Breaking the Fourth Wall/Comic Books: Difference between revisions

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** He even ''turns the page for the reader'' in ''[[Emperor Joker]]'', where he breaks not just the fourth wall, but the other three as well.
* One of [[Deadpool]]'s powers seems to be the ability to let him break the fourth wall. In one example, he wonders in a yellow box whether his thoughts still appear in yellow boxes, leading him to say, "I'm good." out loud and to exclaim in another yellow box "Oooh, I've ''missed'' you, little yellow boxes! What ''fun'' we shall have together!"
** In ''[[Cable (Comic Book)|Cable]] and Deadpool'', he feels the need to help the 'reader' along by every once in a while delivering complicated exposition, aside from the first page. The other characters perceive this as Deadpool being crazy as usual.
** In the Britain-only special editions, this is used out of the comic, having Deadpool answering a letter on the letters page with a reference to the Marvel spotlight pages, stating that everyone else freezes during one while he takes a toilet break.
* Breaking the fourth wall is also one of [[She Hulk]]'s super-powers, though whether she gets it from [[I Love Nuclear Power|gamma radiation]] is anyone's guess. Since her own title isn't as much of a [[Gag Series]] as it used to be, she doesn't do it that often, but one memorable scene in a recent (early '00s) run has her address the narrator while her supporting cast watches her apparently talk to herself. In her 100th issue, she is asked whether she really can see through the fourth wall, and she responds "No, I can't" - looking straight at the reader and smiling.
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* [[Squirrel Girl]] breaks the fourth wall during the recaps of pretty much every issue she appears in (which isn't that unique when you think about it). However, for Monkey Joe and Tippy Toe there is [[No Fourth Wall]], so they talk directly to us readers.
* ''[[Infinite Crisis]]'', another serious moment out of [[DC Comics]]. Alexander Luthor, a separate entity from the classic [[Lex Luthor]], is looking for a preferred reality out of uncountable thousands that lay spread before him. He finds it...ours. He turns straight towards the reader, gazing up and out of the comic page and...GRABS FOR THE READER. Alexander's plans are stopped.
* ''Jack of Fables'', a spinoff of ''[[Fables (Comic Book)|Fables]]'', does this in every single issue to some extent - originally, it tended to just be throwaway gags, such as Jack giving fancifully ludicrous descriptions of what (allegedly, but in reality never) would happen in the next issue, in the little box at the bottom of the last page. However, pick up the "Turning Pages" collection (aka volume 5), and you'll run across a new character, a Literal called "Eliza Wall"... a temporary narrator who addresses the audience directly, deconstructs Jack's crazy fake teaser texts, acknowledges that certain things will happen in say, "seven pages" (acknowledging the medium itself), talks about the story in actual story terms (both blatantly and slyly: "that's why no one really likes [fellow Literal character] Deux Ex Machina"), and even warns the reader that she'll have to step in shortly in order to prevent an unpleasant outcome... on top of having three (identical) brothers who are shown circling her at a picnic and failing to understand "who she's talking to" as she looks over her shoulder at the reader. In short, she's not just a fourth-wall breaker, but is, perhaps true to form, ''the personification of the very '''act''' of breaking the fourth wall''. Talk about your [[Post Modernism]] ...
* Despite being practically an unknown, Rick Jones has seen a lot of the Marvel Comics world. This includes everything from being the stupid teenager Bruce Banner saved, resulting in his transformation into the [[Incredible Hulk (Comic Book)|Incredible Hulk]], to serving as replacement Bucky for [[Captain America]]. This was brought to the forefront at the end of the 2004 [[Captain Marvel]] series; while Marvel was blessed/cursed with "Cosmic Awareness", Jones, through his experiences, had acquired "Comics Awareness." It didn't usually manifest in actual fourth-wall breaking, so much as just being [[Genre Savvy]]. However, at the end of the issue, Jones calmly explained that sales weren't good enough, and the comic itself was literally rolled up in big sheets and put in storage by other out-of-print characters.
* In the recent miniseries ''Joker's Asylum'', Joker plays a modern take on the Cryptkeeper. At one point, in Two-Face's issue, he turns to the reader and tells him to find a coin, with such intensity that it probably sent a few comic book fans scrambling for their wallets.
** It wasn't just that point. The implication in several of the stories in ''Joker's Asylum'' is that he is indeed talking and narrating the stories directly to the audience. Cue lots of looking directly at the Fourth Wall.
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* One issue of ''[[Alpha Flight]]'' has a character start talking back to the writer, but {{spoiler|it was a villain's plot to make him ''think'' he was a comic book character}}.
* In ''Duncan and Mallory: The Bar None Ranch'' the main characters take turns ''tearing up'' the fourth wall.
* [[Empowered (Comic Book)|Empowered]] talks about how annoying it can be in one volume.
* Done occasionally in ''[[The Awesome Slapstick]]'', most notably in the final page of the last issue:
{{quote| "I need my own series! Write to Tom DeFalco! Write to Mark Gruenwald! Write to your Congressman!"}}