Webcomic / Sly Cooper: Thief of Virtue

A new chapter begins

A 2013 Fan Webcomic based on the 'Sly Cooper game series that serves as a sequel to Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time'' drawn by artist Connor Davidson.

This series takes place some time after the events of the 4th Sly game. Sly and Carmelita's respective careers have caused them to drift apart. Everything changed when a mysterious gang of criminals managed to break into the Cooper Gang's HQ and completely clean out the entire Cooper Family Vault. Sly, Bentley, and Murray take up arms to find this gang and steal back their loot, but soon they'll discover dark mysteries as the whole world plunges into chaos. Unknown to Sly, he will learn that his personal history will cause his past and future to collide in ways he could never imagine.

After the conclusion of the comic in 2017, there was 2 separate side stories with multiple parts and a single story released after that covered events both before and after the comic that explained certain aspects of events that were hinted at in the comic.

The comic can be found here.

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Sly Cooper Thief of Virtue and its side stories have the following tropes:

The tropes listed in the side stories and the short story contain unmarked spoilers regarding anything that happens in the comic. You Have Been Warned!

Sly Cooper: Thief of Virtue (The main comic)

• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Oh boy...Sly is just loaded with inner-conflict and self-pitying in this comic much like Ned and Drake Lupus.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Once again, Sly; he's rather salty with everyone in this comic, especially with Bentley, and tends to be very self-serving in that the stolen loot from his vault seems to be all that matters to him, even going so far as to threaten to tip Turbo off the side of a bridge. Again, justified in some instances given that he was injected with a stimulant by Drake Lupus that caused an adverse effect with the three crystals, but even then, he neglects to mention that innocent villagers were going to be terrorized by warlords in favor of retrieving a crystal.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Torus is talked down on a transformed Drake, declaring he is no match for him (while in the safety of his helicopter). However, when Were-Drake jumps at the copter, threatening to destroy it, Torus pathetically begs him not to kill him.
• Albinos Are Freaks: Zig-zagged; Considering how psychotic Snow is and how unusually flirty Ice is, it's quite evident...although they aren't really albino per se. See "Cold, Cold Heart" for more information.
• All There in the Manual: Connor released two four-part short stories explaining the backstory of Agents Snow and Ice and Inspectors Dominic Torus and Jack Lupus, and Judge Bubo, respectively.
• Almost Kiss: Between Sly and Carmelita, which gets rudely interrupted by an Interpol squadron.
• Anti-Hero: It's Sly we're talking about here.
• Artistic License – Law: Interpol runs more like the US government in the comic than it actually does like Interpol in the original games or in real life, as shown by the fact that it has its own judges that preside over court cases and control what the director can and can't do, along with the fact that they have a "Judiciary Council" that makes decisions with a voting system that works similar to the Supreme Court, which is what lets Torus launch a mission in Switzerland, where Drake's headquarters are located. In fact the real Interpol has a President instead of a Chief Director, a change made perhaps to draw away from the political parallels.
• Author Appeal:
  • The cameo appearance of Tinsel is on account of the fact that the author is a fan of the webcomic known as Dreamkeepers.
  • Jack Lupus and Judge Bubo represent the author's preferences somewhat. The former is a wolf and the latter is a eurasian eagle-owl, both which are the author's favorite animals. They're also both conservative like the author and hold views similar to his, such as his support for red tape.
  • In the epilogue scenes of Ned and Zahn, a cameo character of two of the author's closest friends appear in both.
• Author Avatar: Ned is implied to be this.
• Avenging the Villain: Ice for Snow.
• Ax-Crazy: General Snow raids Interpol HQ armed with a highly unstable laser cannon, nearly destroying the whole building. Ice near the end when she goes Revenge Before Reason. Justified in both cases after the side story "Cold, cold heart" was released. Justified thanks to certain details within "Cold, Cold heart".
• Bad Boss: Chief Torus to Carmelita and Ned specifically. Justified since neither are at all effective in capturing criminals, and they themselves are caught working with one.
• Battle Couple: Sly and Carmelita band together to fight against Zahn.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: Drake suffers an internal conflict with himself, facing off against the shadow of Clockwerk who tells Drake he's as much a monster as him.
• Betty and Veronica: Gender Inverted; Sly's Veronica and Ned's Betty to Carmelita's Archie.
• Big Bad: Drake Lupus.
• Book Ends: The story started at the new Cooper Vault and ended at the now rebuilt Cooper Vault.
• Breaking Speech: Ice gives this to Ned, simply stating that he has no chance with Carmelita as she has Sly. She takes it further by comparing Ned to Sly and that compared to the master thief, Ned is mediocre at best.
• Broken Aesop: Downplayed; The main comic tried to introduce a determinist Aesop on how everything was a matter of choice in that the characters made their choices and brought the results on themselves, and how a person gets to decide who they are and having the ability to choose to be good or evil regardless of what anyone thinks. It generally sticks to the theme in regards to Sly Cooper and Drake Lupus...However, the fact that the crystals influenced the judgement of anyone who was using them, strongly implying that Torus' actions were not made of his own volition because of that (which was ignored by all the characters and wasn't acknowledged in-universe), and key details in the later-released side stories about what lead to the insanity of Ice and Snow had a tendency to undermine the entire point the author was trying to make given they played a factor in their behavior.
• Bystander Syndrome: Enforced with Interpol; Bubo essentially expects this of Torus and other officers in adherence to red tape.
• The Brute: Kevin Turbo is basically an elite thug.
• The Cameo: Justified; This comic is rife with fan-created characters from other artists due to the author allowing submissions of these during the chapter "To catch a ninja".
  • Even non-Sony affiliated characters appear in this comic; Felicia and Shadow the Hedgehog also briefly appear at Venom's party along with Tinsel from Dreamkeepers and Oscar the Grouch showed up in an alleyway in "Serpent's kiss". The only Sony-related cameo that appeared was Ratchet, who is shown complaining to one of Torus' enforcers in the background of one of the pages in "Wrath of the Wolf King".
• Cat Fight: Between Carmelita and Lady Venom.
• Character Filibuster: Judge Bubo and Jack Lupus both have one of these; the former involving at least three speech bubbles of lecturing Torus, and the latter which basically pushes the Aesop of the story while at a restaurant with his son.
  • Even Ice herself ends up giving one of these in a lecture to Ned.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Surprisingly, Carmelita becomes this for Sly when Ice gets into the picture.
• Criminally Attractive: Lady Venom's MO.
• Cruel and Unusual Death:
  • Pretty much anyone who encounters Lady Venom is hypnotized via her venom, eaten, and then slowly digested; not a pretty image. But a special mention goes to her henchman Inigo, who was the only victim that wasn't hypnotized and was fully conscious when he was being eaten, and not even Interpol's officers cared to stop her.
  • Jack's death at the hands of Clockwerk; He lifts him up several thousand feet into the skyline and then drops him down to the street in front of his son.
• Cyber Space: Bentley's domain of expertise when it comes to hacking. Then there's his online battle against Zahn's hacker, Gunther.
• Darkest Africa: The Congo is shown to be ruled by Colonel Zahn and Warlords who are at war with each other while terrorizing innocents. Whether or not this is defied by Torus' assault against Zahn is unknown
• Dark and Troubled Past: Drake Lupus. It's revealed that his father was one an Interpol agent and was killed by Clockwerk.
• Dance of Romance: Sly and Carmelita, but this time, they are fully aware who the other is.
• Dating Catwoman: Sly and Carmelita's relationship.
• Disability Superpower: Bentley's still able thanks to his tricked-out wheelchair.
• Disney Villain Death: How Ice meets her end, falling from the collapsing castle of Drake.
• Disproportionate Reward: Ned defecting to the Cooper Gang temporarily, lecturing Torus, and simply fighting off goons and arresting Drake was apparently enough to warrant him becoming the new Chief of Interpol.
• Domino Mask: Sly. Shockingly, he had been seen without it during both times he and his gang get arrested.
• Dual Wielding: In the final battle, Carmelita uses two shock pistols.
• Dueling Hackers: Bentley's battle against Zahn's hacker minion, who is ironically a rabbit.
  • Once Bentley corner's the rabbit hacker in his room, they duel physically. However, all they do is get into a slap fight with each other.
• Enemy Mine: The Cooper Gang with Carmelita and Ned. It is cemented when the latter two are forced to join in when they get framed for being in cahoots with Sly.
• Everything Is Racist: Invoked in two scenes involving Judge Shelby and Ice. Considering the political undertone of the comic, make of that what you will.
  Bubo: You jackass!
  Shelby: That's racist.

