Webcomic / Bob and George

"Hey, Mega Man! Wanna go do something stupid?"

— Bass

Bob and George is quite possibly the most influential Sprite Comic of all time. It stands on three pillars: No Fourth Wall, Mega Man, and stupidity. Originally, it was intended to just be filler for a hand-drawn comic the author was making, but the idiotic adventures of Mega Man and friends proved more popular, and the title characters were incorporated into the author's skewed vision of the Megaverse.

The bulk of the comic can be boiled down to a basic format; once a year, there would be a parodic retelling of one of the 8-bit Mega Man games, and once a year, a villain would show up and try to kill everyone. Filling the gaps are a mind-boggling amount of Time Travel, Alternate Universes, stupid antics, meta-interactions with the comic's author, and, of course, the titular Bob and George, two brothers who were a supervillain and superhero respectively before getting warped into the Mega Man Universe.

Ran daily (mostly) from April 2000 to July 2007, making, codifying, abusing, lampshading, and generally making tropes into all sorts of funny shapes throughout its once-a-day, seven-year run.

It was also known for hosting many sub-comics, of which only MS Paint Masterpieces is still known to update. Sometimes.

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Includes examples of:

• Aborted Arc:
  • Not directly in the comic per se, but the 'Cataclysm' side-story referenced in-comic by X, Zero, Proto Man, and Bob. This was meant to explain the intentional gap between the Mega Man (Classic) and Mega Man X series, with the plot being that Dr. Wily's building and premature activation of Zero caused the Reploid to systematically kill and destroy every member of the Mega Man continuity. Originally planned to be animated multi-part flash movies, according to Dave himself, they became "A lesson in frustration for everyone involved." Eight episodes were planned, but only three of them ever saw the light of day, due to the project stalling out and Anez's life progressing towards adulthood. Anez said he intended to finish them one day, but "I don't really know if that day will ever come."
  • Anez's commentary on the comic mentions that he would occasionally seed comics with Foreshadowing for future plot developments, only to decide to take the comic in a different direction, leaving the foreshadowing elements to be re-purposed or discarded.
• Above Good and Evil: Bob claims he and George are this. George doesn't agree.
• Achievements in Ignorance: Mega Man, naturally, in this strip. He was also (temporarily?) too stupid to realize that he had fatal wounds.

• All of the Other Reindeer: One reason X can't get any friends. The other was that Dr. Light was shortsighted about X's programming and how X would interact with the other robots.
• Alternate Universe: There are an infinite number of them, and Bob visits a lot of them.

• Ambidextrous Sprite:
  • Intentionally zig-zagged when George loses an eye. The tools in Dr. Light's hands stay consistent, partly to highlight how after George gets an eyepatch, it changes sides depending on which direction he's facing. And then parodied in a fan edit◊ on the forum, where the eyepatch switches sides, but his eye injury doesn't.
  • Pointedly averted in the Mega Man 4 storyline, as Mega Man attains more and more damage to his body.
• Ambiguously Gay:
  • Zero and X. Bob even calls them the "ambiguously gay duo".
  • Sephiroth too, while Bob is hanging out in a null dimension and his Good Angel, Bad Angel create Final Fantasy characters for him to hang out with.

• Anticlimax: Mega Man's fight with Skull Man, after tons of fan speculation. (Skull Man got better.)
• Arc Welding: Within the final year of the comic, a lot of events, one-off antagonists, and self-contained arcs were tied together to create the finale, such as the (seemingly unrelated) ninja attacks.
• Arc Villain: Once a year, there's a story arc where a villain appears and attempts to murder the cast/take over the world/make bad stuff happen. Bob, Mynd, Evil Mega Man, The Helmeted Author, Non-Alternate Mynd, Mega Man X, and finally Bob once again.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Played with. "George can't use his blaster, I still have yours, and I just happen to be wearing my asbestos undies today."^note The last one is there to say "I'm immune to Bob's fire powers".
• Artifact Title: When the sprite comic essentially took over for the hand-drawn one (the second time), Dave Anez quickly realized how this could easily happen. Changing the name after it had already established itself so well was out of the question, so he added the sprite versions of Bob and George to the comic.
• Ascended Fanboy: A variation with George. He grew up playing the Mega Man and Mega Man X games in his home dimension. Now he gets to fight alongside the characters he used to control in the games.
• Atrocious Alias:
  • George's superhero alterego, Blitz, was originally called "Spark".
  • Dr. Light has his own support unit, which, to keep with the Theme Naming scheme, he calls Circus.
    George: Circus?
    Dr. Light: Circus music is a type of music, too!
• Author Guest Spot: Practically invented it. The Author is a repeated character in the story, and keeps showing up at critical moments.

• Back for the Finale: The final arc eventually grows to involve just about every character that had ever had a role in the story, in increasingly improbable manners.

• Back to the Early Installment: While most of George's time travel involves events of 8-bit Mega Man (Classic) era, George has also been involved in past arcs of the strips.
  • "Another Bad Time" has George being sent back in time to investigate the arc Mega Man turned evil to find out what really was going on. It ultimately involved the Helmeted Author up to a nefarious scheme to destroy the comic.
  • The last arc of the comic, "All Good Things", has George being shifting around the past, present and future. The past segment culminates in showing the original introduction of him and Bob arriving into the sprite comic portion in the first place.
• Bald of Evil: In addition to the appearance of Sigma from Mega Man X, other original villains for the comic included Mynd (a purple palette-swap of Sigma) and Captain Kinesis.
• Batman Gambit: The whole plot was one by Bob and George's mom to toughen George up and to show Bob that he Can't Get Away with Nuthin'.
• Batman Grabs a Gun: In the last five strips of the series, George figures out how to work his Power Armor's Arm Cannon, and takes aim at Bob.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: Chadling manages to beat Nate because he has the ability to shapeshift into a Purple Demon similar to him being a Yellow Demon, but way bigger.
• Because Destiny Says So: Alternate Mega Man and Crystal Man believe in this. Alternate Bass does not. Which is right seems to vary.
• Berserk Button: Bob displays two.
  • The first was pressed when he made a big show on how Alternate Mega Man couldn't possibly get through his shield. Mega Man does exactly that and reduces Bob to incoherent rage.
  • The second is triggered when Metool D2 threatens to do...something...to Bob's mother.

