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* BitterSweetEnding: [[spoiler: The members of the Atari Force proof the existence of the Dark Destroyer and escape from their unfair judgement. However, Dart is separated from her parents and Chris from Lucia Caytlin, his surrogate mother and probably never will see them again. Besides, the corrupt government of New Earth still can try to find them or mistreat their beloved ones in retaliation. And the group have no idea of what they are going to find in Old Earth.
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* BitterSweetEnding: [[spoiler: The members of the Atari Force proof the existence of the Dark Destroyer and escape from their unfair judgement. However, Dart is separated from her parents and Chris from Lucia Caytlin, his surrogate mother and probably never will see them again. Besides, the corrupt government of New Earth still can try to find them or mistreat their beloved ones in retaliation. And the group have no idea of what they are going to find in Old Earth. ]]
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* TheAtoner: Blackjack and Kargg.
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* BitterSweetEnding: [[spoiler: The members of the Atari Force proof the existence of the Dark Destroyer and escape from their unfair judgement. However, Dart is separated from her parents and Chris from Lucia Caytlin, his surrogate mother and probably never will see them again. Besides, the corrupt government of New Earth still can try to find them or mistreat their beloved ones in retaliation. And the group have no idea of what they are going to find in Old Earth.
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* LoveObstructingParents: Senator Jamieson forbids his daughter Melissa from seeing Christopher. He considers Chris a "freak" because of his powers and also hates Chris' dad and Atari Force.Jamieson's hatred for father and son comes to the extreme of [[spoiler: having them sued for crimes they didn't commit.]]
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* LoveObstructingParents: Senator Jamieson forbids his daughter Melissa from seeing Christopher. He considers Chris a "freak" because of his powers and also hates Chris' dad and Atari Force. Jamieson's hatred for father and son comes to the extreme of [[spoiler: having them sued for crimes they didn't commit.]]
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* LoveObstructingParents: Senator Jamieson forbids his daughter Melissa from seeing Christopher. He considers Chris a "freak" because of his powers and also hates Chris' dad and Atari Force.Jamieson's hatred for father and son comes to the extreme of [[spoiler: having them sued for crimes they didn't commit.]]
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Badass Beard and Badass Mustache are being merged into Manly Facial Hair. Examples that don't fit or are zero-context are removed.
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* BadassBeard: Lucas Orion, though his character is mostly a pacifist that won't fight.
* BadassMustache: Captain Hunter, security chief of Atari Station in the second series. Blackjak combines his with PermaStubble.
* BadassMustache: Captain Hunter, security chief of Atari Station in the second series. Blackjak combines his with PermaStubble.
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* {{Fainting}}: Pakrat faints when he realizes that Martin Champion has destroyed the nav-chip on the Scanner One.
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* AllThatGlitters: The comic book special story where Pakrat discovers crystals that he thinks are valuable that are made from [[SolidGoldPoop Babe's shedding skin scales]]. At the end of the story, Pakrat finds out that after a while they turn to dust.
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Atari Force shouldn't be confused with [[Pinball/TheAtarians the Atarians]].
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* ChronicVillainy: After humanity was given a second chance to live in peace by joining a federation of worlds in order to resettle on New Earth, about twenty years later they are now back to building war weapons, as seen in the penultimate issue of the second series.
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* ChronicVillainy: After humanity was given a second chance to live in peace by joining a federation of worlds in order to resettle on New Earth, about twenty years later they are now back to building war weapons, as seen in the penultimate issue of the second series. This drives the disillusioned Martin Champion to transport himself and his second Atari Force team back to Old Earth to resettle there.
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Renamed to Token Black Friend in TRS; not enough context to tell if this counts. It is not just about any black friend but one specifically inserted for diversity's sake
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* BlackBestFriend: Lucas is this to Martin.
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* ChronicVillainy: After humanity was given a second chance to live in peace by joining a federation of worlds in order to resettle on New Earth, about twenty years later they are now back to building war weapons, as seen in the penultimate issue of the second series.
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* CrushKillDestroy: The friendly toy robot, Bob, who could only say his name cheerfully, went evil after one too many flushes down the toilet. It could still say nothing more than "Bob", but it said it in a much more menacing voice to the point it was obvious that if its vocabulary were bigger, it would've been saying the trope title verbatim.
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* MurderousMalfunctioningMachine: The friendly toy robot, Bob, who could only say his name cheerfully, went evil after one too many flushes down the toilet. It could still say nothing more than "Bob", but it said it in a much more menacing voice.
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* RemixComic: "Mission: Phoenix" (pack-in comic #4) was originally written as a story for the spin-off arcade video game ''Liberator'', with the Maglaglon originally resembling frogs.
