Fatal Chaos is a Malaysian comic by Gempakstarz artist Benny Wong Thong Hou which was first published in the first issue of Starz Magazine. In April 2007, Fatal Chaos was transferred to Starz's sister magazine Gempak. On September 2007, artistic duties transferred to Juice (Norman Noh) under the alias GempakStarz when Ben resigned from Gempak. This series ran from the month of June 2004 to August 2008 in Gempak's 211st issue and was compiled into five books; Battle One, Turbo EX, 3rd Strike, 4th Attack and Final Fight.
Tropes found in Fatal Chaos:
- A Day in the Limelight: Chapter 16 focuses on the troublemakers who got beaten up by Phoebe, including the guy who got killed by the Ninja Masked Guy.
- Aborted Arc: Strays away for Rex's main focus (the Royale Survivor Battles) to Rex's other focus (his true identity).
- Absurdly High-Stakes Game: In order to save Max's soul, Rex has to play a card game with the Devil.
- Accidental Pervert: Rex towards Eva, at least twice. This trope being the main source of many, many misunderstandings between them.
- Anime Hair: Rex sports a very upwards spiky hair style before Art Evolution kicks in starting from 3rd Strike. Maybe his hair gel weakened after a lot of stress he faced since then?
- Art Evolution:
- Ben has adapted a looser drawing stroke as of 3rd Strike. Most notable changes occur to Eva's muscles and Rex's spiky hair, where they got toned down.
- Hey, one of the intermission questions include "Why is Eva so buff'" of all things.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Max thanks the artist for giving him a larger role in Chapter 22.
- Broken Bird: Eva was once talented with swords and formed a Battle Couple and a swordfighting club with Leo during their high school years. But at one point Leo questioned his declining strength (early on he lost to a challenger but Eva kicked the guy's ass effortlessly) thus challenging Eva into a brutal swordfight. Leo later blamed Eva for his declining skills. Since then, they broke up and Eva threw away her (back then) Genki Girl personality and swordfighting altogether.
- Bullying a Dragon: Rex was bullied by other kids at his orphanage because his mother left him there when he was born, implying that she is a prostitute. Berbakov's spirit inside Rex reacted to the host's fear and worry-let's say things did not end well for the bullies.
- Butt-Monkey: Basically life's not kind to Rex. He evolves into a Cosmic Plaything starting from 4th Attack.
- Cerebus Syndrome: The story takes a sharp turn once Max is heavily injured by the Judo Chick.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: After causing a ruckus in his new college, he is forced to stand outside the college, wearing a freaking cat outfit. It helps that the principal is a cat himself.
- Cosmic Deadline:
- As Ben leaves Gempak, he handed over the series to be finished by the studio. Thus the entire Final Fight graphic novel is affected by this. Results include rushed plot, Rex is suddenly Easily Forgiven by Leo, and back-and-forth change of artstyle. Fans were not happy with this.
- A similar situation occured in Le Gardenie but it has a faster overall pacing compared to Fatal Chaos so it wasn't affected as much.
- Dirty Old Man: Pakham wants your copy of Summer Fever!
- Evil Is Hammy:
- Max renders some nouns in all caps once he absorbed Berbakov's powers, overthrows the Evil Rabbit Boss and became its leader.(While struggling with Judo Chick)...I'm on the receiving end of all things REX!! Why me?!!(after taking over Evil Rabbit) I, MAX will decide everything, and this will be the dawn of a new war....(Encounter with Leo) HELP ME?! You are being so helpful that it hurts!
- This extends to his new Mooks as well. "UNDERSTOOD!!" "ALL HAIL MAX!"
- Max renders some nouns in all caps once he absorbed Berbakov's powers, overthrows the Evil Rabbit Boss and became its leader.
- Homage: The girls printed on the Emperor, Citizen and Slave cards resemble Lemon, Apple and Kiwi respectively from Le Gardenie, which is another series created by Ben himself.
- Insane Troll Logic: Eva suspects that Rex murders an Evil Rabbit thug just because she hates Rex and Rex is a troublemaker therefore he must be the murderer. Rex's awkward style of deduction on the case doesn't help either...
- Katanas Are Just Better: Leo's signature weapon. Sometimes it is even drawn longer than his height.
- Killer Rabbit: Taken to literal levels with Evil Rabbit, which uses this trope as the gang's motif. The motif originated from the founder that was polymorphed into a miniature humanoid rabbit as a result of Berbakov's attack(who posessed Rex's pregnant mother) in the past. Since then he started his own evil organization to hunt for Berbakov and steal its powers.
- Lawyer-Friendly Cameo:
- Goku, Freeza, and Kenshiro had cameo appearances in the intermission.
- Another chapter also showed Goku and Vegeta as college students!!
- Never Bareheaded: Phoebe is barely seen without something on her head. The intermission revealed that she's actually bald (the hat is used to hold her wig) but since it is the intermission we're talking about the canonity of this is so questionable...
- No Name Given: The Judo Chick. Combined with In Name Only, she never used the aforementioned fighting style after her allegiance to Evil Rabbit was revealed.
- Parental Abandonment: Rex's mother left him at an orphanage as soon as he was born. No traces of his father either.
- Smoking Is Cool: Phoebe. Averted later on due to depicting characters smoking in media is a big no-no in conjunction to the anti-smoking campaigns in Malaysia.
- Sore Loser: At one point The Judo Chick gets ticked off over a game against Phoebe. Disproportionate Retribution ensues.
- Stock Footage:
- Final Fight. The same reaction panels were reused several times for the same character with minor edits. Entirely redrawing the characters would result in an artstyle clash, since Juice's (the art director for the final story arcs) style is different than Ben's. See Cosmic Deadline above for the reason of this trope.
- The "playing card game with the Devil" chapter is also guilty of this, but there is no particular reason behind it, since it took place before Final Fight.
- Smug Snake: The Judo Chick flaunts her martial arts strength even before she is known as an Evil Rabbit member.
- Title Drop: Phoebe mentioned if Berbakov!Rex is let loose the world will be in a "Fatal Chaos".
- Tricked-Out Gloves: Cleo has a pair of hand-knitten gloves that gives her Super-Strength. No explanation is given on its origins aside from the fact that they belong to her.
- Weirdness Magnet: Rex. Pakham coerced him to stay away from his family anymore because Eva was blinded by the enemy chasing after Rex.
