Kick the Dog/Comic Books

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Dex-Starr's origin story is pretty much a conga-line of kitten-kicking.
  • In Alan Moore's Miracleman, the newly revived Kid Miracleman initially spares the one person that had offered kindness to his mortal alter-ego Johnny Bates, only to return moments later to viciously take the woman's head apart with a single blow, claiming that his earlier act of mercy would've been seen as a sign that the villain had "gotten soft".
  • Cobra Commander did it in a panel of the G.I. Joe comic. The shot was so popular it was eventually redone as a pin-up some years later (the pin-up version can be seen at the top of this page).
  • Megatron one-ups it by ordering the dog shot to death.
  • Wilder kicked the dog himself and killed it because it annoyed him.
  • In Elf Quest, the Wolfriders bond with wolves, and the Gliders with giant birds. Just before the two groups meet, Strongbow spots one of the giant birds and shoots it down for a meal. It becomes an inter-tribal incident that sticks half the tribe in slavery and Strongbow in psychic torture for a couple weeks, before the tribes' leaders meet to discuss it. One of the proposed solutions is to kill Strongbow's bond-wolf: "My mount was slain while testing its wings! Why should the killer's mount live?" One of the Wolfriders protests that they cannot order the execution of the wolf -- "You might as well command us to kill our own children!" This is a little bit remarkable in that the death was caused by the good guys out of ignorance and not malice.
    • In a much later issue, the animal-tamer elf Teir berated Ember for being willing to kill an animal who trusted her. "Would you kill the wolf who shared your fire if you needed some new furs?"
  • In issue 4 of Infinite Crisis, Superboy-Prime cemented his status by kicking Krypto the Superdog. You don't tug on Superman's cape, and you certainly don't kick his dog.
  • In the Sandman issue about the serial killers convention, one of the convention attendees tells another that he got his start by cutting off the heads off of kittens. Notably, the guy was the most sympathetic person in the convention. He clearly understood he was sick, but lacked courage to turn himself in. It's implied that he was looking for peer support for just that.
    • Also in Sandman, Desire does a unique kick the dog moment that doubles as a demonstration of what a Magnificent Bastard he/she is: Desire tells a random party-goer how she can win and cruelly break another woman's heart. Apparently, he/she can figure such things out just by looking at people.
  • DC's Maxwell Lord. He shot the second Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, in the head. He made Guy Gardner flip out at his revived girlfriend, fellow superhero Ice, for apparently trying to kill him (it wasn't really her, but Maxwell "pushed" Guy into thinking it was). If that wasn't dickish enough, he mind controls two police officers into shoooting each other. Their dialogue makes it clear that they don't know what's going on. What makes it even worse is that he could have just mindwiped the police officers instead of killing them.
  • Not that Jody from Preacher (Comic Book) needed any further proof of his unredeemable bastardry, but in a feat fitting for the trope, he went beyond kicking Jesse Custer's pet dog Duke when it made the mistake of humping his leg: he nailed it by the head on a fence.
    • Ironically, in their final fight, Jesse would nail Jody in the head with a piece of the fence. In both terms. The fact Jody no-sells it gives one last demonstration of how inhuman he is.
  • In a story from the 1940s newspaper comic strip of Batman, a giant thug is shown caring for a kitten. After attacking Batman and Robin when they show up (and hence causing the his boss undue suspicion) the thug's boss breaks the kitten's neck as punishment. While the crime boss ultimately ends up drowning in a swamp while his thug stands by, the revenge is soured by the crime boss being able to shoot the thug to death before he's pulled under.
  • Nothing demonstrates one's evil properties quite like attempting to destroy an entire city of orphans.
  • Colonel Boris/Jorgen is generally considered Tintin's most unpopular villain. Why? He kicks Snowy down the rocket chute in Explorers on the Moon, breaking the poor thing's leg. To quote the Captain: "Monster! Vivisectionist!"
    • One of the villains in Flight 714 orders his men to open fire on Snowy (who escapes).
  • Doomsday has several, including crushing a small bird and beating up a little boy and his cat. To be entirely fair, though, it's not like he can help it, as he was raised to see anything and everything as a threat that must be destroyed.
