Breaking the fourth wall is a relatively common occurrence in comics. To my knowledge the characters that this has happened to the most have been She-Hulk, Animal Man and Deadpool. It has also happened at other times whether characters on covers are talking to the readers, or in the case of Ben Grimm where a Jack Kirby looking God was talked in to drawing him back into existence. What if breaking the fourth wall was used for something actually productive though other than just a bit of fun for the fans. For instance here with Donna Troy
Featuring:
Sovereign of Comics (SC) – The creator of comics talking through the action boxes
Donna Troy (DT) – Talking through voice bubbles
SC: Hello Donna!
DT: What? Who are you? What is happening?
SC: I am the mysterious unseen force that controls your life. I am talking to you through the fourth wall.
DT: What’s that?
SC: Not important at the moment. I am just here to say sorry for writing your story and then re-writing it , and re-re-writing, re-re-re … well you get the point.
DT: Wait a minute that was you?
SC: Well me and people like me, you see it all started in the golden age, you were just a teenage version of Wonder Woman.
DT: You mean a magical clone?
SC: No that’s what you are now. Then the publishers decided they needed a Wonder Woman like character in the Teen Titans, so Donna Troy was created.
DT: Just like that?
SC: Yes, everything went fine until Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Wonder Woman comic at the time we lacking direction so they decided to reboot …
DT: What’s a reboot?
SC: Save your questions until the end please. Because of Crisis they re-established Wonder Woman as entering man’s world after you did which now made no sense for your background so you were re-written.
DT: You can do that?
SC: We do it all the time. Basically every time we chose to rewrite you your story became more and more convoluted. I am just here to apologize for it, and for killing your husband and son, that was probably unnecessary.
DT: I’d say, but all things considered I guess that’s all right, I mean its not like you can just change it back right?
SC: Well actually no we re-re-wrote Wonder Woman’s story so that she came into man’s world before you did, so all that other stuff that happened to you was kind of unnecessary.
DT: Oh well tough breaks I guess right? Can I get back to heroics now? The Justice League just called.
SC: Sure, but to answer your question, we can change it back whenever we want to, in fact people come back from the dead all the time, and some people’s stories are so convoluted at this point that we don’t even try to sort them out.
DT: OK cool, well I gotta go … wait a minute … what? You mean you could change all my messed up story just by choosing to do so.
SC: Yes it would be rather easy.
(Donna reaches through the panel and slaps SC)
SC: How did you do that?
DT: You change my story back right now, do you understand me? I want the red costume and everything. Tell Cassie I will buy her something new and maybe green or something.
SC: Well I am not sure if the publishers would go for it.
(Donna reaches through the panel and slaps SC again)
SC: All right, all right
What do you think? Good idea?
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