“ | Hnph! One day you will thank me for honing your edge.
— Francisco Guerra justifying rigging a fight against Isabel Guerra (Chapter 4, Page 63)
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Francisco Guerra[5] is a retired member of the Paranatural Activity Consortium and the grandfather of Isabel Guerra. He regularly trains Consortium soldiers in the art of spectral energy at his dojo.
Appearance[]
Francisco has a bald, peaked forehead, pronounced temples, and a large hooked nose as well as bushy white eyebrows and a full white mustache and square beard. His beard reaches up to his ears, and his full lower lip is prominent. Francisco also has his eyes half-lidded most of the time. The dojo master wears a white bathrobe with white, feathery cuffs around the neckline and wrists as well as a fluffy sash. His lower half is missing, instead replaced by a red vapor trail of spectral energy.
Personality[]
Francisco is a strict individual, speaking with most people in a gruff and direct manner. He expects near-perfection in his students, especially his granddaughter, Isabel. He dislikes the idea of reliance on tools or spirits, favoring and advocating instead the use of one's own spectral energy. He also harbors the belief that spirits hold less value than people, a belief that his granddaughter unwittingly picked up in some form[6].
He is a very conceited man, and often wonders how an "immaculate and majestic being such as [himself]" could have produced such a troublesome granddaughter as Isabel.[7]
Paranatural[]
Chapter 4[]
Isabel Guerra, along with Scabs and some other trainees, fires spec-shots at some straw dummies. Francisco looms behind Isabel and berates her for missing the center of the target by about nine centimeters. Francisco showcases his prowess in Spectral Fist by punching a hole in the straw target with multiple concentrated spec-shots at once, as well as materializing multiple fists and two dolphins. Isabel declares that having Eightfold's power means that she doesn't have to rely on Spectral Fist, causing her grandfather to bemoan her reliance on tools and for her to snap that she's only training for his appeasement.
The next evening, Francisco watches Isabel's combat training against Scabs, predicting a win in the next three blows. While Isabel initially has the upper hand, Scabs is able to create a construct of a wolf's head to bite down on Isabel's arm, disrupting her enough for Scabs to make the finishing blow. Francisco congratulates Scabs and tells her to win in two moves next time, prompting an argument between himself and Isabel. Said argument reveals that not only did Isabel's grandfather pit her against an opponent twice her age because he saw her confidence in her abilities as an embarrassment, but that he had made the fight even more unbalanced by telling her opponent about her cynophobia. The fighting is cut short by Mr. Spender's arrival, and Isabel makes her way to his car while he discusses Agent Day's arrival with the Dojo master. Francisco notes Spender's cold summary of Day and warns him of naively trusting others, stating that it's as bad as using spirits' powers as a crutch and that he "didn't pay a steep price to earn [Spender's] trust"[8]. After being further warned that any morally questionable acts would constitute a just end despite intentions, Spender asks Francisco to put a stop to him if he gets too extreme, to which he agrees and states that the two could work well together if Spender wasn't such a lone wolf.
Francisco is waiting in the dojo's main room when Isabel and Ed return home, scolding them for being late. He asks where her book is, but angrily switches to calling it his book upon seeing her panicked face. After Isabel admits that she lost Eightfold, he furiously lectures her, saying that he still had plans for the book and that it wasn't hers to lose. Ed sneaks off to his room as Francisco continues to lecture her, and eventually Isabel returns to her room, having not told her grandfather about the bite wound she had received.
Chapter 5[]
Francisco summons Dr. Zarei to the Dojo after one of his trainees gets bitten by a spirit. He engages in some back-and-forth with the doctor concerning the dangers of spirit bites and the barrier predicament and instructs her to give him the Ghost Train's tool, which she refuses to do. He then notices Isabel sneaking away and offers her an umbrella to replace her old tool, and his granddaughter accepts. Francisco then dismisses Mina and tells her to keep the lantern safe, and she catches up with Isabel outside to reclaim her stolen salve.
The new spirit, Flipflop, engages Isabel in a conversation near the end of the school day, praising her for her creative usage of his abilities to defeat a Hijacked Mr. Spender as well as her decision to let Hijack leave instead of destroying him; he slips up and says that she's nothing like "he" thought she'd be before trying to backpedal, and Isabel asks him what the issue is, telling him that she can handle a harsh answer. Flipflop explains that Francisco had given him to her because he thought that his powers were so useless that she'd have to rely on her training to defeat opponents, and that her grandfather had intended for the tortoise spirit to be "a test and a lesson"[9]. Isabel tells her spirit that her grandfather doesn't understand her, and upon Flipflop's declaration that he wants to and his wish to prove his worth, tells him that they don't have to prove anything to anyone and asks for his friendship.
