Deleted the following as it's incorrect.

• Goldfinger, from which AVTAK cribbed much of its plotline (replace "gold" with "computer chips" and "Fort Knox" with "Silicon Valley") naturally invokes the trope as well, as Goldfinger leaves many of his subordinates, including Odd Job, who's loyal to the end, locked in the gold depository with a ticking nuke.

Goldfinger wasn't trying to get rid of his subordinates. He sealed the door to the vault after the American troops started their attack so they couldn't disarm the nuclear bomb.

meta-trope from Literature

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_and_Peace#Book.2FVolume_Four If you bothered to read, you may ntice, that the author has few favorite characters, who "live the life right way" Others serve mostly as opponents and temptations.

And in last Volume 4 they fades away one by one. For any random chance, for any strange accident, they either die or move far-far away. Almost all of them. They have no use for the author toward the end of the book, as he now gives medals to right guys.

Would this apply to "GI Joe vs. the Transformers"? In vol. 2, issue 4, a refitted Starscream escapes to rejoin Shockwave, the new Decepticon leader (Megatron was defeated in the prior volume) and just when Shockwave is about to let him "come home" a recording plays. It's revealed Cobra Commander had lined his housing with plastic explosives as the part of Shockwave's tower with him, Starscream and other Decepticons in it explodes.