Comic Book / Gold Digger

Gina Diggers and Dreadwing

Gold Digger is a long-running US comic from Antarctic Press with manga-inspired art, written and drawn by Fred Perry. The first appearance of the characters was in the anthology title Mangazine Vol. 2 #11 (September, 1991). They then got their own eponymous 4-issue miniseries (September 1992-March 1993). This proved successful enough to make Gold Digger Vol. 2 an ongoing. 50 regular issues were published between July 1993 and June 1999, plus a number of annuals. These issues were mostly in black-and-white. The series was then relaunched as a full-color series. Vol. 3 started in July 1999 and is still ongoing, becoming one of the flagship series of the company. After a utterly impressive 30 year run, Perry decided to end the series with issue #301 in 2023.

The story centers around the adventures of the kind, nerdy, and idealistic scientist inventor, archaeologist and explorer Gina Diggers; and her Boisterous Bruiser, fashionista, were-cheetah adopted sister/bodyguard, Britanny "Cheetah" Diggers, as they search the world (and others) for relics of the distant past.

The third sister, Brianna, is the goofy mental and physical combination of Gina and Britanny, accidentally created in the process of removing a curse gained during one of their adventures. She combines Gina's thirst for mysteries, scientific acumen, and libido with Britanny's low attention span and thirst for action, fashion, or entertainment (plus a portion of her werebeast strength). Hence, she likes action-technology of any kind, especially if explosions are involved. She is usually accompanied by her trademark childlike little Peebo robots.

If, as the name and the Adventurer Archaeologist trope implies, the sisters seem more intent on digging up valuable treasures to fund their lifestyle than searching for actual knowledge, they invariably make up for it by becoming unwitting heroines in the process, usually with the help of their friends, and with time, Gina evolves into a more idealistic character.

It is popular enough to have several spin-offs, usually four-issue miniseries.

Fred Perry has also made an OVA, Gold Digger: Time Raft, based on his original, pilot story from 1991. He basically did everything except for the voice acting and music composition, while still producing the main series. The first part of the animation was released in 1999, and last part was finally completed and released in 2010.

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Not to be confused with the (completely different) character archetype — even though that very trope is a derisive (and largely undeserved) In-Series Nickname for Gina.

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Gold Digger contains examples of:

A-D

• Aborted Arc: Dreadwing's first attempt to conquer Jade Realm produced a couple.
  • Debra gets framed for the murder of one of the Wild Magi's leaders by Serpentus. In order to establish peace with the Wild Magi clans, Debra prepares to surrender herself to them and be tried in their courts. This plot thread has not been continued or even mentioned in five years.
  • The potential alliance between Dreadwing and the Wild Magi falls apart after Dreadwing attacks and kills one of their leaders, Grubbermun, after the mage intentionally antagonizes the dragon in order to ruin the proceedings. Likewise, his alliance with an Elder Abyssalisk comes to an abrupt end after Debra tricks it into thinking Dreadwing attacked it.
• Abusive Precursors: There are a few, like the Dynasty.
• Action Duo: Gina and Britanny, Brains and Brawn.
• Action Mom: Julia; Britanny after Tifanny's birth. Brianna, too, after one issue saw her daughter Roquette come back from the future with a message for the Diggers family and crew.
• Adventurer Archaeologist: Gina, Penny, Erwin, and many others.
• Airborne Aircraft Carrier
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The Pee-bees: Brianna's AI bullets that only target "bad guys". Too bad they aren't very smart, and see people jaywalking, squirrels taking acorns, and even someone stealing a kiss as "bad guys".
  • Her standard Peebo A.I.s, on the other hand, avert it and are much more well behaved, even if they do like going "boom" on bad guys. (It's just that they have a much better idea of what a "bad guy" is).
  • Peebri, however, wraps around to this trope again, in much the same way a childish Brianna would act.
• Aliens in Cardiff: A pretty awful lot of earth-shaking events and appearances by superpowered beings have taken place in Decatur, Georgia (a suburb of Atlanta), thanks to the Diggers family.
• All Women Are Lustful: Gina and Brittany especially, but females in this series tend to gravitate towards the aggressive side when it comes to guys. Brianna had a similar attitude towards Genn back when s/he still had a male form and Brianna was still trying to get past her inherited feelings for Stryyp.
  • Even now that all four main female characters — Gina, Brianna, Brittany, and Penny — have either steady boyfriends (the first two) or husbands (the latter two), they still take plenty of opportunities for ogling other men, whether they're named characters or not.
• Always Someone Better: A Lawyer-Friendly Cameo of Lara Croft filled this role from off-screen for Gina for a while. Before settling their feud, Penny was usually portrayed this way to Gina.
• Amazon Chaser: Stryyp, who, though blessed with some above-human physical attributes, is attracted to Britanny despite how she's bigger, stronger, faster, and a better fighter than he is.
• Ambiguous Situation: The comic ends with Gina maybe or maybe not Back from the Dead, or going on a time loop, or at least deciding to exploit the Timey-Wimey Ball to lead the cast on a more proper ending for her extremely geeky adventures by reenacting the closing credits of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. The only thing that is sure is that Britanny is amused that Gina is still that much of a nerd.
• Animation Bump: Fred obviously learned a lot over the course of making the movie. The last part, and the couple of shots he re-animated in the earlier parts for the finalized version, really stand out against the original footage.
• Animesque: Among the oldest examples still being produced.
• Advanced Ancient Acropolis: All of Gina's archaeological cave-hopping excursions are this, and as expected, they were all occupied by Advanced Ancient Humans or Human Aliens at one point or another. Jade Realm has these as well, but some there are still occupied by their builders even in the present day.
• Artificial Human: Brianna, Array, Raphiel, the whole Amonian race, including Ayane, if flashbacks and psychic flashes are to be believed.
• Author Appeal: Fred definitely loves his were-creatures. Ironically, he dislikes certain varieties. A furry/TF fan, he apparently is not.
• Badass Boast: A brutal one, courtesy of Gothwrain.
  Gothwrain: You want Tifanny and Britanny? Tough. They're dead. I fed them to the Lich. Now #@$% off.
• Badass Family:
  • The extended Diggers/'Gia family includes a highly-decorated FBI Agent-slash-member of The Men in Black, one of the greatest mages on the planet, Jade's Armsmaster, one of the greatest scientists on the planet, her adopted sister who is also a Person of Mass Destruction, their hybrid clone-sister who is an incredibly powerful techno-magician, and their children.
  • Kevin Koss' family is composed of Expies of famous fictions like the MCU version of Colonel Nick Fury and Martin F. "Roadblock" Hinton, essentially an army made of One-Person Armies. Ironically, and tragically, having this much badassery on the other side of the table measuring her up is one of the (accidental) reasons why Penny dumps Ace temporarily.
• Balloon Belly: Charlotte has had this happen to her at least once, leading to her being Mistaken for Pregnant.
• Battle Couple: Husband and Wife team, Gothwrain and Sherisha, have been elite at this trope since the last age of magic. Just ask Theodore, Julia, Jzu-Jzu and Stryyp.
  • Theodore and Julia Diggers are themselves a notorious battle couple.
  • There have been a number in the twenty-five-plus years the series has been in print. Brittany and Stryyp; Genn and Séance; Gina and Ryan Tabbot when they were a couple; the elf couple, Tark and Mesha; B-list villain Tirant and his girlfriend Array, who could create entire personalities complete with bodies and powers to match any situation; Julia's students Gar and Luann, and numerous others.
• Becoming the Mask: Madrid's Gina disguise is so powerful, she starts to take on Gina's abilities and personality traits. Eventually, the Madrid personality gives up and dies, leaving a more-or-less mental clone of Gina with Madrid's memories. However, this doesn't stop her from wondering if her earlier selfish, abusive nature isn't just buried under all of Gina's memories and abilities when she comes across some beefcake-y, interplanar frog-monks and their injured but ultra-powerful guardian, and her first thought is to seduce and ride one until he breaks. Subtracto assures her that the Madrid she used to be wouldn't be worried about hurting others.
• Berserk Button: Brittany goes apeshit whenever Stryyp is hurt or nearly killed.
  • Do NOT threaten Dreadwing's hoard.
    Dreadwing: "I was going to save you for last, vermin. Your torture was going to coerce Gina into completing the repairs of the Time Raft for me. But you threatened my treasure. My precious artifact. I can persuade Gina by other means, you must PAY. I haven't done this in a long time. Let's see if I'm rusty."
  • Invoked by Gothwrain and Sherisha when the pair reveal the truth behind Dr. Digger's father's death and then kill his mother a moment later, just so he would be baited into killing them. It works like a charm.
• Best Her to Bed Her: Brunhildegard (Gina's grandmother) was cursed with this by a rebuffed suitor who happened to be a wizard. This put her in a really bad mood, so she started shoving people out of her way while walking through town. One of those people was a Spirit Monk named Tsunami, who instinctively flipped her over with his martial arts. She then became fixated on figuring out how he beat her. After spending a long time following him and studying his every move, she beat him in a rematch with his own techniques, by which time she'd realized that she had fallen for him.
• BFG: Brianna's favorite trope.
• BFS: Shinryuken's Size-Mitar. Remember, there is nothing his Colossal Blade cannot cut!
• Big Bad: Dreadwing, as a more present threat.
  • The Umbra, which even the planet-scorching, genocidal Dynasty fear, is more of an across-the-multiverse threat.
• Big Beautiful Woman: Mikra and Nadesko are two thickly built giantesses who are both monster hunters as well as professional wrestlers. As their names imply, their fighting style is based off of R. Mika from Street Fighter, meaning they get plenty of fanservice and booty shots.
• Big Monster, Cute Name: "Flakey", the 2-kilometer-long kraken.
• Black-and-White Morality: Almost every character is either a hero or a villain. Anyone who doesn't fall under this description is basically seen as a Jerkass or an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain. More often than not, such characters give up their moral position to join the heroic side when push comes to shove.
• Blessed with Suck: Ayane, the mixed-martial artist known to her fans as "Mistress", is a true sweetheart...and incredibly lonely due to her cold, cruel eyes that creep out everyone she meets. There is hope, though: Jotaru the Djinn has a crush on her and can even look her in the eye without fear. Did we mention that some Djinn in this series have their eyes in their torso instead of their face?
  • This comes back in later issues when she saves Brittany’s daughter Tiffany from a pair of deadly “pawns,” magical defense wards that copy any intruder’s abilities and skills with the sole intent to kill. Earlier in the issue, Ayane’s eyes creeped out Tiffany, but after saving her life and winding up in traction for a few weeks, Ayane finds she – not as Mistress but as her previous wrestling persona Ninja Kitty – has a new fan.
