Establishing Character Moment / Webcomics

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• City of Trees: In Ophidian's first appearance, he is at a club flirting with a male vampire. Jasper's grand entrance involves his sword pointed at a werewolf's throat.
• Susan of El Goonish Shive is introduced as a militant feminist.
• ErrantStory has a lot of these:
  • The prologue is an extended ECM moment for Sarine, in addition to serving as one part of a truly marvelous pair of Book Ends.
  • Meji's identity as a spoiled but magically powerful rich kid (not to mention Ellis' as Deadpan Snarker) is clear enough from the first look at her room that we get in chapter 1.
  • Jon's first appearance has him abducting Meji to play the Human Shield trick with, even as he tells her he's not going to follow through with it. Can't get much more Anti-Hero than that.
  • Sara's wipeout of the Gewehr thugs in the windmill leaves very little doubt that we are talking here about not only a badass but an emotionless one with ninja skills (and how).
  • Even the bad guys get a taste of this, as in his first appearance, Ian practices for his eventual role as a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds by being a Woobie, destroyer of a library.
• Every Button Hurts the Other Guy:
  • Russel arrives on the Island of Doom water skiing on the backs of two alligators. There was a plane, but he couldn't afford a ticket because he spent all his money renting the alligators. This sets the precedent for most of his future behaviour.
  • Buffalo quickly launches into a lengthy explanation of his nonsensical plan for world conquest the first time he appears. As a bonus, this scene establishes Doctor Von Science as a put-upon voice of reason who is consistently ignored.
  • Alejandro first appears indignantly berating Russel for calling him "that lady" and spends the rest of the page pontificating on his own magnificence.
• Mr. Mighty of Everyday Heroes starts out in typical Large Ham mode, giving us a typical monologue including his powers, his personal philosophy... and his aversion to paperwork.
• General Protection Fault,
  • During Nick's job interview, he asks about why the company was named after one of the most feared computer errors in existence. Rather than taking offense, Dwayne sheepishly says that he's not all that familiar with computers, showing that he's a Nice Guy and a Benevolent Boss, albeit one who's more of a businessman than a programmer.
  • When Nick meets Fooker, he learns that Fooker can do his work in a fraction of the time he spends at the office and spends the rest of his time fooling around.
  • Nick meets Ki while she's extremely focused on her coding session. After he leaves, she notes that he has a "cute butt," showing her attraction to him.
  • Trudy is initially smiling through her entire interview, but when Dwayne is away, and Ki says that she feels like she shook hands with the devil, Trudy tells her that she has that effect on "inferior life forms". Soon afterward, Trudy is shown kicking a dog and gives Nick a greeting card, a nice deed for no apparent benefit that hints at her interest in him.
• Giderah establishes the titular character's morality in two lines.
  "She ^note Giderah's wife, who has just given birth is going to live. If she does not...have those lying healers killed."
• The Wulfenbachs in Girl Genius. The baron is menaced by someone with a giant robot. What does he do? Leave his son to handle it as an exercise. Said son gives a complete exposition of the situation, direct troops to suppress the danger… Then when a bomb is thrown in his direction, he sends it back while protecting both the young assistant (our heroine, actually) and the goldfish.
• Several of the villains in Goblins are introduced this way:
  • In the first scene he appears in, Kore brutally and efficiently slaughters all the patrons of a tavern, showing off his incredible skill with Automatic Crossbows and twin axes. When he finds the last of the tavern's patrons (a dwarf child who'd been orphaned and raised by an orc), he explains to the child that because of the child's upbringing, he has been corrupted and might grow up to have sympathies with the 'Monstrous Races'; therefore the child represents the potential for greater evil in the world, and therefore Kore needs to kill him... which he does.
  • Dellyn is properly introduced to the audience when he interrogates Fumbles. During this scene, he displays both his Fantastic Racism and his knowledge of, and sadistic appreciation for torture.
  • The Psionic Minmax from an Alternate Universe gives an As You Know speech to explain his motivations, then murders one of his teammates in an extremely twisted way.
