Comic Book / Kerry Kross

The second reprint's first volume cover

Kerry Kross is an Italian comic book written by Luciano Secchi (Max Bunker) and drawn by Dario Perucca, the same duo you may recognize from another comic, Alan Ford, first published in 1994.

It follows the story of the titular character Kerry Kross, private detective and former FBI ace agent, Kerry is also a bona-fide antiheroine who's not afraid to fight criminals with violence, certainly knows how to use a gun and sure as Hell laws and regulations aren't getting in her way, way carved through violent criminals, dirty businessmen, corrupt cops and much more. Because of a metal sliver stuck into her brains, she knows she may die at any moment, and makes sure she doesn't waste a single minute of her life.

Kerry Kross is a comic closer to other dark works from Bunker such as Satanik or Criminal, featuring swearwords, violence, drug, sex and an openly lesbian main character. However, such bold and anvil-subtle approach has lead to a much trouble, and the publication was troubled and often subjected to hiatuses and downright low popularity. Still, Kerry remain one of Bunker's favourite characters, and he kept trying relaunching her.

Kerry Kross later reappears as a co-protagonist of another series, Beverly Kerr, with another main character and different story focus.

Tropes:

• All Asians Know Martial Arts: A random Vietnamese henchwoman tries to attack Kerry with kung fu moves. Kerry just shoots her in the chest.
• Alliterative Name: Invoked, not only the protagonist's name is Kerry Kross, but even when undercover she uses aliases with the same initials.
• Amazonian Beauty: In addition to being a beautiful blonde with a curvacious silhouette, Kerry is often seen training at the gym and is quite fit.
• Anti-Hero: Kerry. She's the protagonist and she fights the bad guys. She also has no qualms about using lethal force and violence at the drop of a hat or underhanded tricks, not only to fight crime but, more often than not, for sheer personal gain.
• Ascended Extra: The first series only had 11 issues. The second "official" edition adds four issues set before the first one and nine more to continue the series.
• Asshole Victim: More often than not, the people at the end of Kerry's bullets.
• Attempted Rape: In her first volume, Beverly is almost assaulted by the slimy politician Hopkins, but is rescued by Kerry.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • In issue 20, when a heart-broken Kerry is trying to buy drugs and is knocked out by some thugs, Nancy (who had followed her) shows up and goes as far as killing one of the thugs threatening her to get her to safety.
  • In Carreer Women, Kerry arrives in the nick of time to save Beverly from her Ax-Crazy stalker.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: Kerry often confronts crooks, mafia, criminals and delinquents of the worse kind. Some of her methods and motivations though are highly questionable.
• Broken Ace: Kerry excels in many fields both as a lawyer and an FBI agent. She also has a crappy love life, no friends and there's a splinter in her brain that could potentially kill her or send her into a coma any time.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Kerry to Melania, especially when her friend (with apparently no ulterior reason) invites her for bowling.
• Closet Key: Kerry was this to both Melania Starr (whose first sexual experience with a man was seriously disappointing), Nancy and Beverly.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Earlier episodes telling Kerry's background are devoid of excessive profanity, but later ones have a veritable crapload of profanities and insults, almost once per page.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Kerry Kross is a lesbian Cowboy Cop and an all around Action Girl. Beverly Kerr is a brave criminal psychiatrist and much more prone to thinking rather than action.
• Cowboy Cop: The times when Kerry can solve a case without killing someone can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Lampshaded by Tucker in An incredible kidnapping, who asks her if she ran out of bullet when she captures a poisoner wannabe without fatalities.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Sindy dies in Kerry's arm, after confessing why she betrayed her. Also Marianne, in a case of Let Them Die Happy .
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Patrick Harlington, Kerry's boss, stumbles into her wife Jacqueline and Kerry (whom he tried to seduce) having wild sex in his house. After he stops himself from murdering them both, he plans to lure Kerry into a trap which results in an explosion and her getting the metal shard embedded in her brains.
