| abstract
| - Vexxarr is a comedy Sci-Fi webcomic by Hunter Cressall. The initial setup sounds similar to Invader Zim: An alien Evil Overlord sends his flunky to conquer earth, mostly to get him out of the way. However, it plays out quite differently. For starters, the flunky Vexxarr is quite well aware that he is incompetent, or in his own words: "Let's say I know a thing or two about being volunteered for one-way missions." Secondly, Vexxarr tries an open invasion, with War of the Worlds-esque walkers. It fails miserably, and Vexxarr is captured. Initially, the comic showed Vexxarr living on earth. After a while though, Vexxarr was allowed to leave, and since then the comic has centered on Vexxarr's journey through the galaxy, and trying to find a place that isn't inhabited by something that wants him dead. Or worse. During his travels, he has picked up several new passengers, as much as Vexxarr would wish otherwise. Currently, Vexxarr's crew includes his robotic lackey Minionbot, his ship AI Carl, a legion of repair drones, Sploorfix and Sid. To give an idea of Vexxarr's typical day: The first three either diss him, play pranks on him, or try to kill him, Sploorfix shifts between Emo-mode and Wide-Eyed Idealist-mode, and Sid is a member of a prey species that is terminally afraid, despite being virtually indestructible. In short, if at any time Vexxarr's incompetence is insufficient to ruin his day, one of his "friends" will do it for him.
* A God Am I: Minionbot reprograms the repair drones to recognise Vexxarr as their deity. It goes about as well as you would imagine.
* AI Is a Crapshoot: Pretty much all of them, and often lampshaded.
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* Vexxarr only feels safe and comfortable around the robots that are actively trying to kill him. If they offer to help, that's when he gets worried.
* Alien Arts Are Appreciated: The Mahakalosians offer to build ships for Earth in exchange for(among other things) original pressings of Adam Ant records and nine tons of oreo cookies.
* Alien Invasion: One by Vexxarr, which failed. A second one is defeated by using technology stolen from Vexxarr.
* Ambiguous Innocence: Sid is so innocent that he actually comes around at cynicism from the other side.
* Anti-Hero: Vexxarr slips between a type IV and a type V. This tends to depend on how insane the situation has currently driven him.
* Beware the Nice Ones: Don't tell an (overly) friendly Schlumpoid that "hospital" and "food factory" mean the same thing...
* Blind Jump: Vexxarr once punched in random coordinates for a jump, which naturally landed them directly in front of the fleet they were trying to avoid. Later Vexxarr also suggests a true Blind Jump (when his ship computer is busy with a megalomaniac rant), and Minion bot points him at the button for that procedure. That button doubles as the Self Destruct button, seeing how it does the same thing.
* Brick Joke: The first trial of using a cybernetic prothesis to hug another schlumpoid fails. A few dozen comics later, when the hugger and the queen schlumpoid encounter their species' Hive Mind....
* Brain Bleach: Rock crab reproductive activities.
* Brown Note: Hearing, or reading, Sploorfix's lifejournal posts will cause almost any AI to self-terminate.
* Brutal Honesty: A case of Be Careful What You Wish For
* But for Me It Was Tuesday: A variation - it's not that they intend for anyone to get hurt, but because of Vexxarr's Cosmic Plaything status, there tends to be...er... some karmic overflow...
*
*
* (And yes, they have).
* Again when Vexxarr feels there's still something missing from the news that the ship is without power and at the mercy of a malevolent species.
* Card-Carrying Villain: The plant AI's, from their first conversation, are quite clear about their plans with Vexxarr. It doesn't get better either.
* Chewbacca Defense: For no real reason really, but effective nontheless.
* Cool and Unusual Punishment: Vexxarr's main way of keeping Carl in line.
* Cosmic Plaything: Vexxarr.
* Vexarr becomes aware of this even before then:
* Cowardly Lion: Sid, like all rock-crabs, is afraid of almost everything, despite the fact that very little can hurt him.
* To make it even weirder he feeds on radiation, like that produced by Bleen weapons and antimatter explosions. So he loves the things that most sane beings would fear the most.
* Dangerously Genre Savvy: Vexxarr's usual high level of Genre Savviness can sky-rocket into this occasionally. Usually this is directly proportional to how insane a bad situation has become.
* Deadpan Snarker: Vexxarr, Minionbot and Carl. Vexxarr and Carl have ribbing matches that go on for panels.
* Delicious Distraction: Used deliberatly by Vexxarr whenever a stressful situation arises. And they arise often...to the point Sploorfix has picked up the habit.
* Depth Deception: For the reader.
* The Drag Along: Vexxarr hates it when things get interesting.
* Don't Explain the Joke: Or the threat, either.
* Dysfunction Junction: The crew consists of a Master Computer who, by way of entertainment, regularly plots Vexxarr's demise or makes him think the ship is doomed, a sarcastic robot very similar to the computer, a Wide-Eyed Idealist composed of nothing but eyestalks, and a prey species terminally afraid of being eaten despite the fact that it is Nigh Invulnerable. And Vexxarr himself, a lazy Snark Knight for whom seething rage and frustration is the default.
