Last Man Standing is a graphic novel series by Daniel Lu'Visi. The series, set 600 years in the future of an Alternate Universe, concerns a covert operations Super-Soldier named Gabriel, who was formerly employed by a paramilitary organization named Armtech.
Gabriel was originally the only Paladin of WWXIII (which involved a conflict with Mars) to survive, and thus became the Last Man Standing. He returned home to Amerika, loved and adored by the people and Armtech. He made the country into a virtual Utopia as he basically kicked all the criminal ass he could find.
Admired and celebrated by most, Gabe's world takes a sudden turn when he finds himself framed by the terrorist group Pandemonium, for a series of atrocious crimes he had no part in. For these alleged crimes, Gabriel is sent to the treacherous Level-9 Prison Facility and incarcerated with the very scum he helped put away.
After nine years of torture and agony, the once famed hero kills his captors and escapes the 9 levels of hell he has been condemned to. From here on forward, Gabriel embarks on a journey into the heart of darkness; the New Amerika, a world filled with colorful and deadly characters who will either help or try to eliminate him — neither of which attitude is always transparent. As the once invincible hero digs deep to unravel the true reason behind his framing, he also discovers a problem he never had to face before: He's dying; and quickly.
You can find out more at the author's sites, located here
and here.
Not to be confused with the Bruce Willis film, or the Tim Allen sitcom. Nor should it be confused with Last of His Kind, where there literally is a last man standing.
Last Man Standing provides examples of:
- Afro Asskicker: Abel has one. His pet monkey, Kane, sometimes sports one as well. And he beats things with a baseball bat while a boom box plays.
- Beast Man: A few turn up as genetic experiments made by Armtech.
- Celestial Body: Hex, as shown here, is the entire universe in one entity.
- Cyberpunk for Flavor: There is a bit of Cyber-punkism with the evil MegaCorp known as Armtech, but some of the fantastical elements make it not quite a clear cut case.
- Cyborg: A few of them are running around. The most notable one would be Judge, a zombie Psycho Electro Glass Cannon who used to be a Russian Soldier before his death while working for Armtech. He got better, and now he's looking to lay down a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the people who left him to die.
- Fantastic Drug: TMU, a drug made from Paladin DNA (IE: The stuff Gabriel is made of), which alongside giving similar power to the user, also makes them supermodel levels of hot.
- God: Hex, who by
Word of God is the God of The 'Verse. - Guns Akimbo: If a character has Dual Wielder on their Perk Card, then they can do this.
- La Résistance: There are a few of these brewing against Armtech.
- The Last Title: The title.
- Mad Doctor: Pain has a Ph.D in Psychopathy.
- Manchild: Heavily implied to be the case with Gabriel. His Killbook (RE: the book you are reading) is framed like a child's scrapbook (in fact, a shopping list at the beginning has a scrapbook meant for children at the end of the list), he has a habit of geeking out over things (to be fair, you would too if you saw a gun that could double as a blunt instrument), and all of the character dossiers have Action Figure File Cards as part of their file.
- MegaCorp: Armtech controls all of Amerika.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: One of Gabriel's powers as a Paladin.Gabriel: Before you start getting excited, I can't fly. I don't have x-ray vision or claws and I wasn't bitten by any insects. I can't regenerate and as much as I'd love to be, I'm not a multi-billionaire with a fascination for winged mammals. What I can do is kick ass and take a whole lot of ass kicking.
- One-Man Army: Gabriel's character bio uses these exact words to describe him.
- Outlaw Couple: Bonnie and Clyde, although they're not really bad guys — and yes, those are their actual names.
- Parental Abandonment: Eris' dad was Driven to Suicide when he lost all his money, and her mother was killed by an Armtech officer that she dated to get over her husband's death.
- Phlebotinum Rebel: You may notice that this happens a lot to Armtech.
- Physical God: Hex. Yes, that's the entire universe in him.
- Robot Dog: RO-bot K-9, or RO for short. He differs in that he's a bipedal, Cyborg dog built for WWXIII who went rogue. He then hooked up with a cat (apparently the creator's) that can act named GIZMO.
- Smoking Is Cool: Gabe is almost never seen without a cig in his mouth. Hell, to make it more cool he even smokes them through his helmet.
- Soul Brotha: Abel. So much so that he operates on a level of badassness that not even Gabriel can comprehend. Kane, his pet monkey that also sports an Afro, helps seal the deal.
- Unwitting Pawn: Gabriel was this to Armatech for many years after the war. Sure he was a genuine hero, protecting the people of Amerika and whatnot... and unknowingly sending people to internment camps under the guise of them being resorts, among doing a bunch of other corporate dirty work.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Karma is a robotic spy with advanced synthetic texture-mapping tech for skin.
- World of Badass: The comic is filled to the brim with badass characters. The only one who isn't is a Robot Girl, ironically.
