Garanos

Garanos is a fantasy webcomic by Alex Heberling. It follows Lady of War Garanos as she walks the earth in search of her fiancée, who was kidnapped by mercenaries. Or at least, that's what she thinks, as it becomes clear that she may be far more important than she knows...

Garanos ended April 14th, 2010, after 18 chapters.

---

Contains examples of:

• Action Girl
• Aerith and Bob: There are fantastic names like Garanos and Senberan among more mundane names like Lucas. Possibly justified in that the last two are from an entirely different country and the author admits to making up the Caywien names.
• Art Evolution: Started out in a straight-up Animesque style, then took a noticeable shift away from anime style between the first and second volumes.
• Author Appeal: Several characters have shown up in elbow-length gloves so far.
• Big Bad: Gharsena
• Big Damn Heroes: Zellner and the crew
• Black Eyes: Gharsena again. So far she seems to be the only character to have no light in their eyes.
• Body Horror: Garanos' spikes/spider legs, which she can retract.
  • Unfortunately, Gharsena's are bigger...
• Chekhov's Gun: Garanos' gold brooch.
• Color Coded for Your Convenience: When The Harbinger is in control Garanos' eyes are green, while normally they're a grey/purple color.
• Curb Stomp Battle: Gharsena versus Geilen, who gets tossed aside like a ragdoll
• Demonic Possession: Garanos has to fight this off during an early story arc. Unfortunately the remnants of it come back as a Super-Powered Evil Side later on.
• The Dog Bites Back: Geilen to Gharsena, attempted and failed.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Styx
• Drop What You Are Doing: Here, though it's easy to miss the first time.
• Femme Fatalons: Gharsena. Lots of villain tropes covered by this one.
• Fighting From the Inside
• God Was My Co-Pilot: Maryoku was actually the host body of The Red Moth, the being that originally sealed away The Harbinger, through a Fusion Dance.
• Honey Trap: Geilen implies that she got information out of Senberan this way
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Geilen, as well as being the daughter of one. She enjoys her job, and doesn't angst about it. She's also a Knife Nut. Possibly subverted given that she's The Mole, but we don't know what she was like before Gharsena got to her
• Immortality: Type II. The Red Moth allowed Maryoku to never age after she took it into her body
• It Is Dehumanizing: Gharsena tells her cronies to "bring it (Ethreden) out" though at that point it really shouldn't surprise anyone to hear her refer to another person like that.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Ethreden most or less speaks these exact words to Garanos before he dies
• Kissing Discretion Shot
• Lady of War: Garanos, who also averts the Breast Plate trope by wearing sensible combat gear
• Libation for the Dead: On Ethreden's grave.
• The Mole: Geilen
• Non Standard Character Design: As noted above, Gharsena has no reflections of light in her eyes, no doubt to emphasize just how bad she is.
• Of Corsets Sexy: Gharsena's costume. Notably, it's the first thing we see of her nearly 125 pages before she makes an actual on-panel appearance.
• One-Winged Angel: Gharsena, who has her own, bigger set of spider legs
• Peek-a-Bangs: Geilen gets these after revealing her mole status
• People of Hair Color: From what we've seen so far, the people Caywien tend to have dark hair, while the locals of Kaigan have lighter hair. Given that the people of Caywien appear to be at least partially based on the Welsh, who tend to have dark hair, it's possible that the others are supposed to be from mainland Europe. The author has said that Garanos' skin is slightly darker than the "Caucasian" characters in the story as well.
• Perfectly Arranged Marriage: She was initially unhappy with her fiancée Ethreden, but eventually they started falling for each other for real.
• Pieta Plagiarism: Near the end of the first volume here.
• Power Tattoo: People from Caywien have one of these, which is connected to their magical affinity. Garanos' turns out to be related to a creature called "The Harbinger", and her connection to this is the driving force of the plot.
• Rebellious Princess: Garanos turns out to be the heir to Caywien
• Redemption Equals Death: Geilen, who's been working reluctantly for Gharsena because Gharsena promised to cure her disease, learns that Gharsena infected her in the first place. She proceeds to attack Gharsena, who tosses her aside and accelerates the disease to the point of death.
• The Reveal: Ethreden has been alive the whole time and in Gharsena's hands. Additionally, Geilen is The Mole.
• Second Love: Styx, for Garanos
• Sickly Green Glow: The Harbinger
• Statuesque Stunner: Along with Evil Is Sexy, Gharsena is shown to stand head and shoulders over almost everyone else in the cast.
• STD Immunity: Oh so averted by Geilen, who contracted an STD from a client that's slowly killing her, so she's looking for a cure. It later turns out that Gharsena not only has the cure, but is the one who created the disease in the first place, though it's still spread sexually.
  • And she hides it, making her a Typhoid Mary.
• Stockholm Syndrome: It's implied that Ethreden may have developed this for Geilen, and the fact that the has the same disease as she does suggests that they may have had a relationship
• Stoic Spectacles: Zellner, the captain of the ship the group travels on.
• The Virus: Geilen's disease was actually created by Gharsena, who uses it to control people after they die
• What the Hell, Townspeople?: Garanos gets this from the people of Kaigan, who distrust her from the start because she's an outsider.
• When She Smiles: Garanos gets a few of these.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Geilen.