- 8-Bit Theater mostly consists of things going From Bad To Worse for everyone. But a special one is the team's plan not only failing to kill Sarda, but also making him even more evil and hate-filled than before.
- And things just keep going wrong. First they have to fight the strongest sage in the world, then they have to fight the strongest sage in the world who just absorbed all the power of the 4 elements, then they have to fight the strongest sage in the world who just absorbed all the power of the 4 elements, plus all the evil of the 4 fiends and twice the evil of Black Mage, who just dropped their levels down so far Red Mage can't even cast spells any more, and transformed into the incarnation of chaos itself.
- Then that incarnation goes One-Winged Angel. It just got worse than worse.
- This is apparently what happened in the most recent arc of Ansem Retort. What happened specifically hasn't been revealed, only one line gives us an idea:Riku: Shit be fucked!
- Subverted. They saved the day, got everything to work according to plan, and ended on a high-note by psyching out their friends. Quite characteristically.
- In A.P.O.C, Clara is terrible at reconnaissance
, gets hung up on it, makes a scene, suffers withdrawal symptoms then captures the wrong guy... all in one day. - Bittersweet Candy Bowl: Had an incentive chapter called "Disaster Dominoes". The title was rather apt. The main comic gets pretty dark in sophomore year, with things continually getting worse between Mike and Lucy.
- College Roomies from Hell!!!!!! was strictly a Gag Series until, at the end of a Mushroom Samba, a very real Satan unceremoniously kills Dave and takes his soul to Hell; according to Word of God, fan outcry was all that saved him. Even so, Cerebus Syndrome wasn't generally considered to have set in until "The Adversary," where, while being chased by Satan, Margaret explains to Dave that she's fated to bear the Antichrist; meanwhile Roger being a "werecoyote" is revealed to be slowly driving him insane, like it did to his mother, who now lives in the woods and eats people. And that's right, boys and girls...From Bad To Worse.
- Mike's mother Hazel gets engaged to a Tuxedo and Martini supervillain who, not realizing the connection, kidnaps the male Roomies; this leads to Roger going berserk and tearing a room of his Mooks to pieces, in the first (and angstiest) of many "full-court" fights against them.
- Tsundere Crazy Survivalist Margaret realizes she's killed someone for the first time (something even the cast page had explicitly pointed out she hadn't done "yet") when the shotgunned body of Roger's mother, who had tried to eat her, turns human in front of her.
- When Marsha finds out that April is carrying Mike's child, her chronic jealousy leads to a knife fight, that ends with April accidentally killing Mike, on the same day Dave gives Mike's biological father a fatal heart attack in front of Mike's sister — and Dave's beta love interest — Blue.
- Finally, Marsha tries to kill April only to be interrupted by Hazel...who kills Marsha, turns her into a cyborg, and puts April into a coma — making sure she can still feel pain — until Mike's son is born.
- Then there's something of an Anticlimax, after which things get a little better, but they've still got that pesky little Apocalypse to worry about...
- Concession: both Artie's current life and Joel's childhood. Artie's father died of cancer and his mother killed herself after Artie was diagnosed with the same type of cancer. He seemed to get better, then the cancer spread to his brain. He suffered blackouts which he thought were the result of the tumor, but were actually the work of Joel, who had decided Artie needed to be disposed of before his latent powers became a threat to Joel's own powers. He woke up from one of these blackouts to discover he had had sex with a ten-year-old hypersexual transgender child. He attempted to have a relationship with Kate, only to discover she actually was a paedophile and was in fact sleeping with the same child, among others. She broke up with him, but gave him money for the operation he needed, during which he was attacked by Joel on the spiritual plane. He tried getting help from elsewhere, but broke a major taboo of his new friends' society by impregnating one of themnote , and was apparently involved in the fire which burnt their whole city down. Joel, meanwhile, watched his twin sister murdered by his older brother when they were very young, and their parents assumed Joel had done it. He was put in an asylum, where he was sexually abused by a doctor and released back into the outside world while still unstable. His father then left the entire company to his older brother, leaving Joel with nothing, which motivated him to become a mass murdering psychic manipulator to take back his company and make his brother suffer. Then Artie brainwashes the older brother into giving him the company, and reveals that his twin sister wasn't murdered by the older brother while Joel is legitimately insane. Joel and Artie have a climactic final battle using their literal inner demons, with Artie winning and on the verge of mind-raping Joel into realizing the monster he has become, only for Joel's partner to call Artie out on his holier-than-thou hypocrisy and how not so different they are because of his girlfriend's Sanity Slippage caused by his actions. Both of them are left empty at how they invested all that effort, destruction, and hatred, only to discover it was for their grandiose self-delusions. Though this is where the comic finally takes a turn for the better.
- The webtoon The Distant Sky is a clear example as nearly every event the protagonists find themselves are highly hopeless events, from the giant sinkholes that form around the entire world apart from Seoul, nuclear war that has ravaged the planet, to survivors going insane and resorting to cannibalism. If it weren't for the characters explained Plot Armor, they no doubt would have perished long before the end.
