Bullying A Dragon / Webcomics

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• The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: In a flashback story, we see a very young, inexperienced, and suicidally overconfident Doc continually attack a ghost wizard. A ghost wizard his grandfather explicitly told him they were no match for and had already talked out of smiting them. The elder McNinja seals the ghost at the cost of Doc's name and his own life.
• Han from Archipelago seems constitutionally unable to stop bullying people who can kill him gruesomely, like weresharks or captain Snow. He only survives so long because he's a fast runner. There's also Salvo, a captain of the quillotian guard (Nepotism is to blame) who not only bullies weresharks, but is also rude to an actual dragon.
• Aurora: Zuurith twice attempts to bully beings much stronger than him:
  • First Tynan, who pulls a Screw the Rules, They're Not Real! and casually destroys his body.
  • And later Vash, which prompts a full speech on what a stupid move that is.
  Vash: Is there a reason you're prioritizing me over your crumbling city?
  Zuurith: A reason? This is MY domain, Fairblade. Your vessel was a mere insult, but to trespass directly is tantamount to war.
  Vash: War with WHAT? What do you think I AM, Zuurith? I have no domain, nobody to protect and nothing to lose. And the killer aiming to vivisect me very carefully preserved me at the apex of my power. Do you seriously think we're comparable anymore?
  Zuurith: ...You-
  Vash: You can stretch your body to the breaking point, but you can never really leave your city. But I don't have a city anymore. All I have is a body and a sword. Whatever I became when my city died-I'm free. (turns to Tynan) So YOU'D better not try anything unless you want me hunting you down. It might be fun pretending I have a purpose again. (turns back to Zuurith) And YOU. I tried my hardest to save my people, and I still lost them. Did you even TRY? If you don't start protecting them-ALL of them-I WILL come back here and protect them from YOU.
• In Batman and Sons, Superman relates all the nasty things Batman has done to him ("always reminding me I'm not human...sticking Kryptonite in my locker after painting it with lead...calling me a naive Farm Boy who's had his head under too many cows' behinds to know any better"), passing it off as him being "such a kidder."
  Lois: Clark, you're in denial.
  Superman: It keeps me from killing him, Lois.
• DICE: The Cube That Changes Everything: After losing in academics, Jungnam spends a lot of money to send his school's students (all non-Dicers) against the transfered Dongtae and Mio. Both fights were over really in an instant. Then he decides to take Dongtae on himself and even has to be saved by him from falling off stairs.
• The title character from Ursula Vernon's Digger did this to a powerful demon.
• DNA: Rigel does this to the other kids, even though he doesn't have super powers like the others. It backfires when he does this to Lukas. Sirius tries to protect the others from Rigel, but Rigel doesn't care because this gets Sirius in trouble for fighting. Rigel bullies Orion the most of all of the kids, but it is pointed out by Sirius that Orion could easily kill Rigel if he fought back.
• Stunt and Bumper in Dominic Deegan insistently kept trying to rob the eponymous character, despite them knowing he's a capable magic user who can see the future. The stuff they kept stealing would inevitably be worthless and booby-trapped.
• Enemy Quest: On Zack's first date with GG, an eight foot tall Warrior woman, a drunk, angry redneck starts harassing her. The same thing happens again on Zack's first date with Polyphema, a woman who can shoot Eye Beams and make Your Head Asplode.
• The entire Elven race in Errant Story: In the aftermath of the final battle, after being saved from genocide, they threaten the one who nearly single-handedly saved them with death unless she gave up the power she used to save them. Meji, the woman in question, wearily tells them they have more important (and possible) things to do, like rescuing trapped survivors. And if they ever came after her or any other half-elf again, she'd strike them dead with no warning or hesitation.
• Everyday Heroes: Alpha Bitch Angela and her girl posse constantly pick on Summer (Super-Strength and Eye Beams) and Carrie (super-strong Prehensile Hair), despite the fact that either of them could take her apart with little effort. And also despite the fact that she comes out on the wrong end of those altercations more often than not (verbally and physically).
