Cyberpunk 2077: Where's Johnny
Cyberpunk 2077: Where's Johnny? is a graphic novel by Bartosz Sztybor and illustrated by Giannis Milonogiannis. It takes place in the Cyberpunk 2077 and Cyberpunk 2020 settings.
A hardboiled journalist, Wallace (formerly: Lyle Thompson), is bent on taking down the corrupt corporations of Night City finally gets his chance to do it. Somebody nuked the headquarters of a major corporation and rumor has it, it was the infamous Johnny Silverhand.
Hired by a famous former pop star, Queen Stetson, to find his body, Wallace has to figure out whether or not his journalistic integrity is worth the eddies he'd otherwise make. Also, who is willing to kill to cover up the truth of what really happened that day?
Published by Dark Horse Comics, the comic was originally published as three issues and sponsored by Rockstar Energy Drinks.
This comic book provides examples of:
- Apathetic Citizens: The Night City residents have no interest in rising up against the corporations or social injustice.
- Arc Words: "Who gives a shit?"
- Bait-and-Switch: Wallace is being led by the lure of finding Johnny Silverhand's body but the actual mystery is a murderous Arasaka executive named Sono.
- Bittersweet Ending: Wallace probably gets killed by Arasaka or jailed after he murders Sono. Probably. However, if he does, there's one less corporate scumbag in the city.
- Bread and Circuses: Wallace believes that the corporations keep the public numb with this.
- Collector of the Strange: Queen Stetson claims she wants to retrieve Johnny Silverhand's namesake arm for one of these. This is all a Batman Gambit to get Wallace on a story to expose Arasaka executive, Takhashi Sono.
- Cozy Catastrophe: There's no sign of the mass homelessness, death, despair, and chaos of the RPG's interpretation of the Arasaka Tower being destroyed. While the nuclear detonation is mentioned, it seems confined to the Arasaka Towers like Johnny Silverhand intended.
- Doomed by Canon: Players of Cyberpunk 2077 know that Johnny Silverhand not only died in the bombing but that his body was buried in an unmarked grave in the Night City oil fields. It will never be discovered by Wallace.
- Dramatic Irony: The public believes Militech blew up Arasaka Towers as part of the Fourth Corporate War. Others believe it was Johnny Silverhand. It was actually both with Militech providing Johnny Silverhand the nuclear weapon to carry out the attack.
- Expy: Wallace was originally Lyle Thompson in the initial release. All they've done is change the name in the compilation.
- Foreign Queasine: Wallace doesn't like the horrible soup that is offered him by Korean migrant workers.
- Gang of Hats: The Silverhands are all dress up like Johnny Silverhand. Wallace thinks they're ridiculous but is jealous that Johnny had that sort of effect on people.
- Intrepid Reporter: Wallace is a determined WNS reporter who wants to take down the corporations in Night City, particularly Arasaka.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Takhashi Sono threw the body of one of his murder victims in with the Arasaka Tower Bombing's dead.
- Moral Myopia: Wallace considers the destruction of Arasaka Tower to be a heroic act and that exposing Johnny Silverhand as the perpetrator will make him a martyr. This despite the fact that it killed a massive amount of innocent people including eleven janitors who suffocated to death in a shelter.
- No Ending: We don't know if Wallace pulls the trigger on Sono or not. He probably does.
- Organ Theft: A group of scavengers rip out cybernetics from bodies in the morgue.
- Retcon: The protagonist of the story was originally Lyle Thompson, famous Cyberpunk 2020 media and still looks identical to him. Then someone pointed out that Lyle Thompson was at the nuclear destruction of Arasaka Towers and remade him into a Expy in the reprint edition.
- Series Continuity Error: Quite a few.
- The protagonist was originally Lyle Thompson before it was recognized he was at the Arasaka Tower bombing in-game canon. It was later corrected in the compilation.
- The Fourth Corporate War is still ongoing in the comic despite the Arasaka Bombing being what brought the Fourth Corporate War to an end.
- Night City was reduced to a desperate hellhole after the nuclear bombing with most of the population dead or homeless.
- Arasaka was blamed for the destruction of Night City by detonating the nuke at their own towers, not Militech or Johnny Silverhand.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: The broken down daughter of the migrant family becomes a glamorous bartender at the Atlantis when she's at work.
- Stylistic Suck: WNS creates Corporc as a cartoon about a corpo who gets a pig nose. They're more interested in this than finding Johnny Silverhand's body.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Wallace discovers that his efforts to expose corruption in Night City actually have many people look up to him.
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Wallace believes that Johnny Silverhand and the other perpetrators of the Arasaka Tower Bombing are rebels against an evil system.
