Zorpox

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Zorpox the Conqueror a villain from Disney's animated television series Kim Possible, and the villainous alter ego of series regular Ron Stoppable.

He made his first and only appearance in the episode Bad Boy, midway through Season 3, ^[1] and was voiced by Will Friedle.

[edit] History

Initially, Zorpox the Conqueror was a fictional comic book villain within the Kim Possible universe (see Fictional fictional character). His name and trademark black and red costume were used by Ron Stoppable, during Season 3, as part of an attempt to infiltrate the Tri-City villains' convention. However, during the course of the convention, Ron became involved in a struggle with Drakken and Shego, which resulted in a device on display there; known as "Attitudinator", transferring Drakken's "bad energies"(villanous tendency) into him.

Ron implementing trigonometry to calculate trajectory for his mashed potato catapult, during the early stages of his transformation

Initially, Ron was unaware of what has happened, and the device appears to have had no effect. However, as the day progressed, Ron's personality steadily changed. He readopted a leather jacket wearing "bad boy" look that he had unsuccessfully tried to pull off earlier in the episode (in the belief that "girls are attracted to bad boys"), and began to fixate on the idea of getting revenge on his cousin Shaun.

Zorpox, fuly transformed, with his Plasma catapult

Soon afterward, Ron's skin turned blue, and he took to wearing the Zorpox costume and regarding Kim as an enemy. He also began to displays a number of abilities and traits traditionally associated with a Mad scientist type villain, including a strong mechanical and scientific aptitude which was clearly shown and quoted by several characters in the episode to have been superior to Drakken's. This number of abilities allowed him to develop a number of high tech weapons; such as an "all terrain plasma catapult" and a weather machine.

Eventually, with the transformation complete, Ron made a double play for world domination. Using one villainous scheme as a decoy in order to prevent Kim from interfering with his true plan, he attempted to disrupt the world's weather in an effort to force the global community to surrender its supply of Nacos. This was the only time it happened in the series, a decoy plan to divert from the real one, until So the Drama. The plan even confused Shego (and later dismayed her when she found out). She said it wouldn't hurt to be kept in the loop.

Ron/Zorpox was eventually stopped by Drakken (now free from his dark side), who placed a newly repaired "Attitudinator" on Ron's head, restoring both him and Drakken to their original selves once more.

Ron's villainous alter ego did not surface again during Season 3, and release notes for Season 4 do not include him as a character.

[edit] Personality

Zorpox's personality is essentially Ron's personality; primarily, his inquisitive and hyperactive nature, and his unusual perspective of scales (for example, demanding a ransom paid in Nacos), but with the addition of several elements which are more normally associated with a stereotypical "Mad scientist" type villain, such as Drakken. These elements include penchant for dramatics and camp villainy.

Despite being an amalgam of Ron and Dr. Drakken, Zorpox also demonstrated a number of traits that neither Ron nor Drakken is usually credited with possessing. Among these traits were a high level of forethought, and an appreciation of the importance of learning from Drakken's past failures/Kim's past successes. As such Zorpox was one of the few Kim Possible villains to use a decoy; a bogus doomsday weapon, in order to distract Kim from his true plans (Until "So the Drama", he was the only villain to do so), or to realize that Kim typically received last minute mission updates from Wade, prior to going in, thus providing a signal that could be used to locate her.

Zorpox also took a harder line with Shego than Drakken had done. He insisted on his authority, employing a belt that enabled him to repel Shego's energy blasts - which Drakken owned but never figured out how to use - and the lair's traps, in order to impress on her as to who was in charge and who was the sidekick. In that regard he was more successful than Drakken since Shego became very subservient, almost sycophantic.

Zorpox retained and utilized a modified version of Ron's trademark "Booya", which Zorpox worked into a villainous laugh "Booyahahahaha". Owing to his forethought more logical approach to problems, Zorpox has been argued to be a superior villain to most in the franchise.

[edit] Debate

Since his appearance in "Bad Boy", there has been debate amongst fans as which elements of Zorpox represented things that were already present in Ron, and which elements represented things that were introduced to him from Drakken. These debates have lead to two primary schools of thought.

1. That the "Attitudanator" transfered some of Drakken's skills and experiences into Ron. Enabling him to do things that he was not a capable of doing prior.
2. That the "Attitudanator" allowed Ron to better harness skills and experience, in the form of hidden or underused talents, which he already possessed.

Much of this debate centers on the fact that Zorpox demonstrated a high level of technical ability, while Ron is typically portrayed as being creative but not technically minded.

Within the Kim Possible universe, such skills are more commonly associated with Drakken, and what technical skill Ron has demonstrated in the past has largely been more "abstract" than the skills demonstrated by Zorpox. However since when focused Ron excels technically the attitudinator may have removed Ron's natural lack of focus. ^[2]

Conversely, though, while Ron displayed a much higher level of technical ability, Drakken was also show to have retained most, if not all, of his technical skills. Thus forming a counter argument.

According to the episode's script (written in the form of an infomercial), the "Attitudinator" extracted both "good energies" and "bad energies" from Drakken, returning the former to him when it broke, but transferring the latter to Ron. However, the exact nature of these "energies" was never explicitly stated as being "personality alone", or as being "personality + ability" (no indication was given as to their nature beyond their labeling as being "good" or "bad"). Leaving room for conjecture, but providing no definitive answers to the questions raised. A warning included with the "Attitudinator" stated that it could also enhance a person's ego.

Narrator: "First, the Attitudinator removes your good and bad energies, and readjusts the balance, giving you just the right amount of evil. Be the envy of other villains, and the bane of dogooders with the Attitudinator."

However the main school of thought is that Zorpox did keep Ron's main appetite, his love of nacos. His counterplan was that the world's supply of nacos would be given to him.

[edit] Trivia

• Although Ron wore the Zorpox costume after his transformation, at no point did any character actually refer to his post transformation alter ego by the name Zorpox. (Only Jack Hench actually referred to Ron as Zorpox, but only because Hench either did not know or forgot Ron's actual name.)
• The name "Zorpox the conqueror" was chosen from Issue 97 of the "Villain’s League of Evil Villains"; a comic owned by Wade.
• As Ron's alter ego, Zorpox is the only Season 1-3 villain that Ron has never fought against. In Season 4 he never actually faced Warmonga.
• Zorpox is one of three Kim Possible super villains (four counting secondary villain Fukushima) never to have had an episode to themselves as the primary villain. The others are Aviarius (who shared his episode with Shego and Drakken), and Warmonga (who starred alongside Drakken and Shego).

[edit] References