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{{trope}}
[[File:crimsonchin.thumbnail.jpg|link=The Fairly
In some works of fiction, the characters have their own favorite Television shows or favorite comic books. Usually, most of the cast reads these comics and they are generally favored. One day, the characters are minding their own business and then out of the blue, it's revealed to them that their favorite comic book hero is real! This usually results in a superpowered team-up from time to time.
On another note, sometimes the stars of the [[Show Within a Show]] are known/revealed to exist, and this also falls under '''Comic Books Are Real'''.
This usually overlaps with the [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]] and/or [[Recursive Canon]]. If it goes both ways - the "real world" characters have their own comic book in the "comic book" universe - then the two worlds are [[Mutually Fictional]].
Also see [[I Wish It
{{examples
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* In ''[[Digimon Tamers]]'' the Digimon is thought of as nothing more than a media franchise including a TV series akin to, but separate from, the first two seasons of the anime. Then Guilmon and the others come to the real world and everything changes.
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== [[Comic Books]] ==
* The Silver Age [[Flash]] read adventures of the Golden Age Flash, then discovered he really existed in a parallel universe.
** There's a homage to this in ''[[
** And the episode "Legends" of the animated ''[[Justice League]]'', in which Green Lantern discovers that the heroes from his favorite comic as a boy really ... etc.
** Our universe exists in the DC multiverse; we're Earth Prime. We get comics based on other universes, like everybody else, which raises the question of [[Wild Mass Guessing|if what the
*** Incidentally, Earth Prime was one of the worlds destroyed in said [[Crisis
* In the [[Marvel Universe]], some heroes license their likenesses for charity comics published by... Marvel.
** Marvel went so far as to have Captain America's civilian identity become the artist for his own comic!
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* An ''[[Astro City]]'' comic addressed the hazards of writing superhero comics when the heroes and villains depicted within are real: the publisher is beaten senseless at a convention by a villain who didn't like the way he was depicted. While in the hospital, he decides to switch the focus to cosmic entities, reasoning that they're so far above human affairs they "won't give a gnat's fart" about the comic. It didn't work out that way.
** A ''[[Flash]]'' comic by [[Mark Millar]] made a similar point. Millar's [[Author Avatar]] wasn't actually threatened by villains (although maybe that's why he lives in Coatbridge, far away from Keystone City), but had to deal with problems like "So if the kid's a minor, we'd need to get his parents' permission to use him, and if they're still in the 30th century..."
* In [[Alan Moore]]'s ''[[
** The Terra Obscura characters are all pre-existing out-of-copyright characters created by Nedor Comics. Including Tom Strange himself, who was originally ''Doc'' Strange.
* In one ''[[The Beano|Calamity James]]'' strip, James buys a huge stack of ''Mega-Man'' (nothing to do with the [[Mega Man (
* Mitchell Hundred, protagonist of ''[[Ex Machina]]'', is a DC comics fan as a kid before becoming the world's only superhero. He's also seen as an adult visiting comic book stores selling issues of ''[[The Authority]]'' and ''[[Planetary]]'', titles published by Wildstorm - the DC imprint that also publishes ''Ex Machina''.
* Science Dog, a comic book character in ''Invincible,'' suddenly appeared at the door of Mark "Invincible" Grayson's house. Mark was understandably surprised by the visit of the non-human being but it turned out to be an alien using Science Dog's form to make the encounter easier. Bad idea.
* ''[[The Authority]]'' themselves, in an abortive [[Grant Morrison]] series, [[Up the Real Rabbit Hole|found themselves on our Earth]], where [[Meta Fiction|they encountered the comics in which they had made their first appearances.]]
==
* There's a very, very
* In ''[[Condorman]]'', the creator of the titular comic book hero is so obsessed with being realistic that he refuses to write anything that he can't do himself in real life. Sure enough, when the CIA ends up sponsoring his antics in order to rescue a major Soviet defector, they build all of the gadgets he's invented, leading to a hilarious [[Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys]] speech from the [[Big Bad]].▼
* In the ''[[Hellboy (Film)|Hellboy]]'' film, Hellboy is only known to the outside world as an urban myth and the star of a series of comicbooks. When John Meyers meets the real HB, he complains that the comics never get his eyes right.▼
* In ''[[Captain America the First Avenger]]'' Steve Rogers is being dressed up and paraded as the mascot "Captain America" as a way to boost the morale of the troops. They not only make films about the fictional character, they also make a Captain America comic-book series.▼
== [[
▲* In ''[[Condorman]]'', the creator of the titular comic book hero is so obsessed with being realistic that he refuses to write anything that he can't do himself in real life. Sure enough, when the CIA ends up sponsoring his antics in order to rescue a major Soviet defector, they build all of the gadgets he's invented, leading to a hilarious [[Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?]] speech from the [[Big Bad]].