• Big Red Button:
  • The control to George's time suit isn't red, but it's big, and quite important according to Dr. Light.
  • George gets back at Dr. Light by manipulating a big red button controlling X's pod, much to Dr. Light's astonishment.
  • Then there's one of these inside Mega Man's mind that activates his router.
• Bilingual Dialogue: The Met unit Metoo can only communicate in beeps, which the other characters can understand. Repeating So the Audience Can Hear is generally in use, but averted in one instance where Alternate Bass asks a nontrivial question, receives beeps in return, and only comments that he is satisfied with that answer.

• Bond Villain Stupidity: Played with, as the villain doesn't just wander away, and the trap worked. Mostly.
• Bowdlerization: A rare case where the author had to Bowdlerize himself by replacing a strip which was already censored to begin with (Heat Man's Snack was originally this◊ — see Heat Man's Armor for the set up).
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: The characters are very aware of being aware of being in a webcomic, with forums. Kinda hard not to since the Author is a semi-regular character.
• Brick Joke: While Bob was unconscious (during Mynd's arrival in the main universe), the 2001 Halloween comic occurred. 40 strips later...

• Characters not recognizing other characters because they've never met.
• NA Mynd stated that he would attack "midway through the next storyline". Unfortunately, the Author never broke away from the Fifth Megaman Game storyline, which is the reason the events are shown In Medias Res.

• Brilliant, but Lazy: Dr. Light, Dr. Wily, and Kalinka all do some impressive work to avoid working more. Which is the point of making robots.
  • Kalinka's robot Ran is so fragile that she gave up on fixing him, instead inventing a machine that makes a new Ran every time he breaks, uploads the dead Ran's memories, and teleports him to where he died.
  • Similarly, Dr. Light was so sick of repairing his robots that he built them to repair themselves when damaged.
  • Dr. Wily stopped building Robot Masters himself, instead building a machine that makes them for him with little effort.

• By the Lights of Their Eyes: "Cool! I'm just a pair of glowing floating eyeballs!"
• Cain and Abel: Bob and George on a few occasions. Interestingly, Bob is the villainous one, despite being the younger brother.
• Calling Your Attacks
  Ran: COSSACK BUSTER!!!
• Came Back Wrong: Mega Man's very hasty reassembling of Skull Man:
  Skull Man: Would someone please remove my arm from what is not an arm socket?

• Card-Carrying Villain: "What? I'm evil. I Lied." - Mynd.
• Cats Are Mean: Tango, a robot cat, spends several comics screwing with Rush and Treble.

• Chained to a Railway: Alternate Mega Man in the fifth game parody.

• Cluster Bleep-Bomb: There are a few censored ones as well.

• Cold-Blooded Torture: Mynd gets Mike to subject Bob to some. Then Bob turns the tables on Mike and tortures him.
  • The Helmeted Author also tries to do this to a volunteer named Veemon in one of the blurbs, but leaves when he discovers there's no fire ants. The author completely forgot about that, so Veemon dies.
• Commonality Connection: Ice cream!
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: The infinite army of Robot Masters in the fifth game are each individually far weaker than the originals, with a single charged shot enough to kill several of them. Also used literally in George's homeworld, where ninjas are so common you can barely walk down the street without tripping over a couple of ninjas, and none of them are particularly dangerous.

• Continuity Porn: Somehow, David has managed to tie up as many loose ends up as possible using only this technique. And it worked!

• Contractual Immortality: invoked Used by George at several points to survive situations that should have killed him. He can occasionally use it to shield whoever is closest.

• Creator Breakdown: Parodied In-Universe. When The Author breaks down, the comic literally falls apart until he's placated with explosions.
• Crossover: During his journey through parallel dimensions, Bob ends up as a guest on Fairly Aimless RPG Talk Show or FARTS (click on episode 5 to see their half of the crossover, or you can just click here to see the BnG webcomic's cross-post of the relevant bit).
  • Almost every anniversary party chapter can be seen as a crossover between the main Bob and George comic and the many comics that are hosted on the site.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Mega Man; ordinarily an idiot, but he often develops quite clever strategies whenever he heads into battle. His programming states that stupidity is a secondary objective, and he ignores it while performing his primary task - fighting stuff.
  • Bass is this too, stupider in the second program, more powerful and smarter in the first program.

• Cut Himself Shaving: After the Shadowy Author revives dead characters in the Rockman Universe. Bob tells Rock and Dr. Light that they fell down. Rock then questions if Roll fell up, as she's tied to the ceiling. Bob responds that he put her up there to prevent her from falling down.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: The recurring Wily Beers are the result of Dr. Wily taking over a Heineken plant. The resulting beer is so good that Dr. Light let him keep it.

• Deadly Dodging: Proto Man fires at the Helmeted Author, who phases out. The shot hits and kills George.

• Death Trap: Stone Man, Charge Man, and Wave Man try one on Alternate Mega Man in the fifth game. The plan is to tie Mega Man to railroad tracks suspended over a pool of robot eating robot sharks, have Charge Man run over him, and drop a giant rock on him at the same time. Then the tracks break under the weight of the rock, and Mega Man is eaten.
  Alternate Mega Man: Won't this plan kill Charge Man, too?
  Stone Man: You would think, but considering this whole plan was his idea, we're guessing he won't mind too much.
• Delayed Ripple Effect: Any time time travel is used, the effects in other time zones are delayed.

