"Hello, and welcome to Atop the Fourth Wall, where bad comics burn."
— Linkara
You'll find him here!And here!Meet Lewis Lovhaug, AKA Linkara: an 'eccentric' comic book fan with a Nice Hat who reviews horrible comics. He started out writing text reviews of various comics on his blog Atop the Fourth Wall. However, when doing a three part review on Smoke and Mirrors, one of the low points of The Clone Saga, he decided to finish off with a video review as an experiment. This new format turned out to be popular with his readers (and easier on him), so he continued to make videos. Eventually he ended up joining That Guy With The Glasses and has had many cameos in, and several crossovers with, a few of That Guy With The Glasses characters and their series.In addition to his reviews of bad comics he has also completed a Let's Play of Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, starring the unfraggable Ensign Munro. He and Iron Liz, his former girlfriend and occasional co-operator, also post vlogs of themselves playing Card Games such as Yu-Gi-Oh! and Sailor Moon in You're Such a Card...Game!He is currently producing the History of Power Rangers series, in which he looks back at the franchise (ALL of it) and gives a serious but very informal overview about its elements*
.Apart from his work at Atop the Fourth Wall Linkara has appeared in an episode of Yu Gi Oh The Abridged Series as well as provided a voice for Dragon Ball Abridged. Linkara is not only a critic but also a writer, creator of the webcomic Lightbringer, several graphic collections in the Angel Armor series, and indie title Revolution of the Mask. His most prolific co-operator is Spoony of The Spoony Experiment, with frequent crossovers, guest-stars and stories interchanged between the two shows.In addition to our intrepid reviewer, AT4W features an wide gallery of recurring characters who are profiled on the cast page.The series does have a plot, and the episodes you need to see to understand it are listed here for your convenience. For those looking for a medium-sized summary of the plot from an outside source, find a plot guide here. Has a Wikia here
Accentuate the Negative: Averted, surprisingly. While he makes it plain that he's only interested in reviewing bad comics on At4W, he's very evenhanded in his handling with them, making a point to note when comics do things right and well.
In Pokémon: The Electric Tale of Pikachu, he opens the review saying the games are fun. However, he makes sure to ask about everything that's absurd on the franchise (10 year-olds being warranted the license to train monsters which can level towns; weird monsters which include rocks, ghosts, and plants being somehow genetically related; and how Pokémon evolution is more growing up than evolving).
Accidental Nightmare Fuel: invoked The Blob eating the Wasp in Ultimatum, which promptly halts his review and causes him to quickly call out the comic for putting in something like that with no warning for mature readers, as well as killing the Wasp for no good reason.
Acting For Several: Linkara also plays a number of Drop In Characters, including obnoxious X-TREEM teenager '90s Kid (and counterparts '60s Kid and '80s Chick), lounge singer Harvey Finevoice, evil robot doppelganger Mechakara, the mysterious Phantasm, the unfraggable Ensign Munro, antiheroCable, Ninja-Style Dancer, and Dr. Linksano.
Action Girl: Iron Liz would like to introduce you to her two friends. -ahem-
He laughs his head off at a middle-aged librarian-ish teacher telling Dr. Doom to "gaze upon my radiant beauty and despair," saying the whole comic was worth it for that (it was probably an intentional joke).
More a case of "Actually Pretty Good", he admits Spawn #1 is probably one of the better things to come out of early Image Comics. (And unlike most comics he reviews, he sets it down gently instead of throwing it onto the couch.)
A couple of moments in Ultimatum #1 & #2 were actually pretty funny, but were not enough to save the comic.
He also points out that while the jokes themselves are funny, they happen during pretty dark moments, making them inappropriate.
In the Mightily Murdered Power Ringers review, he praises a couple of the jokes (like the Muggles discussing Hero Insurance) despite the fact that he really doesn't like the rest of the comic.
All Just a Dream: The beginning of the Sultry Teenage Super-Foxes #2 review. Linkara happily assumes that the existence of the comic in question was also just a dream...until he notices the copy in his hand.
All There in the Manual: Linkara complains about this tendency in big crossover events and non-crossover events. He feels that, though there is nothing wrong with a big event having extra features in other comics, if they are a requirement for a full understanding of the event then they are not "extra" at all and, as such, should be included in the main title. It reaches its nadir in Silent Hill Dead/Alive, where the author neglected to put several important plot points and character motivations into the story itself, forcing readers to comb through the opening descriptions of what happened in each previous issue to have any hope of following the story...and then these sections were removed from the trade edition.
Alternative Character Interpretation: Because many of the comics he reviews are adaptations or reinterpretations of already-established characters, Linkara often does his best to reconcile their poor actions in the current story with their predominant characterization:
According to Linkara, the Goddamn Batman from All Star Batman & Robin is not actually Batman, but a hobo named Crazy Steve who somehow got his hands on Batman's costume.
He also thinks the Superman in Superman At Earth's End is some random hobo who found Superman's outfit and names him Bearded Idiot.
He interpreted the Kool-Aid Man as a homicidal maniac who has cameras watching people over the entire world.
He decided that the "Tandy Computer Whiz Kids" were police plants, and supports this in that the police actually listen to them when they kids call them about their being criminals, which any real world cops would dismiss as prank call.
A broader version occurs in the 22 Brides review he regards One More Day as Joe Quesada's attempt to undo 22 Brides.
Linkara assumes that not only did the Olympian gods show up on the wrong day, but the character who rips himself free of his crucifixion in The Godyssey is not Jesus, but rather Jesús*
pronounced closer to 'Hay-sus'
, the Christian Martial Artist.
In the Nestle/Superman crossover he suggests that the Quik Bunny might actually be a villain from the number of suggestions he makes that send the children into dangerous situations.
"Why is Child Endangerment your first plan. Or maybe it's because he's evil. Seriously, look at that expression, he's probably going to go outside and laugh his rabbit ass off about this
Aluminum Christmas Trees: Some people actually think Linkara made up that "It's magic. I don't have to explain it" phrase and meant it in all seriousness, not realizing that this is actually a shot at Joe Quesada's justification for One More Day.
American Accents: At times, his Minnesota accent can be particularly notable, especially in the way he pronounces "room" as "rum". He even comments that he's found himself pronouncing it "room" more often, especially after the Top 15 Screw-ups video.
Arc Fatigue: His in-universe words (not ours) on the Clone Saga
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Among the criminals Linkara suggests Athena could be attempting to bust (which the comic never says), he includes drug dealers, gun smugglers and Arby's Sauce bootleggers.
During Electric Tale of Pikachu #1, Linkara exclaims that ghosts exist, have special attacks, and smile.
Artifact Catchphrase: Linkara mentions in the Mightily Murdered Power Ringers review that some viewers have complained about the lack of comic-burning in later reviews.
Artistic License - Astronomy: In his Secret Defenders review, talking about the backgrounds filled with alien planets and moons —
"I remind you all that this is taking place on Phobos, a moon of Mars — you know, in the Solar system! That whole nine planets thing, bunch of malarkey. We have at least twenty planets, and some of them are pink, purple, green and magenta. Astronomy is a lie.
You cannot spread AIDS simply from biting someone else unless the biter was bleeding from the mouth at the time and that blood made contact with the blood exposed from the bite wound. Saliva itself cannot transmit HIV.
Apparently, Photosynthesis works by absorbing elements around it, which resulted in Floronic Man to get a contact high by absorbing cocaine from the bodies of the druggies they were trying to fend off...
Linkara: Not only does cocaine not work that way, plants don't work that way, and PHOTOSYNTHESIS SURE AS HELL DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!
Brute Force #1 has the implication that animals could talk if they were just more intelligent despite inherently lacking the physical capability to talk.
When reviewing Amazing Fantasy #15 he interjected with "spiders aren't insects" when reading one of the captions that described the radioactive spider.
In Justice League: Cry for Justice, when Clayface's bomb was designed to change its composition every few fractions of a millisecond during the blast. "Nope. Uh-uh. I don't buy it for one minute. Explosions do not work that way."
Linkara points out that Argos Bleak is low-balling himself when he asks for only one million dollars as a ransom upon stealing a nuke and how two of the antagonists in Neutro would devalue the world's currencies by "stealing all the world's wealth in a day."
In Batman: Fortunate Son, he points out that Izaak's "Selling Out" goes against basic capitalism. He also suggested that he just donate the money to charity if he felt so bad about being paid for his work.
In Air Raiders, he points out that Aerozar picked the worst resource to control the population with. While he could have cut off their food or water supply, he picks air. Note that everybody in the comic can still breathe unless the plot requires them not to.
In Sultry Teenage Super Foxes #1 Linkara points out a machine that turns things to gold (and teenage idiots into super"heroes") would easily pay for itself given enough time. While noting that making gold would be an example of this trope, he points out that any other number of uses for the machine (such as making nuclear waste into something useful, or at least something less deadly) would work.
In James Bond Jr. #3, he states that Goldfinger's plan to melt Eldorado would simply devalue the gold market. Ironically, that was a huge chunk of the point in the film Goldfinger: Goldfinger planned to irradiate Fort Knox rather than rob it, so that the gold he already had would become more valuable. However, in the comic, Goldfinger merely wanted to steal the gold, not destroy it; as such, with as much gold as El Dorado has, stealing it would devalue gold all over, including what Goldfinger had, already.
He also likes to make fun of so-called "collector's edition" issues of comic books, pointing out the most popular fallacy about comic books being more valuable in the future if it is a "collector's edition". And in his "Top 15 Missed Moments" video, he has Lee from Still Gaming cameo for a joke about a similar fallacy regarding collectible cards (which Lee himself did a video about).
Artistic License - Geography: That non-existent little Peruvian village in James Bond Jr. #3 is named Puerto, which means "Port", but is not near any sufficiently large body of water to warrant the name.
This is not entirely true, however, as the word can also mean a mountain pass, which could apply to the geographic location of the village.
According to the "Tandy Computer Whiz Kids: Fit to Win" comic, the first all-electronic computers were made in America, not England as Linkara pointed out in his "Top 15 Screw-Ups". When the piece of trivia pops up again in the crossover with Superman and Wonder Woman, Linkara deduces that the statement was a bold-faced lie.
Artistic License - Law: In Batman Fortunate Son, Robin — a fan of the musician he and Batman are pursuing — at one particular moment of tension questions whether the musician has actually done anything wrong or illegal. Linkara points out that yes, there actually are quite a few things wrong and illegal about blowing up a music studio.
Artistic License - Physics: Lampshaded with the running gag of "Of course! Don't you know anything about science?"
A particularly egregious example is in Superman: Distant Fires, where nuclear war somehow causes the planet to rip itself apart. Just to illustrate how dumb the science is, he apparently asks members of Twitter approximately how many nuclear bombs are required to destroy the Earth. Their answer can be summed up as "A Lot", or to be it in broader terms, more than currently exist.
Linkara points out that despite what Chuck Austen says in Uncanny X-Men #424, Catholics do NOT believe in the pre-tribulation Rapture. Also, it is highly unlikely, if not impossible, for the Church of Humanity to have any influence in the papal elections.
The tribulation itself is said to be a time of sheer terror, the length varies depending on where you look, before Christ returns. Unless the Church of Humanity has the resources to cause this, which involves war famine, plagues, etc., people would eventually figure something was wrong.
Linkara points out Brazil's dominant religion is Christianity, as opposed to what was seen in Zero Patrol #1.
Ascended Extra: Pollo the Robot started out as a Brick Joke in his Amazons Attack review to illustrate that "not even robots can handle" the bad comic. However, since then Pollo has become a very important character on Atop the Fourth Wall, more so even than Burton himself on the Experiment. He appears to have taken on the on-screen role of Linkara's producer. The prop itself was a puppet made for the MST3K fan-vid he made in high school and was used as Lewis even said in his "Origins" VLOG that he was concerned that people would see it as derivative of Spoony's Burton (indeed, many assume Pollo was created to be an Expy of Burton).
Atomic F-Bomb: Despite the fact that Linkara does not say the major swear words, this trope applies to JLA: Act of God part 2, when Linkara gets permission from the Continuity Alarm to go on a rant about the idea of Lois Lane dumping Clark Kent after the latter loses his powers:
Linkara loves the Titans, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold and taking pot shots at One More Day. He also likesHarley Quinn, but who doesn't? He also likes dramatic, arc-based plots, so he is doing his damnedest to give his show one.
Fabian Nicieza seems to get an exemption from being labeled as a bad author despite his frequent appearances on the show. According to Linkara, his overall quality as writer is quite good and the comics which are featured are the lower end of his portfolio and not an accurate overall representation.
Linkara: "Dammit Fabian Nicieza, stop showing up in my reviews, you're not a bad writer."
Given his utter joy whenever he's reviewed a comic featuring Captain America in it, it's quite clear that Linkara's a fan of the Captain. Look no further than his Secret Origins Month review of Captain America Comics #1 for proof.
At one point he goes off topic to rant about nuclear power and Jimmy Carter. Lampshaded with an "OMG!!! POLITICS!!!" tag.
His review of "Athena #1" is strictly in response to people questioning his views on women, sexuality, revealing clothing and anatomy. He starts off the review itself with a rant properly explaining all of that, and goes from there.
Explicitly avoided in Action Comics #593, where he notes that this is not the time for a long rant on the use of rape as a plot device, so he instead directs us to someone else's website who he thinks details the problem much better than he could.
Awesome McCoolname: During the review of World Of Warcraft 2-3 he lampshades how ridiculous the names sound and then jokingly states he is going to change his name to "Awesome McBadass Powerfist".
