Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond

"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." —Desidarius Erasmus, Dutch Philosopher (1466-1536)

Sure we have abilities and "powers" that set us apart from "normal" Earth humes... But isn't it the height of arrogance t' call ourselves super heroes when all we are is a bunch of lost, outcast or refugee norms from our own worlds? —Gifford, Magellan

This trope is a character or other idea that, in their own reality/universe, are fairly normal, if not underpowered. They'd be a Red Shirt back home, or someone fairly low key. Or maybe back home they're weak because they have to measure up to god-level opponents or Eldritch Abominations. Whatever the reason, they're not considered strong.

However, due to the nature of the world they are dropped into, they are unbelievably powerful. Let's use a spaceship as the first example. Maybe you have a shield that is considered weak in your home reality? In a world that has no shield technology, you are the king of the playground. Or an FTL drive. Or better sensors. "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king," after all.

What about humans? If you have psychic powers, but so does everyone else, then you aren't that special. But what if you were dropped into a world where subterfuge and spy work were the order of the day, but no one could read minds? You're suddenly the biggest VIP on the planet.

This trope is about when Power Creep, Power Seep does not come into play. To be a Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond, you don't have to be a Mary Sue, but you must be much more powerful than the locals, without gaining anything you didn't have before. Also, no attempting to Nerf powers.

Compare Like a Fish Takes to Water, where the individuals transplanted have some unique gifts or knowledge. This one is just a normal guy or person in his/her universe, but is special in another. Fish Out of Water goes hand-in-hand with this trope. This is a staple of comic book alien supers. Invoked Trope for Summon Everyman Hero. See also Those Were Only Their Scouts. Contrast Outside Context Villain.

Examples of Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond include:

Anime & Manga

• Ginta from MAR is a relatively normal boy in his home universe. However, when he comes to MAR, he's considered super strong because of the difference in gravity.
• Dragonball Z
  • Goku may be one of the strongest fighters on earth but on his home planet he was called a weakling among Saiyans.
  • Raditz is the weakest among his fellow Saiyans, but still strong enough to catch bullets from a farmer's shotgun and curbstomp Goku and Piccolo in his first (and only) appearance.
  • The concept is also consistently used for training; characters will train in harsh, high-gravity environments so that they'll be even stronger under normal conditions.
• This comes up several times in One Piece, where characters, usually oneshot, are hyped up as the strongest in whatever nation or island the story is taking place in at the time, only to be Worfed by a more worldly, and therefore more powerful, fighter. Zoro had this happen to himself in his "epic duel" with Mihawk at the Baratie;

Mihawk: You may have a reputation, but you're still just a bunny. [...] You're a little frog, croaking in your puddle. Time you learned how big the world is.

• • This was called back to after Zoro trained under Mihawk during the timeskip. His first "serious opponent", an octopus drunken swordsman, bragged about being the strongest swordsman in Fishman Island. Zoro kept calling him a frog, until the swordsman was sufficiently incensed, at which point Zoro stated he was bragging like a frog in a well, unaware of the world.

