Frame-Up in Comic Books.
- Astro City:
- In "Confession", there is a spate of robberies seemingly performed by Crackerjack.
- "Victory" begins with several female villains accusing Winged Victory of secretly being their leader, using her heroic persona as an act.
- Barracuda: Back in London, Morkham stole Flynn's pistol and used it to murder Flynn's sister Virginia: forcing Flynn to go on the run.
- Batman: Bruce Wayne has to deal with this in Bruce Wayne Murderer and Bruce Wayne: Fugitive after his ex-girlfriend Vesper Fairchild is found dead in Wayne Manor. Lex Luthor hired the assassin David Cain to frame Bruce Wayne for a murder after Bruce ruined his scheme to acquire Gotham's real estate in the aftermath of Batman: No Man's Land. The frame-up goes even further than that, though: when Cain deduced that Bruce and Batman are one and the same, he also planted fake evidence suggesting that Vesper discovered Bruce's secret and was about to expose him. This actually makes some of Bruce's allies (except Dick and Alfred, who remain convinced that Bruce is innocent) briefly suspect that Bruce snapped and killed Vesper to hide his secret. The story arc goes on for as long as it does because Bruce doesn't even try to clear his name; rather, he uses this as an opportunity to ditch his identity as Bruce Wayne and become Batman full-time.
- Birthright: Invoked when a mage disguised as a FBI agent tries to capture Mikey Rhodes (who is pursuing him and his associates) with a SWAT team. When they fail to bring him, the mage then incinerates the whole group, hoping to pin their brutal murders on Mikey and turn him into a national-level terrorist.
- Daredevil: In Daredevil (2022) #6, the Hand frames Elektra for the assassination of the American President (who'd been replaced by a Hand Zombie).
- Disney Mouse and Duck Comics: A peculiar one in the story "The League of The Zombies" (1994) by writer Bob Langhans. Throughout the story Mickey Mouse sees monsters (specifically zombies) than nobody else can see. He has strange and humiliating things happen to him, and people do not believe him. An increasing number of characters are convinced that Mickey is hallucinating and/or going crazy. The situation is specifically set up by the Phantom Blot to convince the public that the famous detective has gone mad. The rest of the Blot's plan is killing someone close to Mickey and framing Mickey for the murder, counting on the public's belief that Insane Equals Violent.
- The Flash: In The Flash (Infinite Frontier), Savitar's plan to acquire the Speed Force for nefarious ends goes awry and ends with multiple dead heroes at Sanctuary. Eobard Thawne uses the opportunity to influence the entire Flash Family into taking questionable actions via the Negative Speed Force, including but not limited to Wally West incriminating himself. Needless to say, it doesn't end well for Savitar.
- Frank Miller's RoboCop: The series, based on Frank Miller's original RoboCop 2 script, sees Dr. Love and the Rehabs have Sgt. Reed killed, Kong as RoboCop 2 massacre a subway station, and blame Murphy for both to discredit him.
- Heroes in Crisis: Several retcons eventually had the whole even go as follows: Savitar creates a surge in the Speed Force in an attempt to steal it and it just so happens to be at Sanctuary. Arsenal detonates said surge, with him and the other heroes at Sanctuary going out in a blaze of glory to save the day. Unfortunately Eobard Thawne manages to set up Wally West as the guilty party.
- The Incredible Hulk: In Immortal Hulk, the Leader causes the Hulk to suddenly wipe out an entire town via a massive detonation of Gamma Radiation, while in the form of Rick Jones. Combined with too many incidents of Hulk-rampages before, and Henry Gyrich taking over Gamma Flight, and things get worse for poor Hulk. Only Jackie MacGee manages to notice after the fact just what caused it.
- Judge Dredd: Early on in The Day the Law Died arc, Dredd is framed by the corrupt SJS Judge Cal(igula) for murdering several citizens. Dredd is sentenced and shipped to Titan, but he escapes the transport and clears his name by finding and destroying the robot duplicate that Cal secretly used.