Linkara's description of the lock to Mr. Miracle and Big Barda's house in Action Comics #593
Linkara's Zeonizers. A whole lot stronger than his usual Power Morpher... but while that works whenever it's needed, the Zeonizers require incredibly long charging time after each use before they can be used again.
Linkara gives rather a lengthy and awesome one at the end of his Silent Hill: Dead/Alive review (full version in the quotes page), in which he lists all the awesome things he has done, the enemies he has faced, and how he's much more stable than any Silent Hill protagonist, so attempting to drive him to suicide with trickery is futile.
Badass Decay: Linkara dislikes in-universe how the trope was handled in JLA: Act of God, which revolved around all the heroes being Brought Down to Normal. He particularly disliked what they did with Aquaman.
"You can summon krakens and all manner of deadly sea creatures and now you're "The Hand"!?!"
Batman Can Breathe In Space: And so can the Kool-Aid Man (But we get it, he will not freeze, we are all aware that liquids evaporate first in a vacuum)
Battle Couple: Linkara and Iron Liz, as proven in the Ewoks #9 review
The Bechdel Test: Applied to Sultry Teenage Super Foxes, an example of how an Improbably Female Cast can still fail this. The main characters are all indeed women and they do talk to each other, but pretty much every single line they speak has to do with men and their ability to attract men. Even obtaining superpowers was nothing more than a means to the end of them attracting guys.
Also in the US-1 #2 review, where the two newly-introduced named female characters, Mary McGrill and Taryn O'Connell, talk to each other, but they only talk about a man.
Berserk Button: He especially hates it when iconic, established characters get changed. Bearded Idiot: At Earth's End was the first comic to ever actually be burnt on AT4W, followed by The Dark Knight Strikes Again. JLA: Act of God would have been burned had it not been for Linksano's interference. He also despises straw feminist because it does more to damage to feminism than the avowed chauvinists ever could. However, above it all is One More Day. In his "Top 15 Comics I'll Never Review" video he explained that he would not review that comic because he hated it so much that he wants to forget it ever existed. He concluded his summary with "JOE QUESADA... YOU! ARE! A! HACK!"
Comics that feature two page spreads that require the book to be rotated ninety degrees.
"Laser Bat" from NBComics #1.
His Let's Play of Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force reveals that he really, really hates small, fast-moving crawling enemies in first-person shooters, to the point that he decides to not use his much weaker weapons (capable of killing the worms in one hit) in favor of using a GrenadeLauncher.
He hilariously snaps in the review of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan #2, When he sees the comic reducing the movie's infamous KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!! scene to just one panel and a simple shout by Kirk.
Any time a comic shows misogyny, homophobia, racism, or ableism.
The propaganda comic Future Five, which implies that people who don't go to college and people who work in fast food or other such jobs are beneath college grads and that those who aren't college grads are idiots.
Bifauxnen: Iron Liz passes off as rather androgynous at first glance, and her voice does not help matters much, but upon closer examination her gender makes itself known.
In his New Guardians #2 review, when Snowflame dies.
Uncanny X-Men #423. "OH MY GOD! ANGELO IS DEAD! NO! (Super slow motion deep voice) NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! WHY, CRUEL WORLD, WHY DI- wait, who's Angelo?"
And in his very first review — (Adjective-less) Spider-Man #56 — when he realizes that the Gwen Stacy clone is going to dissolve into goop. In his later commentary about his early work (where he jokes about his terrible lighting and slow line delivery back then), he says that a slow-mo Big "NO!" is always funny.
And in his crossover with Film Brain, when her realizes it's Miller Time.
Bold Inflation: "You know, Frankie, emphasizing random words does not a talented writer make!"
Necessary after Linkara's "Batman: Agent of NAMBLA" joke takes a whole new meaning.
"When I do drugs, I see Bea Arthur! You should probably forget I said that." (Which is obviously a Deadpool reference. ...We hope...)
The Lady Gaga comic Fame. When we get a look into the man's dreams, it results in Linkara screaming for 10 seconds, a 'Technical difficulties' screen, a shaking, shivering Linkara, 5 more seconds of screaming, another 'Technical difficulties' screen and an angry rant. Oh, it's so justified.
In Freak Force #1, the review ended with 90s Kid playing Justice League Task Force. One month later, in Hardcore Station #1, he finally finished it, just in time for his segment to end.
At one point in the Doom comic's review, Linkara puts on a monocle and fakes a British accent in response to the protagonist's overly formal line about how he would behead a group of zombies with a chainsaw and steal their guns.
He also greeted Mechakara in an imitation of Tommy Wiseau. Spoony himself later did the exact same thing when he met his Black Lantern self.
Broken Aesop: Linkara provides the page quote, which originated in his Bearded Idiot: At Earth's End review.
Brought Down to Normal: Linkara was very critical of JLA: Act of God, which revolved around all of Earth's superheroes losing their powers. He explained that the lack of a common origin for any of the heroes made any kind of mass de-powering hard to swallow and also ridiculed the hit-and-miss nature of the event, which was stated to have left advanced technology alone, but still disabled the Green Lantern rings, and was also said to have removed all magical beings from the world, but somehow left Wonder Woman around. He recommended instead 52, a series he has previously advanced as a very good comic, as an example of how to properly deal with a character that has lost his or her powers. A secondary storyline in Fifty Two revolves around Superman coping with the loss of his powers during the Infinite Crisis and Linkara points out that this portrayal is consistent with previous Superman characterization that intelligently deals with the implications for his life and personality.
C-List Fodder: He notes this happens to Congorilla's tribe, as well as the obscure minor characters The Three Dimwits from the DCU in Justice League: Cry for Justice. Offscreen, no less. He's not a fan of this trope and feels characters provide more potential to stories when alive.
In the Warrior #2 and #3 co-review with Spoony we have a bunch of call-backs to the original Warrior review—including Bennett yelling about what happened in the Warrior Christmas special not happening on their watch. Marzgurl's response? "Wrong year!" The review also hearkens back to Spoony's Party Mania review. The reason? Dr. Linksano is apparently one of the Schlumper Brothers.
Linkara's first appearance on TGWTG was after he won a fan contest and got to fill in for Ask that Guy for an episode. He adopted the name "That Guy with the Hat" for the occasion. Now, go read the entry under "Badass Boast" again...
In the Pokemon: The Electric Tale of Pikachu review, he searches for a comic to read and, upon finding it, goes "Aha! Now we've got it!"
Canon Discontinuity: The joke in Superman/Terminator about his future self still living with his parents has now become this with his moving in with Iron Liz.
Canon Immigrant: Ensign Munroe, from the game Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, has shown up several times (played by Linkara).
"I'm 90s Kid, and what you see (opens flannel shirt) is what you get."
DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDDDE!!
Whenever he reviews a comic by Frank Miller: "Say! (takes out pocket watch) It's Miller Time!"
EXTREME!!
"Because poor literacy is kewl!"
Catchphrase Interruptus: In the Silent Hill Dead/Alive #5 review, he gets through "Hello and welcome to Atop the Fourth Wall, where..." before being interrupted by the fog and sirens.
Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys: Says it is time to stop making fun of the French for this, when the villains in the Kool-Aid Man comic showed even less backbone than the worst caricatures of the French.
Cheshire Cat Grin: In his review of the '90s Justice League movie with Nash, he stares at Nash with one of these until Nash breaks down and agrees to watch the movie.
One of the alternative endings to the Silent Hill review reveals Bear to be one in style of the dog from Silent Hill 2.
In the recap at the start of the Daredevil #306 review (The recap, as usual, bears no connection to the review itself):
Linkara: I should have known, it was you who was the secret manipulator behind it all *puts hand over the edge and pulls out a teddy* BEEEEAAAAR!
Chewbacca Defense: (To justify bad storytelling) "Why? Because the Kool-Aid Man is red!"
Chewing the Scenery: In his Cross Over review of The Fantastic Four movie (which was so bad Marvel would not let it be released) with Bennett the Sage, Linkara tells one of the actors that he still has some of the scenery between his teeth.
Christmas Episode: In 2009, he did one on the Youngblood Extreme Super Christmas Special, complete with the ghosts from A Christmas Carol showing up and trying to teach him the meaning of Christmas, only to be thrown out because he already loves Christmas. In 2010, there have been three Christmas episodes—the New Kids on the Block Christmas Special review, the Marvel Team-up Christmas issue review, and the Santa Claus Conquers the Martians review.
Chuck Norris Facts: Defied in his review of Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos. "Because I like screwing with expectations."
Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Snowflame, a Iron Age Supervillain fueled by cocaine, who somehow managed to find his way into our universe... And Linkara's Living Room.
Complaining About Things You Haven't Paid For: The stated reason why Linkara refuses to review Webcomics, since most of them are just things people do in their spare time. Sonichu is in the exception, which he says is every bit as bad what everyone it is and won't review because he doesn't want to draw attention to it.
Act of God was absolutely rife with this, and Linkara continually calls out the writers on the hamfisted monologuing during his review.
Continuity Nod: A previous Bennett the Sage episode has Sage tying up Linkara after discovering old fanfiction he wrote as a teenager and made him listen as it was reread. Later, when Linkara wakes up bound to a chair because of Mechakara, he wonders what Bennett found this time.
Linkara: An intelligent, talking ape and an alien are about to fight robots on jetpacks! Why is this comic not about them? Congorilla: TALLY-HO! ["Ride of the Valkyries" plays over the pages of the fight.]
Linkara impersonates the Critic to review Superman IV. The Critic is not impressed.
Doug has occasionally gone to events dressed as Linkara, who will shortly after appear as the Green Ranger and confront him on this.
Covers Always Lie: At the end of his Superman: Distant Fires review.
Also, that outfit he's sporting on the cover? He never wears it, nor does he jump off of a flaming cliff on catback. I call false advertising.
Crazy Awesome: An in-universe example, in which Linkara describes the image of Neutro riding a whale as being quite possibly the most awesome thing he or anyone else will ever see in their lives, possibly surpassed only by Robo-bear versus Cyber-gorilla!
He also (essentially) said that there is nothing more awesome than Bruce Campbell (Ash from The Evil Dead movies) laying the Smack Down on the Marvel Zombies, except for Robo-bear vs. Cyber-gorilla! Where Neutro stacks up is anyone's guess.
Creator Backlash: Linkara is embarrassed by the self-published novels he wrote in high school. Whenever they're brought up, he ends up asking that people don't track down the first two and only look for the third, which he is the least embarrassed by.
Creator's Pet: Linkara clearly perceives Christabella from the Silent Hill comics as this in-universe.
Critical Research Failure: During a video of missed jokes, he notes how he has no idea how he missed making a joke at a comment giving the length of Wolverine's claws as longer than he was tall, noting just how blatantly obvious it was that the line fell under this. invoked
His most frequent and fruitful collaborations are with Spoony: They have made four (five if you count their review with The Nostalgia Critic) full appearances together, physically in the same room and everything, and have even advanced storylines in each other's videos. Dr. Insano was introduced in an Atop The Fourth Wall video as part of a parody sequence, and the whole Mechakara saga began as the result of their first crossover, largely written by Spoony. Fandom tends to depict the two creators as Heterosexual Life Partners.
Linkara also appeared in a joint review with Marz Gurl, and was the subject of an episode of Masterpiece Fanfic Theatre, where he was tied up and forced to listen to Bennett read some of his juvenilia. Later, he and Bennett did a proper review of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four. He has also reviewed two movies with The Nostalgia Critic, once with Spoony and once without.
Throughout "Star Trek Month" The Nostalgia Critic kept being terrified that Fan Boy Linkara would force a cross-over, only to be presently surprised when he didn't. Finally, he announces his thanks that with only one movie left to review, Linkara definitely won't show up to overanalyse things and be annoying, no way, no how- only for the video to end with;
NEXT WEEK: CROSSOVER WITH LINKARA
Crowd Song: During the live show at MAGfest, Linkara openly encourages the audience to sing along with the opening theme. Which, of course, they do.
"Oh, it's my student loan bill! Wait...my STUDENT LOAN BILL!? Ah, fu -" * end credits*
Also cut short during his review of Countdown to Final Crisis when he goes off on a cursing rant about the editor wanting to make a love triangle between Donna Troy, Kyle Rayner, and Jason Todd, cut off by a "Inaudible Profanity, please stand by" screen set to the Route 1 BGM from Pokémon.
—and roll over their fetid carcasses for that idiotic idea![beat]'' So, back to our story.
Cursed with Awesome: Linkara impersonating Izaak Crowe in Batman: Fortunate Son: "Oh no, it's so terrible that I grew up in an economically stable environment instead of impoverished or hungry and on drugs!" Complete with his Superboy Prime voice.
Cute Kitten: He plays a clip of a really adorable kitten as a way of making up for the sheer badness of The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Part 3.
Just pulling the chains out of the wall is how he would have gotten out of the room in Silent Hill 4.
In his second Silent Hill review series, rather than look for devices that could be assembled to move an obstacle, he just shoots it.
Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Linkara points out the Surgeon General could have made far more money working legitimately and that Amanda Gideon in Nightcat is so rich she does not have any reason to sell drugs.
In his Care Bears review, he points out the clown is really wasting a gravity manipulation device on shaking kids.
Linkara points this out in Superman and Wonder Woman: Tandy Whiz Kids when a World's Fair refuses to give Lex Luthor any place to show off his scientific inventions just because he's a mad scientist. This prompts Linkara to act out that Luthor will now have to hold the World's Fair for ransom and kill off everyone inside it instead of merely patenting his inventions and making billions. Afterward, he explains that he thinks this might be the reason why the writers decided to turn Luthor into a businessman instead of keeping him as a mad scientist, because having a supervillain with that much intelligence was just dumb.