• Gunnerkrigg Court: Antimony realizes that she's somehow acquired a second shadow. She proceeds to calmly take the shadow aside and ask if he needs her help. Clearly she's a helpful soul, and not one to be fazed by weirdness.
• Homestuck:
  • Dave's introduction involves him slicing his Enter Name panel in half when the reader tries to name him "Insufferable Prick".
  • Jade's involves her politely telling the reader she takes offense at their choice of name and introducing herself properly - via notecard while she's asleep.
  • Karkat's very first conversation involves him insulting Jade, telling her that she's going to screw something up horribly that day, and ask if there's nothing he can do to change her mind.
  • Vriska is introduced by mind-controlling a guy into jumping off a cliff.
  • Likewise, Meenah's very first action on-screen is to try and kill Roxy for the heck of it.
  • Gamzee's first appearance involves him rambling aimlessly about miracles and wondering why faygo hisses or how computers work, and yet showing genuine kindness and friendship towards Karkat. All of which makes his true Ax-Crazy personality when he's sober even more frightening.
• Kuro Shouri: Shortly after Yasha is shown, she receives news that she's failed a major test and will need to stay after school to make up for it. Her response is to quietly step into the hallway, shut the door, and then scream-rant at the top of her lungs. It cements her as a loud weirdo with an anger problem.
• Lackadaisy: The first thing we see Mordecai doing is coming back from killing a man with a hatchet to complain to his co-workers that the hatchet is messy and he doesn't see why they think tricking him into using it is funny, establishing both his complete lack of regard for life and his complete lack of a sense of humour.
• Chapter 1 of Little Lapses has a scene that establishes Cinnabar and her relationship with her mother. Cinnabar is a hyperactive child who begs acknowledgement from her mother, who is too focused on her worklife to pay attention.
• Looking for Group: Richard incinerates a bunny
• Madame Outlaw: The comic's first scene immediately makes it clear its heroine Estelle is a Spirited Young Lady: she's primly observing the festivities at her wedding, overhears two men having a sexist conversation, then subtly sticks out her foot to trip one of them over. Her mother then reprimands her for not being more proper.
• morphE:
  • Billy Thatcher is introduced by having him angrily rant about the other character's stupidity in a dangerous situation and how he would handle the situation better. This is before any of the character sprites have even shown up and sets a precedent for his perceived mental superiority and controlling nature.
  • Adrestia also gets a very shining example when she refuses to participate in a fight to the death with a teenager and instead offers him a broken floor tile and orders him to kill her so that he doesn't have to die.
• My Impossible Soulmate: Chiaki's otaku tendancies are firmly established by an Imagine Spot which compares her, her crush Fumiko, and her boyfriend Kenta Maeda to characters from Dragon Quest.
• The first thing Shine from NEXT!!! Sound of the Future does is secretly take pictures of a famous Miku, gloat about it, then immediately fall off a bridge into the water and lose her camera, which demonstrates her obsession with Mikus, dubious moral standards, and bad luck.
• The android Savannah from Operation Reboot is first introduced by holding another character up at gunpoint.
• The Order of the Stick:
  • In an early installment, Belkar responds to being told of Roy's plans by stating that he was under the impression that they were simply there to "wander around, kill some sentient creatures because they have green skin and fangs and we don't, and then take their stuff." This is the first indication we get that the Belkster isn't going to be your standard, jolly halfling.
  • An even more telling moment (well, for those who know Dungeons & Dragons well enough to pick up the implications) comes two strips earlier when a goblin attempts to incapacitate Belkar with an Evil-aligned spell...and it doesn't affect him.
  • In the cast page, Roy gets his moment when he complains about how his lines fuel the Dumb Muscle stereotype, only to say them begrudgingly when the other press him to (though not without pointing out he has an MBA).
  • "Bluff, bluff, bluff, bluff the stupid ogre." That one line tells you everything you need to know about Elan the bard.
