Lanfeust

Lanfeust de Troy is a French heroic-fantasy comic series by Arleston and Tarquin, published by Soleil Productions. It features the eponymous hero Lanfeust in the world of Troy, and his efforts to save said world from total dominion by an evil army. The main feature of this series is that each inhabitant has a single magical power, be it useful or useless (melting metal, boiling/freezing water, teleporting, farting from the ears...), but sometimes, one person can have the ultimate power, that consists of every single power ever. This is the case for Lanfeust, a young blacksmith who, while mending the sword of a passing aristocrat, discovers that touching the sword's pommel grants him the ultimate power.

The series has also been Recycled in Space (Lanfeust des Étoiles), rewritten as a manga (Lanfeust Quest), and as Spinoff Babies (Gnomes de Troy). And recently, given a sequel, in the form of Lanfeust Odyssey... Annnnnnnd another series has just come out: Cixi de Troy. This one focuses on Cixi from when she leaves the main band to when we meet with her again. There is also a prequel series of sorts, involving the adventures of Hebus's grandfather Tetram, his adoptive human daughter Waha, and her would-be boyfriend Profy (Trolls de Troy).

---

Lanfeust provides examples of:

• Afraid of Needles: Hébus. He considers them to be vicious and underhanded.
• Affectionate Parody: Of Fantasy in Lanfeust De Troy, of Space Opera in Lanfeust Des Etoiles.
• A God Am I: How Thanos reacts to the ultimate power.
• All Trolls Are Different: Huge, anthropophagist, fur-covered humanoids with Super Strength and a violent aversion to water. (It might make them clean and thus alienate their flies.) They can be enchanted by a sage, turning them into obedient servants, but DON'T let them get drunk.
  • Trolls actually developed a highly advanced culture built around Heroic sociopathy: they can perfectly function in civilized human society, but unless they take a fancy to some of the locals, they may kill people at random to pass time.
• Back From the Dead: Lanfeust.
• Betty and Veronica: C'ian and Cixi.
• Big Bad: Baron Averroes, who then turns out to be Thanos.
• Big Eater: The trolls. At one point, it is said they can eat or drink anything except water (it might make them CLEAN!). A troll tries to eat something and it doesn't get digested properly it's a major plot point.
  • Trolls will eat Anything That Moves and drink everything that doesn't. It's not that they're evil, they're just very hungry.
• The Blacksmith: Lanfeust, whose power is to melt metal.
• Bloodless Carnage: Completely and utterly averted. Whenever there's a carnage scene, or pretty much almost any death, expect to see liters of blood covering the place or gushing out of people's and creatures' bodies.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Trolls, every last one of them.
• Cash Cow Franchise
• Catapult to Glory
• Charm Person: A common spell used to make trolls very strong servants. Problem is, it doesn't stand up to alcohol...
  • The basic version of the spell does not resist alcohol: a stronger enchantment can hold even if the troll drowns himself in booze, but by strongly diminishing their savagery, which weakens them. Granted, considering what trolls are, most of the time, it's not a problem.
• The Chosen One: Lanfeust, as well as Thanos.
• Doing in the Wizard: In the sequel Lanfeust des Etoiles, the magic power of the inhabitants of Troy is retconned as Psychic Powers.
• The Dragon: Thanos appears to be this to Averroes, until we learn that they're the same guy.
• Drop the Hammer: Most, if not all of the trolls use blunt weaponry.
• Everyone Is a Super: it's close to Xanth in comic form. Everyone on the world of Troy has the potential for magic power, enabled by people who train as sages at a Wizarding School. Sages learn some charms and spells at school and "turn off" their own powers to allow people within a certain range to use theirs. They are valuable resources; for example, when trolls attack caravans, they often focus on the sages. There are also a few nations with cultural differences in how magic manifests.
  • Darshanites, rather than having individual powers, subconsciously pool their power to create gods that intercede in daily life on that continent.
  • The Baronies are opposed to magic for cultural reasons and don't allow sages among them. It's unclear whether people from there would discover their individual talents if they spent enough time in foreign lands, or whether people born there can't have magic powers at all, or what.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: Troy's wildlife is incredibly diverse and inventive in the ways it tries to eat you. And let's not go into the trolls...
• Eye Scream: Thanos puts out Lanfeust's eyes (with an ivory blade, when he melts the metal one).
• Fan Service: Cixi (among others, she appears nude in one scene, to C'ian's anger, Lanfeust's astonishment, and to our great delight.
  • Cixi De Troy seems to run on this. The FIRST volume gives us a Hot Amazon Brigade who are big believers in Girl-On-Girl Is Hot andStripperiffic outfits.
• Five-Man Band:

The Hero: Lanfeust The Big Guy: Hébus The Smart Guy: Nicolède The Chick: C'ian

• Godiva Hair: Described as a "genetic trait" of mermaids in Trolls de Troy, and even applies if they're turned upside-down.
• Happy Rain: "There it is, your ET shower!" (though the pun unfortunately doesn't work in English).
• Hates Baths: All trolls.
  • They hate to take baths, but love to drink bathwater: as Hebus explains when he drinks C'ian and Cixi bath water, "It's like stew: when you're not allowed to eat the meat, you can still drink the broth"
• I'm a Humanitarian: Trolls consider human flesh a delicacy.
• Interspecies Romance: well, not exactly romance per se, but one of the manuals give this as an explanation for the perpetual presence of darshanide trolls around Shlikäh, the Goddess of Pleasure. Then comes the explanation of why she saved Hébus and perpetually "cured" him of his appetite for human flesh: she started finding the darshanide trolls boring and a bit small and wanted to try a regular troll. She was thoroughly satisfied, though she couldn't sit for three days afterwards.
  • Another example, from the prequel series: Pröfy is actually half-troll. His mother, a full troll, once caught a human nobleman but felt more lusty than hungry at the time... Several days later, the man eventually escaped with his life. And several broken bones. And no clothes whatsoever.
• Katanas Are Just Better: After he loses his sword, Lanfeust forges himself a new one and gives it the shape of a katana. Granted, at the time they're in the knockoff of China/Japan/Every Asian country related trope you can think of.
  • Subverted Trope: when he sees the katanas forged by the personal smith of the emperor, he describes them as "cute toys", breaks in half one of the very obviously expensive swords in front of the shocked shop clerk, before forging an Eckmülian longsword for himself which only looks superficially like a Darshanide blade.
• MacGuffin: The fragment of the Magohamoth's horn. It gives Lanfeust and Thanos the ultimate power.
• Meaningful Name: Thanos (from Thanatos, Death in Greek mythology).
  • Also, Ci'an and Cixi are the names of the last two Dowager Empresses of China.
    • And Cixi's name definitely sounds like her greatest attribute.
• Mundane Utility: Depending on the power you get, it pretty much determines your job. Lanfeust, who can melt metal, is a blacksmith, one girl whose power is to make people thirsty works in a tavern.
• ~Panda-ing To The Audience~: Darshanide trolls (white-furred, with black spots over the eyes), which are a subversion of how this trope usually works, because they're at least as savage and brutal as regular trolls, although they are smaller.
• Physical God: The Darshanide gods.
• Pirate: Thanos's occupation when we first hear of him.
  • As well as Space Pirates in Lanfeust Des Etoiles.
  • Cixi runs into (and joins) a band of man-hating female pirates.
• Pirate Girl: Cixi runs into (and joins) a band of man-hating female pirates.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: Trolls dislike "subtlety". Given their Super Strength and Nigh Invulnerability, they solve most problems by charging at it/swinging blunt objects at it/eating it. Human powers, given their unpredictability, are pretty much the only reason humans have survived, see Everything Trying to Kill You.
• Punny Name: Every troll's name is such that, if you add "troll" to the front or end, you get a word or phrase; Hébus gives Trolleybus, Haïgwépa for Highway Patrol. Some other characters, like the Darshanide ambassador, also count, but it's hard to figure out.
  • Some? More like almost everybody. I mean, the Big Bad of Lanfeust des Etoiles is named after the mascot of a cookie brand, for crying out loud!
  • Also, mentioned once in the book and another time in the manual, the Darshanide goddess of labyrinths is Larakröft
• Shout-Out: Waaaaaaaay too many to count: to previous works of the authors, TV series, video games, etc.
  • Zorro characters show up once or twice.
    • Cixi did spend an episode as a black-clad masked vigilante riding a... flying... bat... thing... named Tornado.
  • Larakröft, Darshanide Goddess of Labyrinths, comes to mind.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: The series is pretty cynical, people die, messily, and yet remains quite funny.
  • Which is notable because unlike many examples, it starts out that way. The first issue prominently features a Miles Gloriosus, speculation about the Power Perversion Potential of Lanfeust's abilities, Lanfeust's leg getting chewed off by a Horde of Alien Locusts, Lanfeust personally killing hundreds of bandit Mooks, and more, equally funny and horrific, sometimes on the same page.
• Tin Tyrant: Averroes never removes his armor or face-concealing helm, for a good reason: he's Thanos.
• Took a Level In Badass : OMG Cixi.
• Troperiffic: Uses, and occasionally deconstructs, a great many High Fantasy tropes.
• White-Haired Pretty Boy: Thanos.