Demon Fist is the story of Rory Featherwind, a young man out to shake up the world, and Shaise, Crag and Dither, the three demons who live in his arm.
Pandora's Box has been opened a second time, destroying most of the world and releasing demons and angels into what remained. 3,000 years later, a new society has arisen, where demons and angels live alongside humans, and a totalitarian government controls the world through fear and faith.
A duel between four demons has sealed three of them and part of the fourth in young Rory's body and the remnants in his lost friend Kai's. The Church wants to capture Rory at all costs, because he is the key to giving humans demonic powers. Rory and his three friends want to find Kai, and if the Church gets in their way, they'll feel the power of the Demon Fist!
The comic can be found here. The comic is currently on hiatus.
Tropes appearing in Demon Fist:
- Absurdly-Spacious Sewer: Rory visits one to take out a demonic monster.Rory: Riddle sends us to some pretty crappy places sometimes...no pun intended.
- Agony Beam/I'm Having Soul Pains: Duprant owns a special angel halo that can do this to demons (and, by extension, Rory as well) by emitting a flood of angelic energy. Unfortunately for Duprant, when the all-natural Strobe shows up he's completely unaffected.
- Air-Vent Passageway: Tweek uses one to get into the Ocean's Scar control room.
- Alas, Poor Villain: Jacob genuinely mourns the death of Capen, even though he betrayed Jacob and his crew.
- Amusing Injuries: Why Rory woke up with a headache.
- Ancient Artifact: Relics from the World Before, like Duncan's handgun.
- Argument of Contradictions: Crag and Shaise regularly get into these.
- Arm Cannon: Jacob's Hook Hand shoots out on a chain, as a combination grappling hook and harpoon.
- As the Good Book Says...: Parodied in one of the Council meetings, where Therodan flagrantly twists the Bible's injunctions about patience into an excuse for not providing the food aid he promised.
- Attack Its Weak Point: Nova does this to Phihat.
- Bad Liar: Rory. Inconvenient when, say, he has to keep making up reasons why he's talking to his arm.
- Battle in the Rain: The Tas Kitana demon actually summons its own rain. And then uses it as a weapon.
- Beehive Barrier: Dither can create one.
- Berserk Button
- Bounty Hunter/Hunter of Monsters: Rory is a rare Chaotic Good example. He hunts demons partly to protect people, partly to pay the bills, and partly to feed Shaise, Crag and Dither. And partly because Riddle asks him to.
- Captured Super-Entity: The Church plans to capture Rory in order to duplicate his status and abilities for its armies. For obvious reasons, Rory does not plan to cooperate.
- Apparently they already got his friend and fellow person-shaped can Kai, but he's proving less than useful to them. A big part of Rory's motivation is to free him.
- Cardboard Prison: Maximum security? No one leaves alive? Clearly this prison has never heard of Jacob.
- Catapult Nightmare: Rory's 'Kai dreams'.
- Catchphrase: Whenever people call Jacob a swindler, thief, etc., he cheerfully reminds them "Pirate!"
- Chekhov's Gun: Jaws' familiarity with fuel gases.Jaws: Your toy there reminds me of the stove my buddy built for me. He just went on and on about the possible dangers. It was annoying. I just wanted to use the damn stove, but no, he kept drilling into my head the dangers of cooking with gas...
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Eyerson's hobby.
- Commonality Connection: Theodora and Rosenquist actually bond over their shared superiority complex. Each sees the other as a fellow Man of Wealth and Taste stranded amid a sea of idiots.
- However, it turns out Rosenquist was just humoring Theodora.
- Complexity Addiction: Theodora.Theodora: How dare you insult my intelligence. A man of my caliber would not use a plan so basic and simple as that. It has to be something much grander.
- Corrupt Church: That controls the whole world.
- Cutting the Knot: Rosenquist's brig cells are made of orichalcum, which no one can break...except for the back wall, which is the ordinary wood of the ship's hull.
- Cowboy: Tex tries to be one. He always wears a Stetson, always has a hayseed in his fangs, and speaks exclusively in cowboy soundbites.
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Jacob can teleport, but doing so damages his body. Using the power to escape with the Hookshot was what cost him his hand.