- In Erfworld, Parson Gotti is Trapped in Another World in forced servitude as Chief Warlord to Lord Stanley the
PlaidTool, who summoned him as a last resort to repel an invading coalition composed of pretty much every other nation in existence. They're outnumbered more than 10 to 1, and Parson attempts a desperate plan to use their dwagons (yes, dwagons, with a "w") to target the enemy's siege engines, hoping to buy a little time. He manages to take out about half of the enemy siege units... but then about half of his dwagons and warlords are lost in the counterattack. Their best spellcaster is rendered catatonic, another is driven mad, and another is killed outright; only two remain unscathed. Stanley, suspecting betrayal, takes their remaining dwagons and one of the casters and goes off to create a new kingdom elsewhere, leaving Parson behind to face the assault.- He wins the unwinnable war, only to set things in motion that shake the very foundation of Erfworld. His side now having literally gamebreaking units, wiping out sides left and right. Then they discover that this whole time, Charlie is so far up the Tech Tree that his side has been developing firearms and cyberware. Then Wanda, as in "The Chosen One, protected by Fate" dies by Rocks Falling and the comic is cancelled. Given how things were going, it's practically a given that Parson succeeded in breaking Erfworld, to the point of casting its inevitable doom.
- Freefall: The early colonization of the planet Jean was one crisis after another, starting with the first factory ship arriving damaged and the second not arriving at all.Florence: What happened to the damaged factory ship?
ABY2: The beach head crew tried to repair it. That's how it went from damaged to severely damaged. - Girl Genius:
- The very first day depicted starts with Agatha being late to school, then getting mugged, then her boss is revealed to be hiding a Hive Engine and gets killed, his replacement fires her and to top things off she gets kidnapped by the Baron. Then she accidentally triggers a sleeper agent and unleashes the Other onboard the Baron's castle, leading to the deaths of her parents and her new friend.
- The attack on Mechanicsburg triggers a bunch of rebellions against the Empire due to the plotting of the backstabbing Knights of Jove and the fifty families. By the time Tarvek is rescued from the Take-Five bomb the Empire is a shadow of its former self, most of the fifty families have been wiped out, Europa is entangled in a bloody war and the Other is back and turning the population of entire towns into revenants. Then it turns out that in addition to all that the Take-Five bomb has attracted the attention of an extra-dimensional Eldritch Abomination that is now breaking its way into reality to retaliate.
- Most of Goblins seems to be From Bad to Worse in one form or another. From basic random encounters spelling death and destruction for both tribes and adventurers, to a hunt against a 'heroic' torture-happy tyrant, to fighting a holy abomination of genocide and losing, to breaking an Artifact of Doom that is so powerful, it has begun to corrupt the comic itself. Mostly justified, since it's an RPG Mechanics 'Verse and the protagonists' levels progress to match the increasing levels of grim-darkness.
- The side-story characters also have it bad-to-worse. They get scarred by their first encounter with the goblins and half their party dies. Then they enter a multiverse-dungeon where they fail millions of times while one of their evil counterparts plans their ret-gone by proving 1=0 and logic-bombing reality. And then Forgath is nearly killed by the abomination listed above while Minmax is suffering from PTSD.
- Homestuck starts with the main character's house being hit by a meteor, and it just goes downhill from there.
- During "Hivebent", Karkat is left gaping in horror after Eridan pulls a Face–Heel Turn, knocks out Sollux and murders Feferi and Kanaya before leaving to join Jack Noir. Finally, he is contacted by his missing friend Gamzee, who informs him that he has apparently seen the light and is on his way to kill all the remaining trolls.
Gamzee: WELCOME TO THE DARK CARNIVAL, BROTHER. honk.- It turns out, Kanaya is back from the dead, and is now a vampire. And Terezi is without any methods of contacting anyone else, and in the last known area of Kanaya. Oh, and Equius is of no help against Gamzee, since Gamzee has the blood of royalty, and Equius personally believes that he must be indited into such a role. So, yeah. Things aren't good in the world of Homestuck.
- Vriska Is backstabbed because her fighting Noir would get everyone but herself killed, and is arguably permadead because of future!Slick's hatred of clocks. Rose leaves Dave behind to deliver the Tumor herself, and is confronted by Diamonds Droog in the process. Bec Noir, in addition to possibly blowing up the universe as the Critical Event, could have been entirely avoided if Karkat was more careful, and Lord English is ALREADY HERE.
- Jade is blown up by a mountain of shaving cream (she gets better), Noir destroys two universes, which ends up fueling the tumor, all of the exiles save for PM and WV (who is healed later) are murdered, with two beheadings, a classic chest stabbing, and getting uranium ripped out of one's stomach (it was healed), and Doc Scratch has been fooling everyone all along. The tumor doesn't destroy the Green Sun, it creates it.
