Characters / Chew

Character Page for the Image Comics series Chew.

Warning: To prevent this page from being a sea of white only spoilers from the last four arcs will be whited.

FDA

General Tropes

• Badass in a Nice Suit: Their standard attire.
• Cape Busters: The setting is lousy with food-powered metahumans so it usually falls to the FDA to deal with them.
• Government Agency of Fiction: The real agency depicted in a fictional way variant. The Chewniverse Food and Drug Administration is far more powerful than the real one.

Anthony "Tony" Chu

A Philadelphia cop with a special power: cibopathy, the psychic ability to see the past of anything he's eaten. He soon joins the Food and Drug Administration, now a very powerful law enforcement agency, which makes use of his abilities. He mainly focuses on food-related crimes, especially those concerning newly illegal poultry.

• All of the Other Reindeer: Is looked down on by pretty much everyone as a freak, his boss hates his guts, and all of his family barring Toni hate his guts for various reasons. The only people who don't seem to hate him or consider him a freak are Colby, Amelia, Ceasar, Toni and Mason. Subverted in later issues, as the rest of the FDA highly respects him as does the public thanks to Amelia's reporting.
• Blessed with Suck: Cibopathy. He can absorb incredible amounts of information from anything he tastes, but he can't shut it off and those visions can potentially be really disturbing. Plus, his job forces him to use his powers by eating an astoundingly wide array of vile things.
• Butt-Monkey: Has to eat rather vile things as part of his job, is hated by just about every single character on the cast, his boss more than all of them combined, and over the course of the series has had to eat a petrified dog, has had his partner bite his ear off, lost his job, forced to eat dead baseball players and had to eat his own sister's toe to take out her killer.
• By-the-Book Cop: Mere pages into the first issue we see that Tony is willing to arrest his own brother. Played with in that it doesn't make him respect or obey his boss Applebee any more than he has to, but he still refuses to work outside the law, though he stretches what "the law" is to its breaking point.
• Cannibalism Superpower: The reason why Tony gets assigned to the FDA in the first place.
• Crippling Overspecialization: His earned lethal fastball skill gives him the ability to fling small round objects with deadly force and precision, but only those kinds of objects. It does not, for instance, give him better aim in general (with, say, a grenade launcher).
• Dark and Troubled Past: His fiance, and later wife, Min Tso went insane due to a brain tumor. He then dumped his daughter on his sister Rosemary and never came back for her.
• Distressed Dude: During the "Major League Chew" arc, he's kidnapped by Amelia's psychotic ex Dan. Thankfully Amelia comes to the rescue and he gets to finish off the psycho that was holding him.
• Eat That: What half of Chu's job consists of.
• Enemy Mine: Multiple times with Savoy during the two year timeskip.
• Handicapped Badass: In the Distant Finale: He has a bad leg, but it doesn't stop him from leaping at the lead chicken alien and stabbing him right in the heart.
• Happily Married: To Amelia as of issue 41.
• Heroic BSoD: Goes though this after Toni is killed by The Collector, ruthlessly murdering his minions and generally focusing entirely on his work. He snaps out of it at the end of the "Family Recipe" arc thanks to a Thanatos Gambit by Toni herself.
  • Goes though a brief one in "Family Recipe" after he eats too much of Toni's toe to get information from her to defeat The Collector. He snaps out of it after eating a Gallisberry in Chog Sauce, which allows him to get the rest of the info from her.
• Honor Before Reason: A more valid example than most due to how the "reason" in this series is often mired in the grotesque, the deranged, and the tepidly unethical.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Not intentionally, but Tony ends up doing this a lot to get information.
• Locked Out of the Loop: His ardent refusal to ally with Savoy forces his former mentor to recruit Colby and Olive without Tony's knowledge, making him this. He is understandably peeved when he finds out.
• Love at First Sight: With Amelia Mintz.
• Man in a Kilt: When he gets demoted to traffic enforcement.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Realizes that His treatment of Colby has lead Olive to distrust him and go off on a suicide mission against the Collector.
• Obfuscating Disability: Pretended to be infirm for years before the final issue, in order to get close enough to assassinate the leader of the chicken aliens in revenge for everything they had done to Earth.
• Papa Wolf: Harming his family is a terrible idea.
  • The Collector's murder of Toni sent him into a Roaring Rampage of Revenge and Colby leading Olive into a battle that nearly got her killed earned him a beatdown.
  • Tries to beat Colby into a pulp after he almost gets Olive killed.
• Picky Eater: Not by choice though. Beets are the only food he can eat without getting visions thanks to his cibopathy.
• Power Copying: If he eats enough of a person's body, he can learn their skills and even obtain their food-based powers.
• Punny Name: Chu/chew.
• Required Secondary Powers: Presumably Chu doesn't get readings from his own saliva, but he can remember things by eating his own fingernails.
• Revenge Before Reason: Tony's biggest flaw is how hard he can hold a grudge. While it does make him a moral pillar it can bite him in the ass, like with his unwillingness to work with Savoy.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: "Bad Apples" has him going on one to avenge Toni that has him killing as many of the Collector's men as he can to flush out their boss. Deconstructed as while it's effective it's also taking a clear toll on his sanity. He eventually stops after Toni's cibopathy created Spirit Advisor urges him not to continue, or he'll end up just like the Collector.
• Sadistic Choice: There are several moments when Tony is put into a position where it seems like he'll have to eat one of his loved ones to save the day, but the plot conspires to make his choices at such horrid junctures a non-issue one way or another. Until Issue 59 anyway.
• Took a Level in Badass: While he was always fairly badass, he jumps up a level after Toni's death. Thanks to the skills he got from the dead baseball players Dan forced him to eat, he can throw a deadly fastball, and the second Applebee tries to treat him like shit again for investigating his sister's murder, Tony gives him the mother of all dress downs.
  • Takes another after Eating Poyo, easily mowing down the Collector's army before defeating the man himself.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: His relationship with Amelia is pretty much the only stable relationship of any sort he has. Toni also counts, being the only member of his family that doesn't hate or resent him. Then he becomes the darling of the FDA after a major bust.
• Took a Level in Badass: He starts out fairly badass but after his kidnapping, his fastball takes it up a notch. Especially after eating Poyo.
• Tragic Keepsake: Keeps his ex-wife Min Tso's toe she gave him in his freezer. It's later revealed he did so that, when she was ready, Olive could take in her mother's memory before her brain cancer got really bad.
• Trauma Conga Line: Issue 59 sees him lose his wife and his best friend on the same day that he's forced to kill millions of people to save the planet.
• The Unfavorite: Easily the most despised member of his family. Tragically, his relations only start treating him better after Toni is murdered and they realize that he's the only one among them who could possibly avenge her.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Before the birth of Olive, he was the most powerful of the world's three existing cibopaths, but lacked Savoy's expertise and the Collector's brutality.
• Unstoppable Rage: Savoy believes that his uniquely tremendous rage, once the rest of him is sufficiently is enhanced, could be the deciding factor in the war against the Collector. This turns out to be 100% true.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: He was once an amiable, loving dork before he "shut down" after the death of his wife.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Colby.
• We Used to Be Friends: With Colby for most of "Blood Puddin." Tony realizes how rashly he'd thrown their friendship away and makes amends with Colby midway through the arc.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Savagely beats Colby for working with Mason behind his back and taking part in an OP against his advice that nearly cost his daughter her life.

