Always Someone Better - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): The Minnesota Fats

"No matter how big you get, no matter who you can push around, there's always someone better out there who makes you feel like squat."
— The Absorbing Man gets philosophical in She-Hulk.

Smile like you've got nothing to prove
No matter what you might do
There's always someone out there cooler than you
— Ben Folds

The character who is the best-of-the-best with a supporting cast that Cant Catch Up comes across someone even better than them; someone more powerful than the Super Hero, or more skilled than the ninja, or smarter than The Professor, or richer and more important than the rich important guy, or a better banjo player than the master banjo player, etc. This is generally just a one-shot character, but in action-oriented shows this can be a recurring villain or Big Bad.

It's not uncommon for the characters to be siblings, not unlike the Aloof Big Brother — e.g. Sam Malone's brother was more popular than him, Adrian Monk's brother was better at deduction. The classic better brother at deduction is, of course, Mycroft Holmes, making this Older Than Radio.

In many cases, the rivalry is entirely one-sided. Either the rival doesn't know that his / her challenger exists or — much to the mortification and fury of the challenger — likes their rival and considers them a friend. Either way, they genuinely aren't interested in the rival and have no intention of effortlessly leaving him or her standing in their dust; it just sort of happens. In either situation, this will only have the effect of making the main character's rivalry more intense and bitter, as their jealousy will also have to cope with the fact that the other is so much better than them without even trying to be.

By the end of the episode, one of three things has usually happened: the regular character has been totally humiliated, has grown up and realised that they don't need to be the best in the world, or has bested their superior. The most common ways for besting them in action shows is by outwitting or tricking them, finding their Achilles Heel, using a Forgotten Superweapon, getting into an Unstoppable Rage, or just a good old-fashioned David Versus Goliath confrontation. Sometimes, the character just has to get over their mental block/self-esteem issue, which was the problem all along.

Sometimes overlaps with The Ace. In a Monster Protection Racket, a character can seem this way before they're revealed. See also Always Second Best.

