History ComicBook / TheWalkingDead

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[[caption-width-right:300:[[HumansAreTheRealMonsters They are the least of your problems.]]]]

* [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil Covers Always Spoil]]: The first "Compendium" cover shows all the characters wearing [[spoiler: prisoner uniforms]], and Rick [[spoiler: missing a hand.]]

* [[SheCleansUpNicely He Cleans Up Nicely]]: Carl after the time-skip looks rather grungey until he cleans up for a quasi-date with Sophia.

* [[SeanConneryIsAboutToShootYou Several Characters Are About To Shoot You]]: The covers for issues 38, 87, 105, 115, 125 and 171 each feature a different character about to blow the reader away.

* SpoilerCover: For those who have read the comic enough, the cover of ''[[{{Doorstopper}} Compendium One]] has quite a few spoilers in the illustrations on the cover.

* [[VillainEpisode Villain Issue]]: Issue 43 focuses entirely on the Governor and his recovering [[spoiler: after being mutilated by Michonne]] while showing his side of the events that occurred from issues 34 through 42.

[[SeanConneryIsAboutToShootYou Several Characters Are About To Shoot You]]: The covers for issues 38, 87, 105, 115, 125 and 171 each feature a different character about to blow the reader away.

* RapeAndRevenge: [[spoiler:After being raped and tortured by the Governor over several days she tracks him down at his house and brutally tortures and maims him.]]

* TheApocalypseBringsOutTheBestInPeople: While a lot of people became [[HumansAreBastards bastards]] after civilization fell to the walker hordes there are several who became much better people. One good example would be Axel from the prison arc. Before the world went to shit he was serving time for armed robbery, afterwards he ended up becoming one of Rick's greatest allies and was an important asset to the group during their time at the prison.
* ArrowsOnFire: [[spoiler:The Whisperers use these during the Whisperer War story arc to burn the Hilltop to the group and kill several of its guards.]]

* WarIsHell: If you thought watching zombies rip people apart was bad just wait until the survivors come into conflict with each other. Without any rules or laws to stop them both sides in all of the major conflicts take part in what would be considered war crimes in modern society. [[PoisonedWeapon PoisionedWeapons]], UnfriendlyFire, [[LeaveNoSurvivors execution of surrendering or fleeing combatants]], the murder of [[spoiler:a baby]], [[PhyrricVictory Phyrric Victories]]... the list goes on.

'''Volume 29:''' [[spoiler:Beta]]

** Michonne's blade. Starts as an [[AvertedTrope Aversion]] - it gets stuck in a skull once, when we [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness first]] meet her - but then cuts through anything like a hot knife through butter. Rick's hatchet, on the other hand, is as sharp as the plot needs it to be at any given time.

-->--'''[[http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-reasons-the-walking-dead-has-to-get-better/ Robert Brockway]]''', ''{{Website/Cracked}}''

''The Walking Dead'' is a {{zombie apocalypse}} {{comic book}}, written by Robert Kirkman with art by Charlie Adlard[[note]][[ComicBook/BattlePope Tony Moore did the first six issues]][[/note]], featuring an [[{{Ensembles}} ensemble cast]] ([[AnyoneCanDie which is constantly in flux]]) of survivors [[AfterTheEnd struggling to survive]] over the long-term duration of the zombie uprising. The de facto main character is Rick Grimes, a [[FairCop police officer]] who was shot in the line of duty; when he wakes up from a ConvenientComa, all hell has broken loose. Rick goes in search of his family and safety, both of which end up being more tenuous than not.

!!''The Walking Dead'' provides examples of:

'''A Certain Doom:''' [[spoiler:Paula, Sherry, Andrea]]

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Indices: Franchise.TheWalkingDead, HorrorComicBooks, HorrorLiterature, ZombieStories, ImageSource.ComicBooks, TurnOfTheMillennium.ComicBooks, Creator.ImageComics



!!Comicbook.{{Wanted}}
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->''"The whole point of this exercise was to bring a little choice into that sad, pathetic thing you used to call your life."''
-->-- '''Fox'''

Meet Wesley Gibson. Wesley's father abandoned him when he was eighteen weeks old, and things have gone steadily downhill since. He works for a disgusting boss at a job he hates before going home to a girlfriend who's sleeping with his best friend. But suddenly, Wesley is tapped to join The Fraternity, a shadowy cabal of comic book-style villains who claim they're behind all organized crime on Earth, and that further, Wesley's father was one of them.

And that's when Wesley's life gets ''much'' [[BrokenMasquerade more interesting]].

''Wanted'' is a comic series by Creator/MarkMillar and JG Jones that operates on one simple principle: superheroes really ''do'' exist in our world. Well, at least they did until 1986, when all the supervillains in the world teamed up for the express purpose of defeating every superhero in the world. However, getting rid of the superheroes and divvying the world up into sections to make money unencumbered by spandex-clad do-gooders wasn't enough for the supervillains. Did we mention they are ''super''villains? They used magic and technology to alter reality and people's memories, removing the superheroes from all recorded history and recall.

Almost.

You see, this ''still'' wasn't enough (''super''villains, remember). So they took the heroes who had survived and gave them meaningless lives, then left most of the heroes exploits around... in comic books.