- Lord English then takes a more active role and starts killing people left and right. He murders the author. Then he visits a dream bubble and destroys the souls of everyone in the afterlife.
- Jack. Lets see, artificially created without genitalia, had a terrible life, died, stuck in Ironic Hell paying for your sins by personifying your major one and doing the worst job in the universe with no memory of why? Well it could be worse, at least you've got friends, are in a reasonable position of power to protect them, have occasional angelic support, and aren't fighting both your Superpowered Evil Side and trying to control a villain you are sharing a body with after you destroyed his to keep him from resurrecting. And then the monster escapes...
- Most of the narrative gets progressively worse the more we learn about the universe in general, from a series about taking responsibility for your horrible actions (and being judged and sentenced to cruel and unusual punishments in the afterlife if you don't) to a Cosmic Horror Story about how thoroughly the powers-that-be can decide your entire history in advance, the nature of your soul down to the temporal iota, and where you will go when you die even if you don't deserve it, and you will have no say whatsoever.
- The Order of the Stick seem to spend their time watching things get worse. Blame Cerebus. Holes torn in reality. Roy dying. Shojo dying. The team is split up. Roy's body is used as a bone golem. Haley is even DEEPER in debt to the Thieves' Guild. Vaarsuvius makes a Deal with the Devil, then crosses the Moral Event Horizon within five strips... but comes back enough to feel guilt for killing 60 people accidentally. Rich Burlew is an awesome writer, but seriously — is the moon going to slam into the planet next?
- No, but Belkar approved of V's decision. When Belkar approves of what you did...
- Played for Laughs in Questionable Content. Cosette asks out Marten (who works at the library), only to be turned down because he has a girlfriend. Embarrassed, she flees to a nearby coffee shop and tells the barista about it... only to discover that this is Dora, Marten's girlfriend. Once Marten and Dora make up after a short argument, they go out to dinner... and Cosette is their waitress.Dora: Talk about shitty timing.
- Rain (2010): Chapter 34 has this for the Strongwell siblings, especially Maria, who gets expelled from St. Hallvard after trying to protect Chanel. And than she disappears before her parents can retrieve her.
- Sarilho: literally the name of the third chapter, as not only the main gang has found out that the satellite wasn't the only thing crashing in Arouca, are faced with a giant alien creature and the enemy army is all around them.
- Kieri of Slightly Damned, is normally a very kind, patient and quiet girl, who happens to be from a family of warrior angels. She lashes out when an angel attacks Buwaro, her Demon Boyfriend. The angel's reaction is rather cruel, but her response is even worse.
- For a while in Sluggy Freelance it looked like the "bROKEN" Story Arc was going to end with Zoe and Riff Trapped in Another World, and Torg having to find a way to bring them back. Then we see the world Zoe and Riff got sent to and discover Zoe died from her injuries moments after arriving, while Riff (believing Zoe's death to be his fault and that the genocidal dictator of this new dimension is his Alternate Universe self) willingly consigned himself to an eternity of drug-induced amnesia.
- And then the follow-up story line (Perspective) stops even worse with Riff finding out that Zoe still lives but is so horribly wounded that she would be better off dead... and Riff decides that he has a new goal now.
- Unsounded's Duane Adelier was born into a low ranking family in a relatively low ranking caste, ruined his scholarship by saving his pseudo-transgender girlfriend from an assault, lost comrades and child soldier subordinates during his army days in the rebellion, confronted an important politician, lost a promotion, found himself set upon by hired thugs in a dark alley with his young daughter, drugged, arm broken, skull smashed in, only to feel one last surge of adrenaline long enough to watch his daughter accidentally impaled by a sword. As he's slipping away and enters limbo, he watches her cross into the afterlife but has the door slammed before he can enter, and is dragged back into his dying, blinded body while his brother is forced to watch. The experimental revenant procedure invented by one Bastion Winnalis, his assassin, is deeply flawed and barely binds his soul to his rotting corpse, subjecting him to classic zombie horror hunger as his mind slowly rots alongside his maggot-infested flesh, forcing him to take on magical augmentations to replace his eyes, ears, and vocal cords while his non-essential senses permanently die. He flees his home country to prevent himself from gorging on his remaining family. Six years later, he's a refugee in a miserable steampunk country, unwilling to commit suicide is because his religion forbids it. Then, the scientist responsible for his re-animation discovers his creation and orders it shipped back to his home country to be used as the final piece of a superweapon, with Duane and the (lion-tailed child) courier unaware of their true intentions, crossing swords with his country's hated enemies and slavers along the way. Then the superweapon is prematurely unleashed and nearly destroys an entire town, which Duane and his international crack party foil, only for the military to purge the remaining town anyway. Then at a shrine to a religion that is anathema to Duane's, he is forced to realize that he and his brother are guilty of homicide, sending him into a further death spiral and driving him back into madness, which finally blooms when his courier mind-controls him into orchestrating a wholly blasphemous play that leaves everyone in sobbing tears.
