Follow TV Tropes

Following

The Chosen One / Comic Books

Go To


  • The Army of Darkness comics go into much further expositions and machinations that revolve around just how much it sucks being The Chosen One. (Aside from all your friends and loved ones going deadite ) Makes sense seeing as The Necronomicon itself has its ties directly to each one of each generation. Even going so far as to have a Werewolf assistant type with his mentor's full journal account of the last generation's Chosen One who apparently worked himself into the Jack the Ripper mythos.
  • In Birthright, Mikey Rhodes was plucked from Earth as a child in accordance with a prophecy that he would one day become the warrior that would save the realm of Terrenos by defeating God-King Lore. Then it gets harshly deconstructed as Mikey spent decades training and fighting, only to lose in what was supposed to be his final battle. Then, after Lore showed him visions of how his family had suffered and broken apart because of his absence, Mikey accepted an offer to become Lore's agent on Earth just for a chance to see his family again. Furthermore, the prophecy that everyone believed was about Mikey saving Terrenos was actually recycled from an earlier version to give the resistance hope. The original hero who was summoned to save the land from a terrible evil? God-King Lore himself!
  • Pia of Black Science manages to crash-land in a universe in accordance with their Chosen One prophecy. She is able to leverage this political capital to negotiate peace between the warring tribes. Whether the prophecy was legitimate or just lucky is ambiguous.
  • In The Books of Magic, Timothy Hunter is a teenage boy with the potential to become the most powerful magician of the modern age. This is a clear case of Blessed with Suck, as his existence and potential become widely-known in occult circles and everyone from evil magicians to demons wants to either control or destroy him.
  • Chaos! Comics: once thought to be Lady Death herself, it's actually the Latina vampire Oblivia, who defeats Armageddon in the one and only Crisis Crossover.
  • Subverted in the comic Chosen. After a series of unusual events, Jodie discovers that he has a greater calling, and is destined for big things. After saying goodbye to all his friends, Jodie goes off to fulfill his true destiny... as the Antichrist.
  • Alex Elder in Crimson is a young vampire with unique powers who is destined to save the world from vampirekind. Its subverted when its revealed that there have been countless other "chosen" vampires before him that failed in their mission, with one of them becoming the Big Bad's partner-in-crime and during the final battle, its not Alex to deal the final blow against the main villain, but his mentor himself.
  • DC Comics has a Chosen One in the form of Billy Batson, chosen over everyone else on the planet to wield the powers of the gods as the mystically powered superhero Shazam!.
  • In the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip "The Glorious Dead", the power behind the Omniversal Spectrum intends to pass its power to one of two adversaries, representing good and evil. The Master believes the Chosen Ones are the Doctor and himself; they're actually the renegade Cyberman Kroton and the Master's Dragon, Cardinal Morningstar.
  • Green Lantern:
    • Particularly true in Alan Scott's case as he is the third Chosen One in a line with each being chosen for a different purpose. To a lesser extent, the Green Lantern Corps consist of 7200 members who are the "Chosen Ones" for their specific sectors of space (though they're chosen for worthiness, not to fulfill a prophecy.) The only true chosen one of the Corps to date is Sodam Yat who was tied to a prophecy about the Blackest Night.
    • Kyle Rayner, however, was a subversion. Ganthet gave him the last GL ring because Kyle was the first person he saw.
    • Hal Jordan himself was also a subversion. There were many Green Lantern candidates around the globe that fit the criteria of being without fear. Hal only got his position by sheer dumb luck - namely, by being the closest to Abin Sur's crash site.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1992), Link must undertake an arduous quest to find the Master Sword. One problem: The sword itself chooses its wielder, so there was a possibility that even if he survived his journey, the sword still wouldn't let him use it. Luckily, it does.
  • Zerain in Megalex. He's destined to lead the Undergrounder rebel tribes against the evil technocrats on the surface of the eponymous City Planet.
  • In CrossGen comic Mystic it is much to the shock of everyone when rather than Genevieve, a studious and hard working student who has spent her life preparing to be chosen, it is her sister Giselle, and irresponsible socialite who is chosen. No one is pleased with this. Giselle herself least of all.
  • PS238: Julie/84 becomes the Champion of Earth, after winning the contest set by Veles.
  • In Shaman's Tears, Joshua Brand is the chosen one of Wikan Tanka, the Great Spirit of the Sioux; selected to be her champion and defend the balance of nature.
  • Arwyn in Sojourn, who can wield Ayden's arrow.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): Sonic's sidekick, Miles "Tails" Prower, was named as the Chosen One in a prophecy made by the Ancient Walkers that said he would collect the Chaos Emeralds and begin the "Great Harmony." The problem is, the prophecy was worded badly, thus what Tails had to do was incredibly blurry. He thought his fight with Master Mogul as Titan Tails was the prophecy, but he realized that he'd gotten it wrong when A.D.A.M. brought the entire universe's collection of Chaos Emeralds to Mobius and had Shadow's help in shunting them into the Zone of Silence, where Feist would unify them.
  • Spider-Man: Peter Parker is not a very powerful character by comparison with the people around him, but he has an odd tendency to discover there are ancient prophecies about him. He was, for instance, destined to stop the "Bend Sinister" (alongside Doctor Strange), and no less a pair of personages than Lord Chaos and Master Order claimed to have guided his life to defeat Thanos.
    • According to The Amazing Spider-Man (J. Michael Straczynski), Peter is one of a group of arachnid-themed super-powered individuals empowered by a mystical force called the Web of Life and is the Champion of the totemic spider deity behind the Web of Life, succeeding Ezekiel Sims and to be succeeded by Anya Corizon in the event he turns evil.
  • In The Transformers: Regeneration One, Optimus Prime trains Hot Rod to be his successor. After stopping Megatron's apocalyptic reign of terror on Earth, Optimus turns command of Cybertron over to Hot Rod so that Optimus can attempt to help humanity rebuild. Hot Rod eventually becomes Rodimus Prime in his own right, and in the Distant Finale, as the last surviving Transformer eons later, he dies and passes the energy of the Matrix back to Cybertron, restoring it to life and bringing about a new generation of Cybertronians.
  • The Transformers: Robots in Disguise: Explored with a prophecy declaring Starscream of all people as a Chosen One, destined to unite Cybertron. Naturally, the minute he learns this, Starscream's ego balloons... and as events go on, the pressures of being designated Cybertron's savior start apparently wearing on his mind and conscience, since everyone expects him to do the right thing, and he's still Starscream, not to mention being overshadowed by Optimus Prime. Later on in the series, Galvatron mentions that the person who dreamt up this supposed prophecy was tripping on bad booze when he made it. Optimus Prime goes further — Onyx Prime made up the prophecy to inspire folk... and just as it looks like there might be a grain of truth to it, or that Starscream really is destined for greatness, Shockwave shows up to tell him that, no, he's not special. He's a patsy. Shockwave made up the prophecy solely so Starscream would end up in charge of Cybertron and utterly fail at the job, leaving it ripe for Shockwave's plans.
    • Subverted over in The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, where Getaway is convinced that he shows signs of Matrix affinity and has a destiny to be Prime. Nobody else believes him, Psycho Psychologist Froid actively eggs them on to watch his complexes in action, and by the end of it even he has to admit that his "grand destiny" was mostly bullshit.
  • In Ultimate X Men, Jean Grey is believed to be the reincarnated Phoenix God and is being fought over by two cults. It's deliberately ambiguous whether she is, or is just a very powerful mutant with a lot of mental problems.


Top