We Can Rule Together / Comic Books

• In the Esperanto comic 10 Jarojn Poste ("10 Years After"), Big Bad Colonel Osto offers hero Orajno "wealth, women, whatever you desire!" if Orajno will join him. A disgusted Orajno knocks Osto to the ground.
• In Asterix and the Secret Weapon, this is how Bravura makes her marriage proposal to Asterix, promising they can become joint chiefs of the village. Asterix totally loses his temper at this and refuses, but she just ploughs on as if he'd said yes.
• Inverted in a story in The Authority. Diminutive supergenius Jacob Krigstein creates hundreds of superheroes in order to attack the titular super-team, kidnap newborn Jenny Quantum, and use her to influence the course of the entire next century. The good guys beat up the bad, fly into Krigstein's secret base...and offer him a job. Clearly he's got the brainpower necessary to help change the world; it just needs to be appropriately channeled.
• In the Batman comic "Mistress of Fear," the Scarecrow tries to Mind Rape Becky Albright after she testifies against him in court and discovers that she was bullied as a Delicate and Sickly child, which forces him to recall his own experiences with bullying. He then makes this offer to her, arguing that her psychological profile is perfect for supervillainy.
• Similarly with Ra's al Ghul and Batman, Ra's has tremendous respect for Batman and would love to bring him round to his own Well-Intentioned Extremist point of view—especially since Bats and Ra's's daughter Talia al Ghul are in love. Ra's ultimately wants Batman to agree to be his successor. He considers Bane and later Tim Drake for the role and extends them offers. Tim blows up most of Ra's hidden bases in response.
• Catwoman also made this offer to Bruce back in her first appearance, Batman #1 (1940), musing that "You and I—king and queen of crime!—We'd make a great team!" Batman admits he's tempted by the offer but turns her down because "We work on different sides of the law."
• Black Cat: In an attempt to stop Knull before he destroys the Earth completely, Felicia uses one of Doctor Strange's artefacts to power herself up using the Wild Magic, which draws its strength from Yggdrasil, the World Tree. The Wild Magic, taking the form of her father, offers to make her upgrade permanent if she releases it into the world, and the two of them can rewrite reality in their own image. Death to her enemies, infinite wealth and respect, and her real father coming back to life almost pushes her into agreeing...but the Wild Magic overplays its hand by promising to brainwash all her ex-lovers into coming back to her. Realising what accepting the offer would turn her into, Felicia relinquishes the power for good.
• Black Dynamite: The Man tries to recruit Black Dynamite into joining The Illuminati by praising his skills and offering him "wealth and power beyond your wildest imagination."
• In the Blacksad album "Somewhere Within The Shadows" Ivo Statoc tries to offer Blacksad a job in his employ when he's finally tracked him down and already dispatched his bodyguards; Blacksad refuses.
• After having Blue Beetle beaten up by a cyborg, Max Lord tries to recruit him into Checkmate and his plan for "Curbing superhuman aggression." With a literal gun to his head.
  Blue Beetle: So that's it. Join me or die time, is that it?
  Max Lord: That's it exactly.
  Blue Beetle: Rot in hell, Max.
• Cable gets this offer from Madelyne Pryor, his mother who, despite evil, still has soft spots on him when they are reunited. He obviously refuses, though.
• The Hand wants Daredevil to be their new leader. They actually got what they wanted in one storyline, though they had to shove a demon inside him to make him more agreeable to the offer.
• There's a rare successful version of this in Dark Empire. After capturing Luke, Palpatine offers to become his Master. And although Luke has his lightsaber, the guards have been dismissed, and there is no Vader standing by... Luke accepts. Palpatine can Body Swap into anyone after his current body is killed, and Luke would be an ideal body to take, with such horrific potential consequences for the New Republic. Luke thinks he can thwart Imperial efforts from within, and indeed he does some of that... but the Emperor isn't that easily duped. When Luke starts killing the Emperor's unborn clones, he's Mind Raped into submission.
• Used twice in the Milestone Comic Hardware (1993). The first time was played completely straight. The second time, the titular character's Bad Boss, Edwin Alva finally realised that his employee was really the superhero who was thwarting him at every turn, so he sweetened the deal. He would give Hardware's alter ego, Curtis Metcalf, a Vice-Presidency, and would try to curb his extra-legal activities. To do this, though, he would need Hardware's help, as most of the time he had only done illegal things out of (to his way of thinking) necessity. With a powerful superhero enforcer, he wouldn't need to rely on criminal operations to maintain his profit margin. Hardware actually accepted this deal, and not only got the promotion but also an unlimited budget to improve his Hardware armour, which to that point had been constructed out of whatever he could steal from work.
• The Incredible Hulk (1962): The Metal Master offers the Hulk a chance to rule the world with him. The Hulk seriously considers it for a moment, then decides nah.