• Blood Knight: Played for Laughs and as a cautionary tale. Brianna LOVES any opportunity to use her multiple BFGs and sets of Powered Armor. She's tested fate plenty of times by sarcastically hoping her current adventure wouldn't lead to any such incidents where she had such opportunities, but she's never sought out a fight or an opportunity to use them. On the other hand, Luann Geas, one of Julia's students, has had to be warned about accidentally developing the "Murder Fist" technique, which is described as this trope constantly seeking the adrenaline-fueled high experienced in battle, during her training under Julia as a Shun Leep Gentle Fist practitioner.
• Body Horror: Ether vents, a type of Gaoblin magitech that manifests itself as huge, open HOLES through the users' bodies. While the supplemental Tech Manual series provides some explanation, it's not entirely clear how these biologically WORK, considering the huge missing sections of muscles, bone, major organs and occasionally BRAIN involved.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Brianna, Xane.
• Brawn Hilda: "Grammy" Brunhildagarde Brigand, Julia's mother and the Diggers sisters' grandmother.
• Breakout Villain: The dragon Dreadwing was originally just a one-shot villain for the pilot story, which ended with him as a skeleton. Now, he's the Man Behind the Man for many of the plotlines past and present, and is dueling with Ancient Gina across most of time with virtually all the other characters as pawns. Subverted in that none of his plans have actually worked and he was eventually betrayed by the very same pawns he had enslaved, leaving him powerless and boneless.
• Breast Expansion: Britanny, when she goes from human form to hybrid form. This is also a major reason why she prefers to stay in Hybrid form as much as possible. (Well, actually, because she's taller, stronger and faster, but this side benefit comes with the rest.)
  • A side effect of Anahata priestess magic. As Lana's magic reserves increase, so does her bust size.
• Broke Episode: In an issue about halfway through the regular black-and-white series, Penny offers to save Gina and Brit from the IRS if they'll cover her niece's fast food job for a day. Ace even talks Penny out of gloating over it and convinces her to finally bury the hatchet with Gina.
• Brooklyn Rage: Roxy Rabinowitz (AKA Dark Bird), leader of the Night Flight airborne mercenaries, has a strong Brooklyn accent and a BIG chip on her shoulder, especially when dealing with Ace. She also recently took over a country led by her estranged sister, who was a large source of the aforementioned rage (not to mention the aforementioned Brooklyn).
• Buffy Speak
• Burger Fool: Penny forces Gina to work at one of these before she'll loan her enough money to avoid bankruptcy.
• But We Used a Condom!: Brianna used the latest in hi-tech contraceptives to keep Zan's boys from baking any bread in the oven. They succeed anyway due to Brianna not remembering to keep the batteries charged, and thus Roquette is conceived.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: For all the nasty things Dreadwing does despite being under Ancient Gina's thumb and under threat of her punishment, she tends to let him off lightly because she still needs him for his half of the Infinity Engine, Negative Infinity, as part of her plan to stop the Umbra and save all reality, and Dreadwing knowing this is a big part of the reason why he keeps doing said nasty things. This prevents her from smiting him despite obviously wanting to do so very much.
• Captain Ersatz: The Vaultron force, the Edge Guard, and Dr. Peachbody.
  • Then there's the Teen Titans in Tif' and Char's school adventures.
    • And their teacher, Miss Giggle (think Mission: Magic!) who has a darker complexion and a pretty funny explanation for her blobby hairdo: Her cat is permanently curled up on top of her head from a failed teleportation experiment.
  • Fauntleroy's Platinus is like a Gender Flipped Witchblade (A sentient Empathic Weapon that assumes the form of Stripperiffic "Chain Mail Bikini" armor for her male host...because she's a pervert.)
  • More recent storylines have included prehistoric Captain Ersatz versions of the Visionaries, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, the Centurions, G.I. Joe's Cobra (earlier, one of Dark Bird's crew is a former member), Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbow Brite as a psi-bard and prism battle priestess, respectively, and Sheila and the Dungeon Master. Fred likes his Captain Ersatzes.
  • The whole series sometimes appears to thrive on this, from species to certain characters. The beauty of it, at least for characters who reappear frequently, is that after the initial joke of their first appearance, they rapidly develop their own personalities so that their initial expy status becomes negligible, while still allowing the joke to work. E.g., an orange-and-black werejaguar named Garfield is introduced, but is thereafter almost always addressed as just "Gar," and his personality is nothing like Jim Davis's cat. His sister Sheila borrows a hefty amount of stuff from the Dungeons & Dragons (1983) cartoon character (being the team's redheaded "stealth specialist", for example), but other details go in a different direction (such as her human form being an Amazonian Beauty).
  • One or two issues include characters similar to the mane six of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic as (human) amazons… male amazons. That like to run around either near-naked or actually naked.
  • Mr. Keldoor is obviously Skeletor, while Lynda is Evil-Lyn.
• Car Fu: Gina pulls the ultimate example in issue 300, by killing the Big Bad Gothwrain Deader than Dead thru a super-spell that pulls power from the primordial forces of the Multiverse that summons a spectral Gina-Mobile and rams him right into the nucleus of said primordial power.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Almost every villain in the series relishes how evil they are and will gleefully go out of their way to cause pain to others, even if it causes the failure of their plan.
  • That is, until they are given some character development. Even some of the most venomous and selfish of antagonists in the series get a dose of this as you get into the issues beyond 100 (or just 50 of the color series). Many come off as sympathetic, pitiable, or even well intentioned and agreeable.
  • Tirant deserves special mention. He was part of a family of heroes, and his parents died while they were fighting a super-villain. At their funeral, he noticed that everyone in his family since the 1920s had died fighting for justice. The revelation caused him to reject the life his parents had chosen for him. Instead, he devoted his life to becoming everything a hero isn't. He became a hero again...mere seconds before his death. We'll see if that sticks, since Dreadwing's blackmailing Array into helping him with the promise of resurrecting Tirant.
• Cerebus Syndrome: A milder case, as the comic has never lost its overall sense of humor and more whimsical fantasy elements, but a case all the same. Many elements that were one-off incidents from early in the comic are reviewed and revealed to be either more significant than the heroes knew at the time or part of a conspiracy that has been running since the dawn of time itself. Sometimes an event is revealed from the incident's villain's perspective, often resulting in said villain gaining a certain measure of sympathy from the readers.
  • Heck, there is even an instance of a woman (though dragon she may be) who was quite brutally tortured and raped, fueling a misguided and misdirected quest for revenge against two arguably innocent bystanders. It later led her to attempt using another character's innate and always-on fear-aura against her rapist, who had a recently discovered weakness to it.
• The Chessmaster: Gothwrain, Dreadwing, and Ancient Gina so far...
• Child by Rape: Debra is a product of her mother T'mat's rape by Dreadwing.
• Clark Kenting: Agency Zero, especially Agent M, formerly the most recognizable hero on Earth. Pinky & The Cheets.
• Cold Iron: Aura magic and unenchanted metal do not mix well; even the strongest aura mages tend to have trouble with it.
• The Commies Made Me Do It: Crush; although somewhat justifiable, she notably refused a "Get Out of Jail Free" Card and chose to do the time for the crimes she committed, proving she did have moral fiber.
• Continuity Nod: In the movie. Despite it being based on the first Gold Digger story ever, Fred added a couple of nods to the continuity that's built up since then, letting the viewer know that Gina and Dreadwing are going to be at this for a long time.
• Cool Shades: Charlotte wears a pair for a mission and imagines herself in a Blaxploitation film. Sadly, she loses them and reveals that she's really scared out of her mind and is using the shades as a coping mechanism. But then she finds them again and powers through the mission.
• Covers Always Lie: Not because the publisher is trying to fool buyers, but because Fred Perry constantly thinks of new storylines to replace the already advertised comic. Subverted in that, on occasion, if the story changes have gone too far, Fred will replace the cover.
• Covert Pervert: Vaphne presents herself as a scholarly maiden and claims to be saving herself for Mr. Right, but when she turns on her fertility goddess powers, several of her classmates several of her classmates find out she's been having naughty fantasies about them.

