History Manga / SpaceAdventureCobra

* CoolShip:

** Ursula in the "Six Heroes" arc is complimented by the otherwise cruel Crystal Bowie for being a determined female warrior who only lives to fight, and yet she gets so badly overpowered, outwitted and mortally wounded over and over that it's just pitiful. She ends up near-entirely cyborgfied for a MirrorMatch against Lady just to get punched senseless into a waterway, never to be seen again.

KETUSAKU

** [[spoiler:Jane and Dominique in the 1982 Film.]]

--->PSYCOGUN (sic)
--->KETUSAKU
--->OH: NANTO SUBARASHI
--->USA: CHAN

** A RunningGag is for Cobra to act like a PopCulturedBadass by referencing various series that would have been absolutely ancient by the era he lives in, ranging from ''James Bond'' to ''Popeye'' and ending with ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'' in "Over the Rainbow".
** The "Rugball", "Hell Crusaders" and "Galaxy Nights" arcs feature bird-men from Planet [[WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck Donald]]. "Hell Crusaders" in particular features, for a single panel, [[ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse a small and rich duck-man in a top hat]].
** The "Extradimensional Race" arc features multiple allusions to ''Alice in Wonderland'' and "Over the Rainbow" is a WholePlotReference to ''The Wizard of Oz''.

* PrettyBoy: Cobra, before he changed his face. [[RunningGag Now he has]] a [[GagNose "big nose"]], "droopy eyes" and grinning "loose lips".

* CoolGun: Cobra's Psychogun. Specifically, it can fire without the need for line of sight. Though it'll drain Cobra mentally with overuse. Awesomeness has its price, you see.

* {{Bookends}}: The first story arc of the series begins and ends with Cobra killing a one-eyed woman. Many years later, "Over the Rainbow" began with Cobra killing a brunette woman and was left unfinished with Cobra killing a tentacle monster with the appearance of that woman. So, the entire franchise ended up bookending with Cobra killing identical-looking women.

* InsistentTerminology: "Hell Crusaders" takes place on Mars, but it is never directly referred to by name. It is always called "this planet" and when Cobra is warped into Deimos he just calls it the "little moon".

* WorthlessTreasureTwist: In "Blue Rose", multiple characters seek the titular treasure, each with a different theory of what it is. Ryuju believed it is a potion of immortality, and dies from RapidAging while trying to help Cobra and Lady. Jack thought it is a stash of diamonds, and when he's mortally wounded, Cobra lets him die believing he was right. The badly wounded Zailar claims it is an artifact that'll allow him to communicate with a girl he accidentally killed in a horrible war and let him find redemption, so Cobra tells him it lies in the bottom of Belbarad's hallucinogenic ocean of drugs so that he may at least die happy as well. In the end, Cobra and Lady talk about how Belbarad is just a ruined and inhospitable ancient resort planet that became the stuff of legends because of the sole remaining "teleportation ticket" leading to it -- there never was any treasure, just like there's no such thing as a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_rose Blue Rose]].

%%* WaterIsAir

* WorthlessTreasureTwist: In "Blue Rose", multiple characters seek the titular treasure, each with a different theory of what it is. Ryuju believed it was a potion of immortality, and dies from RapidAging while trying to help Cobra and Lady. Jack thought it is a stash of diamonds, and when he's mortally wounded, Cobra lets him die believing he was right. The badly wounded Zailar claims it is an artifact that'll allow him to communicate with a girl he accidentally killed in a horrible war and let him find redemption, so Cobra tells him it lies in the bottom of Belbarad's hallucinogenic ocean of drugs so that he may at least die happy as well. In the end, Cobra and Lady talk about how Belbarad is just a ruined and inhospitable ancient resort planet that became the stuff of legends because of the sole remaining "teleportation ticket" leading to it.

* WorthlessTreasureReveal: In "Blue Rose", multiple characters seek the titular treasure, each with a different theory of what it is. Ryuju believed it was a potion of immortality, and dies from RapidAging while trying to help Cobra and Lady. Jack thought it is a stash of diamonds, and when he's mortally wounded, Cobra lets him die believing he was right. The badly wounded Zailar claims it is an artifact that'll allow him to communicate with a girl he accidentally killed in a horrible war and let him find redemption, so Cobra tells him it lies in the bottom of Belbarad's hallucinogenic ocean of drugs so that he may at least die happy as well. In the end, Cobra and Lady talk about how Belbarad is just a ruined and inhospitable ancient resort planet that became the stuff of legends because of the sole remaining "teleportation ticket" leading to it.

* PrettyBoy: Cobra, before he changed his face.

** In "Magic Doll", Xanadu is a doll made by Mario that gains life from being exposed to the magic of Planet Mahadoma despite not being mechanical. She somehow becomes fully human at some point, as she remains self-aware in the period that the Magic Spring was turned off and finds herself bleeding from a stratch.

* BecomeARealBoy: The "Six Heroes" arc involves a race of barbarian dragons who fight each other with enslaved mental projections of human warriors to keep from driving themselves into extinction. Those projections vanish when their master is killed unless they become real by experiencing enough powerful emotions.

* DemBones: "Magic Doll" features undead, mace-wielding, horned skeletons in CoolShades that serve a descendant of Count Dracula.

** "Magic Doll" has the almost 15 HotWitch Lana annoyed with Cobra trying to retrieve the voluptuous pieces of the doll Xanadu while she's standing "perfectly cute, sexy" and alive right there.

* DenserAndWackier: The "Hell Crusaders" arc, the last major one of the original manga, involves some dark themes but has lower stakes than the "Six Heroes" saga did and is quite more comedic and over-the-top. Cobra acts even more irreverent around villains and poses as a doctor to perform a flawless surgery on a military commander. Then he calls himself "California Dream" and surfs a flood of sand to grab an artifact before the Hell Crusaders can.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The evil Targrave the Magician is a muscular plant-man who loves holding down beautiful women to force his long, thick vine into their mouths and planting a seed into them.

** In the manga version, the bounty hunter Jane barely does anything before she is captured, brainwashed by parasites, and forced to kill her own sister Catherine. She is mortally wounded later and dies without knowing anything. The adaptations barely treat her any better, as she might survive the parasites and fight for a while longer but still dies tragically and is replaced by her SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute sister Dominique.
** Ursula in the "Six Heroes" arc is complimented by the otherwise cruel Crystal Bowie for being a determined female warrior who only lives to fight, and yet she gets so badly overpowered, outwitted and mortally wounded over and over that it's just pitiful. She ends up near-entirely cyborgfied for a MirrorMatch against Lady just to get punched seneseless into a waterway, never to be seen again.