History MindScrew / Comicbooks

** If you thought ''The Killing Joke'' was mind-screwy, then you're never going to make it out of ''[[ComicBook/GrantMorrisonsBatman Batman: R.I.P.]]'' with your sense of reason intact. Batman having a whole separate personality triggered by an arbitrary gibberish phrase that's a ShoutOut to a Silver age Batman comic ('Robin Dies At Dawn!'), ComicBook/TheJoker cutting his own tongue in half with a razor and having no lips and being almost unintelligible because of it, Dr. Hurt potentially being a demon or the devil (your interpretation WILL vary)... Yeah, ''Killing Joke'' is a cakewalk compared to that storyline. Then again, Grant Morrison wrote it, and while they ''are'' considered one of the better Batman authors, their work, as mentioned above, can be ''very'' mindscrewtastic.

* ''ComicBook/{{Rork}}'': What you expect with massive KudzuPlot, [[TimeTravel Time Travels]], (TimeyWimeyBall included), [[DimensionalTraveler Dimensional Travelers]], SchizoTech, and [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Abominations]] all around? This comics is like whole new level Mind-screwiness.

* ''ComicBook/{{Rork}}'': What you expect with massive KudzuPlot, [[TimeTravel Time Travels]], (TimeyWimeyBall included), [[DimensionalTraveler Dimensional Travelers]], SchizoTech, and [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Abominations]] all around? This comics is like [[Main/UpToEleven whole new level]] Mind-screwiness.

** [[ComicBook/MoonKnight]] is by far the most recognizable Marvel series for this trope. Marc Spector died in Egypt but was resurrected and chosen to be the Fist of Khonshu and deliver his judgment...or so he says. Many of his stories delve into the mystical realms on the Marvel Universe and into Marc's broken mind. The main ambiguous aspect of the character is whether or not Khonshu is even real or something Marc fabricated from his mental illness. While major crossover stories imply Khonshu does exist, it's still up to the reader to decide.

* ''Venerdì 12'' has Judas, Aldo's servant capable of magic. He spends most of the series [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold mocking and tormenting Aldo and anyone they meet but also helps him with his daily life and trying to lift the curse that turned him into a monster]]. In the GrandFinale he plays an indirect but decisive role into lifting the curse by [[spoiler:not tormenting and chasing off Dulcistilla and exposing Bedelia as a living memory of the time they spent together brought to life by the curse, leading to Dulcistilla recovering the self-esteem he needed to let the memory go and accidentally lift the curse]]... And then the very last panel of the series [[spoiler:shows him in the cursed carillon, meaning he was part of the curse all along]].

** If you thought ''The Killing Joke'' was mind-screwy, then you're never going to make it out of ''[[ComicBook/GrantMorrisonsBatman Batman: R.I.P.]]'' with your sense of reason intact. Batman having a whole separate personality triggered by an arbitrary gibberish phrase that's a ShoutOut to a Silver age Batman comic ('Robin Dies At Dawn!'), ComicBook/TheJoker cutting his own tongue in half with a razor and having no lips and being almost unintelligible because of it, Dr. Hurt potentially being a demon or the devil (your interpretation WILL vary)... Yeah, ''Killing Joke'' is a cakewalk compared to that storyline. Then again, Grant Morrison wrote it, and while they ''are'' considered one of the better Batman authors, his work, as mentioned above, can be ''very'' mindscrewtastic.

* The ''ComicBook/DoomPatrol'' were originally billed as the "World's Strangest Heroes!" back in the 60s. They treated their superpowers like disabilities and frequently fought strange enemies, but with the original comic being so old, [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny it might seem rather normal nowadays]]. This is not a problem, though, as in the late 80s, the aforementioned Grant Morrison took over the recently-launched SoOkayItsAverage revival with the intention of making it weird like the original. What he ended up writing was something far ''weirder'', and the result is a SurrealHorror story in which the Doom Patrol engages in numerous metaphysical fights with HumanoidAbomination[=s=] and [[OrderVersusChaos the forces of law]], with relatively little focus on action. While Morrison's run is the most infamous by far, its SpiritualSuccessor[=s=], the runs of Rachel Pollack and Gerard Way, are similarly experimental and bizarre.

