Characters / Pulp Adventures

Protagonists of the main timeline

The Avenger

• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Death Glare: He has an ability who can induce the panicked status to his enemy, which is described to be cause by the intensity of this eyes.
• I Call It "Vera": The "Ike" and "Mike" abilities are respectively the use of a throwing knife and a pistol.
• Master of Disguise: Can disguise into a civilian to become unnnoticed.
• Non-Powered Costumed Hero: Wears a black costume with superheroic hose.

Devil

• Canine Companion: He's the Phantom wolf companion.
• Heroic Dog: Well, it's a wolf, but close enough.

Doc Savage

• Adventurer Outfit: He wears leather boots, a brown jodhpurs, and a white shirt.
• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
  • Charles Atlas Superpower: ... Though he trained himself to gain unrealistic physical strength. He also can use as improvised weapons a few objects that other characters aren't strong enough to pick up, like manhole covers.
• Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Doc Savage owns a facility where he turns criminals into model citizens. The trope is played with, since in the story the villains made a raid inside the "Crime College" to free several of the inmates in order to make their own army.
• Clothing Damage: Zigzagged. While the main menu screen and some loading screens feature him wearing his iconic torn white shirt, his ingame model wears a pristine shirt.
• Combat Medic: Beside his martial skill, he spawns with a medikit which can he used to heal allies or himself. Downplayed, though, since it has limited use and doesn't heal much damage.
• Genius Bruiser: Do Savage may look like a giant bodybuilder on steroids, but he is also one of the greatest scientific geniuses of his time.
• Heroic Resolve: In Freedom Force, the heroes can spend a "hero point" to either be fully healed (and cured of their negative debuffs) or to get back on their feet (while regaining a few hitpoints) if they have been KOed. While most heroes can use it a single time in a mission, Doc Savage can do this up to two times.
• Large and in Charge: He's noticeably bigger than the other party members, and sometimes acts as the team leader.
• Lightning Bruiser: Doc Savage moves faster than the other heroes while he is ones of the most resilient ones.
• Utility Belt: He can use a selection of items in a mission (they have limited use), chosen among a medkit, smoke bombs, remote control mines, handcuffs, and a tracker.^note Those five items spawn around his starting location in missions he is involved in (including the Rumble Room), and the player can pick up to three of them, and they appear as features in his action menu.

The Green Hornet

• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Domino Mask: Wears a green one, fitting his green suit.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: He is a vigilante posing as a criminal mastermind to fight crime from the inside. It almost resulted in a fight between him and the Avenger when they first meet, since the Avenger and the Spider tried to arrest him or kill him (despite him not being the villain they where looking for), and he intented to resist and flee. Luckily, the situation was eventually resolved by the Shadow.
• Non-Powered Costumed Hero: A classical example of the trope.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: He wears a green suit, with a green longcoat and a green hat.

Indiana Jones

• Adventurer Archaeologist: The mod's first level is about Indiana Jones visiting an ancient Egyptian crypt to excavate an obelisk, then fighting his way out through dozen of cultists. And then, there's his flavour text:
  As an adult, he takes an unorthodox approach to discovering the past.
• Adventurer Outfit: Duh.
• Badass Bookworm: He's an archaeologist, an adventurer, and a very competent fighter.
• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: There's snakes in the first level. While Indiana Jones repeats his famous quote from the movie while encountering them, they don't inflict him the "panicked" status.
• Iconic Item: Indy's iconic whip has two whip-related attacks.
• I Shall Taunt You: Has a taunt ability named "Witty Banter", which serves to aggro enemies.
• Machete Mayhem: His model has a machete hanging on his leg. He has an ability allowing to hit several targets with a single machete strike.

Jad Bal Ja

• Androcles' Lion: It was found by Tarzan as an orphan lion cub. Tarzan raisedit and it became a faithful companion.
• Panthera Awesome: A powerful lion and the companion of Tarzan.

