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Tommy Monaghan
Tommy Monaghan
The titular "Hitman", Tommy Monaghan is a hired killer and gun-for-hire, who grew up in the worst parts of Gotham, the ones even Batman usually doesn't bother patrolling. Shortly before the events of the series, Tommy was one of the individuals who gained superpowers during the Bloodlines crossover event.
- Because I'm Good At It: In the "For Tomorrow" arc, Tommy tells Ringo that he's stuck with the life of a professional assassin because it's the only thing he was ever any good at.
- Blessed with Suck: Yeah, Tommy gained X-ray vision and limited telepathy, but the telepathy gives him "two-day migraines" and he has featureless black eyes that multiple characters describe as disgusting. Oh, and he got them from getting bitten in the spine by an alien parasite.
- Fighting Irish: Though he doesn't care about the whole Irish identity thing.
- Hitman with a Heart: Tommy only kills people whom he regards as "deserving it" (i.e. Mafia dons, super-criminals etc), although other characters do point out the stupidity of this from time to time.
- The Hero Dies: The final issue ends with him bleeding out, probably fatally.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: The fact that he has X-Ray vision and telepathy helps a lot, but even before he gained powers, Tommy was pretty handy with guns. This is probably due to his stint in the Marines.
- Meaningful Name: His mother, a local prostitute back in Ireland, named her illegitimate children after their fathers as a small form of revenge. Tommy's father, Tom, tortured and killed her for it.
- Military Superhero: Although calling Tommy a superhero is a bit of a stretch, he served in the Marines.
- '90s Anti-Hero: Tommy is both a straight example of this trope, as well as a subversion of it. He has all of the hallmarks of one, but he also has a depth of character and humanity that is unusual among his peers.
- It was largely played straight when he was written by characters besides Ennis, however, in guest shots in books like Azrael, Sovereign Seven, and Resurrection Man.
- Last Breath Bullet: Right before he dies, Tommy fires off one last bullet, which hits Agent Truman right between the eyes
- Power Perversion Potential: He frequently used his X-ray vision to check out women, including his cameo in JLA (1997), where he freely admitted upon leaving a recruitment drive that he was only there to ogle Wonder Woman.
- Semper Fi: Tommy's an ex-marine who learned the tools of the trade.
- Self-Made Orphan: Tracked down and murdered his biological father, an outright monster who had brutally murdered Tommy's mother and siblings when Tommy was an infant, for the sole crime of naming Tommy after him (his mother was the town hooker and his father didn't want her "tainting his good name")
- Sex with the Ex: Gets drunk and cheats on Deborah with his ex girlfriend Wendy by accident.
- Son of a Whore: He's the bastard son of a prostitute.
- Tall, Dark, and Snarky: Tommy is very cynical, world-weary, and always has a sarcastic quip in hand, usually of the Gallows Humor variety.
- Unscrupulous Hero: Don't be fooled: Tommy is a stone cold, unrepentant killer, but all of the people he kills are the types that would do much worse to other people who didn't deserve it.
Natt "The Hat" Walls
Natt "The Hat" Walls
Tommy's best friend and former squad mates in the marines, Natt serves as Tommy's backup and partner for his gun-for-hire business.
- Big Eater: Tommy constantly pokes fun at him because of his size.
- Gosh Darn It to Heck!: Promised his mother he'd never swear again on her deathbed, and uses the term "mothaloving" as a stand-in. Late in the series he starts using real curses again, once the situation gets serious enough to warrant it.
- Never Bareheaded: Never seen without his hat, even as it gets progressively more damaged through the course of the comic.
- Semper Fi: He and Tommy met in the Corps.
Sean Noonan
Sean Noonan
Tommy's surrogate father, ex-Marine, and owner of Noonan's Sleazy Bar.
- Cool Old Guy: Where do we begin? How about killing a time displaced Tyrannosaurus Rex and then quipping that he solved his bar's sandwich shortage?
- Old Soldier: Was in the marines, and was the only survivor of his company in Korea.
