YMMV / Grandville

• Complete Monster: Detective-Inspector Archie LeBrock and his partner Roderick Ratzi have faced several deplorable criminals throughout their careers. These are the worst:
  • Grandville (Book 1): Emperor Napoleon XII is the leader of the Knights of the Lion. Longing to restore the society of France, he and the Knights all conspired to turn the country against Britain. In order to achieve his goal, he and the Knights bombed the Robida Tower and left evidence behind to make it appear as if Britain was responsible; anyone indirectly involved in the attack was murdered shortly afterwards. Napoleon used the Knights' influence to gain more power, spreading anti-British propaganda, declaring war on the Communards in French Indo-China, and allowing the Chief of Police to create the Imperial Secret Police Death Squad. After a British Secret Service agent discovers the Knights plan on launching another attack, he and his lover are both killed, along with any witnesses who were questioned by LeBrock and Ratzi. Once all the witnesses were killed, Napoleon planned on bombing the Paris Opera House in order to start a war with Britain. Despite claiming he wants to help French society, Napoleon was willing to kill thousands of French civilians and start a war with another country, which would've resulted in the deaths of millions.
  • Mon Amour: Edward "Mad Dog" Mastock is a former British anarchist and Sociopathic Soldier. After Mastock was imprisoned for butchering several prostitutes, he escaped from captivity just before his execution, slaughtering several innocents and prison guards in the process. Once out of prison, Mastock returned to Grandville, where he murdered five prostitutes on behalf of his employers to keep them from exposing incriminating evidence against them. When Mastock discovers that his old rival LeBrock has taken a liking to Billie, he kidnaps her, threatening to kill her if LeBrock doesn't meet him with the evidence. Even after LeBrock shows up with the evidence, he tries to kill him and Billie anyway just for fun.
  • Nöel: "Doc" Elvis Yorkshire is a con artist and the one responsible for starting Apollo's cult. After Elvis and Apollo began to con civilians through religious methods, Elvis hypnotized Apollo into creating his own cult and got him addicted to morphine so he would be easier to control. After recruiting hundreds of members, Elvis had Apollo murder all of them in a suicide pact before the police could apprehend them for abduction. Elvis and Apollo's new partner, Nicholas, then tried to sway the public into voting Apollo to be the country's next leader, promising to cull humanity once elected. When his plans fail and he's caught by LeBrock and Chance, Elvis tries to kill them both when they refuse to take the bribe he offers them.
  • Force Majeure: Tiberius Koenig is a ruthless, sociopathic mob boss. Longing to control all the gangs in Paris, Tiberius and his crew forced the other gangs to work for him, killing those who refused to submit to him. After his brother, Gaius, is killed by LeBrock, Tiberius decides to kill the latter and all of his loved ones simply because it's "a matter of principle". Using his own recruited gangs, Tiberius has a restaurant full of civilians shot to pieces so that the owner, Stanley Cray, would start roaming around the city killing those responsible. As LeBrock chases after Cray and tries to get him arrested, Tiberius has Cray murdered, framing LeBrock in the process. He also attempts to kidnap LeBrock's mother and children with the intent to torture them to death, and successfully kidnaps Billie after his gang kills her police escorts. When Tiberius discovers that Billie is pregnant with LeBrock's child, he brutally beats her to the point where she has a miscarriage. He also murders his other brother, Quintillus, for failing to keep the other Paris gangs united under his rule. After LeBrock rescues the prince and princess of the Kalahari gang from Tiberius, thus ruining the leverage he had over them, he decides to just annihilate the gang altogether. When Tiberius's gang finally captures LeBrock, he nearly beats the latter to death for his own enjoyment, and tries to kill him by throwing him into a meat grinder.
• Funny Moments:
  • Mon Amour: After Odo Morse dies of a heart attack at Billie's brothel, a pair of men struggle to wheel his body out.
  • Bête Noire:
    • When Roderick offers to buy the out-of-work artists drinks, they immediately flood him with requests.
    • LeBrock's reaction to when Cherie starts to play footsie with him, especially when she gets her foot all the way to his crotch.
    • When LeBrock kisses Billie to prove to her he only has eyes for her and not Cherie, the chimpanzee artist eagerly asks for a turn. It's followed up by Cherie glaring angrily at Billie, who smirks triumphantly.
    • LeBrock throws the experimental "pipe bomb" at the captain of Krapaud's guard. It hits him in the forehead, much to the cat's annoyance.
    • The sight of Krapaud's pet toad with the "pipe bomb" in its mouth.
    • After Krapaud's plot is foiled, Roderick heads off to buy his wife some "saucy undergarments".