  • John, a colleague of Melania to who she's very close, shows up with a bouquet of roses for her. Kerry threatens him at gunpoint to leave.
  • After a motorbyke crash, Kerry is recovered in an hospital. As soon as she's back to her senses and realizes that the doctor is about to show the scans of her skull to Melania she beat him up, bound him and the nurse after threatening them with a gun and burns the scan before leaving.
• Double Standard: Patrick Harlington has no shame nor qualms in trying to hit on Kerry even if he's a married man, and probably plans to bed her in spite of his wife. When his actually bisexual wife cheats on him with Kerry (whom she met thanks to Patrick) he's so furious that he almost murders them on the spot before deciding to plot to send Kerry to her death.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Kerry is a regular at the night club Indigo Club, where she often ogles and gropes the topless waitresses and strippers.
• Exact Words: In Case Leicester, Howard Bridge, a rich tycoon, hires Kerry to babysit his nimphomaniac daughter Irene, saying that she mustn't let her get on with a man at the party they're attending. When Kerry catches her in the toilet doing another girl she shrugs and let her be, since she's not with a man.
• Fate Worse than Death: Invoked trope with Kerry's condition: the metal splinter is embedded in her brain: currently harmless, it may loosen itself and fatally pierce Kerry's brain to death or cause her to go into a coma. May explain her reckless life style.
• First Love: Melania Starr was Kerry's girlfriend during college, and despite her decision to take the distance from Kerry and getting married, Kerry isn't deterred and eventually forces herself back in her life.
• Friendly Enemy: Marianne is an hitwoman and, technically, Kerry's enemy. She's still in love with her, and affectionate enough to send her flowers and visit her when she's in Paris, feel pity when she learns she's hunted by a certain hitman, and when mortally wounded, she seeks for her help.
• Full-Frontal Assault: In one late issue, Kerry appears completely nude (and no censorship) to trick some criminals who took hostages, somehow hiding her pistol in her hair. From that volume onward, this trope is seen more frequently.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: Subverted. Harlington finds Kerry and his wife copulating on the bed, he later says he was disgusted by it, comparing the two to twitching worms.
• Good Is Not Nice: Kerry is overall good-natured and has good intentions. At times she's a bitch though.
• I Am a Humanitarian: The big twist of Case Leicester: the private club based in the restaurant "La vie en rose" and owned by Kerry's friend secretly kidnaps famous celebrities, cook them and eat them in a great feast. The sight is so horrible even an hard-boiled detective like Kerry stumbles back in disgust.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: Zigzagged with Joke in Death Valley: he's enamored with Kerry and, essentially, wants to bang her. However, despite having her in his power and naked, he refuses to rape her, as he considers himself a gentleman, and rather tries to have her agree to have sex with him by threatening her friends.
• Iconic Outfit: Kerry has two: a formal tailleur and a black motorbike tracksuit with the zodiacal symbol of Virgo on the back.
• Intoxication Ensues: That one time a young Kerry actually used cocaine to cook a cake... and then showed up plastered at work.
• Irony: Melania's husband hires Kerry to find out if his wife is cheating on him. Kerry is actually still in love with her and plans to take her back.
• Japanese Politeness: Kio, who briefly works alongside Kerry, could almost be a parody of this trope, bowing politely to Kerry and calling her "honorable" whenever they speak.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Kerry is rude, flippant, abrasive and has little qualms about violating the law. She still has moments of genuine kindess and is very kind to children.
  • Tucker may be a mysoginist asshole obsessed with arresting Kerry, but he refuses to resort to illegal tricks to achieve this result and when he learns that one of his cops may be responsible for a break-in with murder and rape, he's adamant in wanting to arrest him.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Commissioner Tucker is a rageaholic mysoginist obsessed with framing Kerry. That being said, Kerry's methods and attitude are not exactly the best advisable behaviour.
