Tricky the Clown

Tricky the Clown is an antagonist in the Madness Combat flash series on Newgrounds. He started off as an assassin under the Sheriff before getting revived as a zombie and becoming Hank's main foe, serving as the main antagonist of the series from Madness Combat 6 to Madness Combat 7. He later returns as the main antagonist of Madness Combat 11.

Madness Combat 2
Tricky made his first appearance as one of the many henchmen working for the Sheriff trying to kill off Hank, the main protagonist. He attempted to kill Hank with a M16, but he was killed when his own weapon was turned against him.

Madness Combat 3
Tricky became a prominent character and he attacked Hank on a jet pack. However he was killed when he was impaled on a warning sign. An unknown source revived Tricky as a zombie, this time wielding the warning sign (which would become his iconic weapon). However Hank killed him off again.

Madness Combat 4
After donning a metal mask to hide his zombie features, Tricky became a DJ at Club M under the alias "DJTrickyM". However Hank found his way into the dance hall, where he found many grunts dancing and Tricky acting as a DJ. He shot the clown in the face, knocking him behind the turntable, but the clown quickly recovered and made a gesture meant to say "You're going down!" The grunts immediately attacked Hank, but he slaughtered them and held Tricky at sword point. Though he at first held up his hands in surrender, suddenly Jesus entered the room with a zombie 1337 agent. Jesus then brought back all the slain enemies as zombies, but Hank fought his way through them and had a quick confrontation with Jesus, ending in both their deaths. Tricky found himself the last person standing in Club M, but shrugged his shoulders, began playing a remix of the Chicken Dance, and danced alone.

Madness Combat 5
Tricky was later contracted by the Auditor to kill Hank and Jesus.

When Jesus and Hank were fighting in the bottom of the valley, Tricky's warning sign popped out of the ground and began moving around, creating fissures. First a bunch of 1337 agents that Hank had killed earlier climbed out, but they were killed quickly. Tricky attempted to climb out himself, but he was shot in the face, dropping him back in. Jesus and Hank resumed their battle, but suddenly reality became compromised and Tricky burst out of the fissure, attacking the two wildly.

Hank was knocked out of the valley where he received a sword and soon found himself confronted by Tricky, who was holding the top half of Jesus's head. The two battled and the zombie clown got the top half of his head chopped off. Hank stopped to rest for a moment, but Tricky suddenly sprang back to life and ripped off his head and slammed it into the ground. Having killed both Hank and Jesus, Tricky turns over to the screen and smiles while doing the peace sign with his hands, declaring his victory against Hank and Jesus.

Madness Combat 5.5
Tricky appeared trying to replace the missing part of his head with that of Jesus's, possibly in an attempt to gain his powers. He loudly declared "THIS DOES NOT WORK!" and threw it away, then caught up with Sanford and Deimos and fought them until they fell outside. Tricky proceeded to start driving a train.

Madness Combat 6
Hank woke up revived and found a gun, a knife, and a note from Tricky, taunting him to find him. Upon arriving at the Improbability Drive, he found the button taped down and another teasing note from Tricky. Out of nowhere a train burst through the building with Tricky driving it. Hank began fighting his way through the train and eventually found his way to the cabin, where he confronted the zombie clown. At that moment, the runaway train leaped over a gorge and crash landed on the other side. Tricky emerged from the wreckage and he and Hank engaged in battle again, with the clown emerging victorious after he stabbed his foe through the neck. But the higher powers revived him and made a building fall between them.

After Hank fought his way through, he found the zombie clown ordering a hot dog from a vendor. Using this distraction to his advantage, he stabbed Tricky in the face, shot him a few times and threw him over the cliff. However the Improbability Drive immediately went haywire and the clown remerged, now as a powerful flaming demon.

Madness Combat 6.5
Tricky made a brief appearance when he sent the Auditor a message saying that he couldn't be stopped and he would do as he pleased, much to the Auditor's anger.

Madness Combat 7
Tricky and Hank seemed to have had a very short battle since Hank was left partially crushed on the bottom of the gorge. The demon clown leapt down and smashed, burnt, and chewed on him and demanded that Hank get up and fight, since his performance was insufficient and he had not suffered enough. He refused but found himself revived anyway by some unknown source (possibly the Improbability Drive or the Auditor). Angry to be alive again, Hank battled Tricky only to be constantly overpowered by him. After the chase found its way into an elevator shaft, Hank managed to get his hands on a shotgun weapon that he used to fire a round into Tricky's head. It was revealed that there was a Portable Improbability Drive in the demon clown's head and that the shot damaged it. However this did not stop him and Hank was forced to run from Tricky, while the drive made the clown's brain stronger.