The series has its origins in Millar's childhood, when his older brother convinced the young Mark that Superman and all other superheroes ''had'' existed before Mark was born, but had all been killed by the supervillains. And then Mark grew up and became a comic writer. [[http://www.newsarama.com/264-mark-millar-wanted-from-comic-to-film-1.html Was originally a proposed reboot for the]] ''Secret Society of Super-Villains'', but when rejected, Mark decided to go DarkerAndEdgier.

----
!!''Wanted'' (the series) provides examples of:

* AdorableEvilMinions: The Doll-Master uses robot dolls to commit crimes.
* AdrenalineMakeover: Wesley trades in his jeans/t-shirts/windbreaker style for tailored three-piece suits.
* AffablyEvil:
** Professor Solomon Seltzer seems like a fairly nice, easy to get along with guy. Then you remember that ''he'' was the person who engineered the heroic genocide...
** The Doll-Master is as evil as the rest of the Fraternity but he loves his family and won't swear in front of children.
* AllThereInTheManual: Several character backstories that were not made apparent in the actual story were included in the ''Wanted Dossier'':
** Sucker is explained to be a parasitic alien lifeform that lives through attaching itself to various unwitting hosts, thus making him an {{Expy}} of {{ComicBook/Venom}}.
** Imp is considered an infant in the dimension he hails from. He's also having an affair with Rictus mook Deadly Nightshade.
* AxCrazy: Mr. Rictus in a nutshell.
%%* BadassArmy: Composed of supervillains.
%%* BadassBookworm: Professor Seltzer.
* BadassDecay: [[invoked]]Turns out that this universe once had a Franchise/{{Batman}} {{expy}}, who Mr. Rictus described as essentially being the "scariest man in the world" (and considering what Mr. Rictus is like, that says ''a lot''). After the villains effectively retconned the existence of superheroes, that same guy is now an expy of Creator/AdamWest, and is an actor who portrays a superhero in [[Series/{{Batman}} a campy TV show]].
** The result of the superheroes whom have survived the event that wiped out the rest of the heroes due to brainwashing and reality warping manipulations by The Fraternity.
* BadassNormal: Wesley. Yes, Wesley's marksmanship abilities are genetic, but aside from that he doesn't seem to have any powers -- although it's hinted that he might have the power to kill anything he wants to, as long as he has access to some kind of weapon.
* BadassLongcoat: Mr. Rictus and The Future both wear these quite nicely
* TheBadGuyWins: It already happened. Why do you think it's such a CrapsackWorld? [[spoiler:The main plot itself ends with power in the world changing from one mass-murdering supervillain to another mass-murdering supervillain.]]
* BestialityIsDepraved: Inverted; Mr. Rictus [[CrossesTheLineTwice ''makes love'']] to ''goats''. Plural. As he is part of a group of supervillains, nobody is overly bothered by this.
* BetterLivingThroughEvil: Rather than being recruited by assassins to become a badass hero, Wesley's trained to become a supervillain. The Fraternity of the graphic novel make no pretense of heroism or righteousness -- they KickTheDog on a regular basis ''[[EvilFeelsGood because it's fun]]'', and encourage Wesley to do the same. In fact, at the end, [[spoiler:in a fabulous deconstruction of the ComesGreatResponsibility [[AnAesop Aesop]], Wesley pretends to have a moral epiphany, tells his sidekick/fuck buddy that he was just kidding, then mocks the reader for having a moral compass. And then he rapes you.]]
* BewareTheNiceOnes: After Mr. Rictus [[SlasherSmile gloatingly informs him]] that his wife and daughters have been raped and murdered, [[spoiler: The Doll-Master orders ''all'' of his dolls]] to kill Rictus' gang. It doesn't work, but give him points for trying.
* BewareTheSuperman: To be more accurate, Beware The Supervillains. Regular citizens, law enforcement, celebrities, and high officials can literally be maimed, raped, or murdered at a moment's notice by members of the Fraternity and most aren't aware or too afraid to do anything about it. The people live on the whim of murderers.
* BigBadDuumvirate: Mr. Rictus and The Future, the supervillain leaders of respectively the Australian and European Fraternity chapters, team up to take over the Fraternity together.
* BlackAndGreyMorality: One of the defining traits of the series.
** You can argue that its Black and Black Morality. The differences are negligible at best. The only differences in morality seems to literally be shooting babies in their cribs and ''maybe'' cannibalism.
* BlasphemousBoast: At the yearly conference of Fraternity heads, Adam One doesn't see the point in Mr. Rictus advocating for the Fraternity to step out of the shadows, since they're "already sitting here with more money than God".
* BreakingTheFourthWall: The entire series is [[spoiler: Wesley]] telling you, the reader, all of this after it's happened and giving you a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech for thinking it's just a comic book.
* BrotherhoodOfEvil: The Fraternity.
* BulletTime: This is shown to be part of the reason [[spoiler: Wesley]] is [[OneManArmy so good at killing people]].
* CanonWelding: Some bits of dialogue in both titles indicates that Millar's ''Chosen'' takes place in the same Universe.
* CapePunk: An example of the genre which goes to illustrate, no, the villains are ''not'' cool and you should be ashamed for liking them.
* CardCarryingVillain: Pretty much every member of The Fraternity; they're evil and darn proud of it.
