Apama - The Undiscovered Animal is an independent superhero comic created by Ted Sikora, Milo Miller, and Benito Gallego. It is vaguely connected to Sikora and Miller's independent film Hero Tomorrow.
Eons ago, the mighty apama defeated the lion in order to become the king of the beasts. Disgusted that no other creature could match his power, the apama disappeared, vowing to rule the other animals in obscurity.
In the present day, perpetually luckless ice-cream truck driver Ilyia Zjarsky stumbles upon a mysterious cave in the woods outside of Cleveland, where he finds a weird suit and a diagram portraying a pose that could supposedly unlock the secret powers of the apama. Despite not knowing what an apama is, Ilyia dedicates himself to replicating the pose, and is rewarded with superhuman powers, which he uses to defend Cleveland from a host of bizarre villains.
This series contains examples of:
- The Alcoholic: Jesse Schraeder drinks quite a bit in order to deal with his crappy life. This plays a role in his becoming the Lawn Mower Man."Last night in his depression, he drank a little more than usual. And since the usual is a lot, a a little can make quite a difference."
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy:
- Jesse Schraeder's transformation into the Lawn Mower Man involves getting very, very drunk and inexplicably driving his riding mower onto a skylight. Naturally, the glass breaks under the weight of the mower and he plunges into a lab below.
- In "Ten Cent Beer Night", United Federal Oil tries to win back some public goodwill by sponsoring the beer for a baseball game, allowing the stadium to sell beer for ten cents a bottle, with no limits on how much beer one person can buy. As one might expect, a whole lot of drunken, stupid behavior ensues.
- Author Appeal: In-universe, Vica falls in love with Ilyia because she's an expy of Robyn, the girlfriend of David, the supposed creator of Apama, so of course she was always destined to end up with Ilyia.
- Betty and Veronica: As the series goes on, Ilyia finds himself in a love triangle with Vica Tilorielle and Trina Kukula.
- Brand X:
- United Federal Oil is a stand-in for British Petroleum, which has its US corporate offices in Cleveland.
- The Cleveland Grovers are a stand-in for the Cleveland Indians, whose notorious "Ten Cent Beer Night" debacle inspired the "Ten Cent Beer Night" story in Apama.
- Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: Many of the characters in the series are modeled after actors from Hero Tomorrow. Ilyia is Perren Hedderson, Vica is Joceyln Wrzosek, Jesse is Bryan Jalovec, and Elwin Clements, the CEO of United Federal Oil, is Pat Milo. The various characters associated with the "Nothing Like Vaudeville" arc are modeled after actors from the Near West Theatre.
- Creator Provincialism: The series is based in Cleveland and the surrounding area, where Ted Sikora and Milo Miller are from. This created some difficulties for artist Benito Gallego, who lives and works in Spain; Sikora and Miller had to send him photographs of buildings in Cleveland in order to give him an idea of how the city looks.
- Dating Catwoman: After his fling with Trina fizzles out, Ilyia tries rebounding with Nikki St Clair, a struggling actress who he figures won't give him too much grief about the fact that he's a barely-solvent ice-cream man. Unfortunately for him, Nikki turns out to be the Tap Dance Killer, a deadly supervillainess.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Million-Year Hunger is a mass of tentacles centered around what appears to be a giant brain. It's so old that it was around back when the moon was still part of Earth.
- Hidden Weapons: Hurricane Lizzy has crude knives attached to the ends of her extremely long sleeves. Her main combat strategy is whipping the sleeves at her opponents.
- Horror Hippies: Regina and her cult are holdovers from the sixties who've been waiting for the Apama to appear so that they could fight him.
- Intrepid Reporter: Subverted with Trina Kukula, a reporter who sought out Regina and her cult, thinking it would be an easy, headline-grabbing story, and instead almost got killed for her troubles. Now she struggles to leave her cabin, afraid that Regina will track her down again.
