Clockwise from top right: Dispawn, Arianna, Pinball, Multiblades, Mineral, Rearranger, Flame Thrower, B.A.D.
Almighty Protectors is a superhero Webcomic by Ave Messer, hosted on ComicFury and Tapas Media that follows a team of characters as they right wrongs in their own universe and beyond. The Comic Fury site is here
while you can find it on Tapas here. It is also a member of the superhero webcomic collective, Collective of Heroes.
This comic shows examples of:
- Abandoned Area: In issue 8, the Young Adult Anthropomorphic Warrior Chuckwallas operate out of an abandoned mall.
- Action Dad: Dispawn is Flame Thrower's biological father, and is also the tank of the team.
- Action Girl: Arianna, B.A.D., Flame Thrower, and Multiblades are all women who are in the forefront of the action, with Multiblades as the greater example, as her powers essentially making her the melee specialist among them.
- The Adjectival Superhero: The name of the team is supposed to be the Protectors. "Almighty" is an adjective used to differentiate from all the other "Protectors" teams, though it's also used in-universe.
- Aerith and Bob: Being made up of characters from a formerly "normal" universe and a fantasy one, the team squarely falls into this. Alongside the names of Mariana, Karl, Michelle (actually Miguela), Michael (actually Miquel), and Bridget are Ɦṵxṵʀṵ (Dispawn). Arianna actually has a very human-sounding first name, though its pronunciation (ar̥iæn̥ə) is just different enough, and her full name (Arianna Ou!ine Yresh) is decidedly not so "normal". One can also point to Flame Thrower's last name (Dragonmaster) as being another juxtaposition.
- Affectionate Parody: The Young Adult Anthropomorphic Warrior Chuckwallas, of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This is referenced in-comic, especially as the lizard team also have theme naming (after classic authors — Shelley, Chaucer, Proust, and Milton).
- Age-Gap Romance: B.A.D. and Arianna have begun dating, despite Arianna being old enough to have been an adult when B.A.D.'s friend and peer (Flame Thrower) was in the womb.
- The Ageless: Technically the whole team, but especially Arianna and Dispawn, with such being due to being magical creatures.
- Aliens in Cardiff: Super powers enter the universe, the epicenter of the event happening in Redding, California.
- All Lesbians Want Kids: Averted, in the case of Flame Thrower and Multiblades. Flame Thrower says they don't plan to have any kids.
- Alternate Universe: One of the conceits of the series is the characters traveling to alternate universes regularly.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Pinball's skin is blue.
- Amnesiac Hero: Pinball can't remember hir past, even hir name. Zhe even experiences simple things, like eating, for seemingly the first time.
- Animal Eyes: Flame Thrower has reptilian eyes. So does Dispawn, but while he's got other dragon features, she only has the eyes to indicate such heritage.
- Animal-Themed Superbeing: Dispawn is a dragon man, and his telepathy for those with dragon ancestry makes him able to commune with them.
- Apathetic Citizens: Central to the plot of issue 7, as the populace of the world is shown to have been becoming increasingly more apathetic following the advent of superpowers. This is said to likely have been intended as a cosmic safeguard, to keep people from panicking because of the new powers, and that something went wrong to ultimately numb them to every emotion.
- Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: Poltergeist of the Defenders of America is mentioned to have paid to give the teams their costumes, as well as give them two different houses (one for Flame Thrower and Multiblades and one for Rearranger and Mineral), all while funding the Defenders of America's crime-fighting operations, as well as the solo ones for herself and Black Wraith (which includes various staff to assist in becoming a sort of civilian police station), all of these by herself.
- Art Shift: Most issues are drawn by multiple artists, for various reasons. The creator has expressed that she doesn't like this and that she's trying to move towards this no longer happening.
- Badass Family: The team, barring two members (Arianna and B.A.D.), are family in some way.
- Flame Thrower and Rearranger are adopted siblings while Mineral and Multiblades are biological siblings.
- Flame Thrower is dating Multiblades while Rearranger is dating Mineral.
- Dispawn is Flame Thrower's biological father.
- Battle Couple: Flame Thrower and Multiblades, Rearranger and Mineral, B.A.D. and Arianna—three couples within the same superhero team, all of whom fight together.
- Bland-Name Product: Issue 4 sees the team fight some killer robots outside a Shedds and Peasant (a thinly-veiled Barnes And Noble).
- Blind Seer: The team encounters one in a fantasy world in issue 1. She's blind, but "sees" using her precognition (which doesn't work for anything involving Pinball).
- Boobs-and-Butt Pose: Dr Demus, one of the artists for issue 2, manages to get Arianna's boobs and butt into the same panel as she's running away from the fairy guards.
