| “ | 50,000 years of life, and nothing ever troubled me as much as the founding of the Justice League. Dedicated to maintaining society's calcified status quo, the League would "protect" mankind from disaster, crime, tragedy of any kind. Had you never heard of "survival of the fittest"? | „ |
| ~ Vandal Savage. |
Vandal Savage is the main antagonist of the animated series Young Justice, based on the superhero team of the same name.
He is an immortal meta-human supervillain with the ability of preternatural longevity, as well as the founder and leader of the Light and the primary archenemy of the Team. Having lived since the dawn of mankind, Vandal believes in the "survival of the fittest" ideology, thinking that humanity would "evolve" if they weren't in the protected lifestyle they live in, and to that end, he aspires to become ruler of mankind and defeat the Justice League and the Team, seeing them as the main obstacles in his goals. This version of Vandal is noticeably different than his original counterpart, being portrayed as a tragic and sympathetic character with understandable goals, while still maintaining his ruthlessness.
He was voiced by the late Miguel Ferrer in Season 1-2 and David Kaye in season 3-onward.
Personality[]
Keeping faithful with his original incarnation, Vandal was an extremely ruthless and dangerous man. Being the leader of The Light and having lived since the dawn of mankind, he has gained immense knowledge of leadership and confidence, as shown during his confrontation with Kid Flash where he faced down the young speedster and mocked his belief that he could "handle" someone like Vandal. In spite of this, Vandal was extremely calm and collected, often speaking in a calm and collected tone during majority of his appearances, almost never displaying a hint of anger.
Due to his long lifespan and his time as Genghis Khan, Vandal harbors the belief that humanity is stunting their "evolution" from living in the protected lifestyle they currently exist in, feeling that the Justice League should be using their powers to destroy parts of the Earth so that humans could adapt the "survival of the fittest" ideology. He harbors a hatred towards the League due to this to the point that he even attempts to mind control them in order to wage war on other planets. In order to achieve this goal, he is willing to work with other high-ranking villains, forming The Light, even if they don't share the same beliefs as he does. In spite of this, he's not afraid to turn against his seeming allies if he finds any hint of Betrayal, immediately turning on the Reach Ambassador upon learning from Aqualad that The Reach was attempting to betray them and placing a hit on Sportsmaster upon learning the latters intent to kill Aqualad for the murder of Artemis.
For all of his evil, Vandal's portrayal in the show is far more sympathetic than in usual media. It is shown that in spite of his beliefs and his desire to rule mankind, he deep down cares about the Earth and his actions only stem from wanting the planet to become strong enough to protect itself from otherworldly threats, even taking possession of the War World in order to threaten other species to stay away from Earth. Vandal is also shown to be an empathetic person, as he understood Black Manta's pain from Aqualad's mind being destroyed by Miss Martian, due to being a father himself. As a note to this, Vandal has been shown to be an extremely loving father towards his children, showing immense pain from mercy-killing his daughter in order to spare her from her dementia, even asking his children in a grief-filled voice to give her a funeral "worthy of the gods". These traits flesh out Vandal more than his other incarnations and turn him into a compelling villain.
Powers and Abilities[]
Powers[]
- Artificially Enhanced Physiology: Vandal Savage is a meta-human, whose powers were derived from the radiation of a meteorite. The radiation enhanced his mental and physical abilities beyond that of a normal human as well as granting him regenerative abilities and perpetual longevity.
- Regenerative Healing Factor: Vandal Savage possesses a superhuman healing factor allowing him to regenerate damaged or destroyed bodily tissue with far greater speed and efficiency than an ordinary human. Vandal Savage is able to heal injuries such as slashes, puncture wounds, bullet wounds, and severe burns within moments. His healing factor is developed to the point that he can regrow and reattach missing limbs and organs. His healing factor has allowed him to survive even brain punctures on numerous occasions. With this superior healing factor he has shown a unique tolerance towards pain.
- Foreign Chemical Immunity: Vandal Savage’s superhuman healing factor also affords him the immunity to all poisons and most drugs. It is virtually impossible for him to become intoxicated.
- Disease Immunity: The unique regenerative qualities of Vandal Savage's healing factor also extends to his Immune System, rendering him immune to the effects of all known diseases and infections.
- Immortality: The radiation granted him immortality, halting his aging completely. This allowed him to remain in his physical prime even after 50,000 years.
