Lightbringer (web comic)

"Lord Byron, eat your heart out - I've got Alan Moore to give me romantic stuff!"

- Author's comment on this page

Lightbringer is a webcomic on Comic Genesis created by Lewis Lovhaug, better known as Linkara. It tells the story of Carter Granholme, who has mysterious, light-based abilities. For years he refused to use them in honor of his dead parents, who were pacifists, but after becoming fed up of the crime in Pharos City, he becomes Lightbringer, the world's first superhero.

Lightbringer was both written and drawn by Linkara for the first twelve issues (and part of issue #13). Because he's more of a writer than an artist (and he admits it on the site), he eventually brought Chad Rocco to take care of the drawing side.

Lightbringer and one of his enemies, Smiling Man, also play a big part in The Crossoverlord, which was partly written and drawn by Linkara.

This hero has nothing to do with the 1993 Beat'Em Up released by Taito, outside maybe being a violent Epic Fantasy. We hope he's unrelated to the other guy called Lightbringer.

Tropes:

 * Action Girl: Osprey, the Girl Wonder
 * Actual Pacifist: Carter's parents.
 * Anti-Hero: Given that his interrogation of the Serpent technically qualifies as torture, as well as his arguably excessive force when handling General Werres (chucking him through a window when it would have been easy enough to manually subdue him given his powers) and defiance of the mayor, Carter is probably somewhere between Type II and Type III.
 * Arch Enemy: Darkbringer to Lightbringer.
 * Art Evolution: Which still didn't stop Linkara from finding a better artist.
 * Author Filibuster: Common in the earlier chapters. Toned down since then.
 * Beethoven Was an Alien Spy meets Jack the Ripoff: The Gentleman claims he was Jack the Ripper.
 * The Big Guy and The Smart Guy: Hannah doubles as both, giving Carter technical support but providing the lon's share of fisticuffs.
 * Breast Expansion: Subverted. Smiling Man stole a device able to do it because it was also a reality warping wepon.
 * Cameo: Lots. Even the device mentioned above was one.
 * The Cape: Lightbringer
 * Black and White Morality: Outright stated a number of times
 * Character Filibuster: Darkbringer....oh, Darkbringer...
 * Charles Atlas Superpower: Hannah is capable of hoisting a stone table over her head without any sign of strain or effort despite her only midly muscular frame and Linkara's insistence that she doesn not have any superpowers of her own.
 * The Commissioner Gordon: Police Chief Eddie Crane.
 * Creator Backlash: Upon being asked about the early strips at Magfest 2011, Linkara flatout stated "old Lightbringer sucks." The backlash stems from his view that his younger self was overly opinionated.
 * Crossover: With Linkara (from Angel Armor, not the creator).
 * Dark Is Edgy: Darkbringer's abilities, as indicated by his name.
 * Dating Catwoman
 * Did Not Do the Research: The Gentleman is supposedly Jack the Ripper himself, with the MO of murdering protitutes as an example of social depravity and then writing his moral outrage to the police. This clashes with the 'From Hell' letter, belived to be the only authentic letter from the killer himself wherin he brags about how he ate Catherine Eddowes's kidney.
 * For the Evulz: Smiling Man, but not so much as he is in The Crossoverlord.
 * Hannibal Lecture: Darkbringer, every time he meets Lightbringer.
 * Hartman Hips: Since Chad Rocco took over the art.
 * Lampshade Hanging: A few issues in, Lightbringer is apparently tired of all his enemies acting on some kind of twisted philosophy about hurting people to do the right thing. "If this is about how you need to do evil things for the greater good..."
 * Large Ham Behold your saviour, Pharos City! Bear witness to his defeat!
 * Legacy Character: Referenced when Lightbringer thinks that if he dies, there would be no one to be his Legacy Character.
 * Light'Em Up: Lightbringer's power (if you couldn't tell from the name)
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Darkbringer speaks for himself. Also parodied when Lightbringer meets Mister Threat during Crossover Wars.
 * Lightbringer himself since his name sounds like a Devil that is also called Lightbringer
 * Not So Different: This happens so often, that Lightbringer quickly becomes tired of listening to villains compare him to themselves.
 * Reconstruction: Of Superhero comics.
 * Old Shame: The early issues. Linkara also brought up the trope name directly while talking about them in his Black Web #1 review.
 * Rogues Gallery Transplant: Darkbringer started as a servant of Angel Armor's Big Bad, but here became a Lightbringer villain.
 * Shared Universe: Lightbringer's world is also the homeworld of the main hero from Angel Armor, a fantasy trilogy written by Linkara when he was 13.
 * Shout Out: A lot of them, mostly to DC Comics, particularly Watchmen. Carter even quotes Doctor Manhattan in a romantic way (see quote at the top of this page).
 * Shut UP, Hannibal: Darkbringer get one from a whole crowd of people.
 * Slasher Smile: Smiling Man, of course.
 * Take That: Some people believe Darkbringer is one big Take That to the Nineties Anti Hero archetype.
 * Technical Pacifist: Carter.
 * Vigilante Man: Bruiser.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: Darkbringer believes that the only way to defeat evil is by embracing darkness and despair. He wants to kill Lightbringer because "he brings false hope".
 * General Werres, who justifies all the terrible things he's done with the fact that part of his ill-earned money goes to charity may count as well