History Characters / Narbonic

* CloningBlues: Her youth in a nutshell. Being a clone has also caused her interest in the origins of mad genius - Helen wants to know if she, herself, has been doomed from the start. And yet, she's surprisingly cavalier about cloning people herself.

* CloningBlues: None. He has no idea he's a clone, which may be for the best.

* WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs: In universe, her editors probably think she's on acid 24/7. They print her work anyways, not knowing that it's an accurate picture of the universe they live in. Alternatively, some of them may lack the WeirdnessCensor as well. She seems sober enough, actually, given that, while she can take the existence of intelligent hamsters in stride, trying to report on her interview with them gives her some pause.

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: BadFuture Mell claims she's doing what she's doing for Artie. Present-day Mell acts shocked precisely once, and that's when she thinks Artie's plummeted to his death (he hasn't).

* IconicOutfit: A loose, off-shoulder top, teeny-tiny plaid skirt and leggins. Mell in her lawyer mode (also, Future Mell) wears a power suit.

-->'''BadFuture Mell''': With the push of a button, I will destroy the universe. Yes, it's been a lifelong dream of mine.

* UpliftedAnimal: By definition, yes, but he takes offense to the term, saying that it promotes the idea that evolution is a one-way street with human-level intelligence as its [[EvolutionaryLevels goal]], as well as a hierarchical view of humans and animals.
* VoluntaryShapeshifter: After mastering the reflex with Zazen meditation, he permanently gains the ability to [[spoiler:transmogrify between human and gerbil at will.]]

* TheChessmaster: Is she? Or does she just do what the voices tell her? In a mind as twisted as Helen's, there's apparently no difference between the two. She claims to have orchestrated [[spoiler:all the major events of the comic up to a certain point]] as part of her intensive research on [[spoiler:Dave]], which would be a mind-boggling feat of prediction considering all the unknown variables involved. Towards the very end of the strip, [[spoiler:Dave]] uses a form of ''mad probability'' (indistinguishable form BatDeduction to the uninitiated) to predict someone's location within a large area, so superhuman powers of prediction and strategy apparently go with the territory.

* CuteAndPsycho: [[PinkMeansFeminine Her favourite color is pink]]. Puts [[HeartSymbol heart motifs]] wherever she can fit them. Loves [[RidiculouslyCuteCritter gerbils]]. She's cute all right. And a MadScientist. The [[RodentsOfUnusualSize monstrous ur-gerbils]] are the least of your problems.

* ReplacementFlatCharacter: InUniverse.

* UncannyValley: InUniverse - Mell and Artie find him right ''weird'' (and pretty annoying), since he looks like Dave (used to), but doesn't act like Dave (ever).

* TheyFightCrime: The author facetiously remarks in the "Director's Cut" commentary that she should have just written Narbonic as a buddy cop detective story with Mell and Zeta as the main characters. In the actual strip, she does have the buddy cop vibe, but with Foot, not Mell.

* AwesomeMcCoolname

* BalefulPolymorph: She has this reaction while turning into Dave due to a teleporter accident, with plenty of homages to ''Film/TheFly1986''.

* SmallGirlBigGun: Frequently and UpToEleven, as Mell is ''tiny,'' possibly the smallest of the human characters, and some of her guns are ''huge.'' According to canonized fanfiction by Jeffrey Wells, she used to show up to band practice in high school carrying a bazooka.

* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Helen never actually appears stupid (she is a mad scientist afterall) but she does almost always act as a AffablyEvil hyperintelligent version of TheDitz. [[spoiler: This is very much an act.]]

* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: One of the real photographs of Barker used in the strip shows him with dark blue hair.

* ParrotPetPosition: In his gerbil form, he often rides on people's shoulders (usually, Helen's).

* ClonesArePeopleToo: It might have taken buying a rifle and taking legal action against dr. Narbon to make her emencipation possible...

* OnlySaneMan: Very much so, despite his destructive naivete. Helen is literally [[MadScientist mad]], Mell is [[AxCrazy obsessed]] with weaponry and destruction, and Dave often goes along with Helen's insane plans due to their sheer [[RuleOfCool coolness]], so Artie's often the sole voice of reason. Later, he becomes [[spoiler:literally the only sane member of the staff.]] He ends up being in the minority among the main and supporting cast, really.

* IntellectualAnimal

* AchievementsInIgnorance: Helen tricks him into doing this on a regular basis. She tells him that a rusty mail-sorter is a broken weather-controlling doomsday device, and he makes it work as such. She later tricks him into rebuilding a non-functional death ray console into a functioning one that can control existing [[KillSat Kill Sats]]. [[spoiler: As he's actually a latent mad genius in deep denial, almost all of his technical feats count as this trope.]]

* JokerImmunity: At least one of her faking-her-death shenanigans included being ''burned at stake'', which got recorded live on video. And that happened about a year before she appears in the story.

* ClonesArePeopleToo: It might have taken buying a rifle and taking legal action against dr. Narbon to make this possible...

* EvilBrit: An honourable mention, since he's ([[MinionWithAnFInEvil nominally]]) evil and British-accented (even though not really British)

* ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight: His old job - se used to be a monster under a kid's bed before getting demoted for doing said kid's homework.

Zeta is a {{gonzo journalis|m}}t who writes for various zines.[[note]]Her name is a reference to Oscar Zeta Acosta, and many of her traits (cigarette holder, attitude towards life) pay tribute to Creator/HunterSThompson; Acosta was the sidekick "Dr. Gonzo" in Thompson's semi-fictionalized memoir Literature/FearAndLoathingInLasVegas.[[/note]] She finds herself drawn to mad science antics with extraordinary frequency. Appropriate, given that she's a [[spoiler:early science project of Helen's, a gerbil given human form and intelligence.]]

* SeenItAll: She doesn't have the WeirdnessCensor that makes a percentage of normal people (at one point 20% of the U.S., according to Skin Horse side material, but seemingly more) unable to see the various fantastical things that go on in ''Narbonic,'' but she's pretty jaded to the weirdness. An insane super-intelligent gerbil riding a lobotomized hippy doesn't register on a gonzo journalist's weirdness scale, apparently.
* SunglassesAtNight: She wears her tinted glasses even indoors because she has a light sensitivity (photophobia). You know, it goes with being a [[spoiler:gerbil.]]

* TattooAsCharacterType: She's definitely a rebellious, eccentric type, with an eye tattooed on the back of her neck and a cartoonish question mark on her arm.

Helen's archnemesis, due to a very [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness early]] Sunday mailbag strip where the characters read a letter he wrote asking about her age. He's a real friend of the author's who was very active in the Narbonic fandom before there ''was'' a Narbonic fandom, and initially the character corresponded pretty closely to real life. Then the Dave conspiracy was introduced...

* AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: When Helen, who has a massive vendetta and would dearly like to torture Barker [[spoiler: sells him back to the Daves]] in exchange for [[spoiler: Dave Davenport's reinstatement in the conspiracy,]] the characters and the reader both know that she really cares about her computer tech.

* UncannyValley: Mell and Artie find him right ''weird'' (and pretty annoying), since he looks like Dave (used to), but doesn't act like Dave (ever).