Villains in Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue
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The fictional villains of the Power Rangers universe that appeared in the television series Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue and opposed the Lightspeed Rescue Power Rangers were demons who served Queen Bansheera.
5,000 years ago, a race of evil demons had plans to conquer the Earth, but they were sealed away in the Tomb of Forever by a powerful warlock. In the present day, a group of wandering nomads accidentally releases the demons. The demons are angry to find that humans have built the city of Mariner Bay over their former palace, and vow to get it back. They also worked to revive Queen Bansheera. The leader of the demons at any one time (below Bansheera herself) wielded the Star Power. This Star Power was passed from its initial owner, Diabolico, to Bansheera's son Olympius during the course of the series as Bansheera awaits the day to release the demons from the Shadow World. The main antagonists are listed below in order of appearance.
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[edit] Queen Bansheera
Queen Bansheera is the evil monarch of the demons. She was in parts unknown when Diabolico and his band were freed, and later returned in an energy form. She was later brought back physically by a ceremony enacted by Prince Olympius, but because of the Rangers' tampering, she was a grotesque form. She later regained her humanoid form by destroying Vypra and absorbing her life energy.
Bansheera set out to conquer the world, and proved far more ruthless than Diabolico or Olympius. She forced Diabolico to destroy Loki, left her own son to rot in the Shadow World, and nearly destroyed the Rangers. Despite Diabolico telling the Red Lightspeed Ranger to strike where her heart should be, she continued to menace the Rangers. She eventually turned Diabolico and Olympius into Super Demons, but they were defeated. In the episode Wrath of the Queen,she became one of the few head Power Ranger villains to nearly destory the entire team.
However, Bansheera planned to open the Shadow World within a sarcophagus and free all the demons from the Shadow World. Taking over the Aquabase and the Omega Megazord, she was close to succeeding. However, she ended up suspended above the Demon World portal by the Red Lightspeed Ranger. The spirit of a vengeful Diabolico appeared, pulling her inside, where she was attacked by the undead monsters (and presumably beaten to death).
Queen Bansheera is voiced by Diane Salinger.
NOTE: When Bansheera regained her form, the monster faces on her "skirt" are of Fireor, Aquafiend, Arachnor, the skull-themed zombie from "Sorcerer of the Sands," and Abominus.
Some of the "demons" in the Shadow World were non-demonic monsters from previous Power Rangers series. However, no Machine Empire monsters would be seen in the Shadow World, as they were robotic, and therefore non-living. One of the "undead monsters" appears to be Rita Repulsa, possibly of manifestation of the evil purified from the original Rita.
[edit] Prince Olympius
Prince Olympius was the son of Queen Bansheera. He initially appeared as the infant, Impus, who was cared for by the Demons in her absence. Impus was the greatest threat to Diabolico, as Bansheera threatened to give Impus the Star Power. He eventually gained it when Diabolico was destroyed for the first time, maturing into the humanoid dragon warrior, Olympius. He took Diabolico's place as the Rangers' main antagonist, but because of his naivete, he was not as adept as his predecessor and mostly took orders from Vypra and Loki.
He gained access to the Aquabase when he captured four of the Rangers and assumed their forms. Carter Grayson (Red Ranger) was able to see right through him and foiled his plans, resulting in him falling into the sea and losing most of his personal power along with the ability to shape-shift. As a result he was no longer a physical match for the Rangers or Vypra and Loki who then took charge.
Olympius had managed to destroy the Rangers once by using a device that allowed him to use the RescueBird against them, but Carter went back in time to change history and prevent Olympius from pulling the trigger.
Olympius managed to revive Bansheera, but instead of treating him like a prince, she treated him as just another expendable pawn like the rest of her minions. His plans to win her affection were unsuccessful and quickly lost favor with her. When he discovered that Vypra and Loki were to take his place as second-in-command, he plotted to eliminate them by using the monster, Vilevine, to bury the two of them alive. His plans were hampered by the return of Diabolico when Vypra and Loki survived and revived him. In an attempt to destroy the Rangers, he employed the services of the Shadow World's Gatekeeper to trap the Rangers in the Shadow World roaming with defeated demons. However, he himself became trapped at Diabolico's bidding when the gateway was destroyed and the key was stolen. He was forced to absorb the destroyed Demons, evolving into an even more powerful dragon-like version of himself. However, he still needed more power to escape the Shadow World.