** If you thought ''The Killing Joke'' was mind-screwy, then you're never going to make it out of ''[[ComicBook/GrantMorrisonsBatman Batman: R.I.P.]]'' with your sense of reason intact. Batman having a whole separate personality triggered by an arbitrary gibberish phrase that's a ShoutOut to a Silver age Batman comic ('Robin Dies At Dawn!'), ComicBook/TheJoker cutting his own tongue in half with a razor and having no lips and being almost unintelligible because of it, Dr. Hurt potentially being a demon or the devil (your interpretation WILL vary)... Yeah, ''Killing Joke'' is a cakewalk compared to that storyline. Then again, Grant Morrison wrote it, and while they''are'' considered one of the better Batman authors, his work, as mentioned above, can be ''very'' mindscrewtastic.

** If you thought ''The Killing Joke'' was mind-screwy, then you're never going to make it out of ''[[ComicBook/GrantMorrisonsBatman Batman: R.I.P.]]'' with your sense of reason intact. Batman having a whole separate personality triggered by an arbitrary gibberish phrase that's a ShoutOut to a Silver age Batman comic ('Robin Dies At Dawn!'), ComicBook/TheJoker cutting his own tongue in half with a razor and having no lips and being almost unintelligible because of it, Dr. Hurt potentially being a demon or the devil (your interpretation WILL vary)... Yeah, ''Killing Joke'' is a cakewalk compared to that storyline. Then again, Grant Morrison wrote it, and while he ''is'' considered one of the better Batman authors, his work, as mentioned above, can be ''very'' mindscrewtastic.

* The point in which ''ComicBook/TheMaxx'' jumps from trippy to actual MindScrew may vary from person to person. Some may say it's when the villain turns out to be a giant psychopathic self-help-fueled banana slug; other may say it's just right before the revelation of why Julie's Outback was created (that part with the Hooly); or maybe when [[spoiler:Sarah comes back from DisneyDeath as an Isz]]...
* A certain scene in ''ComicBook/JohnnyTheHomicidalManiac'' pulls a particularly screwy example: the schizophrenic titular character is having just another debate with the Doughboys, two voices in his head he identifies as two styrofoam figures he painted. There's nothing much out of the ordinary at first. However, when a third 'voice' in the form of a dead rabbit tries to warn Johnny that the Doughboys are trying to use him, the perfectly ordinary styrofoam figures ''start moving around by themselves'' and proceed to tear the rabbit's head off, and continue to move around for the rest of the scene. Johnny briefly remarks that he's never seen them move around like that before, and one replies "Well, the rabbit provoked us." However, near the end of the scene Johnny stops in mid-rant and asks "Um, how come you guys aren't moving around anymore?" The other simply replies ''"We can't move around - we're made of styrofoam."''
** That one gets [[MindScrewdriver cleared up]] later. Basically, later on, you discover that Johnny is actually at the epicenter of the accumulation of human negative feeling, so much so that it fuels kind of magical happenings. Thus, the Doughboys can occasionally move around, Johnny can never get caught for his crimes and the other stuff that doesn't fully make sense is explained.
* ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis Aftermath: Escape''. In which Tom "Nemesis" Tresser finds himself in a mysterious city, along with all DC's other "spy" characters, and apparently it's the future setting of ''OMAC'', complete with Lilas and GPA agents, or maybe it isn't, and characters die, but come back, and when ''he'' dies, the whole thing starts again. Appropriate, since the whole book is an homage to ''Series/{{The Prisoner|1967}}''.