- Parental Substitute: To Tommy, and possibly his nephew Pat as well.
- Taking You with Me: Attempts this on one of the men sent to kill Tommy. He succeeds even though he was stabbed straight through the heart.
Ringo Chen
Ringo Chen
A chinese hitman and former member of the Peoples Liberation Army, Ringo is one of the few pro killers even more deadly than Tommy.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: He was extremely poor when he was young, but his parents always made sure he had food, even if they had to go without. He joined the Chinese army as an adult so he could make sure he repaid them. When he refused to participate in the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Chinese military had them brutally murdered in retaliation. Ringo promtly escapes imprisonment, killed his former commanders in revenge, and fled to the U.S.
- Land Mine Goes "Click!": He asks Tommy to help him set this up as he's dying, using his corpse to hold the tab on a grenade to kill the man coming to collect it
- Made of Iron: He loses an eye and several ribs to Waterman's torture, but is still badass enough to punch right into a guy's chest so he and Tommy can escape.
- Nerves of Steel: During their adventure in Tynanda, the guys get pinned down by an attack helicopter. Ringo calmly walks out into the open and waits so the helicopter will get into a good position to shoot at him, which also brings it into range for Tommy's grenade launcher. As Nat says, "That dude got ice water runnin' in his muthalovin' veins."
- Professional Killer: Like Tommy, he's a hired gun, albeit a more professional run.
Deborah Tiegel
Deborah Tiegel
A member of the GCPD, and Tommy's on-again, off-again love interest.
- Action Girl: She's one of the tougher Gotham City cops and able to keep up with the likes of Tommy and Nat and in fight.
- Friendly Sniper: She's one of the series more moral and emotional characters, and tends to provide rifle support during major fire fights.
- Put on a Bus: In the last issue, Tommy gives her enough money to make a fresh start in New York City, and she leaves Gotham the same day.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: She's attracted to Tommy despite multiple reasons why she shouldn't be.
Hacken
Hacken
A wannabe hitman who hangs around Noonan's Sleazy Bar.
- Action Survivor: Hacken is the only person alive (unless you count Baytor) fifty years after the events of the series.
- Butt-Monkey: Is constantly mocked, belittled, and laughed at by his fellow hitman. Hacken gets the last last, however, when he is the only survivor of Noonan's Sleazy Bar (unless you count Baytor).
- The Ditz: Hacken is prone to login off on tangents or misreading situations badly.
- Innocently Insensitive: When they're in Tynanda, Hacken mentions to Natt that "this must be like a sorta homecomin'" for him, since Natt is African-American. Natt gives him a grim look, causing Hacken to get scared and run away, but even then Natt acknowledges that Hacken's just too much of a moron to really get angry at.
- Madness Mantra: AND KILL THE CHICKENS! AND KILL THE CHICKENS! AND KILL THE CHICKENS!
- My Friends... and Zoidberg: Hacken tends to be the zoidberg among the group, both in terms of popularity and competence.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: When the gang is fighting a horde of zombified animals created by the Injun Institute, Hacken gets bitten and freaks out, thinking he's going to turn into a zombie and cuts his hand off in the hopes of avoiding infection. Turns out you only turn into a zombie if you're exposed to the chemical directly, and even then you have to be dead first. Oops.
Pat Noonan
Pat Noonan
Sean's nephew and Tommy's adopted brother/best friend.
- Non-Action Guy: He's the only one of the regulars at Noonan's with no real combat ability (even Sixpack manages to be more useful in a fight). But he's still Tommy's best friend, helps out with his logistics and endures unspeakable torture rather than betray him.
Sixpack
Sixpack
A drunken wannabe superhero and "leader" of Section 8, a group of equally pathetic, delusional weirdos in tights.
- The Alcoholic: Almost always drunk. He eventually makes the jump to become a Recovered Addict.