Jinxer, still loyal to Olympius, placed a Star Power link inside the Aquabase generator to provide Olympius with more energy. Olympius was a difficult opponent until Ms. Fairweather broke the link to the Aquabases energy and weakened Olympius enough for the Rangers to defeat him. Also his Star Power was destroyed by the Omega Megazord during the battle. He lay recuperating under the care of Jinxer for a short time, and then took revenge on Diabolico by besting him in battle and had his mother turn Diabolico into a mindless slave. Olympius and the mindless Diabolico attacked the Rangers. However, the demonic child's plans were derailed when Diabolico regained his mind and rebelled against Olympius and fought against him and destroyed him. Olympius was then defeated again by the Rangers and both were turned into Super Demons. However, they were destroyed by the Lifeforce Megazord.
Olympius was responsible for the creation of a variety of different monsters, most of them were either fire-elemental (like Fireor and Trifire) or reptilian (Freezard and Infinitor), others included Mantevil and Vilevine and an unhatched Monster Egg (which was predicted to grow into a hydra-like monster). When maturing into Olympius he proved to be a noteworthy adversary to the Rangers. However, being new at wielding the Star Power put a great strain on him and so he had to slowly get used to his new powers. In his first encounter with the Rangers he swiftly defeated them and managed to capture four of them within the Star Power. Soon after he used the Star Power to turn himself into nearly identical duplicates of his prisoners and used this power to infiltrate the Aquabase. However, after being weakened from the exposure of water he could no longer contain the Rangers inside the Star Power. In battle Olympius displayed excellent physical strength and stamina and skills in using various weaponry. He primarily used a double-bladed spear. At times he even used some of the Rangers' own weapons against them including Carter's rescue blaster and the RescueBird (with which he actually killed the Rangers; Carter would prevent this from occuring by going back in time). Olympius also has shown he had the ability of pyrokinesis by expelling fire and controlling it. Olympius has proven to be a skilled warrior in defeating an army of undead demons and even besting Diabolico twice (the second time he even destroyed him). In his more powerful draconic form he displayed great powers by reflecting the Rangers' weaponry and firing his own energy. However, to maintain his strength in this form he needed another energy source (for this he drained power from the Aquabase). Without a suitable energy source he was considerably hindered. Even so, he managed to survive blows from the Omega Megazord and Lightspeed Solarzord that would have normally destroyed other monsters, weakening enough only to revert him back to his normal form. In his Super Demon form he was at the peak of his power and by combining his powers with Diabolico he managed to destroy nearly all of the Rangers' Megazords, a feat that very few villains and monsters are capable of achieving.
Impus is voiced by Brianne Siddall while his adult form of Olympius is voiced by Michael Forest.
[edit] Diabolico
Diabolico is the devil-like primary villain for the first part of the Lightspeed Rescue series. He was first in line to be granted the Star Power by Queen Bansheera, and attacked the Rangers with his army of demons.
Some time before the series Diabolico appeared before Captain Mitchell and his two children when they were hanging off the edge of a cliff after a car accident. Ryan was about to fall to his doom when Diabolico offered to save him but in return he asked for ownership over Ryan to which Mitchell reluctantly agreed. After rescuing Ryan Diabolico told Captain Mitchell that he would see his son again on his twentieth birthday. From then on Diabolico was able to train Ryan to be a skilled warrior. This proved to be his downfall when Ryan switched sides.
Diabolico displayed strong spiritual powers, as he was able to appear in a spiritual form even when he was imprisoned and after being destroyed. He could also control the weather by creating storms and can summon energy blasts. In battle he used a skull-themed two-pronged staff. He has also shown a strange ability where he can detach his right hand and grab onto opponents with it and bring the rest of his body closer to his target. With the Star Power Diabolico was immensely powerful, one of his energy beams was enough to put a hole through the Super Train Megazord. Even without the Star Power he was a competent fighter, nearly besting Olympius in their first battle. When turned into his Super Demon form, Diabolico was at his peak in power. In this form he used a jewel-encrusted sword as his weapon and when combining his powers with Olympius' they were enough to destroy nearly all of the Rangers' Megazords, a feat very few villains and monsters are capable of achieving.
After repeated failures, however, Diabolico was threatened by Queen Bansheera, who wanted to take the Star Power and give it to her son, Impus. Diabolico considered even killing Impus himself to prevent him from having the Star Power taken away from him, but lost the chance. Finally, after his Troika monster was destroyed, he grew big himself to try to destroy the Power Rangers. However, the Power Rangers formed the Lightspeed Solarzord and destroyed him by absorbing one of his blasts and using the power from it in their own cannons blasting him until he was destroyed (this was ironic since the Rangers were able to destroy Diabolico with Ryan, the Titanium Ranger's help). The Star Power drifted from the fiery explosion caused by his defeat and went to Impus, who matured into Olympius.
