History CrapsackWorld / ComicBooks

* ''ComicBook/{{Birthright}}'' has the fantasy land of Terrenos. While the story doesn't necessarily take place there, characters during the narrative describe it as "hell" with flashbacks backing their claims: it's an DeathWorld populated by all sorts of hostile lifeforms and monsters, and ruled by an [[IncivibleVillain uber-powerful]] GodEmperor that rules mercilessly over it's inhabitants. Resistance against him has been at very best ineffective because he has near endless armies at his disposal and is virtually impossible to defeat, with none of the heroes being capable of matching him in power. On top of that, most of the heroes are [[KnightTemplar vicious zealots]] or {{nominal hero}}es willing to sacrifice innocents to achieve their endgoals.

* In the GreenLantern books, Sinestro Corpsman Karu-Sil's homeworld of Graxos III is this. Every single animal has at least some appetite for meat, ranging from opportunistic scavengers to incredibly aggressive predators. Karu-Sil's family was killed by their neighbors so the neighbors could claim their food supplies, and after that, she was [[RaisedByWolves raised by a family of the aforementioned predators]]. The predators were a step up; the murder was considered normal behavior.

* As if it really needed to be said, the setting of ComicBook/TheWalkingDead is a really crappy place to live. Between the cannibalistic survivors who see you as little more than especially gullible prey, and {{Crazy Survivalist}}s who will shoot you dead or rob you blind at gunpoint under the assumption that you'd do the same anyways, and that's ignoring the manipulative, dog-kicking dictators that have sprung up here and there, or the roving bands of raiders who are out to prove the aforementioned [[CrazySurvivalist survivalists]] dead right. Oh, and also, [[CaptainObvious there are zombies everywhere]] who naturally band together in ever-expanding, very sound-sensitive (easy on the guns!) groups, with all the usual baggage of infecting and killing a person with a single scratch.

* ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'': After the Atomic War of 2070, most of the Earth has been reduced to a [[DeathWorld radioactive wasteland]] populated by mutants, warlords, and exiles. Most of the remaining population has congregated into sprawling [[MegaCity Mega Cities]], all of which are [[PoliceState totalitarian states under martial law]]. The rest of the world isn't much better either. The Atlantic is severely polluted, the self-proclaimed Mongolian Free State is a safe haven for criminals, the Mediterranean coast has been ravaged by mutagens, two giant deserts have formed in Africa, and some places, such as Indonesia, are completely lawless. Inside Mega-City-One (Dredd's city, covering the U.S. East Coast), 97% of the population is unemployed, there is a massive suicide and crime rate, and such harsh book laws that people can be arrested simply for the possibility that they might be hiding something. Mutants in the megacities live under a system of apartheid, with expulsion as the worst punishment possible. Insurgencies, attempted revolutions, and terrorist attacks are all disturbingly frequent, and every few years the city has to cope with threats from without when it is again attacked by other Mega Cities, alien invaders, or a group of extradimensional monsters [[OmnicidalManiac obsessed with destroying all life]].

** Jack Napier, who would become the Joker, commented on Gotham's sheer horror with a single throwaway line in Tim Burton's ''Film/{{Batman}}'':

* [[SamAndMaxFreelancePolice Sam & Max]] live in this kind of world. Although it's downplayed in the animated series and the games, in the comic book it's much more evident. The titular characters seem [[NightmareFetishist constantly amused and delighted that they live in such a horrible world]] though, which stifles the more depressing and darker parts of this trope.

* ''ComicBook/{{Prez|2015}}'' is set in a dystopian near-future world where selfish corporate interests and shallow social media rule the day, one of the most popular TV programmes involves poor people voluntarily mutilating themselves for a shot at a large cash prize, and the world is being torn apart by resource shortages and rising sea levels. It's a satirical comedy.

* Season Eight of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' makes the 'verse into pretty much an immutable Crapsack World: Buffy's empowerment of the potential Slayers achieved nothing good, the new generation Slayers [[RedshirtArmy die like flies]], in horrible ways, and the empowerment somehow caused a near-destruction of the universe that was only averted by banishing the good magical entities from it or depowering them and leaving the usually-irredeemably evil ones still present and in force.