* CatchAndReturn: Done with a bullet. Using a ''knife''.
* CaughtInTheRipple: At some point every supervillain banded together to rewrite reality so that not only did the world forget superheroes were real, the superheroes forgot as well (the supervillains, for their part, operate in secrecy). One villain killed his nemeses (BatmanAndRobin expies) by dunking them in a vat of acid, they kept screaming that they ''weren't'' superheroes, they'd just played them on TV.
* CessationOfExistence: Mr Rictus was originally an extremely religious man who did only good but after briefly dying on the operating table and realizing there was no afterlife, he became one of the world's worst supervilains after realizing there was no consequences for being bad.
** Weirdly Mark Millar's other comic ''Chosen'' is implied to be set in the same universe and it's about the second coming of Jesus.
* ClassyCatBurglar: The Fox subverts it. She seems like one at first glance, but stick around and you'll find her to be crass, vulgar, and ultraviolent.
* ClusterFBomb: Like most of Mark Millar's adult oriented story's, the entire book is filed to the brim with some of the saltiest and most vulgar profanity to ever make its way into a mainstream comic.
* ComicBookFantasyCasting: Music/{{Eminem}} as Wesley, Creator/HalleBerry as Fox and Creator/TommyLeeJones as The Killer.
* ConquerorFromTheFuture: The Future. [[StupidJetpackHitler With Nazism.]]
* ContemporaryCaveman: Fraternity leader Adam-One, a millenia-old immortal from [[TheSlowPath the dawn of humankind]].
* ContractOnTheHitman: When [[spoiler: Wesley and The Fox]] escape him, Mr. Rictus goes about finding them by the simple expedient of revoking their Fraternity protection and letting their faces and names be plastered all across the news.
* CopKiller: The members of the Fraternity are entirely above the law. At one point [[VillainProtagonist Wesley Gibson]] goes on a shooting spree in a police station like some unstoppable Terminator-supervillain because he was bored.
* CorruptPolitician: In a world run by super-villains, a number of world leaders have to be on the take.
* CrapsackWorld: Ever wonder why the world seems like it sucks? Because it does, thanks to the villains erasing superheroes.
* CreateYourOwnHero: Invoked by Mr. Rictus, a CardCarryingVillain who routinely [[YouKilledMyFather murders a kid's parents in front of him]] to see if this will happen (in this world, the supervillains won decisively by banding together and rewriting reality so heroes forgot who they were). So far, nothing.
* CreepyDoll: The Doll-Master's weapons of choice. Able to fly and loaded with Professor Seltzer-designed weapons.
* CrossOver: Millar was reluctant to do any crossovers but agreed to do one with the ''ComicBook/SavageDragon'' since he and Larsen are pals and had worked together in the past.
* {{Cuckold}}: This was the initial fate of the protagonist, which is what prompts him to become a misanthrope and turn to a life of crime. When he becomes a supervillain, he cuts up his friend into little pieces before telling his girlfriend that he knows everything and walks off.
* {{Deconstruction}}:
** Not just of comic books and super-villains (see below), but to a larger extent, society's glorification of violence. It's a widely-established fact that becoming an action-hero and "manning up" is a power fantasy frequently entertained by adolescents (mainly males). Here, Millar suggests that such dreams are not only unrealistic, but just downright dysfunctional and reprehensible. For example, Wesley mentions several times about how his transition to cold-blooded killer changed his life for the better, but isn't portrayed sympathetically at all. In fact, at this point readers are most likely disgusted by his actions, with his callous murder of innocents, like the [[spoiler:moment where, on a whim, he decides to walk into a police station and kill every male officer and nearly rape the sole female survivor, all because he was bored]]. In fact, towards the end of the comic, as he [[spoiler:enacts his RoaringRampageOfRevenge against Mr. Rictus]], he confidently states "I am John Wayne, Bruce Lee, Clint Eastwood", among other action heroes. At this point, would you really cheer for him, even if he plays on your power fantasies like a videogame?
** ''Wanted'' explores the entire HerosJourney archetype of storytelling by stuffing it in a blender with ProtagonistJourneyToVillain and hitting ''[[DarkerAndEdgier frappe]].'' Wesley starts out as an [[TheEveryman average]] [[ThisLoserIsYou loser]] before having the CallToAdventure ''[[TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive forced]]'' on him; before the second issue is over, he's a [[{{Jerkass}} horrible, horrible person]], and every person he comes across seems tailor-made to cheer him on in his horribleness and [[EvilMentor mould him into a more competent horrible person]], offering moral support and justifying his actions for him, so that even when [[HeelRealization he has moments of introspection]] the answer is always "you're right, and you deserve all the power". Compare the journey of Wesley Gibson with the journey of a character like Franchise/HarryPotter. Lots of conveniently inherited guardians, assistants, resources, and lucky powers that save the day with bizarre ease. When changed to this context, the insidiousness of the archetype kind of comes to the fore.
* DefectorFromDecadence: [[spoiler:Wesley's mother was a former supervillain who left the life of villainy after becoming a mother, coddling Wesley to the disgust of his father, who wanted his son to follow his legacy.]]
