Line #4 ComicBook/GreenManor


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/green_manor.jpg]]
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3	->''"A cup of tea? A drop of milk? [[BreadEggsMilkSquick A spoonful of poison?]] At first nothing would make very select club called Green Manor stand out from any other English club. Yet behind its thick walls, sunk into its deep chairs, hides the biggest bunch of con artists, bandits and murders that Queen Victoria's England has ever seen."''
4	-->-- ''Synopsis''
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6	''Green Manor'' is a Franco-Belgian comic made by Fabien Vehlmann as a writer and Denis Bodart as the artist.
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8	It concerns the secrets inside the eponymous SmokyGentlemensClub told by an old man named Thomas Below who [[SanitySlippage suddenly went insane]] just before his retirement.
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10	Christopher Thorn, a renowned professor in the field of psychology is asked to study the old servant and is [[FramingDevice told the]] {{Dark Secret}}s [[FramingDevice that lie in the manor.]]
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12	----
13	!!This comic book provides examples of:
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15	* AbusiveParents: Not the physically abusive kind but emotionally and verbally abusive,"The Testament" has a rich old man avert the FinalFirstHug and damns his children by [[KickTheDog screwing with them through their inheritance]] and [[EvilGloating laughs at them as he dies.]] [[spoiler: Then there's this man who holed up his daughter in a room and let her starve to death because she was in love with a painter. Thus including OffingTheOffspring.]]
16	* AffablyEvil: A good portion of the members are like this, one notable example is the unnamed short man in "A Small Crime Serenade" who invited a servant of Green Manor who would ask servants to drink with him, would apologize to children for hurting them accidentally, and [[BreadEggsMilkSquick killing people because the timing corresponded to a tune in his head.]]
17	* AilmentInducedCruelty: [=MacMunay=] is one of the regulars at the club where ExtremeDoormat George works as a waiter and is constantly abusive towards him, even threatening to have him fired. However, George doesn't hold it against [=MacMunay=], knowing his irritability is due to an old war wound. When [[FauxAffablyEvil Lord Virgil]] forces George to choose a man to be killed by Lord Virgil's assassin, he uses disappearing ink to write [=MacMunay's=] name and reappearing ink to write Lord Virgil instead.
18	* AmalgamatedIndividual: PlayedForDrama: A police inspector learns that the extremely prolific SerialKiller John Smith, who kills with a different method every time and leaving a letter reading "I will kill again", is actually a huge number of copycat killers who independently hit on the idea of murdering an AssholeVictim and blaming it on the original killer (something the general public will never accept, especially since he only puts the pieces together after one of them confessed). He then gets himself arrested, putting an end to the murders by taking the blame for them. A fellow inspector is shown to be cutting up an "I will kill again" letter on hearing the news, implying he too was going to murder his overbearing wife.
19	* TheAlcoholic: Lord Killian which is theorized that he accidentally killed himself while fighting off hallucinations caused by his drinking which was submitted to the police. [[spoiler: Probable, but no.]]
20	* AndIMustScream: Averted in that Lord Wyatt could still write, then played straight once his condition worsens. [[spoiler:[[HandicappedBadass He still has the last laugh on the one responsible for his condition.]]]]
21	* AnimalAssassin: Or Lord Killian was killed by a monkey trained by a [[WomanScorned Jamaican woman he spurned.]] [[spoiler: Not that also.]]
22	* AntiHero: Detective Johnson is a GreatDetective but he also has a lot of pride. [[spoiler: It serves as his FatalFlaw and it kills him in the end.]] Also, it makes him a very bad loser.
23	* AristocratsAreEvil: Justified since the stories revolve around SmokyGentlemensClub Green Manor, a man has to be in the upper class to join.
24	* AssholeVictim: Yes, {{Karma Houdini}}s were harmed in the making of this comic.
25	* BatmanGambit: Tons and magnificently used.
26	* BeneathTheMask: Inspector Hill, cool, level-headed, and stoic. [[spoiler: Who knew you had a hidden [[AGodAmI God complex.]]]]
