Webcomic / Team Fortress 2

"TF2 didn't start with a lot of story. There wasn't room for one. But as the updates got more ambitious, we found the perfect way to explore the mercs' world: comics."

— The TF2 Team

Starting with the WAR! comic, Team Fortress 2 established a series of webcomics that primarily explain the story and introduce characters that the actual game itself lacks. Because of this, the comics are usually the only canon material to rely on. The comics have had a major influence on how the game and characters are perceived, rivaled only by the meet the team videos.

While most of the comics are there to give a major update (such as the Scream Fortress events) and some backstory, there have been comics which do not tie into any update. In particular, the series has a currently ongoing seven-issue story arc known as Team Fortress Comics, which is bi-monthly... except that only six issues have been released since August 28, 2013 with the last one released on January 10, 2017.

As of October 2023 however, the last issue of the comic hasn't been released due to the comic writers Erik Wowpal temporarily leaving Valve for a few years after the sixth issue originally released and Jay Pinkerton saying on Twitter he is still being contracted to write it or eventually reveal the plot for it before later deleting his Twitter account.

All of the TF2 Comics can be found here on the TF2 website. Comics are ordered by release date. This list does not include fanmade update comics, which can be found on their respective update page.

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General Comic Tropes

• Aborted Arc: The comics barely focus on the RED and BLU conflict at all. There is only shown to be one team now, Redmond and Blutarch were killed off, and they never explain why both teams were run by the same Administrator. The last time the conflict between them is shown is in the "Grave Matters" comic which set up the Helltower event in Scream Fortress where both teams attempt to send either Redmond or Blutarch to hell to finally settle the debate. While the canonical winner is still unknown, all of the mercenaries being part of RED team in the main "Mann Co No More" comics imply that Redmond won and Blutarch was the one sent to hell first.
• Absurdism: Perhaps the best way to describe the comics' sense of humour.
• Adaptation Expansion: As admitted on the website, Team Fortress 2 didn't start out with much story or lore, but comics proved to be the perfect medium to explore the Team Fortress universe in all its wacky, asinine glory.
• Adapted Out: The BLU team don't appear at all in Team Fortress Comics; though the Engineer appears wearing blue, he's implied to be the one who was on the same team as the RED members. Classic Heavy and Miss Pauling even imply that the mercs' team isn't called RED at all; alongside the Administrator's other teams (Team Echelon, Team Citadel, and Team Vanguard), they're Team Fortress.
• Ambiguous Situation: The composition of the BLU Team is a complicated subject, when it comes to how it's depicted in the comics. The mercs are typically seen as RED, and each merc is never seen on both teams at the same time. However, Ms. Pauling refers to Blu Team in Meet the Director, Redmond and Blutarch refer to their simultaneous mercenary teams, and the Catch-Up Comic shows a mixed team of BLU and RED. However, in Team Fortress Comics, the RED mercs are treated as the only present day team of mercs that exists.
• Burn Scars, Burning Powers: The flamethrower wielding Pyro from Team Fortress Classic is seen unmasked, and she turns out to have a burn scar over one eye.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Zig-Zagged. While many update comics feature absurdly comedic situations, nearly all of them are treated as canon. Here are some of the best examples of this:
  • Redmond and Blutarch are brutally murdered by Gray in cold blood as he begins preparing for his robot takeover of Mann Co. The next TF comic is about Saxton Hale explaining to the mercs what to do while he fights a yeti, while Ms. Pauling tells the team that Gray's robots run on piles of money.
  • Old Wounds ends with Soldier, Pyro, Demo, Spy, Ms. Pauling, and Zhanna facing off against impossible odds - all without weapons, they are taken out by Gray's bloodsucking robots which seem to kill them off for real. The next comic reveals that Demoman's body is able to produce its own alcohol to cause the robots to malfunction, and has antics like Soldier readily holding open a chest cavity to accept more blood into his body, Ms. Pauling's eyes squirting blood when she is squeezed, and Heavy's horrified reaction to Zhanna's dating of Soldier.
• Children as Pawns: When Gray Mann fails to conquer Mann Co. by force with his army of robots, he decides to take over the company through its CEO Saxton Hale's declaration that any rival CEO can replace him if they defeat him in personal combat. Gray Mann makes his tiny daughter Olivia the CEO of Gray Gravel Co. and has her "fight" Saxton, who forfeits because he can't bring himself to beat up a child.
• Cloud Cuckoo Land: Put simply, the whole TF2 universe is crazy in a box with a side order of fries. The entire world is owned by one of two corporations, founded by two feuding brothers fighting over worthless pits of gravel, and both owned by a single sociopathic woman who keeps both sides in conflict. Weapons are supplied by Mann Co., a company owned by an overly masculine Australian who spends most of his time getting into fights. Australia itself is also hyper-masculine, with everyone being incredibly muscular and owning a mustache (yes, even the women), and whose leader is chosen by boxing match with a kangaroo. What's more, it turns out that the second floor was invented (by Shakespearicles, the strongest poet who ever lived) 200 years before the staircase (invented by Abraham Lincoln), and in the intervening time people had to rocket jump up to the second floor. Then there's Gray Mann, who invented a robot army powered by money. Really, just about every bit of information available about the TF2 world only serves to emphasize how insane it is.
• Combat Pragmatist: The Sniper, in contrast to the Classic Sniper. When Classic Sniper captures the Spy, he plans to kill him slowly. When Sniper has him at gunpoint shortly afterward, and the Classic Sniper starts to try and talk his way out, he immediately shoots him.
• Death Is Cheap: Mostly averted, unlike the game. While the Blu Scout and Blu Spy's deaths from "Meet the Spy" are glimpsed in the War! comic, most comics especially the main series treat death as a much more serious, though not unbeatable, consequence instead of an easy respawn like the games and shorts.
• Flanderization: The entire setting is subject to this with each passing release. Comedy in the early promotional material for Team Fortress 2 came from the mercs' eccentric personalities, though the setting itself was relatively grounded. However, the webcomics significantly exaggerate the cartoonish malady of the entire TF2 universe (see Cloud Cuckoo Land above), making it a hilariously corrupt, absurdist, nonsensical Crapsack World with no semblance to reality whatsoever. Naturally, the madness of the webcomics has bled back into the game.
• Guns Are Worthless: Because the characters already spend most of their time in the game shooting each other, the mercenaries almost never use their weapons in the comics, generally fighting on-panel with their bare hands, strange Improvised Weapons, or indirect methods. This is subverted in "The Naked and The Dead", as Saxton Hale provides the mercs their weapons just as they're about to fight a horde of robots.
• Immortality Seeker: This is the driving force behind the entire story, even before Team Fortress Comics. A handful of the older characters, such as Redmond and Blutarch, use machines to extend their lifespan dramatically, and the main conflict of Team Fortress Comics can easily be summarized as "who becomes immortal using the world's remaining Australium?"
• MacGuffin: The pursuit of the mystical, life-extending rocks called Australium serves as the driving force behind most of the action.
• Major Injury Underreaction: All the comics get a lot of mileage out of the gag of mercenaries receiving debilitating injuries and barely reacting at all.
• Naked People Are Funny: Nude combat is apparently such a common occurrence in the Team Fortress universe that several (completely fictitious) comics detail Soldier and Scout's offscreen Naked Tales of Valour. Several other characters appear in states of undress for little to no reason.
• The Nothing After Death: Zig-zagged. On the one hand, Blutarch bluntly states "there is nothing there" when referring to "the other side". On the other hand, ghosts show up constantly, including those of both the Mann brothers, and in later comics a more traditional Heaven and Hell are shown to concretely exist when Scout and Sniper briefly go to Heaven, while Medic briefly ends up in Hell. It seems like the nothingness Blutarch saw was an Ironic Hell of a world with nothing of material value, specifically for him.
• Running Gag: In the numbered comics, expect somebody to suffer a Neck Snap, almost always from The Soldier.
• Surreal Humor: Much of the humour throughout the comics comes from the characters reacting to (and often directly causing) utterly bizarre, illogical situations. The Medic surgically installing baboon uteruses into the chests of the Team Fortress Classic squad is a fairly tame example of the series' sheer randomness.
• Under Strange Management: After Gray Mann takes over Mann Co. and fires the mercs, Pyro becomes the successful CEO of an engineering company, despite being an insane pyromaniac who sees the world as a Sugar Bowl and fire as beautiful rainbows, never takes off their gas mask, and speaks in an unintelligible "Mmmmph-mmmmph-mmmmph" at all times.
• Unsound Effect: FLEX! COUGAR! PROPERTY DAMAGE! BUTTON PRESS! HEROIC LEAP! Very common, especially if Saxton Hale is around. This extends to statues/action figures of Saxton Hale as well. COMPOUND ELEVATED SKULL FRACTURE!
• Wham Episode: Each Team Fortress Comics issue is considerably more serious than any update comic, and most (if not all) of them have a major Reveal or two. If Mann Co. being taken over by the Big Bad isn't whammy enough, the later plot lines such as the Sniper's backstory should seal the deal.

WAR!

WAR!

• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first comic and the only one to show the modern mercenary teams as divided between RED and BLU teams.
• N.G.O. Superpower: The Administrator is the acting CEO of both companies and her own Weapon Supply Company, TF Industries. As long as she can keep the Mann Brothers (and The Teams) distracted by the land grab, she effectively controls the entire world.
• Poor Communication Kills: The Administrator and Miss Pauling convince both the RED Demoman and BLU Soldier (who were both willing to be killed rather than take the offer of killing the other for custom weapons) that the other had already betrayed them, which led to the war. Sadly, they ended up believing that they'd been betrayed instead of contacting the other.
• The Reveal: This is the first time we see the Administrator.
• Right Hand Versus Left Hand: RED and BLU are controlled by the same Administrator. The whole war was started just to prevent this fact from getting out.
• Running Both Sides: This comic shows that the same Administrator does the announcements for both RED and BLU teams.
• Twitchy Eye: The Administrator's first reaction to hearing about the RED Demoman and the BLU Soldier becoming friends and seeing photographic evidence is her eye twitching in fury.

Loose Canon

Loose Canon

• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: The 1800's BLU team appeared to comprise of:
  • Scout: Billy the Kid
  • Soldier: Stonewall Jackson
  • Pyro: Abe Lincoln
  • Demoman: Alfred Nobel
  • Heavy: John Henry
  • Engineer: Nikola Tesla
  • Medic: Sigmund Freud
  • Sniper: Davy Crockett
  • Spy: Fu Manchu
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: A pretty big one, but still:
  Blutarch's assistant: Give him a moment, dear. He's just dead.
• Generation Xerox: Barnabas Hale being attacked by a cougar resembles the cover of one of his descendants', Saxton, Barbershop Action comics. He even refers to a pepper sauce in his dialog.
• The Nothing After Death: According to Blutarch Mann, who has been continually dying and reviving through the use of the immortality machine.
  Blutarch Mann: Every day I'm dead a little longer, Mr Conagher. I have seen the other side. There is nothing there. Fix. This. Machine.
• Pun-Based Title: Off of "loose cannon".
• There Is Another: Notes on the cover the Life Extender machine's blueprints say that one was built for Redmond, one for Blutarch and a third with the date and client out of frame.
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: When Blutarch's elderly assistent calls Engineer "Mister Conagher", he asks her to call him Dell, as "'Mister Conagher' was [his] grandfather's name". The assistent, who met Engineer's grandfather in person back in the day, replies that she remembers.
• Visual Pun: After receiving his share of Zepheniah Mann's will, Barnabas Hale gets pounced on by a cougar.
• Why Won't You Die?: Blutarch says this of Redmond.

