Characters / Nebula

The characters of Nebula.

General Tropes

Tropes that apply to nearly all of the characters:

• Amazing Technicolor Population: Even the most human-looking of them have skin that's blue or orange or some other utterly alien color.
• Ambiguous Gender: Word of God is that none of them really have genders, but some of them present masculine or feminine and use those pronouns some or all of the time. Others (Saturn, Uranus, Ceres) only use neutral ones.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: They are planets, dwarf planets, stars, and stellar remnants^note e.g., black holes, but have humanlike appearances and distinct personalities that are partly based on the traits of what they represent.
• The Blank: Their heads are completely featureless, though they can see each other's faces.
• Eating Optional: Some of them chose to eat or sleep for various reasons despite having no need to in order to survive, since they're Anthropomorphic Personifications rather than normal beings.
• Floating Limbs: Their heads float above their shoulders, as they completely lack necks.
• Genius Loci: As their heads really are celestial bodies instead of just abstract representations of them, they themselves are living and thinking locations.
• Immortal Immaturity: Despite being eons old, they hold grudges over petty things and snipe at each other when they step on each other's toes. The immaturity is especially prominent with Earth and Uranus and their childish methods of trying to befriend people, but none of them really have the maturity you'd expect from such incredibly ancient beings.
• Limited Wardrobe: They're always drawn wearing the same one outfit each. It's actually quite possible that they really don't own more than one outfit since they're in space and all.
• Monstrous Humanoid: All of them have clear non-human features like spikes or inhuman skin to one degree or another despite having a humanoid body shape.
• The Needless: None of them need to eat or sleep to survive, and those who chose to anyway are seen as odd for it.
• Non-Human Head: Their heads are physical representations of the celestial body they're an Anthropomorphic Personification of.
• Non-Human Non-Binary: According to Word of God, planets don't have a concept of gender in the same sense we do, thus making every character nonbinary. However, some characters do gravitate towards presenting a certain way - for example, Earth presents as feminine and uses she/her pronouns - but ultimately, most characters don't have a specific gender.
• Only One Name: They've just got one name, the name of the thing they're a representation of.
• Stylized for the Viewer: The characters are all drawn as The Blank, though they apparently all have faces and can read each other's expressions just fine.
• Time Abyss: They're all billions of years old and measure time in centuries rather than years.
• Time Dissonance: What they see as a short period of time is not at all what a human would; the planets are all considered to be nearly the same age, with a mere hundred million years age difference between the older and younger ones.
• Vague Age: With a complete lack of facial features (and the fact that they have incredibly long lifespans and don't seem to age much), it's hard to say how old they are in human terms at all, other than than that they're presumably adults.

Planets

Earth

"Hi! I'm Earth!"

A friendly, cheerful, and unusually inquisitive planet, and one of the more 'main' characters of the group. Her attempts to befriend her neighbors and answer the questions that the readers probably have too don't really endear her to her fellows. She just wants to know... well, everything, essentially, though the other planets often find her constant questions about life, the universe, and everything somewhat irritating and strange.

(Or at least they feel like she should know by now that Sun doesn't really approve of asking questions, and that doing it anyway isn't going to bring her anything good.)

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• Constantly Curious: Asks the questions no one else does — like what's beyond the solar system, or what Jupiter plans to do if he succeeds in replacing Sun as leader. This really doesn't endear her to the others, especially since Sun makes it clear that he thinks questions are irrelevant at best and dangerous at worst.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: A somewhat naive and reckless foolish sibling to Venus' responsible one. Venus is thus usually trying to look out for her.
• Genki Girl: She's idealistic, energetic, and outgoing to the point she that she gets on people's nerves by trying to befriend them all the time.
• Hearing Voices: She can hear Black Hole speaking to her in her head, though we don't know what Black Hole's telling her. At least she isn't as receptive to it as Pluto is.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Goes to a lot of effort to seek out and befriend the other planets, even though it isn't reciprocated. Mars accuses her of having an ulterior motive of wanting to befriend people just so she can satisfy her own curiosity about them... which she doesn't outright deny.
• Innocent Inaccurate: As explained under Just Ignore It, Earth often fails to grasp the severity of serious issues, and tends to be overly optimistic about dire situations. For example, when Sun is clearly taking a turn for the worse, Earth insists that it's just a short phase and will sort itself on its own.
• Innocently Insensitive: Completely fails to realize that the way she questions people can make it seem less like she wants to know more about her friends and more like she only values their friendship because of how much she can figure out about them through it. In general, she doesn't pick up on cues that sometimes people just aren't in the mood to talk or hang out with her, and will invite herself over to hang out with them until they tell her to go away.
• Just Ignore It: Downplayed; she doesn't outright ignore issues like Sun does, but she also has trouble grasping the severity of situations, oftentimes. For example, when Mars tries to confide in her about Sun's recent downspiral potentially being dangerous, she instead insists that Sun is just going through something of a phase and won't hurt anybody, and that he just needs time to get better. Likewise, after Ceres attacks the solar system, Earth believes that it was just a one-off incident that won't take long to recover from, even though Mars tries to tell her otherwise.
• Losing a Shoe in the Struggle: After her close call with the meteor, the edges of her shirt and collar were permanently ripped and have remained ripped ever since the first comic.
• Older Than They Look: She's Venus' older sister, even if she's the more immature one and they both look the same age.
• The Philosopher: Especially apparent in "Proco", where we see a lot of her inner monologue is wondering about things like the reason for her existence and why her life is the way it is.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Has enough cheerful enthusiasm for both her and Mars, who is far more reflective and solemn.
• Unnecessary Roughness: Accidentally; while playing a friendly game of catch with Venus, she ends up hitting her square in the face.
  Venus: Earth what the fuck-
  Earth: I'm sorry!
  Venus: Wow.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Despite the constant rejections from the people she tries to befriend and the increasingly bleak world she lives in, she still says that things will turn out okay if they try.
  "I still think in the end, we'll all be okay."

