Unstoppable Rage / Comic Books

Super-strong, invulnerable and out-of-control. Flee.

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• All-New Ultimates: Bombshell was turned into a puppet by Diamondback and saw her gang kill Poey, unable to do anything about it. When she manages to get out of their control, she wants to kill them all.
• Batman:
  • In the Batman: Hush storyline, Batman goes into one of these when it seems that The Joker killed his childhood friends. Flashing back through all the people the Joker's victimized and killed over the years (mostly Barbara Gordon, Jason Todd, and Sarah Essen), he goes into an Unstoppable Rage, taking down Harley Quinn and Catwoman (the latter of which was on his side, but simply trying to stop him from killing the Joker), and stalking the Joker through an alley. It takes Jim Gordon to snap him out of it, and, even then, Gordon had to shoot him to get his attention. Even after getting shot, Batman's still thinking of all the different ways he could kill Joker (something along the lines of "pushing his skeleton through his mouth"), but at least he wasn't choking him any more.
  • The Nail: Batman turns utterly murderous after Joker kills his sidekicks, which concludes with him breaking his Thou Shalt Not Kill rule and snapping the Joker's neck.
  • Other triggers include trying to kill Nightwing, having killed Robin, making him relive Robin's death... If you do any of the above, you'd better hope someone is there to stop him.
  • Similarly, Nightwing flies off the handle and kills Joker (Batman revived him, mostly because his proteges have no business becoming murderers) when he believes Joker has killed Robin III and Joker has also taunted him about killing Robin II (Jason Todd).
    Joker: I hit Jason a lot harder than that. His name was Jason, right?
  • Huntress, in her Secret Identity, is a teacher. She doesn't take well to people threatening her students.
    Huntress: MY KIDS? YOU THREATEN MY KIDS?
• Disney Ducks Comic Universe:
  • Scrooge McDuck has many famous comic book iterations of this, but none quite as amazingly awesome as in the The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck storyline. The bad guys capture Scrooge to steal his land claim and gold. They then torment him by reading his private mail and taunting him with the death of his mother. A 45 Kg Duck proceeds to throw a concert piano out the window and destroy a riverboat with his bare hands.
  • Another great one (though nowhere near the havoc he caused in Yukon) is in the story "The Terror of the Transvaal", when Scrooge helped out Flintheart Glomgold (a future nemesis of Scrooge, with this event triggering their rivalry and hatred), who had been tied to a buffalo for stealing diamonds from a mine and the buffalo sent to the savannah, with Scrooge unaware of the theft. Then during the night Flintheart robbed Scrooge and snuck back into town. When Scrooge woke up and realized what had happened, he got angry enough to tame a lion by yelling at it, after the lion had roared at him. He then rode back into town with the lion.
  • Paperinik New Adventures: A short story showed Xadhoom allowing a tiny bit of hatred and rage flow free for a single instant, and kill by indigestion an Evronian cyborg capable to harness the energy of the emotions of everyone in the area. That's how we know she's in Tranquil Fury, that and the fact she ever went in Unstoppable Rage for a single instant she'd become a nova and destroy a solar system.
• A super-villainous example is DC's Doomsday, a genetically-engineered weapon created on Krypton before it was destroyed who first appeared in The Death of Superman. Through a torturous process of sending the infant Doomsday to the Death World regions of the planet and then creating a fresh clone from the remains when it was inevitably killed, it was eventually given super-human powers of survival, including a Healing Factor and Adaptive Ability... and also driven completely insane. Doomsday's mind is nothing but a morass of rage, hatred and terror; possessing the genetic memory of untold painful deaths, it lashes out blindly at all life it encounters, as it has fixated on the idea that other lifeforms are the enemy. All life.
• Empowered has built up something of a reputation as a supremely ineffective, bondage-prone D-lister, at least when against super(or otherwise)villains who seem to adhere to the "unspoken rules," the most important one being "no killing". When the chips are down, especially if her friends are directly threatened, she tends to fly into a rage (or in one notable occasion, her suit does) and lay an epic smackdown. In keeping with her eventual Character Development as a Guile Hero, even her enraged shouting is usually very coherent and no more prone to Buffy Speak than her usual vocalizations.
• If Hulk weren't the poster boy for this trope, the Red Lanterns in Green Lantern would be. Their rings are powered by their rage, which is strong enough to the point where all but their leader are mindless berserkers.
• The Incredible Hulk: The Hulk is the poster boy in every incarnation and medium, as his strength is fueled by rage. "The longer Hulk fight, the madder Hulk get! The madder Hulk get, the stronger Hulk get!" Subverted in that, again partially due to the issues with his dad, both Hulk and Banner are constantly terrified of accidentally hurting any innocent or defenseless "little people", especially children. Being put in a situation wherein he has to, or does so unintentionally, as with Hiro-Kala, is one of the worst things that can happen to him. Inanimate objects and seriously evil people who can take the punishment, on the other hand, are perfectly fair go.
