Comic Book / Les Innommables

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Les Innommables is a French-Belgian comic book series by Yann Le Pelletier and Didier Conrad. It tells the adventures of a trio of deserters from the US Army, McButtle a.k.a. Mac, Tony and Tim, who wander throughout post-WW2 Asia, looking for a quick buck and for Mac's one true love, a Chinese girl named Alix Yin Fu. The latter is a fanatically committed agent of the Chinese Communist Party and goes through numerous adventures in her own Spin-Off series, Tigresse Blanche.

Contains examples of:

• Adaptational Badass: Though she's comparably prone to being overwhelmed and captured just like in the main book, Alix is notably more competent and dangerous in her own spin-off.
• Alternate Continuity: After the publication of the third album was cancelled, the series was suspended for a while and then started over with various retconned elements.
• Adaptational Sexuality: Tony was initially assumed to be heterosexual, and in fact behaved as a bit of a Casanova. But in the rebooted version he turned out to be gay.
• Anti-Hero: Three of them. Mostly, they're the good guys because everyone else is worse.
• Area 51: Here, the "crash-landed spaceship" is actually an experimental Russian aircraft, with a Human Popsicle Russian woman onboard.
• Armored Closet Gay: Just about every American character who stands for traditional 50's values is one.
• Ascended Extra: Alix.
• Asian Babymama: Alix bore Mac's child while they were estranged, and he only finds out a few years later. In an interesting twist, Alix's brainwashing results in partial amnesia, and she herself forgets about her daughter.
• Band of Brothels: While in Hong Kong, Mac bought himself a brothel.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: One of the Purple Lotus' specialties involves the client having sex with the girl while getting assfucked by a dog (who we're assured isn't being coerced or mistreated).
• Big, Thin, Short Trio: Mac, Tony and Tim.
  • For all his talk of hating the other two, when separated from Mac and Tim, Tony ends up finding himself a Replacement Goldfish with a fat prisoner and a short one (with completely different personalities).
• Batter Up!: Tim is constantly toting a baseball bat, which he uses to painful effect against adversaries.
• Black Is Bigger in Bed: A black guy is refused entry into an Asian brothel because the girls are afraid he's far too large for them.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Basil and Sybil Jardine are incestuous siblings.
• Can't Get in Trouble for Nuthin': Colonel Lychee tries to get sent to Hong Kong's Victoria prison. Unfortunately for him, his first attempt (murdering a passerby in front of the British policemen) goes nowhere: the cops congratulate him but tell him his method is inefficient to deal with the several million Chinamen left. The second one goes little better (murdering a dog in front of a policeman) due to the cop fainting. And killing a white person would get him immediately shot down.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Basil Jardine, of Jardine & Matheson.
• Crapsack World:
  • Boy howdy is Hong Kong not a remotely good place to live. Leaving aside the impeding takeover of the city by the communists, everyone is racist against everyone else, Hong Kong policemen won't bat an eye at a Chinese person being murdered in front of them, a prostitute is considered a late bloomer if she starts going into business by age 12...
  • The US isn't much better: everyone is racist, the government works with Nazis and openly plans to murder a governor to hush up a scandal (said scandal being that the governor had two rivals murdered), a landlord's reaction to hearing someone being tortured is to grab his toolbox and ask if he can join in...
• Dark Action Girl: Alix has a penchant for killing her victims by stabbing their brains through their eyes with chopsticks.
• Decoy Protagonist: The first two panels of "Matricule Triple Zero", the first album, depict the character who was ostensibly going to be the real hero of the series, a USAAF pilot with rugged good looks inspired by Buck Danny. And then he gets unceremoniously run over by a Jeep and is never seen again.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Yes, the world was racist back in the forties-fifties, but U.S. Navy personnel probably didn't go around publicly beating foreigners in foreign countries for "not being American" or "not being white".
• Disposable Sex Worker: Roseau Fleuri and most of the employees of the Purple Lotus. Then again, death is remarkably common to the point where people can get run over or stabbed in the streets with no one batting an eye.
• Dragon Lady: Alix is a ruthless secret agent, highly trained in martial arts and assassination.
