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** Also an element of the ''WesternAnimation/{{MAD}}'' cartoon, which experienced several [[ArtShift Art Shifts]], most notably a stop-motion animation style towards the final seasons. A few of the early skits on ''MAD'' were remakes of those seen on ''[=MADtv=]''.
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** Also an element of the ''WesternAnimation/{{MAD}}'' cartoon, which experienced several [[ArtShift Art Shifts]], most notably a stop-motion animation style towards the final seasons. A few of the early skits on ''MAD'' sketches were remakes of those seen on ''[=MADtv=]''.''[=MADtv=]'' sketches. The spies also made cameos in some of the show's other sketches.
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* DeliberatelyMonochrome: The strip's been running in color since 2001, but many depictions and animations of the Spies still portray them in a monochrome world.
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* DeliberatelyMonochrome: The strip's been running in color since 2001, but many depictions and animations of the Spies still portray them in a monochrome world.world, albeit sometimes with the occasional SplashOfColor.
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* EvilIsPetty: One of the MAD skits has the White Spy apparently breaking into the Black Spy's house on Christmas just to put coal in his stocking. The attempt doesn't pay off for him.
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* EvilIsPetty: One of the MAD ''WesternAnimation/{{MAD}}'' skits has the White Spy apparently breaking into the Black Spy's house on Christmas just to put coal in his stocking. The attempt doesn't pay off for him.
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* ImprobableWeaponUser: Rather, an improbable ''body part'' user. In the paperback book''Masters of Mayhem'', the Black Spy responds to having a gun pressed to his back by swinging his ''nose'' into White's arm to break it.
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* ImprobableWeaponUser: Rather, an improbable ''body part'' user. In the paperback book''Masters book ''Masters of Mayhem'', the Black Spy responds to having a gun pressed to his back by swinging his ''nose'' into White's arm to break it.
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* OnePersonBirthdayParty: In one strip, the White Spy is forlornly celebrating his birthday alone when he receives a birthday cake from the Black Spy in the mail. After checking for traps and realizing it's real, he cheerfully thanks the Black Spy and lights the candles. [[KickTheDog The Black Spy then fires a heat-seeking missile that homes in on the cakes candles.]]
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* OnePersonBirthdayParty: In one strip, which was later adapted into a ''WesternAnimation/{{MAD}}'' sketch, the White Spy is forlornly celebrating his birthday alone when he receives a birthday cake from the Black Spy in the mail. After checking for traps and realizing it's real, he cheerfully thanks the Black Spy and lights the candles. [[KickTheDog The Black Spy then fires a heat-seeking missile that homes in on the cakes candles.]]
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* TheNudifier: In one strip, one spy creates an invisibility potion. While scheming about what he'll do to the other spy, the other spy pours a chemical into the potion. Then the first spy drinks the potion out in public, and [[NakedFreakOut freaks out]] when only his clothes disappear or turn invisible. [[RealityEnsues He then gets arrested.]]
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* TheNudifier: In one strip, one spy creates an invisibility potion. While scheming about what he'll do to the other spy, the other spy pours a chemical into the potion. Then the first spy drinks the potion out in public, and [[NakedFreakOut freaks out]] when only his clothes disappear or turn invisible. [[RealityEnsues [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome He then gets arrested.]]
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* NoPlotNoProblem: All that is known is that these two spies are trying to kill each other with complicated devices. It's not known why they do this, but that is ultimately irrelevant as the point of the strips is to see how they outsmart each other in comical ways.
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* TheArtifact: The morse code message in the title panel, which spells out "[[AC:By Prohías]]", was kept after Antonio Prohías retired in 1987. All of the subsequent artists have used it as well.
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* TheArtifact: The morse code message in the title panel, which spells out "[[AC:By Prohías]]", '''"By Prohías"''', was kept after Antonio Prohías retired in 1987. All of the subsequent artists have used it as well.
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There are a small set of different games based on the series, most notably the 1984 NES title, the most ported of them all, and the 2005 Xbox title.
