Exterminatus Now

Exterminatus Now is what happens when you mix Sonic the Hedgehog, Warhammer 40,000, and a truckload of Black Comedy.

Yes, seriously. See for yourself.

This Web Comic is the story of two members of the Mobian Inquisition, a parodical version of the Inquisition of Warhammer 40,000, and their two mercenaries, and together make a group who remain living and employed only by luck, blackmail, and occasional violence, along with their superiors, alternate numbers, associates, and foes.

The comic alternates between a gag a day style, and full blown Story Arcs. It began on the 29th of September 2003, and has been ongoing ever since.

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Exterminatus Now is the Trope Namer for:

• Does That Sound Like Fun to You?

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Tropes used in Exterminatus Now include:

Tropes A to H

• Accidental Truth: In the "Cesspool" arc, concerning the illegal trading of weapons to some cultists, Eastwood learns that the firearms in question were sold through eBay. He twists this and tells Shaefer that ruthless weapons dealer E. Bay was the one who had actually sold the guns in question. Well, as it turns out, he's half right.
• Action Girl
  • Wildfire, a bit too much so.
  • Jamilla could be this if she didn't need to be rescued all the time. (Twice to be exact: Once as a hostage, once again as a potential sacrifice.)
• All Men Are Perverts / Male Gaze: Boi-oing!
• Amusing Injuries: Painful things happen to just about everyone all the time. They're almost always hilarious.
• And This Is For: Lothar does this after he gets fixed after being possessed by a technology daemon. He punches Rogue in the stomach then smacks him in the head with his knee for cutting his old prosthetics off, then punches Eastwood for pushing him down the stairs in a wheelchair. Then he kicks Virus in the groin just so he won't feel left out.
• Angrish: Schaeffer falls into this when he realizes that he can't punish the protagonists for the destruction of Black Halo since due to the latter having been an illegal top secret facility, there isn't any remaining evidence that it even existed.
• Anticlimax: A duel between a Knight in Shining Armor and an Evil Overlord right before the latter's dark ritual is about to be complete ends with the former decapitating the latter off-panel right after one of the soldiers watching basically says "This is going to be epic." verbosely.
• Armour Is Useless: The last mission with Wildfire has the team ditching armour because:

Eastwood: With the things we're facing, armour's only any use if they get close, and if we let them get close, we're dead, armour or no.

• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking
  • According to the cast page, the more serious offenses on Lothar's rap-sheet include "assault and battery, murder one, large scale video game theft and piracy".
  • Also, mooning His Majesty the King of Crownshead on 43 separate occasions (treason).
• Art Evolution: The art has gotten quite smoother and more detailed as the comic goes on, especially when the artist gets some new tech to use.
• Artificial Limbs: Lothar has two artificial legs, an artificial arm and one artificial eye (with record feature)
• Art Shift: When Lothar draws the strip.
• Aside Glance: Used here.
• Ax Crazy: Lothar. "Trigger-happy" is an understatement. Honestly, he's killed at least three dogs! For no reason! Hell, his intro should be enough of a hint. This sums it up even better.

Eastwood: So the "Lothar Way" of getting the grass cut was to set next door's dog on fire?
Lothar: What's this about cutting the grass?

• The Backwards R: The font used for Rodinian.
• Badass: Lothar and Rogue. Eastwood and Virus also have their moments.
• Badass Army: The Black Guard. Sure, their combat effectiveness often makes them disposable mooks, but damn if they don't look intimidating. They're pretty much the Inquisition's Stormtroopers.
• Badass Longcoat: Eastwood wears one along with Virus. Eastwood ditched the black leather trench for a more, well, Columbo look.
• Bad Boss: Inquisitor Lord Antonius Schaeffer is this, with a generous dose of Pointy-Haired Boss to taste. He's made no secret of trying to kill Eastwood, Virus, and Lothar by sending them against impossible odds (well, he did, and did it poorly), and barely treats his other subordinates any better. Despite the bluster, he's an incompetent pervert who almost totally relies on his adjutant, Inquisitor Riktor Simmons, to do anything.
  • Although he does beat up, chase, and eventually kill an evil "Weapons distributor" named Edward Bay (The whole thing started as a lie Eastwood told him to get the Inquisition off a friend of Lothar's who'd made a mistake and accidentally sold a shitton of weapons to cultists. Turns out, there WAS a Mr. E. Bay.)
• Battle Aura: Eastwood gets one when Lothar tries to separate him from his coffee. It's daemonic red.
• Beam Katanas Are Just Better: As any member of the Daemon Hunters will attest to. Considering how often Eastwood, Virus, and Lothar used Rogue's for Mundane Utility, everyone agrees.
• Beleaguered Assistant: Simmons to Schaefer.
• Be Quiet Nudge: Virus elbows Eastwood.
• Berserk Button
  • Lord have mercy on anyone who destroys Lothar's hat.
  • Or calls Rogue a Jedi.
  • Or tries to take Eastwood's coffee.
  • Or threatens Lothar's family.
• Big Damn Heroes: NOBODY EXPECTS THE MOBIAN INQUISITION!
• Big Red Button: Hilariously subverted.
• BFG: The Predator XXL-99 Minigun.
• Blackmail Is Such an Ugly Word: Eastwood and Virus prefer the term "extortion".
• Blatant Lies: The cast page is in the form of inquisition files. The file for the boss Schaeffer includes a picture of a Knight in Shining Armor with his face taped over the head, a list of characteristics that would put any Mary Sue to shame, a notification that any rumors you may have heard about his sexual deviancy are completely false and a note that the file was last edited by Schaeffer.
• Body Horror: Do not piss off a group of evil sorcerors.

Antelope Bastard: The last guy they caught snitching got turned into a chair of screaming undead bone and flayed hide, locked in a perpetual torment and praying for a death that will never come. He's still under a tarp in the attic.

