fish to fry. Nelson does have some brains, though, because when Terry stands up to him later in defense of helpless nerd Willie Watt, Nelson knows better than to pick that fight.
    Terry: Lay off him, Nash.
    Nelson: You think I'm afraid of you, McGinnis?
    Terry: I dunno. (lifts an eyebrow) Are you?
    Nelson: (pushes Willy out of the way) He's not worth it. But you are, McGinnis...some day. (gets in his car and drives off)
  • Speaking of which, in a later episode, the former typical nerd Willie has just broken out of Juvenile Hall using his newfound telekinetic powers and goes after everyone at school who made fun of him, including Nelson and his cheerleader girlfriend. Even after seeing what Willie can do, and the fact that Willie is no longer a wimp, having extensively used the gym while he was locked up, he still taunts the guy. Willie even agrees to a one-on-one fight without telekinesis, but goes back on his word once Nelson starts winning.
  • Another incident from the first episode: After Terry's fight with the Jokerz, some reinforcements show up and chase Terry to an isolated spot that turns out to be the grounds of Wayne Manor. Bruce tells them to get lost, and they decide to start harassing the "helpless old man". Bruce is still a good enough fighter to take down several of the Jokerz, though he needs Terry's help to get back to the manor afterwards.
• Green Lantern: The Animated Series: the Science Director’s “brilliant”, last resort plan to defeat the Anti-Monitor? Fly up right in front of it then order it to stop, insult it, and use some flashy telekinetic powers on it. It’s as unbelievably arrogant as it is stupid; the Anti-Monitor is completely unphased and simply tries to vaporize the Director, who only survives because she teleports away the second it attacks her. Especially bad because she tries this after watching the Anti-Monitor devour an entire Red Lantern fleet with zero effort.
• In Harley Quinn (2019) Harley kidnaps Lois Lane in hopes of making Superman her nemesis, oblivious to her crew's concerns that he's completely out of her league. Fortunately/unfortunately, both Superman and Lois are so used to this happening they treat it completely casually, and Superman doesn't even bother to fight her.
• Lex Luthor's treatment of Superman in Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League. Granted, Superman would probably never actually do anything — but that doesn't change the fact that Luthor is harassing a guy who could kill him in any number of ways before he could even blink, let alone stop him. His Justice Lord counterpart did just that.
• Teen Titans (2003):
  • In an odd, "friendly" case, the episode, "The Beast Within". Specifically, Robin's um, "questioning" of a possibly unstable Beast Boy, and with predictably disastrous results.
  • In the episode "Troq", Val Yor openly belittles Starfire to her face with a racial epithet directed toward Tamaranians, despite her species' Super-Strength, durability, Flight, ability to withstand vacuum, energy attacks with occasional Eye Beams, and advanced technology being common knowledge. And apparently multiple aliens have this attitude toward Tamaranians. To be fair, however, while us lowly humans would no doubt be threatened by such a line up, Val Yor has powers nearly equal to hers (minus space breathing and somewhat weaker energy projection), so, from his perspective, the dragon isn't all that tough (though this does make you wonder why he treats the puny, primitive earthlings with respect while the alien princess from an advanced, superpowered society gets treated worse than dirt). Val Yor is apparently motivated by the Tamaranians' trait of allowing emotions guide their lives. Of course, by the end, Starfire not only saves his life, but the team kicks him off the PLANET. Even then, he has learned nothing, concluding that humans were 'just like them'.
    • Cyborg pretty much put it best when Starfire told him what "troq" meant. If Starfire had lashed out at him she would have proved he was right in his view of her species, something she wouldn't do because she wouldn't give him that satisfaction. (And if you want to look very deep into the episode, Cyborg, being a member of a minority himself, could probably understand.)

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