Later, after Hank killed some 1337 agents with a chainsaw, their bodies suddenly liquified and were absorbed into a vent. Tricky emerged from this vent, now roughly Hank's size and the two recommenced their battle. However the demon clown still held the advantage and tossed his nemesis through the wall where a 1337 agent and two A.T.P. Agents were working on the Portable Improbability Drive. Suddenly Jesus appeared and killed the two agents, then impaled Hank with his sword saying "Good Night Hank". Tricky appeared and screamed at Jesus for stealing his kill.

Jesus shot Hank with his revolver and then destroyed the Portable Improbability Drive, reverting the clown to his normal zombified form and taking away his powers. Now without his invincibility, Tricky was stabbed in the face by Jesus, finally destroying him.

Madness Combat 10
As the Auditor was being overwhelmed by Hank in their final battle, he began absorbing more and more dead bodies to get bigger and stronger. However he accidentally absorbed Tricky's body, a fatal mistake. The minute that the clown's body made contact with the Auditor, white flames started to come out of his back. Tricky's consciousness resurfaced as the Auditor grew unstable, saying "HELLO AGAIN!" Realizing what had happened, the Auditor said "NO! NO! NO!" but Tricky just said "YES! YES! YES!" A large energy bolt burst out of the ground, lifting the Auditor into the air and causing him to explode into black smoke.

Madness Combat 11
The explosion results in an unholy fusion between the two reality-warpers which begins creating black pools that spawn dark and skeletal grunt-like creatures to go after Hank and Sanford. After the two kill all of the grunts, the abomination reveals its true form as a skeletal version of Tricky's demon form and screams "HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK!" Hank attacks the demonic fusion by repeatedly punching it with his crustacean-like right arm, but the fusion retaliates by punching Hank back and tearing off his right arm before sending him and Sanford to a purgatory-like dimension.

Inside the dimension, Hank and Sanford are confronted by one of the shadowy skeletal grunts from before, only resembling Tricky and with the Halo atop its head. The Tricky grunt summons several A.A.H.W. units to attack Sanford and Hank, but the pair manages to fend all of them off as the Tricky grunt summons a stop sign and retreats through a black pool.

The Tricky grunt later appears to attempt to kill Sanford as he is killing more A.A.H.W. units, but Sanford injures it by shooting at it and stabbing it through the head with an L337 sword, forcing it to retreat to recover. As Sanford makes his way through the buildings Tricky summoned he is confronted by more Tricky-like skeletal grunts, only without the Halo. After fighting his way through them, Sanford comes across the Tricky grunt with the Halo and attacks it, only for the grunt to respond by summoning more Tricky grunts to attack him. After Sanford kills all of them, Tricky sneaks up on him from behind and knocks him over to another floating platform that connects sideways via chains to another series of platforms leading towards a pillar of light.

The Tricky grunt then attempts to shoot Sanford but Hank comes up on him from behind and attacks him, snatching his rifle away from him before shooting him with it. The grunt is bisected by the shots from the rifle before its halo falls off and it falls off the platform. Hank then reaches for the Halo, but another Tricky grunt obtains it first and punches Hank over to where Sanford is before rotating the platform they are standing on so it tilts sideways, causing them to stand upward on what was previously a sideways platform. Stronger Tricky grunts then begin spawning from the ground to attack Hank and Sanford, but the duo fights them all off.

The two eventually reach the light pillar, where Tricky is now being attacked by his own minions. The Tricky grunt is then punched by Hank into the light pillar. This triggers an explosion from inside Tricky which kills him. Black pools begin to seep from his dead skeletal frame from which the corpses of Hank and Sanford emerge. The Auditor then bursts out of Tricky and takes back the halo, revealing himself to have played both Hank and Tricky into killing each other.

Powers and Abilities
Though Tricky, like Hank, can use many forms of firearms, he seems to prefer melee weapons, namely his warning sign. He has great hand-to-hand combat skills and can jump at great speeds and utilize speedy dashes by warping his body. Tricky is also able to revive himself and others through the Improbability Drive and each time he is killed, he grows stronger. In his demon form, he can breath fire, change his size, disintegrate people, and can attack with his sharp claws and teeth and gains great physical strength.

Trivia

 * There seems to be something special about Tricky since he benefits from the Improbability Drive's effects while Hank and Jesus only meet resistance from it.
 * Without the Improbability Drive, he seems to be rather weak as evidenced by his quick defeat in MC7.
 * There a number of theories as to what caused Tricky to destroy the Auditor. After being absorbed, he may have lowered the Auditor's defenses to make him vulnerable to the energies of the Normality Restoration. Tricky's energy may have also have changed after he fell out of the Auditor's employ or it was his rebellious and strong mind that let him overpower the Auditor.
 * It's unclear what exactly happened to Tricky. It would seem that he ended up destroyed and gone along with the Auditor or perhaps he took on his former master's powers so he could go after Hank yet again.