• Born Lucky: The whole group. This is one of Simmons's reasons for selecting the group for a mission. As he puts it, it's not because their uniqueness makes them effective, but because they seem to have a bottomless supply of luck which he "wishes to capitalise on."
  • Reaches Ciaphas Cain levels in recent comics. The reason they're being selected for a Suicide Mission is their ability to survive no matter how hard their superiors try to kill them how severe the odds ranged against them are.
• Brick Joke: "Nah, we're not gonna do the Python gag yet. Maybe next time."
  • That attack chicken thing eventually returns.
• Briefcase Full of Money: A chameleon hiring mercenaries offers plenty of those around...until he realises he has gone overbudget. Luckily for him, couple bottles of booze and a carton of cigarettes work just as well for his last acquisition.
• Bring My Brown Pants: Eastwood wets himself at the prospect of being flattened by Morth's Collapsing Lair. An example of the Black Comedy of the series, as the circumstances were actually very somber and serious and the joke was most likely used to lighten the mood.

Eastwood: Oh, I assure you I'm pissing myself with fear.
Virus: Well, I wouldn't go that far.
Rogue: I would. Just noticed. Watch your step there.
Virus: Oohh, right, NOT a metaphor.

• Butt Monkey: Virus, so very much.
• But You Screw One Goat!: Schaefer's chicken fetish, which the protagonists use as blackmail material to remain employed.
• Call Back: A very subtle one. In one of the earlier episodes, Eastwood and Syrus are shown watching TV while Lothar and Rogue do training and exercise to stay sharp. Guess who end up not chasing the Antelope Bastard.
  • A much more minor example: not only does Jamilla make a minor appearance in "Test Card FFFFFFFFFFFFF", but so do two girls who were previously seen in the background in "Brings New Meaning To Flipping Them Off". (Although the two girls have gotten some cosmetic updates to their design.)
• Card-Carrying Villain: Most cultists. Played for Laughs in the exchange between the Big Bad and The Dragon of a cult to Chronic Backstabbing Disorder.

Janus: You shall be a merciful diety, Master Morth.
Morth: And you my most loyal subject.
Both: [[[Beat Panel]]] AHAHAHAHA!
Morth: But seriously, let's get set up and get started. "Merciful"... You kidder.
Janus: Loyal right up until the second the knife hits your back.

• Casanova Wannabe: Eastwood has terrible luck with women, though not for lack of trying. His methods leave something to be desired, mind. He's also tried to tutor Virus in skirt-chasing, with painful results.
• Catch Phrase
  • "Goit."
  • Lothar repeatedly says "I have a cunning plan!" whenever the group is in a fix. This is treated as an Oh Crap after the first time. For good reason.
  • When insulted, Eastwood tends to respond with "Exactly! ...Wait."
• Calling Your Attacks: Parodied and lampshaded in this strip.
• The Cameo
  • Leo from VG Cats can be seen in a crowd of nerds which quickly gets blasted by Lothar and Eastwood.
  • Cailen Crow is in the same panel.
  • Cameo-overload!
• The Cavalry: Are summoned to Lothar's aid in the form of about a dozen mercenaries he's befriended through his time as a mercenary during his battle with Rogue. Despite this, they still charge him; the comic isn't called "friends and family discount" for no reason.
• Chainsaw Good: Lothar recently upgraded his arm's circular saw to a chainsaw; apparently, they're more robust and just look cooler. And the circular saw had just been wrecked anyways, seeing as the rest of the group was forced to smash up Lothar's bionics to force a Fernexite demon that had possessed them to return to the Void.
• Chekhov's Gun: All of Lothar's cunning plans involve these, be it living creatures, phobias, transvestites, and actual guns. Most of them end in violence.
  • Eastwood "knows a guy who knows a guy." Too bad he forgot exactly which friend he knew this guy through, because it bites him in the ass one comic later.
  • During a chase, Virus says he doesn't care Eastwood lost sight of him and Rogue, because he can always track his Cabal unit. A few pages later he hides the Cabal unit in the bag containing the Bookend of Unimaginable Power before giving it to the enemy, so that they can be tracked back to their base.
    • Lampshaded in the author commentary, complete with instructions to update TVTropes accordingly.
• Click. "Hello.": Done with a very nice Stealth Hi Bye.
• Cluster F-Bomb: From Lothar as he bounces down a highway after falling off an armoured car.

Lothar: Shit...cock...dammi...motherfuck-k-k-k...-unt...
Either Virus or Eastwood: You screwed it up! What do we do now?
Lothar: I just fell off a moving vehicle and bounced down half a mile of tarmac, but I'm FINE, THANKS FOR FUCKING WELL ASKING!

• Coincidental Accidental Disguise: Sort of. It serves no purpose whatsoever, but boy does it look cool!
• Collapsing Lair: Thanks to Wildfire and her latest escapade with the circuit-breaker switches, the entire Black Halo facility counts. So does Morth's lair after the villain's departure.
• Conjoined Eyes: Virus.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Mocked in this comic.

"Helicopters? Try VTOL aircraft, dude."

• Color Coded for Your Convenience: In the chameleon's first appearance after Morth's involvement is revealed, he changes color to black and white.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Lampshaded, then brutally subverted in this strip.
• Combat Pragmatist: The Inquisition encourages ruthlessness, and the characters have absolutely no desire to fight fair.
• Compensating for Something: "What in the bloody fucking hell is THAT, and how small do your man parts need to be to justify using it?"
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Every now and then, someone will do something genuinely impressive. Like this, for example.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Regarded by Eastwood (the person, not the character) as the sign to start murdering his co-creators.

Virus: Never turn a funny comic into a serious epic drama. We have a murder-suicide pact that says if we ever turn into a drama, we're going to end it all rather than inflict that on the world.
Eastwood: No, I said I was going to murder the rest of you, change my name and spend the rest of my days as a painter in Brazil.

