| 1 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 2 | |
| 3 | [[folder: Main Characters]] |
| 4 | |
| 5 | [[WMG: Diabolik]] |
| 6 | First appearance: Diabolik #1 "The King of Terror" (1962)\ |
| 7 | |
| 8 | The series' protagonist, our beloved [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast King of Terror]]. A master thief capable of stealing pretty much anything, murdering anyone stupid enough to stand in his way. |
| 9 | ---- |
| 10 | Tropes associated with Diabolik: |
| 11 | * ABNegative: Identified as this precise blood type in "The Bird of Prey"-with the corollary that the sudden disappearance of multiple donors of this blood type immediately clues Ginko in on Diabolik needing a transfusion. |
| 12 | * AcePilot |
| 13 | ** UniversalDriversLicence: He's been seen driving cars, bikes, trucks, planes, boats, ships and submarines with great skills. |
| 14 | * AffablyEvil: Even in his early days as a CardCarryingVillain: he just never saw the point of ''not'' being gentle and polite unless he needed to intimidate people or they earned his wrath, so he'll be nice by default. |
| 15 | * AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Suffers from this in-universe, but he doesn't care enough to actually correct it unless they portray him as weak or stupid. |
| 16 | * AnimalMotifs: The panther. |
| 17 | * BadGuysDoTheDirtyWork: Once in a while he helps someone in need by committing murders, thefts, scams and other crimes, usually because it benefits him or the JerkassVictim [[MuggingTheMonster accidentally earned his revenge]]. |
| 18 | ** Best shown in the two-parter "A Cursed Island"-"Escape from the Island", where a MegaCorp started building a launch base for missiles on a tropical island... And Diabolik, once he didn't receive the annual package from the natives, scared away the workers (natives of nearby islands) with a ScoobyDooHoax, murdered a number of white workers, the supervisor and his replacement, told the vice-CEO to stop the works as soon as he became CEO and then [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident caused a deadly accident to the CEO]]. |
| 19 | * BastardUnderstudy: Was raised on an island by a master criminal and his gang, and learned half his trade from them. The other half was learned from Ronin (the greatest smuggler of all times, in Diabolik's own words), TheDragon [[OldMaster Master Chang]], and Natasha Morgan (the ruler of organized crime of Clerville when Diabolik first arrived). |
| 20 | * BerserkButton: Harming Eva, interfering with his heists or his possessions when you aren't supposed to (cops, victims, and people who work for his victims get a pass), harming his few friends or people that he owe something to, and using his name. |
| 21 | ** Harming Bettina deserves to be listed separatedly, as Diabolik will get ''messy'' if you try anything funny with her. What he did to a gang stupid enough to kidnap her and demand a ransom from him scared away anyone who even thought of repeating the attempt. |
| 22 | * ButForMeItWasTuesday: Diabolik has a ''gigantic'' body count, and cannot possibly remember all the people he killed. Was even {{Lampshaded}} by the vengeful daughter of one of his victims. |
| 23 | * CharacterDevelopment: In the early stories he was an hell of a CardCarryingVillain, prone to gloat about his status as TheDreaded and involved in drug trafficking. He later became LighterAndSofter, and then went back DarkerAndEdgier but not to the early extremes. |
| 24 | * CoolCar: Multiple black [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_E-Type Jaguar E-Types]]. The first one was just a 'common' Jaguar, but then he started adding all sorts of gadgets... |
| 25 | * CombatPragmatist |
| 26 | * ControlFreak: He doesn't like when someone doesn't follow his plans. With time he mellowed out, but in the early stories he almost ''murdered Eva'' for leaving alive [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness someone they didn't need anymore]] when he wanted them dead (him being unable to actually strangle her was the start of him [[TookALevelInKindness becoming somewhat nicer]]). |
| 27 | * CrazyJealousGuy: To Eva. |
| 28 | * CrazyPrepared: He always has some new but useful gadget, or some trap around, that, once used and discover, you just wonder ''why'' he made it. Also, he's conditioned to resist truth serums and mind-altering drugs. |
| 29 | ** In the story "King's Treasure" we find out he keeps around an altered version of the formula for his [[LatexPerfection perfect masks]] modified to shrink, and thus suffocate whoever is wearing them, when exposed to intense sunlight. We found out because Wolf, his chemistry teacher at King's Island, had captured him and was forcing him to give up the formula or be killed, thus Diabolik gave him the altered version expecting him to try and kill him and then die a KarmicDeath as soon as he left the poorly lighted environment he was forced to live in after getting the eyes ruined in a fire. |
| 30 | ** In one occasion Diabolik was captured by a {{Cult}} and administered an incredibly powerful mind-altering drug to brainwash him, so powerful that just a dose would allow the cult leader to transform most people into loyal servants. With Diabolik, ''it took a week of triple and quadruple doses'' to condition him, and even then he was able to resist to some degree and ''completely recovered with a small dose of stimulants''. |
| 31 | ** The story "Unrelenting Grip" has what is possibly the greatest example of Diabolik's Crazy Preparedness: an hideout made specifically to ''give the impression he's free in case Eva is arrested and he's in hospital under police surveillance while drugged up to stay asleep and with a face made unrecognizable from a car crash and thus give him the chance to escape, with the gadget in the hideout also giving the police reason to believe he's staying in another hideout where other gadgets will trap Ginko and his men with a bomb ready to go off and allow him to blackmail the police into freeing Eva'' (of course, he also has fake passports to get the police to find the first hideout and personally caused car crash and drugged himself, and when he saw the car crash had not wounded his face enough he grabbed a stone and hit himself until he was unrecognizable). [[LampshadeHanging The police wondered how long he had those hideouts ready for this evenience]]. |
| 32 | * CutLexLuthorACheck: He could easily support himself by working as a chemist, an engineer, an inventor, a martial arts instructor or professional fighter, a bodyguard, and even a ''cop'' (among many other professions), or by simply marketing his masks and enjoying the royalties. Yet, he steals. |
| 33 | * DarkAndTroubledPast: As all the protagonists, but less than the others, as his childhood on King's Island was, in the end, happy, at least until King decided to kill him for the secret of his masks. |
| 34 | * DeviousDaggers: His favourite weapon (apparently custom-made), and he's very good at it, to the point the only time he had to aim a throw was when he [[ImprobableAimingSkills hit two moving targets from a car while throwing his knives at the same time]] (in his defence, he was ''really'' desperate, [[IndyPloy and that was a fundamental part of the only plan he could come up with to escape the police in that particular occasion]]) and can brag that ''nobody'' survives his thrown knife (in fact, the only time someone didn't die on the spot was when Diabolik had to throw a ''paper knife'' at him, and it still was with enough strength and precision it ''downed the victim with a lethal wound at the heart'', just not lethal enough to kill him on the spot [[spoiler: until his son didn't show up and ''pushed the knive deeper'']]). |
| 35 | * DoesNotLikeGuns: He ''really'' prizes stealth, and guns are just too noisy. why he trained himself throwing knives until his victim started dying on the spot every time. |
| 36 | * TheDreaded: They call him the King of Terror because he's just ''that'' scary. |
| 37 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Early on, he was quite the CardCarryingVillain, had no hesitation to work with lesser criminals he was blackmailing or threatening into complying, and, believe it or not, [[TheCasanova a very successful playboy]] (the latter was before meeting Eva Kant and becoming monogamous). |
| 38 | * EnemyMine: Once in a while he has teamed up with Ginko. It usually happens when there's a threat big enough for the latter to justify postponing his hunt for Diabolik, but sometimes it happens because ItsPersonal or ''by complete accident'' (it happens when they are investigating on the same target, Diabolik to rob'em blind and Ginko to arrest them, and their efforts help each other). |
| 39 | * EvenEvilHasStandards: He always keeps his word, and tries to not kill if he can't. He also despises human trafficking, and being caught by him practicing it is a quick way to get jailed (early on) or killed (most recent run-ins with traffickers), and forcibly addicting someone to drugs (especially someone with intelligence and willpower) is something he considers almost unforgivable (almost: while he killed the ones who did that to [[spoiler:Ginko]], he spared the ones who did it to [[spoiler:Eva]] as they were aiming to the daughter of a drug lord and accidentally got the wrong target). |
| 40 | ** Diabolik's word is considered so good that him testifying to a trial that a mob boss killed another one caused the son of the victim to ''hunt down'' the other one. The reasoning of the victim's son? Diabolik obviously knew the truth, and he just found convenient to reveal it. |
| 41 | ** Used in RealLife with Diabolik being the testimonial in numerous social campaign, because if even Diabolik calls something disgusting then there must be something seriously wrong with it. Diabolik appeared as testimonial in campaigns against abandoning pets, dog fighting, scientific vivisection, driving too fast (with Diabolik calling those who do it fools), riding bikes without helmet (once again he calls people who do it fools), and, proving that [[DidntThinkThisThrough social campaigners sometimes don't think things through]], death penalty (Diabolik just happens to have a death sentence waiting for him). |
| 42 | ** Diabolik has no problems with the gay community. The time he found out one of his few friends was gay he was simply surprised he hadn't even suspected it. |
| 43 | ** EveryoneHasStandards: Finding out he had accidentally helped a paedophile to escape justice made him ''furious''. He also despises rapists, and those who WouldHurtAChild. In fact, [[WouldntHurtAChild he'd happily die rather than hurt a child]]. |
| 44 | * EvilCannotComprehendGood: Averted: he ''can'' and ''does'' understand Ginko. |
| 45 | * EvilGloating: He loves to, and always does it when his victim is about to receive a knife in the heart or can't do anything about it anyway. |
| 46 | * EvilMentor: Taught the trade to Eva Kant and Mila. |
| 47 | * {{Expy}}: Loosely based on Literature/{{Fantomas}}. |
| 48 | * FakingTheDead: He did it multiple times. The two incidents that stand at the top are when he, unable to break Eva out of jail due Ginko's security measures, faked being terminally ill and blowing himself up to die on his terms, and when he set up a situation where Ginko would be inclined to believe an headless corpse was actually his body and ''fooled the DNA test''. |
| 49 | * TheGadfly: Once in a while he does things like mailing Ginko an ''horrible'' piece of art (so ugly that Eva invoked the capital punishment for the artist) or ask a young fan [[HyperspaceArsenal where he keeps his knives when he's wearing his]] [[PaintedOnPants skintight suit]]. Why does he do it? Because he enjoys seeing their faces. |
| 50 | ** Diabolik is so notorious in-universe for his trolling that in "Challenge to the Police" the only one who suspected there was more about his sudden series of pranks to the police was [[WorthyOpponent Ginko]], and even for him it was just a nagging feeling until almost the last moment. |
| 51 | * ItAmusedMe: Diabolik steals because he loves the challenge, not because he needs to. Also, [[TheGadfly once in a while he'll do apparently pointless things just to prank Ginko.]] |
| 52 | * JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: Has resorted to this whenever he didn't have TruthSerum available or was too much in a hurry to use it. Standard modus operandi in early stories, alongside ColdBloodedTorture. |
| 53 | * KickTheDog: Once in a while he'll be ''extremely'' cruel, with relatively little reason for it. |
| 54 | * HyperspaceArsenal: Where he keeps them when he's wearing his skintight suit (he even {{Lampshaded}} it once). The few times he's seen pulling out those knives it appears he's pulling them ''out of his arms''. |
| 55 | * LatexPerfection: In-universe, he ''invented'' it, and he's the only person in the world that can actually create the masks right (some people copied the masks but they always melted after a while, and Eva knows how to make the mask but not the actual plastic to make them). |
| 56 | * ManipulativeBastard |
| 57 | * MasterOfDisguise: Not only he invented LatexPerfection, but, in a pinch, he can easily disguise himself and others with more mundane means. |
| 58 | * MasterPoisoner |
| 59 | * McNinja: His signature suit is directly modelled on a ninja outfit, only modified to prevent easy grabbing. |
| 60 | ** PaintedOnPants: His suit is so thin he has been described as looking like a naked man painted black when wearing it. |
| 61 | * MikeNelsonDestroyerOfWorlds: He didn't destroy any world, but acquired [[TheDreaded his terrible fame]] ''completely by accident'' (and Natasha Morgan forcefully getting the last word in their discussion if he should use fear as a weapon or not), and was originally reluctant to do it. Also, once in a while he'll cause quite the damage without actively trying it. A few examples: |
| 62 | ** Once, a plane crashed in the sea after the pilot called the airport and announced that Diabolik was about to make them crash. Diabolik was indirectly responsible, as the plane was bringing King's last followers to Clerville specifically to hunt him down... And they had kidnapped Natasha Morgan to help them. Who, not wishing to endanger Diabolik and ''really'' wanting the last word in the discussion mentioned above, [[DyingMomentOfAwesome killed the guy keeping her at gunpoint while she went to the toilet, barricated herself in the cockpit, forced the pilot to make that announce and then crashed the plane]]. He found out this ''years later'', when the plane was recovered and he recognized Natasha's bracelet...; |
