History ComicBook / RedTeam

** In the broader context, lawyers like this are a big reason the original team goes rogue in the first place. They use legal loopholes and dirty dealings to protect their obviously guilty clients, meaning that after years of legal-but-ineffective policework, the team is left with no choice but murder to deliver justice. Which is arguably an [[TruthInTelevision accurate appraisal]].

* VigilanteExecution

* RealityEnsues: Seems to be a common theme throughout the entire series. One particularly glaring example is when a rich, white yuppie type "posses up", recruiting a college football team armed with bats and sheer muscle to try and intimidate a ghetto drug trafficker and his gang. [[CurbStompBattle This goes about as well as you'd expect.]]
** A far more tragic example is the fate of [[spoiler: Duke and George]] in the penultimate issue of the original series. [[spoiler: George is badly wounded and Duke stays behind to help him get away, refusing his calls to save himself. This ''would'' be where they get some distance and go down swinging, or turn the tables, right? Wrong. They get ten feet and then are gruesomely riddled with bullets from behind.]]

* OfficeRomance: Eddie and Trudy have been attracted to one another almost from the moment they met, but have consistently fought it down due to Eddie's marriage and Trudy not wanting to interfere with that. [[spoiler: As of "Center Mass" Issue #7, they finally give in to the attraction.]]

* Irony: Mellinger goes on a rant about how the fact that the Irish ''still'' make up the majority of the NYPD means that "inbreeding and complacency" have made the whole organization slow and corrupt. Earlier on, Trudy goes on a similar rant, decrying how an absolute disgrace of an officer like Williams (not to mention his father, who was essentially a gangster with a badge) was protected for years by the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_of_silence "blue wall of silence"]]. The department is so riddled with "Old Boy" networks and terrified of image problems that all misconduct and offences are hushed up. [[spoiler: Well, guess whose team's actions are covered up and made to vanish by that same code of silence in the last issue of the original series?]]

* MultipleGunshotDeath: A brutal example with [[spoiler: George and Duke]]. So many gunshots, in fact, that one of the shooters describes them as looking "like something off a butcher's block". Also occurs when [[spoiler: O'Dwyer's crew of corrupt cops]] wipe out both sides of a drug deal. Everyone has ''at least'' half a clip of automatic fire emptied into them, and that's ''before'' they're hacked apart with machetes.
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Very common, and to be expected from a Creator/GarthEnnis work. For every death by single shot, there's a couple involving a whole ''cloud'' of flying lead. A "localized" example would be the very first person the team kill: George shoots him ''five times in the heart'' at contact range.

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Very common, and to be expected from a GarthEnnis work. For every death by single shot, there's a couple involving a whole ''cloud'' of flying lead. A "localized" example would be the very first person the team kill: George shoots him ''five times in the heart'' at contact range.

** The sequel series has Mellinger shred the argument of a StrawmanPolitical that all drugs should be legalized and drug dealers rehabilitated. He quickly reminds her that while drugs like marijuana are one thing, crack and heroin and meth ''are another'', and users will do anything to get hold of money for them. Not only that, but the sheer amount of money available in trafficking means that many dealers don't ''want'' to be rehabilitated, so what's to be done about them? Naturally, said ultra-liberal has no reply. This could be considered a slight aversion, in that Mellinger is clearly sympathetic to and understands her viewpoint; he just has a different perspective due to his job and experience.

The original series was followed up with a sequel in 2016, ''Double Tap, Center Mass'', from the same creative team. The survivors of the first series have been busted down to street-level patrol duty, but by complete accident, stumble across a particularly high-profile case that might be enough to get them back to where they want to be.

* AmoralAttorney: Dershowitz, the defense attorney hired by the Nightingale family in the sequel, is this trope all over. Mellinger refers to him as a "reptile" who can see all the angles, and play them to protect his client regardless of whether or not he's innocent. Later on, when [[spoiler: Little Boi's crew is unexpectedly represented by his firm and strikes a deal that protects Eric]], Trudy states that as long as he's well-paid for his efforts, there's probably ''nothing'' Dershowitz wouldn't facilitate or organize.

* FairCop: Played straight and Deconstructed with Trudy. She's very attractive, to the extent that even perps ''she's just arrested'' hit on her. But the wives of her friends hate her as a threat, and she has to bust her ass twice as hard to prove she ''isn't'' just a pretty face who slept her way to the top.

** The sequel series has Mellinger shred the argument of a StrawmanPolitical that all drugs should be legalized and drug dealers rehabilitated. He quickly reminds her that while drugs like marijuana are one thing, crack and heroin and meth ''are another'', and users will do anything to get hold of money for them. Not only that, but the sheer amount of money available in trafficking means that many dealers don't ''want'' to be rehabilitated, so what's to be done about them? Naturally, said ultra-liberal has no reply.

* DirtyCop

* OfficeRomance: Eddie and Trudy have been attracted to one another almost from the moment they met, but have consistently fought it down due to Eddie's marriage and Trudy not wanting to interfere with that.

[[quoteright:182:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/red_team_comic_3654.jpg]]

An seven-issue comic book from Dynamite Entertainment, written by Creator/GarthEnnis with art by Craig Cermak and covers by Creator/HowardChaykin, ''Red Team'' is a crime story set in and around New York City.

A major crimes unit within the NYPD, Red Team, has been pursuing a particularly ruthless drug dealer for some time, and in so doing has inadvertently eliminated most of his competitors. When the dealer in question arranges for the death of a fellow cop and subsequently has the man who pulled the trigger assassinated, leaving them with nothing to go on, the Red Team proceeds to step outside the law.

* ScheduleSlip: There was a fairly massive gap between issues #2 and #3 which killed a lot of the book's word of mouth. Similarly, several months passed between issues #6 and #7.