History ComicStrip / SpyVsSpy

* PieInTheFace: EveryEpisodeEnding in the much LighterAndSofter ''Spy vs Spy Jr.'', which ran for a short time in ''Mad Kids''.

* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: The computer will never lose the knife (first game and all ports except the UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor) and knows EXACTLY where each item is (Extremely apparent on Operation: Booby Trap, where the first two items the computer picks up will invariably end up being Attache Case and Key Item in that order)

** A quick blackout segment on an episode of ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'', where the White Spy sets up a spring-loaded boxing glove in a vending machine. [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim The Black Spy just walks up behind him and shoots him in the head]] to steal his documents.
** A brief gag in ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'', in which both Spies are sitting peacefully on a couch together and bluntly say that they've resolved their differences.

* BackwardsFiringGun: Occurs in one strip drawn for a series of paperbacks.

** First one is the Black Spy attempting to sabotage the White Spy's morning routine, first by replacing his alarm clock with a bomb. White narrowly avoids it, and makes a cup of coffee. He then trips on a wire trap set by Black, but splashes the coffee into Black in the process. Blinded, Black frantically makes a run for it and accidentally trips on the window frame and fall to his death, which White looks over in complete confusion.

* FemmeFatale: The Grey spy.

!!The games provide examples of the following tropes:

[[caption-width-right:220:[-"The UsefulNotes/ColdWar may be over, but the Lukewarm War rages on!"-] ]]

!!''Spy vs. Spy'' provides examples of the following tropes:

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The early comics were more prone to either spy winning in a non-lethal way, like by making a clean getaway or by humiliating each other. The very first gag, for example, had both spies trying to poison each other. ''Neither one died''!

* HangingAround: Subverted. One animated short has one of the spies obliging the other to build a gallows at gunpoint. When the spy has the noose around the other spy’s neck and pulls the lever to drop him through the trapdoor, it instead causes the actual gibbet to drop and clock the would-be hangman on the head.

* TamperingWithFoodAndDrink: In two occasions in the earlier strips, White has killed Black by poisoning his drink while being disguised as a barman and by poisoning his rice. In a [[https://youtu.be/F-reFzsoHbE?t=787 title-card-turned-Animated-Adaptation]], he turns the table on this being used on him when he and Black seems to be sharing a table for cups of tea, Black looks away mischievously to pour a dust cloud of poison into White's drink, who has a hidden fan to blow it right back into Black's drink, and Black ends up killing himself through drinking his own poison.

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: [[https://usualgangofidiots.tumblr.com/image/100485361773 In the first comic strip, neither of the two spies had any animosity towards each other.]] [[https://usualgangofidiots.tumblr.com/image/155657856618 In the second comic strip, their established rivalry took off to a start]], but they didn't always kill each other, as some comic strips had them merely pulling pranks on each other. As time went on, when they evolved to their more refined designs, the spies became gradually became even more hostile against each other and became more unscrupulous, if still only towards each other. When Peter Kuper started making the Spy Vs. Spy comics in Phobias' place, their brutality and hostility went up even further!

After Prohías retired, he passed the strip on to others. Bob Clarke illustrated from 1987 to 1993, then George Woodbridge for two issues, followed by Dave Manak from 1993 to 1997. Clarke's first four installments were still written by Prohías, but Duck Edwing did most of the gag writing under the other artists' tenures and other writers pitched in on occasion (including Michael Gallagher, with whom Manak previously worked on ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics''). From 1997 to the end of Mad's publication run in 2020, the strip was drawn and almost always written by Peter Kuper.

* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished

* TheTelevisionTalksBack

* TimedMission

* XRaySparks