History ContrivedCoincidence / ComicBooks

** Even though Batman's hunt for the Joker and Jason's quest to find his true mother in ''ComicBook/ADeathInTheFamily'' are separate and cross borders, the Joker manages to turn up exactly where Jason is going twice during the story, allowing Batman to team up with Jason again and ensuring that Bruce will be there when Jason is killed by the Joker.
** Prior to ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'', Jason Todd had pretty much the same origin story as Dick Grayson. That means Batman encountered two orphaned circus aerialists whose parents were killed as part of a plot to extort the circus.

* The origin of the obscure Marvel hero The Terror is one string of absurd contrivances. It starts on a dark, rainy night when Dr. John Storm (no relation to Sue and Johnny Storm of the ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'') is attacked in his home by by an escaped gorilla. Storm's dog Rex kills the gorilla, but dies doing so. At that moment, a man named Laslo Pevely crashes his car outside Storm's house. Storm injects Pevely with the dog's DNA, believing that the dog's "survival instinct" will save Pevely's life.\\

Two gangsters show up, trying to enlist Storm for their criminal endeavors and kill him when he refuses. Unfortunately for the gangsters, Storm's experiment has transformed Pevely into The Terror, a superpowered form which manifests in the presence of evil.

\\Two gangsters show up, trying to enlist Storm for their criminal endeavors and kill him when he refuses. Unfortunately for the gangsters, Storm's experiment has transformed Pevely into The Terror, a superpowered form which manifests in the presence of evil.

** The fates of Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent crossed paths a good number of times before they ever became Franchise/{{Batman}} and Superman, and even before they knew each other's secret identities.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Convergence}}'', it's amazing how many heroes who aren't normally based in Gotham or Metropolis just happened to be in the city taken by Brainiac at exactly the right time.
* Prior to ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'', Jason Todd had pretty much the same origin story as Dick Grayson. That means Batman encountered two orphaned circus aerialists whose parents were killed as part of a plot to extort the circus.
* ''ComicBook/ADeathInTheFamily'': Even though Batman's hunt for the Joker and Jason's quest to find his true mother are separate and cross borders, the Joker manages to turn up exactly where Jason is going twice during the story, allowing Batman to team up with Jason again and ensuring that Bruce will be there when Jason is killed by the Joker.
* ''ComicBook/JLA1997'': An issue begins with the team discovering that seven different supervillains, by pure coincidence, picked the exact same day to try kidnapping the president. The more and more contrived coincidences occur, including [[ButterflyOfDoom retroactively in time]], eventually leading to the reveal that someone's been messing with probability.
* ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueCryForJustice'' opens with heroes all across the world, all completely independently of each other, deciding to RageAgainstTheHeavens with "I want justice!" at the exact same time.
* The ''Franchise/GreenLantern'' / ''ComicBook/GreenArrow'' / ''Franchise/TheFlash'' CrossOver "Three of a Kind" begins with Conner persuading Kyle and Wally to go on an Arctic cruise, only to find that Sonar, Hatchett and Heat Wave are on the ship, plotting to revive a catatonic Dr Polaris. Not only do the heroes [[BusmansHoliday stumble upon a crime]], it's one that involves one villain from each of their {{Rogues Galler|y}}ies! (Plus ''Franchise/{{J|usticeLeagueOfAmerica}}LA'' villain Polaris.)
* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: In William Moulton Marston's final issue Diana calls appraisers asking if any have encountered gems resembling those that have just been stolen from her mother, as soon as one gives her the first name and a vague description of someone trying to sell a gem that fits Diana walks out of her office and the girl is ''sitting right there in the US Army intelligence office for some reason''. It also turns out she was indeed trying to sell some of the pilfered content of the Royal vault and following her leads Diana right to Zara and Hypnota.

!!Franchise/MarvelComics
* This deliberately happened in ''ComicBook/CableAndDeadpool''. In the wake of ''ComicBook/HouseOfM'', ComicBook/{{Deadpool}} was searching for the real Comicbook/{{Cable}} trapped somewhere in an alternative timeline. But ''just as'' he teleported to the real world with the real Cable, ComicBook/ScarletWitch had [[CosmicRetcon changed the real world into her image]], thus the middle aged Cable was transported into a baby (ItMakesSenseInContext). And despite everything changing to normal, baby Cable stayed as a baby (but not for long). It was all to being sold as a tie-in to ''House of M'', and apart from some breather issues forward it didn't do much for the plot.
* The first arc featuring Comicbook/{{Captain Marvel|MarvelComics}} had him sent to Earth in order to spy on the human population and see if they pose a threat to the Kree. By sheer coincidence, Yon-Rogg, Mar-Vell's treacherous superior, accidentally killed a military scientist named Walter Lawson, who was on his way to a new assignment at Cape Canaveral. Because Lawson was a recluse who had rarely been seen in public, Mar-Vell was able to [[DeadPersonImpersonation assume the dead man's identity]] and begin working at the same military instillation where (unbeknownst to Mar-Vell) a captured Kree Sentry was being held.
* How short-lived 70s supergroup the Champions was formed: [[Comicbook/XMen Iceman and the Angel]] have enrolled at UCLA, the Comicbook/BlackWidow is applying for a professorship, [[Comicbook/TheIncredibleHercules Hercules]] is about to give a guest lecture and the Comicbook/GhostRider happens to be riding by just when Pluto's army is attempting to capture both Hercules and a professor who happens to be another goddess. Creator Tony Isabella, in his foreword to the ''Masterworks'' collection, acknowledged that he had "used up a year's allotment of coincidence" with that.
* ''Franchise/SpiderMan'': A common trope in the comics and adaptations is the cartridges of ''both'' of his hands running out of web fluid at exactly the same time.

* ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse: Frequently used as a RuleOfFunny.

* ''Comicbook/YTheLastMan'':

** One story has Huey, Dewey, and Louie try to play hooky, and everywhere they go (stowing away on a truck, a train, and later an airplane), they end up at a remote school, and the one building they come across that wasn't a school was a resort that's hosting a gathering of truant officers.

!!General
* Most people go their entire life without seeing a crime that would require them to step in to help. No superhero, particularly one who has [[IJustWantToBeNormal resolved to give up his cape]], can [[CantStayNormal last a day without]] seeing someone being mugged in an alley, or stumbling across a burning building with a woman screaming for help from a window.
** Brian Garfield realized this when writing a sequel novel to ''Literature/DeathWish'': "Long ago Paul [the Vigilante] had learned not to waste time in fruitless search for felons in the act of committing crimes; the odds were too long. A robbery took place in the city every three minutes... but it was an enormous city and there were three million potential victims".
** Paul Benjamin, besides using himself as bait, comes up with the idea of shadowing the courthouses. After all, criminals often are repeat offenders who have to show up for parole hearings, methadone treatment, etc. So, he tails them from the courthouse. See page 56 of ''Death Sentence''. Other writers averted this through the use of police scanners; the Spider usually an early version in The Cholera King, while Hero at Large with John Ritter and The Exterminator 2 showed the protagonists using police scanners.
** This exact point made in ''ComicBook/{{Zot}}''. There's an issue called "Looking for Crime" in which Zot looks all over New York for a crime. The closest he gets to finding one is finding a homeless person stabbed, and he didn't witness it.
* If you are a superhero, then someone you know will be murdered horribly, or [[ContagiousPowers develop superpowers]], or at least have some slightly odd seemingly innocuous problem that will be intimately connected with a supervillain's latest EvilPlan. If you're lucky, this will be because your enemies know who you are and are targeting them because of the connection. Probably not though.
* If you're a supervillain, no matter what crime you commit or where you go to do it, some superhero will be around to stop you, and odds are good it will be your ArchEnemy.
** Lampshaded in a ''ComicBook/MoonKnight'' series, where some supervillains who've decamped to the West Coast note that anyone operating in New York is a moron.
** This trope practically breaks the Shocker in ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan''. He's just a bank robber with fancy safe-cracking equipment, but for some reason Spidey turns up at every job to kick his ass.

** In Flitheart Glomgold's introductory chapter, he and Scrooge try to compare riches to determine who among the two is the richest duck in the world. Somehow they manage to possess an equal amount of wealth down to the last cent that they had to wager on their "goofy balls of strings" that they have saved. While unrolling the balls, the pair got into various mishaps that severely downsized their balls, but somehow the end result had them tied again, although Scrooge eventually wins because he has an extra piece of string in his pocket to tie his NumberOneDime on.

* ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse: Frequently used as a RuleOfFunny. One example is when Huey, Dewey, and Louie tries to play hooky, and everywhere they go (stowing away on a truck, a train, and later an airplane), they end up at a remote school, and the one building they come across that wasn't a school was a resort that's hosting a gathering of truant officers.

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':

** In ''Superman (Volume 1)'' #76, Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne happen to take a cruise at the same time and are coincidentally assigned to be roommates. They are both in the cabin at the same time, changing into costume, when a bright ray of light beams through a port hole, lighting up the room and revealing the two superheroes' identities to each other. And Lois Lane wound up on the same cruise, because a female passenger chickened out at the beginning. Apparently only one person disappeared from the cruise, so Clark couldn't be given his own room. In the first ''Superman/Batman'' #Annual, which retold the story, it is said that due to an overbooking error, there are only two rooms to share between Clark, Bruce, and Lois, and obviously Lois isn't going to share a bed with either of them.

** In ''ComicBook/TheGirlWithTheXRayMind'', Dick Malverne is led to believe Lena Thorul is Supergirl through a convoluted chain of events: Lena goes to a costume party in Dick's house disguised as Supergirl. When a pack of thieves crash the party, the real Supergirl takes advantage of the smoke screen caused by their smoke bombs to take them out without being seen. When Lena sees the thieves have been knocked down, she gets to tie them up, causing Dick to believe she may be Supergirl. Later, Dick invites Lena over to his house. Lena is knocked out by a smoke pellet which accidentally slipped in one vase during the costume party, and Dick believes she has been hurt by a sample of Kryptonite which his geologist of a father conveniently keeps in his home. Still later, Supergirl gives Lena several diamonds as a birthday gift. Lena is admiring her present by the chimney when one of them drops in the coal bucket. Right when she is retrieving the diamond, Dick walks into the room and believes she has pressed one chunk of coal into a diamond; whereupon he "demands" the "truth".