Jupiter

"I am not going to live an eternity beneath Sun's thumb."

The largest of the planets and the one with the most moons out of all of them (and also, in his mind, the smartest and best at leading). He wants to kill Sun and become the leader/king of the solar system, but he hasn't had much success at that yet. His increasing lack of subtlety about it worries the rest of the planets nonetheless, because Sun isn't exactly known for taking criticism or dissension in a calm and reasoned way. (Sun already pretty much knows, of course, but he considers Jupiter to be so little of a threat he isn't even angry about it.)

He's something of comic relief in the story. Quite a few of the Breather Episodes revolve around him, and they usually end up with him worse off than he was before, but also having learned nothing from his experiences and still ready to do it over again in a heartbeat.

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• Big Eater: He'll eat to the point of making himself sick, mostly because he thinks it will make him bigger and thus make him more able to challenge Sun.
• The Chew Toy: His plans to oust and kill Sun usually end up backfiring on him in some way, or at best fail rather pathetically. With how huge his ego is despite it and his complete refusal to learn anything from these failures, it's hard to feel bad for him.
• Dumb Muscle: While he's very strong he's at least a little bit dim, which is is mostly shown in his strange and shortsighted Zany Schemes to become leader, and in his delusions of grandeur about his own abilities.
• Extreme Omnivore: He eats moons (aka, rocks), which the rest of the planets find more than a little bizarre.
• Klingon Promotion: Invoked: his preferred plan on how to become leader of the solar system is to kill the current leader, Sun. Defied by the fact that the other planets have indicated that even if he could somehow manage to do that, they wouldn't see themselves as having any obligation to obey him like they do Sun.
• Large Ham: Jupiter over-dramatizes everything. He turns even something as minor as keeping a stray comet as a pet into an elaborate show of defiance, he dramatically narrates his own actions even though no one is around to hear him, and he's the first to start shouting for any reason.
• Leader Wannabe: He really, really wants to be the leader of the solar system. Unfortunately he's just one planet out of many and none of the others recognize him as having any kind of authority over them.
• One Head Taller: He's at least a head taller than everyone in the solar system but Sun, adding to his air of being 'strong but dumb'.
• Planet Eater: His habit of moon-eating makes him a downplayed example of one. Given that he himself is a planet, he's probably not going to become a straight example any time soon.
• Pointless Band-Aid: Gained a somewhat goofy-looking pair of oversized Band-Aids on his face after Ceres' attack on the planets. Since he has neither skin nor blood, it won't really help him much.
• Rabble Rouser: He would like to think of himself as a Rebel Leader, but since no one but Uranus listens to him all he really does is talk angrily about Sun and nearly get people in trouble.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Wears a vest but no shirt, and is one of the biggest, most aggressive people around.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Isn't regarded as highly by the other planets as he thinks he deserves.
  "I am smarter. I am stronger. I am more capable. I am a leader. You just don't see that yet."
• Stout Strength: He's the most heavily built of the cast and is the self-proclaimed strongest planet. He's tough enough to take a direct hit from a meteor and be no worse the wear.
• Taking the Bullet: Took the impact of a meteor to protect Earth, though fortunately he wasn't badly hurt.
• Thinking Out Loud: He talks out loud to himself about how much he hates Sun and wants to take over the solar system...until Sun interrupts him with a question.
• Unknown Rival: Sun doesn't think of him as much of a threat, despite his intense hatred. If anything, Sun is actually fond of him.

Mars

"Just leave me out of it."