• Eagle Land:
  • Just about every American character is a type 2 (who believe themselves to be a Type 1). As an example, a trio of U.S. sailors in a bar try to pick a fight with a British man "for not being American". When his Indian manservant steps in, they decide to beat him up "for not being white".
  • Exaggerated when the action shifts back to the U.S. Featuring: backstabbing careerist generals, scientists who work on their own brainwashing techniques, totally-not L Ron Hubbard, a severely-repressed sheriff, a colonel who gouges out his eyes after shooting his gay son dead, his White-Dwarf Starlet wife who tries to kill Mac's daughter, Nazi refugees, the CIA guy who tries to divert an unmanned moon rocket to nuke Moscow (the Russian retaliation strike won't have the range to hit the U.S.)...
• Eaten Alive: Mac's interference botches Colonel Lychee's attempt at seppuku, leaving him helpless, but alive, in close proximity to hundreds of carnivorous rats.
• Enabled Delusion: The colonel's wife believes she's the reincarnation of Cleopatra, a belief her lover and psychiatrist does nothing to discourage since it lets him get paid to do nothing.
• Facial Horror: The sorceress No-Jaw doesn't have a lower jaw. Despite this, she can still talk, just with a Japanese Ranguage problem.
• Femme Fatale: Ching Soao is possibly the most insane example in a series rife with this archetype as there's almost no situation she can't fight and/or fuck her way out of. The closest she gets to comeuppance is when Lychee and the dog-man put her in a small cage and kick her into the surf, but even then Captain Mumu O' Rouke happens to be nearby and accidentally busts the cage open while having sex with her through its bars. He then lets her go after he gets weirded out by the backstory of the tattoos that suddenly appeared on her body after she achieves a number of orgasms in succession even though she had tried to castrate him not an hour earlier.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Inverted with one character, introduced with "Give him an aircraft carrier and a month, he'll give you a tugboat!"
• Government Conspiracy: While trying to get a private detective agency started, the Innommables get involved in a FBI conspiracy to assassinate the governor of New York State.
• Guilt-Induced Nightmare: Subverted, where Colonel Lychee is seen dreaming of all the people he had thrown into locomotive furnaces during World War 2, their ghosts crying for vengeance... and is smiling happily about it.
• Hammerspace: Lampshaded with Tim's baseball bat. The other characters wonder how it's possible for him to always have it at hand, even when he hasn't taken it with him.
• Haunting the Guilty: Subverted with Colonel Lychee, who dreams of the Chinese people he had thrown alive into locomotive furnaces during WW2... with a big happy grin on his face.
• Heir Club for Men: Gender-Inverted, Alix wants Mac's baby to be a boy so he can take avenge her.
• Historical Domain Character:
  • Marilyn Monroe and a few other figures from 1950s American history. The Song sisters also appear in the spin-off series.
  • The Jardines are descended from the "Iron-headed old rat" William Jardine", an opium merchant.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Roseau Fleuri.
• In the Original Klingon: One Chinese character says Marco Polo stole the concept of pasta on his journey through China; in fact they were thought up separately.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Mac.
• Kavorka Man: Despite their ungrateful looks, Mac and Tim are both very successful with beautiful women.
• Mind-Control Eyes: Alix had Blank White Eyes while under the telepathic influence of a psychic.
• Multiple Endings: The episode "Alix-Noni-Tengu" has two different possible endings, a happy one and a downer one. The downer is the canon one.
• The Napoleon: General McErnest.
• Official Couple: Mac and Alix.
• Papa Wolf: Mac.
• Pirate Girl: The three characters are at one point abducted by Pirates led by a female captain. She gets a crush on Tim and has Mac and Tony thrown overboard.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Lychee, the dog-man, and a random crewmember go dig up some buried bones. Lychee shoots the sailor, telling the pissed-off dog-man that he can't talk anymore. The dog-man points out that they could just as easily killed him on the ship, now Lychee has to row alone.
• Prison Riot: Tony instigates one by labeling crates of lentils as bacon, causing the guards (who are mostly Indian Muslims) to turn on the prison administration and lynching the governor.