- The Load: Is little more than a bumbling drunk for most of the series but eventually proves himself in the fight against the Many-Angled Ones.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Sacrifices himself to save Gotham and the world from the Many-Angled Ones by agreeing to battle them in their own dimension. It's shown that he won, and came back to Earth where he returned to his real identity of Sidney Speck and stopped drinking, though none of his old friends ever knew his real fate
- I Just Want to Be Special: Desperately wants to be a real superhero.
- Windmill Crusader: Most of the battles with supervillains he's boasted about were just dreams or inebriation-induced hallucinations.
Bueno Excelente
Bueno Excelente
- Black Comedy Rape: His entire shtick is raping people, usually men, and having it played for humor.
- Depraved Bisexual: He's constantly shown raping men, but the one consensual relationship he's had is with a sentient pile of organs named Guts in All-Star Section 8 and Sixpack and Dogwelder: Travelin' Heroes, who is apparently female. If his victims weren't just men and he ever actually did try to have his way with females, it isn't brought up.
- Extreme Omnisexual: Most of the people he's molested have been men (with Czarnian bounty hunter Lobo being one of his few non-human victims), but by All-Star Section 8 he hooks up with a female mass of sentient organs named Guts and later cheats on her with a compost heap in Sixpack and Dogwelder: Travelin' Heroes.
- Memetic Mutation: He's the origin of the "Bueno" meme
The Defenestrator
The Defenestrator
- The Big Guy: His skills mainly revolve around brute strength and he's one of the more active members of the group.
- Expy: Of the Terminator. Complete with getting half his face burned off while telling someone "I know now why you cry though it is something I will never do"
- Improbable Weapon User: He fights by smashing window panes over people's heads
- The Quiet One: The Defenstrator doesn't say very much in comparison to his teammates, but at least says more than the completely silent Dogwelder.
Dogwelder
Dogwelder
- Affirmative-Action Legacy: The Dogwelder in the original series was a Caucasian, with an African-American becoming the new Dogwelder by All-Star Section 8.
- Ax-Crazy: When Sixpack tries to bring Section 8 back together, Dogwelder almost welds a dog to his face; he doesn't seem to care much who he's doing it to.
- Black Comedy Animal Cruelty: His gimmick revolves entirely around welding dead dogs to people's faces, and sometimes the dog he uses wasn't initially a corpse.
- Hidden Depths: Turns out The welding mask he wears is a cursed artifact causing all who wear it to take the Dogwelder persona. It was created by Anubis as revenge on a poor nameless bronzesmith who gave Anubis his dog head at the bidding of the other Egyptian deities. Also, the Dogwelder persona is destined to save the Earth by welding two colliding dog stars together. Really.
- Suddenly Speaking: By Sixpack and Dogwelder, both the current Dogwelder and his predecessor learn to communicate through using dead dogs as hand puppets.
- The Voiceless: He never says so much as a word.
Friendly Fire
Friendly Fire
- Double Entendre: His name. He's a nice guy with fire powers... and when he uses them he exclusively hits his own teammates.
- Epic Fail: Ends up killing himself with his powers while trying to focus them in his final battle.
- Only Sane Man: The only member of Section 8 who realizes how ridiculous they all are.
- Playing with Fire: One of the few members of Section 8 with actual superpowers.
Jean de Baton-Baton
Flemgem
Flemgem
- Radiation-Induced Superpowers: He's not mentioned by name, but in one issue a guy working at a nuclear power plant says, "Look, idiot, the last accident we had developed mucus powers and went off to form his own superteam. Remember?"
Shakes
Shakes
Sister Concepta
Sister Concepta
Wendy
Wendy
- My God, You Are Serious!: She spends two arcs thinking Tommy is joking about being a hitman and is horrified to find out otherwise.
Baytor
Baytor
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Knowing that Tommy and Natt are going off to die, he says "Goodbye Boys," shortly after their final drinks in the bar.
- Pokémon Speak: He doesn't say much besides "I am Baytor!" Once, when someone says, "Thanks, Baytor," he replies, "I am he."
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: A dinosaur eats him alive in the "Fresh Meat" arc, only to puke him back out shortly after.