Bidwell's Big Plan

Bidwell's Big Plan

• Dramatic Thunder: Of the Thunderous Confrontation kind. The comic opens on a shot of lightning striking during a rainstorm in the mountains, illuminating Saxton Hale as he's hanging on to Charles Darling's plane with one hand.
• Literal Cliffhanger: Saxton Hale hangs on the edge of Charles Darling's plane before being kicked off.
• The Rival: Charles Darling to Saxton Hale.
• Say My Name: Saxton Hale screams "DARRRLING!" as he falls off a cliff.
• Super Window Jump: Saxton ends the comic by jumping out a window to beat up some hippies.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: For all the Rule of Cool and Rule of Funny TF2 has, it might come as a surprise when Saxton Hale is rescued from his fall by a passing eagle... only for the eagle to plummet due to not being able to carry the weight of a full-grown man.
• Take That, Audience!: The comic compares community-made content to companies conning their customers by selling things other customers made.
• Unsound Effect: The usual beauties for a Hale comic. Darling gives Hale a NEMESIS KICK!, which sends him plummeting.
• Waving Signs Around: The hippies outside.

Meet the Director

Meet the Director

• Art Shift: The style of the Replay Update comic is noticeably looser than that of the previous comics, due to Andrea Wicklund (artist of the Lab Rat comic)'s coloring style.
• Attention Whore: During his interview with the Director, the Scout blathers on about how great he is until the Director runs out of film. He doesn't realize they've stopped recording until five hours after the fact, and he still has more praises to sing about himself, urging the Director to collect more film and continue their session.
  Scout: ... More of a mentor to the rest of the team, you know? I see how they could be doin' their jobs better? It don't matter how busy I am. I will drop what I'm doin and tell 'em. And why?
  Director: [tired and annoyed] We ran out of film five hours ago—
  Scout: I'll tell ya why. Because I'm a team player. Probably the best team player of the team—
  Director: [more assertively] We ran out of film five hours ago.
  Scout: That's okay, you can go buy some. I got tons more ta say. We'll wait here for ya.
  [Once the Director leaves in a huff, Scout turns his attention to Miss Pauling, who's been taking notes during the recording session. He leans on a fence close to her and flirtatiously eats a sandwich.]
  Scout: Man, what a jackass. So, how you doin' Miss Pauling? Hey, you ever seen me with my shirt off? Cuz it is awesome.
• Big "NO!": Soldier starts one.
  Administrator: I sent you those photos.
  Soldier: MY HEADS!!!
  Administrator: Yes. I took the heads too. Rest assured, they have been destroyed.
  Soldier: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO-
  Administrator: The photos, Mister Doe. Your heads are safe.
• Call-Forward: Since Meet the Director covers the filming of the Meet the Team videos, there are a few references to the final products, mostly regarding the ones released before this comic.
  • The first panel recreates the opening shot of Meet the Sniper, in which the Sniper's van drives through a desert highway framed by a natural arch in the distance. The vehicle is even tilted slightly to its right, as if its shifting its weight from the Sniper turning into the lane, just like what happens in the short. The next few panels show the interior of the Sniper's van, which notably includes the same Civilian bobblehead shown in the short; the Sniper flicks it several times to vent out his frustration with the invasive Director.
  • On Page 4, the Heavy's description of his minigun is almost identical to what would become part of Meet the Heavy.
  • On Page 5, the director criticizes the Soldier's warped adoration of Sun Tzu, who the Soldier would eventually cite in his speech to his collection of severed BLU team heads in Meet the Soldier. The heads also made it into the final short, despite the Director's abject horror and disgust upon first seeing them.
• Change the Uncomfortable Subject: When the Director presses Heavy to discuss his past, Heavy rather bluntly tells him it's not a topic they need to discuss.
• Comically Missing the Point: The Heavy was sent a photo of his house and himself, sleeping. He has a separate, smaller bed for "Sascha" [sic], his minigun. Scout says that's pretty embarrassing. The Heavy agrees; he needs to buy Sasha a better bed.
• Description Cut:
  Miss Pauling: The Administrator sees this as a perfect opportunity to show the good people of Badlands you're not just armed psychopaths blowing up all their landmarks on a daily basis.
  The Administrator: I see this as a perfect opportunity, Miss Pauling, to spy on the armed psychopaths we're paying to blow each other up on a daily basis.
• Dumb Muscle: Miss Pauling and the Administrator both see the mercenaries as this, although the latter is wary enough to not let the "dumb" part overshadow the danger of the "muscle" part turning against them.
  Miss Pauling: Is all this surveillance necessary? Most of these men's IQs are sub-normal...
  The Administrator: Plutonium isn't smart, Miss Pauling. That doesn't mean it won't kill you if you don't keep tabs on where it is and what it's doing at all times.
• Early-Bird Cameo: In the last panel, the Administrator's surveillance system shows off frames from the then in-development Meet the Medic. One of them even shows a plain view of the Medic holding the Quick-Fix, a new Medi Gun he would later receive in-game during the coinciding Über Update.
• Even Evil Has Standards: To keep them in line, the Administrator sends Sniper photos of his parents, and Heavy photos of his minigun, and Soldier... gets a head in a box, and a photograph of the empty space where his collection of heads used to be.
  Spy: Whose... head is that?
  Soldier: MINE!!! The question is, where are the other seven?!
  (Spy and Scout are both visibly disgusted)
• Expy: The Sniper's parents bear a striking resemblance to Eustace and Muriel of Courage the Cowardly Dog. The artist apparently confirmed that the similarity was intentional.
• Freudian Excuse: The Director attempts to use two mercenaries' backstories as a framing devices for their respective interviews. He thinks doing so is the key to understanding why they're the gun-toting hooligans they are today, but neither subject sees eye-to-eye with him.
  • The Director tries to paint the Sniper as a victim of bad parenting and a society that runs on Testosterone Poisoning; from the look on the Sniper's face, the Director may as well have been saying Blah, Blah, Blah.
  • For his interview with the Heavy, the Director wants to focus on an extremely formative period in the Heavy's childhood. Back then, he and his family were arrested and deported to a North Siberian gulag due to their association with his late father, a Russian counterrevolutionary. Their imprisonment didn't last long; three months later, the Gulag went up in flames after its prisoners were freed and its guards tortured to death. The Director implicates the Heavy and his family as the ones responsible, but the Heavy very bluntly dodges the subject. He's clearly aggravated that this sensitive information about him is being thrown around so carelessly, so he shifts the focus entirely to his minigun.
    Heavy: I. Like. To shoot. This gun. Is all you need to know.
    Director: [Facepalming] Fine. Tell me about the gun.
    Heavy: She weighs one hundred and fifty kilograms and fires two-hundred-dollar custom—
• In-Universe Factoid Failure: The Director tells the Soldier that despite what he claims, Sun Tzu never wrote books on how to punch through someone's ribcage.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: The Director is too pretentious and sure of his superiority to realize when he's being duped or led to his death.
• Prima Donna Director: The Director gets upset when his interviewees don't do as he expects.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Like in her other appearances, Miss Pauling seems to be the nicest and least crazy person in TF2 canon, but she doesn't appear to have any qualms about shooting a man in cold blood as part of the job.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: See Freudian Excuse above.
• Sarcasm Mode: The Administrator lays it on real thick when she berates the mercs for killing her messenger.
  The Administrator: First off, let me thank you for shooting yet another messenger. And when you kill the messengers, they can't return their miniature televisions, which it may surprise you don't grow naturally on their chests.
• Shoot the Messenger: Much to the Administrator's annoyance. The mini TVs strapped to their chests are expensive.
• Speech-Bubbles Interruption: Ms. Pauling does this to the Sniper when he threatens the director for trying to push his buttons.
• Wag the Director: Many members of the Team attempt to do this to the director; Miss Pauling and The Administrator are ultimately the most successful.invoked

Grordbort's Crash

Grordbort's Crash

• Cardboard Pal: The Soldier has three.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The Soldier is prepared to make one by jumping onto the rocket.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Soldier refers to the three cardboard soldiers using nicknames (Salty Pete, Iron-Eye, Pepper Pott Pete). He also referred to two of them as Salsa Pete and Peter Pepper-Pants.
• Skewed Priorities: "Pack up the tea, boys! We're joining the space marines!"

Bombinomicon

Bombinomicon

• Artifact of Doom: Merasmus collects these. Even the broom in his castle is one.
• Bedsheet Ghost: One of the kids is dressed as the ghost of Zepheniah Mann, who happens to be one.
• Big "NO!": When the Soldier breaks Merasmus' staff.
• Black Magic: Merasmus'.
• Brick Joke: In the first Australian Christmas update, the teams were sent back in time to Degroot Keep. The explanation was that "the Soldier angered a magician". It's revealed that this magician is the Soldier's roommate.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Merasmus sends MONOCULUS! to fight the team after the Soldier breaks his staff, proclaiming the party to be over. Also, the trope is inverted with the Heavy when he gives a child $7000 as an apology for calling the boy fat.
• Evil Gloating: The Bombinomicon after it possesses the young Demoman's eye. Merasmus isn't angry at him because anything horrible is going to happen, but because he has to live with the book. The Bombinomicon was going to return the eye but was too busy chattering before Merasmus forcefully removes it.
  Merasmus: What have ye done? Now he'll never shut up about it! I have to live with this book, you know!
• Ghost Story: The Demoman tells one about how he lost his eye.
• Giant Eye of Doom: MONOCULUS!
• Halloween Episode: One that involves a ghost story.
• Haunted Castle: The Demoman's story takes place in Merasmus' castle, though Merasmus now lives with the Soldier.
• Ignored Enemy: In the last panel, the Soldier ignores the giant eye to fight Merasmus.
• Manipulative Bastard: The Bombinomicon convinces the young Demoman to read it.
• Monster Roommate: Merasmus.
• Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: Some challenging from the Bombinomicon makes the Demoman peek at its pages.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: If what the Soldier says about being on the lam is true, the police have been tricked into thinking he's a robot.
• Portmanteau: The Bombinomicon is a portmanteau of "bomb" and "Necronomicon".
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Bombinomicon.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Parodied on the front page. A random guy bemoans that he was the monster all along, which is advertised as a twist ending... with a note beneath explaining that this is not, in fact, the twist ending.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Bombinomicon. It contains "over 400 pages of spells, enchantments, recipes and anecdotes about blowing things up".
• Volleying Insults:
  Soldier: Nobody invited you, Merasmus!
  Merasmus: Do not anger Merasmus! A magician invites himself!
  Soldier: I am going to invite that staff straight up your ass and push you around like a broom!
  Merasmus: Well, that would certainly be the first time you swept anything!
• You Are Fat: Being called fat is what finally makes one of the trick-or-treaters cry.
  Heavy: Every day Heavy risk life. To earn money. To feed family. Instead, you would have Heavy spend this money. On stupid candy. For you. You presumptuous... lazy... fat...
  Boy: Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
  Heavy: Oh. Um. Stop. Heavy did not mean this. Little child is not fat. People call Heavy fat. Please stop crying. Here. Here is seven thousand dollars.
• You Fool!: Merasmus uses this a few times.

