History ComicBook / SinCity

Infamous for its absurdly macho writing, ''Sin City'' reads like an AffectionateParody of FilmNoir turned UpToEleven: every hero is a mentally or physically scarred bruiser and every woman is a beautiful dame with a heaving bosom. BlackAndGrayMorality is predominant.

** Lucille, Marv's parole officer, does the same to Marv earlier on to stop him from fighting the cops after the escape from the farm, saying that she's not going to let him get either of them killed. [[spoiler:Unfortunately for Lucille, the cops sent to the farm turn out to be a death squad who proceed to [[HeKnowsTooMuch murder Lucille after she tells them what she knows]]]].

** Gail calls Dwight 'Lancelot.' Around this time Creator/CliveOwen had also starred in ''Film/KingArthur'', though playing Arthur and not Lancelot.

%%* {{Malaproper}}

* MrFanservice: While the series is known for its [[MsFanService alluring female characters]], almost every male protagonist has a nude scene and there are plenty of {{Shirtless Scene}}s as well. Not to be outdone, while the movie avoids MaleFrontalNudity due to {{Double Standard}}s in the movie industry, the male leads are played by the likes of Creator/BruceWillis and Clive Owen.

* BuryYourGays: Poor [[spoiler:Lucille]]. Also one of the Old Town girls in ''Family Values''.

* ItWorksBetterWithBullets: In ''Hell & Back'', Wallace sneaks into Liebowitz's apartment. When he reveals himself to the cop, the guy grabs the gun under his chair and squeezes the trigger. Wallace then shows him the handful of bullets he had previously removed.

* KarmaHoudini: Downplayed with Senator Roark. He may not get his comeuppance, but with Junior dead and Hartigan's suicide denying him revenge, he's still screwed. [[spoiler: By the movie ''A Dame To Kill For'', Roark's Karma Houdini meter runs out as his reputation is first ruined by his (literal) bastard son, then he's killed by Nancy for what he did to Hartigan.]]

* ChainedToABed: Blue Eyes chains herself to a bed in order to seduce Wallace. [[spoiler: It doesn't work.]]

* TheGlomp: Just when Hartigan is hoping to sneak out before Nancy recognises him, she leaps off the stage and throws herself into his arms, letting Yellow Bastard know exactly who she is.

** Happens to Mort after his obsession with Ava Lord causes him to shoot his partner Bob in ''A Dame to Kill For''. The realisation leads to him [[AteHisGun eating his gun]].

** The character of Mort (one of Basin City's few honest cops) was written out of the cinema version of ''That yellow Bastard''. In the comics, Mort is the own who picks Hartigan up outside the prison. In the movie, this was done by Bob. (The extended version still includes a scene where Mort visits Hartigan in hospital.) He does appear in the sequel, though.

* AStormIsComing

* SternNun: Marv [[ICallItVera named his gun Gladys]] after the toughest nun he had in school. He feels it has ''almost'' lived up to the name.

* SheIsAllGrownUp

%%* SilentScapegoat: Marv

* GoingByTheMatchbook: Hartigan, when looking for Nancy

%%* BattleButler: Manute.

** In the comics it was Dwight, who after his first appearance went on to star in two other full-length yarns as well as a short story.
** In the films it was Marv, who's portrayal by Mickey Rourke was acclaimed as one of the highlights of the first movie despite him only appearing in one segment. As a result, the sequel film adapts his two other major appearances and features him heavily in one of the new stories.

%%* CityNoir

%%* GoodScarsEvilScars

%%* HereWeGoAgain

%%* HolierThanThou: The Cardinal '''Administrivia/ZeroContextExample'''
%%* HonorBeforeReason '''Administrivia/ZeroContextExample'''

%%* IntentionallyAwkwardTitle

%%* IOwnThisTown: The Roark Family

%%* KangarooCourt

%%* KubrickStare

%%* MadeOfIron: Marv and Kevin.
* MagicRealism: It's in the crime genre but that doesn't stop it from dabbling slightly with mysticism (Miho, Kevin, the empathic elements of the Farm) or even light sci-fi (Yellow Bastard, the Colonel's operations). There was also the torture technician in ''Big Fat Kill'' who could cause pain with a simple touch. This was changed to Manute in the movie. And none of this is explained, and when its explained, it defies logic in many ways, and in fact a lot of the events depicted in the series are taken at face value by the characters, [[ButForMeItWasTuesday as if this is just how things work in that world every single day.]]

%%* TheManBehindTheCurtain: Cardinal Roark.

%%* MeaningfulEcho

%%* MobWar: One starts in ''Family Values''.

