Loophole Abuse in Comic Books.
General:
- The Comics Code Authority died specifically because of this. As an industry mechanism for content control, Stan Lee found he couldn't get their approval on a Spider-Man story that involved the dangers of drug use (requested by the United States government, no less). While the CCA had a list of content restrictions that violated approval, Stan realized that while it forbid publishing such a story with an approval seal, there was nothing that said they couldn't publish the story without it. So for the three issues of Spider-Man featuring the story, it was unapproved when it hit the stands and then the approval seal was replaced when the arc was done. The praise for the story's handling of the subject matter and the fuss over getting it to newsstands revealed just how little bite the CCA had, and they became an artifact soon after.
By Title:
- 2000 AD: In the adaptation of The Stainless Steel Rat, "Slippery Jim" diGriz lands on a Feudal Future planet and finds the nobility jousting with flying motorbikes. He finds this rather dull and quickly adds his own unique spin.Jouster: 'Pon my word! The chap's upside down! Is that allowed in the rules?Slippery Jim: Course it isn't, you snark! Nobody's ever bothered to write any rules!
- The Avengers: In The Kree/Skrull War, the Skrulls have captured Captain Marvel, but cannot torture him for information because of a special law prohibiting it. However, they realize that Earth never signed it, so they proceed to torture the Avengers they captured to make Mar-Vell talk by proxy.
- Batman Beyond: Kai-Ro isn't allowed to use his Green Lantern ring (or any other unnatural power) inside the temple walls. Once he steps outside...
- Batman: In Batman Eternal, the acting Commissioner specifically tells the GCPD to not arrest criminals tied up by Batman and to focus more on arresting him. Harvey Bullock decides that the nutcases can just go rot until they can free themselves.
- Beetlejuice: "Get Me to the Church on Slime" in the Horrorday Special one-shot has Beetlejuice forced to marry a woman because he spat gum into her face. He eventually gets out of it when he observes that his bride still has the gum on her face and removes it, which is apparently enough to call the wedding off.
- Brave Chef Brianna: The rules set by Brianna's father for her and her brothers to compete for the right to inherit his cooking empire say none of them may open a restaurant in a town where one of the other siblings already has one. Hans takes a food truck to Monster City and points out it's not a restaurant.
- Contrary to his usual portrayal, the Devil in Castle Waiting is explicitly stated to hate this trope, and the evil witch from the comic's version of Sleeping Beauty making use of this (by technically cursing the princess as a young woman rather than as the baby she is at the time the curse is made) is one of several reasons she ends up on the wrong side of Even Evil Has Standards.
- Championess: Elizabeth Wilkinson boxes under the "half-crown" rule set, meaning that both fighters hold a half-crown coin in each fist, and that if a coin is dropped, that fighter loses. The rule was meant to force boxers to keep their hands in fists to avoid scratching, gouging, or grappling, the last of which is one of Elizabeth's weaknesses. During Elizabeth's first fight with Hannah Hyfield, Hannah holds both of her coins in one hand, allowing her a free hand with which to choke Elizabeth and win the bout. There is some discussion later about whether this violated the rules or not, since a coin technically wasn't dropped.
- Copperhead: Played for drama. The Natives massacre some civilians, but because they lived outside the city limit there was technically no violation of the peace treaty. Law enforcement has no avenues to enforce justice.
- The Dandy: A Desperate Dan comic has him deliver a grand piano to a friend, so he oils the castors, gives it a push and "drives" it down a motorway. On passing a police car, one of the policemen comments that there is nothing in the rulebook about a piano needing an M.O.T.
- Deadpool: In Deadpool (2012) #7, set during the time of the legendary Iron Man storyline Demon in a Bottle, Deadpool makes a Deal with the Devil to get Iron Man vastly inebriated. However, Deadpool has a change of heart when he attempts to do so and Tony ends up getting sobered up when a nuclear plant is starting to go critical. Deadpool, not wanting Tony to get killed, knocks him out, steals his armor, paints it with the black markings to make it look like himself, gets himself plastered, and goes off to save the day. When the demon comes to rant at Deadpool for failing, Deadpool points out in the fine print of the contract that it specifically stated Iron Man, not Tony Stark.