John Colby

Tony Chu's partner who was badly injured while following a lead gained from Tony's powers. He is rebuilt as a cyborg by the FDA and rejoins his old partner. He opposes poultry prohibition and believes the government is lying about the bird flu but refuses to betray the FDA.

• Badass Abnormal: Though only slightly thanks to the cybernetic half of his face.
• Bury Your Gays: He's mortally wounded in his introductory storyline and dies in the penultimate issue.
• Conspiracy Theorist: When it comes to the truth behind the bird flu epidemic.
• Closet Key: For Applebee.
• Cowboy Cop: Colby is gleefully willing to violate every bit of police protocol that gets in his way.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Tony holds him close after he's critically injured by a kitchen knife to the face while they were cops. Tony does the same as Colby dies from the signal he sent out while they're partners in the FDA.
• Enemy Mine: He and Mason Savoy really don't like each other, but he still works with Savoy since he realizes the man is on to something regarding the bullshit chicken ban.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Encourages Tony to send out the signal that will kill all chicken eaters so as to appease the aliens behind the fire writing, despite knowing he'd be one of the culled.
• Jerkass: Colby is not a pleasant person to be around.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite this, he's close friends with Tony when pretty much everyone else in the comic hates him or wants him dead.
• The Last Dance: Busts one last crook with Tony during the penultimate issue before he perishes as a consequence of eating chicken on the same day Tony transmits the genetic kill code Amelia left them.
• Loophole Abuse: Applebee tells him he can invite anyone to the party celebrating their wedding except for Tony Chu. Colby, naturally, Invites Mason Savoy, a wanted fugitive and traitor to the FDA.
• Marry Them All: How the Love Triangle with Applebee and his USDA boss is resolved, to his horror. Luckily, sorta, his marriage to Applebee ends this.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: John Colby helps enforce the poultry prohibition while part of the Philadelphia PD and the FDA even though he strongly disagrees with it and believes that it is part of a government cover-up. Subverted later when he reluctantly partners up with Savoy and Ceaser to find out the truth.
• Sleeping with the Boss: Sleeps with his and Tony's Bad Boss Applebee (to get Applebee off their backs) and later with his USDA boss, Director Pena.
• Two-Faced: Colby a Terminator-esque prosthetic after taking a chef's knife to the face in the first issue.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Tony Chu.
• We Can Rebuild Him: Gets rebuilt into a cyborg after he takes a cleaver to the face.

Mason Savoy

Another cibopath. He is an agent of the FDA who mentors Tony when he first joins. He murders health inspector Evan Pepper and believes that the government is covering up the truth about the bird flu epidemic. It is implied that he lost a significant other in the epidemic, the fallout of which sends him on the run, costs Tony an ear, and turns him and Tony into mortal enemies. While he has the same powers as Tony, he is much fatter and is seen eating food besides beets, getting far more pleasant or tolerable visions from his food.

