History ComicBook / WalterCampaignOfTerror

* AmbiguousEnding: Walter’s the only surviving candidate for mayor, and was more or less a shoe-in before that, but it’s not clear whether he takes up the mantel or just disappears into the night.

* CreepyChild: Lea is a young girl who really, really wants to kill somebody. She rolls her skateboard at approaching adults in the hopes they'll trip and break their necks.

* MsFanservice: Hamel wears a very skimpy dress for the entirety of Issue 3.

* PuppetKing:

* TheStarscream: Corpful's manservant Janos is the one behind the hitman subplot - he believes Mayor Sims is the only candidate willing to prosecute Corpful, which would leave Janos with all his material wealth, and so he connects the mayor to an assassin to literally cut out the competition. He achieves this in a roundabout way when Sims ends up simply bludgeoning Corpful to death, although he doesn't have long to enjoy it.

Sometime after the events of ''The Mask Strikes Back'', series antagonist and mafia bruiser Walter has been arrested and put on trial for 28 counts of first degree murder. He is [[TheJuggernaut big]], he [[TheSpeechless never speaks]], and he is ObviouslyEvil - a slam-dunk case and the perfect recipe for [[MayorPain Mayor Sims]] to beat the Tough On Crime drum before his upcoming election. Fortunately for our hero, local billionaire and mafia boss [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Bruce Corpful]] wishes to retain his services as an enforcer and provides ruthless attorney [[AmoralAttorney Anna Hamel]] to defend Walter in court. When her rhetorical skills and a freak event see Walter not only declared innocent on all charges but [[VillainWithGoodPublicity praised as a hero]], his benefactors see an opportunity to use him as a battering ram on their way to the top. But politics is perhaps the only game more dangerous than fighting The Mask, and Walter must navigate it using only his wits and his [[NighInvulnerable Nigh Invulnerability]], all without uttering a single syllable.

* BatmanGambit: A spectacular example. When tensions are at their highest, Walter simply mails an ominous letter to Mayor Sims. Sims assumes that it's a blackmail threat from Corpful, who's funding Walter's campaign, and beats him to death at his mansion. When Hamel discovers this she realizes she no longer has the money to win conventionally and assassinates Sims and Wozner. Hamel herself is killed by Sim's hired gun when he finds out. In one fell swoop Walter has eliminated all his competition and his bosses, guaranteeing his victory and leaving him the sole power behind the throne, without getting any of their blood on his hands. The only hitch is that Wozner miraculously survives, but in the end that issue works itself out anyways.

* DidNotThinkThisThrough: After Corpful's death a distraught Hamel murders Sims, as she reasons it's the only way her campaign can still win. Sims' campaign immediately figures out it was her and the next day Mahlon murders her and dumps her body in the river.
* FlatCharacter: Walter is a GenericDoomsdayVillain in the main series whose only real trait is his unrelenting opposition to Big Head. He doesn't change much here - he never speaks or even communicates to anybody else, he barely seems interested in what's happening around him, and when he isn't killing things or standing around he's glowering at a newspaper featuring Big Head's exploits. It gets subverted in the end though.

* GambitPileup:

* MayorPain: Mayor Sim is a short tempered psycho who abuses his assistant, has his rivals assassinated, and kills his underlings when they fail him. His only redeeming trait is that he's the only politician willing to stand up to Corpful, so he does seem to have ''some'' values at least.

->''If I couldn’t be sheriff, then I wouldn’t play.''

-->-- ''Miguelito Lovelace''

->''"If I couldn’t be sheriff, then I wouldn’t play.''

-> ''"Will Walter get sent up the river? Or will he send a flood of violence through the court system? Will he ever speak? And why didn't the mask work on him? None of these questions and more will be answered in the wildest series yet from Dark Horse."''

* KillEmAll: Everybody but Lea and Walter himself are dead by the end.

* GeniusBrusier: Everybody assumes he's DumbMuscle, but Walter is no fool. He outwits a small mob of professional sycophants, liars, and thieves to become mayor while confounding assassination plots on the side.

* TheNapolean: Bruce Corpful is a billionaire dwarf and is absolutely obsessed with height. He has a miniature scale model of the city in his home which he stomps around in like Godzilla, and all his speeches are about how size doesn't matter and he's a metaphorically big man.

* AssassinOutclassin: Walter’s main physical threat is a spooky weasel of an assassin named Mahnor. Poor Mahnor never achieves much more than inconveniencing Walter. In his defense he's hardly bad at his job, there’s just only so much you can do against a man who simply does not die.

* BadassInANiceSuit: As in previous appearances (where he was generally a mafia hitman) Walter is always wearing a suit, though he's otherwise too brutish looking for the full effect. Mahnor also wears one and is no slouch himself.

** The time bomb Mahnor tried to kill Walter with at the beginning of Issue 3 ends up being used to kill him at the end of Issue 4.

* DidNotThinkThisThrough: After Corpful's death a distraught Hamel murders Sims, as she reasons it's the only way her campaign can still win. Sims' campaign immediately figures out it was her and the next day Mahnor murders her and dumps her body in the river.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Literally, in this case. Mahnor ends up getting blown up by his own bomb.
* ItsPersonal: Mahnor continues to try and kill Walter after his employer dies because Walter [[BeeAfraid threw a beehive at him]]. But first he offs Hamel because she killed his employer the day before he was supposed to get paid.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: One of Walter's campaign aids tells Hamel that she's "bad news" and quits. He's one of the very few characters who survives the story.