Grumpy and bad-tempered most of the time, but he's a planet that cares more about the rest of the solar system's well-being than he'd like to admit; he's usually a very rude voice of reason, and one of the more 'main' characters of the comic. He ends up hanging around Venus or her sister more than his professed irritation at Earth would suggest, and their dynamic is about what you'd expect.

With everything that's going bad with Black Hole and Sun, he's risen to the occasion as one of the only people who's anywhere near as worried about what's happening as they should be.

(There's something odd about his moon, too...)

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• Badass Cape: Always wears a long, ragged dark red cape. It veers onto Anti-Gravity Clothing with the way it billows and waves dramatically in ways that shouldn't be possible without air or wind.
• Bandaged Face: Earth has to bandage most of his face up after his body is badly cracked by what Ceres did to him. Since he claims that Scars Are Forever, its confirmed that it's a permanent change to his appearance.
• Body Horror: It's pretty horrific to see him start to crumble into pieces while still alive and conscious to see it, and his injuries from it (parts of his head break off while Earth is bandaging him) aren't exactly pretty either.
• Covered in Scars: The visual effect of the long, twisting cracks left on his body after what Ceres did to the planets much resemble large scars on a human.
• Callousness Towards Emergency: Pretty much tells Earth to quiet down and leave him alone when she's trying to point out that the meteor is headed straight towards her, which could have killed her.
• The Cassandra: The only one who takes his concerns about Sun seriously is Venus. Even Earth thinks that things will work out fine by themselves instead of realizing that they're only going to get more dangerous.
• Easily Forgiven: Earth has no ill will towards him despite how badly he acted when the meteor was hurtling towards her, and in fact still wants to be his friend.
• Hates Small Talk: If it's not an emergency that involves him, he doesn't want to hear about it. He certainly doesn't want to talk just for the sake of getting to know someone.
• Iconic Item: His cape and his moon, which is unique in that it's large enough for him to stand on. Everyone else's moons are just small rocks that float around their heads.
• I'm Not Here to Make Friends: Tells Earth that everyone already knows each other's names, and that that should be more than enough information for her when she asks if it's so wrong to want to get to know other planets.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's rude and downright hostile in response to Earth's attempts to befriend him, but he still goes to her to try and warn her about the danger he thinks they're all in.
• Loincloth: Wears one that's torn and ragged at the edges, like his cape.
• Rock Monster: He's a humanoid being with skin made of jagged red-orange rock, with spikes of it coming out of his elbows, knees, and back.
• Scars Are Forever: According to him, he'll "look like this forever" after his body (which is made of rocks) is badly cracked by Ceres' attack.
• Only Sane Man: One of the few characters who recognizes the seriousness of a situation (namely, the stuff going on with Sun) and actually tries to organize people in order to do something about it.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Is the common sense and pragmatism of the duo with Earth, who in contrast to him is very idealistic and energetic.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: All he's got over his chest is the top of the cape that's tied around his 'neck'.

Mercury

"Why is that a problem, sir?"

The shortest and smallest of the planets, and the one who works closest with Sun. With Sun being Not Himself, he's actually one of the only people who really talks to him regularly. Maybe because of that, he tends to be arrogant and bossy beyond his actual authority (i.e., none) when talking to the other planets, but he's more annoying than actually dangerous to anyone.

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• Bandaged Face: At least half his face is left covered in bandages after the attack by Ceres; with what Mars said about how Scars Are Forever, its possible he'll always be bandaged from the damage.
• Body Horror: Remember seeing him start to crumble into pieces while Ceres attacked, and how his head is heavily bandaged and cracked afterwards? Mars mentions that parts of his skull are still floating around and they haven't found all of them yet.
• Interspecies Friendship: He's a planet, while his boss/friend Sun is a star. It's a bit tougher for them since Sun being made of fire means that he burns anyone who gets too close to him, but they get by.
• Loyal to the Position: In Jupiter's dreams, at least, he easily switches from working for Sun to working for Jupiter when he takes Sun's place as leader.
• Number Two: Acts as Sun's unofficial(?) second-in-command and is the only person that Sun willingly opens up to about his worries.
• Odd Friendship: He and Sun have very little in common. Sun (when he's himself at least) is a laid-back and quiet person who people nonetheless respect, while Mercury is very loud and bossy but not at all respected by any of the other planets. They usually aren't far from each other, though, and Mercury is the only one Sun trusts enough to start to open up to with his worries.
• Psychological Projection: He immediately jumps to the conclusion that Sun's as angry as he is at the idiocy of the other planets as soon as Sun mentions feeling weird around them. He starts a detailed rant about their faults until Sun cuts him off and says no, that's really not what he meant.
• Rock Monster: He's a humanoid made of rough, blue-gray rocks with what look like faint cracks or ravines running through them.
• Small Name, Big Ego: He's always trying to order around the other planets, so much that even Pluto notices. Since he doesn't have anything to really back his orders up with, he usually ends up going back to Sun to sulk when nobody obeys him.
• What, Exactly, Is His Job?: It's unclear if he's officially Sun's assistant, if he's not and their jobs just happen to involve working with each other a lot, or if their jobs have little official overlap at all and they're just friends who talk together during the workday.
• White Collar Worker: Dresses like one, though the short sleeves invoke the period before indoor air conditioning was ubiquitous.