True Meaning

True Meaning

• An Ass-Kicking Christmas: Engineer tells Pyro an Australian Christsmas story of how old Nick got into a gun fight with the Mafia. They also get new space-themed weapons at the end.
• Call-Back: The rocket is similar to the one in "Grordbort's Crash". It contains weapons as well.
• Christmas Episode
• Funny Background Event: The Christmas tree is made with antlers and decorated with knives and grenades, and one of the Soldier's Gunboats hangs on the chimney like a Christmas stocking.
• The Gambling Addict: Apparently, Old Nick likes to bet on college basketball.
• Intelligible Unintelligible:
  Engineer: Pyro, you been writin' letters to other dimensions?
  Pyro: Mmm-mmmh
  Engineer: Naw, me neither.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The message that came with the rocket full of weapons about "hearing [the Engineer and Pyro's] plea" is a very thinly veiled nod to people who had been displeased with the lack of new weapons for the two classes.
• The Mafia: Old Nick owes them a lot of money (see The Gambling Addict). They battle it out when the mobsters find him in Antarctica.
• Mood Whiplash: Several within the story the Engineer is reading.
  "Those mobsters were just about to give up the hunt, when up in that cold night sky they saw a star. The brightest star they ever saw. So they followed it. And after a spell they saw a sight that filled 'em with wonder... Ol' Nick, forcin' a buncha naughty kids to make all manner of guns, smack dab in the middle of Antarctica."
• Major Injury Underreaction: Of a sort. Engie's reaction to a rocket crashing into his house? "Huh."
• Ship Tease: The Engineer and Pyro might be living together.
• Shout-Out: The line about adopting a super baby is a Shout Out to Superman.
• The Three Wise Men: Again, parodied, with the "three wiseguys".
• True Meaning of Christmas: Despite the title drop, since the tale the Engineer reads to the Pyro parodies a bunch of Christmas tropes, the true meaning of Australian Christmas/Smissmas isn't clear. Also, the comic is more about the two getting new weapons.

A Smissmas Story

A Smissmas Story

• A Wizard Did It:
  Miss Pauling: First things first. How did Soldier become a public defender?
  Spy: It's a long story, but chapter one: his roommate is a magician. Should I continue?
  Miss Pauling: You know what? Nevermind.
  Spy: Thank you.
• An Ass-Kicking Christmas: The mercs fight a Bad Santa Spirit of Christmas kidnapper.
• Badass Adorable: Little Jack becomes one after stabbing Old Nick.
• Badass Boast:
  Scout: Why don't you bring that little mink stole over here and show me how stupid my wrappin' paper is?
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: When asked to describe how saving the children from Old Nick feels, Scout simply describes it as a "Saturday".
• Dynamic Entry: Old Nick announces his entrance by having one of his kangaroos kick the door open.
• Early-Bird Cameo: The cover of the comic has a Balloonicorn ornament on the tree.
• Head Desk: The Spy and Soldier are the Scout's legal counsel. When the Soldier confirms the Scout's testimony, the Spy is seen pressing his face against the desk.
• Horse of a Different Color: Kangaroos that pull Old Nick's sleigh.
• Important Haircut: The Soldier gives Little Jack a crew cut. It's much better than the bowl cut he had previously.
• Improvised Weapon: the Scout uses a roll of wrapping paper with an ornament on it (which becomes the Wrap Assassin in-game), the Soldier finds a Saxton Hale toy, and Little Jack receives an icicle from the Spy with which to stab Old Nick.
• Insistent Terminology: The furry thing Old Nick wears on his shoulders is not a stole, it's a cape.
• It's a Long Story: Apparently, how the Soldier became a lawyer.
• Jaywalking Will Ruin Your Life: Inverted. Spy, Scout and Soldier are responsible for a bomb blowing up a training facility for mall Santas and get sentenced to ...community service.
• Lethal Joke Item: Scout grabs a roll of wrapping paper, which seems unthreatening as a weapon, but, when coupled with an ornament from a nearby tree, makes a handy bludgeon. (In the game, the fragments of ornament allow a bleed effect.)
• Mall Santa: The Spy, Scout, and Soldier have to work in a mall during the holiday season. The Soldier is dressed as Santa. He soon gives Little Jack a haircut, then picks a fight with the boy's father.
• Mistaken for Spies: The Scout mistakes Little Jack as the Spy in disguise, until the Spy appears with someone from the press.
• Noodle Incident: How the Soldier became a defender in a court of law is not elaborated upon.
  • The Spy did point out that the Soldier has a magician for a roommate.
• Pity the Kidnapper: Old Nick chose the wrong kid to try to kidnap.
• Pointy Ears: The Scout gets a pair of pointed ears as part of his outfit as a Christmas elf.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Miss Pauling when she finds out Old Nick is in the mall to kidnap children. "Spy. Take. Care. Of. This. Now."
  • Page 4 has the Scout saying to the Soldier: "You- are- the- worst- lawyer!"
• Refuge in Audacity: The BLU Spy teaches a child to murder someone with an icicle. And they somehow manage to make this a touching moment after the fact.
• Spikes of Villainy: The kangaroos have harnesses with spikes.
• Unsound Effect: When the Soldier hits Old Nick with a Saxton Hale action figure: "COMPOUND ELEVATED SKULL FRACTURE!"
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: We don't see Spy explaining to Little Jack about what he has to do, but the plan worked anyway.
• Waving Signs Around: In the courtroom, a man sitting a few rows behind the Soldier and Spy has a sign that reads "BLU & RED OUT OF TEUFORT". The team certainly gets better press after they save the town's children from Old Nick.
• You Do Not Want To Know: Miss Pauling loses her desire to learn how Soldier became a public defender after she hears a magician was involved. Spy is thankful that he won't have to explain it further.
• You Have No Idea Who You're Dealing With: The Scout says this to Old Nick when the latter plans to kidnap Jack, who the Scout mistakes for the disguised Spy.

Blood Brothers

Blood Brothers

• Brainy Baby: Gray can speak at birth, claiming to have learned to do so by listening to conversations outside the womb. He also invented a new type of algebra to pass the time.
• Call-Back: Archimedes is seen flying around outside the Alamo, still covered in blood.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: Parodied in-universe. MannCo owns the "fiction rights" to the Alamo after the President bet and lost them in a poker game with Saxton Hale, so the company is obligated to crank out as many cheap tie-in comics as they can, whether they make sense for a national monument or not (such as Alamo Hospital Romance).
• Creepy Child: Gray Mann, within seconds of birth.
• Didn't Think This Through: Blutarch and Redmond think they can use a pregnancy machine to produce an heir and cannot be convinced that machines cannot run on gravel.
• Death by Childbirth: Bette Mann, the triplets' mother.
• Expy: The Alamo, which is sentient and narrates the story, seems to be an expy of The Crypt Keeper, at least in terms of its writing style (i.e. lots of alliteration, affectionate nicknames for its readers, announcing the name of the story in a dramatic fashion, and forcing morbid puns into sentences). The name of the "comic" shown is even Alamo SuspenStories.
• Ironic Echo: The temporarily-dying-mid-sentence joke makes a return. Gray makes it permanent.
• Killed Off for Real: Gray murders both Redmond and Blutarch.
• Knight of Cerebus: Gray Mann comes off as a lot more serious than the previous villains.
• Mister Seahorse: The brothers' plan to put an end to their bickering and produce an heir.
• Noodle Incident: The Great Eagle Scourge of 1822.
• Superdickery:
  • The comic cover that "guarantees a murder at the Alamo in every issue!" teases the story with "MURDER! ...at the Alamo? You Won't BELIEVE the Terrifying Answer!"
  • Parodied with the cover for Alamo Vs. Hercules.
  We've promised it before! It has never actually happened! Now, after 306 scene-setting issues, we're doing it!
  Not a dream! Not a hoax! Not an imaginary story! NOT THIS TIME!
  Finally... Hercules and The Alamo will fight!^note Racism, in this socially conscious alternate universe team-up!
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: Gray Mann stabbed the two engineers who were about to leave the room.
• Time Skip: The beginning of "Blood Brothers" says it takes place "Some time in the future." Gray states he was born in 1822 and had been watching his brothers for 150 years; assuming he meant exactly 150 years, this puts the date at 1972, four years ahead of the 1968 year shown by in-game calendars.
  • Thanks to subsequent updates, we've pinned "Blood Brothers" at October 29th or 30th, 1970.
• Unsound Effect: Eagle Attack!
• Wham Episode: Gray finally makes his appearance and murders Redmond and Blutarch in cold blood.
  Blutarch: (about Redmond) Don't worry, he's just dead for a moment. He'll be back in a-
  Gray: Mm. No. I think I've heard enough. (stabs Redmond)

A Fate Worse than Chess

A Fate Worse than Chess

• Continuity Nod: During the "True Meaning" arc, an image of the Red Pyro sitting instantly went memetic. The same pose appears in "A Fate Worse Than Chess", but this time with the BLU Pyro.
• Funny Background Event: On page 28 and 29, the RED Soldier is picking his nose, and the Spy next to him looks disgusted.
• Money Spider: Parodied; the robots run on piles of money. Lampshaded by Miss Pauling, who tells the mercenaries she doesn't know how or why this is, but they're entitled to whatever the robots drop.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Explosition.
• No Hero Discount: Despite the fact that his company's facilities are under attack by a horde of robots, Saxton Hale refuses to give his company's powerful experimental weapons to his mercenaries for free, which means they have to find a way to pay for them.
• Pun-Based Title: The comic's title.
• Running Gag: The development team's love of hats shows up here — in the last page of "A Fate Worse Than Chess", the RED Demoman dons Prince Tavish's Crown.
• Shout-Out: Saxton Hale's alias as "Dr. Joanbaez" is a reference to Joan Baez, a singer best known for her relationship with Bob Dylan. Bidwell's disguise looks like the outfit worn by The Beatles in "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".
• Skewed Priorities:
  Miss Pauling: This isn't like any other assignment you've been given. It's much, much more serious. This isn't just a fight for Mann Co., or Saxton Hale. It's a fight for your jobs.
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Parodied. After Saxton Hale's recorded "explosition" to the mercenaries:
  Miss Pauling: Are there any questions?
  RED Sniper: I got one. We getting paid for this?
  Saxton Hale: Saxton Hale again. This is pre-taped, so I don't know what anybody's talking about right now, but I am not paying you for this.

Doom-Mates

Doom-Mates

• Butt-Monkey: Merasmus becomes one here.
• Face Palm: The Spy does one as the Soldier explains why the RED team are getting killed.
• Haunted Castle: It's the same castle as before, but it's less scary-looking this time because the Soldier trashes it and is about to turn it into a raccoon sanctuary.
• Humiliation Conga: The Soldier buries Merasmus's fridge (and washing machine) in the yard, gets his castle infested by raccoons, and has his home forcefully converted into a raccoon sanctuary owned by the Soldier. Merasmus is mistaken for a woman multiple times by a city official, is heavily fined, gets taunted for his misfortune, and finally, his body is burned by the Soldier when his spirit leaves his body.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Soldier is so completely oblivious to the consequences of his own atrocious behavior that he can't quite understand why his roommate would be mad at him for destroying their house, or why his teammates would be upset that Merasmus has decided to target them as well.
• Pun-Based Title: Of "room mates".
• Rage Breaking Point: The Soldier goes beyond it when he taunts Merasmus.
• Resurrective Immortality: The Soldier ate an entire bottle of "heart medication"/Kill Me Come Back Stronger pills.
• Revenge by Proxy: Upon discovering that the Soldier took "Kill Me Come Back Stronger Pills" and is effectively immortal, Merasmus decides to kill everyone the Soldier cares about instead.
• Third-Person Person: Merasmus, briefly, when he finally loses his temper.

