Comic Book / Gargoyles (Dynamite)

Gargoyles is a Comic Book continuation of the animated series Gargoyles that launched in 2022 under Dynamite Comics, written by series co-creator Greg Weisman with art by George Kambadais.

Picking up where the previous comic continuation, Gargoyles: Clan Building, left off, the series follows the adventures of the titular Gargoyles as they adjust to the changes in the status quo of their lives since the end of the previous comics.

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Gargoyles provides the following tropes:

• The Bus Came Back:
  • Mary, Tom's mother who stayed behind with Lady Finella to protect the Grimorum Arcanorum while Tom, Princess Katharine and the Magus went to Avalon with the Wyvern Clan eggs, resurfaces as Maggie the Cat's midwife in modern Manhattan. Dialogue basically confirms the previous Word of God that Mary and Finella were brought forward by time-dancing Brooklyn and have been in the modern era for several years now. invoked
  • Queen Titania who hasn’t been seen since The Gathering Part 2 appears in her Anastasia persona at Halcyon Renard’s bedside when the latter is dying.
• Categorism as a Phobia: When she fails rather spectacularly to convince the court that gargoyles aren’t sentient or capable of speech, Margot Yale recalibrates her approach for Goliath’s “sentience trial” by, instead, encouraging this mentality through cross-referencing Goliath and some of her chosen people to testify on her behalf. Basically, she says, “Sure, the gargoyles saved people’s lives and are earnest in their pursuit of peace, but they could have done the opposite and turn on us at the last minute, so it’s okay to treat them like garbage anyway”.
• Continuity Nod: It wouldn’t be Gargoyles or a Greg Weisman series without this.
  • Elisa mentions in the first issue how Tony and Dracon were imprisoned in the same cell after their arrest at the end of the season 2 episode Turf. Turns out the cops did it deliberately because they thought it'd be funny.
  • In issues #1 to #3, the midwife, Mary, is shown tending to Maggie during the latter’s birth. An acknowledgment of the SLG comics’ events where she was transported to the present day from the medieval era as a result of Brooklyn’s “time-dancing”.
  • In issue 7, Demona casts her scrying spell to spy in the Manhattan Clan using leftover blood samples from when she and Thailog cloned them in The Reckoning.
• Courtroom Episode: Issues 9 and 10 center around Goliath's trial to determine his sentience and whether or not gargoyles qualify for the same rights as humans.
• Distinction Without a Difference: Multiple characters regard the insistence that Goliath's time in court is a hearing, not a trial, as an example of this trope.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Antoinette Dracon leaks her uncle's plans to the gargoyles when she learns that he planned to have her twin brother Tony murdered in prison as "collateral damage" during Wolf's assassination of Tomas Brod.
• False Flag Operation: Dino Dracon uses several of these to pit the other crime families of New York City against each other, starting by framing the Sanchez and Choi families for the kidnappings of each other's children.
• False Friend: Subverted. Issue 9 appears to set up Halcyon Reynard as this when Margot reveals that he was the secret donor who provided the Gargoyle Task Force with the anti-gargoyle weaponry that allowed them to capture Goliath. He defends his actions by arguing that the status quo since the gargoyles' existence became public was unsustainable, and that he had hoped to engineer a situation through which Goliath, and gargoyles in general, could finally be known by humanity as the honorable individuals he knew them as while he was still alive to see it.... Then, in issue 11 reveals that all along he'd wanted to push the city to legally recognize Goliath as a person so that he could leave Goliath a share of his company in his will.
• Imperiled in Pregnancy: Maggie is abducted by Thailog not only while pregnant, but in the middle of labor.
• In Prison with the Rogues: After being captured by the Gargoyle Task Force, Goliath is imprisoned right next to recurring antagonists Tomas Brod and Anthony Dracon.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Halcyon Renard has a more noticeable cough when he appears in Issue 9, and passes away at the end of Issue 11.
