The Only One Allowed To Defeat You / Western Animation

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• In Aladdin: The Series, a genie hunter hired by Mozenrath leads Mozenrath to believe that Aladdin was killed in the process of hunting the genie, because he's turned against the sorcerer and wants Aladdin to be able to come and rescue Genie. Mozenrath hates this, to the point where when Aladdin shows up, he says he's glad Aladdin is alive so he can kill him.
• All Hail King Julien:
  • After self-proclaimed arch-nemesis Karl claims to not be involved in the current evil scheme and notes it to be pedestrian and beneath him, he shows up during the climax to save Julien's life.
    Karl: Julien and I are locked in an epic battle of light and dark! He is my nemesis, and I am his. I can't have you and your pedestrian little "rope trap and a pack of fossa" plan get in the way of that! You see, Julien's fate belongs to me! Not you! Me!
  • Similarly, Karl's appearance in "Exiled" has him make an absurd claim that he set Koto up to take Julien down and that he's also going to help Julien take Koto down so Karl can take Julien out himself in all in the same speech.
• A less obsessive and more innocent version of this occurs in Arthur. In one episode, the moose kid, George, is being picked on by bullies. Then Binky, the established bully of the series approaches them and says, "Hey! You can't pick on that kid! He's in my class!" George looks relieved, until Binky adds, "Only I get to pick on him!"
• Prince Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender needs to capture Aang to regain his honor and be allowed back into the Fire Nation. This has led him to rescue Aang from other Fire Nation soldiers.
  • Also somewhat inverted later when Zuko decides the one to kill his father has to be Aang, not himself, even when he had the opportunity.
  • Likewise, in the series finale, Iroh refuses to fight Fire Lord Ozai (despite being the only other person powerful enough to beat him), because the Avatar has to do it himself to truly achieve peace. The Avatar carries considerably more clout than two exiles, who would be treated as such.
• Batman: The Animated Series:
  • In more than one episode, The Joker displays this attitude towards Batman: only he gets to kill Batman, or, failing that, he (the Joker) dies in one last climactic battle between the two. He even tried to kill a lowly henchman who was thought to have killed the Bat.
  • Exploited in "Mad Love" when Harley captures Batman with the idea of getting him out of the way, so she and "Mistah J" can be together at last. Batman suckers her into calling the Joker, supposedly so that he will have no doubt that Batman is indeed dead. What the Joker does to her next has even the Bat disgusted. (She tries to calm Joker down by pointing out how he inspired her scheme, but that doesn't help.) Earlier in that same episode, after Batman's been caught in a cloud of knock-out gas:
    Harley: That's a real gasser, huh, Mistah J?
    Joker: (grabs her) I give the punchlines around here, got it?
    Harley: (scared) Yes sir.
  • In the comic book Mad Love, which inspired the episode, the Joker throws poor Harley out of a fifth-story window after arriving on the scene — in the episode, it's "only" the third-story.
  • There is also "The Man Who Killed Batman", where Joker becomes depressed after learning of Batman's death. He stages a jewelry store robbery with the man credited for his death, hoping Batman will show up. When he doesn't, he clearly shows anger towards the man credited for his death and has him thrown into a pit of acid. Batman, however, is still alive and saves him at the last minute without making Joker aware.
  • Genially exploited by "miserable little nobody" Charlie Collins in "Joker's Favor": after the Joker spends the entire episode relentlessly menacing him and threatening his family, Collins snaps and becomes a Cornered Rattlesnake willing to take the Joker with him in a Heroic Sacrifice and ensure in the process that the Joker won't be taken down by his Arch-Enemy or go out in a blaze of glory, but will instead meet an unceremonious end at the hands of an insignificant nobody. Collins manages to inspire fear in a psychopath by menacing the only real dream he has:
    Charlie: You're not getting caught, not this time. I found this blown out of the van. This is how it ends, Joker. No big schemes, no great fight to the finish with the Dark Knight. Tomorrow, all that the papers will say is that the Great Joker was found blown to bits in an alley, alongside a miserable little nobody. Ha. Kind of funny — ironic, really. See, I can destroy a man's dreams, too! And that's really the only dream you've got, isn't it?
