Webcomic / Code Name: Hunter

Code Name: Hunter - Cover of Issue 9

"Diplomacy is hard. Mixing diplomacy with magic is harder."

— The Tag Line

In a parallel world with furries but no humans, an age old barrier in London designed to prevent magic entering the world had been broken by German bombing in World War II and a secret British Government Agency develops around it to police the magic and maintain the Masquerade.

The Royal Centre for Special Investigations has the difficult task of protecting Britain from loose magic. There's only one problem: England doesn't have any powerful, trained mages. The story focuses on two RCSI agents, Hunter and Gypsy, as they get entangled in this particular problem.

Read it here. Also available as downloads and in dead-tree format.

Rated PG-13 for mild violence, language, adult themes and trigger happy redheads.

Appears to be on hiatus. What's more, at least a few chapters are missing from the site, with the story currently cutting off shortly before the final confrontation with Gavin.

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Code Name: Hunter contains examples of:

• Action Girl: Ruby, AKA Agent Gypsy.
• Alliterative Name: Brad comments on Max's non-conquest of vivacious, voluptuous Vicky.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: Known as "Aspects" in the setting. The Summer and Winter Queen are, naturally, the aspects of summer and winter respectively. It's mentioned that Moraine is so powerful that she could potentially become an aspect herself, but the cost would be very high.
• Art Evolution: Extremely subtle, but the changes are there.
  • Mostly related to the late-2008 change in how the pages are drawn and colored.
• Bad Ass Long Coat: Averted by this reporter.
• Batman Gambit:
  • Puck told Spooky the names of the Summer and Winter Queens, which would grant him some control over them, knowing that he'd tell Moraine. Since you become a thrall to the one who told you the names after using them three times (a key detail he left out when telling Spooky about the deal), his plan was that she would become Spooky's thrall, and thus Puck's when Spooky had used up all three of his uses. Not a bad plan, except he decides to gloat about it...
  • ...which ultimately leads to Spooky sabotaging the whole thing. At some point he realises that in order to use the names, you actually have to know them in the first place. End result: his second boon from the Queens is for them to erase their names from his memory altogether.
• Battle Butler: Mr Allen seems to be fitting this trope as seen here.
  • He begins demonstrating that he has what it takes to be this a few pages later.
• Bodyguard Crush: A mutual one, too - Spooky and Moraine developed feelings for each other over time. Naturally, Moraine didn't take it well when Spooky went to the Fey realm and never came back.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Invoked as the main reason why the Agency doesn't exploit the Fey weakness to iron and go to war against them. See Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? below.
• Cape Snag: Gavin will most likely never hear the end of this.
  • We later get to see why this trope is one to be avoided by characters.
• Character Development: Slow, but, it's there.
• Codename: It's right there in the title. All of the field agents get one. If an agent goes missing or is killed in the line of duty, their codename is retired.
• Codename Title
• Covert Group with Mundane Front: RCSI Travel is a front for the Agency.
• Cute Bruiser: Agent Gypsy again.
  • In the no-longer cannon flashback arcs, she has sent 2 of her superiors to the hospital. One of them has been permanently relegated to desk work due to injuries she caused.
• Departure Means Death: The Fey Realm is this for anyone who's either consumed anything of that realm while there or remained for longer than 24 hours within it.
• The Fair Folk: The Fey are characterized as being rather dangerous to mere mortals. Making use of a Fey gate is generally viewed as suicidal.
• Frying Pan of Doom: At one point, the palace was under threat of invasion by hostile Fey. The palace staff grab whatever metal objects were handy.
• Full-Name Ultimatum: Max wants to get Ruby's attention:
  Hunter: Rubella Jane Pyrenees!
  Gypsy: Oh! I know you did not just use me full name.
• Functional Magic: It disrupts most complex modern tech.
• Generational Magic Decline: The nation of Astoria used to run mostly on magic, with wizards and sorcerors aplenty. When covert agents Max and Ruby visit the island nation, one Astorian mage mentions debating with the Queen that wizards and acolytes are in decline, a symptom of diminishing magic overall within the realm. Word of God states that a nation's magic level is tied to the well-being of its people, and Astoria is losing magic because of their insane oppression of non-mages while people from prosperous first-world countries like Britain positively radiate magic. Which Astoria's queen has noticed, though she doesn't know why.