- Disney Ducks Comic Universe: Invoked by Scrooge McDuck in Don Rosa's story Guardians of the Lost Library. Unfortunately for him, it doesn't work.Referee: Are you nuts? You can't conduct an archeological excavation in the middle of a soccer championship!
Scrooge: Oh, so? Show me that rule in the rulebook!
Assistant: Gosh, he's right! It is allowed by the "King Tut" rule of 1922!
Referee: No, the rule was voided after it resulted in a curse on whosoever dared enter the locker room! - Empyre: In the aftermath, the Profiteer attempts to take back the Skrull and Kree teenage gladiators the Fantastic Four liberated, and pulls out the contract ensuring her ownership of them, pointing out it was signed by both of their respective empires. Hulkling, who is the emperor of the new Kree-Skrull Alliance, then takes the contract from her and rips it in half, since neither of the empires exist anymore.
- Fantastic Four: Uatu The Watcher loves this trope. His kind has a strict rule of non-interference, but Uatu has a fondness for the Earthlings. Thus, he'll do little things here and there to skirt around the rules to aid them when something big is happening. Probably the big one is just him showing up. This is more than enough to tip heroes in that something big is on the way.
- Legion of Super-Heroes: In the Final Crisis side-story Legion of 3 Worlds, the modern day Saturn Girl worries that Superboy-Prime punching the Time Trapper meant that he was killed, thus breaking their Thou Shalt Not Kill rule. The three Brainiac 5s instead suggest that the nature of time travel meant that the Time Trapper Prime punched just never existed anymore and Prime is powerless elsewhere.
- G.I. Joe: G.I. Joe: Special Missions had an issue where Cobra stole the computers from the Skystriker and Conquest while at an airshow. They make their getaway by stealing the Vector and Maverick pursues them with the help of a crop duster pilot. The Vector and computers are recovered, but the crop duster is impounded. The pilot says he'd ask Maverick for a ride back to the airshow in the Vector, but acknowledges there's probably regulations against that. Maverick confirms that military regulations do not allow civilians to ride in military aircraft, but nothing says they can't fly the plane themselves.
- Green Lantern: This is used by the rulemakers themselves. The Guardians sent a Green Lantern to a particularly nasty planet and he is almost immediately killed, so the Green Lantern sends his ring out to find a worthy successor. Enter Jack T. Chance. After "taking care" of a prominent threat on the planet, he is called back to Oa by the Guardians for discipline, but Jack says that he did what he had to do and would rather quit than be bound by the rules of the Guardians. The Guardians, lacking a suitable replacement for Jack, stated that a Green Lantern was not required to be nice and gave him back the ring with provisions that it could not be used off of the planet Jack was stationed. The reason the Guardians were so annoyed with Chance was because of his own Loophole Abuse. Green Lantern Rings couldn't be used to make lethal attacks, so once Jack discovered this, he would use his ring to battle foes to the point of exhaustion - and then shoot them.
- In "Marriage Vows" in The Haunt of Fear #15 the heroine wants to marry one Prince Dashing but is hampered by the fact that her father promised her hand in marriage to the ruler of a neighboring kingdom in exchange for a big fat loan. Let's just say that she finds a way to take that promise very literally…
- Judge Dredd:
- The most popular Mayor of Mega City One was Dave the Orangutan — put forward by the Judges in an apparent attempt to discredit democracy since there was no specific rule against it. He was so popular that after he was assassinated the post was abolished for ten years due to the public feeling that no one could replace him.
- In Death Metal Planet, the leader of the Dark Judges is coerced by the Lizard Lords (death cult metalheads) to perform with them during deathfest, signing a contract not to attempt to kill them before their performance is concluded. Of course, that doesn't prevent Judge Death from tearing apart any members from other bands, nor their fans.