• Faux Pas: While Randy and Cindy are teaching their kits to hunt some mice get the idea of offering to be their friends in order to save their own lives. One mouse named Brutus gets the impression that they're wimps and threatens Ash instead, he doesn't live long after that.
• Girl Genius:
  • Some people mistreated Jägermonsters just because they used to be afraid of the Heterodynes' supersoldiers and think they have the upper hand right now. Jägers, while hanged, are more afraid of meeting their own communication officer. Who, naturally, arrives — riding a giant bear — and after she asks politely to enter the town, one guard shoots. After she catches the arrow, another lad screams "fire!", so of course Hilarity Ensues.
  • The prize, though, goes to the Wulfenbach troops commander who, due to being on the wrong end of a Curb-Stomp Battle, screams to fall back and wait for an airstrike. When a Jäger General looking like Big Red Devil says they're now "asking for it", the bright guy adds an insult to his hometown. Though maybe he just figured out he'd be dead either way.
  • One of Martellus's advisors ordered his fleet to fire on a Corbetite monastery as "an initial show of power" before beginning negotiations. The Corbetites have two missions: operating trains across the Europan Wastelands and sealing away some of the most dangerous Spark creations ever invented. The monks prove they are both Sparky and hard enough to take on nearly anything the Wasteland can throw at them, downing nine airships before Martellus deals with the idiot.
• Grrl Power: This trope is one of the reasons Maxima (the strongest super in the comic) carries a revolver. When Sydney asks why she bothers when she can literally move faster and hit harder than any normal bullet, Maxima demonstrates: First by pointing a Finger Gun at her, to Sydney's confusion^note Sydney has seen Max evaporate tanks with an energy blast from those fingers. When she swaps that finger for the far-less powerful gun, Sydney ducks out of the way and berates Max for pointing a gun at her. An amused Max calmly explains that that reaction is why she has the gun: Despite public displays of what she can do, there's always some lout who sees an unarmed woman and thinks "I can take her." The sight of a gun gives them just enough mental pause to avoid that.
• Gunnerkrigg Court:
  • Jack, who made an accidental trip into Zimmy's world, viciously teases Kat (whose parents are teachers) and Annie (who is friends with two godlike Trickster Mentors as well as most of the staff). Earlier he edged into Too Dumb to Live territory when he threatened Annie in front of one of the said trickster mentors, who was a giant wolf at the time (he casually brushed it off. Once you've been to Zimmy's world nothing in this one can scare you). Later justified when it's revealed that Jack was possessed by a spider-like thing from Zimmy's World that was gradually eating away at his sanity.
  • A flashback had a student (coincidentally Jack's father) teasing Surma's group after one of them conjured a giant portal. It's confirmed that the portal-conjuring student is a Valkyrie and her "Old Man" is Odin.
  • Annie does this to Coyote a lot: she's well aware of just how powerful he is, but he's such a jokester most of the time that she doesn't take him seriously. Usually Coyote finds this to be hilarious, but it has been hinted that Annie is walking a dangerously fine line in treating him this way. In one instance Coyote summons Annie to the forest, then reveals that it's only to have her tell him stories about himself. When Annie protests, and suggests that Ysengrin could do just as well, Coyote insults Ysengrin, and then tries to intimidate Annie. Annie flicks Coyote's nose, prompting an Oh, Crap! reaction from Ysengrin and (apparently) sending Coyote into a rage. He's faking, but he then proceeds to set up a situation where Annie almost gets killed by a genuinely enraged Ysengrin.
  • In a flashback, Jones flatly overrules a Psychopomp who comes for the recently deceased Mort, and is backed up by a representative of the Realm of the Dead, on the basis of seniority. Justified since she's a Time Abyss with Complete Immortality, and therefore has absolutely nothing to fear from them.
• I Don't Want This Kind of Hero: The reason criminals know better than to target a hero's loved ones? They tried it on Dana when she was a teenager, endangering a baby Hyena at the time. She responded by wiping out three crime syndicates in one day.