• Didn't We Use This Joke Already?: Used repeatedly, even to the point of going meta where, after Dr. Wily points out that they have already done the Rock and Roll joke, and Dr. Light questions his claim, Dr. Wily points out that they also have done the "Didn't We Use This Joke Already?" joke already.

• Distressed Dude: George, during the plot of Megaman 3. He's tied to the ceiling by Doctor Wily for six months.
• The Ditz: Bass, most of the time. Even Mega Man needs someone stupider than him (he can be smart, but Dr. Wily prefers to leave him in idiot mode so that his plans aren't constantly criticized).

• Does This Remind You of Anything?: In the comments for a battle between Snake Man and Ring Man in the 6th games Robot Tournament, Anez admitted that he ran out of amusing filler robots with some relation and just threw in the two least quirky robots for that day's comic. The next day he commented on how many e-mails he got explaining "the obvious relationship between snakes and rings."

• Doomed by Canon: Even though most of the cast get killed during major storylines (such as in "The Attack of Mynd") and get better once they're over, it seems as if the Cataclysm would make them Deader than Dead. Then it turns out that they merely faked their deaths, making this trope a subversion.

• Drunken Master: Dr. Cossack, apparently. "While I am an excellent programmer while sober, I am a programming MASTER when tanked."

• Early-Installment Weirdness: Early on there was a Running Gag about the characters complaining about having to take part in the comic. This was slowly dropped as the comic went on since Dave Anez felt having the joke would just get more and more stale.
• Einstein Hair: Dr Wily, naturally. Proto Man lampshades this when he is first activated, as does X.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Bob. He nearly drops into berserk rage when Mettoo Deetoo insults her.
• Evil Counterpart: As in the games, Bass to Mega Man. Though in this case, Wily went a little too far in having Bass one-up Mega Man in everything. Yes, he's stronger and faster...but he's also stupider.
• Evil Is Not Well-Lit: Played with. Mynd is unable to find the lightswitch in his lair. The Non-Alternate version has a similar problem.

• Exploiting the Fourth Wall: There is a Running Gag where the eponymous characters can't die due to their names being in the title. During the "Helmeted Attack" storyline, however, the Helmeted Author uses his Author Powers to change the title of the comic, allowing him to kill George. This doesn't last long, of course.
• Expendable Alternate Universe: The Rockman Universe and the alternates in the final battle, who are sent out in droves. Averted in the case of George himself, who does care what happens to the Mega Man universe despite not being from it.

• A Fate Worse Than Death: The Author claims that being a subcomic reviewer is this, which is why he forces this on Helmut after he's beaten.

• Foreshadowing:
  • When Mega Man tries to use Knight Man's power against Centaur Man, George shows up at the top of the panel (the Author's normal spot for addressing the audience) to complain that Mega Man stole his colors. At the very end of the comic, George fused with the Shadowy Author, giving him author-like powers.
  • In the last arc, when George is thrust forwards and backwards in time, he is friends with the future X, Zero, and Prometheus, and X calls him a 137-year-old demigod. This foreshadows that the 'Epilogue' isn't as it seems, because it claimed that George returned to his world shortly after the end of the run and never left. The true Epilogue shows him happily in Acapulco with everyone else.
• Forgot I Could Fly: Note: do not point out to a character who has spent six months suspended by his arms in Dr. Wily's fortress that he has superpowers and could have escaped. George takes it... poorly. Mega Man also often forgets he can teleport, although subverted in one occasion he is badly injured and forced to crawl to his base due to the fact it was broken.

• Freud Was Right: Wood Man... Hard Man... Air Man, the one who "blows"... As Mega Man puts it, "Is it just me? Is it? Am I the pervert here?"
  Dust Man: Well I suck, I blow, and I shoot out wads of junk.
  Mega Man: ... There's one of you in every game, isn't there?

• Funny Background Event: Played straight the "Something Different arc". He's also subverted this in a few comics where the funny background events would be given their own panel(s) in the foreground.
• Fun with Acronyms: The Fairly Aimless RPG Talk Show
• Fusion Dance: Nate and Chadling can do this with other characters, resulting in combinations like Charge (George + Chadling) and Bate (Bass and Nate).
• Gainax Ending: Par for the course with the rest of the plot. George actually tries to shoot Bob. Though it fails, it causes the Helmeted Author to stop possessing him. It's then revealed that the entire episode was a bet between the two authors, and the comic was being run by Bob and George's mom as a Batman Gambit to toughen George up. Afterwards, Mom takes Bob and George back home while the Shadowy Author ends the comic on an epilogue where all the other characters seemingly die in the Calamity, but in fact faked their own deaths to prevent a time paradox and move to Acapulco, where they lived Happily Ever After.
• Gambit Index: Practically every trope involving plots that are contorted, nonsensical, retconned or impossibly complicated.
• Genius Ditz: Mega Man, when fighting Robot Masters and Dr. Light with his inventions.
  • Fanon figured that since his primary mission is to defeat robot masters and secondary mission is to be stupid, he would "smarten up" during fights. Author took this and ran with it.
  • At one point, Mega Man actually frightened his intelligent alternate self with his sudden battle brilliance.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: George and Proto Man stumble across a VHS tape of the First Annual Robot Tournament (the events leading to Mega Man 6). Turns out, it's just a documentary. But George really wants to find out what happened:
  George: There's only one way to find out what really happened! We have to go back in time!
  [Proto Man slaps George across the face]
  [Beat]
  George: ...did you just bitch-slap me?
  Proto Man: Yes. You needed it.
  George: Yes I did. Thanks.

• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Gamma from the Mega Man 3 storyline made a reappearance at the climax of the Mega Man 4 storyline, only to get stepped on by a colossal Eddie.
• Glass Cannon: Ran's a One-Hit-Point Wonder to the extreme, but his Cossack Buster is one of the most destructive in the entire comic.
• A Glitch in the Matrix: Happens when the author went to retcon a mistake here
• A God Am I: X, during his run as the Sixth Annual Villain, gets a few of these. He's the ultimate master of his virtual world, and isn't afraid to show it. The only problem is that George, a living bolt of lightning, is even more powerful in the virtual world.
• Godzilla Threshold: Alternate Bass and Mega Man eventually resort to attempting to drop an asteroid on Bob, figuring the collateral damage of the event would be lesser than what he was planning to do.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: Both Bob's and Proto Man's sunglasses allow them to see on different frequencies. They also shield against bright light.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: George has issues about being hung from ceilings after a stint of six months when he was strung up by Wily.

• Grandfather Clause: Gets away with sprite comic clichés because it started most of them.

• Half-Human Hybrid: The commentary mentions that Bob and George's mom is actually a succubus.

• Happily Ever After: Thanks to Zero spilling the beans about the Cataclysm to Doctor Wily, the Downer Ending that most of the cast got is averted. They fake their deaths and move to Acapulco.

• Hero Antagonist: In the 6th Mega Man game storyline, all the bosses were trying to stop a rampaging Mega Man, who had undergone a Face–Heel Turn after being reprogrammed by Vic.

• Honorary Uncle: Mega Man attempts to make Helmut this for no apparent reason beyond getting to call him "Uncle Fisty".
• How Much Did You Hear?: Not only is it a Running Gag, but the monologuing character complaining about the Running Gag has become a part of said Running Gag.
• Hurricane of Puns: Many times. Later, it's defied by a third party in the Guts Man vs. Stone Man fight.
  Bob: Who will triumph when these two behemoths square off?
  Stone Man: I will, cause you ain't got no guts!
  Guts Man: Pssh! You're stoned!
  Bob: One more pun and I will kill you both myself, understand?
  Both: Yessir.
• I'm Thinking It Over!: "George's Decision":
  Mynd: Will you stand aside and let me deal with the imposter, or do you want to die too?
  [Beat Panel]
  Mike/Proto Man: George!
  George: What?! I'm thinking!
• Ice-Cream Koan: Shadow Man is full of these.
• Identical Twin ID Tags: The alternate future and alternate far-future versions of Bass and Mega Man wear nametags, thanks to the Author's intervention. Then the alternate far-far-future versions of Bass and Mega Man arrive with similar name tags...and then take them off, revealing themselves to be the present-day alternate Bass and Mega Man.

• Idiot Ball: The MM4 Robot Masters in the April 21, 2003 comic.
  Commentary: Wow, who would've thought that all of the Robot Masters would just be standing around in a big field together in the middle of nowhere where Mega Man could just conveniently run into them? I mean, seriously, aren't they supposed to be out trying to Take Over the World or something?

• I Lied: Oh, god. Every single villain does this at least one. "What? I'm evil. I Lied." The first instance even has a Notable References to TV Tropes example.
• Immune to Drugs: Dr. Light has an alcohol tolerance that could rival that of André the Giant. His response to being told he "must've consumed enough to take down a bull elephant"?
  Dr. Light: Bull elephant? Pssh... lightweights.

• Implausible Fencing Powers: Mynd. He can swat missiles out of the air, which should be impossible.
• Indy Ploy: Pretty much the entire comic, according to the author. In the comments section he admits that he was basically winging the entire thing, and whenever he created a plot hole, he was willing to go to absurd lengths to fix them, introducing time travel, clones, etc... rather than just let the hole remain.

• Injured Self-Drag: After getting beaten up by the Cossack Bots, Mega Man crawls eighty miles to Dr. Cossack's lair with a hole in his chest and stumps for arms; one of his legs fell off along the way. He's incredibly annoyed when he discovers that it was all for nothing; not only did Proto Man basically lie that Cossack was behind everything, Proto Man and the Cossack Bots saved the day without him. Being a robot, though, he gets better.
• In Medias Res: The Attack of Non-Alternate Mynd starts off this way. While previous events had lead up to this, the actual series of comics starts off with George, Proto Man and Mike standing on a pile of corpses, fighting, with no explanation as to how they got there. Mynd asks George to explain How We Got Here.
• Intentional Engrish for Funny: In some of the fan comics.
• In the Back: Often. Both heroes and villains will shoot each other in the back frequently, such as when Megaman fired an EMP into the back of a Robot Master, or how Mega Man/Helmut took out Protoman.
• Invincible Villain: Mynd is this. He's so powerful that outside of Bob and George, no one can actually hurt him and even then, he's only inconvenienced at best.

• I Take Offense to That Last One: In this strip, the Author calls Proto Man a "smelly, idiotic goon"; Proto Man objects to being called "smelly."
• I Was Told There Would Be Cake: During "The Attack of X", X lures the other robots to the Training Room with the promise of ice cream. It's a trick to get them within close enough range so that X can assimilate them.
• I Work Alone: One reason Bob gives for turning down Mynd's offer.
• Jedi Mind Trick: Mynd uses this on Chadling to force the disobedient minion to obey him. Unfortunately for Mynd, after a certain point it stops working....
  • The Author once attempts to use the Jedi Mind Trick on the audience in a literal attempt to Hand Wave a plot hole. It doesn't work.

• Just a Flesh Wound: Most of the characters are robots, after all. And it wasn't like Mega Man really needed that arm anyway...

