< Take That

Take That/Comic Books

DC Comics

  • The number of times that DC Comics and Marvel Comics superheroes have beaten on an Alternate Company Equivalent of their rival's characters are too numerous to count.
    • It's been a tradition for the two companies to do light-hearted jabs at each other for over fifty years. Unfortunately, writers today tend to forget that.
  • Ironically, when The Ultimates came out, their version of The Avengers seemed to be heavily influenced by a satirical version introduced when Mark Millar took over; a team of black-ops sociopaths controlled by the US government. The major villain on Millar's first arc is basically Jack Kirby; he's specifically described as "the guy who would've created all your favorite comic books" if he hadn't been hired by the US government. The series has a lot of Author Appeal, and they're not subtle about it either. He even takes shots at Charles Atlas bodybuilding ads. Also;

Legally-distinct-parody-of The Hulk: Comics are for retards.

  • The Authority took this to a ridiculous extreme by fighting (and utterly destroying) satirical versions of the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, SHIELD, and the X-Men. The authors explained this was a deliberate poke at traditional superheroes who they felt embodied and maintained the status quo.

Hawksmoor:: (To Bill Clinton) We're not some comic book super-team who participate in pointless fights with pointless super-criminals every month to preserve the status quo.

    • The comic itself later received a Take That in the form of the "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice & the American Way?" story arc of Superman.
      • Ironically, despite the creator of "What's So Funny" intending for "The Elites" to basically be a one/two-shot deal, a second version of the Elites appeared... and turned out to be pulling a Xanatos Gambit to pretend to be the second coming of the original Elites in order to make humanity pull together for one major effort needed to waive off Gaia's Vengeance... a smackdown that Gaea herself was planning to dish out. They subsequently became the shortlived "Justice League Elites", in essence the black ops branch of the Justice League family.
    • Justice League even had an episode that showed what would happen if the titular heroes, which The Authority is patterned loosely after, were to suddenly decide that they knew better than everyone else. It's not clear if it was a deliberate Take That.
    • Also in the series, during Warren Ellis' last story, is the Authority attempting to kill God. Ellis is a staunch atheist.
  • A bunch of defectors from Marvel (Byrne included), snuck in an epic Take That into the DC series Legends, where Guy Gardner, Green Lantern, beat the crap out of a transparent Expy of Star Brand and Shooter, without even breaking a sweat. Viewable here.
  • Watchmen: Two words: Rorschach sucks.
  • Grant Morrison's mini-series DC One Million begins with Plastic Man doing a Take That at DC's other stretchable superhero Elongated Man: "I could never figure out while the League kept choosing Elongated Man over me. Don't get me wrong, nice guy, nice wife, but hey! Someone left the stable door open and his charisma just bolted I guess!"
    • In Alex Ross's Justice, Plastic Man is portrayed as a complete jerk, especially to Ralph (Elongated Man)'s face. Ralph comes off as the bigger man when he doesn't retaliate.
    • An episode of Batman the Brave And The Bold features a similar jab, with Plastic Man dismissing Elongated Man as a "D-list doppleganger".
    • And of course there was the episode of Justice League Unlimited that had Elongated Man whining about how Plastic Man is more popular than him despite the fact that he is a far more competent hero than Plas.
  • Some fans have speculated that the' Justice miniseries was either a Take That or at least a "measured response" to the Identity Crisis miniseries.
  • Mark Waid's Kingdom Come series is essentially a middle finger to the 90's era of comics. The irresponsible hero Magog (who causes the death of thousands of civilians) is an obvious parody of the X-Men character Cable, a popular character during that time period. Additionaly, many of the DC heroes introduced in the 90's such as Kyle Rayner (who Ross has gone on record as saying he hates) and Tim Drake were completely ignored.
  • Animal Man thinks to himself while experimenting with the abilities of a spider: "Of course I wouldn't want only spider powers... that'd make me a third-rate super-hero."
  • The Teen Titans Go comic edition "Stupid Cupid" took a massive, though lighthearted, shot at the shipping community, with Raven mentioning that shipping is rather pointless.
  • Mister Miracle villain Funky Flashman was a publicity hogging sleazy businessman based partially on Stan Lee. Many fans believe this was a Take That by Kirby after leaving Marvel due to creative differences with Stan.
    • Issue #3 of Adventure Comics uses Funky Flashman as a throwaway villain, trying to steal a Mother Box. Take that as you will.
  • Superboy Prime may be one big Take That at all silver-age fans who are complaining about current Darker and Edgier settings.
  • When Dwayne McDuffie recycled the old, tossed out idea of superhero Black Power, who has access to his powers in Captain Marvel style - transformation after saying certain word - and from white man turns into black one, he made his white form look like Avengers writer Brian Bendis, and his black form very similar to Luke Cage, Bendis' favorite character. This may have been more of a Shout-Out though.
  • Prior to Mcduffie's death, he had been in some very publicized disputes with Dan DiDio and DC editorial over the Executive Meddling his Justice League of America run and his Milestone Forever mini-series received. After he died, a one-shot tribute comic was published, and it contained a metafictional story where Static and Rocket (two characters he created) discuss Mcduffie's passing, and both state that now that he is dead, the same people who bullied Dwayne and made his job difficult would try to cash in and pretend that he was important to them.
  • Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge has this thinly-veiled meta-commentary on Marc Guggenheim's run on The Flash and its misuse of the Rogues, as well as the quality issues of certain big events such as Amazons Attack and Countdown to Final Crisis.