Neptune

"Jupiter, maybe you should just... calm down, a little."

Neptune is quiet, composed, and usually one of the least dysfunctional outer planets. She acts as something of a peacekeeper, which the rest of the solar system desperately needs, and tries gently to keep the rest of the outer planets out of trouble... which is easier said than done when dealing with people like Jupiter or Uranus.

She gets along well with Venus and Saturn, though, so at least she isn't lonely.

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• Body Horror: Ceres started to boil her alive (and she was conscious during it!), though thankfully she survived it.
• Gender-Blender Name: The planet she personifies is named for the (male) Roman god of the sea, while she herself is female.
• One Head Taller: Than Venus, who makes up for it with enough force of personality to still be the more noticeable of the two.
• Only Sane Woman: Definitely one of the most down-to-earth and realistic planets, especially when compared to Jupiter. She points out that Jupiter can't do anything just by being loud and angry about it, and that he's putting everyone he talks to in danger by ranting about Sun as recklessly as he does.
• Rebellious Rebel: She doesn't particularly like Sun, but isn't shy about the fact that she thinks Jupiter should stop talking about a rebellion before he gets them all into a lot of trouble.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The quieter blue oni to Venus' red, preferring to act as a calming influence when Venus starts insulting people.
• Threatening Mediator: Forces Jupiter and Uranus to get along. Given that it's Jupiter and Uranus, that's pretty impressive.

Saturn

"I believe, most times, they hate us."

A planet who is by nature reflective, polite, and solitary... though those traits sometimes make them a target of their more, ah, 'socially friendly' neighbors. They don't get involved much in the affairs of the rest of the solar system of their own volition, though that doesn't stop other people from involving them anyway.

Like Earth, they spend a fair amount of time wondering about things that the rest of the solar system has either giving up asking or else never considered. Unlike her, though, they mostly keep these musings to themselves and avoid getting into trouble with Sun for them. (It might help that the stuff they wonder about is more... abstract than Earth's questions about what's in the void.)

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• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Spends a fair amount of time wondering about things like if their moons have feelings. Keep in mind that moons, unlike planets or comets, are completely ordinary, inanimate, rocks. There's a reason the other planets think they're more than a bit odd.
• The Cuckoo Lander Was Right: Despite having a number of odd habits and being seen as weird by the rest of the solar system, they are actually completely right about Pluto not being dangerous. Sun still decides that it isn't worth the risk, though.
• Enmity with an Object: Inverted: they're pretty sure that their moons (ordinary, nonliving rocks) have an enmity with them.
• Gender-Blender Name: The planet they're based on was named for the male Roman titan of time and agriculture, but they themself are not male.
• The Hermit: Tends to willingly keep their distance from the rest of the group so they can think in peace about things no one else can understand when they try to explain.
• Loners Are Freaks: Part of why the other planets think they're weird is that they actively avoid the rest of the group in favor of being alone all the time.
• The Quiet One: They can (and sometimes will, after much prompting) talk to other people, but they mostly prefer to spend their time alone and thinking silently to themself.

Uranus

"Are you prepared to get weird about this? Because you know I am."

A planet who's passionate, driven, and weirdly charismatic... and also strangely obsessed with obtaining moons, even more so than Jupiter is. They've got plans (aka, schemes) to get what they want from the world (aka, the schmucks in the rest of the solar system), even if the world doesn't know it's going to give it to them yet.

