Times where somebody shares a disguised anecdote about themselves in Comic Books.
- 2000 AD: This is the punchline of the short strip Candy and the Catchman, where an old man warns a bunch of children to watch out for a bug-like monster that drains the lifeforce of small children, and how a boy named Billy Candy stood up to the creature but failed. When the children don't believe his crazy story, he reveals that it happened only yesterday, because he's Billy Candy.
- In Batman and Superman: World's Finest (1999) #1, the Big Bad does a very short, very brutal version of this.Eric Stang: Oh, Kone was a rapist, Batman. No doubt about it. I grew up in that Minnesota town, and when I was a boy, Kone was its sheriff. What he did, he did for a long time, in absolute secret. His victim had no one to turn to, no place to go. Certainly didn't trust the law. But as the years went by, I realized there could be justice.
- Crimson ends with Joe being revealed to have recounted the whole series to a friend in a bar.
- The Incredible Hercules:
- Issue #126 is an Origin Story related in parts by a trio of reavers coming to raise Thebes. They meet a Theban farmboy who they ask questions about Hercules, with each one telling a story they heard about how he came to be. Finally, one of them insults Herc by telling the story of how he killed his music student in a rage, and says that that's the only tale about Hercules he believes because artists and philosophers are the people weak enough to be killed by a mere Theban. The farmboy's reply "Aye. Hercules did not mean for the strike to be so lethal. His father sent him to a cattle ranch as punishment for one year, so that he might become better acquainted with his strength. He used it to slay a lion that menaced his herd from the foothills of Mt. Cithaeron". The farmboy glances at his shoulder which is covered by a lion's pelt. Cue Oh, Crap! faces all around.
- In #139 Wolverine fights Hera's Huntsman, who tells him a story about a hunter named Cephalus, who killed his own wife accidentally with his own javelin that never missed and then was Driven to Suicide, relating the events of the story to Wolverine's own life. Wolverine retorts that his story isn't going to end with his death, but the huntsman's. The huntsman then replies that though his face is distorted in Tartarus as punishment for suicide, he himself is Cephalus, and impales Wolverine In the Back with a javelin of light.
- Julie's stories about "Megan" in the later part of The Maxx may or may not be this. On the one hand, Megan does look like Julie & they both spent some time living with their grandparents. On the other, Megan is a lesbian while Julie slept with scads of men.
- A variant in the Paperinik New Adventures comic "In the Shadows". An old Xerbian recounts a story to a younger woman as repayment for her kindness. The story is a mythological retelling of Xadhoom's life, from her birth under an unlucky star, her aspiration to become a scientist out of her love for the stars, her ascension into godhood, and finally her sacrifice to become a sun, bringing hope and life to her people. In the end, the woman asks how he knows so much about this story. The old Xerbian admits that he lived through it. The girl who became a star was his daughter.
- In The Sandman (1989):
- In the miniseries Death: The High Cost of Living, a young woman, in order to drive home the point that "ennui" is no reason to commit suicide, tells the story of a "friend" who was repeatedly molested by her father and his buddies the mayor and chief of police, so there was no one in her small town she could turn to. She attempted suicide by slicing up her arms, but survived and was glad that she did. When asked what happened to her in the end, she says "I expect she came out to the big city" (the miniseries takes place in New York). Furthermore, she's wearing long gloves...hint, hint.
- In another issue of Sandman (the Hunt) an old man is telling his granddaughter a story from The Old Country about a young man of "the People" who goes on a quest to find a princess, only to instead fall in love with a woman of the People he meets on the way. Oh, and the People are werewolves. When the girl is unimpressed by the story, he says he's sorry she never knew her grandmother who had a lot in common with her, and never let him forget that she won that hunt.
- This
◊ infamous Very Special Spider-Man Issue, in which we learn that Peter Parker was molested as a child. In order to comfort a boy named Tony, Spider-Man tells a story about a nameless boy who befriended an older friend named Skip. At the end of the story, Spider-Man says he was the little boy of the tale. - In Two-Gun Kid #42, in the story "The Gun-Fighter", the Kid disarms a young boy who wanted to prove himself by gunning him down, and then tells him a story about what happens to people who get a reputation about being the fastest guns in the west, about a man named Clay Harder who was forced out of his town due to the constant challenges and brawls his presence invited, and ended up becoming a drifter with no residence. At the end of the tale, the boy throws his own pistol to the ground and decides to quit while he's ahead, and in a moment of Genre Savviness, correctly surmises that the Two-Gun Kid is Clay Harder hisself.Two-Gun Kid: Yore right, Jack! And I'd still be lucky enuff to be known as Clay Harder if I'd been smart enough to do what yore doin' when I had the chance!