  • In World War Hulk storyline, he's busy with a particularly fit of rage, mopping the floor with everyone in his way. The truly frightening thing was that he had gone into Tranquil Fury at the same time, leaving him with enough mind to keep his head and employ strategy and trickery.
  • Beneath her calmer exterior, Betty is nearly as repressed as her husband. When she turns into Red She-Hulk all that rage finally gets an outlet.
• Captain Britain: The Killer Robot called The Fury was a nigh unstoppable juggernaut created by an insane Reality Warper for the sole purpose of killing superbeings. It was so good at it that it eventually killed his own creator (or at least an alternate universe version of him who was just as powerful). But in the end, it was ultimately brought down by Captain UK. For much of the story, she was paralyzed by guilt and grief since the Fury killed everyone she ever knew and loved with her powerless to stop it. When she saw the Fury about to kill Captain Britain, something in her snapped, and she tore the Fury apart with her own hands, while crying, cursing, and howling with rage. In its dying moments, the Fury knew fear, pain, death and defeat.
• The Mighty Thor: Thor's always a formidable enemy in a fight, but if you push him hard enough, you'll learn just how scary and angry a thunder god can be. Mister Hyde, the Wrecking Crew, and Quicksand all found this out the hard way. Thor also has the Warrior's Madness, which boosts his strength 10 fold, but leaves him in a berserker state.
• Frank Castle in The Punisher MAX, despite being something of an unstoppable killing machine, is typically a very calm, methodical man. That is until Nicky Cavella, a mob boss with a grudge, dug up his family's remains and urinated on them. This did not go down well. A pissed off Mr. Castle proceeded to pack up his M-249 and consecutively attack various criminal hideouts, racking up 68 bodies... in one night.
  • The trope is called out by a patron in a diner who sees it on the news: "That guy is gonna go fuckin' berserk..."
    Mayor: And the good news?
    Johnathan: Crime's down.
  • It was so bad that he wasn't even really aware of what he was doing each time until the recoil from his gun kicked in. He was in a sort of perpetual hallucination until his family was returned to their grave.
• Raghnarok, a French comic about a young dragon, features this. When Raghnarok (the young dragon) disappears, and his mother can't find him, she gets increasingly violent as time goes by and her eyes turn red. Over time, her purple scales turn black and she goes from being perhaps 12 feet tall to dwarfing skyscrapers. She then goes on to violently wreck everything in her way while shouting her son's name. This goes on uninterrupted for ten years, and she has the entire world fearing her. All armies run at sight. Her anger is only quelled once she meets her son again — and it's notable that she is a lot smaller after stopping her rampage.
• In Runaways, during the "Home Schooling" arc, a missile strikes the team's Malibu house, killing Old Lace and injuring Klara. Upon regaining consciousness, Klara freaks out and causes a forest of vines to grow and consume the house.
• In the Secret Wars (2015) tie-in Planet Hulk Steve Rogers is on a mission to rescue Bucky from the Red King, a Hulk, who is keeping him prisoner. After a long journey Steve finally makes it to the Red King's throne room only to learn the Red King killed Bucky a long time ago. This enrages Steve to the point where he simply starts whaling on the Red King with his shield — who tries but doesn't get in as much as a single punch — and doesn't stop bashing in the king's head until he is dead. Steve literally beat the king of the Hulks to death with nothing but his shield.
• The Hard Goodbye from the Sin City series features Marv going on one for about a week straight, eventually taking on one of the most powerful crime families in the country. This was all because they killed one of the few people that was nice to him.
• Sleepwalker: The titular character has plenty of reason to be angry at his archenemy Cobweb in the final issue of his comic series, not least because Cobweb tricked Sleepwalker into furthering his plans to conquer Earth, and because he committed mass murder on Earth and pinned the whole thing on Sleepwalker. Throwing aside Cobweb's minions like they were nothing, Sleepwalker catches up to Cobweb and proceeds to rip his MacGuffin right out of Cobweb's body, before using it to banish Cobweb once and for all.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), the eponymous character suffers this at times despite his calm and carefree nature, particularly when his family and friends are in danger.
  • In the "EndGame" arc (issues #47-#50) when Knothole Village was seemingly destroyed by Robotnik's doomsday weapon (but in the end learns that it was trapped in another timezone for a short time).
    • Likewise in the same arc, a character named Hershey the Cat pummeled her ex-boyfriend Drago Wolf to a pulp after learning that he tricked her into killing Princess Sally (the princess herself survived, however).