Examples

Anime

Pokemon: GARY OAK, GARY OAK, GARY MOTHER FUCKING OAK.
- You can't ignore his girth.
Both Seta Noriyasu and Aoyama Tsuruko in Love Hina can outfight Aoyama Motoko.
Ranma One Half deserves a spot on this page. The main cast is already superhuman (and even here they're jockeying for "betterness"), and they routinely come across other people who are better. Most of this main cast will Take A Level In Badass to defeat the better bunch, but only after having their collective/respective backsides handed to them. Victory is often about exploiting a weakness instead of through the application of superior firepower.
In Spiral, Narumi Ayumu's older brother, Kiyotaka, is far and away his superior (though he also seems to have vanished from the face of the earth for the anime portion of continuity).
One Piece had Mihawk, the greatest swordsman in the world, who in his first appearance utterly trounces Roronoa Zoro (greatest swordsman in the ocean of East Blue) with a tiny dagger, but spares him because Zoro shows promise.
- Also, Luffy's Brother Ace. He was already stronger than Luffy before he got his Playing With Fire powers and after Luffy got his rubber-powers.
  - And as of chapter 550 we know why: He's actually the son of Pirate King Gol D Roger, who was considered the strongest man in the world right up to his death.
The Slayers had Luna Inverse, Lina's older sister and the only person in a world full of chaos-demon-gods who scared her. She could trounce any of the bad guys Lina faces, being a reincarnation of one of the world's supreme gods...if she had any ambition beyond being a part-time waitress.
Mizuno Ami of Sailor Moon had two. One turned out to have psychic powers from the nijizuishou, lost them, and became a love interest; the other was exclusive to her OVA.
- Mercurious was more like her equal, the got the same grades but for some reason he was always mentioned first at the list.
  - Maybe the listmaker resorted to alphabetical listing when grades were the same?
Whatever new skill Vegeta manages to acquire in Dragon Ball Z, he always ends up falling behind Goku. His sense of jealousy and rivalry gets increasingly bitter since Goku doesn't care and treats him like an old friend. Also, Goku is a good guy who can almost treat gods on a first-name basis, while Vegeta ends up in hell after his Heroic Sacrifice. At the end of the anime, he seems to have found some peace in always playing second fiddle to Goku.
Reiji, Paul's older brother on Pokémon, is an expert Pokemon Breeder and Trainer whose attitude towards Pokemon is the exact opposite of Paul's.
- Even more so, Ritchie.
Being about sports, this happens kind of a lot in Eyeshield 21, where there's at least one of these on any major opposing team. Most recently, when Sena found himself up against Riku, the friend from his childhood who taught him how to run in the first place.
And it's not only Eyeshield. This is one of the biggest staples in sports manga as a whole. Heck, even some main characters fits this trope, or become so as the plot goes on. Examples are...
- Captain Tsubasa: Tsubasa himself (being The Ace of sorts), Wakabayashi, Hyuuga, Schneider, Pierre, Santana.
- Slam Dunk: Sendoh, Fujima, Maki, the Sannoh team, Okita from the movies. Rukawa also was the Always Someone Better for both Sakuragi and Kiyota from Kainan.
- The Prince Of Tennis: Tezuka, Atobe, Shiraishi, Chitose, Sanada, Yukimura, Renji, Ryoma himself.
  - Don't forget the doubles matches, especially during the Hyotei arc. "Sannin de doubles," anyone?
- Hajime No Ippo: Ichirou Miyata at the beginning, Eiji Date, Ricardo Martínez.
Code Geass: Schneizel is this to Lelouch. He is the only person he couldn't defeat in chess 8 years ago and is arguably still the better strategist.
- Well, he does lose to Lelouch in the end, so...
Highlander: the Search for Vengeance features the main villain: Marcus Octavius, as Colin MacLeod's Always Someone Better. He just won't take vengeance-driven Colin seriously, even after 1000 years.
Miki Koishikawa from Marmalade Boy often saw her love rivals for Yuu's affections this way. Almost a whole episode in the anime is about Miki watching the beautiful and elegant Arimi Suzuki from afar and thinking she's just a little girl when compared to her.
Kagome Higurashi has Kikyou, her past incarnation and love rival, as her Always Someone Better in Inu Yasha. Kikyou was a brilliant, gentle Miko when she lived, and a conflicted undead Miko when she was forcefully revived; aside of her love for Inuyasha, Kagome's biggest conflict is constantly feeling that she's gotta re-assert her own identity to not have everyone tell her she's inferior to Kikyou.
The manga chapter of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's that dealt with their school life depicted New Transfer Student Fate (and to a lesser extent, Nanoha) as this for over-achiever Alisa. Already annoyed when she saw Nanoha and Fate get the same perfect scores as she did in a math test, Alisa outright challenges Fate for the first place in the upcoming Prep Exam when Nanoha mentioned that Fate was so smart, she even helps her older sister Miyuki solve her high school math problems.
As Peacock's number one talent, Ayaori serves as Always Someone Better to Ryo in Penguin Revolution, and typically for the trope is also Ryo's adopted brother. Less typically, they're both very fond of each other and Ryo, while competitive, bears no resentment towards Ayaori.
Yoshimori's older brother Masamori is first shown as one of these, being incredibly powerful at a young age, the object of Tokine's affection, and overall everything Yoshimori wants to be. Their grandparents Tokiko and Shigemori play this role to Masamori, with the former being able to mend holes in space and dimensions using her powers.
In Cowboy Bebop, Spike is set up as the biggest Bad Ass of the galaxy, matched only by his nemesis Vicious, however when Ed's father briefly shows up toward the end of the series, he effortlessly outfights Spike.
In SA, the main character Hikari Hanazono's sole objective in life is to one-up her life rival Kei Takishima. Since the day he beat her in a pro wrestling match, Hikari has challenged Takishima in everything from test scores to high jumping over a moutain-sized vaulting horse. Each time Takishima beats her with incredible ease and non-chalantly calling her "Miss No.2" which only fires Hikari's spirit even more.
This is the entire plot basis of Yu Gi Oh.
Sakuma Ryuichi (and, to a lesser extent, Seguchi Tohma) are this for Shindou Shuichi in Gravitation.
In Bleach Renji Abarai trained for decades to defeat Byakuya Kutchiki and win the affections of his childhood friend of nearly a century Rukia. Then some punk human kid who's been a Soul Reaper for all of two months shows up, kicks his ass, kicks Byakuya's ass, saves Rukia from being executed by Soul Society and, oh yeah, just happens to bear a stricking resemblence to Rukia's dead mentor/first love Kaien Shiba. The only way it could possibly suck worse for Renji is if this upstart kid was the main character. Oh, wait...
The GRX from Speed Racer was the fastest engine of all time. A special gas was used on the driver to ensure they wouldn't go insane from the high speed.

