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Eye Scream / The DCU

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"Now, now. This will only hurt a lot."

  • Aquaman (2016):
    • After Rath frees the Abyssal Dark, the seers from the Widowhood tear their own eyes out to prevent themselves from having traumatizing visions.
    • Aquaman defeats the possessed Corum Rath by stabbing him in the right eye with the shattered hilt of Atlan's Trident.
  • Batman:
    • A Joker example appears in Birds of Prey, where the Joker details his much beloved gag-gun (that shoots out a metal pole with a flag attached to it that says "BANG!"), puts it right up to a goon's eyeball and says "Wanna see?" then pulls the trigger.
    • Another Joker example, much like the one above, occurs when the Joker threatens to shoot one of his goons, but a flag that says "bang" comes out instead. Said goon relaxes and says "It's not loaded..." right before The Joker pulls the trigger again, and calmly says, "Nope," as the flag gets fired and lodged in the goon's eye.
    • In one issue, Killer Croc challenges Lady Shiva to a fight — she deflects his swipe back at him and he ends up poking himself in the eye with one of his claws.
    • In Batman: The Dark Knight Returns ,the Joker takes a batarang in the eye.
    • Joker threatens a nurse with a freshly sharpened pencil to the eye to lure Batman in during Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. However, it turns out to merely be an April Fools joke.
      "She just drew me a beautiful house. She drew it with this pencil... The one I've just sharpened. Open your eyes WIDE, Pearl! Beautiful... blue... oh..."
    • In Death of the Family, the Joker burns Alfred's eyes with ammonia.
  • Catwoman: In the 2002 story arc "Relentless", after Black Mask had captured the title character's sister and brother-in-law, Eye Scream was just the beginning of the torture that he had in store for them: "Over the teeth, past the gums; look out stomach, here it comes!"
  • Deathstroke:
    • In Tales of the Teen Titans #44, it's revealed that Deathstroke lost his right eye when his wife shot him for endangering their son Jericho (which led to Jericho getting his throat cut and losing his voice).
    • In Identity Crisis (2004), Green Arrow sticks an arrow through Deathstroke's blind eye.
    • In Titans (2010) #33, Deathstroke would later have the other eye gouged out by cult leader Drago. However, his healing factor would regrow his left eye.
    • In Teen Titans (2003) #7, Rose Wilson, while under the influence of Psycho Serum, gouges her own eye out to prove her loyalty to her father.
    • In Vigilante #6, the Dorain Chase Vigilante gouges out the Face Heel Turned Jericho's eyes to keep him from using his possession powers (which require eye contact with the target) ever again. Vigilante, who doesn't follow Thou Shalt Not Kill, only "spared" Jericho because he had promised Rose Wilson Jericho's half-sister that he wouldn't kill him.
  • Green Lantern:
    • Two Green Lantern Corps storylines, "Ring Quest" and "Eye of the Beholder," has this in spades. At the end of "Ring Quest," Bzzd flies inside Mongul and emerges graphically through his left eye. In "Eye of the Beholder," in which Green Lantern rookies are targeted with psychological warfare, when (spoilered because some people would probably like to sleep tonight) hundreds of eyeballs of the murdered family members rain down on their practice area.
    • Kyle Rayner has a frequent tendency to go for the eyes when fighting his enemies, especially when he can't use his ring.
  • Hellblazer:
    • In a particularly memorable story arc, three of John Constantine's children (The result of a Deal with the Devil) set about destroying John's life, systematically killing his friends, family, and any and all of his remaining allies, John is brought to his knees by their use of HIS methods. It seems like John's met his match in them. When he finally regains his Magnificence it is illustrated by extinguishing his still-lit cigarette in his son's eye and telling him to "Let the grown-ups talk".
    • At the end of "Confessional", Father Tolly commits suicide by putting two pencils to his eyes and headbutting the pew in front of him.
    • In "Hunger", John and an African shaman "share a vision" — by the shaman plucking out one of John's an his eyes an exchanging them. One could argue that John was hallucinating, the ritual also featuring a herbal drug ("Christ. I hate psychedelics"), but he promptly complains "Why does primitive magic alwasy hurt!"
    • In "Son of Man", a mob interrogator uses his own nail clippers to.... no, wait. You'd better read this one for yourself.
  • Infinite Crisis: In a particularly gory example, Black Adam kills Psycho-Pirate by sticking his fingers through the latter's eyes with enough force to push his Mask of Power out through the back of his head, causing it to basically explode.
  • Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year 4 or 5 has a battle between Wonder Woman and Superman. Superman headbutts Wonder Woman which pisses her off, so she gouges Superman's eyes at maximum strength causing blood to come out under her thumbs. Between his Nigh-Invulnerability and super-healing, his eyes are okay in the next panel, though blood is still dripping from his eye sockets and he's stunned long enough for Wonder Woman to put him in a painful armlock.
