Many's the villain who has had a private name that turned out to be exceptionally fitted to their eventual villainous identity.
Rocky Grimes (who became, uh, Rocky Grimes) is a mild example, since the hook is just his first name (which is obviously just a nickname, anyway).
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| Subtle as a brick Rocky had a way of really FORCING the connections to this theme. |
Joe Coyne (who became the Penny Plunderer) is a bit stronger, being his last name.
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| But, given another set of circumstances, Joe might have become, say, a coffee-themed villain, The Java Robber. |
Edward ("E.)" Nigma is delightful because it just COULD be a normal name and doesn't seem odd unless you use the first initial. Sadly, later writers would change "Nigma" to "Nygma", which I suppose they thought was more realistic because it was less on point. At one point, one writer (Denny O'Neil) decided even that was too silly and posited that his REAL real name was "Eddie Nashton".
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| And god forbid Serious Writer Denny O'Neil do anything silly. |
Julian Day (Calendar Man) is extremely on point, of course, but that name was a retcon. In his original appearance he HAD no "real name"; he was a magician named "the Maharajah"..
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| With a really strong dental plan. |
Harley Quinn is an example similar to Calendar Man. When she was first introduced (BTAS "Joker's Favor"), she was completed unnamed. Only during a subsequent appearance was she given the codename "Harley Quinn". It was even later she was given a backstory (which definitely contradicted her first appearance, where she was a self-confessed beauty school drop-out, rather than a psychotherapist) and the birth name of "Harleen Quinzel" (because it is NOT easy to reverse engineer a name like "Harley Quinn"). I assume it was partly in honor of her original voice actor, Arleen Sorkin.
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| For a few precious years, Harley Quinn's first appearance was the most destructive thing that had ever happened on September 11. |
But in yesterday's post, we caught a glimpse of the greatest of these characters, hands-down. Oh, sure, everyone is quick to proffer "Roy G. Bivolo" as the greatest example of the prophetic name phenomenon.
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| His air of confidence helps. |
But the real champion is this guy:
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| Richie Rich foe, Dr. N-R-Gee |
Dr. N-R-Gee is ALSO probably the greatest objected-headed villain of all time, but that's obvious. Now, you might think that his original identity was some name with the initials "NRG" because, well, I mean what ELSE would it be?
We found out differently when his origin story was finally told in Richie Rich Money World #16 (1972).
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| You may recall its dramatic cover on the spinner racks. |
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| It involved an unfortunate accident with a electric head-scratcher. |
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| Yes, Dr. R-N-Gee did this scene BEFORE Jack Nicholson's Joker. |
Before he became an object-headed supervillain, Dr. R-N-Gee was a brilliant engineer named
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| PHIL LAMENT. |
And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, has been, is, and will always be the ultimate prophetic villain name.
5 comments:
The Earth-Prime Julian Day is a supervillain too: he's the CEO who was hired to turn Radio Shack around, but instead ran it into the ground. I press my Battery Club Card to my chest and spit when I hear his name.
- HJF1
Now, HE'S the one who should have a lightbulb head.
So the lightbulb is not a helmet, like Mysterio's fishbowl. It's his HEAD?
Okay, okay. *Thinks furiously* Clearly the accident turned Phil into energy, which he's manipulating to give himself this appearance. And using to vibrate air molecules to simulate speech. Those bandages must have been similar to Larry Trainor's, specially treated to restrain energy.
Of course, now we have the problem of why you'd use your godlike power to highjack ships, but that's just comics.
Oops, me again. Bryan L
"It's his HEAD?" It is. Permanently. I really appreciate Harvey's smooth comic book logic: "Well, obviously, he wasn't BORN with a lightbulb for a head. So there must have been an accident later. Period."
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