Shadow Boxers

Shadow Boxers

• "Be Quiet!" Nudge: The Medic and Heavy clear their throats and nudge Miss Pauling when she mentions that not all of the team are Americans.
• Blatant Lies: When Soldier insists he infiltrated the robot base:
  Soldier: Come on guys! Why would I lie? We're all Americans here!
  Miss Pauling: Well, not all of us, obviously. Medic's German and Heavy's from Russ— [Heavy elbows her, Medic coughs] Ow! What? Oh.
  Heavy: Ha ha! Germany! Russia! Is big joke! Big American joke on Soldier! Ooh, America. It is the place I am from. All the time.
  Soldier: Ha! You got me!
• Call-Back: On the final page of "A Fate Worse Than Chess", the Soldier is picking his nose. This time, he's won a nose-picking contest and is doing the same when inside Gray Mann's base.
• Cassandra Truth: Until he mentions the eagles, no one believes the Soldier has actually gone to the robot base because of his Cloudcuckoolander status.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Soldier's costume idea actually works and fools most of the robots.
• Declaration of Protection: It's implied that the reason the Heavy goes to Gray's base is because Miss Pauling decided to.
• Delayed Reaction: When the Soldier gives an exact time the robots will invade the next day, Miss Pauling talks for a few more seconds before that sinks in.
• Funny Background Event: On page 7, the Scout is staring dreamily at Miss Pauling.
  • On page four, Scout appears to have been previously on fire (there's still smoke coming off him), and Archimedes is presenting a screw to the Medic, who is giving him a "get that thing out of your mouth and give it to me" look. There's also Archimedes' tiny neck brace.
• Giving Up on Logic: When Miss Pauling sees that Soldier's method for infiltrating the robots' meetings involves a Paper-Thin Disguise, she doesn't ask questions. She demands a costume for herself.
• Island Base: Gray Gravel Co takes place on an island.
• Mission Control: Miss Pauling acts as this for the team.
• Mundane Made Awesome: The way the Soldier describes his robot disguise.
  Soldier: Miss Pauling, are you braced? Because you will need to brace yourself for what I am about to show you.
  Miss Pauling: I'm braced. Let's see it, Soldier.
  Soldier: Are you sitting down? Because you should not be in a comfortable bowel-emptying position for what I am about to show you.
  Miss Pauling: I'm standing. You're looking right at me.
  Soldier: Okay, but are you pregnant? You should not b—
  Miss Pauling: Soldier, show me!
• No Ending: It ends with Soldier, Pauling, and Heavy apparently being discovered in a base full of enemy robots, but this is completely forgotten by the next comic.
• Noodle Incident: During the merc's meeting, Archimedes is wearing a tiny, bird-sized neck brace.
• Oh, Crap!: The Soldier, Heavy, and Miss Pauling's reactions when they're caught inside the robot facility.
• Painting the Medium: The robots use an appropriate typeface and color in their speech and say the tags out loud:
  Scout Robot: *beepboop* The humans were waiting for us at the last five attack sites, master. Somehow they <italics on>knew.<italics off>
• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • The robots mention how they were tricked by the decoy base built by the "tactical mastermind".
  • The Soldier's disguise is actually his Halloween costume. Miss Pauling and the Heavy eventually don the same costumes when infiltrating Gray Mann's facility, and all the robots are fooled save for the newly built robot Engineer.
• Pun-Based Title: The title of the comic.
• Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud: The robots' use of italics.
• Sarcasm-Blind: The robots.
  Gray Mann: And—just so I'm clear—you suspect these security leaks are due to some heretofore unknown "tactical mastermind" in their ranks. ...And not, for instance, because you mention our secret attack plans at every opportunity.
  Scout Robot: *baddaboop* Affirmative. We believe it is the same genius who masterminded the decoy base *beep boop over here* [towards a newspaper with a headline that reads "Local Man Wins Nose Picking Contest"]
• Spot the Thread: Inverted. Miss Pauling is able to tell the Soldier isn't delusional about infiltrating the robot base when he mentions that Gray Mann was raised by eagles, a fact that was kept undisclosed from the team.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  Heavy: Ha ha! Germany! Russia! Is big joke! Big American joke on Soldier!
  Soldier: Ha! You got me!
  Heavy: Ohh, America. It is the place I am from. All the time.
• Unsound Effect: NON-ROBOTIC SHUFFLING SOUND!
• Visual Pun: During the meeting, Archimedes has a screw in his mouth. Archimedes' screw, anyone?

Team Fortress Comics #1: Ring of Fired

Ring of Fired

• Back from the Dead: Somehow, Merasmus is alive again, living with Tom Jones.
• Bait-and-Switch: After Soldier and Miss Pauling head off to get the team back together, we cut to the board room of Frontier Engineering, whose board members have all become millionaires thanks to their new CEO's inspiring brilliance completely revolutionizing the field. You're expecting the CEO to be the Engineer, right? Nope! It's the Pyro.
• Break the Haughty: Saxton Hale loses his company, his trophies, and the right to go down fighting.
• Call-Back: This isn't the first time Scout and Spy get arrested due to RED shenanigans. This time, however, they end up sentenced to more than just community service.
• Call-Forward: Gray Mann becoming head of Mann Co and firing the mercenaries is actually mentioned in the game during the Versus Saxton Hale mode added years after the comic was released.
• Celebrity Casualty: Tom Jones turns out to be the roommate of Merasmus the wizard, and he is promptly killed by Merasmus's old roommate the Soldier.
• Cluster F-Bomb: The Demoman's Eyelander has evolved from only being able to hiss headssss... to doing this. It's also apparently able to eat churros.
• Comically Missing the Point: There's a mugshot of Scout in which he's Flexing Those Non-Biceps and pulling a duck face. He probably didn't know at the time that he was going to be sentenced to death.
• Coincidental Broadcast: Demo and Miss Pauling are discussing finding Spy and Scout, only for Miss Pauling to spot a newspaper from across the room that reveals both of their locations. They're on death row.
• Continuity Nod: There are plenty to past comics, all helpfully pointed out by caption boxes.
• Death by Cameo: Tom Jones spends one panel alive before the Soldier sneaks up on him and snaps his neck. The only other time he shows up, he's killed again. In Heaven.
• Exact Words: The "Mann Co. Challenge" policy guarantees ownership of Mann Co. to any CEO who beats Saxton in bare-knuckle combat. Their qualifications for the role don't matter; they just need to bear the title. Gray deftly abuses this loophole by appointing his daughter, Olivia, as CEO of his company prior to taking on the challenge... And just as Gray predicts, Saxton refuses to hurt a child and forfeits.
• Formerly Fit: The Demoman has gained weight since losing his job.
• For the Evulz: The reason the Soldier killed Jones was because Merasmus was living happily and Soldier wasn't. Merasmus questions his logic.
• Full-Name Ultimatum: Courtesy of the Demo's mother, revealing his middle name (Finnegan) in the process.
• Funny Background Event: In one panel, outside the Demoman and his mother's mansion, there is a statue spouting water from the neck, from when it was decapitated in the WAR! comic.
• He's Back!: When Demoman gets out of his slump, shaves, and rejoins the gang.
• Homage: The cover recreates a famous Spider-Man page where Peter throws away his Spider-Man costume, except here it's Saxton Hale throwing away all of his clothes but his boots.
• Hope Spot: The mercenaries have successfully repelled every menace that Gray has sent their way, driving the mad scion of Mann to "negotiate" with Saxton Hale and finally bring the conflict to an end. Said negotiation involved a fist fight for total control over Mann Co. Saxton Hale is excellent at fist fights. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
• Humiliation Conga: Saxton Hale. First, he is forced to fight Gray Mann's young daughter. When he can't bring himself to fight her, he loses his company to Gray. Admitting defeat, he says that he'll get his fighting trophies and leave, but the girl tells him that they're her trophies now, and to get out. With his trophies denied to him, he decides that at the very least he'll fight his way out of the building through Gray's robot army, but Gray orders them into non-violence mode. Despite his efforts, he can't get any of the robots to fight him, and leaves a broken man.
• Immortality Seeker: Gray wanted control of Mann Co. so he could get a large supply of Australium for his life extender.
• Karma Houdini: A couple of old ladies are shocked by the Soldier killing Tom Jones, and Miss Pauling lectures him about it but only to keep up her disguise. He's never punished for it and Merasmus gets arrested instead.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Near the end.
  Soldier: Miss Pauling! Pyro cut off my hand.
  Miss Pauling: Pyro, don't cut off Soldier's hands.
• Noodle Incident: How did the Pyro become a millionaire corporate CEO during the Time Skip? The world may never know...
  • He does spend a lot of time with someone more suited to the position.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Miss Pauling, dressed as a police officer, "arrests" Soldier to get him out of trouble for killing Tom Jones. Somehow, Soldier is the only one to see through it. And almost blows her cover.
• Putting the Band Back Together: The mercs have been let go from Mann Co., and Miss Pauling is trying to get them back together under orders from the Administrator.
• Sheathe Your Sword: Saxton Hale is challenged to a fistfight with the CEO of Gray Gravel, the winner getting control of Mann Co. Gray Gravel's CEO isn't Gray Mann, but his five-year-old daughter. Hale forfeits the fight, and with it, his company.
• Show Within a Show: The Demoman and his sword watch a crime drama called "Ghost D.A." It's hilariously bad, and Demo and the Eyelander complain about it.
• Talking Weapon: It's shown that the Eyelander is fully sentient and can hold conversations.
• Time Skip: Six months between Hale losing control of Mann Co. and the plot kicking off.
  • For those trying to keep track, the universe's date is now September 1972, according to the timestamp of Scout's and Spy's photos.
• Tonight, Someone Dies: The blog post announcing the comic promises that "at least one person dies in it!" Turns out it was Tom Jones.
• Wham Episode: Begins with Hale losing Mann Co to Gray and the reveal that Gray has a daughter, followed quickly by the team being broken up, and ends with another reveal, this time that Spy and Scout are due to be hanged.
• Wham Line: A newspaper headline on the last page reads "MERC SCUM TO HANG" above mugshots of Spy and Scout.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Hale loses Mann Co. because the CEO he has to fight is a little girl. He tries to order his underling fight her, but he also morally objects.
• Xanatos Gambit: Gray Mann takes over Mann Co. to get his hands on its supply of Australium, but the Administrator took off with the vault's contents beforehand, just in case he did.