  Bentley: Hrmph! Big stupid buffalo...First he arrests us and then he puts us to work! All bossy and grouchy like we kicked his dog or something. He obsesses over Sly's crimes and then makes him into a slave...Torus really is just a fat cow...
  Ice: That's racist Bentley.
  Bentley: WHAA-?! Where did you come from?!
• Evil Redhead: Agent Ice.
• Expy: One could think that Ice would be one for Neyla.
• Fan Sequel: This fan comic takes place after Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time.
• Fantasy Gun Control: Torus somehow enacts this near the end of "Welcome to the Jungle" after capturing Colonel Zahn.
• Faux Action Girl: Carmelita ends up becoming this in the comic; she actually doesn't do much aside from arresting whatever criminals are left from Sly's missions and appearing in the non-action scenes despite being an Interpol inspector.
• Flanderization: The author started off Torus as a strict-but-fair Director who wants to maintain order, and exaggerated his traits more and more after the chapter "Winter Storm" to the point he begins his descent into an authoritarian figure obsessed with capturing the Cooper Gang and maintaining order at all costs.
• Forceful Kiss: Ice gives one to Sly, who shoves her away. She calls out if he didn't want it, he wouldn't have taken ten seconds to finally start resisting her.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Subverted; When Drake transforms into his dark form in "Wrath of the Wolf King", it seems that he's completely nude and all his clothing is destroyed, but when he reverts back to his normal form he's atleast still wearing pants and his coat appears to still be intact.
• The Gambling Addict: Played for Drama. Torus was revealed to have been this, and he so happened to have been one at a place Clockwerk owned...and it is hinted that Torus ratted out Jack to Clockwerk due to his debts.
• Gasp of Life: Played for laughs with Ned, who gets this after Murray pounds his chest in frustration after seemingly have suffocated in Lady Venom's stomach.
• Graceful Loser: Drake, the Big Bad himself in the end.
• Heel–Face Turn: Drake in the end. After realizing how the 3 crystals were corrupting him, he chose to destroy them thanks to intervention of the ghosts of his father and that of Sly's, as well as Sly himself. He would eventually turn himself in, escape, and then have a son with Lady Venom outside of the comic
• Heroic Willpower: During his Battle in the Center of the Mind, Drake rejects Clockwerk's claims and declares that he decides what he is, allowing him to gain the willpower to destroy the 3 crystals that had been corrupting him
• He's Back!: Sly suffered injuries that left him unconscious. When he finally awoke, he was shocked to find out he had been unconscious for a few days, and the rest of the gang had been carrying out the current heist until he returned to them.
• Hero Antagonist: Torus, despite his gruff demeanor and condescending attitude with fellow officers and Bubo, has his heart in the right place and actually does fight for a righteous cause despite whatever mistakes he's made in the past or small hints of hypocrisy he shows in the end.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: How Snow was beaten. When his laser cannon gets damaged, it exploded, killing him instantly.
• Hollywood Kiss: For the first time, Sly and Carmelita share a mutual kiss to prove his feelings for her are genuine.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Lady Venom lustfully hypnotizes her victims before swallowing them whole.
• Inhuman Eye Concealers: Ice's hair is in bangs to cover her enhanced artificial eye.
• Innocently Insensitive: Lampshaded by Ice in her first encounter with Ned after the latter questioned Carmelita about Torus' claim about her "history" with Sly Cooper.
  Ice: Wow. It seems you're pretty dense when it comes to a girl's feelings, Mr. Grey...
• Inspector Javert: Chief Torus, even moreso than Carmelita.
• Inter Species Romance: Sly and Carmelita of course.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: When Kevin Turbo's ride is teetering over a dock, Sly demands from him where the rest of his loot is. When he refused to talk, Sly simply nudges the car, threatening to drop him into the water. Kevin quickly cracks since he can't swim.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Chief Torus is a bit self-righteous and is constantly viewed as abusing his authority since he has to bypass pointless red tape put up by Bubo, when really he's trying to keep order and stop crime where most of Interpol fails to. He also treats Carmelita and Ned badly, but its justified since the former is in cahoots with a master thief just like Jack Lupus was and the two generally fail to actually stop major criminals like the rest of Interpol.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Judge Shelby, despite bypassing due process in Sly's sentencing and allowing Torus to bypass Bubo and causing the riots to become more violent, did not face any sort of punishment for his actions and nor was there any implications in the side story "Protect and serve" that he did.
