[[quoteright:325:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/chewcover2.jpg]]

->''"Meet Tony Chu. Tony Chu is almost always hungry, and almost never eats. Here's why:''\\
''Tony Chu is cibopathic. That means he can take a bite of an apple, and get a feeling in his head about what tree it grew from, what pesticides were used on the crop, and when it was harvested.''\\
''Or he could eat a hamburger, and flash onto something ''else'' entirely.''\\
''Strangely enough, the only food Tony Chu can eat and ''not'' get a psychic sensation from is ''beets''. Consquently, Tony Chu eats a ''lot'' of beets."''
-->-- from Issue 1

''Chew'' is a comic book series by Creator/JohnLayman and Creator/RobGuillory and published by Creator/ImageComics.

{{In a world}} where the bird flu killed millions[[note]]or is it all a government conspiracy?[[/note]] and chicken has been outlawed, Tony Chu is a Philly cop struggling with the strange gift of cibopathy. When he is forced to work for the Food and Drug Administration (the most powerful government agency), he is partnered with a fellow cibopath, Agent Mason Savoy, in the Special Crimes Division. Together, they use their strange (and disgusting) ability to solve chicken and other food-related crimes, but after Savoy betrays the FDA, Chu is partnered with John Colby, his old police partner who was turned into a cyborg after being injured on the job. The rest of the series follows Chu and his family as they get drawn into the conspiracy surrounding the killer bird flu, as well as Chu's attempts to hunt down a killer Cibopath known as the Collector.

''Chew'' is notable for having an ordinary (well, aside from the cibopathy) Asian-American for a protagonist, which is pretty rare in Western fiction. [[AvertedTrope He doesn't even]] [[AllAsiansKnowMartialArts know kung fu.]]

The comic is 60 issues long, divided into 5-issue arcs with the series ending on November 23, 2016, with a double sized DistantFinale. Specials include:
* ''Chew: Secret Agent Poyo'' (2012)
* ''Chew/Revival'' (2014) - A one shot crossover with the comic ''ComicBook/{{Revival}}''.
* ''Chew: Warrior Chicken Poyo'' (2014)
* ''Chew: Demon Chicken Poyo'' (2016)
* ''Outer Darkness/Chew'' (2020) - A 3-issue {{Crossover}} series with ''ComicBook/OuterDarkness''.
* ''Chu'' (2020) - A series about Tony's sister, Saffron Chu.

[[folder: Arcs (spoiler free as possible)]]
#''Taster's Choice'': Philly Cop Anthony Chu leaves the force after his powers are outed and joins the FDA. He's shown the ropes by senior agent and fellow Chibopath Mason Savoy. Together they investigate the death of health inspector Evan Pepper.
#''International Flavor'': Reunited with his old, now cyborg partner John Colby, Tony heads to the island of Yamapalu to investigate a mysterious fruit that tastes just like chicken.
#''Just Deserts''': Tony enters into a relationship with journalist Amelia Mintz and Mason Savoy returns.
#''Flambe'': A mysterious message sends the world into a panic, making the chicken ban a non-priority.
#''Major League Chew'': Tony is kidnapped by Amelia's psycotic ex-boyfriend to help him with tell all about dead baseball players the old fashioned way: by force feeding them to him.
#''Space Cakes'': With Tony recovering from the last arc, Toni takes the lead and deals with various NASA cases.
#''Bad Apples'': The Church of the Immaculate Ova declares holy war and it's up to the FDA to deal with them while Tony deals with a personal loss.
#''Family Recipe'': Tony recieves a message from a dead relative, cibopathy style.
#''Chicken Tenders'': The FDA closes in on the Vampire.
#''Blood Puddin'': Strings come together to lead Tony to confront his most dangerous enemy.
#''The Last Suppers'': Fallout from his confrontation. Savoy is taking an ever more present place in Tony's affairs leading the two toward an uncertain confrontation.
#''Sour Grapes'': Mason leads Tony to the truth behind the Bird Flu and gives him an impossible choice.
[[/folder]]

Not to be confused with ''The Chew'', an ABC clone of ''TheView'' that focuses on food.

