Line #88 ComicBook/TheGoon


1	[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/GoonMovPoster_5277.gif]]
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3	''The Goon'' is Eric Powell's award-winning fantasy comic book series, published by Creator/DarkHorseComics. Goon, a muscle-bound former freak circus assistant, is the top enforcer of the secretive mob boss Labrazzio, and he is at war for the control of the city with the Nameless Zombie Priest, who directs zombie hordes from his citadel at Lonely Street. Together with his loudmouthed sidekick Frankie, Goon battles zombies, robots, aliens and mad scientists. Mostly with his fists.
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5	A GenreBusting epic of pitch-black humor, tragedy, and utterly grotesque monsters getting punched in the face, any description pales in comparison to the real thing. ''The Goon'' is a comic where a vampire gets set on fire while being tied to the hood of a car zooming around the town. ''The Goon'' is a comic where a Wild West zombie hunter must eat the flesh of his prey. ''The Goon'' is a comic where the main character must blow up a burlesque but is diverted by a giant, violent transvestite.
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7	Eric is working with Creator/DavidFincher and the crew down at Creator/BlurStudio to turn the Goon into an animated feature film. A proof of concept preview [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKdrCbE4YRA came out]] around Comic-Con 2010. There was a [[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/624061548/the-goon-movie-lets-kickstart-this-sucker successful Kickstarter campaign]] to raise funds for it. Although things seem to be going forward with [[Film/Deadpool2016 Tim Miller]] now being involved, and as of May 16th 2019, finally greenlit at Fox/Disney. However, after no news for three years, Miller would [[https://deadline.com/2022/07/comic-con-tim-miller-the-goon-netflix-1235075679/ announce]] during SDCC 2022 that the project would move to Creator/{{Netflix}} and be directed by former Disney animator Patrick Osborne (''WesternAnimation/{{Feast}}'', ''WesternAnimation/LoveDeathAndRobots'').
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9	A Roleplaying Game of the series using the ''TabletopGame/SavageWorlds'' system has been released.
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11	A sequel series, revolving around the Goon and Frankie leaving the carnival and returning to the Nameless Town, only to need to rebuild their criminal empire from the ground up, launched in March 2019.
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13	!!This series provides examples of:
14	* AntiVillain: [[ChromeChampion Dr. Alloy]], a [[WellIntentionedExtremist Well Intentioned]] [[strike:Extremist]][[TheKlutz Klutz]] of a MadScientist who suffers from both a tendency to engage in science experiments that go hideously wrong and outbursts of actively hostile insanity.
15	* TheAtoner: Buzzard. [[spoiler: He wasn't able to stop the Zombie Priest from killing and enslaving the town he was sheriff of]] so he intends to kill the Priest no matter the cost.
16	* AttackOfThe50FootWhatever: Rather often. One of the earliest stories involves the Goon having to kill a gargantuan zombie chimpanzee.
17	%%* BearsAreBadNews
18	* BigBad: The Nameless Man, The Zombie Priest.
19	* BittersweetEnding: Issue 53, the end of "Once Upon a Hard Time" (which Powell himself calls a series finale) wraps up threads from the very beginning of the series. [[spoiler: The Goon finally kills the rest of the Nameless Man's coven (including the Nameless Man himself). Through an act of compassion, he manages to avoid the damnation and death that have been hounding him throughout the miniseries, and even finds a way to break (or at least weaken) the curse surrounding the town. However, the Goon is clearly burned out by recent events, and leaves the town with Frankie in tow, possibly forever. Although he finds happiness for the first time in a very long while working at the circus he grew up at, the ending and epilogue make it clear this will not last.]]
20	* BigEater: Greedy Gut, the Hobo god is this to a villainous degree, even eating his own Hobo worshippers at times.
21	* BlackComedy: The series runs on making fun of the creepiest, darkest, scariest and most depressing things it can, sometimes stretching into DeadBabyComedy -- at least ''literally'' once or twice.
22	* BlankWhiteEyes: Frankie is drawn with these, given his more "cartoony" status compared to the other characters in the setting.
23	* CallForward: Young Goon hitting the Zombie Priest in the face with a rock because he "didn't like the look of 'im".
24	* CelebrityStar: After a cameo in #20, real-life burlesque star Roxie D'Lite appears in #36 as the main villain.
