Tropes G - I

• Gag Echo: In the elevator ride at the beginning of 'The Destroyer Wars', Bob greets Jocelyn by kissing her hand and defends his actions to Julie by humorously insisting that it's not like he's flirting with his daughter. Three scenes later, after the reveal of who Jocelyn's father really is, Julie twists the knife:

  Ladyhawk (evil grin): "For the record, Nerd-boy? You WERE flirting with your daughter on the elevator."
  Starforce: "SO hoping you'd forgot I said that."

• Gambit Pileup: Let's count just how many plots/gambits are in operation during the course of "Leap Day," shall we?
  • The Edomite is attempting to turn himself into an Eldritch Abomination to rule Earth on the last day of his magically-prolonged life,
  • Shadow Destroyer is seeking to basically do the same thing himself, now that his original timeline has been destroyed by a Clock Roach and (thanks to Doctor Destroyer) he isn't even supposed to exist anymore,
  • Doctor Destroyer is attempting to kill Shadow Destroyer AGAIN for usurping his place -- after killing the man who would become Shadow Destroyer in his original timeline in such a manner that the previously-mentioned Clock Roach is now targeting THEIR timeline,
  • Captain Chronos is trying to fix the TASK FORCE universe timeline before it gets destroyed by either the Edomite, Shadow Destroyer, or Doctor Destroyer
  • Starforce and Ladyhawk's gambit: rescue their Doctor Destroyer from where he had been stranded in the past, THEN defeat him after Earth is saved from Shadow Destroyer. And then, there was the game of Xanatos Speed Chess forced upon them by Doctor Destroyer's first assassination of Shadow Destroyer...
  • the rest of TASK FORCE, along with the Justice Squadron, the Champions, and various other superheroes and villains, just want to stop the Edomite's ritual
• Gargle Blaster: In 'What Happens in Vegas...', Grond's Revenge is the strongest drink served by the bar at Universal Superworld. The fumes made Bob's eyes water.
• Genre Savvy: Inverted by Ranger in "O Little Town" after running into Biomaster in the Galleria -- and promptly lampshaded by the narrator.
  • This sequence between Warlord and Starforce from "Malva Awakens," just after the Phazor's world-ship blows up with Firewing and the Phazor still onboard:

    Warlord (pointing to screen): "Relax, Dr. Fuseli! No one could have survived that."
    Starforce: "Congratulations, Sergei. You just guaranteed one of them actually did."

• Getting Crap Past the Radar: You know, now that I've compiled the following list perhaps the entire series runs on this trope instead of any others...
  • In 'The Secret of Arcadia', Julie not-so-subtly insinuates that the collection of old National Geographic magazines Bob's step-parents had was how Bob had gotten through puberty... which is humorously defied when Bob doesn't get the joke.
  • Even though it remains unsaid, it's fairly obvious where Bob's hands are while Judith is attempting to access her orbital simulations in "Extinction Event"
  • There is a lot of... uh, heavy petting... implied in the narration behind Bob and Julie's Big Damn Kiss in "Operation Phoenix"
  • The narration introducing the scene after Bob and Julie consummate their love in "The Varanyi Civil War" leaves little to the imagination in surprisingly few words:

    (Bob and Julie's cabin, seven hours later. They're in bed. Their clothes aren't)

  • Also from "The Varanyi Civil War" when both Bob and Julie confess to everyone how they kept an entire shipload of Varanyi out of their heads during their cross-galaxy abduction isn't just radar avoidance. It's a full-on strike with anti-radiation missiles.
  • The start of Julie's Crowning Moment of Awesome vs. Captain Rochemont and UNTIL during the climax of "Ghosts from the Past"

    (vaulting over the Reception Kiosk with her blaster rifle, Julie lands between Rochemont and Starforce. Rochemont and the UNTIL squad skid to a stop in front of Julie. Beat, then Rochemont levels his pistol at Julie)
    Rochemont (snarling, releasing the safety on his blaster pistol): "GET OUT OF MY WAY!!"
    Ladyhawk (releasing the safety on the superheavy blaster and aiming at Rochemont): "Mine's bigger. Your call."

  • Bob wasn't just raped by Kat el-Hassan in "The Jewel of Awad" -- he was handcuffed to the bed while it happened. Part of the shock value behind this story's central plot is that no attempt was made to talk around what was happening.
  • The beginning of "Fields of Saguenay" doesn't pull any punches describing the beginning of Bob & Julie's nooner...
  • The Two Person Pool Party seen starting in "Black Ops" demonstrates with a minimum of description that Julie is better at concentrating during foreplay than Bob is
  • Tara's Intimate Psychotherapy on alt-Starforce in Chapter II of "V'Han Returns" makes it explicitly clear what is about to happen before the jump cut to the next morning.
  • Jillian one-upping her father on the subject of where the sex toys were located in the epilogue of "Cliques".
  • The metaphor Starforce uses to get the attention of both Captain Chronos and Doctor Destroyer in "Leap Day" after Destroyer performs his Reality-Breaking Paradox is particularly vivid:

    Starforce(coldly): "Guys? Your length-measuring contest isn't going to save Reality."

