Magnificent Bastard/Web Comics

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Thief: Take a closer look at that contract. Black Mage: What, you mean this part here? Ahem "Satisfacion.guaranteed, or your treasure back"? Thief: Yes. Now 'really concentrate on that line. See that harmless dot of ink between satisfaction and guaranteed? Black Mage: Barely... what the --!" You magnificent bastard! Thief: I invented it. It's called "super ultra fine print". I own the copyright, you owe me a quarter just for reading it! —8-Bit Theater, here

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• Captain Snow from Archipelago. Interestingly, he manages to blend this with Complete Monster and still be likable.
• Chaos/Pandora in El Goonish Shive. Perhaps not too remarkable for a being who got bored from enforced non-interference law combined with excessive magical power and foresight. But she did amuse herself by offering Magnus a hard and overcomplicated (and ultimately successful) plan of returning to life, while the rest of her kind only have tried to torture or kill him for lulz and/or posturing. And then found a rather shocking way to help her family via messing with the rest of Immortals.
• Dr. Light in the Bob and George webcomic seems like a complete idiot from the beginning. He made all his robots for mundane household chores. and Never believes Dr. Wily is evil or believes Wily has amnesia after two times trying to take over the world. However when the massive robot Gamma is destroyed Well just see
• Thief of 8-bit Theater. In a team full of bastards, Thief is the magnificent one. He has total control over the team and all its assets, (and those of anyone he meets) due to his extremely convoluted and loophole-laden contracts. He is capable of stealing anything from anyone that isn't bolted down and on fire (and has broken that distinction at least once), and once stole The Lich's soul out of its gem with nothing but logic (and can cause aneurysms with the same method). And to cap it all off, he stole his own class change from the future. Case in point: Black Mage's response to Thief's Super Ultra Fine Print.
  • Arguably, the strip's creator, Brian Clevinger. He not only planned out a single gag five years in advance, but he also planned the events of the entire strip so that the Butt Monkey that is the Onion Kid eventually becomes the damn-near-omniscient Jerkass that is Sarda.
    • One more for you: Look at this. Here is the result. He lampshades it too; the second strip is called "Longest Set-Up In Webcomic History.
  • Then there's his ability to deal with the treacherous viziers. It's an Elven court. It's all viziers.
• Sluggy Freelance actually uses the phrase here.
  • Not to mention Bun-Bun, especially during the Holiday Wars arc -- "Well-a-ho-ho-freakin'-ho. Are we in for a year of great holiday fun or what???" Too bad his shadow was such an Unwitting Pawn...
• Aldran of Anti-HEROES. There's many examples, but this comic can be taken as proof all on its own.
• Lampshaded in Ansem Retort, where Zexion rates Xanatos Gambits on a scale of 1-5 Michael Corleones.
• The character Ki, from Harkovast. He enjoys lengthy, cynical inner monologues. For example, his philosophy ^{[dead link]} on heroism is an interesting one!
• Dominic Deegan has several: The Infernomancer, his demonic patron Karnak, and, at least some of the time, Celesto Morgan and Jacob Deegan (the latter two sometimes act more like Worthy Opponents, too honorable for true Bastardry). Helixa might be considered one, too, and Dominic himself has certain tendencies in that direction, being at times insufferably smug about his abilities, and given to manipulating events to suit his interests (see especially the Snowsong story arc).
• Dr. Rocket of The Super Fogeys: a Card-Carrying Villain who eats barbecued orphans and will feed your eyeballs to his pet bunny rabbit if you tick him off. Also, he uses an expy of Myspace to promote his world domination plans. What more do you want?
• The IFCC, a trio of fiends from Order of the Stick, most definitely count. Vaarsuvius using his/her newfound power to strike at Xykon, convincing him to stop playing around? Just as planned.
  • And now we have Tarquin, Elan's father. A bounty hunter tries to shake him down? He quietly agrees, sends them on their way, and when the bounty hunters get arrested in a barroom brawl and try to get out of being punished (excessively so), this happens.