25	* CerebusSyndrome: The tone of the series after ''Chinatown'', to a certain extent. Vol. 11 takes things back into silly territory, though.
26	* CircusBrat: The Goon himself, who was originally raised by his Aunt Kizzie.
27	* CircusOfFear: Brigadoon's Dreamland Carnival, a malicious parody of the classic 1930s film, Freaks, where deformed outcasts torment or murder normal people in assorted Carnival games. Even the Goon and Franky were disgusted by it.
28	* CrapsackWorld: Whilst it's eventually revealed that there's a genuine {{curse}} on the region where the Goon hangs out which is at least partially to blame, the Goon's world is ''seriously'' messed up. There's an evil necromancer running around who wants to cause a ZombieApocalypse, {{Mad Scientist}}s like Dr. Alloy running rampant, a "swine revolution" has made pork meat a hot commodity analogous to liquor during Prohibition, a crazed airforce of communist cephalopods wants to rule the world, hobos are gibberish-spouting cannibals, and basically all manner of murderers, maniacs and monsters thrive in the place. It's no wonder a brutal badass of a mob boss who won't put up with any of this crap comes off as heroic by comparison.
29	* CreateYourOwnVillain: Inverted. The Zombie Priest created the Buzzard in a case of MagicMisfire; the Buzzard had a gun to the Nameless Preacher's face and so he panicked and went with his first impulse, which was to zap Buzzard with the zombifying spell. This instead turned him into an effectively immortal necrophage with a particular grudge against the Nameless Preacher. [[spoiler: To say nothing of how the Preacher provoked Buzzard into that initial confrontation by tormenting him.]]
30	* CrossOver: With ''ComicBook/{{Hellboy}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}''.
31	* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: "They glued it back together... With Glue!"
32	* DisappearedDad: Goon's father [[spoiler:unceremoniously dumped him with his Aunt Kizzie, having already killed the mother and threatening to throw baby Goon into the river if she didn't take him.]]
33	* DoomyDoomsOfDoom
34	* DragonAscendant: The Goon himself, having killed Labrazzio and stolen his empire whilst claiming to be "just" the gangster's top enforcer, so as to have people go gunning for his non-existent boss instead. However, this is only a InUniverse secret in the "Rough Stuff" Issue 0 comics and in any WholeEpisodeFlashback stories, and by the time of Issue 1 the Goon's secret is out and he's openly the boss.
35	* DrivenToSuicide: Happens to the Buzzard, repeatedly. Unfortunately for him, he can't die.
36	* DrivingQuestion: What happened in Chinatown? Eventually explained in the titular arc: [[spoiler: years ago, after growing to adulthood, the Goon met Isabella, a girl he had always loved back in the Circus, as the slave of Xiang Yao, a Chinese mob-boss in the local Chinatown, and eventually bartered with Xiang Yao for her freedom. He has the time of his life courting her, falling deeply in love and even considering giving up the mobster lifestyle so he can have a decent life with her. And then she breaks his heart by telling him to his face that she "doesn't want him". Blinded by grief, the Goon goes to confront the Chinese mob-boss, whose gang has been pushing the Goon's gang out of the city, only for the mob boss to turn out to be a shapeshifting dragon. In the fight, the Goon gets his characteristic facial scars and dead eye after the dragon slashes his face and then burns his body. Isabella leaves town without saying a word, refusing to even go and see Goon in the hospital, with an indignant Frankie warning her never to come back.]]
37	* EldritchAbomination: Parodied here and there. LovecraftLite is definitely applicable, as they're invariably beaten up by the Goon.
38	* EnfantTerrible: In a world like the Goon's, it should be no surprise that many kids who're vicious, ruthless little monsters show up.
39	* EvenEvilHasStandards: Houstous Grave, the Nameless Preacher's gravedigger, lights out of Lonely Street and the city entirely when the Preacher creates Mother Corpse, decrying it as a blasphemy even he wants nothing to do with.
40	* EyeScream:
41	** Frankie's favorite "Knife to the Eye" attack.
42	** The Nameless Preacher gouges out one of his own eyes with his bare hand in order to power the BlackMagic ritual that creates Mother Corpse and her chughead spawn.
43	** When the Arab first chases the Nameless Preacher down, he gouges out the Preacher's ''other'' eye.