Grave Matters

Grave Matters

• A Day in the Limelight: The first comic to focus entirely on Blutarch and Redmond.
• Call-Back:
  • Soldier is apparently still a lawyer, and Blutarch and Redmond actually ask him to settle the legal matter of who owns the gravel pits. Never mind that they're both at present ineligible for ownership on account of not quite being alive anymore.
  • The picture Soldier uses to advertise his legal services is the photograph of him winning the nose-picking contest from "Shadow Boxers".
  • Merasmus' Castle is still a raccoon sanctuary, just as it had been since "Doom-Mates"
  • One panel shows Blutarch's ghost on the phone with someone, telling them to go to the Alamo, and the next panel shows Redmond telling someone that "It's not in Texas, we had it moved." and that they only rented it.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Soldier is normally inept at anything not involving destruction, but his analysis is that the Mann Brothers' ghosts are Not Quite Dead and that one of the brothers need to cross over for there to be a "winner" is not disputed.
• Framing Device: The story is being told by Merasmus, who is in jail from the events of Ring of Fired.
• Indian Burial Ground: It turns out that road to Hell goes through one of these, setting up the gameplay for Scream Fortress 2013.
• Midquel: It takes place after Blood Brothers and Doom-mates but before Ring of Fired.
  • Sequel Episode: The bulk of the story begins moments after Gray kills Blutarch and Redmond.
• Noodle Incident: Turns out Soldier is also a priest (just not in New Mexico) and an exorcist (but only in Guam).
• Not Quite Dead: A major plot point. As Soldier observes, because both brothers are ghosts, neither is really dead until they pass on. Both brothers wants to send the other to hell to finally win.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: The ghosts of Blutach and Redmond are capable of calling up the mercenaries to get them to send each other's remains to hell, so they can completely die.
• Wimp Fight: Blutarch and Redmond engage in one after they argue about who died first and thus who won the gravel pits.

Team Fortress Comics #2: Unhappy Returns

Unhappy Returns

• Action Girl: Margaret/Maggie/Mags.
• Call-Back: To "A Smissmas Story" and, in a subtle way, to the War! Update.
  • Especially so with the former, with further allusions to Soldier acting as the team's (totally unqualified) attorney, right down to Scout naming him and Soldier trying to get him the electric chair.
  • There's also one to "Meet The Spy": Scout mentions his mother will be upset when she finds out he spent all of their money, suggesting Spy gives Scout a ride for the love of her.
• Clear Their Name: Miss Pauling comes in at the end and reveals that the crimes the mercs are being hanged for weren't actually crimes THEY committed. It's heavily implied that it's actually stuff the MAYOR did to Teufort. The gang ends up with a pardon at the end.
• Cliffhanger: The epilogue reveals that Heavy may not be interested in coming back to the team.
• Compliment Backfire: Scout successfully convinces a lady that he broke his arms by performing a million push-ups in a row, but his attempt at showing off failed miserably:
  Lady: "Well, that's very impressive for someone with arms as thin as yours, dear."
  Scout: "Uh..."
  Lady: "They're like little bird wings!"
  Scout: "Just open the door, lady."
• Cool Car: There's a brief glimpse of Spy's fancy sportscar during one flashback.
• Covers Always Lie: There's no big epic jailbreak. Rather, Demo and Soldier end up on the gallows too and Miss Pauling has to come in and stop the executions.
• Crazy-Prepared: Spy has a number of fake teeth with tiny compartments in them. And he uses them to hold tiny Cornish game hens, candelabras, and bottles of wine, and a tiny razor for shaving. He also has a tiny butterfly knife hidden in the sleeve of his prison jumpsuit.
• Dead Artists Are Better: Scout's "life savings" is actually a bunch of Tom Jones memorabilia he's sure with be worth a fortune one Jones dies. Spy insists Jones is "virtually immortal", but Scout is satisfied with waiting—and of course Soldier killed the man himself a couple months later.
• Distaff Counterpart: In some ways, Margaret is this to Saxton Hale, with her fondness for Good Old Fisticuffs, wearing khaki, and snapping wildcat jaws.
• Dramatic Irony: The Scout invested his life's savings into Tom Jones memorabilia, which he insists will "be worth a fortune when he dies". Given that Tom Jones is at the very most 32 during the events of the comic, the Spy is not amused at having to miss his flight to pick up the Scout's savings. The reader, however, knows from the previous comic that the Soldier ends up killing the Welsh singer five and a half months later by snapping his neck.
  Spy: He's not going to die, you imbecile! He's in his twenties! He's the most virile man on the planet! He has no enemies! The man is virtually immortal!
• Dumbass Has a Point: When Scout is trying to prepare for the trial (by reading scripts of "Ghost DA"), Spy tells him to just take the public defender. Scout responds that the last two times that they did that, they were assigned Soldier and a lamp. Subverted when the public defender actually knows what he's doing. Pity Soldier snaps his neck.
• Enemy Mine: Saxton has to team up with his old nemesis, Charles Darling, to get Mann Co. back.
• Faux Affably Evil: The mayor of Teufort is constantly smiling and chipper, despite some of his behavior rivaling the mercenaries themselves in depravity. His idea of "jail humor" to lift Spy and Scout's spirits is giving them a file... except their cell doesn't have bars, just six-inch thick plexiglass. He also makes a commemorative poster, with a little noose around a newspaper column about their arrest. And insisting they call him "Mike" instead of "Mister Mayor." Also, when Spy and Scout were in a bank vault collecting Scout's stuff, the police arrive to arrest them, but the mayor suggests they lock the two of them in instead, since Spy could probably easily kill them. By the way, that newspaper article claims Spy and Scout had to be "starved out" of hiding. Given that they were locked in the vault five and a half months ago, and are only just NOW being put on trial...
  • Oh, and we can't forget how the trial wasn't ACTUALLY for what RED did to Teufort; it was for stuff that the mayor did and just blamed on the mercs.
  • It's all ultimately subverted, however. The mayor was actually SO INCREDIBLY STUPID it never occurred to him that his behavior was evil.
• Fauxreigner: Mayor Mike had a resident named Trevor play as a Rambunctious Italian for years, when asked to stop, Trevor said that he had been keeping up the act for so long he forgot how not to talk with an accent.
• Foreshadowing: Spy says that the food he and Scout have been given while in jail has been laced with drugs, and he wants a clear head for the next day's events, hinting that he's got something up his sleeve. It's Double Subverted when his plan to escape during the trial is ruined, but it's later revealed that the town of Teufort has been drinking contaminated water for a generation.
• Frame-Up: Spy and Scout are arrested for what they did during their time working for RED and are due to be executed. It's implied that that's what'll happen to the other seven if they're caught. Then it turns out they AREN'T being arrested for the murders and property damage; the Mayor is pinning down every screw up HE'S made on them. When Miss Pauling proves they're innocent, the hanging simply gets cancelled as everyone leaves.
• Kangaroo Court: Turns out that Scout and Spy hadn't even been given a TRIAL before they were sentenced to death, and the trial they DO get was laughable at best.
  • Parodied six ways to Sunday. They actually are guilty of property damage and accidental manslaughter from all those stray bullets, but they're never charged for such.
• Micro Dieting: When Spy and Scout are in jail, Spy takes out several of his false teeth and removes from them a tiny tablecloth, bottle and glass of wine, candelabra, fork, knife, and miniature farm-raised Cornish game hen. He explains to Scout that he's doing this because the prison food is spiked with anti-psychotics and muscle relaxants, and he'd like to keep his mental faculties intact.
• The Millstone: Scout and Spy's public defender had a decent chance of actually getting them off by simply pointing out how they've not been subject to any sort of due process, which the judge didn't even contest—he wasn't even being facetious, he's just so stupid he genuinely didn't know those things. Then Soldier kills him and blows his and Demoman's cover because he couldn't stand Scout insulting him.
• Mugging the Monster: Scout and Spy's cellmate Joey Murders tries to backstab Spy for no real reason. Guess which one actually ends up with a shiv in their back.
• Noodle Incident: Scout and Spy once got a lamp as a public defender. And it was evidently better than Soldier.
• Old Flame: Margaret/Maggie/Mags is this to Saxton Hale. She's been through four marriages and still seems to have feelings for him.
• Only Sane Man: The public defender Spy and Scout get was actually a competent lawyer, who pointed out that his clients weren't getting a fair trial.
• Quirky Town: The people of Teufort aren't really right on their heads; everyone in Teufort are as crazy as the mercenaries, as their water is polluted with lead.
• Refusal of the Call: In the epilogue it shows Heavy back in Siberia, presumably in hiding. When the woman he's visiting informs him that Ms. Pauling has been trying to contact him, the Heavy refuses to call her back and deliberately throws away the paper with her contact information.
• Running Gag: Soldier attempts to act as a defense attorney once again, and fails terribly (again).
  Scout: Beat it, Soldier! I got a real lawyer this time!
  Soldier: Oh yeah? Well, I'm calling a surprise witness! My hands! And they will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that your lawyer's neck is guilty! ...of being broken! [NECK SNAP!] Huttah!
• Schedule Slip: Discussed in the update post. Valve Time is in full effect and the second issue came out over a month late. After announcing that this arc would instead become a tri-monthly affair, the third issue came out two days short of four full months after the second. invoked
• Spanner in the Works: Soldier manages to ruin three working plans to spring Scout and Spy from custody - Spy's, the public defender's and his own - simultaneously, all because he can't stand Scout insulting him. He starts by loudly retorting Scout's insult, exposing both himself and Demoman to the crowd and knocking Spy's smuggled butterfly knife out of his hands in the process, preventing him from using it to escape on his own. Then, in order to "prove" his skill as a defense attorney, he kills Scout's public defender just as it seemed that he might have been able to get Scout and Spy released legally.
• Town with a Dark Secret: The reason why the town acts so crazy is because the water is polluted with lead.
• Translation Punctuation: The Russian dialogue at the end of the comic is rendered in angle brackets.
• Unreliable Narrator: Oddly subverted! You would think jumping from this panel to this panel would indicate that Saxton Hale's flashback was full of bunk, but no. Maggie confirms that said flashback was exactly how it went down.

