The TVTropes Trope Finder is where you can come to ask questions like "Do we have this one?" and "What's the trope about...?" Trying to rediscover a long lost show or other medium but need a little help? Head to You Know That Show and try your luck there. Want to propose a new trope? You should be over at You Know, That Thing Where.
Characters who are in-universe fans of real bands, books etc. Print Comic
Prompted by Marvel Comics's Shang-Chi, who was a fan of Fleetwood Mac in a few of the 1970s stories.
It's not really a Shout-Out, is it? Is it a trope at all?
No Title Print Comic
For a while, there were twelve comic books being published about Richie Rich at the same time. Is that a trope?
Simple looking heroes and realistic looking villains Print Comic
Is there a trope similar to this here? It's called "masking" and It's used as a technique in comics or any hand drawn media to emphasize the "otherness" of an antagonist, and for the audience to project themselves on to the hero. (Thanks Scott McCloud).
It's not necessarily Ugly Hero, Good-Looking Villain, since what I'm finding is a contrast of realism and simplicity instead of beauty and ugliness.
Edited by Troper_12345
No-one ever bothers to look Print Comic
Trying to find a trope for Dilbert:
- In one strip, Dilbert goes to a data retention office. In a thought bubble in the caption, the employee thinks "Good job I got this line of work, no-one ever bothers coming to check on old records". It was satirising how people think about data retention at the time circa 1997-1998.
Is there such a trope for where items or records are sent to be archived and forgotten about?
Odd One Out Print Comic
This is on the The Beano page.
Odd One Out: One strip revealed that nearly the entire cast of the Bash Street Kids live in a block of flats. The sole exception being Plug, who lives nearby next to Minnie. The reason for this was that his family were going to live in the block, but their flat was almost squashed since Fatty lived directly above them. They decided to live in the nearby neighbourhood instead.
Odd One Out is a redlink, was it renamed or cutlisted?
Edited by Digifiend
Wolf in Sheepdog's Clothing Print Comic
A villain dresses up as the (super)hero, which often leads to Superdickery-heavy comic covers. This can be because:
- People trust the hero, which gives the villain access to places and goods.
- He wants to frame the hero for his crimes.
- It's a cheap costume.
- He found/stole the hero's clothes (and sometimes Clothes Make the Superman).
- He's a Knight Templar with In-Universe Misaimed Fandom towards the hero.
- He wants the fame.
- He's insane.
Character never ages but in-universe explanation Print Comic
Although Comic-Book Time is often used as an explanation for why characters don't age, is there a similar trope for this that's an In-Universe explanation:
- In a superhero comic, Carol the Cold, the protagonist, never grows beyond 24, but that's because she eats special caramel chocolates that always keep her 24 years old. Out-of-universe, she's more like 46 years old.
- Stargirl never ages beyond 21 physically or mentally with her body always resetting to that, but that's because of a special coca-cola formula she drinks in a What If? Alternate Continuity.
One series impacting another Print Comic
So, it struck me recently that ROM: Space Knight, despite being removed from canon when Marvel ran into legal issues, actually has a fair amount of influence over the fate of the X-Men during the 80s. Mystique was originally implied to be an alien and possibly a Dire Wraith when she debuted as an archenemy of Carol Danvers, an encounter with Rom was set-up as the cause behind the eventual Heel–Face Turn of Rogue, and Storm's depowering in the 80s was originally caused by Gyrich getting ahold of the prototype replica of Rom's Power Nullifier that Forge had created as the first step in arming humanity against the Dire Wraith invasion. And those are just the examples I can remember! Is there a trope for this?
Overpowered Hero for the genre or situation Print Comic
Do we have this? Realistically Superman or Thor have no business stopping muggers for example - they'd have to be so careful not to kill anyone or cause ludicrous collateral damage they'd be totally ineffective. Even looking at someone like Spiderman, if you actually analyse his strength and abilities, he shouldn't be either - someone who can fight the entire classic X-Men lineup to a standstill could easily punch someone hard enough to liquefy them - it's only his web shooters that allow him to non-lethally take down normal humans.