| 63 | ** In an early story he stole the crown jewels of Benglait. A few days later he learned from the newspaper that the theft worsened the political and social tensions in Benglait because the locals couldn't believe the police had failed to retrieve them (they didn't know of Diabolik yet), and the country was on the verge of a civil war (they had already tried to bomb the king). He then stopped the civil war from actually starting by selling the jewels back to the Royal Family (at least some of it: Ginko managed to recover the rest), but the damage had already been done, and a few years later a relatively peaceful riot expanded in a quick but violent revolution; |
| 64 | *** On the opposite note, a later special issue reveals that the theft was the second attempt, and during the first failed one he was confronted by a terrorist group and ''crippled it'', thus lessening the growing tensions for a while and keeping them from take over during the revolution. |
| 65 | ** In a special issue he killed the chief of the police of a small BananaRepublic and later impersonated him for a failed heist. As soon as the coroner gave the hour of death of the cop, it caused a ''zombie scare''. |
| 66 | * MysteriousPast: Nobody, not even Diabolik, knows everything about him, and, loving [[ShroudedInMyth the aura of mystery around himself]], Diabolik rarely if ever reveals anything about his past. |
| 67 | ** King helped with it: he and his partner Prof saw some documents revealing Diabolik's real identity, and kept it secret. Now King is death by Diabolik's hand, and, in his debut issue, Prof was killed for being a human trafficker before he could even ''tell'' Diabolik he knew who he really was, so it's fated to stay mysterious for good. [[spoiler: [[SequelHook Except that King put those documents in a time capsule hidden somewhere on his island]]...]] |
| 68 | ** ExpansionPackPast: Once in a while, a story reveals something more about Diabolik's past. |
| 69 | ** TheUnreveal: Once in a while a story promises to reveal Diabolik's true origin, only to pull the rug from under the reader at the end of the issue. |
| 70 | *** One story had Eva being forced to tell a journalist something about Diabolik unknown to the general public, and she revealed that Diabolik is Walter Dorian's [[LongLostRelative lost twin]], thus explaining their uncanny resemblance. Later in the story Eva sent documents proving it was a lie. |
| 71 | *** The 2014 special issue "The True Story of King's Island" showed King's men rescuing the future Diabolik from that shipwreck and give their boss and TheDragon Prof some documents that revealed his name and origins. King and Prof decided to keep them secret, and Prof was killed by Diabolik before he could even tell him he knew them, while King, as you know, died well before the first issue. [[spoiler:[[SequelHook On the other hand, the documents still exist, buried somewhere in a time capsule made by Suanda...]]]] |
| 72 | * NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Out of universe, Diabolik is derived from "diabolico", Italian for "devilish". In-universe, he took the name from a man-eating panther that had been called Diabolik ''because'' it sounds like "diabolico": the panther had been King's last true enemy until he managed to kill and stuff it, and upon discovering that our protagonist had mortally wounded him he gave him his name. |
| 73 | ** Also, he's known as the King of Terror. |
| 74 | * NoNameGiven: His true name is unknown even to him. |
| 75 | * PragmaticVillain: He started killing less people because he doesn't need to anymore, and shifted his main focus of targets from honest people to crooks and other {{Jerkass Victim}}s because honest people tend to keep their money and valuables in banks that are becoming too much even for him. That said, he still has absolutely no problems at murdering people or cause a massacre (particularly notable is the time he caused a shootout between the police and a group of trigger-happy private security agents who believed they were facing fake cops) if he deems it necessary to get to steal whatever he's targeting. |
| 76 | -->"My dear Eva, illicit business pays well, and what really matters is that it's done in cash. I'm sure that home is full of money." |
| 77 | * ProperlyParanoid: He has dozens of boobytrapped hideouts, more gadgets than ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'', and has even placed traps on ''half of Clerville's roads''. Given it's ''barely enough'' when dealing with Ginko, you'll forgive him for growing ''more'' paranoid with time... |
| 78 | ** In one occasion, he used a chance hospitalization of Ginko to [[spoiler: hypnotically condition him to let him go when Diabolik told him a certain phrase]], just in case Ginko just happened to hold Diabolik at gunpoint with Eva already captured and nobody else present. A strange precaution for a nearly-impossible situation... Except that, during the very next caper, Diabolik found himself held at gunpoint by Ginko, with Eva BoundAndGagged in a corner and nobody else present. [[LampshadeHanging Diabolik himself didn't expect to have to use that trick so soon]]. |
| 79 | *** Even worse, that trick should have ruined Ginko's career, or at least keep him out of the way long enough to steal something without him in the way. As expected, Ginko is suspended for the inquiry. As ''not'' expected, his replacement asks Ginko for advice, and the next caper not only fails but results in the police raiding one of his hideouts, taking back some of his loots and ''finding evidence that proved Ginko's innocence''. |
| 80 | ** One time he was sure Ginko had died in a car accident, and his replacement was the nephew of the Minister of Justice. Diabolik assumed nepotism was at work... But acted with his usual paranoia on the off-chance he actually deserved the job, allowing him to spot at the last moment an exceedingly well-prepared ambush. The following day he read on the papers that Ginko was alive and the Minister's nephew was just relaying his orders precisely to prepare that ambush. |
| 81 | * RealMenWearPink: Can cook and sew (in fact he made his first skintight suit himself starting from cloth, and using nothing more than a needle), and is quite skilled with make-up (mostly of the theatrical kind). Besides, ''who'' would be suicidally stupid enough to call him weak or unmanly for that? |
| 82 | * RefugeInAudacity: Some of his plans are this. For example, when Eva was first arrested and he had no idea on how to break her out before she was sentenced to death and executed he ''kidnapped a top model and faked dumping Eva'', thus pitying the tribunal into giving her a lesser sentence, and his way to break her out involved a ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoid_fever typhoid fever outbreak]]'' (Eva had been recently inoculated). In another occasion he needed to keep Ginko away from a certain place for a month, so he decided to ''get caught blackmailing two actors'' to distract him (this one didn't work long enough, and Ginko would have caught him had his boss let him do the job). |
| 83 | ** In another occasion, he needed to get rid of a gang of smugglers before they could leave their ship and come to kill him. His solution? ''Call Ginko and the police on them''. At least [[ActuallyPrettyFunny the boss of the smugglers had a good laugh at Ginko's expense when she realized why the police showed up from nowhere]]... |
| 84 | ** In "Deadly Scheme" he hid a body in ''the trunk of Ginko's car'', prompting Ginko to shout: "'''Unbelievable!''' [[LampshadeHanging That criminal knows no shame!]]". |
| 85 | * RoaringRampageOfRevenge: Piss him off, and he ''will'' find you. |
| 86 | ** He's also willing to complete ''other people''[='=]s rampages, if he feels they're in the right. |
| 87 | ** TranquilFury: Even when furious, he's always calm and collected. |
| 88 | * SherlockScan: He can easily understand the personality of pretty much anyone by looking them in the face. |
| 89 | * ShroudedInMyth: This is how Gustavo Garian describes him in the first story: "Ginko says that, in the international criminal underground, people whisper about a ''being'' called ''Diabolik''". Ginko, in spite of ''arresting'' him once previously, wouldn't be sure that Diabolik actually existed (and the man he arrested was indeed him) until he stumbled on a room filled with Diabolik's legendary masks (the ability to change face at a moment's notice was one of the traits ascribed to the mysterious being), one of which was the face of the man he had arrested, and to the public he'll remain nothing more than a legend until the story "[[WhamEpisode The Arrest of Diabolik]]". Even then, some still think he's an alien. |
| 90 | * TookALevelInKindness: Relatively speaking. He's not as murder-prone as he used to be in early stories, where he had a penchant for forcing someone to do his bidding and then [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness murder them as soon as he didn't need them anymore]]. |
| 91 | * TruthSerum: An avid user of them, and conditioned to resist them. |
| 92 | * {{Ubermensch}} |
| 93 | * VillainProtagonist: He's both the main character and a super-villain. |
| 94 | * VillainWithGoodPublicity: Diabolik is surprisingly popular in spite of all his thefts and murders, and has interacted with his own fandom in multiple occasions (including a memorable one where he stole a Jaguar E-Type from an exhibition dedicated to ''him''). For obvious reasons, this drives Ginko mad. |
| 95 | * VoiceChangeling |
| 96 | * WorthyOpponent: He considers Ginko this. In an early story he even declared that he hated Ginko ''because'' he was this and thus couldn't despise him like with the rest of mankind, but nobody's fooled (especially as that followed him musing that he and Ginko together could TakeOverTheWorld and [[DeadpanSnarker Eva]] asking if he hated him or not), and in later occasions he defended him after he was insulted ("Ginko is no imbecile! We are equals, we just walk on opposite paths. Maybe one day we'll kill each other, but no mocking!") and admitted that only he could have foiled that particular plan of his ("Damn you, Ginko! Only him could have guessed my plan!"). |
| 97 | * WouldNotHurtAChild: Children are the one kind of people he'd never harm in any way, to the point that the one time a child walked in front of his car while he was being chased by the police he willingly ''crashed in a wall'' rather than run him over. |
| 98 | |
| 99 | [[WMG: Lady Eva Kant]] |
| 100 | First appearance: Diabolik #3 "The Arrest of Diabolik" (1963)\ |
| 101 | |
| 102 | Diabolik's lover and OneTrueLove. An impoverished noblewoman, she fell for Diabolik at first sight, and saved his life in her debut story. |
| 103 | ---- |
| 104 | Tropes associated with Eva Kant: |
| 105 | * AcePilot |
| 106 | ** UniversalDriversLicence |
| 107 | * AffablyEvil: She's a nice, gentle and polite woman, who just happens to have fallen for a master criminal and adopted his life style. She can also be far crueler than he, should she be sufficiently provoked. |
| 108 | * AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Suffers from this in-universe. Differently from Diabolik and Ginko, she can laugh it away... As long as it's hers and not Diabolik's. |
| 109 | * AntiVillain: Type I and II. |
| 110 | * BastardUnderstudy: While she already knew her fair bit about being a criminal, Diabolik taught her many things. |
| 111 | * BerserkButton: Wife bashers, homophobes, animal mistreatment and harm to children are known to make her positively murderous. |
| 112 | ** [[SeriousBusiness Also, she can't stand particularly bad art and the]] AlternateCharacterInterpretation [[SeriousBusiness Diabolik is victim of in entertainment media.]] |
| 113 | * BrilliantButLazy: Not really lazy, but most of the time she would be content to just enjoy the fact they're filthy rich instead of helping with the latest theft. |
| 114 | * BrokenBird: See her DarkAndTroubledPast entry. |
| 115 | * TheChessmaster: She doesn't do it too often, but when she does it she's good enough to manipulate ''Diabolik himself'' (he never found out). |
| 116 | * ClingyJealousGirl: Are you courting Diabolik? Start running or you're ''dead''. {{Justified}} by three things: Eva lost pretty much every important person in her life before Diabolik, her father seduced and abandoned her mother (he waited a lot for the abandoned part as she still had his love letters, but once her uncle suggested him a plan to take them he dumped her), and [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness Diabolik used to be]] TheCasanova [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness before their fateful encounter]]. |
| 117 | ** An early story where Diabolik ''faked dumping her'' (Eva had been arrested for the first time and Diabolik had no idea how to break her out before she was sentenced to death and executed, so he kidnapped a top model and faked dumping Eva to pity the jury into giving her a lesser punishment while he put together a plan to break her out) didn't help either. |
| 118 | * CoolCar: [[ProductPlacement The very first Ranger Rover Evoque, stolen by Diabolik as a present for her]]. And, of course, Diabolik's own Jaguar. |
| 119 | * CrazyPrepared: Being Diabolik's lover and accomplice, it's a given. |
| 120 | ** Eva is immune to common truth serums and mind-altering drugs, and highly resistant to the most advanced ones. Sounds crazy, right? A fair number of old stories had her being administered such drugs by various captors, including ''Ginko'' (in his case, simple truth serum), and one had her being captured by terrorists who, believing her someone else, gave her a powerful will-suppressing drug [[DamselOutOfDistress only to get killed in seconds after they untied her]]. Even before being immunized, she would sometimes carry amphetamine pills to pre-emptively counter the serum's effects and give the impression she's immune. |