- Enhanced Mental Processing: The radiation has enhanced Vandal Savage’s mental acumen. He possesses enhanced intuition, pattern solving, information storage/retrieval, and logical/philosophical structuring. His mind also process information quickly, giving him an accelerated learning aptitude, a knack for quickly analyzing multiple information streams (e.g., threat assessment) and rapidly respond to changing tactical situations, eidetic memory (meaning that he never forgets anything and has perfect recall), ability to read at superhuman speeds, and high deductive/reasoning skills.
- Superhuman Strength: Because of his healing factor, Vandal Savage can push his muscles to levels beyond the natural limits of an ordinary human being without sustaining injury, giving him superhuman strength. He is capable of lifting in more than 800 lbs and is shown to lift up to 3 tons. The exact limit of his strength is unknown.
- Superhuman Speed: Vandal Savage has speed greater than a trained human athlete. Easily able to dispatch gunman with relative ease before they pull the trigger or get a proper shot in. Dodge point blank gunfire from expert marksmen like Sportsmaster.
- Superhuman Stamina: Vandal Savage's healing factor grants him superhuman stamina and is partially immune to fatigue toxins generated by physical exertion and thus has greater endurance than actual humans. His stamina has been described as metahuman.
- Superhuman Agility: Vandal Savage's agility, balance, and bodily coordination are enhanced to levels that are beyond the natural physical limits of even the finest human athlete.
- Superhuman Reflexes: His reflexes are similarly enhanced, superior to those of even the finest human athlete.
Abilities[]
- Genius Intelligence: Vandal Savage is a genius with expertise in various fields of science, mainly genetics with years of his research at his command, mutations and their powers, human and alien biology, cloning, all levels of physics, engineering (including mechanical, genetic and electrical engineering) and more. His intellect has been said to match Lex Luthor and Batman and he is one of the smartest people on Earth. Savage, having lived for over 50,000 years has acquired vast knowledge over many known fields, being a formidable scientist and a talented inventor. His intellect later grew to new levels after his time with Darkseid and the advanced New God technology he had access to, mastering not only this and all technology from Earth (allowing him considerable expertise in cybernetics, robotics and computers) but also new sciences to aid him in his goals to advance the entire earth.
- Master Tactician and Strategist: Vandal Savage is a superb strategist and tactician. His vast experience on the battlefield allow him to formulate battle strategies and his brilliant tactical sense allows him to alter any strategy to fit the changing need of the situation. Savage is known for being a born leader, ruling vast forces of men under his command. This is evident when Waller reads off some of his past aliases as famous rulers of history, notably Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, and Genghis Khan.
- Master Martial Artist: Vandal Savage has mastered virtually every form of hand to hand combat on Earth. Due to his age and experience, Vandal Savage has fought many opponents, these include: the Batman, Robin, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Red Hood, Deathstroke, Lady Shiva, Red Hood, and Nightwing in hand to hand combat.
- Expert Marksman: Vandal Savage is a highly proficient marksman and can throw most projectile weaponry with great aim.
- Weapons Expert: Vandal Savage is a trained expert with many guns, blades, explosives and other weaponry due to his experiences as a solider, warrior, spy, and mercenary.
- Master Acrobat: Vandal Savage' years of extensive training and vast experience have made him a highly skilled acrobat, gymnast, and aerialist.
- Expert Hacker: Vandal Savage can hack into any advanced computer systems without tippling firewalls and security.
- Multilingual: A polyglot; Vandal Savage is fluent in many languages including English, Japanese, Russian, Mandarin, Cheyenne, Lakota, Spanish, and Chinese. Vandal Savage also has some knowledge of Farsi, French, German, Korean, Thai, and Vietnamese. Notably, he is also one of the few individuals who has demonstrated the ability to understand alien languages.
- Expert Vehicular Driver: Vandal Savage is highly proficient in driving cars, motorcycles, trucks, jets, tankers, helicopters, motorboats, submarines, and some types of trains and utility vehicles.
Gallery[]
.jpg "Vandal Savage (Young Justice).jpg (5 KB)")
Trivia[]
- Vandal has had numerous children in his existence; he cares for and honors them all
- Seeing his eldest daughter Olympia suffering alzheimers at age 87, he got her to relive a happy memory before snapping her neck to quickly end her suffering. He told her sister Cassandra to make the funeral worthy of the gods.
External Links[]
- Vandal Savage on the DC Database Wiki
- Vandal Savage on the Young Justice Wiki
