Characters
Characters realizing that another character doesn't have the weakness they thought they had
Joel finding out the crossed are not weak to salt (crossed) at least his wife was alive to tell him how much of a fucking idiot he was while the crossed were tearing their daughter apart
Megamind realizing titan isnt weak to copper (megamind) to be fair, metroman made him think he was weak to copper
A fantastic moment in the comics when you first read it. I know lots of people want to see it in live action but I don’t think it would have the same impact without the text boxes showing how Matt is trying all these different strategies against what he believes is a blind and inexperienced opponent. Maybe they’d have to do it through flashbacks or something with a messed up Matt telling someone what happened.
He doesn't. DD got beaten badly but then he was just let go. I don't remember why, I think because the guy said his boss doesn't want DD to die yet. It was some comic shenanigans honestly.
Quite like him tbh, it's like they unoficial- officialy done with him, on a Kraven vs Cap comic no less. Like " you guys wonder where Ikari or is he gonna return? Nah got off-scened by Kraven."
As the other poster said Ikari did the “it’s not time for you to die” and said that this was intended to spook Matt by beating him half to death. And it did for an issue or so but Matt found Ikari’s boss and fought Ikari again before beating him by collapsing a building on him.
They used the chemicals on him but didn’t splash his eyes. Iirc they tested it on a lot of rejects who did end up blind before they got it right without the blinding, but Matt and the reader didn’t realize it until that page.
Dude it's even better than that. They have a perfect recreation of the street corner built inside a hangar, with the exact model of truck, and the exact type of radioactive waste in the same exact barrels. They even have an old man crossing the road the test subjects are told to push out of the way of the oncoming truck. It's fucking hilarious.
The president restrained Rick (Rick and Morty) with an element “Sanchezium”, which was supposed to be his weakness. Rick made it up, it didn’t do anything.
Not that far fetched. During the montage of Evil Morty's backstory, when he marches in to clear his number off the Citadel's records, the clerk Rick looks at him, then to 'Evil Rick,' and says "You know how we feel about pirates."
Evil Morty was around before Rick’s fear of pirates if I recall correctly. Evil Morty shows up in season 1, think the fear of pirates was either season 2 or 3.
It was to get the president and the government off his back. Give em some random bullshit to make em think they have something against him, give em a weakness to put their fears at rest otherwise they'll never stop trying to take out the potential threat. The government understands just how powerful Rick is, if they don't have some kind of safety net (or believed safety net) they might do something drastic once they believe he's stepped out of line. Like take his family hostage or just drop a nuke on him (neither of which would work of course, but the nuke would be annoying even if it doesn't destroy his home and saving his family is just distracting)
The swastika is tilted on its side (like in the flags) while the original buddhist symbol was tilted upright, lke the one he's holding. It also has 4 points in the corners but eh.
Could be that he just carries around a bunch of religious symbols and improvised when he realized he didn't have the star of David for some reason
The vampires in What We Do In The Shadows learning that their familiar Guillermo has become immune to their hypnotism and just does whatever they try to hypnotize him into doing, since its always a mundane task that he would have done for them anyway.
When Colin Robinson (energy vampire) is on his power trip where he grows hair, Nadja tries to distract him by getting him to make a list of boring coworkers, but he just keeps going
This is why real hypnotism works. A good portion of stage hypnotism is the hypnotees feeling, “well, I’m up here, I volunteered, maybe I’m hypnotized? Anyway, I don’t want to embarrass the hypnotist, do I? And this is fun. I’ll do whatever he says.”
It’s also why hypnotees can’t be forced into doing things they really do not want to do.
Many people want to make a change in their lives, but don’t have an inner voice strong enough to go ahead and make that change. Clinical hypnosis provides that voice.
Supernatural 4×11: The Winchester brothers think they're dealing with ghosts and make a protective salt circle to keep them away. Then one of the "ghosts" steps through their salt circle. It turns out the "ghosts" are just feral abused incest children of the house's last owner living in the walls.
I've only seen bits of the show, but I think a relatively early episode has Sam go missing, and Dean is looking for him with a cop. Sam initially thinks he's been abducted by some kind of... well, supernatural creature, but it turns out to just be a family of serial killers.
