Trope Finder

Fictional nations aren't shown on a map Print Comic

As you might have noticed, when comics and movies take place in fictional countries, we usually don't get to see on a map exactly where in the Arab world Qurac is to be found, or where in Eastern Europe Ruritania is located. Do we have a trope for this?

Marketing mistake Print Comic

Spider Geddon first released a teaser poster that featured Spider-Woman from the Ultimate Marvel universe (see here, it's the one with brown hair, up and left). Apparently it was a mistake, because later releases (like the one currently in use) replaced her with another, unrelated, Spider-Woman. Which is the trope or trivia for this?

The page currently lists it at "What Could Have Been", but it may be the incorrect one, because so far there is no evidence that they actually intended to use Ultimate Spider Woman and then changed their minds. It seems more likely that they simply gave a list of characters to the artist, and were not clear on which Spider-Woman they wanted him to include.

Superhero identities that play off their superhero name Print Comic

For example, Doctor Strange is a cool name right? When they needed to give him a real name and identity, they made him Stephen Strange, strange huh?

Or Doctor Doom which is also cool. When he also needed a life out of supervilliany, they made him Victor Von Doom. Again, weird?

Is this a trope? What's its name?

B-Team are main protagonists Print Comic

Is there a trope for where a B-Team or more obscure characters are the protagonists of a Spin-Off (for example, a work featuring less well-known DC Comics characters instead of Batman, Superman, The Flash) as a type of Spin-Off, or am i wrong?

Comic books timeline and continuity tropes? Print Comic

If anyone could help, I'd appreciate it.

Would Marvel Legacy count as a Retool if not a Continuity Reboot, or as an Alternate Continuity to the other Marvel comics being published currently?

Similarly, is America (2017) a Standalone Episode, Alternate Continuity, Schrödinger's Canon, Loose Canon due to the nature of its Story Arc or Champions (2016).

Could Inhumans qualify as being part of The 'Verse or as an Alternate Continuity?

Also, where canonically does Ms Marvel 2014 fit in - main continuity Marvel, an Alternate Continuity, or Schrödinger's Canon. Same for West Coast Avengers (2018).

Checking before I make any major edits.

Unfriendly Fire or I Just Shot Marvin In The Face? Print Comic

In a post-Necropolis story of Judge Dredd (issue #826), the plot revolves around a Street Judge who, when a pair of Special Judicial Squad members burst into her flat to administer a Random Physical Abuse Test (basically grabbing Street Judges at random and torturing them to test their ability to withstand interrogation), grabbed her gun and shot them both dead, presuming them to be would-be assassins. The plot of the chapter revolves around arguing about what's a suitable punishment for her, or even if she deserves a punishment. As the title says, what trope covers her killing people who turn out to be (technically) friendlies without knowing who they were until it was too late?

Protagonist Defeats Bad Guy to Show Strength Print Comic

Is there a trope where a "powerful" bad guy is introduced solely to get beaten and highlight the power of someone else? Some bit part bad guy is introduced but he is quickly beaten. I vaguely remember in the Spiderman (?) comics that there was a powerful wrestler introduced, but Spiderman defeated him to show how powerful Spiderman really was.

Alternate self trope? Print Comic

Is there a trope for this situation:

In a Web Comic where the setting is the future, way more than 20MinutesIntotheFuture, the boss of a Mega Corp. wants to hire Bob, but Bob is working for the rival and his contract doesn't allow him to work for anyone else. Bob turns down the offer, staying loyal to his employer.

Not wanting to give up, the boss decides to hire Bob's Alternate Self from an Alternate Universe who has similar skills to the main universe's Bob.

Unfortunately, within the main universe, people get confused as to how Bob can be in two places at once.

Unnecessary Display of Superpowers Print Comic

Is there a trope for superheroes (and villains) "wasting" their powers when they don't need to, just so the reader won't forget they have it? Reed Richards stretching when he's in his lab, Wolverine popping his claws during a meeting, Spiderman clinging to walls when someone goes to see him...

Action exclamation Print Comic

Does anyone know if there’s a trope related to characters describing what’s happening in front of them? This seems really common in comics from the 1950’s - 1980’s especially. A hero is thrown across the room with magic and yells “He threw me across the room using magic!”