Darkness Induced Audience Apathy:invoked Has with the Silent Hill comics in spades, whose unlikable characters to Linkara flat-out not giving a shit as to what happens in the story. To a lesser extent, he seems to have this somewhat with the Ultimate Marvel universe with its superhero characters generally not being very likable, though in that case he says he simply doesn't like the Ultimate Marvel universe but doesn't say it's bad.
A Day in the Limelight: Harvey Finevoice, 90s Kid, and Iron Liz have each given an entire review themselves.
Deader than Dead: Lewis's comments for the Cry for Justice #5-7 episode Use the word "kill" in reference to the Pokéball contained Pyramid Head, indicating it's not just "unable to battle" as a Pokémon is when reaching 0 HP. Also confirmed via Twitter.
Death Is Cheap: Despite not liking characters getting killed in stories, he admits that for main stream heroes death is no big deal when he brings up the death of the Human Torch in his Brain Drain review, and comments that he'll be dead for a year at most before coming back, and each member of the Fantastic Four has died at least once.
Defied Trope: When one of the Bimbos in Time explains the "time door" as "an implosion in matter-antimatter existence", Linkara interrupts the "Of course! Don't you know anything about SCIENCE?" gag.
Linkara: NO! THAT WAS NOT REMOTELY SCIENTIFIC!
Delayed Reaction: A running gag. Linkara will say something stupid (either as a character or in support of a character's plan) with great enthusiasm, then realize it's stupid.
Villain dialogue from comic: With Neutro on our side, we can capture all the world's wealth in a day...
Linkara as said villain: ...thus making all the money worthless because of simple economics. (Beat) Wait...
"Let's dig into Batman: Act of God #3 Starring Batman." This was done intentionally to deliver his point that JLA: Act of God was "one big love letter to Batman" by the writer.
The review of All-Star Batman & Robin #1 and #2 revealed that, among its other flaws, characters tended to repeat themselves. A lot. A lot a lot.
In Strange Adventures #136, there are two blatant examples pointed out in its goofy Silver Age writing style.
Narrator:When the alien commander from another world... Linkara: "Thanks for the clarification, or I might've thought it was the alien commander from Circle Pines." Alien: "We come from a planet of the star-sun Altair." Linkara: "Thanks for the redundancy, there. Otherwise I may have thought you'd come from the planet-sun Altair!"
Caption: "Obediently, Torg obeys." Linkara: "Redundantly, the caption is redundant."
Cry For Justice gives us the "Justice League of Justice".
Addressed in the Superman Meets the Quik Bunny review.
Quik Bunny: "Worrying won't help Superman! Helping him will help Superman!"
Linkara: "Redundant statements won't be redundant! They'll be repetitive! ...wait."
Designated Hero: The phrase "Our hero(es), ladies and gentlemen!" means he is pointing out instances of this and/or Hero Ball. Linkara points out that Rob Liefeld's characters in general have almost nothing heroic about them, which he finds particularly frustrating, since Liefeld specifically described Youngblood as heroic characters that can be related to and believed in as heroes. invoked
His review of Neutro constantly references this trope.
Comic Description: Neutro does not know the difference between right and wrong!
Linkara: "...Oooookay, that's not very good if he's a superhero."
He also brings this up with his reviews in his Secret Origins month, where in Golden and Silver Age comics, superheroes didn't always seem very heroic.
A major complaint that he, Nash and Film Brain have of the Wonder Woman 2011 pilot.
It's become something of a problem at my old place, kinda like if I had roaches, except if the roaches wanted to take over the universe, or were attached to strings.
Do It Yourself Theme Tune: At the end of the 100th episode, Linkara and most of his recurring characters (as well as a bunch of other TGWTG contributors) sing his entire theme song.
Doing It for the Art: Linkara points out Izaak's desire to do this does not work realistically. Musicians still need to eat, and they also need money for guitar strings and keeping their musical instruments in good shape, among other things.
He says more like, Doing It for the Art isn't exactly what they are doing, writing music for the art isn't the same as writing it for free. Just because you're being paid for it doesn't mean you aren't doing it for the art. He even said that Da Vincidemanded to be paid every time someone wanted him to paint something, and he was Doing It for the Art.
Dramatic...Ellipsis: After a number of comics abusing the use of this particular punctuation mark, he has finally diagnosed their overuse as a disease seen in comics similar to Youngblood's Disease. He dubbed it "Ultimate Warrior's Ailment" in his review of Zero Patrol.
Dropped a Bridge on Him: Frequently calls out Countdown to Final Crisis, Cry for Justice, and Ultimatum for this. Accuses the first of representing an attitude that killing characters is the best form of plot point.
Enforced aversion. It is revealed in a podcast Linkara could not find another fake flintlock pistol at a reasonable price, thus he cannot dual wield magic guns.
He points out that, in Action Comics #593, Superman and Big Barda are essentially raping each other, which is a terrible plot point.
Dull Surprise: Pointed out and referenced by name several times (via the Trope Namer) throughout the Transformers #4 and #5 review re: Pat Lee's artwork.
Early-Bird Cameo: Lewis' girlfriend Iron Liz briefly appears out of nowhere during the ''Warrior'' 2-3 review, Lampshading that no one will have any idea who the hell she is (Lewis himself did not help much, responding to any questions about who she was with a simple "She's Iron Liz" before Liz got a blog and revealed that they were dating). She made her first official appearance in the review of Chain Gang War #1
The New Guardians #2 review contains some text flashing onscreen for a split second during a clip of one of Hitler's speeches saying 'Yeah, I can see why Germany would want to follow this shouting, drug-crazed lunatic. Zomg Easter Egg! Hi TV Tropes!'
Ensemble Darkhorse: He frequently says in-universe that Bulk and Skull are "the real stars" of Power Rangers in his comic reviews.
Recently, he declared Joe, who showed up in all of one panel, to be his favorite character of the Silent Hill comics. Of course he wasn't facing much competition from the restof the cast.
Even 90's Kid was disgusted by Superboy Prime vaporizing a pregnant woman in Countdown to Final Crisis.
From Planet of the Symbiotes:
Linkara: Even 90's Kid isn't creepy enough to want to prop up Kurt Cobain's body onstage!
Linksano may have no problems with driving Linkara insane, but it is revealed in the The Spirit review that melting kittens is "a line we dare not cross".
Linkara also says that not even Frank Miller, an infamous Dirty Old Man, would stoop so low as to sexualize underage girls.
Apparently, Rob Liefeld looks like a better artist when compared to Pat Lee's work.
In his review of Uncanny X-Men #424 he said that Chuck Austen "could not fail any more if [his] name was Faily McFailing Fail!"
Points out in his Doom's IV #2 review that "Grimm" wasn't a great choice, as it's kind of depressing and that there must have been other things they could have called him.
Also notes this with Batman: Fortunate Son, which seems to have the message that rock and roll music causes violence.
Fan Nickname: Linkara has a slew of these for Super-Boy Prime in Countdown; including "Superboy-Primadonna", "Superbitch-Prime", and "Spasticboy-Prime". He also takes to calling Robin "Dick Grayson, Age 12" during his All-Star Batman and Robin review in reference to the detail being repeated more than is strictly necessary; by the end of the review, he is also calling the ASBAR version of Batman 'Crazy Steve.'
He refers to the gun-using old Superman of Superman At Earth's End as "Bearded Idiot". Similarly, he coins "Captain Cuckoo" for Captain Marvel in Superman: Distant Fires.
He gives Hippolyta multiple nicknames during the Amazons Attack review: Hippopotamus Brain, Hibonkersla, Smokingalottapolyta, etc. In his Maximum Clonage review he calls her Queen Hippolobotomy
He refers to the bodyguard character from Zero Patrol as "Blandy the Bodyguard"
Fanon Discontinuity: invoked One of the biggest reasons he won't review One More Day—He would first have to acknowledge its existence.
Freeze Frame Bonus: The blinking "Extreme" logo in the Newmen review flashes "Buy Revolution of the Mask" and, even more briefly, "If you can read this, you paused the video."
After Linkara finishes his New Guardians review, he pops out and says: "Wait a second - if their mission is to proliferate their DNA through procreation, why is there a gay guy in the group?"
He points out the character in Silent Hill: The Room could just break the wall to remove the chains.
He points out that this can ruin some of the few seemingly good part of Countdown to Final Crisis. Most notably, he admits that when the Monitor Bob made his Face Heel Turn, he originally found it an exciting and interesting twist, but thinking more on it (and rereading the earlier issues) made him realise that Bob's betrayal made no sense when matched up to everything he had been doing before, and pretty much came out of nowhere.
A recurring criticism of stories where heroes lose their powers is that it also applies to ones like Martian Manhunter who doesn't actually have any beyond natural abilities of his species.
"No, I'm not gonna make a furry joke. Get over it, Internet—some people don't have the same interests as you. Besides, she's a bug, not a furred animal... NEXT CHARACTER."
Dr Doom's plan from Ultimates 3, as revealed in Ultimatum. Linkara goes on a long rant with it.
Gatling Good: He uses it to take out Pyramid Head.
A God Am I: Linkara parodies the trope in his New Guardians review, which depicts Crazy Awesome Snowflame as a god and includes the statement "He will rise in three days amongst the marijuana leaves!"
Godwin's Law: Invokes this in his New Guardians #2 review when he points out that the concept of a group of people being chosen to reproduce due to their genetic superiority sounds strangely familiar...
Good Is Old Fashioned: Linkara chews out Superman at Earth's End for apparently taking this viewpoint.
Gosh Dangit To Heck: Linkara is not afraid to use lighter swears like ass, Hell, damn, etc., but generally refrains from using stronger ones. He has even said "Funk and Wagnall" in the place of the F-bomb at least three times; ironically (or intentionally), it makes that sentence funnier. In his Top 15 Screw-Ups he admits he uses such words in real life all the time, even pointing out some examples listed below where they do bleed into his reviews, but he chooses to not use them in his reviews because he feels they are better off without them.
He doesn't, however, have a problem with playing "America, Fuck Yeah" uncensored whenever Captain America shows how much of a badass he is.
He also has no issues with writing gratuitous profanity for other people, as evidenced by the number of F-bombs Spoony drops in Linkara-written crossovers.
Or in the Robocop vs. the Terminator review, where the Stinger uses a clip of the T-800 saying "Fuck you, asshole."
Not quite true, since in an "odds and ends" post, he remarks that he didn't know Nash was going to include it uncensored and would have asked him to bleep it.
Guest Host: Pollo organizes Harvey Finevoice and 90s Kid to keep the scheduled reviews, despite Linkara being kidnapped to another dimension.
Halloween Episode: The Silent Hill comic reviews in 2009, 2010, and 2011.
Hammerspace: Every time Linkara does his "I AM A MAN! *PUNCH* routine he pulls something different back on screen each time, including his stuffed bear and Iron Liz, among others. When he asked Liz how she got there, she had no idea.
There is also the time he couldn't pull his hand back.
Linkara "Help! I-I'm stuck!"
Hand Wave: Linkara took a very long time to explain why his gun shoots lasers and in the Star Trek review he simply says "It's magic! I don't have to explain it!" which is a blatant Shout Out to his much-hated One More Day. He later gave the full story.
"We cut to New York and the... the World Trade Center. Towers. Well I mean this was made in 1990. There shouldn't be anything wrong. (later) "Later An Omnious Black, Cloud, Hovers... Above... The... Renowned... Twin... Towers..." (puts hand on face and sighs) oh sweet merciful crap.
And the second comic in the line doesn't do much better...
"A dark cloud over the world trade towers in the first issue, now hijacking an airplane in this one? This comic is seriously trolling me.
Show-related: the joke about Missingno from The Dark Knight Strikes Again Part 2 review is much less funny when you find out who the Entity is...
Have a Gay Old Time: In his "Top 15 Comics he will NEVER review", he mentions that "Batman #66" is not heavily requested, but is still denied because he figures that the only reason why people want him to review it is because they want him to say the word "Boner", which meant something much different back during the Silver Age. Just to humor them, he gives them what they want.
"If that's the case, then I shall give you what you want. Boner. Boner Boner. Boner Boning of Boner. Boner Boner. Erect Penis."
Heart Is an Awesome Power: Linkara points out in a review of a Captain Planet comic book that because the power of "Heart" gives you Mind Control (in a sense), it should technically be the most powerful ring/power within the series, while Wheeler's fire powers are the weakest. All Wheeler can do, basically, is shoot a stream a fire from his ring.
Episode 13 of his Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force Let's Play starts with him still reeling from Biessman's death in the previous episode.
Towards the end of the fifth part of the Silent Hill: Dead/Alive review Linkara is led to believe that he sacrificed a little girl to an evil cult. His reaction is to have a stunned My God, What Have I Done? moment, before he attempts to shoot himself.
In his Brain Drain Review, Linkara sees The Thing actually considering his grotesque transformation to be a good thing, but he nearly lets this slide, despite his fury that the author had obviously never read a Fantastic Four comic, because the comic is pretty much an advertisement for office max. Then the (literal) BSOD comes on when he sees the writer was Tom Defalco, Former EDITOR-IN-CHIEF at Marvel.
Hidden Depths: Aside from his being a good singer, who'd have guessed Linkara's a fan of Camelot?
High Octane Nightmare Fuel: invoked In the Rise of Arsenal review, he states this trope. As we see a panel of Roy Harper getting his arm ripped off by his daughter. invoked
Highly Visible Ninja: His ninja-style dancing, particularly when it is done to Caramelldansen.
Hilarious in Hindsight: As he points out in-universe, The Clone Saga was originally set to be revealed as the handiwork of Mephisto, but the editors decided that Mephisto getting involved with Spider-Man was ridiculous. *ahem*
Hiss Before Fleeing: Or rather, Skronk before fleeing. The Ultimate Spoony does this when Linkara finally shoos him away.
