Morely Family
Joel Morely
The main protagonist of the comic. A video game loving slacker who has a crappy job at Wow-Mart and a strained relationship with his uptight father, Joel eventually gets sick of society, quits his job and joins his friends on a trip into the wilderness. His journey to find a purpose in life turns into a race for survival when bears decide to wipe out humanity, and he becomes determined to survive and track down his father and little brother.- Action Survivor: Becomes this by the end of Volume One.
- Classical Antihero: Joel isn't a muscled bear killer like Dickinson, but is fully prepared to venture into a bear-ridden city to find his brother.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Joel quits his job and goes on a camping trip with Nigel, Gogs and Burton because he wants to get away from things and figure out what he really wants to do with his life.
- Everyone Has Standards: Becomes increasingly disgusted with Nigel's misanthropic attitude. Though he isn't happy about it, he does nothing to stop Dickinson from ejecting Nigel from the group when he decides that Nigel is a threat to everyone's survival.
- Foil: To Nigel. Both quit their job at Wow-Mart to find a new purpose in life and are resentful toward the society they live in. While Nigel came to hate humanity and will gladly watch it get slaughtered, Joel doesn't believe humanity deserves to die and risks his life to help other people. Also, Joel is smart enough to follow Dickinson's advice while Nigel stubbornly ignores him, which leads to Burton's death.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Joel is skinny but towers over his love interest, Andrea.
- I Will Find You: Joel loves his younger brother Louis more than anything. When the bears attack, finding Louis is his prime motivation.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Joel is bitter towards society and has a strained relationship with his father, but he's a good guy.
- Jock Dad, Nerd Son: Downplayed. Joel's dad is a former marine while Joel is more interested in video games.
- Love at First Sight: Gets a crush on Andrea the second he meets her and asks to be chained up next to her.
- Only Sane Man: Along with Gogs, Joel is the only one who thinks that Nigel swallowing the only key to the chains was a stupid thing to do.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Eventually gets fed up with his father and his job at Wow-Mart and leaves both to go on a camping trip until he can figure out what he wants to do with his life. He changes his mind when the bears start attacking.
- The Apprentice: Becomes this to Dickinson when he decides to teach the group how to kill bears. He makes his first kill when Dickinson shows him how to make a bear impale itself on a wooden spear.
- The Slacker: Starts off this way.
- Took a Level in Badass: Has killed several bears by the end of Volume One.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Joel once confides in Andrea that part of his issues with his father stems from that fact that he's military and it never feels like Joel's good enough for him.
Mark Morely
Joel's uptight father. Mark is a former marine turned veterinarian who tries to force his oldest son to become a man by learning how to provide for himself. This has created more than a little tension between him and Joel.- Dad the Veteran: Mark is a former marine and is now a veterinarian.
- Deceased Parents Are the Best: Mark isn't dead, his ex-wife is. Joel claims that she was more fun than he is.
- Follow in My Footsteps: It's implied that Mark wants Joel to become a marine like he did when he lists joining the military as one of Joel's options to be more successful in life. Joel tells him he's not joining the military and to drop it already, suggesting that it's not the first time Mark's brought it up.
- I Will Find You: By the time Joel makes it back home after the bears invade the city, Mark and his younger son Louis have already escaped. He makes it his mission to find them again, and according to Ken, Mark is also looking for Joel.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Mark is right in that Joel should be spending his salary on rent rather than video games.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's extremely strict and harsh, but he just wants Joel to succeed in life.
- Tough Love: Mark wants Joel to provide for himself and stop being a slacker but his harsh methods, including kicking Joel out for not paying rent and calling him a bum for going on a camping trip, wind up just driving Joel further away.
Louis Morely
Joel's little brother. Joel loves Louis more than anything and dedicates himself to finding him after the Bearmageddon begins.- Big Brother Worship: Absolutely idolises his older brother, and even gave him a picture of Joel as a muscled barbarian warrior before he left on his camping trip.
- Cheerful Child: Louis is a nice boy who loves playing video games with his big brother.
- Children Are Innocent: Subverted in that Louis isn't blind to the rift between his father and older brother, which is why he doesn't try to stop Joel from leaving when he decides he's had enough.
- I Will Find You: Reuniting with Louis is Joel's biggest motivation for going back to a city crawling with homicidal bears.