Kato

• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Defector from Decadence: Born in Japan, he served in the Japanese Imperial Army in China and turned his coat after witnessing war crimes of Japan.
• Domino Mask: Wears a black one, fitting his black suit.
• Non-Powered Costumed Hero: Wearing a formal outfit with a mask.
• Roundhouse Kick: His "Eagle Talon" ability.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: He wears a black formal driver uniform with a cap.
• Sidekick: He's the Green Hornet sidekick.

The Phantom

• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Domino Mask: Wears a black one with a purple cowl.
• Guns Akimbo: Works similarly to Pat Savage, The Shadow, the Spider, and the Lone Ranger.
• Mighty Whitey: He's a Caucasian man serving as the protector of an African land and the native tribes.
• Non-Powered Costumed Hero: A classical example of the trope.
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: On his belt and his ring.

The Rocketeer

• Adventurer Outfit: He wears leather boots, jodhpurs, a pilot leather jacket, and black gloves.
• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Diesel Punk: A guy with a jetpack in a 1930 setting.
• 11th-Hour Ranger: He's the last plot character to join the team. He appears in the Berlin level (14th level out of 17).
• Evil Counterpart: The Rocketeer first appearance in the campaign is an inversion. In the Berlin level, the protagonists notice the Nazi Rocket Troopers and wonder how to have an advantage over them. The Shadow answers he has thought about it, then the Rocketeer appears.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: An improvised one. Whe standing on the ground, he can use his jetpack's postcombustion as a kind of flamethrower, severely damaging the surrounding mooks.
• Jet Pack: The Rocketeer has flight-related abilities, from hovering above ground while being able shoot, to ramming the target. There's also the Nazis Rocket Troopers, who are Nazi mooks with jetpacks.
• Non-Powered Costumed Hero: He basically wears an airman-type Adventurer Outfit with an aerodynamic metal helmet.

The Shadow

• Dark Is Not Evil: A man with an evil sounding laugh, who wears black and red, who conceals his face, and who nicknames himself "the Shadow". He's a good guy who fights crime.
• Evil Laugh: He may not be evil, but his laugh is unerving. One of his abilities induces panic to the enemies who hear it.
• Guns Akimbo: Works similarly to Pat Savage, the Phantom, the Spider, and the Lone Ranger.
• Jedi Mind Trick: He has the ability to turn invisible. Its flavour text describes it as using telepathy.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: He wears a black and red longcoat with a black hat.

The Spider

• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Dark Is Not Evil: A man dressed in dark blue and red, with spiderweb motives, and a "Spider" nickname. He's one of the good guys.
• The Faceless: His whole face is covered by a mask.
• Guns Akimbo: Works similarly to Pat Savage, the Phantom, the Shadow, and the Lone Ranger.
• Non-Powered Costumed Hero: He wears a dark blue suit with a mask and a cape both decorated with a red spiderweb drawing, and a hat.

Tarzan

• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Blown Across the Room: Tarzan's default attack with his bow has this effect.
• Exposed to the Elements: He wears only a loincloth carved in a leopard pelt. It makes sense when in appears (in Africa), but you then can bring him in Germany, then North Pole, while he keeps this costume.
• Mighty Whitey: The "lord of the jungle" is the orphan son of two British aristocrats.
• Rock Beats Laser: Tarzan and his bow aren't less useful against gun-toting Nazis than other heroes with more modern weaponry.
• You Don't Look Like You: While he can be recognized thanks to his leopard loincloth, Tarzan's hair change from main menu screen (blonde and disheveled) to his actual ingame model (neat black hair).

Other player characters from the main timeline

Those characters can be hired during the campaign, but aren't personnaly involve in the plot

Captain Midnight

• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Chest Insignia: A winged clock set at 12:00.
• Non-Powered Costumed Hero: He wears a tight blue and red suit, with blue boots, cowl, goggles, and a wingsuit.
• Superhero Packing Heat: A masked superhero with a pistol and grenades.