• • Interestingly, the comic's existence is an inversion of Cerebus Syndrome. It's based off a project that took itself extremely seriously, which most of the creators can't believe they were so serious about in the first place. In a funny way, the whole of EN is a parody of its creator's own work. Probably why the comic is unlikely to get dramatic, because in a way it has already been there.
• Cult: The Inquisition's enemies. And, in Eastwood's opinion, their allies.
• Crapsack World: It's not overtly shown, given the comedic nature of the comic, but there seems to be a lot of horrible things going on, even without the regular invasions from chaos; for example, Lothar's adopted brother Kyle was apparently orphaned after an "Overlander" attack. See World Building.
  • Plus, you know, the Inquisition are considered to be the good guys.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: At Lothar's birthday party as the group are clowning around.

Lothar: That's it... I'll just kill them all... with a spork.

• Cutting the Knot: Double Subverted: When confronted with a rift that's going out of control, and being told the scientist in charge can't just shut it down, Yuri just smashes the terminal with her beam swords. This causes the rift to grow, and dozens of demons to spill out. The double subversion comes because this gives the scientist a small opening to Reverse the Polarity and seal up the rift, also sucking said demons back through. Of course, then she has to try it again on the circuit breakers... which need to be carefully disengaged one at a time in the correct sequence... Dammit Wildfire!
• Dead Baby Comedy: By the author's own admission: "References to genocide and landmine victims in the same strip? COMEDY GOLD!"
• Death by Irony: Janus jokingly-but-truthfully says he will be loyal to Morth right up until the moment the knife hits his back. Within hours, Morth has stabbed him in the back with a ritual knife.
• Development Gag
  • Virus apparently sucks at drawing. Guess who draws the strip.
  • Terrible artist is terrible, indeed.
• Divided We Fall: Rogue seems to be at the brink of trying to kill Lothar in one of the few completely serious strips of the comic, due to Lothar's sheltering of his brother Kyle. What is surprising is that Rogue isn't just taking a hard line and overriding Lothar's family concerns, he really thinks Lothar is lying about the entire business.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Why Virus took 5 years of daemonology.
• Doctor's Orders: To keep Wildfire in bed
• Does Not Know His Own Strength: Lothar's friend Rob. If you're lucky, you'll end up with an injured hand. If you're perceived family, you'll end up with an injured back.
• Does Not Understand Sarcasm: Amusingly enough, Schaefer;

Schaefer: Well, I think that went rather well.
Simmons: Yes, giving Hex and Nekkitou an actual reason to come to blows, brilliant sir.
Schaefer: Are you being sarcastic, Simmons?
Simmons: Whatever gave you that idea, sir?
Schaefer: So you're not, okay. Sorry, it's just hard to tell sometimes.

• • Also, Wildfire.

Eastwood: Nice work, you single-handedly wiped the installation off the face of reality.
Wildfire: Thanks! I'm just glad I could make it up to you guys after I screwed up on my first mission.
Eastwood: What? I was being sarcastic, you crazy, purple bint.

• Does That Sound Like Fun to You?: Occurs twice.
  • The first is with Jamilla after she chews the gang out for not taking the Exterminatus seriously enough.
  • The second^[1] is when Lothar is asked by a panda kid how he "got the cool parts." Both cases are subverted with the person(s) on the receiving end of the lecture learning nothing from it at all.
• Double Entendre: Following on from this strip, in which Eastwood had discovered how to make mechanical attack chickens, which he uses on Lothar, Virus and Rogue hear the commotion from upstairs;

Rogue: What are you guys doing anyway?
Eastwood: Nothing much, just attacking Lothar with my mighty cock.
(Virus and Rogue share an extremely uncomfortable look)
Virus: Oh! That clockwork chicken thing!
Rogue: Oh thank gods.

• Drives Like Crazy: Nobody ever lets Virus control any kind of vehicle. Even the Inquisition's own private army, the Black Guard, go pale at the thought of Virus having a chance of driving anything. They're an entire army of special forces trained to combat the paranormal, and they are terrified of his driving.
• Dual-Wielding: Yuri, who dual-wields beam swords. Oh, yes, she does.
• Earthshattering Kaboom: Facility Sixteen (a.k.a. Black Halo) had a open dimensional rift which allowed daemons to enter the EN world freely. Exterminatus on the facility would destroy the world and everyone on it (protagonists and Inquisition included), so the rift has to be closed manually. More than that, it would render the entire region uninhabitable for "slightly less than the life of the universe."
• Eats Babies:

Lothar: YOU CAN'T PROVE I ATE THAT BABY!

• • He was drunk when he said that... does it make it less or more credible?
• E=MC Hammer: Referenced by name here, along with Hammerspace and Clown Car Pants.
• Eighties Hair: Schaefer and Simmons in this comic.
• Eva Fins: On the Taikan mecha.
• Even Morally Corrupt Protagonists Have Standards
  • The protagonists may abuse their positions' authority, but Lothar's mentioning a pulling out the eyes of all the orphans of an orphanage and shooting the youngest disturbs them.
  • Eastwood may like the young girls, but not as much as him.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Missed it by that much.
• Everything Is Better With Penguins: Jamilla, the Inquisition's covert agent.
• Everything Is Worse With Bears
  • Lord Antonius Schaeffer, Eastwood and Virus's direct superior, is a bear. He's assisted by Inquisitor Riktor Simmons, his stoat assistant.
  • Pedobear makes a brief appearance as a throwaway gag while the crew are in Taika.
  • Schaeffer takes on Ebay.
• Eviler Than Thou: Daemonically possessed toaster < Blasphemy.
• Evil Lawyer Joke: as shown here. Apparently, the Inquisition laywers are a snake, a vulture, and a hyena.
• Face Death with Dignity / Know When to Fold'Em: Janus' reaction when he gets Out-Gambitted by Morth.
• Face Heel Turn: Morth is a former Inquisitor turned cult leader, for as much as the Inquisition ever qualified as "good".
• Facing the Bullets One-Liner: During the Face Death with Dignity described above.