- Judgment Day: The big conflict is based on this. The Eternals are given three geas to follow: Protect Celestials; Protect the Machine; Correct excess deviation. The Big Bad, Druig, is using his own personal interpretation of that last one, using the Krakoans' Resurrection Protocols and its effects on population as reasoning for their extermination, even though they are not biologically Deviants, whom the last rule is meant for.
- Justice League of America: One storyline had the League all but helpless against the android Amazo, who had all of the powers of every member of the JLA. How did they defeat him? Superman temporarily disbanded the JLA, thus causing Amazo to lose all of his powers, as having all the powers of the Justice League means nothing if there is no Justice League.
- Loki: In Loki: Agent of Asgard, a time-travelling Loki approaches Andvari, hoping to take his hoard for their own reasons, but Andvari will not give it up, and Andvari cannot be caught by hook or net, and no spell can hold him. So what does the trickster god do?Narration: "And Loki reached into his carrying bag... and brought forth an M20 recoilless rocket launcher. For Andvari could only guard against what he could think of. And while wily he was in the ways of magic... he was somewhat unimaginative."
- Later Loki's confronted with the fact that they'll always be the God of Lies and so (according to the one telling) destined to be evil. What do they do? They decide Lies are just Stories and rebrand accordingly. It works.
- Marshal Law: One storyline deals with Law's time in the military academy, which has a strict ban on teaching torture techniques. However, they are allowed train soldiers in resisting torture—but the guidelines on what that consists of are pretty loose. Hence, the program consists of the instructor demonstrating torture techniques in detail and explaining how they work, then noting that said techniques are near-impossible to learn how to resist and you should probably just give up if someone tries them, and moving on to the next. Law doesn't take long to figure out that the only information soldiers are going to take away from this is how effective the techniques are and how to do them, making it effectively a torture training program in all but name. The instructor claims he will deny that it was ever the intent—while winking.
- Mega Man (Archie Comics): The original six Robot Masters want to help Mega Man after his "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight, but they are programmed to destroy Mega Man. So they do... by destroying the Copy Robot.
- Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (Boom! Studios):
- In Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Pink #1, this sort of thing is used to get Kimberly back as a Power Ranger after she gave up her powers to Kat in Season 3 - turns out just passing off your powers doesn't mean you're completely free of them and the more natural way was to have used the Sword of Light (remember that?). Thus, Zordon and Alpha give Kim the Sword so she can become the Pink Ranger once more by using it to draw out its power.
- In Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Shredder manages to not only steal the Green Power Coin and use it himself, but also unleashes a weapon that disables the other five Rangers' ability to use their own power coins. However, the coins themselves are still active, allowing the Rangers to temporarily pass the coins on to the Turtles and April O'Neill (Leonardo=Blue, Donatello=Black, Michaelangelo=Yellow, Raphael=Red and April O'Neill=Pink).
- New Mutants:
- Magik, being who she is, is told by her teammates not to kill someone... She proceeds to send said person to Hell.
- After the events of X-Men Versus Alpha Flight, Loki gave his word to not try and get revenge on the X-Men afterward. However, the New Mutants aren't the X-Men, therefore making them fair game in his eyes (Storm's also with them at the time, but she'd left the team after being depowered, and that's good enough for Loki).
- Pinky and the Brain: In the Comic-Book Adaptation, Brain's version of Faust makes a Deal with the Devil to obtain the ultimate knowledge and isn't worried because there's no contract without a loophole out of it. When Mephistopheles shows up to collect, Faust couldn't find a loophole and says that means Mephistepheles failed to give him the ultimate knowledge the deal requires him to. Mephistopheles lets Faust keep his soul but rewinds time back to when the deal was made so the accomplishments made with help from the deal never happened and erases everything about the deal from Faust's memory.
- The Powerpuff Girls: This is subverted in a one comic. When Mojo Jojo tells Fuzzy Lumpkins that a high-tech weapon that landed on Fuzzy's yard is his, Fuzzy says, "I don't see your name on it!" (The same thing he said to the Girls when they tried to get it.) Mojo responds by turning it around. His name is on it. (Fuzzy decides to stop using loopholes and just threaten him at that point.)
