History ComicBook / Diabolik

'''Note''': Diabolik served as a major inspiration of [[ComicBook/PaperinikNewAdventures Paperinik]], the Italy-created superhero alter-ego for WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck, who originally was only a slightly LighterAndSofter version of Diabolik that still didn't care about law and morals, but due to ExecutiveMeddling became a real superhero and became a Diabolik {{Expy}} "InNameOnly".

The ''Diabolik'' comic was adapted as the campy film ''Film/DangerDiabolik'', and also an animated television series (produced by [[Creator/SIPAnimation Saban International Paris]] and Mediaset for the international Creator/FoxKids networks, with animation by Creator/AshiProductions and Creator/{{Saerom}}) and a video game adaptation.

The franchise had to wait December 2021 to get a proper film adaptation of the franchise. Appropriately enough, the 2021 seems to consider Diabolik's true OriginsEpisode issue #3 of the original comic, when Diabolik fully sheds his ''Walter Dorian'' alternate persona and gains Eva Kant as his ally and lover, considering the first issue nothing but EarlyInstallmentWeirdness (as most of the fanbase already does).

'''Note''': Diabolik served as a major inspiration of [[Comicbook/PaperinikNewAdventures Paperinik]], the Italy-created superhero alter-ego for WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck, who originally was only a slightly LighterAndSofter version of Diabolik that still didn't care about law and morals, but due to ExecutiveMeddling became a real superhero and became a Diabolik {{Expy}} "InNameOnly".

** [[PosthumousCharacter The late Cen Fu taught Diabolik]], and was much better. How much? Well, Diabolik has to use needles, sprays, or get to your food, but when you enter Cen Fu house ''he has already poisoned you'', and only he has the antidote.

* BerserkButton: You don't touch Eva. If you put yourself against Diabolik, he may decide to kill you, but if you harm Eva you're better hope he's in a hurry...

* NoSocialSkills: Played with. Ginko has social skills, but tends [[BrutalHonesty to be too honest for his own good]]. He hates parties due the crap that happens to him every time he's at one—Diabolik and more violent thieves showing up are some of the lesser things he's had to deal at such social events; even the one time Eva bombed the location to create a distraction is small potatoes when compared to some things that have happened to him at parties. Incidentally, being both [[OJou Altea]]'s fiancee and the one guy who can give Diabolik a desperate run for his money on a regular basis, he's invited to half of the parties in Clerville and is sent to the other half to protect the resident valuables from Diabolik.

** Eva Kant has another one in the form of post-asylum Elizabeth Gay: after the asylum she became a much darker version of Eva in her ClingyJealousGirl moments, both in character and skills (she even managed to recognize Diabolik under his mask—not by some hint that he wasn't the person he had replaced, but by ''his eyes''), and is still very much in love with Diabolik (before slipping definitely into madness, she admits to her husband that her revenge on Diabolik wasn't for causing her first bout of insanity, but for ''taking Eva as accomplice and lover''). Fittingly, it's Eva who defeats her and frees Diabolik.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: The series relying on realism, this happens with a certain frequency:
** Kidnappings are almost always incredibly traumatizing, even when the victim knows they'll get out without a scratch.
** Diabolik is [[TheDreaded incredibly feared]], to the point he earned such fully justified names as [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast King of Terror, Murderer with a Thousand Faces]], and many others. When he's arrested, the terror he caused leads to a KangarooCourt by complete accident, as the judge and the public are terrified and want a scapegoat (even if he's actually guilty) and his court-assigned lawyer too is too scared to do a good job, and he's sentenced to death even if there wasn't enough evidence yet.
*** Also, having a famous criminal being sentenced to death in a KangarooCourt is liable to be a formidable occasion for activists to demand a retrial to have him sentenced to life in jail... But, considering the evidence that popped up ''after'' the trial, the judge refuses.
** Elisabeth Gay's descent into madness is all about this: spending months with your fiancée, then getting him arrested and finding out he's the King of Terror ''by accident'' took a heavy toll on her psyche, and finding out he was about to dump her like all her previous boyfriends pushed her over the edge.
** Diabolik [[BladeEnthusiast only uses knives]] and various gadgets, but [[DoesNotLikeGuns finds guns too noisy for his stealthy modus operandi]]. A man with a gun could easily kill him, and the only reason nobody did it yet is that he's smart enough to know it and make sure nobody gets a clear shot. He still had a number of close calls, including the one time he ''was'' shot and would have bled out had he not been rescued by a third party.
** Diabolik [[NeverRecycleYourSchemes never reuses a gadget or plan]], with the only exceptions of his knives, needle launchers for poisoning or putting someone to sleep and his trademark [[LatexPerfection perfect masks]]. That's because he knows that the next time the police will be ready for it... As shown by the police having the habit of pinching someone's face to check for masks once they found out about them and often wearing protective knife and needle-proof vests and gas masks.
*** Also, the police recycles ''their own'' anti-Diabolik schemes only when they have reason to believe Diabolik didn't realize what happened, as they know that the next time ''Diabolik'' will be ready, as shown by the many times Diabolik waltzed through a mask check (always with different tricks of course, as the next time the police will be ready for that one).
** In a world where only one man can create LatexPerfection, that man is a target for ''everyone''. And since said man is a known thief and murderer, [[ParanoiaFuel people never know if their friend or loved one is acting funny because he's actually Diabolik]].
*** The effect of the mask on people's paranoia is seen in full in "The Bounty", in which some wealthy businessmen put a large bounty on Diabolik and Eva. Given the masks and their reputation for walking through any alarm system, people started assaulting anyone in the street they mistook for Diabolik and Eva while the two waited out in one of their refuges. By the time the Minister of Justice forces the businessmen to retract the bounty a few days later, two people have died due having been mistaken for Diabolik or Eva... Who, knowing this would happen, had been waiting it out in a cave.
** At times Diabolik and Eva go on vacation in countries where they aren't known and don't bother wearing masks, on the assumption that even if they happened to be spotted by a visitor from a place where they're known they haven't done anything there and the police won't arrest them. In "The Beginning of the End" they're spotted by a journalist from Clerville and the scenario plays out as expected... Up until the journalist involves Ginko, who calls the local police chief and points out that Diabolik and Eva may be preparing a heist and if it came out he knew they were around he'd be blamed and adds that, being wanted criminals, they can't be possibly using real [=IDs=]. Diabolik and Eva end up arrested the same day on charges of using fake [=IDs=].

'''Note''': Diabolik served as a major inspiration of [[Comicbook/PaperinikNewAdventures Paperinik]], the Italy-created superhero alter-ego for Franchise/DonaldDuck, who originally was only a slightly LighterAndSofter version of Diabolik that still didn't care about law and morals, but due to ExecutiveMeddling became a real superhero and became a Diabolik {{Expy}} "InNameOnly".