Janus: Thank you Silias. It's been... a relentless siege of paranoia working for you. No hard feelings about trying to murder you?
Silias: I'd have been genuinely disappointed if you hadn't.

• Fanon Discontinuity: In-Universe. According to Eastwood, Land of the Dead never happened.
• Fantastic Racism: Eastwood's attitudes toward the people of anyplace he's not from are... undiplomatic... to say the least. Needless to say, this does not go down well with anyone.
  • Although, as Virus put it, Eastwood isn't racist, he's just really ignorant and stupid.
• Fate Worse Than Death: This comic shows an artifact with many innocent souls inside and is stated to reek "of suffering and torment". The Knight in Shining Armor character does not want it destroyed as that would destroy the souls inside, and says he will have it guarded until its prisoners can be freed... the artifact remains two thousand years later, and the artifact's purpose has clearly been forgotten since Eastwood is using it as a bookend.
• Faux Horrific: What the captured assassin expects in this comic. He was wrong.
• Fired Teacher: After a disastrous attempt to get the group to teach some up-and-coming inquisitors, the gang are reassigned to "a job more suited to their abilities." ^[2]
• Flashback Effects: Played with in this strip in a Leaning on the Fourth Wall moment.
• Flashback Stares
• Flat Earth Atheist: "It's easy. All it takes is a little faith."
• Fluffy Tamer: Virus's definition of cute apparently usually involves fangs, claws, and other pointy things.

Eastwood: The features you find endearing, most right-thinking people have nightmares about.

• Fluffy the Terrible: Virus's other pet, Skippy, a 7'-tall Arco-flagellant.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: Well, hot dog vendor tossing, jetting through the air, and truck container smashing, but the effect is the same.
• Fourth Wall Mail Slot: Subverted.
• Friend to All Children: Lothar Hex was originally going to have a soft spot for children, given that he didn't have a happy childhood. It didn't last. So very much.
• Funny Background Event: Here.
• Furry Confusion
  • Despite the fact that anthropomorphic birds exist, Schaeffer's chicken fetish is treated as legit bestiality.
  • When a couple cultists mention that they bled some chickens for their spell, the characters initially believe that wouldn't be enough... until they're told that they were actually the cultists' classmates.
• Genre Savvy: Simmons, given that he utilizes the group's insane luck to both complete dangerous missions and win him large bets in the company pool.
  • He also predicts the events of comic 372. At the same time, Schaeffer plays this straight, giving Rogue the order to arrest or kill Lothar if there's a betrayal because he knows Eastwood or Virus would not have it in them to attack/kill Lothar.
  • Morth and Janus play it with a side order of Affably Evil.
• Good Is Not Nice: Oh yeah.
• Groin Attack: Also a Crowning Moment of Awesome for Eastwood.
• Halloween Cosplay: Annually; subverted in 2007 with trick-or-treaters dressed as various characters, but not the cast.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal
  • Mostly averted; the majority of the characters we see wear standard clothes or uniforms appropriate to a modern setting. Lothar and Rogue, on the other hand, don't.
  • Subverted occasionally: Rogue apparently wears shorts as bedclothes.
• Headbutting Heroes: Lothar and Rogue. It gets played more straight as the comic goes on, coming to a climax in this strip.
• Heal Thyself: Spoofed in this comic as Virus encounters a health pack after the group fights off a group of bug monsters, which Lothar points out is also rather cliché....
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath
  • Lothar. Oh sweet fucking Jesus, Lothar.
  • Although he is the worst, the rest ain't much better.
  • The new member, Yuri, is not sociopathic, at least, as far as we can tell, but she isn't above using excessive force.
• Hollywood Tactics: First panel here. It's helpful to fit the battle in one panel but moving in a tight box formation like the soldiers on the left against machine gun emplacement is probably not very smart.
• Holographic Terminal: One of the options for their CABAL units.
• Homage: It's not clear at the outset, but the whole Black Halo arc is a reference to Half Life.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Virus falls into this when he considers whether Schaefer is liable to hold a grudge over the extremely expensive Black Halo incident.

Virus: And I don't think he's the kind of bear for personal vendettas.
Eastwood: We'll see.
(later)
Lothar: Hey, someone broke all our chairs!
Virus: Someone's broken our beds!
Eastwood: Someone ate all my porridge!

• • And there's also a dead blonde girl in the refrigerator
• Hot Chick with a Sword: Wildfire, though she kinda screws up the mission because of it.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Simmons, but given the snark and contempt he shows for his superior, he's more of a Beleaguered Assistant.
• Hypocritical Humor: "Hammerspace exists only in Taikan cartoons where everybody has huge eyes and silly-colored hair." (While his empty glasses are taken by a waitress with hot-pink hair and eyes that take up half her face.)
  • And this little exchange:

Kyle: They looked legit, how the fuck was I supposed to know?
Steve: Watch you language, you little cunt!

Tropes I to Z

• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: Virus has to keep pointing the scientist's gun somewhere else.
• I Lied: This comic.

Virus: You said no one else would get hurt!
Cultist: Patterner cultist, duh. You have met my boss? Morth the Betrayer?