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There are a small set of different games based on the series, most notably the 1984 NES Commodore 64 title, the most ported of them all, all (including the [=NES=]), and the 2005 Xbox title.
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* DeliveryGuy: Although both spies are [[MasterOfDisguise masters of disguises]], it's Black who seems to use this trope more often, often overlapping with JanitorInfiltration. He has disguised himself as mailmen/delivery men to steal documents/give a booby trapped parcel to White, a plumber/handyman to screw with White's toilet/booby trap his home.
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* DeliveryGuy: DeliveryGuyInfiltration: Although both spies are [[MasterOfDisguise masters of disguises]], it's Black who seems to use this trope more often, often overlapping with JanitorInfiltration.JanitorImpersonationInfiltration. He has disguised himself as mailmen/delivery men to steal documents/give a booby trapped parcel to White, a plumber/handyman to screw with White's toilet/booby trap his home.
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* {{Colorization}}: ''Spy vs. Spy - An Explosive Celebration'' adapts most of the comics featured in ''The Complete Casebook'' and colorizes the formerly monochrome strips to celebrate the comic's long run.
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* WhiteHairBlackHeart: As shown in colorized prints of the comics, the Grey Spy is blond and so are Black and White when they style their hair sometimes. The Xbox title also gives Black and White balding blond hair under their hats.
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* WhiteHairBlackHeart: BlondesAreEvil: As shown in colorized prints of the comics, the Grey Spy is blond and so are Black and White when they style their hair sometimes. The Xbox title also gives Black and White balding blond hair under their hats.
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* CementShoes: While White is trying out some new metal boots he invented that let him walk on water, Black sees him and runs up to mug him at gunpoint so he can steal them. When White takes them off and Black takes them, he tries to walk on water as well only for him to suddenly get dragged down to the water floor, revealing White was just hopping on stone pillars and Black just put on magnetic boots, which stick him underneath as he drowns to death.
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* LoudOfWar: When the White Spy held a geisha lady at gunpoint and had her sneak a microphone onto the Black Spy, who was headed to a party at the Black Embassy, she warns the whole party with an emergency video call that White's listening in on them with a headset with a microphone hidden in Black's pin. Black and the rest of the party promptly gather all the trumpets and tubas, surround the now removed microphone and begin playing absurdly loudly into while everyone else also screams as loud as they can into it. Outside, [[YourHeadAsplode White's head has exploded into a bunch of pieces from the sheer volume of it all.]]
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Found to comic, got things reversed, corrected them
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** While reading a book at home, Black peeks into his window and gets the idea to lure him to a bus stop. White is so immersed in his book that he's just walking along wherever Black is guiding him, sits next to him on the bus, doesn't notice Black sawing the handlebars off while they're getting out, leading him to the edge of a cliff and tossing him to his death.
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** While reading a book at home, outside waiting for the bus, Black peeks into out his window and gets the idea to lure him pack a saw and stand next to a bus stop. White. White is so immersed in his book that he's just walking along wherever he doesn’t notice Black is guiding him, sits standing right next to him by the stop, sitting next to him on the bus, doesn't notice Black him sawing the handlebars off while they're getting out, leading him to the edge of a cliff and tossing him to his death.
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* AllPsychologyIsFreudian: In one strip, White has recurring nightmares involving him being killed by Black throwing a knife in front of a building's door. He goes to see a therapist (who looks like Freud himself with beard and a cigar) who explains that many of the objects dreamed about are due to psychological issues: a dysfunctional family (Knife), an inner child alter ego (Black), repressed sexuality (Door), and Social/Religious/Economic stress (Background). White then happily walks out without his weapons and thanks the therapist... who turns out to be a disguised-Black, who then kills white by throwing a knife at him exactly like his dreams entailed.
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* BaldnessAngst: In one strip, Black worries that he's going to be bald after accidentally pulling a hair out in the bathroom. He decides to go to a barber wanting to test a new hair growth serum. However, the barber turns out to be White having poured fast growing serum on his head with the intent to overwhelm and strangle Black with his overgrown hair... but the tables are turned when the hair White has combed from Black were fuses to an explosive hair comb. As insult to injury, Black celebrates his victory while getting his fast growing hair under control and shaves it into a stylish pompadour.
