History ComicBook / ElfQuest

!!The series provides examples Of:

* MindRape: Winnowill is not a nice person. Neither are Haken and Madcoil.

* MindRape: One of Winnowill's favorite hobbies, as shown when she happens to be in the room at the moment Tyldak and Dewshine Recognize, and Tyldak speaks Dewshine's soul name aloud. Once she has Dewshine's soul name, Dewshine has no defenses against her powers, and even speaking the name aloud can cause her pain.

* MindRape: One of Winnowill's favorite hobbies. Taken UpToEleven when she happens to be in the room at the moment Tyldak and Dewshine Recognize, and Tyldak speaks Dewshine's soul name aloud. Once she has Dewshine's soul name, Dewshine has no defenses against her powers, and even speaking the name aloud can cause her pain.

The full series has been re-published many times over, although the original hand-drawn pencils and organic colors were never redone. For computer-colored versions of the entire series, go here: [[https://elfquest.com/reading-room/ It's all online.]] (Beware [[ArchiveBinge Death By Archive]].)

* IdiotBall: The Wolfriders cross the desert to give Cutter the dire portents his young son Suntop is carrying, then flub it at the 10-yard line by resting on serene-looking land he's screaming is dangerous, and hunting what he begs them not to.

* EmbarrassingRescue: In the Trial of the Heart, Rayek could not resist showboating to mock Cutter when his acrophobia got the better of him on "The Bridge of Destiny," an artificially formed narrow bridge joining the tops of two dangerously high facing cliffs. To do so, Rayek arrogantly strode on to the middle of that bridge for his derision, only to slip, fall and then barely held from falling to his death by his fingertips. Cutter, conquers his phobia to rescue Rayek, who finds it a terrible ultimate humiliation.

* HarmlessElectrocution: {{Tear Jerk|er}}ingly averted. Ruffel and Skywise head off for some sexy-time in the rain. Poor Ruffel gets up and starts dancing, and... well, terminally discovers it was actually a thunderstorm.

* IllegalReligion: Once he starts getting delusions of grandeur, Gromul Djun bans worship of the humans' deity Threksht, and making offerings to or idols of the Hidden Ones (i.e. the elves in the forest) while also declaring ''himself'' [[AGodAmI to be a god]], whom they alone must worship. After this and some other outrages, it's not long until they rebel.

* IncrediblyLamePun[=/=]IceCreamKoan: "In the meantime -- if time can be said to have meaning..."

** The trope's most famous TearJerker moment in the series was when Pike sensed his lifemate Skot had died in the war. The scene is meaningful especially because Pike and Skot couldn't Recognize: they were both males, Skot's tribe doesn't usually have Recognition, and Pike is thought to be incapable of Recognition, because he was born out of a magic experiment. The fact that Pike was able to sense Skot's death regardless of ''any'' of that means they were as close as Recognized lifemates.

** At which point Rayek's almost-forgotten ChekhovsSkill - absorbing souls into his own mind - kicked in, and he decided to trap Winnowill inside his own being. [[TearJerker Damning himself to an eternal life of mental torture]].

* NoPeriodsPeriod: Elven females don't menstruate, so it's justified with them. However as a human woman Shuna does, and this distracts the wolves to the point that they have her live apart from them while she's menstruating.

