Mac Guffin / Comic Books

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• Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire:
  • Every alien race in the Gallimaufry gets into a holy war at the same time to get "The Winslow", a furry alligator-like creature that has extreme religious significance. The Winslow's purpose is to be a Shaped Like Itself MacGuffin. A secondary purpose and/or effect of its primary purpose is to confuse everyone.
  • The device stolen by Der Rock in PSmIth, which has two functions: summon He-Who-Must-Be-Watered, a servant of Lord Thezmothete...and create a black hole. Buck creates a Fakin' MacGuffin as part of his Batman Gambit.
• An object used for regeneration in Season 9 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  Faith: "So that's the McGuffin?"
  Angel: "The crown of coils."
• The albatross in Cerebus the Aardvark, which was vital to establish who would be the proper pope over the Eastern and Western Churches of Tarim in the High Society and Church and State arcs.
• The lump of bombastium in Carl Barks's "A Cold Bargain": an Idiot Ball and MacGuffin rolled into one, made of pure Unobtainium. No-one knows what it does, but since it's so rare that the substance isn't found anywhere else outside that one lump, and because they don't actually know it doesn't do something amazing, everyone wants it. Scrooge McDuck bids an enormous sum on it on impulse and then has to go to great lengths to maintain the possibly useless lump's existence. In the end, it turns out it can be used to make loads and loads of ice cream, which does make the deal profitable.
  • And of course there are all the other Scrooge stories with MacGuffins: the crown in "Lost Crown of Genghis Khan", the locket in "Lemming With the Locket", etc.
• Played for laughs in Dr. Blink: Superhero Shrink with the MacGuffin Gun, the only weapon in the cosmos that can kill Major Amazing.
  Dr. Blink: "MacGuffin," like Hitchcock's concept of a storytelling device that seems vital to the plot, but is actually irrelevant?
  Major Amazing: No, "MacGuffin" like the Egg MacGuffin, at MacGonald's. By the stars, those were the best breakfast sandwiches in the universe...
• The titular Eye Of Mongombo is sought by many, in particular adventurer turned duck Cliff Carlson.
• In the Fantastic Four storyline that introduced Galactus, this function fell to the Ultimate Nullifier. Being a weapon capable of destroying the universe, it is never fired; its main story role is just to give Reed something to trade to Galactus in return for leaving the Earth alone.
• De Mesmaeker's contracts in Gaston Lagaffe. Their only function is to provide an excuse for businessman De Mesmaeker to visit the Spirou offices again and again. We never learn what they are about, except that they are apparently very complex (one had at least 625 articles in it) and that they have something to do with advertizing.
• Jon Sable, Freelance had a couple prominent MacGuffin stories:
  • In one issue, Jon is hired to retrieve a stolen formula (codenamed 7X) in a sealed envelope, with strict instructions that the envelope is not to be opened. Jon succeeds and returns the formula to its owners. Although he didn't open the envelope, he comments that when it got wet the envelope went transparent and he could read the list of ingredients and there isn't anything there that cannot be bought at a corner drug store. The executives comment that the point is that no one else knows that and burn the envelope. 7X turns out to be the formula for Coca-Cola.
  • Another story revolves around one of fiction's most famous MacGuffins, the Maltese Falcon — specifically, the prop Maltese Falcon used in the 1941 film, now an extremely valuable collectible.
• Raleigh's soul in Lost at Sea. At the end she realizes she never lost it, she just felt like she did because of her breakup with her boyfriend, Stillman.
• In Original Sin, Uatu the Watcher's eyes are this, since they contain the secrets of Earth-616 and the people there.
• The Secret Six ongoing kicked off with an arc centering around a rather interesting MacGuffin: a get out of Hell free card.
• The Sin City story Big Fat Kill has a squicky example of a MacGuffin: a severed head. It Makes Sense in Context.
• In the second issue of the comic book adaptation of Sonic X, Sonic and friends investigate a sunken ship owned by the long-dead pirate "Captain Seamus "Red-Eye" MacGuffin", and later outright call the ship "The MacGuffin". Subtle, it is not.
• The Sword of Ultimate Sorcery from Swordquest. The heroes are after it simply because they are told it can defeat the Big Bad King Tyrannus.
• Lampshade Hanging in the Tenchi Muyo! comic by Pioneer, in which Sasami has a special delivered package from Jyurai, which turns out to be MacGuffins, light and tasty delicacies that resemble muffins. In fact, they're so good "why else would people chase after them?"
• The Exploding Nanites in the Thunderbolts' blood that keep the Boxed Crooks contained are referred to as a MacGuffin by Bullseye in #125.
• Tintin: The Arumbayan statue in The Broken Ear (the Real Life artifact Hergé based it on belongs to the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels).
• The adamantium-encased remains of Wolverine are this in the first arc of Wolverines.
• Wonder Woman's lasso has been the subject of many attempted and several successful thefts, with the Post-Crisis Cheetah being especially fixated on possessing it. Oddly most times a writer has it stolen it's magical properties seem to work as the story demands for the villain, instead of as they have been set and explained (can't lie even to oneself when touching it, dispels glamors and undoes mindwipes and mindcontrol).

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