| “ | I am Venjix. Your world is now my world and your time is now over. | „ |
| ~ Venjix declaring victory, his most famous quote. |
| “ | If I have flaws, It is only because of your programming. | „ |
| ~ Venjix blaming his creator. |
| “ | Join me in a world of machines. You'll suffer no disease, no hunger, no fear... | „ |
| ~ Venjix's final offer to the Ranger Operators. |
The Venjix Computer Virus, commonly known as Venjix and later as Evox, is a major antagonist in the Power Rangers franchise, serving as the main antagonist of Power Rangers RPM and its direct sequel Power Rangers Beast Morphers.
He is a megalomaniacal computer virus who took over the Earth's technological systems and devastatingly wiped out most of humanity with a massive army of Grinders and drones. After taking over the world, Venjix often took humans captive, enslaving them to become his Grinder-producing workers or prisoners subjected to unethical experimentations, turning them into hybrids. His empire reigned supreme until he was seemingly defeated by the Ranger Operators.
However, it's ultimately revealed he survived by hiding in Scott's Cell Shift Morpher and was coincidentally transported to the Prime Universe. He comes back under the new alias, "Evox", after a young Nate Silva performs a failed experiment of a new morphing sequence by combining Morph-X and Snake DNA, and he begins with a new goal of taking over the Morphin Grid in order to wipe out humanity in the universe he's in. He is the creation of Doctor K and the archenemy of the Ranger Operators (specifically Scott and Dillon) and the Grid Battleforce Rangers.
He was voiced by Andrew Laing.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
In General[]
- He's notoriously known for being one of the most heinous and personal Power Rangers villains of all time, standing alongside equally heinous individuals like Emperor Gruumm, as he's the very first villain to have successfully committed genocide against humanity, something no other Power Rangers villain or Pure Evil came close by the ranking scale of it. In addition, his slave labor and unethical experimentations of roboticizing humans are unique to his heinousness.
- Even when he was Evox, attempted to destroy humanity in the Prime Universe for a second time. He even indicates that he would do it to every universe that the Morphing Grid is connected to. He's also responsible for having the most killings on a Power Ranger, a total of three, which he deletes Gem and Gemma from existence and directly kills Steel in front of the Gridbattle Force Rangers, albeit temporarily.
- Despite being a computer virus, Doctor K made it clear that Venjix is self-aware and was originally programmed to simply be her assistant, though he ultimately chooses to do evil on his own accord, turning against his creator to rid the world and replace it with machines, as well as being intelligent and a mind of his own, meaning he has Moral Agency.
- Even as Evox, he still maintains it, being fully aware of his dark past even if all of his data wasn't in yet. And even if he had MA issues as Evox, when he finally absorbs the rest of his data, Evox revealed his true identity to the Rangers while his voice changed back to his original voice, meaning said issues are gone.
- He is shown to be abusive to his minions unconditionally with failure-intolerance.
- As Venjix, he would usually blast down, banish, or simply punish his generals for failure, especially if they so much as annoy him or rub him the wrong way, like when he reduced both General Shifter and Crunch to scrap, especially for the latter just for simply pointing out the obvious of his lack of timing, for example.
- While he's the one who thought of using Tenaya as a pawn and saw her as useful, he took her for granted either way, expressing her servitude as "disappointing" and ensuring she remains by his side, such treatment also goes along for Kilobyte as he's not above threatening him despite being one of his best generals and already ordered the hit on him when he activated one of the hybrid sleeper agents without his permission.
- As Evox, he still puts his new minions under the same treatment as before, showing he never mellowed out. He would often threaten, lash out, berate, or blast Cyber-Blaze, Cyber-Roxy, and Scrozzle for countless failures to where he angrily expressed he has "three useless bots who do nothing but fail".
- He would usually have Cyber-Blaze and Roxy at each other's throats to compete for his favor despite the times Evox looked down on them as incompetent and switched to one's side if they were to be successful, even having no concern for their numerous deaths before becoming the regenerable Robo-Blaze and Roxy and after that, seeing them as expendable. While there was a time he was shown to be furious over Cyber-Roxy's destruction, it was likely because he had lost a general and not for genuine care for the avatar.
- He also threatened Scrozzle on numerous occasions, especially times when he ungratefully refused his help to get up when he was weakened by human DNA and took all the credit for the Chimera Zord's creation, in spite of Scrozzle being a crucial component gathering the resources needed.