Comic Books

In the GI Joe Marvel comic series, before the actual events of the comic, Snake-Eyes became Storm Shadow's Always Someone Better, with some judicious manipulation from Firefly.
In the new Transformers series from IDW, Sixshot seems to be every Decepticon's Always Someone Better...or he would be, if anyone but Megatron weren't so afraid of him they strip gears at the mention of his name.
In many ways, and in a rare example of the Always Someone Better being a main character, Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) of the Fantastic Four is the Always Someone Better to his arch-nemesis Dr. Doom, with regards to science at least; one of Doom's key driving motivations is to prove himself superior to Richards, who has always demonstrated that he's just that little bit smarter and better than Doom. In this case, the rivalry is far from unnoticed, although it's always Doom who actively plans and attempts to humiliate and subdue Reed, who is less interested in proving himself superior to Doom and in fact considers it a waste that Doom expends his still-impressive intellect on what amounts to little more than petty jealousy. It is worth noting, however, that Doom is an equally-powerful sorcerer, and is in fact more powerful than Richards in this respect. However, he still meets the basic nature of the trope, as he is obsessed with besting Richards entirely on his own terms, i.e. with science, and even when he uses his formidable skills in sorcery against Richards, Richards nevertheless manages to find some way to outwit him and win.
- Doctor Strange is Doom's Always Someone Better in magic, proving that Doom just can't win. You think he'd be happy being second in two disciplines to the world's best, but no.
  - Ha! TWO disciplines? Just how many scientific fields are Richards and Doom geniuses in? How many different magical disciplines are Strange and Doom masters of?
- Reed is also the Always Someone Better to The Wizard, who has actually given up on beating him with science and just wants him dead so he can be the best, resulting in a whole lot of Frightful Fours, one of which had five members. Reed is surprisingly calm about this, except when it's actually happening; he never sits around worrying about what the Wizard's going to do next.
- Speaking of Dr. Strange, it may be more appropriate to say that he's this to Baron Mordo (the other former disciple of the Ancient One) rather than Doom; Doom certainly obsesses less about Strange in particular than the not-so-good Baron does.
- Wait, how can Reed Richards always be better?
Similarly, this motivation is attributed to Lex Luthor's hatred of Superman, starting with John Byrne's reboot in the 1980s. Lex Luthor was the most powerful man in Metropolis, with even politicians and law enforcement afraid to cross him, until Superman arrived in town and not only showed Lex up but emboldened the police and mayor to stand up to Lex as well. In John Byrne's version of the first meeting between Lex and Superman, Lex tried to hire Superman as one more obedient employee, and he has never forgiven Superman for being the first person in Metropolis ever to dare to say "no" to him. This is further compounded by the fact that, over the years, Superman's increasing popularity has drastically overshadowed Lex.
A lot of British children's comics characters have fallen victim to this, due to the fact that many of them consist of groups of friends/sports teams/classes etc. where each character is centred around a particular attribute - clever, fat, short-sighted, whatever - and a common plot is to introduce them to an even more exaggerated version of themselves.
The Human Torch played this role in early Spider-man stories. No one character plays the role now.
The Authority basically assumed they were the baddest asses in the Wildstorm universe, and everyone else in the Wildstorm universe thought that way too. And then they met a guy named Captain Atom...

Film

The movie Excalibur, Merlin warns Arthur, "You must remember, there's always something cleverer than yourself." This was a particularly prescient warning since it was the first time Arthur faced Lancelot.
Lancey Howard in The Cincinnati Kid.
The former Trope Namer for this trope was Minnesota Fats from The Hustler.