** Ruffel (one of Skywise's lovemates) tries in ''The Final Quest Special''. [[spoiler: It ends [[TearJerker badly]].]]

* OpenMindedParent: Most characters, because the elves have EternalSexualFreedom. A nice example is when main character Cutter realizes that his virgin daughter Ember (aged between 14-15) is sexually frustrated, and asks his best friend Skywise to take care of it (Skywise refuses, but mostly because he knows he's not really Ember's type). The human characters are ''not'' particularly open-minded, though.
* OppositesAttract: {{Discussed}} by Aroree and Kahvi in regards to Kahvi's past relationship with Rayek. Aroree thinks their differences in background (she's "ice", he's "fire") were the problem. Kahvi disagrees though, saying differences make good sparks. It was his arrogance which she hated.
* OurElvesAreDifferent: As a whole, elves are the descendants of a race of space-faring, incredibly powerful psionic aliens who were accidentally stranded in the world's Stone Age by the actions of some of their pets/slaves, the ancestors of the modern trolls. Elves resemble humans with fine features, four-fingered hands and long, pointy ears, which results in subtly different skull shapes. All elves have at least some potential for PsychicPowers, or "magic" as they call it, which most prominently manifests as a racial gift of {{telepathy}}, which the elves refer to as "Sending". Other psionic powers are less common and mostly revolve around psychokinetic manipulation of a specific material -- a category of powers referred to as "Shaping". Elves capable of psionic {{biomanipulation}}, referred to as "Healers", are perhaps the most common of these gifted individuals. Other forms of magic tend to be uniquely specialized forms of Sending, Shaping or Healing, such as shapeshifting, levitation, and inflicting pain, paralysis or hypnotic commands. Elves live for extremely long periods, if they aren't fully immune to the effects of aging. They are extremely slow breeding; elven gestation takes two years, and elven women generally do not ovulate unless triggered by the spark of "Recognition", a biokinetic and telepathic trigger that activates when two elves with the potential to make a strong genetic mix encounter each other and their environment is receptive to rearing children -- pregnancy can happen without Recognition, but it's called out as generally being ''very'' rare. Despite this, the elves have managed to survive in a hostile environment. The common fantasy element of distinctive elfin subraces manifests in ''[=ElfQuest=]'' as the "Tribes":

* ShoutOut: Ekuar training Rayek is an obvious ShoutOut to Yoda training Luke in ''StarWars''.

The full series has been re-published many times over, although the original hand-drawn pencils and organic colors were never redone. For computer-colored versions of the entire series, go here: [[http://elfquest.com/gallery/OnlineComics/digitalEQ.html It's all online.]] (Beware [[ArchiveBinge Death By Archive]].)

* MermaidProblem: Some of the Wavedancers are merfolk, with fish-like lower bodies. It's left unexplained if they can reproduce or have sex with those of human-like lower halves, and if so how.

* TheSlowPath: The immortal elf Rayek kidnaps the family of Cutter, chief of the mortal Wolfriders, and takes them roughly ten thousand years into the future. His plan is to save the ancestors of all the elves during their initial time travel mishap (which sent them back into the past). However, this would prevent the Wolfriders from ever existing. Cutter has no idea when his (immortal) lifemate Leetah and their (mortal) children will ever appear again, and he knows that he will die after roughly six thousand years. The first five centuries are torment for him and his tribe, and they eventually decide to have themselves wrapped in a time-freezing cocoon. The immortal characters (including the troll king, whose daughter was also kidnapped) live the years out, as do a select few Wolfriders who dislike tampering with nature and who simply choose to life a normal life. The plot resumes ten thousand years later, when Cutter's lifemate and children finally see him again -- after what, for them, has only been a few hours. Later chapters show that Cutter's time without his family severely traumatized him -- he could simply not stop ''counting''.

* TriangRelations: Suffice to say, the elves are ''very'' casual about sex, although the more notable ones are Cutter x Leetah x Rayek, Skywise x Cutter x Leetah, Scouter x Tyleet x Dewshine/Tyldak.

* AbductionIsLove: Cutter abducts Leetah the first time they meet. This is because he'd gone under the influence of [[MindlinkMates Recognition]] as soon as he laid eyes on her coupled with the recent trauma his tribe underwent that made them wary of strangers. He wasn't in his right mind when he kidnapped her, and he does apologize for it, though it takes a while for him to undo the bad first impression this -- and the raid itself -- naturally left on Leetah.
-->'''Skywise:''' Um, [[DeadpanSnarker you don't seem to be carrying much water]].\\
'''Cutter:''' I'll explain later, on higher ground.