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* RemixComic: "Mission: Phoenix" (pack-in comic #4) was originally written as a story for the spin-off arcade video game ''Liberator'', with the Maglaglon Malaglon originally resembling frogs.
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* ScreamingBirth: The backwater planet creature screams as it gives birth to the Dark Destroyer's humanoid form.
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* MistakenForThief: In Mohandas Singh's origin, he and his childhood friend were accused as thieves when a tourist accidentally dropped his wallet and had the police chase after them, only to realize his error, which cost Mohandas his friend's life. Fortunately, the tourist gave Mohandas a chance to leave his peasant life, which resulted in him becoming a brilliant engineer.
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* HappinessIsMandatory: In the second series, we see in Psyklops' invasion of Morphea's mind that Canopean society, which emphasizes being in a collective hive mind, enforces each being to live without concern for their own personal needs — a situation which Morphea is constantly punished for by the Hive Mother due to her feeling of loneliness.
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* DontCelebrateJustYet: In the second series, when Martin Champion felled the Dark Destroyer in the human form of Champion, Dart tells him something to this effect, saying that she was unable to stop the Dark Destroyer's anti-matter bomb from detonating due to her tampering with the device.
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* MaternalDeathBlameTheChild: Christopher Champion was believed to be blamed by his father Martin for his mother Lydia's death at birth. It was only years later that Dr. Lucas Orion, the physician present at the birth, realized that Martin blamed the Dark Destroyer for Lydia's death.
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* MaternalDeathBlameTheChild: Christopher Champion was believed to be blamed by his father Martin for his mother Lydia's death at birth. It was only years later that Dr. Lucas Orion, the physician present at the birth, realized that Martin blamed the Dark Destroyer for Lydia's death.death, as the Dark Destroyer's life force entered into Lydia, killed her, then entered into Martin while he was unaware due to grief, in order to know his unique genetic makeup so that he could be born as an Evil Knockoff of Martin.
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The original series was first published in 1982 as a set of promotional giveaways with selected UsefulNotes/Atari2600 video games. It covered the efforts of the Atari Force as they participate in "Project Multiverse", a mission to [[TheMultiverse travel across dimensions]] and find a new planet for humanity to inhabit after the current Earth is pushed to the brink of collapse by global warfare. While most of the stories were standalone, the team repeatedly clashed with the Dark Destroyer, an interdimensional EldritchAbomination out to conquer the multiverse. The stories were written by Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas, with art by Ross Andru and Gil Kane.
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The original series was first published in 1982 as a set of promotional giveaways with selected UsefulNotes/Atari2600 video games. It covered the efforts of the Atari Force as they participate in "Project Multiverse", a mission to [[TheMultiverse travel across dimensions]] and find a new planet for humanity to inhabit after the current Earth UsefulNotes/{{Earth}} is pushed to the brink of collapse by global warfare. While most of the stories were standalone, the team repeatedly clashed with the Dark Destroyer, an interdimensional EldritchAbomination out to conquer the multiverse. The stories were written by Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas, with art by Ross Andru and Gil Kane.
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* CrapsackWorld: The backstory establishes Earth as one of these, ravaged by endless war and terror attacks. [[DividedStatesOfAmerica The United States has been shattered]], the United Nations is dead, famine and disease are rampant, billions have already died, and a hemispheric drought has reduced the planet's arable land by a million acres. It's desperate enough that humanity's last hope is to ''travel across dimensions'' to find a new planet for everyone to colonize...
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* CrapsackWorld: The backstory establishes Earth as one of these, ravaged by endless war and terror attacks. [[DividedStatesOfAmerica The United States has been shattered]], the United Nations UsefulNotes/UnitedNations is dead, famine and disease are rampant, billions have already died, and a hemispheric drought has reduced the planet's arable land by a million acres. It's desperate enough that humanity's last hope is to ''travel across dimensions'' to find a new planet for everyone to colonize...
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The arcade game ''Liberator'' (essentially, VideoGame/MissileCommand in reverse) is based on this series (hence the marquee reading "Atari Force: Liberator"). Specifically, it's based on a special insert preview comic called "Codename: Liberator".
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The arcade game ''Liberator'' (essentially, VideoGame/MissileCommand ''VideoGame/MissileCommand'' in reverse) is based on this series (hence the marquee reading "Atari Force: Liberator"). Specifically, it's based on a special insert preview comic called "Codename: Liberator".
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* PuppeteerParasite
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* PuppeteerParasitePuppeteerParasite: The Dark Destroyer, who used portions of himself implanted in Blackjak and Kargg to manipulate them. Both these parasites were removed from their hosts, though Morphea had to go inside Kargg's mind to mentally battle the Dark Destroyer himself.