• Cute Monster Girl: Just about everybody, even the males; Crescens was when she was young, but grew up to be kind of terrifying.
• Dark Action Girl: numerous, including Link and Zelda (Get it?), two of Erwin Talon's employees.
  • G'Nolga, Julia Digger's arch-rival on Jade.
• Demon Head: Theodore's "Flaming Skull Bit".
  Brittany: "Most fathers polish a shotgun in front of their daughters' dates.... My Dad magically sets his head on fire!"
• Distracted by the Sexy: Pretty much the entire cast is guilty of this one, but Gina takes the cake: in Issue 105, she and a male colleague nearly destroyed the world by daydreaming about each others' naughty bits instead of focusing on the Doomsday Device they were supposed to be disarming.
  • Going even further, Gina got hit hard by a Dire Charm spell cast on the codpiece of an invader to Jade-Realm during a lynchpin battle for the secret of a certain temple. The invader was actually Alt!Monty being directed by Alt!D'bra to enchant and kill Gina while she was stunned by the spell on his junk. After being saved by Monty, Gina still had to let the effects burn their way out of her system, which led to no end of unbidden naughty thoughts of fucking his brains out and a fair amount of involuntary twerking. Fortunately for Gina, Monty was familiar with such effects and wasn't embarrassed or offended by Gina's advances.
• Divergent Character Evolution: This tends to happen when a Shout-Out sticks around. For example Gespenst, the Lagann-machine mentioned in the Shout Out entry below tends to stay connected to the robot body she later built for it, and has been becoming a character in his own right.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Issue 220 features Snuggy, the banished Amazonian sorceress. In order to sate her Amazonian breeding urges, Snuggy kidnaps men (mostly non-human male animals that she shapeshifts into human form) and hypnotizes them into having sex with her. In order to speed up the gestation process, Snuggy uses forbidden magic to rob her partner of nine months of their lives in exchange for her instantly giving birth. This means she keeps men as baby-makers until the magic process ends up killing them (via an apparently inevitable glitch in the spell that takes nine centuries from their lives sooner or later). While the wrongness of this isn't ignored, the situation is still greatly Played for Laughs, and Snuggy gets away with no comeuppance (other than the aforementioned banishment). Even worse, after Madrid and T'mat rescue Dao from her, they do nothing to try and stop her or rescue her other captives. (True, they have a greater mission on their minds at the time, but even if they've considered reporting Snuggy for someone else to punish, no mention is made of it.)
  • On the other hand, she has a literal army of her children who have inherited her skill with magic (to the point where Debra, a powerful dragon, has trouble when they attack her, especially since she's trying not to kill them) and are blindly devoted to her. If they piss her off too badly, she might join with Dreadwing. Taking care of her later, after sufficient careful planning, might become a more appealing option.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Kia equates hacking into its system with rape.
• Domestic-Only Cartoon: The three Time Raft videos (later combined into a single, hour-long feature) were animated entirely by Fred Perry.

