Hitman (1993) / YMMV

Anti-Climax Boss: Marc Navarone, who is presented as an incredibly dangerous assassin, maybe on the same level as Ringo. But when he gets the drop on Monaghan, he forgets to take the safety off on his gun. Monaghan theorizes that he's never actually pointed a gun at someone before, and simply shoots him.
Complete Monster:
- Mr. Truman, an unassuming, mild-mannered little CIA agent who is out to destroy metahumans (if he can't control them), makes his career on blackmail and murder, but it's not until the final arc where he shows the darkness inside himself. Truman has human beings injected with a special metahuman formula to create a personal army of metahumans but while the formula works, it steals the minds from its subjects. Tommy becomes aware of this when he rescues a young woman who had been a witness Truman had tried to silence by unleashing one of the monsters on her without care for collateral damage. When he realizes the creatures still retain their human minds and are locked in a corner of their heads, incapable of stopping their actions, Truman orders them to be set loose on one another with the resulting carnage filmed for his amusement.
- Issues #35-36—"Katie" two-parter: Thomas "Tom" Dawson, father of Tommy Monaghan, is a seemingly respectable businessman who hides a monstrous ego. A frequent client of the prostitute Katie, Dawson repeatedly threatened her if she ever tries to trick him. When Katie got pregnant with his child, Dawson burns down her house with her 3 young children inside it to protect his reputation. Tailing Katie to America, Dawson then brutally mutilated her to cover up his tracks. 30 years later, Katie's child Frances, along with Tommy, return to Ireland, with Dawson retaliating by butchering Frances and then attempting to kill Tommy.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Dogwelder! He (and, to a lesser extent, Section Eight as a whole) are surprisingly big in Japan.
- Oh yeah? How about Bueno Excellenté?
- I AM BAYTOR!!
- Ringo and Sean, among the secondary cast.
Memetic Molester: Bueno Excellente, to the point where the infamous image of him licking his lips while saying "Bueno..." became a meme in its own right.
Tear Jerker:
- Sean's death.
- Frances, Tommy's sister. Tommy barely gets to know her before she dies the same way their mother did, and all he can do is kill his bastard father for it.
- The end of Superguy, which has Sixpack, the alcoholic joke superhero, bravely sacrifice himself to a group of unstoppable demons called "The Angled Ones" to save the Cauldron from destruction. When asked why he would do such a thing, Sixpack simply says, tears in his eyes, "Cause that's what superheroes do." It's also hinted at the end of the arc that after all that, Sixpack was brought back to life, now sober and a proud AA member under his real name "Sidney Speck".
- The final words of the series, as all the friends that Tommy and Nat have lost over the series greet them at Noonan's Bar in a Dying Dream, or perhaps genuinely in the afterlife.
Noonan: Drinks are on the house fellas, and there ain't no closing time. But you gotta leave your guns at the door.
- Tommy's mother dies in childbirth in the U.S minutes after he's born. There is nothing to be done for her, and Sister Concepta gives her the last rites before she passes.
- In the end, the Hitman/Justice League crossover reveals one of the few lingering momentos of Tommy; in the ruins of the Watchtower on the moon (more specifically, in a bathroom stall), there is a piece of graffitti reading Tommy Wuz Here...
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- It could be argued that Pat could have been given some nice room to grow if he'd survived being tortured.
- Giving Tommy a half-sibling gave him some interesting potential family roots that could have been revisited from time to time, but she's just killed.
Unintentional Period Piece: Unusually for a DC comic set in the main universe, it was set at approximately the same time period in which it was published, with cultural references to match.
Tommy: 1997 was the year God discovered crack.
Values Dissonance: The entire character of Bueno Excellente dates this to a time when men getting raped was seen as comedy gold. Even back then, it was a little much. These days, so much as suggesting such a character would cost you your career.
The Woobie: Hacken becomes this towards the end of the series. He loses his hand under avoidable circumstances early on, is seen as a joke for the most part and is unable to keep so many friends from being killed.

YMMV / Hitman (1993)

Edit Locked