Bazooka Jules is a superhero comic book series by Neil Googe.
Julie Glocke is an ordinary teenager who, on her way to school one day, is almost hit by a motorcycle. The driver, Eddie Daytona, is a super thief who just stole a nano-robotic, intelligent weapon from White Sleep Technologies and is on the run from their robots. Before leaving Julie, he stealthily slips the weapon in Julie's backpack. The weapon later activates and injects itself into Julie, fusing with her body and mind. As a result, anytime she's under high stress, the weapon activates turning her into a large breasted, extremely long haired, gun-toting adult version of herself with an array of superpowers.
While the powers are great, being thrust into the superhero life is not what Julie had in mind, and things are only gonna get more complicated as there are many factions that retrieve the weapon, and extracting the weapon out of Julie will kill her.
Bazooka Jules first debuted in 2000 as a ten page short story in Com.x issue zero, an anthology comic book launch by Com.x that introduce readers to their line. A six issue miniseries was planned and began the following year but unfortunately the series only made it to issue #3.
Bazooka Jules provides examples of:
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Julie's younger brother, whom she nicknames "Gob-zilla". She notes that she's never seen him with his mouth shut.
- Art Evolution: While issue #4 has not been released, the image that was supposed to serve as its cover page is in issue three. Unlike Julie in the previous covers, she's more believably proportioned and has much more realistic facial features (more specifically a smaller mouth).
- Author Avatar: Neil, who not only shares the first name of the creator of the series, but Julie also insists on calling him Steve. Steve is the first name for Neil Googe's alias, Steve Huge.
- Bookcase Passage: The bookcase in Professor Scruples' classroom is actually a door that leads to his very high tech secret lab.
- Chekhov's Gunman: In issue #3 Julie notices a group of people staring at her but quickly dismisses them. Those people are a superhero team called the Outkasts.
- Clothing Damage: Julie's tops tears anytime she activates her powers due to the massive increase in bust size. A worker at the superhero registration office recommends she get herself a superhero costume as those are made from a material that can adapt to her transformations.
- Cool Bike: Eddie's motorcycle has weapons, sensors, and the ability to repair itself.
- Cursed with Awesome: The symbiote provides Julie with physical enhancements, unlimited weapons, and gadgets, and gives her a sexy superheroine body. In spite of all this, Julie still wants to part with it since she has to also become a superhero.
- Cyborg: The family are a group of cyborgs developed by White Sleep Technologies. Each of them is a previously deceased mass murderer whose brain and spinal column are fused with a robot body.
- Empathic Weapon: When the symbiote in Julie activates, it gives her weapons, gadgets, and tools that she instinctively wants for the situation. So the guns, gadgets, and even the large breasts are things Julie wants to deal with during any threats.
- Face Palm: Professor Scruples does a facepalm when he has to explain to Julie and Neil in even simpler terms than he's using that Julie's symbiote can give itself a physical form and she can interact with it.
- Girlish Pigtails: Julie has two small pigtails that grow all the way down to the floor when her powers activate. She can be a little childish at times and she's still into Hello Kitty despite being a teenager.
- The Gunslinger: The symbiote can provide Julie with any weapon she wants to deal with threats. Julie chooses guns and because the symbiote also enhances its user's physical abilities, she's extremely proficient with her guns.
- Heroic Build: When Julie's symbiote activates, she goes from slender teenager to a large breasted hourglass figured superheroine.
- Hulking Out:
- In the pilot, the mother of the girl Julie refuses to give the Hello Kitty stuff animal to basically turns into a Expy of the Hulk. However, unlike the Hulk, her Involuntary Shapeshifting isn't caused by her anger but her daughter's anger.
- There's of Julie who gets a Heroic Build under high stress.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Despite her interest in superheroes, Julie doesn't want to be one herself, and her boyfriend seems more excited about her new powers than she does. She only decides to officially register as a superhero to avoid being bothered by the police.
- Imagination-Based Power: Professor Scruples explains to Julie that the symbiote will manipulate the nanobots to create anything she can think of.
- Jerkass: Julie in the ten page pilot. In a toy store, she takes the last Hello Kitty plushie from the shelf just as a young girl was about to grab it for her mother to buy. Despite her boyfriend pointing out that the girl really wanted that doll and the girl's mother begging Julie to let her buy it for her daughter, Julie selfishly says no.
- Jetpack: Another one of the gadgets the symbiote can provide Julie. It's mainly used if she's taken too much damage and needs to escape.
- Literal Surveillance Bug: Another organization is spying on Julie and White Sleep Technologies through the use of Flying robotic bugs.
- Loners Are Freaks: Sarah, an anti-social girl that goes to Julie's school. She's nicknamed weird girl because she has no friends and spends a lot of her time talking to her imaginary friends. The only person that wants to be her friend is Julie, and she hates Julie.
- Morning Routine: The first few pages of the series are panels of Julie waking up and getting ready for school juxtaposed to panels of Eddie robbing White Sleep Technologies. Both characters comment on how routine their lives are.
- Most Common Superpower:
- Invoked in the first issue; very shortly before the symbiote activates for the first time, Julie and her friends are talking about what superpowers they would like. Julie begins by joking how, of course, she'd have a larger bust as a superheroine; later, she quips that one reason she'd want to fight with guns is so she would have both kinds of "guns". (Naturally, the symbiote delivers.)