• Indy Ploy: How else do the protagonists get by? By killing everything that isn't them.
• Inexplicably Identical Individuals: The Word of God explanation for the wolf and beaver in every other cult, seeing as they've been killed at least twice (though they were zombies once).
• Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja: Ryoushi's approach to getting the toast out of the evil possessed toaster is to dress up in full ninja fatigues and steal it from above. Also subverted when Rogue mocks the ubiquity of the association of Taika with ninjas in this comic here, noting that there are far cooler things in the Mobian equivalent of Japan. Like Humongous Mecha and police dressed like samurai. (Shown giving a parking ticket.)
• Is the Answer to This Question "Yes"?: Hilariously subverted;

Eastwood: Lothar, do you think your wraith has enough firepower to blast a hole in the dome?
Lothar: Do bears shit in the woods?
Virus: Well, you'd think so, but you never actually hear anybody complaining they stood in bear shit while out hiking do you?
Lothar: Huh, I guess I'd never really thought of it like that...
Rogue: Well if they don't shit in the woods, where do they shit?
Eastwood: Could we FOCUS here people?!
Virus: Also, isn't our boss a bear?

• It Has Been an Honor: Spoofed.
• Kill Sat: The eponymous Exterminatus.
• Knight of Cerebus: Totally subverted with Silas Morth.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Played straight right after some aborted Flashback Effects in this strip.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Yuri. She has no patience for complex planning and does whatever enters her head. Needless to say, this frequently causes headaches for the team. This eventually gets her expelled, which is a boon to the team's performance and its sanity.
• Let's Get Dangerous: The team does seem to display a certain degree of competence when the chips are down and they stop goofing around. Usually mixed with complete ruthlessness and pragmatic cowardice.
  • Schaefer gets a moment of this in the comic "A++, Would Heroically Struggle To The Death With Again" as, after Eastwood sends him after one "E. Bay" to get him off Kyle's case after it turns out he has been dealing with cultists, as it emerges there really is an Edward Bay, and, judging from the parody of dramatic action movies everywhere, he really is a supervillain. Schaefer doesn't just win, but does so in style.

Eastwood: Schaeffer might be a moronic sexual deviant, but he’s an Inquisitor, and part of that involves being nigh-on impossible to kill and having a punch that can cold-cock a rhino.

• Long Runner
  • The comic itself has been running since 2003.
  • In-universe, Midsomer Murders is still running.
• Lovable Coward: Virus and Eastwood at times.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Steve, the head of the Cesspool, is Lothar's (adoptive) father, and Kyle is his adoptive brother. None of the other Inquisitors, of course, believed the former.
• Madness Mantra:

Eastwood: bigspiders bigbigspiders bigbigbiiigspiders bigbigbigbig...

• The Merch: Subverted, as even if the writers wanted to sell printed collections or merchandise, the things the comic is parodying make it awkward. This is, if Sega's lawyers don't go after them first, Games Workshop will.
• Mercy Kill: Played for laughs.
• Mobian Sacrifice: The Inquisition has to deal with cults on a regular basis. It goes without saying that this trope gets invoked rather frequently. Bonus points for a discussion of virgin sacrifices near the beginning of the strip's run.
• More Dakka: Predator XXL-99 Minigun. Shortly after introducing it, 'dakka' is used as a sound effect. Too bad the ammo pack weighs as much as a heavyweight boxer and it's powered by either volatile plasma batteries or inadequately shielded nuclear material. Given Lothar's comment, most likely the latter.

Lothar: Ah well, never wanted kids anyway.

• • Turns out it's actually the plasma battery version, but Eastwood dislikes the idea of exploding just as much as dying of radiation poisoning.
• Mundane Utility:
  • To say that the others misuse Rogue's beam sword is a bit of an understatement.
  • Eastwood uses an ancient artifact which contains thousands of souls as a bookend. Even after it's stolen and he finds out what it really is, his primary motivation for getting it back is because he needs a bookend.

Rogue: Will you stop calling it a bookend! We've established that it's an ancient evil artifact, a vessel of souls, the key to a dark ritual!
Eastwood: That is the best sodding bookend I've ever owned, and I'll be damned if I'm forking out upwards of ten quid for a new one!

• Murder Is the Best Solution: The entire main cast, especially Lothar.
• Must Have Caffeine: You touch Eastwood's coffee, he will break your arm. He even refers to Nescafe as "her". Eastwood is holding Lothar's robotic arm when he threatens to break it.
• Mythology Gag: Filler strips occasionally poke fun at Sonic, such as suggesting Dr. Robotnik is actually an inquisitor pursuing the blue hedgehog, and another where the main characters hunt down Sonic for his lycanthropic turn.
• Naive Newcomer: Yuri seemed to be. On her first mission, not satisfied with being a reserve wincher in a helicopter based operation where melee isn't an option, she bugged the remaining members for a bigger role. Lothar gave the rookie one: looking after his hat while acting as a reserve wincher. While she didn't lose the hat, she did screw up the mission, and later freely admitted she's new at this.

Yuri: Success rate... uh, I'm new.

• Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Non-evil variant in Yuri's codename, Wildfire. It sounds like some sort of pretentious, narmy name that this comic pokes fun at all the time. It's not.
• Nice Hat: Lothar certainly wears one (now with asbestos coating!). Two if you count his Firefly Viewing Hat.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero
  • Dammit, Wildfire.
  • Hypocritical Humor: The rest of the gang really have no right to criticize her.
  • They do now, given that the gang has never, ever broke it that badly.
  • Luckily for her, it was subverted by the Scientist who turned the situation to his advantage.
  • ...and now she's apparently screwed up all over again. "She was almost on a roll" indeed.
• No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: Played straight and lampshaded thoroughly. And then subverted. He's smarter than he seems.
• Non-Mammal Mammaries: Jamilla
• Noodle Incident
  • This gag is pulled pretty frequently, but the most obvious one (largely due to its status as a Running Gag) is some horrific vehicular accident caused by Virus in the past.
  • And it still hasn't been said what happened to Smitty and Jonesy (who Rogue and Lothar were hired to replace, due to some no doubt horrible incident).
• No Sympathy: Virus doesn't exactly show a lot of sympathy to Lewis, who lost his entire team and his career to the Black Halo incident.