Comics

• DC Comics:
  • Booster Gold was originally less than a muggle, he was a total loser: an ex-football player from the 25th disgraced by betting on his own games who ends up as the security guard of a museum. He steals a time travel device and a Robot Buddy and transports himself to present day... and has surprisingly become a great hero despite himself.
  • Played with regards to the Flash. His Super Speed is derived from the Speed Force which makes him "The Fastest Man Alive" in the DC multiverse. As shown by JLA-Avengers, the Speed Force does not exist in the Marvel multiverse. If Flash leaves his corner of existence, he's an ordinary man.
  • One story in the Silver Age had Jimmy Olson go to another world, where the low gravity meant he had the equivalent of Superman-level abilities.
  • Mr Mxyzptlk, the imp who occasionally pops over from the Fourth Dimension to bug Superman, was said in his first appearance to be a nobody in his home dimension, where his powers are nothing out the ordinary.
  • Hell even Superman himself is an example; he's a completely normal Kryptonian, but the completely normal ability of Kryptonians to absorb solar energy makes him on Earth, well, Superman.
  • Same can be said about Martian Manhunter - completely normal Martian but compared to humans he is extremely powerful.
• Marvel Comics:
  • Inverted in Tim Boo Ba, a pre-Fantastic Four Monster story from Stan Lee & Steve Ditko. TBB is the absolute monarch of his world, brought down by a drop of water spilled by a preteen boy on the model world he lives on.
  • Inverted at the start of the Planet Hulk storyline, where Hulk (who is the strongest one there is) lands on a planet where he's not all that strong compared to the natives.
  • While Loki is often more of a schemer than a fighter when dealing with Asgardians, and is supposed to be a weakling compared to fellow giants, it's sometimes acknowledged that he's still way beyond the physical capacity of any human. For instance, in Hulk Vs, he's shown giving Bruce Banner a weak slap that is strong enough to launch Banner across the room, and as discussed by Tom Hiddleston, his actor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, being a god, Loki can easily take down the Badass Normal heroes, even World's Strongest Man Captain America.
  • Some of Thor's comrades like Warrior's Three or Balder also qualify - they are pretty average if skilled warriors among their own people, but each of them is a Physical God to a human.
  • Spider-Man. When fighting alongside the Avengers and Fantastic Four, he's more there due to Popularity Power than anything else, not being anything special (in terms of smarts or powers). But on the streets of New York that he usually operates on, he's a borderline Ubermensch, being stronger than Luke Cage and having better Super Senses than Daredevil.
  • Gwen Poole/Gwenpool. She comes from the real world and is just a perfectly ordinary teenage outcast in it. In the Marvel Universe, having a head full of nerd knowledge and awareness that she's in a comic book makes her a dangerous Reality Warper. Though it is deconstructed a tad as Gwen knows she's in a tiny pond, often leading her to underestimate Marvel's B-listers and forgetting that everyone else calls said tiny pond home and can sometimes be horrified at how callously she manipulates things with ease.
  • Ultimate Marvel Reed Richards. In the relatively grounded and realistic Earth-1610 that Ultimate Marvel takes place on, a nigh-immortal Humanoid Abomination super-genius conqueror is one of the most dangerous beings in existence. On the Earth-616 of mainline Marvel Comics, it's your average Tuesday. Reed even works to resurrect his native universe so he can continue being this trope.
• Nemesis the Warlock is well-respected among his race, but is not portrayed as being extraordinary powerful. In fact, his crazy uncle Baal is said to have much greater power than him and he can be put on a spell even by young and unexperienced female Warlock (as they are by default more powerful than males) and the only thing that makes him special is being in the possession of Sword Sinister, through it's unexplained why. Compared to humans and other races he is however seen almost as a godlike being and Galaxy's only hope against Termight Empire.
• The Visitors in Transformers: Last Bot Standing. Historically they've never been particularly impressive Decepticons. But on a world that hasn't even invented a steam locomotive, they're an existential threat to the planet.

