Transpose Operator



Transpose Operator is an ongoing futuristic horror webcomic created by Roxy Polk. An unnamed young woman wakes up in a strange medical facility, with no knowledge of who she is or how she came to be there. Spotted picking her way out from amongst the hundreds of sleeping bodies around her, she finds herself pursued by masked humanoids. She escapes to the roof only to find the ruined remains of civilisation spread before her. That, and a small army of soldiers aiming weapons at the facility...

The second chapter slows the pace down somewhat from the hectic opening chapter, and begins to fill in the details as the young woman, given the name "Karin", joins up with a ragtag military group struggling to survive the apocalyptic ruins...and the monsters that inhabit them...

"(Looking at masked humanoids pouring gasoline over hundreds of sleeping patients) The Girl: What are they planning...? Wait... Don't tell me... The Girl: They're planning on burning the whole place down with everyone inside!?"
 * Action Girl: "Karin". The fact that she's frequently outnumbered disguises her kick-first-ask-questions later nature.
 * After the End: The Scenery Gorn is pretty clear about its post-apocalyptic nature.
 * Body Horror: Referenced in the creation of "Specters".
 * Captain Obvious

"Medic 1: Prolonged exposure to the atmosphere will damage your respiratory organs. Medic 2: And your sanity."
 * Deadly Euphemism: "Dismantle the experiments" sounds innocent enough. Unless you're in a medical facility with an awful lot of very quiet patients...
 * Deadly Gas: The world's entire atmosphere, as far as we know.

"Soldier: Commence operation."
 * Determinator: Trapped behind a locked door and about to pass out from smoke fumes...and she gets up and keeps going. Might be justified (see Healing Factor).
 * Gas Mask Mooks: The soldiers. They've got a good reason, too.
 * Gorn:
 * Intestinal surgery is only shown for a single page, but that's more than enough.
 * Oh, and burning a living person's face off...while they're unable to move a muscle.
 * Healing Factor: "Karin" has this, recovering from badly burned hands in a matter of hours. It's still unclear how it works, although it may have something to do with the strange nanomachines in her blood.
 * Heroic Mime: Used for effect in the first dozen pages. Not a single word is spoken by "Karin" or her pursuers until she's caught.
 * Heroes Prefer Swords: The weaponry of choice for futuristic soldiers. They aren't deft katanas or vibroblades, either; they seem to be your good old-fashioned sharpened lumps of iron.
 * Identity Amnesia: It takes over a dozen pages for the heroine to spot her own lack of backstory. She's rather thrown by the discovery.
 * It's Quiet... Too Quiet: Everything seems too easy...because the facility operators are too busy destroying their experiments to try to oppose the human attackers.
 * Kill It with Fire: Medical laboratory under attack, and no way to radio out? Set yourselves and your patients on fire.
 * Magic Skirt: As far as the reader is concerned anyway. Given the tendency of "Karin" to run everywhere and climb every set of stairs she sees, it is possible that the lab staff got the full service.
 * Mental Fusion/Telepathy: The staff of the medical facility can apparently send their thoughts to each other. The mechanism hasn't been explained yet, though.
 * Medical Horror: It's pretty obvious that open chest surgery isn't designed for conscious patients.
 * Only Sane Woman: "Karin" is certain this is her. She's basically correct when it comes to the facility staff.
 * Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner: Close-up on soldier with cool helmet; large speech balloon; small text line:


 * Scenery Gorn: Used to good effect to show how trapped "Karin" is.
 * Standard Female Grab Area: Unfortunately for such a good Action Girl, "Karin" is instantly vulnerable to an arm grab It's not clear if this is due to the non-human nature of the "medical" staff of the facility.
 * Strapped to An Operating Table: Standard medical procedure in the future, it seems. Justified when done by the humans in that they (correctly) predicted that "Karin" would try to flee upon waking up.
 * Tsundere: From what little we know, Nel, who seems to be a type A.