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* BeachEpisode: Frequently, the Spies take their fights to the beach in what was supposed to be a vacation for them.
** In one strip, later turned into an AnimatedAdaptation, White glues a hot beach babe to Black's glasses while he's tanning, sets up a wooden pole and cat calls Black to wake him up, who's so struck with lust that he sprints right into the wooden pole and dies while White sits back and laughs.
** In a later strip, Black is tanning once again while White shows to up to screw with him by using a mirror to focus the sun into a heat ray to burn his back. Black, expecting this, has his picnic basket spawn a network of mirrors to reflect and super-heat the sun beam back at White and scorch him to dust.
** In a strip drawn by Kuper, White is relaxing on the beach when an inexplicably ripped Black kicks sand into his face, intimidates him into walking away and embarrasses him in front of a bunch of girls. Cue White [[TrainingMontage looking into body building and training for weeks to get buff enough to fight Black]], he returns to the same spot at the beach and sees Black relaxing in some sand. White goes to kick it in his face, only for him to notice that it's a decoy and he's just walked over quick sand. Cue White sinking and asphyxiating to death while Black is in the background watching and laughing.
** In one strip, later turned into an AnimatedAdaptation, White glues a hot beach babe to Black's glasses while he's tanning, sets up a wooden pole and cat calls Black to wake him up, who's so struck with lust that he sprints right into the wooden pole and dies while White sits back and laughs.
** In a later strip, Black is tanning once again while White shows to up to screw with him by using a mirror to focus the sun into a heat ray to burn his back. Black, expecting this, has his picnic basket spawn a network of mirrors to reflect and super-heat the sun beam back at White and scorch him to dust.
** In a strip drawn by Kuper, White is relaxing on the beach when an inexplicably ripped Black kicks sand into his face, intimidates him into walking away and embarrasses him in front of a bunch of girls. Cue White [[TrainingMontage looking into body building and training for weeks to get buff enough to fight Black]], he returns to the same spot at the beach and sees Black relaxing in some sand. White goes to kick it in his face, only for him to notice that it's a decoy and he's just walked over quick sand. Cue White sinking and asphyxiating to death while Black is in the background watching and laughing.
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* {{Bookworm}}: White's been shown to explicitly be one, with multiple strips having him buried nose-deep into books he's reading. What keeps it from him being a BadassBookworm however is that it's been used against him ''every time''.
** While he's reading a Sherlock Holmes book in bed, Black sets up a miniature crime scene outside his house with mini-versions of them, has mini-Black murder mini-White, and lures the actual White into putting on his Sherlock Holmes hat and pipe to investigate the crime scene. The clues promptly lead him into finding the grave of a vampiric mini-Black Spy, he gets his wooden stake out and stabs it into the grave... which makes him smack the detonator on a bundle of TNT and blow him to pieces.
** While reading a book at home, Black peeks into his window and gets the idea to lure him to a bus stop. White is so immersed in his book that he's just walking along wherever Black is guiding him, sits next to him on the bus, doesn't notice Black sawing the handlebars off while they're getting out, leading him to the edge of a cliff and tossing him to his death.
** While White is reading the Frog and the Princess at the park, Black gets the idea to contact a local hag of a witch in the woods and tell her about his plan. She happily goes along and curses herself into becoming a frog, to which Black carefully places her and some attractive clothes on a bench, runs around in a witches broom handle so White can see him acting like he's in a fairy tale and lures him into finding the frog and clothing. Thinking back to the book he just read, he gives the frog a big kiss thinking he's found a princess, only for him to break the frog's curse and find out he's just made a fat ugly witch fall in love with him. Cut later, and White's miserably coming out of a church after being forcibly married to the witch, who's lustfully carrying him to their car while Black, the best man at the marriage, is just barely holding back his laughter.