| 121 | * CutLexLuthorACheck: Not to Diabolik's level, but she could still be a good cop (of course), lawyer, actress, top model, professional athlete and singer (and in fact she ''has'' been a professional singer when living in South Africa). |
| 122 | * DarkAndTroubledPast: Illegitimate daughter of a nobleman, her mother was DrivenToSuicide by her uncle Anthony and died in her arms, uncle Anthony left her in an OrphanageOfFear until she escaped, and worked as an industrial spy in South Africa until she met her uncle again and ''[[{{Squick}} married him]]'' to get her last name back (they never consummated, and in fact finding out who she was gave Anthony Kant an heart attack). |
| 123 | * DeadpanSnarker: And ''how''! Her insistence her husband's death devoured by a panther was an accident? [[spoiler: She didn't ''mean'' to set the panther on him, she was just trying to survive when ''he'' set the panther on ''her'']]. Her stopping snarking is treated as [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness a sign something is seriously wrong]]. |
| 124 | * DudeMagnet |
| 125 | * EvenEvilHasStandards: She not only always keeps her word and tries to not kill if she can, but she's also an animal lover (to the point she'll never harm or kill an animal, unless she has to eat). |
| 126 | ** EveryoneHasStandards: The knowledge she had accidentally saved a paedophile from justice [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness made her scream murder and swear a bloody revenge]]. She also cannot abide to rapists and wife beaters. |
| 127 | ** Eva's word is considered so good that when she showed up to testify in a pedophily trial and was recognized, the defendant was still convicted ''based exclusively on her word''. |
| 128 | * {{Expy}}: Loosely based on the ''Literature/{{Fantomas}}'' character Lady Maud Beltham. |
| 129 | * HeadTurningBeauty: One of three women to ever get this reaction from Diabolik. |
| 130 | * InsistentTerminology: Has a few quirks related to this trope: |
| 131 | ** [[DeadpanSnarker Her husband's death devoured by a panther was an hunting accident]], as [[spoiler: he was hunting ''her'' using the panther, and she didn't mean to set it on him]]. |
| 132 | ** She ''never'' used the name 'Diabolik' after meeting him: for her, he's "Dear", "Love", "''Him''", and "The Man I Love". |
| 133 | ** {{Inverted}}: in the early years only Diabolik used her name. Everyone else called her "Lady Kant", and even her would refer to herself as such in public. |
| 134 | * KillerRabbit: You look her, and you think she's harmless. Then she'll beat the crap out of anyone stupid enough to give her a reason, even when completely disarmed and shackled (during one of her brief periods in prison, a guard made an homophobic remark to a gay friend of hers. Said guard 'mysteriously' fell to the ground and hit the face the same moment Eva rose from her chair, and Ginko saw fit warning him to shut up and watch where he walked before he died). |
| 135 | * MasterOfDisguise: Arguably ''better than Diabolik''. After all, Diabolik can't believably disguise himself as the opposite gender... |
| 136 | * MasterPoisoner: She learnt from Diabolik. |
| 137 | * MoralityChain: She's this for Diabolik, relatively speaking: in the early stories he was ''really'' prone to murder anyone and anything, and without Eva's relative kindness (she didn't like [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness killing people they didn't need anymore]]) he'd still be doing that. In fact the start of him slowly [[TookALevelInKindness becoming less murderous and somewhat nicer]] was her foiling his attempt at killing the latest batch of drugged-up {{Unwitting Pawn}}s and him being unable to strangle her for that. |
| 138 | * MoreDeadlyThanTheMale: By now, the worst Diabolik will do you when you piss him off is to kill you or let you live knowing Diabolik knows where you are and one day ''will'' grow bored enough to come and kill you. Eva, however, if angered will make you ''suffer'': |
| 139 | ** Once upon a time she was dealing with a wife basher, and locked him into his own secret vault with no water nor food save for two guys she and Diabolik have just killed. Then she waited a few moments, [[HopeSpot let him think she didn't know of the emergency keyboard inside the vault from which he could have opened it]], and then digited the wrong combination, [[ToThePain telling him she was going to digit it twice again to engage the emergency lock that could be deactivated only from outside]]. |
| 140 | ** Diabolik once had been blinded by an explosion, and the first doctor Eva brought him to, being the brother of someone Diabolik [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]] without even noticing, lied and told them it was permanent, knowing [[AFateWorseThanDeath he would have preferred death]]. Upon finding out the truth and that Diabolik could have been cured with a corneal implant, she used ''him'' as the donor, and [[FateWorseThanDeath let him live with it]]. Upon finding out who was the donor, [[LampshadeHanging Diabolik admitted he wouldn't have gone so far]]. |
| 141 | ** When she was about to kill a mobster who kidnapped girls and forced them into prostitution, Eva went out of her way to terrorize him with the knowledge he was about to die rather than just kill him before he could even try to defend himself, and didn't do him anything worse because otherwise it would have been too dangerous. |
| 142 | * MsFanservice |
| 143 | * NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Her looks are based on the actresses Grace Kelly and Kim Novak, and one of the initial artists based his poses of Eva Kant on the Italian model Cristina Adinolfi photographed in those same poses. |
| 144 | * OrphanageOfFear: Eva grew up in Morben, a boarding school doubling as orphanage, reformatory for problematic children and dumping ground for undesiderable children from rich families, filled with {{Sadistic Teacher}}s prone to beat you up for small infractions and lock you in a dark room without food and water for ''days'' for the worse infractions. Many years after escaping, she discovered [[FromBadToWorse that worse things were happening there]]: the headmistress Clothilde [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Luger]] [[spoiler: was stealing inheritances from some of her students and murdering them]]. Discovering that and that her one friend there was among the victims was enough for Eva to [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge track the headmistress down and murder her]]. |
| 145 | * ProperlyParanoid: She's Diabolik's lover and accomplice, of course she is. |
| 146 | ** In "King's Treasure" she replaced part of her hair with extensions that ''emitted a blinding flash'', in case the {{Mooks}} that would search her for weapons were ordered to try and murder her and Diabolik. She had to throw them. |
| 147 | * SpellMyNameWithAnS: Her last name comes from the philosopher Immanuel Kant and is pronounced the same way, but many in Italy mispronounce it as "Kent". |
| 148 | * StalkerWithACrush: Too many to count. |
| 149 | ** AttemptedRape: Via drugs while she was masked. Then she took off her mask, and [[OhCrap the rapist realized he was going to die]]. |
| 150 | * {{Ubermensch}} |
| 151 | * VillainWithGoodPublicity: Even more than Diabolik, thanks to her looks and her being a known animal lover and protector of children. |
| 152 | * VoiceChangeling: One of the things she learned from Diabolik. |
| 153 | * WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: According to a jail director, being Eva Kant means you can imprison her in solitary confinement and keep her away from the world. Given she nearly murdered a very stupid guard ''while shackled'', he kinda had a point... |
| 154 | * WifeBasherBasher: She's beautifully ''sadistic'' when dealing with wife bashers. |
| 155 | * WorldsMostBeautifulWoman: {{Lampshaded}} when a story featured a statue of Venus that was ''identical'' to Eva, down to the PrimAndProperBun. |
| 156 | * WouldntHurtAChild: And those who would risk a painful death at her hands. |
| 157 | |
| 158 | [[WMG: Inspector Ginko]] |
| 159 | First appearance: Diabolik #1 "The King of Terror" (1962)\ |
| 160 | |
| 161 | Clerville's greatest police officer, and Diabolik's nemesis. |
| 162 | ---- |
| 163 | Tropes associated with Ginko: |
| 164 | * ABNegative: "The Blood of the Enemy" establishes he has the same blood type as Diabolik, previously identified as this exact type. |
| 165 | * AcePilot |
| 166 | ** UniversalDriversLicence |
| 167 | * AlmightyJanitor: He's an inspector, but he reports directly to the ''Minister of Justice''. |
| 168 | * AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Suffers from this in-universe, and it annoys him. |
| 169 | * AwesomenessByAnalysis: He's ''really'' good at guessing things and unveiling mysteries. |
| 170 | * BadassBiker: Used to be one when young. |
| 171 | * BoxingBattler: When young he tried out boxing in admiration of his childhood hero, the (in-universe) boxing champion Big Bolt, and whenever a situation calls out for hand-to-hand combat his first resort are truly powerful fists. |
| 172 | * BrokenBird: He never quite recovered from discovering that [[spoiler:his father had been ''rightly'' imprisoned for being a corrupt judge]]. |
| 173 | * ByTheBookCop: Because otherwise criminals will get out on technicalities. |
| 174 | * ChickMagnet: To his own deep disgust and fear for his virtue: he had more than one StalkerWithACrush. |
| 175 | * CombatPragmatist: Sort of: he's not above using Diabolik's own masks for disguise, and, in one infamous occasion, used Diabolik's confiscated gadgets to ''escort some statues away under his nose''. |
| 176 | * TheComicallySerious: Capable of putting himself into strange or ridiculous situations without losing his stoic expression. |
| 177 | * CutLexLuthorACheck: ''Inverted'': he could be a magnificent master thief or mob boss, but he's too honest to even consider it. |
| 178 | * DeathByOriginStory: Two: a family friend died saving him from a criminal and his own impulsiveness when he was a child, and a police academy companion died protecting him. |
| 179 | * TheDreaded: To most crooks, finding out Ginko is out to get them means they have to start running. Those who don't are either Diabolik (who ''still'' fears him) or learn otherwise soon. |
| 180 | * EnemyMine: Occasionally forged a loose alliance with Diabolik to deal with bigger threats, like gangs who managed to capture them both, terrorists organizations or [[spoiler: a pharmaceutical company trying to cause an epidemics to make money from the cure]]. It sometimes happens when ItsPersonal (for example, one of those terrorist organizations had nearly killed Altea in a bombing, prompting the team-up), or by ''complete accident'' (if they're investigating on the same crook, Diabolik to rob'em blind and Ginko for an arrest, their efforts usually help each other). |
| 181 | * EvilCannotComprehendGood: Inverted: it's ''Ginko'' who has trouble understanding Diabolik's motivations, at least at the start (and was utterly creeped out by him). Later this disappears, as, after Diabolik told him his OriginStory in "Diabolik, Who Are You?", he started understanding him. |
| 182 | * {{Expy}}: Loosely based on inspector Juve from ''Literature/{{Fantomas}}'' and, at the start, on Franchise/SherlockHolmes (he even used to ''look'' like him, before having his character design modified, and still smokes a pipe). |
| 183 | * AFateWorseThanDeath: [[spoiler: Forcefully addicting him to heroin before revealing this to the world. Nearly happened to him at the hands of a group of criminals led by the woman of a CorruptCop he arrested and locked in a prison where he was killed by the inmates, but Diabolik stepped him before they could reveal his addiction, exterminated the gang and brought Ginko to Altea so he could be cured in secret]]. |
| 184 | * TheFettered: He often wants to just kill certain criminals and knows that, as long as the witnesses are other cops, they would testify in his favor... But he has imposed himself to be the best and most honest police officer he could be, so he doesn't kill unless he has to. |
| 185 | * GoodOldFisticuffs: Among his many differences with Diabolik, he favours bar brawling-style punching and throws to sophisticated exotic martial arts. Whenever they fight each other in hand-to-hand, Ginko punches out Diabolik nine times out of ten, including that occasion where Ginko uppercutted the King of Terror ''before even realizing it wasn't a {{Mook}}''. |
| 186 | * HeroAntagonist: The main nemesis of the VillainProtagonist. |
| 187 | * HeroicWillpower: So good that he's ''immune to truth serums'', and [[spoiler: recovered from heroin addiction in no time after being forcefully addicted by some criminals]]. |
| 188 | * ImprobablyCoolCar: He used to drive a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citroën_DS Citroën DS]]. {{Justified}} as it's a present from his mentor, who was more than wealthy enough to buy one. |
| 189 | * IncorruptiblePurePureness: No matter what, he will ''never'' compromise with evil. [[EnemyMine Even his occasional alliance with Diabolik]] is slated to end the very moment the bigger threat is dealt with, and they both know that (Diabolik usually gasses him before he can aim the gun, assuming he didn't just boobytrap the gun). |
| 190 | * MarriedToTheJob: To the point [[DeadpanSnarker Altea]] once [[LampshadeHanging asked him if he was cheating on her with the police station]]. |
| 191 | * MasterOfDisguise: Using wigs, theatrical make-up and clothes he wouldn't normally wear (sometimes to his own embarrassment). Has occasionally used Diabolik's own masks. |
| 192 | * MundaneSolution: He's prone to this. Do you need to move some gold under Diabolik's nose? He'll hide it in the bags of the escort motorcycles (when he did this Diabolik had no idea of where the gold was). Do you need to move fifteen tonnes of gold? He'll have it fused into ''fifteen bricks of a tonne each'', put it into a three tonnes steel case safe welded shut in such a way it would take two days to open it and weld it to a six tonnes railway wagon, and dare any criminal to move the mass of ''twenty four tonnes'' without a huge crane that they can't possibly take with them (Diabolik found a way to bring the train where he had a sufficiently large crane). |