  • Vick Dodger, even after assisting in Drake's operations and trying to record Torus to vilify him, ends up becoming the new boss of the criminal organization that Drake once led.
  • Pretty much none of the members of Drake's gang face any actual punishment and are released to do whatever they want. Justified in that this is a comic based off the game Sly Cooper...but even then, considering who Zahn is and what he has done, he got off lightly.
• Kick the Dog: Downplayed. Torus dishes these out on Carmelita and Ned despite their track record, first firing them for letting Sly and his gang escape despite the fact they were busy trying to stop the murderous Snow from killing everyone at headquarters. Justified in the fact that Sly is a criminal...
• Kiss of Death: Lady Venom gives this to an emotionally unstable Ned, who promptly gets hypnotized before getting swallowed.
• Knight of Cerebus: Snow serves as this. Up until "Winter Storm", every arc villain has been a whacky run-of-mill criminal that Sly would have faced in the canonical video games. Snow, however, was a psychotic killer whom was known for many controversies during his time as an agent in Interpol and even posed a threat to Interpol in that chapter, the latter which no villain (save for the primary antagonists) in the Sly series has actually done.
• Leeroy Jenkins: On the villains' side. Vick tells Venom's mooks a plan of attack on Sly's safehouse location, but instead they just rush the safehouse head-on.
• Leotard of Power: What Ice changes into later.
• Lovable Rogue: Sly, as per usual.
• Love Hurts: Ned certainly felt this way when he sees Sly and Carmelita kiss during Venom's party.
• Love Triangle: Two separate ones between Carmelita/Sly/Ice and Sly/Carmelita/Ned. Of course, Sly/Carmelita wins out in the end.
• Megaton Punch: Carmelita ends her fight against Venom with this.
• The Mole: Agent Ice is actually with Interpol under Chief Torus.
• Motivational Kiss: Subverted; Sly tries to get this from Carmelita, but it gets rudely interrupted by Interpol squadrons.
• Mundane Solution: When Ned gets swallowed by Lady Venom and forcefully pulled out of her, Bentley tries to revive him with a defibrillator he had in his wheelchair, but failed to get him to stir. It looked like it was the end for Ned, until Murray simply slammed his fists on his chest, causing Ned to jolt upright.
• Nice Guy: Eddard "Ned" Grey serves as this. This is even lampshaded by Ice in the chapter "Winter Storm".
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Judge Bubo flings this at Torus when he practically made fugitives out of Carmelita and Ned just because they were seen with the Cooper Gang, not even bothering to sort the situation out. Bubo is angry as they were important witnesses to Venom's crimes, and because of Torus's actions, they now lack the necessary material to put Venom away.
• Noble Male, Roguish Male: Ned is a mellow cop who's a Nice Guy, whereas Sly is a Gentleman Thief who often at odds with Interpol.
• No-Sell: Murray attempts to beat down on Drake. He gets blasted back by a barrier for his troubles.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Drake and Sky discuss their similarities, since both of their respective fathers had been killed by Clockwerk in the past.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: Judge Bubo is ultimately this to Torus, though the former is portrayed sympathetically.
• Oh, Crap!: When Bentley and Murray were fighting off mooks, they stop and notice a flame about to touch a gas leak...
• Only in It for the Money: Caesar.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Bentley, who is ironically crippled, does this when he questioned why Sly is requesting Panda King's help and bluntly reminded him how Panda King was one of the Fiendish Five who helped kill Sly parents years prior.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: At Cesar's base, Murray beats up a guard and dresses in his clothes to pose as a mook. Nevermind that the big mooks are white polar bears. When questioned why he was pink, he quickly responds that he "transferred from down south" and that he was "burned from the hot weather". Somehow, this fools them.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Drake Lupus does a minor one in his talk with Ned by offering him life advice after the latter realized that Carmelita loved Sly in "Serpent's kiss".
  • In "Welcome to the Jungle", Torus and Ice are shown leading the charge against the warlords whom were terrorizing innocents in the Congo with their weapons bought from Zahn.
• Playing with Fire: Drake possesses fire magic and fire teleportation.
• Police Are Useless: Basically all of Interpol and Torus are incompetent in actually stopping Drake's gang; though in the latter's case, its justified since Bubo needlessly gets in his way of putting in the necessary measures in defying this trope.
