Page 9 character descriptions

 In this latest installment, I'll be telling you about Dr. Vanish. Dr. Vanish is The D-Man's fourth and final henchman (Or in this case woman). Though mentioned last, she is certainly not the least of The D-Man's team, being that she is the smartest and most respected of his criminal team. While still a member of the protagonist comic relief, Dr. Vanish is as smart as your average mad scientist, rather than comically dimwitted. She is twenty-seven years old, only three years younger than The D-Man, Slider, Gecko, and Van, but her body never developed past age twelve! This causes numerous self-esteem problems as people mistake her for a junior-high student. The idea of having a smart girl who builds a lot of inventions or finds a solution when you need it, or who has a ton of facts discovered by research to help things out has become expected and mundane in our pop-culture society, and it has been used many times before. For example, Gadget from Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers was a great inventor for a rodent. These days, there is another example, in the form of Susan and Mary test, two young teen twin sisters who have genius-level intellect from the show "Johnny Test".

There are some other examples like Lisa Simpson of The Simpsons, who always points things out that nobody seems to care about, but are very interesting, but the main one I based Dr. Vanish on was Thelma from Scooby Doo, since the team was based on Scooby Doo, similar to the way The Incredibles were similar to The Simpsons. So, there HAVE been plenty of smart girls in animated history, particularly in pop-culture. However, the idea of an evil mad scientist female is a little more original. Generally, the "smart girls" have been part of the protagonists, but since some of the protagonists are also criminals with super-powers, they are not considered "heroes" exactly, and the idea of a female evil genius working as a thief for a powerful renegade is a logical-yet-original development. Anyway, Dr. Vanish's civilian name is Jennifer Von Ashton, and she has a taller, valuptuous older sister named Kelly, who is a model, which contributes to her self-esteem problems. As her name suggests, Dr. Vanish can teleport herself and anything she's touching from one place to another. She was born without any powers, but gained the power of teleportation when an experimental matter transport machine she made in college exploded. After that, she turned to crime. She was easily beaten by Captain J., but due to her teleportation power, she was never actually jailed. Instead, members of the criminal underworld told The D-Man where to find her after he found out about her run-in with Captain J. (At the time, he didn't know she was a woman or short.).

As for WHY she never stopped growing past age twelve, nobody really knows, but it is indicated that she drank a lot of coffee to stay up and study for a junior-high test, and it stunted her growth. As for appearance, Dr. Vanish has short carrot-colored hair (She used to wear it a lot longer, but then shortened it in order to look more professional. This backfires, however, since people now sometimes think she's a little BOY!), wears glasses, a medical mask, a white labcoat, and a pair of jeans pants. Dr. Vanish is highly respected by The D-Man, who always calls her "Doctor." (Justin and Andy call her "Jenny", while everyone else tends to just call her "Doc.") She has a huge crush on The D-Man, and is convinced that if she just had the body of an adult woman, she would be The D-Man's girlfriend instead of Alice (Which is incorrect in spite of how much The D-Man respects her, and that they've known each-other for at least seven years.), but The D-Man never seems to notice that she has a crush, and never notices when she flirts with him (Although when she flirts, she does it a lot less subtle than Slider does). As for personality, she is neurotic similar to the average mad scientist, but she's also pretty responsible when it comes to kids, and Dr. Vanish often watches Justin and/or Andy when Alice can't.

Dr. Vanish's weapon is a buck-rodgers-style ray gun, which tends to be put on stun. Dr. Vanish is a major tomboy, and never wears dresses, even to special occassions, and even as a kid, never liked dresses or bows, or "girly" things like dolls or tea parties, preferring to be a bookworm and study instead. She even wears boxer shorts instead of panties because they are more concealing (It is only revealed through embarrassing jokes and sight gags) Dr. Vanish, being by far The D-Man's smartest agent, often gets impatient and/or mad at her henchmen. Basically, she's the first one to criticize, insult, or make a sarcastic comment, and the last one to comically misunderstand something said. In addition to yiddish jokes (she is jewish), there is also a running gag based on Star Trek, where, if there's something she can't do, she says: "Darn it, I'm a doctor, not a ______!" Due to her nuerotic personality, a lot of things scare, or annoy her, but her biggest fear is public nudity, either seeing others nude, or especially seeing her nude. This fear is partially due to her days in high school, showering in the girl's locker room (Some teenage girls can be pretty cruel, especially to a nerd.). As for romance, Dr. Vanish has never really had a boyfriend, but during school, she did know a young man named Andrew, who was the only one who would hang out with her.

Doctor Vanish has many dreams and delusions of grandeur, but mainly, she just wants someone to flatter her and recognize and appreciate her. Dr. Vanish's teleportation power is great for making a speedy getaway as well as teleporting into vaults and grabbing money, but she's not the most threatening super-villainess. In fact, her twelve-year-old appearance combined with her tendency to make sarcastic comments makes her kind of cute. Really, if you try and make this character as a composite of other characters, she's like a cross between Scooby Doo's Thelma and Iago from the Aladdin series with some of Susan and Mary Test for the crush factor and the inventing ability. However, originally, when I was coming up with The D-Man's team, her character didn't come to mind. Van Assailant was a character I wanted, partly because of the joke on his name, and partly because I wanted to instill some British humor. Gecko came easily because it was easy to see the potential of a big lizard guy who could appear out of nowhere, and I kind of came up with Slider both as a way of making voluptuous evil ladies appear comical and partly for the cartoon viewers who wanted a sultry villainess character. But when it came to a fourth member of the team, I didn't know what to do.

At first, I thought about making another hot female character, one who could do something villainous and scary like generate poisons and analyze them, but that just seemed a little too dark for the comic relief protagonist. Then, I thought of capitalizing on the potential of shape-shifting characters by having a funny male character who could shape-shift but wasn't very good at it. That idea didn't last long either, since it seemed a little too much like Van and Slider. I knew I needed another character, something cute that The D-Man didn't automatically brush off as being too cute for him, and it didn't hurt if the character was smart in order to make loud, cranky wise-cracks like Iago. Eventually, after watching Edna Mode from The Incredibles, and seeing comical mad scientists like Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory, I knew what I wanted: A short, wise-cracking mad scientist character. And I made her a female both because the team needed a second female character, and because our society has really gotten used to the whole "Smart Girl" aspect when it comes to a protagonist team.

Anyway, that's all for Dr. Vanish. Check out my next blog to find out about Justin Charm.