Sushi is Serious Business to this guy.
"Reed... RICHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARDS!"
— Doctor Doom, providing another fine page quote for this useless wiki!
When a character always goes into a rage over a certain minor thing, you've hit their Berserk Button.
The following have their own pages:
Star Wars Expanded Universe:
- Star Wars: Kanan: Don't call Caleb "Kid," he was already sick of it before he left temple with Master Billaba since he was younger than the others taking the tests at the same time as him and his classmates used the term to dismiss him. Unfortunately after Order 66 was issued but before he took up the name Kanan "kid" ended up being the safest "name" his new friend could use to refer to him.
Other
- Archie Comics: Willie Wilkins of That Wilkin Boy REALLY hates when Sampson Smythe deliberately mispronounces his surname as "Wilkins". He can even hear him call him that when he isn't in hearing range.
- This trope forms a large part of the humour in Asterix.
- Never call Obelix fat, unless you want to be on the receiving end of a Megaton Punch. His chest's just slipped a bit, that's all.
- Never harm a tree in front of Obelix's dog, Dogmatix. The little canine will sink his teeth into your buttocks, after which Obelix will bash your face in for upsetting his pet.
- Whenever anyone points out the fact that Unhygienix's fish are not fresh, a brawl ensues. In Asterix in Corsica, we learn that this is his young son's Berserk Button, too.
- Cacofonix announcing that he's going to sing acts as a universal Berserk Button for the entire village, especially Fulliautomatix. At a certain point, the gods are annoyed at this too, since it starts raining when he sings.
- Geriatrix may look like a feeble old guy, but make ga-ga eyes at his young hot wife, and he might stick his walking stick up your where the sun don't shine. Also, do not call him old.
- Asterix and the Roman Agent, in which the latter half of the title (a fellow called Tortuous Convolvulus) can create disputes and brawls simply by showing up, is practically a guide to the characters' berserk buttons. Including Julius Caesar's ("GULLIBLE, ME?!?"). He has a pride thing.
- Don't ask a Gaul where Alesia is. Alesia is the place where Vercingetorix was defeated by the Romans in Real Life. Apart from Asterix and Obelix. Asterix because he is not immaturely patriotic to have it and Obelix because he is too oblivious to have it. Part of the joke was that when it as written it wasn't clear where Alesia was and the author gave this as an explanation.
Gaul: What Alesia! What do you want from Alesia! I don't even know where it is Alesia. - In Astro City, Bugman Palmetto hates being called a roach. It's implied that this is actually because that's an ethnic slur against Latin-Americans, rather than because he's a giant roach man.
- Trapping Pakrat of the Atari Force second series in a corner causes him to come out fighting.
- In Atomic Robo, Jenkins is usually professional, but he has a few. One, don't bring him paperwork. Two, don't kill his orchid. Three, if you so much as suggest that Robo isn't a person, it may not go well for you.
- In Bad Guys, The Russian is a centuries-old vampire; many legends have grown about his exploits. Say the word "Dracula" or even so much as hint that he is or might be Dracula and he will murder you.
- Don't call Barb Wire "babe."
- Despite it being his name of his heroic identity and the title of the book, Cody Dillon will pick a fight with you if you call him Bouncy Ball Man when he's not wearing the costume.
- Darkwing Duck comics. Wanna see a goofy villain turn downright frightening? Be around Quackerjack and mention "Negaduck".
- Don't compare Empowered to JLo, or say anything else that might be misunderstood as "you're fat".
- Don't say anything about Sistah Spooky's race. Don't be a beautiful blonde girl. And so on.
- In FreakAngels, calling KK by her real name causes her to immediately go for your throat.
- Hunter Rose and Argent were essentially each other's Berserk Buttons in Grendel. Virtually everything and anything either one said or did to the other would set them off.
- In Get Jiro!, Jiro takes sushi and sushi-etiquette very seriously. He regularly kills customers for their bad manners — asking for california rolls being the nail in the coffin in these cases — and when he sees International customers eating sushi, he can only gawk in horror.
- Groo is not a mendicant. Not even after he finds out what it means.
- Brian is the resident table flipper, but the best way to set him off is to mention his former imaginary girlfriend, Alexis.
- Hybrid Force: Thorn doesn't like it when people take his mask off. In one issue, when he regains consciousness and finds out he's not wearing his mask, he freaks out.
- In Legend of the Five Rings, do not call Shosuro Yudoka or any of his subordinates a ninja. He absolutely hates that term, despite the fact that he's the Scorpion Clan's resident ninja master.
- Joe Dalton from Lucky Luke has a Hair-Trigger Temper already, but the mere mention of Luke will make him sees red. One reason why the Daltons, who otherwise are stupid but accurate gunslingers, can't hit Luke is because Joe becomes so enraged he empties his revolver blindly at that cowboy's direction.
