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Hazard is a major antagonist in Season 3 of the Animator vs. Animation web series.
He is a member of the mercenary team hired by Victim and Agent to assist them in their plans of getting revenge on the Animator and the Chosen One. Despite his limited movement and comedic appearance, Hazard is considered the strongest and most reliable mercenary.
Appearance[]
Hazard is a pictogram stick figure that one sees on signs. He is tall, his color is gray/black, his filled-in head is separate from the rest of his body, he has a gray outline and, unlike the other characters, noticeably has an actual "body" of sorts and isn't just a flat line. For whatever reason, he has very limited movement and moves on a lower framerate. He is also completely flat.
History[]
"Mercenary Tryouts"[]
Sometime between August 2018 and April 2023, Rocket Corp held auditions at their headquarter in desperate search for new mercenaries to recruit for the company. Many stick figures headed over to put their skills into play to become the next potential mercenary to join Agent and Victim in their quest for vengeance by being placed in a box to attack a worker and show their divergent abilities. After each stick figure was done with their audition, Agent would then rank their efficiency and effectiveness on a graded scale with the top three stick figures joining Agent as a team.
Hazard would rank the highest despite not actually doing anything to the worker. He simply showcased his powerset, finishing it off by pulling out an atomic bomb out of a pictogram sign, that being all he needed to do. He ended up one of the three finalists, alongside Ballista and Primal.
Wanted - Animator vs. Animation 9[]
Hazard is introduced chasing after the Chosen One alongside Ballista, Agent and Primal, endangering the citizens of the city they're in. Alongside his teammates, he is on a hoverbike that shoots out glitchy bullets that corrupt anything they touch, as seen when he shoots a giant windmill. Eventually, the Chosen One gets the idea of distracting the four mercenaries while he goes to get the Second Coming to help. He eventually summons a thunderstorm that briefly takes out the power of Hazard's hoverbike.
By the time we return to the mercenaries, Hazard and his teammates rebegin their chase on ground. When they notice the Second Coming, Agent realizes he's working alongside his target and tries to kill him, with Hazard joining him. Once the Second Coming uses his pencil to create animals that distract Ballista and Primal, Hazard attacks him by punching away his shield and then enters a brief fistfight where he dodges or blocks all of his opponent's attacks before kicking him away. Before he can finish him off, the Second Coming draws a bird that attacks Hazard, causing him to make an alarm sound.
However, he quickly recovers and kills the bird with an electric sign. Before he, Ballista and Primal could kill the Second Coming, Agent interrupts them and challenges his enemy to a one-on-one fight. During this, the remaining mercs hold down the injured Chosen One to stop him from fighting. However, he manages to throw them all off him and tries to kill Agent, but he simply pauses him mid-flight. The four mercs then take the two stick figures back with them.
Back in the base of Rocket Corp, the Second Coming and the Chosen One are imprisoned and the former's pencil is taken away for experimentation. The mercenaries then go to their boss, Victim, to inform him the mission has been accomplished.
The Box - Animator vs. Animation 10[]
The five villains go visit the Chosen One, Victim entering the box he's trapped in while Agent operates it from a computer. Hazard watches as Victim decides to toy with the Chosen One and torment him, falling asleep from boredom. After more torture, Victim decides to question the Chosen One about the Animator.
Halfway through, some scientists come in with the Second Coming, who was briefly questioned. At the same time, Victim decides to search through the Chosen One's memories to see anything; they find out the Second Coming possesses superpowers, causing everyone present to react in shock; even the Second Coming is surprised, having amnesia from the one time he used them. After locking up the Second Coming in a steel cage, Victim searches through more of the Chosen One's memories and finds out one of the orange stick figure's friends, Yellow, found a way to summon the Animator to the Outernet. He immediately puts a bounty on his head, only to turn out Yellow and his friends sneaked into the organization's building. Agent arrests him while Victim prepares his revenge against the Animator.
Hacker - Animator vs. Animation 12[]
While Victim and Agent take off with a paused Chosen One to get their revenge, the mercenaries stay at Rocket Corp headquarters. While hanging out together, Primal hears Green, Red and Blue crawling through the vents and tells his coworkers to split and search for the intruders. In the cloning area where all of Rocket Corp's workers are made, Hazard encounters Blue and the two battle. Hazard first tries to shoot Blue with his projectiles, but ultimately has to clone himself and engage Blue in close-quarters-combat. After breaking one of the stasis pods, Blue defends himself using a clone's unconscious body and manages to throw him onto his back before placing a stasis pod onto him; since Hazard is two-dimensional, he can't go up and is stuck in place.