44	** [[spoiler:The Preacher's familiar sacrifices one of his own eyes so his master can see again. When the Preacher rallies himself to stand against the coming of the Coven, he takes the cat's other eye by force, then kills and eats him for good measure.]]
45	* EyeObscuringHat: [[WordOfGod Word Of God]] confirms the only time that Goon's eyes aren't obscured by his hat are for emotional impact.
46	* FantasyKitchenSink: For a book having zombies, aliens, giant robots, mutants, sea monsters, a talking spider, Cockney-sounding demons, kaiju, mad scientists, vampires, werewolves, cannibalistic hobos, aerodynamic militant communist octopi and a man who feasts on the flesh of the dead, you could say the Goon uses this trope.
47	* FastballSpecial: The Goon does this with Frankie, naturally.
48	* TheFilmOfTheBook: Currently in preproduction.
49	* TheFirstCutIsTheDeepest: Although the Goon goes through a ''lot'' of trauma in his life, the Chinatown story-arc reveals that Isabella's rejection of the Goon's feelings for her was perhaps one of the worst emotional blows he suffered and he's never really gotten over her.
50	* FirstEpisodeTwist: At the end of the first series (which is only three issues long), it is revealed that, Labrazio was DeadAllAlong, and The Goon is the real man in charge. Exaggerated when this story arc was relegated to the "Volume 0: Rough Stuff" status, with the first "real" issue opening with a summary of Goon's origins, meaning this was spoiled on the ''5th page'', ''and'' the fact that this truth has become openly known InUniverse, to the point Houstous unwittingly ticks his boss off by commenting on how much effort the Nameless Preacher wasted on trying to find and kill a dead man.
51	* FromBadToWorse:
52	** After the Goon's football career was ended when his team was gunned down by the Black Hand, the city's enraged occupants rose up and massacred the two gangs that comprised it. Unfortunately, this left a power vacuum that the Nameless Preacher was quick to fill -- using the bodies of the former gangsters to bulk up his zombie army in the process.
53	** Eventually, the Goon/Buzzard team-up makes it impossible for the Zombie Priest to get the corpses he needs to produce zombies... so, he gambles all his remaining forces on securing the corpse of a pregnant woman, which he then reanimates and mutates via a BlackMagic ritual to create "Mother Corpse", who constantly produces horrifically deformed demon-zombie babies, giving him an even stronger army than before.
54	* FromNobodyToNightmare: The Goon and Franky, who started out as absolute nobodies -- a humble carny kid and a rather milquetoast city kid, respectively -- and went on to become the city's most feared crimeboss and his PsychoSupporter, respectively.
55	* FunnyAnimal: Spider... a shiftless, deadbeat GiantSpider in a derby hat with a gambling problem.
56	* GenreBusting: Action comedy-urban fantasy-Pulp adventure pastiche-Noir crime fiction-dramedy
57	* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: Kizzie wound up getting an abortion after she was pressured into it by her then-lover in the circus, though she wound up regretting this when her lover died in an accident. When Goon was dumped on her she decided she'd raise him in place of the child she would have had.
58	* GoodScarsEvilScars: The Goon's trademark facial scars and dead eye are this, though [[HiddenEyes hidden]] most of the time. But how does this work with a SociopathicHero?
59	* GothGirlsKnowMagic: Lydia Brewster is a WitchClassic but with some goth-girl markers -- septum ring, black lipstick, lots of cleavage.
60	* GratuitousSpanish: El Hombre de Lagarto only speaks (intentionally bad) Spanish.
61	* GuileHero: The Goon may be strong enough to beat a man to death with his bare hands, but he is also extremely smart and cunning.
62	* TheHecateSisters: Mother Brewster, Granny and Lydia are the usual coven of varied age, although they are actually grandmother, mother and daughter instead of being unrelated.
63	* HeroicComedicSociopath: Frankie, who is a sexually depraved, psychotic, hair-trigger murderous maniac, but also Goon's staunchly loyal best friend and his blood-thirsty antics are played for laughs.
64	* HeterosexualLifePartners: Goon and Frankie. Both of them are sexually attracted to women, but are always seen together, as their friendship has proven stronger and deeper than any relationship either has managed to attain.
65	* {{Hobos}}: As befits this CrapsackWorld, hobos -- or at least those who hang around the Goon's city -- are essentially a gibberish-speaking CannibalTribe who serve as a reoccurring source of minor dangers.