* DepravedBisexual: The original Killer occasionally engages in homosexual acts once in a while when he gets bored with women.
* DisproportionateRetribution: The main character gains the resources to do whatever he wanted. As an example, he deals with the frustration of a neighbor being ''too'' cheery with...a bullet to the face.
* DodgeTheBullet: Despite having a vast array of firearms used against him, Wesley never actually ends up getting shot, most likely due to this trope. His father is explicitly shown dodging bullets, and since Wesley got his powers from his dad, it makes sense that he would be capable of the same feat.
* DontThinkFeel: Wesley's first test is to shoot the wings off some flies. He's unable to even try until The Fox is literally about a second from blowing his brains out.
* DrivenToSuicide: In a way; [[spoiler:Wesley's dad can't stand the thought of not being the best killer in the world or of someone less talented than he is taking him out, so he gets Wesley to do it]].
* EvenEvilHasStandards: In spades. Wesley Gibson: Mass murderer and remorseless rapist? Oh yeah, absolutely. But at least he has a tiny sense of decency when he displays his appreciation of family. Mr. Rictus, on the other hand, commits such heinous atrocities that disgust even Wesley and most of the other villains. Fox mentions this as the reason she moved from Rictus's gang to Seltzer's. Sure, she kills people, but Rictus was shooting babies in cribs for the hell of it. In fact, Mr. Rictus' evil is pretty much the only reason you would cheer for Wesley when he [[spoiler: goes on his killing spree against Rictus]]: the latter is only slightly better than the former when it comes to morality. Just barely.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Wesley, Wesley's father, and Doll-Master all have families and sincerely care about them. Fox had a genuine love affair with Wesley's father in the past and with Wesley himself in the present. The immortal African dictator Adam-One is shown at his oldest son's death bed and hates it when he's interrupted because he wants to be with him in his last moments.
* EvilDuo: Wesley and The Fox, who by the end of the series [[spoiler:are the new leaders of the North American branch of The Fraternity.]]
* EvilMentor: The entire Fraternity serve as this to Wesley, but Solomon Seltzer and the Fox in particular. Their goal is to make him a powerful and feared supervillain like his father, but in a subversion they ''do'' have his best interests at heart. [[spoiler:Wesley's father is a more distant version, as he doesn't reveal himself until the end to complete his son's training.]]
* EvilOnlyHasToWinOnce: The premise of the setting is that the supervillains of the world finally decided to all team up and thus overwhelm the superheroes by sheer numbers. After their victory, the villains used one of their {{Reality Warper}}s to retroactively change reality so that the heroes became normal people (with ironic twists to their lives), and they themselves were set up as the secret rulers of the world. The only hint that anything was ever different is the existence of superhero comic books, which represent the ultimate victory of the supervillains -- although the comics depict actual events from the previous reality, nobody would ever take them seriously.
* EvilParentsWantGoodKids: It seems like The Killer wanted his son Wesley to stay out of the criminal life and therefore never contacted him. [[spoiler:Subverted at the end when it turns out that he very much wants him to become a mass-murdering supervillain and set up all the events of the comic book to get Wesley to follow him in his footsteps.]]
* EvilVersusEvil: The finale, with [[spoiler:Wesley and The Fox]] facing off against [[spoiler:Mr. Rictus and his crew.]]
* {{Expy}}: Inverted in-universe. In a twist, the comic book heroes and villains ''Wanted''[='=]s are based on are implied to be expies of ''Wanted''[='=]s "real life" versions, while the comic book versions are all that remain of humanity's knowledge of them after reality was edited. The book apparently started as a pitch for an AlternateReality take on DC's ''Secret Society of Super-Villains'', so all the characters can be traced back to Franchise/TheDCU villains in some respects. Some of the background villains towards the end also resemble Marvel villains. You can see recolored versions of the Green Goblin, Hate-Monger, and Kang the Conqueror in Wesley's assault on Rictus's compound.
** The Killer (especially the first one) seems inspired by Deathstroke the Terminator. Considering he started off with the "Batman enemies" group and has the power of infallible aim, he's also rather like Deadshot. [[http://www.newsarama.com/264-mark-millar-wanted-from-comic-to-film-1.html Millar confirms it here.]]
** Mr. Rictus has elements of SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker, but visually looks like a mix between [[Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit Judge Doom]] and the Red Skull.
** The Fox is blatantly ComicBook/{{Catwoman}}.
** Professor Seltzer is pretty much a Golden Age ComicBook/LexLuthor.
** Franchise/{{Superman}}'s counterpart is not named, but he is explicitly ''shown'' as a paraplegic, like Creator/ChristopherReeve.
** Franchise/{{Batman}} is alluded to several times - as the Detective - before his post-1986 persona [[spoiler: who basically Adam West, along with Dick Grayson who has turned into Burt Ward, are placed in a death trap by Mr. Rictus and fed to an octopus.]] It's a bit of a TearJerker when [[spoiler: Mr. Rictus points out that the fat, pleading slob with the hood over his head was once the scariest man in the world.]]