** In ''another'' strip, White is so distracted reading a book at the park that he doesn't notice Black bribing his son ([[UncannyFamilyResemblance ?]]) with a lollipop to smack him over the head with a toy shovel. It doesn't do anything but enrage him, it ''does'' lead to him falling for a second trap by Black soon after.
* BrokeEpisode: When Black is in need of quick cash, he's hired by a businessman selling glasses in a part-time employment agency as a human billboard. When Black walks outside to advertise, the bill slips from the board revealing it to be a bullseye... right when Black is next to an artillery range and White reveal he was disguised as his new boss, who watches as Black is shot to death by soldiers in the firing range.
* BuriedAlive: One of their most infamous gags. While White is looking at a plan in the middle of the desert sun, Black sneaks behind to clobber him but falls in White's shadow, which turns out to be a Spy-shaped hole right before White buries him.
** In the ending of Danger! Intrigue! Stupidty!, Black bumps into a tombstone made for White that lists all the time Black killed him in earlier pages. He gets so amused and distracted by reading all the times he won that he doesn't noticed he's walking down a ladder into a hole so White can bury him alive.
** In a strip by Kuper, Black has his revenge by tricking White into thinking he died and was buried in a cemetery, who read the newspaper and [[LastDisrespects ran to his grave to dance over it]], only for it to be a hollowed out hole and for Black to be the guy tending the graves, who promptly shovels dirt into White's new grave while he's still in there so he can dance over it instead.
** While he's reading a Sherlock Holmes book in bed, Black sets up a miniature crime scene outside his house with mini-versions of them, has mini-Black murder mini-White, and lures the actual White into putting on his Sherlock Holmes hat and pipe to investigate the crime scene. The clues promptly lead him into finding the grave of a vampiric mini-Black Spy, he gets his wooden stake out and stabs it into the grave... which makes him smack the detonator on a bundle of TNT and blow him to pieces.
** While reading a book at home, Black peeks into his window and gets the idea to lure him to a bus stop. White is so immersed in his book that he's just walking along wherever Black is guiding him, sits next to him on the bus, doesn't notice Black sawing the handlebars off while they're getting out, leading him to the edge of a cliff and tossing him to his death.
** While White is reading the Frog and the Princess at the park, Black gets the idea to contact a local hag of a witch in the woods and tell her about his plan. She happily goes along and curses herself into becoming a frog, to which Black carefully places her and some attractive clothes on a bench, runs around in a witches broom handle so White can see him acting like he's in a fairy tale and lures him into finding the frog and clothing. Thinking back to the book he just read, he gives the frog a big kiss thinking he's found a princess, only for him to break the frog's curse and find out he's just made a fat ugly witch fall in love with him. Cut later, and White's miserably coming out of a church after being forcibly married to the witch, who's lustfully carrying him to their car while Black, the best man at the marriage, is just barely holding back his laughter.
** In ''another'' strip, White is so distracted reading a book at the park that he doesn't notice Black bribing his son ([[UncannyFamilyResemblance ?]]) with a lollipop to smack him over the head with a toy shovel. It doesn't do anything but enrage him, it ''does'' lead to him falling for a second trap by Black soon after.
* BrokeEpisode: When Black is in need of quick cash, he's hired by a businessman selling glasses in a part-time employment agency as a human billboard. When Black walks outside to advertise, the bill slips from the board revealing it to be a bullseye... right when Black is next to an artillery range and White reveal he was disguised as his new boss, who watches as Black is shot to death by soldiers in the firing range.
* BuriedAlive: One of their most infamous gags. While White is looking at a plan in the middle of the desert sun, Black sneaks behind to clobber him but falls in White's shadow, which turns out to be a Spy-shaped hole right before White buries him.
** In the ending of Danger! Intrigue! Stupidty!, Black bumps into a tombstone made for White that lists all the time Black killed him in earlier pages. He gets so amused and distracted by reading all the times he won that he doesn't noticed he's walking down a ladder into a hole so White can bury him alive.
** In a strip by Kuper, Black has his revenge by tricking White into thinking he died and was buried in a cemetery, who read the newspaper and [[LastDisrespects ran to his grave to dance over it]], only for it to be a hollowed out hole and for Black to be the guy tending the graves, who promptly shovels dirt into White's new grave while he's still in there so he can dance over it instead.