| 193 | * MysteriousPast: Until the story "Ginko-Before Diabolik", the only known things about his life before becoming inspector were him having a mentor and having been a biker in his past, all of which coming from ''two'' {{Noodle Incident}}s. "Ginko-Before Diabolik" was published in 2006, ''forty-three years after the start of the series'', and the two noodle incidents were mentioned ''thirty-five and forty-one years after the start''. And we still don't know his real name. |
| 194 | * NiceJobBreakingItHero: In the story ''The Bird of Prey''. See MyGodWhatHaveIDone for details. |
| 195 | * NoSocialSkills: Played with: he has them, but absolutely ''loathes'' getting into any sort of situation where more than basic politeness is required. |
| 196 | * OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Once in a while, Ginko has abandoned the procedural and became positively murderous. Said occasions involved things like [[spoiler: Altea being comatose and nearly killed due a terrorist bombing]] and a ring of ''child pornography'' (in the latter case he even resorted to [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique manhandling and threatening a suspect with a knife]], even passing himself for Diabolik because everyone knew that, [[EveryoneHasStandards being furious at accidentally helping the boss to escape justice, he was out for their blood]]). |
| 197 | * OvershadowedByAwesome: He's just as good as Diabolik, only more restrained by his role as a police officer. |
| 198 | * ProperlyParanoid: Necessary, given who he's dealing with. In the first story, he started shooting ''strawmen'' in case Diabolik was hidden in one of them. Diabolik ''was'' in a strawman, and was struggling to not cry in pain and fall down after getting shot in the arm. This continues to this day. |
| 199 | ** Particularly accentuated in the early stories. The faceless body identified as the butler of the Minister of Justice broke a leg a year earlier? Diabolik was the butler and is now disguised as the Minister, and the guy they're about to execute as Diabolik is really the Minister. A journal describes a failed caper in ''India'' as been committed with "hellish cunning"? It's Diabolik. And, like in the two occasions we've described, ''he's always right''. |
| 200 | ** In another story, Eva muses that Ginko has no idea the mummy he's flying to Clerville is actually ''Diabolik in disguise''. At Clerville, Ginko already had an infrared sensor ready to verify if Diabolik was disguised as the mummy (Diabolik being Diabolik, he had a suit that blocked his life signs). |
| 201 | * RefugeInAudacity: He usually favors easier things, but he's still capable of ''putting together a dancing show with the dancers actually being armed policewomen wearing a fortune in emerald jewels fitted with tracking devices'' just to chase the King of Terror (the story is "Ginko Attacks", of 1965. Diabolik evaded capture, but Ginko managed to raid a crapload of his refuges). |
| 202 | * RunningGag: Ginko coming close to resigning after a particularly humiliating defeat: it went so far that, in one occasion, one of his men quipped that Ginko was about to write a resignation letter but would destroy it before the day ended (we don't know if he actually wrote the resignation letter, but he didn't resign anyway). He ''did'' try and resign once, but the Ministry of Justice refused his resignation and sent him back to work. |
| 203 | * ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: Occasionally he'll play outside the rules when the crime is too dangerous or the criminal too vile. |
| 204 | * ShadowArchetype: To Diabolik, to the point he may be described as being how Diabolik would be if he was a cop. To better drive the point home, his looks have been redesigned into being a more generic Diabolik. |
| 205 | * ShedTheFamilyName: To distance himself from [[spoiler: his father, a corrupt judge]]. |
| 206 | * SympatheticInspectorAntagonist |
| 207 | * {{Ubermensch}}: Played with: on one side, he follows the morality and rules of society, on the other he ''rejects'' the common interpretation. This is also the main difference between Diabolik and him: Diabolik was raised by criminals and forced to kill his own father figure, while Ginko was raised by an honest family, and [[spoiler: finding out his father ''had'' committed the crime he had been convicted for]] only made him more honest. |
| 208 | * UndyingLoyalty: His men would gladly die for him, and whenever he needed help they did ''anything'', even commit borderline illegal acts and risk jail (being Ginko's hand-picked men, they always get away with it by bringing in results). |
| 209 | * VoiceChangeling |
| 210 | * WhatTheHellHero: His obsession with Diabolik has caused him to do a few reprehensible acts, even getting called out by Altea once. |
| 211 | * WillfullyWeak: He willingly limits his options to lawful ones, even knowing that he could quickly deal with Diabolik if he pulled all stops. |
| 212 | * YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame: [[WorthyOpponent He may have a grudging respect for Diabolik]], but he still ''loathes'' him. |
| 213 | [[/folder]] |
| 214 | |
| 215 | [[folder: Secondary Characters]] |
| 216 | |
| 217 | [[WMG: Gustavo Garian]] |
| 218 | First appearance: Diabolik #1 "The King of Terror" (1962)\ |
| 219 | |
| 220 | An early victim of Diabolik, and the first named character in the whole series, even introducing Diabolik's legend to the reader. [[spoiler: Killed himself in "The Return of Gustavo Garian"]]. |
| 221 | ---- |
| 222 | Tropes associated with Gustavo: |
| 223 | * AdaptedOut: Conspicuously absent from the film trilogy. As they started from "The Arrest of Diabolik", his role as TheWatson was easily filled by Ginko's sergeant |
| 224 | * AmateurSleuth: He's a decent detective and often helps the police, but his only connection is that he's Ginko's friend. |
| 225 | * [[spoiler: AnyoneCanDie: Killed off to make sure the readers would understand this.]] |
| 226 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: He's a nice guy, honest and brave, but nowhere in Diabolik and Ginko's league. He also a good shot with the pistol, a decent judoka, and nearly caused Diabolik's arrest or death in multiple occasions. |
| 227 | * BreakTheCutie: In their first encounter, Diabolik murdered his father and his aunt, drove his mother mad ''twice'' and ruined her health (she would die soon after, screaming "The murderer!" at Gustavo while hallucinating he was Diabolik), and nearly killed him, all in order to steal a priceless treasure from him. |
| 228 | * TheCharmer: He's quite the ladies' man... And thus Ginko has occasionally used him to spy villains with a cute daughter or sister. |
| 229 | * DidntSeeThatComing: The reason he's a danger to Diabolik is that he's rarely aware of him being around, and if he is he just doesn't consider him a danger. |
| 230 | ** Example of him not knowing Gustavo is around: by using the face of a dead cop during a failed heist in a BananaRepublic, Diabolik accidentally caused a zombie scare, leading Gustavo, who was trying to pin various crimes on the local dictator, to realize Diabolik is around and call Ginko. And when Gustavo and Ginko are captured by local gangsters, Gustavo manages to ''sick the gangsters on Diabolik''. |
| 231 | ** Example of Diabolik not considering Gustavo a danger: [[spoiler: in "The Return of Gustavo Garian", Diabolik, after faking his death and killing three hitmen that had nearly got him multiple times, disguises himself as Ginko and asks Gustavo why the hitmen were about to target him in the attempt to find out their employer, only for Gustavo to confess ''he'' hired the killers. Gustavo was slowly dying due an unspecified disease, so he rallied some former victims of Diabolik (including a millionaire that seemed to be the employer) to raise the funds and sick the hitmen on Diabolik, and then commissioned them to kill him]]. Diabolik himself was left speechless. |
| 232 | * IntrepidReporter: After being PutOnABus, he became a journalist, and was instrumental in ruining the dictator of a BananaRepublic and [[ItMakesSenseInContext exposing a zombie scare as a heist of Diabolik]]. |
| 233 | * ItsPersonal: See the BreakTheCutie entry and stop asking why Gustavo wants Diabolik dead, OK? |
| 234 | --->"I hate Diabolik just like you, and I'll be happy only when I'll see his head rolling off the guillotine." |
| 235 | * KickTheDog: Diabolik could have used less scarring and murderous ways to steal that treasure from Gustavo. Yet he did what he did, and, years later, stole the equally priceless original container of that treasure (he had originally missed it due a ''clerical error''). |
| 236 | ** TheDogBitesBack: Once in a while, he found himself in a position to strike back at Diabolik, who had to deal with things like a small army of South American gangsters and [[spoiler: the three best hitmen of the world]]. |
| 237 | * [[spoiler: KilledOffForReal: Convinced his hitmen had killed Diabolik and knowing Eva got them before they could put him out of his misery, he kills himself in "The Return of Gustavo Garian".]] |
| 238 | * PutOnABus: The authors didn't like him, so they made him a world-travelling IntrepidReporter to have an excuse to get rid of him. |
| 239 | ** CommutingOnABus: He still showed up from time to time, either with him returning to Clerville or Diabolik preparing an heist where he's working. |
| 240 | ** [[spoiler: BusCrash: Killed himself in his last appearance, the story titled "[[{{Irony}} The Return of Gustavo Garian]]".]] |
| 241 | * ShipperOnDeck: Both with Ginko's relationship with Esmeralda Radiè in the earliest stories and with the more recent with Altea. |
| 242 | * TheWatson: His main job when he was a recurring character was to get Ginko to explain Diabolik's latest ruse. |
| 243 | |
| 244 | [[WMG: Altea Von Waller, Duchess of Vallenberg]] |
| 245 | First appearance: Diabolik #22 "The Great Blackmail" (1964)\ |
| 246 | |
| 247 | Ginko's fiancee and a foreign noblewoman. They first met when Diabolik blackmailed her country and choose her castle for the payment, prompting Ginko to try and stop him. |
| 248 | ---- |
| 249 | Tropes associated with Altea: |
| 250 | * BerserkButton: Don't harm Ginko, or she'll have you murdered ''by Diabolik'' (that was plan B. Plan A involved a ProfessionalKiller, but Diabolik killed and replaced him for a heist and she improvised). |
| 251 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: A very nice woman, funny, generous... Who nearly brought down a terrorist organization by herself, and has once managed to sick ''Diabolik'' on a mob boss (the boss died two nights later). |
| 252 | * CallingTheOldManOut: The only one to ever call out Ginko on his obsession for Diabolik. |
| 253 | * TheCassandra: She told the king that the court's spendthrift policies would cause a revolution, and repeated it for years. The Benglait is now a republic. |
| 254 | * CatchPhrase: "Love, I'll strangle you." Told to Ginko every time his job gets too much in the way. |
| 255 | * DeadpanSnarker: On Eva's level. |
| 256 | * FriendlyEnemy: She's on relatively good terms with Diabolik and especially Eva. |
| 257 | * IDidWhatIHadToDo: She's ready to destroy evidence to ensure justice, and will put a hit on someone and sick Diabolik on them if it can save Ginko. |
| 258 | * KillerRabbit: She's just harmless looking, and physically speaking she's just a woman with above average fitness. Aside for the many things you see in this entry, she also ''captured Diabolik and Eva '''at the same time, without Ginko's help''''' (in fact, Ginko being so depressed about [[MyGreatestFailure arresting a]] CorruptCop [[MyGreatestFailure from his own squad and letting him getting murdered in prison]] that he was thinking about resigning ''is the reason'' she did it: she wanted to cheer him by ''serving him Diabolik and Eva on a silver platter''). Oh, and she did it with a TrapDoor, of all things. |
| 259 | * [[MasterOfDisguise Mistress of Disguise]]: She only needs [[WigDressAccent a wig, different clothes and heavy make-up]] to become unrecognizable. Occasionally, she has used one of Diabolik's masks confiscated by the police. |
| 260 | * MeetCute: She first met Ginko when he broke in her home. |
| 261 | * ModestRoyalty: Wears elegant but modestly, and only flaunts her wealth if forced by circumstances. |
| 262 | * MoreDeadlyThanTheMale: Ginko is restrained by the law. Altea has no such restraint, and instead she's filthy rich and her uncle can put her in contact with professional hitmen. Do the math. |
| 263 | * NiceToTheWaiter: The only reason she can still return to Benglait after the revolution: she may be a member of the Royal Family, but she was fair to everyone and opposed to the wastes of the court. |
| 264 | ** During the revolution in Benglait, Diabolik helped her escape [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized revolutionaries aiming to kill every noble in the country]], and, after they were safe, she thanked him and ''tried to pay him for the service while fully knowing his identity''. |
| 265 | * NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Her looks are inspired to the French actress [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capucine Capucine]]. |
| 266 | * TheOjou |
| 267 | * RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Volunteer nurse after a terrorist attack, a politically influent character opposed to the court's wastes of money, and a sworn enemy of a terrorist organization. |
| 268 | * ShadowArchetype: To Eva. They both acknowledged their similar characters. |
| 269 | * SilkHidingSteel: Many, including [[spoiler: ''her own husband'' and leader of the Grey Ravens terrorists]], believe her weak and gullible. Then she shows up holding them at gunpoint, or smiles while they find out that she has served them to Ginko on a silver platter, or Ginko casually mentions she's them who got the decisive evidence on the criminals... |
| 270 | * StalkerWithACrush: She too has had her own share of these. |
| 271 | ** RapeAsDrama: One of them managed to rape her, and framed a serial rapist. Altea ''still'' revealed his guilt. |
| 272 | * StayInTheKitchen: Well, it's more Stay Away From Diabolik, but Ginko tells her this quite often. She never listens. |
