Armor Piercing Question / Comic Books

Armor-Piercing Question in Comic Books.

---

• Astro City:
  • During his annual dinner with Samaritan, Infidel summons several women to bring in the food. Infidel assures Samaritan that they're not slaves, just magical homunculi made from organic scraps. When Samaritan still expresses his discomfort, Infidel retorts, "Were they mere robots created by science you understand, would you have similar unease?"
  • Esteban Hidalgo spent years trying to act as a community organizer and philanthropist, but found his efforts stymied by the fact that he could never quite escape a reputation as an out-of-touch rich guy. However, the thing that pushed him to become a superhero was when a companion simply told him:
    "So your message, Estaban, is simple: Work hard, stay out of trouble—then inherit two hundred million dollars and everything will be fine?"
  • Winged Victory gives one of these to the Council of Nike in "Victory". When they criticize her association with Samaritan and the Confessor, she asks what she's supposed to teach — that men and women are equal, or that women need to be alone to be strong? They have no response.
• Atomic Robo: After discovering ALAN is using the academy's computers to draft up a plan to deal with the energy crisis when he's supposed to be working with the other students on their final project, Robo tries to get him to slow down, only to be taken back by his response.
  Robo: Your assignment is to fix one solar farm. Not to save the world.
  ALAN: But what if I can do both?
• The Authority: Midnighter caps off a "Not So Different" Remark speech to an Iron Man expy with this:
  Midnighter: God, you're probably somewhere between thirty five to forty years old and you've never even been held, have you?
• The Batman Adventures: In Issue #28, Batman asks if the Joker really wants to make him psychotic. That makes the Joker back down.
• Batman Chronicles #5 featured Oracle Year One which shed light on how Barbara Gordon created her Oracle identity after she was shot in The Killing Joke. While still recovering in the hospital, Barbara was approached by Batman and she made it clear how enraged she was at being used as a stepping stone to hurt her dad and Batman. When Batman feebly tried to comfort Barbara saying he caught the Joker, she brought up how the two of them had the gall to actually laugh about some private joke.
  Barbara: Tell me - was it me?
  • Batman left without answering, and Barbara's internal thoughts made it clear she wanted to hurt him after everything she'd been put through.
• The end of Batman: Hush features one of these: "What time is it when an elephant sits on your fence?" Specifically, Batman is asking the Riddler — who is revealed to be The Chessmaster for the whole series and has deduced Batman's identity as Bruce Wayne — a riddle that everyone knows the answer to already, which makes it a worthless puzzle. Batman then points out that if the Riddler reveals the Caped Crusader's secret to anyone else, the riddle "Who is Batman?" will become just as well-known — and therefore as pointless — as the elephant question. The Riddler, due to his psychosis, can't allow that to happen, and has a Villainous Breakdown.
• In another Batman story, the Joker has Lex Luthor tied up and has been torturing him. But it's Luthor who does the most damage when he asks: "Does it bother you... bother you at all, really... that Batman likes Catwoman better?" The Joker is visibly stunned and immediately drops his clownish demeanor to become full-on furious and plan to outright murder Luthor without any tricks or gimmicks. See it here.◊
• In Birds of Prey, the Question once managed to get Huntress (who has a hatred for crooked cops) to back down by boiling the entire sorry socioeconomic underpinning of Gotham City's hellholishness down to one simple question: "Do you know how much an honest cop makes in Gotham before taxes?"
• In Blackest Night Issue 7, we have one from Nekron to a nameless Guardian of the Universe that comes with a Wham Line response that shows just how far the Guardians of Oa had fallen by that point, and sign of how much worse they were going to become:
  Nekron: Why have you spent eons fighting so hard to protect life when you don't live it, creature? Why did you vow to guard the universe?
  Guardian of the Universe: I... I do not remember.
• The Books of Magic: In issue 61 of the 1994 ongoing, Timothy Hunter informs his stepbrother Cyril Ransome that his father Bill Hunter is dead and asks if he even cares. Cyril gives a less than charitable response.
  Cyril: Did you care when my mummy died?
• In Civil War II: X-Men #3, Magneto confronts Rachel Grey with the intent on recruiting her to take the Inhuman Ulysses. At first, she rejects it, but when Magneto asks if the Inhumans ever lifted a finger to save the mutants in her timeline, it's enough to instantly sway her.