- Monica from the Brazilian comic Monica's Gang. Don't comment on her weight, height, or how big her teeth are, if you don't want a girl to beat you up using a plush rabbit.
- Mortadelo y Filemón: Do not fail any mission the Super has assigned to you. Cruel and unusual punishment doesn't even begin to describe what he will do to you.
- Bats in Mouse Guard will absolutely flip out if it's suggested they aren't trustworthy. According to their own version of history, they were rejected by both sides in the war between land animals and birds due to be considered untrustworthy for no better reason than their appearance, and the fact that others continue to distrust them is an extreme racial sore spot.
- In Seconds, in the timelines where Max and Katie are married, any insinuations that the second restaurant belongs to only Katie as opposed to the two of them instantly put Max in a crappy mood.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): Do NOT harm Snively's hair. Not unless you want him to come after you with an Egg Lobster.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW):
- Comic-exclusive villains Rough and Tumble hate it whenever Sonic and co. imitate the duo's rhyming shtick. Tumble is equally frustrated that several of the heroes have long, bushy tails and he doesn't.
- The comic-exclusive heroine Belle the Tinkerer knows that her creator, Mr. Tinker, was never more than an amnesiac Dr. Eggman, but adamantly insists she was made by the former and not the latter, and she angrily lashes out if someone suggests otherwise.
- In the Nintendo Power comic run of Star Fox, calling Fox ‘Junior’ is known to piss him off immensely.
- Star Trek (IDW): Just like the 2009 film, Hendorff is visibly embarrassed when Kirk calls him "cupcake". Kirk later uses this as a deliberate motivator to get Hendorff to beat up Romulan guards in the "Vulcan's Vengeance" arc.
- Tintin:
- Professor Calculus ("Tournesol" in the original French) gets mad when someone suggests he is "acting the goat." Given the professor's notoriously poor hearing, he is likely to blow up if he hears the phrase "acting the goat" — or anything that sounds remotely similar — used in any context. Another berserk button is getting his hat knocked off.
- Also Captain Haddock if you take away his whisky.
- Death's Head from the Transformers and Marvel comics hates it when people call him a Bounty Hunter. He insists on being called a "Freelance Peacekeeping Agent" yes?; people who call him a Bounty Hunter never do so twice.
- The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye:
- Following the events of The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers, Overlord has become a great big walking button for Fortress Maximus, in any capacity. He bashes Whirl's head in for just saying his name, and kicks off a hostage situation by assaulting five bots just for looking vaguely similar to Overlord.
- Nothing sets Chromedome off like somebody hurting Rewind or Prowl's manipulations. When the latter presses both buttons in The Transformers: Dark Cybertron, Domey responds by powerbombing Prowl off a cliff and beating the scrap out of him.
- The Decepticon Justice Division has a shared one in the form of turncoats. They were persuaded by Brainstorm to spare the quantum-duplicate Lost Light crew in exchange for killing Overlord, and were going to do just that, but seeing Drift made them lose their shit and massacre the crew.
- Tarn, the leader of the DJD, has two very big buttons. First, asking him to take off his mask, and insinuating he's a coward for wearing it, which will get you turned right back over to the more sadistic DJD members for execution. Second, and far more dangerous, implying he doesn't know what it means to be a Decepticon; when Tesarus questions him on leaving Vos and Kaon behind on Ofsted XVII, Tarn nearly murders him on the spot. All the more unnerving, as instead of vocally building to an explosion of Unstoppable Rage, Tarn gets quieter and quieter throughout.
- Megatron's hatred of mnemosurgery (a method of reading and manipulating a Cybertronian's memories) is half this and half Trauma Button, as when he's not curled up into a ball out of fear, he's ripping apart whoever he believes is attempting to mess with his head. This is because back when he was just a miner and part-time poet speaking out against the corrupt senate, Megs almost got his entire mind wiped clean by a senate-employed mnemosurgeon.
- Ravage hates being treated like an animal, and he especially hates petting.
- De Argonautjes: DO. NOT. INSULT. HERCULES’. PET CAT! Really, don’t. Doesn't matter how much of a pacifist he usually is, it could very well be the last thing you ever do.
- PS238: While he's hardly an angel of good temperament on the best of days, any mention of his parents causes Zodon to completely lose his temper and immediately shut down any conversation. For those interested, he brain-washed and sent his parents to an Alternate Dimension because they got upset by his Evil Genius behaviour in an extremely twisted Pet the Dog moment. Even when he's forced to reveal their existence to some of his class-mates it's shown as an extremely touchy subject to him.
- Xs Omnibus: X goes insane every time someone calls him an AI Spotify DJ, an owl, a crappy Twitter rebrand, et cetera...