Maggie Lorenzo
Maggie Lorenzo
- Struggling Single Mother: She's a working class single mother in a town filled with super villains and monsters.
Kathryn McAllister
Kathryn McAllister
- Badass in a Nice Suit: A rare female example, being a competent fighter who wears a pantsuit.
- Defector from Decadence: She starts out working for Truman but then enlists Tommy and Natt to help take him down.
Etrigan
Moe and Joe Dubelz
Moe and Joe Dubelz
- Body Horror: In Tommy's premiere, Joe takes a bullet to the head. Until he finally dies as well, Moe is attached to Joe's rotting corpse. It's not even some kind of Revenge Before Reason shtick(at least not entirely) - he shares numerous vital organs with his dead brother, so he can't just have Joe amputated. Over the course of "Ten Thousand Bullets" he's attached to increasing amounts of life support equipment.
- Conjoined Twins: The ultra-rare "two heads on one body" variant.
- Overlord Jr.: Are described as being much more evil than their father.
- Punny Name: Their surname looks like a misspelling of "doubles" and alludes to how they are conjoined twins.
- Starter Villain: The first enemy of Tommy Monaghan encountered during the latter's debut in the second Annual of The Demon that was part of the Bloodlines event, with Moe trying to kill Tommy to avenge his brother Joe's death for the first few arcs before he gets wasted as well.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Joe Dubelz doesn't survive Tommy's debut in the second Annual of The Demon, as he is shot in the head by the end of it.
- You Killed My Father: Moe thinks that Tommy killed his mob boss father Robert Dubelz. Joe would probably agree, but he got killed very quickly in the series. Tommy was planning to kill the senior Dubelz, but an alien parasite beat him to the job.
The Mawzir
The Mawzir
- Dirty Coward: Begs and pleads for his life when he's beaten.
- Fusion Dance: He's actually five Nazi war criminals, executed by the Russians and combined into one being by the Arkannone.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Grows more when he needs them; sometimes he only has two, but in a firefight he'll have up to ten.
- Those Wacky Nazis: As stated above, he's the result of five Nazi war criminals being merged together. Hell, he has a Swastika on his forehead.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: When Tommy shoots the Joker in the head, thereby claiming a million-dollar reward, the Joker changes shape into the Mawzir and reveals the reward was just a ruse to get Tommy in his sights.
Nightfist
Nightfist
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Despite the obvious allusion to Nightwing, Nightfist gets blown away fairly quickly when he faces well organized armed gangsters instead of the usual lowlifes he's used to dealing with.
- Expy Coexistence: A Corrupted Character Copy of Batman who exists in the DC Universe along with the actual Batman.
- Sociopathic Hero: Cripples and murders drug dealers, then steals their drugs to sell himself
Marc Navarone
Marc Navarone
- Improbable Aiming Skills: As Truman explains while watching Marc shoot a target blindfolded, he looks ''Just once. After that he remembers." Unfortunately for him, that's ALL he has. He's never been in a legitimate firefight before.
- Professional Killer
- Well-Trained, but Inexperienced: One of the hardest opponents Tommy ever faced was fellow hitman Johnny Navarrone, and shoots down any compliments on winning by stating his victory was due to sheer luck. So when he hears that Johnny had a son of similar skill (who we see training on corpses) out for revenge, Tommy is appropriately panicked... until they meet, and it turns out the kid only ever trained on dead bodies, meaning he forgot to turn the safety off his gun.
- You Killed My Father: Has a grudge against Tommy for killing his hitman father and interrupting his "training".
Agent Truman
Agent Truman
A CIA agent in charge of an insanely inhumane super soldier project, who attempts to recruit Tommy as part of a Cape Busters squad to deal with superheroes who won't fall in line with government orders.
- Bald of Evil: Well, balding.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul
- I Just Want to Be Special: Tommy thinks that the reason Truman is so obsessed with controlling metahumans is because he's extremely jealous of their abilities.
- Pretty Little Headshots: Tommy's very last bullet in the whole series is what kills Truman. It goes right through his forehead.
