Strange Tales of the DA Multiverse is a web comic hosted on DeviantArt, created by Tony Smith (AKA Captain86), and loosely connected to Tales to Behold.
When the monstrous Lord Dies and his Protectorate traverse the realities, slaughtering every version of Captain Evening they can find, a rag-tag coalition of heroes from different earths must gather together to stop them.
While the comic is all drawn by Smith, it features characters created by his friends, including Burst Lion by Adekii, Captain Evening by Beholder, AstroLass by Johnny-Octavius Xailenrath Gans, Cassandra by Cyberkitten, Mega Mutt by Natter45, and Mixtli by Tulio.
This series contains examples of:
- Adaptational Skimpiness: While Burst Lion's costume varies depending on which comic she's appearing in, in this comic, it's limited to boots, sleeves, a collar, and a corset that only covers the upper part of her midriff. This is, however, still more modest than her evil counterpart Tango, who's wearing only a bunch of belts and garters.
- Author Appeal: The Captain likes really skimpy costumes and head-first consumption shots. Sure enough, many of the characters are scantly-dressed, Dark Valkyrie is eaten head-first by Eros, and Tango is almost consumed head-first by a possessed Thrash.
- Author Avatar: Ultimate Power is modeled after Tony Smith. Ultimatum is modeled after his son.
- Badass Normal: None of the Captains Evening have any powers. They're all just really good fighters and leaders.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: Sharply averted; seemingly every costume has anatomical bulges.
- Beware the Superman: Centennial comes from a world where this trope is very much in play; he defeated most of the heroes on his world and is unchallenged.
- The Big Guy: The Protectors of the Realms have the Marv the Griffin (whose name is pretty self-explanatory), while the Protectorate has Merv the Demon (again, self-explanatory) and Thrash, who is pretty big in his normal form but massive in his more bestial form.
- Canon Welding: The series attempts to tie several different DA-based comics together into a single narrative.
- Cat Girl: Burst Lion resembles a red and yellow cat girl when she's transformed. Her evil counterpart, Tango, is a brown and white cat girl.
- Cosmic Keystone: Every universe has a version of Captain Evening. If one of them dies, then the universe they inhabited gets irreparably altered.
- Depraved Homosexual: According to the author, Centennial is gay and has used his powers to abuse and dominate the superheroes of his universe.
- Dirty Coward: As Lord Dies' plan falls apart, Centennial and Marv choose to flee rather than get their asses kicked by the superheroes.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Thrash ends up defecting and killing Rush after Lord Dies tries to order him to kill Tango, his own daughter. Tango herself defects after finding out that Lord Dies plans to kill her.
- Evil Counterpart: Marv the Demon for Merv the Griffin, Tango for Burst Lion, Centennial for Centennia, Dark Valkyire for Cassandra, Ultimatum for Ultimate Power, Thrash for Mega Mutt, and while the original heroic speedster, Rush, doesn't feature in this storyline, The Protectorate's Rush is her evil counterpart, decked out in the costume of a different evil speedster called "Runamok".
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Merv the Griffin is, in fact, a griffin, and Marv the Demon is an actual demon. Subverted with Demon Child, who resembles a demon child, but is Really 700 Years Old and technically not a demon.
- Expendable Alternate Universe: Earth-86 is destroyed and reconstituted after the Protectorate kills off their version of Captain Evening.
- Flying Brick: Ultimate Power has flight, strength, and heat vision.
- Forced Transformation: Thrash has the ability to transform into a massive wolf-man. While he is more powerful in that form, he hates the loss of self-control that comes with it.
- From Bad to Worse: In order to stop Dark Valkyrie's symbiote from consuming Cassandra, AstroLass and Mixtli blast him off of Cassandra. With no other potential host in range, he goes and possesses Thrash, giving an already big monster even more power.
- Funny Animal: Mega Mutt is a Flying Brick from a world of funny animal people.
- Good Thing You Can Heal: Rush's accelerated healing factor is the only thing keeping her alive after Demon Child burns her, Tango shreds off her back, and Thrash bites off a chunk of her shoulder. Unfortunately for her, it doesn't kick in fast enough for her to survive Merv the Demon transforming her into a living gateway.
- Going Commando: Mixtli does not appear to be wearing any underwear under her costume. Then again, this being a spin-off of the pro-naturist Tales to Behold, going commando is the norm.
- Heel–Face Turn: Tango defects to the good guys after realizing that Lord Dies plans to kill her, as does her dad Thrash, after realizing that Lord Dies had no intention of paying him for his service.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Rush makes the decision to feed her injured teammate Thrash to Eros in order to save Eros from dying without a host, because Eros is more valuable to Lord Dies' plans.
- Kill It with Fire: After spearing her through the legs with icicles, Demon Child burns Rush alive.
- Magical Girl: Burst Lion is a normal human girl who magically transforms into a cat girl. The same goes for her evil counterpart Tango.
- Orcus on His Throne: Lord Dies remains off-screen for the first half of the comic, only showing up after the rest of the Protectorate suffer several casualties.
- Power Incontinence: Rush has very little control over her speed powers and thus has to keep running.
- Red Shirt: Poor Star Power-86 dies from blood loss after Thrash bites off her arm (and a good chunk of her neck), Evening-86 has his life drained out of him by Lord Dies, and Borealis-86 gets sacrificed by Marv in order to open up a portal.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Rush ends up killed by Marv in order to create a portal so that he and Centennial can flee after it becomes clear that they chose the wrong side.
- Spear Counterpart: Centennial is an evil male version of Centennia from Tales to Behold.
- The Starscream: Dark Valkyrie dreams of usurping Centennial to become Lord Dies' second-in-command.
- Stripperific: The comic is fairly equal-opportunity on skimpy costumes. Centennial's costume is basically a woman's swimsuit adapted to his slightly more masculine frame, Demon Child's costume consists of a few strategically-placed straps, belts, and collars, and AstroLass' costume has a huge chest window. And then there are the symbiote-based heroines like Dark Valkyrie and Cassandra, who are pretty much naked under those symbiotes.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
- Dark Valkyrie ends up consumed by her own symbiote after repeatedly failing to kill Cassandra.
- After Ultimatum falters in battle with Ultimate Power, Lord Dies knocks him out of the sky and is not particularly concerned when he says that he's having trouble staying airborne.