- Brainy Brunette: Arianna is a brunette and speaks in a stilted, erudite manner, her telepathy allowing her intellectual insight above what everyone else around has.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Pinball regularly acknowledges zhe's in a comic book, reading issue titles and text boxes.
- Breath Weapon: Dispawn can breathe fire.
- Brought to You by the Letter "S": Flame Thrower has a combined "F" and "T" as her logo. Multiblades has an M as her belt buckle, while she and Mineral both have M-styled patterns on their costumes.
- Butch Lesbian: B.A.D. is butch and a lesbian.
- The Cape: Most of the team are traditional, no-killing superheroes. Only Arianna and Dispawn deviant from this, and one of them is a villain.
- Cast Full of Gay: Everybody on the titular team is LGBT, with the exception of Dispawn (Flame Thrower is a trans woman and in a relationship with the female Multiblades, Mineral is a trans man and in a relationship with the male Rearranger, female team members B.A.D. and Arianna have begun a relationship, and Pinball has made reference to being asexual).
- Chest Insignia: Flame Thrower has an "F" and "T" combined, while Rearranger has a stylized helium atom.
- Clark Kenting: The team, when out of costume, have quite telling aspects which should give away who they are, from distinctive eyes or hair to the fact that they constantly hang out while out of costume and have recognizable body types.
- Code Name: Starting in issue 5, the team gets their own as well as their costumes.
- Color-Coded Characters: Every member of the team has distinct colors associated with them, with little overlap. B.A.D.: black; Flame Thrower: yellow, red, and orange; Mineral: grey and brown; Multiblades: green; Pinball: blue; Rearranger: brown and black. Arianna (green costume, yellow and red wings) and Dispawn (green and yellow scales and brown pants) only have overlapping colors with others on the team, but one is a traitor and as such will not be on the team forever.
- Color-Coded Secret Identity: There seems to be a propensity for the characters to wear their costumes' colors in civilian clothes
- Combat Pragmatist: Arianna has no qualms about using her telepathy to pacify an opponent.
- Creator Provincialism: The comic takes place in Redding, California, which is where Ave is from.
- Crossover: In issue 7, the titular characters from Misfits Of Mischief show up and help the heroes.
- Criminal Doppelgänger: Portal is this for Pinball, despite the former having a noticeable belt and it can be seen that he is wearing a costume.
- Curtains Match the Window: Multiblades and Arianna. Rearranger, as well, if one is only counting half his hair.
- Death by Childbirth: Flame Thrower's mom died shortly after giving birth to her. It is mentioned that she already had internal hemorrhaging, and she had just gone through an agonizingly painful trip to another universe. Not to mention, she may have been abused prior to all of that.
- Dishing Out Dirt: Mineral and Multiblades both have rock-based powers, with Mineral able to create a rocky coating over himself, while Multiblades is able to create rocky shards.
- Domino Mask: Flame Thrower's mask only covers around her eyes, including her eyebrows, but not obscuring her noticeable features in any practical way.
- Draconic Humanoid: Dispawn is half-dragon, having green, scaly skin, an extended snout, wings, claws, sharp teeth, and three digits on each hand, foot, and wing.
- Dragon Ancestry: Dispawn (half-dragon) and Flame Thrower (1/4 dragon).
- Elemental Hair Colors: Flame Thrower has fire powers and red hair. Mineral's are stone-based and he has silver hair.
- Faceless Masses: The crowd at the medieval arena in issue 1 aren't given any detail. When the titular team is too far away, they tend to be silhouettes or even just stick figures, and when a little closer have details missing, which may include their entire face.
- The Fair Folk: Arianna comes from an insular race of fairies who are haughty and arrogant, feeling themselves superior to humans.
- Fanservice: Flame Thrower often ends up in a state of undress when traveling to a different universe.
- Finishing Each Other's Sentences: Mineral and Multiblades are called out for this in issue 0 (Karabear Comics Presents #1).
- Fireball Eyeballs: When her power first manifests, Flame Thrower's eyes start emanating fire for a little bit.
- Flight: Flame Thrower is able to fly without the aid of wings. Arianna and Dispawn, meanwhile, do have wings.
- Flying Firepower: Flame Thrower can both fly and shoot fire from her hands.
- Girly Bruiser: Multiblades. She's the only woman on the team with a skirt as part of her costume and has the most offensive powers of said women, too.
- Half-Identical Twins: Mineral and Multiblades. They actually are identical twins, but Mineral is trans.
- Happily Adopted: Flame Thrower seems to have no qualms about being adopted, and even feels that if she has a kid, she'll adopt that one, too.
- Heroic Build: Not all of the team, but Rearranger, Pinball, Dispawn, and Arianna have such physiques.
- Hidden Buxom: As a trans man, it's no secret Mineral binds his chest, but when he is seen without a shirt or bindings in issue 10, his breasts are shown to be rather large, fitting his heftier body size.
