Follow TV Tropes

Following

Bound And Gagged / Comic Books

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/greenlanternbng.png
  • The Adventures of Tintin: Tintin has been tied up on several occasions and, in one case, gagged, but has never been tied up and gagged at the same time. In fact this happens inevitably to somebody or other in just about every adventure (Captain Haddock, Professor Calculus, Nestor, and a slew of bad guys).
  • Part of the Every Episode Ending in Asterix comics is Cacofonix being Bound and Gagged to prevent him singing at the big feast.note 
  • The superheroines Black Canary, Zatanna, and Siryn all have histories of being bound and gagged by their enemies, due to the fact they all posses vocal-based superpowers. (Poor Zatanna was in this situation on the first page of the first issue of her first self-titled comic.)
  • Captain Marvel is a well-known male example; Billy's always bound and gagged because he has to speak his magic word to become Captain Marvel. Naturally, this also happened to his sister, Mary Marvel, as well as Freddy Freeman AKA Captain Marvel Jr. for the same reason. Also, their occasional teammate Kid Eternity, who has to speak his magic word to summon a historical or mythological hero.
  • Comic Cavalcade:
    • It does contain a Golden Age Wonder Woman feature, so one can expect Diana and/or Steve Trevor to end up tied or chained up at least once per story. They're frequently blindfolded and gagged as well. Special mention to Wondy getting tied to an airplane propeller.
    • Green Lantern discovers the astronomer Solomon Grundy's latest iteration is has been impersonating to hide his return tied up and gagged in the Gotham Observatory.
    • The Turtle ties The Flash and Iris to a spit revolving slowly over a fire, intending to force them to die a slow death.
  • Disney Ducks Comic Universe: A comic has the Beagle Boys demonstrate their convenient king-size Coil O'Rope that they carry around simply to tie up Donald Duck or Scrooge or whoever is opposing them on their nefarious plans.
  • D-List Superheroine Empowered ends up like this so often that villains, innocent bystanders, and her own teammates regard her as a laughingstock and she occasionally points out the shortcomings of gag design to the mellower mooks. (Very heavy on the fetish fuel, this series. In fact, it's part of its origin.)
  • The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones: In #24, Indy sneaks on board the villain's ship and finds a young woman bound and gagged in one of the cabins. Unable to free her immediately, she is still bound and gagged two days later as the ship makes landfall.
  • Gaston Lagaffe has occasionally been bound and gagged in a desperate attempt to finally get the contracts signed.
  • G.I. Zombie: In the first issue, a fed is tied to a chair and has tape put over his mouth by Western Terrorists. Tiff rips the tape off to get him to talk. Said fed is Jared, the titular zombie, in disguise.
  • Harley Quinn: her most recent comic books in the New 52 series has had a heavy emphasis on ballgags, with her using one to gag a victim at least once per issue as they have progressed. Harley herself was bound and gagged in the first issue of Harley Quinn and Her Gang of Harleys.
  • There are plenty of instances of characters getting tied up on both sides in Injustice: Gods Among Us. Within the first few chapters, Harley Quinn is captured by Green Arrow to protect her from Superman, and it only goes downhill from there.
  • In Jon Sable, Freelance: Blood Trail #6, Jon and Jacob find Myke, bound to the antelope statue, ballgag keeping her quiet, obviously tethered like the goat to bait a lion.
  • In Lori Lovecraft: Repression, Thalia knocks out Rene Claude and steals his costume; leaving him bound and gagged while she sneaks on to set to murder Lori.
  • Justified for many of the Marvel Universe magic users (Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, Wiccan, etc.), who need the free use of their hands and voices to cast spells. Some of them have learned the basics of self defense (Strange is a full-fledged Kung-Fu Wizard) so they can protect themselves.
  • Nyoka the Jungle Girl is filled with this. All over the place. Nyoka gets tied up by bad guys all the time, many different ways.
  • At one point in Robin (1993), Stephanie Brown underestimates Czonka and ends up tied up and gagged in a rigged to be demolished project. When Tim finds the clues which led her there, he makes the same mistake and goes to untie her without first making sure of where Czonka is and gets knocked out and tied up and gagged himself for his troubles.