• Girly Girl: Sissy Simmons, to the point that she drags Gypsy off, kicking and screaming, on a shopping expedition.
• Glamor Failure: In the Fairy Tale flashback arc, Jack Frost notices that the person he just killed isn't bleeding. Cue the reveal that it's actually a log.
• Government Agency of Fiction: Royal Center for Special Investigations.
• He-Man Woman Hater: Reruns of the original comics suggest that Hunter was a severe gynophobe - to the point where his unwillingness to work with female agents almost cost him his job. Now he's merely severely shy around any non-Gypsy female. (This has since been redacted for the current story. The original run is no longer consider canon.)
  • In a recent storyline, we have a succubus asking Ruby if Max is gay. She says she's found his stash of lad's mags and reassures her that he's just shy.
• Humble Pie: Looks like Gadel got one in the face (last panel).
• The Magic Comes Back: Magic in England was sealed away centuries ago by a king paranoid of a mage rebellion, the seal was broken when a bomb was dropped near it during WWII.
  • According to Ruby's mother most of the rest of the world was never sealed or places that broke away from England, including America.
    • Which of course raises the questions why the Masquerade is still possible in a time of global communication and why most of the world is so similar to ours.
• Magic Harms Technology: Magic tends to disrupt electrical devices, in the prologue it somehow even caused a revolver to jam. However it's mentioned that American technology is more resilient to magic.
• Masquerade: Strictly enforced.
• Medieval Stasis: And Astoria (Or more accurately - the ruling class of Astoria) likes it that way.
• Mysterious Past: We are only slowly learning bits and pieces about the pasts of some agents.
• No Periods, Period: Inverted Gypsy is seen suffering from "PMS" just before the Fey treaty signing.
• Older Than They Look: Spooky, as well as everyone else trapped in the Fey realm.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Gypsy inserts both feet knee deep by way of Suspiciously Specific Denial upon arriving at the commander's office.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: Only hounds are susceptible to lycanthropy, during full moons they become ravenous beasts capable of infecting hundreds in one night. Ruby's uncle Ishmael was lucky to get away with just a damaged eye, as all infected agents are "put down".
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Prince Matthew does a nice job here.
• Royal "We": During her pre-treaty night speech to RSCI Moraine switches from saying "I" to we in order to emphasize how important formality is this night.
• Scenery Censor: How do you think they maintained a PG-13 rating through The Streak?
• Shout-Out: Several notable instances.
  • British cartoon Danger Mouse.
  • Two separate Shouts to Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures.
  • One Shout to Scudder Kiddwell's White Pony from the Cross Time Café. The same reference points indirectly toward Freefall's Florence Ambrose.
  • A shout to Yzma's original Evil Plan from The Emperor's New Groove.
• Something That Begins with "Boring": After their boat sinks, Ruby tries to play this game with Max while swimming to shore.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: See Open Mouth, Insert Foot above.
• Tyke-Bomb: Prince Matthew Mousira.
  Queen Moraine: My grandson is a magical time bomb. No. Everything is not fine.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: When Moraine's grandson ask why her grandmother didn't try to destroy the Fair Folk, despite their traditional weakness to iron, generally harmful interactions with mortals and Moraine's large resources, Hunter explained why: The fey are the living embodiment of winter and summer, and any open war against them would result in an environmental disaster of possible global proportions. Or else, even if they win, the price could be way too high to be worth it.
• Wizarding School: The Astorian Mage Academy.
• Wizards Live Longer: In Astoria mages live up to 200 years, while the peasantry have a life expectancy of 30. Most likely because they're stuck in the middle ages.
  • Moraine hasn't aged since the late 40s. Her grey hair and wrinkles are just illusions.
• World of Funny Animals: No humans to be found here.

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