* TheStarscream: Corpful's manservant Janos is the one behind the hitman subplot - he believes Mayor Sims is the only candidate willing to prosecute Corpful, which would leave Janos with all his material wealth, and so connects him to an assassin to literally cut out the competition. He achieves this in a roundabout way when Sims ends up simply bludgeoning Corpful to death, although he doesn't have long to enjoy it.

* TooDumbToLive: Walter's landlord rats him out to the cops and then, right in front of him, asks for his reward money. The first thing Walter does when getting out is kill him.
** Jamos and Mahnor both head to Walter’s campaign headquarters at the end with the intent of putting him down once and for all. Rather than worrying that it’s a trap or some such, they somehow conclude that Walter must have fled town. It is, of course, a trap.

Sometime after the events of ''The Mask Strikes Back'', series antagonist and mafia bruiser Walter has been arrested and put on trial for 28 counts of first degree murder. He is [[TheJuggernaut big]], he [[TheSpeechless never speaks]], and he is ObviouslyEvil - a slam-dunk case and the perfect recipe for [[MayorPain Mayor Sims]] to beat the Tough On Crime drum before his upcoming election. Fortunately for him, local billionaire and mafia boss [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Bruce Corpful]] wishes to retain his services as an enforcer and provides ruthless attorney [[AmoralAttorney Anna Hamel]] to defend Walter in court. When her rhetorical skills and a freak event see Walter not only declared innocent on all charges but [[VillainWithGoodPublicity praised as a hero]], his benefactors see an opportunity to use him as a battering ram on their way to the top. But politics is perhaps the only game more dangerous than fighting The Mask, and Walter must navigate it using only his wits and his [[NighInvulnerable Nigh Invulnerability]], all without uttering a single syllable.

* AssassinOutclassing: Poor Mahnor never achieves much more than inconveniencing Walter. In his defense he's hardly bad at his job, but he fails to appreciate that Walter in NighInvulnerable. He probably should have taken the hint when the police showed up ''with a tank'' to arrest the big guy.

Sometime after the events of ''The Mask Strikes Back'', series antagonist and borderline GenericDoomsdayVillain Walter has been arrested and put on trial for 28 counts of first degree murder. He is [[TheJuggernaut big]], he [[TheSpeechless never speaks]], and he is ObviouslyEvil - a slam-dunk case and the perfect recipe for [[MayorPain Mayor Sims]] to beat the Tough On Crime drum before his upcoming election. But local billionaire [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Bruce Corpful]] sees an opportunity to humiliate the Mayor and provides ruthless attorney [[AmoralAttorney Anna Hamel]] to defend Walter in court. When her rhetorical skills and a freak event see Walter not only declared innocent on all charges but [[VillainWithGoodPublicity praised as a hero]], his benefactors see an opportunity to use him as a battering ram on their way to the top. But politics is perhaps the only game more dangerous than fighting The Mask, and Walter must navigate it using only his wits and his [[NighInvulnerable Nigh Invulnerability]], all without uttering a single syllable.

* TheStarscream: Corpful's manservant Janos is the one behind the hitman subplot - he wants Mayor Sims to prosecute Corpful, which would leave Janos with all his material wealth. He achieves this in a roundabout way when Sims ends up simply bludgeoning Corpful to death, although he doesn't have long to enjoy it.

[[caption-width-right:249: Like ''Bonfire of the Vanities'' with the bodycount of ''Hamlet'']]

In 1996, John Arcudi and Doug Mahnke, the creative team behind ''ComicBook/TheMask, having turned the main series over to other creative teams following the success of the [[Film/TheMask Jim Carrey movie]], made one final foray into their bizarrely violent world.

* BatmanGambit: A spectacular example. When tensions are at their highest, Walter simply mails an ominous letter to Mayor Sims. Sims assumes that it's a blackmail threat from Corpful and beats him to death at his mansion. When Hamel discovers this she panics (as Corpful was her benefactor and without him she no longer has the funds to win) and assassinates Sims and Wozner. Hamel herself is killed by Sim's hired gun when he finds out. In one fell swoop Walter has eliminated all his competition and his benefactors, guaranteeing his victory and leaving him the sole power behind the throne, without getting any of their blood on his hands. The only hitch is that Wozner miraculously survives, but in the end that issue works itself out anyways.

** Walter himself counts. Corpful and Hamel (herself TheStarscream to Corpful) both consider Walter to be a useful pawn. Walter's machinations lead to both their deaths.

* YouHaveFailedMe: When Walter gets declared innocent, Sims has the prosecutor killed.

Sometime after the events of ''The Mask Strikes Back'', series antagonist and borderline GenericDoomsdayVillain Walter has been arrested and put on trial for 28 counts of first degree murder. He is [[TheJuggernaut big]], he [[TheMute never speaks]], and he is ObviouslyEvil - a slam-dunk case and the perfect recipe for [[MayorPain MayorSims]] to beat the Tough On Crime drum before his upcoming election. But local billionaire [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Bruce Corpful]] sees an opportunity to humiliate the Mayor and provides ruthless attorney [[AmoralAttorney Anna Hamel]] to defend Walter in court. When her rhetorical skills and a freak event see Walter not only declared innocent on all charges but [[VillainWithGoodPublicity praised as a hero]], his benefactors see an opportunity to use him as a battering ram on their way to the top. But politics is perhaps the only game more dangerous than fighting The Mask, and Walter must navigate it using only his wits and his [[NighInvulnerable Nigh Invulnerability]], all without uttering a single syllable.

* TheMute: Walter, as always. It's revealed that his throat was shot out.

[[[[caption-width-right:249: Like ''Bonfire of the Vanities'' with the bodycount of ''Hamlet'']]