Comic Book / The Powerpuff Girls

The first issue of the comic based on the 2016 revival.

This page is for the comic adaptations of The Powerpuff Girls.

At the height of its popularity, the show was given its own comic book series in 2000 under the DC Comics label. It appeared in issues #1 and 5 of Cartoon Network Starring before launching its own title. The comic more or less showcased exclusive stories for the girls, but nothing really beyond that, like any usual comic tie-in. Interestingly, some of the episodes were adapted from the comics themselves (Squirrelly Burly, the first issue, became the season five episode Stray Bullet for example). It also worked in reverse as well when the TV crew didn't have the resources to animate certain episodes (Deja View, for example).

The comic series ended in 2006, though the girls were transplanted in the CN Block Party comic until that eventually ended in 2009 when DC cancelled their kids line.

Four years later, in 2013, IDW signed a deal with CN to make new comics off a few of their past shows, and naturally, The Powerpuff Girls was one of those selected. Unlike the last comic, these have multi-issue storylines. The IDW series also gained the rights to the DC-made comics and re-released them under Powerpuff Girls Classic. The PPG are also participants in IDW's Cartoon Network Super Secret Crisis War.

In 2015, the girls were given a spin-off mini-series subtitled "Super Smash-Up" in which the girls visit other fellow Cartoon Network characters.

Not surprisingly with the 2016 revival, a comic book based on that series was soon announced.

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The comics of The Powerpuff Girls! Provides examples for:

DC Comics Issues

• Achilles in His Tent: In "Sounding Off" (Block Party #33), Blossom gets fed up with Bubbles' crying and Buttercup yelling at her for it, so she takes a vow of silence to make them solve their problems on their own.
• Age-Inappropriate Dress: In "Deja View," Bubbles' Evil Counterpart from the Powerpunk Girls, Brat, is a five-year-old who has her midriff exposed. The attire of Buttercup's equivalent Brute includes a more modest dress, but also fishnets and spiked wristbands.
• Bedtime Brainwashing:
  • Near the end of "Meet the Micros" (Issue #65), the eponymous Micro-Puffs whisper to the girls while they're sleeping to convince them that various villains are attacking (or planning to attack) Townsville.
  • "Micro-Managing" (Issue #68) has the Micro-Puffs brainwashing Bubbles and Buttercup into wanting to be the leader of the team; when Blossom's Micro-Puff tries to do the same, it doesn't work because she's already the leader.
• The Cameo:
  • The Rowdyruff Boys have their own stories in issues 1, 2, 4 and 6 of Cartoon Network Action Pack. The Powerpuff Girls have cameos in two of those stories.
  • In "Everything Must Go" (issue #48), Crow T. Robot can be seen amidst the wares of Mojo Jojo's yard sale.
• Continuity Nod: In "Five Green Vandals" (issue #16), Bubbles brings up Buttercup's crush on Gangreen Gang leader Ace, much to Buttercup's irritation. Issue #30's "Monkey See, Monkey Dough" has Bubbles bringing up Mojo's plan from the movie (the comic adaptation of which released two months earlier).
• Crossover: A 2000 special publication put out by Cartoon Network featured a story where the girls meet Scooby-Doo and the gang.
• Great Gazoo: Issue #65 introduced the Micro-Puffs, tiny sprite versions of the girls from another dimension who show up to merely yank the girls' chains. One story has Blossom actually getting help from Mojo Jojo in defeating them.
• Halloween Episode: Issue #30's "Trick Or Beatings" and issue #67's "Halloween Hiding" (which featured a Where's Waldo? two-page spread that entreated readers to find where each member of the Gangreen Gang was hiding at a Halloween party).
• Heel–Face Turn: In "Monkey Business" (issue #67), Mojo attempts to go legit and opens his own restaurant. After too many inadvertent sabotages by the girls, Mojo goes back to crime.
• Hero with an F in Good: In "Going Squiggly" (issue #14), The Amoeba Boys give up crime and decided to become heroes. They stop Mojo from attacking Townsville Hall... by blowing it up with dynamite, which causes a chain reaction that destroys most of Townsville. Blossom even tells them that they're much more dangerous as good guys.
• Look Ma, I Am on TV!: The story "Drama-O-Rama" (issue #48) has Sedusa staging a reality TV show throughout Townsville, knowing that everybody—even the girls—will be mugging for the cameras so much that she'll be able to rob Townsville blind.
• Not Me This Time: In an unpublished story, "Mojo's Day Off," Mojo tries to relax in his lair, only for the girls to burst in and accuse him of calamities in Townsville. (He's reading a murder mystery novel in one segment and Blossom proceeds to spoil it.)
• Precision F-Strike: Two story titles: "Hell Toupee" (issue #16—also counts as a Pun-Based Title), and "Helliday" (issue #29). Also, in "Shutter Thug" (issue #11), Blossom says "Oh...dam" after said structure collapses on said villain.
• Pro Wrestling Episode: Issue #18, "The Trouble With Bubbles", has a monster caterpillar in a lucha libre motif. He turns into a monster butterfly after Blossom and Buttercup wrapped him up in adhesive tape. The title refers to Bubbles missing her role in the fight with the caterpillar, and she runs away from home after everyone gives her grief about it.
• The Power of Love: In "Buttercup's Boyfriend" (issue #2), Him gives a boy whose romantic advances to Buttercup were spurned a belt, with a buckle that transmits rays that make people hate. The ray hits Bubbles, but she's so full of love that the ray shorts circuits her and knocks her unconscious. Blossom and Buttercup verbally tell Bubbles they love her to wake her up.
• Rain, Rain, Go Away: The title of issue #66. A distraught sea monster makes Townsville do a rain dance through a catchy pop tune. It rains so much and so hard it floods the city.
• Rock–Paper–Scissors: The Amoeba Boys win Townsville from the Mayor in issue #23, "Amoeba Las Vegas". The girls intervene, as Bubbles challenges them to a game of Rock Paper Scissors and wins with Rock to the Amoebas' Scissors.
• Shut Up, Kirk!: Mojo delivers an epic one to Blossom in "Smart and Smarter" (Block Party #59), right after Bubbles and Buttercup deliver theirs to her as well. Blossom had been admitted to school for exceptionally smart children and became too big for her britches to the point of alienating her sisters and Mojo.
• Valentine's Day Episode: Issue #24, "The Bride Of Mojo Jojo." He's looking for love on Valentine's Day, but when a dating service fails him, he uses old weapon discards and his own DNA to create his own mate a la The Bride of Frankenstein.
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: In the story "Everything Must Go" (DC Comics #48), Mojo Jojo conducts a yard sale of his destructive wares. The Amoeba Boys buy one of his items—a magnet that pulls the moon towards the earth on a collision course. When he intervenes and stops the machine, sending the moon back to its rightful place, he thinks he deserves a "thank you" from the girls. They lock him up in jail for starting the whole thing with his yard sale to begin with.
• Weather Manipulation: Three examples:
  • Mojo creates winter in the summer with a freeze ray after cornering the market on winter goods in "No Business Like Snow Business" (#39).
  • Princess becomes the self-proclaimed "Weather Girl" as she attempts to steal the girls' heroic thunder in "Weather Vain" (#58).
  • An unnamed sea monster creates a flood through Townsville by means of a pop tune that makes Townsville do a rain dance in "Rain, Rain, Go Away" (#66).