  • Nöel: LeBrock's daughter Arabella, she and her brother having been informed by Billie what she is, asks what a prostitute is. Cue Spit Take from LeBrock.
  • Force Majeure: When LeBrock calls Jules to ask him to meet Billie who's gone back to Paris to get her belongings from her apartment, Cherie asks to talk to him. LeBrock immediately hangs up.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Bête Noire: After LeBrock pours his heart out to Billie about the deaths of the last two women he loved, she assures him not worry about her and kisses him. He then begins to ask "Billie...will you..."
  • Nöel: Billie informs LeBrock that she's pregnant and that he's the only badger she's ever made love to. His response is that they should get married.
• Iron Woobie: Billie lost her parents when she was five years old, spent her childhood in an orphanage, ran away in her teens, joined a circus where she learned all kinds of skills only to flee after defending herself from an attacker, lived on the streets where she became a prostitute...and that's all before she met LeBrock. She has her friends murdered by Mastock who then takes her hostage to lure in LeBrock (did we mention he was also responsible for the deaths of her parents?). She fights automatons, infiltrates a cult, is beaten to the point that she loses her and LeBrock's child but ends the series Happily Married to him.
• Magnificent Bastard: Archibald "Archie" LeBrock is a renowned Detective-Inspector of Scotland Yard frequently contracted to investigate murders and conspiracies within Britain and Grandville. With his sharp attention to detail, ability to remember facts relating to crime scenes, and having the capability to readjust his plans on the fly, LeBrock always succeeds in deducing who the culprits behind the crimes are, even if he has to torture or murder various assailants and criminals to do so. After saving Grandville on multiple occasions and slaying dozens of anarchists and corrupt government officials along the way, LeBrock spontaneously kills the brother of French mob boss Tiberius Koenig during one of his cases. Knowing retribution is imminent, LeBrock infiltrates the Koenig Gang disguised as an Italian mobster, where he learns all about Tiberius and his allies from within the gang. After faking his death, LeBrock secretly teams up with a gang who opposes Tiberius' empire, and successfully dismantles the entire gang and has Tiberius brutally murdered, along with all of his followers.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • Mon Amour: Mad Dog Mastock prepares to bash LeBrock's head in with a wrench when Billie empties his own gun into him, saving LeBrock and avenging the deaths of her parents and the other prostitutes Mastock killed.
  • Bête Noire: When Billie and Roderick are surrounded by the Kalahari Clan, she grabs a motorcycle and is able to jump over the Clan's barrier with a makeshift ramp. Then when she and Roderick get to city hall, she joins in the firefight with the robot army.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Nöel begins with a reenactment of the Jonestown Massacre.
  • Apollo's appearance when he was a child. Imagine the Hunchback of Notre Dame if his hump was on his head instead of his back.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: LeBrock himself. The first volume paints him out to be a stoic, merciless Sociopathic Hero who doesn't care about the ramifications of his actions, no matter how outlandish they are. He goes through various levels of Character Development afterwards and shows he's Not So Stoic, his backstory and personal life is revealed, and he Took a Level in Kindness and showed that he does care deeply for his partner Ratzi and his lover Billie (along with his children). It also helps that, after Volume 1, the villains he was determined to kill were shown to be far more vile, thus making his actions a bit more justified.
• Strangled by the Red String: LeBrock and his first Love Interest Sarah. He barely knew her and only spent one night with her, yet her murder sends him into a Heroic BSoD and he briefly continues carrying a torch for her when he first meets Billie. It's pretty easy to forget Sarah even existed when his relationship with Billie becomes more serious.
• Tear Jerker:
  • "Bête Noire": When LeBrock tells Billie she should get married and settle down, she snaps back asking what "respectable man" would marry a woman like her. He responds "Yes. I heard you."
  • Due to a miscommunication from Roderick, Billie thinks that LeBrock is just using her as a side piece and tells him to bugger off out of her life.LeBrock tells her that his wife was murdered a decade ago by a criminal he was investigating. He continues with how Sarah was the first woman he'd wanted after his wife's death, only for her to be killed because of him as well. As a result, he's now deathly concerned that the same may happen to Billie.
  • Force Majeure: Upon realizing that Billie is pregnant with LeBrock's child, Koenig beats her until she miscarries.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: LeBrock's children Jack and Arabella only briefly appear in the last two stories.
• This Is Your Premise on Drugs: One could surmise Grandville as being Sherlock Holmes and Blacksad if they snorted way too much cocaine.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Hey, a comic with talking animals! I bet I wouldn't see death, sex, foul language, blood, and violence in it! Oh, did the badger stab the dog with his sword? For kids!