Dick Tracy

• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Hand Cannon: His pistol is huge. It's actually the name of one of the related abilities.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: He wears a black suit with a red tie, under a yellow coat. He also has a yellow fedora.

The Green Lama

• Green Thumb: Several of his abilities are linked to plants.
• Religious Bruiser: A superhero with martial abilities who is practioner of buddhism.

Ham Brooks

• Badass Bookworm: One of the best lawyers of the world is also a very competent fighter.
• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Theme Naming: Most of his mêlée abilities are named after legal terminology.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: He wears a beige suit and a white fedora.
• Sword Cane: His cane hides a sword, used by a few of his abilities.

Johnny Littlejohn

• Badass Bookworm: A world-renowned archaelogist and geologist with great fighting skills.
• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: His flavour text says he never uses a short word if he can use a long one. One of his abilities, "Voluminous Vocabulary", does this, which confuses enemies. The ability's description is itself an example of the trope:
  Utilize your affection for circumlocution to leave your antagonists temporarily discombobulated.

Jungle Jim

• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Blown Across the Room: He has a similar ability with his .30-06 rifle (his standard ranged attack uses a pistol), which inflicts lots of damage and the enemies do a huge backflip, as if they have been punched by Superman.

Kolu

• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Sidekick: He's Jungle Jim sidekick.

Long Tom Roberts

• Badass Bookworm: Cf. Gadgeteer Genius.
• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Gadgeteer Genius: An electrical engineer who designed his own gear.
• Shock and Awe: He has various gadgets and weapons granting him electricity-based attacks.

Mandrake the Magician

• Magicians Are Wizards: He's a stage magician with real magic powers.
• I Shall Taunt You: "Rage Illusion". It uses his magic powers instead his wits, though.
• Master of Illusion: Several of his abilities have their effects (rage, confusion, panic, curse...) described as being the effect of some hypnosis or strong suggestion.
• Stage Magician: It's his official job, and he indeed wears a classical stage magician outfit (a blue suit with a bow tie, a cape, and a top hat).

Miss Fury

• Action Girl: A crimefighting woman with proficiency in unarmed combat.
• Curse: She became a superheroine by wearing the cursed leopard costume for a masquerade ball. One of her abilities allows her to channel the curse of the outfit toward an enemy.
• Cursed with Awesome: Her curse costume also provides her some protection to damage.
• Femme Fatalons: They're part of her outfit and her feline superheroine persona.
• Panthera Awesome: She wears a leopard pelt in the shape of a Spy Cat Suit.
• Spy Catsuit: With an emphasis on "cat". Her fitting suit is made from a black leopard's pelt, with a tail, big cat's ears on her cowl, and claws. She basically looks like Catwoman.

Monk Mayfair

• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Guns Akimbo: Averted. His character model sports two sidearm holsters on his legs, but his gun-related ability consists in shooting with a (single) SMG.
• Spin Attack: He can use an unarmed variant of this.

Pat Savage

• Action Girl: An adventuress with gun proficiency and mêlée fighting abilities.
• Adventurer Outfit: She's more or less dressed like her cousin Doc Savage.
• Badass Normal: She has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Guns Akimbo: Downplayed. She carries two pistols, but her standard ranged attack consists in using a single one. Firing with both gun uses an energy-consuming ability with which she quickly shoots several times with both guns. Works similarly to the Phantom, The Shadow, the Spider, and the Lone Ranger.
• The Gunslinger: While most heroes have one or a couple of gun-related abilities, Pat Savage has five of those abilities.

Renny Rennwick

• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Badass Bookworm: He is a genius engineer with a great physical strength and a oversized fists.