Personality[]
Hazard doesn't show much personality, being mostly just silent and hellbent on defeating his targets. However, he's shown to be confused when Agent decides to fight the Second Coming himself, seemingly doesn't enjoy the awkward silence when he and the other mercs enter the elevator together, and is shocked when witnessing the Second Coming's superpowers. Unlike the other mercs, Hazard isn't proven to have any sadistic tendencies, but he is shown to be completely apathetic to other people's suffering, taking a nap while the Chosen One is being tortured. He is shown to be friendly and relaxed when off-the-job, hanging out with Ballista and Primal.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Superhuman attributes: Hazard is shown to be vastly superior to the likes of the Second Coming, who can already perform feats far beyond those of normal humans.
- Teamwork: Hazard works alongside three other mercenaries and cooperates with them perfectly.
- Agility: Hazard is agile enough to easily dodge attacks from the Second Coming.
- Marksmanship: While his aim is far from perfect, Hazard can easily operate a gun.
- Fighting skills: While no martial artist like Agent, Hazard is still a good fighter able to keep up with the Second Coming.
- Limited movement: Hazard moves on a lower framerate than the other stick figures, making him able to easily switch positions in just a second.
- Complete control over all pictogram signs: Hazard is absurdly powerful due to this simple power, having one of the strongest powersets in the entire franchise:
- Electrokinesis: Hazard can spawn a shock-sign in his hands that completely evaporates anything it touches.
- Transformation: Hazard can transform into any pictogram stick figure. This includes changing genders as he briefly transformed into a female pictogram stick.
- Duplication: The power above means Hazard can also duplicate himself, as shown when he cloned himself while battling Blue.
- Summoning: Hazard can summon anything thanks to his powers, including a shovel, a bike, and an atomic bomb. He can also summon road signs and use them as projectiles to throw at people.
- Blocking: Hazard can use the no entry sign to block any projectile or attack thrown at him.
- Implied pyrokinesis: Hazard briefly held a fire sign, implying he has control over fire.
Weaknesses[]
- Two-dimensionality: Hazard is two-dimensional, meaning he's helpless once he's knocked over as he can't go up.
- Lack of fighting experience: While unbelievably powerful, Hazard seemingly has no prior combat experience before being hired by Rocket Corp. While he nevertheless put up a good fight against Blue and came close to killing him a few times, this ultimately resulted in his defeat due to Blue being faster and more experienced.
Trivia[]
- Hazard has been purposefully left nameless so the fans could have fun making up nicknames; as a result, the wiki only calls him "Hazard" because he needs to be called something.
- That said, a community post on the Animators VS Games YouTube channel has used both "Signman" and "The Pedestrian", although the latter was a reference to the 2020 video game of the same name.
- He's been called "Bathroom Sign Guy" by DJ Welch, a friend of series creator Alan Becker. Despite Becker himself using that name later on, he specified that it's not canon, most likely because of how goofy and unserious it is.
- A newsletter released after "Hacker" officially calls him Hazard, meaning this is likely his official name, similar to how other fan nicknames have been canonized in the past.
- While all characters are computer programs, Hazard is especially more robotic then the others, having limited movement and making alarm sounds when attacked. It's possible that, rather than being human-like like the others, Hazard is meant to be a literal robot.
- Hazard makes a quick cameo in the Actual Shorts episode "Corn Dog Guy", showing the events of "Wanted" through the perspective of an unlucky corn dog salesman.
- Hazard took 13th place on the official 2024 popularity poll with 381 votes.
- Hazard is genderless, as confirmed by team member Hatena. He presumably goes by both he/him and they/them pronouns, as DJ Welch and Alan Becker use the former while Hatena refers to them with the latter.
- His ranking in the tryouts suggests that he's considered (at least in Agent's eyes) the most powerful and dangerous of the Mercenaries. However, since power wasn't the only value considered and utility was one of the parameters, his placement is also likely due to his powers being more versatile. This is because his shapeshifting gives him more options than Primal's strong but still limited second form, which is also implied to lower his intellect.
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 Villains
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