27	* ButNowIMustGo: Daniel does this after a cruel joke inflicted on him. Naturally, his family worries. Then the pranksters become more worried when they realise he brought his surgical tools with him and he knew they played the trick on him. [[spoiler: He didn't really mean any harm, he just went off to Paris to become a poet and abandon his dull life.]]
28	* TheCassandra: Two men play it differently. Lord Virgil admits to running a criminal organisation yet people around him shrug him off thinking he's drunk. Daniel, on the other hand, [[spoiler: advises one prankster on how to get out of the mental asylum shortly but doesn't care to help when the prankster doesn't follow.]]
29	* TheChessmaster: A man DidNotGetTheGirl kills her fiancee subconsciously. [[spoiler: Then there's HandicappedBadass Lord Wyatt in an AndIMustScream state.]]
30	* ComplexityAddiction: The twist behind "Voodoo Night". It appears that Lord Killian was murdered by his simple wife Elizabeth, who had the motive and was the only one with him at the time, but there's so many odd details that it doesn't fit, such as the chicken giblets and the woman's message written in coal. After theorizing and theorizing, the gentlemen of the Green Manor conclude that it was voodoo from a spurned Haitian lover. [[spoiler:It turns out that Elizabeth did kill him, and the wives of the club protected her by adding those odd details, knowing that their husbands would look for the fascinating perfect crime instead of the obvious solution]].
31	* CriticalPsychoanalysisFailure: Subverted in "In the Head of William Blake" where a surgeon named Daniel fascinated with Blake wanted to examine the deceased poet's brain instead. He disappears with his surgical tools and the pranksters who decided to trick him fear for the worst. [[spoiler: In the End, Dr. Thorne may have gone this way too.]]
32	* DarkSecret: That SmokyGentlemensClub is so full of respectable bluebloods and gentlem-- what do you mean it's fully of evil people?
33	* DeadMansSwitch: Detective Johnson had a letter to be sent to Sir Montgomery in case of his death. [[spoiler: I am a poor loser. '''''Bang Bang'''''.]]
34	* DeathByIrony: A judge saves a man from a hanging after having a heart attack just after he convicted the same man since his alibi was too convenient. He saves the man in time. [[spoiler: Not realizing he wasn't having a heart attack, but a gun shot to the back after he had refused looking into the case again.]] He lampshades it before he dies.
35	* DisproportionateRetribution: Its understandable that women can be annoyed at men who host all these parties but not attend them because these men want to hit the bottle. So it's perfectly understandable that [[spoiler: they let his wife get away with murder when she killed him when she snapped.]]
36	* DisneyDeath: Subverted. Lord Wyatt may have survived the fall but he becomes mostly paralyzed [[AndIMustScream until it worsens.]]
37	* DrivenToSuicide: The [[TheLanceOfLonginus Spear of Longinus]] does this to its unwitting holders.
38	* EscalatingWar: What happens when you cross [[EgomaniacHunter Egomaniac Hunters]] and HuntingTheMostDangerousGame.
39	* EvilBrit: Duh.
40	* EvilGloating: And yet a handicapped man still one-ups the villain after the gloating.
41	* EvilInc: Lord Virgil runs an intricate system where he is untouchable and untraceable.
42	* EvilOldFolks: Some of the members, unless their ages are stated otherwise.
43	* FatalFlaw: Exploited. Detective Johnson's was Pride.
44	* FauxAffablyEvil: Lord Virgil gives a SecretTestOfCharacter to George of killing GrumpyOldMan [=MacMunay=], though Lord Virgil is doing to see George fail. [[spoiler: Lord Virgil loses when George TakesAThirdOption.]]
45	* FinalFirstHug: Averted. He was a mean bastard when he had a family and he became a manipulative mean old bastard who damned all his children when he kicked.
46	* FromNobodyToNightmare: The short man in "A Small Crime Serenade" he was born with a very unassuming appearance that led people to ignore him. Boy, was that a mistake.
47	* GeneralRipper: General Miller. Of course, it's not a massacre, it was just [[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide strategy.]]
