Absinthe (Bandette)

"There is very little a man cannot know in this world... now, the afterlife? There is a thing man cannot know. Does it exist? What waits for us beyond death? Take him away and give him the answers."

- Absinthe in Bandette 7

Absinthe, as he is known to Bandette and the people of France, is the supposedly beneficent head of the supposedly charitable foundation known as FINIS, but is in actuality the head of a crime network that is responsible for almost if not all crime in France and the main antagonist in the comic series Bandette.

Absinthe, FINIS, and Bandette
Absinthe is the leader and founder of the Friends in Need Improvement Society, also known as FINIS. While operating under the guise of a charitable foundation for the sick and needy, it is actually a front for a wide criminal empire that runs the gamut of any and all possible types of criminal activity, from extortion to counterfeiting to assassinations and bombing attacks. FINIS is stated to be presumably responsible for all crime in France for the past twenty years. Absinthe has hundreds of henchmen, cohorts, and operatives that are absolutely loyal to him. He also has several assassins in his employ from various parts of Europe, including the master fencer Matadori and the gaunt strangler Il Tredici.

Bandette and her rival thief Monsieur have on multiple occasions crossed paths with Absinthe, stealing back artifacts he acquires by force and foiling his plots on multiple occasions. He has sent a large number of his henchmen and assassins to kill Bandette and her Urchins by any means necessary, and he has also killed or had killed every investigator or federal agent who has tried to uncover his organization to the point that even Interpol is too afraid to try and apprehend him.

Personality and Skills
Absinthe is as much a master of coercion and fear mongering as he is a connoisseur of fine art, and he has at times shown that he is a master tactician, able to send out his henchmen and plan out maneuvers taken from his hunting experience and compose strategies in a manner akin to Napoleon Bonaparte. However, also like Napoleon, he is prone to anger and angry outbursts on occasion, and the price for failing him has always been death, even killing off one of his more skilled assassins. If he feels someone in particular has wronged him, he will unleash the brunt of his criminal organization upon them until he feels satisfied; this was shown when, in a side-comic, he shot a wealthy woman to death outside a French gambling parlor for beating him in poker. He speaks apathetically and in a poetic fashion, and has a taste for the more refined in life, including the fine arts and antiques, making him seem like a member of nobility as opposed to a ruthless killer. Even since he was a member of the Unione Corse, he had been adding to his own private collection of priceless antiques and artifacts. Even though Absinthe himself is a quite decent killer, he prefers to keep blood off his hands by assigning targets to his network of assassins and thugs and staying hidden in the shadows.