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* EnemyMine: In a Taz side story, Taz is forced to fight her way to the surface with the help of a member of the opposing alien species that she is trapped with. Once they get topside, though, Taz recognizes the alien as the one who killed her mate and ends up killing him.
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* ContinuitySnarl: The final second Atari Force team story that appeared in the ''Atari Force Special'' #1 in 1986, where the ''Scanner One'' had to settle down on a planet due to Babe's shedding scales causing problems with the ship's engines, is rather difficult to place within the continuity of the main series. Ideally, it should be placed between the story where Babe and Hukka found Taz and the story where Tempest went back to New Earth to find out the history of the first team's encounter with the Dark Destroyer, except that in the main series' continuity, Tempest was still recovering from injuries that he sustained from the Dark Destroyer at that point, whereas in the ''Atari Force Special'' story he appears to be in full health.
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* ContinuitySnarl: The final second Atari Force team story that appeared in the ''Atari Force Special'' #1 in 1986, "Second Skin", where the ''Scanner One'' had to settle down on a planet due to Babe's shedding scales causing problems with the ship's engines, is rather difficult to place within the continuity of the main series. Ideally, it should be placed between the story where Babe and Hukka found Taz and the story where Tempest went back to New Earth to find out the history of the first team's encounter with the Dark Destroyer, except that in the main series' continuity, Tempest was still recovering from injuries that he sustained from the Dark Destroyer at that point, whereas in the ''Atari Force Special'' story he appears to be in full health.
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* ContinuitySnarl: The final second Atari Force team story that appeared in the ''Atari Force Special'' #1 in 1986, where the ''Scanner One'' had to settle down on a planet due to Babe's shedding scales causing problems with the ship's engines, is rather difficult to place within the continuity of the main series. Ideally, it should be placed between the story where Babe and Hukka found Taz and the story where Tempest went back to New Earth to find out the history of the first team's encounter with the Dark Destroyer, except that in the main series' continuity, Tempest was still recovering from injuries that he sustained from the Dark Destroyer, whereas in the ''Atari Force Special'' story he appears to be in full health.
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* ContinuitySnarl: The final second Atari Force team story that appeared in the ''Atari Force Special'' #1 in 1986, where the ''Scanner One'' had to settle down on a planet due to Babe's shedding scales causing problems with the ship's engines, is rather difficult to place within the continuity of the main series. Ideally, it should be placed between the story where Babe and Hukka found Taz and the story where Tempest went back to New Earth to find out the history of the first team's encounter with the Dark Destroyer, except that in the main series' continuity, Tempest was still recovering from injuries that he sustained from the Dark Destroyer, Destroyer at that point, whereas in the ''Atari Force Special'' story he appears to be in full health.
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* ContinuitySnarl: The final second Atari Force team story that appeared in the ''Atari Force Special'' #1 in 1986, where the ''Scanner One'' had to settle down on a planet due to Babe's shedding scales causing problems with the ship's engines, is rather difficult to place within the continuity of the main series. Ideally, it should be placed between the story where Babe and Hukka found Taz and the story where Tempest went back to New Earth to find out the history of the first team's encounter with the Dark Destroyer, except that in the main series' continuity, Tempest was still recovering from injuries that he sustained from the Dark Destroyer, whereas in the ''Atari Force Special'' story he appears to be in full health.
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* KnockoutGas: The second Atari Force team attempts to get the advantage of the Dark Destroyer's team of mercenaries by having Tempest phase on board the ship and knock them out with sleeping gas. Unfortunately, the Dark Destroyer somehow redirects Tempest so that his phasing power directs him into the BigBad's personal chamber, leaving Dart and Pakrat in a guns-out battle with the Dark Destroyer's crew.
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* ThinkingUpPortals: Tempest can create portals through which he can travel through different planes of the Multiverse, although he can only carry inanimate objects through the portals; living creatures end up destroyed through the portals.
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* SuicidalPacifist: Lucas Orion of the first team. When he and his comrades were being attacked by the Zylons, he refused to even pick up a gun to help his friends fight off the attackers. Fortunately, a CoolShip emerges to save the day, piloted by Lucas' allies.
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The arcade game ''Liberator'' (essentially, VideoGame/MissileCommand in reverse) is based on this series (hence the marquee reading "Atari Force: Liberator"). Specifically, it's based on a special insert preview comic called "Codename: Liberator".
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Recreating page in properly capitalized namespace.
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[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/AtariForce-comic2_8759.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:[-Atari Force v.2: Less Dorky Than Our Parents-] ]]
''Atari Force'' is the name for several comic book series developed and published by Creator/DCComics.