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!!Tropes:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Chew]]
* AllYourPowersCombined: As it turns out [[spoiler: this is the true purpose of the food powers: to combine all their power to kill the chicken eaters and give earth a second chance. ]]
* AmazonBrigade: USDA agents are universally portrayed as extremely buxom, jumpsuit-wearing martial arts-practicing female superspies with cyborg animal companions. Even the director, who appears to be in her 50s or 60s.
* AnyoneCanDie: The series doesn't shy away from killing major characters. [[spoiler:Toni Chu]] is the [[SacrificialLion first major character]] to kick the bucket, and by the end [[spoiler:Poyo, Savoy, Amelia, D-Bear and Colby]] are gone too.
* AssholeVictim: The senator who [[spoiler: caused the bird flu died of a stress induced heart attack.]]
* ArcWords:
** "I think it's a fruit."
** "Vampires don't exist."
** "One will die and the other will dine on the flesh of his enemy."
** "Chicken is doom."
* ArtEvolution: Rob Guillory's art improves tremendously over the course of the series. It can best be seen in how he draws Tony; in the first issue Tony has a big forehead, tiny stereotypical Asian eyes, practically no nose, and a smooth face. By the second-to-last issue Tony's face fits in with the rest of his head, his eyes and nose are normally sized, and there are more lines on his face to convey emotion better.
* BadassNormal: Poyo was not exposed to radiation, trained by Tibetan monks, or bio-enhanced by aliens during their animal abduction sprees - he's just really, ''really'' bad ass.
** [[spoiler:EmpoweredBadassNormal: Now he's a cyborg.]]
*** [[spoiler: He had to be operated on as he actually died. During the operation, he took on the entire army of hell, and even The Devil begged for mercy]]
* BadBoss: Mike Applebee, who hates Tony for no discernible reason and seems more concerned about torturing Tony than solving cases. [[spoiler:Then Chu and Colby are transferred to other departments]]. This doesn't stop him from badmouthing them to anyone who asks Applebee about them.[[spoiler: When Chu and Colby get transferred back, he stops once Tony finally stands up to him.]]
* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler: It turns out that the "Bird Flu" was a bioweapon unleashed by the government to save humanity, as the mysterious "fire writing" in the sky is a message from aliens who are threatening to destroy humanity if they do not completely give up eating chicken. By the final issue, Chu has been forced to admit that the aliens are still far beyond humanity in terms of power, leaving him with a hopeless choice: either commit mass-murder on an almost genocidal level by wiping out all the humans who have eaten chicken recently, or spare them and know that humanity will be annihilated as a result. He ultimately uses a kill-code that exterminates all of the chicken-eaters, ensuring no human will ever eat chicken again. At least Tony gets his revenge by stabbing one of the aliens in the chest.]]
* BerserkButton: Applebee has a living one in anything to do with Tony Chu. Antonelle "Toni" Chu has a major one in hurting her family. The notion one man's bullet would've killed her big brother Chow drives her to smash the man's face in in a very uncharacteristic fury
* BigBadEnsemble: [[spoiler: Mason Savoy]] and The Vampire get equal focus, with [[spoiler: The Order of the Imaculate Ova taking up a third, less important spot, as of issue 20.]]
* BigScrewedUpFamily: Tony's family. Members include Chow (older brother, repeat chicken smuggler), Sage (younger sister, pyromaniac), Harold (younger brother, transvestite stripper), Rosemary (older sister, hates Tony's guts), Toni (twin sister), and Olive (Tony's estranged daughter). Most (if not all) of Tony's siblings have a food related power like he does, such as Toni being a cibovoyant (being able to see the future of anything living she eats), and Sage being a cipropanthropatic (seeing the memories of anyone close by her eating the same thing that she's eating). Tony left Olive with his sister and her husband after his wife went insane and died, causing the entire family except Toni to hate him.
* BilingualBonus: A good chunk of issue 4 is in transliterated Russian, which is largely correct and entirely relevant to the situation. Also, one of the characters is named Dr. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvass Kvass]].
** Poyo the Chicken, while mispelled it's supposed to be ''pollo'', means ''chicken'' in Spanish. So his name is literally [[DepartmentofRedundancyDepartment Chicken the Chicken]].
