John DiFool (Character)

John DiFool is the protagonist of the Incal saga, created by Alejandro Jodorowsky, appearing in all four installments. He was often accompanied by his pet concrete seagull Deepo.

John was born in Terra 2014, in City Shaft's Red Ring. The child of a prostitute, he grew up to be juvenile delinquent, until a cybo-cop named Kolbo-5 took him under his wing and convinced him to become a detective. He attempted to solve the mystery of the disappearance of babies from the Red Ring with the help of Luz De Garra but the investigation brought him into conflict with the endocity's most powerful elites, and eventually his enemies had his memory erased.

Years later, John and Deepo came into contact with the Incal, a magical item that guided them and others (Animah, Tanatah, The Metabaron, Solune and Kill Wolfhead) in a mystical journey through the galaxy, obtaining the necessary support to defeat the Darkness. Afterwards City Shaft was attacked by the Bethacodon, a black meca-mutant. However, John -with the help of Elohim- recovered his memory and reunited with Luz, and managed to beat the Bethacodon by sacrificing his life, although he was ultimately resurrected.

He made his first appearance in the first issue of The Incal, The Black Incal.

Childhood
John DiFool was the son of Oliver DiFool an inventor and Ms. DiFool, a prostitute who worked at the Daredevil Club in City Shaft's Red Ring. His parents were aware that the Techno-technos took the newborns away from prostitutes who lived in the Red Ring, so they decided to keep John's birth a secret, and they kept him hidden in a conapt, spending his first seven years with no contact with the oustide world. During this time, their neighbour Sofiah, a shellback from Mega-mex, would often take of the young DiFool.

Losing both parents
Over the years John's mother continued to work at the Daredevil Club, developing an addiction to amorine, and his father was sentenced to two years in prison. In the meantime John started to hang around with a group of friends, who often engaged in small-time criminal activites. One day he adopted a concrete seagull whose mother had been badly beaten. He named the seagull Deepo and became his pet.

When his father was finally release from prison, he immediately conviced John to help him get into an aristo ball using counterfeit haloes in order to steal their jewels. However, while they were at the ball John witnessed his mother jumping into Suicide Alley and dying upon touching the the Great Acid Lake, which greatly upsetted John. At that moment, the counterfeit haloes' batteries run out and he and his father were discovered. John managed to escape, but Oliver was once again arrested, and was “remodeled” into a hunchback as a punishment.

Now that John had losed both of his parents he contemplated suicide by jumping into Suicide Alley, but he was rescued by Snailhead, one of her mother's romantic partners and her mutant supplier of amorine. Snailhead allowed John to stay at the Mutant GTO, showing him the teachings of the Neuro-emotional Church. At the Mutant GTO, John became fell in love with a young mutant named Bandtiih. However, when she and John where about to have sex the Prezident's huncbacks entered the Mutant GTO and brutally massacred everyone, raping Bandtiih to death. However, one of the hunchbacks was actually Oliver, who allowed John to escaped before his remodeling had fully kicked in.

Meeting Kolbo-5 and Luz De Garra
John returned to his friends, and as revenge for what had happened at the Mutant GTO he used Deepo to throw an explosive at the Prezident in one of his political rallies. When the explosive blew up it revelaed that the Prezident had actually sent a robot clone in his place and people started to riot. John tried to save a seemingly injured woman from the crowd, but the woman was actually part of a lesbian criminal gang, who kidnapped him. However, when he was about to be castrated he was saved by Koblo-5 a deteriorated cybo-cop, John and Kolbo-5 quickly became friend, and Difool stole the necessary robot body from other cybo-cops to repair him.

Koblos-5 eventually convinced John to become a class "R" detective, and trained him for months. Realizing that John's friends kept him tied to the criminal lifestyle, Kolbo-5 organized a sting operation to arrest John's friend when they were trying to steal a valuable statuette from the Palace of Arts & Finances. The cybo-cops, believing John had made the tip about the robbery made DiFool a pre-detective.