The standard criminal character design Print Comic

Do we have a trope for the kind of small-time criminal that has a flatcap, carries a gun or a blackjack (or both), and almost always works as a robber or burglar or other kind of small-time crime done for money? That is, he won't arrange plots to conquer the world or even work for the kind of people who do so (since would-be conquerors usually prefer uniformed mooks or Faceless Mooks). In short, he's a "regular criminal." Very frequently seen in Tintin, Suske en Wiske and other comics like that. See Tap on the Head for an image of the character design I mean.

Better adaptation Character Print Comic

Easy, is a case of Depending on the Writer YMMV when a character of certain comic is considered to be better done in another comic. In this case, I want to use, how characters like Squirrel Girl, Miles Morales' Spider-Man, and the new Doom are considered to be more likeable in the Gwenpool comic than in the ones they're from.

Sympathy for Genoshans? Print Comic

So, there was this one trope page I remember coming across which had a comment about how, during a X-Men arc, the X-Men had an encounter with an inhabitant of Genosha who defended their country's enslaving of mutants as necessary to protect the human population from being destroyed by the mutants - and, sure enough, when the mutants were free, the Genoshan humans were massacred. This trope entry expressed some sympathetic for the Genoshan viewpoint, although I edited it to point out that this was a case of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (don't think I used that trope, though). I can't remember what trope that was, though. Any suggestions? Maybe Beware the Superman, Unintentionally Sympathetic, or something like that?

What's this kind of trope? Print Comic

I'm trying to update the Hilda page. In Hilda and the Stone Forest, there's a conversation I wanted to think was a case of Strange Minds Think Alike, but looking up SMTA got me to realize it doesn't fit.

The conversation in question:

Hilda's Mum: It's so quiet here...there's barely even a breeze.

Hilda: What if we're dead?

Mum: (thinking) What if we are dead? (speaking to Hilda) Don't say stupid things like that. We're not dead.

What kind of trope would the above conversation be an example of?

Superhero Masks make your eyes roll up! Print Comic

This is especially common in comic books, where the main character/superhero wears a mask as part of his outfit and only the sclera is visible. Most notable examples include Comic Book/Batman, Main/Spider-Man and the like. It's used in other media, but generally it's seen in comic books.

Old Wonder Woman story. Print Comic

Found a Wonder Woman book (along with a Collected issue of Batgirl (Rebirth) and Batman vs Predator) at my library called "The Once and Future Story". The issue has a Very Special Episode feel, With two plots.

The first story is about the princess of the Ephesians (named Artemis) goes on to rescue her mother and queen (named Alclippe) from Theseus. By the time Artimes gets to Athens, Theseus and Alclippe is in abusive relationship and Artemis has to free her from it with the help of her Theseus' slaves. The other story is about one of the researchers likewise being in a similar boat to Alclippe.

I think that is a case of Plot Parallel, but the other thing of interest is that over the course of the story, Artemis' outfit changes to resemble that of Diana herself (A red shirt thing with a winged symbol, a star spangled skirt, metal gauntlets and a circlet), I want to know if there is a trope for that "coincidence".

(before you ask, yes the characters speculated that the dig might had been a Themyscryan outpost. But the ending claims that the Ephesus and Themyscryra are not connected and I think the implication was that the dig site was just a mere tomb for Artemis)

EDIT: The last paragraph was cut for some reason that I almost blame Data Vampires for.

Something so amazing, they don't show it. Print Comic

In an Archie Comic, one day Jughead shows up at the beach wearing a Victorian-style striped bathing suit, shirt included. Everyone else at the beach makes fun of him, all except for one elderly lady. She turns out to be Hetty Greenstuff, the richest woman in the world. Delighted with the memories brought on by that swimsuit, she summons her butler to invite Jughead to join her for lunch. While this is but a picnic lunch on the beach, Archie and some of the others look on with awe; Veronica, herself a billionaire's daughter, comments that she's been to banquets that were not that fancy.

