History Awesome / Diabolik

*** The raid's aftermath: not only the police finds one of the hideouts and recovers all the loot and gadgets in it, they also find a paper on which there's written down ''the location of all the active hideouts'' (encoded, but Ginko quickly deciphers it) and waste no time raid them all. With a single plan Ginko has recovered almost the entirety of Diabolik's loot (he only missed the part he kept as his personal treasure) and ''all his technology'', a hit Diabolik ''never'' recovered from: many of his most elaborate and best hidden hideouts, inherited from Walter Dorian's organization, were discovered that day, and most of the loot was successfully sent back to their legitimate owners or (in case of stuff stolen from criminals) seized by the state, and even many years later Diabolik is still trying to recover parts of it from time to time.

** Even more awesomeness for Elizabeth Gay. Everyone else recognized Diabolik because he said or did something the character he impersonated was not supposed to say or do. She recognized him by ''looking around where she expected him to prepare a heist and.taking a good look at anyone who could have been Diabolik.'' Once recognized him she proceeded to capture him with ease in order to [[ColdBloodedTorture express her displeasure about their break-up]].

** Meta: the story of Ginko's near-complete triumph was so great that it was used for the second entry in the [=2020s=] film series, following on the heels of one based on "The Arrest of Diabolik". And not only it's a worthy sequel of one of the most iconic stories in the entire franchise' run, in it ''Ginko and the police are even more successful and capable'':
*** The jewels were part of a collection that also included a crown, stolen by Diabolik in the opening scene. ''That'' gave Ginko the idea of the Emerald Ballet [[BatmanGambit as he knew he wouldn't be able to pass a chance to steal the whole collection]]. Diabolik acts exactly as expected, and of course the crown is also recovered.
*** The missing bracelet is noticed not by the owner but by Elena Vanel, who had been assigned to catalogue the jewels in the loot and discovered one piece was missing. Also, Elena is much more decisive in the finale, and the only reason Diabolik survives is that she was crying after discovering her beloved Roller was dead and the tears threw off her aim.

** Diabolik eventually manages to recover the money and jewels from one of the hideouts thanks to a cunning plan and one of the cops left to ambush him in a lab being too arrogant for his own good... But not only he's shot and almost killed by Elena Vanel, a policewoman that happened to be friends with the cop he had replaced (and crushing on him), noticed "officer Roller" was acting strange, and [[ProperlyParanoid decided to follow him on the off-chance Diabolik had managed to make a mask even after they got all his tools and his entire stash of chemicals]], when he checks the money he discovers that [[ProperlyParanoid Ginko had all banknotes stamped over with "Confiscated to Diabolik" on the off-chance Diabolik somehow managed to steal it back]], making it ''worthless'' (after all, the state could simply have more money printed to replace it). Diabolik could still rebuild, but had to sell off the few jewels he had managed to recover, and the heist in the following issue lacked most of his usual gadgets, resulting in him being almost killed by his target and later nearly arrested by ''two random cops that stumbled on him and opened fire'', before being almost captured by Ginko (the two cops having called Ginko the moment Diabolik dodged the first bullets, as they knew they had lost their chance but Ginko and his team could still succeed).

*** The missing bracelet is noticed not by the owner but by Elena Vanel, who had been assigned to catalogue the jewels in the loot and discovered one piece was missing. Also, Elena is much more decisive in the finale, and the only reason Diabolik survives is that she was crying after discovering her beloved Roller was dead and the tears threw off her aim.

*** The missing bracelet is noticed not by the owner but by Elena Vanel, who had been assigned to catalogue the jewels in the loot and discovered one piece was missing. Also, Elena is much more decisive in the finale, and the only reason Diabolik survives is that she was crying after discovering her beloved Roller was dead and the tears didn't let her aim well.

** Ginko's plan: knowing Diabolik, he set up a ballet whose dancers would wear real and priceless emerald jewels... And filled it with police women. Not so they can jump him, he'd be ready for that, but because the jewels have trackers into them (all of them, [[CrazyPrepared on the off chance Diabolik fails to steal one]]. It can happen) and he can't ask normal dancers to risk their lives like that. It works better than expected: not only Diabolik and Eva are completely caught by surprise when Ginko and the police blow up the gate to their best hidden refuges and have to escape on foot with only the clothes on their back, by sheer happenstance Eva was wearing one of the bugged jewels when they arrived, and when the police realizes a bracelet is missing they can still track her and almost foil Diabolik's emergency plan (only dumb luck and Diabolik having managed to disguise himself as one of the intervening cops allow her to escape).

