Finger Guns is a 2020 comic book series written by Justin Richards and illustrated by Val Halvorson with Rebecca Nalty on colors, and lettered by Taylor Esposito. It is published by Vault Comics.
Two teenagers, Wes and Sadie stumble upon a shared secret power: They have the ability to control people's emotions by pointing a Finger Gun at them. The two strike up a friendship and use their powers to help navigate through the intense peaks and banal valleys of teenager-hood.
The series ran for 5 issues, with the potential for more stories to be told in the future.
This comic book uses the following tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Sadie's father is abusive to both her and her mother.
- Bittersweet Ending: Sadie's abusive father is in custody and her mom is on the pathway to citizenship, but Sadie's powers are on the fritz since her finger was re-attached and she may never get them back the way they were. She decides to run away to avoid hurting someone else, but she and Wes will always have a special bond with each other.
- Emotion Bomb: The finger gun ability that the kids have. Two fingers (the ring and middle finger) together can make someone angry, pointing just one (ring finger) can calm them down. Wes is good at the first ability, Sadie is good with latter. Crossing the middle and ring finger can apparently either make someone brave and/or make them feel good about themselves.
- Finger Gun: Natch, though the gesture isn't used in jest. The finger guns can control people's emotions.
- Fingore: The end of issue #4 sees Sadie get her finger slammed in the door, cutting it completely off. Thankfully, doctors were able to re-attach it, though it's out of commission until it heals.
- Foil: The writer said he deliberately made the characters each other exact opposite: Wes is a white boy who was good at making people mad with his finger gun due to his anger at his workaholic dad and trying to get some excitement in his life; Sadie is a Latina girl who uses her finger gun to calm her abusive father and keep the peace.
- The Illegal: Further complicating Sadie's situation is that her mother is doesn't qualify for citizenship yet, thus reporting her dad to the police could get her deported.
- Jerkass: Sadie's father Enzo, who is a raging asshole who abuses Sadie's mother and sometimes Sadie herself. Sadie was previously using her power on him to calm him down, but over time he's built a resistance. Sadie even thinks that he's planning on killing her mom for the life insurance.
- Meaningful Name: Sadie's mother explain she gave her the name of Saudade, because she feels Sadie is the thing she's been missing all her life.
- Missing Mom: Wes's mother died sometime before the events of the series by suicide, or so everyone thinks.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Mr. Country, the school's guidance consolor who's regularly meets with Wes and Sadie and is the first person Wes tells about Sadie's abusive dad.
- Troubled Teen: Both Wes and Sadie for different reasons; Wes for his father never being around and Sadie for being in an abusive household.
- When You Coming Home, Dad?: Wes's dad is always away on business and is never home, leaving Wes to bond with the neighborhood dog. He seems like a good father otherwise.
