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Deff Skwadron is a comic set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, following the adventures of the titular squadron of Ork fighta-bomma pilots of Waaagh! Badthug in their war against Waaagh! Grimlug.

Said pilots include:

  • Uzgob "Maverork", Skwadron Kommanda
  • Gimzod, Uzgob's mek, navigator and smartboy
  • Raznuts "Da Goose", Uzgob's luckless sekond-in-kommand
  • Gorthunk "Killboy", either the worst pilot in the skwadron or the best, depending on whether you happen to be on his side or not.


Deff Skwadron provides examples of:

  • Abnormal Ammo: Using squigs as soldiers is an old standby among the Orks. Stapping bombs to squigs and sending them charging into vehicles and infantry is also an old standby among Orks. Dropping live, unexploding squigs as the bomb, though, is a bit outside normal orky tactics, so Grimlug's boyz aren't expecting it when Uzgob does just that on Badthug's orders.
  • Absent Aliens: Inverted, as humans are nowhere to be seen and instead the comic focuses on Ork vs Ork battles.
  • Accidental Misnaming: Badthug can't bother to get Uzgob's name right (for him it's Ugzob).
  • Ace Pilot: Deff Skwadron have a reputation of not only succeeding in their missions, but also surviving them as well. Uzgob, in particular, has flown 52 missions with 89 confirmed kills by the end of the comic, and was only shot down twice.
  • Aerial Canyon Chase: In 38 Seconds Over Big Scrap Alley, Deff Skwadron approaches the heavily defended gargant yard by flying through a system of narrow canyons. Gimzod picked out a route that would be mostly safe, but a couple planes crash and burn anyway. Later, as Deff Skwadron is pursuing a messenger squigeon, it flies into a canyon. Goose tries to follow it, taking his time to line up the shot... and promptly crashes.
  • Airstrike Impossible:
    • Sink da Grimlug involves an airstrike against a gigantic ship equipped with anti air weapons. The orks end up landing (crashing) onto it and just igniting the ship's ammo supplies after it becomes clear they can't destroy it via airstrike.
    • 38 Seconds Over Big Scrap Alley is a bombing run over heavy anti-air fire. Rather than dropping bombs, they drop in hungry squigs (and an unfortunate Killboy).
  • Amusing Injuries: Uzgob's copilot in Da Sekret Weapon gets bandaged up between panels.
  • And the Adventure Continues: The final issue shows the squadron chasing a "messenger squigeon", feeding it to a squig hawk by accident, and then trying to chase down the hawk because it's now got the secret dispatch papers they were ordered to recover.
  • Artificial Limbs: Killboy's long list of crash landings has led to him having so many bionik limb replacements that he's effectively immune to death by squig: he simply doesn't have enough fleshy parts left for the vicious little bastards to bite.
  • A-Team Firing: All these guns? Firing repeatedly and simultaneously, are incapable of hitting a bird-sized target moving towards them. (Justified, since Orks vastly prefer volume of fire to accuracy.)
  • Attack! Attack! Attack!: Even by Orkish standards, Killboy is obsessively aggressive and tends to break off from whatever plan the squadron was supposed to be following in order to attack the closest target... or at least he tends to do so earlier than everybody else.
    "The best means of defence is attack, and the best means of attack is a really really big one, right, with lots of boys an' dead big shooty things an' what have ya." Drek Zog, ork smartboy.
  • Battleship Raid: Sink da Grimlug has Deff Skwadron raid an immense, heavily armed and armored battleship belonging to the enemy. They all get shot down, and Uzgob and Gimzod have to climb aboard it and manually detonate its ammo reserves.
  • Binary Suns: "We came outta the sun - well, one of 'em anyway."
  • Black Humor: As expected for a story about Orks at war, a lot of humor is derived from people dying or being maimed in a variety of graphic ways.
  • Born Lucky: invokedUzgob considers Killboy this, and happily dumps him into the most lethal situations just to see what he'll do (or if he'll finally die).
  • Bling of War: Warboss Badthug wears a heavily decorated mockup of human military uniforms, complete with a Chest of Medals and a Commissar Cap.
  • Butt-Monkey: Raznuts always gets shot down before reaching the target, and Uzgob is always happy to test the wing cannons against him.
  • Captain Crash: Killboy. 35 missions flown, 35 replacement fighta-bommaz needed afterwards, 35 major bionik procedures.
    Uzgob: Who's that flash git still flyin' without 'is wings, Gimzod?
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder:
    • Kannibal Skwadron doesn't show up for duty because they're thinking of switching sides. And of course, nearly half the kills a pilot scores are from his own side.
    • It's rather telling that Uzgob's immediate plan for a hijacked enemy plane is to go and bomb a rival skwadron.
  • Cool Plane: Da megabomma is enormous and bristling with as many guns as could be welded onto it, which makes it glorious enough to an Ork mindset that its eventual pilot has to pick his jaw off the floor when he first sees it.
  • Comedic Sociopathy: Again, orks.