The first job John had as a pre-detective was to take the aristo Luz De Garra (daughter of the Prime Minister) to the St. Prez hospital. Luz proved to be particularly cruel, forcing John and Deepo to torment the hospital's patients. Luz was using holo-make up to pose as an ugly girl, but when she revealed her actual beautiful face, John fell in love with her.

Starting the investigation on the case of the babies of the Red Ring
After Luz recommend John for the position of official private detective, the cybo-cops informed DiFool that before the final confirmation all applicants had to carry out an official investigation on the subject that the applicant desired, and that an eye-cop would be sent to monitor his progress. After John meditated on his past and realized that many babies from the Red Ring disappeared mysteriously and he himself spent his childhood hidden from the rest of the world, he decided to pursue an investigation into that subject. Unbeknownst to him that was a highly confidential taboo topic, and the Supra-divinoid would try everyting to stop the investigation.

John tried to talk to interrogate people who could help him with the investigation but two of his key witnesses, Sofiah and Sex Kitten, were suddenly killed by a Techno Combat Robot and the eye-cop respectively. These events made John realize that Police Central was spying on him, and he destroyed Eye-cop's camera so avoid further monitoring. In any case, John did discover that the Techno-techno were the ones taking the babies from their mothers.

Since John's investigation signified a threat to the power of the Supra-divinoid's and his co-conspirators (the Prezident, PM De Garra and the techno-pope), they tried to use John's relationship with Luz to control him. Thus, following his father's orders, Luz called John, asking him to come over to her house claiming that his father would pardon him. At her conapt Luz tried to use her charms to manipulate John into becoming her mandog (men who had their humanity removed, leaving them with only their animal self, humanimals). She wanted him to sign a contract with his handprints, saying that he relinquished his human will and intelligence over a span of ten years. John signed it, falling into the Prime Minister's trap, since now they could erase his memory. However, just when they were about to extract John's pineal gland, Koblos-5 burst through the wall and rescued John. Then, a shoot-out between the cybo-cops and John began, but the police eventually ceased fire to avoid bringing attention to the conspirancy.

Getting inside the Cocaloco Dark factory
To continue his investigation, DiFool decided to disguise himself as a mentally defective pregnant prostitute, acting as bait for the Technos. Eventually a Techno craft took him to the Cocaloco headquarters were he saw how the newborns were being injected with “Top-33” (a mysterious liquid from the Paleo-science lab) in their pineal gland and then taken to the aristo-maternity ward. John and Deepo were discovered, but they managed to broke out of the facility by using a biovitasteak attack as a distraction. The cybo-cops tried to chase him and execute him but several eye-cops who aligned with John blow themselves up to slower down the police, allowing DiFool to escape safely. Due to this events, Lord De Garra was demoted to administrator of a Correction Center.

Infiltrating the aristo-maternity
Using the chaos that was created when a mutiny broke out in Lord De Garra's correction center, John got into Luz’s room, where they reconciled having sex. DiFool convinced Luz to help him in the mystery of the Red Ring babies, and they managed to get into the aristo-maternity ward by pretending that Luz was pregnant and that John was an aristo. Inside the ward John and Luz uncovered what the big secret was about: The Technos opened the skull of the prostitutes' frozen babies, extracting their pineal gland which has been injected with the Top -33, which was then inserted into the pineal gland of the “aristo” baby, making the halo appears. Shortly after, they were discovered, and they had to escape from the ward on board of a stretcher, eventually being saved by a group of psycho-anarchists.

Attempt to reveal the secret
The psycho-anarchists took John and Luz to the sewers, were their hideout was located. It's revealed that the psycho anarchists' leader is actually Snailhead, who had survived the massacre at the Mutant GTO. Since Snailhead thought that all the galaxy should know the secret about the aristos, they planned to use Diavaloo imperial broadcast at the cancer-freak championship to reveal the truth.