%%* TheMurderAfter: Marv and Goldie.

%%* MyNameIsInigoMontoya

%%* NiceJobGuidingUsHero: The Hartigan example mentioned above.

%%* NoShirtLongJacket: Dwight in ''Big Fat Kill''.

%%* OtherStockPhrases

%%* PayEvilUntoEvil: A hallmark of the series in general.

%%* PrettySpryForADeadGuy

%%* PrivateEyeMonologue

* RasputinianDeath: Kevin and Marv.
** In ''The Yellow Bastard'', we see type 2 and 3. [[spoiler: While Junior was probably going to die after the initial stabbing, he goes on to have his balls ripped off and his head caved in for good measure. Hartigan had [[{{Revenge}} his reasons.]]]]

%%* RedemptionInTheRain

%%* RedLightDistrict: Old Town.

* {{Retirony}}: Hartigan. On the last hour of his last day, no less.
%%* {{Retraux}}

%%* RocketJump

%%* ScaryBlackMan: Manute.
%%* ScaryShinyGlasses: Kevin.

%%* ScopeSnipe: Wallace does this in ''Hell and Back''.

%%* [[HeKnowsTooMuch She Knows Too Much]]: Happens to several of the women of the Sin City verse, particularly [[spoiler:Goldie and Lucille]].

%%* ThatOneCase: Roark Junior.

%%* ThrillerOnTheExpress: "Wrong Track".

%%* TortureCellar: Kevin's basement.

%%* TheVamp:
%%** Ava Lord. Very much Ava Lord.
%%** Blue Eyes, Mariah, and "Daddy's Little Girl" to a lesser degrees.

%%* VillainByDefault: Many of the villains.

%%* TheVoiceless: Kevin and Miho.

%%* WhatADrag: "I don't know about you, but I'm having a ball."

%%* WifeBasherBasher: Marv.

%%* WorldHalfEmpty
%%* WorldOfBadass

%%* WretchedHive: Duh.

* TheAllegedCar Nancy's car. "No one but me can keep this heap running." Also the clapped out banger without enough space for all the bodies or enough fuel to get them to the tar pits and a cop-attracting broken tail-light. Also the battered old VW Beetle from ''Family Values''. The ironic thing is, The Heap is a 1957 Chevrolet Nomad, a very desirable car, and the car Dwight is given to ditch at the Pits was a 1957 Ford Thunderbird, both {{Cool Car}}s. Part of Dwight's narration mentions that it once was a Cool Car, but after years of abuse and neglect, it became a clapped out banger at the end of its life.

* TheAllegedCar: Nancy's car. "No one but me can keep this heap running." Also the clapped out banger without enough space for all the bodies or enough fuel to get them to the tar pits and a cop-attracting broken tail-light. Also the battered old VW Beetle from ''Family Values''. The ironic thing is, The Heap is a 1957 Chevrolet Nomad, a very desirable car, and the car Dwight is given to ditch at the Pits was a 1957 Ford Thunderbird, both {{Cool Car}}s. Part of Dwight's narration mentions that it once was a Cool Car, but after years of abuse and neglect, it became a clapped out banger at the end of its life.

* AdaptationExplanationExtrication: In ''The Big Fat Kill'', the reason Dwight doesn't use his own car to transport the bodies of Jackie Boy and his cronies to the tar pits is because it doesn't have enough trunk space and it needs repairs. This isn't mentioned in the film.

%%* CorruptPolitician: Senator Roark.

* CrapsackWorld

* {{Determinator}}: All of the protagonists, but especially Hartigan could be the poster child of this: sixty years plus and feeling it, survives a heart attack, a hanging and having a revolver emptied in his back at close range. Every one of the incidents and each of the bullets ''should'' kill him, but he just keeps going.

%%* DeadlyHug: A few times.

%%* DeathByDisfigurement: [[spoiler: Lucille]].

%%* {{Delusions of Eloquence}}: Shlubb and Klump, the TropeNamers.

%%* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Marv and his mother.

%%* ExecutiveSuiteFight

* JerkJock: The story ''Just Another Saturday Night'' has a group of jerk jocks from a fraternity. This being Sin City, they don't stop at just being jerks, though. They like to light homeless people on fire. Too bad for them they ran into Marv's who a little higher up on the Sin City food chain.

The series's other defining attribute is its artwork, which is largely black and white, with [[SplashOfColor occasional spot colouring for certain important characters]]. Miller plays heavily with silhouettes, high-contrast images and negative space to create a series of visually striking images that look like no other comic on the market.

