Basic Trope: A villain antagonized a hero in high school OR A Bully becomes a Villain when they grow up.
- Straight:
- When Hiro faces down Emperor Evulz, he takes off his mask to reveal that he's Emmitt Everson, the guy who used to beat Hiro up.
- Dracone is a complete Bully in his school who is regularly cruel and torments weaker students. When he grows up, he is still the same Jerkass as he was back then, only now more dangerous and with more power, making him a Bad Boss.
- Exaggerated: Every villain Hiro faces is a former member of the Gang of Bullies that used to brutalize him in school. Hiro and his foes are sixty years old.
- Downplayed:
- Emperor Evulz wasn't a bully, but he's jealous of the fact that Hiro got to take his crush to the dance.
- The schoolyard bully becomes a petty criminal who ends up becoming the first person arrested during a convenience store robbery by his former victim now turned Superhero during his/her Origin Story without much fanfare.
- Emperor Evulz is a Tragic Villain with a sympathetic motive.
- Emperor Evulz is a Reformed Bully and feels guilty for his past bullying of Hiro, but is driven to villainy somehow.
- Justified: Evulz never needed to mature because he was constantly surrounded by people who refused or failed to see his monstrous behavior (or actively enabled it). As such, who he was as a teenager is who he is now, just with more power and a greater number of victims for him to torment and hurt.
- Inverted:
- Emperor Evulz takes off his mask to reveal that he's Hiro's Forgotten Childhood Friend.
- Hiro was the (now-reformed) bully, and his actions were responsible for Evulz' Start of Darkness, so that's why he opposes him.
- Emmitt Everson is actually a pretty nice guy now. He apologizes and is now The Big Guy in Hiro's Five-Man Band.
- Who's Laughing Now?
- Subverted: Hiro vaguely suspects that Emperor Evulz may actually be his old schoolyard bully, Emmitt Everson. It turns out to actually be someone else he's never met before.
- Double Subverted:
- It turns out Evulz was actually a high school bully, just not the one who used to torment Hiro.
- It turns out that Emmitt Everson remained a relentless, unrepentant bully until he died aged 37 at the hands of the future Emperor Evulz, his bullying victim at work, who adopted his bullying techniques and catchphrases out of trauma-induced insanity. This technically makes Everson the Predecessor Villain of the plot.
- Parodied:
- After learning who Evulz really is, Hiro and Evulz start to act like children again, reliving their school days.
- Hiro is Too Kinky to Torture and Evulz becomes increasingly enraged as Hiro asks him to brutalize and torment him even harder with a conspicuous Raging Stiffie.
- Hiro's foes are the kids who bullied him in Kindergarten and they are now sixty years old.
- Averted:
- There was no schoolyard bully.
- The schoolyard bully was never seen again and it's not clear what kind of person he ended up being.
- Enforced: "Let's show that Evulz was always a jerk- he was a bully even before he gained his powers!"
- Lampshaded:
- "I see you've changed tactics from wedgies."
- "All this time Hiro, and you're still my favourite victim! I'm having so much fun right now!"
- Invoked: Evulz sets out to gain powers specifically so he can hunt down and torment his old bullying victims.
- Exploited:
- Realizing that Evulz still wants nothing more than to push other people around, someone imbues him with dark powers and forces him to do his bidding.
- Knowing that Evulz holds a grudge against Hiro allows the heroes to set a trap (or just a distraction) for the Emperor.
- Defied: "After 10 years, I have far better things to do with than wasting time on small fry like you, Hiro. A pathetic victim you were, a pathetic victim you remain, your existence doesn't interest me. "
- Discussed: "Went to my ten-year high school reunion and of course Evulz is there, because he never left our hometown, and he started off acting all buddy-buddy with me like I didn't remember how he made my high school years hell, and then he ordered me a goddamn cement mixer less than an hour later and laughed like a hyena when he saw my reaction after I unwittingly drank it. Fucking prick. He hasn't changed a single bit."
- Conversed: "Evulz just went to prison for putting Hiro in the ICU and permanently crippling him during a bar fight that Evulz himself started. Because Hiro's buddy got pissed at him because Evulz wouldn't stop hitting on his girlfriend. What a time to be alive." "Utterly unsurprised there. Evulz got fired from the warehouse at my job for staging a "prank" that could have killed someone had they not barely avoided it. Known him for many years, he's still the same psychopathic shithead he was back when he first beat me up on the playground in elementary because I wouldn't trade my rare Yu-Gi-Oh! cards for his obvious counterfeits."
- Implied: "Hey there, Hiro! Remember me from school?" *wham*
- Deconstructed:
- Evulz' insistence on tormenting Hiro hints at some serious psychological issues- any healthy person would have outgrown a petty childhood rivalry by now. What's worse, his inability to defeat or unnerve Hiro (who's not nearly as bully-able now) seriously freaks him out, because his self-image was based around being able to beat Hiro up.
- Evulz doesn't care that he's seen as a Psychopathic Manchild by everyone for basing his life around hurting high school opponents. He takes pleasure in it and couldn't care any less about others' feelings.
- Reconstructed:
- Evulz has become very pragmatic as an adult and simply relishes the fact that Hiro is still shorter and weaker than him, at least if they fight one-on-one, and Hiro's greater intelligence is of no concern to him now that's he has so much power. And even though he may sneer at him when they cross paths, he doesn't care much for his fomer victim and just does his thing regardless.
- Evulz becomes something of a Friendly Enemy to Hiro, their relationship in High School being seldom brough up now. Since Hiro is a victim no more and is now strong enough to pose a challenge Evulz has grown to respect him.
- Played For Laughs: Evulz and Hiro, who were very serious examples of Heroic Fantasy hero and villain up until The Reveal, spend their Final Battle giving each other wedgies, wet willies and calling each other childish nicknames.
- Played For Drama: Hiro arrives to the local office of his bank to try to ask for a loan and there is Emmitt as the bank's manager, who points out how much power he has over Hiro right now and threatens to use it to destroy Hiro's credit rating, shut down his accounts and turn his life into a living hell unless Hiro gets on his knees and kiss Emmitt's ass.
- Played For Horror: Emmitt Everson, while bullying Hiro the day before graduation, swore that he would find Hiro in 20 years and make sure that Hiro would remain a loser. Hiro took it as standard bully hyperbolic threats in the vein of "punching you into next Thursday", until he returned from work one night 20 years later to the day and found his entire family slaughtered with "I told you I was going to do it, loser!" scribbled on the wall with their blood.
Oh no, run! Back to Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up!