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* DeliveryGuy: Although both spies are [[MasterOfDisguise masters of disguises]], it's Black who seems to use this trope more often, often overlapping with JanitorInfiltration. He has disguised himself as mailmen/delivery men to steal documents/give a booby trapped parcel to White, a plumber/handyman to screw with White's toilet/booby trap his home.
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* FilmFelon : In one strip, Black sees a movie set glorifying him and is being shot on the street, with the movie being all about him kicking White's ass. After poisoning the actor playing into puking horribly and calling in sick for the day, he asks the director to hire him to play as himself instead. He gets into position for shooting, and then is shot by White removing his director's disguise and using a gatling gun hidden inside the camera.
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* LaserGuidedKarma: In one instance, Black stops White from sleeping by using a watch's tick tock to keep him up all night. The poor exhausted Spy then goes to an hypnotist who cures him by using the same watch... and steals his suitcase, with the hypnotist turning out to be Black. But as he opens it, he finds his watch tied to a timebomb and a bundle of TNT, which sets it off into exploding soon after.
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* 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.
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* MasterOfDisguise: All three spies, being well, spies, are prone to putting on completely convincing disguises to remain hidden. In the case of the male spies, they also manage to hide their SinisterSchnooz despite how tight of a fit their mask would be. To date, they've disguised themselves as women, handymen, newspaper boys, doctors, therapists, dentists, firemen, film directors, opticians, and [[PaletteSwap each other.]]
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* MasterOfDisguise: All three spies, being well, spies, are prone to putting on completely convincing disguises to remain hidden. In the case of the male spies, they also manage to hide their SinisterSchnooz {{Sinister Schnoz}}zes despite how tight of a fit their mask would be. To date, they've disguised themselves as women, handymen, newspaper boys, doctors, therapists, dentists, firemen, film directors, opticians, and [[PaletteSwap each other.]]
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* MeleeATrois: Assuming these guys each fight for a given nation like real life spies do, it can be infered that this trope is going on between White's. Black's, and Grey's nations.
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* MeleeATrois: Assuming these guys each fight for a given nation like real life spies do, it can be infered inferred that this trope is going on between White's. White's, Black's, and Grey's nations.
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* LatexPerfection: They'll often disguise themselves as other people to trick or kill the other Spy. What really brings this trope into action though is that their ''long and gigantic noses'' have no trouble whatsoever being molded into normal head shapes.
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* MasterOfDisguise: All three spies, being well, spies, are prone to putting on completely convincing disguises to remain hidden. In the case of the male spies, they also manage to hide their SinisterSchnooz despite how tight of a fit their mask would be. To date, they've disguised themselves as women, handymen, newspaper boys, doctors, therapists, dentists, firemen, film directors, opticians, and [[PaletteSwap each other.]]
** The Gray Spy does this to a lesser extent, given that she normally relies on her good looks to ruin the other Spies with their gullibility. In Kuper's run of the strips she adopts disguises a little more often, with her disguising herself as an artist in a tattoo parlor and a fortune teller on two occasions.
** The Gray Spy does this to a lesser extent, given that she normally relies on her good looks to ruin the other Spies with their gullibility. In Kuper's run of the strips she adopts disguises a little more often, with her disguising herself as an artist in a tattoo parlor and a fortune teller on two occasions.
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* GadgeteerGenius: If there's one skill all three Spies have shown through their decades of print runs, it's an absurdly gifted ability to build basically any weapon, trap and machine meant to defeat the other Spy. Other times, though, their gear is as simple as party horn that'll snatch papers or a desk fan that'll blow away whatever's been sent for them.
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* IdenticalGrandson: They've got ancestors who've kept the rivalry up ever since they were pre-historic cavemen, Roman soldiers, newborn babies and up to the present as secret agents.
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* IdenticalGrandson: They've got ancestors who've kept the rivalry up ever since they were pre-historic cavemen, Roman soldiers, newborn babies and up to the present as secret agents. Even then, they're sometimes revealed to have children of their own who look pretty much exactly like them, just without their trench coats.