'''3: The Big Fat Kill''' - Dwight gets into more trouble when his new girlfriend, Shelly, is harassed by her abusive ex-boyfriend, one Jack Rafferty. Dwight chases after him, but can only watch as Jackie and his pals are killed by prostitutes for threatening to rape one of their number. Ordinarily this wouldn't be a problem -- the prostitutes of Old Town are given free rein by the police -- but Jackie has a dangerous secret, one that might tear Sin City apart.

Since the film is such a direct adaptation of the comicbooks, listing the tropes separately probably won't be necessary.

* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Subverted with Shellie. She dumps the abusive boyfriend Jackie Boy and goes for the much nicer Dwight [=McCarthy=]. But as readers know, Dwight's no angel either, and he even killed a former FemmeFatale girlfriend in a previous issue--but he's still a far cry from the sexist scumbag that Jackie-Boy was.

* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: Subverted. At the end of ''The Big Fat Kill'', Dwight [[spoiler: tricks Manute and his men that Gail is all he wants in exchange for Jackie Boys head. The head was filled with explosives, and as soon as it goes off, every girl from Old Town shows up on the rooftops and fires every bullet they have into Manute and his men]].

* AmbiguousDisorder: Almost all major characters, and several minor ones, display some manner of undiagnosed psychosis or personality disorder: Marv has "a condition" and "gets confused" unless he takes massive amounts of pills; Dwight and Hartigan have bizarre hallucinations under various circumstances; Wallace very likely has some form of post-traumatic stress disorder; Delia displays nymphomaniacal behavior; Nancy has an obsessive romantic attachment to Hartigan; Junior Rourke has depraved pedophiliac impulses; Kevin indulges in cannibalism which "fills him with white light"; Jackie Boy exhibits extreme narcissism and pathological lying; and on and on it goes...
* AnachronicOrder: The comics were published in anachronic order, and the segments of the film are shown anachronically as well.

** DirtyCop Bob covers up the crimes of pedophile and SerialKiller Roark Jr. and shoots his own partner. However, he claims that he's only doing so out of fear that the Roarks will kill him, and tries to convince Hartigan to lay down his gun for several seconds before shooting him again. In the movie, he claims to hate himself afterward and tries to make amends to Hartigan. While this scene is absent from the comics, in ''A Dame to Kill For,'' he's quick to believe that Dwight was set up and shows concern for his new partner.

** This is why the series exists. When he was trying to break into the industry Miller's samples were all noir but the industry wanted superheroes so that's what he did, sidelining his crime stories. By the time ''Sin City'' was made Miller hadn't drawn a comic in years and decided to finally make the sort of story he wasn't allowed to do and fill it with stuff he loved to draw. For instance, the Tar Pits are just an excuse for him to draw dinosaurs.

** Another one happens during Marv's story, where he says "This isn't some bar room brawl...Or some creep with a gas can tryin' to torch some wino!" The second line in particular references the main plot of "Just Another Saturday Night", where he fights some 'creeps' who try to torch a 'wino'.

* DrunkDriver: Jack Rafferty drives drunk in "The Big Fat Kill". He dies that night but it had nothing to do with his state, surprisingly.

* TheDulcineaEffect: The extreme lengths Marv is willing to go to to avenge Goldie.

** In ''Family Values'', the Magliozzi crime family orders a hit on Herr Wallenquist's hitman-turned-local-politician for murdering Don Magliozzi's neice years earlier, in spite of a truce currently between the two syndicates. While most are on edge wondering whether Wallenquist will take action or write off the hit as a "business expense", Dwight and Miho massacre the family and frame it as retaliation by Wallenquist for the hit [[spoiler:because the hitman shot a stray dog for fun, unknowingly killing an Old Town girl who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.]] Borders on a FalseFlagOperation.

** Hartigan uses a [[Film/DirtyHarry Smith & Wesson Model 29]] in the beginning of the film. Later on he uses a Ruger Blackhawk, also a .44 Magnum.

* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: Averted in many cases. Every hero has been pinned down or even clipped by {{Mooks}}. Shlubb and Klump, who are typically PluckyComicRelief badguys, even prove to be expert marksmen. There have also been a few unnamed snipers who proved to have decent aim.

* MajorInjuryUnderreaction: There are quite a few bits in both movies where people with grievous injuries don't exactly react in a way you'd expect people to react. Stuka's reaction to being shot by an arrow through the chest in ''The Big Fat Kill'' is downright ''nonchalant'' (though some of it can be attributed to shock).

* MyCarHatesMe: Subverted with Nancy's car, which waits until [[spoiler:Yellow Bastard's taking her away]] to break down. This is because she's the only one who knows how to get it working right. Played straight with the car Gail provides to Dwight to dispose of [[spoiler: Jackie Boy]] and his crew. The trunk is too small to hold all the bodies and it runs out of gas before he reaches the tar pits.

