An original English language manga by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir, with art by Shiei. A prequel, Amazing Agent Jennifer, presents the origin story of Luna's boss, Control.
Amazing Agent Luna is now being published online as a webcomic
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Spoiler Warning: There's a lot of side-switching and double-crossing in this manga. We'll try to mark spoilers where we can, but reader discretion is advised. Read the manga first if you don't want to be spoiled.
This OEL manga contains examples of:
- All-Loving Hero: Luna is nice and sweet to absolutely everyone. When she acts friendly towards the Count of Bruckenstein, it manages to cheese Control off just a bit ("You need not be nice to everyone. He did try to kill you."). This starts to fade in Year 2, though, as she's put through a series of breaking events that end with her switching sides and joining Knightfall.
- Benevolent Conspiracy: Knightfall presents itself as this. Tired of The Agency basically throwing away their agents' lives, it's leader wishes to change that.
- Brain Bleach: Cited by Oliver after his mother spends the evening flirting with Mr. Dreyfus.
- But Now I Must Go: Jia, after her damaged fusion source is replaced by an alternative source supplied by Timothy.
- Combat Stilettos: Subverted in the final volume during the fight between Jennifer and Elyse Von Brucken. Elyse confronts Jennifer outside of a wedding and challenges her while Jennifer is wearing heels. So Jennifer takes off the heels and uses them as improvised weapons.
- Conservation of Ninjutsu: Luna, while out doing ninja things (spying on Project Scion), met up with a bunch of Count Bruckenstein's ninjas and engaged in a Big Ball of Violence with them. No prizes for guessing who won.
- The Comically Serious: Control really hates being thrown in the middle of all the insanity going on, particularly during Family Week.
- Darker and Edgier: Year 2 is shaping up to become this, especially with cold fusion research being hounded by a mysterious group, Francesca rejoining Elizabeth after thinking Luna had caused Timothy to break up with her, and Luna herself doing a Face–Heel Turn after feeling abandoned by those closest to her.
- Dark Action Girl:
- The mysterious Bruckenstein infiltrator who attempts to steal Project Luna. It's Jonah's mother, Elyse Von Brucken.
- Von Brucken sends two of these against to fight the "mysterious ninja girl". Both are genetically modified clones of Elizabeth and Luna.
- Death Glare: never ask Agent K if she knows what she's doing, especially if you have already pissed her off royally.
- Defeat Means Friendship: After Luna defeats her evil clone, who then proceeds to lament her coming execution, she promises to keep the clone safe from harm.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: A major secondary plot involving Control.
- Designer Babies:
- Luna is said to be a test-tube baby raised in a secret government base. She's implied to have been made from Jennifer's DNA.
- Project Terra is hinted to be this as a replacement for Luna by The Agency.
- Disney Death: Jia. Hell, also Luna, Timothy, Jonah, and Anders after the Bruckenstein Embassy is leveled by the explosion meant for Jia.
- Easily Forgiven: Luna, after her stint with Knightfall, though it's quite understandable considering the circumstances.
- Evil Twin: Elizabeth Westbrook and even Luna wind up cloned by Von Brucken to further Project Scion.
- Expy: Aristotle the owl is one to Archimedes from The Sword in the Stone. Not as talkative, though.
- Face–Heel Turn: Luna aligns herself with Knightfall in Volume 8, her crumbling life both inside and outside of her job having taken its toll on her.
- The Faceless: The three men who run The Agency are portrayed backlit, obscuring their features. There also appears to be some kind of voice masking, based on the shaded speech bubbles.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Jennifer's father, who considered anything that distracted her from taking over the family business, including any extracurricular activities, to be 'fantasy'.
- Good Is Not Nice: Control is a major hardcase and doesn't cut anyone any slack, but she has good reasons for being that way and she really is trying to do right by Luna.
- Gray-and-Grey Morality: While many of the characters in the series are good people, all of the factions are dark grey.
