History Main / VerySpecialEpisode

** Although this take on one of the events that ended the Second World War was much tamer compared to the more graphic and nightmare-inducing ''Barefoot Gen'' (which depicts these terrifying events [[NightmareFuel/BarefootGen in more detail]]), you can see why 4Kids decided to skip the episode due to it being inspired by such a nightmarish true event.

* ''ComicBook/{{Superboy}}'' #171 features a team-up with him and the future ComicBook/{{Aquaman}} in an issue about the dangers oil and other pollutants can cause to sea life. Aquaboy's life is endangered when the oil companies are too concerned with profit to change their ways, and while he and Superboy manage to stop ''one'' company from poisoning any further, sea creatures died and they still have a long way to go before the oceans are safe.

** Stopped a [[CanadaEh Canadian]] drug ring in a story by Creator/DwayneMcDuffie (NOT Creator/ToddMcfarlane, though he did one of the covers). Naturally, they just had to be smuggling their drugs in hockey pucks.

[[quoteright:350: [[UsefulNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/7728_4665.jpg]]]]

* 1971 was a watershed year for Very Special Episodes in comics, thanks to [[Creator/MarvelComics Marvel]] and [[Creator/DCComics DC]] publishing two such stories in short order. It also had a major impact on UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode.

** The month after ''The Amazing Spider-Man'' #98 was published, DC published ''ComicBook/GreenLantern[=/=]ComicBook/GreenArrow'' #85 (pictured at the top of the page), which introduced a heroin addiction for [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] Speedy Roy Harper. By this time, the CCA, having endured a backlash against them for refusing to approve the Spidey story, revised their standards to allow the Speedy story to be approved.

* UsefulNotes/{{The Modern Age|OfComicBooks}} Speedy, Mia Dearden, got her own Very Special Issue where it was discovered that she was HIV Positive. This issue was written by Creator/JuddWinick, who seems to have a thing for Very Special moments involving AIDS and gay characters, given how a close friend of his who was gay died from complications relating to HIV.

* Coming back to [[Characters/SpiderManPeterParker Spider-Man]], he has been a very popular character for very special episodes, selected {{narm}}filled issues shows our hero:

* If potty-training episodes count, Pants Pankuro and Panpaka Pants are two other anime with these sorts of episodes, as well as the Franchise/HelloKitty and [[PreciousPuppy Cinnamoroll]] educational shorts by Creator/{{Sanrio}} that we're released in TheNineties and 2008 in Japan.

* ''Webcomic/PocketPrincesses'', a typically light-hearted gag comic, released [[https://twitter.com/amymebberson/status/1238625983348871169 this printable strip about staying safe during]] the UsefulNotes/Covid19Pandemic.

These episodes were far more common in the 1980s, fueled by then-UsefulNotes/UnitedStates president UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan's [[JustForPun crack]]down on drug use in America. They've largely fallen out of favor since then for most shows, due in part to the increasing number of shows, particularly dramas, where issues such as [[TheAlcoholic drug/alcohol abuse]], violence, [[SexIsEvil sex]] and [[KilledOffForReal death]] are dealt with on an almost weekly basis, and then you have the {{Dramedy}} genre that regularly mixes comedy with serious issues.

** Treads into [[BrokenAesop awkward territory]] when his mentor, Comicbook/GreenArrow, punched him and threw him out of the house for being a filthy junkie. Though Green Arrow learned later in the story-line how wrong he was, he never apologized for his behavior. When Speedy tells him off for this, Green Arrow weeps silently... in pride for his ward becoming a man.

* ''[[ComicBook/TheSandman Death talks about life]]'' was a giveaway special produced by Creator/VertigoComics at the height of the AIDS epidemic. [[http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/295605.html#cutid1 It]] features Death [[BreakingTheFourthWall directly addressing the reader]] about AIDS and sex related issues, and is probably the single most {{Anvilicious}} comic not written by [[ComicBook/ChickTracts Jack Chick]]. It's also probably the best {{Anvilicious}} comic of all time, as it makes up for its {{anvilicious}}ness by featuring a scene in which [[Characters/HellblazerJohnConstantine John Constantine]] holds a banana while Death rolls a condom onto it. The AIDS epidemic was also a bit of a running motif in ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' itself, although never to the extent of having entire issues based around it.

* ''[[https://www.retrojunk.com/article/show/376/the-xmen-in-heroes-for-hope Heroes For Hope]]'', published in 1985, was a special one-shot starring the Comicbook/XMen and written and drawn by dozens of notable comic book and genre fiction creators (conceived as sort of a comic book version of ''We Are the World''), in which [[Creator/MarvelComics Marvel's]] mutant heroes confront famine in Africa (and an ancient demon that feeds on the despair it causes). Proceeds from the book were donated to famine relief.

* {{Subverted|Trope}} in ''WesternAnimation/BrainDump''[='=]s episode on UsefulNotes/{{fascism}}. It starts with Creator/MaxGilardi claiming he's become [[OldShame ashamed of his past producing shock-ordinated art]][[invoked]], and that he wants to focus on using his platform to change society in positive ways. He then begins to discuss the subject of fascism, but he doesn't get to define even one form of it when Goofball disrupts the entire episode drinking something he claims to be cum, and Max spends the rest of the episode obsessing over that action, worried that Website/YouTube's content policies are being violated.

