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Vitriolic Best Buds / Comic Books

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  • Main page image shows Betty and Veronica of Archie Comics fame. The two started out the series back in the 1940s as bitter rivals, but some time around the 1950s were morphed into best friends/rivals in love (with Archie, not each other. Usually). They still viciously fight each other over Archie, and occasionally play oneupsmanship, but for the most part (and Depending on the Writer) they're completely believable as close friends who just happen to share everything, including character flaws and boyfriends.
    • Jughead and Veronica bicker relentlessly, and seem to take glee in the other's failure. That said, they still come to the other's aid should things turn Dude, Not Funny!.
    • Reggie seems to have this relationship with everyone in the cast, which raises the question of why they put up with him in the first place.
    • The aversion of this trope is one of the most noticeable deconstructions in Afterlife with Archie. Veronica and Betty absolutely hate each other, though when Veronica's mom died Betty comforted her. Veronica has Hidden Depths behind her aggressive personality but is constantly at odds with Betty.
  • A certain village of Vitriolic Best Buds in Asterix. No Romans handy? No problem, they'll just find an excuse to brawl with each other....
    • Asterix himself usually has a bad argument with Obelix at least Once per Episode. It never takes long for them to make up, though.
    • Both of Fulliautomatix's main friends, Cacofonix and Unhygenix, seem to have this relationship with him. He relentlessly picks on Cacofonix, and he and Unhygenix both share hatred of his music (especially in The Falling Sky, where they are even more horrible to him than usual and get blamed for Cacofonix's hut burning down as a result). However, he and Cacofonix share mutual contempt for Unhygenix's merchandise — he's a fishmonger who sells stale fish despite living next to the sea. Fulliautomatix bullies both of them a lot, but also seems to see himself in charge of looking after Cacofonix — they're usually shown hanging around together in crowd scenes, he shows concern as well as satisfaction when Cacofonix loses his voice in The Roman Agent, he's genuinely torn apart when Cacofonix decides to leave the village in The Secret Weapon, and in one album he lets the Bound and Gagged Cacofonix sit next to him at the banquet at the end (although he probably tied him up in the first place).
  • Tony Chu and John Colby of Chew have this to an absurd degree.
  • Groo is oblivious to how much his sister Grooella hates him and thinks every insult and raging verbal assault shows how much difficulty she has showing her affection. But, then, Groo is oblivious to practically everything.
  • Shimy and Jadina from Les Légendaires. Due to the girls having opposite personalities and backstories, they constantly argue with each other, Shimy being easily irritated by Jadina's apparent silliness and shallowness while Jadina can't stand Shimy's Deadpan Snarker tendencies. Yet they both display extreme shock when seeing each other seemingly dead, and occasionally attempt to comfort each other. When Jadina learned Danael was attempting to have Shimy killed so Anathos couldn't get her body, she was enraged and yelled that she wouldn't let that happen. In the same vein, Shimy had a violent Heroic BSoD when finding what appeared to be Jadina's decayed body at the end of book 13.
  • The entire McKenzie farm animals cast from the Italian comic Lupo Alberto. Not only against the outsider Alberto, but also (and perhaps even more often) towards each other. The Berserk Button can involve unbridled gossip, the opportunity to become famous, uncontrolled fears, Glycerine the duck, complaints about work (which is generally tending the gardens)... heck, the list is long.
  • Victor and Frank from Mini Monsters. As they're polar opposites, both spend their time insulting and bickering with each other constantly. However, neither of them can be separated and they're best friends, although Victor denies this.
  • Eric and Woody from Quantum and Woody, two lifelong friends who spend more time fighting each other than the bad guys. The fact that they have to meet every 24 hours to touch their quantum bands just adds to the vitriol.
  • As children, Sam and Max (of Sam & Max: Freelance Police fame) seemed to be this way. Max used to mercilessly make fun of Sam, who was too shy to ever stand up for himself, but wouldn't stand for anyone else doing the same.
  • Raphael and Casey Jones in various incarnations of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
  • The Transformers (IDW): Marissa Faireborn has this kind of relationship with Thundercracker, with verbal point-scoring interspersed with moments of genuine companionship and a few small hints of Ship Tease; for example, if anything should happen to Thundercracker, Marissa is the one person he trusts to look after his beloved dog Buster. In All Hail Optimus, she reluctantly admits that she doesn't want him to die and actually likes hearing his stories...and then punctures the moment by snarking that if he flies as well as he writes he won't last two minutes up there.
  • The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye:
    • Ratchet and Drift. Ratchet spends most of his time making sarcastic comments about Drift, who (usually) just shrugs it all off, but underneath it becomes apparent Ratchet does actually care about what happens to Drift, even if he'd rather eat his own T-cog than admit it. During the final battle, it's revealed that at least part of this was Belligerent Sexual Tension when they finally, reluctantly admit their feelings for each other, and the Distant Finale reveals that they got married afterwards.
    Ratchet: (sarcastically) "Light readings." "Not much in the way of tech."
    Drift: You know, you shouldn't live in the past. There is only the true moment in which we're currently living.
    Ratchet: You talk like that to deliberately annoy me, don't you?
    Drift: Pretty much.
    • Whirl and Cyclonus start off fighting, with Cyclonus promising to one day kill Whirl... only for Whirl to gradually realize that they work surprisingly well together. They still snipe at each other, but neither of them act as if working together is like pulling teeth anymore, and Cyclonus periodically comes to Whirl for help because he knows Whirl is going to give him the Brutal Honesty he needs. In the Distant Finale, Cyclonus even invites Whirl to come and live with him and Tailgate when Whirl finishes his latest jail sentence.
    • The Scavengers are a multi-directional mess of alternating loyalty and hostility, unified against a hostile universe only by the thinnest of margins - but they also do things like travel to out-of-the-way planets so that Crankcase can meet his online boyfriend, or have Nerf fights with each other rather than use live ammunition.
      Krok: When I want your opinion, Fulcrum, I'll kill myself.
  • Transmetropolitan: Spider has this type of relationship with pretty much everyone who can even stand him (the two exceptions being Vita Severn and Oscar Rossini), but his relationship with Mitchell Royce stands out even for him. Royce has held Spider at gunpoint to force him to work (Royce describes it as "going in with a gun and coming out with either a story or a corpse"), and Spider has at one point gotten Royce infected with an STD that made his testicles sing "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star". However, Royce has put his career on the line for to run interference for Spider's sake more than once, and Spider is genuinely appreciative. When Spider has to "vanish", and has reason to believe he will never see Royce again, his last words are:
    Goodbye, old friend. You always did right by me.


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