* New York City as presented in ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' is Crapsack on a level rivaled perhaps only by ''TaxiDriver''. What's interesting is that the presence of superheroes actually ''caused'' it to become like that. More specifically the Cold War tension becomes stronger every day leading to the ever-present fear of a Nuclear Holocaust. There is very little law enforcement leading to the streets becoming a jungle of concrete where criminals lurk in every corner. It turns out that throughout the entire book [[spoiler: Veidt]] has been manipulating things behind the scenes with the ultimate goal of subverting this trope and making the world a better place to live. The means with which he does this are [[WellIntentionedExtremist questionable]], however-but ultimately, ''it actually seems to work.''

** The Joker himself commented on Gotham's sheer horror with a single throwaway line in Tim Burton's ''Film/{{Batman}}'':

-->'''Joker:''' Decent people shouldn't live here. They'd be happier some place else.

* the world of ''ComicBook/IKilledAdolfHitler'', where murder is legal, is so bleak that even successfully killing Adolf Hitler doesn't fix anything.

* Résurrection in ''ComicBook/RequiemVampireKnight'' is a very Crapsack world. It's a parallel dimension of Earth where the deceased go, but their status on Résurrection corresponds to the amount of evil they did in life. Everyone is a monster of some breed (vampires, werewolves, ghouls, etc.) that prey on the weak, and warfare between factions serving different dark gods is constant.

* ''ComicBook/ArchieComicsSonicTheHedgehog'' was already pretty bad as it had been built off of ''WesternAnimation/SonicSatAM'', but the TimeSkip afterwards made things worse and, had the comic not been ScrewedByTheLawyers and forced to do a CosmicReboot years later, things could have kept going that way.

** ComicBook/TheAuthority sometimes run into places like this, like Sliding Albion, where human and aliens have lived peacefully since the 16th Century, but went on so many world wars that most of the civilization is destroyed, world is literally poisoned, both races are slowly dying, China has been turned into giant rape camp and all is ruled by mad dictator and mass murderer. Or alternate Earth where a maniac called [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler Adolf]] [[MalcolmXerox X]] had lead to extermination of all non-black people on the planet and created fascist dictatorship. Or the Earth where life is controlled by an EldritchAbomination, that feeds on our life energy, its whole presence causes general misery to some people and occasionally makes them commit suicide or other horrible acts. Other than that, [[ParanoiaFuel it's a world exactly like ours]].

* ''ComicBook/{{Vampirella}}'' is a horror comic so this is standard but it goes even further. The universe's fundamental cosmology is a mixture of OrderVersusChaos and CosmicHorrorStory. There's EldritchAbomination, GodOfEvil, and HumansAreTheRealMonsters stories mixed with the fact GodIsNotGood plus KnightTemplar NominalHero types. Vampirella is really the only light in a very dark setting.

* Franchise/TheDCU is one in the ''Comicbook/{{Flashpoint}}'' altered reality. To sum up: Kal-El never became Franchise/{{Superman}} because after his ship crashed into Metropolis instead of Smallville (along with a meteor shower that ''wiped out'' the city), he was taken by the military and has spent his ''entire life'' being experimented on, as were Kara and Krypto when they arrived [[spoiler:(unlike Kal, they didn't survive the experiments)]]; Bruce Wayne died in place of his parents, causing his father to become a much more brutal Franchise/{{Batman}} [[spoiler:and his mother to become an [[UpToEleven even crazier]] version of ComicBook/TheJoker]]; a Nazi remnant is in control of Brazil; ComicBook/{{Aquaman}} and ComicBook/WonderWoman are at war, which has led to Britain being occupied by the Amazons and ''all of Western Europe'' being flooded; Grodd has conquered Africa and killed half the human population (and that's viewed as a ''background event''); and meanwhile, the [[ComicBook/BlackestNight Black Lanterns]] and Manhunters are overrunning the Green Lanterns and destroying planets left and right. Needless to say, this is one of the crappiest worlds in comic book history, if not the crappiest of them all.

* ChaosComics would win any comic-book crapsack contest. Let's see...the entire eastern United States is overrun with zombies controlled by a sadistic mass murderer, with the survivors barely scraping together a society as cities and towns are picked off one by one; said sadistic mass murderer has managed to hijack nuclear bombs and nuke a few world cities; vampires, werewolves, and sorcerers are real and are mostly unchecked; Hell is also real and apparently most people go there; and Heaven is run by angels who are indifferent to humanity and aren't even powerful enough to stop Lucifer from messing with their plans including the Rapture. Oh, and God is real too, but has abandoned the universe.