Literature

The concept was subverted in the Hercule Poirot novel The Big Four, when Poirot mentions his older brother Achille as being a better detective than he is; the only visual difference, he claims, is that Achille doesn't have a mustache and has a scarred lip. Near the end, when the villains have captured Hastings and Poirot, Hastings realizes that they captured Achille instead - only to have it revealed that Achille doesn't exist; in order to fool the villains, Hercule shaved off his mustache and scarred his own lip. Hastings probably should have realized something was up when Poirot, the biggest egomaniac in literature, started describing someone as better... This idea was likely inspired by Mycroft Holmes; Poirot gives a Shout Out to him by noting, "Don't all great detectives have a brother better at it than them?"
The novel (later turned into a film) Hating Alison Ashley is based on this.
The Shadow Club by Neil Shusterman was devoted to this concept, with seven second-best children being driven to incredible lengths to humiliate their better. They start off sympathetic, one girl is even being ignored by her parent and step-parent DURING THEIR WEDDING because of her superior cousin, but they ultimately begin to cause serious harm to their rivals, and nearly kill one of them and an innocent bystander.
- Then, for extra fun, a sequel is made in which the better arrives who is better than EVERYONE at EVERYTHING. When he too is targeted, the adults suspect the former Shadow Club of being the cause, but they are surprisingly innocent and the main character begins sleuthing to figure out who is trying to frame them.
After blowing through military academy in record time and without finding anyone who can match his strategic genius, the titular protagonist of Enders Game meets a strange old man in Command School, who catches him off guard and beats him up. Turns out the old guy is Mazer Rackham, the hero from the last war against the aliens, whose victory Ender is being groomed to repeat. His introduction is awesome:
Ender: I've had too many teachers, how was I supposed to know you'd turn out to be a-
Mazer Rackham: An enemy, Ender Wiggin. I am your enemy, the first one you've ever had that was smarter than you. There is no teacher but the enemy. No-one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do. No-one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you. I am your enemy from now on. From now on, I am your teacher.
- Ender himself is the Always Someone Better to every other student in battle school (with the possible exception of Bean), especially Bonzo.
In Timothy Zahn's The Thrawn Trilogy, part of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, we are introduced to Winter Celchu, Leia's aide and a friend from childhood, who had been invaluable during the less certain times of the Rebellion. Leia, when it comes to gracefulness and elegance, thinks of Winter as her Always Someone Better, as she can wake up in the middle of the night, leave her hair unbrushed, wear only a plain robe, and still seem more poised than Leia feels. Of course, Leia was lying in bed pregnant at the time...
- Another way she might be Leia's Always Someone Better is that due to her responsibilities, Leia had to leave her children with Winter quite often.
- In Outbound Flight, the domineering Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth has a twenty-two year old Padawan, Lorana Jinzler, who doubts herself and isn't given much encouragement. C'baoth, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and their respective Padawans meet up, and C'baoth approves of the fourteen-year-old Anakin, predicting that he'll be a Jedi Knight before he's twenty. Poor Lorana winces, remembering that her Master hasn't even hinted about her knighthood, and wonders if Anakin is really that much stronger in the Force.
Walter Tevis's fictional The Hustler, later made into a movie, focuses on protagonist Eddie Felson's goal to beat Minnesota Fats, the best pool player in America.
Early drafts of Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire had Hermione dealing with an Insufferable Genius who proved to be a match for her. See here for more details.
Interestingly, the egotistical Sherlock Holmes freely admits that Mycroft is better at his brand of deduction than Sherlock himself is. In turn, both brothers acknowledge that Sherlock is the energetic one, and that he gets results because he is willing to get up and do something (Mycroft is about as sedentary as they come). This largely averts the rivalry aspect of this trope.
- Although Mycroft is sedentary, he's far from inactive. Mention is made of his work for the government; which in modern terms most likely means Intelligence (in a modern setting, he'd probably be working for the SIS). So the two brothers do effectively similar work, Sherlock on a personal level, Mycroft on an international, governmental level.

