You're Nothing Without Your Phlebotinum

A stock phrase (prone to variations) uttered by the villain whenever the hero suffers a case of Phlebotinum Breakdown, We Have Forgotten the Phlebotinum, Brought Down to Normal or Useless Superpowers, in which they take the time to enjoy some evil gloating about the heroes' reduced effectiveness.

A form of Tempting Fate, as the hero will usually promptly prove that no, they are in fact not nothing without their phlebotinum, usually making use of their wits and improvisational skills to make up the difference.

Alternatively, it may take the form of I'm Nothing Without My Phlebotinum, when the hero himself is left feeling inadequate due to his depowering, triggering either a Heroic Blue Screen of Death or a Ten-Minute Retirement.

This usually works out the same with the hero again proving it's not true, and getting over his inadequacy, minus any Kick the Dog on the villains part.

Sometimes spoken to a Gadgeteer Genius or Mad Scientist even without a breakdown.

Please note that this is strictly a dialogue/characterisation trope- if a hero is merely deprived of his usual powers/gear/resources, but is not mocked for it by the villain, then it's not this trope- it's one of the above mentioned.

Also note that it can be reversed.

Compare Amulet of Dependency; Contrast Magic Feather, where the "phlebotinum" is just a psychological aid: the power was in the character all along.

Examples of You're Nothing Without Your Phlebotinum include:

Anime & Manga

• In the event that a Humongous Mecha pilot is caught without said mecha, this trope will likely come into play. Depending on the type of series, the results can differ.
• An inverted example in Yu-Gi-Oh, where Pegasus turns out to be nothing without his Millenium Eye and cheated-out cards.
  • Yugi himself may count however, especially in the early episodes. He does manage a few fights without the Puzzle, though.
• Also, in its latest incarnation, Yu-Gi-Oh ZEXAL, the moments before Shark's second duel with Yuma is seen as this. Which makes it all more devastating when Yuma says he can win the duel without numbers and then finds himself in danger of losing the duel. Then he breaks his vow to not use numbers to win the duel and STILL loses.
• Naruto gets this from Kabuto, who claims that Naruto's only saving grace is the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed inside of him, a not unfair accusation, seeing as most of Naruto's victories up until that point were due to the power-boost from the Fox. Naruto would shortly after prove him wrong, sending Kabuto flying with not but his wits and the new attack he just learned. Much later on, Kabuto would express admiration that Naruto was able to overcome the stigma of being the Nine-Tails' container.

Fan Works

• More or less said by Brox in With Strings Attached after she, Grunnel, and the Raleka wizards render both George and Ringo powerless and kidnap the other two. Heck, George rescues John and they get their magic back, and Brox still sneers at their relative powerlessness.

Film

• Baseketball had one of these in the end when Coop was trying to hit a home run.
• "I've lost my mojo!"
• During the climactic battle of Mortal Kombat Annihilation, Motaro tears off one of Jax's bionic arm enhancements, leaving Jax with only his original arms since the other arm enhancement is now useless as well.

Motaro: Without your weapons, you are NO match for Motaro!
(beats Jax up)
Jax: I still have... my fists! (tide of battle turns)

• From the trailer for The Avengers:

Captain America: Big man in a suit of armor. Take that away and what are you?
Iron Man: A genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.

Literature

• Played with at the end of the Incarnations of Immortality novel On A Pale Horse, Satan bluntly tells the incarnation of Death that Death is nothing without his magic. So, the person who assumed the role of Death takes off all of the magic items (cloak, gloves, boots, etc). But, Deaths powers are part of him and cannot be taken by Satan, or by taking the items -- Satan was lying..
• In the Codex Alera series, the main character Tavi has spent his entire life without the Phlebotinum everyone else in Alera has—entities called furies which grant power over various elements (water, earth, air, fire, metal). Alera's technology completely relies on them, down to the level of turning on a light. He learns to survive and even prosper through his native wit. He starts gaining the abilities at the end of the third book