* Even Evil Has Standards:
* Everything Trying to Kill You: And everyone. By the time Vexxarr has gotten through facilitating an all-out war between the Bleen and the Lattrox, the only people's hit list he isn't on is the humans and their allies. And that's a pretty damn tiny percentage of the space-faring races, considering that it amounts to about... 3.
* And he knows it.
* Evil Overlord: The emperor of Bleen.
* Evil Versus Evil:
* False Reassurance: Well...
* Fastball Special: The result of the Nigh Invulnerability of the rock-crabs, and their access to a mass driver cannon.
* Five-Man Band: probably the most anti-heroic in the history of science fiction but in any case, this is how the line-up looks after Sid has joined up:
* The Hero: Vexxarr - (our Deadpan Snarker leader who the universe is continuously trying to kill)
* The Lancer: Carl - (the homicidal ship A.I. who continually bickers with, torments and tries to kill Vexxarr... before going along with every one of his insane strategies)
* The Smart Guy: Minionbot - (the Automaton who knows far too much about how all the circuitry of the ship and droids work, including a couple of life-saving-important secrets that he conveniently forgets to mention)
* The Big Guy: Sid - (the silicon life-form who despite being a Cowardly Lion, is indestructible)
* The Chick: Sploorfix/Sid - (and Sploorfix, who makes many heart-felt entreaties for everyone to stop fighting... all of which are Death Incarnate for any machine within visual or audio range)
* Genre Savvy: Vexxarr has become increasingly savvy about his attempts to find safety, to the point of having a betting pool on how long after encountering anything they would be attacked or ordered to surrender.
* Good Is Not Nice: Vexxarr is a borderline type IV Anti-Hero who can be quite vindictive when he wants to be. But he still has a conscience - albeit one he has tried to literally bash out of his own head - and he will - in the end - do the right thing. He is not going to be nice about it though. Ever. And depriving him of cake is probably going to send him off the deep end.
* Gravity Sucks: Averted hard; at one point Vexxarr actually tries to hide in a black hole's accretion disk, relying on his invincible hull to protect him against the radiation. It almost worked, too.
* Gun Porn: In the early, black and white days of the comic, the art of earth's millitary equipment looked significantly more detailed than the characters.
* Gunship Rescue: Giant Mecha Rescue actually.
* Hammerspace: Vexxarr can conjure a paper list of research projects performed by Bleen AI seemingly out of thin air. The explanation: It's just that important to remember how any research project headed by an AI has Gone Horribly Wrong and ended with the creation of a tiny sun. (Except the one that ended with a super massive black hole.)
* Hive Mind:
* The Heart: Sploorflix keeps trying to get everyone to work together, help all the creatures they come across, and wants everyone to live in love and peace. Unfortunately, for him, he's in the wrong universe and within a lightyear vicinity of Vexxarr and Carl, where his extreme idealism does not hold up well in the face of Vexxarr's wormhole of cynicism. However, he does still manage to drag Vexxarr's conscience out into the open more than once, though, pulling their somewhat dysfunctional crew into doing the right thing. ...Eventually.
* Humans Are Special: Originally it seemed like Humans Are Warriors but the Mahakalosians stated that "Urthers" were not a warrior race due to the simple fact that they are neither unified nor extinct. Rather they are special because they are willing to work together with others.
* Humiliation Conga: An almost permanent one.
* Insult Backfire: An interesting example. Anytime Vexxarr claims that all machine life is murderous and always planning the destruction of organic life, his two robot crew will happily admit that he is correct.
* Iron Butt Monkey: The crew are regularly hurled across the cabin by uncompensated acceleration, decompressed, crushed, beaten up, chewed on by monsters, or scorched by energy entities, and yet never take permanent harm. Also, the ship remains unaffected by frequent collisions with asteroids, space debris and other ships.
* However, the temporary damage they incur will often be very painful to repair.
* Kicked Upstairs: Lampshaded
* Let's Get Dangerous: ... Everyone should be running, right about now.
* Logic Bomb: Sploorfix's Live Journal is a Weapon of Mass Depression.
* Long Runner: Strip hit #1000 on Monday June 6th.
* Manipulative Bastard: Vexxarr is slowly and steadily becoming a candidate for Magnificent Bastard, if not for the war he started between the two most aggressive races in the galaxy in order to get them to wipe each other out, then For this right here.
* Medical Horror: The Lattrox use the same word for 'hospital' and 'food factory'.
* Mohs Scale of Sci Fi Hardness: Although there are realistic parts or ideas throughout the comic, in general the Rule of Fun and Rule of Cool override realism.
* Generally to awesome effect.
* Multiple Reference Pun: present in the titles often. References include Ghost in the Shell, Do androids dream of Electric sheep?, Isaac Asimov, Pink Floyd, South Park, Watchmen, Doctor Who, Sam Pekinpah, Ockham's Razor, Rage Against the machine... the full list is really long.
