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Basic Trope: The heroes defeat the villains in the order of weakest to strongest.

  • Straight: Our heroes first face off against Bruizer, then Dr. Destructo, before moving on to Emperor Evulz, and finally facing off against the Queen Terra whom the previous villains unknowingly helped.
  • Exaggerated:
  • Downplayed: Each Big Bad is stronger than the previous one, but only for a little bit.
  • Justified:
    • Emperor Evulz initially doesn't view the heroes as a threat, so he sends out his weakest forces to face them to conserve his resources. After realizing the threat the heroes pose, Evulz begins sending out stronger and stronger minions to fight them.
    • The heroes start off not very strong and thus are only equipped to face off against Evulz's weaker minions. As they get stronger, they are able to go up against the stronger members of Evulz's army.
    • Evulz' weakest minions are also not the most evil or loyal to his cause. He pits them against the heroes fully expecting them to die in order to weed out weakness in his ranks, while promoting any minion who proves surprisingly competent.
    • Evulz has many enemies, and at the start our heroes are the least of his worries. At the start of the tale Evulz has his stronger troops held back to protect him against the actual threats to his reign, which does not include the heroes until much later in the plot.
    • Each opponent defeated directly affects the goals of the next. Without Bruizer and his gang, Dr. Destructo lost the distribution network for the Psycho Serum he was trying to inject people with. Without Dr. Destructo, Emperor Evulz no longer has a way to build the mutant army he needed. And without Evulz's authority and influence over the planet, Queen Terra's entire plan for galactic dominance has been jeopardized.
  • Inverted:
    • Evil Evolves
    • The heroes defeat Emperor Evulz first, before defeating The Dragon and working their way down the rest of Evulz's forces.
    • Emperor Evulz first defeats the kingdom's Red Shirts, then the Hero of Another Story, then The Hero, and finally the Big Good.
    • After Emperor Evulz and his empire are defeated, the unrelated and significantly less threatening Dr. Destructo steps up to bat.
  • Subverted:
    • The heroes defeat the Big Bad in the first episode.
    • After Dr. Destructo is defeated, Bruizer steps in — an ordinary gangster, compared to the powerful scientist before him.
  • Double Subverted:
  • Parodied: While facing off against Bob, the villains get in a line from weakest to strongest and fight Bob one-by-one.
  • Zig Zagged: The heroes first defeat Sergeant Bad, who is little more than a glorified Mook Lieutenant in Evulz's army. They then battle General Drake, before fighting Captain Kill, who is considerably less strong than Drake. After that, they finally face off against Emperor Evulz himself, who apparently turns out to be a Non-Action Big Bad. And once he's taken care of, they now have to deal with Dr. Destructo and his new experiment; A Psycho Serum augmented Bruizer.
  • Averted: The villains are not all that different from each other in terms of strength or threat level.
    • Alternatively, the first villain is more powerful than the ones who come later.
  • Enforced: ???
  • Lampshaded: "The villains we face seem to keep getting stronger and meaner."
  • Invoked: Upon hearing Bob has trounced a squad of Mooks, the rest of them promptly decide to make Villain Forgot to Level Grind a Defied Trope.
  • Exploited: Bob makes himself look weaker than he is, allowing him to take Evulz's minions by surprise.
  • Defied: Emperor Evulz kills all of his weaker minions, leaving only the strong ones to fight the heroes.
    • After the heroes defeat the weakest mooks, Evulz sends in his elite guards to absolutely crush them.
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???
  • Deconstructed: ???
  • Reconstructed: ???

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