• Power Crystal: Three of them are used separately as magical power sources. They are ultimately what Drake is after.
• Punny Name: Atleast three of the names are puns of the character's species.
  • Director Dominic Torus.
  • Judge Bubo.
  • Drake and Jack Lupus.
• Psycho Serum: The Stim drug.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Drake Lupus whenever he uses his powers. Sly when the crystal's curse activates in him.
• Revenge Before Reason: At Drake's castle, Ice intended to kill both Sly and Drake, despite the fact said castle was crumbling apart. Sly tries to reason that they should get out of there first, but was met with deaf ears. Certain details in "Cold, cold heart" might justify this, however.
• Savage Wolves: Drake Lupus, the Big Bad, is an anthro wolf.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Reconstructed. While Torus is going to the Congo specifically with the intention of capturing the Cooper Gang under the guise of bringing order to the Congo, he does keep to his word with the latter when bypassing Bubo through Shelby. So, while Torus still has an agenda, he hasn't forgotten that its his duty to protect the innocent and makes sure to do that first before even thinking of going after Sly.
• Shirtless Scene:
  • In one of the pages of "Just crude business", it is implied that Drake Lupus made love with Lady Venom to make up for the fact that the gangster she ate was unsatisfying. In that page, Drake's is shown shirtless as he's looking out at the sunset.
  • In one of the pages of "Welcome to the jungle", Ned reluctantly ends up going shirtless due to the disguise that he got came from one of the Zahn's guards needed to infiltrate the latter's base, and said disguise was from a guard that wasn't wearing a shirt.
• Skewed Priorities:
  • Despite having being bested by Drake's gang and nearly beaten to death, Murray's first concern was if Sly still had food on him since he was hungry.
  • Torus dismisses Carmelita and Ned for not being able to detain Sly and his friends. This was after Snow broke into Interpol HQ and began massacring any officer in his line of sight. Let's not also forget he also released all the inmates, including those from Sly's gallery of rogues, so Carmelita, Ned, and the rest of Interpol had to deal with them trying to escape, too.
  • Even Sly himself is guilty of this. When he sees that a bunch of Warlords are going to go out to terrorize the region with their new weapons, he doesn't even mention it to his gang or Carmelita and Ned. Instead, he just wants to get the green crystal from Zahn.
• Smooch of Victory: In the end of the comic, Sly gives this to Carmelita after sneaking up on her.
• Smug Snake: To literal extremes with Lady Venom as she is an anthro snake.
• Sound-Only Death: Once Lady Venom and her underlings get arrested. When getting escorted into a police van, the lead mook, Indigo declares out loud that he'll sell out his employer to reduce his sentence. Unfortunately, said employer, Lady Venom was locked in the same van. He quickly begs for forgiveness, but fell on deaf ears as she prepares to swallow him whole. The other mooks could only watch in horror at what happens next as we're only treated to screams and shadows.
• Straw Feminist:
  • Ice is implied to be this in a long conversation where she lambasted Ned after he began questioning Carmelita on Torus' claims regarding her past with Sly.
  Ice: Well, being a woman helps...
  • Played straight with a nameless female mouse whom is meant to be emasculating towards men. In the chapter "Wrath of the wolf king", during one of the flashbacks, a young Drake Lupus opens the door for the female mouse only for her to yell at his father for it.
  Nameless mouse: I'm not helpless! It's nearly the twenty-first century! Shame on you for teaching your son to be a sexist pig! I don't need a man getting in my way! I'm fully capable of opening a door!
• Straw Hypocrite: Torus is a zigzagged example; for the most part he's basically meant to represent liberalism negatively but in the middle of "Wrath of the Wolf King", he ends up becoming this when he ends up shoving the law aside to use the green crystal against Vick. It's not entirely clear what Torus was supposed to really be.
• Strawman Political: Judge Shelby, introduced in the end of the chapter "Just Crude Buisness", portrays judicial activism and leftism in an exaggerated and negative manner (the latter trait is implied by the fact that Shelby is a donkey and other dialogue that involves him). In the comic, Judge Shelby was responsible for both bypassing due process when jailing the Cooper Gang with an arbitrary life sentence due to his sympathy for Torus' cause in "Winter storm", and also for allowing Torus to bypass Bubo so that he could invade the Congo to capture the Cooper gang again in "Welcome to the jungle" all due to his sympathy for Torus' cause.