• I'm the Grim Reaper: In episode 41, Brook faces the repercussions of this the hard way, after he basically mocks and provokes Scarlet's demon side into coming out, which she has no control over, leading to her ripping him apart, killing an alleyway of non-sinners, and nearly killing Chase.
• In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! Galatea takes potshots at a Sufficiently Advanced Alien spaceship. This ends poorly for her.
• In JL8, a group of kids playing baseball argue over whether or not they just saw an errant foul ball bounce off Clark's head, without Clark even noticing (It did, and he didn't). One of them decides it would be a good idea or "at the very least... pretty funny" to throw directly at Clark's head to see for sure. Clark probably would've shrugged that kind of dickery off. Unfortunately for him, Diana caught the ball. The little idiot then compounds his stupidity when Diana yells at him, by insulting the girl he just saw barehand catch a fastball without flinching (with his friends begging him to back off the entire time). Cue Diana putting the junior Jerkass in his place (without laying a finger on him).^note When Clark protests that he'll intercept any attempt to actually hurt the Jerkass, Diana hits him with a look that clearly says "You can try."◊
• Somewhat deconstructed in Joe vs. Elan School. Shortly after returning home from the titular school after enduring three years of tortuous "attack therapy", Joe runs into his childhood bully Darren, who makes a show of swiping a beer that Joe himself has stolen. Joe coldly orders Darren to give it back; when Darren laughs it off and goes to take a swig, Joe lays Darren out in one punch. Joe then goes home and is horrified at what he's done.
• Magick Chicks: Both Faith and her boyfriend, Ash, have made the same mistake with Layla and Brooke, respectively.
  • Faith didn't realize Layla was a vampire, until after she'd led her back to her home, under the assumption they had hit it off. But when she vamped out on her, Faith psychically restrained her. She initially planned to stake her, until Tiffany arrived unexpectedly. Which gave Faith the idea to stimulate Layla's rage centers in order to fight her without her powers, citing that they never get any hands-on training, at Artemis. Despite having the upper hand, Faith lost due to having forgotten they were fighting indoors and struck her own head on the ceiling. Thankfully, Tiffany was able to calm Layla down, by allowing Layla to feed on her.
  • Ash sparred with Brooke and was schooled, due to being unable to read her moves. While he was impressed, he could tell she was holding back on him, so he decided to provoke her so she'd go all-out against him. Bad. Decision.
• Well, in this Meanwhile Upstairs strip, Grantaire has an obvious death wish... or is just too drunk to care. He is mocking Inspector Javert, who, while not a Person of Mass Destruction, has the physical ability to hurt him and also the authority to do so.
• MeatShield: Dhur's human older brother, Ghar, who has a habit of unsubtlely insulting his half-orc little brother's intelligence to his face. Repeatedly. When Jaine tries to clue Dhur in that Ghar wasn't "just joking", Ghar's mother Mona (also human) stops her, telling her that she convinced Dhur of Ghar's kidding when they were younger "so he wouldn't rip Ghar's arms off."
• The first episode of minus., and it happens a few times later. Fortunately, it depends on her mood whether she'll retaliate or go do something else. Later on other kids start to realize that it's cool to have someone who can warp the fabric of reality as a friend. Unfortunately, asking her for a favor can be just as bad.
• Chapter 4 of morphE begins with the seedlings waking up to find Amical freaking out about his paintings being defaced in the night. Billy clearly took note as he runs over to set one on fire the first time that Amical upset him after discovering his berserk button. Amical promptly shoots him point-blank for his effort.
• Nerf NOW!! has a demon mock the 2016 Doom Marine for his habit of collecting dolls. Said demon has a shotgun down his throat the next panel.
• Oglaf: In "Naja", a carriage in the woods is stopped by a woman who introduces herself as a bandit, and asks its passenger's opinion on a bandit gang she is forming. The passenger claims their Punny Name is stupid, insults the bandit for the idea behind it, and compares the concept of cleverness to bagpipes. This successfully pisses off the bandit, her fellow member(s), and a bagpipe player.
