Set in 22nd century Earth, over 100 years after the 3rd World War, the Demon Archives tells the survivors' stories as they struggle to rebuild civilization. Book One follows the exploits of members of Minerva, one of the few high tech organizations that survived the War, and tells how they established a beacon of hope in the dreary wasteland of central Asia.
Minerva: Book One of the Demon Archives follows the story of Tenzin, a Minervan Super-Soldier, and his Artificial Intelligence, Jane, as they fight to protect the ideals Minerva stands for in an increasingly chaotic world.
This comic provides examples of:
- Action Hero: Tenzin. He’s as much a tactician as he is a fighter.
- An Arm and a Leg: Inevitable for such a violent setting, but happens to protagonist Tenzin fairly early in the story
- All There in the Manual: The website features an impressive amount of extra material about the comic's world, history, language, culture, and technology.
- Anti-Hero: Tenzin is usually a Type 3, but the backstory shows that he's gone into Type 4 territory. Understandable, given how much he's suffered.
- Anyone Can Die: By the end of Chapter 2, every one of the Keleres except for Tenzin and Viktor have been killed by the evil Giant Mecha. Provides many cases of SacrificialLambs, with Jorge's death being more of a Sacrificial Lion.
- After the End: The story takes place about 100 years after a Class 1 Apocalyptic War, involving nuclear and biological warfare.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Averted with Jane, and, so far, seemingly the other Oracle Project A.I.s. Hinted at being played straight with SOPCA, which manipulates Konstantin into allowing it a direct link to his second-generation drones and assures him "I have done nothing but what you've ordered."
- Artificial Intelligence: The Oracle Project has produced a variety of stable A.I.s, with Jane being the most visible. Of course, the bad guys have their own AI too...and it seems somewhat less benevolent.
- Bar Brawl: How Tenzin met Viktor.Viktor: Come now, boys, why'd you have to bring guns and ruin a perfectly good brawl?
- Bilingual Bonus: Since the characters come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, there are bits of foreign language sprinkled in.
- Call a Human a "Meatbag": Jane calls Tenzin a hopeless meatbag when he admits he didn’t bother reading his own contract.
- Cosy Catastrophe - Other parts of the world have survived decently well, maintaining high levels of technology and civilization, although most turn out to be Dystopias.
- Crapsack World
- Cute Mute: Lily, a little girl rescued by Tenzin, does not speak.
- Dead Man's Switch: Inverted with an unconscious child hung up on a wall. Removing the child triggers an explosion.
- Dream Walker: Via Brain/Computer Interface, how Jane gets Tenzin out of his coma.
- Empathy Doll Shot: Downplayed. A doll is seen and zoomed in on, but it’s not made a big deal of and the scene doesn’t look particularly grim. Yet.
- Empowered Badass Normal: As the flashbacks in Chapter 4 demonstrate, Tenzin is perfectly capable of kicking ass without his power armor.
- Explosion Propulsion: Happens after the Dead Man's Switch goes off.
- Feudal Future - Some local civilization may be maintained in feudal city-states, such as a Divided States of America.
- Frickin' Laser Beams: The Hawks (mini-UAVs) fire lasers.
- Genius Bruiser: Tenzin is a master tactician as well as an expert at hand-to-hand combat and a superb marksman.
- Gentle Giant: Viktor is a big guy, but he’s pretty easygoing and mellow even in intense combat situations.
- Glowing Mechanical Eyes: The Giant Mecha that attacks near the end of chapter two has six glowing red eyes.
- Good Morning, Crono: The story begins with Jane telling Tenzin to wake up.
- Gorn: The battlefield gets very messy during the entire chapter Ambush, although they do try to keep it PG-13. It gets even bloodier in Tenzin's nightmares while he's in a coma.
- Heroic BSoD : Following the grievous injuries Tenzin received in the second chapter, he's deep in a coma and is unresponsive to the rest of the world. His survivor's guilt over losing his men amongst many others in his life has subconsciously kept him from awakening.
- Husky Russkie: Viktor certainly fits this trope, although with less of an accent.
- Magnetic Weapons: Agent Nightshade's sniper rifle is a freaking railgun.
- More Dakka: Machine guns are just of many weapons used in combat.
- Motherly Scientist: Doctor Bellami, with Jane as her "child"
- Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering: The leaders of Minerva's three divisions make decisions for the group as a whole, but don't really see eye-to-eye...
- Powered Armor: All of the soldiers are equipped with high-tech combat armor.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Jane behaves so much like a teenager that you sometimes forget she's an AI hologram.
- Robot Girl: Jane is an AI variant.
- Scavenger World - For a good chunk of the world, civilization has crumbled, and people are struggling to get by on the remains of technology. A lot of Disaster Scavengers form para-military groups and spread chaos.
- Scenery Gorn: The war zone is suitably distressed-looking, though certain shots are also quite beautiful, too.
- Shout-Out: The "faces" of the deathbots bear a distinct resemblance to Isaac Clarke's iconic helmet.
- One of the techies is named Rick, while his transport driver is Morty.
- In the flashbacks to his youth, we see Tenzin as a young monk.
- Silent Snarker: Lily nails it hard on this page
when her attempt to warn the others of a potential trap sails right over their heads. - Stat-O-Vision: The view from inside the soldiers’ helmets show a certain degree of this, although Heads-Up Display or Augmented Reality may be more apt descriptions.
- Tank Goodness: Very large, imposing tanks at that.
- Trauma Conga Line: Tenzin's dream-memory flashbacks show that his life has pretty much been this (and a fair bit of it has been his fault), to the point where he decides there's no reason to ever wake up. Jane snaps him out of it by starting with a Dream Weaver version of Set Right What Once Went Wrong and escalating from there.