    Gimzod: There goes Raznuts, boss.
    Uzgob: 'E make it out in one piece?
    Gimzod: Fraid so, boss.
    Uzgob: Lucky git. Don't s'pose there's time to turn back and test out the wing kannons on 'im?
  • Cuteness Proximity: Well, Dakka Proximity in this case. When his Warboss introduces Uzgob to a building-sized fighter-bomber with guns sticking out of literally every available surface, Uzgob goes all googly-eyed.
    Uzgob: Flamin' Mork, Boss... it's... it's... Zog me, it's BOOTIFUL.
  • Dope Slap: Uzgob has a tendency to deliver these to Gimzod when he gets cheeky. He is, in turn, the victim of these from his boss, Warboss Badthug.
  • Drives Like Crazy: More like Flies Like Crazy, although Deff Skwadron are also pretty unhinged when they're forced to use land vehicles in one story. Even disregarding things like Killboy's near-religious devotion to the idea that Ramming Always Works, this is the comic that established that Ork pilots consider slowing down under any circumstances to be tantamount to cowardice, deliberately fill their cockpits with dangly, distracting skulls and so on because they look cool, have the fuel pipes go through the cockpit in case the pilot gets thirsty, would rather die than have their gearbox set to anything but maximum, regularly punch the glass out of their cockpits in frustration at missing a target (which happens a lot), and insist on having a Big Red Button marked GO in their cockpits so they can get going without wasting time on any boring and useless preflight checks.
  • Evil Versus Evil: It's all Orks fighting Orks, so all characters involved are violent psychopaths — feel free to enjoy the carnage.
  • False Flag Operation: Suitably twisted Orky version: when Uzgob and his boys commandeer an enemy bomber to escape the sinking battleship they just sabotaged, he decides to take a little detour to bomb a rival skwadron his own side on the way back.
    Uzgob: We've got a bommer 'ere painted with enemy markings, so who's gonna know it's really us if we bombs the place to zog?
  • Fantastic Fauna Counterpart: Squigs, ferocious fungal organisms that follow Orks around everywhere, appear in variants resembling various Earth animals such as squigsharks, messenger squigeons (spherical critters with birdlike wings) and squighawks (pterosaur-like avians).
  • Friend or Foe?: The boyz of Deff Skwadron tend to have more kills belonging to their own side than the enemy's. Then again...
    "Topside turrets! Which one of you gitz isn't shootin' like all the others!?"
    "Me, boss. 'Ow we supposed to know who's on our side and who ain't?"
    "Listen karefully and I'll explain 'ow we do things 'ere in Deff Skwadron... You shoot at it an' you miss, it's one of ourz. You hit it an' you shoot it down, then it must be one of theirs. Dead simple, see?"
    "Got it, boss. Works a treat, that does..."
  • Foregone Conclusion: Gimzod will survive, to tell the tale of how he and Uzgob sank da Grimlug. Lampshaded by Gimzod himself.
  • Forever War: The war between Waaaagh! Grimlug and Waaaagh! Badthug will likely never end. Neither side could be happier about this, and the Orks make a point of not trying to permanently defeat their foes to ensure they won't find themselves without someone to fight.
  • Funetik Aksent: All the Orks on-screen speak with the standard Orkish accent that apes a lower-class Londoner/Cockney-type accent, with the exception of Killboy who starts out speaking standard Orkish but switches to RP for the later volumes (presumably one of his bionik bitz scrambled his language centers).
  • Genius Bruiser: Killboy expresses himself far better than most orks.
    Killboy: Kommanda Uzgob, sir! Deff Skwadron — or all that's left of it — reportin' for duty!
    Uzgob: Killboy! Ain't you dead yet?
    Killboy: Minor wounds, sir. Nuthin' the mediks and a few more bionik bitz can't fix. 'Avin' survived the destruction of my own bomma an' liberated this 'ere enemy aircraft I wuz just about to take off an' re-kommence attackin' the target when you blew it up, sir!
  • The Ghost: Warboss Grimlug is given plenty of mentions, but he's never actually seen or heard.
  • Grappling-Hook Pistol: Killboy has one in his power klaw, which he uses to hijack a plane while it's still flying.
  • Hypocritical Humor: "See, because of his gangs of Grot spies, Warboss Badthug knew that Warboss Grimlug was plannin' a sneak attack. Naturally, 'gainst such low and downright gittish behavior, good old Badthug did what any smart-thinkin' Mork-fearin' bossboy would do... 'E decided to get 'is retaliation in first and sent us boyz to blow up Grimlug's gargant yards at Big Scrap Alley."
  • Insane Troll Logic: Take a look at the logic behind Friend or Foe?. That's Ork logic for you. A sane person might read it as "If they can't evade and/or endure the shot from our cannons, then they don't deserve to be our allies, so it's totally okay to shoot everything in sight." Or, he just assumes that his pilots are already that good, and so would avoid the gunfire. Obviously.
  • Interservice Rivalry: Exaggerated. The skwadrons on the same side despise one another and need only the flimsiest of excuses to shoot at each other.