The original series was first published in 1982 as a set of promotional giveaways with selected UsefulNotes/Atari2600 video games. It covered the efforts of the Atari Force as they participate in "Project Multiverse", a mission to [[TheMultiverse travel across dimensions]] and find a new planet for humanity to inhabit after the current Earth is pushed to the brink of collapse by global warfare. While most of the stories were standalone, the team repeatedly clashed with the Dark Destroyer, an interdimensional EldritchAbomination out to conquer the multiverse. The stories were written by Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas, with art by Ross Andru and Gil Kane.
The DC graphic novel ''ComicBook/StarRaiders'' is a SpinOff of issue #3. The pack-in comics can be [[http://www.atariage.com/comics/index.html read here]].
The second series was first published in 1984 as a regular monthly comic under the DC label. Set 25 years after humanity's resettlement, it centered on the adventures of the children of the original crew. Their lives are disrupted by the return of the Dark Destroyer, who has discovered the dimension where humanity has relocated and is preparing to avenge his earlier defeats by humiliating Martin Champion and then destroying the universe. The writers were Gerry Conway and Mike Baron, with art primarily by Jose Garcia-Lopez; later issues featured backup stories by Keith Giffen, Paul Kupperberg, Klaus Janson, James Fry and others.
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!! The various ''Atari Force'' series provide examples of:
* AcePilot: Martin Champion, who's been to the Moon four times, commanded two lunar missions, and saved a team of lunar colonists with an emergency rescue flight complete with [[ComingInHot crash landing]].
* AliensSpeakingEnglish: Mostly subverted with some exceptions; Taz will only speak one word of (barely intelligible) English at the end of a word balloon.
* AuraVision: Blackjak temporarily had this ability with the organic eye that the Tazlings had given him.
* BadassBeard: Lucas Orion, though his character is mostly a pacifist that won't fight.
* BadassMustache: Captain Hunter, security chief of Atari Station in the second series. Blackjak combines his with PermaStubble.
* BerserkButton: Never trap Pakrat in a corner, because he'll come out of it fighting!!!
* BlackBestFriend: Lucas is this to Martin.
* BigBad: The Dark Destroyer, natch.
* BountyHunter: Dart and Blackjak.
* BreakOutTheMuseumPiece: In the second series, the ''Scanner One'' was actually a museum piece, and it was still functional and fully stocked!
* TheCameo: [[ComicBook/MartianManhunter J'onn J'onzz]] and [[Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial E.T.]] make cameo appearances in Pakrat's three-part side-story arc.
** The Hukka puts in an appearance in an issue of ''ComicBook/AmbushBug''.
* CarpetOfVirility: Blackjak.
* CigarChomper: Professor Venture (a female example) and Captain Hunter.
* CrapsackWorld: The backstory establishes Earth as one of these, ravaged by endless war and terror attacks. [[DividedStatesOfAmerica The United States has been shattered]], the United Nations is dead, famine and disease are rampant, billions have already died, and a hemispheric drought has reduced the planet's arable land by a million acres. It's desperate enough that humanity's last hope is to ''travel across dimensions'' to find a new planet for everyone to colonize...
* CreepyCentipedes: In the first series, Martin Champion fights with a giant alien centipede-like creature. It's a rather subtle ShoutOut to Atari's arcade game ''VideoGame/{{Centipede}}''. (As an interesting side note, there's a DC Comics pack-in comic book that came with the Atari 2600 ''Centipede'' cartridge, where the titular centipede is much less creepy-looking.)
* CrushKillDestroy: The friendly toy robot, Bob, who could only say his name cheerfully, went evil after one too many flushes down the toilet. It could still say nothing more than "Bob", but it said it in a much more menacing voice to the point it was obvious that if its vocabulary were bigger, it would've been saying the trope title verbatim.
* DeathByChildbirth: Lydia Champion, at the birth of Christopher. [[spoiler:It's later revealed that this was due to the Dark Destroyer stealing her life force.]]
* DreamingOfThingsToCome: Dart gets precognitive dreams of Blackjak's death. She also dreams of the Atari Force relocating to Old Earth at the end of the second series.
* EldritchAbomination: In its original form, the Dark Destroyer is a planet-sized tentacular monstrosity.
* TheEmpath: Morphea
* EmotionEater: The Dark Destroyer feeds on the torment, fear, and pain of others. It uses its telepathic powers to conquer weaker races and provoke wars to sustain itself. He also has a torturer named Psyklops who locks his victims into reliving painful past memories, as in the case with Morphea.
* EvilKnockoff: [[spoiler:The Dark Destroyer creates a clone of Martin Champion to serve as a host for itself.]]