Other Survivors
Dickinson Killdeer
A grizzled mountain man who has lived in the forest near Joel's hometown for most of his life, with no memory of his time before then. An expert survivor and seasoned bear killer, Dickinson had noticed that the bears were acting strangely and increasing in numbers. By the time he realises that the bears were preparing to wipe out humanity, they've already begun attacking people. After saving Joel and his friends from one such bear attack, he decides to help them find their families.- Ambiguously Brown: Dickinson has light brown skin, but it's unclear if it's his natural skin colour or just tanned from living in the mountains for most of his life.
- Ax-Crazy: Is this towards bears.
- Code of Honour: Dickinson's reason for helping the survivors. As he has lived alone on a mountain with no humans to keep him company, Dickinson formed a strict moral code so he wouldn't lose his humanity. It's why he risked his life to save Joel and the activists when bears attack while they're chained to trees.
- The Comically Serious: Dickinson doesn't have a single funny bone in his body.
- Crazy Survivalist: Dickinson has forgotten more about survival than Nigel will ever know.
- Fluffy Tamer: Tames the mad dog Chuckles within minutes of meeting him.
- Good Is Not Nice: Dickinson knows that being nice is often a luxury and puts doing the right thing first, as he does when he kicks Nigel out of the group so he won't get anyone else killed.
- Handicapped Badass: Suffers from severe migraines. Joel offers to have his dad check Dickinson out if he helped Joel find his family.
- Heroic Build: Dickinson is extremely muscled, and his outfit exposes his six-pack.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Is stern and brutally honest, but goes out of his way to help Joel and his friends.
- Mysterious Past: Has lived on the mountain for as long as he can remember. His life before then is a mystery to him. All he can recall is that he went on a 'camping trip' that somehow never ended.
- Older and Wiser: Is older than the other survivors and knows a hell of a lot more about surviving than Nigel does. Everyone but Nigel quickly figures out that having him around drastically increases their chances of survival.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: Initially mistaken for this when he tells Andrea and Keller to make dinner while he teaches Joel and Gogs how to secure an area. Dickinson sets them all straight by pointing out that Andrea has already shown that she has what it takes to survive, while Joel and Gogs on the other hand have a long way to go.
- The Rival: Unknowingly becomes this in Nigel's eyes after becoming the group's guide in surviving Bearmageddon, and soon proving himself far more competent at wilderness survival than Nigel ever was.
- Scary Stitches: After he's badly injured in an intended last stand against a horde of bears, an army medic removes his coonskin cap to discover a line of stitches across his forehead. The medic deduces that at some point he'd had brain surgery.
- The Straight and Arrow Path: Wields a bow and arrow in the twenty-first century. Justified as he has lived in an environment where guns are not easy to come by.
Jeremy 'Gogs' Chandler
Joel's best friend who also works at Wow-Mart. Never seen without his goggles, Gogs has a brown belt in Praying Mantis Kung Fu and an aspiration to kill a bear with one punch.- An Arm and a Leg: Very nearly happens to Gogs after his first attempt to one-punch a live bear gives it a chance to sink its teeth into his hand. Only Dickinson's intervention stops the bear from chewing the hand clean off.
- Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Praying Mantis Kung Fu to be more specific, and Gogs recently got promoted to brown belt status. He loses the arrogant part after getting the crap beaten out of him by a bear.
- Butt-Monkey: Loses an ear lobe, gets his hand bitten to the point that he loses full function of it, gets beaten up by a bear and is nearly burned to death in the latter half of Volume One. Most of those injuries were inflicted by his own recklessness.
- Goggles Do Nothing: Averted. Gogs will lower his goggles whenever he's about to do something messy.
- Handicapped Badass: Despite sustaining severe injuries and losing full function of his hand from a bear attack, Gogs is able to help kill the Mole Bear by staking its skull with a tent spike, sending it face first into a lawnmower.
- Heroic BSoD: Suffers one after Keller sacrifices herself to save him from burning to death.
- I Just Want to Be Badass: Gog's motivation for using a severed bear head to practise killing a bear with one punch. When he tries it on a live bear he almost loses his life and realises that he has to use more realistic methods of fighting.
- Manchild: He isn't very mature, and is convinced that he can easily take on a bear by himself. He finds out the hard way how dangerous bear fighting really is and matures from it.
- Pride: Gog's fatal flaw. It almost gets him killed when he tries to prove that he can kill a bear with one punch. Dickinson calls him out on it after saving his skin.
- Never Bareheaded: He has yet to be seen without his goggles.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Injures his ribs, loses an ear lobe, gets scratched in the chest and nearly loses his hand when his first fight with a bear goes awry.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Gogs thought he could prove his toughness by killing a bear with one punch. He was wrong.