  • The Ishmael: Gimzod is the one writing down the tales of Deff Skwadron for posterity, but Uzgob is closer to a main character since he's the boss and all.
  • Large and in Charge: As normal per Ork biology, Warboss Badthug towers heads and shoulders over his subordinates.
  • Major Injury Underreaction: As orks are a lot tougher than humans, they tend to brush off things like getting entire limbs blown off. Doubly so for Killboy, whose arms have been replaced about a dozen times each already.
    Killboy: Beg pardon, sir, but you couldn't 'elp me with the take-off? Lost one of me arms in the crash again, an' I'm 'avin trouble usin' all the controls...
  • Manly Tears: The sight of the Megabomma is enough to bring a tear to Uzgob's eye.
  • Miles Gloriosus: Raznuts, in the background material, apparently has a tendency to claim a ridiculous number of kills after every engagement, although he rarely gets much chance to do so in-comic because he's too busy being shot down.
  • No-Sell: Killboy wades through a tide of angry squigs without problem, as there's barely enough of him that's not metal for them to chew on.
  • Oh, Crap!: Raznuts realising that he's following the squigeon towards a hole that is just a bit smaller than his bommer and it's already too late to turn aside.
  • Outside Ride: When Gimzod and Uzgob fly away from a rapidly sinking Grimlug, a good couple dozen of its crew try to hitch a ride away by hanging onto their plane.
  • Ramming Always Works: Killboy's favorite (some might say only) tactic is to ram his plane directly into his target.
  • Riding the Bomb: Not an actual bomb, but when Killboy opens the bomb bay doors to drop the squigs he doesn't have time to run.
    Gimzod: Bommz away, boss! Payload sukkessfully deployed!
    Uzgob: An' Killboy?
    Gimzod: Oh yeah, 'e's been deployed too!
    (jump to outside)
    Killboy: Yeeehaaa!
  • Road Runner vs. Coyote: One story involves the Orks repeatedly failing to intercept a messenger squig. They breed a special hunting squig to take it down, but find that it won't come back once the messenger is caught. The story ends with the skwadron's boss repeating "Catch that squig!"
  • Running Gag:
    • "'Ere, who's dat git [doing something wrong]!?" "Killboy, boss." "Heh, good ol' Killboy."
    • Raznuts getting shot down before reaching the target.
    • Similarly, Raznuts being suggested as the ultimate target for some teamkilling.
    • Gimzod while narrating: "I could tell ya we [did something heroic/awesome and were brilliantly victorious] but I'd be lyin'."
  • Run or Die: After sending an artillery shell falling into the Grimlug's ammo stores, Gimzod and Uzgob promptly run like hell to get off the ship before it explodes.
    Gimzod: Good shootin', boss! Now what we gonna do?
    Uzgob: A favorite ole Deff Skwadron taktik, Gimzod, 'oned to perfektion by years of 'ard-won experience... we legs it good an' proper!
  • Shout-Out:
  • The Starscream: Averted: While Raznuts is described as such, he never actually does any backstabbing—though that's mostly because Uzgob preemptively shoots him down every mission.
  • Talking Is a Free Action: Uzgob is able to explain his squadron's rather less aerial appearance to the warboss in the three seconds it takes for his jet-propelled bike to go past him.
  • Tears of Awe: Seen on orks, of all people, where the sight of the Megabomma brings a tear to Uzgob's eye.
  • Tears of Joy: Uzgob cries a Single Tear of happiness on seeing the flying mass of guns he's set to pilot in Da Sekret Weapon.
    Flamin' Mork, Boss... it's... it's... Zog me, it's BOOTIFUL.
  • Terror-dactyl: The squighawk, a creature leathery pointed wings, a long tail with an arrowhead tip, a fang-lined beak, and a triangular crest on its head, is portrayed as a ferocious and aggressive predator.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: As expected of the Orks, they go above and beyond in krumpin' their adversaries.
  • Unexplained Recovery: A Running Gag with Raznuts. He keeps ending up in a seemingly inescapable demise only to be perfectly fine next chapter.
  • Unfriendly Fire: At the end of Sink da Grimlug, they take their captured fighta-bommer to take out a rival skwadron. This is also suggested for dealing with Raznuts, although they never actually get around to it onscreen.
  • We ARE Struggling Together: The two sides in the war are more or less completely arbitrary, with squads changing allegiances on a whim, and orks don't care much who they're aiming at as long as theyre shooting something. So any given ork has a roughly 50% chance of being shot down by those nominally on his side.
  • Written Sound Effect: DAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKA
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Uzgob and Gimzod, as far as orks can be buds, constantly snipe at, insult and argue with each other but stick together through the story.
    Gimzod: Flamin' Mork, boss! 'Oo'd 'ave thought squigsharks could jump this 'igh!
    Uzgob: Shut up an' keep shootin', Gimzod. I'd be up there a lot fraggin' faster if I wasn't carrying you!
  • Xtreme Kool Letterz: Goes hand-in-hand with Funetik Aksent. Deff Skwadron, Kannibal Skwadron, Karnage Skwadron...

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