The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot
The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot (1995) began as Frank Miller's and Geof Darrow's much more family friendly collaboration after the energetically demented Hard Boiled. The comic was a big, over-the-top tribute to Silver Age comics, Godzilla and Astro Boy. The story is about a giant, primordial monster unleashed upon Tokyo which the military is unable to defeat it; subsequently the government is forced to send the newly developed and inexperienced Rusty the Boy Robot in to try and neutralize the threat. Unfortunately he is also overwhelmed by the monster and the government calls on the aid of their American allies who send in Big Guy, a bigass humanoid robot, with two fists and a whole lot of guns.
Tropes used in The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot include:
- American Robot: Big Guy is a deliberate example of this.
- Body Horror: The villain's drool transforms people into reptilian monstrosities.
- Crossover: With Madman, the main characters also make an appearance in a hallucination in Sin City.
- Eldritch Abomination: Apparently the dinosaurs were all actually examples of this.
- Everything Is Better With Monkeys: Jenny the talking monkey of the scientist who was in charge of the experiment that reawakened the monster. She had the jitters about it.
- Expy: The monster to Godzilla, Rusty to Astro Boy and Big Guy to Iron Man.
- George Lucas Throwback
- Gosh Dang It to Heck: Big Guy curses like this.
- Hand Blast
- Large Ham: The monster: "Sweating, Squealing, simpering, screaming rodents! You are doomed!"
- Big Guy himself "I Brought you some Candy!"
- Made of Explodium: The Monster and his minions.
- Narm Charm: Intentionally invoked.
- Rule of Cool
- Scenery Porn: A given with Darrow's highly detailed Cyberpunk style cityscapes.
- Scenery Gorn: Also a given since there's a giant monster rampaging that cityscape.
- Slave to PR: Big Guy is actually a piloted mecha, but for publicity reasons the populace (and Rusty) is led to believe he's a giant robot.
- Standard Evil Organization Squad: The Legion Ex Machina.