    • Recently, Tarquin has made himself into a crowning example of this, revealing that he and his adventuring party are perpetrating an Illuminati-style conspiracy over the entire Western Continent, ensuring that rule of every nation will soon be in the hands of six people. Nale could stand to take a page from his father's book.
      • Tarquin really is a magnificent bastard, while Nale just thinks he is one. The difference is evident in the grandness of Tarquin's accomplishments and the hilariousness of Nale's failures. Tarquin has been running his revolving-door empire conspiracy for over a decade, while Nale has trouble keeping members of his own Linear Guild alive in any given story arch. Nale and his cronies get put in jail, Tarquin has jailed or killed anyone that opposes him across half a continent. Nale plots needlessly convoluted schemes to satisfy immature emotional whims, Tarquin developed a working system to subjugate a continent for the purpose of peace (however dystopian).
      • And, according to his priorities and the rules of Elan's own Genre Savvy, he can't be defeated. Sure, he's likely to be defeated eventually, but only after a long run of the good life, and knowing that he will be remembered as a legend. A legendary villain, true, but Evil Is Cool!
    • It isn't the speech that sells the magnificent bastardry. It isn't the inescapable plan, the genre awareness or the sheer evil glee of the entire thing. Its that, at the very end of the entire scene, when Elan runs away in horror, Tarquin just stands there...and smoothly takes a drink. That seals the magnificent in Tarquin's bastard.
  • The prequel book Start of Darkness shows us just how nicely Xykon fits this trope.
  • Recently, Redcloak made it clear just how well he qualifies for this trope. Following his brilliant and effective crushing of the Resistance, he reveals to Tsukiko that he's been lying to and manipulating Xykon since they met -- over thirty years ago -- suffering every insult and humiliation and playing the spineless servant, in order to get Xykon to do what he wants and help him fulfill the Plan. And to top it off, he does this while delivering a "The Reason You Suck" Speech as he takes control of Tsukiko's own wights and has them kill her for knowing too much.
    • Not only does he kill Tsukiko, he confesses to it, using the opportunity to paint Tsukiko as a traitor while making himself look even better. The smug smile he sports behind Xykon's back during this is what really seals the deal.
  • For a heroic (or at least, non-villainous) example, there's Lord Shojo. He Obfuscated Senility so that he could play the nobles off against each other and by-pass the tedious problem of avoiding assassination squads. And he did it so well that not only did he keep the entire city running smoothly for nearly half a century (which is a quite a feat when you've got Templar Paladins mixing with your duplicitous noble gentry), but after he was gone, despite the fact that the ex-inhabitants of Azure City nearly descended into civil war trying to take power for themselves and assign blame, his authority (in the form of his cat) is still unquestioned. He almost achieved Vetinari Job Security... almost. In addition, when he died he chose to stay dead, which pretty much sent the "Haha! Suck it, losers..." message back to the world of the living.
  • The Oracle is also sometimes seen as one by his fans.
• This Nothing Nice To Say comic
• Schlock Mercenary has General Levaughn Matsui "Hugo" Xinchub, a magnificent bastard who controlled pretty much everything for quite a while, until outdone by Tagon, a magnificent bastard in his own right. The true mark of Ximchub's magnificence was in becoming King of the planet he was exiled to, and escaping various plots by faking his own death.
  • But, no one compares to Petey when it comes to bastardry magnificent.
• Charlie, from Erfworld, is laid out to be the Magnificent Bastard of the Wargame world of Erfworld. However, it turns out that Parson is too alien and unpredictable to make his Xanatos Gambits work, just because of how differently Parson sees his world (as a Wargame world, while its inhabitants only see it as "world"). More recently, as Charlie thought he was being clever in his mindgames against Parson, Parson showed him that he discovered more than Charlie out of the deal (namely that Parson's Mathamancy artifact could predict the future).
  • Well, extrapolate statistical probabilities, at any rate.
• Seth from Sorcery 101 definitely counts. At one point, he fingered a woman he was fighting. While she had the heel of one of her stilettos lodged in his skull.