• Psycho for Hire: Colonel Lychee, who really enjoys his work. In one case, he's haunted by the memdreaming of all the Chinese people he threw into locomotive furnaces... and is smiling happily.
• Racial Face Blindness:
  • One U.S. scientist declares to a board of Army higher-ups that they've figured a way to reverse Communist brainwashing. He produces his specimen, who starts reciting "Chairman Mao does not like freedom... Chairman Mao is not God...". Then the scientist brings in a new test subject (who hadn't undergone brainwashing), and gives him a gun and tells him to shoot. The prisoner happily complies, shooting a dozen generals before he's taken down. The scientist brushes giving the gun to the wrong man off, saying "these Chinese all look alike".
  • When a bunch of mooks are waiting to ambush Mac (a bruiser with a beer gut and Perma-Stubble), they instead kill the first white man coming out of the bar (a tall, skinny, bearded Ernest Hemingway expy). The mook's excuse of "all these ang-moh look alike" doesn't spare him from being killed by Lychee.
  • While looking for Alix, Colonel Lychee claims that being Japanese, all Chinese women look the same to him, and so he murders a number of prostitutes just in case one of them was her.
• Red China: The Chinese Communists are depicted as utterly merciless and depraved, but the main character's love interest is a fanatically loyal Communist agent. And the other sides aren't depicted in a much more favorable light either.
• Rescue Romance: How Alix falls for Mac, although the second rescue that ultimately thrusts her into his arms was actually Tim's doing.
• Second Love: Alix is this for Mac after the death of Roseau Fleuri, who he cared deeply for and whose demise haunts him for several volumes.
• Sexual Euphemism: Due to being set in part in a Chinese brothel, a lot of euphemisms for sex, sex organs, sexual orientation and sex acts get thrown around. One side story even consists solely of advertisements for the Purple Lotus and what its girls can do in the same flowery language.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Happens with regularity.
• Shoot Your Mate: Subverted. An American scientist claims he has reversed Chinese brainwashing techniques and proposes to demonstrate in front of high-ranking officers. He gives one of the two Chinese prisoners a gun, and tells him to shoot the other. The man immediately perks up and empties the gun... into the generals. Turns out the gun had been given to the wrong man.
• Shorttank: Claire, a former street urchin that the Innommables have taken in.
• Shout-Out:
  • In Alix's spin-off series, she's partnered with a Chinese guy named Eh-Nak.
  • An Air Force pilot is named Sonny, while one girl's erotic fantasy involves Buck Danny calling Sonny and Tumbler for help.
  • The British antagonist of the Alix spinoff looks like Blake from Blake and Mortimer (in appearance only though), with Mortimer's expy (named Marmalade) seen getting blackout drunk on "That Awful Day", the anniversary of India's independence.
  • A scene where a rocket is hijacked (by the CIA, who want to nuke Moscow with it) is blown up before it's out of range, reminescent of a similar plot in Tintin.
• The Slacker: All three started out as complete slackers, but while Mac and Tim shaped up to some extent, Tony has remained one.
• Straight Gay: Tony, in the rebooted version.
• Too Dumb to Live: A detective character is unceremoniously written off when we see his body pulled out of the water. It's classified as suicide, he was seen showing money (flipping a coin) while at the docks.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Mac and Alix, though they aren't technically married.
• Ugly Spouse Sentence: Basil Jardine discovers (after having his father murdered) that in order to inherit his father's fortune, he must merge his company with its biggest rival, and the most convenient way of doing that is marrying the daughter of its CEO. Said CEO is perfectly aware of his daughter's ugliness and bad personality, but given that he also has nothing but contempt for Basil, is all too happy to make the marriage go through. The daughter has similar feelings for Basil and has every intention of making him a Henpecked Husband.
• Your Tomcat Is Pregnant: Happened with Raoul, the trio's pet pot-bellied pig, who turned out to be female.
• Values Dissonance: In-universe, one of the Englishmen in Hong Kong takes offense at Sir Jardine's secretary wearing white at his funeral. His employer reminds him that in China, white is associated with death.