The Comic Book Cast is a semi-regular podcast featured on YouTube and iTunes. It is made up of 5 permanent members and a revolving door of guests. Known for their blunt "take no prisoners" approach to judging comics and movies, the show aims to appeal to an older teen/adult audience. Aside from the regular show, the cast is known for doing solo/group Comic Reviews, Let's Plays, riffs, trailer breakdowns, first impressions, Easter eggs and news segments on their YouTube channel
. Recently, the Let's Plays and Riffs have been moved to Blip TV and their second YouTube channel, Arminies616.
Occasionally, the cast features items that are of no relation to comics.
As of July of 2012, the group's original Xvorpsm channel had been terminated. They were on the verge of 1700 subscriptions, but the group bounced back with their brand new channel, ComicBookCast 2.
Currently, the line-up of podcasts includes:
1. CBC - where movie news, TV news, and general theories are discussed. Lately, fan questions have also been answered.
2. Blood Sweat Comics - Joel and Armin usually host this one, but other YouTubers or Comic Book Cast members appear. Topics include what they have been reading recently and comic book news.
3. Off Topic - This is back after a recent Schedule Slip. Tom hosts this one, and they typically talk about television and bizarre news articles.
4. Control Breakers - Joel and Armin discuss video games and video game news.
5. Level 7 - This more recent podcast has them discussing the most recent Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode.
In their "CBC 83 Bayification" podcast, Armin and Joel made a gentlemen's agreement based upon Days Of Future Past, and told their listeners to put it on TV Tropes. If Armin likes it, he will apologize on the Internet. If Joel hates it, he will have to dress up as a hipster at the next Comic-Con.
The Comic Book Cast provides examples of the following tropes:
- Ascended Extra:
- Tom’s friend Sonic joins the show for episode Episode 37 "Assemble" 5/8/2012 to help review The Avengers. Sonic later joined Tom again in the series "Tom and Tom talk Comics".
- Miles, aka Gamersvlog15, joined the crew to help talk Young Justice. Unfortunately the Young Justice Side Panel was one of the shows lost after the termination.
- Comic/TV YouTube reviewer Hayden Clare Heroes, aka Comic Uno, joined as a special guest star to review the series first 10 episodes of Arrow.
- Hybrid007 is a fellow YouTube reviewer, and has his own channel titled Hybrid Network. It focuses on analyzing comics and movies. Hybrid reviews East Of West on the Comic Book Cast's channel.
- Awesome Mc Cool Name: Every member of the cast invokes this trope at some point, be it Sean declaring himself The Black Baron or Joel calling himself a Sexual Tyrannosaur. Another name for Sean has appeared as "Tard Picard".
- Berserk Button:
- While every member has their own personal button, ones shared by the group include blind followers of director Christopher Nolan and current head of Marvel animation Jeph Loeb.
- Armin's is Michael Bay’s work on the Transformers movies and anyone who makes fun of Aquaman.
- Sean's is any kind of racism as well as George Lucas and the current treatment of the Star Wars series.
- Ben's is any Spider-Man misinformation and trolling.
- Joel's is anything related to Green Lantern (2011) producer Greg Berlanti and actor Ryan Reynolds.
- Matt's is Man of Steel.
- Bootstrapped Theme: The Arkham Asylum intercom chime from Batman: Arkham Asylum, which is used before every Main podcast and episodes of "Blood, Sweat, Comics!".
- Butt-Monkey: Being one of the youngest members of the cast, Ben was often made the butt of many jokes. including Green Lantern Movie. Now that he has left the show, S.J. has taken his place, with the members outright admitting that they will make fun of him if he is not on a podcast with them.
- Catchphrase:
- Channing Tatum has become something of a catch phrase for the cast, especially Armin.
- Crane Dad - The cast dubbed a character in The Amazing Spider-Man (whose son was saved by Spider-Man, and returned the favor by using his crane company to help him swing across New York) the "greatest average-man hero in the Marvel franchise".
- "Twipal" - originating from their Blade: Trinity Riff, and Triple H's vampire brute character, now anyone in the cast that does something idiotic, they are "Twipal".