After breaking through the champsionship's security barrier John and Luz managed to get inside the stadium and reach Diavaloo, but when they were about to reveal the truth they were lowered to an underground room using an elevator platform, leaving the audience hanging with a musical interlude. At that moment, John and Luz found themselves surrounded by all the conspirators, and the Supra-divinoid revealed they had Mr. De Garra, Kolbo-5 and Deepo as prisoners. The Supra-divinoid threatened John and Luz with killing their friends if they told the truth. John and Luz, realizing that in this case love could be more important than truth, decided to not tell the truth so that their friends could live. Thus, instead of revealing the truth to the audience Luz read from a prepared script proffesing her love for Diavaloo, and their friends were spared.

As part of the cover up Diavaloo took Luz as a concubine and Prime Minister De Garra was sent to Odiozona. John memories were erased, and he was told that he was a private detective who had received a blow to the head while on duty, and that he lived in his own conapt with Deepo. After the operation, Kolbo-5 couldn't contain himself and he tried to make John remember, but he was taken away and autodestructs due to the overwhelming emotions.

The case of the House of Dorian Grae
After some time John, as part of the Private Detective selection process, was assigned the notorious case 1313, which concerned the House of Dorian Grae, a haven for deformed aristos, where forty bloody murders had taken place. There had been one victim per month, despite the fact that all furniture, curtains, cords and string-like accessories have been eliminated from the House.

When DiFool arrived to the House of Dorian Grae he was immediately harassed by the aristos. While being chased by them he accidentally jumped on of the residents' animal, a lizard, exposing the animal’s cord-like tongue, revealing that the creature was the killer all along and solving the case. Shortly after John had gotten his diploma for solving the case he was approached by Luz (who was unaware that John's memory had been erased) but DiFool was unable to recognize her.

After that, John went to a homeo-brothel and had sex with a homeo-whore. The homeo-whore was actually Animah in disguise, since she had been assigned by the Incal to secretly procreate with John in order to give birth to Solune, the perfect androgyne.

Coming into contact with the Luminous Incal
Aproximately ten years later, an aristo named Lady Nimbea S. Quinq hired Difool for a bodyguard job while she partied at the Red Ring that night, with the only condition that she had to be back before midnight. At the Daredevil Club the aristo met Kill Wolfhead, and was about to have sex with him when her holo-mask wore off, revealing she was actually an old lady. Kill went mad after John shot him in the left ear, and started chasing him through the club, however, DiFool managed to narrowly escape by entering a ventilation shaft.

In the ventilation shaft, John encountered a mutant that had been backstabbed, followed by a group of other hostile mutants, which he paralyzed using his inhibitor. The backstabbed mutant, in his dying breaths, recognized John and handed him the Luminous Incal, and said to him that “the fate of the universe depended on it” but without explaining what the artifact did. Upon touching the Luminous Incal John felt physically shaken, and the mutant started to melt, revealing that he was actually a Berg in disguise. Eventually John found an exit and returned to his conapt. However, a group of armed Amok guards broke into the conapt and, after failing to find the Incal, kidnapped John.

The Amok guards tried to make John confess where he had hidden the Incal, but John didn't have an answer, so the Amok thowed him down Suicide Alley. He was eventually saved by the cybo-cops, and after being briefly interrogated by P-Y, he was let go.

After relaxing at a home-brothel in the French Quarter John returned to his conapt, where he encountered a crowd of people worshipping Deepo, who had swallowed the incal and gained the ability to speak, and was now preaching. DiFool made Deepo spit out the Luminous Incal but at that moment John's conapt was attacked by Bergs, mutants and cybo-cops. John attempted to escape but was caught by the hunchbaks and brought to the Floating Palace.

At the Floating Palace John accidentaly disrespected the Prezident, who ordered his arrest. However, John and Deepo escaped once again, this time by hiding in a funeral train headed to Techno City.

At Techno City
In the Techno City John discovered that the Technos were building a “Shadow Egg”, but he was apprehended by the Techno-pope. The Technos wanted to sacrifice DiFool in their dark ceremony, but Deepo saved him by shattering the Techno-pope’s Shadow Crown, momentarily paralyzing him. This allowed DiFool enough time to take mental control of the platform and to recover communication with the Luminous Incal. The Techno-pope quickly recovered and released the Pegaz, but John got inside the Generator before they could get to him.

