Doom Force Special - TV Tropes

Doom Force Special is a one-shot comic book written by Grant Morrison (Who was writing Doom Patrol (1987) at the time) and drawn by Keith Giffen and Mike Mignola published in 1992 by DC Comics. It sees a new incarnation of the Doom Patrol from an alternate Bad Future battle their Arch-Enemy, Count Anton Zero and his sister Una. It serves as a Parody of The Dark Age of Comic Books, and especially of Rob Liefeld's infamous X-Force (1991).

Doom Force Special provides examples of:

• '90s Anti-Hero: This trope is mercilessly parodied through the one-shot.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: The rest of the Doom Force react to Shasta the Living Mountain's demise by celebrating that he's dead.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Count Anton Zero serves as the story's central villain.
• Bad Future: It's implied in this timeline Niles Caulder's plan of causing a disaster that'd force humanity to change was succesful.
• Born Unlucky: The Crying Boy gaines this power from a cheap painting.
• Butt-Monkey: Una, Count Zero's sister, who nobody respects and is forced to wear ridiculously revealing costumes to look "empowered".
• Heroic Sacrifice: Shasta, the Living Mountain, dies by growing large enough for Zero and Una's plane to crash on it. His teammates don't really care for it.
• In Name Only: Aside from including the Chief and Dorothy Spinner, Doom Force doesn't resemble any past incarnation of the team, both in line-up and morality.
• Jerkass: The entire team is rude, violent and abrasive. This peaks when they celebrate the death of Shasta.
• Most Common Superpower: The trope is lampooned in that Spinner, Flux and Una are all depicted with noticeably large breasts, with the satirical nature of the comic clearly indicating that their having enormous bazooms is to show how ridiculous it looks rather than intentional fanservice.
• Multiple-Choice Past: Parodied with the Scratch. Some say he is a well-known superhero atoning for accidentally killing an innocent. Others briefly ponder the question before moving on to something else.
• The Something Force: The team is called the Doom Force, obviously following the convention of a team's name being called "[X] Force".
• Speak Ill of the Dead: After Shasta the Living Mountain gives his life to save the day, the rest of the team celebrate that he's dead and insult him by stating that he always was a creep, showing no gratitude whatsoever for his sacrifice.
• Stripperiffic: Parodied. Count Zero forces his sister Una to wear increasingly revealing outfits because strong women should be "free to express their femininity by wearing exotic lingerie". When he is questioned on this he himself strips down to just a thong.
• Take That!: Its bad artwork, poor characterisation, Jerkass cast and Stripperiffic costumes read as a transparent jab towards X-Force (1991).
• Tonight, Someone Dies: Parodied in that the cover depicts an arrow labeled "Which one of these heroes will die?" pointed directly at the face of Shasta the Living Mountain, who indeed was the only member of the team to die in the story.
• Two Girls to a Team: Spinner and Flux are the Doom Force's only two female members.
• Wolverine Wannabe: The Scratch, who wears corkscrewers and tools on his glove and and while "he may not be the best at what he does, [...] Nobody else does it!"