| 273 | * TheWatson: Often appears just for that. |
| 274 | |
| 275 | [[WMG:Ginko's team]] |
| 276 | First appearance: Diabolik #3 "The Arrest of Diabolik" (1963)\ |
| 277 | |
| 278 | Ginko's hand-picked team of police officers. |
| 279 | ---- |
| 280 | * ByTheBookCop: Like Ginko, they strictly follow procedural to keep criminals from getting away through loopholes. |
| 281 | ** CowboyCop: They tend to have this temper, but they keep it in check up until they have exhausted all normal options. |
| 282 | * CrooksAreBetterArmed: {{Averted}}: unless specifically required otherwise by the job they go around armed with [[MoreDakka submachine guns]]. |
| 283 | * {{Hypercompetent Sidekick}}s: Simply put, they're the best uniformed cops in Clerville, hand-picked by Ginko for their already excellent skills and then further trained up to ''his'' exacting standards. They're good enough that even Diabolik threads lightly in their presence. |
| 284 | ** As shown in "An Inconvenient Death", they're all good enough detectives to easily see through a deception that would fool the average detective. |
| 285 | ** In "The Invisible Safe" Diabolik's initial plan involved putting to sleep two cops with his needles, and when it didn't work out he hit them in the head to make sure nobody would realize it was him while he reworked his plan. However one of the two cops was a former member of Ginko's team, who recognized having been stung by a needle and, after his current boss dismissed him, went to Ginko with his suspicions. Diabolik got almost caught in the act when Ginko and his team showed up. |
| 286 | * IncorruptiblePurePureness: They will ''not'' compromise with evil, to the point that the one time it looked like Ginko ''had'' they were on the verge of denouncing him. |
| 287 | * LegacyCharacter: The team has been replaced in its entirety more than once due members being promoted, transferred out, or dying on the line of service. |
| 288 | * MoreDakka: Unless specifically required otherwise, they ''always'' carry submachine guns when outside the police station. {{Justified}} because they tend to deal with Diabolik, the mob, and other dangerous criminals. |
| 289 | * NoNameGiven: Rarely identified by name. |
| 290 | * NoTrueScotsman: As far they're concerned, they are ''all'' brave and honest cops, who'd die before committing a crime - so the officer who actually committed a crime and revealed himself a coward was posthumously rejected by the others. |
| 291 | * OOCIsSeriousBusiness: On a number of occasions they have acted strangely, signaling just how ''serious'' things had got for the police: |
| 292 | ** When a criminal had framed Ginko they had managed to track down a crucial witness, who was refusing to tell them anything, pushing them to the point they were about to [[CowboyCop abandon the procedural]]. Their sergeant ''threatening'' to [[PoliceBrutality beat up the witness]] spooked him enough to spill the guts. |
| 293 | ** In one occasion, one of Diabolik's plans had made it look like Ginko had let him go once out of gratitude for saving his life on a previous occasion. Many of them renounced their UndyingLoyalty to Ginko until it was revealed that Diabolik had hypnotically conditioned him to give that exact impression. |
| 294 | * UnderestimatingBadassery: Many think that they're just Ginko's goons and taking him out means they're harmless, only to be proven wrong when the best uniformed cops in Clerville show up ready to arrest them. Even ''Diabolik'' committed this error once, thinking they wouldn't be able to foil his plan only to realize just in time they were lying in ambush and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere running the hell away]]. |
| 295 | * UndyingLoyalty: To Ginko. Framing him is the quickest way to get them on your tail. |
| 296 | ** When Bruno Evans replaced Ginko and disbanded the team they all kept in contact with Ginko, still considering him their boss and passing him informations he wasn't supposed to know anymore and being ready to answer his summon when he works out Diabolik's plan, almost capturing him. |
| 297 | ** When inspector Rolf replaced Ginko and took over the squad the only reason many didn't quit the police in protest was that ''Ginko'' had asked them not to, and [[spoiler:one of them was working with Ginko to manipulate Rolf into preparing an ambush for Diabolik]]. |
| 298 | ** When Ginko had apparently died and was replaced by the Minister's nephew Roland they were openly disgusted by the blatant nepotism, and many were ready to quit the moment their new boss failed to prove himself on Ginko's level. [[spoiler:They rejoiced when it turned out Ginko was alive and Roland was actually relaying his orders so that Diabolik wouldn't find he was still alive until he fell for the ambush being readied for him]]. |
| 299 | * TheWatson: Their sergeant takes this role for Ginko whenever Altea or Gustavo aren't around. |
| 300 | [[/folder]] |
| 301 | |
| 302 | [[folder: Recurring Characters]] |
| 303 | |
| 304 | [[WMG: Elisabeth Gay]] |
| 305 | First appearance: Diabolik #1 "The King of Terror" (1962)\ |
| 306 | |
| 307 | Diabolik's first lover in the series, a gorgeous nurse in a psychiatric hospital. Since she accidentally revealed his true face to the world and he drove her mad, she's among Diabolik's worst enemies ever. |
| 308 | ---- |
| 309 | Tropes associated with Elisabeth: |
| 310 | * BreakTheCutie: In the span of a few days, her beloved Walter Dorian was revealed to be the terrifying murderer Diabolik, she was forced to testify against him and have a direct part in him being sentenced to death, ''and'' Eva Kant saved him in a way that made clear she had already been replaced as lover, driving her on the verge of madness. ''Then'', in the aptly-titled story "Atrocious Revenge", Diabolik waited for her to recover and find a new love in her therapist to drive her ''fully'' mad. |
| 311 | ** HarsherInHindsight: This became much harsher with "In the Tunnel of Madness", when we find out that she would have become Diabolik's accomplice had he just asked. [[FromBadToWorse Gets even harsher]] with "Inside Clerville's Underground": he ''did'' consider doing that and even tested her, but, after proving herself a capable accomplice, she failed by telling Ginko about their encounter with a dead terrorist (even if she omitted the circumstances). |
| 312 | *** Even worse in Diabolik (2021), the almost faithful adaptation of Diabolik #3. Among the few changes, ''Walter Dorian'' is clearly seen as never having had a shred of love for her and taking advantage of [[ClingyJealousGirl her obsession with him]] and her constant attempt to win his almost non-existent affections. |
| 313 | * DeadpanSnarker: Has shades of this. When she meets Diabolik she's quick to point out that, in spite of the name, she's a nurse and not [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethII the Queen of England]]. |
| 314 | * [[DecoyProtagonist Decoy Sidekick]]: Was Diabolik's lover and [[UnwittingPawn unknowing accomplice]] for the first two stories, "The King of Terror" and "The Elusive Criminal", before she accidentally exposed him and got replaced by Eva Kant in "[[WhamEpisode The Arrest of Diabolik]]". |
| 315 | * DrivenToMadness: To date, ''four times'': |
| 316 | ** the first time was when she accidentally got Diabolik arrested, testified against him, and found out she had been replaced as his lover; |
| 317 | ** immediately after recovering from that, [[KickTheDog Diabolik did everything he could to drive her back and deeper into madness]], and succeeded; |
| 318 | ** years later, after recovering from that, she captured Diabolik, but her husband stopping her from torturing him to death drove her deeper into madness, even [[spoiler: convincing herself she was in love with Ginko, who loathed Diabolik the most]]; |
| 319 | ** a few years later she shot who she believed was Diabolik disguised as Ginko, [[spoiler: but when she checked the dying body she found out ''the face was not a mask'' and that it was her husband who got a plastic surgery in the desperate attempt to win her love, and she had already confirmed that ''the Ginko who tricked her into killing her husband was the real one'']]. This completely broke her, and it's implied she died a few days after. |
| 320 | * HeadTurningBeauty: One of three women to ever get this reaction from Diabolik. |
| 321 | * HiddenDepths: She may have been lovestuck with him at the time, but she was the first person outside of the criminal underground to suspect Walter Dorian of being anything more than an honest businessman (even if she didn't expect him to be Diabolik. Not even the underground did). |
| 322 | ** The flashback of "Inside Clervilles' Underground" shows she's fully capable of identifying a very functional madman on sight, and has her giving a brief explanation of how they may seem sane while hiding behind a mask [[JustifiedTrope thanks to her job as a psychiatric nurse]]. The same flashback shows she had the same potential as Eva for being Diabolik's accomplice, possibly more. |
| 323 | * HospitalHottie: In the first three stories (and stories set in that period) she was a nurse at a psychiatric hospital. |
| 324 | * KickTheDog: Why did Diabolik choose to drive her mad in revenge? Because she was terrified of becoming mad, and ''he knew it''. |
| 325 | ** TheDogBitesBack: When they met again, Liz managed to kidnap him and [[ColdBloodedTorture tortured him for days]], with the full intent to continue until he was dead, and ''delivered the pictures to Eva''. The plan also included delivering Eva the picture of the corpse and then call the police on her, and it took a combination of Eva managing to track her down and Alberto trying to stop her to save Diabolik. |
| 326 | * LoveMakesYouCrazy, [[LoveMakesYouEvil and Evil]]: Her madness, and all her evil acts, stems from her having never quite stopped to love Diabolik, even after [[spoiler:convincing herself she was in love with Ginko]]. |
| 327 | * MyGodWhatHaveIDone: After [[spoiler:being tricked into killing her husband, who, to win her love, had even got a plastic surgery to look like Ginko. ''Ginko himself'' doing the trickery didn't help.]] |
| 328 | ** After "The Face of Hate", Diabolik has this reaction about what he did to her. |
| 329 | * NonIdleRich: During her time as the fiancee and future wife of "Walter Dorian" she was quite rich, but still worked as a psychiatric nurse. |
| 330 | * NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: In terms of looks she's Creator/ElizabethTaylor with black hair, with a name to match. |
| 331 | * PutOnABus: After "Atrocious Revenge", she disappeared for years. |
| 332 | ** TheBusCameBack: Aside for flashbacks, she has returned in "In the Tunnel of Madness" and "The Face of Hate". |
| 333 | * ShadowArchetype: To Eva, in two different ways: |
| 334 | ** Initially she was an Eva who had never chosen to be independent from men, with all her beauty and intelligence and a crippling emotional weakness that ended driving her mad twice; |
| 335 | ** After recovering from that, she became like Eva in her ClingyJealousGirl moments, only ''worse''. |
| 336 | * UnwittingPawn: To Diabolik, before "[[WhamEpisode The Arrest of Diabolik]]". |
| 337 | * WomanScorned: After recovering from her madness. |
| 338 | |
| 339 | [[WMG: Alberto Floriani]] |
| 340 | First appearance: Diabolik #4 "Atrocious Revenge" (1963)\ |
| 341 | |
| 342 | A psychiatrist and Elisabeth's unlucky husband, persecuted by the ghost of Diabolik. |
| 343 | ---- |
| 344 | Tropes associated with Alberto: |
| 345 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: In his final appearance he nearly succeeds in killing Diabolik. |
| 346 | * BrokenBird: With time he becomes this. |
| 347 | * FakingTheDead: Unwillingly: Diabolik faked beheading him to drive Elisabeth mad. |
| 348 | * FlorenceNightingaleEffect: He was Elisabeth's psychiatrist when they fell in love. |
| 349 | * [[spoiler: KilledOffForReal: Elisabeth was tricked into believing he was Diabolik in disguise and shot him. And the one who tricked her was ''Ginko'', of all people]]. |
| 350 | * LoveMakesYouCrazy: His desperate attempts to win Elisabeth's love drove him to [[spoiler: have a plastic surgery to look like Ginko]] and try to kill Diabolik. |
| 351 | * NiceGuy: At the start. |
| 352 | * ScarsAreForever: After a car crash, he gets disfigured and refuses plastic surgery, as Elisabeth had come to hate his face and he wouldn't have a use for his old face anymore. [[spoiler: Then {{Subverted}} when he has the surgeon make him look like ''Ginko'']]. |
| 353 | |
| 354 | [[WMG: Esmeralda Radiè]] |
| 355 | First appearance: Diabolik #5 "The Genious of Murder" (1963)\ |
| 356 | |
| 357 | An early character created to be a love interest for Ginko. [[PutOnABus Disappeared for a while]], [[FaceHeelTurn and reappeared as a drug trafficker]]. |
| 358 | ---- |
| 359 | Tropes associated with Esmeralda: |
| 360 | * FaceHeelTurn: And ''how!'' At first she's just the sister of a painter killed by Diabolik and a nice girl, if a flat character. After years of not appearing, she's an high-ranking member of a drug trafficking gang, and got Ginko framed as an accomplice. |
| 361 | * ManipulativeBitch: She duped Ginko into getting framed as a drug trafficker. |
| 362 | * PutOnABus: She just existed to be Ginko's love interest, so the authors kicked her out of the series. |
| 363 | ** TheBusCameBack: Returned after ''twenty years'' of being on the bus... |
| 364 | *** BusCrash: ... And got promptly killed by her accomplices. |
| 365 | * SatelliteLoveInterest: In her early appearances. |
| 366 | |
| 367 | [[WMG:The Minister of Justice]] |
| 368 | First appearance: Diabolik #12 "The Murder's Home" (1963)\ |
| 369 | |
| 370 | [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Minister of Justice of the State of Clerville]], and the police' ultimate authority. |
| 371 | ---- |
| 372 | Tropes associated with the Minister: |
| 373 | * BigGood: As the ultimate authority over Clerville's police. |
| 374 | ** GoodIsNotSoft: The Minister is invariably someone to ''not'' anger. Leaving aside he's the one with the authority to sign Diabolik's death warrant and he ''never'' hesitates, two different Ministers [[spoiler:assigned incompetent cops to chase Diabolik just to get an excuse to get rid of them and silence Ginko's critics]]. |
