Warning: Often serves as a Death Trope, and frequently involves spoilers.
Times where villains aim to eliminate some no-longer necessary minions or other loose ends in Webcomics.
- Black Mage from 8-Bit Theater was always a fan of Chaos and made no attempts to hide it. Once Chaos himself shows up, he makes it clear that he intends to slaughter BM as well as everything else.
- In The B-Movie Comic, the Dr. Claw-style unseen villain rewards
one of his mooks. - Tim the Gholem in Boomer Express, who tricked Vikki and worked with Kaminovo and Kyominara to awaken a Precursor is Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves by the two demons.
- During the "Court of Karnak" storyline in Dominic Deegan, Bulgak and Lady Loxo do a Villain Team-Up, both fully aware it's because all they have is each other. Bulgak even points out that one of them will drop the other like a hot potato the second the other isn't of further use. In the end, Bulgak's developing crisis of conscience gives Lady Loxo the opening to betray him first when she hands him over to Siegfried to curry favor.
- Happens a couple of times in Dragon Ball Multiverse. For example, Bojack does it to Bido, and Cell to his Cell Jr.
- In Drowtales, Quain'tana gives Syphile a warning that she has "outlived your purpose [raising Ariel] and my patience" and effectively banishes her. The threat to kill her is not explicitly said (and considering the end result of her raising Ariel, it was more of a You Have Failed Me anyway), but it's definitely there. Later, she made good on it, though Syphile attacked her first rather than the other way around, and Quain actually displays some admiration that she had the guts to try and kill her before she gives her a quick death.
- Snadhya'rune also threatens her daughter Kalki with this after her impulsive actions cost her a potentially valuable ally, telling her to "go, before I find I no longer need you." Like Quain, she makes good on the threat by the end of the chapter.
- Snadhya'rune also threatens her daughter Kalki with this after her impulsive actions cost her a potentially valuable ally, telling her
- Subverted in Errant Story, where it's the good guys (or at least the antihero) who invoke the trope (by name) to dispose of bandit Jim after Sarine coerces him into revealing the location of the bandit camp. Sarine herself is perfectly happy to have the guy go off to the Powers That Be and turn himself in, but Jon prefers a more ... direct ... approach.
- In Everyday Heroes, Wrecking Paul is a serial killer preying on women, as well as a thief. When faced with Mr. Mighty instead of the female hero he was expecting, he turns on his accomplice. Apparently he goes through a lot of them.
- Girl Genius:
- During her escape from Sturmhalten Lucrezia abruptly wraps up Lady Vrin as a loose end because she can't afford to have Vrin captured by the Baron.
- And Lord Snackleford wipes out all of his fellow Gray Hood conspirators the instant he achieves "second-stage" Sparkhood.
- Smoke Knight Madwa Korvel plans to do this with the airship captain contracted to covertly haul her to an island hideout, but changes her mind when he preemptively shows he fully expects it to happen, and is completely apathetic about it.
- In El Goonish Shive, Magus kills Sirleck as soon as he regains a body as he was working with Sirleck only to that end. It helps that Sirleck was also planning to betray him by permanently possessing his newfound body.Magus: Not once did I ask you who you planned to possess after Ellen. Should've been a red flag.
- Otacon from The Last Days of FOXHOUND uses Sniper Wolf as an intermediary to tell Liquid that he's finished modifying Metal Gear to fire nukes, stating that he suspects Liquid will adhere to this trope and kill him the moment he finds out. Obviously, it doesn't happen.
- Once it becomes clear in The Letters Of The Devil that Chuck's reputation is irrevocably tarnished, Susan kills him while saying, "You're too broken."
- In Mitadake Saga, Keiichi kills both Kazu and Yuki after they've finished all the testing of the Death Note and are unable to provide him with names respectively
- The Order of the Stick:
- When Redcloak informs Xykon that his ogre minions are asking for payment, Xykon kills them and zombifies them. "Just as strong, but they eat less!"
- It was briefly implied that Xykon was grooming Tsukiko to replace Redcloak since he's becoming increasingly unreliable.
- Later on however Redcloak disposes of the wights by ordering them to kill (and eat) themselves in order to cover up the murder of Tsukiko. When he tells Xykon that he killed Tsukiko for being The Starscream, Xykon's response is "been there, done that, didn't really need her" (combined with some face saving).
- An interesting example between General Tarquin and his son Nale. For a very long time, Tarquin was willing to overlook Nale's staggering incompetence and overall detrimental effect on his plans, simply because he was his son and he loved him. However, when Nale boasts about killing Malack and then rejects Tarquin's Last-Second Chance to reconcile, Tarquin stops treating him like his son and starts treating him as an asset. A pragmatically evil overlord like Tarquin only has one reaction to a useless asset.
Tarquin: Is that really how you feel? [...] *sigh* As you wish, son. - Scurry: Said verbatim on page 212 by Resher to Kessel, after Kessel tries to redeem himself by arresting Resher. One of Resher's henchmice slays him seconds later.
- Sequential Art:OZBASIC: You have served your purpose. Prepare for deathly laser death time..... WITH LASERS!
- Sluggy Freelance: In the 4U City Red storyline, after a character has manipulated Riff to gain access to a well-protected area, he warns him that he's now outlived his usefulness... and then, reflecting on the extreme collateral damage Riff did, adds that "you proved to be over-qualified for your usefulness". Riff says this is an epitaph he can get behind.
- Undead Ed: Subverted. The government decides that they have no further use for the Mortician... and proceed to drive him home.
- unOrdinary: Volcan kills Alana when it's clear she's not going to learn any more from Alana drugging herself with the experimental ability amplifier, and that heroes are using Alana to trace their way back to her providers.
- Unsounded: Starfish tries to have Mathis killed once he's able to hire another wright, since Mathis' insistence that the children come with him and are not further harmed is an annoyance for Starfish's smuggling operation. Tries is the key word, as Mathis doesn't go down without a fight and with Jivi's help manages to escape with his life.