  • The first appearance of the DCU villains the Reach (evil super-advanced alien race, enemies of the third Blue Beetle) has the Reach negotiator stress how they're there to 'save the earth' and that the Reach 'come in peace'. The very next page introduces the Reach Negotiator's adorable minions... and he crushes one of their heads with his bare hand. Just so the audience wouldn't believe the whole 'we come in peace' thing.
  • Various villains Kick the Dog throughout Kingdom Come, but Vandal Savage snapping the neck of a secretary for putting the wrong amount of sugar in his coffee kinda takes the cake.
  • In King of Klondike, the eighth chapter of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Soapy Slick kidnaps Scrooge, steals his plot of land and reads his mail. When a letter from home reveals that Scrooge's mother had died, the villain mocks the young duck for it and tells his cronies to kill him. No wonder Scrooge went berserk and trashed the entire steamboat they were on.
  • In the fourth volume of Empowered, we see the mastermind who turned the 'Capies' award ceremony into a deathtrap discovered by the titular superheroine. Upon the revelation of his identity, he gives a Motive Rant that seems tailor made to win sympathy from any reader who has bothered following the title (not to mention the No Respect Girl before him). Then he attempts to use the lives of Emp's lover and her best friend to extort sexual favors out of her. Empowered is not pleased, and her suit is rather more intact than it appears.
  • In Final Crisis Aftermath: Run #1, the Human Flame--the archetypical small time thug who had Martian Manhunter killed--returns to his family's home, embraces his wife, and tells her how much he had missed her and their daughter. This is all a pretext to steal his car, with the daughter's bike still attached, while the wife is tied to a kitchen chair. Note that the Flame had already crossed a Moral Event Horizon by leading a shootout through a Brand X Chuck E. Cheese. But just when it looked like writer Matt Sturges was humanizing him as at least a loving family man, whammo!
    • Earlier, Flame wakes up in a hospital, and his first action is to forcefully punch the young attending nurse, knocking her out. He then knocks a traction patient out of his bed while running away, rationalizing both actions by saying "they probably deserved it."
  • Norman Osborn is master of this. The list of his dog kicking moments he's done to Spider-Man alone is very long, and contains thing like having sex with Peter's girlfriend Gwen, making her pregnant and killing her after she gave birth to his children; making those children believe that Peter's their father who abandoned them; killing Peter's unborn child and stealing its body; kidnapping Peter's aunt May and replacing her with an actress, and revealing it after that actress died. All this so Peter could suffer. Oh, and he started the infamous Clone Saga too!
    • In Dark Reign he adds some new ones like: shooting two kids because one of them's wearing a Spider-Man mask, impregnating his son's ex-girlfriend (he must really enjoy stealing younger guys' girls) and making his son believe it's his baby, so Norman could manipulate him and kill him in the near future for the biggest benefits (HIS OWN SON!). There's also the possibility that the guy he's using as a guinea pig in his laboratory is his other son, Gabriel Stacy.
  • When no-one was looking, Lex Luthor stole forty cakes. That's as many as four tens. And That's Terrible.
  • In Superpatriot a Nazi kicks one while in a good mood. You can see it here/
  • In BPRD 1946, cute little girl (and head of the Soviet counterpart to the BPRD) Varvara shows her True Colors when she brutally murders Audo, a disfigured and mentally unwell little boy.
  • Hey, maybe Iron Man has a point. Maybe the registration isn't a bad thing. Maybe it's all for the greater good and the corrupt politicians won't manipulate the heroes once they're under their collective thumbs. OMG DID THEY JUST CLONE A GOD AND MAKE HIM KILL GOLIATH!!!?
    • On the other hand, dog-kicking is contagious when it comes to Pro-Registration heroes. All right, Ms. Marvel, you know that Spider Woman II/Arachne is a traitor to the Pro-Registration side, you are to bring her down... but seriously, separating her with her dearest treasure (her grade-school daughter Rachel) is just... low. Maybe you've gone apologizing, but your friendship has been strained and if anyone's at fault it's you, Carol.
  • Just so you know Rev. Stryker is evil before you even meet him, his legions kill two unarmed six-year-olds and leave their corpses in a playground for other small impressionable children to see. Then once we do meet him, turns out he murdered his wife and child, his most loyal henchperson, and tried to kill Shadowcat, who at the time was a cute teenage girl.