  Bandit: (aiming a knife at the carriage passenger) Fuck you. This is a robbery, then.
• The Order of the Stick:
  • Tsukiko does this to Redcloak repeatedly, who is a much more powerful cleric than she is, and he takes it every time until she finally threatens to reveal his plans to Xykon. It ends very, very badly for her. This might fall under Underestimating Badassery, given her (stupid) belief that she has Xykon in her corner keeping Redcloak in line and her (less stupid) belief that her massive spell selection and minions would give an edge in at least escaping. Going up against a near-epic-level cleric while relying heavily on undead was her biggest mistake, but a massive psychological blind spot to the actual mechanics of undead was a defining trait of hers from the beginning.
  • Bozzok is foolish enough to try and brow-beat Crystal, who's furious about being reanimated as a self-aware flesh golem, and suffers death by Extreme Mêlée Revenge. Grubwiggler was right when he told Bozzok "You were never as clever as you thought you were."
  • In the prequel book The Order of the Stick: Start of Darkness, the sorcerer Xykon is repeatedly belittled by wizards. This ends badly — for the wizards, that is.
• In Ozy and Millie, Jeremy's father challenges Llewellyn (an actual fire-breathing dragon almost twice his size) to go outside for a fight. Llewellyn ends up incinerating Jeremy's dad's Porsche because he has to sneeze due to the cologne that Jeremy's dad wears.
• Project 0: to quote the trope description this is implied to have happened to 'the kid who can warp the fabric of reality and just wants to be left alone.' Instead of fighting back he just decides he wants to go home instead.
• Ralph makes this mistake in Sandra and Woo after being told by a schoolmate that he really, really should not bully Cloud, especially if Cloud is currently carrying a sword... or a plastic knife from the school cafeteria.
• Schlock Mercenary:
  • There were some alien frat boys picking on Nick — they don't know he's boosted and wears a low-profile powered armor, but he's as massive as three of them put together and obviously in a uniform.
    Nick: Are you pickin' a fight wif' me?
    Narrator: Anyone with half a brain would know that this question, asked in this tone of voice, by a man of this size, has exactly one correct answer.
    Enireth Frat Boy: Yes I am. What are you going to do about it?
    Narrator: That was not it.
  • After he threw one to the other end of the corridor, the local security were dumb enough to pick a firefight with this team. This escalates until...
    Kevyn: Captain, Sergeant Schlock's team just called in. He said they got the information, but they're pinned down in the library's data center by the local police.... He said they can fight their own way out, but only, and I quote, "Over the steaming ashes of this stupid swat team."
  • And then there's Petey — or rather, the Deus est Machina Godlike Fleetmind formed around the Petey AI persona. The galactic core spins at his whim, and a single one of his ships is a match for most other civilization's entire NAVIES. And yet, people ranging from governments to organized crime bosses still think it's a good idea to insult or prod him just to see how he'll react. The only reason he doesn't casually frag them is that he usually has better things to spend his energy on, such as avoiding the utter annihilation of the entire galaxy.
    Petey: It's still not worth billions of lives just to kill her, but she really knows how to jump up and down on that scale.
  • In a later arc (when the mercenaries are a lot more powerful) a local "militia" (pirate) captain whose ships are converted freighters completely misjudges the power of their fleet (any one ship in it powerful enough to easily crush him) and launches an attack. The only reason his fleet isn't wiped out seconds after opening fire is that the power disparity is so great it would be legally awkward.
• A series of strips in Sequential Art involves Art antagonizing some songbirds, who decide to make his life hell. They move on to pestering his friends, too... which, given that they start with Kat, ends badly.
• In The Shadow Shard, a flashback reveals a group of colts actively insulting and belittling Spike when they caught him playing out in the snow alone. It should be mentioned that, despite being a baby, Spike is still a dragon and easily stronger than ponies twice his size, is Made of Iron, has claws that can casually dig into solid stone, can, bite through gemstones like rock candy, and breathes fire. If he weren't such a gentle soul, it's unlikely the colts's collective remains would have been useful as glue.