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The world is saved, but Amelia died to give Tony the means to do it after he refused to eat her and millions of people die in the process , including Colby and the chicken aliens get away with nearly destroying earth for decades, but provide earth with great new tech in the process. However Olive gets to live a full, happy life and is on good terms with her dad, and Tony gets his revenge decades later when the chicken aliens return, plunging the chocolate knife he used against the Collector into the head Chicken's heart. ]]
* BizarreBeverageUse: Some powers are explicitly drink based, such as the Mixosecerner's ability to make drinks that act as truth serums, the Effervinductor's ability to control his victim's minds through espresso foam, and the Vectulactirutare's sour milk based death burps.
* BlessedWithSuck: Cibopathy, ''oh so much''.
* BloodyHilarious: Most of the action scenes depict spraying gore, shattering teeth, and dismembered body parts in an intentionally zany, over-the-top style. But to the extent where it can be adjusted effectively for more dramatic moments.
* BookEnds: Both the first and last issues (not counting the epilogue) [[spoiler:feature Tony and John taking down a mundane, non-powered serial killer.]]
* BrownNote: Amelia Mintz's column. [[spoiler:This is also how the conspirators killed over a hundred million people for eating chicken three years before the story takes place and how Tony kills tens of millions near the end of the narrative.]]
* BuddyCopShow: The first chapter, as thoroughly lampshaded. Once Colby returns as Chu's partner after [[spoiler: Mason bites Tony's ear off and flees after Tony attempts to arrest him. ]] this trope is back in full effect.
-->'''Colby:''' What can I say, Chu? I'm the unhinged, break-any-rule, loose-cannon cop. You're the by-the-book square that never met a departmental regulation that you didn't love. That's why we work so well together.
* BurgerFool: A particularly obnoxious one who refuses to give any information until being tricked into thinking the FDA would kill his whole family.
* CerebusRetcon: In later issues, we see repeated {{Flash Forward}}s of Tony and Applebee as old men, with Applebee saying he hates him. It's PlayedForLaughs, underscoring Applebee's enduring irrational hatred for Tony. [[spoiler:By the end of the series, we see that moment in context and we learn Applebee has a good reason for hating Tony now. Tony set off an event that killed all chicken-eaters on the planet, including Applebee's husband Colby.]]
* ChekhovsGun / ChekhovsGunman: Chew rivals ''Manga/OnePiece'' in its use of this trope, with most named characters coming back later on and most elements coming back in some way or another.
** Poyo seems like just a funny side element when first introduced in the "International Flavor" arc. He later shows up at least once an arc to do something that's a combination of badass and important.
** The Goveneor of Yamapalu shows Amelia something that gets her to follow him back home at the end of issue 3. This later turns out to be [[spoiler: The Gallisberry, an alien plant that tastes just like chicken and becomes the focus of the international flavor arc, and it's apparently extraterrestrial origins hint at the alien letters in the sky that pop up during issue 15]]
** The USDA is a minor recurring element in the first half of the comic [[spoiler: becomes important to a point when Colby starts working there in issue 21. ]]
** Alani, the woman who helps Chu break into the compound on Yamapalu [[spoiler: later becomes head of the Order of The Immaculate Ova and one of the series chief antagonists. ]]
** The angry guy who Colby mentions stares daggers at him whenever he and Tony visit and later stalks Amelia during a phone call with Tony [[spoiler: Turns out to be her insane ex and becomes the BigBad of the "Major League Chew " arc. ]]
** Colby, who shows up in the first chapter, gets a knife to the face, is missing for the remainder of the first arc, and returns from issue 6 onward as Tony's new partner.
** Toni, Tony's fraternal twin sister who ends up as the Focus of the "Space Cakes" arc in Tony's place.
* CannibalismSuperpower: The reason why Tony gets assigned to the FDA in the first place. Since Tony gets psychic impressions from anything he tastes, his jerk of a captain thinks its funny to send him to nibble on corpses, lick pools of blood or even eat poop to gather evidence (though anytime it's suggested Tony refuses). It is later revealed that cibopaths can also absorb a person's talents and abilities by eating parts of their bodies. The Collector takes this to insane extremes by constantly cannibalizing anyone he finds with special abilities.