• In Doomsday Clock while the whole world is going to hell thanks to the Metahuman crisis and almost all superheroes being out of commission either due to their encounter with Doctor Manhattan or preventing an all-out Metahuman war, Ozymandias asks to Saturn Girl regarding to the future being bright thanks to the existence of Superman:
  Ozymandias: Yes well, if Superman is so important to you, to your existence, let me ask you one thing, Saturn Girl, does Superman remember you?
  Saturn Girl:...No.
• God Loves, Man Kills: Kitty Pryde learns that a student in her dance class believes in Stryker's anti-mutant rhetoric when the guy starts spouting off his opinions. The two start fighting, and the guy sneeringly calls her a "mutie-lover," only backing off when Colossus separates them. Stevie, the Black dance instructor, tries to calm Kitty down by remarking that the jerk's speech is "only words"...and that's when Kitty snaps back "Suppose he'd called me a nigger-lover, Stevie?! Would you be so damn tolerant then?" Stevie has no response, and she admits to herself that Kitty is right.
• Green Lantern:
  • If not parodied, then certainly not taken seriously: Hal Jordan has gotten a blue (hope-powered) ring against his will, and it won't unlock its full powers for him until he answers a question: "What do you hope for?" Since he can't make the ring leave him until he unlocks its full powers, and until then it just sits on his hand asking again and again, and he gives a series of insincere answers like "World peace," Hal eventually snaps, "I hope you stop asking me that question!" The ring accepts this as a sincere answer.
  • Green Lantern was once asked why he helped "blue skins, orange skins, and purple skins," but never "black skins." The question drove Green Lantern and Green Arrow to travel across America solving problems closer to home.
• In H'el on Earth, after Superman is done gathering information from Lex Luthor, Lex Luthor gives him something to think about.
  Lex Luthor: Why can H'el do much more than you? Is he more powerful than you... or have you just failed to make yourself as powerful as he? And if that is the case... what are you so afraid of, Superman?
• House of M: "What would you have me do?" The Avengers and X-Men are debating what to do about the Scarlet Witch because of her insanity and reality warping powers, with Emma Frost and Wolverine strongly advocating killing her. Quicksilver confronts Magneto about it. Magneto asks the question. Quicksilver repeats the information. Magneto repeats the question.
• Immortal Hulk: During a conversation between the titular persona and Len Samson, he reveals he took over from the other Hulks after the events of Civil War II unleashed a mindless Hulk, which after Secret Empire he killed and sealed away, because "someone had to." Samson notes his choice of words and finally asks "which Hulk are you?" For the first time, this Hulk's gruff exterior falters, and his response is uncharacteristically quiet.
• In Infinite Crisis, the Golden Age Superman, Kal-L, drops in on Batman in an attempt to recruit him in his quest to restore Earth-2. Kal-L tries to explain that this Earth is too corrupted to save. However, despite Batman being in a Despair Event Horizon, he counters with one question: "What about Dick Grayson?" It's enough to get Kal-L to back down and begin questioning his actions, something that doesn't take until the Modern Age Superman hits him with a Wham Line.
• Happens to Inertia in Impulse when he's about to kill both Impulse and his mentor, Max.
  Impulse: You really don't get it, do you? I love him... I'd die for him, or with him. That's what you do... how you feel when you love someone. Haven't you ever felt that way about someone? Hasn't ever anyone felt that way about you?
  Inertia: no...
• Injustice: Gods Among Us: When Ganthet confronts Superman about his Regime and allow things to run its course like the Guardians of Oa do. Superman then asks if they allowed Krypton to be destroyed, which Ganthet fails to answer and dodges the question entirely. The Guardians' indifference towards Krypton becomes even harder to swallow when the sequel reveals that Ganthet was lying, and the real reason why Superman's homeworld was destroyed was because Brainiac invaded the planet.
• Invincible: When she's captured by Angstrom Levy and unable to use her powers at risk of killing her unborn child, Atom Eve gets him to back down with a speech about how he's wasted his life in his pursuit of vengeance, ending with a question that leaves Angstrom speechless:
  Eve: Do you ever stop to consider what you could be accomplishing if you stopped blaming Mark for something that wasn't his fault, and instead decided to carry on with whatever mission you were trying to do in the first place?