Inside the Generator John faced a Cardioclaw, which he defeated with the power of the Luminous Incal. When the Cardioclaw was destroyed it morphed into a flower, revealing the Black Incal. As a result of all the liberated energy the Techno City collapsed. In the ruins of the City, the Techno-pope used his last gasp to try to kill John, but suddenly Animah appeared and shot him down. Then Animah approached and faced DiFool, leaving him dumbfounded. She peacefully took the Black Incal from him and left. Shorty after the Metabaron (following Tanatah's orders) captured John and Deepo.

Journey to the Interior Sun
The Metabaron (who was being coerced by Tantah, keeping Solune captive) brought John and Deepo to the Lair of Amok. Although the Metabaron had done his part of the deal, Tanatah revealed that she was going to kill Solune either way. However, the Metabaron, Solune and John managed to outsmart Tanatah and killed the Amok guards. At that moment Kill Wolfhead, who was one of Tanatah's mercenaries, informed his Queen that the rebellion they had been planning had failed and the Necrodroid was coming for them. Upon learning this fact Tanatah revealed that she was actually the Guardian of the Black Incal and her sister Animah the Guardian of the Luminous Incal, and that both incals needed to be reunited if they wanted to survive.

Thus, John, Deepo, Tanatah, the Metabaron and Solune decided to head to the Center of the Planet, were Animah resided. After going through a whirlpool in the Great Acid Laked the group arrived at the Center of the Planet, and met with Animah, who saved them from some agressive psychorats. Escaping form the Necrodroid, who was also after the Incal, Animah guided John and rest of the crew to the Interior Sun. At the door of the Interior Sun, each of the characters made peace with each other in order to open the door. Kill Wolfhead made peaces with John, promising he would no longer seek revenge.

After going through the Forest of Singing Crystals, they reached the Doorway of Transfiguration, where Animah revealed that John was the biological father of Solune. When the Incals were reunited Solune became the consciousness of a starship that had the abilities of the Incal and was shaped in the form of the two merged pyramids.

The Five Thousand Year Nuptial Games
After The Seven unsuccessfully attempted to destroy a Shadow Egg in outer space the Incal Ship sensed that they needed to head to Aquaend. Once there, they discovered the secret city of Vitavil H2O, where they real Emperoress was hiding, and decided to launch a war campaign against Technogea with the help of the Bergs. Knowing that the Five Thousand Year Nuptial Games were soon going to take place in the Berg homeworld (Orgargan) John trained with a Robotrainer to prepare for the Games, and managed to reach level 6.

At the Five Thousand Year Nuptial Games John succesfully reached the top of the Motherhill with the help of the Incal. The winner of the Games had the opportunity to impregnate the Protoqueen, however, since the Protoqueen was a one-eyed formless substance DiFool was reluctant to have sex with her. At that point the Protoqueen decided to take the appearance of Animah, John’s “ideal image” to convince him. John impregnated her and the Protoqueen proclaimed that now she could birth millions and that DiFool had to be disintegrated as a gift. However, John proposed another gift better than his life: the Incal. The Protoqueen agreed, but before giving it away DiFool wanted the Bergs to help him destroy Technogea.

Battle against Technogea and resucitation
With the help of the Berg fleet and the Medusae from Aquaend the imperial forces trespassed Technogea's psychic barrier, ensuing a galactic battle between the two sides. Meanwhile John was reunited with the rest of the group, but when he embraced and kissed Animah enthusiastically, the Protoqueen grew jealous and disintegrated John on the spot. Thankfully, thorugh the power of love Tanatah and the Metabaron resucitated John by creating a male-female vortex that gathered and binded John's scattered atoms, bringing him back to life. With the help from the bergs The Seven managed to neutralize the Shadow Egg and disband the Technos, but the Emperoress was infected by the tenebrae virus.