** The Emperor is Literature/FuManchu. Given the DC origins of the pitch, he's also Ra's Al Ghul.
** Adam-One is ComicBook/VandalSavage.
** Shithead is [[Characters/BatmanRoguesGallery Clayface]].
** Deadly Nightshade is [[Characters/BatmanRoguesGallery Poison Ivy]].
** Imp is [[Characters/SupermanRoguesGallery Mister Mxyzptlk]].
** Fuckwit is [[Characters/SupermanRoguesGallery Bizarro]].
** The Doll-Master is [[Characters/SupermanRoguesGallery Toyman]], albeit with a [[FamilyValuesVillain slightly different personality]].
** Johnny Two-Dicks is Comicbook/TwoFace combined with [[Characters/BatmanRoguesGallery Scarface]].
** Brain Box is ComicBook/{{Brainiac}}.
** Sucker is [[Characters/SupermanRoguesGallery Parasite]], with a bit of {{ComicBook/Venom}} for good measure.
** The Frightener is [[Characters/BatmanRoguesGallery Scarecrow]].
** The Puzzler is The Riddler.
** The Future is Per Degaton, another fascist time-traveling villain, but with the inversion that he's from the future like Kang the Conqueror at Marvel or the Lord of Time at DC.
* FaceDeathWithDignity: [[spoiler:Doll-Master is calm and accepting of his impending death when Mr. Rictus and his men come for him during their elimination of the American Fraternity chapter. All he asks of them is that they [[NotInTheFace leave his face intact]] for when his wife and children find him. When they reveal that they already killed his family beforehand, Doll-Master unleashes his dolls in retaliation.]]
* FakingTheDead: [[spoiler:Wesley's father faked his own death so he could set his son on the path to succeeding him and becoming one of the most powerful supervillains in the world.]]
%% * FiveBadBand:
%% ** Rictus's gang:
%% *** BigBad: Mr. Rictus
%% *** TheDragon: Shithead
%% *** EvilGenius: The Future
%% *** TheBrute: [[spoiler:Sucker]]
%% *** DarkChick: Deadly Nightshade
%% ** Seltzer's gang:
%% *** BigBad: Professor Solomon Seltzer
%% *** TheDragon: The Killer
%% *** DarkActionGirl: The Fox
%% *** EvilGenius: Doll-Man
%% ** TheBrute: Fuckwit
* ForTheEvulz: This is specifically stated to be Mr. Rictus' entire philosophy. At least he's up front about it.
* FromNobodyToNightmare:
** Wesley Gibson at the start of the series is a harmless nebbishy doormat. The moment he finds out about his heritage, however, he turns into a completely unrepentant monster who is implied to have the power of killing anything he wants, as long as he has a weapon.
** Mr. Rictus was a kind and giving (though unremarkable) man who had a near-death experience and found out there was no heaven or hell. Upon realizing that all his good deeds had been ultimately useless, he pretty much said screw it all and decided to spend the rest of his life [[ForTheEvulz doing whatever the hell he wanted]].
* GambitRoulette: Everything is masterminded by [[spoiler:Wesley's father since he's hated how his mother raised him to be a "pussy" while The Killer still wanted to be a supervillain, so he made Wesley "man up" in his mind to take his place since age is catching up to him.]] It's even possible that [[spoiler: Villains on both sides dying until Wesley gets North and South America]] was part of the plan. [[spoiler: Consider that Wesley's father appears not a moment after Wesley kills Rictus. Shit, there's wanting the best for your son, and then there's turning him into the ''ruler of two continents.'']]
* GetOutOfJailFreeCard: All Fraternity members wear pins bearing the Fraternity symbol, or drive cars with it on the licence plate. This allows them to commit ''any'' crime, in ''full view'' of police and ''dozens'' of witnessess and just walk away.
* GodwinsLaw: Invoked in how Rictus is allies with super-nazi "The Future". Without that one character it would be much harder to see Rictus as worse than the other villains.
* GollumMadeMeDoIt: Johnny Two Dicks is CompositeCharacter of Two-Face and Scarface who is a meek bystander who is controlled by his evil side... [[RefugeInAudacity who talks through Johnny's penis.]] Yes, really.
* GreatGazoo: Imp, who is another explicit {{Expy}} of Mr. Mxyzptlk. However, most of his powers are only alluded to off-panel, with the appendix mentioning that he once accidentally turned the entire world into cotton candy. On-page, he gets murdered by the Parasite-expy fairly quickly.
* GunsAkimbo: Both Wesley and The Fox are fond of this one.
* GunFu: Wesley and his dad are the undisputed kings of this in the series.
* GunKata: Wesley's powers allow him to ''know'' just where and when to shoot.
* TheHedonist: Nearly everyone in The Fraternity. Which is bad for the universe at large since the thing that makes supervillains feel good is [[EvilIsPetty petty evil]] on a good day and vicious genocide on a bad one.
* HellBentForLeather: Wesley's costume, a black leather full bodysuit with several guns and knives attached.
* HereThereWereDragons: The whole point of the story in regards to Silver Age superheroics.
* HollywoodAtheist: Mr. Rictus, who turned evil because he found out there was no afterlife, and decided to just do whatever the hell he wanted for the rest of his life. It turns out he wants to do some evil, evil shit.
* ImAHumanitarian: Mr. Rictus is seen eating someone. The looks on Adam-One and The Emperor's faces suggest it may have been [[spoiler: Seltzer.]] Considering [[NauseaFuel who killed him, and how]], one hopes that corpse was ''thoroughly'' cleaned. It probably wasn't. And he probably doesn't care.
