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Take That / Comic Books

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/take_that_michael_bolton_3.png

The following have their own pages:

Other:
  • ALF #38's cover featured a huge, fierce-looking silhouette of Alf, along with the labels "Darker!", "Grittier!", and "Alien with an attitude!". At the bottom of the cover was normal Alf standing in front of a spotlight, asking if the "revamp" would actually boost the comic's income.
  • In Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8, Buffy mocks the Big Bad, Twilight, saying that he's an idiot for naming himself after a lame book series.
    • After the revelation that Twilight was Angel, which met with fandom outrage, IDW, publishers of Angel: After The Fall comics, created promos of their new Spike series, featuring Spike burning Twilight's mask and saying that Spike was definitely not Twilight.
    • IDW took a few more shots at the Buffy Season 8 comics, all of them coming from Spike. At one point he tries hiring writers to write prophecies about him being a hero who saves the world, and orders them not to make Angel a hero. He suggests making Angel a villain instead, complete with "some poncey, drama queen, prissy name like Dusk, or Sunset, or the Fall of Darkness."
    • And in the Spike series:
      Spike: No backstabbing, no dying, no picking up and leaving, and no aerial sex.
      Betta George: I don't understand that last one.
      Spike: No one does.note 
  • The Italian stories of the Disney Mouse and Duck Comics often mock garden gnomes out of nowhere.
  • The Doctor Who Magazine comic strip:
    • The Seventh Doctor story "Evening's Empire" features a misogynistic, serial rapist geek as the villain, who has been accidentally granted alien Reality Warping powers. The fantasy universe he creates and abducts women to so that he can force them into sexual slavery is a direct parody of John Norman's notoriously misogynistic and BDSM-obsessed Gor series.
    • "The Deep Hereafter" is an Affectionate Parody of noir-ish, pulpy detective stories in general, and The Spirit in particular. One newspaper clipping pinned on the detective's wall reads "Miller Kills Colt". Apparently Dan McDaid wasn't a fan of The Movie.
    • There was a Tenth Doctor story in which evil, bloodthirsty, warrior-race aliens abduct the long-running recurring character Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and his former underling Mike Yates. Only the aliens accidentally abduct the wrong Mike Yates, who is a nasty, ludicrous little man and a politician in a tiny extreme-right-wing party, and ends up siding with the aliens. In real life, Richard Franklin, the actor who played the "real" Yates on TV, had spent the 1990s and 2000s unsuccessfully standing in elections for a succession of increasingly small and extreme right-wing parties.
  • Doctor Who (Titan):
    • In the Ninth Doctor story "The Transformed", the operator of the environmentally-destructive and badly-designed hyperspace "punchway" that is causing weird stuff in San Francisco is the Celestial Hyperloop Corporation. In the real world, "Hyperloop" is a proposed form of maglev vacuum-tube transportation conceived by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk and intended to operate from San Francisco to LA, which is mocked by its detractors as an Awesome, but Impractical distraction from a more practical conventional high-speed rail project.
    • In the Twelfth Doctor story "The Hyperion Empire", a repellent self-serving politician who tries to become The Quisling to alien invaders (and suffers a Karmic Death because they want to destroy the Earth rather than rule it) tells Clara to "Calm down, dear"... a put-down notoriously given by David Cameron to a female shadow minister during a Commons debate.
    • "Clara Oswald and the School of Death" has a rather slimy Prime Minister called Daniel Claremont, who is really a Sea Devil and went to the same posh school as half the Cabinet. The Sea Devils reveal they are turning pupils at the school into Sea Devils and are hoping to roll back environmental protections to flood the planet. This is a pretty blatant dig at then-PM David Cameron and the Conservatives who were largely dominated by fellow students from the very posh Eton School and were being accused of not doing enough to tackle climate change.
  • ElfQuest - The Rebels has one against television in general. This is a planet-that-is-not-earth inhabited by humans. They have interplanetary space travel and Internet for information, news, and porn. At one point we see preparations for a live feed of a car race.