  • Knothole was recently destroyed (for real, this time) by Eggman's air fleet, angering Sonic. It wasn't until he was taunted about the limit of his abilities when Sonic snapped and launched a devastating, but failed, Sonic Boom attack on Eggman's most powerful robot.
    • To paint a better picture, after the taunt mentioned above, Sonic ran off and in a few seconds was on the other side of the continent before turning around and making a beeline toward Eggman's robot. It was one of the more impressive things Sonic has done, short of being Super Sonic.
  • Tails, at one point, fought Sonic because he was tired of being treated as a little kid, but mainly because Sonic at one time had dated his friend's love interest, Fiona Fox. Tails was heartbroken that Fiona never loved him because of age difference, and instead loved Sonic. He was even more devastated because she was really in love with Sonic's evil twin, Scourge. He eventually went all out on Sonic while trying to rescue his dad. After Sonic learned that his friend's rage came from that fact that he took Fiona away from him, he apologized and explained his actions, and they soon made up.
  • Mighty is also prone to these when something bad happens to Ray the Flying Squirrel. The results are never pretty.
• Spider-Man:
  • It tends to happen to Spidey whenever the important things in his life, especially his family, are threatened (although this isn't an explicit power of his). He's a nice guy even for a superhero, but when he goes off, you better be damn sure you aren't standing in his way.
  • The Night Gwen Stacy Died: The most famous of these was when Gwen Stacy was killed. He very nearly killed the Green Goblin with his bare hands.
  • Another example happened during the "Back In Black" story arc following Civil War (2006). Aunt May lay dying after taking a sniper's bullet meant for Spider-Man. Donning his black costume, Spider-Man tracked down the man responsible, The Kingpin (who was serving prison time at that point), broke into the prison, confronted The Kingpin and then proceeded to give him a very savage beatdown. No jokes, No quips. He ends it by threatening to fill Kingpin's throat with enough webbing to kill him if he ever threatens Spidey's loved ones again.
• The final arc from the Star Fox comic run in Nintendo Power had Fox McCloud going berserk upon learning that Andross was responsible both for his mother's death (a car-bomb meant for his father) and his father's disappearance in the Black Hole (because Andross sabotaged his ship). He proceeds to sport Glowing Eyes of Doom and tear the bad guys apart before going after Andross in person, but in a rare moment of not getting in the last shot like he usually does in battles, he allows Andross to escape into the Black Hole because he knows his father is going to find him and "he deserves the last shot after all these years."
• Wulf in Strontium Dog, being a Viking, becomes a literal berserker when he gets really mad. In this state, he's capable of beating up even Johnny.
• Superman:
  • Superman is normally one of the nicest guys on the planet, but he's terrifying when he's pushed:
    • In For the Man Who Has Everything, Superman loses it on Mongul after waking-up from a Lotus-Eater Machine, but his innate morality prevents him from actually killing Mongul off. One word sums up his anger against Mongul, though: "BURN."
    • In the Elseworlds story Kingdom Come, Superman enters into an Unstoppable Rage when most of the metahumans are killed by a UN-launched nuclear warhead and nearly tears down the United Nations.
    • Issue 6 of Final Crisis, after Batman's death. A quite frankly shit-scary Superman, roaring with grief and his eyes on fire, tears through the battle to recover the body.
    • JLA/Avengers. Superman becomes so outraged at the state of the Marvel universe while fighting The Mighty Thor, he knocks him out while even lampshading how extreme it is. Following this, the combined Marvel heroes, upon seeing Thor taken down, flip out and all attack Supes, managing to actually keep him 'off balance for a short time' — or beat the hell out of him until he's out cold.
    • Krypton No More: After finding out that the Kandorians talked his cousin into lying to him, Superman is so furious he flies off to fight an invading alien army because he aches to punch something.
    • In The Supergirl from Krypton (2004), Darkseid tries to kill Supergirl and believes he has succeeded. The mere sight of Supergirl's seeming death makes Superman go ape-shit over losing her and beats Darkseid to a pulp.
    • In Public Enemies (2004), Batman finds himself witnessing Superman angry enough to want to put Lex Luthor down for good. He notes the similarities between this and what happened in Batman: Hush, and then, instead of talking him down like Jim Gordon did (he even notes that he wouldn't do that), he notes to Superman that he could make Luthor's death look like an accident, and then he gets Superman to stop by directing his attention to something else that needs to be done that's more important.
    • In the film adaptation, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, Supes goes even further when Batman, instead of Captain Atom as was the case in the comics, attempts a Heroic Sacrifice by manually piloting Toyman's rocket to destroy the asteroid. He then gives Luthor the beatdown of his life and only stops fuming when he learns there's a chance Batman is still alive. To give you an idea of how angry Superman was, at that point he was literally ignoring the effects of Luthor's Kryptonite-based weaponry.