- Tagalong Kid: When Joel decides to quit his job and join Nigel on his road trip, Gogs goes with him.
- Undying Loyalty: For all his arrogance and immaturity, Gogs' best quality is probably his loyalty to his friends. Best exemplified when he's the first to side with Joel when he and Nigel butt heads over going back to teh city.
Andrea Merz
An environmental activist who meets Joel and his friends at a protest to save the forest near Joel's hometown. When bears attack the protest and then invade the city, Andrea teams up with Joel's group to survive.- Action Survivor: Becomes this after killing the Mole Bear with a lawnmower.
- Arranged Marriage: Implied when her backstory reveals that Andrea broke off an engagement, angering her extremely religious family.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Despite tense relations, Andrea is desperate to get back to her family. Likewise, after the bears attack her parents text her their location so she can find them.
- Black Sheep: She has a strained relationship with her Mormon parents after renouncing her faith. It doesn't stop her from venturing back to the city to find them when bear crap hits the fan.
- Everyone Has Standards: She thinks Nigel was being brave when he swallowed the key for the chains and supports his decision to report Dickinson to the authorities, but reacts with disgust when she realises just how crazy and selfish Nigel really is.
- Girlish Pigtails: Has two short pigtails.
- Heroic BSoD: Has one after witnessing the death of her friend, Keller.
- Hysterical Woman: Subverted. While Andrea initially freaks out after bears attack and kill two fellow activists at the protest, she quickly regains her composure.
- Indifferent Beauty: Is very attractive but cares more about the environment than her looks.
- Neutral Female: Averted. Andrea is usually the first to take action in a crisis, something Dickinson notices and respects.
- Nature Lover: Joined the protest to save the trees, and first met Joel when she asked him to sign a petition to save the Spotted Grey-Tailed Loon.
- Oblivious to Love: So far Andrea doesn't appear to be aware of Joel's crush on her.
- Only Sane Man: Zigzagged. In the scene where everyone is chained to trees as part of a protest she admires Nigel for swallowing the only to the chains to prove a point to the foreman in charge of the logging operation, but unlike Joel she doesn't consider the potential consequences of that decision. Later she starts making smarter choices like being the first to follow Dickinson's advice to jump off a bridge to escape a horde of bears.
- Religion Is Wrong: Anderea hates religion and has renounced her Mormon faith, feeling that its moral issues are trivial and oppressive.
- Stay in the Kitchen: Andrea is offended when Dickinson appears to invoke this, until he explains why he doesn't want her and Keller to help secure the area around Joel's house; they have to urinate to mark boundaries and he didn't want to upset the girls.
- Took a Level in Badass: Helps to kill the Mole Bear and sets several regular bears on fire with a gas tank flamethrower.
- Tomboy: Andrea doesn't mind riding in a van full of boys, but is mildly disgusted when Gogs brings a severed bear's head with him.
Nigel Coleman
An old friend of Joel and Gogs' who quit Wow-Mart and became a nature loving hippie after discovering Into the Wilderness. He dreams of following the film's example by escaping society and becoming one with nature, even though he never saw the ending.- Butt-Monkey: Gets forced to vomit by Gogs, punched in the face by Dickinson and literally thrown out of Joel's house. He has no-one to blame but himself for this.
- Cool Car: Absolutely loves his van, to the point that he cares about it more than he cares about humanity.
- Establishing Character Moment: When he reunites with his former Wow-Mart coworkers and boasts of how Into the Wilderness gave him a new purpose in life and he doesn't miss living behind the 'oppressive blue apron' in the slightest. In those same three pages it's also revealed that he and his girlfriend broke up, he's couch-surfing and basically homeless, and has developed a misanthropic contempt for society. To top it all off, he never saw the ending to the movie that made him so obsessed with becoming one with nature, and thus never learned his role model awful fate.
- Foil: To Dickinson. Dickinson has lived in the forest for a long time and knows everything there is to know about survival. He also still cares about humanity and he risks his life to save a group of strangers from the city. Nigel wants to live in the forest but knows nothing about survival. He also couldn't care less about humanity and derides Dickinson as a fascist mountain man for instructing the others on how survive a bear-infested city.
- He's this to Joel as well, as explained in Joel's section.
- Hated by All: Nigel's stupidity and selfishness eventually alienates his friends, and they make no attempt to stop Dickinson from ejecting Nigel from the group.