* ImprobableWeaponUser: Rather, an improbable ''body part'' user. In the paperback book''Masters of Mayhem'', the Black Spy responds to having a gun pressed to his back by swinging his ''nose'' into White's arm to break it.
* TheNapoleon: Black and White are both consistently shown to be a fair bit shorter than the average person, and while they're suave when 'speaking' to whatever background character is being sparingly used, they tend to lose their cool easily when near each other. By contrast, the Grey Spy is about the tallest character seen regularly in the comics.
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* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: They're secret agents for their respective organizations, but they only occasionally perform actual spy work by trying to steal classified documents and uncover rival secrets. The rest of the time, it's more of a personal rivalry as they attack each other while lounging around or when doing nothing else.
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* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: They're secret agents for their respective organizations, but they only occasionally perform actual spy work by trying to steal classified documents and uncover rival secrets. The rest of the time, it's more of a personal rivalry as they attack each other while lounging around or when doing nothing else.seemingly [[BloodKnight seek each other out just to fight and trap each other.]]
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* StrictlyFormula: Sort of. While the comics themselves were always wacky in the various ways the different spies would beat each other, there was always header art of a Spy vs Spy battle. Whoever won the header art would lose the main strip. Unless Grey Spy was involved, anyway.
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* StrictlyFormula: Sort of. While the comics themselves were always wacky in the various ways the different spies would beat each other, there was always header art of a Spy vs Spy battle.battle in most of Propias's works. Whoever won the header art would lose the main strip. Unless Grey Spy was involved, anyway.
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* TogetherInDeath: A non-romantic example, and in a unprinted strip. The Black Spy storms White's house with a squad of his soldiers, who capture and execute him via firing squad to Black's glee. Later, apparently overcome with teary loneliness and missing the time he and White used to spend chasing each other, Black commits suicide with his gun and dies, with the final panel showing Black and Whites spirits happily chasing each other in the afterlife.
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* TogetherInDeath: A non-romantic example, and in a unprinted strip. The Black Spy storms White's house with a squad of his soldiers, who capture and execute executes him via firing squad to Black's glee. Later, apparently overcome with teary loneliness and missing the time he and White used to spend chasing each other, Black commits suicide with his gun and dies, with the final panel showing Black and Whites spirits happily chasing each other in the afterlife.
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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/ArchieComicsSonicTheHedgehog''). From 1997 to the present day, the strip is drawn and almost always written by Peter Kuper.
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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/ArchieComicsSonicTheHedgehog'').''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics''). From 1997 to the present day, the strip is drawn and almost always written by Peter Kuper.
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** Also averted with the leaders of the Black and White Embassies, who look human as well.
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** In another strip, the White Spy puts miniature bombs into the Black Spy's gloves, and when the Black Spy put them on and then stepped outside, the White Spy played the tuba badly, prombting the Black Spy to plug his hears just before the bombs go off.
** In yet another strip, the Black Spy badly plays the violin so the White Spy gets the bow caught in a slingshot and then flings the Black Spy out the window.
** In ''yet another strip,'' the Black Spy, disguised as a hippie, badly plays the flute, which prompts the White Spy to start attacking him, before being obliterated by a rocket shaped like the Peace symbol.
** In yet another strip, the Black Spy badly plays the violin so the White Spy gets the bow caught in a slingshot and then flings the Black Spy out the window.
** In ''yet another strip,'' the Black Spy, disguised as a hippie, badly plays the flute, which prompts the White Spy to start attacking him, before being obliterated by a rocket shaped like the Peace symbol.
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** {{Averted}} With the Grey spy, [[SexyDimorphism who looks perfectly human]].
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* SinisterSchnoz: Their most distinguishing feature would be their heads, which are shaped like elongated cones.
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* SinisterSchnoz: Their most distinguishing feature would be their heads, which are shaped like elongated cones. {{Averted}} with the grey spy, [[SexyDimorphism who, again, looks perfectly human.]]