** Diabolik eventually manages to recover the money and jewels from one of the hideouts thanks to a cunning plan and one of the cops left to ambush him in a lab being too arrogant for his own good... But not only he's shot and almost killed by a policewoman that happened to be friends with the cop he had replaced (and crushing on him), noticed "officer Roller" was acting strange, and [[ProperlyParanoid decided to follow him on the off-chance Diabolik had managed to make a mask even after they got all his tools and his entire stash of chemicals]], when he checks the money he discovers that [[ProperlyParanoid Ginko had all banknotes stamped over with "Confiscated to Diabolik" on the off-chance Diabolik somehow managed to steal it back]], making it ''worthless'' (after all, the state could simply have more money printed to replace it). Diabolik could still rebuild, but had to sell off the few jewels he had managed to recover, and the heist in the following issue lacked most of his usual gadgets, resulting in him being almost killed by his target and later nearly arrested by ''two random cops that stumbled on him and opened fire'', before being almost captured by Ginko (the two cops having called Ginko the moment Diabolik dodged the first bullets, as they knew they had lost their chance but Ginko and his team could still succeed).

** Meta: the story of Ginko's near-complete triumph was so great that it was used for the second entry in the [=2020s=] film series, following on the heels of one based on "The Arrest of Diabolik".

** Diabolik eventually tracking them down and stealing all the jewels they had stolen from Clerville's richest... By getting ''Ginko and Altea'' to lure them in, the latter pretending one of the jewels stolen from her at the party had been an incredibly valuable family heirloom and making them doubt of each other enough to show up at the fence pretending to be selling it.

For obvious reasons, nobody dared to call Ginko an inept or Diabolik a mediocre criminal after this: [[TheDreaded they were too scared of Diabolik murdering them in another impossible way to even think about it]].

** ''Final Mockery'', the third part of the trilogy of the golden statues, was Diabolik's turn to get the awesomeness. Diabolik had to steal the statues before they returned to Clerville, where the archeological museum was now repaired and [[UpToEleven even more invulnerable than before]], but Ginko, knowing that Diabolik rarely works with anyone who isn't Eva and wouldn't even try the heist unless he had a chance of stealing everything, had decided to move the statues in ''three'' groups, one by plane, one by sea and train and one by armored truck, that would travel in different paths and at the same time. Diabolik ''still'' succeeded in stealing all the statues.

** In "Inside Diabolik's Hideout", Diabolik had to do it ''again''. It wasn't a trap, Diabolik was swimming underwater and got ambushed by a wild octopus... And, [[KnifeNut Diabolik being Diabolik]], he quickly cut the tentacle holding his left arm and stabbed the beast in the head.

*** Some cops say that Diabolik had been lucky with the secret passage. The officers from Ginko's hand-picked team, [[WhatAnIdiot disbanded by Evans]], know he would have found a way anyway, he did it this way because it was funnier and more humiliating to Evans.

*** The Device to Hell showed up again in "Off with the Mask!", when Corbett's nephew Giacomo, after [[UnwittingPawn being fooled by Diabolik into helping him for a heist with an identical machine that detected not the mask's ingredients but another chemical element]], invented ''a better one'': the original only signaled the masks, the new version indicated the position. [[spoiler:Except it was Ginko's trap: upon finding out of the alleged machine, Diabolik moved to destroy it and the blueprints and kill Giacomo, but found the police. Had Giacomo not grabbed the IdiotBall too, Diabolik would have been captured and executed]].

* The story ''Mocking Diabolik'' features Ginko's greatest victory over Diabolik. Ginko had to move twenty ancient golden statues from the place where they had been found, near the depot of Diabolik's confiscated items that was about to be dismissed, to the archeological museum, where they would be kept in a Diabolik-proof room that was being prepared, all of this without Diabolik stealing them. How did he succeed? He first [[spoiler: faked the theft of Diabolik's confiscated items]], then he [[spoiler: used the items to steal the statues]] and hid them in the basement of the museum as the Diabolik-proof room was completed, and in the meantime, knowing that Diabolik was somehow checking whatever he did, he [[spoiler: [[FramingTheGuiltyParty used hints he had previously planted to make everyone think a mob boss stole Diabolik's items and the statues]], sending Diabolik on a wild chase]] until he publicly unveiled where the statues were. Diabolik and Eva's faces when they found out of Ginko's victory, and then as they listened him telling Altea how he did it, were priceless.

*** Diabolik later found out that the statues had been borrowed by a museum in the neighbouring country of Benglait, and that the statues were already in Benglait, hidden in a farm and guarded by Ginko and a small army of ProperlyParanoid cops, enough that Diabolik wouldn't attempt the heist until after the police of Benglait (led by an incompetent chief) would take them in their care. Diabolik ''still'' failed the heist due a gang (that included [[spoiler: the chief of police]]) trying the heist and was nearly captured, but managed to fool the police chief (at least until Ginko arrived, took a look around and discovered his ruse). The [[spoiler: police chief]] was later arrested when Ginko discovered evidence against him and passed it to his superiors.