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• Because I Said So: Their blunt justification to Saturn as to why they should give their moons to Uranus was that... Uranus wanted those moons. They treat this as a completely valid reason, and don't get why Saturn doesn't think the same thing.
  Uranus: I'm gonna be needing some of your moons. Most, actually. Most of your moons.
  Saturn: Uh... Why?
  Uranus: Uh, because I want them. So give them to me.
• Body Horror: In #16, they're holding a bucket of a floaty blue substance and their head is abnormally shaped while Earth talks about the aftermath of Ceres' attack, implying that part of their face was torn off and they're carrying it around with them now.
• Bystander Effect: They really don't care when Earth tries to tell them about the meteor that's going to hit her, just saying that Sun didn't mention it and that it's not their problem. And then they walk off and leave Earth to deal with it.
• Callousness Towards Emergency: Their complete lack of concern when Earth tries to ask for help about the meteor heading towards her, since Earth could have at the very least been severely injured if Jupiter hadn't intervened and taken the impact for her.
• Easily Forgiven: Earth holds no ill will towards them despite them essentially abandoning her to get hit by the meteor and never apologizing for it.
• Gender-Blender Name: Uranus (the planet) was named after the male Greek deity of the sky; Uranus (the character based on the planet) is not male.
• Gotta Get Your Head Together: They adopt a posture of bending over and clutching their head in pain upon the arrival of Ceres. From the amount of pain they were in, and what was happening to Mars, it's quite possible they were trying to keep their head from splitting open.
• It's All About Me: Uranus doesn't care for anyone else's health and sees their own gain as their top priority. They casually leave Earth to be hit by a meteor and act as though Saturn's resistance to being strong-armed into giving over their moons makes Uranus the victim somehow.
• Laser-Guided Karma: They badger Saturn until they give their moons up just to get Uranus to leave them alone. Later, while badgering Jupiter, he promptly eats those moons that they'd been so proud of stealing.
• You Are Fat: Their insults to Neptune aren't the best, and get pettier during the argument they have until they're just calling her fat.

Venus

"Whoa. Whaaat is all this over here?"

Earth's blunt, confident sister, and the one of the family who actually has friends. She's the most sarcastic of the planets (and the cast in general), usually in response to the day-to-day dysfunction of everyone else around her.

Along with Mars, she's one of the most rational and observant of the winds of change in the solar system, though she doesn't know any better than him what to actually do about everything she can tell is spiraling out of control in her life. Earth's stubborn refusal to believe that there are things seriously wrong isn't making things any easier on her.

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• Brutally Honest: Says exactly what she thinks about how Jupiter and Earth's unrealistically optimistic views aren't going to get them anywhere, and combines it with some often-rude snark about whatever antics they're getting into in the process.
• Deadpan Snarker: Though the amount of deadpan varies, the rude snark doesn't.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The more mature and pragmatic responsible sibling to Earth's foolish one. She actively makes plans to try and avert disaster with Mars rather than believing that The Power of Friendship will stop it like Earth does.
• Gotta Get Your Head Together: Grasps her head when Ceres attacks, probably because she's starting to split into pieces.
• Handwraps of Awesome: They extend down over most of her forearms too, with matching ones on her ankles to show that she's a tough, athletic person.
• Oh, Wait!: Part of her response when Jupiter wants to keep a comet as a pet.
  "Yup, cool. Great. Great idea. Let's just hang out with every weird rock clump that happens to drift past us. It's not like the last one carved out a chunk of Earth's cranium or any— whoops! Haha! That's right!"
• Only Sane Woman: Can tell how bad things are getting in regards to Sun and Black Hole, and seeks Mars out to try and make a plan for what to do. Also points out to Jupiter how dumb his plan to overthrow Sun is, though it doesn't have any impact on him.
• Pet the Dog: Takes a break from her usual snark to try and comfort Earth after Mars angrily tells her that nothing will be alright after what happened with Ceres.
• Pointless Band-Aid: Has a bandaid on her shoulder despite not having blood or skin in some of the official art, and in the comic itself after Ceres' attack.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The energetic, assertive red oni to Neptune's subdued, calmer blue, often picking verbal fights with others that Neptune then tries to calm.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Wears a hoodie with no sleeves, and is definitely one of the tougher members of the cast.

Dwarf Planets

Pluto

It's always so quiet out here. Kind of... lonely. Maybe.

A shy, lonely, drifter who dreams of becoming part of the group of planets but never really is due to his inability to introduce himself. He's the only dwarf planet of the solar system, and his struggles to befriend the planets (or anyone at all) is a reoccurring plot thread in the comic. While he's incredibly good-natured and kind, his shyness and isolation makes him come across as standoffish and intimidating to the rest of the solar system, leading to further problems.

Living at the edge of the solar system by definition also means living right at the edge of the void, and it doesn't take long for the voice of a mysterious being start telling him he's meant for better than his life of loneliness, though...