| 375 | * LegacyCharacter: There's a number of Ministers who appear on the series, the most notable ones being Federico Duncan (the original one) and a mustachioed man with (relatively) numerous appearances. |
| 376 | * {{Nepotism}}: In two occasions, two different Ministers engaged into this due [[spoiler:[[SubvertedTrope it being a ruse to ambush Diabolik]]]]: |
| 377 | ** After Ginko's apparent death in "Ginko Dies", the second Minister gave Diabolik's case to his young cousin Renard and was accused of this by Ginko's squad. In the end, Renard is reassigned due [[spoiler:his ''actual'' job being to relay the orders of a disguised Ginko without him showing his face until it was safe]]. |
| 378 | ** In "Ginko's Surrender" the count Fernand, furious for Ginko's failure at preventing a heist against him, pressures a later Minister to reassign Ginko and give Diabolik's case to his young nephew Rolf. Once again, Rolf is later reassigned when [[spoiler:Diabolik uses him as cover for his new heist, accidentally foiling the ambush Ginko and the Minister had been preparing on top of [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness exhausting his usefulness to Ginko's plan]]]]. |
| 379 | * NoNameGiven: Most Ministers remain unnamed, with only the first one, Federico Duncan, having his name revealed. |
| 380 | * ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Knowing how Diabolik nearly got the first one executed in his place, the current Minister is always one of Ginko's staunchest supporters. Best shown in "Ginko's Surrender", when he actually tries to keep Ginko at his post in spite of heavy pressures to have him replaced, eventually relents only because [[spoiler:''Ginko himself asked him to'', having decided to use the occasion to run a BatmanGambit that nearly gets Diabolik arrested]], and once Ginko's valor is proven is quick to [[ReassignedToAntarctica reassign his would-be replacement to a meaningless post]]. |
| 381 | * SmallRoleBigImpact: He rarely appears, but has two very important roles: |
| 382 | ** Just by existing in the background, he keeps Ginko on Diabolik's case in spite of his many failures and makes sure he's not replaced by lesser cops. And the rare times he does it, it's because [[spoiler:he's actually trying to get rid of some incompetent cops]]. |
| 383 | ** As the Minister of Justice, no execution in Clerville can happen without his consent - meaning that every time Diabolik is arrested his survival depends on just how fast the Minister and his staff can write down the death warrant for him to sign, to the point that if Ginko is ''sure'' this time he'll get him he'll make a phone call to the Minister and have him write the warrant down early. |
| 384 | |
| 385 | [[WMG: Mila]] |
| 386 | |
| 387 | [[WMG: The "Unknown Persons"]] |
| 388 | |
| 389 | [[WMG: Bettina Ramblè]] |
| 390 | First appearance: Diabolik #59 "Anguish" (1969)\ |
| 391 | |
| 392 | If Diabolik and Eva ever had a daughter, it would be her. First appeared as a little girl, she quickly breached Diabolik's shell and gained his and Eva's affection, affection that continued even when she grew up. |
| 393 | ---- |
| 394 | Tropes associated with Bettina: |
| 395 | * AntiHero: As an adult she's a Type III: she's a honest woman, but to [[spoiler:expose crimes of the government]] she's been shown willing to steal, threaten violence, and assist in a mass gassing (with sleep gas, luckily). |
| 396 | * ChildrenAreInnocent: As a child, she had no idea Diabolik and Eva were criminals, only that they were nice to her and would appear whenever she needed their help. |
| 397 | * LoveMakesYouStupid: In "Bettina's Betrayal" her boyfriend convinced her to put together a crazy plan to ''force'' Diabolik and Eva to help them when she could have just asked. While angry, Diabolik and Eva helped anyway. |
| 398 | * {{Protectorate}}: Touch her and Diabolik ''[[RoaringRampageOfRevenge will]]'' [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge find you, and you won't like what he'll do you]]. Diabolik [[StuffBlowingUp blowing up a large gang]] [[BullyingTheDragon who had dared kidnap her and blackmail Diabolik]] and letting Ginko finding the bodies protected her for ''years'': everyone inclined to try something like that was too scared of Diabolik topping himself. |
| 399 | * ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: More than willing to break the law to help her two friends escaping from deadly situations but not to commit crimes, and [[spoiler:spied on the army to verify if they were breaking international treaties-and for that she ''will'' help Diabolik and Eva stealing]]. |
| 400 | * ShesAllGrownUp: From "Revenge Has Good Memory" onward. |
| 401 | * TheStoolPigeon: Not to Diabolik and Eva, but [[spoiler:has joined an organization of whistleblowers, her first known work being exposing that Clerville's army was building a KillSat in violation of international treaties]]. |
| 402 | |
| 403 | [[WMG: Saverio Hardy]] |
| 404 | First appearance: Diabolik #210 "The Man of the Rock" (1972)\ |
| 405 | |
| 406 | Eva's favourite writer. On one occasion he was kidnapped by Diabolik and Eva, and, surprisingly, managed to become their friend. His third appearance revealed [[StraightGay he's gay, even if he didn't look the part]]. |
| 407 | ---- |
| 408 | Tropes related to Saverio: |
| 409 | * ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: Why, at the end of "The Man in the Rock", he saved Diabolik from arrest: it was his friend, and he didn't cared the law said he was supposed to get him arrested. |
| 410 | ** ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: How he helped Diabolik escaping Ginko and got away with a slap on the wrist after ''confessing'': he has enough money to pay a ''very'' good lawyer. It's implied he didn't expect her to be ''that'' good and was actually expecting some jail time... |
| 411 | ** LoopholeAbuse: How he got away the other time he was caught helping Diabolik: between his lawyer and suggestions from Diabolik himself, he was allowed to dodge jail and even the trial in exchange for bringing the police to one of Diabolik's hideouts, and one that had just been blown up to boot. |
| 412 | * StraightGay: To the point Diabolik, who can usually read people like open books, had no idea he was gay until Saverio came out. |
| 413 | * {{Ubermensch}}: Sort of: he doesn't approve of Diabolik's murders, but respects him intellectually and doesn't care of anyone's opinion, only of doing what he considers right. |
| 414 | * WhamLine: Admitting to Eva he was gay was this both in and out of universe. He then went on live television and admitted it. |
| 415 | |
| 416 | [[WMG: Walter Grin]] |
| 417 | First appearance: Diabolik #138 "Time for the Execution" (1969)\ |
| 418 | |
| 419 | A gangster in love with Eva, who tried to take her from Diabolik. |
| 420 | ---- |
| 421 | Tropes associated with Walter Grin: |
| 422 | * BackForTheDead: Like most recurring characters he got killed off in his second appearance. |
| 423 | * TheCasanova |
| 424 | * LoveMakesYouCrazy: His men have pointed out again and again that he tends to get himself in trouble for love of women, with him getting kicked out of a country for telling who he really was to his honest lover and later getting killed by Diabolik. |
| 425 | * ManipulativeBastard |
| 426 | * StalkerWithACrush: The most longeve of Eva's ones, as he survived his first appearance. |
| 427 | |
| 428 | [[WMG: General Fabio von Waller]] |
| 429 | First appearance: Diabolik #93 "In the Clutches of Justice" (1967) |
| 430 | |
| 431 | Altea's uncle, and possibly the most cunning character in the series. Best known as "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Altea's Fox Uncle]]". |
| 432 | ---- |
| 433 | Tropes associated with von Waller: |
| 434 | * AntiHero |
| 435 | * TheChessmaster: Capable of manipulating ''Diabolik'', of all people. Being as smart as he is, he won't even try getting Diabolik doing something he wouldn't be inclined to do, but simply make him know there's something he would be inclined to do that would help the Fox's interests, and then enjoy the show. |
| 436 | * CombatPragmatist: He usually won his battles through clever misdirection. |
| 437 | * CunningLikeAFox |
| 438 | * FourStarBadass: He's a general, and has fought in multiple wars. Thanks to that, he ''browbeat Ginko into submission''. |
| 439 | -->"[[BadassBoast If I could get the armies to obey me, I can get a mere inspector to do the same]]" |
| 440 | * GetAHoldOfYourselfMan: He did it to ''Ginko''. |
| 441 | * TheHandler: His "retirement hobby" is to coordinate Benglait's spies, though he's more than willing to get his own hands dirty if he deems it necessary or he's ordered to. |
| 442 | * MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: Quite fond of it, though it's never seen on-page, only mentioned. |
| 443 | ** Once admitted that if he were in charge of Diabolik's case the King of Terror would get killed during the arrest by an "accidental" weapon discharge to prevent him from escaping. He said that right after Ginko arrested Diabolik thanks to his plan, and Diabolik manages of course to break out of jail before execution. |
| 444 | ** When he was investigated for murder, he flat-out stated to Ginko that the very fact there was an investigation at all was proof of his innocence, as he would have done a better job than that-and not only Ginko agreed, but when evidence implicating him appeared he and the officer in charge of the case immediately deduced a frame-up. Von Waller was indeed innocent, having been at the wrong place at the wrong time when someone completely unconnected to him murdered a woman he could have had reason to kill, and the evidence was planted by Diabolik because he was after jewels part of her inheritance, inheritance that would not be divided between the heirs due the investigation. |
| 445 | * NoNameGiven: Until a character called him by name in a flashback of the 2018 story "The Smoking Gun", his name was ''never'' mentioned. Even Altea only calls him "uncle", with Ginko regularly calling him "Uncle Fox". |
| 446 | * RedBaron: Known in-universe as "[[CunningLikeAFox The Fox]]" (''even Ginko calls him that''). |
| 447 | * RetiredBadass: He has long retired from the army due his age. |
| 448 | * SpotlightStealingSquad: The reason he appears so rarely: whenever he shown up, he tends to steal the show. |
| 449 | |
| 450 | [[WMG: Marika Stone]] |
| 451 | First appearance: Diabolik #74 "Terrible Nightmare" (1966)\ |
| 452 | |
| 453 | An heiress who was robbed by Diabolik... And had her life saved by him. |
| 454 | ---- |
| 455 | Tropes associated with Marika: |
| 456 | * CainAndAbel: The Abel to her sister's Cain. |
| 457 | * DroppedABridgeOnHer: Barely {{Averted}}: Eva convinced Diabolik to not recover immediately an oil-spraying device used in a caper after the police failed to find it, and then accidentally activated it ''right as Marika's car passed on that exact part of the road''. |
| 458 | * HopelessSuitor: In her second appearance, she has fallen for Diabolik, but has no chance (and in fact Diabolik is offended when he learns that ''Eva'' thought she had one). |
| 459 | * NervesOfSteel: She has pretty good nerves. She ''does'' nearly faint when Diabolik breaks her out in her second appearance, but, given she had just risked a fall from ''very'' high to escape and that she wasn't used to it, it's a testament to her nerves she waited until she was on solid ground to ''nearly'' faint (and immediately recovered anyway). |
| 460 | * ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight[=/=]BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: Saved Diabolik from arrest because he had saved her life and exposed himself to capture to try and save her from drowning in an hideout that was going to be flooded. |
| 461 | |
| 462 | [[WMG:Manuel Morrison]] |
| 463 | First appearance: Il Grande Diabolik #21 "Shadow of the Moon"\ |
| 464 | |
| 465 | Eva's first love back in Morben-who abandoned her there when he managed to escape. |
| 466 | ---- |
| 467 | Tropes associated with Manuel: |
| 468 | * BatmanGambit: Twice: |
| 469 | ** In Morben he waited to escape because he knew Eva would come back to be used as a distraction. |
| 470 | ** As an adult, he [[spoiler:tried to have Eva kill him... Only for her to tell him to his face he was NotWorthKilling. He then told Diabolik he had killed her to get the same result, but failed anyway]]. |
| 471 | * DeathSeeker: [[spoiler:After discovering he suffers from an incurable illness he stipulated a life insurance, with his old reform school as the beneficiary, and then came back to Clerville to get Eva to murder him]]. |
| 472 | * FetishizedAbuser: Manipulated Eva into falling for him so she'd swear to escape from Morben with him with the intent to get her caught in the act and use her to cover his own escape. As an adult he himself would admit it was a dick move. |
| 473 | * HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:After being arrested and brought to a reform school that managed to properly reform him]]. |
| 474 | * HonestCorporateExecutive: As an adult he's very rich, and made everything through hard and smart work. |
| 475 | * MercyKill: [[spoiler:Upon discovering his story after he escaped Morben, Eva killed him to spare him the coming FateWorseThanDeath and trigger the life insurance to the place that made him a better man]]. |
| 476 | * OrphanageOfFear: Another victim of Morben, one that managed to escape. |
| 477 | * SelfMadeMan: From a street urchin that escaped Morben with only the clothes on his back to a wealthy businessman. |
| 478 | * SmugSnake: As he admitted himself years later, as a teen he was, in his own words, "A stupid boy... That thought himself smart." He then proceeded to admit that his life as a street urchin ended when [[MuggingTheMonster he tried to snatch the purse of a plainclothes officer]]. |
| 479 | |
| 480 | [[WMG:Renato Evans]] |
| 481 | First appearance: Diabolik #291 "Challenge to the Police (1975)\ |
| 482 | |
| 483 | An arrogant police commissioner that temporarily replaced Ginko when he resigned in protest at being declared a coward. |
| 484 | ---- |
| 485 | * BullyingTheDragon: Upon taking Ginko's job he proceeded to declare he'd soon capture Diabolik with ease. See HumiliationConga below for how Diabolik reacted. |