* ConspiracyTheorist: Several people in the Chewniverse believe that the truth behind the bird flu epidemic is being covered up by the government. This includes Tony's brother Chow, John Colby, the radicals of [[FunWithAcronyms E.G.G.]], and Mason Savoy.
* CosmicPlaything: Tony Chu has a demeaning job and his boss inexplicably hates him. His family considers him a black sheep, his first wife was a lunatic, he's ostracized for his psychic powers, and he regularly gets the crap beaten out of him.
* {{Crossover}}: With ComicBook/{{Revival}}, a double sided one shot, with a story by each series creator.
* DefiantToTheEnd: [[spoiler: Toni herself.]]
* DistantFinale: The final issue takes place a few decades after the end of the previous issue.
* EatThat: What half of Chu's job consists of.
* EdibleThemeNaming: Nearly every significant character has a food-related name.
* {{Fingore}}: Poyo doesn't like it when Toni pets him under his beak.
* FoodPorn: In-story, Amelia's restaurant reviews, thanks to her powers. Her readers can ''literally'' taste the subject of her articles. This allows Tony to taste food that he can't eat without disgusting visions.
** HeartIsAnAwesomePower: She incapacitates a room full of armed criminals by describing a particularly rancid meal, uses the FoodPorn aspect to rescue Tony at one point and [[spoiler: Her power turns out to be the key ingredient in the chicken virus needed to save earth. ]]
** There is also a minor character who creates ''literal' food porn, creating photographs of food so vivid that it actually makes the viewer horny.
* FootFocus: In issue 36, [[spoiler: where [[AgonyOfTheFeet Toni is about to sever one of her toes]] to put into Tony's freezer adjacent Min Tso's toe.]]
* FunnyBackgroundEvent: Too many to count. Little jokes in the background including funny events, signs, graffiti, {{Shout Out}}s, and Easter eggs are scattered throughout the series.
* GeniusSweetTooth: Voresophics are capable of amazing {{Sherlock Scan}}s (ie. capable of deducing the exact height, weight, race, gender, handedness, and weapon of a suspect, as well as brief summary of their background, simply from a couple of crime photos), provided they are eating.
* GottaCatchEmAll: A very dark version with The Vampire's goal: to murder as many "food freaks" as possible, eat them, and absorb their powers. His failure to do so with Toni causes him to have a breakdown. He also goes after powers regardless of their usefulness.
* GovernmentAgencyOfFiction: Played for laughs, with practically every government agency being portrayed as of the "covering up sinister conspiracies" variety or the "high-tech superspy variety", including the FDA, the USDA, and NASA.
* GovernmentConspiracy: There are some who believe the government lied about the bird flu and the chicken embargo is illegal. They're probably not wrong. [[spoiler: It turns out to be wrong, as only four people were behind it. ]]
* GreaterScopeVillain: [[spoiler: The Chicken Aliens, who wrote the fire letters and nearly destroyed the earth, and whose actions gave people their superpowers, making them indirectly responsible for everything the Collector did.]]
* HappilyMarried: [[spoiler: Tony and Amelia as of issue 41.]]
* IJustWantToBeNormal: Antonelle Chew, Chew's fraternal twin sister is cibovoyant, but hides it because she doesn't wanted to be treated like a freakshow like Tony is.
* ImAHumanitarian: Not intentionally, but taking a bite out of someone is the easiest way for a cibopath to to get the information they need out of a suspect.
* IndulgentFantasySegue: Tony' first interaction with Amelia Mintz is considerably more romantic in his head than it was in reality.
* JerkAss: A good three quarters of characters either treat Tony like crap for barely any reason at all, or make it absolutely clear the only reason why they're associating with him is to use his cibopathic powers.
* KilledOffForReal: Everyone listed under AnyoneCanDie.
* LoveAtFirstSight: Tony with Amelia Mintz.
* ManInAKilt: Tony when he gets demoted to traffic enforcement.