Virus: Professor? You OK?
Lewis: Well my colleagues and friends are all dead, my workplace destroyed, and my career down the toilet.
Virus: Yes, but are you alive?
Lewis: I guess so.
Virus: That's all I asked, didn't need your life story.

• • Wildfire immediately proceeds to make a comment so... naive that Virus responds by smothering her with a chloroform hanky.
• Not Quite Saved Enough: The antelope guy in this strip finally asked for protective custody. He didn't get it.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Mocked here.
• Oh Crap
  • When Jamilla has infiltrated a demonic cult and is transmitting footage from the leader speaking to his followers

Morth: We need but one more sacrifice to bring about the great daemon of our lord, the Patterner. Now we only need to ask ourselves: Who shall this person be. Who shall be the last person to give their life for our cause. Who.... is that bitch with the video camera.
Jamilla: Oh shitbiscuits...

• • ...one by one... in the proper sequence... Yuri, what have you done?!... again?
  • When their boss realizes that not only has he lost billions with the destruction of the facility, but he can't blame it on the team because it was an illegal black ops facility and therefore did not officially exist.
  • When Rogue goes so far as to say he would not only kill Lothar, but his entire adopted family, over what he perceived to be a cover-up of criminal activities; Eastwood and Virus have a very appropriate reaction (namely, staring wide-eyed and slowly shuffling away from the carnage about to unfold).
  • When Eastwood remembers he became connected to the antique dealer Marley, the guy he left the artifact with, through Silas Morth.
• Oh Wait, This Is My Grocery List: Fused with a (not very) Badass Creed.

Code of the Daemon Hunters: Daemons are bad. Kill daemons. Also, remember milk, cereal, and bread.

• Old Shame: The setting the comic is based on was originally a serious attempt to make Sonic the Hedgehog Darker and Edgier. They've realised their mistake.
  • They are also quite critical of their old work, especially anything before Morth's introduction, which they cite as the point the comic Grew the Beard.
• One Nation Under Copyright: The United Corporate Collective of Rodina.
• One I Prepared Earlier: the introduction of the Seducers.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Virus; Rogue. And now, Wildfire.
  • It's more that their real names are hard to pronounce (Syrus Zuviel, Ryoushi Nekittou, and Yuri Keila, respectively).
    • Syrus the Virus?
• Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?: This happens to Eastwood after Jamilla kisses his cheek after he distracts a would-be assassin long enough for him to be captured.

Eastwood: It's... uh... a roll of mints!
Jamilla: You must like em, it feels half-empty.

At least he buttoned up his coat before that.

• Out-Gambitted: Played for Laughs here.

Morth: And now, as promised... your reward.
Janus: Wait! I poisoned your chalice!
Morth: Of course you did. That's why I took the antidote before you arrived.
Janus: The antidote vial was also poison.
Morth: This vial was. You didn't know about this one.
Janus: But you didn't know your handmaiden was loyal to me.
Morth: (Is stabbed by handmaiden, but stands up unharmed as she grins at Janus) Had you going. She's loyal to me - trick blade.
Janus: The IED in your bed?
Morth: Already in your sock drawer.
Janus: Sarin in your shower stall?
Morth: Check your cologne spritzer.
Janus: (draws gun) Replaced with blanks?
Morth: Afraid so.

• Out-of-Character Moment: In the Cesspool arc, Rogue goes from a snarky, but loyal friend and ally to an ultra paranoid Knight Templar willing to betray his allies just to satiate his grudge against Lothar.
• Painting the Fourth Wall: Barring Schaeffer, characters with an otherworldly presence are given specialized speech bubbles based on what jurisdiction they're from.
• Parallel Porn Titles: Ass Effect 2.

"I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favourite position on the Citadel."

• Pet the Dog: Lothar's surprising preparedness to bust his adoptive brother Kyle (a platypus) out of captivity, turning instantly against his employers to do so. Eastwood, of course, doesn't miss an opportunity to have a dig at the echidna for showing a glimmer of empathy.

Eastwood: I know what it's like to be willing to do anything for people you actually... care about.
Lothar: (with angry pointing) You shut your whore mouth!

• Porn Stash: Eastwood has the biggest known porn stash in the world, to the point where it once crashed the Inquisition's database.
• Product Placement: Everything from Irn Bru to Intel technology. Look closer at the supposed Intel logo.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The whole team

Simins: I hardly think we'd have two teams made up of an arrogant Taikan, a sociopathic cyborg, a womanizing feral and a just plain stupid rodent.
Eastwood: Oh, I get it. You're saying that it's our team's uniqueness that makes us so effective.
Simins: No, I'm saying that you have a seemingly endless reserve of sheer dumb luck, and I want to capitalise on it

• Reassigned to Antarctica: Referenced when Eastwood says failing on a mission will mean being sent to the south pole watch stations.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Eastwood gets them, again while Lothar is trying to take his coffee. Lothar's cyborg eye is always red.
• Red Right Hand
  • Lothar's right hand actually is red.
  • Meanwhile, on the other side (because calling it the evil side doesn't really provide much contrast), Morth's left eye also qualifies.
• Reference Overdosed
• Replacement Scrappy: Yuri was an in-universe case. While Eastwood was initially happy to have a cute girl on the team, her Leeroy Jenkins attitude, No Kill Like Overkill behavior, and her being Too Dumb to Live in general got on everyone's nerves. Lothar actually hugged Rogue when he came back.
• Reverse the Polarity: Done and lampshaded. The "reverse the polarity" switch is on a wall next to the "divert all power to engines," "cross the streams," and "reroute through main deflector" switches.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: Eastwood's Magnum. Yes, he thinks he's Dirty Harry. Though according to him, they only call him that when he hasn't washed for a week, or because of his Porn Stash, his personality... No-one's ever called him that, he just made it up.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: Fans misspell Rogue's name so often that it's lampshaded on the cast page.
• Rule 34: In the manga store.

