American Barbarian
is a comic-book-style webcomic featuring rather Kirby-esque adventures set in an extremely strange United States, apparently in the far future.
The creator of the webcomic, Tom Scioli, would later make the comic books Transformers vs. G.I. Joe and GoBots for IDW Publishing.
Tropes included:
- After the End: The world-ending catastrophe is referenced as the "Great Clusterfuck"
- Badass Family: The Yoosamon family are formidable strongmen who have been guards of the Castle Lionheart for generations.
- Barbarian Hero: Rick is the hero of the story and a barbarian.
- Base on Wheels: The Moving Fortress, a city built inside a massive tank-like vehicle..
- Big Bad: Two-Tank Omen, a gigantic "satanic pharaoh" who has full-sized tanks for feet. Rick takes it upon himself to stop Two-Tank Omen both to avenge his family and to stop him from hurting others.
- Cain and Abel: Rick ends up fighting his brother Gunthor when the latter turns out to have sided with Two-Tank Omen.
- Fake Defector: Rick pretends to join Two Tank Omen's army in an effort to get "R-E-V-E-N-G-E-!-!-!"
- Flipping the Bird: Rick goes out giving the middle finger to Two-Tank Omen.
- Get It Over With: Gunthor to Rick, once he gets the sword.
- Give Me a Sword: Uli gets back Rick's sword and throws it to him.
- Go-Go Enslavement: Uli at one point gets captured by Two-Tank Omen and forced to wear a very revealing costume.
- Green-Eyed Monster: the protagonist's brother betrays him because he lost the Tangle of Swords.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Rick sacrifices himself to kill Two-Tank Omen.
- Human Sacrifice: "Meet god!" (actually a Beholder-like entity)
- Immortality: Two-Tank Omen is stated to be immortal.
- Leave No Survivors: Two-Tank-Omen's modus operandi
- Love Triangle: Averted and lampshaded: Rick is glad that Uli turns out to be the sister of the other man.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Rick is horrified by how his attempt to win Two-Tank Omen's trust give Omen a chance to wreak destruction.
- Number of the Beast: Two-Tank Omen has a stylized triple-six emblem on his headdress.
- One-Man Army: Rick can kick tons of ass even though he's just one man.
- One-Way Visor: Greylock, the Climber and Gali-Leo all wear opaque visors.
- Protagonist Title: This comic's title also happens to be the name of the main character.
- Really 700 Years Old: The inhabitants of the Moving Fortress reveal that they are much older than they appear and have lived since before the Great Clusterfuck.
- Revenge: Rick wants to kill Two-Tank Omen to avenge the slaughtering of his father and brothers.
- Retraux: In spite of being made in the 2010's, the comic is drawn in a style as if it were published decades earlier than that.
- Rule of Seven: Rick is the youngest of seven sons.
- Smooch of Victory: Uli gives Rick one after Gunthor flees and the battle is over.
- Sole Survivor: Rick is the last surviving member of the Yoosamon family, at least until Gunthor is also revealed to have survived.
- Spiteful Spit:
- One man makes the suicidal decision to spit at Two-Tank Omen and insult him to his face. Two-Tank Omen responds by gesturing his men to slit the man's throat.
- American Barbarian spits at Bad-Azz before fighting him.
- Stable Time Loop: The first Time Machine test caused Rick to become the strange rainbow-humanoid explorer who gave himself cryptic advice. He also takes the Medusa Bolas with him, because that's what the explorer did.
- Temporal Paradox: Rick refuses to undo the apocalypse, since it would erase everyone who lived in his post-apocalypse world. Well, almost everyone.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: Two-Tank Omen's arrival and the city plotlines were displayed in parallel.
- You Did Everything You Could: Uli assures Rick of this after one attempt on Two-Tank Omen failed entirely.
- Youngest Child Wins: Rick is the youngest of Pa Yoosamon's sons and ends up inheriting their family's destiny.