- Dark Is Not Evil/Light Is Not Good: Quite a few demons, like SC&D or Jaws, are heroic characters while some angels, like Phihat, are downright sickening. However, there are also plenty of evil demons and (presumably) good angels.
- Death Faked for You: Duncan's report indicated that Rory (and Aki) had been killed by the collapsing Moses Field, and that the bodies were unrecoverable.
- Door Judo: Done to a battering ram.
- Dreadlock Warrior: Tiny.
- Duel Boss: The "chute sequence" aboard the Ocean's Scar.
- Enemy Mine: Duncan and Aki actually team up with Rory and Jacob in the face of Rosenquist with Pandora's Spear.Duncan: Kid, don't think this will get me to abandon my mission.Rory: Heh, why would I think that?
- The Engineer: Tweek. Apparently he's typical of Junk Mesa residents.
- Epic Flail: Rosenquist's first mate uses one.
- Faceless Goons: Church soldier helmets basically look like eggs with a red stripe crossing a visor slit.
- Face of a Thug: Jaws has the face of a gremlin and the smile of a shark (plus he's a demon), but he's a genuinely cheerful and caring person.
- Fat Bastard: Mayor Duprant. Phihat as well.
- Finger Poke of Doom: Rory occasionally does this with his demon hand.
- Fire-Breathing Weapon: Bon Bardman.
- Flamethrower Backfire: Jaws takes out Bon Bardman by biting holes in the gas hose of his flamethrower, extinguishing his pilot light at the same time. When he tries to use his lighter to restart it...
- Funetik Aksent: Eyerson's is bizarre.
- Hairpin Lockpick: One of the first things Rory learned on his travels was to always have one.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Jacob is a half-demon.
- Hand Blast: SC&D can act as Hand Blasts with fangs and brains.
- Hates Being Touched: Nova, due to her painful backstory.
- Heroic BSoD: Nova and Gen encountering Phihat and Eyerson again.
- Heroic Host: Rory.
- Hulking Out: Duprant's Super-Soldier bodyguards do this. There's actually no magic involved; they just release that much adrenaline. Shaise refers to it as "roiding".
- Hurricane of Puns: Bon constantly makes fire-related puns as he fights.Jaws: OK, bum, I'm gonna have to kick your ass for that "make you flamous" joke alone.
- Hypnotic Eyes: Eyerson's demon eye.
- I Am Not Left-Handed: Rory actually knows a very advanced martial art. The reason he doesn't normally use it? Fighting defensively is boring.Duncan: Seriously?! You weren't fighting with better strategy because you think it's lame?Rory: Feh, whatever, it's cooler to just bash through things.
- I Am Your Opponent: Rory pulls this against Duncan when the latter is distracted from their rematch.
- Impact Silhouette: Rory makes one once punching a Church soldier through a wall.Noah: [He has] incredibly enhanced physical strength. So much that it would seem...well, seem ridiculous.
- Infinity +1 Sword: Pandora's Spear. Grants Super-Speed, Super-Strength and a Wolverine-level Healing Factor, and according to Dither it has both holy and demonic auras.
- Insane Troll Logic: Sign!
- Look Behind YouJaws: What the hell is that?!Bon: What the hell is what?! [turns back to find Jaws gone] Gah! He's a magician!
- Manipulative Bastard: Riddle.
- Monster Clown: Also Riddle.
- Monster Town: Toranos is a city of demons.
- Mugged for Disguise: Rory does this to one of Rosenquist's crew.
- Nepotism: Grand High Pope Macront says that his nephew Alvin Theodora keeps acing IQ and tactics tests and assigns him to head the team sent after Rory, but in reality he turns out to be a breathtakingly arrogant Know-Nothing Know-It-All.
- Noodle IncidentShaise: You accidentally light Rory on fire while he's sleeping once and they never let it go.
- Now That's Using Your Teeth!: Jaws didn't get that name for nothing.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business
- If Shaise thinks you're being too rash, you're being too rash.
- If Jacob's up before noon, people ask him what's wrong.
- Orichalcum: Hardest of all metals, and also damps out supernatural energies.
- Ornamental Weapon: Strobe has that huge sword on his back, but fistfights his enemies. Apparently he swore an oath or something not to use it.
