Poor Communication Kills / Comic Books

• Clone Wars Adventures: In "Heroes on Both Sides," Grievous and Dooku decide to sacrifice a Separatist planet by luring a Republic army to the area and then detonating explosives to wipe out both sides. A clone army and the local militia wipe themselves out fighting to reach Dooku's explosive device. It isn't until he's the last man standing that the clone commander realizes that both sides were trying to disarm the bomb, and all that bloodshed was for nothing.
• Kid Colt (2009): Bloodeye's scavengers have a Code of Honour that says they don't prey on other outlaws, but they're deep in battle with Kid Colt and his allies - with heavy casualties on both sides - before Bloodeye's lackey Mr. Hodges thinks to mention that he recognises Colt from wanted posters. Bloodeye is not impressed.
• Suicide Squad:
  • Amanda Waller has a habit of "lone wolf" antics, keeping things to herself and quite often, it blows up in her face.
  • When slimy ex-NSC chief Tolliver tells corrupt Senator Cray about the Squad, they threaten to expose it to the public if Waller doesn't help Cray win re-election. Waller keeps them at bay before finding evidence to blackmail them into silence. However, not knowing of this, Flag is convinced that the only way to save the Squad is to go kill Tolliver and Cray himself. Which just ends up exposing the Squad to the public after all and Waller losing control. Lampshaded.
    Bronze Tiger: Why would he do this. If he knew you had it handled...
    Waller: He didn't. I chose not to confide my plans in Colonel Flagg.
    Tiger: You were playing one of your damn lone hands again!
  • The reason Tolliver was fired in the first place is that he sent the Squad into Russia to rescue a Soviet dissident imprisoned for a book criticizing the government. It never occured to Tolliver to do some checking with sources who could tell him that maybe the woman wanted to remain in jail as a martyr and it got the Squad into serious trouble in Russia.
  • In "The Janus Directive" crossover, it looks like Waller has been replaced by a double by villain Kobra. As it happens, Waller beat her double and learned of Kobra's plans. Rather than tell anyone, Waller plays it close to the vest to get more information. As a result, Kobra's forces kill 38 Checkmate Knight agents, Checkmate headquarters is destroyed, nearly the entire Force of July is wiped out and Kobra comes within seconds of killing half the planet. Incredibly, Waller is actually upset when the President demotes her for this, pointing out if Waller had come forward earlier, it would have saved a lot of lives.
    Waller: If it wasn't for me, Kobra would have won! I'm the one who smoked him out!
    President: And you never told me.
• G.I. Joe: Late in the series, Cobra has captured a bunch of G.I. Joes. Cobra Commander, off-site, says to let them go. Unfortunately he conveys this as 'Get rid of them'. The officers on site dither and whine. Instead of calling back to ask 'You mean shoot them?' they agree to let a mook do it (as Cobra Commander had a bad habit of shooting anyone he perceived as talking back to him or questioning his orders. Several Joes get their heads ventilated.
• In Doomsday Clock, after becoming the poster boy for Fantastic Racism towards Differently Powered Individuals, Firestorm accidentally turns a crowd of Russian civilians into glass in a fit of rage. With Superman's help he figures out how to reverse it, and Superman interrupts a press conference held by Vladimir Putin to explain the situation. Putin cuts him off and insists that Firestorm is a murderous American spy, ignoring Supes' insistence that they're not dead yet. Firestorm then shows up with a child he cured, only for the two to get shot at and the bullets deflect off Superman into the glass civilians. Firestorm melts their weapons, then the Russian superheroes and a tank attack the two and cause even more damage. Just when things seem like they can't get any worse, Dr. Manhattan shows up.
• In an issue of X-Factor, where Siryn is trying to tell Jamie she's pregnant and Jamie thinks she is leaving the team. Following a brief argument after which Jamie storms off, Monet points out to Siryn that rather than Jamie being an insensitive ass, he obviously didn't know what she was trying to say.