    Techie person: Seems like a shame to do this only once a year. I mean, we could do a feed of this type your round — fill it with sports and entertainment.
    Chairwoman Nuriham: And induce people to watch it in their free time? When would they create art, or make music, or converse... I think such a project would be bad for the collective soul of the people.
  • One of the covers for the 2017 reboot of Fighting American takes a shot at Nick Spencer's controversial Captain America run, proclaiming "No secrets. No empires. Just an All-American hero."
  • The IDW Godzilla comics have these left and right. In Kingdom of Monsters we have Take Thats to Lady Gaga, PETA and Jersey Shore. The mini-series Godzilla: The Half-Century War has a human villain named Dr. Deverich, a huge kick in the balls for Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich.
  • At one point in Grendel, Christine Spar as Grendel fights a dumb and obnoxious mook who has a set of blades attached to his hand similar to those of a certain famous Marvel character. Christine muses to herself that it's a stupid weapon with no reach, and chops his hand off.
  • Halo: Escalation: Issue 16 is a pretty much Halsey retaliating against all the bias and false accusations heaped on her in the Kilo-Five Trilogy. She shuts Palmer up by pointing out if it weren't for her, Palmer wouldn't even have her armor. Plus she points out that ONI and the UNSC had pretty much approved of all her worst deeds, and are using her as a convenient scapegoat, thanks to Parangosky's and Osman's machinations.
  • Jabs at Al-Qaeda as well as Muslims and Arabs are littered throughout Holy Terror.
  • From Jeremy "Norm" Scott, the creator of Slave Labor Graphic's Hsu and Chan series.
    "Norm": After this one went to press, some internet wisenheimer singled it out for its intense wordiness — I forget the exact quote, but it was something along the lines of, "It only takes Penny Arcade a fourth of the dialogue to be this lame."
    • While we're on the topic of Hsu and Chan, many of the issues contain at least one Take That! targeted at the Tomb Raider games and movies.
  • Jhonen Vasquez's I Feel Sick is aimed at Nickelodeon, according to this entry here.
  • An issue of Invincible has Mark and his friend at a comic book store talking about how pointless it is to relaunch ongoing series from issue #1. Unless Robert Kirkman added it last minute to the script, it was probably directed at Marvel but, due to an amazing coincidence, the issue was published a few days after DC announced they're relaunching all their titles from issue #1.
  • From issue #4 of the 2016 Josie and the Pussycats reboot:
    Valerie: Dammit, Melody! Crime-fighting isn't in our contract! None of our moms are named Martha!
  • Judge Dredd, as a work of satire, frequently features this:
    • In the mid-1990s, an environmental activist known as Swampy became well-known in the UK when he took part in a protest to stop the construction of an extension to the A30 motorway. Judge Dredd went on to feature a plot about an "eco-warrior" named Spawny, who protests the construction of a spaceport in the same way as the real-life Swampy (by digging underground tunnels.) What happens? The construction workers bury him alive under the concrete and carry on anyway ...
    • Big-1 Comics, the soulless corporation that ripped off struggling trashzine artist Kenny Who? were directly based on Cam Kennedy's experiences with American comic book companies.
    • A 2007 story about a Cal-Hab parade in Mega-City One included Sir Tam "Big Jock" Tamson McJock, a famous actor who lived on Luna-1 and "has sworn to return to his beloved homeland only when the last remnants of Brit-Cit rule have been erased, along with the demands for estimated 22 million credits he owes in back taxes". At the time there was a certain amount of controversy about Sir Sean Connery being a strong advocate of Scottish independence when he didn't live there, coupled with accusations of being a tax exile.
  • Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen features his interpretation of The Antichrist by way of school shooters: a boy who learns what he's destined to be and proceeds to snap and murder/rape his way through his school, including his two best friends and worst enemy, other schoolmates and staff, then hide for the next few years doing nothing but down anti-psychotics with only the head of his former headmaster (and backer, the whole Anti-Christ thing was his idea) for company. When discovered, he grows into a multiple-eyed, lightning-pissing giant and kills Allan before being curbstomped by Mary Poppins, who might be God. Now, given that this school was only accessible by train, by going through a fake wall in King's Cross station...