- Count von Brucken is the tinpot dictator of Bruckenstein, and at first comes across as an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain; in the backstory, of course, he was a serious, no-nonsense, murderous villain. That said, as an adversary he's not that bad, and after his Heel–Face Turn, he's reasonably loyal to and supportive of Luna. And then he went to take control of Knightfall.
- Knightfall are an apparently Benevolent Conspiracy formed from the remnants of a rebellion against The Agency's ruthless policies and tendency to lie to their agents and discard anyone who's outlived their usefulness, while their leader regards all of his agents as "his family." However, Master Control is similar; while he does care about his new "family" to an extent, he's still willing to sacrifice someone for the good of the whole, and he's most certainly even more okay with lying to his children and preying on their emotional vulnerabilities than the Agency. Ultimately, though, Jennifer's reason for opposing Master Control is that he's personally betrayed her. As of Volume 9, they've been taken over by the Von Bruckens.
- The Agency doesn't even bother to hide it: they don't care about their "assets" except as assets, and they're willing to freely tolerate and engage in foul play in America's interests, or even terminate Luna and replace her with a next-generation version if Luna doesn't work out. As Jennifer says, the main difference between the Agency and Knightfall is that the Agency doesn't pretend to care, and thus they're the lesser of two evils. They're also more easily-intimidated.
- Control is a stern parental figure and, in most things, a mouthpiece for the Agency's commands. But she's that strict because she is Luna's mother, and desperately fighting to prevent "Project Luna" from being terminated. Eventually, she mellows out a bit with Luna, and defends that by threatening the Agency to force them to keep Luna alive. She's less evil than any of the above, but as of the end of Volume 9, she's begun assembling her own forces that are personally loyal to her, just as her former mentor, Master Control, once did.
- He Knows Too Much:
- Control takes out a Bruckenstein infiltrator right in front of a five-year old Luna. When asked why, Control states that it's to protect her as the spy knew too much. This causes concern with Luna, fearing that Control will take out anyone who gets close discovering Luna's secrets.
- Luna terminates Dr. Tromperie after the latter unmasks her. However, she refuses to do the same to Mr. Dreyfus, who also saw her unmasked, and covers for him with Control.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door:
- Make up your frakking mind, Jonah! Thankfully, he seems to have settled on the Face side of the spectrum after the whole cold fusion business in Volume 7.
- It seems to run in the family. Heinrich and Elyse have both revolved into alliances with the Agency and Knightfall, respectively, but once they gain control of Knightfall, it's clear that their only true loyalty is to each other. And then Heinrich takes one more turn against Elyse.
- Heel–Face Turn:
- Timothy Hyatt.
- Anders plays with this. He is loyal to Master Control. He is not, however, loyal to the von Bruckens, who replaced him as controllers of Knightfall, and he defects to Jennifer after learning the truth.
- Heel Realization: Francesca after she learns that she had abandoned Luna for no good reason.
- He Is Not My Husband: Control yells this at Andrew when he tries to give her a foot massage. Averted in Volume 11 where Dr. Anders proposes to her and she says yes.
- Hot Librarian: Control invokes this look. The early design notes even makes note that Control should be a variation of the trope.
- Hot Teacher: Control again, once she joins the teaching staff.
- Idiot Ball: Count Von Brucken tends to hold this a lot, most notably in Volume 7 when Oliver dumps Luna after seeing him in her house. After Luna loses her temper on him, he's called out on his idiocy by Control.
- Jerkass:
- Benjiro, Control/Jennifer's father was established to be jerkish when he was introduced in AAL, but in the prequel AAJ, he is shown to have mellowed with age. As far as he was concerned, Jennifer should have done nothing in school that would have distracted her from learning to run his business better, to the point that he had already forbidden her from going to the Olympics as a swimmer. When she takes the Agency scholarship and no longer relies on his paying tuition allowing her to choose her own curriculum, he even forbids her mother from going to her graduation.
