History ComicBook / TheKillLock

* TheTeam:
** TheLeader: Pretty much the closest the group has is the Laborer, who often takes point in their encounters with others and tends to make a lot of the decisions.
** TheLancer / TheSmartGuy: The Artisan.
** TheBigGuy: The Wraith.
** TheChick: The Kid.

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: There is strong camaraderie amongst the Wraith Legion. The Wraith in story [[spoiler:feels regret for killing one of his brothers to save some kids]] and in spite of that crime, many of the other Wraiths objected to his sentencing as they would lose their brother to the Justice System of the Forgers. [[spoiler:News that the Artisan has taken the Wraith's body pushes them to wage war against the Artisan-Wraith]].
* EvenEvilHasStandards: The Zenith, leader of the Legion, approaches his holy duty with a single-mindedness that has left millions dead. However he, like the Wraith, does not like killing children. [[spoiler:While it's ultimately the promise of the Artisan to return the Wraith to the Legion that spurs his betrayal, the orders to kill children had already caused the Zenith's loyalty to fray]]. Further, [[spoiler:the Zenith sympathized with the Wraith's decision to defend the children even if he had to kill a fellow Wraith]].
-->"I stood in command of an army tasked with the killing of children. And I am now finished ordering that command."

* EvenEvilHasStandards: The Zenith, leader of the Legion, approaches his holy duty with a single-mindedness that has left millions dead. However he, like the Wraith, does not like killing children. [[spoiler:While it's ultimately the promise of the Artisan to return the Wraith to the Legion that spurs his betrayal, the orders to kill children had already caused the Zenith's loyalty to fray]].

* TheAlcoholic: The Laborer, whose drinking resulted in him causing an accident that killed 923 androids.
* AssholeVictim: When the Artisan launches the ship off of Rachis its thrusters incinerate dozens of bots. The Wraith objects to the killing of so many innocents, but the Artisan states that they were all probably criminals and heretics; the insincere justification is used to highlight the Artisan's lack of empathy to the lives lost.

* ReligiousRobot: The Wraith Legion are dedicated to the Forgers on a level that pretty much borders on this. They even refer to those who oppose or secede from the Forgers as "heretics", and their destruction of these worlds is treated much like a holy crusade. To emphasise this, the Wraith's dialogue is presented in a font designed to evoke classical Christian texts.

* PetTheDog: It's hard to tell where self-interest ends and this trope begins for the Artisan. [[spoiler:When the Kid is fatally impaled, the Artisan quickly turns off his pain receptors]], while the action helps earn the ARtisan more trust, the author also notes that he did it to ease their suffering.

* AntiHero: The protagonists can all count as this (with the exception of the Artisan, who's pretty much a VillainProtagonist). They're simply trying to find a way to survive, but aren't above killing or destroying anyone who gets in their way.

* FiveManBand:
** TheLeader: Pretty much the closest the group has is the Laborer, who often takes point in their encounters with others and tends to make a lot of the decisions.
** TheLancer / TheSmartGuy: The Artisan.
** TheBigGuy: The Wraith.
** TheChick: The Kid.

** Early in the story, he makes a comment about how, if he could do what [[spoiler:the Wraith can, he "wouldn't behave", setting up how he intends to use the Wraith's body to strike back against the Forgers]].
** Before they approach Rachis, [[spoiler:the Artisan is shown studying scans of the four's brains, claiming to be trying to figure out the Kill Lock. This would actually have put him in the perfect position to see if their processors would be able to co-exist in the one form]].
** His attitude towards [[spoiler:the Kid]] also makes sense once it's revealed that [[spoiler:he assembled the Kill Lock group, and had chosen a different android for the fourth, based on how easy they would be to manipulate. The Kid being thrown in created a variable that he couldn't control, even if it ended up leading to a more effective result]].

* WouldHurtAChild: Practically every hostile droid they encounter has no qualms about trying to harm the Kid, although this seems to have a lot to do with defective droids being looked down upon by the rest of robot society.

* HisNameReallyIsBarkeep: Practically none of the androids we meet in the story have names, they're simply referred to by the class of android they are.