Hoist by His Own Petard: Played for laughs in Linking Up with Linkara when The Nostalgia Chick and Marz Gurl declare they are going lesbian and he asks if he can watch. NChick tells him "No that's exploitation, you're a feminist that's bad."
At the end of Silent Hill: The Grinning Man Whately is killed by the same Magic Gun/Girl his cult created by sacrificing the girl in the first place.
Homage: In his commentary on Adamantium Rage, Linkara explicitly states that the whole thing was a homage to Spoony, pointing out all of the intentional parallels with Spoony's review style of the time and noting that the format of the review was devised so that Linkara could work with him without Spoony (who had been exhausted from working on several other projects shortly beforehand) having to actually do much.
Hookers and Blow: What Linkara claims he's using the "Revolution Of The Mask" money on before realizing what he said.
Linkara often decries the All There in the Manual nature of some series, since required information cannot be found within the series itself.
Linkara: "I can't begin to imagine how anyone followed all this stuff at the time. It'd be like if I introduced plot elements in my show that somehow ended up on Spoony's show and... uh... nevermind."
In response to the narration at the end of Amazons Attack #1, Linkara expresses his distaste.
Linkara: Who the Hell enjoys having their comics narrated to? Wait...
At the beginning of Linkara's "Wolverine: Adamantium Rage" review, Spoony's casual dismissals of Linkara prompts him to declare that he will make his own video game review show that will "be ten times as original!" The following intro segment is a complete shot-for-shot copy of the intro to Spoony's show with the same theme song.
In "New Guardians #2" he mocks a CIA agent's brown jacket over a plaid shirt saying he looks like a used car salesman.
Linkara compares the lazy writing of Sonic Live to that of him suddenly having access to the technology of Power Rangers and Star Trek without any kind of explanation for how he did. To add to the awkwardness, he was actually holding a Power morpher and a phaser while arguing that.
He complains about the "Greatest Responsibility" storyline branching through three Spider-Man titles which made it hard for fans to follow, then remembers his own shared storylines with The Spoony Experiment.
In his review of the Lady Gaga comic Fame, he complains about the protagonist.
Linkara: Why would anyone find this entertaining? Just watching some overweight jerk with a hat sitting on a green sofa, making rude comments about other people's work and I think I'll shut up now.
How about Mighty & Morphing Power Rangers?
Irate!Linkara: There's too many words here! I don't need to read all these words.
Reuisu. The nickname he used before Linkara. His YouTube account is under this name, and so is his membership on the forum for the Agony Booth, where he once submitted a guest article.
PsyWeedle. His oldest known nickname, which he used as a Fan Fiction writer on FanFiction.Net. Revealed in an episode of Masterpiece Fanfic Theatre, though the particular story that Bennett the Sage reviewed has been removed from his account.
Used again, though a bit more subdued, in his review of a Spawn/Batman team up comic.
I Take Offense To That Last One: On the video review for Ultimates 3, Issue 1, an irate commenter told Lewis something along the lines of, "I'm sick of these videos. You're obnoxious, pretentious, and your editing is atrocious." Linkara's response?
Lewis' father plays his older self in the review of Superman vs. The Terminator. Later his whole family shows up as the ghosts from A Christmas Carol.
In the Star Trek/X-Men review we see his mom as a Starfleet Admiral.
Lovhaug Sr. comes back at the end of Linkara's Halloween Silent Hill special as Whately.
Ice Cream Koan: Linkara has FUUUN making these up in the second live review.
Idiot Ball: Pointed out and named by Linkara in his crossover with Film Brain:
Film Brain: "Finally they get back to the idea of killing The Spirit, which of course they plan to do by having Plaster cut him up to tiny little pieces that they will post all over the country. Or you know, they could just blow him up."
Linkara: "Shh! The Octopus is holding his idiot ball!"
Imagine Spot: He fails to recognise the Neutro destruction sequences in Neutro #1 as one - of course, this was probably deliberate for the sake of humor.
Also in his Silent Hill Dead/Alive review. Linkara is too young to have had a daughter, raised her to thirteen (with her mother), tortured her to death AND forgotten about it so well, there's no lingering signs in his life. The story line would have worked better with someone in their mid-thirties at the youngest. Linkara acknowledges this in the commentary.
In Name Only: Several in-universe namings of the trope (though this applies to single characters more than franchises).
By two-thirds of the way through his Superman At Earth's End review, Linkara can only bring himself to refer to the title character as "Bearded Idiot."
In an early text review he dubs the title character of All-Star Batman and Robin "BINO" (Batman In Name Only). In the video version he decides that "Batman" must actually be an insane hobo who found a Batman costume and dubs him "Crazy Steve."
The plot of Godyssey is so in contrast to Jesus' actual life and teachings that Linkara suggests the Greek gods found the wrong crucifixion victim, naming him Jesús *
Infant Immortality: Concerning Lian Harper's death in Justice League: Cry for Justice, Linkara comments that the trope is "ludicrous," but he is still enraged that the particular example was used purely to shock the reader (and set Roy Harper on a Darker and Edgier turn) instead of actually benefiting the story.
Inferred Holocaust: Points out that Nightcat blowing up a garbage barge would pollute Hudson River even more.
Informed Ability: While the characters in Batman: Fortunate Son say Izaak Krowe is a good musician, Linkara does not see it. The reason is that comic books (unlike music) are a purely visual medium, and unless a CD was actually included with the comic, we have no way of knowing if this guy is as good a musician as the characters say he is.
Informed Wrongness: Invoked by Linkara in-universe. Big Barda's Internal Monologue in Action Comics #592 describes the back alley she stumbles into as being worse than Apokolips, but Linkara comments that this is a patently false statement, since this alley, though unpleasant, is a Sugar Bowl compared to Apokolips, which is a close approximation to hell.
Inherently Funny Words: In the episode "15 Comics I Won't Review", Linkara refuses to review a highly-requested issue of Batman because it's the "Joker's Boner" issue and he knows everyone just wants to make him say "boner" repeatedly throughout a review. So, to get it out of everyone's system, he says "boner" repeatedly for the next two minutes.
Insulted Awake: Backfires when he snaps out a possessed Spoony with the line "You're standing in my spot, sir." from Swat 4. Spoony woke up, but punched Linkara, shouting "I'm not in your fucking way!".
Internet Backdraft: Parodied in-universe in his Holiday Shopping Guide video; as he is telling the audience "do your own research to find comics you like rather than bugging me all the time for suggestions" he looks over to a Fan Base meter slowly lowering and quickly changes his tune. When he lets Pollo do a review, after the Mechakara arc, Pollo goes on an anti-Garth Ennis rant as Linkara quietly weeps at how much this must be pissing off so many of his fans.
Keet: Lewis in real life, according to Spoony; he insisted on filming their crossover right after doing Kickassia for eight hours straight.
Kill It With Fire: This what Linkara does to his reviled copy of Superman: At Earth's End at the end of his review and to his copy of The Dark Knight Strikes Again at the end of Part 3.
He later admitted in the Kamandi at Earth's End review that he didn't really burn the Superman comic; he didn't have a print copy when filming, burned another comic with a copy of the cover and later just tore up the Superman comic upon receiving it. He did finally burn a copy of the Superman comic in the Kamandi review (though not without difficulty due to the paper quality).
Lampshade Hanging: At the start of his Doctor Who Classics #7, Linkara asks Liz if she's ever thought about how weird their lives are, considering they review comic books & table top games respectively, yet they have access to tech from Power Rangers and Star Trek and are about to go into battle against a being who has conquered universes; Liz doesn't see it.
"My God, it's the Vorsoth! And it's very poorly animated!"
Linkara himself does not try for a convincing female voice since he is just reading dialog out loud.
Due to her larynx condition, Iron Liz does fine male voices... and then does a Linkara-esque falsetto for female voices anyway.
Left the Background Music On: In the intro to the S.C.I.-Spy #1 review the theme to James Bond plays as Linkara does spy-stuff while attempting to open a violin case with the comic. Suddenly, the music changes to that of Charlie's Angels and Linkara imitates the intro to that show, before turning his MP3 player off.
LEGO Genetics: Linkara points out that Superman does not have "superpowers;" his abilities are perfectly natural for a Kryptonian and no more "super" than any normal human ability. To remove his powers in Act of God he would have to be completely altered genetically, more likely killing him then removing his powers. Linkara even says genetics are not Lego bricks.
'90s Kid's rants are always backed up by Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit, though he sometimes uses "Smells Like Nirvana" by "Weird Al" Yankovic in its place. "Finger of Fear" for Dr. Insano (and Dr. Linksano). "Graveyard" for Mechakara.
If you hear "Combine Harvester" by the Wurzels playing, that means Linkara has justlost it.
Let's See You Do Better: Linkara got some criticism of this nature from Frank Miller fans after he criticised some of Miller's most recent works, with numerous comments of this nature about his own comic efforts. Linkara pointed out that he has only been doing it for a few years while Miller has been continuously working for three decades, and it is not unreasonable to suggest that his work could be better than it is.
Limited Wardrobe: He usually wears the same combination of jacket, plaid/black shirt and hat. (although he's shown off his Star Trek uniform collection... and the Power Rangers Zeo version of his reviewer wardrobe!)
Literal-Minded: In Amazing Spider-Man: Skating on Thin Ice #1, Linkara has a literal interpretation of the phrase "alcohol abuse" in which he verbally and emotionally abuses a bottle of alcohol.
Logic Bomb: Frequently pointed out, with something along the lines of, "Yeah, [insert logical inconsistency here]! ...wait, what?"
Lost Aesop: One of Linkara's primary criticisms of JLA: Act of God was its inability to hold on to a single message. At some points the comic seemed to be anti-vigilante, critiquing superheroes for their "arrogance," but at other points in the stories it seems to imply that it is the responsibility of any socially conscious individual to take matters into their own hands. Sometimes it explains the importance of working within the system and at other times people who do so are only too scared to break out of it. At no point does it give a consistent, clear message to its readers.
Whoa, apparently the Borg don't have OSHA, because this thing just tried to kill me!
Man of a Thousand Voices: Has a surprisingly broad vocal range when voicing all the different characters in the comics he reads out, especially the falsetto ones for the women. Also has a few distinctive ones pulled out for humor value (for example, a Sean Connery impression for anyoneconnected with espionage, and his Superboy-Prime voice for any similarly whiny character).
Linkara pointed out in the Warrior #2 and #3 review that his own name, Lewis, means "warrior" in several languages and that he has more of a basis to call himself a warrior than the Ultimate Warrior.
Linkara: How did you make that text appear like that?
Iron Liz: How did you do it with the "E-Walks" joke?
Linkara: Ahh, touché.
Mind Screw: The conclusion of the Silent Hill Dead/Alive review, somewhat appropriately. In his review of Detective Comics #27, Linkara notes that he does not have to do his introduction every time because he could simply edit in a previous instance and we would never know. He then grins and remarks "how's that for a mind screw?"
Missing the Good Stuff: In "Linking Up with Linkara" he wakes up to find he has just had an incredible threesome with The Nostalgia Chick and Marz Gurl, but cannot remember anything about it. They also declare that they will not do it again as nothing could possibly measure up to the first time, plus he cannot just watch the two of them because of his own loud and proud feminist views. It is all a prank, but he is left to stew about it for a week.
Mistaken for Gay: In his "Athena #1" review Linkara officially announces that he is straight, to counter accusations that he dislikes women being objectified in comic books because he is gay (rather than feminist disagreement with the concept of boob windows and constant ass shots).
Milestone Celebration: Every February 15th, Linkara reviews a Youngblood comic because his very first text review of a comic was of a Youngblood issue on that date.
He also takes a look at the clone saga during the shows video anniversary.
Mood Whiplash: Occasionally, the introductory segment of the show that plays before the theme song clashes wildly with the theme song itself. This is particularly true of the latest Silent Hill episodes, where the creepy monologue about the Little Girl is instantly followed by the cheerful, upbeat theme song.
Near the end of Ultimatum #1-2, he's ultra-excited about seeing Captain America and Thor fight off all kinds of dead creatures, until it cuts to The Blob eating The Wasp. Linkara enters rage mode, declaring the comic sucks before he even finishes it.
Moral Event Horizon: In-universe, even '90s Kid could not get behind Countdown after Superboy-Prime killed the pregnant Lana Lang from an alternate Earth.
More Dakka: He goes from laser-shooting Flintlock to a BFG he got off Cable to an arm mounted minigun.
Multiple Choice Past: Linkara has come up with multiple explanations for why a character's forehead was emitting pink bubbles in one comic.
Multiple Endings: Parodied in the "Alternate Endings" follow-up to his Silent Hill: Dying Inside review - the alternate endings include being trapped in a room a la Silent Hill: The Room, being trapped in Phantasmagoria 2 in a Shout Out to Spoony, and Harvey Finevoice turning out to be an alien who takes him to a planet which has good comics. Parodied again in a similar followup to his Silent Hill: Dead / Alive vid.
My God, What Have I Done?: Linkara has one of these when Silent Hill convinces him that he was one of the people responsible for torturing a little girl to create the Magic Gun. This caused him to nearly kill himself before he was stopped by said little girl/magic gun.
My Name Is Not Durwood: He often gets other Internet celebrities' names wrong, like The Forky Experiment and Film Brian. In one video he mistakes Dr. Insano for both Bennett the Sage and That Chick With The Goggles.
Linkara seems to enjoy The Silver Age of Comic Books, or at least elements of its style, for exactly this reason. Very obvious when Crazy Awesome content or (on the flip side) pointless gore pop up.