* ImmortalProcreationClause: African supervillain Adam One is an immortal man who ''can'' procreate, but his offspring don't inherit his immortality, given that he's shown attending the deathbed of one of his sons.
* ImportantHaircut: Wesley goes from hippie dreadlocks to an {{Eminem}}-style crewcut to show how he goes FromNobodyToNightmare.
* ImprobableAimingSkills: In case you missed it earlier, Wesley ''shoots the wings off a couple of quarter-inch long houseflies''. '''And''' walks through a police station and shoots every cop in the place squarely between the eyes...even when he isn't looking.
* InsultBackfire: The two worst Fraternity heads seem to like this.
** During the meeting of the Fraternity heads, African overlord Adam One retaliates to a racist comment by Nazi overlord the Future by decrying him as a fascist. The Future responds "You say fascist like it's an insult. People love fascists, man. You ever meet a woman who [[CrossesTheLineTwice fantasized about being tied up and raped]] by a ''liberal''?"
** At the end of the same meeting, Wesley insults the Joker-esque Mr. Rictus (whom he believes is secretly responsible for his father's death) with "Happy goat-fucking, Mr. Rictus" as the latter is leaving. Rictus responds thus: "I don't fuck goats Mr. Gibson, I make love to them."
* InsultMisfire: Wesley calls Shit-Head "Fuckface", but Shit-Head thinks that Wesley is getting him mixed up with Fuckwit.
-->'''Wesley:''' I'm trying to be ''insulting'', asshole!
* KickTheSonOfABitch: Considering that Seltzer engineered the Superhuman genocide, condemned his arch foe to a miserable existence as a cripple and that it's very heavily implied he's a pedophile, one could easily interpret Shithead and Rictus's murder of Seltzer as this.
* LegionOfDoom: Every single supervillain in existence teamed up in the backstory to defeat every superhero alive, and then rewrote reality to make their victory absolute. Afterwards, they organized themselves into The Fraternity, and now control the entire world in secret.
* ALighterShadeOfBlack: Wesley and his allies are ever so slightly better than their opponents, which makes it possible to root for them. [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality Invoked by the author]], as the story's structure (a corruption of TheHerosJourney) is specifically modelled to make you root for the VillainProtagonist even though he murders, rapes and tortures his way through the issues and is a petty, smug sadist who obviously gets off on the evil acts he commits. In the end the only thing differentiating Wesley from the BigBad Mr. Rictus is that Wesley is evil 6 days a week, whereas Rictus strives to fill all 7 of them with bonafide supervillainy. By the end Wesley has to BreakTheFourthWall to remind the reader that, yes, [[CardCarryingVillain he's still a villain and proud of it]].
* MadScientist: Professor Seltzer, he even admits that he's probably certifiably nuts.
* ManOfWealthAndTaste: Mr. Rictus tries to pull off the whole "nice suit" deal, but it's kind of ruined by the fact that his face and hands look like rotting hamburger.
* TheMasquerade: Ostensibly this is to keep superheroes from across the multiverse from coming to this universe and saving the world. It has the added effect of making everyone completely ignorant of how things actually work.
%%* TheMole: [[spoiler:Sucker]] is this for Mr. Rictus.
* MsFanservice: The Fox, a hot, nymphomaniacal chick who wears leather and a pair of fox ears.
* TheMultiverse: To satisfy their supervillainous leanings, The Fraternity often raids other universes for treasure, as well as some trivial things.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Adam-One bears a striking resemblance to President Mobutu.
* NotInTheFace: [[spoiler:Doll-Master asks Mr. Rictus that he leaves his face intact while killing him. He already knows that he's gonna die -- he just wants to make sure his family finds a relatively peaceful body. Mr. Rictus then reveals that he already killed them.]]
* NotMyDriver: [[spoiler:Professor Solomon Seltzer]] is killed off when his driver [[spoiler:Fuckwit]] is impersonated by the shapeshifting right-hand man of a rival Fraternity, [[spoiler:Shithead]].
* NotSoHarmlessVillain: Professor Seltzer doesn't look that threatening, does he? Now look at him again, while remembering that he ''personally killed this universe's Superman''. Worse: During the rewrite of reality, he made him into a quadriplegic -- that is to say, Creator/ChristopherReeve, the actor who played the titular character of the first ''Film/{{Superman}}'' movies.
* NumberOfTheBeast: Shit-Head is made up of the collected feces of the 666 most evil human beings in history.
* OffingTheAnnoyance: Wesley (once he's found out about his new powers) kills (among others) his neighbor, who annoyed him by always repeating the same mindlessly optimistic message every morning. His first step to becoming a {{supervillain}} is to go down the list of everyone who annoyed him in some way during his life and murder, rape, or torture all of them.
* OrderVsChaos: The conflict between Seltzer's regime and Rictus's regime is that Seltzer wants to continue ruling the planet and making boatloads of money from the shadows while Rictus wants to set the world on fire.