Diabolico was later revived (from what was said to be the Shadow World) by Vypra and Loki, who had almost been destroyed by Olympius and his monster servant, Vilevine. He immediately returned to his queen's side, attempting to regain favor with her and recapture the Star Power from Olympius. His plans went so far as to trap the naive demonic child in the Shadow World, where all dead monsters dwell. However, Olympius escaped, and Bansheera punished Diabolico by forcing him to kill his ally and friend, Loki, while he was in the way of the other Rangers. He turned against Bansheera, and told the Red Lightspeed Ranger where to strike to defeat her, but she survived.
Fleeing Bansheera, Diabolico was attacked and defeated by a vengeful Olympius. He was dragged back to Bansheera, who turned him into Olympius' mindless pet. The two then attacked the Rangers, but with the help of the Red Ranger (Carter), Diabolico's noble side came back out, and he turned against Olympius once more giving Carter the key to the Tomb (it returned to the Tomb after he and Olympius were destroyed for good). Olympius then took out Diabolico, and in response, the Rangers took down Olympius. Soon, Bansheera revived the two of them and made them into giant Super Demons, with Diabolico now back under Bansheera's control again. They wreaked havoc on the city and the Rangers' Megazords. It took the power of the previously-unused Lifeforce Megazord to finally destroy the two Super Demons. Then, at the very end of The Fate of Lightspeed, the Power Rangers fight Queen Bansheera in the Skull Cavern. Carter (the Red Ranger) knocks her in, but she manages to drag him down leaving them suspended above the monsters below. Carter urges his friends to close the tomb, but they want him back. At that moment, Diabolico's spirit appeared to help the Rangers and he freed Carter and dragged her into the Shadow World, exacting his final revenge on her. Carter climbed out and closed the tomb. Diabolico also appears as the sixth and final boss in Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue for Game Boy Color. Diabolico was seen one from Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue for Nintendo 64.
Diabolico is voiced by Neil Kaplan.
[edit] Vypra
Vypra is one of only two female demons, along with Queen Bansheera. She is the most human-looking demon in serpentine armor and adept in demonic magic. At first Vypra was considered a motherly figure to the young Impus, but after he had matured into Olympius she began to look down on him as an immature leader.
She led several attacks on the Rangers, including the use of her Vyprari dune buggy. She primarily used a thin saber that could unleash energy disks. She almost never took hits, but apparently she was vulnerable to damage, because in at least one episode, Carter was able to hold her up by threatening to shoot her.
After Olympius lost favor with his mother, he discovered that she was considering making Vypra second in command. He plotted to eliminate her and Loki by having Vilevine bury them alive. The plan failed and Loki and Vypra retaliated by bringing back Diabolico from the dead to deal with him. She was later called to queen Bansheera, and was told the she had failed her too many times. She was punishing her by taking her life energy. Vypra tryed too flee, but a blast of purple lightning shot out from Bansheera and grabbed her, pulling her closer. Vypra screamed as her body became blue energy and she was dead. Her life energy was absorbed by Bansheera in order for her to regain her bodily form.
In the episode Time for Lightspeed of Power Rangers Time Force, Vypra returns from the dead with an army of undead soldiers. She is seen digging herself out of a cemetery, but no explanation is given as to how she got there (originally her body was devoured by Bansheera, not buried) or how she managed to resurrect herself. She teams up with the mutant Ransik to obtain an artifact called the Solar Amulet. With its Dark Magic from the Shadow World and the sun being in perfect alignment with the stars, she could have used its power to revive the Super Demon Quarganon in Silver Hills. However, she was blasted (along with Quarganon) by the Time Force and Lightspeed Rangers and she died, her corpse disappearing. She was the only human-looking villain to be shown killed.
Vypra is played by Jennifer L. Yen (episodes 1; 4-37) and Wen Yann Shih (episodes 2-3).
[edit] Loki
Loki (pronounced "Low-Kai") is a fierce and loyal warrior and friend to Diabolico (to whom Loki gave a spider/scorpion-shaped amulet to as a token of several millennia-long friendship) and Vypra. He serves as the dumb muscle of the demons, and was considered expendable by Bansheera. When Diabolico was destroyed for the first time, Loki and Vypra were anguished by his death and considered the newly matured Olympius as a mere child who would not make a suitable leader. After losing favor with his mother, Olympius discovered that Bansheera considered making Vypra and Loki the new second in command and plotted to eliminate them by having Vilevine bury them alive. The two managed to survive and escape to where the demons were first imprisoned and brought Diabolico back to life to help get rid of Olympius. In a plan to destroy the Power Rangers, Bansheera telepathically took control of Diabolico's body and forced to use Loki's bazooka to take aim at the Rangers, in doing so would also risk harming Loki. The Rangers managed to survive the blast but Loki was fatally wounded and died in Diabolico's arms, his body exploding and reduced to ash in the typical way monsters were destroyed. Diabolico swore to avenge Loki's demise at the hands of Queen Bansheera.