- Elizabeth. She already starts out at being mean to Luna as you'd expect the Alpha Bitch to be, but she goes as far as trying to jeopardize Luna and Francesca's friendship just for the hell of it, make fun of Francesca hanging out with Timothy out of pettiness, and berating her father for making her look bad in front of the whole school by backing away from confrontation with Count Von Brucken after he starts saying Elizabeth isn't worthy of dating Jonah...when he's armed with a sword and actually drew it when her father tried to settle things with Brucken.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Benjiro may be domineering figure, but he's right that Jennifer shouldn't have broken off all contact with him and her mother for fifteen years.
- Just Friends: Teens in high school means this gets said often.
- Kiss Me, I'm Virtual: One student can't get a date for the dance...so he grows his own using Dr. Warren's lab notes.
- Laughably Evil: Count Von Brucken. The second arc has him be the comic relief.
- Leotard of Power: Part of Luna's armor after she joins Knightfall.
- Mad Dictator's Handsome Son: Jonah Von Brucken, Troubled, but Cute son of the Count Von Brucken and primary love interest for Luna.
- Mad Scientist: The first arc gives us Tromperie, who's Count Von Brucken's chief collaborator on Project Scion. The Knightfall arc gives us Dr. Marlow, who was originally supposed to have collaborated with Jennifer on Project Luna, but was sidelined by her because he would have willingly experimented on the embryos, not caring if they were killed by the experiments. He goes on to head Project Terra, creating agents who are designed to be loyal, effective, and disposable.
- Magic Skirt: Luna is quite athletic in her schoolgirl's uniform, but nothing ever shows. At one point, the panel POV shows her from a clearly upskirted position, but the shadow of the skirt averts a Panty Shot.
- Mama Bear: Control may not be very nice to Luna sometimes, but anyone who threatens Luna will see just how much she cares for her, up to and including the Agency themselves.
- Missing Mom: Oliver Riggs. His mom, Bowie O'Shea, returns a few chapters after Charlie Riggs becomes a Disappeared Dad.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Luna's Face–Heel Turn results from almost everyone abandoning her, which Master Control plays upon.
- Ms. Fanservice: Control is a gorgeous woman with a penchant for wearing cleavage-baring clothing whenever she's in panel. She's also a Defrosting Ice Queen, which is bound to up the fan-service quotient. Just read the rest of the page for the other fan-service tropes that she hits.
- Mugging the Monster: When Erich tries to bully Jonah, he has absolutely no idea that Jonah's not just the son of the Count, but a fully-trained martial artist who has absolutely no problem with hurting, or even killing, idiots.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Jonah, when his mother's real intentions with Jia start to sink in. After everyone survives the resulting Embassy explosion, he agrees to let Anders destroy the disk containing sensitive cold fusion data, and the two call a truce.
- Never My Fault: Benjiro and Emily every time Control running away from home is brought up. They outright refuse to see how they were in the wrong.
- No Going Steady: It's high school. Characters get together and break up at least once a volume.
- No Such Agency: Well... The Agency to the point that the CIA has no idea they exist.
- Not So Stoic: Control when she breaks down in front of Andrew why she pushes Luna so hard. She's afraid that if The Agency ever sees Luna as a failure, they will destroy her... her daughter.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Luna and Francesca are involved in a brawl, it shocks everybody, and Mr. Dreyfus even makes a point of noting that this is the first time either of them got caught fighting. Sure enough, Luna soon does her Face–Heel Turn.
- Oh, Crap!: Elizabeth's Big "NO!" upon realizing Count Von Brucken dropped by to kidnap her.
- Owl Be Damned: The Aristotle clones who attack Luna and the other students.
- The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The heads of The Agency present themselves this way, though they don't quite have the omniscient part down.
- Past Experience Nightmare: Luna really doesn't take having to kill Tromperie to protect her identity very well.
- Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Luna and Francesca when Francesca thinks Luna has caused Timothy to dump her and may be hiding more secrets, and Luna and Oliver when Oliver spots Count Von Brucken (who he had assumed was rotting in prison at the time) inside the house, thinking he's a Karma Houdini compared to his own father. These events ended up causing Luna to do a Face–Heel Turn.
- Precision F-Strike:
- Luna has exactly one swear in the entire series so far: "Damn! He's gone. You guys cost me my shot at following Tromperie." Swearing by other characters, for that matter, is also rare.