Live Action TV

The Six Million Dollar Man episode "Day of the Robot" features a robot that's stronger than Steve's bionics. Also, on the Bionic Woman, the Fembots are stronger than Jaime Sommers.
In Friends, Chandler panics when Monica refers to a colleague as the funniest guy she's ever met.
Angel had the weird undefined demon-ish...thing The Immortal, who in his single not-quite-appearance managed to embody Spike and Angel's insecurities, by constantly one-upping them at everything they did—without even trying. He did both Darla and Drusilla while they were still seeing Angel and Spike respectively, and in the present day was supposed to be dating Buffy. The entire demon world, of course—and some of the magical world that wasn't fond of demons—fawned over him and considered him an idol. In a subversion, at the end of the episode, Spike and Angel were no more over their inferiority complex than before. (In fact, the whole episode played out like the writer had a huge cuckolding fetish.)
- Of course, later, it is established in the in-canon Buffy comics that the Immortal wasn't dating Buffy, Spike and Angel had been fooled by a Xanatos Gambit designed (by Andrew, of all people) to keep Buffy a bit safer.
It's subverted in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Superstar," when previously nerdly Jonathan shows up everyone on the cast. He even takes over the opening credits montage. Unfortunately, being perfect created an Evil Twin which doubled as his Kryptonite Factor, which only Buffy was able to destroy.
- On the other hand, the spell also seems to make Buffy weaker and generally less effective (it's implied that this is because Buffy never had to cope by herself what with Jonathan easily defeating every Big Bad from the Master onward). Even Super Jonathan probably isn't equal to normal Buffy.
  - Could be that there is only a finite amount of Awesome in the world, and for Jonathan to get so much requires taking it away from others. Him being good at killing vampires requires taking that ability from Buffy; him being a great basketball player requires some other star player become a benchwarmer; him starring in the Matrix means Keanu couldn't have done so; him being a genius takes away brainpower from Giles and Willow; him having the answers to everyone's relationship problems drains that psychologist that must be hiding somewhere in Sunnydale, etc.
  - While it doesn't really fit the above description, did that remind anyone else of Conservation Of Ninjitsu?
- Also in Buffy when other slayers turn up (ironically, since there is only supposed to be one slayer, so Buffy is not used to rivals). Kendra is the model slayer in contrast to Buffy's casual and rule-breaking attitude. Faith is much cooler and more fun than Buffy, telling stories of her naked demon-fighting exploits, fascinating all Buffy's friends and Buffy's boy-toy of the week, etc. However, averted in that Buffy turns out to be a better fighter than both.
  - While Faith effortlessly draws all the attention away from Buffy in the episode where she first appears, later in the season she is complaining that Buffy is her Always Someone Better. Apparently Faith is great at making a first impression, but Buffy is the one who can inspire long-term loyalty.
In the series Dream On, Martin Tupper's ex-wife Judith's new husband Richard was annoyingly perfect in every way.
Monk, Mr. Monk and the Other Detective - another detective starts showing up Monk at the scene of a crime, using clues such as smelling a bag of dog poop, smelling the dog itself, tasting mud, and other such egregious acts to deduce exactly what happened. It gets to a point where Monk accuses the man of cheating. Of course, it turns out he really is cheating...
- As mentioned above, Adrian's brother Ambrose might, in fact, have superior investigation skills, but is crippled by his severe agoraphobia.
- Inverted in "Mr. Monk and the Daredevil", where Monk is traumatised when he thinks that his arch-rival Harold Crenshaw (another OCD sufferer who goes to the same doctor as him) might have recovered from his condition, because "no matter how bad things got, I could always say to myself "at least I'm not Harold Crenshaw"".
Frasier: The new radio host Clint Webber is everything Frasier prides himself on being but more, (a polyglot, a gourmet chef, a great chess player, etc.) At the end of the episode Frasier has his revenge when he discovers that Clint's a terrible singer and tricks him into humiliating himself by suggesting he serenade Frasier's party-guests.
- Both Frasier and Niles live in terror of it some day being proven that one is Always Someone Better to the other, which is one of the contributing factors to their Sibling Rivalry. Once, it was revealed that Niles possessed a greater IQ than Frasier which, as they were meeting Nobel Laureates for lunch the next day, prompted much scrambling from each to prove that each was equal to / better than the other. The resulting chaos demonstrated that whilst Niles might have the edge in IQ, they were about equal for common sense and maturity.
In another example of the sibling being the rival, Rodney McKay's sister Jeannie is possibly even more brilliant than he is-but has chosen to settle down and have a family, rather than become a "real" scientist like hm.
An early episode of Scrubs has JD frustrated since even though he's at the top of his game there's another intern who keeps outshining him. However the other intern ends up not being able to handle the emotional stress of working with sick people, and quits.
- Scrubs also did a whole episode (My Catalyst) on this subject, with Michael J. Fox guesting as the super-medic who upstages Cox and outdoes Turk. However he suffers from OCD, which although contributing to his ability to learn medicine incredibly frustrates him, the moral being that even the best have problems of their own.
  - The main problem being that he can't even walk through a doorway without repeating it until it's perfect.
An episode of The Twilight Zone combines this with a case of be careful what you wish for when a pool player wishes he could play one game with a deceased pool champ and defeat him so that he can be considered the best in the world. He suddenly gets challenged to a game by the ghost of said champ with the stakes being that if he wins he will be considered the best in the world, but if he loses he will die. He wins, but finds out that it means taking the previous champ's place and having to spend the afterlife defending his title until someone else defeats him.
In an Everybody Loves Raymond episode, Debra hires a babysitter...then regrets the decision when the sitter turns out to be more popular with the kids than she is. And then she regrets the decision to let her go when she sees what the kids do to Marie when she babysits...
John Cleese guest-starred on 3rd Rock From The Sun as a new professor who was exactly like Dick, but way better in every way possible. At the end, it turned out he was another alien.
- In another episode, Hot Amazon Sally obsessed over trying to take down a buff woman, played by Chyna, who repeatedly subdued her effortlessly.
In Andromeda the Magog worldship proved this true to Rommie's chagrin.
Shawn Spencer of Psych encountered an FBI detective who was everything he wasn't in the episode Psy vs. Psy. He got to upstage her in the end.
In Firefly River makes Simon for whom "gifted is the term" look "like an idiot child". However that doesn't seem to bother him. He's just That Kind Of Big Brother.
Three's Company: Jack's brother was always "one upping" him.