Lothar: Guys, I have a new addition to the list of things I didn't need to know. "How well hung Pikachu is."

• Running Gag
  • Virus's tail getting caught as the team escapes, and Virus's apparent vehicular ineptitude.
  • The team messing up their missions by either killing/injuring people they intend to bring in for questioning, or blowing up needed evidence.
  • The toaster getting possessed by technology daemons.
  • A recent one is Yuri being unable to identify or remember details about daemons, despite being a daemon hunter.
• Schedule Slip: Originally updated every Monday and Friday, then just every Friday, then it's every Saturday. And then it's every "Weekend". Aaaand now it seems it's back to Monday again.
• Selective Obliviousness: Yuri seems to have this in spades regarding Blasphemy's daemonic heritage, the possessed toaster, and the existence of echidnas.
  • It has been stated, particularly on the cast page, that echidna are considered extinct by pretty much everybody. Lothar is a one-off exception.
• Serious Business: Making a perfect BLT sandwich is a rite of passage in the EN universe.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Combined with a Wall of Text, and for humor, paired off with its inverse, Layman's Terms. Seen here.
• Shaggy Dog Story: This moment. Bwahahahahahaha!!!
• Share the Male Pain: (WHUNCH!!) Look at 'em cringe! Even though they're off panel you just know the evil scientists are cringing too.
• Shout-Out
  • "Nobody expects the Mobian Inquisition!"
  • A caption-contest strip in which Virus informs us "Ninja have kidnapped the President, and we're not bad enough dudes to save him!"
  • Another guest strip had the cast doing a parody of Father Ted.
  • Stairs. (The one enemy of the great Lothar Hex.)
  • "So this is what it feels like to be Jeremy Clarkson."
  • At least three to Red Dwarf.
  • Midsomer Murders is apparently still running in the far future.
  • Lothar at one point mentions his "smouldering generic rage".
  • FillerVirus!
  • Though it's filler, there's a Mas- ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL.
    • In canon, Assuming Indirect Control, ^[3]
  • A Mignola-Clevinger equation is mentioned...
  • This mission has Eastwood packing a pulse rifle.
  • Not to mention that the team encounter a number of small, annoying insect-like creatures who like to ambush in confined spaces.
  • Several to Team Fortress 2:

Lothar: Get behind me, doctor!

• • • Eastwood and Virus bribing someone dressed like The Medic, right down to the hair-do. And who's a German Shepherd, in case it wasn't obvious enough.
    • And a Team Fortress 2-style kill message appears when the "Antelope Bastard" gets hit by a train.
    • A shady figure hires obvious Expies of the BLU team to infiltrate the Inquistion. They fail.
  • From the second strip: Syrus is apparently called "the Virus". Is his surname Grissom? (May or may not be accidental.)
  • This comic. Let's see, we have Jayne, Mal, and Zoe, Fox, Slippy, Wolf, and Falco, Samus Aran, Captain Falcon, Deadpool beating up a bear version of The Heavy with The Soldier close by, Han Solo and Greedo, Boba Fett fighting The Demoman, Deathstroke, Snake, the crew of the Bebop, Riddick, Lobo, and... Woody. Has to be the most Shout-Out-filled comic they've done so far. The creators are aware of this, and refer to it as "Cameo-verload".
  • BULLSHIT!
  • This comic has the obvious shout out to Deadpool, but the girl sitting at the table behind him is clearly Applejack and appears to be sitting across from Twilight Sparkle.
  • In order to cover up the events that occured in the cesspool, Eastwood ends up sending Schaefer on a wild goose chase after the head of EBay, named... Edward Bay. One panel, shows Bay attempting to run down Schaefer, whilst driving a truck that looks exactly like Optimus Prime. And of course, there's the nod towards another Bay, to go with it.
    • It's also likely a shout-out to Spy vs. Spy with the idea of 2 individuals almost identical but for color scheme (one black, one white) trying to kill each other in a variety of ways.
  • BioShock (series) gets a nod here.
  • The sword in this comic is near identical in appearance to Chaos Eater, and its name (Soulmourne) is obviously an homage to the Lich King's weapon in World of Warcraft.
  • Ninja turtles attempt to infiltrate the Inquisition.
  • The two chickens sacrificed to raise the dead? Jill and Leon.
    • Before that, the also come to a gate with a padlock. Virus's convoluted plan of opening the gate sounds very much like a puzzle from the same series. Meanwhile, Lothar breaks the padlock.
  • "Get to da spectre!"
• Skilled but Naive: Yuri. She's a talented fighter and a prodigy with dual beam swords, but she's not very good at listening to orders and has a habit of wrecking any training room she enters.... After the Black Halo incident, she's really moving out of Skilled but Naive and into Idiot Hero. Turns out it wasn't just lack of experience...
• Something Else Also Rises: Rogue in this strip.
• The Smurfette Principle
  • Lampshaded and brutally mocked in this strip.
  • Played straight with Yuri, but they manage to keep away from most of the cliche female tropes by making her Skilled but Naive. Sure, she can somersault from a helicopter and slice an armored truck in half... but they needed that truck.
• Speech Bubbles: Schaefer speaks with black bubbles and white text; the Gods all have their own speech bubbles and typefaces.
• Spinoff Babies: Parodied in this filler strip.
• Stalker with a Crush: Eastwood violently protects the gifts he gets from his ex-girlfriend, and had her new boyfriend put to death for Heresy. The fact that he actually was a heretic was only found out afterward.
• The Starscream: Since the Patterner is basically the god of Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, this is expected. The Big Bad and The Starscream have a good laugh after the former calls the latter loyal.
• Stealth Pun: Followers of the Mortish religion would be Mortishians.
• Stock British Phrases: The creators are all Brits after all, though they don't overdo it.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Even though Morth is a Patterner cult master and more intelligent than Eastwood, he's still not above copping a feel from an unconscious Jamilla.
• Stuffed in The Fridge: Parodied.
• Suicide Mission
• Surrounded by Idiots
  • Subverted and justified; Morth intentionally recruits Mooks too dumb to realize he intends to sacrifice them en masse.
  • Lothar feels this way at times, mind. "THE WHOLE WORLD IS TRYING TO STUPID ME TO DEATH!"
    • That's also Lothar's general feelings towards forum members.
• Surprisingly Elite Cannon Fodder: Schaefer usually has the gang sent off to do some incredibly dangerous mission specifically because they're a bunch of frakkers who no-one would care to see the back of. As a result, they frequently don't get the job done too well. However, their tenacity at surviving numerous operations where their command staff are explicitly trying to get them killed off means that Schaefer tends to go to them first if there is a genuine need for a group of inquisitors with a record for pulling off Suicide Missions.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Invoked with Wildfire, since Rogue decided to go back home for some training. Subverted in that Wildfire is quite different to Rogue as a character.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Subverted.