Staged Murder Attempt Print Comic
Wednesday Comics: The Batman story revolves around Batman trying to solve the murder of a rich man named Franklin Glass. The Big Bad later has their henchman stage an assassination attempt on them to draw suspicion away from the Big Bad. The Big Bad reveals that the assassination attempt was a fraud after they're exposed.
Straight talk Print Comic
Is there a trope for straight-talkers? People who wouldn't know subtle if it tapped them lightly on the head?
Examples: Wolverine, Luisa of the Vault, Deadpool.
Metafiction as Justification for Sillyness Print Comic
If a Super Hero story features a character who wears a costume and has a secret identity because he wants to appeal to comic book fans, despite personally thinking it's silly, what trope are we talking?
I'm thinking in particular about stories where real superpowers are Played for Horror and the characters talk about how "they made us wear the silly clothes so we wouldn't scare people".
Freeze-Frame Chaos Print Comic
A comics trope where a single huge panel has a large amount of different events happening on it, something like a bunch of Funny Background Events happening at once. Usually the individual events are seen separately and then culminate in the large panel so the whole thing makes sense in context.
For instance, this page
from the Scrooge Mc Duck comics: a bull has a dinosaur skull stuck on its head and is running after two panicking natives, a bear is chasing the villains, Scrooge is tied on the back of a calf, two scared horses are trying to get away from the calf, and in the middle Theodore Roosevelt is trying to make sense of what's happening.
Inverse Relationship of Power and Altruism Print Comic
It seems like superhero stories usually have the heroes get their powers by accident and feel compelled to fight crime. If a character wants to get superpowers, either he'll end up a freak thanks to the accident, or he's a gloryhog who cares more about his ego than with fighting crime and ends up performing Engineered Heroics.
Is that a trope?
Badass and Innocent Duo Print Comic
The Sweet Tooth intro describes the relationship between Jepperd and Gus as that of an older Bad Ass and a naive child he has to protect both from the world, and from his own pessimism. It goes on to mention other examples of that dynamic, like the Hound and Arya from A Song of Ice and Fire, Roland and Jake from The Dark Tower, Lone Wolf and Cub, Logan and X-23 from Logan, Moses and Addie from Paper Moon (I've never seen it so I can't tell if it's accurate).
Is there a trope for that particular relationship?
Inverted Characterization Fix Print Comic
In The Eltingville Club, two muscular guys try to convince Bill to give up comic books and toy collecting. Bill is such an Uber-geek, however, that he ends up convincing them to pick up the hobbies.
Is there a trope for that? Like, Alice wants to change one of Bob's characteristics, but Bob is such an extreme example of it, in the end Alice is the one who acquires Bob's characteristic?
Thin person who is unfit Print Comic
Is there a trope where a character is noted to be thin and twiggy, lacking physical fitness?
Media adaptation trope Print Comic
Trying to find a Media Adaptation Tropes trope for WesternAnimation.Dexters Laboratory comic-book version:
- Compared to the TV series, Dexter is more of a Keet and not so much of a jerkass.
- In one story, Dexter wears a green crop-top-style blouse and leather trousers, but isn't camp in anyway (only makes sense if you've read it); In-Universe, Dee Dee mistakes him for camp. The storyline was about fashion.
wrong place wrong time Print Comic
a character is endangered by being in the wrong place at the wrong time
Edited by rcraukar
Mushrooms that grow on someone's head Print Comic
What is the name of the trope for a person that has mushrooms that grow on his/her head? One such example is Paras from Pokemon, which has Tochukaso mushrooms on top of it.
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Paras_(Pokémon)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/ShimejiSimulation
The main example mentioned above is Shijima Tsukishima from Shimeji Simulation, who has two mushrooms that appear above her head, after two years of being a recluse inside her closet. Except, they are shimeji mushrooms and are not invasive, unlike the one that Paras has in Pokemon.
Edited by holy_grail_24