Web Original

In LessThanThree Comics' Brat Pack, Firestorm is Lancer to Mr Perfect's Hero, and often finds himself in this type of relationship.
- Played somewhat straighter with Captain Awesome, who is Mr Perfect's Always Someone Better, he even has the same powerset as Mr Perfect, albiet at a much higher level.

Video Games

Often a source of frustration in virtually any online game. No matter what you do, there will always be someone with better reflexes, a quicker mind, or more practice. Being a true contender for the title of 'best' often requires absolutlely obscene time investment, leading to Stop Having Fun Guys.
This pretty much describes the relationship between Kieran and Oscar in Fire Emblem : Path of Radiance (and subsequently Radiant Dawn). Kieran is a loud, obnoxious man who challenges Oscar at every possible moment, yet Oscar isn't even aware of it until he breaks Kieran out of prison. Needless to say, he is indifferent to Kieran's continued proclamations.
Grandia 2's protagonist Ryudo has always been a lesser swordsman than his brother Melfice. This becomes a considerable problem when the group meets the now psychotic brother at various points in the game, generally leading to a Hopeless Boss Fight or two before Ryudo is finally able to defeat him.
Dias Flac is this to Claude in Star Ocean: The Second Story: A better swordsman, and another love interest for Rena (whom he has history with - Claude just showed up). Ultimately subverted in Rena's story, since when he joins your party Claude eventually surpasses him.
Ryu is this to a few characters in the Street Fighter series but the most blatant example is Sagat. Most of Sagat's motivation from Street Fighter II onward comes from Ryu beating him at the end of the first game, which doesn't sit very well with a guy who calls himself the Muay Thai King. Ryu is even Sagat's rival fight in Street Fighter IV because of this.
Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War has Larry "Solo Wing Pixy" Foulke, who starts off more famous/notorius than player character Cipher. Eventually, Cipher manages to become better, as demonstrated when Cipher in his F-15 squares off against Pixy in the Morgan and wins.
Unprovable, but it seems like Scarlet in Final Fantasy VII immediately hates Tifa for innocently being more Stripperific and better equipped for it than she without even trying. Well, there has to be some reason, and the way Scarlet dresses... Kind of a subversion, since played straight it would be more fitting the other way around.

Webcomics

Dora's brother Sven in Questionable Content is more popular with the opposite sex (often stealing Dora's friends) and better at earning money than his sister, a fact that bothers her to no end.
Played with in Sam and Fuzzy.