E-H

• Eldritch Abomination: The previous universe that existed before the current one died, but didn't stay dead. The entire previous universe has come back as an impossibly vast undead horror, clawing its way out of cosmic oblivion and making its way to the current universe, intending to overwrite all of existence. Ancient Gina's entire plan is to somehow prevent this.
  • It's possible that the previous universe's mass is being drawn to the current universe due to multi-dimensional gravity, and it will hit the universe in vectors of more than three dimensions, so nowhere is safe. If there are survivors of the previous universe, they likely have their own plans. Still eldritch because no human science can predict how to evade or deflect the unyielding overkill attack; only someone like Gina and her multi-cultural/multi-species family could.
  • Said entity is called the Umbra, a Spacetime Eater that is described as an "anti-quantum" enemy and is so alien it cannot manifest itself into normal reality while observed. Thus, it copies and consumes sections of space-time, and plucks survivors from meals beforehand to use as pawns to kill anyone who might observe it.
• Expy: Aljabra Gihom, an expy of Fred's "Level UP!" Mithra character Calcula Mihgo–herself a Captain Ersatz version of Osaka from Azumanga Daioh.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Dreadwing, The Sociopath that he is, interprets good intentions as having secretly selfish motives. For example, when he challenged his childhood friend and lover, T'Mat, for rule of dragon-kind, she was forced to fight him either to the death or his surrender. Since he wouldn't back down, she had to make it look like she killed him, but actually nursed him back to health later. He assumed that he was going to be Made a Slave by her and fled while still injured.
  • This is actually part of why his plan to destabilize Jade by turning its nations against one another fails: He never anticipated that Debra would be able to overcome his deception, or that the nations could work together like they did even after this was revealed.
• Evil Twin: Brianna and Madrid, until their respective Heel Face Turns.
  • With a shot of FridgeBrilliance: Madrid's current persona allows the author to write either solo "Gina" stories about Madrid the explorer with Dao and Subtracto, or ensemble "Gina" stories about Gina the professor with her students and family.
• Expendable Alternate Universe: Something is trying to enter our universe with the intent of eating it like a turkey dinner with all the fixings. In issue 224, we find out this trope is full effect multiple times over, with some universes trying to delay the great evil, while others appear to work for it.
• Face–Heel Turn: A magical mishap turns Theo's father Jonathan into the evil Lich King. Later revealed as another in a long line of machinations by Gothwrain to end the Diggers family for all time.
  • The Umbra incites these in the alternate universe versions of the characters to ensure their cooperation in exchange for promising to restore their timelines.
• Fake Crossover: The series really skirts the line of this, such as when Gina mentions receiving a computer book from a girl with a weird uncle. (Mind you, the girl in question eventually became a full-fledged character).
• Fanservice: Choose a page at random, chances are good there's some there.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink
• Flying Brick: Agent M.
• Full-Contact Magic: Aura mages like Dr. Diggers tend to make a lot of motions, especially with their hands, when casting spells.
• Future Me Scares Me: When she happens to be an Expy of Rick Sanchez that has decided to make you her personal Expy of Morty, then yeah, little Tiffany 'Gia has a good reason for that.
• French Maid: Link is an Amazonian Beauty who wears rather...undersized French maid outfits on missions.
• Fun Personified: The series as a whole.
• Future Badass: "Ancient Gina", apparently Madrid-Gina's future self sent back in time to take The Slow Path to the present. Also "Charles" and "Prof. Cee", Charlotte's alterfuture selves.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Gina and many others
• Gainax Ending: Invoked In-Universe. Gina dies in issue 300 and she seems to be Deader than Dead, so Britanny goes to her place in the family tomb to play The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension to reminisce good times… and it turns out that Gina's adventures with the Timey-Wimey Ball may have led to her figuring out how to make time loop and the whole cast ends up reenacting the closing credits of Buckaroo Banzai with Gina in Buckaroo's spot.
• Gambit Roulette: Gothwrain's plan to break free of his enslavement; Dreadwing's plan to take power from Ancient Gina; and Ancient Gina's plan to save the universe, which includes the other 2 roulettes.

• God Save Us from the Queen!: Natasha, ruler of the undead, who would rather let her kingdom be wiped out than be humiliated by a higher power.

• Happily Adopted: Brittany is an orphaned were-cheetah, taken in as an infant by Theodore and Julia Diggers and raised as a sister to their own daughter, Gina. They see her as nothing less than family, and the feeling is mutual.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Monty's ghost girlfriend. And Tiffany's future self (which makes an awful lot of sense, because she's an Expy of Rick Sanchez.
• Healing Winds: There's a Ki healing skill called "Renewing Breath". It is exactly what it says on the tin — the user focuses his ki on healing while hyperventilating and then a breath that heals them back to top form. Julia Diggers accidentally manages to de-age her body back to its prime (mid-twenties) when she first uses it. Later on it is revealed that the Renewing Breath can be used to revive someone who is recently deceased at a great cost to the people applying it.
• Heel Realization: Madrid has a moment of clarity when she realizes that her Chronic Backstabbing Disorder needlessly ruined a chance to escape capture and imprisonment.
• Heel–Face Turn: Redemption is a major running theme in this comic. Many of Gina and Britanny's enemies become their best friends and allies. Mesha, Tark, Brianna, Penny, Charlotte, Jetta...Erwin Talon, G'Nolga, Madrid, the Lich King, actually Patriarch Jonathan Diggers... Although it should be noted that of the above, plenty of them were either Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains or just a Jerkass (with Penny as one bitchy but not really that horrid rival), had outside influences compelling them to villainy (like Charlotte or Jonathan, also called the Lich King), or did suffer extremely before turning around (Madrid) while still having to genuinely show such change.
• The Hero Dies: Gina Diggers, the titular "Gold Digger", dies in issue 295. The remaining five issues of the series see various characters, including a grown up Tiffany, try to step into her shoes and figure out how to defeat the series' Final Boss. And then through time travel shenanigans Gina dies again… or does she?.
• High on Homicide: An eventual revelation of the Shun-Leep School of Supernatural Martial Arts (which is used by various heroes) is that it has a series of forbidden techniques called "The Murder Fist". Not only are these so powerful as to be a near-One-Hit Kill Touch of Death (and pretty violent, at that), but a side effect on the user's body is a heroin-like euphoria that is incredibly addictive, leading people who use the Murder Fist to eventually become hyper-violent Blood Knight types and even the occasional Serial Killer. This plot point overall is a double-barreled Shout-Out to the Street Fighter Satsu No Hado and Star Wars' Dark Side of the Force. (Never let it be said that Fred Perry doesn't know how to apply his Reference Overdosed.)
• Hive Mind: Array is a variant; each duplicate of herself she creates has an independent personality which returns to her mind when she reassimilates her body. However, they all share the same general goals.
• Hot Librarian: Kahn, librarian of the Library of Time.
• Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: The giant women of Monster Isle live alongside men who are much smaller (though still larger than the human standard). Their "equipment" has evolved in a way that allows for breeding. Should one of the women mate with an outside male, she could end up crushing him (although Portia claims that, while harder, it's not impossible).
• Humanity Ensues: Fauntleroy is a dragon cursed to stay in human form. When he finally finds the MacGuffin he needs to return to dragon form, he decides to wait and see if there's more he can learn from being human. He's later sealed into a younger human form with an oversized collar-like device in an attempt by his father, who conscripted Gina — the only human who can read draconic writing (aka Ribbon) — into helping, to erase the selfish dragon they'd known and essentially raise Faunty "the right way."
• Humongous Mecha: Played with in that "humongous" is relative. The series has Vaultron, which, as the name implies, is a combining battle robot. But it's piloted by Leprechauns, meaning it's about as big as the average (human) grade-schooler. Ditto for its opposite number, Gaollion.
  • Played more straight with Gespenst, who is genuinely huge, even larger than some dragons.