- In the second issue, Julie asks Professor Scruples explains why activating her powers make her breasts grow so big. Large breasts are just one of the physical enhancements the symbiote thinks she wants to be able to deal with any threats.
- At the superhero registration office, the worker registering Julie is surprised at how average her measurements are (she's yet to see Julie's powers activate). When Julie gives her a confused look, the worker points to all the large breasted heroines standing right behind her.
- Mr. Exposition: After analyzing Julie, Professor Scruples provides a lot of insight into Julie's new powers. He even explains powers she's yet to use like her photographic reflexes.
- Ms. Fanservice: Julie, who seems unable to her tops from tearing.
- Nanomachines: The symbiote placed small gateways around Julie's body, most notably two on her palms, that open to a dimension filled with nanobots. When Julie needs a weapon or gadgets, the gateways open up and the nanobots that pour out reprogram to form what Julie needs.
- Nipple and Dimed: Despite being topless in some covers and losing most of her tops when her powers activate, Julie's nipples never shows. In two of the covers for the series, she has two pairs of band-aids covering her nipples while in the comic itself every time her clothes get torn there's just enough left to keep her nipples from showing
- Photographic Memory: The symbiote gives Julie photographic reflexes, so she can replicate the movement of anything she sees being done even if it's on video.Julie: Woah, so watch Jackie. Be Jackie. I like it.
- Power Glows: The young girl in the pilot gains glowing yellow hair and eyes when her powers activate.
- Power Makes Your Hair Grow: When Julie's powers activate, her pigtails grow from barely reaching her ears to all the way to the floor and then some. It's not just for show as she can use her hair to attack, or wrap around her enemies.
- Power Perversion Potential: Neil makes a joke about the professor teaching Julie to use her powers to make her breasts grow bigger at will.
- Orphaned Series: Googe became seriously ill around issue three, and the series has been in limbo since then. There were plans for LeSean Thomas to take over as artist starting on issue four, but that never got off the ground. Thomas left to do animation work on The Boondocks, and Googe himself eventually signed an exclusive deal with DCComics, where he worked on their WildStorm imprint. While many years have past since issue three, Googe has repeatedly stated that he has many ideas for the series and plans to get back to it, when the opportunity presents itself.
- Punch Catch: In the pilot, Julie effortlessly catches a punch from a supervillainess' hulked out mother.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Julie's symbiote takes the form of a cute pig when she calls it out.
- School Uniforms are the New Black: Julie still wears a school uniform to school despite her school not having a dress code. When her mother asks why, Julie says she gets better grades with it.
- Shout-Out: Occurs frequently.
- In her room, Julie has among other things, a posters of Hellboy, Battle Angel Alita, and The Rock.
- Julie is also a big fan of Hello Kitty.
- She has a Pikachu keychain on her messenger bag.
- In issue three, there are a lot of known heroes (mainly from Marvel and DC) as background characters. The most notable being Tank Girl, whom Julie stops from cutting her in line.
- Small Girl, Big Gun: Despite gaining additional height when her powers activate, some of the guns that the symbiote provides her with are significantly bigger and wider than her.
- Smug Super: In the pilot, Julie comes off as very arrogant when fighting a kid supervillain and her mother. She spends as much time bragging about how powerful she is as she does fighting the villain pair.
- Spy Catsuit: Eddie wears a purple skin tight bodysuit that covers everything, even his head. It can also repair itself.
- Super Registration Act: Potential superheroes have seven days after their powers manifest to get registered as an official superhero. If they don't register in time, they get classified as rogues, meaning they're vigilantes or villains, and either one is illegal. Not only do registered superheroes get a barcode tattoo of their forearm, but the government also takes a DNA sample from them so if a superhero goes rogue anything they do can be traced back to them.
- The Symbiote: The source of Julie's powers is an intelligent weapon, called the symbiote, that entered into Julie's body and permanently fused with her nervous system. It has two main functions. One is to enhance its host physical abilities with chemicals and hormones making them stronger, faster, and more durable. The other is to provide its host with weapons and gadgets. It was has various detection systems, a radar, and can provide its user with tactical advice, hence the voices inside Julie's head.
- Understanding Boyfriend: Neil is very calm about Julie's situation. He goes to her secret hiding spot to comfort her after she was attacked by soldiers and is the one who suggests Julie see Professor Scruples, who is extremely valuable in helping Julie understand her powers.
- Unfinished, Untested, Used Anyway: The head of White Sleep Technologies decides to send a team of cyborgs afters Julie despite warnings from his scientist that testing for the cyborgs is incomplete, and there's a possibility that they may lose control of the cyborgs. A group of soldiers are sent with the cyborgs equipped with weapons designed to take out the cyborg if control of them is lost, but the scientist states even that may not be enough.
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: While on their way to get Julie officially registered as a superhero, Julie and Neil bump into another superhero called The Herder. His powers? He can emit a sound that only sheep and cows can hear. That's it. He can't communicate with them nor can he control them. Julie and Neil aren't impressed, even pegging him as crazy.