  • Both Glad-to-be-Alive Sex scenes from "The Prisoner of Doctor Destroyer". The second one at least tries to be discreet with a well-timed door closure during undressing.
  • In "International Treasure," Bob and Julie's Movie Night was blazing through NC-17 on full acceleration to an X rating before Jocelyn's panicked phone call from the New York battle interrupted it.
  • Julie is specifically said to be moaning as we start the last scene of Chapter II in "Citizen Hawkins" between her and Bob.
  • The description of how Julie gets Bob's attention in Chapter IV of "Citizen Hawkins" is particularly memorable:

    Starforce (interrupting): "Look at me. Saved the world, saved the timestream, saved the Galaxy, saved Earth's dimension, don't have a damn CLUE how to save my own marriage..."
    Ladyhawk (firmly interrupting): "Bob, LOOK AT ME."
    (He turns around. Julie's kimono is crumpled on the terrace just in front of the door. Julie is three feet in front it)

• Gladiator Games: Starforce's fate on Malva had Firewing's rescue mission in 'Malva Awakens' not succeeded.
• Glad-to-be-Alive Sex: *barely* averted between Starforce and Ladyhawk at the end of '72 Hours' because Ladyhawk's sling got in the way.
  • Actually lampshaded at the very beginning of 'The Prisoner of Doctor Destroyer', when Nathan has to tell his parents that the supervillain Gigaton has shown up to talk under a flag of truce.

    (the door opens to the Master Suite. Julie, hair messed up and looking VERY relaxed, has barely fastened her robe in time)
    Relativity: "Mom?!? WHAT are you doing?"
    Ladyhawk: "Victory sex, dear."
    (Bob is now visible behind Julie, also looking VERY relaxed while fastening his robe)
    Starforce (hugging Julie from behind): "Don't knock it until you've tried it, son."

  • ...and invoked at the end of "The Prisoner of Doctor Destroyer", when Ladyhawk takes Starforce to the Bedroom of Doctor Destroyer in Tartarus for some, uh, celebration...
• Godzilla Threshold: Invoked with a hung lampshade in "Resistance is Futile" over Ladyhawk and Starforce's proposed usage of the theta-boson portal generator to beat everyone else to the X'Endron Network's flagship.
• Good People Have Good Sex: Ladyhawk and Starforce from 'The Varanyi Civil War' on. Verges on Insatiable Newlyweds level. For *decades*
  • See "Fridge Brilliance" above for a possible in-universe explanation of this behavior involving their medical nanotech.
• Government Agency of Fiction: PRIMUS, for the United States until just before the events of 'Leap Day'. It's the lead agency tasked with stopping superpowered crime in America
  • UNTIL serves the same purpose internationally. For reasons involving national sovereignty, it was not legally allowed to operate in America until after 'The Battle of Detroit'
• Grand Finale: Though "Leap Day" appears to meet the definition (and certainly reads like one with its resolution of multiple long-playing story arcs), Word of God says that "Coup d'Etat"/"World War VIPER" is the series' Grand Finale.
• Grave Marking Scene: The epilogue of 'The First Dimensional War' is the 6th anniversary observance of the Battle of Detroit
  • the burial of Holo-D at the end of 'The Prisoner of Doctor Destroyer'
  • the entire episode 'A Rose for Tara' counts as one
• Ground-Shattering Landing: How Viperia announces her arrival at the UN Plaza during the battle in "International Treasure"
  • Starforce does it himself in the National Mall before destroying the VIPER forces arrayed in front of the White House in "Coup d'Etat"
• Halloween Episode: "Crowns of Krim"
• Harbinger of Asskicking: THIS sequence between Ladyhawk and Biomaster from the Prologue to 'Heart of Darkness':

  Biomaster: "You're unconcerned with the fate of your comrades-in-arms?"
  Ladyhawk: "Not particularly."
  Biomaster: "That's COLD! Right now, they're being crushed under the tender mercies of an industrial hydraulic press!"
  Ladyhawk: "Yeah, about that. You know the funny thing about hydraulic presses?"
  (Biomaster freezes in dread)
  Ladyhawk (continuing): "They don't work so well when the fluid lines are cut and drained."
  (Cue dynamic entry by the rest of TASK FORCE)