Fan Fiction

• In Thousand Shinji, in a later chapter, Shinji unleashes four Chaos Space Marines against NERV special forces. While normal for Warhammer 40000, a Space Marine against normal humans is a textbook example of this trope.
• Warhammer 40000 crossovers in general tend to do this, partially because they take so much Refuge in Audacity in canon. Heck, one of the primary weapons is a gun that shoots automatic, armor-piercing, rocket-propelled grenades. This is considered one of the tamer weapons in the setting. More exotic guns include ones that fire monomolecular shards of metal, acid, fire, hypersonic projectiles, lasers, sound, horrible energy that strips you down to your core, molecule by molecule, and the power of Hell itself.
• Inverted in Sleeping with the Girls as the protagonist finds himself suddenly far more fragile in other universes due to them involving over the top Slapstick violence with everyone trying to give him a Megaton Punch and him just being a normal human.
  • This trope is played straighter, though, as the protagonist comes from our world, which has no magic. Thusly, when he goes to other worlds that do have magic, he isn't hurt by magical attacks at all. He can still be hurt or killed by magical side effects, such as the heat of a fireball causing his clothes to burn or to boil water he's drinking.
• This trope applied to humans is the basis of many a "Humanity, Fuck Yeah!" story: See Humans Are Warriors and related tropes.
• The Thessalonica Legacy: Ramirez's Valkyrie is a Light 'Mech, bottom of the totem pole, and not even the best of that bottom-dweller pack. Without any other 'Mechs in Equestria to compete with, though, it is the absolute sovereign of the battlefield.
• Despite being the main character of Harry Potter and the Invincible Technomage, Harry outright admits that he's this more than once. In the Potter Verse he's an utter badass capable of outthinking 99% of the foes he comes across and outfighting the 1% he can't talk down while sporting a Beyond the Impossible Magitek arsenal. In the Marvel Universe he was raised in, this makes him, at his absolute best, a B-list player only capable of doing grunt work so that the Avengers can keep their focus on world-ending threats. He even lampshades several times that if the Avengers came down on the Death Eaters, the latter would be wiped off the map in very short order, even saying that Thor could level all of Wizarding Britain single-handed.
• Vehicons in the Transformers Prime/Code Geass crossover Code Prime. In Prime, they're totally expendable Mooks to be sacrificed to the Autobots. When going up against human-built and piloted Humongous Mechas, the Vehicons are an unstoppable force of highly advanced alien attack drones. It takes Autobot knowledge to upgrade the Black Knights' Knightmares enough that they can actually damage Vehicons.
• Discussed in the Transformers Animated fic Transformers: ReAnimated with regards to Optimus Prime. Existing in a Shared Universe with, most prominently, Ben 10, Optimus was part of a multi-species assault team that ended Vilgax (the Big Bad and The Dreaded of Ben 10) and the threat he posed to the galaxy. And while Optimus is quite proud of that, along with his team defeating other organic warlords, most comments from other Autobots suggest that this isn't a noteworthy feat in their society. While Sentinel Prime mocks that Optimus is "just another dull script" in Autobot society, even Ratchet thinks that the Decepticons were vastly more dangerous than Vilgax and the rest of Optimus's Autobot team barely seems to know who Vilgax was. And when forced to fight Megatron, even Optimus has to concede that the Decepticon leader is a much bigger bad than Vilgax.
• Most Milky Way-exclusive powers in There Was Once An Avenger From Krypton are regarded as such by the Paladins of Voltron, considering the vast territory commanded by the Galra Empire. Ironically though, a lot of comments by Word of God suggest that the Galra themselves are normal fishes, simply being able to expand so freely because their corner of the universe is populated by much weaker species than the Milky Way and that their empire is composed of a lot more empty space than official propaganda suggests.
• The Daleks of Doctor Who in the Mega Crossover With A Snap. While this trope applies to everyone to one degree or another (as everyone is an Outside Context Villain to someone else in a multiverse), the Daleks are the most keenly felt recipients. In the Whoniverse, they're the Dreaded and an unstoppable horde of death. In World of Badass realities, the Daleks are little more than your dime a dozen horde of Killer Robots. After he grows tired of blowing them up, Thanos casually Mind Rapes the Dalek Hive Mind to turn them into Mooks to replace his own depleted army.