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• The Aloner: Constantly alone at the edge of the solar system where no one talks to or interacts with him, and constantly wishing he wasn't.
• Body Horror: The ways his body ends up disturbingly warped, particularly the extra limbs and strange bone-like protrusions from his spacesuit while previously he was entirely normal-looking apart from his head.
• The Bus Came Back: While he was left out of the loop and hanging out by himself since the end of the second comic, he's been brought back into the main plot after Black Hole started talking to him.
• Came Back Wrong: He's changed after being consumed and summoned back by Black Hole, and not at all for the better. He's physically monstrous, with an extra set of arms, strange distortions to his body, and a more bulky and threateningly-shaped spacesuit. More importantly, he also speaks only in distorted gibberish and is under Black Hole's complete control.
• Cool Helmet: Gains an opaque helmet the same gray-blue color as his suit with a dark visor after being changed by Black Hole. Despite living in space, it's not very useful since he doesn't need to breath.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Witnessing Sun kill Ceres is what drives him to abandon hope of joining the planets and makes him turn instead to Black Hole.
• Evil Costume Switch: His spacesuit changes to something much spikier and bulkier after he physically joins Black Hole in the void, with threatening-looking tubes making his shoulders seem larger, the markings on his arms changing from blue to red, and a Cool Helmet hiding his face.
• Friendless Background: He can't recall anyone ever speaking to him, which exacerbated the loneliness of living at the very edge of the group. The closest he had to a friendship was when Earth would occasionally look in his direction and wave.
• Hearing Voices: Black Hole spends a lot of time talking to him in his head, eventually becoming his Only Friend.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Refuses to believe that Black Hole is the monster everyone else says she is, despite the obvious indications.
• Humanoid Abomination: Becomes one like Ceres after meeting Black Hole, gaining a distorted body, extra limbs, and speaking in the same distorted mess of letter that Ceres had.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: His driving motivation is to make friends and not be alone, though he tries to convince himself that the planets are his friends already and he's not really so utterly alone in the world as he is. This desperation for companionship makes him very trusting and easy to manipulate.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Black Hole deliberately keeps the truth of what happened with Ceres (namely, that they were painfully murdering the planets) from him in order to manipulate him into joining her due to disillusionment with what he saw as an forgivable crime.
• Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: The most innocent, harmless person around... who is avoided because his silence and distance from everyone else is misinterpreted as aloofness.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: He gains an extra set of fully functional arms after becoming Black Hole's brainwashed minion.
• Nice Guy: Pluto is timid, kindhearted, perpetually idealistic, and well-meaning.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Stays pretty sedentary for a supposed drifter. Then again, that might just be what Sun calls anyone who hangs around by the solar system who isn't part of it.
• Put on a Bus: He was left to float on his own in the dark after the end of the second comic and wasn't seen or mentioned again for a long while.
• Red Right Hand: After he's changed by Black Hole, he has two thumbs on each hand, same as her.
• Shrinking Violet: Wants desperately to talk to the planets, but is too shy to actually approach them.
• Space Clothes: His design deliberately invokes a spacesuit.
• The Speechless: Dwarf planets can't vocalize or hear the way that planets or stars do; this is something that neither he nor the rest of the solar system is aware of.
• The Unintelligible: His thought bubbles become nothing but jumbled gibberish after he meets Black Hole.
• Was Once A Person: That he was introduced and characterized so sympathetically beforehand makes what he's later turned into even more awful to see.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Staunchly believes that the planets don't mean to leave him out, and that their avoidance of him and fear of Black Hole is all just a big misunderstanding. Even after everything that happens with Ceres and what Black Hole tells him, he still doesn't hate the planets.
  "Maybe we can all still be happy!"

Ceres

A dwarf planet who was consumed by Black Hole prior to the story. They were summoned to the solar system when Pluto asked her to try and sort out the misunderstanding he thought was happening between her, him, and the planets.

That was their first and only appearance, but it had massive repercussions to the entire story, to the extent that Nothing Is the Same Anymore.

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• Ambiguously Evil: Why are they evil? How evil are they? Are they even evil at all? No one knows.
• Broken Faceplate: When they die. It's either the sheer force of the blow (since they were hit in the chest, not directly in the head) or the intense heat of being in contact with Sun that caused it crack.
• Came Back Wrong: Whatever they are now, Black Hole had a pretty firm hand in it by summoning them from her 'mouth'.
• Cool Helmet: A strange transparent glass dome functions as a helmet for them. It's one of limited use, since they don't need to breath. Creepily, it shows only opaque red static when they're killed.
• Enigmatic Minion: Since we don't know what they're saying, it's hard to judge how much free will they have and whether they're actively trying to cause harm or not.
• Gender-Blender Name: Named for the Roman goddess of agriculture, but they aren't female.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: They're killed by being ripped in half by Sun.
• Humanoid Abomination: They speak with such distortion even the captions can't convey what they're saying and look like Pluto but horribly warped (and unlike every other character, they have their face covered). They also cause immense pain and harm to the people around them for no reason that they'll say in service of a being from the void of space.
• Lovecraftian Superpower: Of the World-Wrecking Wave or Agony Beam variety, being able to cause pain and physical harm in people just by being nearby.
• Powers Do the Fighting: Takes no physical action against the planets; Ceres' mere presence is enough to cause them all to be nearly immobilized with pain and cause parts of them to fall off.
• Silent Antagonist: Assuming that their thought bubbles aren't meant to represent distorted speech, they don't say a single word even when Sun is glaring down at them and demanding to know what they're doing and what they want.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Appears for a short amount of time, but massively changes the status quo with their actions and mere presence.
• Space Clothes: In the same vein as Pluto's, they're stylized to seem like they're wearing a spacesuit.
• The Speechless: They are completely unable to communicate with the planets as they are a different species than them.
• The Unintelligible: Their thought bubbles are jumbled gibberish; it's impossible to understand what they're saying.
• Walking Spoiler: Most of their screen time is involved with an intensely plot-important few comics, and most of what they do involves heavy spoilers.
• Was Once A Person: It was only after Black Hole consumed them that they became what they now are.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: They appear for just a comic and a half before Sun kills them.

