Rover Red Charlie is an apocalyptic Xenofiction comic book written by Garth Ennis and Michael Dipascale. Not to be confused with the G-Rated newspaper comic strip Red and Rover.
This comic features the following tropes:
- Apocalypse How: A Class 2 occurs at the beginning of the comic, and turns into a Class 3 by the end.
- Asshole Victim: Max is a Dirty Coward and is implied to be a braggart; after he is killed by a crazed feeder early on, the main trio barely acknowledge him onwards.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: Zigzagged. When relevant, the dogs are shown anatomically correct, otherwise they are this trope.
- The Big Rotten Apple: The start of the story takes place in New York, right as the carnage unfolds and the human population cannibalizes itself.
- Bully Bulldog: Hermann is a vicious bulldog who goes completely off the rails once he loses his human slave to the main trio.
- Cats Are Mean: The group on the bridge gang up on and try to kill the trio. They also revealed they willingly ate a dog that had passed away, if not killed him outright.
- The Ditz: Red is the most aloof and jovial member of the main trio. Doesn't stop him from defeating Hermann, twice.
- Fallen States of America: The main setting of the comic once humans die out.
- Hate Plague: The comic begins with the entire human race driven into both suicidal depression and psychotic madness, going extinct in a global mass-murder-suicide.
- Heroic Sacrifice: A lone surviving policeman stays behind after tossing Charlie from one roof to another to save him, and promptly gets killed by a group of crazed children.
- Howl of Sorrow: The trio give one for Hobby, and multiple dogs in the area join in. This clues in Hermann as to where they are, in addition to their scent.
- Humanity's Wake: By the first day after their sudden madness, the "feeders" have disappeared entirely, leaving only corpses (then skeletons) behind. There are a few scant survivors in the country, such as Hermann's abused pet boy, but it is heavily implied they too bit the dust before long.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: The main theme of the comic ultimately comes down to the view that humans have done a lot of damage not just to the world, but to their own pets.
- Max is implied to have turned out the way he is because his feeders taught him to be above others.
- Audie was so indoctrinated with his feeders' discipline that even when left alone, he refuses to abandon his post on the deserted highway.
- Hobby came down to such view after he and his pack wandered into a nuclear plant meltdown zone and all fell terminally ill.
- Hermann's feeders used to abuse him and turned him into a fighting dog. Then it turns out Hermann was actually fine with all this.
- Humans Through Alien Eyes: Since the comic is set from the pets' perspective, the humans are called "feeders", and speak a kind of unintelligible gibberish, though it's possible to make out at least some of it, like with Cluster F-Bomb a mad man sprouts out while killing Max.
- In-Series Nickname: The main trio calls humans "feeders" and cats "hisspots".
- Stock British Phrases: Rover is fond of "talking" like a Brit; likely because his feeders were from Britain.
- Super-Persistent Predator: Hermann spends days tracking the main trio solely by their scent, having remembered it well enough, and eventually finds them in San Francisco.
- A Truce While We Gawk: When Charlie and Hermann are struggling inside a deserted military Humvee, the former accidentally fires a rifle's grenade launcher. As result, both he and Hermann are seen staring in awe at the resulting explosion.
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- At the start of the apocalypse, several New York pedestrians are actually seen fleeing the carnage instead of participating in it. We never find out what happened to them.
- Similarly, Audie the military shepherd is left behind by the main trio and is last seen lying down on the pavement, bound to serve his military duty to the end.