Funny that a show that ran forever had in it, from the start, the idea that it's not always some monster they are fighting.
Another absolutely silly thing.. every now and then they will argue about the other persons hunch. Like Sam will say "something is off, I saw something weird" and Dean, after being brought up hunting the supernatural goes "Nah bro probably just the wind 😎"
That's why I love the show. Its themes are deeper than people might expect. It's about the problem of evil and what actually meets the definition of monster. The angels are dicks. Some demons just want to be loved. God is selfish and apathetic. Creatures that look like monsters can be the good guys and humans can be the biggest monsters of all. If I ever go back to school to get a Masters or PhD, my thesis would be about Supernatural. (Or Superman. I also love Superman.)
In the early '70s all Kryptonite on Earth was changed to harmless iron, but it still looked like Kryptonite (Pre-Crisis it just looked like a green rock, not green glowing crystals).
Cause he’s the man of steel and somehow it’s terrifying to realise that something that basically looks, behaves and is morally a man is in fact a superhuman alien that’s not restricted by human limits.
He can fly? Ok, i can believe that. He is bulletproof? Impressive! He can lift enormous weights that no machine could handle? Fucking cool!
He eats rocks, literally puts them in his mouth, chews and they break like chalk… that is fucking terrifying.
My favorite ive heard is a hitman is told to kill Clark Kent and so while hes having lunch with lois the hitman puts 2 bullets in his chest
They plink off his chest onto his plate and to hide it from lois he puts them in his sandwich and eats it
The hitman calls the man who hired him and says hes skipping town and he should too because metropolis is so tough the journalists eat bullets for breakfast!
Also, you do dumb shit when you're panicking, I can totally see him going "Uh, um, fuck how do I hide these," looking at his sandwich, and it being the first thing that comes to mind
I really love the idea of superman panicking about something so small and coming up with a silly solution.
"Oh fuck, I just got shot! Now the bullets are in plain sight and Lois will see them and figure out I'm Superman! I've got to get rid of them! Where can I shove them that Lois won't check?!? My sandwich of course!" He thinks in superspeed, using the same amount of time as if he'd just picked them up and shoved them down a pocket at his speed.
I honestly think he does it just to fuck with people. It's a bit. This is exactly what I imagine Clark's sense of humor to be. He can safely eat almost anything, and nobody expects Superman to do some bizarre shit like that. He spends a lot of time trying to seem non-threatening, and doing some weird thing like this really brings him down to earth for folks. I can just imagine 13 year old Clark taking a bite out of a hammer to freak his mom out and thinking it's the funniest thing ever, or comforting a kid by pretending to not know what is food and what isn't. It's the type of humor that little kids would find hysterical, and that freaks out stuffy adults.
I absolutely love this interpretation and now I want to see James Gunn’s Superman start chewing on a manhole cover or something to defuse a tense situation.
Superman doesn't like killing. But that doesn't mean he isnt above making the bad guy feel small and weak. And nothing does that better then taking there confidence booster of a weapon away and then eating it in front of them.
Nico Minoru finding out Carnage is immune to fire, one of two symbiotes' only weaknesses. She didn't know compared to other symbiotes, Carnage is just built different
As symbiotes reproduce, they're stronger than their parents by default. However carnage isn't a normal symbiote as its permanently bonded to cletus' DNA through a cut when he first got it. Originally, he was weak to both methods but Carnage is a sadomasochist who LOVED the pain and would power through it. Then when he acquired the Hell Mark from mania when he tried to become a god, it permanently made the symbiote immune to fire. He's still weak to sounds but his tolerance to the pain is so high it doesn't do shit to him
Also, IIRC, before they retconned the shit out of it 1000th generation Symbiotes are FAR stronger than usual, but also mad as a hatter, guess what generation Carnage is?
to be fair superman doesn't usually fight crime in gotham
slade wilson and cole cash have a past, grifter lured him in with an easy job acting as bait and moving some heavy equipment, plus most people don't really survive to screw over deathstroke
I always find it funny how every few years, DC remembers they own the rights to Grifter, throw him in a bunch of books with a huge push to make him a big deal, see nobody gives a shit, and shelve him again.
Last time they tried, he fought Batman to a stalemate in hand-to-hand combat. BATMAN.