- Another notable instance comes from Dr. Andy, who wants to know why Control's so hellbent on shaping Luna into a killer.
- Prequel: Amazing Agent Jennifer to this series.
- Raised in a Lab: Luna was conceived and raised in a laboratory. Which becomes a concern for Doctor Andrew when the Agency wants Luna to go undercover in a public high school.
- Renegade Splinter Faction:
- Knightfall is a breakaway shard of the Agency, founded and led by Jennifer's old boss, Master Control. The jury's out on which side is worse.
- By Volume 10, Control's team is essentially a second Knightfall. When the Agency decides to terminate Luna and replace her with Terra, none of them will go along with it.
- Robotic Reveal: Jia much to the surprise of everyone.
- Running Gag: Oliver's always falling off his skateboard.
- Ruritania: Implied with Bruckenstein, a vaguely Eastern European small nation ruled by a hereditary dictator.
- Same Content, Different Rating: The ratings for the initial individual printings of the first five volumes were rated Teen. In contrast the Darker and Edgier installments were rated All Ages from the start.
- Scary Black Man: Mr. Dreyfus, the strict gym teacher and perceptive ex-Navy SEAL.
- Ship Tease: Control and Collins, especially when he starts giving her a foot massage without realizing it. They are pretending to be married, after all.
- Squee: Luna when she walks in on Jennifer and Andrew kissing.
- Stacy's Mom: Control's official cover. When she visits school, all the male students are smitten with her.
- Stay in the Kitchen: Jennifer's mother doesn't really get it when she sees Andrew cooking and working as a house-husband; she thinks that Jennifer should be doing that.It's very important for a woman to understand the needs of a man and attend to them.
- Stern Teacher: Control is an absolute slavedriver, first to Luna, and then later to her students at school. When she assigns five chapters by Friday, a lab presentation on Monday, and then a test on Tuesday, you get the feeling that she's forgotten that her students aren't nearly as superhuman as her daughter.
- Teen Superspy: Luna, as a result of the project to create a genetically engineered superagent. At only age 16, she was able to infiltrate a foreign embassy and escape all by herself.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Parodied in the first fight in the story, where the Count misses and ends up in a portrait.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Benjiro, of all people, managed to do this retroactively between AAJ and AAL, though not by much.
- Trauma Conga Line: Luna suffers this in Volumes 7 and 8, culminating in a Face–Heel Turn in the latter volume.
- Tyke-Bomb: Luna was the first one, created by Jennifer to be the perfect field agent, though she's a much more mellow example. On the other hand, her "replacement," Terra, plays this pretty much straight, created to be superior to Luna in every fashion and unquestionably loyal to the Agency...as well as easily disposable and replaceable should she fail.
- Uncancelled: Volume 6 finally came out 2 years after volume 5 (which ended on a Cliffhanger) was released.
- Undercover as Lovers: Andrew and Control pose as Luna's father and mother when Luna's infiltrating high school.
- Unholy Matrimony: Heinrich and Elyse von Brucken are genuinely in love with one another, despite both being, at best, of questionable morality.
- Villain Has a Point: Master Control isn't wrong in that The Agency treats its agents as overly expendable, and that they deserve better. The point is made clearer when the Agency considers "terminating" Luna and replacing her with another expendable experiment.
- Villains Do The Dirty Work: Jennifer gives Master Control a chance to walk away after defeating him, but makes it clear that if he ever threatens Luna again, he's dead. Heinrich and Elyse von Brucken, however, aren't so merciful.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Luna's evil clone, courtesy of Project Scion, never appears nor is mentioned again after Volume 5. While she is probably protected from any potential reprisal from the Count, it's implied that she is now in the Agency's custody, which has some very unpleasant implications, given what we learn about them from later volumes.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Andrew and Control take Oliver and Francesca to task for dropping Luna like a hot potato, which had resulted in her Face–Heel Turn.
- You Are Grounded!: Happens to Luna in chapter 20. It seems to have been lifted by the start of volume 5, though.
