YMMV / Alan Ford

• Anticlimax: After spending several volumes being gloomy, pessimistic and vocal about the spreading of Covid and the dubious utility of the vaccine (to the point that in the last page of Oblivium Angel!Grunf shows the symbol of Covid as the new symbol of eternity), Max does a 180 degree turn and in the following volume Minuette on trial the virus has been defeated like that.
• Anvilicious: In later volumes, Max Bunker becomes very vocal on his pro-animals views, even having a man who murdered several people who had been abusive to their pets pass as some kind of hero. The latest story A World for Sale is pretty much Bunker voicing his "theories" on Covid and his effects on Europe (apparently a secret plot to undermine the people of Europe so that Africans can move in).
• Ass Pull:
  • As many reviewers pointed out, Minuette's "magic" is essentially a tool to allow Bunker to solve any plot or trouble of the month with minimal effort. Case in point when the entiresubplot of the Von Strascen Barony (which lasted for several volumes) is anticlimactically solved in a handful of pages in a completely unrelated story to boot.
  • The climax of The Baroness Von Strascen is, by all given evidence, suggesting that Isolde Von Strascen is going to offer Minuette 2 million dollars in exchange for her temporarily divorce Alan so that the Baroness can marry with him and get the inheritance (and the risk of a hitman killing potential suitors such as Alan was defused earlier). A Conversation Cut later Minuette tells Alan that they have to attend a wedding, and only when they arrive at the chapel and find the Baroness dressed in a groom's tux it is finally revealed that she's not going to marry Alan but Minuette. Even later, no proper explanation for this unnecessary twist is given In-Universe, aside from "business".
  • The first climax of Virus has Professor Icskappa "finally" revealing to Number One (with whom he has interacted plenty of times since the Magnus Era, more than 500 comics ago) that he always hated him because he believes he's behind the death of a woman who both courted but choose Icskappa.
• Base-Breaking Character: Minuette Macon and her introduction in the story as a regular cast member: she's either a witty, brilliant character who helped reviving the series and brought in fresh air or an annoying, all-too-perfect character whose magic make stories boring and unfunny.
• Creator's Pet: Tied in to the above mentioned trope, many readers feel that Minuette is far too perfect (beautiful, snarky, smart, can use martial arts, guns and magic) to be appreciated and feel that she's Bunker's favourite, often making Alan appear as a spineless buffoon and damaging his Character Development.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Alan Ford was incredibly successful in former Yugoslavia and its successor countries, which is all the more unusual since other foreign editions (French, Danish, Brazilian, Albanian, Portuguese) all had poor sales and were quickly discontinued. This is often attributed to Nenad Brixy's distinct baroque translation, which takes some liberties with the source material — newer translations in ex-Yugoslav countries, although often truer to the original, were not as well-received. In fact, Brixy's translation was so influential that some phrases from the comic have become part of popular culture — for example, "Number One" is pretty much synonymous with "Methuselah" in Croatia, and a hypochondriac is sometimes referred to as a "Jeremija" (Croatian spelling of Geremia) in slang.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: or Harsher in Hindsight as all the gag from the earlier volumes where animals are comically or gratuitously abused or killed (like that time when Oliver gets rid of a pack of stray cats besieging the shop by having his friend, who's working part-time in a fry shop take them away as "rabbit") sound more awkward now with Bunker's more and more pro-animal rhetoric.
  • One early gag during a story arc with Trippazza has him teaching some girls to make career in television by teaching them to perform in porn and in lesbo-sex. This could be seen as a little hypocrite as later story arcs didn't shy away from putting sapphic elements simply for Fanservice reasons.
• Seasonal Rot: Considering that the series is over 600 volumes long (probably a little less, considering that certain stories have been re-printed), fans have often complained about a slow but steady decline in quality, with the stories losing most of their charm and becoming odder and more implausible as the series went on, often featuring outlandish scenarios or abusing the All Just a Dream trope. According to most, the downgrade began around volume 176, when Piffarerio stopped drawing the series, while others concede that the decay starts with volume 200 and, while the Mangia arc revives things, ultimately goes into full decline after volume 300. Of course, avid Magnus fans will consider all volumes past the 75th (when Magnus ceased working with Bunker) forgettable.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Minuette can be this from time to time. A perfect example in issue 627 where she's put on trial for shooting a woman (accomplice of a thief) who was trying to get away on a car and threathened to run her over. During the whole trial Minuette trolls the lawyer and the judge, apathetically refers to the victim as "the deceased" and costantly underlines how she was a criminal who threathened to run her over. The points raised by the lawyer (she could have just shot the car) are treated as petty loopholes, despite the fact that the readers have been shown plenty of times that she's an excellent shooter, so she could have gone for a less lethal solution. In shorts, rather than coming off as a snarky and likeable victim of the system, Minuette sounds more like a conceited jerkass who's willing to employ lethal force on duty.