I-L

• I Was Quite a Looker: Grammy Brunhildagarde.
• Improbable Infant Survival: Dr. Diggers tried his best to disarm the werewolf leader, but in the end the only werecheetah left to save was baby Britanny.
• In the Name of the Moon: A literal example in the movie: After Brit's deadline passes and she can morph back to werecheetah form, she quotes the exact line before putting Gina in a headlock and bestowing noogies for calling her "Igor" when she was stuck in human form.
• Invincible Hero: The heroes are starting to become this, particularly after the time skip in Issue 201. They have become so incredibly smart, powerful and well-equipped that few can oppose them. Anyone who was capable of threatening them before is either indisposed, dead, or now on their side. Many of the opponents (especially returning villains) that they fight now barely qualify.
  • A good example of this is when Julia dominates Serpentus in battle when no one else could even touch him.
  • Despite this, it remains to be seen if Dreadwing will triumph over Gina and Co. or not. Roquette gives one possible future where Dreadwing gains control of the Infinity Engine and proceeds to wipe out the entire cast with the exception of Roquette and Tiffy, Brianna's and Brittany's daughters respectively, but Roquette is colored as an Unreliable Narrator due to both the constantly shifting timeline because of the Time War, and the fact that some of the details of her account sound way too much like an eight-year-old talking out of her ass to avoid getting in trouble.
• If It's You, It's Okay: In Warnerd of Mars, one of the locals falls in love with Gina: a female local, who replies that she also is only into dudes...but also into Gina. To be fair, their evolution and environment mean that they find sweat extremely arousing, and Gina sweats a lot while there.
• Ki Manipulation: Several of the martial artists, especially the ninjas, and Ryan Tabbot.
• Kid from the Future: Tifanny's cousin, Roquette "Rocket" Diggers
• Killer Rabbit —er, Wabbit.
• Kudzu Plot: A pretty bad case, highlighted by the fact that the websites hawking the comic often contain cover previews and summaries for upcoming issues...but then Fred gets an itch to go growing the plot in some other direction entirely, and the previewed issues often have completely different covers and subjects, with the original plots dropped to be completed off-camera, if that.
  • Lately, however, a good portion of those storylines have begun to be tied together to the Myth Arc. (See below.)
• Laser-Guided Karma: Gothwrain. Gets Brittany and her infant daughter kidnapped by the Lich King, nearly gets Gar killed, convinces the woman who enslaved him to side with him, reveals that he killed Theo's father, kills his mother (a sapient magical artifact) right in front of him, POUNDS Theo's berserk buttons with a jackhammer, tricking him into casting a spell that opens a gateway to a paradise he discovered, and retires with his former mistress, now his lover, to another dimension, where they give themselves eternal youth. Their reward? Dreadwing shows up, presumably beats the shit out of both of them, and re-enslaves them both.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo
• Leeroy Jenkins: Team Noob, ridiculously over-armed leprechauns with no idea where they are, what they are doing, what their mission is, how to operate their equipment, or how to not blow themselves up in 5 seconds, but using binoculars and bazookas backwards hasn't slowed down their enthusiasm yet. The GD Tangent Web Comic has a similar setup as the Trope Namer, with a Shout-Out as well.
• Leprechauns: WITH TANKS AND MECHA!!
• Load-Bearing Boss: Invoked after Julia's fight with Serpentus, in which she uses magic-proof Dwarven chains to tie him to the room in such a way that ten tons of rock will fall on him if he isn't untangled very, very carefully.
• Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: Mostly whenever the story takes place on Jade, as many anthropomorphic characters co-exist with other humans or humanoid species in that dimension. On Earth, they usually work under a masquerade, save for a few special places around the globe.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: Britanny (until her marriage; then, she concentrates all her considerable energy on Strypp) and Gina. Ironically, the latter used to be a Geeky Shrinking Violet, until her more outgoing sister Britanny had enough of her reclusive attitude and, to make a long story short, broke her out of her box. The result? Gina became "boy-crazy" even by "boy-crazy extraordinaire" Britanny's personal standards. The latter doesn't know whether or not she should regret "helping" her sister.
  Britanny: You've gotta be joking!!! You're gorgeous! Look at you! Look at these! <HOIST>
  Gina: Eek! (Narrating): "I remember thinking: 'Jinkies! Where did those come from'?"
  Britanny: Do you know how many gals would kill for a nice, firm set like yours??? What man wouldn't fall all over himself just to get to talk to you? From now on, when you think of guys, think of broad, masculine chests...! (Gina looks bewildered.) Strong, handsome buns!! Hard, rugged muscles...! (A small smile graces Gina's lips.) And all of the warm, yummy things you can do with them...! (Gina's face breaks into a full-blown, "Uh-oh"-worthy Cheshire Cat Grin.)
  Brianna (narrating): I remember a sharp change in Gina's attitude toward men that moment. (And her being boy-crazy ever since.)
  • Brianna may have gained both of their sex drives combined, as she used to chain her panicked boyfriend to the bed to have her way with him. Xane is the most extreme of all, as she regularly drools while taking concealed clothes-removing x-ray photographs of any attractive male within sight. She is getting some Laser-Guided Karma from Crush, though.