* ExposedExtraterrestrials: Babe.
* ExpressDelivery: The Dark Destroyer pulls this on a backwater planet creature that he enters into to become born in the form of Martin Champion, speeding up the process to the point where it ends up killing the mother.
* EyepatchOfPower: Blackjak has a cybernetic camera eye attached to his left eye socket that can detach itself and fly around to allow its owner to see other places.
* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:Blackjak.]]
* FacialMarkings: Dart and her previous mercenary partner Dalia not only have markings on the left side of their faces, but also all over the left side of their bodies. Like her father Mohandas Singh, Dart has a red tilak on her forehead.
* FakeKillScare: Done in the second series [[spoiler:with an entire ''dimension''. After the Dark Destroyer has detonated his antimatter bomb, the heroes believe their home universe has been destroyed. It isn't until later that they learn otherwise.]]
* FiveManBand
** First series
*** TheHero: Martin Champion
*** TheLancer: Lydia Perez
*** TheSmartGuy: Mohandas Singh
*** TheMedic: Lucas Orion
*** [[strike:TheBigGuy]] CuteBruiser: Li San O'Rourke
*** TeamPet: Hukka.
** Second series
*** TheHero: Christopher "Tempest" Champion
*** TheLancer: Erin Bia "Dart" O'Rourke-Singh
*** TheHeart: Morphea
*** TheBigGuy: Babe
*** [[{{Mentors}} The Mentor]]: Martin Champion
*** SixthRanger: Moses "Blackjak" Fisk
*** TagalongKid: Pakrat
*** TeamPet: Hukka.
* FiveTokenBand: Egregiously so in the first series. Li San O'Rourke is even ''Chinese/Irish'', just to squeeze in an extra ethnicity.
* FlatScare: Christopher Champion (Tempest) pulls this on a guard at a museum where the Scanner One spaceship was stored.
* FoodSlap: In a Pakrat side story, his female friend Ferra dumps a whole bowl of Draconian loose juice on Pakrat before she leaves the party, looking insulted.
* FunWithFlushing: Hukka attempts to flush the robotic Bob down the toilet in a side story. However, he ends up awakening Bob's evil side.
* GentleGiant: Babe. Justified as he's an infant from a species that grow into ''mountains''.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The Dark Destroyer intended to destroy Martin Champion's New Earth universe with an anti-matter bomb, but instead ended up dying in the explosion of his own bomb when Dart accidentally deactivated the fail-safe mechanism.
* InspectorJavert: Rident Oly, though his pursuit of his brother Tukla is justified as he disgraced the Oly family name by becoming a criminal.
* KangarooCourt: The second Atari Force faces one of these [[spoiler:after returning to New Earth]]. Ostensibly, the team is on trial for the theft of ''Scanner One'', but it's part of a larger plan to imprison Tempest and weaponize his powers.
* LoveableRogue: Pakrat.
* MaternalDeathBlameTheChild: Christopher Champion was believed to be blamed by his father Martin for his mother Lydia's death at birth. It was only years later that Dr. Lucas Orion, the physician present at the birth, realized that Martin blamed the Dark Destroyer for Lydia's death.
* MerchandiseDriven: Played very straight with the first series, as an overt promotional campaign (both Atari Corp. and Creator/DCComics were owned by Warner Communications at the time). Averted by the second series, however, which was a straightforward science fiction comic.
* MrFanservice: Blackjak.
* MultiethnicName: Li San O'Rourke.
* TheMultiverse: Not only can ''Scanner One'' travel to different dimensions, Tempest was born with the ability as well.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Played with; Martin Champion thinks he's inadvertently informed the Dark Destroyer as to what dimension humanity has resettled on, and assembles a new team to retrieve the probe to resolve the problem. [[spoiler:In actuality, the Dark Destroyer already ''knew'' where they were, and faked the incident as part of his plan to humiliate Champion before destroying the dimension.]]
* NotQuiteDead: [[spoiler:Blackjak.]]
* ParentalNeglect: Martin Champion does this to his son Tempest, largely because he blames him for the death of his wife.
* ParentalSubstitute: Morphea is this for Babe after he was taken from his homeworld, and Professor Venture became the substitute mother for Christopher Champion.
* PermaStubble: Blackjak, with only a full-grown mustache amid all the stubble.
* PregnantBadass: Taz, with the surprising bit being that [[spoiler:[[SamusIsAGirl nobody knew that Taz was female until Morphea found that out from a telepathic scan]]]].
* PuppeteerParasite
* RecursiveAcronym: According to canon, "Atari" stands for the "Atari Technology and Research Institute".