  • This is carried over to The Batman, where Joker actually goes so far as to gas Evil Counterpart Evil Duo Wrath and Scorn with his Joker Toxin (after the duo had gone out of their way to repeatedly help the villains of Gotham in escaping Batman and Robin, Joker included) because they threatened to reveal Batman's secret identity to the entirety of Arkham.
    Joker: Destroying you [Batman] is my game! And I won't have anyone stealing my fun! (laughs)
  • As Batman Beyond would demonstrate, Joker would die twice to someone other than what he would consider Batman, and he wouldn't get the real Batman either.
  • Also displayed in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, during an episode where Batman is fighting his evil alternate self Owlman and has teamed up with the Joker to give himself an advantage. At one point, the Joker rescues Bats from being killed, after which he drops the main page quote. Owlman eventually exploits this by setting a trap for Batman and then giving the button to activate it to the Joker.
• For a non-Joker example, Batman Beyond has Stalker, an Evil Poacher who has become so good at hunting he's become bored by it since no animal can provide a challenge. He sets his sights on Terry McGinnis / Batman II soon enough and is defeated by him, but the next time he shows up he's forced into an Enemy Mine with the Dark Knight to save Gotham from a deadly virus. In the end he saves Batman's life from a fire and makes it very clear the only reason he did was so he in turn could kill Batman later:
  Batman: You risked your neck to save me.
  Stalker: It was not your time. When you die, it will be by my hand and my hand alone.
  Batman: Thanks. I guess.
• In one episode of Beavis And Butthead, a candy salesman gets mad at the duo for eating all the product they were supposed to sell. When he begins attacking the two of them for it, the teacher, Coach Buzzcut, steps in and beats him up, proclaiming, "This is MY class, I do the ass-kicking around here!"
• Blue Eye Samurai: After losing to Mizu in the first episode, Taigen tracks her down to demand a rematch, and winds up becoming her ally, purely to ensure she lives long enough to give him said rematch. Justified, as Taigen lost his reputation as an undefeated swordsman when she beat him, thus costing him the cushy political marriage and all the future prospects he'd been working towards; beating Mizu in an official duel is the only way to keep himself from becoming the poor fisherman's son he was born as, and he can't do that if she dies to someone else first.
• Bob's Burgers: In "Nude Beach", Hugo quits being a health inspector and joins a nudist beach. But when the restaurant gets shut down by a new health inspector who plants rat droppings just because Bob wouldn't let him play his music, this makes Hugo return because he wants to be the one to shut Bob down, and he wants it to happen fair and square.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: Chad Dickson to Nigel Uno/Numbuh 1 in "Operation: T.R.E.A.T.Y.", their conflict having gone beyond kid/teenager conflict and straight into It's Personal territory. Chad wasn't willing to let anyone else have a shot at Nigel — not even if they were the leader of the teenagers and his superior.
  Chad: That kid is mine.
• Danny Phantom. Skulker is constantly agreeing to work together with Danny and co. in order to save the world, Ghost Zone, or anything else on a massive enough scale to matter. Normally these occurrences are justified by the fact that EVERYONE would die if all the bad guys didn't help, but he tries to make excuses anyway.
• In the Family Guy episode "And Then There Were Fewer", Diane Simmons attempts to kill Lois. However, Stewie shoots Diane so that he can be the one to kill Lois.
• Sinedd to D'Jok in Galactik Football, apparently.
• In a literal sense, Demona and Macbeth in Gargoyles, who due to sorcery are immortal unless one kills the other.
  • Demona, also feels this way about Goliath for the most part. There is even an episode, where Demona attacks Elisa Maza to draw Goliath out in the open and hunts him for the rest of the episode. If not for Hudson being with him, Demona would have succeeded. This would become enhanced once Demona realized she had a daughter named Angela.
• Zim of Invader Zim is out to destroy the Earth, but won't stop at anything to thwart anyone else who tries to do it competently.
  • Dib is also obsessed with Zim.
• Justice League: Lex Luthor has been shown to desperately want to bring an end to Superman. Which is why, at the end of the episode "A Better World", Superman is able to convince him to help take down Lord Superman. Lex Luthor's just as happy defeating a Superman, even if it's not his Superman.
• Kim Possible: Shego's only mildly annoyed (by her standards, anyway) when she gets imprisoned by Drakken's new alien sidekick. But when she realizes that the new girl has a chance of beating Kim, that pisses her off enough to break free and put a stop to it.