  • Happens to many Damsels in Distress in Sin City when they're captured by a Big Bad. Dwight's girlfriend Gail and Wallace's girlfriend Esther are two prime examples.
  • By the final issues of Spider-Verse, all three of the special totems are captured by the Inheritors.
  • Spider-Woman: The first volume features quite a bunch of tie up scenes of Jessica Drew, and at least there's one scene where she's also gagged.
  • Star Wars: Doctor Aphra. Aphra captures rebel general Hera Syndulla and offers her to the Imperial forces, Bound and Gagged and with a large pink bow on her head. It's later mentioned that Hera was more angry about the bow than anything else.
  • One of the parts of Street Fighter Unlimited literally ends with a picture of Chun-Li bound and gagged, helpless to defend herself against what is to come. Combined with events in later appearances, one has to wonder if her claim to being the "Strongest Woman In The World" is still valid.
    • A more subdued example, but in her own comic, ninja girl Ibuki is hand gagged by one ninja and physically bounded by a male ninja bigger and stronger than her. In both cases, it didn't end well for the ninja against her.
  • Superman:
    • It's been toned down since The '80s, but Lois Lane still finds herself tied up by the bad guys every so often.
    • Red Daughter of Krypton: In order to transport an out-of-her-mind Supergirl safely, a group of Green Lanterns gagged and chained Kara with solid light constructs and placed her inside a containment cell.
    • Bizarrogirl:
      • Bizarro tied and gagged Bizarrogirl before getting her into the rocket which would take her to Earth.
      • Kara also ties up and gags Bizarrogirl before flying her back to Bizarro World.
    • Starfire's Revenge: After being knocked out, Supergirl is tied up and gagged and taken to Starfire's headquarters, where she is tied to a pillar.
    • The Girl with the X-Ray Mind: When a criminal gang called the Bank Busters assault the Midvale Bank, they tie the manager up to a chair.
    • Death & the Family: Insect Queen imprisons Supergirl in a crystal prison, and an insect mook slaps on her mouth a glob of crystalline material to keep her quiet.
    • Day of the Dollmaker: After kidnapping Catherine Grant, Dollmaker's doll-slaves put a gag on her mouth and tie her to a chair.
    • The Day the Cheering Stopped Superman finds Jimmy Olsen tied to a chair and gagged in media mogul Oswald Mandias' private boat.
    • The Supergirl-Batgirl Plot: Subverted. Superman and Batman are led into a cave where Supergirl and Batgirl are supposedly held captive. They find both heroines shacked to two chairs, but it is soon revealed they are lifelike dummies.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Mirage): In issue #14, upon stumbling across a secret meeting involving a group of bad guys, April O'Neil is gagged and later tied up to a chair.
  • In Violine, the titular character reads the mind of her rescuer and sees herself like this, cluing her in to his true intentions, and quickly fights him off, to the point of crashing his car. Later actually happens in Muller's dungeon, providing the image for Torture Cellar. Even her mouse gets tied up. Redder also ended up like this in a flashback.
  • Wonder Woman:
    • Diana's creator, William Moulton Marston, was into bondage himself, and he definitely wrote it into the job description. The original Wonder Woman has superhuman abilities... unless her vambraces were welded together by a man, at which point she became de-powered. So you can expect incredible amounts of bondage throughout the first couple decades of her comic, especially given that she nearly constantly allows herself to be captured in order to be a Play-Along Prisoner.
    • Steve Trevor tended to end up captured and tied up pretty often as well, and unlike his girlfriend could not just snap the ropes and/or chains when he wanted to leave.
    • Wonder Woman (1942): The villain the Mask gets her name from the poisoned S&M style mask/gag combinations she locks her victims in.
    • Wonder Woman (1987): Kimberly Dunn gets gagged and tied to a chair by Doctor Psycho disguised as Veronica Cale's pet enforcer. Then Cale shows up and rants at her before murdering her. Later on Cale gets a taste of her own poison when Doctor Psycho ties her up and gags her and tosses her in a closet.

Top