- Hate Sink: Nigel is a selfish, misanthropic, deluded, idiotic, hypocritical and self-righteous dick.
- Hypocrite: In his big rant that gets him kicked out of the group, Nigel claims that he's the only person who actually stands for something other than himself, yet has already made it quite clear that he's more upset about them abandoning his van than the fact that Joel's brother may be in danger.
- Earlier when disregarding Dickinson's advice to avoid driving onto the bridge and cross the river a different way, Nigel ignores him and makes the drive anyway, while insisting that they don't all need the abandon the van and turn into 'mountain people' just yet. Hypocritical since a mountain man is essentially what Nigel is trying to be.
- Jerkass: Nigel is a bastard, period.
- Kick the Dog: Steals the truck full of everyone's stuff after being cast out.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Just like that guy from Into The Wilderness, Nigel aspires to live amongst nature but knows very little about survival. For one thing he calls Dickinson's hunting of a rabbit murder as he collects poisonous berries for his own dinner. He didn't even know that the guy from his favourite movie died at the end from making the same mistake.
- Lives in a Van: Nigel became virtually homeless after getting fired from Wow-Mart, so the adventure van he bought from his cousin for his journey into the wilderness is all he has. It makes his anger at being forced to abandon it a bit more understandable.
- Madden Into Misanthropy: Fully believes that humanity deserves to be massacred by bears.
- The Millstone: Nigel is a big one. He puts the others in danger several times and gets Burton killed. When Dickinson throws him out, no-one intervenes.
- New-Age Retro Hippie: Became this after losing his job at Wow-Mart.
- Noodle Incident: Whatever had gotten him fired from Wow-Mart was so bad that Ken's eye apparently twitches whenever Nigel's name is brought up.
- Rose-Tinted Narrative: Nigel never saw the ending of Into the Wilderness, in which the main character realised how badly he'd idealised living isolated in the wild before dying alone from eating poisoned berries. As a result he formed a highly romanticised idea of what nature was like, teetering dangerously on the edge of delusion, even after bears declared war on humanity. Dickinson, hardened and grizzled by living in the wilderness all his life, outright calls Nigel's aspiration a fantasy.
- Sanity Slippage: He shows signs of not being entirely sane before then, but after Burton's death he starts a vicious rant that leaves his friends disgusted and disturbed.
- Single Tear: Sheds one for unclear reasons after stealing the truck.
- Skewed Priorities: Thinks his van is more important than Joel's missing brother.
- The Resenter: Becomes this to Dickinson after the burly mountain proves himself infinitely better at living in the wilderness and constantly pokes holes in Nigel's deluded, romanticised idea of what it means to live in the wild.
- Too Dumb to Live: Nigel makes so many stupid decisions that Dickinson throws him out so he won't get more people killed.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Became a misanthropic, self centred asshat after losing his job and discovering Into The Wilderness.
Burton Diggs
A druggie who spends his days smoking weed. Is good friends with Nigel, Joel and Gogs and joins their journey to the mountains.- Good Is Dumb: Because he's a drug addict, he's not very smart. This contributes to his death on the bridge.
- The Load: He's not a Millstone like Nigel, but he's not very helpful either.
- Nice Guy: He's good friends with Joel, Gogs and Nigel.
- Skewed Priorities: Most of the time his biggest concern is getting more weed.
- The Stoner: He smokes weed.
- Too Dumb to Live: On a bridge blocked by a car pileup, Dickinson warns against going through the pileup as there are too many places where a bear could ambush them and advises that they jump in the river instead. Nigel ignores him and starts climbing. Not into 'high jumps', Burton does the same and gets mauled as he's climbing over a car.
"Keller" (Raquel Rosalina Maria Santos Rodriguez Rene Angelina Garcia)
A vegan friend of Andrea's who is accompanying her at the protest as a fellow activist.- Action Survivor: Helps kill a Mole Bear with a lawnmower and uses a makeshift flamethrower against the bears in the final battle of Volume One.
- Big Beautiful Woman: Keller isn't obese, but she's plumper than the others. Gogs is genuinely surprised to learn that she's a vegan.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Answers to the nickname 'Keller' because she's not fond of Raquel.
- Face Death with Dignity: After saving Gogs' life and leaving herself at the mercy of the bears, Keller maintains her composure and wishes the other survivors luck before getting devoured.
- Heroic Sacrifice: During the final battle in Volume One Keller broke away from the group to spray Gogs with a garden hose, saving him from burning alive but at the cost of her own life.