The monsters Loki created were mainly earth-elemental, including Quakemon and Elestomp. In battle Loki normally used a two-pronged staff as his weapon but in "The Wrath of the Queen", the final episode he appeared in, Loki used a bazooka that was in the shape of a dragon's head. Loki could also expel electricity from his eyes.
Loki is voiced by David Lodge.
[edit] Jinxer
Jinxer was highly insightful and skilled in the ways of magic. He could conjure monsters from the cards the other demons used as well as using his own set of monster cards and was also skilled in hypnotism. He was highly loyal to Olympius and even helped him escape the Shadow World and fed him power from the Aquabase. Jinxer also helped nurture Olympius back to health when the rest of the villains dismissed Olympius for the dead. He was a cowardly sort of villain, but did engage in battle with the Rangers at least a few times. His method of attacking was using a cane-like blaster. During the Rangers' battle against the Super Demon forms of Diabolico and Olympius, Jinxer planted his only card left - a Batling card - on the leg of the Lifeforce Megazord which he then used to give rise to a massive army of Batlings to invade the Aquabase after the Lifeforce Megazord was brought back. Jinxer himself and a small faction of Batlings piloted the newly repaired Omega Megazord to place the circle of stones around Mariner Bay to assist Queen Bansheera's ceremony in opening the gateway into the Shadow World and releasing all of the demons from within into the world. After placing the final stone, Carter and Ryan destroyed the Omega Megazord by ramming the Mobile Armor Vehicle into it, Jinxer being destroyed in the process.
Jinxer is voiced by Kim Strauss.
[edit] Triskull
Triskull is a Demon warrior who swears allegiance to Trakeena. He is the leader of the ghouls, foot soldiers Trakeena uses with the destruction of her Sting Wingers. He pretends to aid Olympius in collecting energy for Queen Bansheera, but is actually collecting it so Trakeena can return to her insectoid form. He attempts to stop the Rangers from entering the building where the energy is kept, and is destroyed by the Red Galaxy and Lightspeed Rangers, although he did not explode like every other villian or monster.
Triskull is voiced by Michael Sorich.
[edit] The Troika monsters
The Troika Demons are fallen angel-like demons summoned by Diabolico from his last three monster cards. They are made up of Demonite, Thunderon, and Falkar.
- Demonite is a demonic knight and the leader of the three. In battle, he used a sword gauntlet that he wore on his right hand and was sharp enough to slice a car in two and could fire lasers from his eyes.
- Falkar is an elf-like falcon-based angel warrior. Falkar behaved in an effeminate manner and used a three-pronged staff, which he could use to spin on. Falkar could also fire blue energy beams from his falcon-helmet.
- Thunderon is a hulking green-skinned angel warrior very similar to the Incredible Hulk. Thunderon did not use any weapons in battle (although he had spiked gauntlets on his knuckles) preferring to use his brute strength, he was, however, able to shoot green electricity from his eyes. He was the only one of the three Demons who did not change appearance after he grew into a giant.
(when all three of them were together, they could deflect projectile attacks from the Rangers right back at them).
Diabolico first summoned them to spread feathers from their "angel" wings across Mariner Bay that would explode when the sun set. Fortunately, Lightspeed Rescue was able to retrieve almost all of the feathers (the last one was thrown away by Ryan) before the sun set. The three warriors considered fighting the Rangers like a game and easily defeated the five primary Rangers. However, they were defeated by Ryan. Ryan's defection led to Diobolico placing a cobra on his back; if Ryan morphed, the cobra would move up his back, and when it reached the neck, Ryan would die. After the original five Power Rangers defeat the monsters, they became big. Demonite was destroyed first. Ryan risked his life by piloting the Max Solarzord and managed to defeat the other two fallen angels. However, the cobra was now so far up his back that the next time would kill him.
Furious at the loss, Diobolico summoned the monsters again, and merging them into one larger, stronger monster: Troika, who possessed the faces of all three monsters as well as some of their body parts (Demonite's right arm, Thunderon's left arm and Falkar's legs). The Power Rangers were unable to defeat them. After retreating, Captain Mitchell asks Ms. Fairweather if she has anything that could possibly defeat the merged monster. In the next battle, the Power Rangers call on the Battle Boosters, which Troika is no match for. Unlike most monsters, Troika did not explode after being destroyed.
Demonite was voiced by David Stenstrom, Thunderon was voiced by Alonzo Bodden, and both Falkar and Troika were voiced by Ezra Weisz.
[edit] See also
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