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  • The main cast of 8-Bit Theater all have many, many shortcomings, but in particular Fighter's abject stupidity and the fact that the universe literally hates Black Mage tend to be the most crippling. Probably because, as a few instances have shown, if not for those handicaps, failure would no longer be the only option.
    • When Fighter had to face his "demon", it was Sloth, as while Fighter was the greatest swordsman in the world, his sloth had caused him to completely neglect ANY effort that could have made him less staggeringly dumb. He killed the demon in a single panel, apparently his two brain cells rubbed together and he realized just killing the demon would be faster than talking to it.
    • Black Mage once took over Hell, an act that caused White Mage to feel a disturbance in the force, as if a million voices cried out to say, "Oh shit."
      • Later, when Black Mage is facing HIS demon, it turns out to be himself, because nothing is more evil than he is. He absorbs it and its power.
      • Much hopeless bungling later, Black Mage and Fighter decide to get dangerous at each other. It initially ends in a stalemate because, as Black Mage points out, he is basically a demi-god at that point, and Fighter is capable of blocking any attack. Black Mage uses his surrender as an opportunity to literally backstab Fighter, pointing out that Fighter can only block attacks he sees coming.
      • Later, Fighter has another brief moment of higher thought, and stuns the entire party by preventing them from dying from an extremely long fall by covering them from "attack" and blocking the "attacking" ground.
  • Uttered by the eponymous character of The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, on behalf of his sidekick.
    The Doctor: Do you think I run around with a twelve year old boy just because I like his inferior grasp of girls and higher level math? You think I left him with my psychotic parents because I wanted him to die? No, you undead pale ponce! Gordito is the effing BADASS KID.
  • Hyraxx De Motifi from Buck Godot Zapgun For Hire is probably an example. She's a tabloid reporter with Cloudcuckoolander tendencies who considers finding what colour of pants the resident Sufficiently Advanced Alien wears to be a big scoop. She can also throw Buck around like a ragdoll, despite him being about 5 times her size. She could also be considered an inversion, because we first see her in her badass mode and the fact that she's not another assassin sent after Buck (she's just trying to get an interview from him) comes as a surprise.
  • Defied for laughs in Commander Kitty. After seeing his friends and rivals in danger, CK finally springs into action...only to get beat down immediately. Then, when losing his tooth makes him feel like a real spacer, he gives it another shot...only to get beat down even more.
  • Dan of Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures spent years as a Being adventurer and taken on several powerful Creatures without dying, and also has a begun to develop a share of Creature abilities. It's very easy to remember him as the idiot that gets smacked with Too Much Information too often. That would be a mistake.
  • Nimmel Fenix, of Dominic Deegan, lost every fight he'd ever been seen in. That is, until he gets his own story arc, and shows us just how powerful he really is in a truly impressive display of magic.
  • In Dubious Company, Walter is a goofy, weak, pirate wannabe that has been almost useless in a fight. Then at Kreedor's castle, Sal is about to be killed, Izor has ordered his elites to stop the heroes, and Mary is berating the heroes with another In the Name of the Moon speech. Walter proves he has had enough, pulls a dragoon and nearly blows Mary's head off.
  • Eerie Cuties/Magick Chicks: Make no mistake, Tiffany Winters is a goofball and a ditz with an incredibly short attention span - which is why she hasn't been able to stake Layla once. But she can become hyper-competent when the situation calls for it.
  • In El Goonish Shive, Justin tries to reason with a fire monster, but when it attacks, he instantly switches from amiable to badass.
  • A villainous example exists in Emergency Exit: Lord Kyran, despite being generally silly, playful, and willing to give the heroes their due, is not the kind of person you want to make a true enemy of. When the situation is truly vital, he becomes a killing machine. So do the rest of the cast, though.
  • The entire side of Gobwin Knob in Erfworld is a joke throughout nearly all of the Battle for Gobwin Knob arc, but Sizemore the dirtamancer in particular is shown to be fairly ineffectual (his biggest contribution to the defense has been creating Crap Golems). Then Fish out of Water warlord Parson realizes the town is sitting on an extinct volcano, and the two other magic users available have A) the ability to bring dead things to life and B) the ability to link up others' minds so that Sizemore's knowledge of exactly how geo-magic works can be shared with A. Eruption ensues.
  • The Fox Sister: Isn't Soot Bull just lovable? But don't let his cuteness fool you! He can be scarily ferocious if the situation calls for it.
  • In Godslave, when Edith discovers that she now has Super-Strength and Nigh-Invulnerability, she stops being Action Survivor and takes the fight to Turner.
  • Guilded Age: Payet, when fighting the huge pirate.
  • Given the comic's overall emphasis on light-hearted humor, it's easy to forget that Gamzee Makara from Homestuck apparently spent most of the Troll's Sgrub session not doing much, but when it came down to the battle against a massively prototyped Black King, he did the most damage out of all 12 of them. Fitting, seeing as his title is the Bard of Rage. And let's not forget what happened when he ran out of sopor slime...