* Gustavo Garian, the oldest recurring character in the series (and the first named character to appear, even being the first to mention Diabolik), has one in ''The Return of Gustavo Garian''. How? Knowing that [[spoiler: he was terminally ill, Gustavo, with help of other Diabolik victims, hired the best assassins in the world to kill first Diabolik and then himself, and Diabolik ''barely survived'']]. What's more, [[DidntSeeThatComing Diabolik didn't expect it in the slightest]], and was left speechless when, disguised as Ginko, was told everything by Gustavo.

* The story ''On the Morgue's Table'' has some awesomeness for officer Silber and his wife, for sheer ballsness: after a raid on one of Diabolik's refuges produced a paper with the address of another refuge, Silber [[spoiler: altered the paper to send the police to guard another home and used the information to ''take over one of Diabolik's refuges and rob homes using Diabolik's masks, larger-than-life stunts and his wife's help to fake being Diabolik and Eva themselves'']]. Upon finding out, Ginko had to admit they had been very brave, both for the stunts and because Diabolik, upon returning from his vacation, would have been ''furious''.
** Also, Silber's death gives some awesomeness to [[BadassBystander an insomniac citizen]]: [[spoiler: upon seeing what appeared to be Diabolik and Eva in action, he first called the police, and then, when it was clear they'd escape before the cops were on them, ''grabbed a precision rifle and gunned them down'']]. Yes, they weren't the real deal, but this guy had no idea...

** With all the above, no wonder Diabolik declared that stealing something from there was impossible... And this makes even more awesome the fact that [[spoiler: Gilda, Richter's daughter,]] ''successfully stole a diamond from the vault with nobody being the wiser'' [[spoiler: she had done it because she felt abandoned when her father appeared to care more for the diamond than for her]]. How the hell did [[spoiler: she]] do it?! Easy: [[spoiler: being a child, she could enter from the air-vent]], and once in she ''sit on the safe to not trigger the weight sensors'' and tried multiple combinations, three per hour, concentrating on words that she believed [[spoiler: her father]] would use. And used gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints, leading a baffled Ginko to wonder how the hell Diabolik did it and an even more baffled Diabolik wondering how the hell the mysterious thief did do it, only for the King of Terror to metaforically kick himself in the butt when he found out the identity of the thief.

* Diabolik had one in "Obscure Revenge". He's sitting on a chair filled with explosive, the daughter of [[ButForMeItWasTuesday a private cop he killed but he can't remember]] has the finger on the detonator and if she moves the chair will explode and kill him, he listens her rant at how he made her into a hardened criminal by generating her wish for revenge and how it was right that she killed Eva to make him suffer... And then he calmly stands up, explains that the poor woman ''can't move'' due the paralizing contact poison that coated a number of objects he tricked her into touching (cue her [[OhCrap realizing she's screwed]] even before he explains why she can't move), deliver a formidable BreakingSpeech centered on [[NotSoDifferent they're both murderers who killed innocents who never did anything to each other]] but at least he realizes that he himself is responsible for his own acts but she can't admit she's the only one to blame for her own, and then leave after telling her the poison will wear out in minutes causing her to have a little spasm in the process, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard thus detonating the explosive that, without Diabolik on the chair, will kill her]].

* In "The Fatal Mask", a one-shot character needs to free his girlfriend, who was accused of attempted murder and couldn't prove it was self-defence. What did he do? He got in touch with Ginko and exchanged her for ''Diabolik''. Apparently even Diabolik himself considered it awesome, as he didn't take his revenge on him...

** Confronted by Ginko, Todd calmly explains everything, and upon learning what happened with Kruger is only displeased he didn't get to kill him... While he reads documents that prove that Kruger had ''not'' prescribed the deadly pill but a safe one. He quickly reasons that the one who switched the pill had been Gloria, his girlfriend who had a bad relationship with his daughter, confronts her and gets her to admit her crime and that she was Kruger's accomplice... And, having realized he was ''not'' a murderer, calls Ginko.

** Furious at the repeated humiliations, Evans deploys all available officers to guard all sensible objectives... [[AllAccordingToPlan Just as expected by Diabolik]]: his ''reall'' goal was a gold transport that now would be underguarded (and without the defenses Ginko would have considered basic-the escort had gas masks, but the cops on the transport had opened the windows due the heat of the day, and got sprayed with a paralyzing liquid]], and Diabolik got the date, the hours and the route by ''[[RefugeInAudacity entering the police station disguised as a cop and breaking in the safe while everyone was searching for the microphone in the archive]]''-[[RefugeInAudacity and guess who told the police there was a microphone broadcasting Evans' humiliation]]?

** One for Ginko, for realizing Diabolik's plan and barging on him with the few cops of his old team who weren't on the guard job, foiling the heist. The following day, Evans had resigned in disgrace, and the minister of justice recalls Ginko in service [[GenreSavvy just as he had been expecting he would do the whole time]].