• Acrofatic: Has a huge gut, but is more than capable of kicking ass.
• Always Someone Better: He reveals to Tony late in the story that Tony's cibopathic powers are far superior to his own and he's somewhat resentful that Chu just has to take a few licks or bites to get what he needs while Savoy has to consume whole chunks and bodies.
• Anti-Villain: He's ruthless, amoral, and willing to resort to kidnapping, blackmail, and murder to find out the truth behind bird flu and stop the vampire. Conversely he clearly does care about Olive and Caesar, has a point about the chicken ban, and is going after the same mass murderer the FDA is. This is exemplified by his final actions: He forces Tony to eat him, but only after trying his damnedest to make an alliance with him and saving Amelia from some E.G.G. members.
• Arch-Enemy: His betrayal and constant meddling in the lives of the Chus deeply hurt Tony to the point that Issue 56 reveals that in spite of fighting deranged cults, depraved serial killers, corrupt politicians, and inhumane corporations for years, Tony thinks of Savoy as "his greatest enemy."
• Big Bad: For the first and third arcs. Afterwords the Vampire and The Order of The Immaculate Ova take over while he becomes more of an Anti-Villain.
• Conspiracy Theorist: When it comes to the truth behind the bird flu epidemic.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Almost every fight Mason gets into is extremely one sided, even against a horde of ninja. He takes down Tony in less than a minute after Tony attempts to arrest him, beats Colby to a pulp, and easily defeats a man with a wide array of powers thanks to his ability to get power from candy simply by exploiting the man's one weakness.
• Despair Event Horizon: Hits it hard in the 55th issue.
• Driven to Suicide: Needing an obstinate Tony (who does not want to work with Savoy ever again) to utilize his skills and knowledge to stop the fire writing from destroying the Earth, Savoy kills himself to show his old partner how serious the threat they're facing will be and to encourage him to consume his flesh for the information it contains.
• Even Evil Has Standards Shows visible regret after drugging and kidnapping Olive.
  • He's appalled when Colby asks if he's going to eat someone they're about to blackmail.
  • He looks ashamed when Olive says that Savoy has been more of a father figure to her than Tony has.
• Evil Counterpart To Tony. He's a cibopath like Tony, but one willing to work far outside the law and outside moral decency.
• Fat Bastard: Averted. Despite being in opposition to our hero, he has noble goals.
• Genius Bruiser: Very cultured, very smart, and VERY deadly.
• I'm a Humanitarian: It's the quick and easy way for cibopaths to get info.
• The Mole: In The FDA.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Often has to consume lethal quantities of a person to gain all their knowledge. It's probably the biggest reason Tony does not like working with him.
• Precision F-Strike: Will dip into some of the less-refined expletives in the English language whenever sufficiently angered or frightened.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Mason Savoy's perspicacity knows no bounds.
• Stout Strength: Stoutly built, but extremely strong.
• Walking Spoiler: Talking about him too much spoils the main mystery of the first Arc which reveal him to be The Mole. His actions in "Last Suppers" also qualify, as they both give away part of the overarching mystery of the series and set up the final arc.
• Weak, but Skilled: The weakest cibopath in the series, but easily the wiliest who supplements his meager powers with brute strength and a keen tactical mind.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Savoy wants to solve the mystery of the bird flu, but to do so he will murder, eat, and blackmail anyone who gets in his way.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Issue 55 reveals that at the start of his quest to crack the conspiracy, he was far more trusting and amiable until one of the conspirators showed how big and terrifying the scale of the scheme actually was.

Caesar Valenzano

A deep-cover FDA agent who worked with Mason Savoy and claims he didn't know he'd gone rogue, which is actually a cover for his continued working with Savoy to find out the truth behind the bird flu epidemic. He forms close friendships with Tony and Colby after being reinstated.

• Advertised Extra: Caesar is the only main character who never gets an introduction. Even minor characters who die a few pages later get more backstory than Caesar.
• The Dragon: Savoy's.
• Expy: Caesar Valenzano is very heavily based on Jules Winnfield.
• Hollywood Cyborg: Mild example. After The Collector's Curb-Stomp Battle with the FDA he gets a crab claw hand.
• The Mole: First for the FDA while working for Montero and then for Savoy when back at the FDA.
• Punny Name: Doesn't start out as one until he gets a cyborg crab claw post-Chicken Tenders.
• Undying Loyalty: To Mason Savoy.

Agent Vorhees

An agent with an unnamed power that allows him to tell what something he eats is made of. Temporarily replaces Chew in the FDA, but sticks around.

• Chekhov's Gunman: Shows up in a few panels two arcs before he's properly introduced.
• Heel–Face Turn: Goes from being a food tester of gangsters to an FDA agent.
• Never Learned to Read: He can't read, which makes him immune to a barista who can implant mind-controlling messages into his coffee.
• No First Name Given: His first name is never revealed
• Out of Focus: The narration implies in his introduction that Vorhees is important, but he never does anything important in the entire story.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Played for Laughs.

Mike Applebee

Head of the FDA branch Tony and the rest of the cast works for. Hates Tony with a passion. Sometimes lover of John Colby.

• Bad Boss: He often sends Tony and Colby on assignments that, if it doesn't kill them, will at least make Tony eat something horrible.
• The Chain of Harm: In Volume 9, Applebee gets drunk and cries about how his boss, Director Lamode, hated him for no apparent reason, much like how Applebee himself treats Tony.
• Cyborg: Applebee gets the lower half of his body replaced with a series of robotic animal torsos after the Collector slices him in two.
• Thin-Skinned Bully: Is revealed to be this, when Tony finally snaps, yells at him, and tells him to "fuck off", which drives him to tears.
• Irrational Hatred: It's never explained why Applebee hates Tony, but he does, a lot, to an almost amazing degree.
• Straight Gay: He regularly sleeps with Colby, but shows no gay stereotypes.

Director Lamode

Chief Director of the FDA.