• Kingdom Come:
  • Edward Nygma, who is now Selina Kyle's lover — though "boy toy" is a better description — loves to do this, highlighted by asking Lex what he plans to do about Superman. It's the only time Lex is completely out of control.
  • In the Novelization, when Wonder Woman is questioned by the Amazons about her actions during the crisis, she states that Paradise Island had become too insular.
    Diana: For example, who among you has actually met a living soul who does not live on this Island?
    [a few hands went up among the four- or fivescore assembled sisters; even they went down when everyone realized what their former princess meant by "living"]
  • In a flashback in the sequel, The Kingdom, a young, despondent Mar’i Grayson learns from her parents, Nightwing and Starfire, that her biological grandparents and adoptive great-grandparents all passed away under tragic circumstances. When her father tries to tell her that these things just happen sometimes, she asks her parents "Will it happen to you?" The flashback ends with Nightwing and Starfire’s speechless faces. Another flashback of a slightly older Mar’i further illustrates her fear of death and losing her parents, though this time, Nightwing attempts to comfort her by promising that it won’t happen. However, by the time of Kingdom Come, Starfire has indeed passed away from illness. This puts a strain on Dick’s relationship with his daughter, who hasn’t overcome her fear and still bears some resentment towards her father for making a promise he couldn’t keep.
• Mega Man (Archie Comics) issue #35 has Blues interpreting the creation of Rock and Roll as Dr. Light's dissatisfaction with him and a decision to make "better" children. Dr. LaLinde proposes a counterpoint which shuts him down so hard he can't snap back at her, and instead he runs away from the problem, as is his wont.
  Blues: HE REPLACED ME!
  Dr. LaLinde: Blues! Did you ever stop to consider that he built a brother and sister for you? So that when you came home again, as he always hoped you would, you'd never be lonely again?
• Nemesis the Warlock: While Purity's attempt at Shaming the Mob doesn't work on the majority of the Terminators assembled to watch her execution, Brother Gogol is momentarily shaken when she asks them "What are you all hiding behind your masks?"
• Planetary: During his very trippy consultation with Melanctha the magician, Elijah is hit with this:
  "You are a thing created to do a job, Mr. Snow. And that job cannot simply be to hound four people who did you wrong to the ends of the earth. Look around you. When the ground of the underpinnings of life and death, laid beyond the tiniest spaces we can imagine, are this infinitely—can your task be so small a thing?"
• Providence has Dr. Alvarez giving one to Robert Black:
  "There is a concealed country, therefor, hidden below the society we show the world. Uncomfortable truth, it lurks behind our pretences. This truth, it is a land sunken beneath many fathoms. Were it one day to rise and confront us all, what would you do, Mr. Black? What would any of us do?
• In The Sandman (1989), Morpheus asks one of these. Archangel Lucifer, having surrounded Morpheus with The Legions of Hell and intending to trap him, claims that Morpheus is powerless as dreams have no power in Hell. Morpheus asks him, and the assembled demons, what use there would be for Hell if those in it could not dream of Heaven. The demons disperse and Lucifer is forced to let him go.
  • Death's whole personality is due to this. At first, she hated her job, until one person she was taking called her out on her attitude, and asked, "How would you like it?" After this, she decided to spend one day as a mortal. At the end of this day, she realized that the one thing that mortals need at the end is comfort, and so resolved to become a comforting presence.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • In Issue 179 of the Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Sonic and Tails get into a massive fight. Initially it's believed to be because Tails is trying to protect his family from Sonic for turning them to the authorities, but it quickly reveals that it's much deeper than that...
    Tails: You would've let my dad rot in prison!
    Sonic: He tried to oust the king! You can't just give Elias the boot!
    Tails: He's trying to save the city, and you won't give him a chance!
    Sonic: He wasn't in jail for a day! You didn't give me a chance to do anything!
    Tails: The great Sonic the Hedgehog wasn't quick enough?!
    Sonic: Dude! You're taking everything I've done to help you and skewing it!
    Tails: So you hooked up with Fiona to help me?!
    Sonic: Wait... Is she what this is all about?