  • A British post-punk rock group took the name "Love and Rockets" in homage to the Hernandez Brothers' comic series Love and Rockets. Los Bros, however, were not happy as they hadn't been asked permission and weren't fans of the band. Gilbert Hernandez proceeded to write a story featuring a particularly talentless and unpleasant fictional LA punk band called "Love and Rockets", with several derogatory barbs aimed directly at the British group.
  • The Power Rangers parody comic Mightily Murdered Power Ringers is a bitter, mean-spirited jab at the show, which qualifies it for this.
  • My Little Pony Micro Series: "[You read] Probably just comic books, or maybe that silly series with the vampire pony."
  • Savage Dragon:
    • In an early issue (created and written by ex-Marvel artist Erik Larsen), Officer Dragon is randomly attacked by superhero Bedrock, who at the end of the issue explains that it was a test to see if he was tough enough to join the team Youngblood (Image Comics).
      Dragon: THAT'S THE STUPIDEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD!
      Bedrock: It happens in Marvel Comics all the time!
    • Larsen loves making Take Thats to Marvel. In one issue, not only did the new Overlord say that Magneto "really should think twice before giving his team the name 'Brotherhood of Evil Mutants'", when he asks Dragon to join his cause, the following exchange happens:
      Dragon: What's that? That scene from the Spider-Man movie, where Green Goblin asked him to become his best buddy? Do you really think something like that could ever work?
      Overlord: No, you misunderstood me. And by the way, that scene really sucked.
    • Another issue had Lex Luthor and Norman Osborn discussing Dragon's constantly coming back to life, while they are served coffee by none other than Gwen Stacy. Larsen doesn't like Comic Book Deaths.
    • Larsen has also taken a dig at fellow comics creator John Byrne with his villains "Johnny Redbeard's Nixed Men", a team composed of parodies of various characters Byrne has written. The long-winded introductory speech summarizing some of their backstories is a vicious critique of Byrne's "senseless revamping" of various comics, including She-Hulk and Sub-Mariner. Redbeard is portrayed as a bad leader with a huge head who indiscriminately endows people with poorly conceived powers before eventually abandoning the mess he made of them. After the team's one appearance, where they beat up some homeless people and get their asses handed to them by the protagonist, the She-Hulk parody would later reform and return to the series as the recurring She-Dragon.
    • The Incredible Hulk: Bruce Banner, who was walking around big and green and smart, was in a quandary. His friend was dying of AIDS and wanted a Hulk-blood transfusion in order to get Hulk-healing powers. Bruce, afraid of Hulk 2.0 smashing up crapnote , declined. The same plot happened in Erik Larsen's Savage Dragon, but the Dragon said yes, saying, paraphrased, only an idiot would say no to the possibility. The friend who received Dragon's blood then exploded. So...um. Yeah.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • On one Dark Horse message board, a poster was pestering writer Randy Stradley to include Mandalorians in an upcoming Star Wars comic. They got their comeuppance when a scene in the comic in question showed the Mandalorians in full retreat. When the poster complained, Stradley had one of the following issues feature a whole cave full of dead Mandalorians.
  • Alan Moore's Supreme had a gratuitous scene with the Televillain killing Courtney Cox's character on Friends using his powers, thus showing that, in spite of his tacky feel, he was awesome.
  • The various Transformers comics over the years have tended to have a character named Cy-Kill show up, only to be killed immediately—often by Megatron. Why is this a Take That!? Because Cy-Kill is the Big Bad from Challenge of the GoBots. Fans eventually got really sick of this "gag" being done to death, and even TFWiki.net complains about it.
  • Saga has a scene in issue 16 that seems to be a deliberate jab at the writing in most mainstream superhero titles, where main character Alana basically serves as a mouthpiece for the author, saying that most superhero stories are bad melodrama between people in ridiculous costumes, with no subtext.