▲* There's a very, very [[Fan Fic Recommendations|good]] ''[[Power Rangers]]'' [[Fanfic]] that did this inspired by the crossover between ''[[Power Rangers in Space]]'' and ''[[Ninja Turtles the Next Mutation (TV)|Ninja Turtles the Next Mutation]]'', where [[Faeries Don't Believe in Humans Either|each team thought the other was just an urban legend]].
▲* In the ''[[Hellboy (
▲* In ''[[Captain America:
== [[Literature]] ==
* In Lev Grossman's ''[[The Magicians]]'' the world described in a popular fantasy series titled ''Fillory and Further'' turns out to really exist and is visited by the novel's protagonists.
** In its sequel ''The Magician King'', the world of ''The Teletubbies'' turns out to really exist as well.
* The ''[[
== [[Live
* In ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', in the clairvoyant's comic book some of the Heroes (like Hiro and Ando) are depicted as characters in it. Most people outside the main cast would assume that it is a work of fiction.
* This is the premise of ''[[Big Bad Beetleborgs]]'', though the main characters become the comic book heroes, instead of them showing up as separate characters.
* In ''[[Power Rangers Ninja Storm]]'', Tori dismissed the Power Rangers as comic book characters and/or urban legends before she and her friends became Rangers themselves. This infamously sparked some fan debate, as it suggested ''Ninja Storm'' was an [[Alternate Continuity]], and when the next season confirmed it ''wasn't'', then how could she justify ten years of giant monster attacks as fiction?
* Inverted in the ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' episode "The Monster at the End of This Book". Sam and Dean discover that their lives have been turned into a series of horror novels. Played straight with the writer, who discovers (when Sam and Dean show up at his house) that [[Mind Screw|the characters he thought he'd created are actually real.]]
== [[Video Games]] ==
* In ''[[
== [[Web Original]] ==
* In ''[[Legion of Nothing]]'', superheroes are real, but comic books like ''[[Spider
* Played with in ''[[The Descendants]]'' where the fact that comic books are, by the time of the series, a 100+ year old art form. This leads to an inversion where the media [[Not Using the Zed Word|refuses to call them superheroes]].
** One company however, takes full advantage of their [[Secret Identity]] issues to publish comics using real heroes in fictional stories without getting likeness rights.
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[The Fairly
** It should also be added that Timmy himself is also a [[Kid Hero|superhero]], as Cleft the Boy Chin Wonder (see image above) as a result of the Chin. He's got a variety of other alter egos as well, but that would be another entire page.
* ''[[Static Shock]]'': Virgil grows up reading comic books and [http://www.bestessays.com.au essay] about [[Superman]] and the [[Green Lantern]], and eventually meets and teams up with them from time to time. Probably more of a subtle [[Retcon]]. Static Shock was originally disconnected from the regular DC universe and the DC characters were fictional in theirs. Then Static and his universe got added to the DC universe, so now Static couldn't have possibly read those comics or everyone should know Superman's [[Secret Identity]] as well.
* An episode of ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]'' had a superhero and villain from one of Ray's comics become "real" and clash with the Ghostbusters. Unusually, no explanation was ever given for why the comics characters were able to enter Ray's reality. (This shouldn't be confused with a later episode in which a [[Shape Shifter|shapeshifting ghost]] briefly imitated the same superhero.)
** A later episode had [[Sherlock Holmes]] and [[Professor Moriarity]] show up, and it was explained that the [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe|collective belief of their fans]] was sufficient to make them "come to life".
** Incidentally, the superhero "Captain Steel" was a [[Superman]] [[Expy]] while the villain was the pre-Crisis [[Lex Luthor]]; their creator was an obvious pastiche of Marv Wolfman of [[DC Comics]], and the cartoon was made during the ''[[Crisis
* In ''[[
* Debatably in ''[[
* On ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'', Michaelangelo reads a comic book series about the superhero Bugman, and then discovers that there really is a Bugman.
** Not restricted to just the 1987 show, this happens in the 2003 show as well, when Mikey tries to get an issue to find out what happened to one of the heroes in the comic, but finds his favorite characters real, but the character he was hoping to have survived, had died.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Plots]]
▲[[Category:Trope]]
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