* RemixComic: "Mission: Phoenix" (pack-in comic #4) was originally written as a story for the spin-off arcade video game ''Liberator'', with the Maglaglon originally resembling frogs.
* SamusIsAGirl: Taz was referred to as being male up until Morphea discovered [[spoiler:[[PregnantBadass Taz was pregnant]]]].
* ShootingGallery: In a Hukka side story, Bob zaps Hukka with his antenna in the same manner as with a bear target in a shooting gallery, with Hukka going back and forth between zaps.
* SigilSpam: The Atari "fuji" logo gets incorporated nearly everywhere, especially in the first series. Even the design of the ''Scanner One'' spaceship is a variation of the logo.
* SiliconBasedLife: Babe's species. Even as big as he is, he's an infant. He'll become a mountain when he grows up.
* SolidGoldPoop: Babe sheds skin scales that turn into crystals, which Pakrat thinks may be valuable, only to find out that after a while [[SchmuckBait they turn into dust]].
* SpinOffspring: In the second series, Tempest is Martin and Lydia's son, while Dart is Mohandas and Li San's daughter.
* StevenUlyssesPerhero: Martin Champion, leader of the Atari Force.
* TitleDrop: Many Atari video games and properties have their names dropped throughout the series.
** The main computer for ''Scanner One'' is the [[UsefulNotes/Atari8BitComputers Atari 8000]].
** Issue #4 of the first series features "Mission: [[http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=355 Phoenix]]"
** [[http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7885 Galaxians]] was mentioned in issue #5 of the first series. Also an alien vaguely resembling a [[http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7299 centipede]] appears in the same issue.
** Martin and Lydia's son, Christopher, is codenamed "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_%28arcade_game%29 Tempest]]".
** In the second series, one member of the team is a diminutive alien nicknamed [[http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=554 Taz]].
** When the Scanner One re-enters normal space, the pilot of the ship says "[[http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7216 Breakout]]!"
* TortureTechnician: Psyklops, a psychic vampire working for the Dark Destroyer who feeds off pain.
* UseYourHead: Both Martin and Christopher Champion used head-butts when physically fighting the Dark Destroyer in his humanoid form.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The first series briefly mentions The Co-Op, a collection of government-owned multinational corporations. Though they are presented as a threat to Atari and Project Multiverse, they are never referenced again.
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[[caption-width-right:300:[-Atari Force v.2: Less Dorky Than Our Parents-] ]]
''Atari Force'' is the name for several comic book series developed and published by Creator/DCComics.
The original series was first published in 1982 as a set of promotional giveaways with selected UsefulNotes/Atari2600 video games. It covered the efforts of the Atari Force as they participate in "Project Multiverse", a mission to [[TheMultiverse travel across dimensions]] and find a new planet for humanity to inhabit after the current Earth is pushed to the brink of collapse by global warfare. While most of the stories were standalone, the team repeatedly clashed with the Dark Destroyer, an interdimensional EldritchAbomination out to conquer the multiverse. The stories were written by Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas, with art by Ross Andru and Gil Kane.
The DC graphic novel ''ComicBook/StarRaiders'' is a SpinOff of issue #3. The pack-in comics can be [[http://www.atariage.com/comics/index.html read here]].
The second series was first published in 1984 as a regular monthly comic under the DC label. Set 25 years after humanity's resettlement, it centered on the adventures of the children of the original crew. Their lives are disrupted by the return of the Dark Destroyer, who has discovered the dimension where humanity has relocated and is preparing to avenge his earlier defeats by humiliating Martin Champion and then destroying the universe. The writers were Gerry Conway and Mike Baron, with art primarily by Jose Garcia-Lopez; later issues featured backup stories by Keith Giffen, Paul Kupperberg, Klaus Janson, James Fry and others.
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!! The various ''Atari Force'' series provide examples of:
* AcePilot: Martin Champion, who's been to the Moon four times, commanded two lunar missions, and saved a team of lunar colonists with an emergency rescue flight complete with [[ComingInHot crash landing]].
* AliensSpeakingEnglish: Mostly subverted with some exceptions; Taz will only speak one word of (barely intelligible) English at the end of a word balloon.
* AuraVision: Blackjak temporarily had this ability with the organic eye that the Tazlings had given him.
* BadassBeard: Lucas Orion, though his character is mostly a pacifist that won't fight.
* BadassMustache: Captain Hunter, security chief of Atari Station in the second series. Blackjak combines his with PermaStubble.
* BerserkButton: Never trap Pakrat in a corner, because he'll come out of it fighting!!!
* BlackBestFriend: Lucas is this to Martin.
* BigBad: The Dark Destroyer, natch.
* BountyHunter: Dart and Blackjak.