* ''Central Park'', a short Franco-Belgian comic by Jean-Luc Cornette and Christian Durieux. The story goes like this: Johan and Yasmina are a Belgian couple visiting Central Park while on vacation in New York. Johan poses for a picture with one of the zoo's polar bears, who then strikes up a conversation with him. No-one sees this as unusual - the bear himself eventually lampshades this. In the meantime, Yasmina disappears. As Johan searches for her, mysterious walls began to spring up throughout the park, blocking his paths and preventing him from leaving. He meets another person trapped in the park, "Snake", a hobo who used to be a taxi driver by the name of Theodore Roosevelt - oh yeah, all the taxi drivers that Johan and Yasmina encountered in the city had the names of U.S. presidents. At one point, Johan's shoes are mysteriously replaced by a pair of rollerblades. Norman, the polar bear, shows up again, jogging through the park and wearing Johan's missing shoes. History is revealed to exist between Norman and Yasmina, and through it all, the walls around the park continue to grow...
* ''ComicBook/WontonSoup'' by James Stokoe is a space trucker cooking opera set in a universe that makes the ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' seem sensible and simple. It's impossible to list the craziness of the series in one sentence but as an example one time the two main characters get [[MushroomSamba high off the brains]] of one of the galaxy's oldest races, a failsafe program within the brain attempts to lead them to crystal forged from the hopes of a thousand alien geniuses. They simply have to say a safeword and the crystal will flush out the bad vibes, instead they stare at each other and then reach the same conclusion "Let's smoke it!" and somehow the comic goes even further into MindScrew territory.
* ''ComicBook/{{Superlopez}}'': ''Los Petisos Carambanales'' is about an attempt of Escariano Avieso to mess with Superlopez's head and making him retire.

* The ''ComicBook/DoomPatrol'' were originally billed as the "World's Strangest Heroes!" back in the 60s. They treated their superpowers like disabilities and frequently fought strange enemies, but with the original comic being so old, [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny it might seem rather normal nowadays]]. This is not a problem, though, as in the late 80s, the aforementioned Grant Morrison took over the recently-launched SoOkayItsAverage revival with the intention of making it weird like the original. What he ended up writing was something far ''weirder'', and the result is a SurrealHorror story in which the Doom Patrol engages in numerous metaphysical fights with HumanoidAbomination[=s=] and [[OrderVersusChaos the forces of law]], with relatively little focus on action. While Morrison's run is the most infamous by far, its SpiritualSuccessor[=s=], the runs of Rachel Pollack and Gerard Way, are similarly experimental and bizarre.

* ''ComicBook/DylanDog'' loves this trope, almost always combining with SurrealHorror and/or AllJustADream (and in a few cases, DreamWithinADream).
* ''ComicBook/{{Warrior}}'' unfortunately falls under this due to the impossible-to-read PurpleProse and the non-sequential art.

* ''Most'' of the stories Creator/GrantMorrison writes. Notable exceptions include his [[Franchise/JusticeLeagueofAmerica JLA]] run, ''ComicBook/{{We3}}'', and ''ComicBook/AllStarSuperman'', which are comparatively straightforward. For a perfect example of this trope however, see ComicBook/FinalCrisis. ''All'' of it.
** ComicBook/TheInvisibles too, might as well be called MindScrew: The Series
* ''{{ComicBook/The Incal}}'', anyone?

* The ''ComicBook/DeadpoolWadeWilsonsWar'' mini series pulls one. It really makes you think.

* ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis Aftermath: Escape''. In which Tom "Nemesis" Tresser finds himself in a mysterious city, along with all DC's other "spy" characters, and apparently it's the future setting of ''OMAC'', complete with Lilas and GPA agents, or maybe it isn't, and characters die, but come back, and when ''he'' dies, the whole thing starts again. Appropriate, since the whole book is an homage to ''Series/ThePrisoner''.

* ''{{ComicBook/TheIncal}}'', anyone?

* ''MPDPsycho'' -- If you're smart you ''might'' able to follow the story up to Book 4...

* The ''ComicBook/DoomPatrol'' were originally billed as the "World's Strangest Heroes!" back in the 60s. They treated their superpowers like disabilities and frequently fought strange enemies, but with the original comic being so old, [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny it might seem rather normal nowadays]]. This is not a problem, though, as in the late 80s, the aforementioned Grant Morrison took over the recently-launched SoOkayItsAverage revival with the intention of making it weird like the original. What he ended up writing was something far ''weirder'', and the result is a SurrealHorror story in which the Doom Patrol fights numerous metaphysical fights with HumanoidAbomination[=s=] and [[OrderVersusChaos the forces of law]], with relatively little focus on action. While Morrison's run is the most infamous by far, its SpiritualSuccessor[=s=], the runs of Rachel Pollack and Gerard Way, are similarly experimental and bizarre.

