History[]
Manners is a character in the 2000 AD strip Grey Area. He worked as an Exo Transfer Control (ETC) officer in the titular Grey Area on Earth, where any aliens wishing to visit Earth are quarantined. Manners chose his job because he hated aliens and wanted to keep them away from humans.
When the Earth was threatened by a huge cosmic monstrosity known as a God-Star, Manners flew a spaceship containing a team led by Adam Bulliet into the God-Star's centre. There Bulliet set off a nuclear bomb to kill the God-Star and save the Earth from being consumed. The team expected this to be a suicide mission, so they were surprised when they found themselves swallowed by the wormhole at the God-Star's heart and spat out by another God-Star on the other side of the galaxy. Their ship had just enough fuel for Manners to fly it to the nearest planet, Homeworld, populated by peaceful telepathic aliens called the Harmonious Free. There Bulliet and his team — Manners, Birdy, Kymn, Feo and Neats — were kept in Homeworld's own version of the Grey Area, an overcrowded segregation zone full of different alien species.
Because Manners hated aliens, being effectively imprisoned by them had a detrimental effect on his mental health. What made his situation even worse was that the Harmonious Free didn't believe that the nearby God-Star was real and on its way to consume their world, because they were so happy with life on Homeworld that they had never invented spaceships or long-range scanners. This left Manners trapped on a soon-to-be-devoured planet with nothing to do but wait for inevitable annihilation. He tried to pull rank and order the rest of the team to attempt a break-out, but Bulliet claimed that he was in charge — Manners had flown the spaceship, but Bulliet had operational command. Manners responded by punching Bulliet. After a brief fight, mistaken by Resting Bitch Face and Compelling Male Musk Odour (the Harmonious Free on guard at the time) for a mating ritual, Manners conceded defeat. He spent the rest of his time in the Grey Area slumped in a deep depression, and at one point threatened to commit suicide by jumping off a tall building. Bulliet punched him so hard that he fell to the ground below as Compelling Male Musk Odour watched in disbelief, not knowing that Bulliet had arranged for several very strong aliens to be standing below holding an improvised safety net. (The irony of his life being saved by these aliens was probably lost on Manners.)
In return for preventing Manners' suicide, and therefore saving her a lot of paperwork, Resting Bitch Face granted Bulliet an interview with one of the Elite of the Harmonious Free. When Bulliet asked the Elite to extend his telepathic powers into deep space, he and the rest of his species were finally convinced that their world was being threatened by the nearby God-Star and that they needed to act quickly to save the planet.
Shortly afterwards, the God-Star sent its 'ministars' or drones down to the surface of Homeworld to start breaking it down and making it easier to consume. Bitch and Musk took the humans to the nearest ministar to attempt to destroy it and frighten the God-Star into backing off. The attempt was unsuccessful, and the team was drawn into a firefight with the God-Star's 'angels': "astral parasites and scavengers that attach themselves to God-Star units and feed off the debris."1 Threatened by an angel, Manners detonated a grenade, killing both it and himself.
Compelling Male Musk Odour was deeply affected by Manners' sacrifice, as he had given his life to help protect a world and a species he hated, while the Harmonious Free themselves had denied the existence of the God-Star until it was almost too late.
Powers and abilities[]
Abilities
Flying a spaceship; armed combat.
Strength level
Middle-aged human male.
Paraphernalia[]
Transportation
Human spaceship; flyer powered by a telekinetic Elite of the Harmonious Free.
Weapons
Big gun; grenade.
Notes[]
12000 AD prog 1948.
Links[]
- Appearances of Manners
- Character Gallery: Manners
- Images that feature Manners
- Fan-Art Gallery: Manners
- Manners quotations