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* MarsNeedsWomen: The male spies, White and Black, are AmbiguouslyHuman beings with long, conical heads, whereas Grey, whom the former two fall head-over-heels for without fail every single time, looks perfectly human. So it's either this trope or SexyDimorphism.
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* SexyDimorphism: The male spies, White and Black, are AmbiguouslyHuman beings with long, conical heads, whereas Grey, whom the former two fall head-over-heels for without fail every single time, looks perfectly human. So it's either this trope or MarsNeedsWomen.
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* AmbiguouslyEvil: We're never given any info on just why these three spies are fighting each other, so we have no idea which, if any, of them are good, evil, or grey.
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* MeleeATrois: Assuming these guys each fight for a given nation like real life spies do, it can be infered that this trope is going on between White's. Black's, and Grey's nations.
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* XanatosGambit: Related to the above. While the Grey Spy always won she was eventually phased out of the comic entirely. Considering how the Black and White spies can't perma-kill each other maybe they lost on purpose.
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* XanatosGambit: Related to the above. While the Grey Spy always won won, she was for that very reason eventually phased out of the comic entirely. Considering how the Black and White spies can't perma-kill each other maybe they lost on purpose.
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* WouldntHitAGirl: Meta-example -- Prohías couldn't bring himself to let the Grey Spy lose because he felt too squeamish about drawing a woman suffering the usual fates of the loser in the comic. Eventually he phased her out because she came across as an InvincibleHero. Bob Clarke and Duck Edwing brought her back for two strips in 1988-89, and Peter Kuper made her into a recurring character.
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* WouldntHitAGirl: Meta-example -- Prohías couldn't bring himself to let the Grey Spy lose because he felt too squeamish about drawing a woman suffering the usual fates of the loser in the comic. Eventually he phased her out because she came across as an InvincibleHero.InvincibleHero (or InvincibleVillain depending on how you look at it). Bob Clarke and Duck Edwing brought her back for two strips in 1988-89, and Peter Kuper made her into a recurring character.
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* InvincibleVillain: If you can call the Grey Spy a villain, she’s this because she never loses to the other two.
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* InvincibleVillain: If you can call the Grey Gray Spy a villain, she’s this because she never loses to the other two.
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* WhiteHairBlackHeart: As shown in colorized prints of the comics, the Grey Spy is blond and so are Black and White when they style their hair sometimes. The Xbox title also gives Black and White balding blond hair under their hats.
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** In the comics themselves, neither Spy was willingly to try and attack Grey or were too busy fawning over her or baited in her traps to actually lay a finger. In Kuper's run of the comics though, they at least got bold enough to sometimes try to steal from and sabotage her ([[ForegoneConclusion not that they got any closer to beating her]]).
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* ArtEvolution: The spies went from looking like [[https://i.imgur.com/UGcls7H.jpg this]] to [[http://www.spyvsspyhq.com/spy130.jpg this.]] (Note especially that their inverted black eyes with white pupils started out as black sunglasses with white reflections)
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* ArtEvolution: The spies went from looking like [[https://i.imgur.com/UGcls7H.jpg this]] to [[http://www.spyvsspyhq.com/spy130.jpg this.]] (Note especially that their inverted black eyes with white pupils started out as black sunglasses with white reflections)reflections). They also had buck teeth, smaller hats and shorter 'beaks' compared to later versions as the strip went on.
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* TheFarmerAndTheViper: Once, while spying on Black getting berated and apparently fired by his superiors, White gets a rare moment of compassion and decides to approach Black and recruit him to become another White Spy, who was just despairing over being rendered jobless. Black (now also White) then proposes a plan to blow up the Black Embassy with White (the real one) using some TNT, only for him to reveal at the end that this was all a plan to take advantage of Whites kindness and blow him up with the hidden TNT when they enact their plan.
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* SpeakingSimlish: A MADTV short gave them incomprehensible babble accompanied by SymbolSwearing in the one time they speak, in which White managed to get Black executed by a firing squad by cursing out his superior through a swallowed microphone.