    Tails: Don't say it like that! You knew I loved her! And you went out with her! I don't care if the Fiona I knew was a robot! I don't care if she ended up choosing Scourge over me! You knew I loved her, and you went with her anyway! I thought you were my friend! I thought you were my brother! But everything I care about, you take away from me!
  • In issue 6 of Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW), Sonic and his allies come across Dr. Eggman, only to discover he's lost his memory since his defeat in Sonic Forces and become Mr. Tinker, a Nice Guy and Friend to All Children. They're perfectly willing to let bygones be bygones and let Eggman live his new life... and then Shadow shows up, determined to kill Eggman on the grounds that he's a liability and needs to be dealt with lest he regains his memories. Sonic actively fights him to stop him from doing so, pointing out Shadow's hypocrisy by reminding him of everything he did prior to his Heel–Face Turn and questioning why Shadow should be forgiven for his own sins if Eggman cannot. This convinces Shadow to back down.
    Shadow: Have you forgotten that he made you suffer? That he's tried to destroy you multiple times? How can you even suggest leniency for him after all that?
    Sonic: You tried to destroy me in the past too, remember? You even tried to obliterate an entire planet. So, what? You want me to take you out with Eggman? After all, if he can't be forgiven, can you?
• Spider-Man: In the final storyline of The Amazing Spider-Man (Dan Slott), Spidey manages to weaponise Self-Deprecation when Norman Osborne is ranting about what he could have achieved without the Spider in his way:
  Spider-Man: Ha! You finally cracked a good one! You know who's under this mask. I'm the world's biggest screw-up. So what does that say about you?
• Suicide Squad: Played for laughs in one issue when Batman is trying to convince Deadshot to give up his crime of being an assassin, on the basis that it would be good for his daughter, prompting an utterly baffled Floyd to remark:
  "You seriously lecturing me about putting a kid on a dangerous path? Have you met any of your Robins?"
• Superman: Red Son: This proves to be Lex Luthor's final tactic against Superman, who, in this Elseworld, was raised in the Soviet Union and has become a Well-Intentioned Extremist who's expanded the USSR into a benevolent dictatorship across the world; his "one failure" is the fact that Luthor and Brainiac shrank the city of Stalingrad, leaving Superman to cover it in protective glass (it's this world's stand-in for Kandor). By the story's end, Luthor has become President of the United States and the last resistance against the Kryptonian, prompting Superman to invade the country in a desperate rage. After overcoming all of Luthor's armies, the Man of Steel storms the White House, where Lois Lane-Luthor is waiting with a final weapon—a piece of paper with a single question: "Why don't you just put the whole world in a bottle, Superman?" This is enough to drive him to a Villainous Breakdown and surrender.
• In the Superman miniseries “"Day of Doom", reporter Ty Duffy has been assigned a story on the anniversary of Superman’s battle with Doomsday, but becomes bitter as everyone he interviews says variations of “You know Superman isn’t actually dead any more, right?”, feeling that everyone has been so focused on Superman coming back that they’ve neglected to think about the people who stayed dead after Doomsday’s rampage, one of which was Ty’s father (albeit through suicide after the battle). This reaches a point where Ty confronts Superman himself about the issue, calling the Man of Steel out on how he has never looked into who else died during the battle with Doomsday. However, after a confrontation with the mysterious Remnant, who views Superman as evil because of the villains who come to confront him and feels that Ty shares his views, Superman confronts Ty with another question for his article; if Superman wasn’t around, would there be fewer Doomsdays (monsters seeking to confront Superman) or more Coast Cities (a disaster that explicitly happened because Superman wasn’t there to deter the villains responsible from attacking)?
• Swamp Thing: The Swamp Thing stops Woodrue's rampage by asking What plants will breathe without animals to exhale carbon dioxide. Woodrue has a Villainous BSoD.
• During their team-up to take down Malcolm Colcord's attempt to revive the Weapon X project, Daken tries to deliver one to his little sister, Laura Kinney a.k.a. X-23, by asking why she holds herself back by caring for others and is afraid to let go and fully embrace her training and skill as a killer. The question falls flat: Laura isn't fighting to prove anything, but is instead fighting for something bigger than herself. She then completely turns it around on him by asking why he holds back and is afraid to allow himself to care about others. Manipulative Bastard that he is, Daken still doesn't have an answer.