• Benevolent Boss: Treats Chu like royalty after his chicken bust and trusts his judgment. The only reason he calls on him despite Chu being on his honeymoon is that Tony's the best man for the job, something proven right.
• Da Chief
• Mean Boss: Towards Applebee. Given the way Applebee treats Tony, it's more than justified.
• The Napoleon: He's fairly short, only coming up to Applebee's knees.

Agent Breadman

The number 2 to FDA Chief Director Lamode Currently interim director of the FDA while Applbee's in the hospital following The Collector's battle with the FDA. He retains the position due to Applebee getting the blame for the incident. Has the apperance of a gingerbread man.

• Ascended Extra: During "Blood Puddin'".
• Chekhov's Gunman: Pops up an arc before he joins the same branch of the FDA as our heroes.
• Number Two: Of Director Lamode.
• Out of Focus: Really doesn't play any major role in events, likely due to being introduced fairly late.
• Punny Name: He's a gingerbread man.

The Chu family

For Tony see "FDA"

Tropes applying to all of them:

• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Ohhhh yeah.
• Blessed with Suck: Though we only know about half of their powers, those we do know have major downsides. and Chow's just gets a laugh from Sage and Toni.
• In the Blood: It's implied the food powers transfer from generation to generation, with Tony's cibopathy dating all the way back to the Old West.

Chow Chu

Tony Chu's brother. A professional chef, he is strongly opposed to America's new poultry prohibition law which creates tension between himself and his brother. He lost his cooking show when he accused the government of lying about the bird flu while on camera. He eventually gets a resurgence in popularity following the FDA easing up on the chicken ban.

• Big Brother Bully: To Tony as a kid. He's somehow even worse to him in present day.
• Big Brother Instinct: Was very protective and fond of Toni, so much that when she dies, he immediately offers up his services to Tony to get back at the Collector.
• Blessed with Suck: It is revealed in issue 36 that he too has a sort of power based on eating food, one that Toni and Sage have a laugh over.
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: Despite cooking chicken, he doesn't seem to eat it that much. This saves his life, as it means he's not affected when Tony is forced to send out the chicken-eater kill-code and wipe out every human who has eaten chicken recently in the final volume.
• Conspiracy Theorist: When it comes to the truth behind the bird flu epidemic.
• Jerkass: Is a dick to Tony every time the two are together. This extends all the way back to childhood.
  • The biggest example of this is when Amelia calls about Tony being missing and Chow says he hopes Tony's dead.
• Morality Pet: Toni, the one person he treated at all decently.
  • Olive also counts. The two have a very close, loving relationship despite Chow's intense hatred of her father. The Distant Finale shows she visits him and Tony, who lives with Chow by that point frequently.
• Pet the Dog: After the prologue, the first in-story action we see do is trying (in vain) to warn Tony about the bounty on his head that Montero set up.
  • He helps Colby cook up Poyo in order to give Tony the power to stop the Vampire and avenge Toni, though the fact that Poyo is rotten and disgusting was definitely a bonus.
• Too Dumb to Live: Continually gets involved in poultry-dealing, despite knowing that it's illegal and that his own brother is a cop, is perfectly willing to send him to jail for the crime, and his brother can track down if he was involved in making anything poultry related. To put this in perspective, Tony tries to send him to jail in the first comic, and only doesn't thanks to his bosses FDA protection, and Chow is fully aware Tony was moved to the FDA, yet continually brings chicken and other kinds of poultry around him. Ironically, he actually survives the chicken-eater kill-code.
• The Unreveal: We find out Chow has his own power, but we never find out what it is. All we know is that it's laughable.

Antonelle "Toni" Chu

Tony's fraternal twin sister, who works for NASA. She seems to be the only member of the Chu family that doesn't hate him. She's also cibovoyant, meaning she can see the future of any living person or animal she bites.

• A Day in the Limelight: Takes over as main character for the "Space Cakes" arc. Turns into A Death in the Limelight by the end.
• Blessed with Suck: While being cibovoyant doesn't seem quite as bad as having cibopathy, it still sucks.
  • Exemplified when leading up to her death. She has to go through the motions of planning a wedding that will never happen, as well as set up events to get her final message to Tony across, all while knowing she's about to be brutally dismembered by a horrible monster.
• Beware the Nice Ones/Beware the Silly Ones: Falls into both tropes. She's sweet but will call you out on your bullshit and will kick your ass when needed. She's goofy, but she's also a highly trained NASA agent with Combat Clairvoyance.
• Combat Clairvoyance: Though it proves to be her undoing when one of the Vampire's agents sees her using it.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Has three of her four limbs cut off while awake before having her neck snapped.
• Establishing Character Moment: She's first seen tackle hugging Tony, then arm punching him for not calling her. She follows this up by chewing out Rosemary for not wanting Tony there.
• The Glomp: Gives one to Tony when introduced.
• Good Is Not Soft: She's sweet yes, but she will call you out on your shit.
• The Heart: Of the Chew Family.
• Genki Girl: Oh yeah.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Toni hides her cibovoyant powers because she doesn't wanted to be treated like a freakshow like Tony is.
• I'm a Humanitarian: She has to do this to living people to use her powers for particularly useful visions.
• Man of Kryptonite: : A self-inflicted example. She eats nothing but beets in the weeks leading up to her death, making her immune to The Vampire's cibopathy so he couldn't steal her power.
• Nice Girl: The single nicest person in the cast, and one of the few people not to treat Tony like shit.
• Really Gets Around: In contrast to Tony, she has a much more active sex life.
• Sacrificial Lion: She's the first major character death to occur in the comic.
• Shipper on Deck: For Tony and Amelia, being insanely excited when she finds out he has girlfriend, letting him call her on the way to a mission and trying to set up a nice dinner for them.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Stops Rosemary pre-rant and chews her out for her cold reception to Tony.
• Spirit Advisor: Thanks to a combination of her cibovoyance and her brother's cibopathy, she serves as a unique example of this to Tony during the "Family Recipe" arc.
• Thanatos Gambit: Leaves her toe behind so Tony can eat it and use what she learned to defeat The Vampire.
• Walking Spoiler: It's hard to talk at length about Toni without mentioning her death at the hands of the Collector and subsequent Spirit Advisor role to Tony.