Stars and Remnants

Sun

"Whether or not he's one of us isn't the issue. It's whether or not he's dangerous."

The one in charge of the planets, and the only star in the solar system. He tends to act somewhat aloof from the planets, and comes off as rather intimidating to them even though he really is just trying to look after them. Lately there's been something wrong with him, both physically and mentally. He's larger now than he was before (even though with the sheer scale of him, it's hard to be sure), and he burns hotter. More pressingly, he keeps his distance from the planets almost constantly now, and when he's around them it's clear that he's barely holding his temper in check while he interacts with them.

While it's implied that he knows more about things going on with the void than he's willing to tell the planets, he also makes it clear that asking questions of any kind around him is a very bad idea.

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• The Aloner: He was utterly alone in space for millions of years before the planets formed, and he describes the loneliness of it as being unbearable.
• Always Someone Better: To Jupiter: he's bigger, stronger, and effortlessly more respected than him to such a degree that Jupiter really doesn't even register as a threat to him. Of course, this just makes Jupiter hate him more.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: It might (or might not) be the reason he ended up as the leader of the solar system, but being able to kill people with a flick of the wrist is most of the reason why no one has seriously tried to replace him.
• Bizarre Alien Psychology: While he feels apparently genuine affection for all of them, Sun doesn't really see the planets as people, instead thinking about them more in terms of objects he possesses or as pets he owns. To him they're things he has a fondness for and a responsibility to protect, but he has little to no recognition of them as sentient beings that are equals to him. He also says in his narration that 'love' isn't something that his species can really feel.
• Gentle Giant: Played with. While the planets are careful around Sun due to his sheer size and him having a bit of a temper, they're confident that he would never hurt any of them, and no matter how irritated he's been at them he never has. But with whatever's going on with him (and especially with the fact that he's had to actually killed someone), it's increasingly becoming uncertain how long it'll last.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: How much of it is his normal personality, and how much is everything that's going on with him is ambiguous. Either way, its very easy to set him off by asking too many questions or even speaking in a tone he doesn't see as respectful enough.
• Head-in-the-Sand Management: Mars points out that he and everyone else tried to warn Sun that something horrible was coming from the void, and Sun refused to listen to them.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: After killing Ceres, due to Pluto not knowing that Sun had tried to talk them down but that the planets were dying and he didn't have many options other than force to make Ceres stop killing them.
• Horror Hunger: The reason he tries to keep his distance from the planets all of a sudden is because he's hungry.
• Just Ignore It: As described in Head-in-the-Sand Management above, he chooses to remain ignorant about the obvious problems plaguing the solar system and actively discourages any discussion or questioning of these issues.
• Large and in Charge: The leader of the solar system, and is several orders of magnitude larger than the planets. Standing on level ground, they barely come up to his knees.
• The Leader: Of the Charismatic subtype (with, on a good day, some overlap with Levelheaded). People do what he says because he's the most intimidating person around, though there's a fair bit of actual trust and respect in there, too.
• Loners Are Freaks: The fact that he rarely talks to anyone now is one of the things that lets Mars know that there's something seriously wrong with him. Given that he didn't use to act that way, it makes sense to be concerned about it.
• Mysterious Backer: He's watched over the planets for as long as they've existed, and genuinely wants to protect them. That doesn't change the fact that they know barely anything about him and that he's at least as much of a danger to them as anything from outside the solar system is, whether he wants to be a danger to them or not.
• Not Himself: Lately, he's been acting far more aggressive and standoffish than he normally is, and refuses to listen to the concerns of the people around him. To the planets, it's a definite cause for concern, and in Mars' case, outright fear.
• Older Than They Look: Zig-Zagged. It seems like it at first, since Venus says that he was around before the planets even existed even though he looks the same age as them... And then Word of God came that he's older than the planets, sure, but only barely. Except that 'barely', for beings like them, is around a hundred million years.
• Phosphor-Essence: In his first appearance he glowed, which made sense given that he's made of fire. It was most evident when he was around other people, who got tinted yellow-orange from the light. It can be chalked up to Early-Installment Weirdness since after that the coloring style of the comic changed and that effect wasn't seen again.
• Planet Eater: He's trying his best to subvert it and not become one, despite his Horror Hunger for the planets.
• Wreathed in Flames: He's actually made of fire, and it isn't just cosmetic— Mars mentions that he burns too hot to get close to, and it's shown that when he touches something (like, say, a certain dwarf planet...) it catches on fire.