Chapter 7[]
One of Richard Spender's flashbacks has him training at the dojo under Francisco's supervision when a six-year old Isabel begins to cry. Francisco yells for Isabel's mother and comments on her work habits as she's tending to Isabel, stating that she doesn't "need" to work with his pupils maintaining the house. He mentions Isabel's father leaving them, criticizing how he ran from his responsibilities and saying that "the least [Ángel] can do to make up for his failures is to make sure Isabel has one parent around". The discussion turns to what the young Spender is running from as well as his boyfriend, and Francisco tells him that there's room in the dojo for both of them as long as they work for it. Isabel's mother then chides him for being so into his work, telling him that he should take a day off for his granddaughter for once, and Richard suggests that Isabel join him in his weekend campout. As Isabel packs her gear into the car, her grandfather makes a joke about destroying Spender if he cries, and then tells her that he goes so hard on her because he sees her potential and has faith in her, instructing her to be strong.
Relationships[]
Family[]
- Isabel Guerra - Francisco tends to view Isabel as a mild disappointment, due to her lack of discipline. He sees her potential as being held back by her pride and hotheadedness, and their relationship is generally rather cold, with him scolding Isabel about not hitting a target's perfect center and stacking a match against her as he viewed her overconfidence as an embarrassment. In order to provide her with a sense of security following her run-in with a dog, he gifted Isabel with Eightfold's tool. He despises the fact that Isabel became dependent on using a tool instead of her spectral power, and gives her a weapon to protect herself after she lost Eightfold that he considers so useless it would force Isabel to rely on her spectral powers more.
- Mr. Guerra - While arguing over whether Isabel is overconfident in battle, Isabel states that Francisco hates his son, indicated to be due to his docile personality in contrast to hers.[10]
Other[]
- Ed Burger - Francisco does not seem to put much effort in Ed, calling him a "freeloader" and not caring when he skips out of practice.[11]
- Richard Spender - Francisco considers Spender to be naive and lacking in intelligence, as well as too willing to hand his trust to others. After accepting Spender's request to judge his future actions, he also calls him a "terrible judge of character". He dislikes the path Spender takes in his task to protect Mayview, believing that he may eventually fall as a villain despite his noble intentions.[12] Nonetheless, he agrees to keep Spender's mission a secret and advises him to be extremely cautious with his words, lest the wrong person hears it. He states that, if not for Spender's tendency towards working alone, he could have done "great things" with him.[13]
- Flipflop - Francisco considers relying on spirits in general to be foolish, exemplified with his treatment of the tortoise spirit. The Dojo master considers Flipflop to be especially useless, and granted his tool to Isabel as a way to get her to rely more on Spectral Fist than on the powers of spirits.
Abilities[]
As head of his dojo, it's assumed his prowess in the Spectral Arts is unmatched by anyone in Mayview. He is able to form advanced techniques in spectral energy and the inventor of the spectral energy compression projectile burstshot, an awkwardly long-named technique that allows one to shoot spectral energy like bullets. To further cement his abilities, he is labelled by Lucifer as Mayview's true strongest spectral.
Quotes[]
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Trivia[]
- Francisco's surname, Guerra, is the Spanish word for "war".
- Prior to its reveal in the comic itself, Isabel's grandfather was originally going to be named Frasco. After learning that Frasco is the Spanish word for "bottle" and generally not used as a name, Zack Morrison decided to change his name to Francisco.[14][15][16]
Gallery[]
Official Artwork[]
Comic[]
References[]
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 24
- ↑ Chapter 4, Page 63
- ↑ Chapter 4, Page 4
- ↑ Chapter 7, Page 24
- ↑ Chapter 4, Page 117
- ↑ Chapter 4, Page 98
- ↑ Chapter 4, Page 6
- ↑ Chapter 4, Page 66
- ↑ Chapter 5, Page 289
- ↑ Chapter 4, Page 61
- ↑ Chapter 4, Page 60
- ↑ Chapter 4, Page 65
- ↑ Chapter 4, Page 66
- ↑ " Isabel's Grandpa is labeled as F in your script, can we get a name now that we know the (...)" (4 Jan 2014)
- ↑ "FRANCISCO. FRANCISCO GUERRA, EVERYBODY." (4 Jan 2014)
- ↑ "remember the time i accidentally named a character Bottle War" (10 Jan 2015)