Film

• Essentially the premise of Idiocracy: The soldier who was frozen was chosen specifically for being perfectly average in every way, but humanity evolved to be stupider, so when he wakes up, he's the smartest man alive, and the person who was frozen with him is the smartest woman alive.
• In the 2009 Star Trek film, Nero's ship, the Narada, goes back in time and defeats a fleet of Klingon Warbirds, yet it's mining vessel in his day. A comic book prequel series averts the trope by stating that Nero added Borg technology to the Narada before going back in time. Mind you, its drill, able to burn down to a planet's core, is nothing more than homegrown 24th century Romulan technology.
• The T-800 in The Terminator. While still dangerous in its own time, its kind are nothing more than Mecha-Mooks. In 1984, the T-800 is an unstoppable killing machine that no one can fight or knows about. Reese, who has fought other T-800s, even lampshades that what what he has to work with in 1984, he's not sure that he can fight it.
• The Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier. Against Muggles and Badass Normals, he's the deadliest assassin in the world. Against the likes of Iron Man, Black Panther and Spider-Man? He's nothing to worry about. It's generally implied that all Super Soldiers can be slotted into this category when compared to anyone with what could be considered a superpower.
  • Spider-Man himself is also very successful amongst Muggles but with other heroes, despite his strength, he doesn't have enough experience to be a reliable asset.
  • If Rocket Racoon is to be taken at face value, Tony Stark is only a genius by human standards.
  • The villains from Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man in Spider-Man: No Way Home. In their realities, they're powerful supervillains with deadly technology. In the advanced MCU that has Tony Stark's technology, they're Twenty Minutes Into the Future at best. MCU!Peter Parker is easily able to understand how their technology works and override it. Were it not for the Green Goblin masquerading as Norman Osborn, MCU!Peter could have handled all the baddies himself.

Literature

• Several of The Forsaken from The Wheel of Time series have shades of this. In The Age of Legends, when the Forsaken were born, Traveling (the ability to cross great distances in a single step) was commonplace and Balefire (a spell that destroys a target then erases their actions several moments backwards in time) was used as a tool of war by both them and their enemies. Fast forward 3000 years and several nigh-apocalyptic wars and Traveling and Balefire are both mostly forgotten skills. When The Forsaken step back into the flow of time these abilities which they take for granted suddenly make these channelers (all of whom were the most powerful of their day to begin with) into extremely powerful and dangerous individuals.
  • It's also mentioned that channelers are born weaker and in lower numbers with each generation following the Age of Legends, believed to be a result of those that are born failing to breed (because the men go insane and either kill themselves or get hunted down, and the women get whisked away to the all-female Aes Sedai and don't have kids). Lost knowledge aside, an Aes Sedai who is exceptionally powerful in the modern world would have been average at best when the Forsaken were born, though some exceptional modern channelers like Nynaeve stand out because they actually can go toe-to-toe with some of the Forsaken in sheer raw power.
• In Isaac Asimov's "Azazel" stories, it is implied that the title character, a demon, is comparatively weak and unimportant in his own plane of existence, which is why he likes to entertain himself by granting wishes for people on Earth.
  • It's also suggested that the way one becomes more important and powerful in his plane is by helping others — another reason he grants wishes... and the fact that a combination of his own vague-at-best understanding of humanity and his incompetent intermediary lead to his "boons" only causing trouble ensure he'll stay weak and unimportant for a long time.
• An example that appears to make this Older Than Radio: in John Carter of Mars, the main character is a random American soldier... who ends up one of the strongest guys around on Mars because of that planet's lower gravity. (Thoroughly confused in one of the later books where he visits Jupiter and doesn't seem to have a problem walking there...)
• The protagonist of the first three books of the Spellsong Cycle is an opera singer Trapped in Another World in which music is literally magic - sing something, and it happens. Because being a musician in that world makes you a Person of Mass Destruction, knowledge of music theory never got very far and much of the world is locked in Medieval Stasis. Her real-world education ends up making her an extremely dangerous and powerful individual.
• Dragonlance: The Dragon Overlords of the War of Souls trilogy, dragons hundreds of feet in length, came from a world near where Takhisis moved Krynn to so she could be the dominant goddess. They came to Krynn because they were weaklings on their planet of dragons. Scary place.
• In Gulliver's Travels, the title character is a classic example among the lilliputians: Gulliver is a fairly normal human, but because the lilliputians are about six inches tall he becomes like a One-Man Army (or more accurately, Navy) for them.
• There is a similar story titled "Gift of a worthless man" (don't know the author) where a low criminal crashlands on a planet inhabited by sentient roach-like creatures stuck in Ancient Ages. He teaches them agriculture and basic craftsmanship and essentially uplifts their society, so that 100 years later, they are already have industry.
  • Alan Dean Foster from the ...Who Needs Enemies anthology.
• Maxim Kammerer in "Inhabited Island" (Aka "Prisoners of Power") by Strugatsky Brothers. For Earth, he is ordinary, but on Saraksh, his Bullet Time capabilities and ability to survive heavy wounds make him very powerful. Even more important however, is that being a non-native, he is immune to the mind-control beams...