  • Black Tom Cassidy killing Squidboy. Although that was a CMOA for Squidboy, I don't think a nigh immortal tree-god should have been that intimidated.
    • If memory serves, this was later RetConned. Turns out his secondary mutation was making Tom lose his shit, and even his long time friend and frequent partner/henchman Juggernaut called him out on it. He appears to show remorse about the whole incident.
  • Junior from Secret Six: "Kill him. Leave body for his family to find. Also believe he had a dog. Kill dog."
  • A satirical Mad Magazine feature from 1956 proposed "Dog Kicking" as a manly sport analogous to bullfighting. The preferred dogs are Cocker Spaniels "because they yelp louder and longer and are harmless." As for the men who Kick the Dog, "they must possess a rare nobility of soul, unflinching courage and a burning desire, a fever in fact, to Kick Dogs." The Kicking is further divided into three parts, or Tercios: Clobbers, Boots and finally the la Stompa.
  • When The Mist shoots his daughter in Starman.
  • Todd Ingram is seen kicking a dog in a flashback in book three of Scott Pilgrim.
  • Even when he claims to be doing things for the greater good, Sinestro always takes the time to kick a puppy or two along the way. One example that is close to a Moral Event Horizon would be killing Kyle Rayner's mother via the living virus Despotellis and calling her a cow to Kyle's face -- all to turn him into Parallax's next host.
  • Count Dooku has a long list of Kick the Dog moments. He's a Sith Lord, after all. But one in particular really takes the cake. Before hiring Jango Fett to clone an army, he does an extensive background check on the man, including kidnapping one of his last living comrades and torturing him endlessly. The poor man finally cracks and tells Dooku about his memories of Fett. When he's finished, Dooku orders the interrogation droids to stop his heart. As tears stream down his face, the man begs Dooku not to tell Jango that he betrayed him, and you know what that bastard says? "I can't make any promises. Goodbye."
  • In the first Punisher MAX volume, Frank Castle's old ally Microchip helps a CIA black ops team capture him in an effort to get him working for them. The Punisher gets loose when a mob hit team attacks, but Micro is badly injured. Frank takes him with him to question him and learns that the head of the CIA group gets his funding from heroin deals, thus making Micro an indirect part of the heroin trade. He gives him a chance to leave, but Micro knows that Frank will need his help dealing with what's coming and stays to cover him. After the battle is over, Frank returns to Micro, who tries to talk him out of what's coming next. Castle cuts his pleas off, then blows his head apart with a shotgun.
  • Sin City villains are usually vile enough that they are introduced mid-kick or at least post-kick.
    • Kevin went around eating women and forced Lucille to watch as he ate her hand.
    • Yellow Bastard was a child murderer and rapist.
    • Either one of the Roarks allowed the former killers to run free and were more than willing to frame innocent people for the crimes.
    • Liebowitcz was a cop that sided with the Roarks in one incident and sided with the leader of a guild of assassins the next.
    • Ava Lord tricked a former lover into killing her husband so she could inherit his wealth, and according to Manute, he's not the first she's lured to his doom.
  • In the 2010 relaunch of Doctor Solar Man of the Atom, corporate executive/BigBad Tanek Nuro is introduced receiving bad news from an underling, who, having anticipated his disappointment, has already prepared a couple of "punching bags" for him to vent his frustrations. The next panel reveals that what Nuro uses for "punching bags" are people from third world countries whose families desperately need the financial support he sends them.
  • In Wolverine #18 (2011) the villain Jade Claw is introduced being served by beefcake men, using a servant as table and with the following food: "Dinner is served, Madame. Cantonese noodles with seared hummingbird hearts and caramelized butterfly brains. Grilled bull elephant tongue with shitake mushrooms and bald eagle hollandaise. Curried Tyrannosaurus Pate, imported fresh from the Savage Land. Baby Seal Soufflé a la mode. And Bacon wrapped tiger eyes sautéed, as always, in the tears of your enemies." . The "dinner" starts out ridiculous, goes on to involves mostly very endangered species and serves the plot not for a single inch. Jade Claw later goes on how doves are plucket for her pillows and her feet are washed in the blood "of women who dared presume themselves more beautiful than I." This is so over the top, it isn't kicking a puppy, it is kicking a puppy pack.
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