• Thunderbolts: Jolt hits her teammates with this:
  I have lived with you, fought alongside you and I know you liked being heroes. I know it felt good for you to do the right thing and that you don't want to do this. Am I wrong? Abe? Melissa? Erik? Can you honestly tell me that I am wrong?
• The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye:
  • At the end of Issue 33, Megatron hits Ravage with one when the latter questions why he should stay on the Lost Light.
    "You've seen what the D.J.D. are capable of. You've seen the dark side of the Decepticon cause. Do you still want to be part of it?
  • In issue 36, Rung discovers Roller's been taking circuit speeders (dangerously lethal Cybertronian steroids), which the latter tries to justify by pointing out he can't keep up with his Outlier teammates. Then Roller claims he's only around because he's Orion Pax's friend, to which Rung asks:
    "And that's a bad reason because...?"
  • Issue 44 centers around the crew meeting the Necrobot, the Cybertronian equivalent of The Grim Reaper. Throughout the issue, Nightbeat tries to find any sort of evidence that the Necrobot is in fact the mystic gatekeeper of the Afterspark, but once it becomes clear that that's not what he does (the Necrobot actually catalogues people's deaths through holograms and cybernetic flowers), Nightbeat breaks down and admits what he really wanted was to be proven wrong, for there to be something after death. The Necrobot then pulls him out of his blue-screen moment by asking if anyone has ever disproved the existence of the Afterspark.
  • During his stint in Grindcore, Skids accepts a deal to repair the prison's teleport systems in exchange for the lives of 50 prisoners. When his cellmate Quark argues that the prisoners are likely to be shipped off as slave labor or worse, Skids responds by asking if he'd rather stay in Grindcore, something Quark has no response to.
  • During the battle against Tarn and Dethsaurus' forces, Megatron adamantly refuses to go out and fight, believing that if he does, he'll surrender to his darker impulses and turn into the monster he was. Ratchet in response reveals the fool's energon Megatron has been taking is a placebo, an early warning system in case Megatron was having second thoughts about the quest. When questioned why he's saying this now, Ratchet responds with this.
    "Because when you fought Whirl and Perceptor—and Tailgate; I heard about that—you held back. That wasn't the fool's energon--that was you. You've always been in control...even if you haven't realized it. So tell me—why should today be any different?"
  • During their final confrontation, Getaway points out that Rodimus only ever cared about beating him and getting his ship back. Before Rodimus can claim otherwise, Getaway interrupts with:
    "If you cared about your crew, why aren't you down there right now, finding a way to save them?"
  • Rodimus gets hit with another one immediately after the above: when Cyclonus intervenes to cut off Getaway's arm, sending him running into the fire he had started to die on his own terms, Rodimus remarks that he really thought Cyclonus was going to kill him, to which Cyclonus responds:
    "I was. Weren't you?"
• Wonder Woman likes to back up her hard questions to villains by having them wrapped in her lasso of truth when she asks them, ensuring that the individual in question cannot lie to her (though they don't have to answer) and more importantly they can't lie to themselves and see fully the truth of their motivations and goal. This has lead to many a moment of My God, What Have I Done? and is the reason many of her villains end up her friends and allies.
  • Wonder Woman (1942): Played with With the Adjudicator. When he's forced by Diana's question while wrapped in the lasso to think about who gave him his supposedly righteous task, and it's revealed his fellows essentially sent him off to play with planets they don't care about so long as he doesn't bother them by thinking about them, he's just furious with her because they're now going to recall him and he won't get to destroy a bunch of earths and all life on them as he doesn't care why he was "judging" planets, it's what he wants to do.
• Prodigy/David from the Young Avengers hits Teddy with this when convincing Teddy to mend his romantic relationship with his fiancé Billy and thus save the universe with The Power of Love after Teddy has an existential crisis over Loki insinuating that Teddy was possibly wished into existence by Billy's reality-warping powers.
  David: Listen. Yes, [Billy] could have accidentally wished you into existence. Existential nonsense. Who cares? It doesn't matter. You're you. He's him. Your love is as real as anything I've ever seen.
  Teddy: But—
  David: Teddy, listen. A magical power someone else has over you for no reason you can really justify but cascades through you until every cell cries out for his touch? What do you think love is?

---