- Nature Lover: She participated in the protest with Andrea, so it's safe to say that she's this.
- Team Chef: As a vegan, Keller knows how to make meals out of raw food. The one meal she made for the group was delicious.
- The Medic: Keller is a student nurse, and she patches Gogs up after his No-Holds-Barred Beatdown at the paws of a bear.
- Token Minority: Keller is the only member of the group who is not caucasian.
- Try to Fit That on a Business Card: Just look at her name for yourself!
Chuckles
A small dog that also happens to be bat-shit crazy. Living in Joel's neighbourhood, he terrorises the young man every time he comes home from work.- Angry Guard Dog: After taming him, Dickinson orders Chuckles to alert the group if any bears come near the house.
- Animal Nemesis: He terrorises Joel at every opportunity, but cuts it out after Dickinson befriends him.
- Beware of Vicious Dog: Chuckles is so aggressive that he won't hesitate to attack an angry bear.
- Fluffy the Terrible: Chuckles is not an appropriate name for this tiny hellhound.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Chuckles' character profile claims that he's possessed by thirteen demons.
- Uncertain Doom: Is last seen taking on a whole group of bears in Joel's living room and his fate is currently unknown.
Bears
Dr. Wilson Medved
A scientist who experimented on bears thirty years ago.- Chekhov's Gunman: It's likely that's he's related in some way to the Bearmageddon, but he has yet to make a physical appearance.
- Mad Scientist: Medved's 'Ruxpin Project' involved inventing a device that translated a bear's thoughts into spoken english by connecting it directly to the brain.. When the government discovered that he was also creating mutant bear hybrids, they shut him down.
- Meaningful Name: "Medved'" means "bear" in Slavic languages.
- Playing with Syringes: Experimented on bears during the 'Ruxpin Project' thirty years ago, creating Teddy.
Teddy
A test subject from Dr. Medved's Ruxpin Project.- Body Horror: His brain is exposed and protected by a glass helmet.
- Talking Animal: "I desire honey." He speaks using a machine wired to his exposed brain.
- Computer Voice: Described, on the website, as having a "robotic Stephen Hawking style voice."
Regular Bears
Normal bears that have recently grown in number and inexplicably decided to band together to kill every human on the planet.- Ax-Crazy: For reasons currently unknown, every bear on the planet has decided to wipe out the human race.
- Bears Are Bad News: And how.
- It Can Think: Since they started attacking humans the bears have shown an ability to form basic strategies. The first instance of this is when they caused a line of logging machines to crash, allowing them to devour the occupants. Another instance is when they used a Mole Bear to burrow a tunnel into Joel's house.
- They're still not that intelligent however; before the bear apocalypse started a bear ran headfirst into a bus and was killed instantly.
- Lightning Bruiser: Bears are both large and fast.
- Made of Iron: Given their large size and natural defences, bears can take a lot of punishment before dying, including getting a arrow in the neck, an axe in the head and being set on fire.
Mutant Bears
Mutant hybrids that have recently appeared out of nowhere to assist the normal bears in their war with humanity.- The Big Guy: The Mole Bear is the biggest mutant seen so far.
- While seemingly not as large, the Bearnoceros appears quite a bit bigger than normal bears as well.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The Mole Bear suffers the most gruesome death seen inflicted on a bear; its face is bloodily ground up by a lawnmower.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Mole Bear is the first mutant that overwhelms Dickinson, and would have killed him if Keller, Andrea and Gogs hadn't rushed in with a lawnmower.
- Dig Attack: The Mole Bear burrows its way through the floor of Joel's living room, giving the regular bears a way in past the barriers.
- Horns of Villainy: In a flashback, Ken encountered a bear with elk horns. Joel's group later encounters a "Bearnoceros".
- Made of Iron: Like regular bears, the mutant bears are hard to kill, the Mole Bear especially.
- No-Sell: A Mole Bear's hide is so tough that wooden spears can't pierce it. It's still no match for a high powered lawnmower.
- Not Quite Flight: Like an actual flying squirrel, the Flying Squirrel Bear uses its extra skin to glide rather than fly.
- Super Drowning Skills: It's suggested in-universe that because of their extra skin a Flying Squirrel Bear would be unable to swim.
- Super-Strength: The Mole Bear is a lot stronger than other mutants.
- The Bearnoceros as well, strong enough to tear open a steel truck.
- Tentacled Terror: At the start of the story, a dead bear with octopus tentacles is pulled from a sewer. Joel's group encounter several live ones while escaping the church through the sewer.