- Phrase Catcher: Shut up, Shaise!
- Pointy-Haired Boss: Alvin Theodora. Idiot? Check. Doesn't realize it? Check. Got his position by Nepotism? Check. Rude and dismissive to subordinates? Check. Narcissist? Double check.
- Portal Cut: How Jacob defeats Rosenquist's Healing Factor.
- Power Fist: Rory's eponymous Demon Fist.
- Power Limiter: The cloth wrap and tattoo on Rory's demon arm. They're there to keep the demonic energy from, respectively, destroying his arm and spreading to the rest of his body.
- Power Trio: Shaise is fast, Crag is strong and Dither is smart.
- Precursors: The Pandorans. It's unclear whether they existed before the first opening of Pandora's Box or after the second, but they were powerful enough to create Pandora's Spear.
- Primal Fear: Crag is terrified of heights.
- Rasputinian Death/How Much More Can He Take?: Brass just does not know when to stay down.
- Red Baron: Go on, guess.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Dither's blue to all three of the others' (but especially Shaise's) red.
- Rubber Man: Phihat can puff up body parts that are about to be hit, resulting in wounds that become tiny when he goes back to normal, by moving his body mass around. According to him, he got this power by eating his halo.
- Sealed in a Person-Shaped Can: Shaise, Crag and Dither tried to seal an evil demon called Vicilus along with themselves in a tree, but Rory and Kai wandered onto the scene at the wrong time, and the demons wound up sealed in them instead.
- Smite Evil: Concentrated holy energy damages demons (good or evil), and vice versa. This occasionally causes problems for Rory, since he and SC&D run on demonic energy.
- Some weapons, like Duncan's knife, are actually forged from angelic haloes specifically to do this.
- Sniper Rifle: Duncan's third relic.
- So Much for Stealth: Giving a Big "SHUT UP!" to the arguing demons in your arm will do that.
- Speechbubbles Interruption
- The Speechless: Gen.
- Speed, Smarts and Strength: Shaise, Crag and Dither (the three demons that live in Rory's arm) fit this to a T. Shaise is blindingly fast, Crag is huge and can hit extremely hard, and Dither is easily the smartest and most thoughtful of the four.
- Super Window Jump: The terrorist leader in the intro does this to escape the train...only to smack into a tree at express-train speeds.
- Survival Mantra: he's my superior, he's my superior, he's my superior...
- Taken for Granite: Happens to the engineers who breach Pandora's Gate.
- Tattooed Crook: Phihat has a tattoo on his forehead of a drawn Tic-Tac-Toe game, signifying his fighting style of making attrition work for him.Phihat: You attack, I defend. I attack, you...well, you try to defend...
- Team Chef: Jaws for the crew of the Hookshot.
- Too Dumb to Live:
- Rosenquist has devoted 19 years of his life and enough money to build a floating fortress that freaking splits the sea looking for Pandora's Spear, and then Alvin tries to confiscate it out from under his nose before he'd even touched it. How did he think Rosenquist would react?
- Also the guys in the prologue. They've knowingly unearthed Pandora's Box, which is sealed with an enormous vault-like door. Their immediate reaction? Break out the explosives!
- The Dog Bites Back/Unstoppable Rage: Why torture isn't the safest hobby.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill
- The Demon Fist almost never kills humans or peaceful demons, even (especially!) Mooks.
- Neither does the Hookshot crew. This pays off for them later.
Duncan: Your crew fought off all my men without killing any of them. Criminals would not have wasted the effort not to kill their attackers. I can't in good conscience take you all in simply for defending yourselves. - Underwater Ruins: Where they find Pandora's Spear. Although Rosenquist's fortress got rid of the "underwater" part with a giant waterproof forcefield.
- Unsuspectingly Soused: If Rory has a few drinks, and so do Shaise and Crag, and then they recombine...
- Useless Useful Stealth: No matter what he starts out trying to do, Rory always ends up leaving the usual trail of stunned guards anyway.
- Zero-Approval Gambit: Rory makes sure Mayor Duprant stays down, and prevents the Church from punishing the town for rebellion, by having the townspeople say that Duprant and the vile Demon Fist were actually working together to overthrow the Church.