Victor Perkins

"I'm applying for a new villain loan. Go by the name of Vector. It's a mathematical term, a quantity represented by an arrow, with both direction and magnitude. Vector! That's me, 'cause I'm committing crimes with both direction and magnitude. Oh, yeah!"

- Vector introducing himself to Gru.

Victor "Vector" Perkins is the main antagonist of Illumination's 1st feature film Despicable Me. He is the son of the president of the Bank of Evil, Mr. Perkins.

He was voiced by Jason Segel.

Role
When Felonious Gru first encounters Vector at the Bank of Evil, he doesn't seem like the type of guy who'd be competent enough to steal an ice cream cone, let alone the Great Pyramid of Giza, as his boasts only irritate, and his latest invention - the Piranha Gun - falls flat. Even when the bank manager, Mr. Perkins, confirms it, Gru only reacts with disbelief and plans to steal the moon to mend his broken pride. However, with the right tools, though, Vector proves to be a significant threat to his own plans to steal the moon.

When Gru first steals a shrink ray from an East Asian facility, Vector steals it from him in turn, evades all his efforts to shoot him down, and to add insult to injury, uses the shrink ray to shrink Gru's aircraft, leaving him and his two Minions to putter home in defeat.

When Gru tries to infiltrate his fortress, Vector defeats him several times over, all with the push of a button. However, when he lets Margo, Edith, and Agnes to order cookies from them, he unwittingly inspires Gru to adopt the girls and use them to get the shrink ray back. When they deliver Vector's cookies, Nefario's cookie robots shut down his security, allowing Gru and his Minions to steal it back from under his nose.

Later, after learning from Mr. Perkins (revealed to be his father) that the shrink ray is currently in Gru's custody, Vector tries to hitch a ride on Gru's rocket with his Squid Launcher, only to be thrown off when Gru electrifies its exterior before proceeding to successfully shrink the moon.

Undeterred, Vector sneaks into the girls' dance recital and abducts them, intending to ransom them for the moon. When Gru learns about the kidnapping, he heads over to Vector's fortress and turns over the moon as promised, but Vector reneges on the deal and instead flees in his escape pod while holding the girls hostage after Gru knocks out his pet shark and makes short work of his security. As Gru launches a rescue with the help from Nefario and the Minions in their aircraft (which has grown back to its original size).

Nefario reveals that the shrink ray's effects are temporary and that the object will return to its original size based on its mass, making Gru realize that the moon will grow back to its original size. As such, the moon begins growing, and Vector soon loses control of the ship due to the heavy mass while Gru manages to rescue the girls. As the moon rolls around, it hits the button for a backup propulsion system, launching the ship into space before it explodes, leaving Vector stranded on the surface as the moon returns to its normal size and orbit. Despite being horrified to learn that he is now stuck in the moon's surface forever, Vector (with an elastic space helmet) is last seen dancing to "You Should Be Dancin'", only to be joined by a Minion who floated away from the Earth after drinking some antigravity serum earlier.

According to an AVL document in Despicable Me 3, Vector is still stranded on the moon; at night, if viewed through a telescope, he is visible as an orange dot. It is completely unknown if Vector ever escaped from the moon and make it back to the Earth or stayed there until he died of starvation.

Personality
Vector is a very intelligent, manipulative and competent supervillain. His skills at overthrowing Gru with his gadgets and pet shark are very marvelous, and he is also very comical, facetious and entertaining, unlike the usual villain in the animated film. He likes to make weapons that shoot out aquatic animals, and he hates it when his orange warm-up suit is mistaken for pajamas.