66	* HunterOfMonsters: Buzzard serves as this to the Priest in particular and zombies in general.
67	* IKnowYourTrueName: The Zombie Priest is on the receiving end of this after Buzzard's attempt to just lay down and die in the roots of a tree leads him to a SpiritVision of the Priest's real name: [[spoiler: Rumplestiltskin]].
68	* ILetGwenStacyDie: Isabella. [[spoiler:''Twice.'']]
69	* {{Kaiju}}: El Lagarto Hombre began as this, summoned by an EldritchAbomination that Goon beat to death. Dr. Alloy created a much smaller clone after the original version was killed.
70	* KarmicDeath: Issue 37. [[spoiler: A factory owner and his shoddy policies accidentally cause the death of 142 (mostly female) factory workers. When the survivors go on strike and get the Goon to support the union, the factory owner gets the help of demonic forces. While in the middle of a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech while staring at the riot down below, he sees the face of a widow that worked in his factory that he saw at the trial. She disappears and appears in his room, explaining how while she died, she will have justice. ]]
71	* KingOfTheHomeless: The Hobo King, who seems to be Music/BobDylan.
72	* LoveMakesYouEvil: Buzzard converses with a ghost who killed several people - including his own wife and child - to feed a [[NoPartyLikeADonnerParty cannibalistic]] mistress he lusted after. The mistress however, didn't return the favor and left him to starve.
73	* MoodWhiplash: The series is as good at drama as it is at comedy, and often switches between the two.
74	* NiceJobFixingItVillain: The man who would become Buzzard was content drinking himself into a shallow grave, until the Zombie Priest came by to taunt him and lord his takeover of the town over him, spurring the man to his RoaringRampageOfRevenge.
75	* NoodleIncident[=/=]NoodleImplements: Many of them. Frankie uses this trope when he talks about his sexual escapades, or describes the action in the metacomic, "The Goon and Satan's Sodomy Baby." There's also a character named Charlie (ahem) Noodles, who is always discussed in stories but never seen. There's also a few other ones here and there.
76	** ''Chinatown'' was one until it had an arc devoted to it.
77	* NoOneSeesTheBoss: Nobody sees Labrazzio... Because he's been dead for years and the Goon is the real boss on a lifelong masquerade of ObfuscatingStupidity. Dropped after the Goon's real role in leading the gang is made evident.
78	* NoPartyLikeADonnerParty: A historic instance of this - combined with a spot of LoveMakesYouEvil - is apparently responsible for the curse on the city.
79	* ObfuscatingStupidity: Zigzagged with the Goon. In the stories set before the present day, though he presents himself as just Labrazio's enforcer, he doesn't really make any attempt to feign being DumbMuscle. After his status as the real boss of Labrazio's mob is revealed, he stops bothering to make any attempt to hide his skills.
80	* OneWingedAngel / ScaledUp: [[spoiler: Xiang Yao does this at the end of ''Chinatown'', by reverting to his true form as a Chinese Dragon.]]
81	* OurGhoulsAreCreepier: Buzzard is a human being from the days of the Wild West placed under a curse by the Zombie Priest that basically makes him a Ghoul, or an "Anti Zombie" -- a living person condemned to wander the earth feeding on the flesh of the (preferably walking) dead. As a side-effect, he is effectively immortal, neither aging nor dying from mortal wounds. Of course, he hates the Zombie Priest and is now tailor-made to do battle against him.
82	* OurProductSucks: The omnibus editions of Volume 1 self-published when Volume 2 came out have the overall title of ''The Goon: Bunch of Old Crap''.
83	* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: As the story uses a setting vaguely reminiscent of the 1920s, both Goon and Frankie (particularly Frankie) can say stuff that's rather politically incorrect by modern standards. For example, Frankie referring to the deformed Grave kids and the chugheads as "Mongoloids".
84	* {{Retool}}: The first volume of the comic (released as a volume 0: "Rough Stuff") had a busier art style and less direction, and Powell's comments on it clearly paint it as almost an OldShame.
85	* RealPersonCameo: Burlesque performer Roxi Dlite in issue #20.
86	* RunningGag: The dinglepiper.
87	* ShoutOut: [[Literature/ToKillAMockingbird Atticus Finch]] shows up for a page to take a shot at a rabid transvestite.
88	** The circus where the Goon grew up is populated by the cast of ''Film/{{Freaks}}'', who serenade his birthday dinner with the "One of us" chant.