  • Thirsty Mermaids: When Vivi explains to the pod what Capitalism is, they're all visibly repulsed by it. Pearl even tries convincing one of the local businesses about going back to the barter system.
  • The Image graphic novel Three takes on the idealized concept of Sparta found in other works by showing it from the point of view of three terrified heliotes as they try to escape to freedom while being pursued by…you guessed it…a band of three hundred warriors. The series is also set in the dying days of Sparta as a city-state, with the Spartan characters even pointing out how this pursuit is more an attempt to save face after said heliotes were the only survivors of a mini-slave revolt, and an attempt to uphold the glorious image of the good old days.
  • Twisted Toyfare Theatre is mostly an Affectionate Parody, albeit a gruesome one, that gets most of its laughs by exaggerating characters' flaws to absurdity. But every strip featuring an appearance by Brian Michael Bendis will inevitably end with a Take That! toward his writing style.
  • Book XXV of Polish series Tytus, Romek i A'tomek has one of the heroes, Tytus de Zoo visit Hell. Satan recognizes Tytus and explains that he heard about him from the editors of Horyzonty, who are boiling in Hell due to the sins they committed when Poland was under communist rule. Horyzonty was the publishing company which published a few of the Tytus books. Apperantly they and the creator didn't get along...
  • Viz, based in Newcastle, used to do many vulgar parodies of characters from the Beano and Dandy, owned by Scottish DC Thomson & Co. When DC Thomson tried to sue Viz for breach of copyright, Viz published a strip about "DC Thomson the Humourless Scottish Twat." DC retaliated by resurrecting an old strip from the Dandy called "The Jocks and the Geordies," about two gangs of warring schoolboys on either side of the England-Scotland border. The story had both sets of boys attempting to win a competition to design a comic, and the Jocks (Scottish boys) win, to the humiliation of the Geordies who tried to cheat by copying them and whose own ideas were all terrible. Viz responded in its next issue with "Korky the Twat," a parody of the popular DC Thomson character Korky the Cat.
    • Creator Chris Donald said in his book Rude Kids: The Story of Viz that he wanted to include a Take That! at the mawkish public outpouring of grief over the death of Princess Diana; but couldn't do this directly because he feared backlash. Instead, the next issue included a none-too-subtle spoof story about Monkees fans driven to grief by the death of Micky Dolenz ... even though they knew he wasn't dead.
  • Wanted ends with the Villain Protagonist spouting a monologue about how your humdrum life of working for a living and not being awesome like him is pathetic and you should feel bad, ending with a closeup of his angry mug saying "This is my face while fucking you in the ass". Said protagonist was modeled after Eminem; take that little factoid as you will.
  • In the German comic Werner: For a long time, Werner's publisher "Holgi" featured prominently in the comic. After he changed the publisher, the character appeared for a last time (only named as "Porsche driver"), to have his Porsche crushed first by the Metülisator and then by Nobelschröder's Bentley.
    • Holgi's reply: He had a comic book drawn with himself as the main character named Holgi - Räum das Feld, Mann!
  • The first issue of Mark Millar's Youngblood (Image Comics): Bloodsport has two members of the titular superhero team receiving oral sex from gay cosplayers dressed as Wolverine and Cyclops.
  • Whilst Alan Moore's 1963 is more of an Affectionate Parody of the characters and stories of the Silver Age, particularly those debuting in Marvel Comics, it's more of a pointed Take That to the creators behind them; in the letters pages provided in the issue, it's made pretty clear that "Affable" Al Moore is an egotistical tyrant who shamelessly takes credit for the work and achievements of others.