• Karma Houdini: Kerry often uses illegal crime-fighting methods and even downright vigilante-ish stuff, but she always manages to evade all legal punishment.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: In Winds from the Past, a mute and half-blind Polish woman and her niece ask Kerry to help her unmask a former Nazi collabouratrice who ran the camp she was interned to and was responsible for her scars and missing tongue. She succeeds, but not exactly in the way she thought...
• Karmic Death: James Laurel kills Nancy's boyfriend and rapes her, scaring her for life. Nancy is ultimately the one who puts a bullet through his skull.
• Kill and Replace: In Nightmarish Weekend, the pro-american Sheikh from Kuwait mentions that he has a brother who may want him dead. It's revealed that said brother managed to pull this under Kerry's nose in the middle of the story to sabotage his brother's attempts to make agreements between Kuwait and the U.S.A.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Her name was Satanik is, essentially, one big homage to Satanik herself, who apparently evaded death by possessing Beverly's patient.
• Let Them Die Happy: Kerry tells an agonizing Marianne she killed her killer, Ramon, when she actually didn't yet.
• Lethal Chef: Despite all her skill, Kerry couldn't cook a proper lunch not even if her life were at stake. Her roasts tend to turn into charcoal.
• Lipstick Lesbian: Kerry is very feminine, but also openly lesbian, perhaps outrageously so, regularly having sex with other women.
• Made of Iron: Lampshaded with the hitman known as "Shark": as he runs towards Kerry, he's hit by no less than five bullets and keeps running at her and slashing. Only when he's shot through the head he dies.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: While Kerry doesn't actively murder Melania's husband, the latter does suffer a fatal heart attack while confronting her after finding out that she had a relationship with his wife. This allows Kerry to take Melania back with her.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In Issue 20, Kerry almost falls back into taking drugs again, but at the last second she realizes how low she went (which also included murdering at least 4 thug, mind you) and throws the heroine away.
• No Ending: Due to low sales and popularity, the series ends on volume 25, with Kerry herself appearing as a secondary character on another comic, Beverly Kerr. Secchi is optimistic enough to add a "the end for now" caption at the end of the latest story.
• Not Quite Dead: Marianne is seemingly fatally shot in the shower by Ramon. She pretty much overdoses on painkillers to survive long enough in order to reach Kerry, tell her of Ramon and guide her to him so that she can be avenged.
• Odd Couple: Cowboy Cop and rough womanizer Kerry is paired with a shrink, Chang Ohio, who's polite, demure and The Stoic.
• Off with His Head!: In the third issue of Beverly Kerr, a psychopath Stalker with a Crush seems to have a fetish for beheading women and stick their heads on a different body of his liking. Her name was Satanik has a Serial Killer, seemingly possessed by Satanik, beheading her victim and collecting their heads in a fridge.
• Only in It for the Money: In Case Leicester, the Man Behind the Man is the brother of the victim, who was cooked to be eaten in a mockery of a fancy dinner. However, he didn't do it out of cannibalism, he just wanted her dead to get his hands on the inheritance.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Melania's mother-in-law refuses to let her keep her daughter, both because she can provide a better education but also because she believes she can't grow up with a lesbian couple.
• Rape as Drama: Kerry's assistant Nancy is assaulted and raped by Corrupt Cop James Laurel, which leaves her traumatized.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: To the point that Kerry pretty much claims that violent murder is the only possible punishment for rapists who'll otherwise get away with their crimes because of an indulgent law system and society.
• Ready for Lovemaking: When Kerry inflitrates Harlington's bedroom, Jacqueline turns on the lights, revealing herself sitting naked on the couch besides the bed.
• Really Gets Around: While Kerry's great love was Melania, after they lost contact she had plenty of partners and one-night stands. It's implied she pretty mush slept with all the strippers of her favourite club.