  • Xykon has a few in the "Start of Darkness" origin comic. One is when a Professor Xavier expy visits him and wants to teach Xykon how to use his sorcery powers to protect a world that hates and fears him; Xykon isn't interested and so electrocutes and zombifies the man and sics him and Xykon's zombie grandmother on his parents.
  • Another moment comes when he reveals to Redcloak he knew in advance of Right-Eye's plan to betray Xykon and had protected himself against it. The reason he didn't stop Right-Eye was to see if Redcloak was loyal enough to kill his brother to protect Xykon; he then brings the moment home with an Eviler than Thou speech about how he doesn't need any sort of justification for being evil, destroying Redcloak's will to resist in the process.
  • His first one is on the first page. Little boy Xykon is crying over his dead dog Barky, then a burst of magic causes the dog's corpse to zombify and eat a bird's brain. Lil' Xykon's reaction? "That was so COOL! C'mon, let's go find some more birds!"
  • When Elan's father, Tarquin shows up, he gives a long, eloquent explanation for recent events to Elan, and ends with the line, "I am your father," as a Shout-Out to Star Wars. Then immediately enthusiastically yells "Oh MAN! I've always wanted to say that line!" Which establishes him as a very Genre Savvy character that exists to make the fourth wall cry. Also, the moment Tarquin tells a woman who rejected him earlier that he had her husband killed in battle before having her locked up so she'll be more amenable when he asks her to marry him later pretty much kills any idea that he's a Noble Demon type of villain.
  • Yukyuk, Belkar's third Evil Counterpart in the Linear Guild, made his debut shooting Vaarsuvius in the back and then trying to kill Mr. Scruffy when he got bored.
• Remus introduces Seth by having him murder one of his own double agents against the will of his superiors. It's implied that he'd coerced the man into the position in the first place.
• The Sanity Circus:
  • Early in the prologue, a boy throws a rock at Attley as she runs down the street. She marches up to him and demands he apologise, but when he doesn't she appears to let him go, putting her hand on his head and saying that it's a bit sad he hasn't grown out of it yet. As she does so, her pet spider Mrs. F crawls out of her sleeve and onto his head. One freak out later, Attley whips Mrs. F back, puts her in her hat, and coldly says 'Apology accepted'. She's not cruel, but she won't take being messed about.
  • Sammy drops into a shop and asks about enlarging his stamp collection. The shopkeeper tells him to wait while he makes a phone call. Sammy responds by throwing the shopkeeper into a shelf and, with a smile on his face, feeds on his fear.
• Schlock Mercenary:
  • There's one for Torture Technician Colonel DeHaans.
  • Soon-to-be-Sargent Schlock himself gets one in the very first strip
• In The Search For Henry Jekyll, Hyde is quickly established as a monster when he accepts Molly's hug... and impales her with a sword cane.
• Sire: With a heavy Ensemble Cast of characters based on literary classics the author likes to make each important character have a bold entrance. Susan, the Hyde-Child, is first seen ripping the head off of a doll to torture her Jekyll-Child sister. Riley, the invisible man, pretends to be a ghost and scares the heck out of the main characters and Emile, the Javert-Child punches a teenage woman in the chest for punching her sister.
• Skin Horse: In the first strip after the prologue, an unarmed Tip Wilkins is facing down an intelligent, deranged, genetically-augmented lion. While wearing a girl's sweater and a skirt. He points out it's a Roberta Frost because his crossdressing is that important to him. Even when he's on the clock.
  Tip: The situation is under control. I'm a psychologist.
• Sluggy Freelance:
  • Bun-bun calls Torg a "nerd-boy," beats him up, and threatens to neuter him with a spoon during his second appearance in the series. Everything you need to know about Bun-Bun right there. Bun-bun is a rabbit. A Killer Rabbit, but still a fluffy little bunny. Who's way scarier than anything the main characters have to fight.
  • The whole story "The Bikini-Suicide Frisbee Match" serves to establish Zoë as the relatively normal person and Chew Toy of the group. It's almost an exaggeration of what she's going to be like, but her being a dump for the consequences of the weirdness in the world of the comic is a permanent thing, even though she learns to deal with it and stand up for herself.