* BreakOutTheMuseumPiece: In the second series, the ''Scanner One'' was actually a museum piece, and it was still functional and fully stocked!
* TheCameo: [[ComicBook/MartianManhunter J'onn J'onzz]] and [[Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial E.T.]] make cameo appearances in Pakrat's three-part side-story arc.
** The Hukka puts in an appearance in an issue of ''ComicBook/AmbushBug''.
* CarpetOfVirility: Blackjak.
* CigarChomper: Professor Venture (a female example) and Captain Hunter.
* CrapsackWorld: The backstory establishes Earth as one of these, ravaged by endless war and terror attacks. [[DividedStatesOfAmerica The United States has been shattered]], the United Nations is dead, famine and disease are rampant, billions have already died, and a hemispheric drought has reduced the planet's arable land by a million acres. It's desperate enough that humanity's last hope is to ''travel across dimensions'' to find a new planet for everyone to colonize...
* CreepyCentipedes: In the first series, Martin Champion fights with a giant alien centipede-like creature. It's a rather subtle ShoutOut to Atari's arcade game ''VideoGame/{{Centipede}}''. (As an interesting side note, there's a DC Comics pack-in comic book that came with the Atari 2600 ''Centipede'' cartridge, where the titular centipede is much less creepy-looking.)
* CrushKillDestroy: The friendly toy robot, Bob, who could only say his name cheerfully, went evil after one too many flushes down the toilet. It could still say nothing more than "Bob", but it said it in a much more menacing voice to the point it was obvious that if its vocabulary were bigger, it would've been saying the trope title verbatim.
* DeathByChildbirth: Lydia Champion, at the birth of Christopher. [[spoiler:It's later revealed that this was due to the Dark Destroyer stealing her life force.]]
* DreamingOfThingsToCome: Dart gets precognitive dreams of Blackjak's death. She also dreams of the Atari Force relocating to Old Earth at the end of the second series.
* EldritchAbomination: In its original form, the Dark Destroyer is a planet-sized tentacular monstrosity.
* TheEmpath: Morphea
* EmotionEater: The Dark Destroyer feeds on the torment, fear, and pain of others. It uses its telepathic powers to conquer weaker races and provoke wars to sustain itself. He also has a torturer named Psyklops who locks his victims into reliving painful past memories, as in the case with Morphea.
* EvilKnockoff: [[spoiler:The Dark Destroyer creates a clone of Martin Champion to serve as a host for itself.]]
* ExposedExtraterrestrials: Babe.
* ExpressDelivery: The Dark Destroyer pulls this on a backwater planet creature that he enters into to become born in the form of Martin Champion, speeding up the process to the point where it ends up killing the mother.
* EyepatchOfPower: Blackjak has a cybernetic camera eye attached to his left eye socket that can detach itself and fly around to allow its owner to see other places.
* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:Blackjak.]]
* FacialMarkings: Dart and her previous mercenary partner Dalia not only have markings on the left side of their faces, but also all over the left side of their bodies. Like her father Mohandas Singh, Dart has a red tilak on her forehead.
* FakeKillScare: Done in the second series [[spoiler:with an entire ''dimension''. After the Dark Destroyer has detonated his antimatter bomb, the heroes believe their home universe has been destroyed. It isn't until later that they learn otherwise.]]
* FiveManBand
** First series
*** TheHero: Martin Champion
*** TheLancer: Lydia Perez
*** TheSmartGuy: Mohandas Singh
*** TheMedic: Lucas Orion
*** [[strike:TheBigGuy]] CuteBruiser: Li San O'Rourke
*** TeamPet: Hukka.
** Second series
*** TheHero: Christopher "Tempest" Champion
*** TheLancer: Erin Bia "Dart" O'Rourke-Singh
*** TheHeart: Morphea
*** TheBigGuy: Babe
*** [[{{Mentors}} The Mentor]]: Martin Champion
*** SixthRanger: Moses "Blackjak" Fisk
*** TagalongKid: Pakrat
*** TeamPet: Hukka.
* FiveTokenBand: Egregiously so in the first series. Li San O'Rourke is even ''Chinese/Irish'', just to squeeze in an extra ethnicity.
* FlatScare: Christopher Champion (Tempest) pulls this on a guard at a museum where the Scanner One spaceship was stored.
* FoodSlap: In a Pakrat side story, his female friend Ferra dumps a whole bowl of Draconian loose juice on Pakrat before she leaves the party, looking insulted.
* FunWithFlushing: Hukka attempts to flush the robotic Bob down the toilet in a side story. However, he ends up awakening Bob's evil side.
