The Abaddon

The Abaddon is a webcomic by Koren Shadmi. It tells the story of Ter, a young man trying to escape apartment 262, a place in which, for unknown reasons, destiny has put together a bunch of weird people who don't get along. As such, it is strongly reminiscent of Sartre's No Exit.

It can be read here.


 * The Alcoholic: Vic
 * Animal Motifs: Flies. Ter notices a picture of one printed on the back pocket of Bet's pants. It comes up again as a stamping on a piece of chocolate stuck in the fur of Shel's cat. Given that they only had Ectobeer, coffee and milk in the apartment, Ter (incorrectly) interpreted it as a sign that there was a way out. Perhaps to drive home the point that they are all dead and/or in hell.
 * Big Beautiful Woman: Shel, or at least Nor seems to think so. He (unsuccessfully) tries to woo her by making sculptures of her or things dear to her.
 * Bloody Bowels of Hell: Deviating a bit from the series' symbolic depiction of Hell (if it is indeed Hell), the otherwise (mostly) normal looking apartment has a blood-colored muck or gel of some sort running through its pipes instead of water. Nor uses it to make the sculptures Shel often rejects. Then he decides to make a life-sized sex doll of Bet out of it as a gift for her. Shel promptly goes down on it.
 * Combat Medic: What Ter served as in the Marines; perhaps making his  incident doubly painful.
 * Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass In A Nice Suit: When we first meet Ter, he looks like an unassuming, rail-thin man with shades of Adrien Brody, who at least knows a bit of power dressing. He soon devolves into a paranoid wreck. And soon after that, he gets into a fight with Vic, and he held up pretty good, considering who he went up against. What his flashbacks tell us give adequate justification to his ability.
 * He's later able to manhandle  and toss the guy into a fireplace. Granted, this barely fazes the guy, but still.
 * Dead to Begin With : It seems to be the case for the protagonists, or at least for Ter.
 * Made even more likely in Part 2
 * Domestic Abuser: Played with in the character of Vic. He considers Bet to be his property, but hasn't been explicitly shown doing anything to harm her over the course of the series.
 * Escape From the Crazy Place : What Ter is trying to do.
 * Even the Girls Want Her : Bet, whom everyone apart from Nor wants to bed, including Shel.
 * Extreme Omnivore : Bern eats a cake made of insulation foam and glue.
 * Fatal Family Photo: Subverted when the Ter's fellow Marine shows him a raunchy picture of a girlfriend back home, only to be promptly killed by a bomb. In a later flashback, after Ter is discharged, he tracks down the origin of the photo, only to find out it was a reprint of a vintage pinup.
 * Friend or Foe:
 * Good People Have Good Sex: Averted, though their status as "good people" is debatable. After Ter and Bet have sex, Ter remarks that it was like a faint spark in the distance. Bet explains that that's how it's like when ghosts have sex.
 * Lady in Red: A variation in Bet, who wears a red tube top, tight shorts, and flats.
 * Only Sane Man: Bet will come off as this, especially when compared to the other tenants, depending on whether or not you think her (often) calm and detached acceptance of their situation is rational.
 * Pointless Bandage: Ter's defining feature for much of Part One is a bandage wrapped around his head from the browline up, which comes off in Part 2, to reveal no injury that needed concealing. Considering the Wham! Line from Bet below, it could be symbolic of a loss of memory.
 * Psychopathic Manchild: Vic. He initially seems like the more innocent counterpart of this trope, with his sensitivity regarding his parties, his overall immature behavior, and his overly simplistic view of his relationship with Bet, but he soon graduates to this when he attempts to torture Ter for sleeping with Bet.
 * Sapient House: Apartment 262 looks to be this, along with the entire apartment building.
 * Semper Fi: Ter "remembers" fighting in the Marines.
 * Shout-Out: The aforementioned Sartre play is (indirectly) mentioned in Ral's journal
 * Title Drop: in number 60
 * Uncoffee: Of a sort. There are only two foodstuffs normally present in the apartment, and plain ol' coffee is one of them. The other is Ectobeer, and what it stands in for is pretty self-explanatory. They get some milk at times, though, but it's mostly hoarded by Bet, who uses it to put Vic to sleep when he gets too rowdy, which makes it something else entirely.
 * Wham! Line: "I'll miss you too, Ral."