Our Great Heroes
Bro-Rangers is a Sprite-based Webcomic inspired by what is known among the lucky participants as The Greatest MSN Conversation in History, and started in November 2009. Among various hiatuses, the comic is pretty much dead and can be read online at Neoseeker Forum's 'The World Ends With You' Board
as each issue is released, and is archived at this Comic Fury archive.
The story follows 5 People who awaken to a mysterious power and form the 'Bro-Rangers', a team of bro-some heroes that fight to defeat the evil Hoes and their leader, 'The Communist'. Well, that was the original concept. The comic's plot has spiralled and now includes a large cast of original characters, various plots and arcs, and takes the occasional stab or reference at an Anime or Video Game.
You can see the archives here and check out the wiki, the Encybropedia, here.
Bro-Rangers contains examples of:
- Aborted Arc: Continuing with the comic's Real Life Writes the Plot setup, there was going to be an arc after Issue 43 parodying Ace Attorney. However, the comic went into one of it's many hiatuses after that, so when it picked back up, it jumped straight to Platinum's introduction.
- All There in the Manual: The Encybropedia, along with characters and issues, contains a lot of explanation and expansion on abilities and concepts within the comic, like the Bro's being Full Coloured. They're all just as reference and joke ridden as the comic itself.
- There's also now official listings on the Arcs in the comic. The names vary between nice ones like 'The Brologue' and 'That First Arc'... and rather amusing ones like the 'Pheo is Incompetant Arc' and the 'Nothing-In-Particular Arc'.
- Author Avatar: In a way, a lot of the cast. Justified in that the comic is based around a parody of the forum members who came up with it.
- Beat Panel: Every one in the comic has Beat from TWEWY show up in the panel in some way.
- Berserk Button: Multiple members of the cast seem to have made theirs clear.
- Big Bad: The series opens with The Communist making a huge impact on the cast members, and their adventures begin with the Bros fighting off various Hoes. This is dropped pretty quickly after its made clear in the issues the focus swaps to The Communist (Pheonyx) that she isn't the most competant Big Bad out there. Series 1's primary conflict actually comes from one of her underlings, Prometheus el Brittania, and the appearances of Kanbro's arch-nemesis Lord Laziness. Series 2 opens with the reveal of Mavireil, but even she has gone mostly ignored after a line of issues focusing on the new conflict.
- Butt-Monkey: Arbro. Used as a weapon on more than one occasion.
- To the point he quits the team because of how they're treating him. Rabro and Kanbro make sure to get two more puns in as he leaves.
- Calling Your Attacks: Most battles before the style-switch to Overworld sprites use this. After the switch, its generally avoiding since, you know, you can see what they're doing now.
- Character-Magnetic Team: Both sides; The Bros pick up Viper, Scarbro and Shield-chan during their adventures, while Pheonyx teams up with the returned Blue Moustache Man and gathers Tenho and Zexion
- Rabro notices.
- Ellie joins the Bros when she is supplied with the computer they get, and Platinum confuses Zexion into letting him on their side.
- Everyone Calls Her Shield-chan: After being rescued from her position as a Human Shield, Arbro asks what her name is and 'Shield' is the first thing to pop into Kanbro's head. Since she doesn't talk, it's never objected against and sticks.
- Flanderization: Most of the cast are actual forum members from Neoseeker who frequent the TWEWY board there. Bro-Rangers took a lead trait from those people and turned it into their entire character.
- Flashback: The Shibuya Election between Kanbro and Pheonyx that starts off the reoccuring Election Arc.
- Hurricane of Puns: The word 'Bro' was inserted into any possible spot for most of the early series. It kind of stopped after a while though, with only Brolord really doing it now.
- Intercontinuity Crossover: See if you can spot and name all the other TWEWY Fanverse characters in Issue 16.
- Insane Troll Logic: Platinum convinces Zexion to let him join when he signs a form saying he can officially certify documents, and proclaims since he is certified, the document he just signed saying he is certified is legit.
- I See Dead People: Scarbro can talk to ghosts, which has been a way to keep Viper around after Rabro and Kanbro killed him for totally legitimate reasons.
- Original Character: Pretty much the entire cast are Original Characters based on the Neoseeker members using a sprite they made to represent themselves. However, the only characters made exclusively for Bro-Rangers are Lord Laziness, Ellie, Mavireil and Platinum.
- Random Number God: Rabro has the ability to rip into another dimension and alter it in his favor
- Real Life Writes the Plot: The matter between the Tenhograd and Kanontopia names for Shibuya became a Running Gag in the forums. Bro-Rangers just got their first to make matters official.
- Mikachu attacking Cucurbita and Mari, Pheonyx and Cucurbita's daughter also follow this rule.
- It appears a few issues are made just because of what someone said or did at some point, then they took it, spruced it up a bit, and ran with it. Issue 30 is a good example.
- Revision: In The Brologue, it's stated that the comic takes place outside Japan (in Part 1, Rabla mentions Miku is doing the concert outside Japan). However, after the comic switches to its current Overworld format, the setting is officially set as Shibuya.
- Running Joke: The Beat Panel entry above
- Sexy Santa Dress: Shield-chan's main outfit.
- Shout-Out: Various video game and anime references show up.
- An entire mini-arc was dedicated solely to Carnival Phantasm's Afterschool Alleyway Allience.
- Take That!: Subverted, Issue 52 is a stab at Sun Moon Games, regarding the way Carlito: The Game ended. Subverted in that the author of the comic is also the founder of Sun Moon Games.
- Tournament Arc: The latest arc of the comic. Kind of a subversion to the usual, as it is just a plain old tournament - there's no ulterior motive behind the competition, the current Big Bads aren't competing, and the only reason half the competitors are there is because the grand prize is a pre-release copy of the upcoming Noisemon Panthera version.
- Useless Useful Spell: Rainbro Judgement Beam, the teams Signiture Attack, never hits.
