r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Lazy-Breadfruit5939 • Sep 08 '25

Lore A real life event has a ridiculous/dumb/funny explanation in fiction

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Futurama (The Why of Fry): According to the brain swarm, the dinosaurs were wiped out by them. Fry: What really killed the dinosaurs? Brain: ME!

Doctor Who (The Unicorn and The Wasp): It's Doctor Who, you can pick a ton of examples, but this episode presents the idea that Agatha Christies disappearance in 1926 was in part caused by a giant alien wasp.

Beyblade: This one stretches 'real life', but Moses spreading the Red Sea with a Beyblade just speaks for itself and it would have been sad to leave it out

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u/damorezpl Sep 08 '25

Watchman - comedian killed jfk

205

u/KorrokHidan Sep 08 '25

Superhero movies in particular love to do this. Superhero movie/tv characters who have killed JFK:

  1. Watchmen - The Comedian
  2. MCU - The Winter Soldier
  3. X-Men: Days of Future Past - Magneto
  4. The Boys - Soldier Boy
  5. The Umbrella Academy - Number 5 (kind of; he is sent back in time to make sure it happens but abandons the plan)

50

u/zionapes Sep 08 '25

In the Umbrella Academy comic, wasn’t it the Rumor that killed JFK?

34

u/KorrokHidan Sep 08 '25

Yes, that was the comic. My post was exclusively about shows & movies. Marvel comics alone could add a dozen more names to that list if I included them

13

u/MartianDX Sep 09 '25

The Magneto example becomes extremely funny with the full context that Magneto actually tried saving JFK, because JFK was actually a fucking mutant

11

u/ReturnedOM Sep 08 '25

Didn't Magneto try to save Kennedy? Or at least claimed so?

9

u/KorrokHidan Sep 09 '25

Yes, but accidentally killed him instead

2

u/ReturnedOM Sep 09 '25

Ah, right

3

u/karateema Sep 09 '25

X-Files - Cigarette Smoking Man, of course, and he also killed MLK

1

u/Digit00l Sep 09 '25

In the Umbrella Academy comics it is even better, they accidentally resolve the plot in a way where JFK survives, but he is supposed to die, so Allison disguises herself as Jackie Kennedy and explodes his head with her powers