- I Believe I Can Fly: Everyone on the team except for Mineral and Multiblades has the ability to fly or a close facsimile (even Pinball can continuously fall through hir portals in such a way as to essentially fly). The twins are a little miffed about this.
- Immortality Begins at Twenty: Everyone in the Almighty Protectors' primary universe stops aging at 18, starting when super powers were introduced into the world.
- Informed Judaism: Flame Thrower casually mentions being raised by a half-Jewish family in issue 11, but this is the first time she or Rearranger have been said to be such, or displayed anything like it.
- Land of Faerie: The first three issues of the comic take place in such a land, especially issue 2, which takes place in their woods.
- Leotard of Power: Arianna wears a leotard as her "costume". It's actually her normal clothing from her fairy society, but it still counts.
- Let Me at Him!: in issue 13, the team takes Captain Marvel to Auschwitz to show him the Nazis' atrocities — and have to hold him back so he doesn't cause an international incident by killing all the guards in the place.
- Limited Wardrobe: Dispawn wears the same pair of tattered pants, regardless of having the resources to possibly get a new pair since leaving the fantasy world. Arianna, as well, only ever wears her fairy outfit, but at least it's not tattered. Pinball doesn't wear anything, except in hir "civilian" form, which, as it's an illusion, never manifests as more than the same outfit every time.
- Lipstick Lesbian: Multiblades is a lesbian and also the girliest on the team. On top of a face full of makeup, her costume is even the only one with a skirt. Flame Thrower is close, as she is in a relationship with Multiblades and is also quite girly, always wearing makeup and being shown to primarily wear a skirt instead of pants out of costume.
- Little Bit Beastly: Flame Thrower may be 1/4 dragon by heritage, but this only shows up in her reptilian eyes, which are yellow with no sclera and a vertical slit pupil.
- Lizard Folk: The Young Adult Anthropomorphic Warrior Chuckwallas are, as their name says, anthropomorphic chuckwallas.
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Rearranger can be seen as this, with his long hair and superheroic figure.
- Magical Land: Issues 1-3 take place in a fantasy world with creatures such as fairies and dragons.
- Mass Super-Empowering Event: 1/10th of the population of the universe developed super powers suddenly, with Flame Thrower, Rearranger, Mineral, and Multiblades seemingly at the center, and Pinball might be involved.
- Mecha-Mooks: Issue 4 has the team fighting several robots. In the comic Karabear Comics Presents, it's revealed that said robots are the disposable minions of a xenophobic cult leader.
- Medium Awareness: Pinball regularly acknowledges zhe's in a comic book, reading issue titles and text boxes.
- Mind over Matter: B.A.D. has the power of telekinesis.
- Mistaken for Gay: In issue 8, Dispawn goes with the others to a gay bar (not knowing that "gay" in this sense doesn't just mean "happy"), with a glamour around him that makes him look like a muscular, shirtless man, and he's offended when a guy there hits on him.
- Monster Modesty: Dispawn, a half-dragon man, only wears a pair of pants.
- The Multiverse: Pinball can travel to seemingly any universe by using hir portals.
- Naked People Are Funny: A Running Gag was that whenever Pinball transported the team to another world, Flame Thrower ended up in a state of undress. This gag eventually seemed to be retired.
- No Biological Sex: Pinball doesn't have any genitalia. While this could be Nonhumans Lack Attributes, it could also be that Pinball's species just doesn't have sexual dimorphism.
- Non-Human Non-Binary: Pinball is humanoid, but pointedly not human in many aspects, and the character doesn't identify as either male or female, going by zhe/hir pronouns. Zhe also lacks any genitalia or secondary sex characteristics.
- Nonhumans Lack Attributes: The order guardian Tempore is decidedly inhuman and also lacking any genitalia.
- Non-Mammal Mammaries: Shelley and Proust, the female members of the Young Adult Anthropomorphic Warrior Chuckwallas, have breasts despite being anthropomorphic lizards.
- No-Sell: In issue 4, much to Mineral's joy and surprise, the blast from a robot (which could blow a large hole in a building) just bounces off him harmlessly when he's armored up. He later uses this when the team fights Zap in issue 5, armoring up while being blasted in order to walk up to the villain and try to punch him, all while being continuously blasted by energy that can even fell the super-durable Dispawn.
- Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous: Pinball comes from some world unknown to even hir, and lacks any genitalia or secondary sex characteristics.
- Our Nymphs Are Different: Issue 2 has Flame Thrower get captured by nymphs for a short time.
- Playing with Fire: Flame Thrower has pyrokinesis. Dispawn to an extent, as he breathes fire.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: Dispawn expresses highly homophobic and transphobic views.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Considering issue 10 brought the team to Nazi-controlled Germany, with Captain Nazi as a prominent figure...
