Companion Cube/Comic Books

Examples of Companion Cubes in Comic Books include:

The Doomguy in the Doom comic treats his BFG-9000 as a Companion Cube.
The Mother Box is a series of devices used by the characters of Jack Kirby's "Fourth World" comic books. Each Mother Box is actually sentient and super-powered; the Forever People share one (and use it to merge into the Infinity Man when things get desperate), and another is built into the costume of Mister Miracle, who often has conversations with "her".
- Orion the Dog of War has an even closer connection with his Mother Box. Its been shown that without the calming influence of the Mother Box not only does Orion's physical appearance start to deteriorate to match his father's looks but he also loses the ability to control his inner rage. In the Bad Future series Kingdom Come Orion has usurped his father's throne and has managed to keep his temper down even without the Mother Box. But he is by no means doing well.^{[dead link]}
- In Seven Soldiers, Shiloh Norman reveals that he can't actually understand what his Mother Box says, but he tries to talk to it anyway to keep himself calm.
Shmee, the creepy teddy bear carried by perpetual victim Squee in Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. Both Johnny and Squee refer to the toy speaking to them, and the things it tells them are rather disturbing (enough to get Johnny to take a knife to the toy at one point). In the follow up comic, there is a dream sequence where Shmee reveals that he is Squee's own personal trauma sponge, possibly an analog to the thing behind Johnny's wall, but this is open for interpretation since this IS All Just a Dream, Or Was It a Dream?
Cheeks, The Toy Wonder, Ambush Bug's trusty young ward is... a stuffed doll. Even when turned into an OMAC, all he does is sit there. This is made especially clear when he's cast in the role of "Sgt. Cheeks, Frontline Medic." Yeah, that was a dark time for everyone involved.
Though perhaps a marginal example, given the object in question acts as the face of the character's split personality, just try to tell Batman villain the Ventriloquist that Scarface is just a puppet.
- Actually, Batman once defeated him by telling the puppet that the Ventriloquist had betrayed him. Cue the guy attacking himself.
- It has been suggested however that Scarface houses a demonic power and really is alive. This is typically considered even sillier than the alternative and tends to not be depicted as the case these days, though.
In Transmetropolitan, Spider Jerusalem briefly but memorably made use of the "wise and terrible" Chair Leg of Truth while interviewing Fred Christ (with extreme prejudice). The Chair Leg was quite a fan favorite.
- Also, Bucky and his little toy bear, Smacky.
World manga Hollow Fields has Lucy's stuffed dinosaur (later converted into a grappling hook) Dino.
Spider-Man villain the Looter thinks the meteor that gave him his powers is alive and can talk to him; According to Spidey, he even watches TV with it.
Deadpool has the same one that every comic book character has: his text boxes. The differences are 1. Deadpool's are yellow and 2. Deadpool often references, and occasionally speaks to these boxes as though they were not, by default, a part of him.
- This has further evolved - there are now two differently colored text boxes which converse with Deadpool. And occasionally refuse to speak to him.
X-Statix's El Guapo was a mutant with the power to telekinetically control his skateboard. But when nobody else is around, he talks to it and it appears to move of its own volition; at one point they get into an argument and the board beats him. Whether the board is actually semi-sentient or he's a lunatic and doing it himself is never established.
In a bizarre variation on the typical usage of this trope, Sykes from The Intimates is actually a living human being... but one who's never heard to speak and shows no real signs of consciousness ever. His fellow Seminary students theorize his mental powers may be at the root of this, that he's so advanced he operates at a different level that they can't understand. In any case, he's in a permanent state of catatonia.
In one storyline of My Cage, Norm, the main character spent a week out sick, but no one noticed, as his secretary placed a potted plant with a face and the word "Norm" drawn on the pot at his desk instead. The plant later showed up as a member of the company's softball team.
Mr. Mello Monkey from Empowered. Emp claims that he protects her from bad dreams.
Marv has his colt 45 which he names Gladys in Sin City. When "she" first appears, Marv talks to her and we get a full backstory about the gun.
An obscure British comics hero named Dolman fought crime using remote controlled mechanical puppets. The puppets had no minds or autonomy of their own whatsoever, but Dolman would frequently use his ventriloquism skills to throw his voice and hold conversations with them, even when no-one else was present.
In the Danish comic Valhalla, Thor has a tendency to treat Mjolnir as a pet rather than a weapon; this is most evident in the second album, when the hammer is stolen by Thrym, and Thor is close to panic because the hammer "isn't used to being alone." Of course, Mjolnir is a magical hammer, and on one or two occasions does display something resembling sentience (like when Thor tries to throw it at the Fenris Wolf, and the hammer turns around in mid-air and flies back to Thor rather than face the open jaws of the wolf).

Back to Companion Cube