Packin some holy heat.
Soda is a European comic written by Philippe Tome, with art from Luc Warnant for the first two books and, from book 3 onward, Bruno Gazzotti. It elegantly mixes serious business, religious themes (often tongue-in-cheek or parodied), guns and the results of their use, extremely spectacular accidents, and humour. Soda is likely one of those comics that could come into existence only outside the United States, as it has all the elements to totally infuriate any religious person.David Solomon is a priest in New York. At least, that's what he tells his kind and old mum. Because she has heart problems and would get a heart attack if she ever discovered he is a police officer. Commonly known as "Soda" to anyone in New York who is not his mother, David's daily life is filled with violence and death. Both of them often involve a handgun that could put down an elephant with one bullet — Soda's handgun, obviously. Assisted by fellow cop (and romantic partner) Linda Tchaikovski and other fellow cop Babs, Soda has numerous adventures in New York, as well as a few back in his home town of Providence, Arizona. Each adventure is served with copious amounts of bullets, destruction, death, religious terminology, and, of course, humour.
Soda provides examples of the following tropes:
- Amnesiac Costume Identity: One story has Soda suffer a milder form of amnesia in which he doesn't forget who he is, but what he does: instead of a cop pretending to be a pastor for the sake of his sensitive mother, he acts like an actual pastor, condemning the violence of his fellow cops and being nice to his mother's evil cat.
- As the Good Book Says...: One story has Soda dress as a priest in order to get in a prison. The warden calls his bluff and quotes a line from the Bible, but Soda gives the following one correctly.
- Auto Erotica: Soda and Linda in a BMW Z1 without a roof in the rain: referred to as a bathtub. Complete with interruption by cop (who asks whether he should film everything and sell the story to Real Police Stories).
- Badass Preacher: Soda, obviously, but his uncle (an actual priest) is a contender as well. At one point when visiting Soda, the uncle is caught in a gang war and is almost ready to throw a mook into a burning car.
- The Big Rotten Apple: The whole setting of the series. Beginning in 1985, it depicted from the very start a New York entirely made of every cliche listed on the trope page, and never really changed its view despite the huge transformations the city went through ever since. It actually emphisizes the contrast between extreme poverty and insane richness, and gives a perpetual reason for Mary to never go out so she doesn't learn about her son's real job - which basically the entire city except her is aware of - and to regret her peaceful Arizona hometown. Note that the setting never hesitates to mix violence and countless background gags of Crazy Homeless People.
- Bullethole Door: Averted. It takes a lot of bullets, and the only door to break down is a wooden one that was pumped full of bullets from a submachine gun.
- Bulletproof Vest: Again, played realistically. One character only survives being shot multiple times at point blank range by wearing two vests (and he still gets hurt by the impacts). In a later book, two cops are not so lucky and are badly wounded despite wearing bulletproof vests and kevlar helmets.
- Calling Parents by Their Name: Soda often refers to his mother Mary by her name. However, he does directly adress her by "mom".
- Canon Discontinuity: The Blood-Stained Pastor completely ignores what happened in Resurrection. Case in point: the Twin Towers are still standing and Pronzini is still alive. Not only that, but it and the 2023 reprint of the first 12 volumes no longer list ''Resurrection''.
- Carnival of Killers: After Soda kills the son of a corrupt businessman in a shootout, the latter puts out a high reward contract on Mary's life leading to several professional assassins with their own specialities(sabotaging an elevator, a speeding car, a sniper rifle and appearing a harmless old granny) aiming for her.
- Cerebus Syndrome: Every book gets darker, but Pronzini gets hit with it the worst: He goes from Da Chief to it being revealed he lost a few toes in Vietnam and his wife to some other guy, to having lost his daughter in the World Trade center attacks, and the CIA has blackmailed him into shooting cops who show insufficient patriotism ever since 9/11 by threatening to kill his daughter, who survived, and being killed by Soda.
- Chronic Pet Killer: Pronzini has a different pet in each books who never last long.
