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Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Venger of D&D Cartoon fame, the Best Mage Design ever, IMO.

Edit below regarding all the https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Venger
The Japanese part says “here [are to be the] black lines” indicating where to draw the black lines on his lower grey robes. The Japanese by his wing is too hard to read/doesn’t make obvious sense… but is like also drawing instructions. The Japanese by his name is just “ben jaa” as in Venger (no V sound or “er” in Japanese) his name sounded out in katakana. 


Prologue: As a kid, it was monsters (and therefore villains) that were my favorites. Darth Vader, Venger, etc. They just looked so damn cool. You know it's likely Venger is one of the main reasons I have been a Mage fan in DnD for all this time- that just occurred to me. And is Venger and Vader why I always did red+black themes... hmmm. 

Who and what is Venger? Let's see. 


Let's quote crossplanes, such a good writeup, based mostly on the last episode (fans made that episode in like 2020 or something):

Venger was originally a noble human but millennia ago made a pact with the Nameless One and chose to be mentored by the evil entity. This tutorship in sorcery would cost him both his humanity and human form, with the essence of his former self being locked inside a cenotaph located at the edge of the Realm. If the key to that vault is ever used to unlock it then Venger would be redeemed of evil and transformed back into his human and humane self.


Venger commands armies of monsters such as orcs, bullywugs and lizard men but relies especially on a shadow demon for spying. For locomotion Venger favours his nightmare steed; a demonic black horse that can fly.


Venger also has a sister named Karena who is evil like her brother. Sibling rivalry and a dispute over ownership of the Ring of the Heart resulted in Venger imprisoning his sister in an enchanted cave in the Hills of Never.

VENGER

"He seeks to find a way from his realm into ours.  We cannot let that happen, as we lack the necessary totems to stop him here."

-Oakey Sarsaparilla, an expert on the Realm of Dungeons and Dragons.


What can I say about Venger?

He's powerful, very. His magic is right up there with DM. He rides a Nightmare, has a right hand man in ShadowDemon, and controls various monstrous folks all over this world. He looks cool as hell, and has the great and iconic Peter Cullen voice... probably the first time anybody ever heard it. Red magical blasts are his main attack... much more powerful than a magic missile from back in 1983 so I think it's specific to him. Has some whitish blast magic, too. Also has blue-white teleportation magic, and regen/appear giant in the sky out of apparent death magic (happens a lot). He's out to get the kids' weapons to beat Tiamat and take over The Realm. 


Cartoon intro pictures of Venger on his Nightmare steed. 

Watching the DVDs (can't believe they don't sell them currently) last night with the kid. Below will be lots of pictures of Episode 22, since there is so much Venger in them. I'll use Youtube & internet archive to get picts here today. 


So Venger is not just a badass mage... he's huge. He must be 8+ feet tall. They show him in ep.22 next to characters several times, and he's huge each time. 

Expressions of Venger

Below you'll see Venger in many different expressions. When near enemies, he will seem menacing along with some other emotion. 
 
Venger's expressions... thoughtful. He's having a bad day when the Nameless One comes back, Venger's powers used up almost, Ep.22. 

Venger's expressions... analyzing/considering action: has frequent use of the single raised eyebrow. This one from Ep.22.

Venger's expressions... angry at ShadowDemon, ep.11. His wings are often up when he's surprised, angry, or about to cast a spell. He also often looms into the scene like here. His left eyebrow is raised here, too (mad, curious, joking, whatever... the eyebrow is multi-purpose). 

Venger's magic plus his monstrous and magical physical traits 

-teleportation, mass teleportation
-magical disguises
-magical flying - as a kid at first I thought the wings were on the Nightmare horse. 
-magical offense, blasts, heat, etc.
-magical defence, like deflecting anything, flipping magic around to change or throw it back. 
-magical toughness/phoenix rebirth

Stay Sadie (inside joke). 
Notice his shapeshifting wings in these shots. I always liked the way they handled that, they just sort of disappear into his cloak over his shoulders. 

Seriously good hand artwork with foreshortening. 
Venger does have sharp nails on closeups (sometimes). Just how demonic is he? A lot I'd say. Notice the eyebrow yet?

Heat powers... notice the glowing claws. Magic yeah, but innate? 

Casually deflects magical attacks (green beam from a deathknight's sword).

Often has these red beams, but sometimes blueish or white. 
Like this. And BTW, he never has to utter a syllable for spells, like it should be. 

How easy is it to kill Venger? Well early on, Ep.3 it looks like he's a goner, a castle falls on him...
But he comes right back. 

Maybe if they just show the building falling on him...

Ep. 4, they show him being buried. Then the whole castle crumbles on top of that. 

Wait, what is this? 

Come on, Venger can't die that easily. 

A volcano maybe? 


Venger surviving as part of the volcanic blast itself, after a volcanic mountain collapse/explosion/eruption in ep.8. 


Venger's Guile - What is Good or Evil

Venger isn't all raw power and overt aggression. You see here Venger makes the kids question if conveniently calling DM good and him evil is so simple and true. 

Edit/more extras- this has some great info: https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Venger 
Including… TSR/Japanese notes analysis saying he is 7 ft 5 inches tall, Hank is 5ft 10in, Eric is 5’8”, DM is 1’ 00 inches, etc.  The site confuses the height, let me clarify, no Venger isn’t 7.05 ft., because Hank is not 5.1 feet… it is just written weird b/c Japanese folks don’t use feet so they wrote it incorrectly. 

In Conclusion

Venger is a badass and just plain cool. Visually he's the coolest magic user ever invented, and he's the most serious bad guy in any American animation I can think of. He's aggressive, has big ambitions to dominate not just the good guys but even the most powerful bad guys. Heck even his "master" the Nameless One got some energy bolts to the face when he decided to try to destroy Venger for failing to take out Dungeon Master. You have to hand it to Venger, he doesn't much back down from anybody. 

Extras below

Fun generic 1980s cartoon monster villains: https://www.horror.land/nightmarish-villains-of-80s-cartoons/


Check out these likely original official storyboard drawings, like a comic strip, on the Internet Archive site:


Who or more importantly what type of short monster/race is this guy from Ep.22, h e had the magic shot from helmet horns, leader of some bad guys "Underworld" aka what I'd call the Underdark. Suspect he's a goblin:


More references:


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