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** As an actual comic gag, one early strip had the Black Spy eavesdropping on White who is apparently tapping out morse code messages over the radio. Black gets some paper and pencil and starts copying everything down, only for the message to become so long and fast that he's buried in papers while still writing. White opens the door to check on him, revealing he had a woodpecker tapping a tree log to screw with Black.
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* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: Subverted. Generally speaking, the more planning/preparation you see a Spy do, the ''more'' likely he is to succeed.
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* TogetherInDeath: A non-romantic example, and in a unprinted strip. The Black Spy storms White's house with a squad of his soldiers, who capture and execute him via firing squad to Black's glee. Later, apparently overcome with teary loneliness and missing the time he and White used to spend chasing each other, Black commits suicide with his gun and dies, with the final panel showing Black and Whites spirits happily chasing each other in the afterlife.
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* DeathIsCheap: Almost every strip ends with one or both spies suffering a horrible death, [[SnapBack only for both of them to reappear just fine]] and resuming their war in the next strip.
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* BloodierAndGorier: Initially kept in check by the rules of BloodlessCarnage and cartoon violence, but ever since Peter Kuper took over, many of the gags have become a lot more visceral with small blood splatter and cartoonish gore being commonplace.
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* BlackEyesOfEvil: Whenever they're not portrayed as CoolShades, their eyes have black sclera on white pupils.
* BloodierAndGorier: Initially kept in check by the rules of BloodlessCarnage and cartoon violence, but ever since Peter Kuper took over, many of the gags have become a lot more visceral withsmall blood splatter and cartoonish gore being commonplace.
* BloodierAndGorier: Initially kept in check by the rules of BloodlessCarnage and cartoon violence, but ever since Peter Kuper took over, many of the gags have become a lot more visceral with
** In another strip, later adapted into a ''Series/{{MADtv}}'' cartoon, the Black Spy builds and programs a robotic girlfriend after losing his previous lover to the White Spy. Then comes a woman-disguised White to seduce Black and enrage his robot girlfriend into attacking and pummeling him while White makes a getaway.
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* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The early comics were more prone to either spy winning in a non-lethal way. The very first gag, for example, had both spies trying to poison each other. ''Neither one died''!
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: The above-mentioned first gag, in which the spies have a friendly drink of tea - feeding their cups to nearby cats, who die from the poison. Unusually for an Establishing Character Moment, as mentioned above, something happened that has never happened since: a ''tie.''
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: The above-mentioned first gag, in which the spies have a friendly drink of tea - feeding their cups to nearby cats, who die from the poison. Unusually for an Establishing Character Moment, as mentioned above, something happened that has never happened since: a ''tie.''
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* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The early comics were more prone to either spy winning in a non-lethal way.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''!
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: The above-mentioned first gag, in which the spies have a friendly drink of tea - feeding their cups to nearby cats, who both die from thepoison. poison as the spies walk away. Unusually for an Establishing Character Moment, as mentioned above, something happened that has almost never happened since: a ''tie.''
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: The above-mentioned first gag, in which the spies have a friendly drink of tea - feeding their cups to nearby cats, who both die from the
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* FalseTeethTomfoolery: Implied whenever they get blown up or killed via a smash to the head, as entire dentures come flying out whole from their mouths.
** In one strip, the Black Spy is suffering from severe tooth aches and goes to the dentist, a disguised White Spy trying to steal his documents, to get it removed. When Black walks away and White opens up his papers, [[OhCrap he finds out too late that they're plans for a tooth bomb]], before the tooth he just removed from Black blows him up.
** In one strip, the Black Spy is suffering from severe tooth aches and goes to the dentist, a disguised White Spy trying to steal his documents, to get it removed. When Black walks away and White opens up his papers, [[OhCrap he finds out too late that they're plans for a tooth bomb]], before the tooth he just removed from Black blows him up.
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* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: They're secret agents for their respective organizations, but they only occasionally perform actual spy work by trying to steal classified documents and uncover rival secrets. The rest of the time, it's more of a personal rivalry as they attack each other while lounging around or when doing nothing else.
