The Comic
- Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Bill Savage an upstanding, if brutal freedom fighter? Or is he a psychopathic Blood Knight who is, in many ways, worse than the Volgs? Garth Ennis apparently once pitched a Distant Finale strip that had Bill confined to a mental hospital long after the conflict ended. Book 10 establishes that he's become a Serial Killer.
- Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Invasion! was one of the least popular strips back in 1977. Since it was resurrected, Savage has been one of the most popular.
The Book
- Complete Monster: Roderick Whittle's manner is a mere Mask of Sanity, hiding the fact that he is in fact the infamous Jack the Ripper. We are first introduced to Whittle when 15-year-old Trevor Bentley, trying to escape some robbers, spies him killing a prostitute and mutilating the body. Trevor manages to escape, but ends up on the same boat as Whittle, bound for the United States. Whittle attacks and kills a few more people, and plans to continue his spree in the US, making it seem the work of "savages". Eventually, Whittle also kills some more people, including a teenager; Trevor's Love Interest—-later mocking Trevor about how he used her corpse, unbeknownst to him, as a shield against Trevor's bullets; a posse of men sent to capture or kill him and placing their corpses in macabre positions; and numerous women. He finally tries to kill Trevor and his new love interest, but not before revealing that he has become a sheriff's deputy named "John Carver". With over 20 brutal murders to his name, as well as a taste for torture and possibly even cannibalism, Roderick Whittle is easily one of the most psychotic and sadistic versions of Jack the Ripper ever put into fiction.
- Nightmare Fuel: In the space of one night, Trevor witnesses his uncle beating his mother, is assaulted by a prostitute and her thugs, hides in a room that a prostiture is murdered and dismembered in, and is chased and captured by her killer: Jack the Ripper.