- Comic-Book Time: The first twelves volumes were published between 1987 and 2005, with the setting and technology evolving accordingly. Case in point: Soda uses a typewritter in the second issue and owns a flip phone in the latter ones. The prologue of Resurrection (published in 2014) explicitly takes place on the fateful September 11, 2001 before a Time Skip to 2016. Yet none of the characters have significantly aged since the first volume. The Blood-Stained Pastor, that ignores ''Resurection'', suddenly brings the setting back to the 80s.
- Couple Theme Naming: Coincidentally, Mary's late husband (and David's father) was named Joseph.
- Deadly Game of Chance: One Professional Killer ties his victims to a bomb, then uses a kitchen timer to set the delay. He closes his eyes and turns the timer at random, explaining to his victim that there's a chance he'll die in the explosion as well.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: In the first book, Mary locks her apparement and forces Soda to gives the password. This routine is dropped later on.
- Easy Amnesia: In the 11th book, an accident causes Soda to become amnesiac. As a result, he starts to behave like a real stereotypical, perfect priest. Justified in that he's played the part so well for his mother, it's likely become ingrained in his subconscious.
- Enabled Delusion: Once an Episode, Soda decides this is it, this is the day he finally tells his mother he's a cop and not a pastor like he told her all those years ago for fear that her heart would give out (as his policeman father was killed in the line of duty). And every single time, something happens that prevents him from doing so and he maintains the charade. Fortunately his coworkers are all in on it and also take care not to reveal the truth to her.
- Every Episode Ending: The last panel of each book shows the lift of Soda's building with an item he left behind.
- Everybody Lives: Thou Shalt Not Rub-out is the only volume without any death making it Lighter and Softer than other issues. A corrupt cop is seemingly shot dead by gangsters but he's later revealed to have survived thanks to a Bulletproof Vest.
- Fingore: Soda is missing two fingers on his left hand from an accident. The accident is never explained, but it happens somewhere between his moving to New York and him becoming a cop, since he still has all his fingers in the flashback parts of Letters to Satan.
- Hand Cannon: Soda's weapon of choice is a massive six shooter. In fact, due to the comic's art style, his Colt Python looks even larger than the Real Life version, being as long as David's shoulders are wide.
- Highly Conspicuous Uniform: Soda wears a priest's suit and carries a large gun. Lampshaded repeatedly.
- Kavorka Man: Babs, a short overweight middle-aged man, manages to sleep around with just about any woman (including Linda once). However, many of those women are implied to be sex workers.
- Laser-Guided Karma: One of the assassins contracted by a villain to avenge his son after Soda shot him for murdering a young woman, ends up being revealed as the woman's boyfriend who kills the villain after learning the truth of what happened to her.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: In Letters to Satan, Soda apparently causes the death of several deaths by writing about their fictional deaths on a cursed typewriter. It turns out that the writer Williams is the actual killer. However, years later, when Soda faces a criminal, the latter gets struck by lightning while his mom writes "Heaven help you" with the same typewriter. This causes Soda to freak out and throw the item away.
- Muse Abuse: Writer Williams checks people around him as inspiration for the characters of his books. He suggests Soda to use the same trick as his ghostwriter.
- Ready for Lovemaking: Soda calls Babs during an emergency... just as Babs and his wife were lounging on the bed with champagne glasses.
- Secret Identity Change Trick: Usually in the lift of David's apartment building. Hilarity Ensues when an old lady steps into it while he's not wearing any trousers.
- Southern-Fried Private: If one were to take this comic strip seriously, Columbine-style shoot-outs caused by cops dressed as priests would be daily world news. On the other hand, most things without guns are portrayed fairly realistically.
- Thememobile: High Performance Three-wheeled Police Scooter chasing trike at over 60 mph in rush-hour New York. Yes, it ends with a massive accident that kills one bad guy and leads to the above-mentioned Easy Amnesia.
- Villain Over for Dinner: Soda comes across a hit man he was after — amiably chatting with his mother.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Soda, sort of. His father told David he'd be a man once he managed to throw a horseshoe on a clock so it flipped around and landed on top. When he finally succeeds, he finds a posthumous letter from his father, who was always ashamed of taking bribes as sheriff.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: The mistress of New York City's mayor turns out to be a man.