History ComicBook / StanleyAndHisMonster

In 2001 Stanley and his monster appeared in, of all things, a ''ComicBook/GreenArrow'' story arc written by Creator/KevinSmith -- which was not fluffy or whimsical ''at all'', and which led to a character named Stanley Dover who had very little connection to this Stanley appearing in Season 7 of ''Series/{{Arrow}}''. They also made a cameo in ''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis'' and in a story arc in ''ComicBook/SupermanBatman''.

!!''Green Arrow: Quiver'' specifically provides examples of:
* AbusiveParents: [[spoiler: Stanley, Sr, is an abusive grandparent.]]
* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler:The arc was meant to reintroduce Ollie after his death and a major part of the arc is getting Ollie's soul to rejoin the revived body and stop Stanley Sr. from taking it.]]
* TheCameo: [[ComicBook/TheSandman1989 Morpheus]] makes another one, this time in his usual form.
* ContinuityNod: After The Monster erases Stanley Jr.'s memories of his torture, Stanley asks the monster if they can build a treehouse together, a callback to the 1993 miniseries.
* DarkerAndEdgier: Really, this time. [[spoiler:Stanley is abducted and tortured by a satanist who wants Spot to be his servant. Spot eats him (the satanist, not Stanley).]]
** Thank god it all ends on a (relatively) happy note; [[spoiler: Spot only eats Stanley's grandfather because [[KarmicDeath he really, really deserved it]], and the Monster later erases Stanley's memories of all this horror to restore his mental health]].
* DidntThinkThisThrough: [[spoiler:Stanley Sr. tortures his grandson to summon the monster. As it turns out, Stanley Sr. didn't have any plan of how to deal with the really, really ticked off monster]].
* GrandTheftMe: [[spoiler:Part of Stanley Sr.'s plot is taking to take over the soulless body of Ollie. This is foiled when the real Ollie's soul decided to rejoin the body.]]
* HarmfulToMinors: [[spoiler: What Stanley underwent.]]
* OneSteveLimit, subclass "If There's Two Steves, It's For A Reason": The Stanley-and-His-Monster part of the plot begins when Green Arrow meets an elderly man named Stanley Dover, who turns out to be young Stanley's eponymous grandfather. [[spoiler:And also the satanist who is trying to summon the Monster; it's suggested that an earlier attempt by the elder Stanley to summon the Monster to himself resulted in the Monster being summoned to the wrong Stanley, leading to their first meeting and all that followed.]]

* TrenchcoatBrigade: Ambrose Bierce. He throws a lampshade on this.

* TheCameo: [[ComicBook/TheSandman Morpheus]] makes another one, this time in his usual form.

* CaptainErsatz: DC wouldn't let Foglio use [[{{ComicBook/Hellblazer}} John Constantine]], so he created an almost-identical character named Ambrose Bierce and hung a lampshade on it. And they wouldn't let him use Creator/NeilGaiman's [[ComicBook/TheSandman Sandman]] in a dream sequence, so Gardner Fox's original Sandman appears instead (but talks and acts as if he were Gaiman's King of Dreams). Interestingly, it was confirmed in the pages of Sandman that Gardner Fox's original Sandman contained a piece of the King of Dreams' soul, so it's not that impossible.

* ImagineSpot: All over the place in the first issue, establishing the connections to the DC Universe. It gets to the point that ComicBook/TheSandman has to step in and tell Stanley he's exceeded the dream budget for the month.

* TheVoiceless: The angel Duma, which had been established as such in the pages of ''ComicBook/TheSandman''.

* {{Stripperific}}: Nyx is rather....minimally dressed for a demon with a human body structure in an otherwise humorous comic.

* AdaptedOut: The revamp eschews Napoleon's Ghost, Shaugnessy and Schnitzel.

* NoNameGiven: Spot's original name was never revealed. (The later Foglio version asserted that [[NeverGivenAName he didn't have one]], unless "[[SomebodyNamedNobody the Nameless One]]" counts as a name.)

* SpeechImpediment: Stanley started out with a "th" lisp but eventually lost it.

* NonHumanSidekick: Spot
* NotSoImaginaryFriend: Spot

* HeroicSacrifice: Spot grabs Ambrose and screams at him that he will do whatever he wants, since Spot thinks Ambrose is Nyx and Spot wants Stanley and his family to be safe. In his mind, if he goes back to Hell, Nyx will stop bothering them. Since the manner Spot does this involves holding Ambrose in the air while screaming at him, Ambrose is highly confused.