• Internal Reveal: Captain Chavez finally learns of Elisa and Matt's involvement with the Manhattan Clan in Issues 10 and 11, respectively.
• Mob War: A major subplot of the first 12 issues is the escalating conflict between the rival crime families of New York.
• Persecuting Prosecutor: A former background character, Margot Yale slips into this role for Goliath’s “sentience trial”; utilizing all sorts of legal gymnastics to encourage maltreatment and fear towards Gargoyles by the New York populace while also exercising her shallow hatred of them.
• Prison Episode: Goliath's subplot in Issues 6-8 functions as this. Particularly Issue 8, which focuses in large part on Goliath helping to fight off the Pack when Dino Dracon sends them to murder Brod at Riker's Island.
• Rags to Riches: Halcyon Renard leaves 2% of Cyberbiotics to Goliath in his will so that he can serve as a tie-breaker between the other beneficiaries, meaning that the gargoyle goes from literally not owning any money at all to having a stake in a ridiculously wealthy super-corporation.
• Remember the New Guy?: The new series introduces Antoinette and Dino Dracon, the previously unmentioned twin sister and uncle of recurring antagonist Tony Dracon.
• The Reveal:
  • Wolf is also the son of Grisha Volkov, one of NYC's five major mob bosses.
  • Halcyon Renard was the supplier and designer for the GTF’s anti-gargoyle technology; anticipating Goliath’s eventual capture in order to set in motion him being recognized as a legal citizen and be gifted 2% of Halcyon’s fortune from his will.
  • Xanatos bribed Judge Roebling to rule in Goliath’s favor, but with nuance: from the start, Roebling intended to side with Goliath because it was the right thing to do, but he (and those closest to him) would have faced severe legal (and possibly lethal) backlash without Xanatos’s protection money to live comfortably elsewhere.
  • The end of Here in Manhattan issue 12: Coldstone is The Mole for Demona, and Antoinette Dracon is also working for her.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Dino Dracon figured out that Rosaria Sanchez and Peter Choy (the daughter and nephew of mob bosses Huracán Sanchez and Choi Yingpei, respectively) were dating after reading an article about them rescuing a boy from drowning in Central Park, deducing that they had both been there because they were on a romantic rendezvous, so he abducts them from the park to use against their families while they're on another one. As it turns out, the two of them being there the first time had been total coincidence, but they had starting dating after rescuing the boy.
• Self-Restraint: Goliath is presented with two opportunities to escape after being captured and imprisoned, but chooses to stay in order to test whether humanity will ever be ready to see gargoyles as equals.
• Superpowerful Genetics: Zigzagged. Sevarius and Thailog expect Talon and Maggie's child to be a mutate like them, but he comes out completely ordinary. But then, the ending of Issue 3 reveals that despite looking fully human, Michael has definitely inherited at least one of his parents' mutate abilities, namely electrokinesis.
• Surveillance as the Plot Demands: Issue 7 focuses on Demona using one of the last remaining pages of the Grimorum Arcanorum to scry on the Manhattan Clan.
• Unexpected Inheritance: In Issue 11, Halcyon Renard reveals that with Goliath now legally recognized as a person, he has left the gargoyle a share of his company in his will.
• Wham Line:
  • From Issue #11 when Halcyon Renard announces who receives the remaining 2% of his inheritance.
    Halcyon Renard: “I’ve left that two percent to… to Goliath”.
  • From issue #12
    Dominic Dracon: “I love you, Dino. But I’m disappointed. This is not the way Dracons do business. Your older brother Anthony would never behave this way.”
    Dino Dracon: “Anthony?! Anthony?! Golden Boy Anthony?!!! Anthony’s dead, Pop!! I know because I’m the guy who took him out!!”
• Women Are Wiser: Tony Dracon's female twin Antoinette appears considerably more reasonable than he, contacting Broadway for help with the rising gang war situation because she's heard of his detective skills and so far not doing anything directly villainous or antagonizing the gargoyles in any way.

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