| 486 | * FaceHeelTurn: Leaves the police in disgrace after being utterly humiliated by Diabolik, and when he reappears he's a career criminal. |
| 487 | * HumiliationConga: Deciding Evans' declarations above deserved a retaliation, Diabolik made a point of utterly humiliating him: |
| 488 | ** First thing, Diabolik stole ''the entire police archive '''without setting foot in the police headquarters''''', and placed a microphone to broadcast Evans' reaction when he found out. [[spoiler:He also used the chaos caused by the microphone to sneak in and recover the plans for a gold transport he wanted to rob]]. |
| 489 | ** Following that, Diabolik and Eva replaced a foreign diplomat Evans was to protect and spent an entire party disguised as them, even shaking hands with Evans before freeing their ([[ActuallyPrettyFunny quite amused]]) victims. |
| 490 | ** Third, Diabolik went and stole the plans for Clerville's newest combat airplane from a place it was impossible to steal. [[spoiler:And he used a ''trained monkey'']]. |
| 491 | ** Finally, he took advantage of Evans' reaction to [[spoiler:assault the gold transport, only to be foiled by Ginko who had caught on what he was doing]]. The latter prompted Evans to resign and the Minister of Justice to decide he finally had an excuse to recall Ginko in service. |
| 492 | * TattooedCrook: In "A Friend in Danger". |
| 493 | * UnderestimatingBadassery: He took over Ginko's job in the belief one needed only to be brave to tackle Diabolik. He was soon disabused of the notion. |
| 494 | |
| 495 | [[WMG: Bruno Holtz]] |
| 496 | First Appearance: Diabolik #766 "Stop the Guillotine!" (2010)\ |
| 497 | |
| 498 | One of Clerville's most powerful mob bosses, who had far too many run-ins with Diabolik for his liking. |
| 499 | ---- |
| 500 | * AffablyEvil: He's a loving father and brother, a good boss that is easy to work for, generally a person with whom is easy to get along... And a criminal mastermind whose business include drugs trafficking. |
| 501 | * ArrangedMarriage: Set up his son Rocco with Veronica Schwartz, the daughter of a mob boss from Ferland to establish a marriage alliance. |
| 502 | ** PerfectlyArrangedMarriage: Not only Rocco and Veronica got along, they were actually in love before their parents decided to engage them and subtly suggested the idea themselves. |
| 503 | * BatmanGambit: When Diabolik started targeting a batch of diamonds worth ten million Euros he was to pay to another boss but had been stolen from his men before they could be delivered, Holtz made sure to work with him when Diabolik barged in his home believing he had already recovered them, and later, after recovering them, he even facilitated his work ''after'' he had delivered them, knowing that Diabolik would not kill him in the first occasion and that he'd steal them from the other boss as soon as feasible... And that he would notice he was being manipulated but wouldn't care. |
| 504 | * GenreSavvy: He knows perfectly what happens when one tries to fight Diabolik, and would rather avoid it if at all possible. |
| 505 | * HonorBeforeReason: As a mob boss he has at times to care more for his reputation rather than for what is reasonable... [[DefiedTrope But he'll do his damn best to make sure the reasonable action will maintain his reputation]]. |
| 506 | * KnowWhenToFoldEm: As far he's concerned, meddling with Diabolik is just not worth the hassle, pushing him to try and make him not his problem every time their paths collide. At the end of "The Chain of Ice" he even [[spoiler:killed the only guy who knew the titular necklace could be recovered, as by letting Diabolik do so and pretend it could not be recovered not only meant Diabolik was not his problem anymore but he could also maintain a marriage alliance with another mob boss]]. |
| 507 | * ParentsAsPeople: He absolutely adores his son Rocco, and by all accounts he's a good parent... But as a mob boss he has to put the gang even above him. |
| 508 | * ProperlyParanoid: When he had bought the incredibly valuable necklace known as the Chain of Ice as the engagement gift his son would give to Veronica he made his best to keep its location secret until the party Rocco was to give it to his fiancee, and managed to foil even Diabolik. Notably, he had ''no idea'' Diabolik was after the necklace until he accidentally exposed him at said party. |
| 509 | [[/folder]] |
| 510 | |
| 511 | [[folder: King and his organization]] |
| 512 | The men who raised Diabolik, and made him what he is: the King of Terror. |
| 513 | ---- |
| 514 | Tropes associated with the organization: |
| 515 | * TheAce: According to King, he and his main lieutenants are the best in the world at their respective trades. Aside for Wolf and possibly King himself, nobody better at said trades has appeared so far. |
| 516 | * EvilMentor: Aside form Prof, they all taught Diabolik their trade, giving him most of the skills he'd later need. |
| 517 | * HypercompetentSidekick: King had Prof recruit the best engineer, poisoner, chemist, facial surgeon, and jewelermaker in the criminal underworld to fill the gaps in his skillset, and was more than willing to listen to their advice (and even ask it if he deems it necessary). |
| 518 | * MuggingTheMonster: Most of them meet their ends this way: King lets Diabolik realize he intends to kill him and then shows him his back and gets promptly knifed, while Lopez, Cen Fu and Dempur kidnap Natasha Morgan without knowing just how dangerous she is. |
| 519 | * PosthumousCharacter: Most of them died before the series' start: |
| 520 | ** King was killed by the nameless boy he would compare to the panther Diabolik after receiving the fatal wound; |
| 521 | ** Lopez, Cen Fu and Dempur kidnapped Natasha Morgan, who promtply killed Dempur with his own knife and then crashed the plane they were riding as soon as they lowered their guard. |
| 522 | |
| 523 | [[WMG: King]] |
| 524 | First appearance: Diabolik #107 "Diabolik, Who Are You?" (1968)\ |
| 525 | |
| 526 | A mysterious man with ambitious plans, who once ruled the criminal underground of the Far East from the islands of the Pacific Ocean to continental Asia. |
| 527 | ---- |
| 528 | Tropes associated with King: |
| 529 | * AsskickingLeadsToLeadership: He's the leader of all criminals on King's Island, and they don't dare to rebel because they know he can easily kill any of his subordinates - and will do so without hesitation. |
| 530 | * TheDreaded: Everyone on the Island feared him due knowing he'd have no problem killing any of them if they angered him. |
| 531 | * {{Expy}}: Loosely based on [[Literature/{{Sandokan}} Sandokan and Yanez]], of all literary characters. |
| 532 | * GreatWhiteHunter: Before he arrived, King's Island was full of dangerous beasts. He ''killed them all''. |
| 533 | ** The panther Diabolik actually sent King and dozens of men running for the hills when he first tried with it. He later made a solo attempt and ''succeeded''. There's a good reason King stuffed that panther and kept it around to show it off... |
| 534 | * MeaningfulName: He's called King for a reason. |
| 535 | * MyGreatestFailure: Failing to save the little brother of his lover. That's the reason he had his {{Mook}}s save a little child from a boat in a storm, [[ReplacementGoldfish so she could have another little brother]]. |
| 536 | * MysteriousPast: The only thing we know of his past is that he was once a soldier for an unidentified secret organization and apparently fought in Vietnam, and has ''a lot'' of dirt on said organization. |
| 537 | * NoNameGiven: Aside for King himself, there were only two men who knew his real name. One of them died at King's hands, and the other, Prof, never told anyone before pissing off Diabolik and dying. |
| 538 | * RetiredBadass: His final hunt for the panther Diabolik is the last time he actually engaged in person, but he was still a formidable opponent. |
| 539 | * TakeOverTheWorld: His plan. Was killed well before becoming powerful enough to actually try. |
| 540 | |
| 541 | [[WMG: Prof]] |
| 542 | First appearance: Il Grande Diabolik #33 "The True History of King's Island" (2014)\ |
| 543 | |
| 544 | The closest thing King ever had to a friend, and, once upon a time, his second in command. |
| 545 | ---- |
| 546 | Tropes associated with Prof: |
| 547 | * AssholeVictim: Diabolik killed him because he was a rapist. |
| 548 | * ConsummateProfessional: Back in the day. |
| 549 | * TheDragon: To King. |
| 550 | ** TheStarscream: Not exactly, but when he realized ''what'' King was really aiming at [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere he decided to take his share of their treasure and leave King's Island]]. |
| 551 | * MeaningfulName: Prof is short for "Professional", as in ConsummateProfessional. |
| 552 | * NoNameGiven: With King's death, nobody knew his real name, and he died before he could give it to Diabolik. |
| 553 | * PosthumousCharacter: [[DoubleSubversion Doubly Subverted]]: he's still alive in the present time sequence of "The True Story of King's Island" and is kidnapped and replaced by Diabolik, who then [[BerserkButton finds out he's a rapist and kills him]]. |
| 554 | * RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Diabolik didn't care about his illegal diamond trade with the mob beyond how much he could steal from him and rarely cared about people being murderers, but the moment he realized Prof was a serial rapist, and involved in forcing young women to become prostitutes, the King of Terror decided to kill him, his chaffeur, the man who actually kidnapped women and forced them into prostitution, and all the men of the latter. |
| 555 | * SecretSecretKeeper: The only man aside for King to know the origin of the child who'd become Diabolik, and never told anyone. He tried to tell Diabolik to avoid being killed by him, but was stabbed before he could finish making the offer. |
| 556 | * WeHardlyKnewYou: Killed off in his first appearance. |
| 557 | |
| 558 | [[WMG: Professor Wolf]] |
| 559 | First appearance: Diabolik #107 "Diabolik, Who Are You?" (1968)\ |
| 560 | |
| 561 | King's chemistry expert, capable of creating many substances. |
| 562 | ---- |
| 563 | Tropes associated with Wolf: |
| 564 | * BullyingTheDragon: Seriously, Wolf, you ''knew'' how dangerous Diabolik was, why did you piss him off? |
| 565 | * InNameOnly: The animated series has a character named Wolf. He's ''nothing'' like the original. |
| 566 | * KarmicDeath: Obsessed by Diabolik's masks to the point of blackmailing him to have the formula and then trying to kill him, he dies suffucated by a mask prepared with Diabolik's formula (altered just in case). |
| 567 | * LatexPerfection: The man who actually had the idea. In fact Diabolik started from ''his'' research. |
| 568 | * OvershadowedByAwesome: The only one of King's men who found himself not as good as Diabolik in his own field: in spite of ''decades'' of research, he never managed to produce a durable mask. |
| 569 | ** {{Irony}}: Wolf ''had'' found the secret ingredient, the resin of the sacred threes of the island of Bo-Tang, but had been unable to properly use it. After Ronin's death Diabolik looked at Wolf's notes and, once he convinced the inhabitants to give him the resin, perfected his masks. |
| 570 | * PosthumousCharacter: [[DoubleSubversion Doubly Subverted]]: he appears in person in "King's Treasure", but ends killed by Diabolik. |
| 571 | * ProperlyParanoid: When dealing with Diabolik, he instructed his men to search Eva and even have her let down the hair, in case she was hiding something there. She had ''flashbang extensions''. |
| 572 | |
| 573 | [[WMG: Doctor Lopez]] |
| 574 | First appearance: Diabolik #107 "Diabolik, Who Are You?" (1968)\ |
| 575 | |
| 576 | King's facial surgeon, and a capable medic in general. |
| 577 | ---- |
| 578 | Tropes associated with Lopez: |
| 579 | * MagicPlasticSurgery: His specialization. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] because he's the best in the world. |
| 580 | |
| 581 | [[WMG: Engineer Suanda]] |
| 582 | First appearance: Diabolik #107 "Diabolik, Who Are You?" (1968)\ |
| 583 | |
| 584 | King's personal inventor. If it's mechanical, he can build something better. |
| 585 | ---- |
| 586 | Tropes associated with Suanda: |
| 587 | * AcePilot: He taught Diabolik how to drive a car. |
| 588 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: He's the nicest of all of King's lieutenants. He also killed one of the men that stole credit for his inventions in a fit of rage, joined King knowing he was a criminal mastermind with grandiose plans that would lead to bloodshed, and had no trouble planning capers that could result in deaths. |
| 589 | * CutLexLuthorACheck: A [[JustifiedTrope justified]] example: his creations could have made him rich, had his white colleagues not stolen the credit for his creations. |
| 590 | * FaceHeelTurn: He was once a honest inventor until the credit and riches for his creations were stolen by his white colleagues. By the time Prof contacts him for King he's already a career criminal. |
| 591 | * GadgeteerGenius |
| 592 | * StartOfDarkness: The murder of the man who stole the credit for one of his creations set him on the path to become a career criminal. |
| 593 | * TokenGoodTeammate: Differently from the other members of King's organization he was no criminal by choice, but was forced to run from the law when he killed the man who stole the credit for one of his creations. |
| 594 | * WhatHappenedToTheMouse: While we know what happened to the rest of King's main lieutenants, we have no idea where Suanda went after King's death. |
| 595 | |
| 596 | [[WMG: Cen Fu]] |
| 597 | First appearance: Diabolik #107 "Diabolik, Who Are You?" (1968)\ |
| 598 | |
| 599 | King's other personal chemist, specialized in poisons and drugs. |
| 600 | ---- |
| 601 | Tropes associated with Cen Fu: |
| 602 | * BrutalHonesty: When Prof tracked him down to recruit him, he flat-out told him he had fifteen minutes to convince him to administer the antidote for the poison he had just made him breath. |
| 603 | * MasterPoisoner: You enter his home, you have already been administered a lethal dose of a colorless and odorless poison of his invention, and you now have to convince him to administer the antidote. |
| 604 | |
| 605 | [[WMG: Dempur]] |