Townsend: I told them that [the tag on the spy camera] should say "Not the Property of the Mobian Inquisition".
Morth: Yes, because that would have fooled me completely.

• Sweat Drop: Used in this strip.
• Team Pet: Blasphemy, a Chao who undergoes a radical transformation after a daemon encounter. Lampshaded during its introduction.
• Techno Babble: "Oh thank the Gods for legitimate, fact-based Science!
• Tempting Fate: Twice, to the extent they're just asking for it.
• The CABAL Database Is for Porn: And MP3s.
• The Password Is Always Swordfish: Lampshaded and parodied.
• Those Two Guys: Wolf and Beaver. Lampshaded here. Even dying can't keep them away.
• Too Dumb to Live
  • Either Virus or Eastwood, at times.
  • Yuri is a lot more consistent in this regard. She was kicked off the team as a result.
  • Anybody who tries to pull one over a head Patterner cultist.
• Unflinching Walk: Schaefer shows you how it's done.
• The Unpronounceable: As with so many other tropes on this page, parodied here.
• Trigger Happy
  • Eastwood, so very, very much.

Eastwood: Look, mistakes were made, people were shot--
Virus: Four times.
Eastwood: It's easy to point fingers. Let's just put it behind us and move on shall we? I'm going to bed... And it was three times, the second one only grazed him.

• • Yuri manages to be this despite wielding a Beam Sword, destroying a truck full of needed evidence, almost killing an angel with a panicked sword attack, destroying a panel for something that subsequently summons a huge-ass army of daemons on them, and destroying the circuit breakers in such a fashion that Black Halo essentially implodes.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: All main characters. Except Yuri.
• Up to Eleven: This strip. "On a scale of one to ten, how completely fucked are we?"
• Van Helsing Hate Crimes: What did those poor zombies ever do to you Lothar? You too, Rogue!
• Visual Pun: Inquisitor Bexley was a milf. Or, to put it another way, she's a cougar.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: See above. It's a miracle they haven't killed each other. Eastwood and Morth were also this since infancy, though Eastwood eventually got even.
• Wall Of Techno Babble.
• Wave Motion Gun: The eponymous Exterminatus.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Lothar is somewhat claustrophobic (see Funny Background Event above).
• Weapon of Choice: On the surprisingly still-relevant cast page.
• We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties: Complete with parody Test Card.
• We Do the Impossible
• We Meet Again: The possessed toaster.
• We Want Our Jerk Back: Although he's a bigger jerk himself, Lothar's attitude towards Rogue after suffering the presence of his replacement Wildfire for a few missions.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Eastwood's arachnophobia. (Both the character and author.)
• Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises
  • When the professor of extradimensional physics is at a dead run on his way out of the facility, you should probably follow behind him.
  • Oh crap.
• World Building: Given that the comic was built as a parody of what was originally the makings of a Dark Fic with a crossover of Sonic the Hedgehog and Warhammer 40,000 Played for Drama instead of laughs, there's a fair bit of original universe building in the setting, though it generally is only referred to in passing due (thankfully) to the focus on comedy and satire.
• Writer Revolt: The crew has received numerous requests for cameos on various fans. They responded by actually inserting RedFox from obscure Sprite Comic website The Middle Ground, a friend of the creators... and then having Lothar promptly incinerate him.

Virus: And remember... we liked him.
Lothar: Mwee hee hee! Lookit 'im burn!

• • After years of fan-clamoring, the comic was temporarily given a female main cast member... who was an obnoxius, idiotic Ted Baxter who was treated like dirt by literally everyone else in the comic from her first to (so far) last scene.
• Write Who You Know: The strip has four authors, three of whom use Eastwood, Virus, and Lothar as self-inserts. Eventually they had to clarify that Rogue and fourth author Silversword are not the same person.
• You Do NOT Want to Know: Why does Virus have chloroform?

Eastwood: Why do you-?
Virus: Only finish the question if you really want to know the answer.
Eastwood: (Zipping gesture to his lips)

• You Get What You Pay For: A Bad Guy hires three teams of mercenaries to steal something from the main characters. Except he goes over budget hiring the first two (Expies of the BLU Team and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles respectively), he hires as the third team a gang of the Mobius equivalent of chavs for "Two litres of White Lightning and a carton of fags^[4]". Which they accept. The first two teams break into the house and get killed by Eastwood's mechanical attack chicken, Blasphemy, and the possessed toaster. The chavs are arrested by the police before they even try.

1. ↑ which is the moment that named this trope, by the way
2. ↑ Eastwood and Virus are not amused.
3. ↑ CABAL is a network of individually non-sentient AIs that are collectively self-aware, does that sound familiar to you?
4. ↑ slang for cigarettes