Nice Hat: His trilby. At Comi Con, when asked if he was wearing "the" hat, his response was "Yes, and you may touch it for a dollar, good sir!" In his Christmas Episode it becomes extra nice. How? He wears a Santa hat on top of the trilby!
According to the Suburban Knights commentary, it protects him from the life draining effects of Magic.
Nineties Anti-Hero: '90s Kid suggests a heavily armed hero named Bloodgun. Who is entirely made out of guns, including one for a head.
"No. Just... No" Reaction: Among the 15 comics he would not review was the infamous Sonichu. He stated that he wished he had never heard of it and refused to give it any publicity.
Noodle Implements: When Superman was forced to do porn under mind control the story brushes it off with Superman saying his memory was fuzzy. Linkara jokes about him remembering a goat, salad dressing, and a traffic cone.
"And after that it just gets weeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiird."
The review of All-Star Batman and Robin includes parts of the script and the disclaimer is used just to assure us that what the viewer is seeing actually is what Frank Miller wrote - particularly that Miller admits in writing to being shameless in wanting a close-up panel of Vicki Vale's panty-clad ass.
The Ultimates #3 review notes that his voicing the Tony Stark robot as a drunk is not just his own joke, but the robot actually asks for vodka at one point.
Oh Crap: Happens to him a few times while interviewing Kristanna Loken after she catches on that he does not think too highly of the movies they are discussing. The video is narrated/commented on by Spoony, who explains that you can actually see the moment when Linkara realizes the situation.
Oh Wait: Not only used, but pretty much a staple of his humor.
Only Sane Man: Views Joe, a minor character from Silent Hill: Paint It Black who kicked Ike Issacs from his apartment, to be the only sensible character in all of Scott Ciencin's Silent Hill comics.
Only Six Faces: Points out that the only distinguishing traits of the Sultry Teenage Super Foxes are the hairstyles.
In his review of Anita Blake: The Laughing Corpse #1 & #2, which he conducts entirely as Harvey Finevoice. His adopted accent noticeably slips at times; trying to keep that accent while simultaneously doing completely different accents for the characters in the comic breaks it more than anything. Points for trying though.
Linkara points out that Goldfinger's accent in James Bond Jr. keeps slipping, but into what, we could not say.
Pandering to the Base: Invoked in-universe twice. Two of the 15 Comics I'll Never Review kept getting requests because of certain lines and words the fans wanted to hear him say. In response, he recites these bits out of context during their respective comics' segments.
Pass the Popcorn: During Silent Hill: Dead/Alive, it looks like Christabella is finally going to get her comeuppance. Linkara's reaction? "Ooh, hang on a second! Let me get some popcorn!" The comic does not give him a proper chance.
Linkara sees that the villains in the James Bond Jr. #3 comic are Goldfinger and Oddjob, despite the fact that they are both dead.
Pluto Is Expendable: In the second part of the Countdown review, Chester A Bum makes good on his threat to destroy it. The Nostalgia Critic was unimpressed. After all, it had stopped all the Classic Disney Shorts jokes. He had more of a reaction from seeing Hollywood, Rome, and France destroyed instead.
Power of Love - Points out in Care Bears #13 that they are literally attacking people with the power of love...
Power-Up Letdown: His Maximum Clonage review is upgraded to wide screen! Now you can see... more of the futon and the shadow on one side...
This tendency is subverted in the review for Secret Defenders #10. Linkara cannot do one as he could only get Phelous as a guest star; everyone else was too busy making crossover videos following the brawl.
He subtly inserts references to his independent comic, Revolution of the Mask, into his reviews fairly consistently. Later, after cloning Spoony back to life, he brainwashes the clone to keep inserting subliminal references into his reviews as well - resulting in a Brick Joke in Spoony's Clones of Bruce Lee review where nudity is censored with a Revolution of the Mask ad banner.
In his Power Rangers comic review he starts talking about the prop maker he bought his Dragon Dagger from, ending with the web address onscreen and Mechakara calling him out on it.
Mechakara: You are honestly doing a COMMERCIAL in the middle of your review?!
Linkara: "Screw you, hippie—he gave me a discount!"
"Well I'm back from being imprisoned onboard Lord Vyce's ship and I'm ready to review again! That's why today we're digging into Cable #2! *realizes what he just said* ...I quit!"
"So Superman...you know what, I'm not gonna call him that. Bearded Idiot flies off with the remaining kids to fight the mutant hordes of the twin Hitlers. Dear God in Heaven, I can't believe that this comic makes that sentence possible!"
Real Life Writes the Plot: According to Lewis, Linksano was introduced so he would not have to keep asking Spoony to do segments for him and adding to his own workload.
Part of the reason for Pollo's abduction by the Entity was because Lewis wished to retire the Pollo prop and build a new one.
The in-show explanation for there being no 11/07/11 episode is that Linkara needed a break after the past few weeks with the Entity and Silent Hill, though the actual reason was because Lewis was at Youma Con for the week before, so he couldn't produce and write the following week's episode.
Linkara: And we directly see (Superboy-Prime) vaporise a pregnant woman. My God, it's like the worst parts of the '90s all over again!
'90s Kid: *Nirvana plays* Duuuuuude, I- wait. *Record Needle Scratch* Did you just vaporize a pregnant chick? Dude, that- that's not cool, man. That's not cool.
In the ending to his Silent Hill review, to hilarious ends.
Reed Richards Is Useless: In his commentary for Superman IV: The Quest for Peace he expresses his annoyance that superhero comics, for how often they delve into this, always end up saying the superheroes cannot change the world. In Superman IV he mentions the short-sightedness of Supe's belief that removing nukes from the world will solve everything wrong with Earth.
Rule Of Cool: He really don't care about physics if something really awesome is happening, like two giant robots fighting each other.
Rule of Funny: During "Secret Origins Month", he says repeatedly that he is judging these decades-old comics based on modern standards just because it is funny, and they were good for their time. This is also why he does the entire last fourth of his New Kids on the Block review in rhyme.
Linkara: I'll continue the summary in rhyme since it's funny. If you prefer something else, "Hey look at the pretty bunny."
Lately, he's been using a clip of a Cyberman saying "There is... logic in what he says" when a character reaches a conclusion through a deduction that makes no sense whatsoever.
Youngblood's Disease: The curious disease that plagues superheroes where their musculature becomes implausibly disproportionate and their eyes dissolve into featureless white voids.
Sometimes when a character does something stupid, he has Patton say "...you Magnificent Bastard, I read your book!"
Issues of the Image series Objective Five appears constantly in the Title Sequence as well as several 'comic pile' scenes throughout the series, yet Linkara did not get to review an issue yet.
Batman's hatred of rock music.
Sanity Slippage Song: Combine Harvester by The Wurzels. The song itself is not about someone going insane, but it plays whenever Linkara's sanity starts to slip, such as the end of the Doom's IV and Amazons Attack reviews.
Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: 90's Kid did this during his review of Freak Force. He actually read the sound effects out loud and even summarized the battle using nothing but sound effects.
Schedule Slip: Linkara has made a Running Gag out of the continued delays in writing and publishing issue 2 of Revolution of the Mask. His actual reviews avert this and he manages to turn out new ones very consistently, updating once per week since Godzilla vs. Barkley (his ninth episode), almost always on Monday. So much so that Lee from Still Gaming pointed out that Linkara was the only That Guy With The Glasses contributor who wasn't incredibly sick from MAGFest 9. The closest thing to missing a week since then was on 7th November 2011, and he still had a live episode from Youmacon to show that week, and he decided to air that week's properly scheduled episode in a double-bill with the following week's.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Attempts this in The Dark Knight Strikes Again Part 3. He attempts this in text form in his text review [1] of Web of Spider-Man #122.
Speaking of running...
*Tries to run away but is forced back by his promise to recap the three comics.*
He attempts to leave his review of Superman At Earth's End, but he comes back, concluding...
Selective Obliviousness: Still appears to be baffled as to Dr. Insano's true identity. After stealing Neutro from Dr. Insano, he remarks offhandedly that Insano parked it behind Spoony's house, but seemed to be dismissing this as Dr. Insano just being careless.
Parodies his own Schedule Slip in his Superman vs. The Terminator review, where his self-published comic Revolution of the Mask has still not come out with a third issue 30 years from now.
The caption◊ of his text review of New Guardians #2 [2]:
Narrator: We left the hospital. Stunned and silent. Until RAM said what the rest of us were thinking.
Linkara: Wait a second, how come it takes three months to do a review of a 24-page comic?!
In Chain Gang War #1 Iron Liz reveals that the notes he left for her include a conspiracy theory that rambles for thirty pages about how One More Day is connected with Justice League: Cry for Justice.
Linkara calls Sonic the Hedgehog's quips in Sonic Live #1 worse than his own.
He openly calls himself overweight in the Mightily Murdered Power Ringers review.
Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Linkara arrives 30 years into his own future and is horrified to discover that his future self still reviews bad comics, still lives in his parents' basement, and has lost his hat. Linkara proclaims that he will go back and change everything, and when he leaves the timeline does indeed change... but the only real change is that he has his hat back.
Shameless Self Promoter: Linkara occasionally does this in his reviews to promote his own comic, Revolution of the Mask. However, at Power Morphicon he was trying not to draw any attention away from the actual stars of the convention and when someone else in the crowd at the Time Force panel drew attention to him he was mortified.
Ship Tease: With Marz Gurl. A lot. Only between their characters, mind you; the possibility of such a pairing in Real Life has basically been sunk with the introduction of Iron Liz, since confirmed to be Linkara's girlfriend, in the Warrior #2 and #3 video.
Shoe Phone: Linkara parodies U.S. 1's silver dollar remote control by mentioning he will show us how to stick a TV remote inside of a quarter and a gun inside of a nickel. The James Bond Jr. review had some gadgets that stretched one's Willing Suspension of Disbelief, the most important of which was the gold detector, of which there are real-life variants, but nowhere near the fictional depiction.
Shown Their Work: Quite evident when discussing comic history, or when he points out an egregious error made by the writers of a certain issue. In his Captain Planet #3 Review he notes that just launching a Nuclear Bomb into space just does not work, citing that there are several problems with this, mainly that in doing it it would cause an Inferred Holocaust. He has, in response to internet responses to the errors in some of his works, given lectures on Schrödinger's Cat and the effects of a vacuum environment on a liquid; capped by the admission that we are all nerds.
Linkara: When debating, solve your disagreements not with words, but by screaming 'I AM A MAN!!!' and punching them in the guts. Allow me to demonstrate... I AM A MAN!!!!*punch*
Linkara once flung a magnet at Cable to get him to stop his awful, ellipses-ridden self-narration.
Small Name, Big Ego: The character of Linkara has a fairly inflated ego, with his bitching at his fans for their requests and having an annoyed cameo when Diamanda Hagan said he was not sexy. (Out of character, of course, Lewis is a sweetie.)
So Bad, It's Good: As Linkara says, Snowflame is either the worst villain ever created or the awesomest villain ever created. He seems to have a soft spot for this trope, treating these occasions as highlights of the comics he reviews. As far as Linkara is concerned, Brute Force is the "epitome" of So Bad, It's Good.
"We now interrupt our regularly scheduled piece of crap comic to show a bit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. You'll thank me later!" (From his Bimbos in Time review)
Harvey Finevoice and 90s Kid are definitely not the easily-frustrated analytical comic book nerd type, as you could probably tell from their guest reviews of Anita Blake: The Laughing Corpse #1 and #2 and Freak Force #1. Liz, while a lot closer in reviewing style to Linkara, is still definitely not "Linkara with boobs".
Space Is Cold: In his review for the Kool-Aid comic Linkara commented that the Kool-Aid Man, as a glass container filled with liquid, would freeze in space. After the somewhat insistant comments from his fans he admitted in his "Top 15 Mistakes" video that this was an error, and then went on to give a scientific explanation for the sublimation of liquids to gas in a vacuum.
Special Edition Title: The review for Star Trek #2 has a Mirror Universe version of the title sequence, with the mirror universe theme music from Enterprise in place of the usual song.
His review of the Game Boy comic has an 8-bit version of the theme.
In the Action Comics #593 review, the villain and the porn producer are talking about the possibility of making a Superman exploitation porn film - Linkara reacts by saying that The Cinema Snob should be reviewing this if that is where the comic is going. Cut to The Cinema Snob - "My Snob Senses are tingling!"
Squick: Linkara's in-universe reaction in Ultimates 3 #1 and #2 about how Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are officially a couple... who are also still twinbrother and sister.
"No, Wasp. It's still incredibly creepy. You don't see Superman shacking up with his mom.... BECAUSE IT'S CREEPY!"
In Amazons Attack when Artemis and Phillipus are constantly debating on what to do about an obviously insane Hippolyta: "Here's an idea: Stab your crazy queen in the head, assume command and act like Amazons!!!!!!"
Inverted in his ASBAR review, Linkara wonders they they did shoot Dick Grayson Age 12's parents rather than make it look like an accident, especially since they are so determined afterwards to pass it off as an accident.
Brought up multiple times in his review of James Bond Jr. #3 in that the villain would rather use a probably difficult to use laser to kill whoever is being threatened than a simple gun, on two occasions even. Of course, he is a James BondVillain.
Linkara notes that outside of damaging a copy of The Children's Story, the gun-carrying ninjas in Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos never fire once.
Iron Liz wonders why the chain gang in Chain Gang War #1 does not just kill the mob bosses, rather than just imprisoning them.
Linkara also wonders why Prometheus from Cry for Justice goes through a ludicrously convoluted Gambit Roulette to get his revenge on the Justice League instead of just killing their loved ones.