  • And won the fight because of it.
• King Radical of The Adventures of Dr. McNinja has managed to reach this status at the end of the "Doc Gets Rad" arc. He manages to trick the Doctor into disposing of his former nemesis, who was the only entity (supposedly) who could help the Doc catch him. And he did it RADICALLY.
• Tarvek Sturmvoraus of Girl Genius. When Big Bad possessed another powerhouse and they switched without any warning, he played them both for hours, in such a way that he would be not only alive, but on the winning side whoever wins. Later he instantly made up to his underling he riled into hating his guts for years in such a way that she wasn't formally subservient to the Big Bad any more, he could rely on her assisting an operation saving his life, and she was blackmailed into silence about a fact that could treaten the legitimacy of his authority. While feeling himself, ahem, the prettiest frog in this entire pond!!.
  • Ostensibly quite useless Zola, grand mistress of Obfuscating Stupidity to such a degree that the Magnificent Tarvek (as well as Gil) considered her a mere Damsel Scrappy for years. When she showed up again in Mechanicsburg as a figurehead "Heterodyne" for some conspirators, she told Gil outright that she uses Obfuscating Stupidity, yet not even the readers saw it coming when she single-handedly knocked out every single one of the protagonists and curb-stomped the only one to regain consciousness. When she re-awakened the Big Bad and got Strapped to An Operating Table for it, she managed to Xanatos Speed Chess her way out of literally losing her mind and into holding a copy of the Big Bad prisoner in her head.
• Snadhya'rune of Drowtales is the predominant Magnificent Bitch in the series even though she's only appeared in a few pages so far. Just watch her manipulate her mother into believing that she was on her side while orchestrating the Nidraa'chal War behind her back or in the side story Empress To Be kick major ass with her summons while leaving toothmarks all over the scenery. In a World where Large Hams are standard order in leaders Snadhya still manages to out-ham all of them.
  • In the main story she's recently proven that she belongs here with The Reveal that she had her daughter, Kalki, through the Jaal'darya in secret and avoided her mother finding out and to top it off the "father" is one Mel'arnach Val'Sarghress!
• Heinrich von Bastard, AKA Hellbastard AKA "Half-Face" Jack McBastard The Giant Pirate should qualify: He built an enlarging ray during the Nepolianic wars to beat the British, became a giant half-skeleton pirate with an anchor for a hand and a cannon for a gun, was swallowed by a hell-bound leviathan, built an old west town in its guts then told the inhabitants to make alcohol out of their own blood (they don't die since time flows differently in hell, and the inside of the beast counts), then built Arachniskullcano island as his base to take over the world while doing whatever the hell he pleases with/to his soldiers, such as naming them after semi-obscure BBC shows and not explaining why (note: Hellbastard the creator is Australian) or having kidnapped orphans do Half Life training with roast chickens substituting for headcrabs.
  • I suppose his Trickster Mentor HellYoda (imagine him as a demon pimp with lots of fun drugs) also qualifies.
• Hat Guy from Xkcd.
• Nickolai Alaric of Twokinds. He played Xanatos Speed Chess so well that even his own death couldn't derail his plot, and was indeed factored in as a controlled variable. All to right a wrong against his best friend. Not to mention he's a charismatic, likable rat bastard, too.
  • Seems to be a form of Thanatos Gambit as well.
• Terezi Pyrope from Homestuck is an (arguably) Lawful Neutral version of this. At one point, she manages to manipulate an omniescent being into getting revenge on her former teammate for her. What's particularly impressive is that she manages to do this with no psychic powers whatsoever. She's just a regular troll who's really good at pushing people's buttons.
  • In a more meta case, Andrew Hussie himself.
  • Doc Scratch is the true representative of this trope in Homestuck. He single-handedly manipulated most of the major events in both sessions through persuasion and a small amount of intimidation. He's a bit pretentious, as a result of his omniscience, but he's also impeccably dressed and a very good host.
• Mike from Shortpacked absolutely takes the cake on this one when he proposes to Amber in a way only Mike can.