- The Real Ghostbusters: In one issue of the comic, a water demon holding many souls as prisoners frees them at the appointed time...and then takes them prisoner as soon as the window has passed. "I did!" he said. "I just never said for how long! " Of course, this proves to be his undoing: When he overexerts himself against the Ghostbusters, his prisoners block his retreat to the sea, preventing him from regenerating. They are then able to put him into a trap.
- In one album of De Rode Ridder ("The Red Knight", a Belgian comic), a villain tricks the hero into swearing an oath not to use his sword against him. The Red Knight, being The Fettered, is honor-bound to keep it, even when the villain eventually attacks. He circumvents it by giving his sword to his female sidekick, who is not bound by the oath and still carries a grudge against the villain for a Kick the Dog moment earlier in the album. The results are...messy.
- Runaways: Nico Minoru's Staff of One can only cast each spell once. However, she's been able to get around this rule by casting spells in other languages, or by very specifically altering a spell's effect (for instance, instead of freezing someone solid, she freezes them to the exact temperature of a popsicle.)
- Scooby-Doo! Team-Up:
- In one issue The Gang ends up going to Paradise Island, with Daphne and Velma getting Amazon training by Wonder Woman. However, Shaggy and Fred are stuck hanging around the Invisible Plane because no man can set foot on Paradise Island or they'd cause the Amazons there to lose their immortality. However, a loophole means Scooby can walk around normally - Scooby may be a male, but the rules said no man, nothing about a dog.
- Later, this trope is revealed as being the reason the day is able to be saved — the manifestations of mythological creatures are revealed to be the work of the Duke of Deception, a minion of Ares. He had hoped the Amazons would call in outside help from a male, who he could knock off his steed, thereby causing his feet to touch the ground and stripping the Amazons of their power. However, even when Shaggy falls off his steed, Wonder Woman is still able to whip the Duke. Daphne suggests this is because Shaggy landed on his hind end; his feet never touched the ground. Shaggy says it could also be because he's "not much of a man".
- Sgt. Rock: In Sgt. Rock: A Peace on Earth, Sgt. Rock and a German soldier drink, smoke, and chat casually on Christmas Eve, 1944. Then the German warns him that he was ordered to shoot on sight,"...and I always follow orders." "Same here," says Rock, and they both shoot into the air.
- Sonic the Comic: When Robotnik hijacks the Omni-Viewer and forces him to send Sonic and his friends into the future to enable him to Take Over the World without interference, Omni only sends them six months into the future, thus obeying Robotnik's orders while putting Sonic in a position to form La Résistance and set things right.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
- Elias Acorn is preparing to confront Amadeus Prower after he learns Tails and Rosemary had freed him, knowing that he's attempting to replace the monarchy with a democracy. He tells NICOLE not to wake his parents and alert them of the situation. As the two men fight, a third party steps in to stop the fight - Elias' sister, Sally, whom NICOLE points out he never said anything about.
- After being hacked by A.D.A.M. and forced to help him in his plans, Jules is subsequently ordered to self-destruct after doing so. Jules instead exploits the fact that A.D.A.M. didn't actually specify when to self-destruct to hold it off until Sonic takes A.D.A.M. down.
- Spider-Man: Subverted in one issue, when Spidey is riding on top of a car as it drives through New York (with the driver's consent). A cop pulls up next to them.Spider-Man: Bet you a buck this isn't covered by traffic regulations.
(Next panel, Spidey is holding a citation)
Spider-Man: Huh. It is. Who knew? - Sturmtruppen: One famous story arc had a soldier get around stark naked as a form of protest without retaliation because there was no rule they had to wear the uniform. After days spent researching the rules, the captain discovered that there was a rule about the uniform being in perfect order, so he went for that... Except the uniform was in perfect order, the soldier just wasn't wearing it. The rest of the platoon promptly starts to go around naked.