Live Action TV

• Used in Power Rangers Ninja Storm. Big Bad Lothor mocks the titular rangers for having lost their ranger powers. They then kindly remind him that they are still trained ninjas with Elemental Powers, which they use to knock him into the Abyss of Evil five feet behind him.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: answering whether or not she's anything without her powers is the premise of a test the Watcher's council tries to put Buffy through in the third season, by hypnotizing and doping her, they bring her down to the level of an ordinary girl in order to make her prove herself against a vampire without her powers.
  • And in the Season 8 comics we get a truly awesome example of this when one vamp makes the mistake of taunting a depowered Dracula. "The vampire's the least of your concerns. It's the old man you need to worry about."
  • In "Becoming, Part 2," Angelus taunts Buffy that he's fought her to the position of having no weapons, no friends, and no hope. What's left? Buffy replies simply "Me," and proceeds to kick his ass. Perhaps an inversion, in that the phleobotinum, her super-strength, is what she hasn't lost.
• An odd subversion of the self-inflicted version happens in the Doctor Who episode "The Eleventh Hour," where the newly regenerated Doctor muses that he has no TARDIS (it's busy rebuilding itself) and no sonic screwdriver (it was destroyed). However, rather than feeling emasculated, he uses it as a sort of self Dare to Be Badass.
• Subverted in Chuck. He's still pretty useful without the Intersect.
  • Lately, he seems to be using it less and less and relying more on his skills. Hell, he defuses a nuclear bomb with a juicebox. This almost beats frying a bomb with a porn site in the pilot episode.

Western Animation

• Virtually epidemic in the The DCAU.
  • In Part 2 of the Batman the Animated Series episode "Demon Quest", Batman is captured by Ras Al Ghul and his henchmen, and is stripped of his utility belt (and, oddly enough, his shirt), two henchmen are assigned to lead him off to a cell, one commenting "not so tough without your precious belt". Both henchman are rendered unconscious by Batman roughly 30 seconds later, as the hero escapes and goes on to thwart Ra's scheme perfectly competently, even sans utility belt (But with help from Talia).
  • In the Justice League Grand Finale "Starcrossed", General Talak comments that Green Lantern is "nothing without his toy", referring to his power ring. When the two later fight, and Talak destroys said doodad, Green Lantern still defeats him by tricking him into slamming his axe into a piece of machinery, electrocuting him into unconsciousness.
• This also happens to Batman in The Batman, when captured and once again stripped of his belt by Black Mask's thugs, one of those thugs mockingly dangles the belt tantalisingly in front of Batman (who is locked in a cage at this point)- Batman's response? "Utility belt, charge to stun" Cue one electrocuted mook, and one free Batman.
  • Not sure that really applies here. The phlebotinum was right there, and it was conveniently voice-activated.
    • But it was Batman's Crazy Preparedness that freed him as much as the utility belt and he always has that.
• Also used in the Kong the Animated Series cartoon, wherein the teenage hero confronts the mad scientist villain on an airplane without the titular ape to back him up- the villain snarls "without your ape your are nothing!". He is promptly judo-tossed out the side of the plane.
• An example of the secondary type is from the Mortal Kombat cartoon, where Jax's bionics are disabled in a fight with Reptile. Initially, he angsts about his perceived uselessness, being "just a strong man". Of course he's forced back into action and as per the trope description, defeats Reptile by outsmarting him.
• In Monsters vs. Aliens, Gallaxhar taunts the depowered Susan with "if you wanted to stop me, you should have done it when you possessed the Quantonium. Now you're nothing!" He comes to regret his words later.
• In Aladdin, Snake-Jafar tells Aladdin that he's nothing without the Genie.
  • Aladdin uses the same response to Jafar in order to trick him into becoming a genie himself.
• Hercules, when Hades takes Herc's powers away: "Now you know how it feels to be just like everyone else. Isn't it just peachy?"
• In The Tick (animation), the Carpeted Man refuses to remove his static-electricity-generating carpetsuit despite it making him too hot, claiming "I'm the Carpeted Man! Without my suit, I'm NOTHING!"
• Said by a hero, about himself, rather than a villain in Darkwing Duck. After showing Darkwing up all over St. Canard for a whole episode, Gizmoduck is trapped by a magnet, making his suit useless. He bemoans the fact that he's useless without his suit - but Darkwing, on the other hand, is not, and he's not shy about proving it, either.

Darkwing: "Superpowers do not a superhero make!"

• • Oddly, in the DuckTales (1987) miniseries when Fenton Crackshell got the Gizmoduck suit, he pulled off some heroics without it near the end. Did he forget about that?
• In an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Grim destroys Hoss Delgado's mechanical/weaponized hand and mocks him. Hos punches him out with his normal hand.