Western Animation

In The Simpsons, Lisa panics when a kid turns up who's smarter than she.
- Before the Flanderization for which he's named after had set in, Ned Flanders was very much an Always Someone Better to Homer. Flanders made more money, had a better house, better things, a more attractive (and still living) wife, better-behaved and more affectionate children — he had everything better than Homer. This was why Homer hated him so much. Ned's Christian faith was initially just the reason why Ned was too nice to realize all this. There was even an early episode where Homer makes Bart compete with Ned's son Todd in a miniature golf tournament that fits this trope to a T, especially when a loophole in a bet makes both him and Homer have to mow the other's lawn in a dress and Ned doesn't even mind that much.
- Lester and Eliza (they one-up Bart and Lisa, and then...)
- And there are at least two episodes (one appropriately called Smart And Smarter, this troper can't remember what the other one is) in which Maggie is shown to be smarter than Lisa.
In the Thomas The Tank Engine Moive The Great Discovery an engine named Stanley is introduced. The narrator describes him as "Shinier, bigger and stronger than Thomas". He's also instantly popular with all the other engines including the arrogant ones like Gordon and James. Thomas' jeliousy towards Stanly (which is amusingly similar to that of Homer Simpson's attitude towards Ned Flanders) is a major plot driving force of the film.
Kids Next Door, "Op DOGFIGHT" had a pilot known only as "The Kid" who kept shooting Numbuh Two down through most of the episode. It was never established whether he was truly a better pilot, or if it was due to his superior equipment. Given that Numbuh Two builds all his own aircraft, neither of those possibilities is easy for him to live down.
Batman The Animated Series had an Always Someone Better, the ninja Kyodai Ken, appear in two episodes: "Night of the Ninja" and "Day of the Samurai." Both times, Kyodai is built up as a fighter Batman cannot hope to beat. Batman beats him the first time by holding back until he can beat Kyodai without revealing his secret identity. The second time, he uses hidden armor to keep Kyodai from using a deadly pressure-point strike on him.
Whenever Gizmoduck guest stars on Darkwing Duck, there is an element of Always Someone Better to his role in the story. He is a truer, nobler, more all around impressive and famous Super Hero than Darkwing, apparently upstaging him without even noticing. On the first such occasion, Darkwing suffered the traditional inferiority complex that such a plot calls for, but after that episode disproved Gizmoduck's true superiority conclusively, Darkwing has since never shown any sign of Gizmoduck envy. Even so, during that first episode and every Gizmoduck episode since, Darkwing always resents him, treats him as unwelcome and unnecessary competition, even thinks of him as The Rival, despite Gizmoduck's routinely demonstrated and explicitly stated refusal to consider competitiveness as a motive fit for a true hero. This, if anything, only serves to infuriate Darkwing further, and despite Gizmoduck's repeated requests for mutually beneficial cooperation, he finds himself feuding with Darkwing again and again. It could be said that Darkwing himself is The Rival, and Gizmoduck is The Hero, despite the fact that Darkwing invariably triumphs in the end regardless of whether he agrees to team up with Gizmoduck, and in every episode where Gizmoduck is absent, Darkwing is unquestionably The Hero.
The episode "The Original Fry Cook" of Spongebob Squarepants has Spongebob, who is regarded as the best fry cook in Bikini Bottom, meet the Krusty Krab's first and best fry cook, named Jim.
One episode of G.I.Joe had a costumed crimefighter, "Serpentman" come out of nowhere and begin upstaging the Joes in their fight against COBRA, complete with a toadying news crew that followed him around everywhere, reporting on his successes. Naturally, it turns out to be another of Cobra Commander's schemes, intended to make the Joes look unnecessary and lose public support and government funding. What's great is that it actually works, until C.C. screws it all up.
Recess had an episode of this, where a new kid is introduced who is faster than Vince, smarter than Gretchen, stronger than Spinelli, and better at poetry then Mikey. It's revealed that the kid feels isolated because he's always better at everything, and at every school he goes to the same thing happens. Mikey points out that they should have all been more accepting. The episode ends with the kid getting a message from the Secret Service saying the president needs him. He gets into a jet, takes off, does a perfect barrel roll, and flies off.
In one episode of The Powerpuff Girls, the Girls found themselves upstaged by "Major Man", a fairly conventional Superman-type hero, to the extent that the Mayor even called the Girls to break off his (professional) relationship with them. Needless to say, Major Man was not all that he appeared, and once again the day was saved... no thanks to him.
Mandark in Dexter's Laboratory is originally introduced as one of these, smarter and more efficient than Dexter in nearly every field imaginable (to the point of being able to read Dexter's mind), and he even has a not-so-secret laboratory that's even larger than Dexter's. However, once Dexter discovers Mandark's weakness, a crippling infatuation with his older sister DeeDee, the tables were turned rather quickly. In subsequent appearances, Mandark's competence as The Rival was entirely dependent on the needs of the episode.
- And then came an episode where a female new student outdoes both of them, leading to some Roadrunner-esque attempts to take her out... until she says at the end she moved on to a different subject to excell at.
Jonas Venture Jr. in The Venture Brothers. Despite being eaten by his twin brother in the womb and spending 40 years inside him, within weeks of escaping he's already become a better super-scientist, has more friends, still has his hair, and is much more successful with the ladies (actually winning over Sally Impossible, the one female that Dr. Venture had any chance with). He even somehow has a better tan than Dr. Venture right after spending 40 years in his stomach.