- Power Incontinence: Pinball may seem to have control over hir power usually, but it does often go off at random, sending the team into a situation that none are prepared for.
- Power Misidentification: Until issue 2, most of the team assumes Rearranger has some sort of water-based power, as all he'd done to that point was make it rain. However, he reveals that he has the ability to control subatomic particles.
- Pstandard Psychic Pstance: Arianna will assume this stance when using her telepathy. B.A.D. will sometimes use it, as well, for her telekinesis.
- Public Domain Character: Starting in issue 10, but not actually revealed until issue 11, the titular team travels to a universe still in World War II in the 1940s, replete with public domain superheroes and supervillains from that time, such as Captain Marvel and Captain Nazi.
- Randomly Gifted: The mass empowering event seems to have this effect.
- Running Gag: Whenever taken to another universe by Pinball, Flame Thrower seems to find herself in a state of undress.
- Secret Identity: B.A.D. pushes the others into taking such to protect her own.
- Secret-Keeper: Bridge, B.A.D.'s best friend, knows her secret identity and those of the other members of the team. She even let the majority of the team stay at her place after they had just returned from the fantasy world.
- Self-Deprecation: With Pinball sometimes pointing out flaws, and especially author comments, Ave is perfectly willing to criticize her own writing and art.
- Shared Universe: With the comics Black Wraith, Defenders of America, Elemental Four, Karabear Comics Presents, and Wonder Super.
- Shirtless Scene: Mineral and Rearranger in issue 10, having just gotten out of bed and unable to get dressed until the end of the issue.
- Sixth Ranger: Arianna, Dispawn, and B.A.D. can all be considered to qualify as such, joining the team in issue 2, 3, and 4, respectively.
- Sixth Ranger Traitor: Either Arianna or Dispawn is a manipulative, evil murderer, pretending to be good in order to use the team as a cover for their actions. Just which of the two this one has yet to be revealed.
- Speech-Bubble Censoring: Issue 7's crossover with the Misfits Of Mischief has the guest trio turn into naked women to perform sex magic, and speech bubbles and sound effects cover their nudity.
- Spiky Hair: out of costume, it can be seen that B.A.D. spikes her hair.
- Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Multiblades can do so with rock-like shards, which she can use as knives, swords, etc.
- Steven Ulysses Perhero: B.A.D.'s superhero name is just her initials (from Bridget Anna Dell).
- Stock Superhero Day Jobs: Flame Thrower, Mineral, Multiblades, and Rearranger are college students.
- Stout Strength: Mineral is the strongest member of the team, barring Dispawn (whose strength is superhuman), with a husky figure, as on the track and field team, he was a shot putter. Multiblades may have been a thrower as well, but she did disc, which doesn't require as much strength.
- Superhero Prevalence Stages: The comic seems to be Middle Stage, despite super powers being very new in-universe.
- Superheroes Stay Single: Averted in the fact that to begin with, two relationships were already established (Flame Thrower with Multiblades and Rearranger with Mineral) while another later developed because of being superheroes (B.A.D. and Arianna).
- Superheroes Wear Capes: Averted. None of the titular team wears a cape, while the first supervillain they face does wear one.
- Superheroes Wear Tights: B.A.D., Flame Thrower, Mineral, and Multiblades' costumes all have tights as part of their makeup.
- Super-Strength: Dispawn appears to be demonstrably stronger than a normal human.
- Super Team: The titular group is a team of superheroes.
- Super Villain: Zap, a bank robber with an electric energy-type power, was the first supervillain the team faced. They later came up against other supervillains.
- Teenage Mutant Samurai Wombats: the Young Adult Anthropomorphic Warrior Chuckwallas, referenced in-comic as being a pastiche of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
- Telepathy: Arianna. Dispawn has it for anyone with dragon ancestry.
- Theme Twin Naming: Mineral and Multiblades, whose real names are Miquel (aka Michael) and Miguela (aka Michelle) respectively.
- Thinking Up Portals: Pinball. This is how the team travels to different universes.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: The team discusses in issue 9 how they (except for Arianna and Dispawn) don't want to kill anybody and should actively avoid it.
- The Tourney: In issue 1, the king holds a tournament to find the best warrior to face "the beast in the mountain" (Dispawn).
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Nobody in their own world comments on Flame Thrower's reptilian eyes, despite her having them before people started gaining powers,
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Dispawn never seems to wear a shirt, even when putting on a glamour to look human (and therefore could make it look like he's wearing anything he wants).
- Who Writes This Crap?!: Pinball sometimes calls out the writing in the comic.
- Winged Humanoid: Dispawn, being half-dragon, and Arianna, being a fairy, have wings.