• Tiberius Stone makes this offer to Tony Stark after trapping Tony in a virtual reality. Tony's second option, surprisingly, isn't death. No, he can either rule beside Tiberius or be forced to grovel at Tiberius' feet with the naked sycophants who are chained to Tiberius' throne. Not surprisingly, Tony doesn't find either option very appealing and instead opts to escape the virtual reality and leave Tiberius trapped inside.
• In the Valiant Comics series based on The Legend of Zelda, Ganon makes this offer to Link after Link gets his hands on the Triforce of Power.
• In the first volume of The Masters of the Barley, the rich, old, greedy brewer De Ruiter offers his young, idealist competitor Charles Steenfort to betray his best friend and associate, his pregnant lover and his ideals to marry his daughter and become his associate and heir at the head of the biggest brewery in the area. Much to the reader's shock, he accepts!
• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW) Chrysalis tries to convince Twilight to join her upon seeing the magic power she possesses. Naturally, Twilight refuses.
• In Paperinik New Adventures Moldrock does this proposal to any Worthy Opponent he meets simply because, in his own way, he's a relatively nice guy: being a Physical God and knowing it he doesn't need their help in any way, he just thinks it would be better if the strongest warriors didn't die a useless death. While Paperinik refuses, Moldrock implies he's been rather successful in the past and pulls this successfully with Juniper Ducklair, then the queen of Corona, by mopping the floor with her capital's garrison while holding back enough to not kill anyone and continuously repeating his proposal.
• In Scott Pilgrim, after Gideon discovers that Ramona has left Scott, he asks Scott to join him, telling him that "together, we can rule Ramona's future love life!" - parodying Darth Vader. Naturally, Scott rejects the offer, then gets killed. He did get better, though.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
  • The villainous wizard Ixis Naugus attempts to sway his fellow villain Mammoth Mogul to his side. The trope is inverted somewhat when Naugus realises that Mogul is the more powerful villain of the two, and immediately swears himself into Mogul's service.
  • Scourge suggests to Sonic that they work together and rule the multiverse, the two of them working as one because they're so powerful. You even get the feeling he wouldn't betray Sonic if he'd agreed to Scourge's way of thinking. Sonic freezes up, and Scourge takes it as a serious consideration, but Sonic later explains that he was so utterly disgusted at the suggestion that he couldn't even speak.
• Red Skull tried this with Spider-Man in the finale of The Assassination Plot, trying to bribe the hero with a million dollars to "look the other way" while he planted a bomb in the National Archives. The Skull was counting on Spidey to be angry at the U.S. government for kicking him off the team due to legal issues - and he was - but clearly, the Skull overestimated such anger. Spidey quickly told him where he could shove it.
• Very early in Spider-Man's career, Doctor Doom tried to recruit him by promising him power and glory in the service of Doom. His thought balloons, however, revealed that he only wanted Spider-Man's help defeating Reed Richards and planned to kill him once that was accomplished. Fortunately, Spider-Man was smart enough to see through the ruse.
• In Squee, Senor Diablo offers Squee a position in Hell since he's friends with Pepitio. When he politely declines, he shrugs and says "I guess that's that."
• Superman:
  • Used almost obligatorily in Superman: At Earth's End by the twin clones of Hitler running the show. The potentially interesting idea of cloning Superman into a race of "Supermen" with Nazi/Aryan overtones goes undeveloped beyond a single sentence, because this is Superman: At Earth's End.
  • Used in Supergirl story Adventure Comics #415 when Supergirl is abducted by a wannabe space dictator who wants to destroy Earth, conquer the universe, and make her his mate. She turns him down, wrecks his warship, and turns him over to the authorities. As he is being put away, the tyrant cries the universe could have been theirs.
  • Reign offers Supergirl a chance to join her team of Worldkillers. Of course, Supergirl refuses.
• In The Transformers: Dark Cybertron, Nova Prime forcefully tries to convince Orion Pax (whom he insists on calling Optimus Prime even after he renounced the title) that they are the rightful masters of all existence because they are Primes.
• Ultimate Wolverine: Quicksilver would have no problem killing his brother Jimmy if needed, but he would prefer if he joined the Brotherhood.
• X-Wing Rogue Squadron: In The Making of Baron Fel, Ysanne Isard first gives Ace Pilot Soontir Fel a Forceful Kiss, then says she could raise him up, make him take Tarkin's place, become bigger than Vader. When he adamantly rejects both, she wipes her mouth◊ and says that this was a Secret Test of Character. She'd told the Emperor that Fel was utterly loyal and incorruptible, and she was right. A few years after this, Fel defected to the Rebellion both because what the Empire had become disgusted him and because the Rebels would help him find his wife, the sister of Wedge Antilles.
• Magneto likes to poke Professor X with this idea from time to time in X-Men but the Professor's ideals of mutant equality (not supremacy) always win out. Professor X in turn tries to convince his old friend to give peace a chance. Magneto has actually tried doing things Xavier's way a few times but for the most part Status Quo Is God since he's just too compelling as a Foil.

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