Wiloughby Withnail
| Wiloughby Withnail is a trenchcoater created by Paul Hardy. | |
| Alter Ego: | N/A |
| Aliases: | Trenchcoat Lad |
| Primary Writer: | Paul Hardy |
| Status: | Member of the Net.Trenchcoat Brigade |
| Usability: | Usable With Permission |
History
Wiloughby Withnail was, once upon a time, a failed actor. Little else is known about his past, but somewhere along the way, he gained a great deal of occult skills and knowledge from Templar groups left over from the Middle Ages. They were obviously as irritated by him as everyone else, because they chucked him out, leaving him a freelance investigator of weird and occult things, mainly because he will never be able to play the Dane (Hamlet, for those of you who haven't seen Withnail and I). He tends to hang around university campuses a lot, partly because the whisky's cheaper, and partly because a lot of the weird things in the world happen on campuses.
He joined together with many other trenchcoaters to battle the Universal Office in Chicago, and later came to the aid of Malcolm Barnstable when he tried to escape its clutches. During Retcon Hour, he got dragged into the reality-warping chaos and found himself temporarily transformed into Trenchcoat Lad of the Legion of Occult Heroes; he also endured the repeated mangling of his accent by American authors at the tale's conclusion. (Later on it was revealed that there was a real Trenchcoat Lad, his alternate universe counterpart, from the LOH's destroyed home universe.)
Wiloughby Withnail is based on Willoughby Kipling (who spent a lot of time annoying the Doom Patrol under Grant Morrison's pen), who was himself based upon Withnail, a character in a British film called Withnail & I.
Personality
Not a bad sort, apart from being an arrogant alcoholic coward.
Powers and Abilities
Withnail has the habit of turning up at opportune moments, rather like John Constantine, and the general character of the character from the film. He possesses the innate ability to irritate everyone on the planet with his less than wonderful personality. He can drink at a prodigous rate, but becomes quickly annoyed and even more unsociable without the aid of painkillers. Oh, and he has a general knowledge and understanding of magic and weirdness, carrying all sorts of bits and pieces of "equipment" (cf. "Holy Pop", "Mr. Bones") which do all sorts of magical things (ie the writer can make it up as he goes along).
Appearance
Resembles Richard E. Grant. Wears a brown trenchcoat.
Appearances
- Wrath of the Administrator
- The Barnstable Incident #3-4
- Retcon Happy Hour
- Legion of Occult Heroes #0
- Dvandom Force #38-39 (entirely too silly alternate universe version)
- LNH Comics Presents #21