  • JSA Classified: The group that's been stealing parts from metahumans cut out Argus's eyes, then tries to do the same to Mid-Nite with a lovely panel of their doctor lowering a scalpel less than an inch from his unseeing eyes as they're held open. After his escape Mid-Nite steals Argus' eyes back from the screaming man who paid for them to be taken in the first place while he begs for mercy while yelling that "they threw his original eyes away".
  • Justice League of America:
  • Lobo: In "Lobos Paramilitary Christmas Special", during Lobo's fight with Santa Claus, at one point he punches Santa so hard that his eyeball is hanging out of its socket.
  • The father of Mister E gouged out his son's eyes with a sharpened spoon for having a girlie magazine under his bed. Is it any wonder that Mister E has issues with women? Later issues revealed that the pictures were actually of Mister E's sister and their father, but he'd blocked that memory out for one more acceptable to his psyche.
  • The Movement: A serial killer called the Cornea Killer is on the loose. The killer murders homeless people and cuts out their eyes as an M.O.
  • Robin (1993): Recurring villain Lynx has one of her eyes ripped out by King Snake as punishment for failing to kill Robin.
  • One of the creepier villains of The Sandman (1989) is the Corinthian, a nightmarish Serial Killer who escapes from the Dreaming and has toothed mouths in his eye sockets. He feasts on the eyes of his victims. (There's a different kind of eye squick entirely in a different scene, where his shades get knocked off in a struggle and his additional sockets bite the fingers off one of his attackers. Oh, Lord.)
    • For added eyeball trauma, there's the issue where Doctor Destiny uses Morpheus' dream ruby to control the patrons of a diner and eventually drove a teenage girl to stick skewers in her eyes. "I can see the glory!"
    • As the Sandman Companion points out, nearly every issue has some Eye Scream moment in some form. Neil Gaiman admits to being overly fond of/disturbed by the trope.
    • The Corinthian's own personal spinoff, Death in Venice, has less of this trope than you'd expect. Still, high points include the Russian soldier who the Corinthian swaps an eye with, who gouges out both his own eyes afterward, desperate to get rid of the realization of what the future of his revolution held, and still can't stop seeing it, and Amedeo being possessed, body-switched, something with the Corinthian and suddenly beginning bleeding copiously from the eyes, as the eye-mouths begin to grow in.
  • Shazam!: This happened twice to Marvel Family villain Captain Nazi. Catman jabbed him in the eyes with hypodermic needles during Villains United, and when he showed up in the Batman books a few months later with nifty gadgets that let him see, Red Hood blasted them with a stun gun.
  • Superman:
    • In one story, Superman got a shard of Kryptonite lodged in his eye (among other places) courtesy of Livewire.
    • Superman: Brainiac: After smashing Brainiac's face into his fist, Superman fires his heat vision right in the alien Coluan's eyes.
    • In a classic story, Supergirl shoots her heat vision straight in Kryptonite Man's eyes, blinding him temporarily. Later, Supergirl is fighting a villain with psychic powers, and he shoots fire at her eyes during the fight.
    • In Supergirl vol. 5 issue #20, Supergirl pierces the eye of a Cyclops with a magical arrow.
    • In Who is Superwoman?, Inspector Henderson puts a bullet through Reactron's left eye when Reactron and Superwoman are teaming up to kill the Girl of Steel.
    • Last Daughter of Krypton: During the final fight, Perrilus tries to stab Kara's eyes with its poisonous tentacles.
    • The Untold Story of Argo City: When an alien monster named Zygor attempted to breach Argo City's dome, Zor-El used a reflector device to throw its heat blasts back at his single enormous eye.
    • In Death & the Family, Gangbuster gets rid of an ant monster by throwing his baton right into its right eye.
  • In Watchmen, Sociopathic Hero Rorschach takes his first step toward that status as a kid: some bullies, one of them smoking a cigarette, mock him (accurately) about his mother being a whore, then when they start getting physical Rorschach grabs the cigarette and sticks it into the kid's eye.
  • Wonder Woman:
    • Wonder Woman (1942): Priscilla Rich expresses a wish and intent to scratch out Diana and Darling's eyes after Diana survives Pris' first attempt to murder her and Darling gives Diana a ride home. While Di escapes this fate Darling is never seen again so it's unclear if Pris got to him, though it's shown she knows how to break into his house.
    • Wonder Woman (1987):
      • The Daxamite's eyes were cut out during her torture, partially to ensure she'd never be able to use her race's inherent eye-based powers on her captors. Diana and H'Elgn later provide her with a cybernetic eye she can use to see with.
      • Diana blinds herself with the gorgon's acidic venom to continue her fight with Medusa. She'd just keep her eyes closed, but Medusa has an enthralling voice and keeps using it to try and force Di to look at her.

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