Heat Wave: This isn't for Kid Flash.
Weather Wizard: This isn't for my son.
Captain Cold: No. This is for one $%@#$@-up year.

  • James Robinson's final issue of the 2006-2011 Justice League series has a number of potshots directed at the New 52 reboot that resulted in the title's cancellation, including the favoritism shown towards Batwing over a number of already-established African-based heroes, Dick Grayson's return to the Nightwing identity and Donna Troy's apparent lack of appearance in the reboot. It also took shots at the Justice League fans who criticized Robinson's run, with Grayson stating that he didn't care whether or not his iteration of the League would be remembered fondly by the public, and that he and his team did their best despite what the detractors said. How subtle.
  • The New 52 Justice League International gave the new Blue Beetle Jaime Reyes (who JLI fans don't like) a major diss, when the people recruiting the new JLI react extremely negatively when Jaime is suggested as a potential member of the team.
  • An issue of Supergirl mocked the much-maligned Justice League: The Rise of Arsenal mini-series. The original mini featured a widely-mocked scene where a doped up Arsenal hallucinates that a dead cat is his daughter Lian. The subsequent Supergirl issue featured a Bizzaro version of Arsenal....whose gimmick was a quiver full of dead cats which he used as projectile weapons.
  • A precursor to Superboy-Prime appears in the Flash storyline "Return of Barry Allen," Mark Waid's response to fans asking him to bring back Barry. He brings back Barry all right--except it's really the young Eobard Thawne, future Professor Zoom, retconned into a fanboy so obsessive he gets plastic surgery to look exactly like Barry Allen. When various psychological shocks such as discovering he goes on to be a villain and be killed by his former idol leave him convincing himself he is Barry, he is furious to discover that people grew to think of Wally West as the Flash in the years after Barry died, and he eventually leaves Wally in a deathtrap for "stealing his name."
  • This ad, funded by DC, is already a petty jab at Manga, but takes it a few steps further by saying "Robama(who is just Cyborg) wants you to buy American!" The overly patriotic tone doesn't help.
  • During alternate universe shenangians Justice League introduced One-Scene Wonder the "Brown Bomber": a man who looks a lot like Marvel's Brian Bendis and transforms into Luke Cage upon saying "Black Power!" (Bendis is regularly accused of wanting to be black and using Luke Cage as a self insert). This doubles as a Mythology Gag about the Black Bomber concept (a white racist who unknowingly changed into a super powered black man) that was scrapped in favor of Black Lightning.

Marvel Comics:

  • Ares, God of war comments on how much he hated the film Troy, after explaining that he fought in the actual battle alongside Achilles
    • Apparently he forgot that he actually fought alongside the Trojans in the real thing.
      • Considering that Achilles also remembers fighting alongside him, he probably fought for the other team in Marvel Universe.
    • He also has once took jab at Spartans, saying they never failed to annoy him and that he favored Athens. Spartans having a statue of him in chains, and their kids claiming to be Hercule's descendants may have something to do with it.
  • The Punisher and Wolverine occasionally traded jabs. Garth Ennis repeatedly wrote Punisher issues where Frank dealt Wolverine horrible injuries. Wolverine's writers responded by writing an issue where Logan defeats Frank and them implies that Frank is gay. Ennis responded by writing a Punisher comic where Frank shoots Logan in half with a rocket. It goes on like this.
  • When John Byrne took over Star Brand back in the '80s, he proceeded to launch one Take That after another at the departing figure of ousted Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter. Star Brand was one of the Shooter-initiated "New Universe" titles, and was the one that Shooter himself wrote personally. Byrne not only took ad hominem shots at Shooter personally, but had exposition characters hang lampshades on how implausible the events of Shooter's run was, and how stupid the hero had been. Early on in Byrne's run, the hero's girlfriend got Stuffed in The Fridge; the hero later broke down and passed the titular Brand onto some other poor schmuck, destroying Pittsburgh in the process. Not coincidentally, the book's original hero bore a physical resemblance to Shooter.
    • The Author Avatar of Byrne died horrifically in the Pittburgh explosion. So did about ten thousand comic book con-goers. Such is life. Pretend life.
  • During the nineties period, somebody gave Hulk a fin to where on his head that resembled the Savage Dragon's. Hulk pointed out that despite this "ingenious disguise" everyone who saw him would think, Hey there goes Hulk with a fin on his head.
  • The Marvel Adventures line of comics, featuring traditional Marvel heroes with stories aimed at a younger audience, has been known to take what can only be seen as deliberate snubs at the main line of Marvel Comics.
    • During the height of World War Hulk, where almost all of Marvel's superheroes were defeated by the Hulk, Marvel Adventures released an issue where the Avengers, including Bruce Banner and Iron Man, need to go into space. After considering the dangers of turning into the Hulk and killing the crew by accident Banner tells them that they have permission to eject him into space if he becomes a danger. Iron Man and the Avengers share a good-hearted laugh and Tony smiles at Banner and says, "Don't be silly. We'd never shoot the Hulk into space."
      • Wolverine then shot Hulk into space...
    • Lately in the main line continuity, Tigra has been repeatedly crapped on by writer Brian Michael Bendis, who writes the two Avengers titles. Marvel Adventures Avengers recently had Tigra join the team.
    • Henry Pym and Janet van Dyne, one of the main continuity writers' favorite pairings to screw over, are a happy, if sometimes awkward couple, much closer to what they were before True Art Is Angsty set in in the original comics. This even gets a lampshading, with Spider-Man kidding that "it would never work" when they first hook up.
    • Doc Samson's notes on Spider-Man during psychoanalysis: "...Needs a wife."
    • During a brief team-up, Wolverine asks Alex Power of Power Pack if he's ever considered "movin' up to the big leagues". Alex replies that he has once or twice, but "it turns out I'm pretty happy with the team I'm on." This is likely a reference to the change the character underwent in the '90s when he stole his siblings' powers not once but twice so he could fight without his siblings as one of the New Warriors.
    • Sadly, it is because of this that Executive Meddling got involved and canceled the comic.
  • In this Spider-Man comic, featuring a cameo by Stephen Colbert, Joe Quesada is on his "On Notice" list.
    • That issue went far easier on Quesada than the Daredevil movie, where the title character beats up and damns a rapist named "José Quesada" to hell before letting a subway crush him.
  • The Ultimate Spider-Man series REALLY likes to dress up female lunatics in the costumes of whatever super-heroine is making Crisis Crossover trouble for the Marvel Universe today and drag them by police officers screaming their new catch-phrase. It's mostly Self-Deprecation as the series got girl dressed as Scarlet Witch screaming "I'M NOT CRAZY! I'M NOT!" and one dressed as Spider-Woman yelling "EMBRACE CHANGE! EMBRACE CHANGE!" and Brian Bendis writes both USM and the cross-overs involved. However, one exception was the guy in the Speedball costume yelling NOT LIKE THIS! NOT LIKE THIS!!!
    • Note that the actual Ultimate versions of Wanda and Jessica look completely different, so we know it wasn't meant to be them.
  • The Incredible Hercules arc "Love & War" was more or less a massive Take That at DC's Amazons Attack. And by that, we mean it was completely awesome.
  • One of the first issues of Peter David's Captain Mar-Vell (not that other guy) started with this dialogue:

Guy: I have here an entire box of Youngblood #1 special collector's editions. How much'll you give me?
Marlo: A dollar.
Guy: A dollar a copy?! But they retail for $2.50 apiece! I bought this five years ago as a college investment!
Marlo: Not a dollar a copy. A dollar for the whole box. And frankly, it's guys like you who ruined the fun of comic reading for everybody else.