Black Hole

"YOU CAN ALWAYS SEE ME. OUT HERE."

A mysterious being and the personification of a black hole who lives(?) in the void beyond the solar system. She's up to something, and takes a particular interest in dwarf planets. She's the primary antagonist of the story... probably.

Black Hole is a cryptic presence, communicating only with Pluto (who of course isn't in contact with anyone else himself), though the rest of the solar system can to some extent sense her watching. She's skilled at manipulation and at lying, while at the same time revealing very little about herself to the people she interacts with. Her ability to set people against each other combined with her seemingly-supernatural abilities to control people she's consumed make her one of the most formidable characters in the comic.

Her appearance was one of the markers of the comic becoming more serious.

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• The Assimilator: Implied by a combination of cryptic comments from the creators and Pluto mentioning that he can almost hear other voices mixed in with hers sometimes.
• Classy Cravat: Black Hole's not a good person, but at least her fashion sense is good.
• Bad Samaritan: The kindness she shows Pluto is not at all out of benevolence: she's just gaining his trust in order to better manipulate him.
• The Corrupter: Persuades Pluto that the others in the solar system are violent animals, eventually driving him to abandon his attempts to befriend them under the belief that they're bad people.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: Her head looked much different in her first appearance than in later ones, appearing more like a black hole contained inside a crystal ball than a literal black hole the way it does in later comics.
• Evil Is Bigger: She's about the size of a star, and is easily at least three or four times larger than Pluto when he finally reaches her.
• Evil Laugh: The first the audience ever hears from her is her long, unnerving laughter. This continues in her later appearances, usually right before she does something horrible.
• Faux Affably Evil: Is the first person to speak to Pluto and tell him that she'll be his friend. Of course, she then summons Ceres to attack and nearly kill the planets in order to persuade Pluto to join her.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: She's definitely acting according to a plan— what that plan is, exactly, is the question.
• Humanoid Abomination: Her appearance alone unnerves the characters who see her, she comes from 'the void' rather than any definable point of origin, she has Lovecraftian Superpowers, and even her dialog looks unnatural, appearing directly onto the page in giant pixel font.
• Knight of Cerebus: While there was some seriousness earlier in what was happening with Sun and some lighthearted moments after, her introduction marked where the comic took a definite turn for the darker.
• Lovecraftian Superpower: The way she can 'summon' dwarf planets, by either manifesting them in her head or literally vomiting them up;. These are dwarf planets who she consumed, warped, and then brought back wrong, and are pretty much Humanoid Abominations themselves.
• Manipulative Bastard: She manages to simultaneously convince Pluto that the others are violent, hostile, and would kill him as soon as the chance arises, and convince the others that the drifters on the edge of the solar system really are dangerous, hostile threats- creating the same feelings that she had told Pluto they'd always had towards him. And she did all of it without even needing to be physically present.
• Outside-Context Problem: All the other characters were from the solar system with near-human abilities^note well, except for Sun, with no indication to either the characters or the readers that personifications of black holes from the void with psychic powers even existed.
• Power of the Void: As good of an explanation of her powers as we have.
• Purple Is the New Black: Her head is depicted as varying shades of purple rather the pure black of an actual black hole, presumably because that would look boring and less dynamic against a black background.
• Red Right Hand: She has two thumbs on each hand— one regular one, one where her little finger should be. Those changed by her have the same thing.
• Telepathic Spacemen: She has the ability to talk to people telepathically, can hear their thoughts as they respond, and of course resides in space.
• The Voice: Spends some time as a voice in Pluto's head, though the audience had already seen her in the final panels of #9. Pluto hadn't seen her, though.

Others

???

Remember this guy? From the intro to the first comic?

Yeah, neither do we.

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• Ambiguous Gender: Even more than the others, since it was never introduced or spoken about even by the authors.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: It is the only character to appear during the opening to a comic who isn't involved in the comic itself...unless you start theorizing it was somehow involved in sending the meteor or something.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Has one normal long sleeve, and one short sleeve with an arm guard.
• Living Prop: It's just there to decorate the intro.
• Losing Your Head: Doesn't seem to have a head at all, which ties into the Non-Standard Character Design. Maybe the glowing thing is its head?
• No Name Given: Since it was never actually introduced.
• Non-Standard Character Design: The strange glowing spiral/tendrils going through it/coming out of it are unlike anything seen in the other characters. Plus, it's the only one to have an actual neck.
• Rock Monster: Looks like it's made of rough gray stone, darker and less blue than Mercury.
• The Speechless/The Voiceless: Hard to say which, but it doesn't talk.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Never seen since the first comic.