Live-Action TV

• The Berserker in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. By Asgardian standards, he's a working grunt. By Earth standards, he outshines Captain America in every category and handles his problems by outliving them.
• The Arrowverse:
  • Downplyed but still present for the title character Supergirl. While very powerful, when facing off against the alien and cosmic threats of National City, she will get beaten up and tossed around. When facing any of Barry or Oliver's rogues, she's unstoppable.
  • Team Arrow. They're undeniably skilled Badass Normals and operate in a city where those skill sets make them incredibly dangerous. In any city that has meta-humans and/or aliens, they can only function as background support.
• Doctor Who:
  • The Doctor himself. He's a Time Lord washout but the knowledge he does have, combined with his Bizarre Alien Senses, makes him a borderline Physical God to the rest of the galaxy. Though the Series 12 finale casts doubt on how "normal" the Doctor is.
  • Jack Harkness, at least prior to getting his immortality, was a drummed out Time Agent. In most of humanity's past, he's successful con-man and later, upon being made immortal, is a powerful force for good, second only to the Doctor in defending Earth.
  • The Cybus Cybermen. In their Twenty Minutes Into the Future quasi-fascist reality, they're an unstoppable Fate Worse Than Death horde whom everyone fears. Upon crossing over into N-Space, not only do they encounter severe resistance from a much more independent version of Earth, they find what small potatoes they are compared to the Daleks.
• It's infrequently suggested that Jade West in Victorious is this. Sure she's an Alpha Bitch but whenever the villain comes from outside Hollywood Arts, they're always so much worse than she is and unintimidated by her.
• Danny on Full House uses this trope to describe DJ's struggles with fitting in at her new junior high school, which seems to be filled with kids who wear skimpy clothes, have mustaches, and mock the newcomers. Luckily, DJ and Kimmy are able to befriend two other girls who look and act their age.
• Played for Drama in the Marvel Cinematic Universe series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. John Walker/Captain America II is, unlike his predecessor, not a Super Soldier. In a world of Physical Gods, aliens and wizards, a decorated US Army veteran is rather unimpressive and not quite up to level of holding his own against Marvel-level fighters. Even Steve Rogers, who was a normal Weak but Skilled fish to the enhanced community, had strength enough to stay in Iron Man's league thanks to being a Super Soldier. This led to Walker developing a powerful inferiority complex and Sanity Slippage, illegally injecting himself with the Super Soldier Serum to try and avert this.

Radio

• In the first radio version of Superman, his abilities were the norm on Krypton, even though since it was the golden age, that's just superstrength and limited invulnerability - no heat/x-ray vision, and technically no flight (but they could "jump hella high"). One of the first scenes is Lara and Jor-El marveling that humans have to take hundreds of steps to get around.

Tabletop Games

• Necromunda of the Warhammer 40000 verse in a sense. Everywhere else, Imperial Guard technology (for example Flak Vests and Lasguns) is only good enough to allow a Zerg Rush against the various super-powered enemies, in the underhive of Necromunda, it's top class equipment.
  • Going across different game systems can do this to the players themselves. In 40k, most models can only move 6 inches, with a select few allowed to move 12 inches, and a very small amount of them being able to charge an additional 12 inches (for a total of 24 inch threat radius). In fantasy, a 6 inch movement is one of the fastest base movements a foot model can have without being a horse (and even then, it's only a modest increase). This is because most models only have an average movement rate of 3-4 inches per turn, which in turn is hampered by certain equipment (especially horses, where barding trades speed for protection). Similarly, the Bolter's stats would be considered wildly powerful within fantasy, mainly because there are so few actual ranged weapons to compete with it (not to mention with the game's rules, it will completely obliterate most armors in the game).
• Sealed events in Magic: The Gathering uses this trope to balance its pool of cards and not create massive game-breakers across multiple formats. Cards like Galvanic Juggernaut are horrible in preconstructed decks, but in a sealed enviroment where creatures die easily and most creatures not reaching even half it's power, it's one of the biggest bombs (it helps that it's much more easier to pull one of these than a mythic, giving you a better chance of both getting multiples to draw him out and to play).