89	** A scene in a bar has [[Film/BlueVelvet Frank Booth]] screaming about [[BlandNameProduct "Paps"]] Blue Ribbon.
90	** The Goon's first fight with the chugheads has them [[Film/TheBirds crowding a telephone wire behind a woman who looks an awful lot like Tippi Hedren]].
91	** Issue #50, based around moonshine and hot rods, homages both ''Series/TheDukesOfHazzard'' and the hot rod art of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth.
92	** In ''One For The Road'', there's three creepy robed figures who are actually the Old Witch, the Vault Keeper and the Crypt Keeper from the old [[Creator/ECComics EC Comics horror anthologies]].
93	* SilenceIsGolden: Issue #33 has no dialogue, just sound effects and one thought balloon that said "Censor".
94	* SinisterMinister: The Nameless Preacher, aka the Zombie Priest; a malevolent necromancer who wants to unleash a zombie apocalypse, runs around for the early stories wearing a top hat with [[GenuineHumanHide a flayed human face stitched on the cap]], and ultimately turns out to be [[spoiler: a literal demon from hell and the source of the Rumplestiltskin story]].
95	* SociopathicHero: Make no mistake, Goon has his own particular moral code and, deep down, isn't that bad a guy... but, he's also quite willing to beat the shit out of anything and anyone that stands in his way, and has no qualms with murder or torture. Of course, given the kind of world he lives in, it's not as noticeable as you might think.
96	* SureLetsGoWithThat: In the original "issue #0" storyline, federal agents investigating Labrazzio uncover one of the Goon's most closely-kept secrets. In a dramatic climactic scene, they confront the Goon with what they've discovered, and announce the obvious conclusion: that all the evidence they've uncovered was planted by the Goon to send them off on a false trail. The Goon concurs with their conclusion, while making a mental note to destroy the evidence before somebody smarter finds it.
97	* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: Often enough. Most of them are from Frankie.
98	* TakeThat: Against ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', [[Series/TheOprahWinfreyShow Oprah]], Anne Rice, ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'', the entire superhero genre...
99	* ToiletHumor: Peaches Valentine. Sweet merciful lord, Peaches Valentine... in essence, a gibbering retarded young man in a diaper whose entire existence is based on his copiously defecating into his diaper and then playing with his own dung.
100	* TopHeavyGuy: The Goon, of course. Lampshaded in one story where, after a chase scene, a winded Goon asks just why he has to be built like a gorilla. Author's comments on "Issue 0" note that the entire idea of this series was born when the author doodled a standard comic or cartoon-type "goon" character and then became attached to him.
101	* TotemPoleTrench: The orphans who want to be the Goon's new agents do this.
102	* TwoFistedTales: The series can be roughly summarized as this mixed with super market tabloids.
103	* UndeadChild: The "chugheads", demonically-empowered deformed zombie-babies who replace the standard zombies as the Nameless Preacher's minions of choice once his supply of corpses is cut off.
104	* UnsoundEffect: KNIFE TO THE EYE!
105	* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: Issue 37 is actually based on a real life tragedy although obviously with some events fictionalized.
106	* WhamLine: In ''Chinatown''.
107	--> [[spoiler:"I don't want you."]]
108	* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic: Spoofed in one short. [[invoked]]
109	* WouldHurtAChild: Whilst Goon himself wouldn't hurt any kids, they still get hurt a lot in this series. In Greedy Gut's first appearance, he eats several children (offscreen), which renders hims fat and slow enough that the Unholy Little Bastards can evade him long enough to get saved by the Goon. Roscoe, the kid werewolf, gets his leg cut off when the Unholy Little Bastards make him chase a stick over a busy train track. And those are just some of the examples.
110	* WouldntHurtAChild: The Goon does have some standards, and beating up kids seems to be pretty much below what he's willing to do.
111	* WouldntHitAGirl: The Goon himself.
112	** Although as he points out to a [[{{Gonk}} fat and ugly female vampire]] (a spoof of Ann Rice vampires) whom he ''does'' proceed to beat up, she was the manliest person there until the Goon and Frankie showed up.
113	* ZombifyTheLiving: The Zombie Priest accidentally created his nemesis Buzzard by using the zombie creating magic on him when he was alive.

Context ComicBook / TheGoon