Basic Trope: A villain attempts to kill The Hero using an over-elaborate method of delayed execution.
- Straight: Professor Felonious attempts to kill his arch-nemesis Flash Dangerman by chaining him to a platform which is steadily lowered into a pit of crocodiles.
- Exaggerated: The heroes infiltrate Felonious' Elaborate Underground Base, only to find that every single room is home to a different, but no less deadly, trap.
- Downplayed:
- Felonious uses Flash as a Guinea pig / test dummy for his latest evil invention.
- Felonious locks Flash in a building that's about to be vaporised by his Superweapon.
- Felonious uses the crocodile pit as a means of psychological torture to interrogate his prisoners, not as a method of execution. Of course, the prisoners don't know that.
- Justified:
- Inverted: Dirk Blackheart, aka "The Reckoner", abducts criminals, forces them into Death Traps, and sends video footage of the trap in operation to their associates.
- Subverted:
- The crocodiles are there because Felonious loves reptiles. He doesn't feed people to them.
- Flash manages to free himself from the chains and narrowly escapes the crocodiles' jaws, which triggers a bomb, destroying the room and killing him.
- Flash makes no effort to avoid being lowered into the pit: he's The Beastmaster, and he's being given an army of crocodiles.
- Once Professor Felonious opens up the pit of crocodiles he finds that they have all been replaced with rubber ducks.
- Professor Felonious opens up the pit of crocodiles, only to remember that Flash Dangerman's super power is being immune to crocodile bites.
- Double Subverted: The crocodile pit isn't for him, it's for his Love Interest, who will be lowered into the pit while he is Forced to Watch. Then, Felonious will shoot him.
- Parodied:
- Flash is hanging on a rope above the crocodile pit, which will only be broken once an elaborate Rube Goldberg Device is complete.
- Felonious will only execute his enemies via Death Trap. In fact, he even issues his Mooks with non-lethal weapons because he can't bear to kill people using conventional means.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: Felonious, after capturing Flash, shoots him in the head.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded: Flash, upon seeing the pit, makes some witty comment about how unoriginal it is.
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited:
- Flash knows that Felonious will try to kill him with a Death Trap. Because of this, he brings an emergency locator with him, knowing his nemesis' dithering will provide enough time for The Cavalry to arrive.
- Flash trains extensively at escapology, and because of this can always escape the Death Traps with ease.
- Defied: ???
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: ???
- Deconstructed: ???
- Reconstructed: Flash can hardly keep himself from laughing when Felonious reveals the crocodile pit. He soon realises that it's actually quite difficult to escape from chains. And that being torn apart by crocodiles is a very painful way to die.
- Played For Laughs: Instead of crocodiles, the pit is full of kittens. Why? Flash is severely allergic to cats.
- Played For Drama: The Death Trap incorporates a Time Bomb or similar device, resulting in a nail-biting race against time to defuse it.
- Played For Horror: Particularly painful, humiliating and disturbing traps depicted in very gory detail à la Saw.
"You Fool! You're just where I want you — and your pitiful main page can't save you from THIS! MUAHAHAHAHA!"
