Breakfast of the Gods

Part of a well-balanced apocalypse.

Breakfast of the Gods is a now-complete Web Comic by Brendan Douglas Jones, best described as Watchmen played out by breakfast cereal mascots.

The Honey Nut Cheerios Bee's corpse washes up on a beach and all fingers point toward Count Chocula as the perpetrator. Snap, Crackle and Pop disappear shortly thereafter, and Cap'n Crunch and Tony the Tiger investigate. What eventually ensues is an all-out war for the fate of Cerealia, waged between the heroic defenders of everyone's balanced breakfast and the villainous denizens of the night as well as their extraterrestrial allies, the dreaded Soggies.

Tropes used in Breakfast of the Gods include:

• Altum Videtur: Jarvis's final spell is grammatically correct Latin (except for one word that's in English).
• Always Night: The area Count Chocula controls. Complete with rainless lightning storm.
• And That Little Girl Was Me: Jarvis with a short and confusing one here.
• And This Is For: Alfie delivers the line as he avenges Cap'n Crunch on Jean LaFoote.
• Anyone Can Die: Oh, so true.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: "Here is perpetual night, the darkness suited only to the likes of thieves, murderers, and late-night snackers."
  • For Frankenberry's profile, it's said that the evil deeds he commits for the Count include "kidnapping, torture, murder, [and] grocery shopping"
• The Berserker: Super Bear, Froot Brute, and Sonny.
• Big Bad: Count Chocula.
• Big Damn Heroes: When all the other snack food mascots show up for the final battle. The comments on that page were all basically variations of "Holy shit!"
• Big Good: Cap'n Crunch.
• The Cavalry: Quisp and the Crunch kids, and a boatload of snack-food mascots here. Alfie even calls them "the whole danged cavalry".
• Cereal Vice Reward: Oh so subverted. Giving in to one's cereal cravings is a good way to end up a traitor, a raving junkie or a rampaging engine of destruction.
• Darker and Edgier / Bloodier and Gorier: A comic that does this really well. Jones manages to darken the tone without resorting to darkening the appearance, except where it's appropriate—inside the Count's castle, for instance. The bright, cheerful colors just make it worse.
• Deconstruction Crossover
• Decoy Protagonist: Cap'n Crunch.
• Despair Event Horizon: Trix Rabbit teeters on the edge of this for quite some time, following his actions at Sam's in Book 2.
• The Dragon: Frankenberry, to Chocula.
• Driven to Suicide: The Trix Rabbit tries (and fails) to hang himself in remorse for having betrayed Cap'n Crunch. Boss Moss prevents it.
• Eyepatch of Power: Tony's
• Eye Scream: An insane Crunchberry Beast gores out one of Tony's eyes before Dig 'Em shoots him.
• Fallen Hero: Quake starts off the final battle having been recruited to Count Chocula's side.
• Fantastic Drug: Cereal. What else? It's how Sugar Bear turns into Super Bear (and why he's trying to stay away from it), how Count Chocula coerces the Trix Rabbit into helping him kill Cap'n Crunch, and how the Count keeps Sonny under his absolute control. As they say, cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
• Gambit Roulette: Subverted. One of Count Chocula's allies points out near the end that the Count's mysterious "plan" has never been anything of the sort.
• Go Into the Light: The Quaker Man is cast in the role of God welcoming Cap'n Crunch into the afterlife.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Involving Twinkie The Kid and Dig'em here.
• Heel Face Turn Quake, after Quisp tells him to "remember who you are!"
• Innocent Innuendo: Anything involving the Hostess Crew... sent by King Ding Dong.
• Living Battery: The reason King Vitaman was missing is that he was hidden away to be used as this to boost Cerealia's defenses.
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Even more massive when all the other food mascots join in the fight.
• Master of Disguise: The Trix Rabbit.
• The Mole: Boo Berry turns out to have a pivotal role in saving the day.
• Neutral No Longer: When Toucan Sam is first introduced, all he's interested in is staying out of the mess, but after Cap'n Crunch's death he decides he can no longer remain neutral. This is only natural, as he's basically written as Rick from Casablanca.
• Obligatory Swearing: Provided by Dig 'Em and the Cookie Cop.
• Pietà Plagiarism/Cradling Your Kill: Here. The character in the "Mary" position is most assuredly not mourning the death of the character in the "Jesus" position.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Quake's "But something you should know about me, Sogmaster -- I'm Lactose Intolerant!!"
• Redemption Equals Death: Both the Trix Rabbit, who shows up for the final battle dressed as a ninja, and Quake, who single-handedly takes down the Soggies' mother ship.
• Sacrificial Lion: Capt'n Crunch, again.
• Shown Their Work: The number of forgotten cereal mascots who come into play proves this trope.
• Stout Strength: Flying Brick Quake has let himself go quite a lot from the old days, but he's still just as powerful.
• Super-Powered Evil Side: Sugar Bear spends most of the comic trying to stay out of the fight because he's terrified of turning into Super Bear. His concern is entirely justified.
• Take Up My Sword: From Capt'n Crunch to Alfie, via Seadog. It happens here.
• Took a Level In Badass: Alfie, when he goes up against Jean LaFoote.
• Torture Technician: Frank. He likes this part of his job. He likes it a lot. He's also very, very good at it.
• Tragic Hero: Trix Rabbit.
• Tragic Monster: Sonny and the Fruit Brute. This does not keep Super Bear from ripping Sonny's head off or smashing Froot Brute's like a grape.
• Wacky Wayside Tribe: The webcomic both invokes and plays with this trope with King Ayummayumma and the Fruit Islanders.
• What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: Breakfast cereal mascots kicking ass. Yes.
• Your Head Asplode: Strongly implied, but not actually shown with Twinkie The Kid; see the entry for Gory Discretion Shot.