- This story arc was adapted in The Movie. As in the comic, the officers couldn't find a rule, so the soldiers started going around naked...Until the officers threatened to name them aides of a Depraved Homosexual general if they didn't wear the uniform in ten seconds.
- Superior: The young Simon accepts a deal from Ormon to become his favorite super-hero. Too late, he realizes Ormon is a demon and, to prevent further destruction by the creature, Simon agrees to give up his soul. Ormon is gloating about getting the deal done before his allotted time only for Superior's new friend, Madeline, to point out something Ormon didn't consider: He has just made Superior into a being whose every cell is immortal, unbeatable, in short, a figure who can never die.Madeline: And if Superior can never die...Madeline: Basically, you made a donation, asshole.
- Right on cue, a pack of demons drags Ormon to Hell as his entire deal with Simon is negated.
- Superman: Lex Luthor once made a deal with Mxyzptlk where Mxy would provide Luthor with the means to render Superman powerless. Part of the deal was that Luthor must never tell Superman about Mxy's role in this. Not enjoying the idea of being unable to let Superman know how he defeated him, Luthor tried to circumvent that part of the deal by telling someone who would tell Superman about the deal. Luthor then told Clark Kent.
- Superman & Batman: Generations: In the 1953 story from Superman and Batman Generations II, Bruce Wayne Jr. was prevented by his mother from acting as Dick Grayson's partner in the role of Robin while Dick was Batman. However, that didn't prevent Bruce Jr. as Robin from acting as a partner to Kara Kent as Supergirl.
- Vampirella: In "Vampirella and the Sultana's Revenge", the eponymous Sultana had the Sultan promise to never harm her. So when he catches her being unfaithful, he instead has her force-fed, ruining the slimness and beauty she took pride in.
- What If?: In the story "I'll Be Your Best Friend!", Josh Guthrie, younger brother of Cannonball and Husk, befriends a damaged Sentinel. However, when the Sentinel repairs itself enough that its mutant detection systems come back online, Josh throws himself between the robot and his family. Josh is able to use his command to protect him at all costs to get the Sentinel to realize that it itself is a threat and kill itself.
- White Sand: Kenton likes to exploit those:
- The creators of the Mastrell's Path were apparently too disdainful of "vulgar" weapons like swords to forbid them from the Path, letting Kenton — who's using the blade as a sort of magical "crutch" for his powers — take his sword to the exam.
- When the Sand Masters are slaughtered, the Taishin — heads of guilds — decide during a session to dismantle the whole profession before Kenton points out that technically, the Masters aren't dismantled yet and so their leader — one of the guild heads, after all — must be informed in advance of the Taishin session, or else all the proceedings are void. That there was no Lord Mastrell for the last few weeks is no excuse.
- X-Men:
- Even after she gains sentience, the Danger Room’s AI is incapable of killing people, thanks to hardwired protocols she can’t circumvent. What she can do, however, is help people kill themselves: screw with their heads to wear down their self-esteem and mental health, then provide them with the tools they need to commit suicide.
- The mutant villain Josef Huber, AKA the Isolationist, who possessed the power of every other mutant on the planet and was driven insane by the strain of this accumulated power as he couldn't, for example, shut off the telepathy he shared with others. However, while he hated the mutants for doing this to him, Huber was psychologically unable to directly kill any mutants as a side-effect of his abilities, forcing him to find loopholes such as using Forge's knowledge to create a teleportation system that would allow him to send some X-Factor members to a frozen land where they would eventually freeze to death, or manipulate others into setting up a mutant rally in a location where he had planted bombs that would go off and kill the gathered mutants later.
- In a major case of Didn't Think This Through, in the Fall of X era, Orchis is learning the hard way what happens when you destroy a government whose major rule was to never kill another human: the law is now just ink on paper, so they're pretty much now free to kill your fascist ass.
- Young Justice: Used for laughs in the No Man's Land special. Robin is depressed about being banned from helping Batman. Superboy points out that Bats never said anything about YJ steering clear of Gotham. So he and Impulse go on a ROAD TRIP!