• Batman:
  • A lot of trouble, trauma and violent murder could have been avoided if Batman had told Jason he loved him. Unfortunately, Batman thinks his love for his wards is perfectly obvious, and Jason probably wouldn't have believed him anyway.
  • The Batfamily as a whole has a very big problem with this. More than a few problems have been caused because many of them keep their allies in the dark. Case in point: In War Games, Stephanie Brown inadvertently started a massive gang-war when she activated a contingency plan designed to unite the Gotham gangs under one leader, Matches Malone. The reason it failed was because Batman neglected to mention that Matches Malone is actually one of his aliases.
  • Tim Drake and Stephanie Brown's relationship was intentionally sabotaged with poor communication by Bruce since he disproved of them dating. When Bruce later allowed Tim to finally stop hiding things from her she still usually thought he knew way more about what was going on than he was letting on which led to her not telling him very important things, like about her falling out with the Birds of Prey, because she assumed he already knew. This put them both in danger on several occasions.
• Supergirl:
  • In the beginning of Red Daughter of Krypton storyline, Supergirl was drowning in mindless rage after becoming a Red Lantern. Her friend Siobhan tried to reach her out and get her to calm down and get her mind back, and it seemed to be working... until a N.Y.P.D. VTOL came along, and threatened Supergirl. Supergirl attacked the transport in retaliation and Siobhan realized there would be no talking her down now and she had to fight her to save the city.
  • In Supergirl (Rebirth), the DEO (Department of Extra-normal Operations) didn't necessarily want to hurt Lar-On, but they didn't want an alien to tear their base down. Lar-On didn't want to hurt anyone but he couldn't explain he only wanted to be left alone because he didn't speak or understand English. Thus, they fought.
  • Supergirl (Wednesday Comics): Supergirl tries to communicate with an alien race to stop them from dumping their radioactive waste into the Sun, but she gets shot instead and loses consciousness. When she comes around, the aliens -who are now using a translator device- apologise: they don't speak English and misttok her attempts to explain that their waste disposal method is causing for troubles for Earth as an attack. Fortunately, Krypto and Streaky managed to explain everything to them.
• Superman:
  • In Masters of the Universe crossover "Fate Is The Killer", Zodac foresees Skeletor killing He-Man, so he travels to Eternia to take He-Man away to a safe place. So Zodac bursts into a royal feast uninvited, and instead of explaining his motives clearly, threatens to unleash his power upon Eternia if the world's greatest champion is brought to him to be taken away forever, making everybody believe he intends to kill someone. Later, Zodac meets and engages He-Man in combat instead of telling him about his vision, with the result that He-Man is nearly killed by his nemesis.
  • The Death of Lightning Lad: Saturn Girl learns about one prophecy foretelling one member of the Legion of Super-Heroes will die fighting alien conqueror Zaryan. Intending to get herself killed to ensure her friends' survival, Saturn Girl destroys the message, goes to extreme lengths to bench the whole Legion, and sets out to intercept Zaryan's flagship. However, Mon-El gets wind of her plan and warns Lightning Lad, who flies ahead of Saturn Girl, fights Zaryan and dies. After the funeral, Brainiac 5 bitterly wonders why his teammates chose to kill themselves instead of asking him, the team's chief strategist and head scientist, to find a solution.
  • In Superboy 1980 issue #1, two aliens named Myla and Byrn need Superboy's help...so that they capture and try to restrain Superboy rather than talking to him. Since their attempt predectably ends with Superboy ramming his way out of their ship, they send him a video-message explaining who they are and why they need his help.
    Myla: "We truly meant what we said earlier, Superboy...We intend you no harm!"
    Jonathan Kent: "Then why don't you tell us exactly what you do intend?"