  • Kill Six Billion Demons:
    • "Auntie Maya" is a congenial elderly lady and a self-described habitual drunk. When helping herself to other people's noodles and delivering existential one-liners isn't adequate for the occasion, she dabbles in moments of transcendent violence.
    • God-Emperor Gog-Agog of the Seven is a Hive Mind of immortal television entertainers, many of whom present as cheerful clowns. Even during mortal peril during the Discordance, she merely lounges around the battlefield or clowns around, acting like comedy relief — until Solomon actually asks her to help, at which point she summons about a trillion of her bodies and shapeshifts into a small moon, engulfing the entire battlefield in the process.
  • Vashiel from Misfile. He's a complete innocent, to the point where he's physically incapable of lying and gets a Nosebleed if he as much as has an impure thought. However, when his brother or Ash are threatened, you're suddenly reminded that his job description reads "Avenging Angel". Also a prime example of instantly snapping back to his ordinary, chivalrous personality afterwards.
    • Rumisiel, Vashiel's pot-smoking brother, is also one of these. Normally a slacker to the point where his goal in life is to sit on a couch drinking beer all day, as soon as someone's life is on the line, he suddenly becomes competent and, due to limiters placed on his brother, the stronger of the two when it comes to dealing with the supernatural. And as this comic shows, it is important to remember that ALL angels in this series are ancient supernatural beings.
  • In the penultimate storyline of Narbonic, Artie protests that he's not a hero, he's "a fuzzy little animal who talks too much! I'm the comic relief!", but winds up saving the day anyway. In the same story, Helen has a Let's Get Dangerous moment when she says "To survive this, I'll need to think fast and hard. I won't have the energy to maintain my chipper, reassuring persona. I'll be fully myself, and I advise you to stay out of my way." Since "reassuring" Helen is plenty dangerous at the best of times, Artie is suitably terrified.
  • In One-Punch Man, Saitama's very rarely given a very real fight, but when he comes up against someone who just might, he'll bust out what he calls his "Serious Series" attacks. Most fights tend to end with just one of them. His battle with Garou lets him pull off two.
  • The Order of the Stick:
    • Thog, while in general as strong and combat-capable as you would expect a half-orc barbarian to be, is nothing but an even match for Roy, is childish and the subject of a good deal of comedy. When Roy breaks his tusk in a gladiatoral match however, he rages to the point of Roy being in real danger.
    • Elan does this occasionally as well. At first he was just The Load, but then he literally Takes A Level In Badass, to the point where he's practically a One-Man Army.
  • Schlock Mercenary:
    • The reverend is generally a pretty passive guy, but he's also a good swordsman. He nails a trained nonhuman soldier to the wall by the soldier's eye. Don't worry, the eyes were on stalks.
    • Lots of the Toughs are this, actually, especially the title character. Judging from his behavior most of the time, you would judge that he's an excessively violent blob who eats kittens and primarily remains Sergeant because he is/was a majority shareholder in the company. In reality, he's a violent blob with a strong (albeit unusual) moral compass who will immediately drop his usual happy attitude in favor of precision when the situation calls for it.
  • Sequential Art: When the Villains come out to play: You got to get dangerous. PIP DANGEROUS!
  • Tip of Skin Horse tries to deal with pretty much every problem by therapizing it. If that doesn't work, he tries seducing it. But if that doesn't work, well...he's quite capable of taking care of it in other, more violent ways.
  • Pretty much everyone who wasn't already a badass during the "Dangerous Days" arc from Sluggy Freelance.
    • Zoe invoked this at the beginning of the "Stormbringer" arc, without knowing how dangerous she would have to get.
  • Sleepless Domain: For most of the series, Anemone acts as an enigmatic Fourth-Wall Observer, watching events unfold from a distance but very rarely involving herself. When forced to confront Tessa, however, Anemone turns out to have energy abilities strong enough to destroy an army of monsters with a wave of her hand, as well as being able to float, Flash Step, and shrug off getting impaled.
  • Stand Still, Stay Silent: Most of the time, Sigrun comes across as treating potential danger as a trivial matter or having somewhat of a Blood Knight attitude towards it. When actually faced with a Plague Zombie, she can actually be quite pragmatic in combat, puts the safety of others first and will sometimes use methods that do not involve killing the thing with her own hands if it happens to suit the circumstances better.
  • Mia in True Villains is an Innocent Prodigy in Golem making, resulting in Augustus the animated pocket watch and Squib the small amorphous blob of metal. Individually, they're comic relief, but Squib happens to be an indestructible Shapeshifter Weapon that Augustus can wield quite lethally, as a magic-spewing zombie Carl finds out.


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