M-P

• Magic from Technology: Gina eventually gains a working knowledge of draconic magic by analyzing extradimensional technology.
• Magic Music: Bardic Song Magic
• Meat-O-Vision: Britanny experiences this when Tark's Charm Person spell misfires in the "Time Raft" OVA.
• Me's a Crowd: Array
• Military Mashup Machine
• Missing Mom: Several examples, including Gina's Action Mom Julia and until recently, Britanny herself.
• Mistaken for Pregnant: Charlotte in one chapter; while riding a plane with Gina, she gorged herself on peanuts and pretzels to the point she got a pregnant-like Balloon Belly. Seeing her come waddling down the aisle, groaning in pain from her stomachache, a doctor actually mistook her for a pregnant woman who had gone into labor.
• Morality Pet: Ironically, Madrid and Platinus were this to each other.
  • Merigold is this to G'Nolga.
• Moral Myopia: One of the main themes of the comic is that revenge is wrong and only serves to make everyone more miserable. However, when someone wrongs the protagonists, they'll be the first to try and get payback. This often ends up biting them in the backside without them even knowing it. Most notably, their attempts to get back at Zero have prevented him from killing Dreadwing on two separate occasions. The first time, it allowed Dreadwing gain control of Gigliathon. The second time, Dreadwing would have gained the power to kill them all if wasn't for an unexpected Assimilation Backfire.
• Muggle Born of Mages: Gina is the daughter of Jade-Realm's most powerful mage and its most accomplished warrior. She has absolutely no talent in either skill set. Her father realized this and was the one who persuaded her to pursue a career in science. (Her mother managed to teach her a how to throw a punch, at least.)
• Mundane Made Awesome: Ancient Gina's "Millennium Pimp Slap", one of a class of spells of legendary power, warps space and time to open a portal behind the target...to let the caster slap him upside the head. It requires such nigh-infinite power to execute that it causes EVERY MAGE IN THE SERIES to sense a disturbance in the Force!
• My Biological Clock Is Ticking: Gina goes through this as a result of all of her friends and family getting married and having kids. However since she was the one who stressed to Nez that marriage and family would get in the way so stressed out about broaching the subject to him. Some of the things she came up with were.
  • Ultimatum: Cornering him and forcing the issue.
  • Subterfuge: Use Brianna as an example and opt for the But We Used a Condom! approach.
  • No Guy Wantsto Be Chased: Just asking him
• Myth Arc: Numerous plotlines and characters, at first seemingly unrelated, have begun to be revealed to be tied together to an overarching storyline concerning Future Gina trying to save the Universe.
• Nemesis as Customer: One arc held a variant: because of being flat broke, Gina Diggers accepted a dare from her rival Penny Pincer that if she could make it through a day working at an extra-crappy Expy of Taco Bell, Pincer would give her the money she needed and bury the hatchet for good. Gina not only had to endure all of the typical comedic horrors of working for a bad food establishment, but also the humiliation of the actual part of the prank that Penny planned, which was to have Gina's archaeology professor at college come in and see his most promising student working there.
• Never Mess with Granny: Brunhildagard Brigand, leader of the Barbarian War-Council.
• Never My Fault: A lot of the more irredeemable villains in the series usually operate under this logic. For example, in a rant to her rival, Ace, Dark Bird explains the reasons for her revenge, and a good portion of them were are own fault, stemming from her need to prove herself as the world's the best jet fighter. She basically whines that it's Kevin's fault for not losing against her.
  • Dreadwing, being The Sociopath that he is, refuses to accept that every loss of his to Ancient Gina, or anyone else, stems from his own shortcomings, impatience, and inability to see glaring snafus in what are otherwise brilliantly devious schemes.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The advance descriptions of the issues usually seem to reflect early drafts of the plot rather than the finished copy. (See the Kudzu Plot note.)
  • The covers for each issue also fall under this, for the same reason.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The Ninja Pirate Leprechauns. (Correction: Ninja Pirate MECHA Leprechauns.)
• Noodle Implements: Subverted. When Dreadwing attacks a settlement, the leader tells an underling to get a ladder, beer, fireflies, and a feather duster. Curious, Dreadwing goes to see what thing could be made with such devices:
  Sign: They do naught but lure thee hither. Kaboom
• No Self-Buffs: Genies in this 'verse cannot use their wish-granting powers at their own behest, only for the desires of others. They originally just granted each other's wishes, but Madrid's attempts to find a way to overcome this limitation caused many to be Made a Slave. One can increase their strength to protect someone else though.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Gina, Penny, Erwin, etc.
  • Gina does note that she and Penny have different scientific specialties in which each could readily best the other.
• Orcus on His Throne: Ancient Gina prevents Dreadwing from taking direct action against Gina and her friends. Indeed, he and Gina haven't even spoken to each other since he returned in color issue 50. In defiance of the "sitting around" part of the trope, though, he's actually spent his time building alliances and amassing resources for his strike against Ancient Gina. He's had... mixed results.
• Our Monsters Are Different, Particularly:
  • All Trolls Are Different: Trolls are green-skinned, tall, strong humanoids who heal fast and grow larger and stronger with age. Young ones of both sexes are often quite attractive. They've got something of a reputation as being less civilized, but that's largely because of prolonged wars with the elves that wrecked a lot of their old civilization; there are plenty of smart trolls, including martial artists and archmages, and as a species, they come off no worse than the other humanoids. They have a grudge against elves, but that goes both ways and isn't universal. There's some evidence trolls and elves are even distant relatives.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: They're the bio-engineered "children" of the Saurians, a race of sentient dinosaurs (and thus avian in nature), can shapeshift into humanoid form, and come in several varieties.
  • Our Genies Are Different: They are descended from Magitek toys of the Nomad Artificers that Grew Beyond Their Programming and were physically altered by their transition from the previous universe to the current one. They come in several shapes and varieties as a result, such as having eyes on the torso or multiple sets of arms, but are all incapable of granting their own wishes.
  • Our Goblins Are Different: The Gaoblin were once a race who fought alongside the Dynasty as their willing army. But when their masters ran for quasi-space, the Gaoblin were abandoned to the rest of the universe. In order to hide from the universal lynch mob out to kill, they slaughtered passive slave-races of the Dynasty like the Eldritch, Trolvic, Atlantians, and Krynn, then genetically disguised themselves to be indistinguishable from the originals. This ruse went on for so long that that those who were changed forgot that they were ever another race to begin with. Only those who stayed on the Dynasty's planetoid-ship, Oblivion, remained true Gaoblin.
  • Our Mermaids Are Different
  • Our Werebeasts Are Different: One of the main characters is one of the few remaining were-cheetahs. Other werecreatures include lions, tigers, rats, and of course, werewolves. Each subspecies is able to shift between human, animal, and a "Wolf Man"-style hybrid form. All of the weres retain their rationality in each of their forms, although they need to learn to control their instincts during childhood. Although the weres are separate species, they are capable of spreading therianthropy to humans if they choose. (Doing so requires a bite and an active desire to alter the target's aura.) They were originally created by a wizard as super soldiers before said wizard was betrayed. They have a Healing Factor for everything except attacks by another werebeast, silver, magic, and Dwarven steel.
• Our Souls Are Different:
  • Auras, which aura mages use to cast magic, are described as the soul's "skin". Thus, if something has an aura, it has a soul. An aura is also incapable of lying.
  • The auras of weres interlay with their bodies, which is what allows them to change forms. Silver actually damages their auras, causing "soul char".
• Out of Focus: Frequently, thanks to the large cast. At one point in the series, an entire year's worth of comics passed with only brief cameos from Gina and Brittany, AKA the main characters.
• Papa Wolf: Theodore Diggers, Stryyp
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish"
  • "User: Password, Password: User!"
• Perky Female Minion: Six, Array, Skippy.
• Pet the Dog: Regular antagonist Erwin Talon protects the newly orphaned Charlotte and takes her in for purely altruistic reasons in an Alternate Universe.
• Pinball Protagonist: Gina only occasionally plays a central role in the ongoing story, usually being absent or in a supporting role when major events happen, or we get to see events play out from multiple Ginas' perspectives, i.e. Madrid-Gina and Gina herself and of late, all the Ginas that were betrayed by the Umbra and decided to fight against it.
• The Plan: All chessmasters in this series are about these. Gothwrain, Dreadwing, and Ancient Gina just to name a few all have their own, and all seek to come out on top.
• The Power of Hate:
  • Serpentus uses his magic to rip the hatred others have for him from their auras and form weapons out of it.
  • Dreadwing channeled eons of his hatred for Ancient Gina into a stasis dimension to call upon later in his planned rebellion.
• Power Perversion Potential: Array has multiple bodies and minds, all of which both love their boyfriend Tirant and can shapeshift into different women. This has been lampshaded.
• Pressure-Sensitive Interface: The defunct 1970s superhero team the Wonder Friends has a base full of hi-tech vehicles based on the Thunderbirds. The old members, now part of Agency Zero, still have access to them, and they still work... but the onboard A.I.s will only oblige to work if they are approached dramatically. Just pushing the launch button won't do. You have to SLAM it down while saying a battle cry!
• Protagonist-Centered Morality:
  • T'mat wanted to get revenge on Tark and Mesha for their role in Dreadwing's crimes, forgetting or ignoring the fact that he had enslaved them. The arc that followed saw her commit acts of kidnapping, torture, murder, attempted murder and various acts of terrorism. While the comic doesn't justify her actions and she eventually abdicates her throne, she is never formally punished for what she did. All her actions during this arc seemed to be forgotten by the main cast, as they are never brought up again.
  • Once Penny went to a museum to bid for the ancient "Amulet of Embarrassment" that was cursing it. Erwin Talon came by at the exact same time and tried to steal it for his own research, but Penny and Charlotte stopped him. Penny then paid eleven cents for the item, since the museum's curator was desperate to get rid of it, meaning that Penny could bid whatever she wanted. Keep in mind that Penny is extremely wealthy, and one of the main morals of the protagonists is supporting museums and archaeology.
• Pro Wrestling Is Real: The 'Ultimate Fighting Federation' competitions are a mix of real mixed martial arts competitions and pro-wrestling showmanship with intros and personas. The showmanship parts are optional for the fighters, but a good way to make money for those who want to make a living of it.