--> '''Announcer''': Next week, in a very special episode of Zorc and Pals:\\
'''[[strike: Yami-Bakura]] Florence''': Zorc, what's wrong? Why haven't you destroyed the world?\\
'''Zorc''': Because I have a [[SoapOperaDisease terminal disease!]]\\
'''Florence''': But you can't die! What about our adopted daughter? Who is going to take care of her when you're gone?\\
'''Zorc''': [[LittlestCancerPatient She also has a terminal disease!]]\\
'''Announcer''': Don't miss this very special award-winning episode of Zorc and Pals. [[RatingsStunt Because we really need the ratings.]]

* [[WebVideo/TheGameHeroes 8-Bit Mickey]] interviewed a member of the Westboro Baptist Church at one of their protests… at the Holocaust Museum. Why yes, they aren’t just viciously homophobic and transphobic, they’re anti-Semitic. He kept level headed throughout the interview and at the end of the video stated that he was quite shocked at these people.

* There is a two-part special episode of ''Anime/TamaAndFriends: Do You Know my Tama?'' in which a curse is put upon the people and animals of the third district regarding a little girl and her dog Shiro, who tragically ended up being two of the 129,000-226,000 casualties of the [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings]] that took place during the climactic final months of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and caused horrific devastation. Tama's owner Takeshi has nightmares about her in the [[AChristmasCarol Christmas Carol]]-type first part. The girl's ghost even holds Tama hostage and threatens to kill him.

''[[SelfDemonstratingArticle Tonight, on a very special article of]] Website/TVTropes ...''

* UsefulNotes/{{The Modern Age|OfComicBooks}} Speedy, Mia Dearden, got her own Very Special Issue where it was discovered that she was HIV Positive.This issue was written by Creator/JuddWinick, who seems to have a thing for Very Special moments involving AIDS and gay characters, given how a close friend of his who was gay died from complications relating to HIV.

* Music/SoulAsylum's {{Music Video|Tropes}} for "Runaway Train" was interspersed with photos of missing children and ended with a phone number to call if the viewer had seen any of them. [[ShaggyDogStory In unfortunate twists]], it was eventually revealed that some of the now-adults shown in the video didn't ''want'' to be found, and at least one of them was a victim of abuse by the same AbusiveParents who sent the photo. Worse, a little girl shown in the original video had been [[OffingTheOffspring murdered by her mother]] and buried in her backyard as the corollary of her parents's bitter divorce.

** ComicBook/SpiderMan came first, and this story became known for being one of the better Very Special Episodes. Creator/StanLee was asked to write a very special episode about drugs by the government, and, instead of creating a LongLostUncleAesop to focus the story on, he chose to use an existing character, with bonus points for being a rich white male with known emotional issues. The Comics Code Authority then [[IdiotBall refused to approve the comic,]] so Lee sent ''Amazing Spider-Man'' #96-98 to press without the CCA stamp. Though the Authority would continue for four more decades, it would never be the same.
** The month after ASM #98 was published, DC published ''ComicBook/GreenLantern[=/=]ComicBook/GreenArrow'' #85 (pictured at the top of the page), which introduced a heroin addiction for [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] Speedy Roy Harper. By this time, the CCA, having endured a backlash against them for refusing to approve the Spidey story, revised their standards to allow the Speedy story to be approved.

* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'' had a 2-part story about domestic abuse in the early 90's called "Crisis at Hand," deconstructing the days when Supes was a WifeBasherBasher from the early Golden Age comics, showing that early in his career when he once attempted to scare a man from beating his wife, only to later learn it failed and the man later ''killed'' her the next time he got violent; in the present day when he learns that one of his neighbors is the victim of abuse, Clark tries to find a way to help her without setting her husband off worse. Considered one of the better cases of a "very special issue" and was actually brought up a few times afterward in the Superman books.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWomanTheOnceAndFutureStory'' is focused on domestic violence victims being able to get the support they need to escape their abusers but having to want to leave themselvesbeing the first step as trying to force the issue will just alienate them from the one trying to force help on them. The story ends with a page with a few paragraphs on the topic and a list of numbers for various support groups and domestic violence hotlines.

** In the episode's second part, Tama's best friend Pochi is possessed by a haunted collar, which belonged to Shiro before he and his owner were killed in the bombings. Shiro is revealed to be a [[SurpriseCreepy really terrifying-looking]] ghost dog once the collar is taken off of Pochi by Takeshi - essentially exhausting the former and luckily (do to his cowardly personality) causing him not to be able to see it. Thankfully, his ghost owner changes him back to the kind of loving dog he was when he was alive and apologizes for all the trouble they caused.

* WebVideo/ToddInTheShadows' episode on "Turn Up the Music" only barely mentions the song. Instead it's a long rant on how its performer, Music/ChrisBrown, still acts like a despicable human being despite all the backlash against him in the past.