< Tempting Fate

Tempting Fate/Comic Books

Urk: Cheer up, Paperinik. Things could be worse.
Paperinik: Excuse me? Things could be worse? We're stranded in a wood deep in enemy territory, with no means of transport, no weapons, no food and it's at least fifty degrees below freezing point! How could it get any worse than this?
Urk: It could be snowing.
(snow starts falling)
Paperinik: Are you satisfied now?
Urk: Well, at least there aren't any wild animals around.
(wolves howl in the distance)

  • Minor Captain America (comics) malcontent "Bull's Eye" was a villainous agent of HYDRA and an ace marksman who had a strong target motif in his costume. Yes, he was eventually killed when someone shot him directly through the bullseye on his chest.
    • Now there's the merc/murderer/PsychoForHire Bullseye. His cotume has a bullseye on his forehead. why? Becuase he also has one carved there. He has a target on his head out of costume (subverted when he spent a year and a half real-time dressed as Hawkeye).
  • Invoked in Gold Digger. Brianna really wanted to test out her new guns, but Gina told her not to jinx them. Be Careful What You Wish For comes and bites them in the butt. Hard!
  • Anytime you hear a supervillain say anything along the lines of "Batman"? He doesn't even have any powers!" Expect a Curb Stomp Battle.
    • There's the similarly related "Batman? He's just an urban legend!" or the like, although this is generally more for mooks.
  • The Jedi-killing bounty hunter Durge is practically begging to die with this line:

"You think that was going to stop me?!? I was once buried alive for sixty years! If that didn't kill me... if the Sith and the Mandalorians and the Bloodboilers of Kragis couldn't kill me -- then you will not kill me!"

So Anakin shoves him into an escape pod and fires him into a nearby star.
  • In Marvel: The Lost Generation, the Black Fox tells his First Line teammate Yankee Clipper that he's going to propose to his girlfriend and retire immediately. Black Fox is all smiles and sunshine, extremely optimistic about the new life before him. Before he gets the chance to pop the question, a supervillain murders his girl.
  • Garfield likes to play with this trope. If someone says things can't get worse, they will (usually with Garfield warning not to say it). However, if a character admits things could get worse, they get worse.
    • In December, 15, 2011, Garfield told a spider that was under a mistletoe to forget it and that he'd rather kiss a dog. Odie then showed up.
  • In The Order, college baseball and track star "Calamity" James Wa was described on the cover of Sports Illustrated as "The Boy Most Likely to Succeed." And his nickname is "Calamity". He got into a car accident on the way to a state finals meet... and lost his legs. James went into engineering instead of sports afterwards, and developed advanced prosthetic legs that made him a millionaire by the age of 22, so by all measures he has succeeded, but... it's not the same.
  • In Issue 11 in the Transformers Ongoing comic Vortex hoped that the Autobots would show up so he could scrap them. Cue Optimus Prime plowing through the wall ramming him.
  • U.S. Acres played with this trope [dead link] when it was a beautiful day and Orson said even Lanolin couldn't ruin it. To prove him wrong, she yelled she had just washed her car. It started raining soon after.
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