Fight against the Darkness
A Medusa was summoned by the Incal and was able to neutralize the darkened Emperoress. However, if the loyalists wanted to effectively destroy the Darkness they needed to find is true source, so the Incal proposed going after the Techno-centreur, a being totally devoted to the Darkness, who escaped the destruction of Technogea and was now hiding in the War Star, a massive military complex. Although initially unwilling, DiFool ended up going to the War Star along with Greyfield, pretending that they were defecting to the other side. However, Greyfield betrayed the Emperoress’ loyalists once again, confessing their plan. Now that they had been discovered The Techno-centreur attacked John with black plasma and began to be consumed by the Darkness. But at the last second the Incal, which was miniaturized inside John, got out of DiFool's body and started to attack the enemies. The Seven managed to destroy the main processor of the War Star, and Solune won the battle against the Techno-centeur but in the process the barrier of the Light was broken.

Return to the Berg galaxy
After the darkened Emperoress was also defeated, Solune was named the new Emperoress. Solune claimed that humanity had to enter a state of deep slumber called the Theta Dream to avoid falling under the influence of the Darkness. Animah convinced John to go to back to the Berg Galaxy, since it was the only galaxy who hadn't enter the Theta Dream.

Upon returning to Orgargan DiFool quickly realized that every person in the planet looked like him because they were actually clones (called "jondiffs") he had fathered with the Protoqueen. He also discovered that since the Protoqueen hated him all jondiffs also hated the original DiFool. Due to this, he was eventually arrested and brought to trial, were they unanimously condemned John to be castrated in the city’s central square. However Deepo managed to convince the Protoqueen to spare John, explaining to her that she actually fell in love with the Incal not with John. The Protoqueen made and appearance at the castration ceremony and put an end it. The Orgargan planet agreed to enter the Theta Dream.

Meeting Orh
Thus, The Seven went back to the Portal of Transfiguration, so that the united Incal could prepare to absorb the Theta Dream energy generated by the entire human race in the two galaxies. The Seven entered the Theta dream itself, and they were transported to null-time and null-space to confront the Darkness.

In the first circle of the Theta Dream, The Seven started hallucinating nightmares concocted by the Darkness to feed on their inner terror, with the exception of DiFool, who after his experience with the Protoqueen had become immune to nightmares. John made the rest realize that the nightmares were only a part of themselves that they were afraid to face. In the second circle The Darkness attacked the Incal itself, so the Incal demanded the energy of all Seven Companions to survive. They all gave their energies, with the exception of John, who wanted to remain himself.

Thanks to the sacrifice of the rest, the Light managed to push through the heart of the darkness. At that point the Incal started to mutate and John discovered that the core of the Darkness was actually made of light, and that the great Darkness had now banished forever. Suddenly John felt a presence, it was Orh, the eternal light. Orh explained to John that the Darkness was the negative force that had accumulated in the human soul and that obfuscated him, and that the great Darkness was a much a part of himself as the Light. Orh told John that he had once created that universe but was now time to un-create it. At that moment Orh absorbed the Incal, becoming the creator of a new universe, and assuming the form of a giant new-born baby. Orh informed DiFool that a new space and a new time had been created, and that John had been chosen as the Eternal Witness of this event. John wanted to become one with Orh’s pure consciousness. However, Orh declined, and told DiFool that he had to live again in order to learn. Then, DiFool was returned back to the beginning, falling down the Suicide Alley, trapped in a seemingly eternal loop until he “learned to remember”.

Expansion of metallic virus
DiFool found himself falling down Suicide Alley once again, when he was suddenly saved by a cybo-cop patrol. The cybo-cops started to interrogate DiFool about what had happened. At that moment John started to recollect the “brain cleanse” he had experienced many years before, and started to remember the existence of Luz. The cybo-cops, who were under the orders of the Supra-divinoid and were prepared to kill John in case he remembered, where about to attack John when suddenly an explosion took place outside. The explosion had been cause by a scarab, who rescued John before also being destroyed. Still escaping from the cybo-cops John hid in the sewers. Afterwards John ran into a crowd, and observed how a strange virus was starting to infect the citizens.

The cybo-cops surrounded John, but just when the Supra-divinoid was about to order his execution the connection was lost and the cybo-cops were unable to shoot. Suddenly, a giant dragonfly, who was the one suppressing the techno system, come flying and saved John. The dragonfly flied to the surface, and showed John who was behind the spread of the biophage virus: The Bethacodon, a being which had been created by Techno-experimentation, and posed a threat to all living things.