In his review of Sonic Live, he wonders why Robotnik didn't off Tails, Rotor, and Sally, when he just vaporized Sonic earlier in the comic.
Stupidest Thing I've Ever Heard: Some variant on this phrase has been uttered several times, especially when discussing X-Men's "Holy War" storyline:
"This is quite possibly the dumbest plan I've ever heard in my life, and I've seen someone deciding to make twin clones of Hitler!"
"Holy War" is then topped by the goal of the villain in Future Five, whose goal is essentially to stop kids from going to college by planting agents to stay stuff about how college is not necessary, making himself the smartest man in the world.
Even that is eventually topped in Brain Drain, in which Dr. Doom's plan is to enhance his intelligence with stolen knowledge... taken from high schoolers.
And then Doom again tops it in Ultimates 3 / Ultimatum: He had the Scarlet Witch murdered and started a robot war that would also kill Quicksilver but not Magneto so Magneto would declare a war on humans that Doom would somehow would come out on top of in the end. And then that was topped in Return of the Asthma Monster with the monster's plan to infect everyone in the world with asthma.
Just when I think I'm done with stupid plans for world domination, they pile on another one!
Take Our Word for It: Used word-for-word at the start of the Manimal comic review; he says he bought the comic off some guy he met in the elevator, then adds this trope because the hotel won't let them film outside their rooms.
In Sultry Teenage Super-Foxes #1 he suggests that an alchemy machine could make Hardee's into edible food.
In the Act of God review, he brings up Bill's speech about Superman from Kill Bill Vol. 2, then dismisses it with "Well, that's a load of crap."
He actually invoked this trope towards himself at Youmacon 2009. Though he was 90's Kid at the time.
In his Silent Hill: Dead/Alive review, he makes one towards L.A.
In Spider-Man: The Greatest Responsibility, a scientist mentions setting off "the world's first Virtual Reality Bomb" to which Linkara responds:
"Oh come on, we all know the world's first virtual reality bomb was the Virtual Boy! OOH ZING!"
"New Genesis is idyllic, peaceful, and good. Apokolips is basically New Jersey." (He did add a "Just kidding, New Jersey" caption afterward, but at least one NJ resident commented that the zinger was perfectly acceptable.)
The third part of his April Fools' triple feature, where Linkara did a rather thorough parody of The Irate Gamer that basically summed up every single complaint that's been made about the IG.
In Sonic: Live, when Robotnik is gloating about how sick and twisted he is, Linkara suggests that he's going to force his hostages to play Sonic the Hedgehog (2006).
Linkara(as Sonic): Hmmm? Oh, sorry; while you were talking about how evil you were, I rescued everybody, got something to drink, and gave you a wedgie.
Linkara(as Robotnik): *shifts uncomfortably* ...so you have.
Technobabble: Willing to call comics out for it, but also willing to use it in his videos, especially when spoken by Dr. Insano or Linksano.
Answer, by Lord Vyce showing up and kicking his ass.
Also, his "Top 15 Comics I'll Never Review" is helmed by "Sonic the Hedgehog comics". Then he's warned that for his 100th episode, he'll have to review... a Sonic comic!
Theme Initials: How awesome a coincidence is it that a Big Name Fan comic book reviewer happens to have the initials "L.L", which are so famously associated with Superman? (Bonus: He's also a big Superman fan.)
Theme Tune Cameo: Ever since getting his own theme song he is prone to humming or singing a few lines behind the scenes.
There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Pointed out in his review of Spider-Man, Storm, and Cage. We already have Spider-Man and Luke Cage working to get the track star to stop smoking, and Spider-Man decides that they need a mega powerful member of the X-Men who can bring a massive storm down on your head to help them out too. As he pointed out, "Geez, overkill much, Spidey?!"
Linkara gets steadily more enraged by the Kool-Aid Man's apparent need to destroy a barrier every time he enters the scene in Adventures of the Kool-Aid Man.
Linkara: I can't wait to see the PTA meeting where they explain they have to cut funding on art and music to replace that scoreboard.
In a crossover review of the Alone in the Dark movie with Spoony and Nostalgia Critic, Jesse Ventura's character kicks a door down and then crashes through a window.
Linkara: What is with this guy and his fear of doors? Did a door kill his family?
They Changed It, Now It Sucks: While many criticized the Watchmenmovie for being too close to the source material, Linkara initially panned it in-universe for the few things they changed, like Ozymandias' plan changing from an "alien invasion" to blowing up energy reactors and framing Dr. Manhattan and his belief that the ending was more upbeat than ambiguous. However, he eventually did acknowledge that the movie was still very good despite the changes and mentions that he made the first review too soon after having seen the movie. Whenever Linkara does complain about something being changed he gives a good reason about why it sucks other than "it's different", or "they changed the status quo".
Linkara provides the page quote in reference to Bearded Idiot: At Earth's End, which is a story about how Superman fought clones of Adolf Hitler in the future. Despite the interesting conflict that this idea presented the final result was the first comic to actually be burned on the show.
In his review of JLA: Act of God Linkara remarks that the underlying plot of the story, namely every superhero in the DC universe losing their powers, is actually a very good idea and showed great promise as a story premise. However, the execution of the idea was so atrocious that this three-part series became one of the comics he decided to actually destroy on the show, shooting it with his magic gun after he finished the review.
In his review of "Law and Order'' he mentioned that, upon hearing the title, he thought it should have been about "Zombie Lenny Briscoe and Detective Goren. They Fight Crime!"
A staple of his reviews, but the funniest is probably when he silently raises his gun to his head after he says that the character Troll in Extreme Super Christmas Special #1 is a member of Youngblood.
In his Yu-Gi-Oh! duel with Iron Liz, he reacts this way when Iron Liz draws twoBalloon Lizards.
Film Brain: Did he just break the fourth wall? Linkara: Don't worry - we're atop it! Audience: [Collective Groan] Caption: Channel Awesome would like to apologise for that pun. The writer has been flogged for his sins
Title Sequence: Atop the Fourth Wall has an opening sequence composed of assorted clips from previous reviews combined with video of Linkara putting on his signature clothing and preparing for the review. There have been three montages created for the sequence, with the replacement using updated and newer clips that were created in the time since the first montage was produced. The sequence includes a theme-tune composed specifically for the series by Vincent E.L. and background graphics by NagyMarci. Throughout the sequence numerous comics are visible, primarily bad comics that are reviewed and featured on the show, but occasionally it will feature portions of Linkara's house that are not normally seen in the show, including his personal collection of comics (Presumably good comics). The three series displayed cover-to-camera and easily identifiable are Infinite Crisis, The Avengers and Booster Gold (Presumably the collection of Booster Gold's first series that Linkara mentioned in his Act of God review).
Too Soon: The explosion on the top of the World Trade Center in Cable #1 left Linkara with a horrified face, and whatever joke he would make was clearly skipped.
Trekkie: Has a large collection of various Starfleet uniforms, which he wears whenever he reviews something Star Trek-related (as well as in Kickassia).
However, by picking Sonic Live! as his target, he did the only thing that could please them: Tear apart one of the few things in the franchise that gets universal hatred.
The Unreveal: Todd in the Shadows makes an appearance in the Previously On in the Action Comics #593 review. He wants to kill Linkara since he has seen his face, and just as he flips up his hoodie the scene cuts to That Jewish Guy.
Unsound Effect: Notes the "Run" sound effect in Archie Meets the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Unstoppable Rage: Linkara becomes so frustrated with the video game Wolverine: Adamantium Rage that he starts shouting "Adamantium Rage!" and punching various objects including Spoony, a Kirby doll, a pillow and a can of soda...but ends up getting punched himself by The Angry Video Game Nerd.
Up to Eleven: Linkara has said that his video personality is his normal personality with this applied.
Values Dissonance: The casual misogyny of The X-Men #1 (written in the '60s) turns Linkara against it in-universe.
Viewers Are Geniuses: The Star Trek: The Motion Picture review has a very subtle running gag that he decided to explain in the credits: he switches between various Trek uniforms throughout the video, all to point out how much better they all are than the ones in TMP.
Villain Sue: invoked Calls Prometheus this during Justice League: Cry for Justice, pointing that that he has a ridiculous amount of counters to every super hero he comes across, like a magic bullet for Supergirl, his bombs have the absurd ability to counter the powers of any superhero from the respective cities, even the Shade, despite Prometheus supposedly not knowing who he is because he didn't keep a database on villains/antiheroes (which Linkara points he would if he was as much of a genius as the comic makes him out to be), and easily taking the Shade down after earlier comics had raised him to "Mega badass status." As he puts it, Prometheus was made too powerful for there to be any believable way for him to be defeated, and this turns out to be true as he's defeated by Green Arrow breaking into his hideout and shooting him the head.
Vocal Evolution: His voice was a lot calmer in earlier episodes. The difference is notable even when looking at his first two episodes; in his review of Adjectiveless Spider-Man #56, he almost sounds like he is whispering so as to not disturb the neighbours. Compare that to his reaction to the letters column of Doom's IV #2 just eight days later.
The Voiceless: Ninja Style Dancer. Except in Linkara's Silent Hill-induced hallucinations.
Wangst:invokedPlayed for Laughs. After his date with Telsia is abruptly cut short during Elite Force, Linkara spends several minutes drunkenly staggering around Voyager, wailing to himself and trying to get Häagen-Dazs out of the replicators.
Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma: He has pointed out several times the annoying nature of weird emphasis on words and improper use of punctuation marks, particularly in the beginning of his Secret Defenders #9 review and the Spoony Crossover Warrior #1 video, as well as his reviews of Zero Patrol and The Dark Knight Strikes Again.
Watsonian Versus Doylist: He falls under Doylist a lot of the time when justifications are poor.
With Peter Parker being married to Mary Jane, he calls on the writers for including pointless scenes of her since then, and making her say stupid things.
Waxing Lyrical: He does this a lot. Examples he has quoted include The Beatles' "I Am the Walrus", Nancy Sinatra's "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)", Avril Lavigne's "Complicated," Eagle-Eye Cherry's "Save Tonight," The Bee Gees' "Staying Alive," and Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)." In his final Silent Hill Dead/Alive review, the book from the Other World is full of quotes from Coldplay's "42" in a rather angsty use of this trope.
Dual Wielding/Sword and Gun: He occasionally mixes things up by having the pistol in one hand and the Green Ranger's Dragon Dagger in the other; when using the dagger on its own he can play it like a flute, making it shoot green lightning. He later starts using Saba instead of the Dragon Dagger on occasion when fighting Silent Hill a second time.
"Meet Lian Harper... Or rather... Lian Harper's corpse."
What an Idiot: Linkara points out in-universe that the best solution two scientists can think of to restrain an easily manipulable, Nigh Invulnerable super robot is to chain him up rather than disassembling him or fortifying him against enemy radio signals.
What Happened to the Mouse?: In the stinger for Superman and Wonder Woman: Tandy Computer Whiz Kids, he notes that the jumbotron and train derail in the comic's teaser has absolutely no bearing on the actual plot.
What the Hell, Hero?: Linkara gives one to Superman when he insults Big Barda for having heavy makeup after she has spent two days being mind-controlled and possibly raped.
A Wizard Did It: "What part of 'it's magic' don't you understand?!?"
Also complained about in Superman: Distant Fires review. There's "Magic as a Wonderful Force", and "Narrative Magic." Linkara likes the former, hates the latter. As the latter is often just used for lazy writing.
Wolverine Publicity: Outside of the Brawl and even his Previously On segments, Linkara has cameoed with the Nostalgia Critic, the Spoony One, Benzaie, Bennett the Sage, MarzGurl, Lee and so on. The Nostalgia Critic appears to be making a Running Gag out of reacting negatively to his appearances. Played with and lampshaded in the Sultry Teenage Super-Foxes #2 review with the appearance of Mechakara, despite said character having been defeated more than a month ago.
Xtreme Kool Letterz: Linkara frequently bashes this practice in comics. "Because poor literacy is kewl!"
You Are Fat: This makes up roughly half of the (cursed) Mightily Murdered Power Ringers comic's insults toward Linkara. Linkara doesn't deny it, but he's not fazed by it, either.
You Are Not Alone: Used in the showdown with Mechakara when 90s Kid, The Ninja Style Dancer and Harvey Finevoice show up to help. Subverted when they are not much help and they run away.
You Bastard: The last Ultimates 3 review has a rant about how the audience is to blame for the comic being created...delivered by Mechakara.
Year Inside, Hour Outside: Lord Vyce's dimension goes through just three days during a month in our world.
Yet Another Christmas Carol: Defied Trope; Linkara refuses to do this, but he does a great parody of Dickens' classic for his Christmas special review. Complete with what looks like Mechakara as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come and Pollo saying that the "Day of reckoning is at hand."
You do not need Linkara to tell you that "arrogance" gets thrown around a lot in Act of God, as well as references to the DC heroes being "gods" themselves.
He also consistently incorrectly uses the word "subsequently" where it does not really apply.
He quickly becomes annoyed at the poorly-defined overuse of the word "Justice" throughout the Justice League: Cry for Justice miniseries. Early in the review he speculated that the fact they were blatantly just after revenge and calling it justice would be an obvious plot point, but it is never acknowledged in the comic.
You Need to Get Laid: Inverted in his review of Ultimates 3, Linkara is convinced that things with the Ultimates would probably be going better if they STOPPED getting laid, as it never seems to go well for members of the team.
The Warrior #1 review with Dr. Insano has them switching realities to one where the two are played by each others' actors, by different actors, by stuffed animals, where they face the other way, where they wear their clothes the other way, where everyone is a terrible actor, where the segment is run by The Nostalgia Critic, and so on. See also Cosmic Retcon below.