• Lampshade Hanging: They do this so often that they hang lampshades on their habit of lampshade hanging.
  Dr. Light: Want to know why his name's Rock?
  Dr. Wily: I know, I know, Rock and Roll. I got it. We did this joke before, remember?
  Dr. Light: We did?
  Dr. Wily: Yes. In fact, we've done this joke before as well.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: What Wily fakes in order to infiltrate Dr. Light's lab and set up the events of the third game after trying to take over the world twice.
  • Subverted during a time travel mishap, when everyone's too distracted to remember they're supposed to do this to two of the characters to prevent a paradox.

• Let's See YOU Do Better!: The commentary here. (The actual comic, too, but mostly the commentary)
  • Not the actual comic, but the Custom Comic (and glue factory) thread on the official forums lives off this trope.
• Lightning Can Do Anything: One of the titular characters manipulates lightning.
• Lightning/Fire Juxtaposition: The titualar Bob and George have fire and electrical powers respectively. For the sake of plot, they cannot affect each other.
• Literal Disarming: The only way to stop Non-Alternate Mynd was literally cutting his limbs off. First arm, second arm, legs. The last comic also features a reference to Monty Python and the Holy Grail because there is No Fourth Wall.

• Luke, I Am Your Father:
  • Parodied with Bob (Darth Volcanus) in the 4th game.
    Mega Man: Ring Man, I am your father.
    Ring Man: No you're not.
    Mega Man: You win this argument.
  • Also used in the third game with Break Man aka Proto Man. He can't pass up the opportunity to tell Mega Man they're brothers.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Mynd says this in this strip when Charge sliced off his left hand. Charge responds to this by slicing his right hand.
• Made of Plasticine: Kalinka Cossack's robot, Ran. Lampshaded. Then extremely exaggerated over the course of the series. Ran is built so cheaply a finger poke and even a slight breeze can kill him. Though, thanks to being cheaply built, Ran also has a replacement generator waiting, so a new body is already ready to replace him anytime he "dies".
• Malicious Misnaming: Roll's nickname for Mike is Ninja Ned, which he hates. Though it may not be malicious because Mike's counterpart in the main universe is Edward the Destroyer, who is also known as Ninja Ned.

• Milestone Celebration: invoked Averted in the 500th Comic, much to the characters' chagrin.
• A Million Is a Statistic: George doesn't really care about killing hundreds of ninjas, even if he does insist they're unconscious.
• Mirror Universe: The alternate universe has all characters swapping their core personality traits. So Proto Man becomes stupid, Mega Man is a genius and George is super-violent. Word of God states that they're physically identical, though.

• Monster of the Week: In every year of the comic, somebody attacks and the heroes defeat him. The "monsters of the year" are, in order: The Yellow Demon, Bob, Mynd, "evil Mega Man", Helmut, Non-alternate Mynd, X, and finally Bob again.
• Mook–Face Turn: Blame the ice cream.
• Morality Dial: All of Dr. Light's robots have one. Bass, on the other hand, has a switch whose two options are "evil" and "stupid".

• Motor Mouth: Quick Man, since he's constantly hyped up on sugar.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Inverted. Skull Man's Skull Barrier is hyped by Skull Man as an "ultimate weapon", but subsequent strips have Mega Man pointing out how it's anything but.
• Mundane Utility: The initial purpose of all the robots created in the first game. After all, why have a fridge when you can have a robot that produces cold standing in a box?
• Mushroom Samba: Needle Man's needles cause hallucinations.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Doctor Light has a rare moment of this after he realizes he stranded George in the past with no way to return.
  • Doctor Light again, when he sacrificed his support unit Circus to fight against Mynd, powered up with two Demons.
• My Name Is Inigo Montoya: Parodied, with the villain/hero roles reversed, in this comic.
  • Played straight here
• Mythology Gag: Centaur Man's status as a trans woman robot is either this or a case of meta-level Strange Minds Think Alike, given that Centaur Man is secretly female in the Rockman 6 manga.
• Name and Name: The title of the comic is of the two brothers, Bob and George.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Dr. Light's entire pathos with X is this. He meddles with X's programming to the point where he makes him an antisocial wuss who is pacifistic (resulting in a botched plan by Proto Man and Roll to steal his blaster) and hates ice-cream (making it impossible to make friends with people, especially George, Chadling and Mega Man). After a off-handed remark by George that he can't force people to be his friend, X goes nuts and does exactly that... with a little help from the wireless router Dr. Light used to build X's brain.
• Nobody Can Die: At least, not permanently.
• No Fourth Wall: The Author keeps arguing with the characters.
• Nonverbal Miscommunication: Nate tries to inform Mega Man and Bass about Mynd's evil plans, but they think he's reminding them about the upcoming Halloween strip. However, Proto Man gets it.
• Noodle Implements: Proto Man's plan to get X's blaster required car batteries, cinder blocks, iced tea and the city's ENTIRE supply of yogurt.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: George's lightning powers are strong, sure, but there are other elemental manipulators back home. In the world of Cyberspace, though, where everything is electrical? He's all but omnipotent.

• Non-Human Non-Binary: Wind Man reveals that Centaur Man identified as a woman. Then gets into the confusing nature of robot genders and how even more confusing it is for a robotic half-man/half-horse built to resemble a man but thinks like a woman. Amusing in that in the Rockman 6 Manga, Centaur Man appeared to be a woman, dressed as a man.
• Not Now, Kiddo: George runs into this problem when inside X's head. He tries to tell the other characters that since he's a being of pure electricity, he's basically a god, but gets interrupted every single time. X even lampshades it.
• Notable References to TV Tropes: This commentary, which also brings up the propensity for I Lied.
• Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here: In this comic, George says these exact words (minus "here"). Bob immediately proves him otherwise by blowing up a building.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Though Mega Man is a genuine idiot, he has feigned stupidity in battle to cause his opponents to drop their guard. Most famously against Ring Man.
  • This comic, as revealed here. Also note the commentary.
  • And the bad guys will do it too.

