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Sin City/Characters

< Sin City


Marv

  • Anti-Hero: Type IV. He generally doesn't start trouble with people who don't deserve it, and has shown selfless heroism on at least one occasion.
  • Badass
  • Badass Longcoat: "That's a damn fine coat you got there."
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: The reason why Marv gets along with anyone in general. Dwight could always count on him to help him out, because they're friends this way. Nancy counts on Marv to protect him and always has a beer ready for him. Then there's Goldie, she showed genuine kindness to him despite his appearance and rep, just so he could protect her from Kevin and Roark.
  • Berserk Button: Roughing up women is one of the surest ways to piss Marv off.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: It takes a lot to get Marv worked up, but if you do then get the heck out.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: He's jolly, jovial, loves combat and is a pretty bombastic guy when he's drinking.
  • Born in the Wrong Century: Dwight pretty much says this straight out in A Dame to Kill For.
 

"Most people think Marv is crazy. He just had the rotten luck of being born in the wrong century. He'd be right at home on some ancient battlefield swinging an axe into somebody's face. Or in a Roman arena, taking his sword to other gladiators like him. They woulda tossed him girls like Nancy back then. "

 

Dwight McCarthy

 

Dwight: You ever so much as talk to Shellie again -- you even think her name -- and I'll cut you in ways that'll make you useless to a woman.

 

Wallace

Miho

 

Dwight: She guides my glance upward to the pixie perched at the roof's edge. Deadly little Miho.

 
  • Cute Mute: Miho never speaks. She lets her various deadly weapons do the talking.
  • Dark Action Girl: And how!
  • Dual-Wielding: Miho prefers two katana blades when she goes into action.
  • Flechette Storm: Both her regular shurikens and her big manji shuriken.
  • Honor Before Reason: She briefly went against Old Town, her own employers, because Dwight saved her life and she owed him her allegiance.
  • Kimono Fanservice: Her costume isn't quite a kimono but she fulfills this purpose.
  • Ninja: She'll cut you quick, she'll kill you quiet. You won't feel a thing, not unless she wants you to.
  • Noble Demon: Word of God is that she's literally this.
  • Non-Standard Character Design: In her later appearances, Miho is always drawn as just an outline, with no shading whatsoever.
  • One Woman Army
  • Pettanko: The only one of the series.
  • Pinball Projectile: She uses her manji shuriken in this manner a few times.
  • Psycho for Hire: One of the rare heroic examples of such.
  • Sociopathic Hero: She does things that make even the more hardened of the girls of Old Town go "Yeesh!"
  • The Stoic: Miho has no expression on her face other than a deadly calm when she goes to work.
  • Tsundere: In Family Values, her softer side is shown when she cuddles up and goes to sleep on Dwight's lap and seems to have a very comfortable demeanor around him, in contrast to her earlier depictions where she is moments away from slicing him in half. Whether or not there is romance is up for debate. It hasn't stopped fans from Shipping the two of them.
    • It's also a nod to her being frequently described as "catlike" in her mercurial attitudes and casual cruelty.
  • Villain Protagonist
  • The Voiceless: She also never speaks.

John Hartigan

Nancy Callahan

 

Hartigan: Skinny little Nancy Callahan. She grew up. She filled out.

 
  • Stripperiffic: Well... yeah.
  • Wife Husbandry: Averted; she loves Hartigan because he saved her when she was a kid, but he refuses to take advantage of this.

Kevin

The Yellow Bastard

Manute

  • Affably Evil: As much as he hates Dwight, he is still polite enough to refer to him as Mr. McCarthy
  • Arch Nemesis: He and Dwight butt heads many times.
  • Badass: Not only is he one of the few badguys that lives through more than one story, but he is the only one to survive confrontations with Miho, Marv, and Wallace. In fact, surviving a confrontation with just one of these people is badass enough, to say nothing of all three of them.
  • Battle Butler: He could also be considered a Badass Driver since he's a chauffeur, but he rarely drives.
  • Bald of Evil
  • Cultured Badass: He seems to be highly educated and looks down on the "dregs of Sin City."
  • Creepy Monotone: His film version, although the comic version is likely to have the same kind of voice.
  • The Determinator: This is why he is one of the few recurring villains in Sin City.
  • The Dragon: He serves Ava Lord or Wallenquist, depending on when the story takes place.
  • Dragon-in-Chief: He has worked for an overweight crime boss and a Femme Fatale. Yeah, he's much more physically dangerous than his bosses.
  • Evil Counterpart: One could easily make the argument that he is Marv's opposite number. In fact, Dwight brings Marv along specifically to deal with him.
  • The Heavy: In The Big Fat Kill, while he is under orders from Wallenquist, he is the dominant bad guy in the story. Also, as big as he is, he's probably pretty heavy as well.
  • I Lied: He apparently told Becky that he would let her live. He lied.
  • Iron Butt Monkey: He gives Dwight a good beating in his first appearance in A Dame to Kill For before quickly becoming something of a punching bag in the Sin City universe.
  • Mismatched Eyes: One of them is fake, the result of Marv ripping out the original eye during A Dame to Kill For.
  • No Kill Like Overkill: When Manute finally goes down in The Big Fat Kill, it's under a positively withering hail of bullets courtesy of the girls of Old Town.
  • Recurring Character: Again, one of the few bad guys who keeps showing up. Even after he dies, thanks to the non-linear timeline.
  • Scary Black Man
  • Wicked Cultured
  • Worf Effect: As badass as he is, he is sometimes a measuring stick to show how badass other heroes are.

Herr Wallenquist (aka Mob Boss Walenquist)

  • Affably Evil
  • The Don
  • Expy: Given his tendency to wear single-color suits (usually white), his immense size, and his baldness, it's possible that he's basically a German version of the Daredevil villain Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin. It's notable that Frank Millar did some of his better known early work in comics on Daredevil.
  • Face Framed in Shadow: Often drawn this way.
  • Germanic Depressives: He is very humorless and work-oriented.
  • Genre Savvy: It's possible that this is the reason he's such an effective mob boss. Ava Lord is an obvious Femme Fatale, and while her seemingly supernatural ability to attract and manipulate men works on seemingly everyone, he simply tells her right away that "her charms didn't interest him". Furthermore, after Walter deals a heavy blow to his operations, he simply tells his lieutenants that it would be too costly to go after the obvious heroic protagonist One-Man Army.
  • The Ghost: In many stories, he is mentioned and you can even see his plans coming to fruition but he never pops in. In fact, he never comes face-to-face with any of the heroes in Sin City, luckily enough.
  • Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: He's almost always seen with a cigar.
  • Gratuitous German: Averted. His English seems perfect. It's likely that he's been in the US for a long time.
  • It's Personal: Also averted. Even when Wallace screws him over and takes out one of his organizations, he refuses to take revenge since it isn't financially viable.
  • Large and In Charge
  • Money Tropes: Hard to say just how many of these he fits, but he's a chilling villain who puts the "organized" in Sin City's organized crime, without ever even being threatened by any of the heroes, and he doesn't care about anything but making a profit.
  • Nazi Hunter: If the fan theory about him is true. See WMG for more details.
  • Not Distracted by the Sexy: He is probably the only male that does not give in to Ava Lord's advances.
  • Scary Shiny Glasses
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