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Mugging The Monster / Comic Books

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  • On several occasions in 100 Bullets, people have tried to mug Lono. He either kills them on the spot or tracks them down later for some graphic on-panel fun.
  • Asterix
    • A Running Gag with the poor pirates who always end up attacking the ship the Gauls are on. They most often end up punched a bit and their ship sinking. After a while, they'd rather sink the ship themselves to avoid the punches.
    • Before the pirates even made an appearance, in Asterix and the Golden Sickle, Asterix and Obelix are traveling toward Lutetia and are attacked a few times by brigands or barbarians. The two Gauls don't even deign making a pause in their conversation and keep walking while they casually slap around the first group of muggers.
  • Benoit Brisefer: The various villains in the series frequently underestimate Benoit because he looks like an ordinary young boy, and find out the hard way he is anything but.
  • Black Moon Chronicles: Wishmerhill visits a powerful mage who claims to know where to find the oracle. The mage drugs him and straps him to a device intending to drain his lifeforce. He didn't know that Wismerhill possessed powers far beyond an ordinary half-elf.
  • In an early chapter of Bone, Phoney Bone, lost in the Valley, decides to ask directions from the Great Red Dragon, a powerful being who is also the only thing that strikes fear in the hearts of the sinister rat creatures who are after him. He proceeds to ask for information in the most condescending way possible, insulting the dragon with every syllable, as the dragon gets more and more visibly irritated, with ever greater amounts of smoke rising from his nostrils. Luckily, Ted comes along and steers Phoney away before he's burnt to a cinder.
  • A Running Gag in Cattivik with the titular protagonist often mugging more than he can chew. In a lampshaded subversion, Cattivik attacks a seemingly random, defenseless civilian... who, fed up by this stereotype, proceeds to take Cattivik's hammer from him and use it to beat him to a pulp to show that just because he was a random civilian he wasn't defenseless.
  • In the first issue of Cerebus the Aardvark, someone makes the mistake of grabbing Cerebus's tail. He was bleeding pretty badly from the stump where Cerebus cut off his hand.
  • All the way back from 1953, the cover of Crime Mysteries #10 gives a pretty literal and straightforward instance of this trope. A masked gangster tells a couple "Okay, folks - this is a stick-up!" What he can't see is that the couple are a werewolf and a vampire.
    Werewolf: HAW! Watch that punk's face when we turn around!
    Vampire: Tee-hee!
  • The Darkness: In an interesting variation, Jackie Estacado's sidekick Wenders is threatened on two separate occasions for being openly gay. Wenders himself has no powers, but he is saved each time, first by the surprising ability of Darklings to leap out of his Cell phone and devour the muggers and the second time by everyone in the diner he was in spontaneously catching on fire.
  • Once in a while Diabolik or Eva are mugged by someone who doesn't know who they are. If Diabolik and Eva have no need to keep cover, the muggers will get summarily beat up or, if they're in a hurry, drugged up, assuming Diabolik won't draw out his knives and kill them on the spot. Then there were two guys desperate for money who had been hired to assassinate someone Diabolik had replaced and had a few encounters with him before finding out who they were dealing with...
    "Blow me down! We were trying to kill Diabolik!"*drinks some whiskey*
  • Disney Ducks Comic Universe: A Running Gag in the classic Paperinik New Adventures stories: whoever is Paperinik's current enemy enters some place thinking it will be an easy victory, only to find out Paperinik got him to attack someone far beyond their ability to take. Examples include two cops trying to arrest Paperinik only to barge in the bedroom of the chief of the police and the Beagle Boys barging in what they believe is Paperinik's house to try and catch him unarmed only to find out it's the home of a member of the national American Football team who has some fellow national team players as guests. Then there are bandits from out of city who take on Paperinik expecting him to be just a buffoon with a ridiculous costume instead of Donald Duck armed with superhero gadgets and looking to vent some frustration on bandits...
  • The setup of FreakAngels is somewhere between this and Bullying a Dragon. The government obviously knows that the children are dangerous. That's why they are going after them, they're concerned they are a national security risk. But no-one, including the Freak Angels themselves, realize just how world-wreckingly dangerous they are.
  • In one issue of Gen¹³, as Fairchild is walking along by the street, a group of guys decide to "invite her into their car", and when she turns them down they make it clear that they're not asking. Cue their shock as she drags the car behind her to the police station while they're trying to gun it in reverse.
  • Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1977) had this happen when the big G was temporarily shrunk by Hank Pym's Applied Phlebotinum. The Tagalong Kid had "disguised" the lizard in a trenchcoat and hat, then lost Godzilla in New York City. Godzilla wanders down the wrong back alley, and Hilarity Ensues.
  • Grendel:
    • Hunter Rose was mugged once when he went out for a stroll in an effort to cure his writer's block. Brutally killing the muggers was exactly what he needed.
    • In a Shout-Out to Terminator, Batman/Grendel II has Grendel Prime mugged by a biker gang as soon as he materialises in Gotham City. This meant he didn't have to go looking for transport and weapons. Of course, the fact that the biker gang were willing to mug an eight-foot-tall, powerfully-built man dressed from head to foot in black leather, including a full-face mask, probably says something about Gotham.
  • The Dutch cartoon Humor in Beroepen: Politie ("Humor in Jobs: Police") contains a number of "unlucky crook" tales. But the best one is about a crook whom first tries to rob an elderly lady and gets beaten into submission with an umbrella, then tries some car-jacking while the (very large) owner is standing behind him, and finally tries to rob a young lady only to be sent flying with a karate kick. In the last panel he is at the police station complaining that his neighborhood has gotten too dangerous.