Team Fortress Comics #3: A Cold Day in Hell

A Cold Day in Hell

• All Women Are Lustful:
  • As Zhanna puts it, she's spent her entire life in Siberia, and Scout is the first man she's seen in twenty years — "today we make sex". When Scout proves too annoying for her to handle, she finds a willing and mercifully terse participant in Soldier.
  • Shortly after, Heavy tells Yana and Bronislava that he's brought some former workmates home with him, and the two immediately begin fantasizing about heavily sexualized versions of Spy and Sniper. They can't hide their disappointment when they find out.
• Badass Family: Apparently Heavy's family qualifies, although this isn't terribly surprising. Heavy makes a vague reference to "the people who hurt us before", and when his sister says that more men like them came while Heavy was in America, they "butchered them like hogs" all by themselves.
• Bait-and-Switch: When Soldier declares that only honey and menstruating women attract bears, he is hit with a sudden realization, points at Pyro, and yells at Pyro to step aside, revealing the large quantities of honey in the plane's cargo.
• Bears Are Bad News: Soldier, Pyro, and Scout are attacked by three large bears. Then, it turns out they were only cubs when the massive Mama Bear shows up.
• Big Brother Instinct: Heavy will protect his sisters. From anyone and anything. However, his sisters are grown women now, and while they will never be able to repay him for all he has sacrificed, they no longer need his protection.
• Brick Joke: The old lady from "Unhappy Returns" who was going to look up the definition of "pedophile" is at the library with a dictionary. She does not look happy.
• Cliffhanger: Miss Pauling, Demo, and Spy arrive in Australia to look for Sniper... and a sniper scope is aimed straight at Pauling.
• Death Glare/ Expressive Mask: Let's just say, you do not insult fire in front of the Pyro.
• Didn't See That Coming: Medic's first appearance and new career in the whole arc evokes this.
• Didn't Think This Through: Soldier's solution to stop the approach of any theoretical bears to a plane filled with boxes of honey by eating all of the honey sees Scout approaching physical illness after a certain point, and when he asks how far along with the crates they are, Soldier's answer being that they have eaten "approximately none" of the crates' worth so much as, "We are three jars into the first crate."
• Exact Words:
  Greg: You said you were filling a cavity!
  Medic: I was! The one I made in your abdomen.
• Face–Heel Turn: Medic, who is now working for the TFC merc team and declares he's looking forward to battling his old team, all for the sake of seeing which team he has made stronger.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Soldier fights a bear bare-naked and covered in honey.
• Given Name Reveal: Heavy's sisters call him Misha, which is a shortened, affectionate term for Mikhail.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: Soldier, when debating whether to eat "Heavy's Communist mom's" soup, hallucinates George Washington and Benedict Arnold. And a giant hot dog.
• Homage: This issue's cover is based off the cover for Action Comics #1, with the Heavy throwing a giant bear into the ground.
• Historical Hilarity: Overlapping with Historical In-Joke.
  • A mild example compared to TF2's usual, but Amelia Earhart apparently stockpiled massive amounts of honey, wore a hot dog costume while flying, and somehow crashed in western Siberia.
  • If Soldier's hallucination is to be believed, Benedict Arnold's greatest crime had something to do with not eating soup. Washington admits that's true, but argues the circumstances were very different and not comparable to this situation.
• MacGuffin Delivery Service: Invoked by Gray's mercenary team. They've already found the other merc team, but are just tracking them until they lead them to the Administrator.
• Made in Country X: When a Russian woman offers Soldier coats, he refuses because he read the first letter of the SEARS tag and assumed it stood for "Soviet/Stalin/socialism". He insists he'll only wear American-made goods like his Mann Co. jacket—even though the labels says it was made in China. For a company owned by an Australian.
• Meat-O-Vision: When Soldier is hungry he starts seeing the Siberian wildlife as pies and turkey, his hands as a sandwich, and Scout as a hot dog. This is subverted when it turns out Scout actually looked like a hot dog because he just put on a hot dog costume.
• Mythology Gag: Team Fortress Classic mercenaries form Team Gray. The actual TFC logo appears in the panel Team Gray is introduced to drive the point across.
• Noodle Incident:
  Soldier: Don't worry Scout! I am nude and covered in honey again!*
  *See Naked Tales of Valor #1-37, Scout's Worst Double Dates #14
• Not Hyperbole: When Heavy says the full-sized bears the others killed were babies, he's not just repeating his Catchphrase: they were actual babies, and their much larger mother just came for them.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The scene in Siberia ends short of the Heavy wrestling against a gigantic bear with the Soldier and Pyro spectating, cutting to Gray Mann's pursuit of the Administrator at Teufort's library. When the comic cuts back a mere two pages later, the bear has already been made into a banquet.
• Red Scare: Soldier does not like being in Siberia: he refuses any help from locals, does not want to eat any of their food even when he is starving, and hallucinates that he is being taunted by "Christopher, the Communist Mountain".
• Sexy Shirt Switch: After sleeping with Heavy's sister Zhanna, Soldier can be seen wearing her nightgown for the rest of the comic.
• Shout-Out: "There are only two things that attract bears: honey and menstruating women."
  • The cover is a shout-out to the cover of Action Comics Number One, with Heavy taking the place of Superman, a bear taking the place of the green car, and Scout, Soldier, and Pyro taking the place of the other people. Scout even wears the fairly iconic expression of distress one of the panicking civilians has.
• Sudden Videogame Moment: When Scout, Soldier, and Pyro kill the baby bears, up pops the same end-of-round scoreboard shown in the actual game.
• Unexplained Recovery: Half-way into the comic it's implied Scout's organs were ripped out by bears and his heart stopped. Less than ten pages later he wakes up without any visible injury.
• Unsound Effect: BORING MORAL CHOICE!
• The Unreveal:
  Soldier: "There are only two things that attract bears: honey and menstruating women. My God, I knew it! Somehow I always knew!" (points at Pyro) "Pyro! Stop blocking the door! Good Lord! This plane is filled with honey!"
  • Scout dreams that Spy is his dad, but wakes up in a cold sweat and realizes it's "Not a memory. Just a dream."
• Wham Line: "MERRRRCENARRRIES! FALLLL IN!"

Catch-Up Comic

Catch-Up Comic

• Continuity Porn: The comic meshes together every major lore beat from the comics with new artwork into a semi-coherent narrative, including the ancestry of the Hale family and the previous generations of Team Fortress mercs.
• Generation Xerox: The Catch-Up Comic establishes for the first time that the Team Fortress Classic mercs also worked for Blutarch and Redmond Mann decades before the current 1972 generation.
• Lemony Narrator: Saxton Hale, of course. In his words, if you somehow don't know who he is, you're obviously an idiot or a childless adult.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: Even Saxton Hale finds Gray Mann's backstory of being abducted and raised by eagles to sound like a steaming pile of horseshit.
• A True Story in My Universe: Saxton Hale describes the Team Fortress 2 video game as a dramatized hat-simulator/documentary based off of the events that have transpired in the comics' universe.
• Universe Bible: For the webcomic continuity. Lord knows that you will have to refer back to it many times if you want to make sense of the plot.

Team Fortress Comics #4: Blood in the Water

Blood in the Water

• Ass Shove: Saxton Hale threatens to do this to Heavy:
  You better start talking, because in five seconds I'm going to put MY FOOT UP YOUR ASS! Then we'll BOTH have to go to a SPECIAL HOSPITAL! Feet up the ass are like arrows, son, you can't just PULL 'em out! They'll have to push my whole body out through your mouth!
• Atlantis: The country of New Zealand, which was sunk to protect it rather than as punishment or a natural disaster. If only they knew it was safer on the surface...
• Blatant Lies: The comic claims, rather than being a bimonthly or quarterly comic released late, it's an annual comic "released six months early".
• Cliffhanger: The Trauma Conga Line comes to an end when Sniper gets shot in the chest twice by the original team (plus the modern Medic), with the original Heavy demanding the modern team to answer some questions.
• Creepy Souvenir: Soldier gives Zhanna a necklace of human ears. He hopes that eventually it'll have more ears on it. Zhanna, however, loves it, immediately leaping onto Soldier and passionately kissing him.
• Depower: Once all of the Australium has been taken from Australia, its citizens are no longer Testosterone-Poisoned. They revert to plain old ordinary people, no different from the rest of the world. Naturally, when Soldier and Zhanna arrive expecting a no-holds-bared-brawl against a room full of Saxton Hales, they're extremely disappointed.
• Disappeared Dad: We knew that this was the case for Heavy, but now we learn that this is also the case for Scout as well...maybe. After Heavy states that Scout's father "disappears often", Scout instantly reverses his train of thought and repeatedly claims that his father has not only disappeared, but is also dead. This ties into The Unreveal from the previous issue, where Scout has a "nightmare" that the Spy is actually his father.
• Feel No Pain: The Administrator claims to be too old to feel anything.
• Dismembering the Body: Miss Pauling shares some advice on Disposing of a Body with the Sniper, telling him dismembered bodies decompose much faster and take up less room in graves. She's had practice, what with making use of all those bags of Corpse-Grade Quicklime.
  Ten minutes with a hacksaw will save you thirty with a shovel.
• Gargle Blaster: Sniper's "family moonshine" is apparently so potent that it melts through the barrels it's stored in. He uses it to sedate Demoman. In a cut scene, Demoman woke up, immediately took more, and passed right out.
• Hands-On Approach: Soldier is about to snap an Australian soldier's neck... until Zhanna stops him. Then they snap the soldier's neck together. Aww.
• Implied Death Threat: Heavy's sister (and Soldier's girlfriend), Zhanna, gives one of these to Miss Pauling when Miss Pauling wonders why she's coming with them. It successfully shuts Miss Pauling up.
  Zhanna: You want to know more about Zhanna? Here is a story about Zhanna. Once upon a time I do not like you. The end.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Invoked by Lar-Nah when Miss Pauling finds out that most of the remaining Australium in New Zealand was destroyed by Bill-Bel.
  Pauling: You... you... you...
  Lar-Nah: Here. This helps. (passes her a glass of wine}
• Let's You and Him Fight: Subverted - Heavy and Saxton Hale never actually come to blows.
• Neck Snap: Soldier's up to his old tricks again, this time with a helping hand from Zhanna. He can also reverse the procedure. *NECK FIX*
• Relationship Upgrade: Soldier and Zhanna, maybe. He even refers to her as his fiancée at one point.
• The Reveal: Three of them: First, the location of the Engineer: he accompanied the Administrator; second the Administrator's motives towards collecting stockpiles of Australium are finally confirmed (somewhat:) She has her own Australium-powered life extender similar to Gray Mann's, making her... of a comparable age; vague, but definitely older than natural. However, she's not an Immortality Seeker like Gray or his brothers; she's perfectly willing to accept death, and actually intends to use the Australium in settling an as-of-now unspecified debt. Lastly, we find out that Sniper actually isn't Australian. He's one of the last surviving people of New Zealand.
• Stealth Pun: In the comic, we find out that Sniper's real parents are in New Zealand, which is at the bottom of the ocean. In other words, he has blood kin in the water.
• Three-Point Landing: Heavy◊, after jumping down a level inside Ayers Rock.
• Title Drop: Not directly, but at the end Sniper is shot by the TFC Sniper, leaving blood in the water.
• Trauma Conga Line: The ending, full stop. Sniper discovers that he not only has Jerkass birth parents, but said parents wasted the last cache of Australium painting failed rockets. The very last rocket is then stolen by Lar-Nah and launched into space, preventing the team from ever bringing the last cache to the Administrator. And then Bill-Bel abandons Sniper and escapes with the team's submarine. And then Sniper gets shot twice by the team's Evil Counterpart, which so happens to include modern Medic. Cue the Cliffhanger.
• Wham Episode: This comic was a big one for Sniper fans.
• Wham Line: While Heavy and Scout discuss how they both have a Disappeared Dad, the former implies that he knows who Scout's dad is and why Scout's dad is gone. May or may not tie into last issue's Unreveal about Scout and Spy..
  Heavy (to Scout) Yes. Your father disappears often.
• Wham Shot: This comic delivers a one-two punch regarding the Engineer and the Administrator's whereabouts. It turns out the Engineer is assisting the Administrator in an undisclosed location... with a fourth life-extender machine—soon replaced by a fifth—both proudly introduced injecting Australium into the Administrator's veiny arm.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The lost country of New Zealand is a direct homage to Krypton, with several key distinctions - Bill-Bel, unlike Jor-El, got the Council of Ministers to listen to him, but his scheme was ultimately pointless and bankrupted the nation. When attempting to rocket himself beyond the ocean and into space (selfishly abandoning his wife and child) as part of a new crackpot idea, he smashed a hole in the city's glass dome and flooded the entire nation, killing everybody inside.
• Your Days Are Numbered: The Administrator is on her last legs, and once the life extender Mk.5 runs out of its current load there won't be any more Australium to refill it. She's come to peace with it, only asking for enough time to set something right.