• Recursive Crossdressing: In Winds of the Past, Kerry puts on a fancy evening dress and a dark wig to infiltrate a party, but accidentally shows up the document of a male friend. When the butler questions it, she "confesses" to be a transvestite (in her defense, she does have a slightly masculine facial traits and a toned physique).
• Refuge in Audacity: At the end of Anatomy of a Kidnapping, Kerry murders Donald Morrison (who faked the kidnapping of his daughter to pay some gambling debts) and made it seems a suicide. In the following issue, she's hired by the Mafia to find out if his death was a suicide or not. She manages to pass it off as a suicide by showing medical scans of her own skull, claiming that the shard was actually a brain tumor he had.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: When Kerry learns of Nancy's rape, she actually tells her to not reveal anything to the cops and plans to hunt down the rapist and murder him herself. When Melania calls her out for being a vigilante, she gives an angry rant about how many rapists and murderers have evaded serious punishment with Freudian Excuse and whatnot.
• Second Love: Beverly Kerr to Kerry. Noticeably, she's basically a near-clone of Melania.
• Sex Goddess: Kerry has bed a surprisingly high amount of women, and they all highly praise her sexual prowess.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: Sex scenes are rarely shown explicitly, usually cutting at the post-coital scene.
• Shoot the Hostage Taker: An almost Running Gag, also discussed: while Kerry is usually able to defuse any Hostage Situation by shooting the perpetrator in the head, her colleagues usually talks her against it as she may put the hostage in danger. She doesn't give a damn.
• Stalker with a Crush: Kerry for Melania, even after she leaves her, gets married and has a daughter. The fact that she reciprocates is the only thing that keeps it from becoming morbid... Until she actually tries to ruin Melania's second marriage by downright kidnapping her.
• Stupid Sexy Flanders: How Beverly seems to consider Kerry after being kissed by her a second time. She eventually falls for her for real and starts an affair.
• Sympathetic Adulterer: There are at least two instances of Kerry having sex with a married woman, including Melania. In both cases, they seem to have repressed lesbian feelings and their husbands are portrayed as unlikeable jerkasses anyway.
• Talking Down the Suicidal: Kerry being Kerry, she doesn't try to reason with the suicide wannabe, but just casually mentions just how badly his body will be fucked up after jumping from the skyscraper's window, eventually making him back down in fear.
• 'Tis Only a Bullet in the Brain: Variation, Kerry survived an explosive trap but a small shiver is embedded in her brain: it cannot be safely removed and may unlodge and pierce the surrounding tissue, but it doesn't stop Kerry's life.
• Too Kinky to Torture: In Tragedy on the Snow, Kerry tries to beat up Femme Fatale Marianne to force her to give up information. Unfortunately, she's such a masochist she actually enjoys being beaten up by her.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Melania starts off as sweet and caring before getting her hand on a massive inheritance. This goes as far as marrying just to get even more money, treating her husband (who's genuinely in love with her) like shit, with no consideration for his feelings, even planning a flash divorce. She has no reaction when the poor sod is Driven to Suicide and treats his furious mother with annoyance.
• Twist Ending: In Winds of the Past, the woman accused of being the Nazi Kerry was payed to hunt down reveals that she was actually the victim, while old woman who hired Kerry and was killed earlier was the real Nazi torturer who wanted to get back at her for plucking out her eye back in the concentration camp.
• Visual Pun: In a redrawn flashback in volume 25, the scene where Kerry is having sex with Jacqueline Harlington features in the foreground a lamp with a suspiciously breast-shaped dome.
• Woman Scorned: Sidney, Kerry's secondary girlfriend, actually tried to blackmail her out of jealousy when she dumped her for Melania. She even goes as far as hatching a plot with corrupt policemen to murder Kerry.
• Yellow Peril: Kerry ends up fighting a Triad (with a base in a Chinese Restaurant, natch) who are blackmailing her friend Ohio Chang.
• You Need to Get Laid: Kerry rudely remarks that Tucker needs to fuck more often to calm down.