• Sinfest:
  • Seymour, the resident Christian Fundamentalist Knight Templar, under a fit of Fantastic Racism, antagonized Fuchsia, a devil girl in the midst of a High-Heel–Face Turn for her Interspecies Romance with Criminy. Given that on their first meeting, Fuchsia set him on fire, he really should have known what he was getting into.
  • Seymour also poked the Dragon. Later the resident Satanist Fundamentalist Lil' E tried to pick up a fight with him. About the only difference between these two is that usually Seymour fails to see the obvious consequences, while Lil' E understands, but presses anyway.
  • There's this moron who mocks the Devil while selling his soul to him.
  • Also illustrated here in a flashback attempting to explain why grafittiing the Devil's girlfriend's house is not a good idea.
• From Spinnerette, in this strip Alexis, AKA Evil Spinnerette, is being taunted by some Alpha Bitches ... despite the fact that she's a Drider, normal human from waist up and giant spider from the waist down. Not to mention that it took a super hero to capture and subdue her in the first place. Subverted. They work for her, and she set it up so that Good Spinnerette would feel sorry for her and believe her claims that she wanted to turn back human.
• Super Stupor: Anarch kidnaps Cosmic Crusader's girlfriend and creates an elaborate trap that will kill her if he gets too close due to it being powered by his cosmic radiation powers, and hopes that by tricking him into killing her, Cosmic Crusader will join Anarch's side by destroying his worldview. A captured Punchline points out that Cosmic Crusader is one of the most powerful entities in the galaxy and even assuming his worldview is shattered and he revokes his vow against killing, he will be far more likely to turn Anarch into gooey paste instead of joining him.
• unOrdinary:
  • Arlo figures out that John is hiding his true potential and power, which goes against Arlo's stringent belief in the hierarchy that runs their world. He knows John has a high tier power and still pretends to befriend him in order to ambush him to force him to take his properly ranked place. John beats him and his two underlings easily, and when forced to reveal he's one of the strongest characters around is brutally violent rather than adhering to Arlo's interpretation of the hierarchy, since the strong beating on the weak is common and something John had very much internalized prior to leveling up.
  • Once Isen outs Joker's identity several low high-tier morons decide to attack him to humiliate him and prop themselves up since he'd never fought using his ability in his true identity. Since the cat's already out of the bag and he's pissed he trounces them, and kicks them into the wall after knocking them unconscious for good measure.
• Wapsi Square: Bud reminds Shelly of this trope and its folly.
• In Weak Hero, Jimmy goads Wolf into a fight despite knowing full well that Wolf is an objectively better fighter than him. Jack, Jimmy's Number Two, realises this is because it's the only chance for Jimmy to regain some standing after his loss to Ben. Predictably, all that Jimmy gains is a serious beating.
• We Live In An MMO?! has a rival party turn up in Dafurst Village and begin harassing the local NPCs. When the main characters order them to stop, they respond with insults and belittlement, and their spellcaster outright assaults Rando. Not only do they utterly fail to even hurt him, but Rando's friends and one of the NPCs get hit by the backlash. Long-story short: Rando goes ballistic.
• Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic:
  • A plot-arc has the human inhabitants of a village relentlessly bullying both a female Orcish innkeeper and her young daughter, who is able to bite through chunks of wood and drive a large metal spike into a board with one hand. After being kidnapped by a raiding party, she returns to wreak bloody vengeance on all those who slighted her.
  • Also, Played for Laughs with the Chimera... twice.
• Zebra Girl: Gregory is an experienced exorcist and demon-hunter who thought he could drag the emotionally drained Sandra with him to hell. Turns out it was a very bad idea. That event is also what finally drove Sandra over the edge.
• Taken quite literally when a dragon just wants to be helpful but get's mocked for it. Poor thing needs a hug◊

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