Blood Money

Blood Money

• Amusement Park of Doom: The setting for this year's event. Complete with carnival games and bumper cars! Possibly subverted, because it's not quite haunted yet (though the mercs will be quick to fix that) and Merasmus ended up using very un-spooky sandalwood scented candles for the ritual.
• Blood Magic: Virgin blood needed for the Sumerian carnival ritual. So Merasmus uses his own.
• Call-Back: As usual, the Halloween event is a result of something caused by Merasmus.
  • The team's love for Tom Jones returns, as apparently Merasmus found some of last year's spell pages behind the Tom Jones 8-tracks in his storage unit.
  • See the skeleton the mercs are using as decoration in the last panel of the comic? Those are the remains of the messenger with the TV on his chest from Meet The Director.
  • Lieutenant Bites is peeking his head out from Soldier's uniform at the end of the comic.
  • Merasmus is repeatedly mistaken for a woman again, something he once again either ignores or doesn't notice.
• Indian Burial Ground: Merasmus forgot to build his carnival on one of these, but since the bodies don't need to be ancient, he'll just get the mercs to kill enough people for the land to become haunted.
• Loophole Abuse: Merasmus figures out a cheap fix to the fact he didn't build his carnival on top of an ancient burial ground:
  • 1. The burial ground does not need to be ancient^note As Steve the repairman notes, when the Sumerians did the same ritual, their burial grounds were brand new..
  • 2. The bodies don't need to be buried, just within the grounds (read: area) of the park.
• Shout-Out: One of the new achievements is called Up All Night To Get Ducky.
• Virgin Power: One of the requirements for an ancient Sumerian carnival ritual is to use the blood of a virgin. Merasmus used his own "certified pure" blood.
• Yakuza: Merasmus will owe a lot of money to these guys if he doesn't get his carnival built. The fact that his right pinky is cut off and bandaged suggests that he's already had a run-in with them.

The Contract

The Contract

• The Beautiful Elite: The mercenary version. Saxton Hale sells his most exclusive and elite weapons to obscenely wealthy high end mercenaries.
• Brick Joke: Pauling once stated that nearly half of the Mercs are illiterate - in this issue, Saxton says that he's fairly certain four of them can't read.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Saxton Hale is able to deliver 2,751 PSI with a left-handed punch — real-life Olympic boxers can't even deal half that. Ms. Pauling uses a battering ram to get 2,633 PSI, which is apparently close enough.
• Five-Finger Discount: After Saxton Hale refuses to give her his elite weapons, Ms. Pauling sneaks in and steals them all in the middle of the night.
• Implied Death Threat: Ms. Pauling points out that if Hale doesn't give her the weapons she needs then the Administrator will likely kill them both, but he doesn't really care.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Ms. Pauling pretends to be interested in the "double Force-A-Nature" (two shotguns glued together barrel-to-barrel) so that Saxton Hale won't suspect her of being the person who just robbed him blind.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: If Ms. Pauling fails to kill everyone in the Administrator's weekly phonebook-sized kill list then she'll find herself in the next one.

Team Fortress Comics #5: Old Wounds

Old Wounds

• Badass Boast: From the newly-resurrected Sniper.
  It means I'm the most dangerous bloody man on this island. I know what's waiting for me when I kark it. I ain't afraid to die.
• Berserk Button: The Classic Heavy smashes Medic's Medi-Gun, accuses him of being The Load, and even kills Archimedes. After reviving Archimedes, the Medic picks up a bonesaw...
• Big Damn Heroes: Soldier and Zhanna save Demo, Spy, Pyro and Ms. Pauling from the Classic Demoman and Spy.
  • Exploited by The Classic Spy who pretends to be the Modern Heavy come to save Miss Pauling (he saw that Modern Spy and Miss Pauling were about to take a Cyanide Pill).
• Cerebus Syndrome: Hits hard in this issue. Sniper is confirmed dead (momentarily), Soldier and Zhanna go through a surprisingly creepy torture scene, which they only get out of when Zhanna cuts off her own hand, Ms. Pauling is reduced to tears, Spy and Ms Pauling decide to attempt suicide, Classic Spy tricks Ms Pauling into giving him the information they need, Gray Mann gets killed by Classic Heavy, The Administrator's ultimate goals get questioned, Archimedes is killed (again, momentarily), and the issue ends with the mercs in a seemingly hopeless situation. And all of this is Played for Drama, with relatively few jokes compared to earlier issues.
• Chekhov's Gag: Remember how the Soldier's uniform fell apart at the slightest touch in A Cold Day In Hell? That makes it good for making an impromptu tourniquet.
• Cliffhanger: The tradition of ending each comic with this trope continues. And it's a Downer Ending just like "Blood in the Water": Four of the mercs, Ms. Pauling and Zhanna are all pinned down by the leech-bots, which can be seen draining their blood.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Soldier still has the stitches from when Pyro cut off his hand.
  • When Soldier mistakens Gray Mann for a mummy, he orders Zhanna to find some honey while he takes his pants off, referencing his fight with a bear a few issues back.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: The Classic Heavy rips out Gray Mann's life extender, leaving him to die in agony. After that, Zhanna stuffs a live napalm grenade into the Classic Pyro's suit and forces her helmet back on just before it detonates. Once the suit crumples to the ground, all that's left of Bea is a pile of ashes spilling out of it.
• Death Is Cheap: The Medic, presented with a corpse that's been dead for six hours, tries to resurrect it. The corpse in question is Modern Sniper, who bled out in the previous issue, and the procedure takes another six hours. Sadly, the parts needed to pull this off are going to set Medic's paycheck back 1.3 billion, so it's not cheap in the literal sense.
• Dragon Ascendant: Classic Heavy takes over Gray Man's role after he kills him.
• Face of a Thug: Medic claims this is something he suffers from. Apparently in last issue's Cliffhanger, he was grinning maniacally simply because he was happy to see them
  Medic: That's just how I look when I smile! Smug and evil!
• Foreshadowing: The first few panels of the comic have the Classic Heavy wonder why they're hunting for Australium, and how Gray Mann can remain alive for 150 years. When he puts the pieces together not too many panels later, he decides to take matters into his own hands.
• For Science!: This seems to be the Medic's main motivation in everything he has done up to this point. He joined the classic team because they funded his research, and resuscitated Sniper because he wanted to try it. He seems genuinely confused by the idea that Sniper would be angry with him for being on the team that killed him and the idea that bringing the guy who his teammates just killed back to life might anger them.
• Homage: To follow the trend, this issue's cover parodies the cover of Watchmen.
• Hope Spot: Hurray! Heavy's here to save everyone! Except no, that's just Classic Spy trying to get information out of Ms. Pauling.
• It Only Works Once: Zig-zagged. The Medic has created a new procedure that can resurrect the recently dead, but it costs billions so he cautions Sniper to try staying alive this time.
• Killed Off for Real: Gray Mann, the Classic Pyro, the Classic Spy and the Classic Demoman.
• Life-or-Limb Decision: Zhanna is handcuffed to the wall while her boyfriend, the Soldier, is tortured by Classic Pyro. Suddenly, Zhanna escapes and kills Classic Pyro by stuffing a live grenade down her (yes, Classic Pyro is female) suit and ramming her mask on (a combination of Insert Grenade Here and Bombproof Appliance). Soldier is surprised and delighted at this turn of events:
  Soldier: Nice work, Zhanna! How'd you get out of those handcuffs? Ahh, I know, the old dislocated thumb trick!
  Zhanna: Yes, I try this trick. It did not work, it just hurt my thumb.
  Soldier: Then how did you...
  Zhanna: Thumb does not hurt anymore.
• Loose Lips: Soldier is super eager to resist Classic Pyro's torture, so much so that when the only question Classic team has is "where is the Administrator?" he's actually disappointed, since he has no idea whatsoever. Before even a single blade or drill bit has touched his flesh he blurts out that only Ms. Pauling knows.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Well, mundane for the Team Fortress 2 universe anyway. The Medic thinks Sniper's vision of heaven was a side effect of the various chemicals he injected him while resurrecting him with, but the Sniper is convinced it was all real.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Twice. First, Soldier blurts out that Ms Pauling is the only one who knows where the administrator is. Then Ms Pauling tells Heavy where she is only for Heavy to reveal himself as the Classic Spy.
• Only in It for the Money: The Medic claims that he only joined the Classic team for funding for his experiments.
• Pineal Weirdness: According to the Medic, the chemicals from a blue whale's pineal gland cause hallucinations. Having them injected directly into the brain stem likely helps.
• Rack Focus: Used on page 16 and page 20 to switch focus from Bea torturing Soldier to Zhanna noticing grenades, then noticing a piece of Grey Mann's backpack that fell off.
• The Reveal: The Pyro IS a woman after all! Classic Pyro, that is!
  • Gray Mann's next operation if he happened to live? Suck the Australium out of everyone in Australia using leech-bots.
• Shirtless Scene: Sniper, although the massive surgery scars don't do much for any potential fanservice.
• Shoot the Hostage: When Classic Demoman takes Miss Pauling hostage, Zhanna punches her in the face, breaking her nose and slamming her head into his with enough force to break the visor on his helmet and knock him over.
• Shout-Out: Bea's name and appearance might be a reference to Bea Arthur.
• The Starscream: The Classic Heavy kills Gray Mann and assumes control of his operation.
• Talking Is a Free Action:
  • After Zhanna's punch fails, Classic Spy simply stands in shock as Soldier tells Zhanna to hold the shotgun and let him try.
  • Later averted, when Classic Heavy's rant at the Medic for bringing Sniper back to life gives Sniper an opportunity to escape.
• Torture Technician: Classic Pyro. She gets the information she needs out of Soldier without torturing at all, but goes on torturing him anyways. And she apparently tied up Zhanna nearby just to make her watch, and then kill her slowly. It's rather creepy, even when juxtaposed with the Comedic Sociopathy of the modern mercenaries.
  Classic Pyro: "Torture" implies you still have something I need, Mister Doe. This is just me killing you slowly.