- Knight of Cerebus: Apama's battle with Lawn Mower Man is mostly comedic, but the battle with the Million-Year Hunger is serious business. Not only does it kill a lot of civilians, but it manages to render one of Ilyia's hands intangible and screws up his powers for a while. And then Regina shows up, kicks Apama's ass, and carves a nasty line in Ilyia's chest.
- Lemony Narrator: David, the series' narrator, puts way too much effort into his narration.
- Lost in Character: Actors Nikki St Clair, Vincent Reed, and Klaus Mirogold are tricked into imbibing a substance that turns them into the villains Tap Dance Killer, Sir Terror, and Fletcher, respectively.
- Master of the Levitating Blades: Lawnmower Man has the ability to mentally control flying rods, which can tear through solid matter if they spin around fast enough.
- Mistaken for Racist: Jesse Schraeder's lawn mowing business fell apart when the local news discovered that he was advertising different price structures for different neighborhoods, with the implication that black customers were paying a different rate than white ones.
- Monster Clown: Punchline, formerly Drayton Hayes, is an ex-boxer who was altered into a massive clown-themed bruiser.
- Professional Killer:
- Before becoming the Ruster, Alan Friedrich was a "fixer" for United Federal Oil. Much of his job entailed making problems go away for the company, usually through killing people.
- The Tap Dance Killer persona is a cold-blooded assassin.
- Sell-Out: In issue 12, Ilyia resorts to doing a promotional stunt for a mattress store in exchange for a thousand dollars.
- Shout-Out:
- The first issue features a cameo by Flaming Carrot, as a thanks to his creator Bob Burden for helping Sikora and Miller with their film and comic-book career.
- Issue 12 features a cameo by Lloyd Kaufman, of Troma fame.
- Show Within a Show:
- The series was conceived as a comic book that might have been created by David, the protagonist from the film Hero Tomorrow, with Ilyia being an Author Avatar of David and Vica being a version of his girlfriend Robyn. Lawn Mower Man, the first villain, is a version of Greg, David's nemesis.
- The "Nothing Like Vaudeville" arc involves Ilyia getting cast in a play called Nothing Like Vaudeville (which is an actual musical created by Ted Sikora and his brother Kurt.)
- Single Substance Manipulation: Lawn Mower Man has the power to manipulate flying rods
of ufology. - Slasher Smile: Hurricane Lizzy has a nearly-permanent deranged grin, a result of the treatments that were supposed to fix her leg muscles.
- Soft Water: Tragically subverted when Apama's battle with Ruster on the Superior Bridge results in some poor woman's car falling into the river below. While Apama's superhuman powers allow him to dive in after her without serious injury, the woman, Veronica Yvette Alvarez, is already dead by the time he fishes her out of the river, having sustained a fatal injury when the car hit the water.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Apama can talk to animals, but it doesn't do him a lot of good, as most of them have weird syntax.
- Spin-Off: The series has resulted in two spin-offs - Tap Dance Killer, about the eponymous villain, and Bloom, a prequel series that explores the origins of Regina and her cult. A third spin-off, Punchline and the Vaude-Villains, about Tap Dance Killer's teammates, began in 2022.
- Super-Senses: Apama has heightened senses; he is able to hear someone screaming several blocks away.
- Super-Speed: Ilyia estimates that after being empowered by the spirit of the Apama, he's able to run fifty miles an hour.
- Super-Strength: Part of Apama's power set is strength, which Ilyia compares to that of a gorilla.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Ilyia tries to deliver a haymaker to Jesse, but because the latter is wearing armor and super-durability is not part of the Apama power set, Ilyia screws up his arm.
- Was Once a Man: Fletcher's minion Hurricane Lizzy is later revealed to have been Elizabeth Hale, Klaus Mirogold's beloved disabled girlfriend. When Klaus became Ivan P. Fletcher, he discovered a possible cure for Elizabeth's condition that allowed her to walk without her crutches, but the treatment was imperfect and left her mentally unstable.
- Writer on Board: The series is supposedly being written by David from Hero Tomorrow, and thus aspects of it are deliberately written as the power-fantasy of a frustrated pothead. The most notable example of this is Lawn Mower Man being modeled after David's nemesis Greg.