* ''Most'' of the stories Creator/GrantMorrison writes. Notable exceptions include his [[JusticeLeagueofAmerica JLA]] run, ''ComicBook/{{We3}}'', and ''ComicBook/AllStarSuperman'', which are comparatively straightforward. For a perfect example of this trope however, see ComicBook/FinalCrisis. ''All'' of it.

** If you thought ''The Killing Joke'' was mind-screwy, then you're never going to make it out of ''[[ComicBook/GrantMorrisonsBatman Batman: R.I.P.]]'' with your sense of reason intact. Batman having a whole separate personality triggered by an arbitrary gibberish phrase that's a ShoutOut to a Silver age Batman comic ('Robin Dies At Dawn!'), SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker cutting his own tongue in half with a razor and having no lips and being almost unintelligible because of it, Dr. Hurt potentially being a demon or the devil (your interpretation WILL vary)... Yeah, ''Killing Joke'' is a cakewalk compared to that storyline. Then again, Grant Morrison wrote it, and while he ''is'' considered one of the better Batman authors, his work, as mentioned above, can be ''very'' mindscrewtastic.

* ''ComicBook/{{Marville}}'': Long-debunked scientific hypotheses. Parodies that don't make sense. Wolverine as the first human. Dinosaurs speaking Hebrew. Random switching from parody to serious philosophy and back again.

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* ''ComicBook/{{Rork}}'': What you expect with massive KudzuPlot, [[TimeTravel Time Travels]], (TimeyWimeyBall included), [[DimensionalTraveler Dimensional Travelers]], SchizoTech, and [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Abominations]] all around? This comics is like [[UpToElefen whole new level]] Mind-screwiness.

* ''ComicBook/{{Rork}}'': What you expect with massive KudzuPlot, [[TimeTravel Time Travels]], (TimeyWimeyBall included), [[DimensionalTraveler Dimensional Travelers]], SchizoTech, and [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Abominations]] all around? This comics is like [[UptoElefen whole new level]] Mind-screwiness.

* ''ComicBook/{{Rork}}'': What you expect with massive KudzuPlot, [[TimeTravel Time Travels]], (TimeyWimeyBall included), [[DimensionalTraveler Dimensional Travelers]], SchizoTech, and [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Abominations]] all around?

* ''ComicBook/{{Rork}}'': What you expect with massive KudzuPlot, [[TimeTravel Time Travels]], (TimeyWimeyBall included), [[DimensionalTraveler DimensionalTravelers]], SchizoTech, and [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Abominations]] all around?

* ComicBook/{{Rork}}: What you expect with massive KudzuPlot, {{TimeTravel}}s, (TimeyWimeyBall included), {{DimensionalTraveler}}s, SchizoTech, and {{EldritchAbomination}}s all around?

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* ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis Aftermath: Escape''. In which Tom "Nemesis" Tresser finds himself in a mysterious city, along with all DC's other "spy" characters, and apparently it's the future setting of ''OMAC'', complete with Lilas and GPA agents, or maybe it isn't, and characters die, but come back, and when ''he'' dies, the whole thing starts again. Appropriate, since the whole book is an homage to ThePrisoner.

* The point in which ''TheMaxx'' jumps from trippy to actual MindScrew may vary from person to person. Some may say it's when the villain turns out to be a giant psychopathic self-help-fueled banana slug; other may say it's just right before the revelation of why Julie's Outback was created (that part with the Hooly); or maybe when [[spoiler:Sarah comes back from DisneyDeath as an Isz]]...
* A certain scene in ''JohnnyTheHomicidalManiac'' pulls a particularly screwy example: the schizophrenic titular character is having just another debate with the Doughboys, two voices in his head he identifies as two styrofoam figures he painted. There's nothing much out of the ordinary at first. However, when a third 'voice' in the form of a dead rabbit tries to warn Johnny that the Doughboys are trying to use him, the perfectly ordinary styrofoam figures ''start moving around by themselves'' and proceed to tear the rabbit's head off, and continue to move around for the rest of the scene. Johnny briefly remarks that he's never seen them move around like that before, and one replies "Well, the rabbit provoked us." However, near the end of the scene Johnny stops in mid-rant and asks "Um, how come you guys aren't moving around anymore?" The other simply replies ''"We can't move around - we're made of styrofoam."''