Yet the reader is never shown the picnic, just the reaction of the others as they look on. Presumably, this is because the artists wanted to leave the fanciness to the readers' imagination, or that the artists wouldn't really be able to do the picnic justice. What trope would this be?

Let's remember the previous episode... Print Comic

A variation of Previously On, the recap of previous episodes is not provided with a montage of parts of the episodes, but by the characters discussing in-universe their previous adventures. Usually done in comics. For example, here

Everbody's Gone Print Comic

I found this from a French comic (forgot its title), it's about a bunch of kids wake up to find all the adults are gone. There's also the same story from The Vanishing on 7th Street where the people are mysteriously taken by a shadow. What kind of trope this story is? Need your help, guys.

Unexpected fighting prowess Print Comic

What's the trope for when a character known for no particular ability is able to hold their own in a fight using some unexpectd trick (as a one-off)? Thinking especially of when the audience is waiting for the real fighters to come save the day.

The planet is moved Print Comic

So, I was reading some Marvel comics, and some of the space heroes tend to have their planet relocated by Galactus (Silver Surfer and Rom). What would this trope be?

Genre is Popular, Now it Sucks Print Comic

It's Popular, Now It Sucks!, except the people complaining are the creators and the material they created is an art movement or genre than a work, series, or franchise. The genre or art movement dies out because people eventually learn to like it, which ruins the shock factor.

Accidental Confession Print Comic

On Second Avengers Team, there's a redlink to Accidental Confession. What trope should that be linked to?

When It Juggles Two Very Different But Connected Protagonists' Arcs At Once... Print Comic

Okay, I posted about this in the discussion page for Deuteragonist (which I really hope I have spelled correctly) but I don't know how commonly that page is visited and for all I know it's not quite that trope - it's hard for me to discern, it could be a case of Tropes Are Flexible or that I just don't know there's a page for something closer to what I'm looking at - so I'm posting it here in the hopes of getting some clarification?

Basically, I am confused as to whether the trope I just referenced applies to the Green Lanterns series, and if it does, who the heck would be the actual Deuteragonist?

For context, to summarize what makes me question both whether it might be, and whether it's not quite exactly this trope:

Green Lanterns is an ongoing comic book series centered on two title protagonists (hence the pluralized title): the impulsive Jerk with a Heart of Gold Simon Baz, and the more cautious, anxious Jessica Cruz. Each of them is an Ensign Newbie archetype of some kind, though Baz was established for slightly longer than Cruz's character, or a lot longer if we're considering them only as Green Lanterns; Baz has had roles in multiple Green Lantern books as one, while before this book, Cruz had a recurring role in the New 52 continuity's Justice League book, which is where she was introduced back in late 2014 - but there, she was the host of an entity (Power Ring) that tried to take her over and she had to learn to wrest control from it, and then (from what I hear) worked with the Justice League for a while using the superpowers that gave her, only getting recruited to the ranks of the Green Lanterns very, very recently - so much so that in the Rebirth book that kicked off the series, she and Simon had literally not even heard of each other yet and were each very surprised and confused about the other's being a Green Lantern.

They immediately mess up on the supposed emergency they're responding to (it was just a test, a very sneaky exploitation of What You Are in the Dark), with both of them basically proving they're rookies who don't know what they're doing - and proving that they have no idea how to work together, either. So, Hal Jordan fuses their Power Batteries together - the Power Battery is a Green Lantern's charging station for their (literal) Green Lantern Ring, so apparently this means they have to charge their Rings in the same time and place as each other, together - so they'll be forced to learn to get along with each other. So, so far we have a "these two very different characters have to learn to work together" set up, right? This automatically seems to give them equal narrative weight, especially when you consider each of the characters in that issue (which acted as a prologue of sorts for both Green Lanterns and the rebooted Justice League comics) each get some time where we peek into their lives and minds to see what they're going through in their private lives before they get yanked off to a supposed emergency. There's also an implication that Jessica is being The Millstone because she's insecure and inexperienced while Simon is The Millstone because of his impulsivity and arrogance - each of them obviously set up to complement each others' personalities (her caution should ideally temper his impulsivity, while he could hypothetically inspire her to be more proactive, for example)... assuming they could learn to work it out and strike the right balance instead of annoying each other. This set up actually reminds me of Buddy Cop movies btw though I wasn't originally able to find the relevant tropes for that one (please let me know what those are named as btw, particularly if there's a dramatic and not just comedic version, as the situation is played for both laughs and drama over the course of the story).