• Did I mention I really hate clones?

• Once a Season: Every year has some common elements: One villain will try to kill the entire cast, one Mega Man game will be adapted, and one year-ending party will be held. This is common for the first six years, the seventh being the exception.
• 1-Dimensional Thinking: Defied. Bob gets the short end twice, first when he charges straight at Proto Man, who jumps over him, and second when he attacks everyone to the left and right of him, leaving him vulnerable to Nate's attack from above.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: The Cameo character Ran, for whom Death Is a Slap on the Wrist.
• One-Two Punchline: After Bob revives from unconciousness off panel, when he actually appears in the penultimate panel of the next comic, he is wearing a ridiculous girly costume. The final panel has him making a reference to the prior Halloween comic, which is where the costume originated.
• Only Sane Man: Proto Man, and also Ring Man, to the point where it's considered the latter's character quirk.
• Overdrawn at the Blood Bank: "For Christ's sake! Doesn't this room have a drain?!"

• Overused Running Gag: Wily complaining about him never seeing people are around to hear his plans. In the case of Word of God, he admits that this is most of his jokes and a large part of the humor.
• Paint It Black: Bob's outfit is literally a Proto Man costume charred black (fanart depicts his scarf in rags for extra effect).
• Painting the Medium: Whenever story lines change, the background color changes too. This, like many tropes, gets lampshaded.
• Parental Favoritism: Dr Light, towards X.
• People Jars:
  • One for X and one for Zero, in the present day, anyway. It's to store their bodies while their creators work on them.
  • In the final arc, George finds the Author trapped inside tubes in all three eras. The Author is fine. He can get out any time that he wants, but stays to maintain the illusion that Bob has successfully captured him.
• Playing with Fire: Bob has fire powers.
• Plot Armor: Lampshaded in this strip, double subverted in the next strip and seemingly used straight with a prior Lampshade Hanging in this strip and the previous one.
  • Later, it's given a Double Subversion. Bob and George can't die because they're in the title of the comic, so when the plot calls for George to actually die, the title of the comic changes to allow it to happen. He gets better, though, and the title returns to "Bob and George."
• Plot Hole: Averted, or so the Author says.
  • This is almost a Running Gag; Plot Holes appear all over the place, and half the fun is watching the author attempt to seal them.
    • So much so that on the forums, the word 'Plothole' gets automatically filtered to 'Spoon'. Afterall, there is no spoon
  • Helmut appears to be the one to handle plot holes when no actual explanation can be given, having rescued Chadling from an alternate dimension and returned Bob's blaster, for example.
  • Ironically, one of the attempts to seal a Helmut-related plot hole (Evil Mega Man actually being Helmut to explain why Mega Man went bad in one arc) was later forgotten, leading to another plot hole towards the end of the series (when Mega Man turned evil again, and the previous incident being mentioned).
• Popularity Power: Star Man lampshades this trope in the sixth game storyline, believing this will guarantee his victory until he realizes his opponent is Shadow Man.
  • This is the reason Mega Man had to put Skull Man back together after accidentally taking him out in one panel.
• Power Glows: Most notably George. Bob smolders instead.
• Precision F-Strike: Someone uses the F word (uncensored) once annually, pretty much making this the epitome of the trope. The strips in question are always titled "[Character Name] Says The F-Word."

• Pressure-Sensitive Interface:
  • The time travel suit is controlled by one button on the belt buckle. You have to practically type out a command in Morse Code with it to actually do anything. The duration and pressure of the press are important.
  • Exaggerated in the "The Simple Instructions" strip. A holographic Dr. Light explains to George how to access the main menu. It requires tapping the button lightly twice, then slowly three times, and so on and so forth til, twenty minutes later, George notes that he should be writing the instructions down. To nail the coffin, the guide exasperatedly tells him, "Jesus, George, it's only one button!"
  • Parodied in "One Big Button" by way of a character's prank. Probably in retribution of the events in "The Simple Instructions", George starts manipulating in excrutiatingly complex ways the big button that controls the capsule's movements. When he manages to produce a MegaMan in the capsule, he answers to the doctor's confused half sentences with a condescending, "Jesus, Dr. Light, It's only one button!"
    George: Then maybe if I turn the button another 47.5 degrees, caress the button, and tell it what a good little button I think it is... Then I'll turn the button 63.2 degrees with my left hand, sneeze on it lightly, and push it all the way down again."
• Pun: The mix of Bass and Nate is called B4-T3, or Bate for short. Bate tells Evil Megaman he will beg for his mercy and call him Master. You can guess where this ends. Even the author knows it, because that strip's title is "The Worst Joke Ever" (complete with a Rimshot).
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Robot Masters, and Mynd's minions, Chadling and Mike.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: So rag tag that sometimes Wily even joins in on the heroes' side.
• Rage Against the Author: Bob's ultimate plan- revenge on the Author for destroying the two places that he was happy (the Rockman universe and the subspace rift).
• Real Life Writes the Plot: During July 2003, the Author had not only lost his internet connection, but the site also suffered a server crash. In the following month, he had to play catch up, resulting in many of the punchlines being mediocre, to the point where the author actually apologises in-comic.
• Recap Episode: There's quite a few of them, most notably "Story Time".
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Bob does this when particularly pissed. Roll when Bass asks (after a "Freaky Friday" Flip) if this technically means they've had sex.

• Repeating So the Audience Can Hear: Averted here.
• Retcon: Lampshaded many times.
• Revenge: Bob's ultimate plan in the final arc of the comic. The Author's actions took him away from universes where he was happy and content twice, to force him into more zaniness.

