Mallory Hope

Mallory Hope is the protagonist of the 2000 AD series Hope. He lives in an alternative 1942 Hollywood where the Second World War was ended by the use of magic. Now the supernatural is a part of everyday life.

Hope used to be a New York police detective. When his wife fell in with the wrong crowd and started experimenting with magic, she and the couple's son disappeared — apparently kidnapped by demons. Hope moved to Los Angeles and became a private investigator. When he's not working on a case, he's trying desperately to find his wife and son, helped by the fact that he himself is a magical adept. However, the use of magic damages the wielder, like an occult drug. Now, as Hope puts it, "While magic has saved me in the short term it poisons me for the future... what little future I have left. I'm lacking a lot in this life, felt almost everything slip through my fingers. A wife, a son, a job, a faith... but the main thing I've lost is HOPE. The only place I can find that now is in the name written on my damn business cards."¹ He is also haunted by a demon who looks like a nun in a gas mask and feeds off his pain and misery. 'Her' name is Cade and she appears whenever she senses that blood is about to be spilt.

Buster Ritz!

Jaded and cynical as the bright lights and deep shadows of Los Angeles had made him, Hope's interest was piqued when a distraught Eileen Fabrizzi asked him to find her son, a missing ten-year-old movie star called Buster Ritz!. Apparently the exclamation mark was an integral part of the child's stage name — his real name was Joey Fabrizzi. It quickly became apparent that Joey was born gifted with the magical ability to make people 'adore' him, which made his movies hugely profitable for his producer, the sinister Cole Lupus.

As he searched for the boy, Hope discovered that his father, Luigi Fabrizzi, was physically abusive to Eileen. He put a spell on Luigi so that whenever he hit Eileen he would feel the pain he had inflicted himself. Hope also found out that Luigi was in debt to a sybaritic crime boss, Fats Wolfman, who liked to eat large gourmet meals and then immediately cause himself to vomit. The investigation became even stranger and darker when Hope probed Cole Lupus for information, and he responded by using magic to make him relive the traumatic disappearance of his wife and son. This was where the first part of the first series ended.

Eileen Fabrizzi

In the second part of the first series, Hope slept with Eileen Fabrizzi. She then stole his gun while he was asleep, used it to murder her husband and was arrested. Acting on a tip-off from Cole Lupus, Hope investigated a brothel run by Fats Wolfman. He discovered that all sexual perversions were catered for in its opulent rooms, including paedophilia, so with Cade's help he killed Wolfman and all of the brothel's customers. In the last room he entered he found Timmy Byrd, another child actor, and a prostitute wearing a paper mask of the face of Joey Fabrizzi.

Hope finally realised what had been apparent to the readers since the first part of the first series: Joey had been murdered by Byrd, who had become too old to play child rôles any more and envied Joey's success and popularity. Byrd made a full confession. Lupus thanked Hope for getting rid of Wolfman, who "knew far too much about far too many people." He also told Hope that the two of them could be useful to each other, and that if Hope continued to work for him then he might be able to help find his child.

Before she was executed, Eileen was visited in prison by Hope. He put a spell on her so that when she was on the electric chair she felt no pain, but instead was engulfed by memories of her dead son.

Powers and abilities[]

Powers

Using dark magic, including: escaping from bonds; clairvoyance; giving people psychic nudges to make them talk; making someone feel the pain of any violence they inflict; casting illusions.

Abilities

Cynical narration; unarmed combat.

Strength level

Middle-aged human male.

Weaknesses

Whisky and cigarettes.

Paraphernalia[]

Equipment

Rotary dial telephone.

Transportation

Car.

Weapons

Gun.

Notes[]

¹2000 AD prog 2011 (published January 2017).

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