Arche-Lady Primer: the villains

For every hero, there is a villain; or in Arche-Lady’s case, dozens.

The villains were inspired by friends who could take teasing and strangers I saw from afar with striking physical characteristics. But mostly, villains were inspired by people who annoyed me. Co-workers, bosses, dates, clerks, waiters, strangers.

Most villains appeared but once, and in the rare case, twice. Villains with silly powers, stupid costumes, and absolutely no chance of defeating Arche-Lady. Among them: Macho-Gal; Little Debbie, the snack cake queen; Bloody Nose; Monkey Face; Big Feet; Insane Laughing Girl; Apple Brown Betty; The In-Breds; What-Not; the Technoids; Skinny Girl & the Lush; the Salad-Master; Mommy Cheeseburg; Cloth-Child; Pineapple Princess; the Bed-Wetter; the Flake; the Sun-King; the Effeminate Cowboy; the Creepy Thug; Myra the assassin; Turtle-Girl; Raisin; the Sweetheart; the tiny demon; Victor Von Freak, known to the world as the Freak; the Tomato Witch and the Tomato-Men; the Sludge Men and the Grand Sludge. Each a classic.

But a handful rose to the top and became recurring characters:

Doctor Glax was the super-scientist who couldn’t stay in prison. Let’s say there was nothing terribly interesting about him, except he was a great “the reason behind” any random plot I came up with. He had a penchant for imbibing others with super-powers, to foil Arche-Lady. As a super-genius, he was too smart to cross swords with her directly (often).

Panther Pam went insane when her husband left her. She sought to claim Astro-Boy as her mate. Presumed dead, she later turned up as a pawn of an evil business man and is still at large. With each appearance, her new costume was inspired by a classic cat-themed character (Batman TV show’s Catwoman, the '40s Huntress, the '80s redux of Wildcat, the '90s redux of the Jaguar).

The Wizard’s purpose for recurrence was that he was Rich’s favorite villain. He would be trounced hard by Arche-Lady each time, simply to irritate Rich. He is pretty powerful though, having created an entire magical realm to live in, and repaired his neck which Arche-Lady broke.

Vix-N the galactic tramp was exiled by her homeworld for starting an intergalactic war. Her breasts has the power to enslave men. She sluttily returned time and time again to vex Arche-Lady. Ultimately, she and her emissaries, the Snee, returned to her homeworld.

The upper sketch is of the 4 recurring villains. The lower is a page from the in-color retelling of episode 12 that I did in 1999. It gives you a flavor of the villain battle formula.

Fish-philes know that I used to customize Mego action figures quite often. At one point, I had accumulated enough parts to customize the entire recurring cast of the series. However, only two were ever produced: the Wizard, and Panther Pam; both reside in Los Angeles as gifts to Rich.

TOMORROW: the surrounds