  • Also, after Liefeld complained about how David revealed that Shatterstar is bisexual in X-Factor comics because it was against his vision and that he was supposed to be like a Spartan warrior and Mel Gibson in Gladiator, David said he's going to add a dialogue below in one of next issues. He kept his word.

Guido: Tell me, Shatterstar, do you like... gladiator movies?
Shatterstar: Apparently.
Guido: Figures.

    • In the middle of X-Factor #200, Jamie Madrox is narrating:

Everybody else was filled with questions: Where had I been? How did I come back? Did I know about Rictor and Shatterstar.
That last one, I don't get. Did anyone not know about Rictor and Shatterstar?

      • Evidently Rob Liefeld was the only one who didn't see it coming.
    • And of course sometimes other characters mention how Shatterstar's original costume, which was designed by Liefeld, was totally gay.
  • In Nova, Ego the Living Planet was lobotomized and turned into the base of Nova Corps. Ben Grimm said that it's good he's not a member, because nobody would be stupid enough to recruit a planet to the Corps.
    • Nova's third volume includes a jab at superhero movies from the 80s and 90s in which Nova, who is trying to become a more publically known hero, discusses a movie deal with executives from Marvel Comics who bring up such "classics" as the 1980s Captain America movies, the 1990s Fantastic 4 movie, the original Punisher movie and of course, the Howard the Duck movie.
  • After Mark Millar left Ultimate Comics, a continuation of his title The Ultimates was given to Loeb, who created the terrible Ultimates 3 and the even worse Ultimatum. After that Millar returned to writing comics in Ultimate Universe. The very first page of his Ultimate Comics Avengers starts with Nick Fury looking at the mess caused by Ultimatum and saying "What the #$%^&? I leave for ten minutes and everything goes to hell." In the next issue Fury says that of all the Ultimates, Hawkeye is the only cool one, which can be viewed as a Take That to Loeb and what he did with the team.
    • He gives another one towards Loeb (and possibly towards mainstream Marvel) in issue four of Ultimate Avengers vs New Ultimates. When Tony Stark gives ten million dollars to charity in exchange for Thor promising to talk like a normal person again. He started using the whole "Faux Shakespearean" thing during Loeb's run.
  • Squirrel Girl is one huge Take That against the people who dismiss any whimsical event in comics as non-canon.
  • Tom Brevoort mentioned that Hawkeye and Mockingbird was "Guaranteed to have 100% less heroin use and impotence than the average comic starring an archer".
  • Spider-Girl's creator Tom DeFalco does it from time to time in his MC2-continuity comics. For example:

Silikong: This is where I make the donuts. Or, more appropriately, my unstoppable crystal warriors.
Ion Man: You make those guys?
Silikong: Did you think we were some kind of Secret Invasion from other planet? Don't be ridiculous.

-Who the hell does Jack Kirby think he is? Why can't he let someone else drawn a damn comics book? Who died and made him king?

-The new X-Men team sucks! Why are they coming up with "great" new characters like Storm (white-haired black woman-- give me a break) and Colossus (like Thing but Russian) when we all know they're all going to fail. The only cool one was Thunderbird, so of course they killed him off! It's an insult to the fans of real X-Men Stan Lee's X-Men, that we're forced to endure those pretenders!
—All of sudden Matt Murdock is a ninja?? You gotta be kidding me?! Bring back Gene Colan and stop giving your books to these crazy people who clearly have never read a comics book before.
  • Subversion - this page created some Internet Backdraft, because it was seen as Take That against everybody who criticize sexist costumes of superheroines, but this response from Jen Van Meter explains it was never intended to be take that.
  • One issue of Marvel Adventures: Avengers poked fun at the infamous Captain America (comics) direct to video movie (where Cap wore rubber ears on his mask) by having Wolverine sarcastically ask him "Are those ears real?!"
  • An Iron Man comic book featured Jarvis resigning. His letter of resignation is actually the same letter Dave Cockrum wrote when resigning from Marvel. In case people didn't get it, the writer explicitly mentioned this three issues later.
  • An issue of X-Men features a guy reading a newspaper that says, "Cruz Swipes Again". This was made by Joe Madureira who had accused fellow artist Roger Cruz of swiping (making pages nearly identical to that of) his material.
  • Spider-Man had one at the expense of DC for the time they took to release Superman vs. Muhammad Ali. Seen at the end of the page
  • In The Carnage 5-part series that ran from 2010 to 2011, one of the main characters, who brings Cletus Kasady and the Carnage symbiote back to Earth, and subsequently uses both for experimentation, is named Michael Hall. Now maybe it's a coincidence, but actor Michael C. Hall does play a red-haired serial killer on a certain Showtime channel TV drama and Cletus Kasady is a serial killer with short red hair. The series ended with Cletus taking Hall hostage to torture him for personal amusement.
  • Recently Mark Waid posted on the web a long rant explaining why he is mad at Joe Michael Straczynski, which he concluded by saying he needs to take a walk. Long, boring, pointless walk across America. That he won't finish.
  • During the fight with Cosmic Cube-enhanced Absorbing Man in Dan Slott's Mighty Avengers, Ms. Marvel was hit by him, which had an effect of turning her back into Moonstone. Her comment:

Moonstone: I'm Moonstone again? I've been "reality-punched?" That's the stupidest @#%* thing I've ever heard of.

Other:

  • Garth Ennis has also been known to viciously parody the concept of The Cape (trope). Ironically, he's clearly fond of Superman; when Superman appeared in an issue of Hitman, the character was treated with complete respect, and a later issue had the Anti-Hero main character remark that Superman was the only superhero he had any time for.
  • In an early issue of The Savage Dragon -- created and written by ex-Marvel artist Erik Larsen -- Officer Dragon is randomly attacked by superhero Bedrock, who at the end of the issue explains that it was a test to see if he was tough enough to join the team Youngblood.

Dragon: THAT'S THE STUPIDEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD!
Bedrock: It happens in Marvel Comics all the time!

    • Larsen loves making Take Thats to Marvel. In one of the recent issues, not only did the new Overlord say that Magneto "really should think twice before giving his team the name 'Brotherhood of Evil Mutants'", when he asks Dragon to join his cause, the following exchange happens:

Dragon: What's that? That scene from the Spider-Man movie, where Green Goblin asked him to become his best buddy? Do you really think something like that could ever work?
Overlord: No, you misunderstood me. And by the way, that scene really sucked.

    • A more recent issue had Lex Luther and Norman Osborn discussing Dragon's constantly coming back to life, while they are served coffee by none other than Gwen Stacy. Larsen doesn't like Comic Book Deaths.
    • Larsen has also taken a dig at fellow comics creator John Byrne with his villains "Johnny Redbeard's Nixed Men", a team composed of parodies of various characters Byrne has written. The long-winded introductory speech summarizing some of their back stories is a vicious critique of Byrne's "senseless revamping" of various comics, including She Hulk and Namor. Redbeard is portrayed as a bad leader with a huge head who indiscriminately endows people with poorly conceived powers before eventually abandoning the mess he made of them. After the team's one appearance, where they beat up some homeless people and get their asses handed to them by the protagonist, the She-Hulk parody would later reform and return to the series as the recurring She-Dragon.
  • An early Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comic featured a robot called the "Spawnmower". It acted much like the dark and edgy real-life comic hero it was named after, in that it stopped to make a dramatic pose every few seconds. Sonic was able to defeat it without too much trouble.
    • This wasn't the first time a comic written by Michael Gallagher took a stab at dark and edgy '90s-era comics. ALF #38's cover featured a huge, fierce-looking silhouette of Alf, along with the labels "Darker!", "Grittier!", and "Alien with an attitude!". At the bottom of the cover was normal Alf standing in front of a spotlight, asking if the "revamp" would actually boost the comic's income.
      • In a similar vein to this, Sonic the Hedgehog #4's cover boasted Sonic as a "grittier! Darker!" chimney sweeper.
        • Bizzarely, the series became darker itself, what with geniocide, murder, love triangles, huge family trees, Eggman cracking, implied incest, Complete Monster villains like Fintevius and Kage in contrast to the Affably Evil current Robotnik or Harmless Villain old Robotnik from the early issues, nuclear bombing, and other horrific stuff.
    • The whole Special Zone arc of the British Sonic the Comic was an affectionate parody of Marvel comics, most notably when Sonic walked in on a team of local superheroes in a fight with the Legion of Evil. After a comment about the property damage both sides are causing and a brief attempt to work out which side is which the cops arrive, at which point both groups make a quick retreat.
  • Alan Moore's Supreme had a gratuitous scene with the Televillain killing Courtney Cox's character on Friends using his powers, thus showing that, in spite of his tacky feel, he was awesome.
  • Jhonen Vasquez's I Feel Sick is basically aimed at Nickelodeon, according to this entry here.
  • The Curtis', owners of the comic book company, Shanda Fantasy Arts, upset at the horrific screwing of Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew in their last mini-series where the team is exiled on the main DCU story world and trapped as ordinary animals unable to express their unchanged intelligence. In response, the Curtis', with aid of the series' original creator Roy Thomas, are preparing a special comic book using their Atomic Mouse license, Atomic Mouse Meets Power Jack And The Lost Menagerie where apparently the title character will rescue a disguised version of the Zoo Crew who are suffering an equivalent fate.
    • Of course, DC has just undone that editorial misdeed at the end of Final Crisis, so the hard feelings shouldn't be quite so much.
  • From Jeremy "Norm" Scott, the creator of Slave Labor Graphic's Hsu and Chan series.