'Mechakara' turned out to be an alternate version of Pollo brought here by Dr. Insano's experiments with Hypertime. Also, Dr. Linksano.
The same thing happens with the Warrior #2 and #3 review. Subverted with the Angry Joe segment. It seems like an AU with Angry Joe instead of Linkara, but it turns out Linkara was just using the restroom when Angry Joe snuck in to do the review.
Lord Vyce comes from one of these and deals with numerous others. In addition, Ensign Munro and the poorly animated Vohrsoth transport from their universe to Linkara's via an SOS beacon.
In the Star Trek #2 Iron Liz is transported into a Mirror Universe where Linkara is evil and has a goatee, an obvious homage to the mirror-verse in Star Trek.
Always Someone Better: Dr. Linksano is rather dismayed to find out that Dr. Insano has achieved far more than he has as a mad scientist.
And Then What?: Asks the Entity this about its plans to absorb everything in existence. The Entity doesn't seem to have ever considered this before.
Arc Welding: Lewis' side project Let's Play of Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force gets folded into the Lord Vyce arc after he reviews the game's tie-in comic. Eventually, both previous Big Bads are involved in the Lord Vyce arc.
Arm Cannon: The Minigun he uses to take down the second Pyramid Head. 90's Kid gets to use it as well at the end of the Mechakara arc.
Artifact of Doom: The "Magic Gun" is actually a subversion: It was created in a pretty evil fashion, but the only hints of intelligence are of a wholly positive personality who talked Linkara out of killing himself and so far the only people it has killed on its own were itscreators.
Awful Truth: The Magic Gun? The one that he does not have to explain? It is actually a weapon created by two worshippers of a great evil to smite their enemies using their innocent, loving daughter's blood as a power source. The predictable result: after trapping their daughter's life-force in the gun they accidentally summoned a primal evil formed from her pain and rage which exacted revenge on her parents. The fact that she is at peace now does little to assuage how damn creepy the usually comedic prop has become.
Back from the Dead: Mechakara seems to have been rebuilt by Lord Vyce. Be afraid... be very afraid...
And now he's "reborn" in Pollo's replacement body, thanks to Magic Coin's magic, possibly also gaining untold powers. Be afraid... be ''very'' afraid...
Badass Boast: Lord Vyce's "All that I see, I conquer!" Other people have already taken up the phrase to describe him.
Berserk Button: Part of Linkara's plan to defeat Lord Vyce involves repeatedly pressing Vyce's Berserk Button until he beams down and fights Linkara personally.
Dr. Insano was Linkara's first arch nemesis, but following an epic defeat in the Warrior #1 review, he disappeared somewhat and the Mechakara Saga kicked in, but now he's apparently back...Bitches.
Mechakara was an evil android duplicate of Linkara from an Alternate Universe with nefarious plans, he's actually a doppelganger of Linkara's Robot Buddy Pollo cloaked in a humanoid shell. Mechakara traveled to our world when Doctor Insano breached dimensions with his Hypertime device, and was ultimately defeated when Linkara used a Power Rangers Morpher.
Dr. Linksanotried to take this spot, andfailed, his final attempt during the Warrior #2-3 review. He had since up and abandoned his plan to be the dominant Big Bad when he discovered that the even BIGGER Big Bad Lord Vyce was approaching our universe. He has ditched our reality, but not before warning Linkara.
Now that Lord Vyce has been defeated, The Entity has come out of its hiding and is starting to consume, beginning with Dr. Linksano. As of Planet of the Symbiotes Linkara is the only one left in the world.
Mechakara once more, only this time in Pollo's WIP 2.0 body.
Played straight in the final battle with Lord Vyce - Harvey, Ensign Munroe and 90's Kid help Iron Liz and Linkara by combining their attacks to defeat Lord Vyce.
Star Trek #2 has Mirrorsano saving Liz from Mirrorkara.
Break the Cutie: The backstory that is the Magic Gun. She was tortured by her parents that she loved dearly to create the ultimate weapon. She managed to kill them and is at peace and even helps Linkara defeat Silent Hill calling him partner.
Breather Episode: Breather arc, actually; his stated purpose for the Dr. Linksano arc was to just give the viewers a bit of fun after the comparatively serious and suspenseful Mechakara saga. Every arc features several episodes with no connection to it so the reviews themselves can remain the show's focus. The big exception was the "Linkara Lost" mini-arc, which straddles six episodes in a row.
After the Vyce arc ended with eight arc episodes in a row, Linkara stated that he'd be taking a break from any storylines for a few months.
The "Comic Book Advertisements" episode was something of a breather as well, as he had just finished reviewing Rise of Arsenal.
Remember how Mechakara forced Insano to cut his hair? It comes back to bite his ass later on. Big time.
The entire Mechakara saga is basically the result of one of these: Remember Spoony and Linkara's crossover review of Warrior, and all the insane universe-shifting that occurred because of it? Yeah.
"Told you I'd bring it up."
One that crosses onto another show: Spoony's Party Mania video revealed that one of the Schlumper brothers turned into that universe's Dr. Insano. Eventually we find out Dr. Linksano is the other brother.
In another overlap with Spoony, it turns out Linkara was the one who stole Neutro from Dr. Insano.
Linkara is transported 30 years into the future and meets the older version of himself in the same video that begins the Mechakara saga. More than a year later, we see the older Linkara wonder if he should have told his younger self about the gun.
This one is even more Brick Joke-y than that it turns out, as of the final Silent Hill Dead/Alive review. the older Linkara asks himself in the Previously On segment just before the Action Comics #593 review if he should have told himself about the magic gun and decides that it's okay he didn't because it was "only his sanity" at stake. As of the Silent Hill review, we find out that his Magic Gun was created by a young girl being tortured by her own parents into insanity/death, and that Silent Hill/Mechakara tried to convince him that he was her father and therefore one of the ones who killed her—all so that it would drive him insane and defeat him. Possibly a candidate for most depressing Brick Joke ever.
A sequence from the Neutro episode has a payoff a hundred and thirteen episodes later.
Remember when 90s Kid suggested a Nirvana reunion with Kurt Cobain's body being animated by slayer chicks? And how Linkara declared there was something seriously wrong with him? Turns out that was a clue that it wasn't really 90s Kid.
Bullying a Dragon: Who would have thought Lord Vyce's greatest weakness was being TAUNTED?
Black Eyes of Evil: Taken to an even worse level. The Entity in the form of 90s Kid has eyes like television static.
Call Back: "I'm distracting you so she can stab you." He first said this to a Shade in the Ewoks comic review, then to Lord Vyce in the Doctor Who Classics #7 review.
Cassandra Truth: Linkara doesn't believe the Entity exists and dismisses Vyce's warnings.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Back in 2008 Spoony, when discussing the nascent Video Review Show genre, used Atop the Fourth Wall as an example of such a show that had no extraneous Drop-In Character or storyline, just focused on straightforward reviews. Since then it's leapt to the opposite end of that scale.
Chekhov's Armoury: In addition to the below-mentioned guns, Linkara is constantly expanding his "Arsenal of Freedom" with loadsofdifferentweapons, ready to be used whenever needed.
Linkara found a working Pokéball in his review of a World Of Warcraft Comic, which he later used to capture a Pyramid Head.That becomes one itself in Silent Hill Dead/Alive #5 when he uses Pyramid Head to finish off a Nurse.
There were a dozen or so with payoffs in the Mechakara battle. The Power Rangers Morpher and the various weapons he picked up over the length of his show were the most obvious, but it also saw the payoffs for things like Black Lantern Spoony and Dr. Insano's haircut. In the commentary for said video he even admits that shooting Mechakara with the gun from the Cable #1 review was a deliberate attempt to evoke this trope.
When Mechakara attacks during the review for the Zeo Rangers, Linkara attacks a giant Mechakara with Neutro, which he says he took from Dr. Insano when the good doctor left it parked behind Spoony's house. In the second part of Spoony's review of FFX, there's a point where Dr. Insano bursts into Spoony's room, asking if anyone has seen Neutro, which he left parked behind Spoony's house.
Chekhov's Skill: Inverted, as it's Mechakara's lack of understanding of magic that leads him to underestimate both Linkara and the soul of the girl in his magic gun in Silent Hill: Dead/Alive #5.
Continuity Snarl: His 2010 preview video includes his future intro to the Silent Hill Dead Alive review. It's in a different location than the actual review due to his moving over the summer (which he obviously wouldn't have known he would do in January).
Cosmic Retcon: Linkara's attempt to bring Spoony back to life by punching the fabric of reality instead gave Donna Troy a new origin story... and turned Dr. Insano into a man. Later, in his review of Mickey Mantle #2, a couple of baseball players pounding against the walls of reality makes Linkara switch places with Ensign Munro, turns '90s Kid into 60s Kid, and gives Harvey Finevoice his own show.
Cross Over: Angry Joe and his Army help Linkara against Lord Vyce by invading and capturing Vyce's ship, cutting off his power source and rendering him vulnerable.
Curb-Stomp Battle: Linkara's first fight with Vyce does not go all that well.
Not to mention that Vyce utterly annihilatesPyramid Head
Cut Himself Shaving: Linkara claims he was wearing gloves during his Ultimates 3 review because he burned his hands on a hot plate, but it is really Mechakara covering his robot hands.
Doppelgänger: Mechakara. The only difference between them is that Mechakara has a robotic hand is a Terminator-style cyborg and is really, really creepy.
An interview has confirmed the "Alien Harvey Finevoice" (from the Silent Hill alternate endings) is a separate character from normal Harvey Finevoice, who would very much like to do a duet with his double.
Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Just as the Entity was about to consume Linkara Linkara actually managed to convince it that its current goal was pointless and to find out what happens when an Outer God dies instead.
Double Vision: During the conclusion of the Mechakara story, Linkara, 90's Kid, and Ninja Style Dancer all appear at the same time to defeat Mechakara. Harvey Finevoice also appears, but not at the same time.
They all appear at the end of the Doctor Who Classics review to help take down Vyce.
Dwindling Party: The Entity arc, highlighted in The Twilight Zone #9.
Epic Fail: When trying to christen his new spaceship. "BREAK, DAMN YOU!"
This becomes High Octane Nightmare Fuel when you find out what sailors thought would happen if the bottle didn't break. Apparently it was such bad luck that if it didn't, no sailor would possibly board it or work on the ship, and it would have to be dismantled and rebuilt. Also, the Entity is here.
Eureka Moment: After reviewing "Care Bears #13", Linkara grumpily states how the comic didn't help cheer him up (since he was still emotionally messed up from the Curb-Stomp Battle Vyce gave him in the previous episode), and proceeds to leave the futon... only to realize that Vyce didn't kill him when he had the chance because his armor was damaged.
"I know how to beat him... I KNOW HOW TO BEAT HIM!!!"
At the end of the Spider-Man: Planet of the Symbiotes review, Linkara tells 90s Kid that the Entity has taken everyone on Earth except the two of them. 90s Kid's response of "Heavy!" is what makes Linkara realize that 90s Kid is the Entity, or rather, it's been impersonating him for some time now.
Evil Twin: Mechakara, a Terminator-like duplicate of Linkara who stalks him for several months. Eventually revealed to be Pollo from an alternate universe.
After Dr. Insano's defeat in the Adamantium Rage/Warrior #1 crossover, which was, ironically, the event responsible for bringing Mechakara into our universe in the first place, he was largely relegated to Harmless Villain status while more and more focus was placed on the enigmatic and far more menacing Mechakara, whom even Dr. Insano described as "really mean." In a last-minute reversal, however, Dr. Insano managed to capture the badly damaged Mechakara and finish him off in revenge for his involuntary haircut seven months previous]. With his trademark Evil Laugh, he then proclaimed, "I'm back, baby!"
According to Linksano Lord Vyce is this to the entire universe, and according to Lord Vyce, the Entity is this.
Fate Worse than Death: The Mechakara story concludes with the titular character being revived by Dr. Insano... only to be painfully tortured by said doctor for quite some time and then the Warrior #2-#3Stingershows the cybernetic part of his face lying on a bathroom counter, with his eye slowly lighting up. Creepy, yes, but that also means Dr. Insano took him apart while he was still alive.
During a visit to the future in the Superman vs. Terminator review, a huge gun is visible in the background. We later see Linkara get his hands on it in the Cable #1 review, and battle Mechakara with it.
The opening to the review of Athena #1 shows Lewis fiddling with the Zeonizer before quickly hiding it and telling the audience it is "part of a little side project." He is sonic-ing it at the beginning of the X-Men #1 review.
One of the flashing text in the EXTREME bit in the Darker Image says His Vyce is conquest
In the same episode, after the credits: "I didn't misspell his name."
A cross-series piece of Foreshadowing: In Part 2 of Spoony's review of Final Fantasy X, Dr. Insano enters Spoony's room and starts to say "Bad news, I think Mechakara just-" before squicking out at Spoony singing "A Whole New World".
Second one from Spoony, Insano comes in asking if anyone's knows where Neutro was because it wasn't where he parked it.
At the end of his 100th episode, he listed a bunch of things there would be more of, including "More Neutro". This later came to pass in his review of Power Rangers Zeo #1, where at the end of the credits he says "I told you there'd be more Neutro".
Two key videos during the Vyce arc feature an odd buzzing sound after Linkara defeats someone. Turns out this isn't connected to Vyce, but is the next Big Bad, The Entity.
At the end of his Silent Hill Dead/Alive review he (while under Vyce's illusions) reads an entry in a book mentioning 'a piece of the world is missing'. Fast forward to the current arc and apparently the Entity has something to do with that. Judging by his review of Game Boy #1 the rest was relevant, though exactly how remains to be seen.
