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Recap / L'Accélérateur atomique

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Ce neuvième tome des formidables aventures de Lapinot réjouira les amateurs de groom, de laboratoire secret, de rebondissements et de design hyper-réaliste science-fictionnel des fifties.
(This ninth volume of the spiffy adventures of McConey will delight those who like grooms, secret laboratories, plot twists and hyperrealist 50's science fiction design.)

L'Accélérateur atomique is a 2003 comic book by Lewis Trondheim. It is the ninth album of The Spiffy Adventures of McConey series.

The story parodies Spirou & Fantasio. Spirou (Lapinot) and Fantasio are in a jeweller's shop when in an instant all the jewels disappear. Spirou has noticed a van in front of the shop and he immediately chases it.


L'Accélérateur atomique provides examples of the following tropes:

  • Action Pet: Spip bites Robert's leg to help Spirou and Fantasio to escape from the lab.
  • Applied Phlebotinum: The atomic accelerator which allows to move very fast is made of this.
  • Beware of Vicious Dog: Paf, a vicious dog, forces Spirou, Fantasio and two policemen to climb into a tree. Later, he chases one of the policemen.
  • Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Robert does it with Mr Mammouth's gun. The gun even explodes.
  • Brandishment Bluff: Spirou tries it against a mooks with a Finger Gun in his pocket. The mook is unimpressed.
  • Chase Scene: After the disappearance of the jewels in the shop, Spirou chases a van with his car. Later, he chases Mr Mammouth's car with a motorbike and then the Fantacopter.
  • The Chessmaster: Mr Mammouth. He stages the arrest of Spirou and Fantasio. He also bribed Robert to take hold of the lab.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Titi, who was present in all the other albums of the series, does not appear in this one with no explanation.
  • Disney Death: Mr Mammouth shoots at Lapinot in his atomic accelerator suit. The suit lies on the floor. Fantasio tells Mr Mammouth that he is a criminal. A few minutes later, Lapinot appears again: he had disappeared from the suit just seconds before being shot at, as a side effect of using the atomic accelerator.
  • Door Fu: Spirou slams the door into the face of Robert to escape from the lab.
  • Faceless Goons: The henchmen who work for the mad scientist wear suits that completely obscure their face. At some point, Spirou wears one and Fantasio thinks he is a mook and he disarms him.
  • Frameup:
    • Mr Mammouth frames Spirou and Fantasio up for hitting him.
    • The mad scientist frames Spirou and Fantasio for escaping from the prison van, for wounding a policeman with a sword and for stealing the jewels.
  • Gilligan Cut: Parodied. Three cuts in a row. Fantasio tells Spirou he does not want to jump in a cab to go to Mr Mammouth's. Then, he is in a cab and tells that he does not want to ring his bell in the middle of the night. Then he tells that he does not want to break in while Spirou is ringing his bell. Finally, Spirou and Fantasio are breaking in and Fantasio asks if Spirou hears him when he talks.
  • A Glass of Chianti: Mr Mammouth opens a bottle of red wine when he finds Spirou and Fantasio in his cellar. He offers wine to them and drinks a glass of it. In the end, he is revealed to be the villain.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: Subverted. The mad scientist has an evil scar on the cheek, so that it is difficult for Spirou to believe that he is not a villain. When the mad scientist tries to convince Spirou that he is not evil, Spirou asks how he has got this scar. Finally, he is not evil.
  • It Works Better with Bullets: Spirou uses the atomic accelerator to grab Robert's guns, but Mr Mammouth reveals that they are empty. Subverted, because then Robert says that he had noticed they were empty and that he has reloaded them.
  • Luck-Based Search Technique: Subverted. When he is looking for a secret passage in Mr Mammouth's cellar, Spirou moves the wine bottles, but it does not work: there is no secret passage.
  • Mad Scientist: The scientist who created the atomic accelerator does not hesitate to rob jeweller's shops with his invention to finance his research.
  • Mad Scientist Laboratory: Zigzagged. Spirou is looking for a lab at Mr Mammouth's, but there is not any. Later, the mad scientist orders to bring him to the secret lab and Spirou says that he knew that there must be a lab. He is first brought to a small room with some scientific material and he is visibly disappointed by it, but this is not the real lab, where Spirou finally arrives accidentally. The real lab is really impressive.
  • No Honor Among Thieves: Robert disarms Mr Mammouth, because he does not want to share the money with him and because he thinks that Mammouth was going to double-cross him.
  • Police Are Useless: The policeman is very skeptical about Spirou and Fantasio's report about the jewelry theft. Later, he buys Mr Mammouth's story and he arrests Spirou and Fantasio. Then, he is convinced that they escaped from the prison van, that they wounded his colleague and that they stole the jewels, so he tries to arrest them again. In the end he shows up and still wants to arrest them.
  • Self-Destruct Mechanism: The lab is equipped with one and the mad scientist triggers it in the end.
  • Talking Animal: Spirou's role is played by Lapinot, who is a rabbit person. Spip, his pet, is strangely also a rabbit, while he was a squirrel in the original series. Like in the original series, Spip is a Talking Animal. He mainly makes sarcastic comments, but the other characters do not seem to understand him.
  • Trap Door: Subverted. Spirou and Fantasio falls into the secret lab and Spirou tells the mad scientist that this trap door is very ingenious, but the scientist reveals that it is not a trap door, but an accidental collapse.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: The inventor of the atomic accelerator wants to improve transport and he thinks this will bring peace to the world, because the people of earth will get closer and understand they are not so different. Yet, he resorts to jeweller's shop robberies to finance his research.

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