"Norm": After this one went to press, some internet wisenheimer singled it out for its intense wordiness -- I forget the exact quote, but it was something along the lines of, "It only takes Penny Arcade a fourth of the dialogue to be this lame."

  • In the pages of Marvel Comic's The Incredible Hulk, Bruce Banner, who was walking around big and green and smart, was in a quandary. His friend was dying of AIDS and wanted a Hulk-blood transfusion in order to get Hulk-healing powers. Bruce, afraid of Hulk 2.0 smashing up crap, declined. The same plot happened in Erik Larsen's Savage Dragon, but the Dragon said yes, saying, paraphrased, only an idiot would say no to the possibility. The friend who received Dragon's blood then exploded. So...um. Yeah.
  • Whilst Alan Moore's 1963 is more of an Affectionate Parody of the characters and stories of the Silver Age, particularly those debuting in Marvel Comics, it's more of a pointed Take That to the creators behind them; in the letters pages provided in the issue, it's made pretty clear that "Affable" Al Moore is an egotistical tyrant who shamelessly takes credit for the work and achievements of others.
  • Don Rosa's comic Super Snooper Strikes Again is a huge Take That to dark and violent superhero comics, eventually leading in this panel and the follow-up, where the nephews decide that Donald Duck is greater than Super Man Snooper, because he can face everyday problems and support three nephews without any kind of superpowers.
    • In another Don Rosa story, The Money Pit, Scrooge ridicules coin collectors for hoarding their collections solely for their resale value. That, and the comment about "plastic sleeves", makes it obvious Rosa is actually talking about comic book collectors. Rosa is a collector himself, so it doubles as Self-Deprecation. In the commentaries he gave to his stories in Finnish collection books, Rosa wrote that when Donald says that paying a dime for a single comic book is too much in The Crocodile Collector, he was dissing himself for paying hundreds of dollars for old comics.
    • Rosa's final installment in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, "The Richest Duck in the World," is partially devoted to dispelling the "supreme bit of absolute balderdash" that Scrooge's Number One Dime is lucky.
  • Wanted ends with the Villain Protagonist spouting a monologue about how your humdrum life of working for a living and not being awesome like him is pathetic and you should feel bad, ending with a closeup of his angry mug saying "This is my face while fucking you in the ass".
    • Said protagonist was modeled after Eminem; take that little factoid as you will.
  • On one Dark Horse message board, a poster was pestering writer Randy Stradley to include Mandalorians in an upcoming comic. They got their comeuppance when a scene in the comic in question showed the Mandalorians in full retreat. When the poster complained, Stradley had one of the following issues feature a whole cave full of dead Mandalorians.
  • Twisted Toyfare Theater is mostly an Affectionate Parody, albeit a gruesome one, that gets most of its laughs by exaggerating characters' flaws to absurdity. But every strip featuring an appearance by Brian Bendis will inevitably end with a Take That toward his writing style.
  • The Doctor Who Magazine strip "The Deep Hereafter" is an Affectionate Parody of noir-ish, pulpy detective stories in general, and The Spirit in particular. One newspaper clipping pinned on the detective's wall reads "Miller Kills Colt". Apparently Dan McDaid wasn't a fan of The Movie.
  • Two Thousand AD' prog 1661 took a jab at DC's Wednesday Comics

Tharg: Other publishers may dabble with the format - 'Wednesday Comics'? Pah! There's only one true Wednesday comic in this reality...