The Spirit

• Advertised Extra: While most of the characters featured on the main menu screen are are plot critical protagonists involved in the campaign's events, the Spirit can only be played if you buy him with Prestige Points.
• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Crippling Overspecialization: He doesn't have any ranged attack ability, which makes fighting ranged units tedious.
• Domino Mask: Wears a blue one.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Most heroes have at least one mêlée combat ability (usually a weak attack consuming no mana). The Spirit has ten abilities: a taunt, a personal buff, and eight different punches.
• I Shall Taunt You: Has a taunt ability named "Wisecracking", which serves to aggro enemies.
• Non-Powered Costumed Hero: A classical example of the trope.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: He wears a blue suit with a red tie and a blue hat.

Villains of the main timeline

John Sunlight

• Big Bad Duumvirate: The two major antagonists are Shiwan Khan and John Sunlight, whose plan is to conquer the world (Khan would recieve the eastern half and Sunlight the western half).
• Final Boss
• Flunky Boss: There's a few members of his legion around him during his bossfight.
• A God Am I: When empowered by the orichalcum machine right before his bossfight, he claims that he has become a god. He is proven wrong.
• Light Is Not Good: Metaphorically. He is the big bad named Sunlight and his symbol is a sun. Also, he starts his bossfight surrounded by a golden sphere-shaped shield.
• Load-Bearing Boss: Hyperborea collapses after his defeat, which the protagonists speculate to be the consequence of him drawing lots of energy from Hyperborea's technology.
• Piggybacking on Hitler: He served Nazi Germany in order to obtain resources and influence for his own plans.

Shiwan Khan

• Big Bad Duumvirate: Cf. John Sunlight.
• Doppelgänger Attack: He can create to ghostly clones of him during a fight. Said clones can't be injuried and disappear if they're far enough from the original Shiwan Khan.
• Flunky Boss: Several of his Kung Fu Masters surround him during his bossfight.
• Necromancer: He can reanimate some of the surrounding fallen NPCs to fight for him.
• Piggybacking on Hitler: He is first encounter in a German military base in Africa while interrogating people who have been captured by the Nazi soldiers, then he is encountered hiding in a military base in Berlin. His links with the Nazis are never explained ingame, but it's obvious he's working with the Nazis like his comrade Sunlight.
• A Villain Named Khan: And a dialog about him have Indiana Jones lampshade that being named "Khan" is quite ominous.
• Yellow Peril: Shiwan Khan studied mysticism in Tibet and his plan is to conquer the eastern half of the world. His personal mooks are an army of kung-fu fighters wearing Chinese male traditional clothes.

Mr. X

• Ambition Is Evil: He is politician who founded a criminal empire to gain power quicker.
• Disc-One Final Boss: He's the villain having the most influence of the plot at the beginning and he's defeated in the middle of the campaign.
• The Faceless: His face his hidden by a black cowl marked with a grey X on the forehead.
• Flunky Boss: Several of his thugs surround him during his bossfight.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: He wears a black suit.

Show-Within-a-Show player characters

• Advertised Extra: Conan, Zorro and the Lone Ranger are featured on the main menu screen alongside the main protagonists of the story, despite each of them being playable in a single mission representing books being read by the main characters.

Conan the Barbarian

• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• The Berserker: One of Conan's abilities is named "Rage" and briefly makes his attacks more damaging.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Like the Spirit, he doesn't have any ranged attack.

The Lone Ranger

• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands: "Trick Shot" is described like this. Ingame, it prevents the target to use his abilities.
• Domino Mask: Wears a black one.
• Guns Akimbo: Works similarly to Pat Savage, the Phantom, and the Spider.
• The Gunslinger: While most heroes have one or a couple of gun-related abilities, the Lone Ranger has five of those abilities.
• Non-Powered Costumed Hero: A classical example of the trope.

Tonto

• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Sidekick: He's the Lone Ranger sidekick.

Zorro

• Badass Normal: He has no superpowers or supernatural abilities.
• Non-Powered Costumed Hero: A classical example of the trope.

Characters only playable in the Rumble Room

Buck Rogers

Flash Gordon

John Carter of Mars