Video Games

• In the Mega Man animated series, there was an episode where Mega Man X chases Sigma, Vile, et al back in time and meets the original Mega Man and crew. Though X is analogous to Mega Man in terms of strength in his own continuity, in Mega Man's time he is extremely powerful, as are the villains - the Mega Buster can't harm them.
• When you start the first night time levels in Plants Vs Zombies, the amount of Sun available to you is greatly lessened. As a result, you will tend to rely more on the cheap (and weaker) mushroom defences. This trope comes into effect because defences like the Pea Shooter, the first and most basic unit of daytime levels, suddenly becomes an expensive and powerful unit.
• In regular Battlestar Galactica Reimagined, the Battlestars and Basestars are par for the course. In Battlestar Galactica Online, though, where even the strongest starships a player has regular access to are much weaker, they can bitchslap whole fleets.
• Emperor Nefarious in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. As he faces more and more resistance, he shows himself to be Not So Different from Doctor Nefarious, eventually culminating in a Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum. The game suggests that, ultimately, the main reason he's so successful is because his universe is simply easier to conquer than the primary one. Because, unlike Ratchet and Clank, Rivet and Kit didn't team up to inspire the universe.

Web Comics

• In the Love and Capes webcomic, Amazonia is this. She's one of 12 sisters in a dimension where everybody has powers like hers, and she likes the fact that on Earth, she's something special.
• In Bob and George, the title characters are originally from a Superhero-esque webcomic universe, however, once they enter to the Mega Man Universe, they are considered Sue Tier (Bob even lampshades this on one occasion). Also, since time and interuniversal travel are common topics here, we've only seen one "native" (from the Mega Man Universe) big bad invasion (two if you count the whole "X going rogue" incident) and on top of that, he was the local version of a previous big bad who attacked first.
• Kid Radd: Radd is a Four Hit Point Wonder from an 8-bit game, but when he visits a fighter-game universe, it's noted that he gets Mercy Invincibility when injured. And since the fighter-game characters rely on combo moves...
  • His girlfriend is an NPC (at least initially) meaning that she doesn't have a health bar to be taken away from, so she is effectively invulnerable to any attacks.
  • Also, Radd has a Charged Attack that's only limited by the word size of the system he's in. In his original 8-bit game, he is able to do a max of 255 damage, a 16-bit video game allows him to do 65,536 damage, and in the 32-bit Internet he's able to cause The End of the (Digital) World as We Know It if he spends enough time charging. Mercifully, 64-bit systems weren't yet widespread when the comic had its run...
• Discussed in Magellan during a support group for extra-terrestrial and extra-dimensional students.
• Three Panel Soul pokes fun at the concept in this strip.

Web Original

• In Red vs. Blue, the later seasons show that Agent Washington is Weak but Skilled compared to the other Freelancer agents, especially the powerhouses like Tex, Carolina, and Maine. He's a complete badass compared to the regular Blood Gulch crew, though, especially in his first few appearances.

Western Animation

• Inverted for Orco in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. He is an archmage in his home dimension, but a difference in how magic works reduces him to comedy relief on Eternia.
  • And he lost his wand.
• Certain episodes of The Simpsons imply that Lisa is this, though others imply she's a genuine genius. She's a smart kid, but only brilliant by comparison with Springfield's stupid children and horrible school system. Upon attending Waverly Hills school, she finds out that she's really only a B student, which traumatizes her.
  • In "Bart vs. Lisa vs. the Third Grade", she gets to skip to the third grade early, but finds it difficult (made more embarrassing for her because Bart was demoted a grade and found it easy):

Principal Skinner: "Lisa, you have a choice: you may continue to be challenged in third grade or return to second grade and be merely a big fish in a small pond." Lisa: "Big fish! Big fish!"