Okay so there's our set up, right? The story then skips ahead to a series of disconcerting incidents that eventually reveal the Earth is being invaded by a group that want to make it into one giant Powered by a Forsaken Child situation, which Simon and Jessica now have to deal with, sans Hal Jordan who is off in space (PS: is there a version of Put On Abus where the character is Put On a Bus precisely because they have their own separate spinoff story? Because that's exactly what DC is doing with these two titles: Green Lanterns after the prologue bit features only Simon and Jessica and the characters relevant to their stories, while Hal is off investigating the disappearance of a bunch of their fellow Green Lantern Corpsmen in his own book. But anyway, I digress!).

DURING that plot, there seems to be fairly even focus between the characters and their families...? We get flashbacks to Jessica flying with the Ring for the first time and struggling to make her first constructs, we see interaction with her sister until the invasion starts kicking into high gear, etc., but we also see a lot from Simon's perspective - particularly since Jessica is increasingly freaked out (and he's reacting to that); Simon is also picking up all sorts of weird new abilities, which given it makes the story at times focus on that (I mean, it obviously would or it would be crap writing) makes me think maybe Jessica is technically the Deuteragonist - with her story connecting with his in the way of needing to teach him to open up more, and to go easier on her, etc.. But.

The series features Multiple Narrative Modes so it's not like Jessica has no voice; often scenes featuring both of them will bounce back and forth between the internal narration so we see what both are thinking. Plus, as of "Issue #3" and #4 I'm pretty sure the reason the last couple of chapters were more Simon-centric is because they wanted to make the moment where she's infected with the Rage energy more of a surprise/Wham Moment, and then Issue #4 is almost entirely about him trying to snap her out of it/worrying he might have to kill her/worrying about his decreasing power levels in his Ring, so it's probably only natural, for narrative tension reasons, that we get more of his perspective in that chapter and the end of the previous one. And even counting the so-called "one-shot" that kicked it off, there's only been literally five issues (basically a prologue and four chapters) in the story, with its first major arc/plotline not even resolved yet - so far all I know, Jessica's perspective gets more dominant in the latter portions, which just happen to not be published yet?

IDK, does this at least have hints of Deuteragonist? Would I want to wait until the first major arc is resolved, perhaps, to figure out a.) if it truly applies and b.) who's the "second" most prominent protagonist? Or is there a different trope which would cover this better? I checked out Two Lines, No Waiting and can confirm it is NOT that trope, as both of the characters' current stories are completely intertwined plot-wise (they are dealing with exactly the same alien invasion at exactly the same time and in the same places), and much of both of their character development/character arcs are about how badly they've mismanaged their partnership and them getting to understand each other and work better together.

I think - THINK - that so far I would label Jessica as the Deuteragonist, especially as it seems like her arc is about growing her self-confidence whereas more of Simon's arc is about learning to not be a jerk to her and owning up to his own insecurities and figuring out how to accept her as his new partner. BUT.

I dunno if it is me, or the trope page being worded a little confusingly, or it being a different slightly-overlapping trope...or just Tropes Are Flexible at work; but it's just hard for me to feel secure in the knowledge I have pegged it correctly - and again, I'm wondering if maybe part of the problem is that it might be better to see how the full arc plays out rather than go off an incomplete story?

What do you guys think?

Comic character debuts before actor cast for TV character - they look the same Print Comic

In Doctor Who Magazine's comic strip, the Doctor has a new companion, a black girl named Jess. He had met her in a previous story several months ago. Since that initial appearance, a new companion has been cast for the Doctor Who TV show, Bill, played by Pearl Mackie. Problem is, Jess looks like Pearl. Complete coincidence. I've labelled it as You Look Familiar on Doctor Who Magazine, but I'm not sure that's the right trope because it's in comic books and not film or television, and was accidental.