* Noodle Incident: When Carl and Minionbot are reviewing the results of simulated drone operations, we don't get to see what they're looking at, but we do hear the names Carl gave the various simulations, such as Ode to places a cutting torch should never go, Three drones, one airlock and no sense, and the cautionary tale about plasma torches, hypergolic fuel and explosive decompression called Don't.
* "No Respect" Guy: Vexxarr
* Not So Different: Vexxarr and Carl, to their mutual horror.
* Oddly Small Organization: The Bleen destroyer crew.
* Oh Crap: Vexxarr's 'face' is very well suited for the appropriate expression. And of course, his status as Cosmic Plaything gives him plenty of opportunity to use it, like here.
* Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: Bleen never had religion, thanks to their race memory. Also, while on earth, he gets a visit from an annoying evangelist.
*
* Though Minionbot was briefly a Buddhist, and later he convinced the repair drones that Vexxarr (aka The Keeper of the Off Switch) was a god.
* Outrun the Fireball: Lampshaded.
* Properly Paranoid: Just checking.
* Pungeon Master: Sploorfix approaches this at times, much to Vexxarr's and Carl's utter dismay and horror.
* Refusal of the Call: Vexxarr generally tries to refuse, but that never works out.
* Rubber Forehead Aliens: Averted, all aliens look decidedly non-human. The only strange thing is that despite Vexxarr's single eye, his eyebrow shows the exact same position-by-emotion as two human eyebrows would. See his angry-look (his look for roughly 90% of the comic.) in the trope picture.
* Sarcasm Mode: Vexxarr, frequently and repeatedly.
* Sarcastic Devotee: Carl has unwillingly become this to Vexxarr over time. That said, if he ever found this out, he would probably fly straight into an asteroid.
* Scary Dogmatic Aliens. The Conquistador variant. They're only doing it for the cake.
* Scenery Porn: Many comics that take place in space use real astronomical pictures as background, see the trope picture.
* Shooting Superman: It takes a while for everyone to realize that Sid, and the other Rock Crabs Are Immune to Bullets, beam weapons, explosions and blunt trauma. By now it's begun happening off-sceen, and we get to see the Reaction Shot instead.
* Snarky Non Organic Sidekick: Minionbot to Vexxarr. Not that either are entirely happy with the arrangement.
* Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: In-universe.
* Stop Helping Me!: It does actually help, it's just humiliating.
* Sufficiently Advanced Alien: There are an assortment of 'Ascended Races' in the comic, generally with rather strange agendas. Vexxarr despises these, with fairly good reason.
* Take That: Once earth starts to expand, they have James Cameron help the army with their first-encounter protocols. If the army's and Cameron's protocols ever agreed, the army changed theirs. Also, it is suggested several times that the Pontiac Aztec is the ugliest thing in the universe.
* Ouch, Sony.
* Technical Pacifist. Parodied with the locutrons.
* "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Vexxarr's own robotic allies frequently give him one. And then there's the hostile AI left by the Schlumpoid Forebearers, who gives them to any Schlumpoid in range. They actually make use of it by assigning him to teach a class called 'Stasis: The failure of Schlumpoid Culture.'
* Thrown Out the Airlock: Both Vexxarr and Carl try to do this to Sid. It never sticks.
*
* Later done with consent to Minionbot to disengage the malfunctioning hyperdrive.
* Translator Microbes: Justified, since Vexxarr is telepathic. However, all newly picked up crew members can not only talk to Vexxarr, but also to each other without problems (No mouths are ever seen on them either, and Sid lived in a vacuum, so perhaps they communicate telepathically too).
* The Mahakalosians are an exception. At least until they learned Bleen.
* Unsound Effect: Oh so many...
* Weapons Grade Vocabulary: Weapons grade pleading?
* What Does This Button Do?: Vexxarr tries to discourage this behavior in Sid. It doesn't stick.
*
* Recently Vexxarr himself went through this, when trying to figuer out how to disengage a planetwide cloaking system from a console that was also invisible. There were some... problems.
* Wetware CPU: Most A Is it seems.
* Who's Laughing Now?: After managing to successfully impersonate the leader of a group of vegetable-based AI that have been trying to kill him, he vents pretty much all of the frustration he's accumulated over the course of the strip through creative vengeance
* Wide-Eyed Idealist: Spoorflix. [Insert Eye-oriented pun here].
* Wisdom from the Gutter: Comes from Sploorfix. At least if you ask Vexxarr, anyway.
* Xanatos Speed Chess: Vexxarr eventually becomes far too good at a strange mix between this and Indy Ploy, courtesy of a mix of extreme paranoia, excessive cynicism, unfathomable Genre Savviness ... and a long career as the universe's favourite Plaything. Often leads to a Moment of Awesome. Carl is a frequent contributor.
* You Have Failed Me: SOP for the Bleen.
*
* Granted, spacing is not fatal to the Bleen, but after the number of acolytes in orbit became a navigational hazard the Emperor started vaporizing them instead.
* Your Head Asplode: Robots actually win arguments this way.
* Also, Minionbot once lost four heads in a row to Vexxarr's logic bombing raid.
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