• White Diamond in Steven Universe suggest that this was Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond's mindset in the Crystal Gems. She encouraged Be Yourself so she could be "the best of the worst."
• Ben 10:
  • It's infrequently suggested that Ben is a variation of this. Overall, he's a dangerous and unique fighter, a master of Confusion Fu who always has a trick up his sleeve. But if he has to face off against another of the species that he's currently transformed into, he comes across as something of a simpleton who has no idea how to fight or use his powers. This is first seen in the OS episode "Hunted". In his Petrosapien form of Diamondhead, Ben is damn near-invincible against any trouble on Earth. When he faces off against another Petrosapien, Tetrax, saying he was on the receiving end of a Curb Stomp Battle is the polite way of putting it.
  • Ben 10: Omniverse:
    • As lampshaded by the Azmuth of another reality, Blukic and Driba are "remarkably unintelligent" for a pair of Galvans but geniuses by Earth standards.
    • According to Rook and Ben, Gwen is only attractive by human standards. Ben outright says that Gwen can't compete with the women of Rook's species.
• Rick and Morty
  • As revealed in the fifth season finale, Rick Sanchez himself. At the end of the day, he's nothing special in the Multiverse. The only reason he's the smartest man in the universe is because he and his other selves have built the Central Finite Curve, locking them only to the infinite realities where he's the smartest man in the universe. There are infinite other universes where he isn't the smartest man in the universe. Though when we see the larger multiverse, in "Unmortricken", Ricks are much more competent than anyone else who has built an Interdimensional Travel Device.
  • The United States of America. It has incredible technology and a robust military... by "Twenty Minutes Into the Future" standards. Were it not for Rick's own super-technology, America wouldn't be able to hold its own against the many Alien Invasions that have occurred.
  • "Unmortricken" also suggests this about Evil Morty, a few moments seeming to indicate that his success comes less from how smart he is and more the fact that he's a smart Morty, something no Rick would ever see coming. When Ricks face off against other foes in their intellectual and/or power weight-class, they generally tend to fight on equal ground but ultimately win.
• Transformers:
  • This is somewhat implied to be the case with Megatron in Beast Wars. While he's a dangerous threat to the Maximals on Earth, his ex-bosses on the Tripedacus Council view him as a Hot-Blooded renegade who causes too much trouble and it's suggested that Maximal High Command only views him as a common thief. Though as Beast Machines showed, this was perhaps the worst case of Underestimating Badassery in Cybertron's history.
  • The main cast of Autobots in Transformers Animated. On Cybertron, they're a bunch of Jaded Washouts. In Detroit, Michigan, they're unstoppable against human criminals.
  • RiD 2015:
    • Steeljaw, like BW!Megatron, is implied to be a non-entity on Cybertron but his cunning against a group of resource-starved Autobots stranded on Earth makes him a dangerous threat.
    • Starscream. In Transformers Prime he was, despite his smarts, rather low on the Nemesis totem pole, not having the fighting prowess to really back up his threats or being hampered by his massive ego. In RiD, when all the other antagonists are Monster of the Week-style Decepticons, he's easily one of the biggest threats that the Bee Team has ever faced.
    • Suggested to be the case for Menasor. Though it's said he's destroyed a solar system, he and his components are handled rather easily by the Bee Team.
• Earth in Futurama. While it's able to bully less developed planets, it itself gets invaded pretty frequently by more powerful interstellar powers or Cosmic Entities.
• As Stewie and Brian Griffin of Family Guy have learnt more than once, they may be the smartest people in the Griffin household but that's very much not the case when they try to rub shoulders with high society.