History Literature / ActionFigures

* {{Expy}}: As a billionaire powered-armor hero who's the core of a major superteam, Edison Bose AKA Concorde is basically Tony Stark AKA Franchise/IronMan with a touch of [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Batman's]] tendency for keeping secrets, even from allies.

* ShoutOut: The artificial intelligence Archimedes gives the mandatory Film/{{Frankenstein}} reference when his creator finds a way to give him a human body. "I believe the appropriate statement at this juncture would be, it's alive."

* LongGame: The ultimate plan of ShadoWorks that's revealed in ''Zero Day'' has been in the making since the 1940s, [[spoiler: all of it overseen by the same long-lived individual]].

* WellIntentionedExtremist: The head of ShadoWorks wants to eliminate a multitude of the world's evils, such as racism, environmental destruction and other "irrational" attitudes ... by conquering the world and ruling as an absolute dictator.

* VillainRevealsTheSecret: Working behind the scenes, the Foreman and his apparatus expose one of the few [[DarkSecret dark secrets]] that the otherwise-open Hero Squad has: [[spoiler: the fact that they killed The King of Pain and then covered it up]]. How well-buried was it? The incident happened at the end of Issue Four, but didn't come out until the start of ''Issue Ten.''

* FakeDefector: [[spoiler: Nina Nitro]] joins ShadoWatch in disgust over the actions of the Hero Squad and it's several chapters before the defector's motives are revealed to be [[TheMole just a cover]].

* AwesomenessByAnalysis: When a villain kidnaps Concorde and tries to break his spirit by showing how many superheroes have been killed by Project Nemesis in ''Zero Day,'' it backfires - he knows the superhuman community well enough to calculate backwards and realize just how many heroes are still alive and at large.

* GondorCallsForAid: On the eve of the final conflict of ''Zero Day'', the biggest throwdown of the series, Lightstorm leaves the rest of the Hero Squad (and Earth itself) to try to get reiforcements from the alien Vanguard. Come the battle itself, [[spoiler: the Vanguard's governing council STILL hasn't decided to act, but Lightstorm still arrives [[BigDamnHeroes in the nick of time]] with a large number of Vanguard volunteers who decided to join her without waiting for orders]].

* AnyoneCanDie: While the series has never shied away from the danerous consequences of super battles, ''Zero Day'' puts it all on the table. Several major figures die, including [[spoiler: nearly all of the Protectorate, except for The Entity, who's permanently crippled]].