Olive Chu

Tony's daughter. She strongly dislikes him.

• Badass Abnormal: Has cibopathy stronger than her Dad, who until Mason met her was the strongest cibopath Mason had ever encountered. Not only that, but she then gains the ability to sculpt weapons out of food.
• Blessed with Suck: Averted. While she has a stronger version of her dad's cibopathy, she can turn it on and off.
• Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Played with. He really did, as Tony was in no shape to care for her following Min's death. It was the fact he never came back for her that soured their relationship.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Slowly but surely towards Tony once he starts getting more involved in her life and she starts working with Savoy.
• Emo Teen: Though a lot of it is thanks to Tony abandoning her.
• Irony: Gravitated towards Tony's loose cannon partners more so than her own father. Fast-forward to her actual career in the FDA years later and she finds herself playing the long-suffering Straight Man to eccentric maverick, Ginny.
• Like Father, Like Son: Olive ultimately becomes just like her father, a cranky, superpowered, badass FDA agent with a reckless but loyal partner.
• Likes Older Men: Maybe. She's only shown attraction to two men: hearts appeared over her head when Colby patted her head, and her room is covered in posters of muscle men with Robert Kirkman's face superimposed over them.
• Mundane Utility: Uses her powers to excel in school.
• Scars Are Forever: The Collector slashes her diagonally across the face with a knife, leaving a jagged scar that lasts the rest of her life.
• Ordinary High-School Student: Morose and estranged teenage daughter of Tony Chu, and a cibopath and protege of Mason Savoy.

Sage Chu

Tony's younger sister.

• A Day in the Limelight/Ascended Extra: Issue 36.
• Blessed with Suck: Is a cipropanthropatic, someone who is able to see memories of anyone near her who is eating the same thing, including mob boss Don Federico Biscotti.
  • Contrived Coincidence: Considering how complex and specific her order was. The waiter just decided to give Don something new, as he was ordered.
• The Stoner: Is shown getting high during Toni's Imagine Spot of her wedding.
• Too Dumb to Live: When she learns the person in the neighboring booth is a mob boss she calls him a murderer in front of everybody instead of keeping it to herself and quietly telling her police officer brother.

Rosemary Chu-Shen

Tony's older sister who raised Olive for him. As a result she doesn't like him that much.

• Education Mama: Is thrilled when Olive makes the Honor Roll, unaware she's cheating her way to it.
• Happily Married: For some time.
• Jerkass: Granted she has a reason to resent Tony, unlike the rest of his family, but she still takes it way too far.
• Never My Fault: Blames all of Olive's problems on Tony and constantly badmouths him.
• Pet the Dog: Is in tears following Olive getting her face slashed by The Collector and doesn't blame Tony for it at all, and instead lets him join in worrying about his daughter with not a hint of drama.

Harold Chu

Tony's crossdressing younger brother. Goes by the stage name Miso Honey.

• Crossdresser: Though he's neither a Creepy Crossdresser nor a Wholesome Crossdresser.
• Out of Focus: Out of the Chew Siblings he's the one with the least screen time.
• Punny Name: His Stage Name.

Ong Chu

See "Saffron Chu's gang"

Saffron Chu

See "Saffron Chu's gang"

Other members

• Bok Chu: Tony's father. Deceased before the events of the story.
• Bao Chu: Tony's mother.
• Charlie Chu: Distant cousin who works for Oni Press.
• Tang Shen: Rosemary's husband and Tony's brother-in-law.
• Chip Chu-Shen: Rosemary's toddler son and Tony's nephew.
• Bree Chu-Shen: Rosemary's baby daughter and Tony's niece.

USDA

Tropes

• Amazon Brigade: Other than the pet sidekicks, and Colby for one volume, the entire department is staffed with women trained in combat.
• Androids and Detectives: They usually work in human/cyborg animal pairs.
• Artificial Limbs: All of their animal agents have bionic eyes.
• Redshirt Army: The agents get killed an extremely high rate. At least one death per mission, and it often gets a lot higher than that.
• The Smurfette Principle: Inverted. Colby was the only human male agent.
• World of Buxom: Every single female USDA has extremely large breasts.

Poyo

An incredibly badass fighting rooster who is later converted into a Cyborg by the USDA.

• A Day in the Limelight: Has three one shots dedicated to him.
• Badass Normal: Poyo was not exposed to radiation, trained by Tibetan monks, or bio-enhanced by aliens during their animal abduction sprees - he's just really, really bad ass.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Fought a penguin version of him during the "Bad Apples" arc and regularly fights giant abominations for the USDA.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Tony needs to get stronger to stand a chance against the Collector and Poyo can take care of himself. Colby crunches the numbers and snaps Poyo's neck so he can feed him to Tony who'd never dream of killing the rooster.
• Empowered Badass Normal: After he becomes a cyborg. Once he dies, he's apparently so powerful he's gone from fighting Kaiju to fighting cosmic abominations.
• Hell Has New Management: When shot, Poyo went to hell. Poyo proceeded to kick the ass of every demon there before leaving to go back to life. Once Poyo's there to stay, he is the Lord of the Inferno.
• Killer Rabbit: Poyo, the most lethal fighting cock in the world.
• Neck Snap: How he goes out.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Cock fighting Rooster cyborg USDA agent.
• Running Gag: Tends to be unavailable due to fighting some eldritch monstrosity whenever Tony needs him.
• Story-Breaker Team-Up: The reason he's regularly unavailable, he's too Badass to be defeated.