  • In a Dawn of DC Action Comics backup strip starring Kenan Kong, Super-Man of China, Superboy (Conner) and the Super-Twins discover he's been spying on them and demand an explanation. He expains that Bat-Man of China had a reporter friend who was trying to find Superman's secret identity, and who died from something that could have been a heat vision attack on his brain. Kenan was researching the possibility that one of the Super-Family was responsible, but quickly realized none of them would do such a thing. Conner, annoyed at being lied to, does not explain that Lex Luthor used Manchester Black to give everyone in the world a telepathic suggestion such that if they ever learned Superman's secret identity again they'd have an aneurism, and when Kenan suggests they're all friends and should share their identities, just says "No." Kenan also gets annoyed and asks Bat-Man's Robinbot to scan them. The drone reports they have mud on their clothes that came from the Kent farm, and Kenan realizes Clark Kent is Superman and collapses.
• In Jango Fett: Open Seasons, the Mandalorians and Jedi fight a pitched battle that leaves all of the Mandos except Fett dead and most of the Jedi still in the snow, as well. This happened because Fett's archnemesis implicated the Mandalorians in mass murder of civilians and the Jedi reacted accordingly. However, the Jedi are Jedi; they tell the Mandalorians to surrender and promise that they'll be treated fairly. If Fett had surrendered and tried to clear up the misunderstanding, things might have ended differently.
• The controversial "Ragnarok Now" arc of Uncanny Avengers ends with the Scarlet Witch being killed by Rogue, who thinks she betrayed the Avengers and sided with the Apocalypse Twins. In reality, Scarlet Witch had only pretended to sell out her friends, and was actively working to take down the Twins' plan from the inside.
• Almost in Promethea. The title character is trying to get a badly injured friend to the hospital but her unfamiliarity with modern society makes things tense. Can she even recognize a hospital? Fortunately the closest one uses a caduceus as a symbol of healing, which she herself uses.
• The famous "Marvel misunderstanding" — the stock situation in which superheroes who unexpectedly run into each other promptly start a fight because at least one side jumps to the conclusion that the other is up to no good. Once in a while even lampshaded by more self-aware characters (such as Quasar in one of his own issues).
  Ms. Marvel: Why didn't the Hulk tell us he needed help?
  Jen Walters: Did you ask?
• An Archie Comics Free Comic Book Day comic lampshaded how much Archie relies on this trope for its humor. A "Real World" kid pops into the Archie universe, points out the poor communication, and everyone starts trying to be more understanding. The Universe is instantly boring.
• The Original Sin side story Hulk vs Iron Man reveals this as a major part of the Hulk's origin: a drunken Tony Stark got into an argument over the Gamma Bomb with Bruce Banner and he decided to go fiddle with the bomb itself. However, he ended up making the bomb yield weaker than it should be, allowing Bruce to survive what should have been a fatal explosion. Unfortunately, Bruce was still angry and deleted an e-mail Tony gave him warning of the bomb's newly mutative properties, then blocked him outright, and so never found out that the creation of the Hulk could have been avoided.
• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW), this drives the plot of issue #23; Cassie the Kelpie has friends who have been stranded behind the Ponyville dam. Does she A: go and politely ask Twilight Sparkle for help, allowing the super-powerful unicorn to telekinetically lift the stranded water-dwellers to join Cassie? Or B: use her Magic Music to Mind Control the entire population of Ponyville into tearing down the dam, flooding their village and causing immense property damage just to get her friends back? You guessed it, she goes with B, only to be foiled by the Mane Six's pets, which leads to her finally going with A. And somehow, only Rainbow Dash thinks she deserves to be called out on this.
• The Incredible Hulk: A Silver Age example can be found in #165: To Become A God'': a Mad Scientist who has founded a mobile deep sea colony is at war with his born-below son, who wants to see the surface world that his father abandoned, but his father refuses to take him and the other youths topside. With the Hulk's help, the son leads a rebellion and leads the youths to the surface... where they all die horribly due to being adapted for the high-pressure underwater environment. Apparently, daddy dearest never bothered to simply tell his son that his mutations would make him burst in the low-pressure atmosphere above the waves.