* GentleGiant: Babe. Justified as he's an infant from a species that grow into ''mountains''.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The Dark Destroyer intended to destroy Martin Champion's New Earth universe with an anti-matter bomb, but instead ended up dying in the explosion of his own bomb when Dart accidentally deactivated the fail-safe mechanism.
* InspectorJavert: Rident Oly, though his pursuit of his brother Tukla is justified as he disgraced the Oly family name by becoming a criminal.
* KangarooCourt: The second Atari Force faces one of these [[spoiler:after returning to New Earth]]. Ostensibly, the team is on trial for the theft of ''Scanner One'', but it's part of a larger plan to imprison Tempest and weaponize his powers.
* LoveableRogue: Pakrat.
* MaternalDeathBlameTheChild: Christopher Champion was believed to be blamed by his father Martin for his mother Lydia's death at birth. It was only years later that Dr. Lucas Orion, the physician present at the birth, realized that Martin blamed the Dark Destroyer for Lydia's death.
* MerchandiseDriven: Played very straight with the first series, as an overt promotional campaign (both Atari Corp. and Creator/DCComics were owned by Warner Communications at the time). Averted by the second series, however, which was a straightforward science fiction comic.
* MrFanservice: Blackjak.
* MultiethnicName: Li San O'Rourke.
* TheMultiverse: Not only can ''Scanner One'' travel to different dimensions, Tempest was born with the ability as well.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Played with; Martin Champion thinks he's inadvertently informed the Dark Destroyer as to what dimension humanity has resettled on, and assembles a new team to retrieve the probe to resolve the problem. [[spoiler:In actuality, the Dark Destroyer already ''knew'' where they were, and faked the incident as part of his plan to humiliate Champion before destroying the dimension.]]
* NotQuiteDead: [[spoiler:Blackjak.]]
* ParentalNeglect: Martin Champion does this to his son Tempest, largely because he blames him for the death of his wife.
* ParentalSubstitute: Morphea is this for Babe after he was taken from his homeworld, and Professor Venture became the substitute mother for Christopher Champion.
* PermaStubble: Blackjak, with only a full-grown mustache amid all the stubble.
* PregnantBadass: Taz, with the surprising bit being that [[spoiler:[[SamusIsAGirl nobody knew that Taz was female until Morphea found that out from a telepathic scan]]]].
* PuppeteerParasite
* RecursiveAcronym: According to canon, "Atari" stands for the "Atari Technology and Research Institute".
* RemixComic: "Mission: Phoenix" (pack-in comic #4) was originally written as a story for the spin-off arcade video game ''Liberator'', with the Maglaglon originally resembling frogs.
* SamusIsAGirl: Taz was referred to as being male up until Morphea discovered [[spoiler:[[PregnantBadass Taz was pregnant]]]].
* ShootingGallery: In a Hukka side story, Bob zaps Hukka with his antenna in the same manner as with a bear target in a shooting gallery, with Hukka going back and forth between zaps.
* SigilSpam: The Atari "fuji" logo gets incorporated nearly everywhere, especially in the first series. Even the design of the ''Scanner One'' spaceship is a variation of the logo.
* SiliconBasedLife: Babe's species. Even as big as he is, he's an infant. He'll become a mountain when he grows up.
* SolidGoldPoop: Babe sheds skin scales that turn into crystals, which Pakrat thinks may be valuable, only to find out that after a while [[SchmuckBait they turn into dust]].
* SpinOffspring: In the second series, Tempest is Martin and Lydia's son, while Dart is Mohandas and Li San's daughter.
* StevenUlyssesPerhero: Martin Champion, leader of the Atari Force.
* TitleDrop: Many Atari video games and properties have their names dropped throughout the series.
** The main computer for ''Scanner One'' is the [[UsefulNotes/Atari8BitComputers Atari 8000]].
** Issue #4 of the first series features "Mission: [[http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=355 Phoenix]]"
** [[http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7885 Galaxians]] was mentioned in issue #5 of the first series. Also an alien vaguely resembling a [[http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7299 centipede]] appears in the same issue.
** Martin and Lydia's son, Christopher, is codenamed "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_%28arcade_game%29 Tempest]]".
** In the second series, one member of the team is a diminutive alien nicknamed [[http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=554 Taz]].
** When the Scanner One re-enters normal space, the pilot of the ship says "[[http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7216 Breakout]]!"
* TortureTechnician: Psyklops, a psychic vampire working for the Dark Destroyer who feeds off pain.
* UseYourHead: Both Martin and Christopher Champion used head-butts when physically fighting the Dark Destroyer in his humanoid form.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The first series briefly mentions The Co-Op, a collection of government-owned multinational corporations. Though they are presented as a threat to Atari and Project Multiverse, they are never referenced again.
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