- Legion of Super-Heroes: It's happened more than once during the series, but most notably during the tail end of Pre-Zero Hour Vol 4. The Legion is accused of aiding perennial bad guy alien race the Khunds by Universo. Hunted by the authorities, the team adopts a new set of heroic identities and sets out to clear their (original) names.
- Manor de Sade: The story starts out with the protagonist bragging to herself about how she managed to advance in her career by backstabbing his boss with a trumped-up accusation of sexual harassment. He had simply been friendly, but she had pretended to feel harassed. This resulted in him getting fired and her getting his job, just as she had planned. Only the audience (and her mirror) gets to know the truth. Or maybe not.
- Marvel Noir: In X-Men Noir, Anne-Marie Rankin framed Captain Logan for the murder of Jean Grey by killing her with Wolverine Claws. However, between this and the Orgy of Evidence she provided, Thomas Halloway had her figured for the killer almost immediately.
- Preacher: Cassidy finds himself in a Serial Killer's apartment just as the cops bust down the door (both sent by the real killer). He gets out of it by stabbing himself in the neck, and is taken out with the rest of the corpses, bumming a cigarette off the morgue employee and leaving. Being a vampire can have advantages.
- Robin (1993): When Cassandra Cain was drugged and brainwashed she killed Lynx and framed Robin for the murder by using his R shaped batarangs.
- Robyn Hood: In Robyn Hood: I Love NY, the mysterious Big Bad frames Robyn for the murder of a columnist who has been very vocal in his criticism of her.
- Runaways: The Pride frame their kids for all their own murders in an attempt to get them to come back to them. Amazingly, it doesn't help their case.
- Sherwood, Texas: Rob and the Jesters frame Gisburn so that the Nobles think that he is The Mole who is betraying their operations.
- Sin City: The series has two protagonists framed:
- Marv is framed for murdering Goldie, who was getting too close to the truth about Kevin and his proclivities and to Cardinal Roark's own wrongdoings.
- John Hartigan is framed for raping Nancy Callahan, the eleven-year-old girl he'd saved from the same crime by Senator Roark's sick Serial Rapist of a son, by Senator Roark himself in revenge for what he did to said son, with the added bastard move of blackmailing him into taking the fall by threatening Nancy's life, resulting in him spending eight long years in prison.
- In a rare gang war example, Dwight framed one crime family for attacking another in order to protect the Old Town girls.
- Spider-Man:
- Done to Spider-Man on a disturbingly regular basis, and considering his own reputation as a Hero with Bad Publicity, it's not at all a surprise that villains would try and frame him as a bad guy so often.
- In one issue, when told of possible evidence Spidey is behind a robbery, J. Jonah Jameson surprises his staff by refusing to print it. As he states, he may believe Spider-Man is a crook but "how many times have I printed it, he's proven innocent and I end up with egg on my face?"
- In a team-up special, Spidey is accused of murder with the Thunderbolts sent after him. MACH-1 (in reality, Spidey's old foe, the Beetle) figures Spidey will return to the scene of the crime. When Songbird asks how he can be sure, MACH-1 replies "because he's innocent. Funny, I'm one of his biggest enemies and I'm one of the few absolutely sure of that. He'd never do something like this." Sure enough, Spidey was set up.
- Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #9-#10 has Spider-Man fight the White Tiger after the latter is framed for theft by Professor Ramon Vasquez.
- Identity Crisis saw Norman Osborn frame Spider-Man for murder of small-time crook Joey Z and then provoke the wall-crawler into attacking him on camera while Osborn was in civilian clothing. After temporarily assuming four new identities to continue acting as a hero, Peter was able to identify Joey Z's real killer (the Trapster) and provide fake evidence that the Spider-Man that attacked Osborn was an impostor.