• Ultimate Marvel:
  • Ultimate Galactus Trilogy: Sam Wilson openly calls the X-Men "morons" for charging into the crisis on the belief there was a mutant psychic in distress without even bothering to turn on the TV and see if anything else was happening in the world. He lampshades how the X-Men are so tied into their own mission of protecting mutants that it doesn't occur to them there's more to the world.
  • The Ultimates: Captain America traces Henry Pym and and goes to "arrest" him, claiming he's acting on Nick Fury's orders. When Fury discovers this, he orders that Pym not be injured because they need all hands on deck to deal with an alien invasion. It's too late, and by the time they find Cap, he's beaten Hank senseless.
• This is what kickstarts and fuels the entire Inhumans vs. X-Men storyline: Beast has learned that the Terrigen Mists that are threatening mutantkind are reaching a point where it will engulf the planet, making Earth uninhabitable to mutants. Beast plans to let the Inhumans know, but panics and decides not to when he overhears Medusa tell the rest of the royal family to prepare for a possible mutant retaliation. Thus, when Beast tells the X-Men and they decide to attack, they completely blindside the Inhumans and spend a good portion of the event confused as to why the X-Men are doing this.
• In What If?, The Watcher shows Iron Man that if he had just genuinely reached out to Captain America to explain his thoughts during Civil War (2006) instead of acting like a Control Freak, much of the violence would have been avoided and they would have worked together to create a more reasonable form of the Super Registration Act.
• Fables: Snow and Rose's entire feud started because Rose thought Snow had deliberately abandoned her to go off and live the royal life on her own and sought revenge on her for it by sleeping with Prince Charming. If Snow or Lauda had just told Rose the truth (that Snow had to be sent away to protect her from the king of the Golden Kingdom and that she would have rather stayed with her family), things between them might have been very different.
• Wonder Woman Vol 1: The Golden Women grab Wonder Woman and the Holliday Girls and, due to where they found the ladies and the green membranes which are allowing the humans to live in the non-earth environment, believe them to be more of the evil Green Geni. While both Diana and Supreema start to realize that both groups are missing some information, one of the lower level space policewomen keeps angrily cutting off each and every attempt by the humans to explain themselves with accusations that paint the Golden as the villainous oppressors in the fight against the Geni. The ensuing fight nearly results in the deaths of the entire space police force and the destruction of life of earth.
• The Smurfs: The Betrayal of Smurfblossom]]: the titular 'betrayal' occurs when Smurfblossom follows Smurfstorm up a tree, accidentally causing the branch to crack under their combined weight and Stormy to fall. Though she tries, she's unable to find her; Stormy doesn't turn back up until reinforcements arrive. Stormy then declares that "She's the one who caused me to fall!" Rather than say anything in her own defense, Blossom runs away, leaving everyone to speculate that she deliberately pushed her out of the tree out of anger over her recent teasing about her supposed crush on Hefty.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Andrew has a bad habit of running off half-cocked and enacting plans without telling the other Scoobies:
  • In Season 9, he roofies Buffy at a party and transfers her mind into a robot body to protect her from an unknown Big Bad, which was all done without telling anyone else. This leads to Buffy thinking she is pregnant due to limitations of the robot body and only discovering she's a robot when her arm gets ripped off; Buffy and Spike waste no time giving Andrew absolute hell over it, with Spike going so far as to threaten to kill him if he doesn't fix the situation.
  • In Season 10, he steals the Vampyr book and takes it to Sunnydale with him, planning to use the new rules of magic to his advantage to resurrect Jonathan and Tara. This leads the gang to think he's trying to resurrect Warren. When he's talked down from doing so, Andrew rants about how he didn't tell them because they don't trust him or make him feel like he belongs; Buffy apologizes for doing so, but also points out he's given them plenty of reason not to.
• Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps: Kyle Rayner really screws up this way; keeping time-travelling supervillain Sarko's true identity a secret would end up destroying the alliance between the Green Lantern Corps and Sinestro Corps. As pointed out by Soranik Natu:
  Soranik: Kyle... you... should have... TOLD ME! We had a son.

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