Director Pena

The elderly director of the USDA.

• Woman Scorned: Reacts to Colby and Applebee's marriage by not sending Poyo to help, resulting in most of the FDA horribly injured and countless deaths.

Lin Sae Woo

The first USDA agent introduced in the series sent to Yamapalu to investigate a series of murders. She ends up teaming up with Tony, and then becomes the first on page victim of the Vampire.

• Buxom Beauty Standard: Her first appearance has a bunch of guys staring at her massive breasts with some women look on with jealousy.
• Sacrificial Lamb: Exists to show how dangerous the Collector is.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: She is introduced and killed in the same issue.

Antagonists

The Vampire/The Collector

A cibopath who pretends to be a vampire. The Collector is a Serial Killer obsessed with absorbing the food-based superpowers of everyone else out of a desire to become "complete".

• Arch-Enemy: Becomes Tony's after he murders Toni. The feeling becomes mutual after Tony refuses his offer to join him.
• The Assimilator: All cibopaths can do it, but the Collector is obsessed with the idea.
• Big Bad: For a large portion of the series.
• Blood Sucking: The Vampire has discovered that cibopathy works nearly as well with blood as it does for flesh. He makes an exception for those with special abilities. Those recipes call for meat.
• Carnivorous Healing Factor: One of the Food-Based Superpowers acquired by the Vampire is that of a "Victumedicus", which allows him to heal very quickly assuming he's well-fed.
• Chef of Iron: Thanks to a number of pilfered abilities and culinary experiences, the Collector is one of the finest chefs in the series in addition to being one of its deadliest individuals.
• Collector of the Strange: A disturbing example.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Thanks to a combination of knowledge of an obscure food related art, and eating an entire judo team, he hands the FDA their asses when they try to bring him in.
• Evil Is Petty: Seriously, one guy just had a power to string guitars with pasta. The Collector ate him anyways despite this having no practical application whatsoever.
• Fangs Are Evil: Though the Collector doesn't need them he files his teeth for dramatic effect.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Killing Toni, who thanks to knowing about her death in advance left her very pissed-off brother the knowledge of how to end him.
• Karmic Death: Tony kills him the same way The Collector killed Toni.
• Mega Manning: Like all cibopaths. However unlike the others he focuses on this specifically, trying to gain as many food abilities as possible.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Due to being able to get them easily and having collected quite a few over centuries before the story proper.
• Our Vampires Are Different: He's a cibopath, not actually a vampire; a explanatory page in "International Flavor" confirms that there is no such thing as vampires, but the fear that the idea thereof inspires is real, and the power of harnessing that fear is undeniable.
• We Can Rule Together: Gives this offer to Tony, who refuses.
• Villainous Breakdown: Upon finding out he can't absorb Toni's abilities and that she's already set his downfall in motion. He has an even bigger one when Tony reveals that he has zero intention of eating him and is just going to leave his corpse for the rats.

Jack Ray Montero

A businessman who invented "fricken," a chicken substitute using frogs with modified DNA. Savoy finds out that Montero knew about the bird flu epidemic before it happened and later gets the truth out of him after biting him.

• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Has the Gallisberrys destroyed just to further his plan to market Fricken.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Get's brought down by the same Fricken scheme that lead him to destroy all of the Gallisberrys.
• Luxury Prison Suite: Has one in prison and can have anything he desires brought to him.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: How he has the above Luxury Prison Suite and tries to bribe Savoy with the same treatment. Unfortuantey for him Savoy has no interest in material gain, just the truth.

Alani Adobo

A file clerk on Yamapalu who bribed her way off the island and onto a smuggling boat full of Gallisberries. She was the only surivior of the boats and a diet of nothing but Gallisberries. When she took a bit of her last one, the fire writing appeared in the sky, leading her to start an anti-chicken eating cult known as the Brotherhood of the Imaculate Ova, preaching that the letters were a warning against chicken. She's now leading a holy war against them.

• Big Bad Wannabe: She's still a huge threat, but not nearly as much of one as the Collector.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: A harmless, friendly file clerk who becomes a powerful cult leader.
• Jerkass Has a Point: As it turns out chicken really is doom and the chicken aliens nearly destroy the earth because no one listened to that warning.
• Karma Houdini: She gets a position as ambassador to the Chicken Aliens and never gets punished for her actions. However.
  • Karma Houdini Warranty: She gets a front row seat to watch Tony murder the ambassador of the Chicken Men.
• Religion of Evil: Founder of The Divine Order of the Emaculate Ova, a terrorist cult recruiting "food weirdos" to help in their acts of terrorism. It's also strongly implied their working with EGG.
• We Can Rule Together: Makes this offer towards Tony.

E.G.G.

A terrorist group that believes the government is covering up the real truth behind the bird flu epidemic. They serve as a recurring antagonist.