- Phantom Limb was like this compared to the Monarch. Descendant of a long line of costumed adventurers, he was handsome, refined, had an intellect comparable to Jonas Jr., able to handle Brock at his own level, and was high enough in the Guild of Calamitous Intent's ranks to have direct command over its sizable forces. This was subverted, or deconstructed, when he lost Dr. Girlfriend to the Monarch because he was too refined and lacked the passion that the Monarch has. He was also sexist, mainly having Dr, Girlfriend around as glorified eye candy, unlike Monarch who listened to her ideas and respected her. The end of season two has him losing his career, and some limbs, when his take over attempt is foiled by a huge number of unexpected events. As season three showed he was disowned from by his family for having deformed limbs, a botched lab experiment brought them to normal size and granted him his death touch power.
  - Phantom Limb has returned is season 4 he has gone insane and really withered away; he has about as much muscle mass as the Monarch now. He was captured by the Guild.
In The Proud Family, Trudy hires a nanny named Renée. At first, she seems perfect for the job: She's a good housekeeper, great with Oscar and the kids, and knows exactly what to do when in trouble and when. Trudy gets upset, though, because she's too perfect, like an angel, and sends her back. Apparently, this wasn't the first time Renée's been given up because of the "Renée syndrome".
Cartman's alter-ego, Bulrog, hangs a lampshade on this in episode 801 of South Park when he invents powers for himself that are "better than Kyle's."
In an episode of Captain N The Game Master, Kevin teams up with his video game hero, Link, and proceeds to show up the elf at every junction as they venture through Hyrule, meaning well the whole time. Of course, Kevin is the Canon Sue and can do no wrong in Nintendo Land...
- And of course, it was Link who had to learn to move past his jealousy and accept Kevin.
In the '80s cartoon of Alvin And The Chipmunks, Alvin encountered one of these in the person of a boy named Apollo Jones, who kept beating him at everything. It turned out that Apollo genuinely envied Alvin because Alvin had one thing he himself lacked - a family that could be bothered with him. Apollo's parents were rarely home and sent him extremely generic postcards from wherever they went. ("Dear Son, Congratulations on whatever it is you've done well lately.")
Futurama has "Barbados Slim" as a limbo rival for Hermes. Slim generally outshines Hermes at everything, and is a real jerk about it too. He eventually goes so far as to steal his wife in the first movie, who he had previously been married to before Hermes came along.
- Well, he does have Olympic Gold medals in limbo AND sex.
Lila was introduced like this in Hey Arnold!. Helga, Phoebe, Rhonda and all the other girls were jealous of her beauty, her cute dresses and her sweet disposition and ostracized her out of jealousy. It turns out Lila envied them because she not only was very shy, she had a sad home life with a Missing Mom and a sweet yet unemployed single dad.
Bromwell High had a girl like this show up in one episode. She was middle-class, and therefore bested the girls at each of their defining qualities (cleverer than Natella, more powerful than Keisha, and more alluring than Latrina). The girls dealt with her by calling her parents to tell them all the horrible things that happen at the school.
In Justice League Unlimited, Captain Marvel is this for Superman, in that by the time Marvel shows up, people no longer hold the same adoration for Superman they once had, and that Marvel is a breath of fresh air. Marvel is given great respect (even from Batman!), especially for his innocent nature (since Marvel is really, you know, a young boy). When Marvel and Superman fight (due to a misunderstanding/Xanatos Gambit), Marvel nearly beats Superman due to his magical nature, but ultimately loses.
Big Bad Vlad Masters of Danny Phantom is the better of the two half ghosts. Better fighter, better strategist, better brains and brawn. Having twenty more years of experience certainly helps. Danny eventually grows in power and is able to go toe-to-toe with him.
In Lilo and Stitch the Series, Stitch ends up thinking too highly of himself with his cousin catching success. Jumba, fed up with Stitch's obnoxious attitude, creates experiment 627, a red and yellow, conehead, purple-nosed experiment that looks like a bigger, badder, and worse-mannered version of Stitch but with powers from 20 different experiments but absolutely none of stitch's weaknesses, 6 retractable arms, an extra retractable HEAD!, inabilitiy to drown in water, and an Alien based retractable mouth. As his villainous rival, 627 dances a humiliation conga around Stitch as he bests him at everything he does. In the end, Stitch manages to outwit him by taking advantage of his extreme sense of humor and dehydrated him back into an exmperiment pod. Afterwards, towards the end of the episode Jumba creates another experiment pod labeled "628" and locks it away in his vault.

Mythology

In West African Mythology, the Trickster Anansi was the most cunning animal in the land, until his son was born, who was clever enough to best his father at every opportunity. His name was even "Cunnie-mo'n-father". Guess that makes this trope Older Than Dirt.
In Greco-Roman Mythology, there is the classic story of Athena and Arachne. Arachne is the greatest human weaver. She even goes on to boast that she is more than a match for the Goddess Minerva (Athena) herself. The Goddess hears about this, and decides to come down and give her a chance to apologize. Arachne challenges her to a Weave-off, and the two go to work. In Arachne's weave, she shows the gods at their absolute worsts, and her skill seems equal to the Goddess. In a fit of rage, Minerva rips up Arachne's weave and turns the woman into a spider, cursing her to weave forever.

Real Life