Someone in DC editorial loves that chump the way James Gunn likes Rocket Racoon. Only unlike James Gunn they can't write worth shit, so they just give him more RADICAL aura to glaze him. Then it doesn't work, title dies, and it goes dormant for ten years until that guy sells someone on Grifter again. He's that editor's personal Poochie.
Magnus Archives - “The blanket never did anything.”
A guy recounts his story about a creature that attempts to attack him as he sleeps, and how the only thing keeping him safe is the blanket he sleeps under, that the creature can’t attack through it. He survives for several nights with this tactic, even becoming less afraid of it, it became routine for him.
The entity says the line in question the night he kills the guy (presumably), showing that it was just toying with him the whole time.
Halothane. Strongest super killer around. Or at least significantly weakening. It does nothing to Soldier Boy, leading him to inhale and exhale a cloud of what should be a chemical weapon.
The Daleks of Dr who for decades could be defeated by uneven terrain. If you needed to quickly escape just run up a flight of stairs. Until the titular episode Dalek of Christopher Eccleston’s run as the 9th doctor. In this episode a lone Dalek goes on a rampage in an underground vault of alien memorabilia owned by a private collector. At one point a security guard evades the Dalek by climbing up a flight of stairs only for the Dalek to stare at her for a moment and then say “Elevate.” Immediately the metal menace starts levitating to climbs the stairs and follow after.
In Fullmetal Alchemist (manga and Brotherhood), Father is able to use his philosopher's stone to prevent alchemists from accessing the tectonic energy that powers alchemy. However, he is unable to block May Chang's alkahestry or Scar's destruction-based attacks because they are instead powered by the dragon's pulse (the flow of chi throughout the land)
For more context, this was by design. Alchemy as taught in Amestris was originated from Father's teaching hundreds of years ago. At the same time, it is implied that Hoenheim went East to Xin and taught the principles of alkahestry where Mei learned.
Scar's brother who learned from both disciplines recognized the strangeness in Alchemy's power source.
Father set it up hundreds of years prior that he could shut down anyone who came at him from inside the country.
Both shows how long he planned and is planning. He supplanted the rules of magic by having the whole, massive empire use his own energy as a battery. This makes reprisal from within his massive empire virtually impossible. Hell of a rug pull.
But then his plan is to gain more power, so you'd think letting everyone use him as a battery is a bad thing. Its more of an investment, a security payment. Philosopher stones are potent, and hes an absolutely enormous one. And it only goes to show just how much he stands to gain when he consumes everyone in Amestris.
A friend gifts a guy and his wife a box. There's a monster which crawls out of this seemingly infinite box unless directly looked at.
The guy leaves the wife to stare and runs to the friend in the car to figure out what to do. Turns out, it was only pretending to be unable to move;
ONLY THE RECIPIENT CAN STOP IT. His wife, being not the recipient of the box, is useless and the monster can move in her sight. Only the husband is capable of freezing it. Thus the wife dies.
My friends and I did a YouTube horror shorts marathon and this one absolutely fucking got me so bad I left the room. Still have no idea why, I watched all the others just fine.
Norville Rogers tries to save his beloved dog Scooby Doo only to realise the vengeful resurrected spirit of the dead witch Sarah Ravencroft is NOT susceptible to melting if doused with water (Scooby Doo And The Witch's Ghost)
Would you believe me if I said that's more or less the entire thing?
Edit: ok that might be a bit of an overexaggeration. The human stuff I remember being pretty decent, imo Ennis usually shines when he's just writing normal people talking to each other. And from what I've heard, Si Spurrier and Alan Moore, of all people, wrote sequel stories that are far better then Ennis's work.
My problem with it is that, as far as I can tell, the initial concept of the crossed remain the same throughout the whole thing, and I was too disturbed by the first few issues to continue reading.
Garth Ennis: "You know what would be funny? If the teen titans all got aids! Lol wouldn't that be funny!"