• Sudden Principled Stand: As Torus is about to use Drake's green crystal on Vick, Ned immediately stops the former and begins lecturing him about how he's breaking the law and disregarding honor and protocol, and even tells Torus to stand down. This eventually earned him the title of Chief in Interpol at the very end.
• Superpowered Evil Side: A slight variation with Sly when the curse in him comes to the fore. Played straight with Drake when he goes into his more bestial form.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: When Sly confronts Colonel Zahn and demands his fortune back, Zahn tells him he already melted his share down and sold it. He even scoffs at Sly for thinking that he would just hoard it all away.
• Swiss Bank Account: During an argument between Torus and Bubo in "Wrath of the Wolf King" it's briefly mentioned that the latter has offshore accounts, though it's never expanded on what he uses them for.
• Talk to the Fist: In the final battle with Drake, he mutates into a monster version of himself. Ice makes the mistake of talking down on him until he attacked her mid-sentence.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: "The world taught me I can only be what I am—a monster. Who am I to disagree? But the world will kneel to this monster!"
• This Is Unforgivable!: Sly gets enraged when Zahn broke his cane.
• Turn in Your Badge: Torus expels Carmelita and Ned from Interpol for allowing the Cooper Gang to escape, despite having had their hands full with a murderous Snow. Then Torus brands them both as criminals because they were seen with the Cooper Gang.
  • In the end, while Ned is reinstated back into Interpol, Carmelita puts herself on indefinite leave so she could be with Sly. Ironically, Torus does this to himself in the epilogue.
• Undeathly Pallor: Despite Ice and Snow supposedly being Albinos, their fur has a rather bluesish corpse-like hue.
• Villain Has a Point: Deconstructed. Vick mockingly calls out Torus on his extreme methods which supposedly break Interpol regulations, along with him ordering Ice to knock out Ned for telling off Torus over his methods. While portrayed sympathetically, Vick is nothing but a pretentious crony of Drake who acts obnoxious and snarky on a daily basis, and essentially serves to stir up trouble like he did here. Torus, on the other hand, was under the influence of Drake’s green crystal at the time which influenced the behavior he exhibited and is being framed for something he couldn’t control. Basically, Vick knew this was the case and chose to make a point based on a false narrative created by Drake’s plan.
• Welcome to My World: Carmelita is already familiar with Sly's thief lifestyle, but this becomes a culture shock for her new partner, Ned.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: True to the game series, the comic ends with separate epilogues of the cast.
  • Kevin Turbo teams up with Dimitri to make hip-hop music videos.
  • Kre became a tai-chi student under Panda King.
  • Cesar became an orca trainer at a water theme park.
  • Lady Venom regained her celebrity status and subject to a top magazine company, where it is hinted she may be pregnant.
  • Colonel Zahn started a fitness club, with the intent to settle the score with the Cooper Gang one day.
  • Torus resigned from Interpol and faded into obscurity, with his story being continued in "To protect and serve".
  • Ned becomes the new chief director of Interpol following Torus's resignation.
  • Vick continues to lead what's left of Drake's criminal organization.
  • Drake vanishes in the Alaskan wilderness after escaping from prison, and hasn't been seen since.
• Wham Shot:
  • When Lady Venom swallows Ned whole. He does get better, though.
  • When Zahn breaks Sly's cane.
  • When Torus has recollections of the time that he was almost killed by Clockwerk and told him of Drake's location.
• Whole-Plot Reference: In the second-half of the chapter "Welcome to the Jungle", the scene where Zahn introduces his weapon called "The Sentinel" as well as the way its destroyed by Ned and Murray is a reference to Chapter 3 of Star Wars: Clone Wars, which introduced the Harnaidan defensive cannon (which the weapon seems to be based off of) and ARC-77 destroying it with mines much like Ned did with "The Sentinel".
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Murray panics when while driving, he discovers a snake seated right in front of him.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The Stim drug induces this. Sly also exhibits this at times after he had been injected with Stim by Drake when he was unconscious.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Drake Lupus. Unlike his father, Jack Lupus, he chose to form alliances with criminal forces in an attempt to destroy Interpol in retaliation of the fact that Dominic Torus, the director, led to the death of his father as a child. Thanks to Sly, and the ghosts of Sly's father as well as that of Jack Lupus, Drake eventually was rescued from this path.
• Wrecked Weapon: Sly's cane gets snapped in half by Zahn after his attempt to hit him with it.