Gargoyles and Gravel

Gargoyles and Gravel

• Artifact of Doom: In-game, the very, very deadly amulet Soldier keeps trying (and failing) to retrieve.
• Asshole Victim: A mugger tried to attack Medic, dismissing him as "a nerdy German tourist"...Medic responded by killing (or at least harming) the guy, and stuffing his brain into a Jack o' Lantern as a "scare 'em straight" lesson for the kids.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: In-game, Soldier keeps trying to steal a cursed amulet (for America, of course), despite him, Scout, Heavy, and Pauling having gone over this scenario multiple times before. The guy just never learns, does he?
• Bad Liar: Merasmus, although he still manages to fool Soldier:
  Merasmus: "FOOLS! IT IS I, MERAS...Murray. With your pizza."
  Soldier: "Oh good. Merasmurray's here."
• Believing Their Own Lies: The mugger who tried to attack Medic clearly hasn't learned anything. Despite being utterly defenseless, he tries to pull the "let me go or else" line.
• Brain in a Jar/Animate Body Parts: Or in a pumpkin, rather. The criminal's brain is somehow still able to see, hear, and talk, and is pretty pissed at Medic and Engie for what they've done to him.
• Call-Back: Most of the classes are wearing their Halloween costumes from previous years. Heavy and Medic are wearing the Mad Scientist and Frankenstein's Monster costumes again, Soldier has his box robot getup, Spy is The Invisible Man, Sniper is Camper Van Helsing, Demo's a werewolf, and Scout's dressed as a chicken.
  • Merasmus is also in debt to another foreign criminal organization, and again needs the mercs to fill some artifact with souls...or something. He's also trying to kill them all. Again. Heavy and Spy both point this out.
  • In the first panel, we see three vehicles outside the Mercs' house: The RED bread truck from the "Love and War" short, Spy's car from TF Comics #2, and Sniper's van from "Meet the Sniper."
  • Merasmus is still missing part of his Pinky finger (as a result of Yubitsume from a previous deal with the Yakuza).
• Einstein Hair: Medic's wearing his Einstein wig from the 2011 Scream Fortress event.
• Everyone Has Standards: Medic may be a mad scientist who refuses to wear gloves during surgery, but he won't drink alcohol during an operation.
• Funny Background Event: Pyro hacking a pumpkin with their axe, and Sniper playing "William Tell" with an apple off Demoman's head.
• Gratuitous German: Medic calls the brain-in-a-Jack-o'-Lantern "Mein kleines ungeheuer," or, "My little monster."
• The Mafiya: Merasmus ran afoul of them.
• Mugging the Monster: Don't try to mug Medic, it won't end well.
• Proud to Be a Geek: Miss Pauling apparently enjoys tabletop gaming! Valve had previously shown her playing a little Rocket League with Scout. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like her players (Scout, Heavy, and Soldier) seem to understand how to roleplay. Heavy treats it like a real-life situation (where he can just shoot everything to death), and Soldier keeps doing the same fatal thing over and over. Scout seems to think the game is stupid, but he may just be sick of having to repeatedly restart the same amulet scenario when Soldier keeps killing the team.
• Scare 'Em Straight: Medic figures that by putting the criminal's brain into a pumpkin, he'll steer the trick-or-treaters away from criminal behavior. Engie seems to have no problem with this.
• Total Party Kill: Soldier causes one in Miss Pauling's game of G&G by picking up the cursed amulet. Again.
• William Telling: Sniper. Demoman's the guy with the apple on his head, although he's too drunk to mind.
• Writing Around Trademarks: Gargoyles & Gravel is this for Dungeons & Dragons.

The Showdown

The Showdown

• Audience Surrogate: Heavy acts as one for the part of the fanbase frustrated with the drought of new, unique weapons in recent updates.
  Heavy: When I start working you give me Sasha. I like this gun. Over years you give me Svetlana (Tomislav)... Oksana (Brass Beast)... Sheila (Huo-Long Heater)... I like these guns also. And then you stopped.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: The Administrator activates a self-destruct of the base when it seems Heavy has come to kill her.
• Disappointed by the Motive: The Administrator quite clearly believes that Heavy has come down there to kill her, and is shocked when she finds out he just wants more guns, without even the slightest interest in knowing why his supply was stopped in the first place.
• Evil Laugh: The Administrator lets one out at the idea of Heavy and Pyro killing each other.
• Oh, Crap!: Ms. Pauling gives a subdued one when she sees Heavy entering the elevator to the Administrator's room.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Pyro, who has always been obsessed with fire, crushes the Administrator's lighter in his hand when Heavy tries to offer it to him in exchange for giving up new weapons.
• This Is Gonna Suck: The Adminstrator gives an extremely subtle one on meeting the Heavy:
  "Hmm. You are a very large man, aren't you?"

Team Fortress Comics #6: The Naked And The Dead

The Naked And The Dead

• Brick Joke: In "Meet the Director", Scout claimed that he looked awesome with his shirt off. He turns out to have a (misspelt) tattoo of Tom Jones on his chest.
• Can't Catch Up: When the two Heavies square off, it is Modern Heavy who gains the upper hand. The Classic Heavy may have more battle experience, but he's also quite a bit older, so he lacks stamina by comparison. Not helping is that Classic Heavy also greatly angered the Modern Heavy right before the fight.
• Celebrity Casualty: Tom Jones is seen in heaven but God has him killed again before the singer can break the Scout's mistaken belief that Tom Jones is his father.
• Chekhov's Gag: In the third comic, when it is revealed that Medic now works for the Classic mercs, he complains that they're leaving before he has a chance to finish his experiment with placing baboon uteruses in all of the Classic Mercs. In this comic, Medic stops Classic Heavy from killing modern Heavy by threatening to activate a device which will induce labor in the baboon uteruses he placed in Classic Heavy's body, giving Modern Heavy the distraction needed to kill him.
• Climax Boss: The Australium-enhanced Classic Heavy, fought after the robots and other Classic mercenaries have been defeated.
• Disney Death: Ms. Pauling, the Scout, the Medic and the Administrator. Ms Pauling was resurrected by Medic's characteristic Meatgrinder Surgery, Scout was sent back from Heaven because he slept with too few women, Medic came back by renegotiating a previously-unseen Deal with the Devil, and the Administrator used the last of her Australium for a last-second power-up.
• Deal with the Devil: The Medic is revealed to have done this. It's not specified what he traded for, but most presume it was for his monstrous medical ability. Satan commends Medic for being such a monster that he probably would have ended up in Hell without trading his soul, and that this alone counts as getting one over (since of course a preferable trade would be a soul you wouldn't have otherwise acquired).
  • Medic then reveals the fine print requires Satan have a majority stake, and that he has used his medical skills to graft his teammates' souls to himself. He trades a second soul for fifty more years of life and Satan's pen, and Satan now has approximately fifty years in which to successfully tempt Medic at least three more times to get him into Hell. Medic's unlikely to let those souls go so cheaply.
• Embarrassing Tattoo: Scout reveals that he has one of Tom Jones' Sex Bom(b). It's spelled wrong.
• Face Death with Dignity: The Administrator uses up the last of the Australium on earth to revert her age to her younger years. Knowing she now has only a few hours at most, she sets out to put an end to the facade of the Teufort War.
  "And if I'm going to call an end to all of it, well... well. Why not look my best?"
• Fantasy Keepsake: The pen the Medic traded to Satan for his soul proves that he actually made a deal with the devil.
• False Reassurance: Medic insists that, as a doctor, he won't allow Classic Heavy to die on the operating table. No, Medic's going to kill him right where he is, before they get anywhere near the actual medical equipment.
• Fisticuffs Boss: Classic Heavy. Enforced, since Heavy throws away his gun purely for this reason.
• Given Name Reveal:
  • Scout is Jeremy
  • Medic is (Mr.) Ludwig.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: A de-aged Administrator has glowing, yellow eyes on the last page of the comic.
• Killed Off for Real: Almost all of the remaining Team Fortress Classic mercs (Scout, Soldier, Sniper, and Heavy). Only the Classic Medic and Classic Engineer are not shown dead.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane:
  • Discussed when Miss Pauling ends up in what appears to be the Administrator's personal hell and wonders if it's actually this or just a Dying Dream. The Administrator tells her to just pick one and move on, because she's "never had much patience for the abstract".
  • The Heaven scene seems like it's ripped straight out of Scout's fantasy, being told that he's God's gift to women everywhere as well as God talking exactly like him. But why else would Tom Jones be there if Scout didn't know the famous musician was dead, why was such a specific date named for his future death, and how else did Scout come back to life?
• Metaphorgotten: Defied. Spy, disguised as Tom Jones, points out the exact moment his 'Sex Bomb' metaphor breaks down and asks the person he is talking to if he can drop it.
• Mood Whiplash: There's a very somber scene in which Spy tells Scout that he's proud of him, shortly before Scout dies in Spy's arms and the panels fade to black. The scene immediately after is Scout going to heaven, where he discovers that his version of heaven is three (read: not one) Foosball tables, God almost blows up the world because nobody got in bed with Scout, and a cherub snaps Tom Jones' neck again to follow with Spy's lie.
• Naked People Are Funny: As the name implies, Soldier, Zhanna, and Sniper spend most of their time in the buff (and covered in honey in Soldier and Zhanna's case), censored by every trick in the book.
  Soldier: See? What did I tell you? I've done this a million times!*
  * See Full Frontal Bravery #1-1000000, All-Nude Tales of Valor #1-145, Naked Soldier and Clothed Scout Adventures #1
• Noodle Incident: We've never found out what Medic sold his original soul for, exactly. A common fan-theory is that he sold it for his surgical talent, but nothing has been confirmed.
• Pietà Plagiarism: The cover of Heavy and Medic is a Homage to Crisis on Infinite Earths issue 7◊, but of course both are this.
• The Reveal:
  • The long-standing theory that Spy is Scout's father is ultimately proven to be correct. Spy is ashamed to directly reveal this to a dying Scout, so he disguises himself as Tom Jones.
  • Australium is revealed not only to have the power of immortality; having enough of it in your system can reverse your age, as the Administrator demonstrates.
• Running Gag:
  • Soldier once again wrestles while naked and covered in honey, this time with Zhanna. Scout once again gets squicked by the sight.
  • Tom Jones is *neck snap*'d again, and someone thinks the sound is from making popcorn.
• Sequential Boss: Classic Heavy. Heavy first fights him straight fisticuffs, then Classic Heavy comes back for round two equipped with the Life Extender.
• So Proud of You: Spy (disguised as Tom Jones) tells Scout this when the latter is dying.
• So What Do We Do Now?: Classic Soldier and Classic Scout briefly discuss turning their old safehouse into an orphanage (for what is implied to be some unsavory purpose) moments before being incinerated by the Pyro.
• Sold His Soul for a Donut: When he dies and goes to Hell, the Medic reveals to Satan that he surgically grafted his teammates' eight souls to himself. Per the terms of a contract they made, even after giving up a soul, the Medic still technically holds a majority stake in his soul; the eight others plus his own collectively count as one. Satan is outraged — now, the Medic is within reason to vote himself into heaven and out of Hell. However, Medic offers an alternative - he'll sell another soul to Satan, in exchange for fifty more years of life... and, of all things, Satan's pen. Ultimately, while a bit insane in execution, the Medic subverts the trope; both his revival and even the pen become instrumental in Team Fortress' victory over the Classic Heavy.
  Medic: That's a lovely-looking pen.. *beat* I said, that's a lovely-looking pen.
  Satan: Would you give me a soul for—?
  Medic: I would! Ohhh, what have I done? See, you're well on your way. I don't like my chances. At any rate, I should really get going.
  • Satan still only has two souls - he needs at least three more before he can drag Medic to Hell - and it's implied Medic will not sell those souls so cheaply.
• Spiked Blood: Demoman's blood is full of so much alcohol that it took out all of the blood-sucking robots that easily took out the other humans they attacked.
• Stealth Pun: Spy says that his coat is a "$10,000 custom-tailored Louis Crabbemarché jacket". "Crabbemarché" roughly translates to "Crab walk", referencing Spy crabs.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Somehow, seeing his sister wearing a collar of severed ears was enough to clue the Heavy that the Soldier is his new brother-in-law.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Sniper's injuries from the surgery are actually pretty extensive and fresh. When he shoulder tackles a door down, he starts bleeding from his stitching.
• Title Drop:
  Miss Pauling: We're Team Fortress... and you're dead.
• Worrying for the Wrong Reason: After Medic revives the team by simply putting their blood back into their veins, Ms Pauling questions how Medic separated all the different blood types. His response is "I've been using my own underwear to sponge blood out of puddles. Trust me. The type is the least of your problems."
• Worthy Opponent: After penetrating Spy's disguise as the Classic Engineer, Classic Sniper assures Spy that his performance as Classic Engie was good enough that he would have fooled his target if not for the exact circumstances in which he tried it. Namely, Classic Sniper has had his eyes replaced with scanners that could see through the disguise.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Said almost word for word by Spy when Scout comes back to life.