* MegaManning: It's revealed later on that Chibopaths gain the abilities of those they eat. Tony [[spoiler: uses this to escape Amelia's psychotic ex by gaining the abilities of the dead baseball players he was forced to eat and later makes the fastball he gained his SignatureMove]]. It also turns out the Vampire's done this to dozens of people with food powers.
* MetaOrigin: Mason Savoy comes to believe that all food-related superpowers have a cosmic purpose. [[spoiler: He turns out to be entirely right. ]]
* MilkmanConspiracy: [[spoiler:The "avian flu" outbreak only involved four people: the head of NASA, the Great Fantanyeros, a Viohortunalus named Emily Travala, and the broadcaster of the signal.]]
* MostCommonSuperPower: [[https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/9408/why-are-all-the-usda-agents-in-chew-women-with-exaggerated-physical-features Parodied]] with the USDA whose ranks are almost entirely comprised of buxom women [[RedShirtArmy who always suffer massive casualties]] whenever they appear.
* MyCountryRightOrWrong: John Colby helps enforce the poultry prohibition while part of the Philadelphia PD and the FDA even though he strongly disagrees with it and believes that it is part of a government cover-up.
** Tony Chu believes in enforcing the poultry prohibition because it is the law. His views on the law itself are unclear.
* OneWordTitle: A EpunymousTitle. "Chew" is a homophone for "Chu", the last name of the main character who also has a superpower based around eating.
* OurVampiresAreDifferent: As Mason said, "There's no such thing as vampires," but a cibopath known as the Vampire is more than happy to use the myth to his advantage.
* PickyEater: Chu's menu (at least the one that doesn't involve chewing on murder victims) is very limited, thanks to the rather unpleasant images he can get from what he eats. Most of it consists of beets.
* PsychoExGirlfriend: Min Tso for Chu. Amelia also has her own crazy ex, who stalks her at work and leaves very nasty and racist voice mails on her answering machine. [[spoiler:He then kidnaps Chu for a very unusual form of research for a book about long-dead baseball players' sex lives. And after that he tries to sell Tony to the highest bidders.]]
* PunnyName: Chu/chew.
** Many characters share their names with food or a restaurant. For instance, Chu's partners are Colby and Savoy and his FDA boss is Applebee.
* ReassignedToAntarctica: Applebee briefly gets Tony reassigned to Traffic Enforcement. It turns out that Tony is actually happy there due to having a BenevolentBoss and it's framed as sad when he loses his job due to being kidnapped and missing several days of work.
* RequiredSecondaryPowers: Presumably, Chu doesn't get readings from his own saliva.
** Not to mention that he can survive on an all-beet diet and he doesn't get food poisoning from eating corpse parts, even ones that are long dead.
* TheReveal: Multiple ones throughout the series, all of them spoilerriffic:
** [[spoiler:The "bird flu" was a biological weapon released on humanity by the world's governments, after those governments received a warning from aliens that if humanity had not ceased the practice of eating chickens before they arrived, the entire human race would be annihilated.]]
** [[spoiler:The reason why the aliens care so much about what humanity eats? Because they ''look'' like humanoid chickens.]]
* RevengeBeforeReason: [[spoiler:The final page of the series involves Chu assassinating the leader of the aliens who forced him to murder humanity's chicken-eating population. Whilst emotionally satisfying, he may just have thrown humanity into a war that it still might not be strong enough to win.]]
* RunningGag: Whenever someone has sex it's drawn to look almost exactly like the first time Colby and Applebee had sex.
** The teasing of Tony possibly having to eat shit in order to get information.
* SeriousBusiness: Chicken. Seriously. Justified in the most horrible way; [[spoiler:the earth is being watched by aliens who resemble humanoid chickens, and they are threatening to annihilate humanity if it won't stop eating their look-alikes.]]
* ShoutOut: Tony's cousin in the Thanksgiving scene can be seen reading a ''[[Series/TheColbertReport Tek Jansen]]'' comic book.
** Later in that same scene, the man who serves Tony with legal papers is a dead ringer for Seth Rogen's character in ''Film/PineappleExpress''. He's even wearing a shirt with a picture of a pineapple and the word "express" on it, if you didn't catch the reference.