Sidestory 1: Cold, Cold Heart (Ice and Snow's arc)

• A Day in the Limelight: This story in particular focuses on Snow and Ice.
• Albinos Are Freaks: Thanks to this side story, it becomes justified when you learn that Snow and Ice's albinism is caused by the modifications made and cybernetics given to them through "Project Winter". Sadly, it seems to taken a toll on them, with Snow being the first to snap.
• And the Adventure Continues: A villainous variation of the trope; right after Snow kills his therapist and runs off, the final few lines of the story takes place in the exact same way that the end of "Just Crude Business" did.
• Convenient Color Change: Snow and Ice end up with both pale blue fur and red hair due to the procedures performed on them.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: The cybernetic implants that Snow kept getting were what lead to his insanity shown in the comic. This might also explain Ice's irrational behavior at the end of the comic when she ignored Sly's attempts to reason with her.
• Eating the Eye Candy: After Snow and Ice defeated a spice dealer named Johnny Blane, Snow quips on how good Ice looks using nunchucks while Ice comments on Snow’s open chest. Of course, when Snow finds out about that, he laments his damaged shirt.
• Foregone Conclusion: It’s pretty much a given that Snow ends up becoming the psychotic killer he’s known to be in the comic by the end of the story.
• Villain Protagonist: Snow and Ice, but moreso with the former after his defection from Interpol at the end.