Q-T

• Rape as Backstory: Debra is a product of her mother T'mat's rape by Dreadwing.
• The Real Remington Steele: Word of God states that Perry skipped the middleman on Mistress/Ayane; her first story still has some of the plot points—"back after X years"—to support the original plan that the "Mistress" was supposed to be Julia Diggers' temporary wrestling gimmick.
• Reed Richards Is Useless: Gina Diggers has created hundreds of inventions that could solve half the world's problems in a week, but instead of donating or marketing them, she uses them to assist in her archaeology and to help her friends. Mind you, as far as the reader knows, Gina doesn't release the best and biggest of her discoveries to the public since her house and lab are filled with artifacts that otherwise would be in a museum.
  • Gina Digger's dislike of treasure hunters becomes a bit of a Broken Aesop when you consider this.
  • It's sorta lampshaded in issue 207; when Gina's inventions screw up, they tend to really screw up.
  • However, the Gold Digger world at large isn't exactly "normal". Hyper-tech, Humongous Mecha, and pest exterminators who deal with super-powered rodents are all background elements of the world. This is strongly exemplified when Child Prodigy supervillain Erwin Talon, a boy who has made his own genetically modified mages and muscle(wo)man bodyguards, goes to an advanced school for super-folk and finds himself falling behind.
  • One major historical event in the series is that there used to be a very big, flashy, government-sponsored superhero team. Key words being "used to". Following an enormously Pyrrhic victory, it was determined that such a high-profile team was actually the cause of a lot of the villains they fought, because having such prominent would-be rivals made a lot of people who otherwise would've led mundane (or at least less antagonistic) lives fashion themselves as evil geniuses. The solution was to still have a powerful hero team, but to avoid attracting attention to avoid inspiring more would-be evil masterminds. An influx of super-tech could probably do the same thing.
• Revive Kills Zombie:
• Redemption Equals Death: Tirant and The Lich King
• Redundant Parody: Perhaps unavoidable with how many things the series homages, but present all the same. One early issue has Gina find the Sword of Omens, which is shortly thereafter destroyed by the Demon Mouse in the tomb to show how surprisingly powerful the mouse is. Thing is, because the Sword of Omens was the most powerful thing the Thundercats had, and because the show was a cartoon in which they weren't allowed to show anybody actually get hurt, the the show itself sometimes demonstrated The Worf Effect by having the Sword of Omens get broken.
• Refuge in Audacity: When Keldoor calls Lynda with some crazy story about how he's in another time and place that he won't remember later, giving her specific details on how to kidnap Tiffiny 'Gia to prevent their kingdom being ruined, she replies that it's too weird not to be true.
• The Rival: Penny Pincer, though she does a full Heel–Face Turn about halfway through.
  • Also Jetta, at first.
  • G'Nolga to Julia Diggers, but she's getting better.
• Rousseau Was Right: The story has a very sympathetic tone; no matter how heinous the acts somebody has done, if they were simply misguided without direction, they are usually afforded compassion and given a new chance to start over and do good.
• Rule 34: Some of it drawn by Perry himself.
• Sarcastic Clapping: During her trip with Gina to explore Dreadwing's mymior (treasure trove, re: knowledge, spells, etc.), Brianna plays it straight and lampshades Fauntleroy's sarcastic clapping at the same time.
• Sassy Black Woman: Penny; Britanny's voiced like this in the completed version of the "Time Raft" OVA.
• Self-Restraint: (Who? Where?) (Wrong self-restraint) (oh)
• Shared Universe: Gold Digger has characters cross over to and from Ben Dunn's Ninja High School frequently, even resulting in several Crisis Crossovers.
• Shout-Out: To just about every '80s or classic cartoon, many, many video games, and Humongous Mecha anime.
  • In fact, the shout-outs have become so common, numerous, and close to the source material that some critics feel it's led to a bit of Seasonal Rot, that the homages have come a little too close to crossing the line into just yanking whatever he likes from other canon and using it directly. (Example: Gina basically just builds herself an exact copy of the Lagann, complete with similar abilities to hijack whatever it attaches to.)
    • It wouldn't be so bad if these things were just done as gags all the time, but often they're plot relevant in working just like the original reference material. Gina's Lagann knockoff's ability to, well, act just like the Lagann is extremely important in the storyline. Same with the Matrix of Leadership Expy the Edge Guard have, which was transferred in a whole scene reference right down to the use of "'Til all are one." (Granted, the Matrix analogue contained a planetoid-sized spaceship in its own pocket dimension, so it didn't function quite the same. Still, Fred does love to riff blatantly on The Transformers: The Movie.)
    • Issue 241 reveals that Skeletor and She-Ra, with their real names slightly changed, existed during the comic's Age of Wonders and played a major role in the history of Earth-Realm.
    • A similar scenario happened in Issue 260 when duplicitous dragon Ky'rha enlists the aid of troll mage Da'an Bakslyyde (bully, coward, cad and thief) to claim a living spell gifted to Dr. Diggers' old teacher, Gneiss, by the dragon elder Exthilion.
  • TV Tropes and Know Your Meme are mentioned in the 2010 Halloween special:
    Gina: Oogh...mental note: Marathon sessions at "TV Tropes" and "Know Your Meme" are not conducive to proper sleep!
• Silver Fox: A lot of elderly characters certainly age gracefully, despite all the action they go through, including Gina herself.
• Space Cold War: The Time War is a conflict being fought over the prime era by the Collective and the Umbra. The Collective is a group of dead, time-displaced Ginas who ended up at the Crimson Pillars and were revived by the native, necromantic Lucavari; the Umbra is an ancient Eldritch Abomination who wishes to devour all of reality and is assisted by alternate versions of the heroes, who believe that the prime era is causing their realities to fade into nonexistence. It's revealed that the Umbra created and destroyed the alternate eras in order to trick the survivors into helping it. The Collective is actually made up of the broken remains of the Ginas it devoured.
• Spot the Imposter: Madrid was pretty clever about this.
• Stalking is Love: When Ace is too nervous to ask Penny to marry him, she becomes rather obsessed with manipulating him into to doing so. She and Gina impersonate his co-workers to convince him into proposing and begin to track his every move. Gina begins to question Penny's rather unnerving actions and controlling mindset, and Penny admits that she gets paranoid over Ace. Having recently had to dogfight a rival — an Ace Pilot almost as good as Ace himself — in a VF-1S, with FAST packs to boot, all to prove to the rival she deserved him did not help. Ace goes off of her grid, reveals that he knew what Penny was doing all along, and proposes to her on his on terms.
• Start of Darkness: Tirant, Dreadwing, the Lich King.
• Super Breeding Program: A mild case with the Amazons and the Athle, with the breeding caste being the ruling class, while the Athle are treated like thoroughbreds and only breed with Amazons.
• Super Mode: Britanny's "Tempest Mode".
• Super Team: Agency Zero, a JLA-styled team that shifted to The Men in Black paradigm, hoping that keeping up a masquerade about their activities would keep SuperVillains from having a focus to fight against.
• Tempting Fate: Invoked! Brianna was a tad too bored. Be Careful What You Wish For.
• Terrible Trio: Multiple cases; Erwin Talon actually has two sets on his payroll. They're each other's Psycho Rangers.
• Thanatos Gambit: Gothwrain
• The Fair Folk: Not surprisingly, since Jade is a major fantasy setting, there are a few species that consider themselves better than humans. This includes Britanny herself; she is in her were-cheetah form a good majority of the time and constantly complains whenever she must to go to her human form, which is even more petite than an average human and essentially no stronger than Gina (and thus Gina loves to tease her about it). She has gotten better about it as the series has gone on, however.
• Time Skip: Between issues #100 and #101 of the color series.
• Time Travel: Recurs throughout the series.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: This dialogue says it all:
  Tiffany: Mom! Watch out!! This is the guy who wanted me kidnapped! He’s in the distant future—I think! But from the past, I think? But from the future, he saw into the past, which was my present, about my finding out what happened to his present in the past.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Stryyp isn't exactly tiny, being muscular and standing close to six feet tall. However, his were-cheetah wife, Britanny, prefers her hybrid form, which towers over him at 7' tall and weighs in at some 300 pounds of solid muscle.
• Troperrific: One can argue that all of Gold Digger is Fred Perry's parody/homage to comics, novels, RPGs, video games, tropes, cliches and genres of all stripes.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Britanny loves tuna. Charlotte the harpy, meanwhile, is obsessed with peanuts and pretzels; if enough are available, she'll stuff her face almost to the point of killing herself.

U-Z

• Unwilling Roboticisation: Thanks to her sister's machinations, Dark Bird ends up merging with her Dynasty "Transformer" jet while being teleported to Dreadwing's realm.
• Valley Girl: Moisha, like, totally!
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Dreadwing and Ancient Gina are playing a rather slow version of this via their own competing versions of Infinity.
• Webcomics: The "Ayane" and "Northern Edge" Tangent webcomics; both are currently on hiatus. Also, "Level UP!", a Final Fantasy XI webcomic by the same author, and "Action Time Buddies", an all-ages, pure-fun series in the vein of Adventure Time and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
• Wedgie: Gina herself is frequently on the receiving end of these. Initially it was mostly limited to her rivalry with Penny, but as the two became more friendly this faded, and instead replaced with Gina just frequently getting them from her friends and family.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Frequently averted. For instance, Brianna, the lab-accident composite clone trying to kill the Diggers sisters, now their gung-ho sister. Or Charlotte, the instant-grown harpy girl accidentally freed from the control of the time-travelling dog who fired her at our heroes, now co-headliner of a WAFFy spinoff. Or Array, the sentient spell-creature that creates other living spells with their own minds, bodies, and personalities, all of whom love the villain Tirant unreservedly and are currently working for Dreadwing in the hope of resurrecting Tirant after his Heroic Sacrifice to save all of her selves from a monstrous catastrophe. Aljabra Gihom is another of Array's personalities, somehow left behind when the main body was conscripted by Dreadwing, and is now part of Gina's advanced archaeology class, often mistaken for an end-table but never on purpose She just happens to fall asleep in crouched positions while researching or writing papers.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Dreadwing is prone to bouts of evil laughter when he thinks he's won some great victory, but this usually precludes his being shown up just as quickly. He's also shown talking to the spirits of other creatures he's assimilated over the years, so he's essentially talking to himself. Ancient Gina has yet to show any real signs of insanity.
• Wrestler in All of Us
• The Worf Effect: Stripe. Despite a massive-power up halfway through the B&W series making him one of the two most powerful good guys, he is infamous for being hit by surprise, dropping his guard, and so on. Outside his first battles post-power up, it's rare he doesn't end up knocked out at least for a while during a fight. No wonder Agent M thought he needed training despite his skill and strength.
  • Fortunately, now that he's not adventuring in areas where he's forced to team up with everyone else, he can fight a bit more.
  • To a lesser extent, Britanny would sometimes get knocked around to demonstrate just how tough some bad guy was.
• Your Head A-Splode: Poor Jzu-Jzu.

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