48	* AGodAmI: Defied. Anyone who deciphers the mysteries of the [[TheLanceOfLonginus Spear of Longinus]] and has a god-complex will die.
49	* GoMadFromTheRevelation: [[ThePrankster The pranksters]] Lord Buckner and Lord Melvin wanted to just teach Daniel a lesson in speaking against them by removing Blake's brain and then allowing Daniel to examine Blake's head without knowing the brain was removed. Now Daniel's gone with his surgical tools and he begins to send them ominous messages taken from Blake's works.
50	* HeroicSacrifice: The detective solving the "John Smith" affair turns himself as the killer.[[spoiler: Because there is no John Smith and it was just an excuse for murderers to blame on the non-existent SerialKiller.]]
51	* HuntingTheMostDangerousGame: Two [[EgomaniacHunter egomaniac hunters]] bored after killing the greatest beasts, decide to duke it out as the Greatest Hunter with themselves as the hunter and the other as the prey. [[spoiler: [[WickedWasps It's the wasps that got them first.]]]]
52	* IncorruptiblePurePureness: George will never wish anyone ill despite hating that person even if Lord Virgil puts the metaphorical gun to George's head and orders him to do it.[[spoiler: He TakesAThirdOption though it doesn't leave him any better.]]
53	* InspectorLestrade: The inspector who accuses Dr. Thompson as a murderer just because the victim married Dr. Thompson's love and then upon investigation, accuses anyone involved in moving the body as the murderer. [[spoiler: He was right.]]
54	* LaserGuidedKarma: So play a dangerous game of wits with a detective? Please take into account that he may have friends with UndyingLoyalty who would activate the DeadMansSwitch.
55	* PerfectPoison: [[EvilOldFolks An old man]] poisons everyone in his sending off party because he got sick of all their pretentiousness.
56	* ScaryStingingSwarm: Two [[EgomaniacHunter Egomaniac Hunters]] duke it out and upset a wasp's nest. [[spoiler: Ironically, it kills them instead of the great beasts they have been hunting.]]
57	* SelfMadeMan: Lord Sanders kept his own children from getting their hands on most of their inheritance after he kicked so his youngest son leaves to become this, rather than see his BigScrewedUpFamily fall apart since their father set it up to screw each other over to get a bigger share of the pie. He came back a rich man. [[spoiler: This was what Lord Sanders had hoped to invoke and succeeded with the youngest.]]
58	* SerialKiller: The short man and John Smith. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, John Smith doesn't really exist.]]
59	* SoreLoser: Detective Johnson is a poor loser, [[AssholeVictim not that we could shed tears for the winner.]]
60	* TerminallyIllCriminal: The "John Smith" story has a man murder his wife and disguise it as the work of the elusive SerialKiller John Smith, then confess his crime to the inspector on the case. As he explains, he's going to die soon of an IncurableCoughOfDeath, so he confesses out of respect for the inspector's work, giving the key to the mystery: "John Smith" is actually dozens of people each murdering an AssholeVictim they know and pinning it on the killer.
61	* TrickedToDeath: The Spear of Longinus (or the spearhead, rather) has a coded message engraved on it that gives a recipe for an elixir of invulnerability. The alchemist who wrote it down says that it is destined to fall into the hands of a world conqueror, but as he himself is too old for it, he leaves the lance and the recipe in the hands of one more suited for the task. [[spoiler:The elixir only confers a euphoric high on the drinker who ''thinks'' he's invincible, and quickly ends up trying to prove it (with fatal results) if he harbors such megalomania. The alchemist did this in the hopes of removing the kind of people with that level of ambition before they could get too dangerous, even centuries after his death.]]
62	* {{Yandere}}: [[DirtyOldMan Sir Alfred Montgomery]] pulls the usual IfICantHaveYou card and succeeds along with winning against his ArchEnemy, Detective Johnson. [[spoiler: Fortunately for us, Detective Johnson is a [[PayEvilUntoEvil poor loser.]]]]
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Context ComicBook / GreenManor