| 606 | First appearance: Diabolik #107 "Diabolik, Who Are You?" (1968)\ |
| 607 | |
| 608 | King's master jewelmaker. |
| 609 | ---- |
| 610 | Tropes associated with Dempur |
| 611 | * {{Jerkass}}: Easily King's lieutenant with the worst personality, who delighted in tormenting "The Boy" and generally lording his position as one of King's main lieutenants. |
| 612 | * MasterForger: His skills in making jewels translates in being the best in the world at making copies. Before joining King's organization he was once hired to make copies of the crown jewels of a small South Asian nation, and his copies were completely identical to the originals. |
| 613 | |
| 614 | [[WMG: Lorenzo]] |
| 615 | First appearance: Diabolik #710 "Plea from the Past" (2006)\ |
| 616 | |
| 617 | One of King's lower-ranked lieutenants. |
| 618 | ---- |
| 619 | Tropes associated with Lorenzo: |
| 620 | * MacGuffin: Owns one: a medallion that serves to interest Diabolik to [[spoiler: a man claiming to be his father]]. |
| 621 | * OneSceneWonder |
| 622 | |
| 623 | [[/folder]] |
| 624 | |
| 625 | [[folder: Other Notable Characters]] |
| 626 | |
| 627 | [[WMG: Federico, the Duke of Vallenberg]] |
| 628 | First appearance: Il Grande Diabolik #15 "The Mysteries of Vallenberg" (2007) |
| 629 | |
| 630 | [[WMG: Natasha Morgan]] |
| 631 | First appearance: Il Grande Diabolik #19 "I Am Diabolik" (2009)\ |
| 632 | |
| 633 | The absolute leader of the organized crime of Clerville before retiring some time after Diabolik showed up. She taught him how to survive in the WretchedHive that was hidden Clerville's veil of respectability. |
| 634 | ---- |
| 635 | * TheDon: Rare female example, and so powerful she ''owned'' Clerville's organized crime. While there were other bosses around, they all obeyed her. |
| 636 | * DyingMomentOfAwesome: After being kidnapped by King's men and brought on a plane with them they made the mistake to leave her under the surveillance of only one of them. She quickly killed her guard, ran in the cockpit with his knife and, knowing she wouldn't survive, forced the pilot to call the airport and cry that Diabolik was about to crash the plane in the sea before killing him and crashing the plane, thus [[TakingYouWithMe killing her captors with herself]], preventing them to attack Diabolik, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking getting the last word in that discussion she had with Diabolik about him using his infamy as a weapon or not]]. Oh, and she wasn't all there due having been drugged... |
| 637 | * HeadTurningBeauty: One of three women to get this reaction from Diabolik. |
| 638 | * KickingAssInAllHerFinery: Is always seen wearing a night gown, even when first confronting Diabolik, executing a man who had been stupid enough to break in her home, and during her DyingMomentOfAwesome. |
| 639 | * ManipulativeBastard: She knows the value of emotional manipulation, and isn't shy about using it. She also suggested Diabolik to use the fear he could potentially inspire with his fame if he made some effort to increase it (even using the words "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast King of Terror]]. |
| 640 | * NervesOfSteel: And ''how'': during their first meeting Diabolik, slowed down by a penthotal dose and having been hypnotized, escaped his bounds, beat the crap out of her lieutenants, and loomed on her, and she complimented him for it, pointed out she knew his name to unnerve him, and informed him her guards were coming. Said nerves return in her DyingMomentOfAwesome. |
| 641 | * {{Revenge}}: Much more restrained than Diabolik in this, but if you scorn her you're better ''run''. |
| 642 | * RetiredBadass: She retired in the story she appeared in. Then King's men decided to kidnap her... |
| 643 | * SinkOrSwimMentor: She has shades of this. Case in point: Diabolik wasn't too happy about having some fame at Clerville, especially for the danger of someone deciding to challenge him to prove himself better, and didn't want even when Natasha pointed out the advantages of increasing his fame and becoming the "[[TheDreaded King of Terror]]" (her exact words), so one day she made sure his fame suddenly increased to larger-than-life proportions. |
| 644 | * TakingYouWithMe: Knowing she couldn't escape the men who kidnapped her, she made sure they died with her. |
| 645 | |
| 646 | [[WMG:Ronin and Master Cheng]] |
| 647 | First appearance: Il Grande Diabolik #13 "The Years Lost in Blood" (2006)\ |
| 648 | |
| 649 | The greatest smuggler of all times (Diabolik's words) and a martial arts master training his bodyguards. Ronin owed Diabolik a favour, so he took him under his wing and taught him some tricks before being murdered by [[spoiler:Walter Dorian]] |
| 650 | ---- |
| 651 | Tropes associated with Ronin and Master Cheng: |
| 652 | * AcePilot: Ronin can drive a car very well, and helped Diabolik perfect his skills. |
| 653 | * ChekhovsGunman: And ''how'': Diabolik first mentioned "the greatest smuggler of all times [...] the only friend I ever had" in passing in the 1963 story "The Phantom Murderer" while telling Eva who built the manor they were in, but that was only expanded in "The Years Lost in Blood", a story of the "Il Grande Diabolik" series published in ''2006''! |
| 654 | * CrazyPrepared: Diabolik learned from his example. |
| 655 | * EvilMentor: Ronin taught Diabolik how to put traps, throw knives the right way, how to resist TruthSerum and a few tricks on sport driving, while Master Cheng taught him martial arts and acrobatics. |
| 656 | ** SinkOrSwimMentor: Cheng, and ''how''. |
| 657 | * IOweYouMyLife: By killing King, Diabolik saved Ronin's life. When they stumbled on each other, Ronin decided to pay him back. |
| 658 | * MentorOccupationalHazard: They were killed by mercenaries hired by [[spoiler: Walter Dorian]] due Ronin [[spoiler: investigating on the guy who looked like Diabolik]]. |
| 659 | * OldMaster: Cheng. You think Diabolik is good with martial arts? He ''still'' has to realize how Cheng threw him around the day they met. |
| 660 | * PosthumousCharacter |
| 661 | * ProperlyParanoid |
| 662 | |
| 663 | [[WMG: Walter Dorian]] |
| 664 | First appearance: Il Grande Diabolik #13 "The Years Lost in Blood" (2006)\ |
| 665 | |
| 666 | The man whose identity was used by Diabolik in the early stories, a billionaire working in the import-export sector to cover his smuggling. Presumed dead by Diabolik's own hands, he later shows up and tries to have his revenge on Diabolik. |
| 667 | ---- |
| 668 | Tropes associated with Dorian: |
| 669 | * BastardBastard: Sort of: he was adopted by the filthy rich Michele and Anna Dorian and grew up happy and, apparently, not even knowing he was adopted, but was still a villain. |
| 670 | * TheCasanova: He seduced ''Natasha Morgan''! |
| 671 | * ChekhovsGun: In the parts of "The Years Lost in Blood" before the flashback sequence we see Dorian having the habit of making origami whenever he's nervous or excited. [[spoiler: This clues Diabolik on ''who'' killed Ronin]]. |
| 672 | * ChekhovsGunman: The world record, beating Ronin by a few months thanks to being mentioned in the very first story and appearing in person in "The Years Lost in Blood" with him. |
| 673 | * DidntThinkThisThrough: The reason he was in the Far East, where Diabolik stole his identity: he tried to steal from Natasha Morgan, his lover and ''the woman ruling over Clerville's organized crime''. He was lucky to have been allowed to leave the country... |
| 674 | * DirtyCoward |
| 675 | * HappilyAdopted: Son of Silvia Hammer, herself daughter of a steel magnate, and given up for adoption as soon as he was born. He was adopted immediately. |
| 676 | * IdenticalStranger: He looks ''exactly'' like Diabolik, to the point the latter was once said to be [[LongLostRelative his lost twin]]. |
| 677 | * ItsPersonal: Walter Dorian had [[spoiler:Master Cheng]] killed and personally [[spoiler: tortured Ronin to death]]. |
| 678 | * LaserGuidedKarma: The first time they met, Diabolik tried to kill him without knowing he had a good reason to, and accidentally sentenced him to years in a military prison accused of being a spy. When they meet again, Diabolik finds out he has a good reason to kill him, and does just that. |
| 679 | * LongLostRelative: {{Subverted}}: in one occasion Eva, captured by a reporter and forced to reveal a story of Diabolik's past in exchange for her freedom, told her that the King of Terror was Walter's lost twin... And as soon as the journalist published her story she mailed evidence that Walter Dorian was an only child to another newspaper. |
| 680 | * HumiliationConga: Chased out of his country by Natasha Morgan, beaten up and thrown in a flooded river by a lookalike, captured by soldiers planning to start a coup, imprisoned for years as a spy after the coup succeeded, nearly killed in an ''helicopter attack'' during the revolution, finds out the lookalike confessed his murder and all his money and properties were seized by the government because he had no heirs, and then meets the lookalike to have him pay him back the damages only to end with a knife in a lung for accidentally revealing he had a good reason to kill him. |
| 681 | * MuggingTheMonster: When he had [[spoiler:Ronin tortured to death]] and his organization destroyed he was just making what he thought was a pre-emptive attack on a business rival about to attack him. He had ''no idea'' he was giving the future [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast King of Terror]] a good reason to kill him and do it slowly. |
| 682 | * NotSoHarmlessVillain: Diabolik learned that Walter Dorian was still alive when he found him ''sitting in his parlour'' after overpowering Eva and putting her in another room, allegedly with a time bomb. Dorian then informed him that ''he'' baited Diabolik into using that particular refuge at that particular time. Had he not accidentally informed Diabolik he had a good reason to murder him (something he himself didn't know), he would have got away with it. |
| 683 | * TheRealRemingtonSteele: The man whose identity Diabolik used in his early days in Clerville. |
| 684 | * SmallRoleBigImpact: For a long time he was only mentioned through Diabolik using his name in the first three stories, but he's the reason Diabolik moved to Clerville. |
| 685 | * VillainousLegacy: His ''real'' family are just as bad as him, and [[DrivenToMadness drove his mother (the]] WhiteSheep [[DrivenToMadness of the family) to near-catathonic madness with their torment]]. |
| 686 | |
| 687 | [[WMG:Big Bolt]] |
| 688 | First appearance: Il Grande Diabolik #37 "Death in the Fist" (2018)\ |
| 689 | |
| 690 | A former boxer who ran a boxing club where he'd take petty criminals to reform them. He punched like a freight train. |
| 691 | ---- |
| 692 | Tropes associated with Big Bolt: |
| 693 | * AffectionateParody: An affectionate send-up to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ben_Bolt Big Ben Bolt]], whose Italian translation was Astorina's first foray in comic books and one of the inspirations for Diabolik. |
| 694 | * AsskickingLeadsToLeadership: A good part of the respect his gym's athletes have for him is owed to him being pretty much undefeatable in a straight fight. [[spoiler:During the time at his gym, Diabolik threw a spar because of this]]. |
| 695 | * BoxingBattler: [[JustifiedTrope He's a former boxer]], and whenever he finds himself in a scuffle he resorts to fists that hurt like a freight train. |
| 696 | * CareerEndingInjury: Mobsters broke and ruined his leg for refusing to take a dive, forcing him to retire. |
| 697 | * DeathByGenreSavvy: Had put together a "Bible of Crime" containing informations on all important mobsters in Clerville, so he could keep them from interfering with his activity of taking poor young men from the streets and giving them a chance at a honest job before they can be recruited by the mob... And was tortured and killed for it by a low-level crook who thought himself smarter than he was. |
| 698 | * DentedIron: In his prime he was all but invincible in a straight fight, and it took ten mobsters to defeat him. Said mobsters broke and ruined his leg, and between that and his age he's not so invincible anymore... But still hits like a freight train. |
| 699 | * AFatherToHisMen: He's like a second father to the athletes at his gym, picking them from the streets, teaching them boxing to keep them busy and have something to vent their instincts with, and taking care of them until he manages to find them an honest job. |
| 700 | * HandicappedBadass: Can't properly use his left leg. He still hits like a freight train. |
| 701 | * HonorBeforeReason: In his prime he was asked to take a dive so that there would be more people willing to bet against him. He refused, even knowing the mob would have taken their revenge and that losing wouldn't have hurt his ranking, and ended up losing his career when they ruined his leg. |
| 702 | * LightningBruiser: In his prime, he hit like freight train ''and'' and moved with greater agility than one. |
| 703 | * MegatonPunch: Diabolik's description of the first time he was punched by him is "At that point, I was ran over by a freight train... Or something like that". |
| 704 | * MightyGlacier: Quite slow at moving due his age, weight and ruined leg (in a pinch he can run fast, but not for long), but his hands are still lighting fast and hit like a freight train. |
| 705 | * RetiredBadass: He's at least in his fifties and Diabolik compared being punched by him to being hit by a freight train. He used to be a professional boxer after all. |
| 706 | * StoutStrength: Put up a lot of weight since his prime, but still hits like a freight train. |
| 707 | * UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: His Bible provided Diabolik with the informations he needed to build up his information network. |
| 708 | * VillainRespect: His strength, personality, and heart gained him the respect of almost ''everyone''. Aside for Ginko, who considered him his childhood hero and is ''not'' a villain, mob boss Sonia Yanez respected him enough that when she thought he and his athletes had robbed her she decided to let him have the satisfaction without retaliating, and when one of her thugs murdered him anyway Diabolik beat him to death with his bare hands. |
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