SHE CURSES! SHE SMOKES! SHE BLOWS!note
An adult, satirical prestige format one-shot comic, written by Garth Ennis (naturally), with pencils and lettering by Amanda Conner and inks by Jimmy Palmiotti.
A bored young prostitute (and single mom) is given galactic superpowers by a Great Gazoo. She's immediately noticed by the local Expy superheroes but doesn't feel like going along with their self-aggrandizing hero bullshit. Instead, she exacts revenge on a Jerkass customer, and she teaches the local Superman equivalent about sex. Unfortunately, his semen is also superpowered and knocks a plane out of the sky, and while he manages to save the passengers, he's forced to do so pantsless. The ensuing scandal damages the entire league's reputation irrevocably.
She's about to be kicked out, but the meeting is interrupted by a terrorist attack, and the Pro is forced to make a life-or-death decision.
The Pro provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: The Pro herself is rather verbally abusive towards her infant son, doesn't bother to dress him properly, and smokes right in front of his face while breastfeeding. Some of the other stuff wrong might be justified by her being too poor to really give him a decent life's living, but that doesn't excuse a lot of her behaviour.
- Accidental Misnaming: The Viewer's Robot Buddy calls him "the Voyeur" as he spies on the Pro.
- Adapted Out: The animated short film by Titmouse omits the Viewer, the Speedo, the Lime, and the terrorists the Pro and the League of Honor fight at the end of the story.
- The Adjectival Man: Parodied with the Grammatical Team of Grimness, which consists of villains such as "the Noun", "the Verb", and "the Adjective". Evidently, all other names of this type have been taken.
- Animated Adaptation: There was one
that was created by Titmouse. - Author Tract: As usual, this comic is just another long-winded ramble from Garth Ennis about why he doesn't like superheroes.
- Batman Parody: The Knight and The Squire are the League of Honor's equivalents to Batman and Robin. Hilariously enough, they share their names with a crime-fighting duo acquainted with the Dynamic Duo who are essentially British analogues of them.
- Black Dude Dies First: The Lime is the first hero to be killed.
-
Broken Aesop: In the foreword for the book, Garth Ennis says the point of the book was to point out how superheroes aren't needed. Except the titular character was only able to save the day by flying a nuke into space. Also, the Pro says the heroes are never in any real danger, only for the Lime to be killed a few pages later. - Calling Your Bathroom Breaks: At one point, the Pro loudly announces that she's going to take a poop.
- Cast of Expies: The League of Honor are all obvious parodies of the Justice League (The Saint is Superman, The Lady is Wonder Woman, The Knight and The Squire are Batman and Robin, The Speedo is The Flash, and The Lime is Green Lantern). There's also The Viewer, the alien that granted The Pro her powers and a parody of The Watcher of Marvel comics. The Pro herself is basically Power Girl if she was a surly hooker.
- Cleavage Window: The Pro's costume comes with one. Unsurprising, considering she's a parody of Power Girl.
- Combat Pragmatist: The protagonist, much to the horror of other heroes, considering what her level of strength can do to people.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The titular character inflicts this on the guy who short-changes her when she was servicing him, before trying to shoot her over twenty dollars. For the first slight, she has a bunch of prostitutes shove painful objects up his ass. Later, she retaliates to him attempting to shoot her infant son by ripping his jaw off.
- Excrement Statement: The main character at one point urinates on a villain after beating her up.
- The Federation: The Viewer observes Earth, waiting until humanity is ready to join the Galactic Alliance of Sentient Beings.
- Flying Brick: The protagonist, as well as Superman parody The Saint.
- Funny Background Event: The Speedo is seen masturbating in the first few panels where the Pro begins her tirade against the League of Honor.
- Groin Attack: The Pro kills a terrorist by kicking him between the legs so hard they rip off.
- Informed Flaw: We are told the heroes are all useless but they are repeatedly shown saving people from real dangers.
- Legacy Character: The Lime off-handedly mentions that he's not the first Lime, but he's interrupted before he explains what happened to his predecessor.
- No Name Given: The main character's name is never given.
- Nominal Hero: The Pro barely qualifies through most of the story, mainly going along after being recruited by League of Honor and using unnecessarily harsh tactics. She also thinks blowing up schools to fight villains should be an option.
- Ominous Multiple Screens: The Viewer has several screens, all showing different angles of The Pro sitting on the toilet.
- The Peeping Tom: The Viewer spies on The Pro while she's on the toilet.
- Punch-Clock Hero: The Pro only agrees to become a superhero after she's told that she'll be paid.
- Single Mom Stripper: Well, a hooker, but the same thing. She also has a day job as a waitress.
- Sisterhood Eliminates Creep: The prostitutes get revenge on the evil client by organizing a line of women to each attack him.
- Superman Substitute: The Saint is a very blatant Superman expy, having dark hair, a red cape, an S insignia on his chest and the powers of flight and superhuman strength.
- "Take Your Child to Work Day" Plot: The Pro had the misfortune of delivering a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to a supervillain (complete with an Excrement Statement) at the United Nations building during the UN's "Take Your Children to Work Day". The League of Honor nearly kicks her out for that.
- Teacher/Student Romance: The Pro was knocked up by her guidance counselor at the age of 17 and kicked out of her house by her parents shortly afterward.
- Touched by Vorlons: The Pro is given superpowers by the voyeuristic alien The Viewer.
- Ungrateful Bastard: The prostitute goes on a 3-4 page rant about why superheroes suck, despite the fact that if it wasn't for the Saint, her son would be dead.
- The Watcher: The Viewer is a parody of the Trope Namer.
- Wonder Woman Wannabe: The Lady is a Wonder Woman expy, being the sole female member of the League of Honor before the Pro joins and wearing bracelets as well as a very revealing costume that has patriotic iconography.