- Hobgoblin twice does this framing innocent peoples as Hobgoblin's true identity. The first time with Flash Thompson as revenge for insulting the villain on television. Later with Ned Leeds that is Brainwashed and Crazy in believe to be Hobgoblin.
- Star Wars:
- Star Wars: Captain Phasma, Phasma plans to set up Rivas as the one that deactivated the shield for the Resistance.
- Star Wars: Darth Vader: Vader frames Oon Ai, the officer Tagge had assigned to be his minder, with having ties to the pirates to both embarrass Tagge and to get rid of his watchdog.
- Jango Fett: Open Seasons shows that during the Mandalorian Civil War, the radical Death Watch faction framed Jango Fett's True Mandalorians for murdering civilians, leading to them (save Jango, obviously) getting wiped out by a Jedi strike team led by then-Master Dooku.
- Superman:
- In Who is Superwoman?, the titular villain murders Agent Liberty and then tries to frame Supergirl for it via falsified photographic evidence.
- In Strangers at the Heart's Core, Shyla Kor-Onn uses footage where Lesla-Lar is impersonating Supergirl as making deals with Lex Luthor to make a judge believe Kara is secretly a criminal.
- In Starfire's Revenge, the eponymous Queenpin frames Supergirl for her minion Derek's death, whom Starfire herself got assassinated.
- In The Hunt for Reactron, General Lane has his minions Reactron, Metallo and Mirabai murder Mon-El, blow Metropolis' water dam up, and frame Supergirl, Flamebird and Nightwing for both crimes.
- The Life Story of Superman: Luthor intends to blow up the Superman's exhibit up -together with Superman, all his friends and all attendees- in such a way that J. Robert Arngrim, the businessmen who runs the place, takes the blame for the disaster.
- In Power Girl (2009) #24 and #25, Rayhan Mazin was flying from New York to Gotham when his plane threatened to crash. Mazin used his weather-controlling powers to right the ship and get it to land safely, but unfortunately it was thought he was the one who caused the plane to go down. Mazin surrendered willingly, thinking he would be released once he could explain. Six months later, he remains in Renatta detention facility. Nobody believes him and he is worried about his ill father, whom he isn't allowed to speak to. Mazin escapes to see his dying father, with Power Girl and Batman attempting to capture him. Mazin summons a hurricane above Gotham and slips away while Power Girl goes to undo it. Mazin visits his father as he dies and Batman believes his story, stopping some security men from going inside. Later Power Girl apologizes to Mazin for getting him locked up. Batman is looking into Mazin's case and has found out some federal investigators were interested in apprehending a metahuman terrorist, so they framed him to get more funding.
- The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Sinister scientist Melissa frames Squirrel Girl for animal attacks in New York. Even after Doreen captures her, Melissa gloats she'll never be trusted again and Melissa will skate by on charges. At which point, the cops and media have their phones blown up by messages from just about every other hero in the Marvel Universe talking of how much Squirrel Girl can be trusted, this is an obvious frame-up and a few (Thor and Hulk) warning that "you arrest her, you answer to us." Not surprisingly, the cops decide anyone who has the backing of so many heroes can't be the bad guy and arrest Melissa.
- Wonder Woman:
- Wonder Woman (1942):
- Dr. Psycho steals the War-Prevento Machine disguised as Wonder Woman, thereby framing her for the theft.
- Elektro tries to frame Wonder Woman for a series of bank robberies by using a robot duplicate to commit them, but no one believes his attempt to defame her and the fact that the crimes are being committed by a robot is quickly made public in a fight with the real Wondy.
- Wonder Woman (1987): While most of the "villains" White Magician fights really are criminals of some flavor or another who are taking advantage of the stolen Star Labs tech the Magician is helping flood Boston's criminal market with, at least one is a teenager who White Magician is able to essentially turn into a puppet whom he then fights, sets on fire and frames as a super-villain even though the kid wasn't in control of his own body.
- Wonder Woman (1942):