• Big Bad Wannabe: While they are dangerous, they are nowhere near as dangerous as the Order of the Immaculate Ova or the Collector.
• Goldfish Poop Gang: Played with. They are a legit threat, being armed gunmen who easily get into secure areas, and in any other setting they'd be fine. But they constantly get beaten down due to going up against food weirdos.
• Western Terrorists: Primarily focused on the US.

Dan Franks

Amelia's Psycho Ex-Boyfriend. A sports writer with an obsession with writing a tell all about dead baseball players sex lives, Amelia dumped him due to him never shutting up about the idea. After getting encouragement by his buddies to finally write the book, he decides to kidnap Tony to get the info.

• Arc Villain: Of "Big League Chew"
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Surprisingly enough, but he has a group of loyal friends who are more than willing to help him with his insane scheme.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Twice over. Taunting Amelia about Tony being gone tips her off that Dan's behind his disappearance. Force feeding Tony dead baseball players gave him their skills, allowing him to escape his bonds twice and gives him the means of killing Dan.
• Jerk Jock: His main personality trait.
• Jerkass: One of the worst the comic has to offer. He has Chow and Applebee's hate for Tony but adds a psychotic streak to it.
• Laser-Guided Karma: See Hoist by His Own Petard above.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: He's fairly racist and sees no issue with selling Tony to the highest bidder.
• Psycho Ex-Boyfriend: He kidnaps Amelia's current boyfriend, uses Tony to further his own career, then tries to sell him off once he's done with him and then finally after Amelia rescues Tony, tries to rape her before Tony kills him.

Peter Pilaf

A classmate of Olives with an unknown food power that allows him some form of control over people through cooking. He takes his school hostage, prompting Chu and Colby to intervene.

• Arch-Enemy: To Olive in the future, having fought her dozens of times.
• Ax-Crazy: Dangerously unhinged. In the final issue he's grown into a massively powerful psychopath who keeps murdering people just to get Olive's attention.
• Even Evil Has Standards: An implied rapist and definite murderer, who still wouldn't murder astronauts, a crime the Collector did that he was blamed for.
• Evil Counterpart: To Olive in the Distant Finale. He has a powerful and versatile food superpower like Olive but uses it to murder indiscriminately. His hair style looks like Olive's, and his rectangular Sinister Shades look like Olive's rectangular glasses.
• Eye Scream: Olive stabs his eyes out to insure he doesn't escape as easily next time.
• Joker Immunity: In the Distant Finale. Justified as he's immortal, though Olive does her damnedest to make breaking out hard for him.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Nothing is known about his powers. Not even years into the future. All that's known by then is that he gets more as time goes on.
• Person of Mass Destruction: He claims he could kill hundreds of people at once. This is likely true given that he's later shown imprisoned in the bowels of the FDA's supermax prison with three other incredibly dangerous food weirdos.
  • Confirmed as of issue 60, having grown to become a notorious criminal who Olive comes across wading in a pool of blood from murdered civilians. It's stated in the same issue that he has escaped from the highest levels of security multiple times. His powers are still unknown, with him seemingly getting new ones each time he dies.
• Power Perversion Potential: Heavily implied to have used his power to have his way with girls in his class.
• Stalker with a Crush: To Olive in Issue 60, to her natural disgust.
• Underestimating Badassery: He grossly underestimates Chew and Colby.
• Who's Laughing Now?: Uses his powers to mass murder and brainwash classmates after being laughed at by them for so long.

Saffron Chu's gang

Saffron Chu

Sage's twin sister. She has the same power.

• Clingy Jealous Girl: She reacts very negatively to Lily winking at Eddie. We later find out that Lily is disgusted with Eddie and was winking at her.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: While Tony was a By-the-Book Cop, Saffron is a criminal.
• Locking MacGyver in the Store Cupboard: She can read the memories and skills of anyone nearby so long as they are eating the same food at the same time. She's sentenced to three years in prison surrounded by hardened professional criminals eating the exact same thing as her every day. Though this doesn't help her escape, it helps her start a new criminal career after she leaves.
• Remember the New Guy?: She's never mentioned throughout all of Chew, though it's implied she's part of the reason why Tony's family treats him so frostily because he's the one who arrested her. She's sent to prison when the bird flu pandemic is just starting and, after release, leaves town with her boyfriend.
• Theme Twin Naming: Both Saffron and Sage are named after spices.

Ong Chu

Tony's grandfather

• Obfuscating Disability: He's a very old, senile, mostly nonverbal man in a wheelchair. However, there are hints that he's a little more conscious than he appears.
• Retired Monster: He's a former mobster. He's also rumored to have done many other terrible things.
• Shrouded in Myth: The only verifiable story about him is that he worked in organized crime in the 1970s and 1980s. However, he is also rumored to have killed his own platoon to obtain Nazi Gold during WWII, to have gotten into a gunfight after insulting someone's cooking in the Wild West, and to have some involvement in a train of pioneers getting eaten.
• Staged Pedestrian Accident: Saffron and Eddie include him in their gang so they can do these as a distraction.
• Vague Age: There are many rumors about the terrible things he's done, some of which would make him impossibly old. It turns out he was able to do these things because he discovered time travel.