• Harsher in Hindsight: Julie expresses a desire at the beginning of 'O Little Town' to make the Christmas Eve party at Stately Dormyer Manor an annual affair. One year later in-universe, Sage is back with his people on the other side of the Galaxy, Spiritual Warrior and Mr. Bassman are dead, and the manor has been destroyed by VIPER.
• Held Gaze: almost anytime Bob & Julie make eye contact before 'Operation Phoenix'
• Hey Let's Put On A Show: Invoked by Ranger in 'Greatest Generation' when he proposes to do just this to regain access to Die Glocke
  • and IMMEDIATELY lampshaded by Starforce as soon as the Base Commander of RAF Woodbridge is out of earshot
• Home Base: Stately Dormyer Manor (both the original and Mark II versions) serves as this for TASK FORCE.
• I Did What I Had to Do: In 'Citizen Hawkins', Governor Sutherland calls Julie on her execution of Revolution X two years prior in-universe ('Street Level'). Julie invokes this trope almost word-for-word in her response, then turns it right back on the Governor:

  Ladyhawk: "Come on, Governor, you used to be a superhero. Don't tell us that you *never* had to make a snap decision like the one I had to make that night!"

• Idiot Ball: In '72 Hours', Ranger should have had Starforce lure Dr. Destroyer's own antiaircraft missiles into his interdiction field generator hours before he actually thought of it in-universe
  • Lampshaded by Starforce in 'Leap Day' when both Ladyhawk and Doctor Destroyer are trying to talk him into preventing the death of his alternate-timeline self instead of just taking the book they have stolen back to the Point of Departure between their timeline and Shadow Destroyer's:

    Starforce: "I've died, gone to hell, and my punishment is to be surrounded by IDIOTS!"

• If My Calculations Are Correct: Doctor Destroyer and Starforce use this trope against each other in their unexpectedly-unclimactic duel at the end of "Leap Day":

  Dr. Destroyer: "I expected better tactics from you for our duel, mein herr." (beat) "Suppressing my teleportation web was a nice touch, but it means your suit's doing too much. By my calculations, your batteries will be drained in sixty seconds."
  Starforce: "A pity I only need to hold you for thirty-five."
  Dr. Destroyer (now noticing the increasing failures in his suit): "Wait... What have you DONE?!?"
  Starforce (coldly): "Because by MY calculations, that's how many seconds *you* have left to live."
  (stunned, shocked silence from the surviving heroes. Destroyer's armor, for lack of a better term, now appears to be visibly rusting in front of everyone)
  Starforce (continuing): "Do try to use them wisely."

• Is That What They're Calling It Now?: In "The Paradox of Doctor Destroyer", Nebula says that Bob called their activities the previous night 'Data acquisition'.
  • Invoked by Bob in "The Varanyi Civil War" while Julie is attempting to figure out how many times they need to have sex daily to keep the Varanyi out of their minds.
• Immodest Orgasm: Biomaster hangs this lampshade in 'The Varanyi Civil War' when Bob and Julie finally consummate 10 years (in-universe) of ship tease:

  (things start getting noisy on the other side of the bulkhead again)
  Ranger (disgusted): "You just HAD to go and say it, didn't you?"
  Biomaster: "I'm sorry."
  Ranger (to himself): "I swear, listening to Iraqi artillery in the Saudi desert was more relaxing..."
  Biomaster: "Theodore?"
  Ranger (beat): "Matt?"
  Biomaster (beat): "That's not speech."
  (they both listen to the now unmistakable sounds on the other side of the bulkhead. They look at each other, eyes wide)
  Biomaster: "Look on the bright side. We don't have to try to find the Varanyi equivalent of the Playboy Channel on ship's entertainment tonight."

• Impaled With Extreme Prejudice: Ladyhawk killing Fiacho in 'A Week at Davos', which meets the trope definition because she pulled him off the balcony to which she was hanging and dove after him to finish him off.
• Infant Immortality: Almost horribly inverted by Baron Nihil in 'Fields of Saguenay' when he attempts to subject Starforce's children to what Starforce had subjected to him at the end of 'Greatest Generation'
• Innocent Innuendo: Starforce & Lady Blue, as overheard by Ladyhawk in 'Escalation'
  • Then one minute later, Starforce & Lady Blue & Ladyhawk, as overheard by Shina
• Insult of Endearment: Starforce calls Ladyhawk 'Ninjette', Ladyhawk calls Starforce 'Nerd-boy'. Originally intended to be insulting to each other, they became terms of affection as their relationship matured.
  • You can tell whenever a situation is getting serious when they STOP using each other's nicknames and start calling each other by their given names or superheroic names
• Involuntary Group Split: Happens in 'The Varanyi Civil War' when rebel adepts teleport TASK FORCE off of the Sitharados' shuttlecraft -- except for Ladyhawk and Starforce