  • In I Feel Sick, the same Sickness that controlled Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, and gave him his freedom from being caught for his murders, tries to strike a similar deal to enslave Devi. Devi instead seals Sickness inside of herself and informs it that if it wants to be a part of her it has to be as much of a slave to her art as her and leaves its eyes in a mason jar on her desks forcing it to watch her art. Then again she also beat the snot out of Johnny when he tried to kill her so perhaps it wasn't the best to try and claim her mind.
  • In John Wick a rude and abrasive hitman is waiting for his steak as he discusses an assassination with a colleague. When he sees someone got a pie before him he starts berating the waitress and then turns his sights on the man and starts aggravating and goading him. As you can guess that man is John Wick, and as you can also guess the next time they meet, it isn't pretty.
  • Judge Dredd: Towards the end of the Dark Judges story "The Torture Garden", the survivors of Dominion lure them into pursuing them down a cave containing "Stink Bugs", pheral humanoid aliens which primarily feed on rotting meat. The four zombies are initially startled when they get jumped, but dispose of the creatures pretty quickly.
  • Lucky Luke sometimes defeats random bandits. In one case, he travels through a mountain pass, casually disarming Indians and bandits while monologuing to his Cool Horse. When he arrives at his destination, he expresses surprise at being told there were bandits in that pass, and can't explain where the arrow in his hat came from. But then again, he is an Invincible Hero...
  • Near the end of Alan Moore's run on Miracleman, some kids bully Jonathan Bates at an orphanage until he can't take it anymore and unleashes his murderously psychotic superpowered alter-ego Kid Miracleman.
  • Mortadelo y Filemón's comic El Bacilón has the title character (a gigantic, anthropomorphic green monster) walk around the seedy parts of the city; a mugger targets him, but since he is waiting behind a corner, he only hears it walking. He becomes a Running Gag along the episode and eventually turns mad due to both the monster and Mortadelo disguised as a big animal.
  • In Red Sonja: Blue the main character and her companion are attacked by a gang of robbers while traversing through a forest. Since she is not wearing her signature Chainmail Bikini, the bandits don't believe her claim that she is Red Sonja, a mistake that costs them their lives.
  • In Shaman's Tears, a street gang attempts to mug Joshua Brand while he is meditating in Central Park. As Joshua has the power to call on the abilities of any animal, this ends badly for them.
  • In Silverblade #2, two muggers decide they want Silverblade's cape and pull knives and force him into an alley. They immediately regret this as Jonathan transforms first into a mummy and then a prize fighter to deal with them. The cop he leaves them with remarks that one of them has had his jaw broken.
  • Street Fighter:
    • In one of the comics by UDON, this happens to some thugs and Chun Li.
    • At one point during his travels across the world, Ryu is challenged by a cocky Kushti wrestler. The fight isn't seen, but implicitly it doesn't end well for the wrestler.
  • The very first thing readers see in the very first issue of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Mirage) is the Heroes in a Half Shell being accosted by a bunch of thugs from the Purple Dragons street gang. The thugs think the Turtles are just a bunch of weirdos in costumes, and the sequence ends with the police finding what's left of the Purple Dragons.
  • Happens from time to time in Usagi Yojimbo, as you'd expect of a Samurai genre epic.
    • In the Grasscutter arc, Gen finds the remains of a bandit gang who apparently tried to rob the demonic entity Jei. He comes upon a multitude of corpses strewn like so many broken dolls, their faces frozen in abject terror, their eyes wide and staring out into nothing in horror that is plain and striking even (or especially) with Stan Sakai's deceptively simplistic art style. Adding blood to the scene would have arguably detracted from it by, ironically, making it far more cartoonish.
    • When Usagi was still a student and traveling with his mentor Katsuichi, they were menaced by four thugs who demanded the food the two samurai were carrying. However, Katsuichi averts the trope by offering them the food. Still looking for trouble, the thugs take Usagi hostage and bring a Single-Stroke Battle on themselves.
    • In another aversion, Usagi once peaceably handed a bag he was carrying to a thief. He contented himself with a very easily-misunderstood Badass Boast:
      Usagi: Nothing in here is worth a person's life. Here, take it.
  • Vampirella
    • In one story, a serial rapist/slasher was on the loose and Vampirella wandered through the park playing the easy victim. No bets how this ended for him.
    • The first issue of Vampirella Lives by Warren Ellis combines this trope with Mistaken for Prostitute. Vampirella and her guide are accosted by a group of ravenous vampires who assume she is a prostitute because of her attire. She proceeds to slaughter them all with the help of her ally.
    • In the 2019 Vampirella run, Vampirella is approached by a disgusting homeless addict in a subway who is clearly considering raping her. After going along with it and Showing Some Leg, she eats him.
  • In Volume 2, Issue 1 of Witch Girls Adventures, a group of gang members try to mug a group of the eponymous witch girls. Most of the girls respond by using flashy but harmless magic to scare or force them into submission, but Princess Lucinda — the team's Heroic Comedic Sociopath — responds by turning one of them into a bug and another into a frog, with the expected results; the one that got turned into a bug was especially Too Dumb to Live because he actively charged Lucinda after all his other friends save one were summarily dispatched by the girls' magic and he knew just how dangerous they actually were. Then, just to seal the deal, he taunted his friend who had been turned into a frog.
  • In an issue of the eighties horror comic Tales of Terror, terrorists hijack a plane...on which everyone, crew and passengers, is a vampire.

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