When Linksano was giving Linkara the speech building up to the reveal of Lord Vyce's name, he mentions "ancient, mindless evils that fill in the cracks and eat dimensions for a snack". Gee, does that sound familiar?
The Entity has been described as a glitch in reality, something that should never even exist. The Planet of the Symbiotes review finally reveals that the Entity is MissingNo., one of the most notorious Pokemon glitches.
The reason that Planet of the Symbiotes was chosen as the penultimate episode of the Entity arc was to foreshadow the method Linkara used to destroy MissingNo., convincing it to commit suicide.
In the Mightily Murdered Power Ringers, it says YOU'VE SEEN MY BONES BEFORE.
In the credits of Kamandi at Earth's End #1, not only does it say I'VE ALREADY WON THE GAME, but it even hits Linkara while saying "CAN YOU SEE ME?".
In the review of US-1 #2, it says IT'S MORE THAN JUST A PIECE..
In Twilight Zone #9 it says I'M NOT THAT THIN.
In the review of Superman & the TRS-80 Whiz Kids: The Computers that Saved Metropolis, it says I AM BEAUTIFUL.
While orinigaly looking for a comic to review in his Pokémon: The Electric Tale of Pikachu review, he rejects Marville, saying that he's saving it for next year. Sure enough, Marville #1 is his first review of the following year.
Fridge Brilliance: In-universe, Linkara realizes that 90s Kid was always around whenever somebody went missing, and has been behaving strangely for months, eventually causing him to realize that 90s Kid has been either possessed or replaced by The Entity, Missingno.
From Nobody to Nightmare: The Entity, self-proclaimed Outer God, started as a bug in a computer game.
Gaslighting: What Mechakara and Lord Vyce were doing to Linkara through use of the alternate reality / Silent Hill, particularly the way he found out the backstory on his Magic Gun. Thankfully, his MagicGun helped subvert this to save her partner.
The Heartless: Dolorem, the physical embodiment of the Magic Gun's vengeance against its creators. She conspired with Mechakara in the Silent Hill Dead/Alive review in order to trick the Gun's spirit into thinking Linkara was her father and give her a reason to continue existing. It did not work.
Heel Face Turn: Linkara manages to talk Linksano into doing one when he points out exactly why taking over the world isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Henshin Hero: His empowered form is his hat and jacket. He even puts them on via morpher.
This continues into Care Bears #13. While he's recovered physically from the attack by Vyce, he's still a wreck emotionally, halfheartedly running his sonic screwdriver over his morpher (which Mechakara destroyed) and has no idea of how to deal with Vyce. It isn't until the end of the review that Linkara wonders why Vyce didn't kill him when he clearly had the chance. He then remembers damaging Vyce's shoulder- and from this, he realizes that Vyce's armor is his weak point. Linkara finally snaps out of it with a joyful yell of "I KNOW HOW TO BEAT HIM!"
Happens literally after seeing that Brain Drain (and the completely missing how The Thing's character goes) was written by former Marvel editor-in-chief Tom Defalco (who should have some idea of The Thing's characterization).
Here We Go Again: The Entity storyline ends with with a scene of That Dude in the Suedeperforming the Missingno. glitch. Of course, this was probably just a throwaway joke and not an indication that The Entity/Missingno. will be coming back.
He's Back: Dr Insano after the Mechakara saga ended.
Linkara at the end of Care Bears #13, after he realizes Vyce's armor is his weak point and joyfully yells, "I KNOW HOW TO BEAT HIM!"
Hoist by His Own Petard: When Linkara is on the receiving end of a Curb-Stomp Battle from Lord Vyce, the only way he finds that harms Vyce even slightly is to use Vyce's own weapon against him.
Humiliation Conga: Vyce is impossible (or at least extremely difficult) to kill, so instead Linkara and Liz gleefully explain how they used Linksano as The Mole to lure him into a powerless position, then everyone teams up to beat him unconscious, before Linkara exiles him to a barren, deserted universe. It's quite possible that he'll return in a future installment, though.
Idiot Ball: Linkara discovers that the Entity takes its victims when they're alone. So what does he do? He sends Pollo to the living room to add protective measures to the house. ALONE.
Immune to Bullets: The Shades seem immune/resistant to non-magic weapons, they take an entire clip of Harvey Finevoice's Tommygun unfazed, but go down rather quick to magic blades and the Magic Gun.
Subverted when Angry Joe and his Army have little difficulty blasting them to bits.
Jerkass Genie: Wish Kid's magical glove grants Linkara's wish to remove NBComics from existence, only to replace it with a (going by his reaction) far worse comic.
Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: The various appearances of "Mechakara," a robot double of Linkara who typically shows up at the end of a review to set up part of an impending plan against him. Lewis has claimed that every appearance of Mechakara contains some kind of clue to his identity or his goal, and challenged fans to figure it out before the big final showdown.
Knight Templar/Well-Intentioned Extremist: Lord Vyce. He conquers universes to protect them from a strange, dark evil being that consumes entire worlds, known only as "The Entity". He does it by force and has conquered at least 16 so far.
in an Ironic Echo, Linkara says this to Lord Vyce right before Iron Liz stabs him with Twinkle and Icingdeath.
Looping Lines: When Linkara abandons Vyce in a barren universe, all his lines are dubbed in, presumably due to the outdoor filming conditions obscuring his voice.
Madness Mantra: A creepy version in the sinister book he found about the Entity...an entire page is just filled with jagged writing repeating the words "I AM NEVER SHOULD" over and over again. It's...unsettling
The next page has "EVERYBODY IS GONE" with "GONE" repeated randomly about the page.
The Entity itself, when confronted with the inevitable outcome of its goal: "Purpose defines existence, but existence defines purpose, but purpose defines existence, but existence defines purpose..." repeat ad-nauseam.
Magic Versus Science: Magic is something Mechakara cannot fight against; he came to our dimension to get the power to fight magic.
While in the Mirror Universe Insano fights Linkara's dark magic.
Mirror Universe: Iron Liz is accidentally swapped with her mirror universe counterpart in the Star Trek #2 review. Linkara is megalomaniacal and adores Liefeld, Pollo looks like Tom Servo, alternate Liz loves Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition, and Dr. Insano is a noble 'Champion of Science'. Apart from that everything seems much the same.
Mood Whiplash: At the end of the Justice League: Cry for Justice #5-7 review, the final shot of Linkara lying on the floor after being beaten up by Lord Vyce leads directly into Lesley Gore's "It's My Party".
The Backstreet Project review, Linkara reviews a comic with the rather silly idea of a boyband becoming superheroes and plays the "Weird Al" Yankovic song eBay in the credits. And then The Stinger comes, with Dr Linksano revealing that whilst Linkara has assumed he was distracted with a chemistry play set, he's created a new device that will destroy Linkara... Even if he doesn't know what it does. Then Linksano starts telling someone to back away, before he vanishes out of existence thanks to The Entity that lord Vyce was trying to stop, as the episode ends with The Entity's digitized laugh & a creepy piano piece playing.
The Twilight Zone comic review introduces a new character, with a hilarious shot of Lewis in a clown nose and rainbow wig, standing in silent dignity. The clown then immediately becomes a victim of the Entity.
Mundane Fantastic: Linkara fights off evil scientists and a robot version of himself, travels to alternate universes to fight villains who are trying to ward off even STRONGER enemies, has a magic gun and multiple Star Trek / Doctor Who gadgets...and it's a review show? He even states this in the Doctor Who Classics #7 review.
Never Found the Body: As of Spider-Man: Planet of the Symbiotes with the exception of Linkara everyone on the planet, including Dr. Linksano, Ninja Style Dancer, Harvey Finevoice, Pollo, 90s Kid, and Iron Liz have all disappeared thanks to the Entity.
Never Trust a Trailer: The 2010 trailer made it seem like Ensign Munro, Dr. Linksano, and Pyramid Head would be appearing in the Mechakara conclusion. Those scenes did, however, appear in later videos, since that trailer was for the entire year.
No One Ever Suspects The Butterfly: The Entity was able to hide in plain sight by taking on the form on the one person too stupid to be suspected of anything even remotely evil, '90s Kid.
The look on Mechakara's face when he hears Linkara coming home in the middle of his You Bastard rant.
The Twilight Zone #9 - The Entity has taken Pollo.
Silent Hill: Paint it Black - Now Spoony's gone.
Silent Hill: Among the Damned - So is Marzgurl!
Silent Hill: The Grinning Man - And so is Benzaie, Sad Panda, and about half of the French population...
Spider Man: Planet of the Symbiotes - Angry Joe, Jew Wario, Dr. Insano...hell, pretty much everybody in the world except Linkara and 90's Kid...who turns out to be the Entity in 90's Kid's form...
Ontological Inertia: The injuries Linkara sustained from his fight with Mechakara disappeared when he used the Morpher to power up. The injuries returned when he powered down. * Papa Wolf: Don't say anything bad about Iron Liz to his face either; "That woman stands alongside me and fights for this universe with as much bravery and courage as any champion. You're in MY house, Vyce, and you WILL show her respect!"
Paranoia Fuel: The Entity. From what we know about it so far it seems like the Lovecraftian love child of the Silence and the Slender Man and it is ALWAYS watching Linkara. And it can make people dissapear from the world with ease and it's not clear WHAT it's doing to them
Powered by a Forsaken Child: The story at the beginning of each Silent Hill Dead/Alive video, about a girl who was only born so her parents could power a superweapon by torturing her. Which turns out to be the Magic Gun!
Used in the MMPR review. Mechakara has been exasperated by Linkara for the past eight months through plans being inadvertently interrupted or getting the wrong results, yet he has remained relatively calm... but it is Linkara's voice that finally gets him to start yelling.
"Be quiet, you ugly bag of meat! Every time your fat maw opens, it sounds like a cat is dying!! How anyone can stand to listen to your lisping, SHRIEKING wails is beyond my comprehension!!"
Red Herring: He clearly wanted the viewers to think The Entity was some Lovecraftian monster. Not only did most of the clues sound Lovecraftian in nature, they were sandwiched in between the 2010-2011 Silent Hill reviews, which he claimed had more in common with Lovecraft than Silent Hill. Though the Entity does refer to itself as an Outer God, a term from the Cthulhu Mythos, so there seems to have been a little truth in with the misdirection.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Mechakara, while pretending to be Lewis, gives one to the entire fanbase at the end of the Ultimates 3 #5 review.
Rule Of Cool: The entire storyline. He's an Internet comic reviewer - who is also apparently the "champion" of his planet, using gadgets from Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Power Rangers alongside his troupe of lookalikes to fight mad scientists, evil robots and aliens, including an evil entity that is actually the living persona of one of the most infamous video game glitches ever.. One commenter said it best: "You sir are a god among nerds."
After Mechakara's defeat, all questions about his identity and goals are answered... but who sabotaged the Continuity Alarm?
The stinger at the end of Secret Orgins Month:
Linkara: What, you wanted to hear about my secret origins? *smiles* Maybe some other time.
Shut Up, Hannibal!: He gets quite a fine one in the conclusion of the Vyce arc. After his defeat, Well-Intentioned Extremist Lord Vyce warns Linkara that his victory leaves the multiverse vulnerable to 'the Entity.' Linkara calmly points out that he doesn't buy Vyce's claim to being the hero: "I don't know many good guys who conquer entire multiverses. Or many who call themselves 'Lord' either."
YOU! TALK! TOO! MUCH! DURING! A! FIGHT SCENE!
Sitcom Arch Nemesis: The Linkara/Dr. Insano relationship sometimes takes on shades of this. He has never really been threatening in the same way as Mechakara. Dr. Linksano is pretty much a parody of this trope, as well as Unknown Rival.
''And the moral of the story is... "Don't make fun of insane weirdos who track U.F.O.s with empty boxes and divining rods because they may end up on a superfluous and pointless alien ship." (Beat) ... Wait, what?"
Take a Third Option: Linkara eventually decides to name the ship something that wasn't part of the pool.
Talking the Monster to Death: His eventual method for defeating the Entity is to point out that its plan doesn't include what would happen if it ever succeeded and to convince it to explore death instead.
Timey Wimey Ball: A rip in hypertime allows Linkara to go off to fix things by reviewing Warrior #4, then return to the exact same time he left and keep doing reviews (this was actually done due to the unpredictability of when the Warrior review would be put up).
Wham Episode: Justice League: Cry for Justice #5-7: Lord Vyce arrives and reveals that he's actually conquering the universes to protect them from an Eldritch Abomination called "The Entity", and gives Linkara a brutal beatdown, being impervious to ALL of his attacks and killing Pyramid Head. Linkara barely survives by sheer luck and is left bloody, broken and shell-shocked.
Planet of the Symbiotes: The entire population of the world has vanished, leaving Linkara on an empty planet alone with the nightmarish Entity...who Linkara finally identifies as Missingno
Linkara: "'A piece of the world is missing.' It doesn't mean that it's gone...It's your NAME."
And before that, "I've been a fool."
What Happened to the Mouse?: At the beginning of the Cool World review with Marz Gurl, Linkara says he needs help to fight Dr. Insano. It's never brought up again, nor does it fit in continuity with the Wolverine: Adamantium Rage and Warrior reviews from around the same time. Of course, Insano doesn't have a continuity as such.
Worf Had The Flu: After the initial Curb-Stomp Battle, it seems fairly simple for Linkara to outmaneuver and defeat Vyce in their rematch. However, Linkara mentioned this was possible because he figured out Vyce's Bizarre Alien Biology was incompatible with our universe and as such he would be greatly weakened fighting in person there. Combine this with taking advantage of Vyce's pride, and he was able to rob Vyce's protective suit of most of its power and overcome him.
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