* PragmaticAdaptation: Arguably one of the best examples in a comic book movie. The stories are mostly frame-by-frame adaptations, right down to the cinematography. However, a ''lot'' of narration is chopped out, either in small trimmings (removing a fair bit of Frank Miller's [[SignatureStyle infamous use of repetition]]) or in entire ''pages'' worth of backstory, commentary, etc that would have bogged the movie down. It's done so smoothly that it's not noticeable unless you read along to the movie.

* PrecisionFStrike: Despite all of its many taboos, the comic is pretty [[GoshdangItToHeck tame in terms of language]]. The one and only F-Bomb comes from Lebowitcz when he [[spoiler: shoots the Colonel]] and says, "Make a missing person's case out of this fucker."

* RobbingTheDead: Dwight sifts through Jackie Boy's wallet after the latter was killed by Miho. He finds a wad of cash (which he puts in his own pocket)... And Jack's police badge.

*** Kevin Elijah looks an awful lot like [[Film/HarryPotter Harry Potter]].

* ThisIsWrongOnSoManyLevels: In "That Yellow Bastard", Nancy reveals to Hartigan that she fell in love with him because he rescued her, and makes a pass at him. He rejects her, because he first met her when she was still a child.

* TooDumbToLive: Jackie Boy and the mob enforcer from ''Family Values'' both made the mistake of using [[DeathByRacism racial slurs]] towards Miho.
** A neo-Nazi once insulted the bar tender at Kadie's. Marv asked her if he should step in but she told him to remain calm. Dwight mentioned that Marv was in an "all too generous mood". The Nazi then began to insult the bar tender some more. Marv voiced his displeasure but maintained his cool. The thug [[TemptingFate then decided it was a good idea to shove a pistol in Marv's face.]] It didn't end well for him.

** Hartigan, one of the few honest cops in the city, is arrested after saving a little girl from Roark Jr., a vicious child rapist and murderer who is the son of a powerful politicion. In the end he commits suicide to protect her.

** "That Yellow Bastard" opens with protagonist John Hartigan pursuing pedophile child-killer Roark Junior to save the eleven-year-old Nancy Callahan. John saves Nancy and wounds Junior's genitals but is betrayed by his fellow cops and framed for the crimes himself. While in prison, Hartigan's wife refuses to wait for him, divorces him and has children with another man. Hartigan's only solace during this time are the periodic letters he receives from Nancy, who (under an alias) tells him about her life and how much she loves him for saving her. One day, Hartigan receives one of Nancy's letters with a finger inside, and he confesses to all the false charges so that he'll be released early and able to save Nancy. Upon finding her working as a stripper, Hartigan realizes that he was tricked and has led Roark Junior directly to Nancy. Nancy spots Hartigan in the crowd and immediately leaps into his arms, kissing him, thus accidentally revealing who she is. Hartigan protects her from Junior, and while hiding out, Nancy tries to convince Hartigan to sleep with her, but he refuses [[MayDecemberRomance due to their age difference]]. While Hartigan struggles to keep his urges under control, Junior finds them and attempts to kill Hartigan while promising to rape and kill Nancy. Hartigan escapes, saves Nancy, and kills Junior. He and Nancy declare their love for each other, and she goes off to wait for him to find her again. Hartigan, however, realizes that with Junior dead, his father will now scour the ends of the Earth for Hartigan and Nancy, and so he does the only thing he can to protect her--[[HeroicSacrifice killing himself]].
** "The Big Fat Kill" involves a gang of {{Dirty Cop}}s trying to shakedown and sexually assault one of the prostitutes who are in charge of Old Town. The cops and the hookers have a non-aggression truce whereas they'll leave each other alone, but this broken when [[AllAsiansKnowKungFu Miho]] kills the dirty cops and gives the police an excuse throw TheLopsidedArmOfTheLaw at Old Town and take it over. This starts a war in which the protagonist Dwight has to protect the freedom of the working girls against an army of cops, gangsters and mercenaries. It's later revealed that Becky, the girl who caused all of this, intentionally provoked the cops and started the war--and she is later implied to be killed because of it.

** Roark Junior, the title character of the story "That Yellow Bastard," is a SerialKiller who rapes and murders little girls and who loves to hear them scream. As Nancy Callahan reveals [[spoiler:during her ColdBloodedTorture at his hands eight years after his first attempt on her is foiled by Hartigan, the screams of his victims are the only way that Junior can receive any kind of sexual gratification, to the point of being practically impotent without it]].