• Something*Positive:
  • Davan. First strip. Sends a coathanger as a baby shower gift.
  • The very next strip shows Aubrey stealing from Santa Claus...
  • And the one after that establishes Pee-Jee as the voice of reason in the group by showing her objecting to Davan and Aubrey's attempts at creating pornographic snow sculptures.
  • Mike's first appearance as part of a gaming group cements him as a Jerkass Buttmonkey. It takes a lot of Character Development for him to outgrow this.
  • Kharisma's first appearance has her screaming in revulsion at Davan's "ugliness". The next strip establishes she is that shallow. It takes at least twice as much Character Development as Mike's for her to grow out of this. As well as a trip to the slammer and a visit from a little blue dream thing...
• Spacetrawler: The humans all reveal something about their personality in their first appearance:
  • Martina is feeling ennui over being "common", and hoping that an adventure is out there somewhere for her. When given a choice to join Interplanet Amity, she jumps at the call.
  • Pierrot is riding in a car, and he punches the driver for deliberately running over a mole, and the car crashes as a result. Thus establishing that Pierrot really cares about animals, and that he has a tendency to act impulsively on his principles.
  • Emily is confronted by muggers with knives, and she responds by whipping out two handguns and robbing her would-be assailants, driving their Vespa into the desert until it runs out of gas, then shooting a coyote and eating it for her dinner.
  • Dmitri is shown in a boat with two bikini-clad women. Sure enough, Dmitri turns out to be a shameless hedonist who mainly joins Interplanet Amity for the opportunity to sleep with hot alien women.
  • Yuri is chatting on the internet when Nogg arrives, and the posters on her wall indicate that she's a well-rounded geek. She joins Interplanet Amity because she wants to see alien technology, and she eventually becomes a Cyborg.
  • Dustin is introduced by brandishing a shotgun at Nogg and threatening to turn him over to the government. This establishes that he's annoyingly loud and xenophobic, foreshadows his dangerously uncritical trust in "the government", and quickly reveals that they got him mixed up with his more suitable identical twin brother.
• In Suicide Noun, The first thing we see Ethan do is kill himself.
• Gabry's first appearance in This Is the Worst Idea You've Ever Had! has him asking a total stranger if she's okay after he sees her date pushing her and talking down to her. Funnily enough, this wildly contrasts with his first appearance in Cuanta Vida, in which he ambushes Blue Spy when having a shower. His establishing character moment is a few pages later when he claims that he was just "testing his reaction", before elaborating on his relationship with the Blue Sniper in very explicit detail.
• Weak Hero:
  • Colton is introduced while bragging about winning a fight, and then spits on a fellow student and expects them to play along with it, quickly cementing him as a cruel bully.
  • Though he looks weak, Gray quickly demonstrates his cunning strength when Colton tries to bully him; he restrains the bigger boy and slaps him into submission in front of the entire class, threatening to gouge his eyes out if he acts up again.
  • As with most of the bullies, Jimmy is introduced while in the middle of tormenting some hapless students. In his case, he forces them to pose for two hours while stepping on their hands and using them as an ashtray.
• Wilde Life: After an Early-Bird Cameo in chapter one and a few pages with him as an unconscious wolf, our first real introduction to Clifford establishes that he's prone to anger and bad language.
• In Yokoka's Quest, Copycat gets his after Mao defeats the snake-centipedes he was raising as pets when Copycat's rants to Fahrin make it clear that he does what he wants regardless of the safety of others, and he has no qualms against killing people... unless they're {{ pretty boys}}, and Copycat absolutely counts Mao as one.
• The Greenhouse gives us a twofer.
  • Mica flings herself to the ground from a dead sprint to avoid a collision, injuring herself to avoid possibly hurting someone else. This continues when she suffers in silence rather than try to reclaim her hand from the painful grip of the old lady calling her "cursed".
  • Liv defuses the situation, rescuing Mica and winking flirtatiously at this cute girl she's never seen before.

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