Eddie Molay

Saffron's boyfriend and partner in crime

• Black-and-Gray Morality: He and Saffron are both criminals but while she's only killed if she or Eddie are threatened, he is perfectly willing to murder people in the name of a heist. She doesn't know.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Decides to try and kill Lily after seeing how close she's getting with Saffron.
• Domestic Abuser: Often hits Saffron to get her to do what he wants.
• The Load: Saffron has powers and Took a Level in Badass in prison so several people question why she needs Eddie.
• Outlaw Couple: With Saffron.
• The Resenter: He starts off as the boss of the gang but after Saffron's massive success in the "(She) Drunk History" arc, we see her as the boss of a new crew while he sits and sulks in a chair besides her.

Ms. Cookie/Lillian Van Drake

A member of Saffron's crew with the power to persuade people to do what she wants but only while eating chocolate chip cookies.

• Compelling Voice: Her power. It only works while eating chocolate chip cookies.
• No Full Name Given: She refuses to use the codename Eddie gives her and tries to introduce herself as Lily Van Something but she's interrupted before she can give her full name. Her name is later revealed as Lillian Van Drake.

Other

Amelia Mintz

Tony's girlfriend. She is a saboscrivner, meaning that she can write or talk about food so vividly that it can cause people to actually taste it. She uses her ability in her job as a newspaper food critic. Her power allows Tony to taste foods without the often disgusting visions that usually come with them. The two begin dating though Amelia is sometimes annoyed at the time taken up by Tony's job.

• Beware the Nice Ones: A nice, understanding woman who is not to be crossed.
• Brown Note: The alternate use of her saboscrivner powers; by describing especially noxious foods, she can make anyone who reads the words or hears her voice fall sick.
• Covered in Gunge: Gets covered in blood on her first date with Tony after he kills a guy holding her hostage.
• Happily Married: To Tony as of issue 41.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: She can describe food really, really well. She can do this so well she can leave people enraptured by describing awesome food... or reeling and puking by describing really bad food. And it turns out it's the final ingredient to assure earth's survival, able to leave subliminal messages that can affect people at full power.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Overexerts her powers to craft a code that will let Tony kill all chicken eaters and thereby avoid planetary extinction.
• Intrepid Reporter: On the occasions she doesn't do food stories and upon learning where Poult Plus comes from.
• Love Interest: Tony's and specifically the second one.
• Mama Bear: Beats the shit out of Mason when she thinks he's about to hurt Olive. She likely would've killed him had Olive not stopped her.
• Out of Focus: During "Flambe", "Space Cakes" and "Bad Apples". Afterwords she returns to prominence.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Part of why she loves Tony. Most of her exes were jerks and her most recent one is a racist sociopath who later kidnaps Tony and forcefeeds him dead baseball players.
• Troll: Got bored writing good reviews so she started going to horrible restaurants on purpose for a bit of fun. Given her vocation and powers, the consequences were not very well-received by her readers.

D-Bear

A black market chicken dealer who works as an informant for the FDA. He used to deal heroin before chicken prohibition made chicken dealing more profitable.

• Ascended Extra: During "Sour Grapes". He becomes Tony's partner after his falling out with Colby.
• Butt-Monkey: Has been beaten up, hit by a truck and brainwashed.
• Funny Afro: His third appearance onwards.
• Karma Houdini: His status as an FDA informant allowed him to avoid arrest by Tony and John while they were still on Philly PD. However...
  • Laser-Guided Karma: Once John became an FDA agent, his first order of business was beating the ever loving shit out of D-Bear and making D-Bear give him his FDA payments.
  • His rather illegal love for eating chicken gets him killed by Tony's deadly subliminal message in the 59th issue.
  • He also gives some to an EGG agent who would've gotten off easy due to a clean record by breaking her jaw. While she'll be given a comfortable suite at an FDA supermax prison, she'll be eating through a straw the whole time.
• Sixth Ranger: Temporarily joins the FDA at the beginning of "Blood Pudding" due to the FDA being short handed after the vampire injured most of their agents.

Paneer Sharma

Director of NASA with a crush on Toni.

• Big Damn Heroes: Has a tendency to save the day with Jetpacks and Lasers
• Extreme Doormat: When it comes to Toni. All it takes is a little sweet talk and he'll do whatever she wants.
• Heroic BSoD: Slowly undergoes this due to all of Toni's brothers shunning his attempts to connect with them. He has another during Sour Grapes when he finds out what happens when the Fire Writing reappears, blubbering how he wonders if Toni knew all along.

Lt. Marshall Mello

Tony's boss during his brief time as a traffic cop.

• Benevolent Boss: Unlike Applebee, he sees Tony as the asset he is and only fires him due to his kidnapping and likely would've hired him back in a heartbeat if Tony hadn't returned to the FDA.
• Foil: To Applebee. A nice guy with no power who sees Tony for the asset he is instead of shitting on him constantly.
• Nice Guy: The reason Tony actually likes being a traffic cop, despite being forced to work there.
• The Pollyanna: Has an almost unrealistically kind and optimistic personality.
• Punny Name: His name is similar to marshmallow, fitting with the food Theme Naming in the series. "Mello" also sounds like "mellow", which describes his personality.

Min "Mindy" Tso-Chu

Tony's ex-girlfriend. It is implied they broke up due to her blatant insanity. Later, it is revealed they were actually married, and her "insanity" was caused by brain cancer. When Tony proposed to her, she accepted and asked him to eat one of her toes.

• High-School Sweethearts: With Tony
• Knight Templar Parent: Her father tracked her and Tony down on prom night then beat the shit out of Tony for having sex with his daughter.
• Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: To Tony Chu.
• Yandere: She cut off her toe and asked him to eat it so they could literally be a part of each other. He turned her down, but kept the toe in his freezer for Olive.