  Shego: "I am not gonna let this she-thing just waltz in and destroy Kimmie! That's my job! Ya hear me?"
• In the Legion of Super Heroes (2006), Superman clone Superman X was literally created to fight galactic despot Imperiex; when Brainiac 5 wiped him out with the wave of a hand, X seemed a lot more disturbed by the appropriation of his nemesis than by Brainy's Face–Heel Turn or his subsequent "murder" of Superman.
• Proto Man and Mega Man in the US series of Mega Man (Ruby-Spears).
  • Specifically, in the very first episode when Wily wants to blast Mega Man, Proto Man smashes the necessary button before Wily can press it and tells Wily that Mega is "his". And in "Future Shock", Mega's attempt to use the stolen time machine (long story) is thwarted by a low-powered bomb planted in the cockpit — by Proto Man, no less; it was only so he and Mega could have a proper fight. And let’s not get started on "Bro Bots"...
• On Phineas and Ferb, Heinz Doofenshmirtz feels this way about Perry. And Perry feels the same way apparently: in "It's About Time", Doofenshmirtz fights a different secret agent, and it's played out like a romantic breakup.
• Brain from Pinky and the Brain won't stand for anyone else taking over the world before he does — to that end, he occasionally finds himself in the position of having to save the world from some other threat, from his rival Snowball the hamster to a giant meteor ("So it is available to take over tomorrow night").
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In the episode "Forced Kin," a giant alien takes over Townsville and defeats the girls. Mojo Jojo is so mad that someone else could have defeated them, he gains Unstoppable Rage and literally beats up the giant alien.
• In The Real Ghostbusters episode "The Slob", a disgusting ghost called the Glob makes a deal with Professor Dweeb in which he would give the eccentric scientist Slimer in exchange for Dweeb freeing the Glob's brother the Sleaze from the Ghostbusters' Containment Unit. The Sleaze is shown to have a grudge against Slimer for assisting in his original capture and is not on board with Dweeb being the one who gets to capture Slimer. After the Ghostbusters find it nearly impossible to capture the Sleaze and the Glob while they're merged into the Slob, they manage to trap them separately after luring the Sleaze into separating from his brother by having Professor Dweeb pretend to have successfully captured Slimer.
  Sleaze: Nobody gets Slimer but me!
• ReBoot: In "Painted Windows", Hex doesn't allow her enhanced Scuzzies to eat Bob, appearing and sweetly reminding her pet that Bob belongs to her.
• Something similar happens in Rugrats in Paris: The Movie when Angelica is telling off Corrupt Corporate Executive Coco LaBouche about what she was doing:
  Angelica: Listen, lady, no-one messes with my dumb babies 'cept me!
• A non-violent variation in Sofia the First: when Miss Nettle returns in disguise with a scheme to steal Sofia's amulet, our heroine wins the aid of Cedric when she tells him Miss Nettle's after the amulet — which, of course, he himself has been after since day one:
  Cedric: No one can have that amulet but me!...er, I mean you, Princess!
• In the South Park episode "Pre-School" Trent Boyett, who Cartman describes as the "Meanest, dirtiest, toughest kid in the world, super-pissed off at US Trent Boyett", is released from Juvenile Hall. The boys framed him for an accident and he is out for revenge. As they can't go to their parents as they lied years ago and he beat up the sixth graders, Stan decides to go to Shelly for help.
  Shelly: Calm down, turd! No Juvenile Hall turd is going to kill you. That's my job.
  • Cartman's obsession with Kyle. Although he hates him with all his being, he needs Kyle around due to his entertaining reactions and overall rivalry keeping him from boredom. He also saves Kyle's life solely so he can suck his balls.
• Averted in The Spectacular Spider-Man with, of all characters, Kraven. His motive for becoming a villain is that Spider-Man was the only "prey" who ever beat him (and humiliated him by leaving him dangling upside down from a street light). Despite his entire motive being his desire to kill Spider-Man, he's perfectly fine working with the Sinister Six (meaning one of them might kill Spidey instead) to do it. The fact that the villains in this series tend to be a bit more pragmatic might have something to do with it.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012): During the Enemy Mine between the Turtles, Dogpound and Fishface in "Baxter's Gambit", Raph nearly falls into one of Baxter's lethal traps, and is caught by Fishface (who gives this trope as the reason).