      Superman: That was my best friend... and you just killed him!
  • Supergirl is — usually — a very nice, kind person, but she's also a Hot-Blooded, short-tempered teenager who protects her loved ones fiercely, and she has occasionally gone on a rampage:
    • In the Crisis on Infinite Earths, when the Anti-Monitor threatened to kill her cousin Superman, she went berserk and almost killed him. Yes, she nearly killed a being that devours universes.
    • Supergirl (2005): Kara got so angry during "Breaking the Chain" that she overloaded three Emotion Eaters: Sakki, The Hate Furnace and Gakidou.
    • In the beginning of Red Daughter of Krypton, Lobo taunted her until she flew off the handle and pummelled him. So intense was her rage that she attracted a Red Lantern Ring.
    • Elseworld's Finest: Supergirl & Batgirl: Once she found out that Lex Luthor murdered her cousin and lied to everyone the whole time, Supergirl decided that she was to going to kill him, and no one would stop her.
    • "Who is Superwoman?": While fighting Superwoman for the second time, Supergirl finally snaps and furiously hits, bludgeons and stomps Superwoman to the ground until the formerly cocky villain is begging for mercy. Kara replies she's not getting any.
    • Supergirl Adventures Girl Of Steel: When she sees Darkseid blasting his own son away, Kara flies into a rage and attacks the Lord of Apokolips, dodging his Omega Beams, then pummeling again before punching him through his indestructible cannon. All of her JL comrades become impressed...and shocked.
      Enlongated Man: "The most powerful man in the universe, and you took his plan out with one punch! Wow, Supergirl...Remind me never to make you angry!"
• In The Transformers Megaseries, it's Shockwave versus the Dinobots, which goes decidedly against the scientist, until he gets angry. Then the Dinobots find themselves on the receiving end of a curbstomp battle.
• A possible variation on this is Rorschach from Watchmen. He begins as a relatively capable hero, holding his own alongside Nite Owl. Following the murder of Blair Roche, Rorschach simply goes insane, and removes all traces of mercy from his actions in his blind hatred towards the "evil ones," rendering him strong enough to scare the shit out of most of New York without any weapons.
• This is also one of Wolverine's defining traits. He's usually composed and calculating when he fights, but when he's pushed beyond a breaking point, he gives in to his animal instincts and his fighting style becomes more erratic and feral, and it's usually in these occasions where his body count rises the most.
  • Like father, like daughter. Do not attempt to hurt Wolverine or anyone else X-23 loves, or you'll be sent home in pieces. She's also seen blowing her top when confronted by former members of her dead former pimp's gang, who were continuing to traffic women. Being under the effects of the Trigger Scent takes this even further, and she becomes a virtually unstoppable whirling ball of adamantium-bladed death that will tear apart everything in her path. In this state she's completely unable to distinguish friend from foe until it wears off, and yes, it has been used to make her hurt people she cares about.
  Laura: The ones who made me, they made a chemical...a scent...when I smell it, everything goes black and when I wake up, everyone's dead.
• For Wonder Woman and other Amazons in their pre-Crisis incarnations, the Bracelets of Submission acted as a check against the use of unrestrained power. If Wonder Woman's bracelets were removed, she became intoxicated with power, violent and nearly unstoppable.
  • In Wonder Woman (2006) Genocide uses her Emotion Bomb powers to poison Donna Troy's mind, causing her to fly into a delusional rage and attack her sister non-stop when in proximity to the Golden Lasso of Truth, accusing Diana of being responsible for the death of Donna's family.
• New Gods: Orioin has an intense, building rage inside him that's held back by a Mother Box. The reason for this is that his father is Darkseid, and the burning hatred for all living things is In the Blood.
• X-Men: Colossus, normally a gentle giant, is also one of the last people you ever want to get mad. Just ask Riptide. Just ask Ord. Imprisoning and torturing him for two years to create a "mutant cure?" Very bad idea.
  Ord: "It matters not that you escaped. Do you think that because you are made of mere metal that you can stand against me?"
  Colossus: "I am not made of steel. Rage! I am made of RAGE!"
• Tycho Celchu in the X-Wing Rogue Squadron comics — gets mad◊ and starts swinging◊ very easily.
• Young Avengers:
  • Hulkling falls into this when his boyfriend Wiccan is erased from reality. The only reason he didn't attack/possibly kill Iron Lad is because Hulkling disappeared next.
  • For the love of all that is good do not threaten Wiccan's boyfriend. The last time this caused a temper tantrum, he made the Avengers and X-Men worry about a repeat of his mother. When Warden tried cutting up Hulkling, Wiccan would've killed the man if he could.

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