While in City Shaft the Bethacodon took over the Prezident's and the Supra-divinoid's body, the dragonfly brought John to the Mother Tree, where he met Elohim, the white meca-mutant, who was engaged in a war with the black meca-mutant, the Bethacodon. John started to remember his past, which made the unified incal materialize. John had a vision of Luz in which she asked him to find her, so they could act as the universal antidote against the virus. Then, guided by Elohim, John was launched into space, just as a probe launched by the Meca-prezident destroyed the Mother Tree.

In outer space
In outer space John's ship was swallowed by a hole that served as a conduit between universes, which allowed him to meet three other DiFools (a "uglier" DiFool, Sami Siri Johnan DiFool accompanied by Deepo, and Seraphim) from parallel universes. Seraphim told the rest of the DiFools that they should head to Tortuga Island where Luz and Kaimann lived.

At Tortuga Island the four DiFools were attacked by cannibal pirates, raping Seraphim. However, they managed to escape, and found Olaf, who explained to them that some time ago the Island had been attacked by Gounas, who had taken Luz prisoner and that in the interim Kaimann had started to mutate into his saurian form. At that point the Incal considered that the "ugly" DiFool was the most capable DiFool of the four others for this mission, and vaporized the rest, explaining that their spirits were now within the reaming DiFool.

John reached the Gouna’s planet and found Luz, rescuing her. When John and Luz went back to Tortuga Island, Luz, who was still in love with Kaimann, found he had been completely transformed to his reptilian form. After the Techno-technos distanced themselves from the Bethacodon, DiFool and Luz arrived to the Techno-mushroom, asking for an audience with the Techno-highness, to see if they could restore Kaimann to his former self. Luz and the Technopope reached a deal: The Techo-surgeons would reverse Kaimann’s mutation if Luz and John went back to Terra 2014 to convince the aristos to unite with the Technos against the Meca-prez and the Benthacodon. John and Luz agreed to the deal.

Back to Terra 2014
John and Luz reached Center Earth, where they were attacked by Psychorats, however, Luz managed to mentally communicate with them and become friendly. They soon encountered Gorgo the Foul, who considered Luz to be a paleo-goddess fulfilling a prophecy. Gorgo took John and Luz to the Dumping Ground, a rebel stronghold, where they met General Kill Wolfhead of the First Rebel Division of the Bio-army, along with the other chiefs: Lieutenant General Hipo-san, Commander Avicene and Colonel Don Poilpo. John and Luz convinced the rebels to launch an attack on the Floating Palace.

The rebels' attack on the surface was succesfull and they managed to reach the Floating Palace, the Meca-prezident's centre of operations. Meanwhile, Elohim started to attack the Bethacodon, who was immune to conventional weapons, and their fighting created an energy hurricane.

Sacrifice and resurrection
Upon learning that the Bethacadon was planning to spread a viral cloud through the Palace’s upper ventilation system so that the air current created by the energy hurricane would spread throughout the atmosphere, Kaimann offered to destroy the ventilation control system himself, so that his friends could have enough time to escape. Before sacrificing himself Kaimann also suggested setting his ship to self-destruct so that the Bethacodon could die from the explosion. John, following Kaimann suggestion, deciced to also sacriffice himself, setting off the self-destruction protocol of Kaimann's ship, and killing himself and the Bethacodon in the process.

After the Bethacodon was defeated Elohim connected his arms to the ground and started healing the planet from its center outwards. The Incal spoke to Luz, explaining her that the war still wasn’t over because Black Vampires still possessed the metallic virus and could threaten the bio-universe, and that her love for DiFool was the only universal antidote. Luz, with the help of Elohim, reconstituted John through the power of true love, allowing her feelings for him to fuse his cells once again.

John and Luz had sex, a showcase of love that refilled the Mother Tree with life and re-engaged the surface’s life cycle. At that moment Elohim absorbed John and Luz, flooding them with light and turning them into the united Incal, forever destined to melt into the universe like a star.