    • Note: one of the few examples of a Take That against something critically acclaimed.
  • Elf Quest - The Rebels has one against television in general. This is a planet-that-is-not-earth inhabited by humans. They have interplanetar space travel and internet for information, news, and porn. At one point we see preparations for a live feed of a car race.

Techie person: "Seems like a shame to do this only once a year. I mean, we could do a feed of this type your round -- fill it with sports and entertainment."
Chairwoman Nuriham: "And induce people to watch it in their free time? When would they create art, or make music, or converse... I think such a project would be bad for the collective soul of the people."

  • A British post-punk rock group took the name "Love and Rockets" in homage to the Hernandez Brothers' comic series Love and Rockets. Los Bros, however, were not happy as they hadn't been asked permission and weren't fans of the band's pretentious music. Gilbert Hernandez proceeded to write a story featuring a particularly talentless and unpleasant fictional LA punk band called "Love and Rockets", with several derogatory barbs aimed directly at the British group.
  • Viz, based in Newcastle, used to do many vulgar parodies of characters from the Beano and Dandy, owned by Scottish DC Thomson & Co. When DC Thomson tried to sue Viz for breach of copyright, Viz published a strip about "DC Thomson the Humourless Scottish Twat." DC retaliated by resurrecting an old strip from the Dandy called "The Jocks and the Geordies," about two gangs of warring schoolboys on either side of the England-Scotland border. The story had both sets of boys attempting to win a competition to design a comic, and the Jocks (Scottish boys) win, to the humiliation of the Geordies who tried to cheat by copying them and whose own ideas were all terrible. Viz responded in its next issue with "Korky the Twat," a parody of the popular DC Thomson character Korky the Cat.
  • In the mid-1990s, an environmental activist known as Swampy became well-known in the UK when he took part in a protest to stop the construction of an extension to the A30 motorway. Judge Dredd went on to feature a plot about an "eco-warrior" named Spawny, who protests the construction of a spaceport in the same way as the real-life Swampy (by digging underground tunnels.) What happens? The construction workers bury him alive under the concrete and carry on anyway ...
  • Marvel Comics was recently promoting their Heroic Age event and new Avengers titles by teasers with members of each team, their quote and words “I'm an Avenger\New Avenger\Secret Avenger\In Avengers Academy”. Image Comics released their own teasers with members of new Guardians of the Globe roster, looking pretty similar to Marvel's – when first one, with Invincible saying “I never really been much of a team player.” was released, people thought Image's just stealing the idea. When second, with Spawn saying “Todd lost a bet so he's loaning me out for this” come out, some realized something is wrong. Next ones? Rick from The Walking Dead (“It makes no logical story sense for me to be here, but I suppose it will help sales.”), Barack Obama (“I'm not as popular as I used to be. How much is Amazing Spider-Man 583 going for on eBay?”) and kid looking suspiciously similar to Harry Potter (“Okay, now this is getting a little ridiculous... and slightly illegal.”). Obviously, Image was just making fun at Marvel's policy on who is and who isn't in which team. Sadly, they later had to really rip the idea and release teasers with real members, because people thought they're really going to put those guys into one team.
  • In Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8, Buffy mocks the Big Bad, Twilight, saying that he's an idiot for naming himself after a lame book series.
    • After revelation that Twilight is Angel, which meet with fandom outrage, IDW, publishers of Angel: After The Fall comics, created promos of their new Spike series, featuring Spike burning Twillight's mask and saying that Angel is definitely not Twilight.
  • Reading The Maxx, one gets the feeling that Sam Keith didn't have a very good time working with Neil Gaiman on the first few issues of The Sandman.
  • A recent issue of Invincible has Mark and his friend at a comic book store talking about how pointless it is to relaunch ongoing series from issue #1. Unless Robert Kirkman added it last minute to the script, it was probably directed at Marvel but, due to an amazing coincidence, the issue was published a few days after DC announced they're relaunching all their titles from issue #1.
  • The Power Rangers parody comic Mightily Murdered Power Ringers is a bitter, mean-spirited jab at the show, which qualifies it for this. However, being made as a Take That coupled with the quality of the writing in it qualifies it for Parody Failure.
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