* UnderNewManagement: The impetus of the series is that in the wake of Ramiel and Duma being put in charge of hell in ''ComicBook/TheSandman,'' they're giving new rules to Hell, one of which is that Demons can't be outside of Hell anymore. While they can't do anything about Etrigan, they do know that the Nameless One ''can'' be taken back to Hell and assign his ex, Nyx, to drag him back. What ''they'' don't know is that Lucifer exiled the Nameless One from Hell, and none of the demons are lining up to tell the Angels since they want to see the angels screw up.

In 2001 Stanley and his monster appeared in, of all things, a ''ComicBook/GreenArrow'' story arc written by Creator/KevinSmith -- which was not fluffy or whimsical ''at all'', and which led to a character named Stanley Dover who had very little connection to this Stanley (or even [[spoiler: his grandfather]]) appearing in Season 7 of ''Series/{{Arrow}}''. They also made a cameo in ''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis'' and in a story arc in ''ComicBook/SupermanBatman''.

* AdultsAreUseless: Stanley's parents are at first bewildered, concerned, and freaked out by all the crazy things that happen... but by the final issue they've come to terms with it.

* CaptainErsatz: DC wouldn't let Foglio use [[{{ComicBook/Hellblazer}} John Constantine]], so he created an almost-identical character named Ambrose Bierce and hung a lampshade on it. And they wouldn't let him use Creator/NeilGaiman's [[ComicBook/TheSandman Sandman]] in a dream sequence, so Gardner Fox's original Sandman appears instead (but talks and acts as if he were Gaiman's King of Dreams).

* DarkerAndEdgier: Played with. Foglio seems to be seeing how many references to Creator/VertigoComics he can work in without the story ceasing to be light and fluffy. (Also, the cover of the first issue depicts DarkerAndEdgier versions of the characters, knee-deep in skulls -- being day-dreamed by an editor while Foglio pitches the light and fluffy mini-series to him.)

** "Hell Is Exactly What You Think It Is." Hell is influenced by belief to a degree, so because Stanley knows everything he does about Hell from cartoons and edited tales told by Spot, he believes that Hell is cartoonish and the demons are silly and stupid.

* IdenticalStranger: Ambrose Bierce looks identical to John Constantine, even demons get it wrong.

* TrenchcoatBrigade: Ambrose Bierce

* UnderNewManagement: The impetus of the series is that in the wake of Ramiel and Duma being put in charge of hell in ''ComicBook/TheSandman,'' they're giving new rules to Hell, one of which is that Demons can't be outside of Hell anymore. While they can't do anything about Etrigan, they do know that the Nameless One ''can'' be taken back to Hell and assign his ex, Nyx, to drag him back.

In 2001 Stanley and his monster appeared in, of all things, a ''ComicBook/GreenArrow'' story arc written by Creator/KevinSmith -- which was not fluffy or whimsical ''at all''. They also made a cameo in ''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis'' and in a story arc in ''ComicBook/SupermanBatman''.

* BackwardsFiringGun: Ambrose Bierce gives Stanley a backwards-firing water pistol that squirts him in the face. It's filled with holy water to test if he's a demon.

* OccultDetective: Ambrose Bierce.

* WhiteSheep: Spot (or "The Nameless One") is the only demon in history to have turned his back on Evil, which is proof for Ramiel and Duma that their program of rehabilitating demons can work.

* CerberusRetcon: Played with. The monster, which never had a real backstory before, is actually ''a demon from Hell!''... who was kicked out for being insufficiently evil.

%%* ABoyAndHisX: A boy and his big, red monster. %% Add more context to describe their relationship and what effect it has on them. %%
* FluffyTheTerrible: Spot

* OccultDetective: Ambrose Bierce

* TakeThat: The cover of the 1st issue is Phil Fogio pitching his comedy series to a rather bored editor who instead imagines the concept as being about a NinetiesAntiHero.

* Stripperific: Nyx is rather....minimally dressed for a demon with a human body structure in an otherwise humorous comic.

''Stanley and His Monster'' was a humorous fantasy series published by Creator/DCComics back in the days when they didn't just do superheroes (the late 1960s, to be precise). Written by Arnold Drake with art by Winslow Mortimer, it concerned six-year-old Stanley Dover, who meets a large red shaggy monster that's more afraid of people than people are of it. Stanley adopts the monster as a pet, and names him Spot.