* PlotArmor: Either that, or the Killer and the Fox are the only ones capable of actually hit the target they are shooting at. The Sucker and Shitface, however, are two egregius examples: the former wastes no time talking when he has to use his powers against [[spoiler: the Imp]], but when it's Wesley and the Fox's turn he [[spoiler: instead takes just enough time gloating to have him reach his limit]]; the latter doesn't take any action against the two and even [[spoiler: let's itself be held at gunpoint (despite bragging about being bulletproof ''after'' the Fox shot it, but Wesley had the bleach ready by then)]], as before, he had a more pragmatic attitude when he killed [[spoiler: the Professor]].
* PointyHairedBoss: Wesley's boss finds extreme sadistic glee in tormenting him daily.
* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: The Future, who is actually a Nazi ConquerorFromTheFuture and now rules over Europe. Not even the amoral Mr. Rictus is ''that'' petty. He even claims he's going to start a second Holocaust near the end.
* PowerParasite: This is Sucker's primary superpower (he's a [[Characters/SupermanRoguesGallery Parasite]] expy), but it's limited to a 24 hour timeframe. [[spoiler:After he defects to Mr. Rictus camp and betrays the protagonists he absorbs the Bizarro expy's FlyingBrick abilities, and boasts of his new powers. He's defeated when he forgets the time limit, and falls to his death just as the clock runs out.]]
* PragmaticVillainy: The stated purpose of The Fraternity. They've already conquered the world, and all they want is their pleasures. Widespread chaos threatens that. Solomon Seltzer just wants to party and practice MadScience. The Emperor just wants to party and run his empire. Adam-One just wants to party and enjoy his [[LivingForeverIsAwesome eternal life]]. However, the heroic genocide required more firepower than the three of them had, so they had to make alliances and therefore share power with less pragmatic types. The Future just wants to party and [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain slaughter the]] [[ThoseWackyNazis inferior races]]. And Mister Rictus just wants to party ''WhileRomeBurns''.
* PreInsanityReveal: Mr. Rictus was a highly moral and religious man until a NearDeathExperience showed him that there was no afterlife, so he became an OmnicidalManiac.
* PrettyLittleHeadshots: Averted; they're neither pretty nor little.
* PrecisionFStrike: Delivered by the Doll Master after Mr. Rictus gloats about [[spoiler:how he and his gang just murdered and raped his wife and children]].
-->'''Doll Master''': Boys i want these ''Motherfuckers dead''
* ProfessionalKiller: The Killer, who is Wesley's father.
* ProtagonistCenteredMorality: Deconstructed in a rather interesting way. The protagonist Wesley Gibson starts out as [[ThisLoserIsYou an almost comically gutless, whiny loser]] before he is introduced into the world of supervillains. As part of his TookALevelInBadass act, he instead becomes a sadistic, depraved mass-murdering monster through an inversion of TheHerosJourney-type of story arc, while the reader is forced to side with him due to the VillainProtagonist perspective and EvilVersusEvil morality. In reality Wesley's enemies are barely worse than him, and the comic ends with Wesley becoming one of the five supervillain overlords of the planet, his journey to power, wealth and evil completed. Any readers who at this point were still rooting for the guy as an AntiHero badass despite his depravities are soon reminded how bad he is when he turns to the reader, [[YouBastard calls them out on supporting him]], and [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou then rapes you]]. Don't forget, ''he's the villain''.
* ARealManIsAKiller: Wesley seems to believe this, talking up how "macho" he becomes after becoming a villain.
* RealityWarper:
** At times it is subtly hinted that The Killer's powers make mundane objects like lead bullets and steel blades deadly to entities who would otherwise be immune.
** Imp is explicitly this, at least according to the appendix. For instance, he once turned the entire US into a marshmallow land for 12 hours before he reversed the effect.
* TheReveal: Several, though perhaps the most jarring is [[spoiler:Wesley's dad being alive, having faked his death in order to jumpstart Wesley's down the path of the supervillain]].
* RewritingReality
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: [[spoiler: Wesley]] narrates a very detailed montage of him killing every single person in his life that gave him grief. And later, [[spoiler: Wesley and The Fox]] go on one of these after Mr. Rictus tries to kill them.
* RuleOfCool: They fly a jet through the portal back to their dimension in the second book. The portal inside of an office building. And all of this is part of a heist to steal a radioactive condom.
* ShinyNewAustralia: One of Mr. Rictus' grievances is that, when the villains divvied up the continents, he got stuck with Australia.
* ShoutOut:
** ''Wanted'' references other comic books very frequently, as the series is based on the idea that the supervillains of a comic book continuity won utterly and completely. For starters, the year they defeated the heroes was 1986 -- the same year that ''Franchise/TheDCU'' was doing its ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' crossover which involved pretty much every hero and villain in the setting duking it out.
** Wesley Gibson name drops plenty of action movies and other pop culture throughout the comic as well. More subtly, the living room in Wesley's and Fox's apartment is modelled after Bill's living room from ''Film/KillBill''.
* ScaryShinyGlasses: Mr. Rictus ensemble includes a pair of red, shiny glasses.