• Right Behind Me: Happens to Wily all the time. Subverted at one point, where no one was behind Wily, and he complained it just wasn't the same.
  • Inverted during the final storyline, where Bob (who at this point believed he killed Wily) boasts that Metool-D2's shield won't stop his Robot Master army, at which point Wily appears behind Bob to have a say on the matter, revealing that Bob only killed a robot decoy.

• Room 101: The Rehabilitator.
• Rule of Funny: Here we are given a "scientific" explanation where this is named "The Gag Reflex".
  • The comic runs on this, really. Acknowledged by Ran:
    Ran: And it's not just time traveling. The way I see it, we've broken every law of physics except the third law of thermodynamics.
    Dr. Light: Aha! Negative two Kelvin!
    Ran: Never mind...

• Running Gag: So many, it's better to just point at a list. Which is almost certainly incomplete.
  • Also most of the gags are given multiple subversions.
• Satan: He's Bob and George's grandfather through their mother, a succubus . It's where their superpowers come from.

• Screams Like a Little Girl: Dr. Light in this strip.
• Screw Destiny: Alternate Bass hates this, but just as often will get screwed by destiny himself (or because his future self is a jerk).
• Self-Deprecation: Sprinkled about here and there, mostly about the abundance of powerful original characters, Contrived Coincidences, and recolors.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Almost the entire storyline was a bet run by the two authors to see if George would kill Bob. George actually tries to do it, but his blaster doesn't go off. It still allows Shadowy Author to win.
• Shark Pool: A robotic version in Maneki Man vs. Mouse Man. More notably part of a convoluted trap to kill Alternate Mega Man when Bob took over Wily's fortress.
• Shock and Awe: George's powers.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: subverted
• Shout-Out:
  • "Oh god, I hope it's not Superman, he's a dick." Also counts as a Continuity Nod.
  • Plus The Lord of the Rings here, Star Wars here, Star Trek here, The Wizard of Oz here, and many, many, many more.
  • The X arc, where X takes over the world and George is forced into a virtual world, is full of dystopia references. Proto Man initially compares it to The Matrix, but they also refer to X, their dictator as Best Friend, like Big Brother of Nineteen Eighty-Four, or Friend of 20th Century Boys. Proto Man also offers George some Soma.
  • The commentary for #36 has him discuss this regarding the use of the phrase "Klaatu Barada Nikto", which he always attributed as a reference to Army of Darkness, to which readers would then email him to tell him the phrase originated from The Day the Earth Stood Still. Anez notes he never saw that film, and that his intent was for sure to refer to Army of Darkness, especially given the context of the phrase being used as a magic spell to raise the dead.

• Soap Punishment: In the Jailhouse Blues subcomics, Mega Man is fighting the foul-mouthed Yo Mamma Man and recalls how his mother always threatened to do this if he swore. Mega Man uses this as inspiration to use his Hypno Soap weapon to defeat Yo Mamma Man, but not before wondering how he knew that since he never had a mother.
• Something Only They Would Say: Used several times to identify imiposters. Mega Man saying something absolutely idiotic is often taken as a sign that he's back to normal. Unfortunately subverted when Helmut was impersonating George, as he's able to mimic George's obsession with Ice Cream fairly well.
• The Speechless: Nate. He occasionally makes use of signs or elaborate waving of hands. Or at least as elaborate as a sprite comic can get.
• Spirit Advisor: The Shadowy Author.
  • Robots who haven't been created yet can also show up as spiritual advisors during hallucenations or drug trips. Ran showed up to Mega Man when he fought Needle Man, and X showed up to George when Doctor Light and Wily injected him with drugs.
• Spot the Imposter: Lampshaded and parodied here.
• Stable Time Loop: The ultimate result of George's first experience with time travel; his presence in the past had directly affected how those events turned out. It also turns out to be a major spanner in Helmut's plans for his attempt to take over the comic—George actually time-traveled twice in that storyline, the second time ending up further in the past from his first trip. From Helmut's time perspective, he imprisoned Past!George in Wily's castle, then carried out his plans in the guise of Mega Man, including the imprisonment of the Author in a jar that would kill anyone who tried to destroy it...only for the jar to be shattered anyway by an "earlier" version of Past!George, who was able to break it because he was already destined to survive.
• Stealth Pun: The punchline in this comic. Pharaoh Man's last line recalls the Egyptian sun god Ra.
• Succubi and Incubi: Bob and George's mom is a succubus. This still doesn't stop Bob getting mad at Metool D2 insinuating things.

• Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: Parodied during the adaptation for the first game, where all of Dr. Light's robots seemed suited for combat, but are all designed to do mundane household chores (Proto Man's a butler, Cut Man's a gardener, Ice Man lives in a fridge, Guts Man's a garbage man, Fire Man manages the fireplace, Elec Man powers the TV, and Bomb Man... is just a love machine).
• Supervillain Lair: Wily's fortresses.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Wily has many of these.
• Swallowed Whole: Several people by Demons.
• Take That!: According to Anez, some fans complained about the characters' dialogue being to stilted and too Superfriends-sounding. He then wrote a comic in which the characters spouted William Shakespeareian dialect (appropriately titled "Mega Hamlet", as Bob had wandered into a Shakespeare-influenced universe), leaving Bob to note, "Well, at least they don't sound like something out of Superfriends..."
• Tastes Like Friendship: Often also like ice cream.
• Technical Pacifist: Almost everyone, though Death Is Cheap and people do die.

• Three Laws-Compliant: While called upon several times, the robots in the comic definitely are not compliant.
• Time Travel and everyone directly involved will gain a severe hate for it.
• Title Drop: Here, when the titular duo team up to fight Mynd with an ultimate attack.