* GagBoobs: A quick gag. Leetah heals a young human girl, and the girl's mother gives Leetah one of the girl's dresses (Leetah's own clothes had been torn to shreds in an earlier accident). The dress fits well enough in most ways, but the little girl is, well, a little girl. Leetah is a grown woman, a mother, and unusually buxom for an elf. Unsurprisingly, her boobs get squished, a source of quiet amusement to both her and the human mother.

* OneMillionBC: This comic starts out as a fantasy version of this trope.
* AbductionIsLove: Cutter abducts Leetah the first time they meet. This is because he'd gone under the influence of [[MindlinkMates Recognition]] as soon as he laid eyes on her coupled with the recent trauma his tribe underwent that made them wary of strangers. He wasn't in his right mind when he kidnapped her, and he does apologize for it, though it takes a while for him to undo the bad first impression this - and the raid itself - naturally left on Leetah.
-->'''Skywise:''' Um, [[DeadpanSnarker you don't seem to be carrying much water]].
-->'''Cutter:''' I'll explain later, on higher ground.

* GenkiGirl: Shen-Shen is the series' earliest example. Her niece Ember quickly catches up. Dewshine and Aroree also counted as GenkiGirl archtypes at the start of the series, although both become traumatized over the course of the story: Dewshine simply matures into a calm, happy woman, but Aroree's spirit is permanently broken after witnessing her tribe's chief die.

** Cutter temporarily in ''The Final Quest''. The fact that he and Timmain share ''the same soul'' - to a point where they actually can ''hear what the other thinks'' outside of regular sending, and the implication connected to the sharing of soul names between him and Skywise (who actually ''recognized Timmain'' via Cutter), sends him off the rails completely. At least for a time.
** Later in ''Stargazer's Hunt'', Timmain reveals this to Skywise. He doesn't quite go mad, but has a rather severe breakdown over it. Unfortunately, just as he's coming to terms with it, his daughter Jink decides to help him... by erasing all his memories of Cutter. Things go downhill from there.

** Ember, a {{dark skinned redhead}} with a hot temper, though she's usually in control.

* BodyHorror: What Winnowill does to many of her victims, [[BalefulPolymorph twisting their forms into monstrous shapes]]. At least in Tyldak's case, however, she changes him at his request. A poor little one-winged animal we see in one panel, apparently used for practice, didn't appear to get that courtesy.

* PsychicSurgery: The [[HealingHands healers' powers]]. The negative use is also shown, with corrupted former healer Winnowill, who [[BodyHorror creates twisted monsters]], [[BalefulPolymorph shaping them against their will]]. Others, like Tyldak, who she gives wings, asked her to do it though.

* AbsoluteCleavage: A popular design in elf fashion. Special shout-outs to Leetah's floorlength duster from the second book (which is not worn with an actual shirt), Dewshine's strapless-and-plunging-neckline dresses that seem to casually ignore gravity, Tyldak's fur singlet thing that may or may not technically be his own hair, and pretty much everything Strongbow has ever worn.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: After over ''four decades'', this shouldn't be surprising.

*** Brace continually reinforces an arch, preventing an internal weakness from causing it to collapse. Why the multiple rockshapers among the Gliders haven't just renovated the area in the past millennia is never explained.
*** Female Door controls the only land way in or out of Blue Mountain. Instead of having to hunt her up every time someone wanted to use the door (which is not that often in the first place), apparently Winnowill thought it was a great idea to have her on duty all the time.

* BodyHorror: What Winnowill does to many of her victims, [[BalefulPolymorph twisting their forms into monstrous shapes]]. At least in Tyldak's case, however, she changes him at his request.

The main series concluded with the four volume series 'The final quest' that ran from Janaury 2014- February 2018 which was ahead of the series 40th anniversary. A new series, ''[=ElfQuest=]: Stargazer's Hunt'' began November, 2019.

* NamedAfterTheInjury: In original band of wolfriders, the 'dark ranger' is a character named One-Eye, who literally only has one eye. On the official Elfquest webpage, the comic's creators [[WordOfGod say]] that "First named Woodhue, One-Eye gained his new soubriquet after his right eye was put out by humans."