** And then there's the version of Gotham presented in ''Batman: Holy Terror'', in which America is a brutal, corrupt theocracy where non-Christians are tortured, anyone with superpowers is experimented upon, and [[spoiler:Superman is dead]].

* Résurrection in ''ComicBook/RequiemVampireKnight'' is a very Crapsack world.

* ''ComicBook/Block109'': This might be one of the worst "[[AlternateHistory Alternate WWII]]" scenarios. Hitler is assassinated in 1941, leading to ThePurge and a more efficient leadership taking control of the Third Reich and focusing more on the west. The war expands to Africa, Asia, and South America. Then the Nazis develop atomic bombs and destroy most of North America. They finally declare war on the USSR in 1944 but get bogged down in a quagmire that still isn't resolved by 1953, by which time only 30% of humanity remains. Conventional weapons used by both sides get increasingly high-tech and exotic, culminating in the Nazis unleashing a viral plague that creates a ZombieApocalypse. [[spoiler:Grand Master Zytek ultimately decides the best thing for humanity is to destroy every warring faction and restart civilization.]]

* ''ComicBook/Block109'': This might be one of the worst "[[AlternateHistory Alternate WWII]]" scenarios. Hitler is assassinated in 1941, leading to ThePurge and a more efficient leadership taking control of the Third Reich and focusing more on the west. The war expands to Africa, Asia, and South America. Then the Nazis develop atomic bombs and destroy most of North America. They finally declare war on the USSR in 1944 but get bogged down in a quagmire that still isn't resolved by 1953, by which time only 30% of humanity remains. Conventional weapons used by both sides get increasingly high-tech and exotic, culminating in the Nazis unleashing a viral plague that creates a ZombieApocalypse. [[spoiler:Grand Master Zytek ultimately decides the best thing for humanity is to destroy everyone and restart civilization.]]

* ''ComicBook/{{Prez|2015}}'' is set in a dystopian near-future world where selfish corporate interests and shallow social media rule the day, one of the most popular TV programmes involves poor people voluntarily mutilating themselves for a shot at a large cash prize, and the world is being torn apart by resource shortages and rising sea levels. It's a comedy.

* ''ComicBook/{{Nightwing}}'' used to take place in Bludhaven, Gotham's sister city, which was, if possible, [[UpToEleven even worse]]. The corruption was so institutionalized that the ''clean'' cops were the ones that had to hide their actions. Sadly, just as things were starting to get better and the police department actually being cleaned up and turned honest, the entire city was [[spoiler:nuked into a radioactive wasteland]].

** Gotham and Bludhaven can suck, but their status as the bottom of the barrel of DC's Earth cities is greatly exaggerated. ComicBook/TheQuestion's Hub City is host to every urban city crapsack trope you can think of that's usually attributed to Gotham and Bludhaven, without there being a single positive thing about it such as Gotham's economy and industrial hotspot status. It's so bad, that by the end of the series [[spoiler: The Question decides the best thing to do is give up and leave.]]
*** ''ComicBook/{{Nightwing}}'' used to take place in Bludhaven, Gotham's sister city, which was, if possible, [[UpToEleven even worse]]. The corruption was so institutionalized that the ''clean'' cops were the ones that had to hide their actions. Sadly, just as things were starting to get better and the police department actually being cleaned up and turned honest, the entire city was [[spoiler:nuked into a radioactive wasteland]].
*** The most infamous version is ''ComicBook/AllStarBatmanAndRobinTheBoyWonder'' where the superheroes are either sociopaths (Batman, ComicBook/BlackCanary, Franchise/WonderWoman), future sociopaths (ComicBook/{{Batgirl}}, ComicBook/{{Robin}}), or morons (Franchise/{{Superman}}, Franchise/GreenLantern).
*** The [[Comicbook/BatmanNoMansLand No Man's Land]] arc took the crapsack Gotham City and made it into a blighted, disease-ridden, quasi-apocalyptic hell hole where the villains far outnumbered the police. Then again, Gotham being Gotham, it's a wonder anybody noticed a difference.

** To be fair, this is Creator/JhonenVasquez... The filler strips were even greater offenders, with the tortured Fillerbunny and, worst if just because of it's purpose of being nothing other than a CrapsackWorld: Happy Noodle Boy. "It's quite popular with the homeless insane."