* If you are a superhero, then someone you know will [[StuffedIntoTheFridge be murdered horribly]], or [[ContagiousPowers develop superpowers]], or at least have some slightly odd seemingly innocuous problem that will be intimately connected with a supervillain's latest EvilPlan. If you're lucky, this will be because your enemies know who you are and are targeting them because of the connection. Probably not though.

* The first arc featuring Comicbook/CaptainMarVell had him sent to Earth in order to spy on the human population and see if they pose a threat to the Kree. By sheer coincidence, Yon-Rogg, Mar-Vell's treacherous superior, accidentally killed a military scientist named Walter Lawson, who was on his way to a new assignment at Cape Canaveral. Because Lawson was a recluse who had rarely been seen in public, Mar-Vell was able to [[DeadPersonImpersonation assume the dead man's identity]] and begin working at the same military instillation where (unbeknownst to Mar-Vell) a captured Kree Sentry was being held.

* ''ComicBook/GrantMorrisonsJLA'': An issue begins with the team discovering that seven different supervillains, by pure coincidence, picked the exact same day to try kidnapping the president. The more and more contrived coincidences occur, including [[ButterflyOfDoom retroactively in time]], eventually leading to the reveal that someone's been messing with probability.

!!Franchise/DCComics

* The fates of Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent crossed paths a ridiculous number of times before they ever became Franchise/{{Batman}} and Franchise/{{Superman}}, and even before they knew each other's secret identities.
** A ''Comicbook/SupermanBatman'' story featured Jor-El using a probe to take the mind of a human to Krypton, so he could ask what kind of planet Earth was. The human he selected went on to use the advanced technology of the probe as the basis of a great company called Wayne Enterprises.
** In the very first ''Comicbook/SupermanBatman'' crossover, Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne happen to take a cruise at the same time and are coincidentally assigned to be roommates. [[FridgeLogic Why Wayne can't afford a single occupancy cabin or, for that matter, his own cruise liner]], is unexplained. They are both in the cabin at the same time, changing into costume, when a bright ray of light beams through a port hole, lighting up the room and revealing the two superheroes' identities to each other. And Comicbook/LoisLane wound up on the same cruise, because a female passenger chickened out at the beginning. Apparently only one person disappeared from the cruise, so Clark couldn't be given his own room.
** A later comic {{retcon}}s this story, saying that due to an overbooking error, there are only two rooms to share between Clark, Bruce, and Lois, and obviously Lois isn't going to share a bed with either of them.
** In UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|OfComicBooks}} continuity, as well as in the current one, both Superman and his archenemy ComicBook/LexLuthor spent most of their life in Smallville before moving to Metropolis. In other words, the two biggest public figures in one of the world's largest cities happen to come from the same small and obscure Kansas town.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Convergence}}'', it's amazing how many heroes who aren't normally based in Gotham or Metropolis just happened to be in the city taken by ComicBook/{{Brainiac}} at exactly the right time.
* Prior to ''Comicbook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'', Jason Todd had pretty much the same origin story as Dick Grayson. That means Batman encountered two orphaned circus aerialists whose parents were killed as part of a plot to extort the circus.
* An issue of Creator/GrantMorrison's run on [[Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica JLA]] begins with the team discovering that seven different supervillains, by pure coincidence, picked the exact same day to try kidnapping the president. The more and more contrived coincidences occur, including [[ButterflyOfDoom retroactively in time]], eventually leading to the reveal that someone's been messing with probability.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': In William Moulton Marston's final issue Diana calls appraisers asking if any have encountered gems resembling those that have just been stolen from her mother, as soon as one gives her the first name and a vague description of someone trying to sell a gem that fits Diana walks out of her office and the girl is ''sitting right there in the US Army intelligence office for some reason''. It also turns out she was indeed trying to sell some of the pilfered content of the Royal vault and following her leads Diana right to Zara and Hypnota.

* This deliberately happened in ''ComicBook/CableAndDeadpool''. In the wake of ''ComicBook/HouseOfM'', SelfDemonstrating/{{Deadpool}} was searching for the real Comicbook/{{Cable}} trapped somewhere in an alternative timeline. But ''just as'' he teleported to the real world with the real Cable, ComicBook/ScarletWitch had [[CosmicRetcon changed the real world into her image]], thus the middle aged Cable was transported into a baby (ItMakesSenseInContext). And despite everything changing to normal, baby Cable stayed as a baby (but not for long). It was all to being sold as a tie-in to ''House of M'', and apart from some breather issues forward it didn't do much for the plot.

%%* ''ComicBook/UltimateOrigins'' tried to link together most prominent ComicBook/{{Ultimate|Marvel}} characters in rather contrived ways.

** Some superheroes, like Franchise/{{Batman}}, don't stumble upon things as often as set out to find them and have all sorts of explained ways of knowing how to do that.