• Too Dumb to Live: Inverted. Mega Man has the "extraordinary ability to not recognize life-threatening injuries" — he's too stupid to die.
  • Played straight with many of the robot masters, though; Bubble Man in the game tries to make you jump to the top of the screen with the deadly spikes. In the strip, all Rock has to do is do bet him that he can't reach the spikes.
• Torture First, Ask Questions Later: Mike engage in a bit of this when trying to interrogate Bob.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Chadling, George, and Mega Man will find a way to get ice cream whether it involves betraying their employer, ruining continuity, or suffering the side effects of massive dairy consumption while lactose intolerant.
  • Chadling initially loved bananas, but that was quickly traded for ice cream.
  • Bob also mentions, almost in passing, during one of the hand drawn strips that he loves BBQ. When he is the Big Bad of the last plot events are just kicking off before the 4th, he tells all his robots to stand down. The text during the celebration shows that he only did so because he seems to enjoy a good BBQ almost as much as George loves ice cream, and will take any excuse to start up the grill within sense.
• Trope Codifier: Did not create the sprite comic, but did set a lot of standards for them.
  • Unbuilt Trope: It also spent as much time examining those tropes, like how people would really feel about an all-powerful Author messing with their world for kicks and how having No Fourth Wall would allow them to play with the strip.
• [Trope Name]: "The Formula"
• Two Lines, No Waiting: Most notably during the Mega Man 5 adaptation, split between the raid on Bob's fortress and the big Robot Master fight.
• Unreadable Disclaimer: Bob almost becomes a victim of this in the short crossover chapter mentioned above.
  Macc: Say, can I get your autograph? Right here on this soul-sealing contract-looking piece of paper?
  Bob: Yeah sure, no problem... Say, what's all this small type that looks suspiciously like fine print... Hey!
  Macc: Damn... oh come on, sign it.

• Unwilling Suspension: George, during the third game. Among others. Many others.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Discussed in the commentary here.
• Villains Out Shopping: Bob might be in the middle of destroying the universe, but he always has time for BBQ.
• Villainous Breakdown: Helmut gets one when he figures out that the only reason his plan was foiled was because he was preventing George from dying... which allowed George to open a jar that would kill anyone who tried to open it, freeing the Author. Time Paradoxes were involved.
• Visible Invisibility: So that the reader knows where Shadow Man is.

• Weirdness Magnet: If the Author appears, weird things will happen to whatever universe or timeline he's in. At one point Prometheus/Protoman complains that because the Author hadn't showed up for years in his timeline, things have gotten boring and he hasn't had a good reason to smirk for ages.
  • This trope is part of why Bob swears vengeance on the Author after the Rockman universe starts getting "corrupted" by him (read: becoming more like the comic incarnations of the characters (Megaman liking ice cream and being stupid, Roll is violent and swears, Doctor Light is an alcoholic, etc.) rather than their japanese original counterparts).
• We Need a Distraction: Bass has a very pretty transformation sequence.
• Webcomic of the Game: In between the exploits of the title characters and other original characters, there's the 8-bit Mega Man games.
• Wham Line: Or rather, Wham Sound Effect, in the very last non-animated strip:
  Bob: [as George finally got the Buster part of his suit working] Oh! Your blaster! You finally got it to work. Bravo! But we both know you don't have the balls to use it! You never did and you never will! Now if you'll excuse me, I have an author to—
  [*click*]
  Bob: ...click? Click?! You were going to fucking shoot me!
  George: Actually, it was set to full strength, so technically I was going to kill you.

• Many, many times, usually followed with instant regret.

• What the Hell, Hero?: Mega Man's blatant homophobia towards Topman. He gets called out on this afterward. By Helmut no less.
• What Were You Thinking?: Mega Man to Dr. Light after Dr. Wily reprogrammed his robot servants.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Whether or not the comics takes place in Japan or not is a point of debate, particularly at the fourth of July celebrations.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Bob's fear of Pokémon.

• A Wizard Did It: Protoman and Doctor Light try to pull this on George to explain why the self-replicating nanobots didn't kill him. George doesn't buy it either time.

• The Worf Effect: It happens to most Mega Man characters when they're facing an original character.
• Would Not Shoot a Civilian: Averted but played for laughs with the Volcano Kid, who gets shot by Megaman and Ran.
• Wound That Will Not Heal: Alternate George has his eyes plucked out in his first appearance. They're still bleeding seven years later.
• Wrong Line of Work: Bob is an impossibly brilliant programmer, but he's not a roboticist. He can reprogram the Robot Masters, but he can't write code for an AI from scratch, so when asked to program Zero, he has to steal X's code as a template. Later, when he tries to take over Wily's job of sending eight Robot Masters, he realizes that all he can do is study their notes and hope to build one someday... until he finds Dr. Wily's instant Robot Master machine.

• You Can See Me?: During George's time travel escapades, the Time Machine suit gives George the power to be invisible and intangeable. Sadly, during his first trip back, every single person can see him for one reason or another- better sensors, Demon physiology, Author powers, and more. What makes it more amusing is that this trope is nearly totally averted when the Time Machine breaks while leaving him still intangible.

• You Have Failed Me: As Mega Man/Helmut explains to Bass, it's essentially a requirement for all evil villains to kill their lackeys once they screw up. Nothing personal.
  • Ninja Ned does this to his ninja minions who have kidnapped the President, when Mike ordered them to run away. Mike is Ned's alternate, and the Ninjas thought that Mike was Ned, but Ned was not so forgiving.

• You Monster!: In the first Cataclysm episode, Dr. Light's reaction when Zero openly admits to killing Mega Man.
  Zero: Yes, yes. I'm a monster. But, then... That's what I was programmed to be.

• Zombie Apocalypse: In a Halloween special.

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