- "GUUUUUUUNNNZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!" - orginating from their distaste of Scott Lobdell's "Red Hood and The Outlaws" and his overuse of them and other extreme 90s things, like pouches, lots and lots of pouches. Usually said by Armin, this phrase is said during their many podcast and playthroughs.
- "Bane Dick" - started from Nolan's version of Bane in The Dark Knight Rises which developed into a out-of-nowhere meme, look up with extreme caution.
- "T-DOGING IT" - When a member of the cast just shuts up or is given nothing to really anything to say, like The Walking Dead TV character trope.
- "Red Hooding It" - The follow up to the following phrase, during a playthrough of a game, a member of the cast (Armin or Joel mostly) will throw teamwork basically out of the window just like in Scott Lobdell's run in "Red Hood & The Outlaws".
- "Miles Time" - When a member is late on current events, originating from Miles and his late comments about current events.
- "Totally Bojangles" - When something is so freaking awesome!
- Typically, Armin will say "What's up, guys?" when announcing some news or giving a general update. Joel sometimes says "_____ is some __________ sh*t right there". Additionally, Sean has "I'm your host, Sean Jackson." and "Put your comments, positive and negative, in the section below. I'm Sean Jackson, have an excellent day.", at the beginning and end of his reviews, respectively.
- Sean's is "Is it racist that X does Y?".
- Caustic Critic: Hoo boy...
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Plenty including former cast member Lance who hasn’t been on the show for some time.
- Cluster F-Bomb: A very common occurrence on the show, with the best example perhaps being Armin during Episode 43: "Nazis got us", "Fuck Nolan, Fuck CBS, Fuck YouTube…"
- Especially prevalent in the vlog about DC flagging their Arrow reviews.
- Deadpan Snarker: So much snark it’s hard to describe. Tom and Sean seem to lead the snarky charge most of the time.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Frequently.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: They are called the Comic Book Cast and they talk about comic books.
- Fun with Acronyms: Sometimes the show simply goes by "CBC", not to be confused with a major Canadian broadcast company.
- In-Series Nickname: Joel gets often called Bobby Hill.
- Ironic Episode Title: Almost every episode has a title that is ironic in one way or another.
- Mind Screw: Evil Twin Month, starring Armin's evil twin A-dawg, certainly looked like it was heading this way until the group's YouTube page was terminated.
- Once an Episode: Comments are typically asked for in a CBC podcast, depending on the amount of news that they have to cover. Less seriously, there will be potty humor.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- Armin, known for hating Fox's portrayal of the X-Men, told everyone to go see the film in the first few minutes of his review of The Wolverine. Lampshaded when he said "And this is me!" when describing his opinion.
- Again, Armin in his vlogs about the Newtown and Sandy Hook shootings. Bring tissues.
- Pun: There are many, including but not limited to The PUN-isher or Highlan-Derrr. The best examples of these can be found in the Jonah Hex and Thor audio commentaries, along with plenty of lampshades and reactions.
- Revolving Door Casting: The show has settled down since the first episode but the cast is often shaken up from episode to episode. As of this writing, Armin, Joel, Sean, Matt, Tom, and Shae are members, although Shae appears less frequently.
- Self-Deprecation: In their promotions for the Podcast Awards, Joel says something akin to "Yes, a podcast that talks about shark pouches and Bane Dick will have won an award."
- Sympathy for the Devil: Many of the cast members have sympathy for at least one character that is considered a villain in some media:
- Armin is a fan of Magneto (of X-Men fame) and has often supported his ideals, even stating that given their similar backgrounds (both were immigrants from war torn regions, both faced discrimination due to their heritage) he would act the same way.
- Joel is a fan of Amanda Waller and the Suicide Squad as well as the Secret Six comic series and has a knowledge of many D-list DC supervillains.
- Matt is a fan of many Superman villains, such as General Zod.
- Spin-Off: Tom's very own "Off Topic" podcast is a show dedicated to funny news from around the world and what is on TV.
- Suckiness Is Painful: Many of the riffs and crossovers have this, especially their audio commmentary of Sharknado.
- Take That!: Nearly every video of theirs... ever!
- True Companions: Even when they bust each others balls, you get the feeling that they are all good friends.
- Vulgar Humor: Indeed. Discussed when they talk about having a "Blue Christmas" (foul-mouth = blue) live show.
- Where da White Women At?: Sean all the way.