** Savoy's nametag on his car mechanic disguise reads [[{{Comicbook/Watchmen}} Hollis Mason]].
** The helicopter pilot's nametag during Tony and Savoy's trip to the Arctic is [[{{Series/Lost}} F. Lapidus]].
** Olivia and Peter from ''Series/{{Fringe}}'' show up in the background of issue 17 investigating some 'weird stuff'. An Observer shows up soon afterward.
** For the International Butter Sculpting Championship, two men who look suspiciously like Trey Parker and Matt Stone make a butter sculpture of [[WesternAnimation/SouthPark Butters]].
** Brown, the guy who can sculpt functional weapons out of chocolate, researches laser technology in a book that has a picture of a [[Film/AustinPowers shark with a frickin' laser beam attached to its head]].
** A [[Film/PulpFiction Big Kahuna Burger]] appears in one of the pages.
** When Amelia's [[PsychoExGirlfriend Psycho Ex-Boyfriend]] tries to sell Tony off to the highest bidder, one of the groups attending the auction is an [[Film/TheBluesBrothers Illinois chapter of Neo-Nazis.]]
** The second Poyo special ends with Poyo going to ComicBook/TheWalkingDead universe and aiding Rick, Carl, and Michonne against an army of zombies.
** In issue 54, Popeye the sailor is shown to have fallen victim to The Vampire.
* StrawFeminist: The USDA seems to be made up almost entirely of women who believe that all men are subsentient cretins (at least all of the men who work for the FDA). Those members who aren't cyborg animals, at least
* SupremeChef: The Great Fatanyeros is capable of communicating the complete works of Shakespeare through food.
* SuperpowerfulGenetics: Tony's twin sister is cibovoyant and his daughter is a cibopath who, according to Savoy, is even more powerful than Tony.
* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: [[spoiler:Cyborg or not, Poyo is still a chicken. Once someone survives long enough to grab his neck... well, chickens are pretty easy to kill.]]
** Upon learning that, [[spoiler: Colby, in order to catch the Collector, was working with Savoy, who had been secretly training his daughter, Olive, and had her involved in a disastrous operation to kill the Collector, which left her injured,]] Tony proceeds to beat the shit out of [[spoiler: Colby and terminate their partnership]].
** Olive is a cibopath, more powerful than her father and has aquired powers, with the help of Savoy, which include the ability to make working weapons out of chocolate and tortillas. She believes she can take down the Collector, [[spoiler: only to get her ass beat in her first battle with him, as a result of being an inexperienced 16 year old high-schooler]].
** After getting out from the hospital, Applebee is demoted for the disasterous mission to take out the Collector. Mainly because it led to many FDA causalities, a minor was part of the mission and subsequently hospitalized, and he was working with a known fugitive (Mason Savoy).
** The end of the comic has [[spoiler: Tony getting revenge on the chicken-headed aliens who basically were the main cause of all the series' conflict (the bird flu, the Collector' rampage, and the deaths of a million people, including Ameila and Colby) by shanking the leader]]. While this is meant to be very catharic, it's highly implied that [[spoiler: humanity is now at war with the chicken aliens]].
* SurveillanceStationSlacker: Can anyone say Gardner-Kvashennaya International Telescope?
* TastesLikeChicken: This is a bandwagon several companies are jumping on trying to find something that can fill the mownillegal chicken niche. This includes things like genetically engineered "Chogs" putting chicken gene's in frogs for taste.
** The gallsaberry is almost identical to chicken in taste when it's cooked. With the federal ban on poultry, this makes it very significant to the plot, [[spoiler: and that's not considering the "fruit's" probably extraterrestrial origin]].
* ThanatosGambit: [[spoiler: Toni lops off one of her toes and leaves it in Tony's freezer next to Min's toe before the Vampire kills her, knowing both that he would and, likely, that Tony would open the box soon.]]
** Later in the story [[spoiler: Mason kills himself after Tony refuses to work with him, and eats beets to force Tony into eating ALL of him in order to get the full message. He also eats one of the food weirdos needed to save the world since he knew Tony wouldn't eat him. ]]
* ThemeNaming: A majority of the characters are either [[EdibleThemeNaming named after food]] or are related to eating or culinary arts in some way.