  • 2000 AD:
  • The Curtis', owners of the comic book company, Shanda Fantasy Arts, upset at the horrific screwing of Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew! in their last mini-series where the team is exiled on the main DCU story world and trapped as ordinary animals unable to express their unchanged intelligence. In response, the Curtis', with aid of the series' original creator Roy Thomas, made a special comic book using their Atomic Mouse license, Atomic Mouse Meets Power Jack And The Lost Menagerie where the title character rescued a disguised version of the Zoo Crew who are suffering an equivalent fate. DC fixed that editorial misdeed at the end of Final Crisis, so the hard feelings shouldn't be quite so much.
  • Don Rosa's comics have a few.
    • Super Snooper Strikes Again is a huge Take That! to dark and violent superhero comics, eventually leading to this panel◊ and the follow-up, where the nephews decide that Donald Duck is greater than Super Snooper, because he can face everyday problems and support three nephews without any kind of superpowers.
    • In another Don Rosa story, The Money Pit, Scrooge ridicules coin collectors for hoarding their collections solely for their resale value. That, and the comment about "plastic sleeves", makes it obvious Rosa is actually talking about comic book collectors. Rosa is a collector himself, so it doubles as Self-Deprecation. In the commentaries he gave to his stories in Finnish collection books, Rosa wrote that when Donald says that paying a dime for a single comic book is too much in The Crocodile Collector, he was dissing himself for paying hundreds of dollars for old comics.
    • Rosa's final installment in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, "The Richest Duck in the World," is partially devoted to dispelling the "supreme bit of absolute balderdash" that Scrooge's #1 Dime is lucky.
    • Don Rosa obviously preferred Donald to Mickey among Disney's iconic characters, and took any chance he had to have mice that looked like Mickey be abused in the comics. In one panel, a Mickey Mouse statue is shown in the Duckburg museum labeled "Ancient demon worship". The only time he drew Mickey and Donald together, he made sure Donald was slightly taller.
  • Garth Ennis has also been known to viciously parody the concept of The Cape. Ironically, he's clearly fond of Superman; when Superman appeared in an issue of Hitman, the character was treated with complete respect, and a later issue had the Anti-Hero main character remark that Superman was the only superhero he had any time for.
  • Marvel Comics promoted their Heroic Age event and new Avengers titles by teasers with members of each team, their quote and words “I'm an Avenger/a New Avenger/a Secret Avenger/in Avengers Academy”. Image released their own teasers for an Invincible spinoff miniseries with members of the new Guardians of the Globe roster, looking pretty similar to Marvel's – when the first one, with Invincible himself saying “I never really been much of a team player” was released, people thought Image's just stealing the idea. When the second, with Spawn saying “Todd lost a bet so he's loaning me out for this” came out, some realized something is wrong. Next ones? A Deliberately Monochrome Rick Grimes (“It makes no logical story sense for me to be here, but I suppose it will help sales.”), Barack Obama (“I'm not as popular as I used to be. How much is Amazing Spider-Man 583 going for on eBay?”) and Gary Potter, a kid looking suspiciously similar to Harry Potter (“Okay, now this is getting a little ridiculous... and slightly illegal.”). Obviously, Image was just making fun at Marvel's policy on who is and who isn't in which team. However, they later had to really rip the idea and release teasers with the real members in the same format (except with their names placed beside the quotes), because people thought they're really going to put those Joke Characters into one team.
  • Rick and Morty (Oni):
  • Invader Zim (Oni):
    • Issue 9 gets a lot of mileage out of its YouTube parody, with its obviously faked videos and the string of trollish and downright moronic viewer comments.
    • Zim's plan in Issue 37 is essentially the plot of The Matrix. Which makes Dib's lampshading of all the logic plot holes in it a pretty clear jab at the movies.
    • Issue 50 is a deliberate Take That, Audience! at people who'd rather Zim and Dib drop the rivalry and be friendly towards one another, by having these opinions be voiced (and enacted) by the crazy and forceful antagonist of the issue.
  • Second Coming: There are more than a few digs against theism (at least, certain versions), with God portrayed as inept and lazy. However, it really goes hard against American fundamentalist Christians, who actually beat Jesus when he reappears, offended due to his disagreements with their bigotry.

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