• In the Super Friends episode "The Death of Superman", when Darkseid finds out how Superman died, he gets annoyed and says he wanted to be the one to kill him.
• Transformers:
  • Especially in the Unicron Trilogy, it seems like Megatron always seems to single out Optimus in combat. Also, in the third series of The Original Series, Cyclonus occasionally saved the life of Ultra Magnus because so he could be the one to kill him.
  • In Energon, Sixshot ended up on very bad terms with Galvatron for constantly trying to kill Optimus himself as revenge for killing his brother Shockblast (though the fact he was willing to kill the rest of the Decepticons as collateral damage didn't help). After suffering several beatings over this, Sixshot attacked and came closer to killing Galvatron than any previous usurper, merely so he wouldn't get in the way of their vendetta. Galvatron recovered however and dealt with Sixshot accordingly.
    Sixshot: Optimus Prime will be mine!
    Galvatron: Never!
  • G1 Megatron would have waited an eternity for the moment where he would kill Optimus Prime.
    • Used against him in one G1 episode, where Megatron is overwhelmed by a boosted Optimus and calls for backup. Starscream however smugly insists he wouldn't dare intrude on the two leaders' ageless rivalry and thoroughly enjoys watching his leader get beaten down. Sixshot pulled the same stunt in Energon after being fiercely warned off interfering with Galvatron's bouts with Optimus, shutting down all their forces until he backtracked his threat. It seems while the Decepticon leader has called his target, he's not against some assistance when required, something other Decepticons in these cases lampshaded the hypocrisy of.
  • The Megatron of Transformers: Prime has the same complex, and does not react well to Starscream trying to deal with the Autobots behind his back. "NO ONE RIDS ME OF OPTIMUS PRIME BUT ME! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?! DO YOU?!"
  • Prime Megatron seems more reasonable about this than most — as long as he ordered Optimus to be killed, it's fine. There's also the pragmatic aspect where Megatron knows that he's the only one who stands a real chance of beating Optimus anyway. Once, when Dreadwing declares he's going to kill Optimus, Megatron wishes him luck, cuts communication and remarks he's pretty sure that's the last he's going to hear from Dreadwing.
  • Forget the Optimus/Megatron rivalry...Starscream, a Dragon so treacherous he's got his own trope, is so obsessed with being the only one allowed to defeat, defy or otherwise annoy Megatron; he goes into an apparently righteous rage when Skyfire, Thrust, Sideways and the Constructicons even allude to an Enemy Civil War. Hell, he even saves Megatron from someone else's betrayal in "Atlantis, Arise!" It's a safe bet that he only went along with Blitzwing and Astrotrain's plan in "Triple Takeover" because they let him be the one to lead Megatron into the trap.
  • Motormaster also feels this way about Optimus Prime, as he feels that Prime is The Rival to his self-professed title of "King of the Road".
• The Venture Bros.: The Monarch and Baron Ünderbheit compete for this role against Thaddeus Venture, with The Monarch's unexplained obsession forming the basis of a comical deconstruction of this trope as a form of addiction.
  • In general, the Guild of Calamitous Intent arranges these through the villains and protagonists so that there is supposed to be only one person you can defeat you. This is what gets the Monarch in trouble with the Guild originally, he wasn't the person who was allowed to defeat Venture. So, this trope is literally enforced by Guild law.
• At one point in the Season 2 premiere of Wander over Yonder, Lord Dominator has captured Wander, Lord Hater goes into a frenzy, breaks out of his bonds, and smashes Dominator with the very same robotic minion that bound him, green electricity crackling all around him.
  Hater: Wander's MY enemy!
  Wander: Enemy?! Come on Hater, you know an enemy is just a friend you haven't made yet!
  Hater: What? EW! Shut up! (He shoots a lightning bolt at Wander, freeing him)
  • Before that, Season 1's "The Bounty" had Commander Peepers trying to take out all the bounty hunters Hater had hired to capture Wander and Sylvia so that he could bring them back himself. (That attitude didn't last, as he quickly came to regard Hater's obsession with Wander as an enormous impediment to their mission and would have been been happy to see anyone get him out of the way.)

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