* SlidingScaleOfVillainThreat: Mr. Rictus' idea of running roughshod over the world instead of staying in the shadows is repeatedly shot down by the other Fraternity heads, because if they ''did'' so, heroes from other realities would most likely show up to stop them and The Fraternity would lose everything. Perhaps unsurprisingly, [[AxCrazy Rictus doesn't care]].
* TheSociopath: Mr. Rictus. ''Ohhhh'', boy, Mr. Rictus.
* StrawNihilist: Mr. Rictus was a devout Christian before he briefly died and encountered no reward or afterlife. He then decided that life itself is meaningless and abandoned all his morals so he could satisfy every sadistic whim he ever had and just commit murder and other atrocities on a daily basis.
* StupidEvil: Rictus is proud to be this. When he takes over control of the Fraternity to blow the League of Supervillains' cover and start a new campaign of unremitted slaughter, the rest of the organization's heads warn him that it will bring the weight of every superhero in the multiverse to bear down on them. Rictus is delighted at this, for even if they lose he will have enjoyed the carnage.
* SupernaturallyYoungParent: The immortal African supervillain Adam One (who looks about middle-aged) is briefly seen spending time at his oldest son's deathbed along with his other non-immortal descendants.
* TalkingPoo: Shithead, a [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Clayface]] {{Expy}} creature made of the feces of the [[NumberOfTheBeast 666]] most evil people in the world, including UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler and Jeffrey Dahmer.
* TakeThatAudience: Wesley constantly, especially at the end.
* ThisLoserIsYou: Taken to truly sadistic levels. Wesley is a weak, cowardly, petty, jealous, racist, sexist, homophobic jerk who thinks it's a tragedy that he isn't rich and powerful. The world of supervillains seems purpose-built to glorify him and confirm all of his petty delusions of entitlement, and he uses his newfound powers to start raping and murdering to his jealous heart's content.
* ThrillSeeker: Deadly Nightshade is said to be sleeping with Imp for this reason. Every sexual encounter the two has has the chance to unmake reality.
* ToiletHumor: Wesley and Fox take out Shithead, a supervillain [[TalkingPoo made out of poo]], with cleaning products. The result is illustrated by a panel showing a toilet bowl with shit smeared all over it and the caption noting "this is what happened to the last guy who fucked with us".
* TookALevelInBadass / TookALevelInJerkass: Wesley goes from a cuckolded corporate drone to a cold-blooded killer. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Who's a dick.]]
* TrainingFromHell: Part of Wesley's physical training is being tied to a chair while a [[TheBrute Brute]] beats the shit out of him. Every day. Until, as part of Wesley's graduation, the ropes are left loose, allowing him to [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice shove a broken chair leg through the guy's throat and into his brain]].
* TrainingMontage: Wesley gets used to the training (which uses innocent civilians as targets, eventually) with glee.
* TurnOutLikeHisFather: Wesley's dad was watching him as a kid once and saw Wesley getting beat up by some other kids. Upon seeing Wesley not fight back and get rescued by his mom, who praised him for his actions, he realized that she knew, at least on a subconscious level, that if Wesley resorted to violence there'd be no turning back. [[YouCantFightFate And she was right]].
* UnwittingPawn. [[spoiler: Wesley]]. And how...
* VillainAntagonist: Mr. Rictus and The Future are part of an enemy alliance of supervillains.
* VillainProtagonist: Wesley, who upon going evil shaves his head into an Eminem-style crewcut and freely commits murders and rapes just because he can. Not to mention being a misanthropist...
* VillainsNeverLie: Oddly enough, Mr. Rictus doesn't outright lie to Wesley until their final confrontation, and even then it's subtly hinted that he wasn't. He said that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Wesley's father, and [[spoiler:the Killer later mentions that he's "[[WhoShotJFK killed Presidents from Grassy Knolls]]"]].
* VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler: Wesley]] seems to have one of these while talking with The Fox near the end of the series; then he admits he was just messing with her.
* VisionaryVillain: Professor Seltzer convinced ''all the other supervillains in the world'' to [[EvilPlan team up in one massive attack that the superheroes wouldn't be able to stop]]. And it ''worked''.
* VoluntaryShapeshifting: [[spoiler:Shit-Head. He assumes Fuckwit's form so he can kill Professor Seltzer.]]
* WhosLaughingNow: Wesley in spades, after he joins The Fraternity.
* WickedToymaker: The Doll-Master who is a CaptainErsatz of Toyman (with maybe a bit of the Tinkerer of Creator/MarvelComics thrown in). He's a family man who [[FamilyValuesVillain will kill innocents, but won't swear in front of children]].
* WrittenByTheWinners: Literally. After they killed or brainwashed all the heroes, the Fraternity used their magic and mad science to [[RewritingReality rewrite history]], making everyone believe they were never real to begin with.
* YellowPeril: The Emperor, who is an {{Expy}} of Literature/FuManchu and other similar villains.
* YouBastard: At the end of the series, Wesley gives a speech to the audience because they suck compared to him. Of course, the fact that Wesley is nothing more then a comic book character makes [[ShutUpHannibal shutting him up]] as easy as closing the book.