* FiveManBand: Or rather, ''four-droid'' band:

* TheChessmaster: [[spoiler:The final issue reveals that the Artisan assembled the Kill Lock group himself, killed his victims, and allowed himself to be captured, so that, after winning the trust of his companions, he could convince them to have their processors installed in the Wraith, giving him a vastly more powerful form when he takes over the Wraith's body]].

Set in a futuristic galaxy inhabited entirely by [[MechanicalLifeforms sentient robots]], the series follows four android criminals who are exiled from their homeworld and sentenced to the "Kill Lock" - a programming protocol that links them together, so that if one of the four dies, the other three do as well. Forced to work together to survive, the four - an alcoholic Laborer droid, a psychopathic Artisan droid, a powerful Wraith soldier unit, and an Unfinished child droid sentenced simply for being created imperfect - scour the galaxy in the hopes of finding a cure that can undo the Kill Lock, encountering many other vicious and unscrupulous robots on their quest. Along the way, they'll discover that relying on each other may just get them all killed anyway...

* BreakTheCutie: The Unfinished is forced to endure many traumatic events over the course of the story, but the biggest one is undoubtedly [[spoiler:the Artisan showing him how the Kill Lock actually works, by straight-up ''murdering'' a member of another group of Locked that they encounter, causing the Lock to go off in the others]].

* EasilyDetachableRobotParts: Seems to be a design standard for many robots; the Unfinished has his arm stolen, and once it's retrieved, the Artisan is able to reattach it with very little effort. Likewise, during their fight, the Laborer is able to punch out the Artisan's knee, but his leg is later shown to be fine with no consequence.

** TheChick: The Unfinished.

** His attitude towards [[spoiler:the Unfinished]] also makes sense once it's revealed that [[spoiler:he assembled the Kill Lock group, and had chosen a different android for the fourth, based on how easy they would be to manipulate. The Unfinished being thrown in created a variable that he couldn't control, even if it ended up leading to a more effective result]].

* MoralityPet: The Unfinished plays this role to the others, especially the Wraith, who dedicates himself to the quest for finding a cure to the Kill Lock solely to help the Unfinished survive.

* WouldHurtAChild: Practically every hostile droid they encounter has no qualms about trying to harm the Unfinished, although this seems to have a lot to do with defective droids being looked down upon by the rest of robot society.

* AIGettingHigh: The robots in this universe can get drunk, best exemplified by the alcoholic Laborer.

Set in a futuristic galaxy inhabited entirely by [[MechanicalLifeforms sentient robots]], the series follows four android criminals who are exiled from their homeworld and sentenced to the "Kill Lock" - a programming protocol that links them together, so that if one of the four dies, the other three do as well. Forced to work together to survive, the four - an alcoholic Laborer droid, a psychopathic Artisan droid, a powerful Wraith soldier unit, and an Unfinished child droid sentenced simply for being created imperfect - scour the galaxy in the hopes of finding a cure that can undo the Kill Lock, encountering many other vicious and unscrupulous robots along the way. Along the way, they'll discover that relying on each other may just get them all killed anyway...

* TheAtoner: The Wraith largely fills this role, due to his regret over the many lives that he has taken as a member of the Legion. This is compounded by [[spoiler:the revelation that he turned on his legion so as to save two innocent Unfinished child droids on a world the Legion was scouring]].

* CrapsackWorld: Crapsack ''galaxy'', more like. The androids are all created for a specific purpose by the Forgers, and are never allowed to deviate from their function. Those that do are either exiled and sentence to the Kill Lock, or, even worse, if there's enough of them, wiped from existence by the Wraith Legion. This isn't to mention the fact that being created with the smallest flaw leads to a droid being outcast as an Unfinished and sentenced to a Kill Lock themselves.

* RobotKid: The Unfinished, which are all droids before they're given a classification.

* BreakTheCutie: The Unfinished is forced to endure many traumatic events over the course of the story, but the biggest one is undoubtedly [[spoiler:the Artisan showing him how the Kill Lock actually works, by straight-up ''murdering'' another group of Locked that they encounter]].