Sidestory 2: To Protect and Serve (Torus and Jack's arc)

• A Day in the Limelight: Jack, Torus, and Bubo appear to all share the spotlight for this story.
• Bittersweet Ending: While Jack is still dead and Torus is no longer the director of Interpol, the latter still manages to come to terms with his past.
• Foregone Conclusion: Downplayed. While its clear that Jack dies thanks to Torus, as well as Bubo and Torus surviving and appearing in the comic, its not quite evident what happens to the remaining two after Torus resigns until the final chapter of this story of course. Jack's ghost comes back to Torus while he's crying on his grave and the two reconcile.
• Media Scrum: Jack and a mother ends up having to deal with one of these, despite rescuing a child, after shooting an unarmed criminal which he shouts off in anger, true to his nature.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Downplayed. Jack shot a criminal to rescue a child (not knowing the former was unarmed) and although he wasn't punished per se, he was criticized for it by reporters.
• Take That!: Jack being criticized for shooting an unarmed criminal to rescue a child and then him snapping at the reporters for them surrounding the mother for comment is the author's way at making a potshot at certain news outlets whenever it reports cop shootings; the author portrays Jack sympathetically in this case.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Though it was hinted in the comic, it is revealed that Torus indeed led Clockwerk to Jack Lupus when the latter was looking for Sly's father since he knew Jack and Sly were friends, and ultimately explains why Drake wanted to destroy Interpol and Torus so badly.

Short Story: The New Director (Ned's expanded epilogue)

• A Day in the Limelight: Ned is the focus of this short story.
• The Cameo: Three characters belong to one of the author's friends are briefly mentioned near the end of the short story.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: These excerpts from the story.
  “How will you respond to fixing the targeting of specific animal types?” another asked, poorly disguising his connection with recent movements.
  “All lives matter, and the law applies to everyone just the same. If an officer has cause, he or she will fulfil his or her duty as the situation merits. No one is targeted.”

  “How will you treat women in the department?”
  “Exactly as each individual person deserves.”

  “Will you be taking Interpol in a progressive direction?”
  “I will run Interpol as it is meant to be run, by upholding and enforcing every law exactly as it is defined. If I disagree with a law, I shall still enforce it – until such time as the appropriate party has determined to change the law.”
• Fantastic Racism: Discussed by the second reporter, though he's portrayed rather unsympathetically in the excerpt he's introduced in.
• Non-Answer: Ned is full of these in his press conference with reporters.
• Take That!: Implied. When describing the second reporter, the author mentions how he's "poorly disguising his connection with recent movements"; The discussion between Ned and the second reporter, whom asked about animal targeting, is essentially meant to be a potshot at social movements that focus on police brutality and racial inequities.

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