"Mens Room Louie" Feretti
"Mens Room Louie" Feretti
- Always a Bigger Fish: Despite the power at his disposal, his army of violent greaseballs are little match for the five S.A.S commandos who come looking for Tommy and Natt.
- The Don: One of the most feared mob bosses in Gotham City.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Despite being rightfully feared, his name comes from the fact that he's constantly on the toilet.
- Unseen No More: He is mentioned repeatedly before finally appearing in person in the 23rd issue.
Isabella Ferretti
Isabella Ferretti
- Avenging the Villain: She wants Tommy dead in retribution for the death of Men's Room Louie, who was her grandfather.
- Incest Subtext: Between her and her Uncle Benito. It's heavily implied that they have sex.
- Mafia Princess: A particularly bloodthirsty example of one at that.
- Spoiled Brat: She's an opulently styled Mafia Princess who wants a family enemy murdered as a wedding present.
Benito Gallo
Benito Gallo
- Bad Boss: After a Mook refused to run directly into a fire fight where he would surely get killed within ten seconds, Benito threatens to slit his throat right then and there if he doesn't. The Mook did in fact die within ten seconds.
- Evil Old Folks: Was apparently responsible for assassinating a Flying Brick superhero named Colonel Glory back in The '80s.
- Incest Subtext: Between him and his niece Isabella. It's heavily implied that they have sex.
The Many-Angled Ones
The Many-Angled Ones
- Eldritch Abomination: No relation to the Marvel Universe characters of the same name. Though not nearly as famous, they pretty much serve the same purpose as their Marvel counterparts.
Skull and Scarlet Rose
Skull and Scarlet Rose
- Flight: Skull can fly.
- Green Thumb: Scarlet Rose can make thorny roses grow up out of the ground at incredible rates, which can impale humans and immobilize a tank. There's a limit for how LONG she can hold the tank though
- Prophet Eyes: Scarlet Rose has blank white eyes. It's not revealed how she got them or whether they're connected to her powers.
- Psycho for Hire: Skull crushes an infant in his hand and then backhands the mother's head off, and Scarlet Rose murders an entire village. They're not nice people, but they're in Tynanda for the money.
- Stripperific: Scarlet Rose wears a red spandex outfit with jagged cutouts that reveal a lot of skin.
- Super-Strength: Skull is stronger than a normal human being.
- Super-Toughness: Skull can take a grenade to the chest and live. A tank shell, on the other hand…
- Underboobs: Scarlet Rose (one boob, anyway).
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Skull never wears a shirt.
- Would Hurt a Child: Skull has no problem slaughtering a baby in front of the mother.
Waterman
Waterman
A strange, dwarfish man of possibly inhuman origin who works for the Chinese government.
- Fish People: It's subtle but he does appear to have small scales. Ringo believes he is a creature from Chinese legend that lives in rivers and lakes, and that he was able to enter Gotham (at the time cut off from U.S. soil by the "No Man's Land" event) by simply swimming there.
- For the Evulz: He tortures Ringo at his boss's direction. He plans to do the same to Tommy just because he likes it.
- Gonk: He's described as a dwarf, but beyond that he's also a very strange-looking guy.
- Psycho Electro: He's a very, very bad guy with electric powers.
- Shock and Awe: Has the ability to fire a charge of electricity from himself, which he uses to immobilize enemies standing in liquids.
- Super-Toughness: Tommy puts a bunch of bullets in his back, seemingly almost cutting him in half, but he shows up again a little later and appears to be holding himself together.
- Torture Technician: He's got a whole bunch of wickedly designed implements, and he's very good at using them.
Dr. Jackson
Dr. Jackson
- Mad Scientist: He's a worker at a government lab that conducts weird time travel and mutation experiments and often hires Tommy and the others to clean up their messes before the proper authorities find out. Played with a bit though as Jackson can actually come across as the Only Sane Man of the lab at times given how most of the really bad messes are caused by his colleagues.