IDW Comics Issues

Original Series

• Brought Down to Normal: After hearing Mojo's confessions, The Professor turns Mojo Jojo back to his original monkey self. It doesn't last, though.
• The Cameo:
  • Madame Foster from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends appears in issue 5 as a old lady whom Princess Morbucks helps across the street.
  • Dexter and Dee Dee from Dexter's Laboratory appear in issue 9 during a concert.
• Continuity Nod:
  • During issue 5, Bubbles remarks about having one of her pigtails turned to meat, which actually happened in the pilot.
  • Steve the Monster from the TV episode Super Zeros returns in issues 7 and 8, with a very important role.
• Didn't Think This Through: Mojo Jojo actually says the trope's name verbatim at the end of the comic's first arc, when he plans to be hidden in his space pod for weeks until he's ready to attack Townsville again... and realizes that he forgot to install a bathroom.
• Heel–Face Turn: This happens during the first storyline where the villains seemed to have turned a new leaf. It's subverted, however, as it shows that it was all a plot by Him. Though this may change with some indications from Fuzzy.
• Mind Manipulation: Him mind controls the Gangreen Gang, Sedusa, Princess, and Fuzzy Lumpkins to briefly become nice to the Girls, only to remove it to cause the villains to go back to being bad.

2016 series

Stand Alones

• Growling Gut: In one of the 2016 comics, Buttercup's stomach grumbles while she's looking for something to eat while watching Space Towtruck.

Time Tie

Bureau of Bad

• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Apparently the Girls have dealt with enemies from Dexter's Laboratory's Justice Friends series seeing as Doctor Diablos, Rasslor, She-Thing, Comrade Red, and Von Hellen were present in the Bureau of Bad.
• The Cameo:
  • Not only do the original villains return but we see villains from Dexter's Laboratory's Justice Friends series in there as well.
  • Samurai Jack appears on a billboard in the first issue, and two characters that look like Fred and Barney are on a monitor that the girls are beating up.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The whole mini-series is pretty much akin to Batman's Almost Got Im plot in which the villains recount tales where they came close to beating the girls in order to see who's the best one among them to lead. Princess (Issue One), The Fashionistas (Issue Two) and Mojo (Issue 3) as the three spotlights in this case.

Super Smash-Up

• Shared Universe: While implied in the cartoon series, the Utoniums visit Dexter, confirming they share the same world.

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