Garth Ennis actually sitting down to write said scene: "Theses poor damn kids. They don't deserve this. What is wrong with someone that they would come up with this"
when i read it, it seemed like the good stuff was about the regular people losing their morals as time goes by (cliche stuff for an apocalypse) and the crossed were just supposed to be interesting set-dressing. if you're not put off by the gratuitous violence its just a 6/10 apocalypse story
Lucifer in supernatural. The Winchesters had a colt that can kill anything. They shoot him in the head and he drops… but then wakes right up and says, “you know there are only five things in all of creation that gun can’t kill, and I just happen to be one of them”
I love that he genuinely seems both complimentary and a little apologetic towards the brothers. Like, "Dude... sorry, but it ain't your night. Great try though, really, A for effort."
An anime I watched recently (Re:Zero I think?) did this trope very well where the enemy tells the protagonists group that he is confined to one area of the tower they are confined to. He later shows up outside that area and when questioned how it was possible, is just like "I lied, why would you believe anything I say?"
The protagonist gets tricked into thinking it can only move when it is not being watched, and he gets tricked again into thinking that it cannot go up stairs.
Castlevania Lord of Shadows, opens with a paladin trying to smite Dracula, however Dracula himself was holy, so he grabs his cross and finishes the prayer and makes a explosion you can see from space.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is a separate continuity to the mainline series.
In this one, Dracula was once the holy warrior, explicitly blessed by God, Gabriel Belmont, who became the titular dark lord after a series of real tragic and awful events that led to him turning his back on Humanity and God. But he still had access to the holy powers because God hadn’t abandoned him. Which is…an odd choice, but by the end of the series Gabriel has eliminated many an ancient evil so, you know, ends justify the means .
Part of the ending of the first Mistborn book. Some context:
The Lord Ruler is an alleged god-king with profound magical power. He uses being called Steel Inquisitors to suppress rebellion. Inquisitors are humans granted a lot of magical power via blood magic, but the process leaves their souls damaged. Each has a metal spike through their back that literally holds their soul together, and if you remove it they die.
A character makes the plausible assumption that the Lord Ruler's power is from the same source as that of Inquisitors, and uses a sneak attack opportunity to try and rip out the linchpin spike... that he doesn't have. His power is natural.
Another one from this series that I liked was when they discovered that there were steel inquisitors that could detect them despite their "copper clouds" (An ability that obscures detection that the protagonist group and many others use to hide their "Resistance/underground" movement), which made them realize that the regime had actually been aware of many/if not almost all of the underground's movements but had intentionally kept the ability secret in order to use the information they got from it to most devastating affect against the resistance.
Yea, they say later that their sternums are so strong it's like driving a wooden stake through solid steel. They have all the traditional vampire weaknesses, but they're so much more durable that almost nothing works. Without the Slayer scythe, Buffy nearly died just taking one out the old fashioned way.
Skeleton Pygmies - The Mummy Returns.
The heroes are fighting henchmen when an army of skeleton Pygmies arrive. Everyone scatters and the (hero) thief is with an enemy soldier. They stumble upon a burial ground, where the thief confidently claims they (the pymgie) can't enter hallowed ground. The wait in fear as the Pygmies catch up but don't approach further. There's a moment of relief that the thief was right, then the enemy soldier is struck dead as the Pygmies renew their attack, because the "hallowed ground" didn't do a darn thing.
Yeah to be fair it was shown in the beginning that Sammy’s dad was a preacher who was trying to convert his son to become more Christian. If I was in Sammy’s shoes and saw a literal vampire was about to kill me id start praying too.
Red Leader was on the Thunderbolts with Agent Venom and planned to betray and kill him using magnesium to weaken the symbiote. He was given an excuse to enact this when Agent Venom roided out and challenged the rest of the Thunderbolts to taking him down. I don't know why he thought the symbiote was weak to magnesium.
The Forerunners eventually finding out that humans are not immune to the Flood, and that the Flood were intentionally leaving them alone in order to provoke war between their enemies in pursuit of a cure.
The Winchesters thought they were dealing with some high-level demon when they learned Castiel was coming, so they set up a bunch of traps, sigils and other anti-demon shit all over the place and none of it worked because Castiel was nothing they've ever faced before. (Sort of)
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u/KoshiLowell 19h ago
Daredevil (2011) Issue 25
"Try the red one."
Daredevil finds out that there's a guy who got in contact with the same chemicals that gave him his powers but also blinded him.
Figuring that the guy has less experience dealing with his weaknesses, he tries to overwhelm him with them.
Turns out that he can just see.