* ThroughHisStomach: An unusual example - one of the reason Chu loves Amelia Mintz is that her writing lets Chu actually taste food without all the icky hangups he usually gets.
* ToadLicking: used by the artic astronomy station to pass the time, don't ask. Through their actually a variety of poison arrow frogs. So then end up being crossed with the chogs that become their own subspecies and new designer drug.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: For some inexplicable reason, Chu's cibopathy does not work on beets. Thus, he eats a lot of beets. They are however, decidedly ''not'' his favorite food.
* UncannyFamilyResemblance: Applebee's family, who hold a party to welcome [[spoiler:Colby]] to the family. They all look like him, the men, the women, and even the ''children''.
* UnconventionalFoodUsage: As virtually all super powers are food-related, many, many foods are used in strange ways. Chocolate [[KatanasAreJustBetter Katanas]], tortilla throwing stars, PowerArmor made of jello, riot control guns that fire melted chocolate, and nuclear warhead oysters are the tip of the bucket.
* VillainousBreakdown: The Vampire suffers this after failing to gain Toni's powers and hearing from her that Tony is going to kill him. [[spoiler:This results in him breaking her neck.]]
* VillainHasAPoint: The Immaculate Ova Cult [[spoiler:was absolutely right about the fire writing's lethal connection to chicken eaters.]]
* VitriolicBestBuds: Chu and Colby.
* VivaLasVegas: The setting of issue 41. Tony, Colby, Amelia and Applebee head there for a law enforcement convention which Tony is the toast of due to his and Colby's bust last issue. [[spoiler: Tony and Amelia end up tying the knot while down there.]]
* VomitIndiscretionShot: What Amelia Mintz's writing can cause, when she wants it to.
* WeCanRebuildHim: Is a standard procedure for agents who get maimed. It happens to Colby, Poyo, [[spoiler: Applebee]], and [[spoiler: Caesar]].
* WeCanRuleTogether: More like "We can uncover the truth about the bird flu epidemic together." Mason does this for both Chu and Colby. They both refuse.
** [[spoiler:Olive, on the other hand...]]
** [[spoiler: Colby later agrees with Ceaser makes the offer, though he still hates Savoy.]]
* {{Whatevermancy}}: Cibopathy and all the other various food powers.
* WeaksauceWeakness: Cibopathy has no effect on beets. Toni uses that to her advantage to keep the Vampire from stealing her power.
* WorthyOpponent: Mason still expresses respect for Tony, even after they become enemies.
* WhoWouldWantToWatchUs: In Volume 12, a father actually offers to read his sick child some ''Chew'' comic books. Her answer is "Yuck. No, I want something good."
* {{Yandere}}: Toni's last girlfriend, Min Tso. He gave her an engagement ring. She cut off her toe and asked him to eat it so they could literally be a part of each other. The relationship went downhill fast.
** Subverted when we learn [[spoiler: Min knew she had terminal brain cancer, and the toe was a way for him (or their daughter) to see her actual, unmuddled thoughts.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Chu]]
* BisexualLoveTriangle: Saffron is in a relationship with Eddie but is also getting closer to Lily.
* ContrastingSequelMainCharacter: While Tony is a ByTheBookCop, his sister Saffron is a criminal.
* CreatorCareerSelfDeprecation
** A mob boss claims to collect all kinds of art ''but not comic books''.
** Sage tells Saffron that a guest at a fancy party is a comic book artist. Saffron's reaction? "Eww. Gross."
* DelinquentHair: Saffron has a purple dyed streak of hair.
* LockingMacGyverInTheStoreCupboard: Saffron has the power to read a person's mind so long as she's eating the same thing as them. After being sentenced to three years in prison, she spends every day around hardened criminals eating the exact same cafeteria food, absorbing their knowledge and skill.
* MagicFeather: Tells a famous 19th century French artist that she'll use her magic to make his paintings famous. She later tells him that her "magic" did not make his paintings great. That was all him. However, her using time travel to steal his painting and making it vanish in the present day did make him ''more'' famous and make his other paintings more valuable.
* OutlawCouple: Saffron and Eddie.
[[/folder]]
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