- Most of his alliances when teaming up with villains like Vargoyle, Ryjack, Sledge and his crew, Snide, and Goldar Maximus come off as either superficial, pragmatic or simply finding any use of them for his own ends while at the same time plotted against them behind their backs.
- For example, he only worked with Ryjack to steal his stash of dangerous weapons, some belonging to past villains, and chose to reanimate Goldar due to his ruthlessness and strength, the same reason why he worked with Vargoyle in the first place. He also was the only one who didn't even pretend to show sympathy for Sledge losing Poisandra for a final time.
- As Venjix, he would usually blast down, banish, or simply punish his generals for failure, especially if they so much as annoy him or rub him the wrong way, like when he reduced both General Shifter and Crunch to scrap, especially for the latter just for simply pointing out the obvious of his lack of timing, for example.
- While seemingly having respect for Doctor K, his creator, due to creating his very being, it more likely comes off as a taunt than respect and when he's called out for his "devastating flaws" as K points out, he pins the blame on her than himself since he chose to be this way based on his own interpretation. To further prove he has no respect for her, he takes her prisoner alongside Ziggy for plans unknown and outright boasts to her that he has won and machines will rule supreme.
- Ultimately, Venjix has zero redeeming qualities or comedic moments, not even a single Freudian Excuse, and even if he did have such things, for instance:
- General Crunch being blasted comes off as a gag or tying up Ben and Betty in a futile attempt to stop him, while comedic, are both simply too brief to ever detract him from his heinousness. If anything, the comedy is more directed towards all three of them, not Venjix himself.
- Being denied the request to be released by Doctor K is never deemed an excuse for his actions, if anything, she had a good reason not to due to the fact that Venjix is too dangerous to let out. True to her words, this was proven right later on and Venjix holds no instantaneous grudge against it, simply hating humanity because they are "flawed" and not as "perfect" as he is. It doesn't make him a Well-Intentioned Extremist either.
Background[]
- After escaping into the internet, he began globally hacking into the world's technological system, managing to successfully take over most of the world's communication, power, and defense systems.
- He created an army of Grinders and Venjix Drones and let them loose all around the world, reducing it to a barren wasteland and wiping out 99% of humanity.
- He waged war on Corinth, the domed city where the remaining human survivors take refuge, where it's presumed countless military forces and defenses died fighting against him.
- His actions would cost the lives of those dear to the Ranger Operators as Scott lost his brother Marcus during an airstrike attack against Venjix's drone fleet and Summer lost her butler and father figure, Andrews when a group of Grinders attacked them.
- After succeeding in conquering the entire Earth as his rule reigned supreme, he had his Grinders capture or kill any potential human survivors, even building a barricade right within the outskirts of the wasteland near Corinth to prevent other survivors from reaching the domed city.
- He established slave camps where humans are enslaved in his Grinder Factories, primarily the Venjix Factory (the primary sector), and forced to work for hours nonstop on end to mass-produce more Grinders to expand his army, as well as having their real names stripped and replaced with only prisoner codes.
- Gem and Gemma were victims of this and described the workplace experience as having to work "under unspeakably brutal conditions", implying that the workers had either worked themselves to death or suffered from exhaustion.
- He built prison camps where humans, including children, became test subjects as they were roboticized with their bodies jointed with cybernetic implants and enhancements, which turned them into half-cyborg hybrids to be used as sleeper agents as a last resort in case, even having them infected with his virus to brainwash.
- He established slave camps where humans are enslaved in his Grinder Factories, primarily the Venjix Factory (the primary sector), and forced to work for hours nonstop on end to mass-produce more Grinders to expand his army, as well as having their real names stripped and replaced with only prisoner codes.
- He took particular interest in Dillon and Tenaya, a duo of siblings with the latter being blind, and has them roboticized into hybrids, which got Tenaya traumatically turned into a human infiltration Attack Bot by Kilobyte and Dillon's memories of his past life and sister erased by Sat Bot out of sadism.
- Because of this, he would ultimately be responsible for the creation of Tenaya 7, his most useful servant, and Dillon became an amnesiac after he somehow escaped the compound.
- He secretly infected dozens of humans during one of his battles, including all of Corinth's soldiers, to use as sleeper agents to take over Corinth without anyone knowing or at least noticing.
RPM[]
- He uses his barricade to attack Dillon and Ziggy for sport, saying he always enjoys some "target practice". This also implies that he killed any humans that made it to the dome or were traveling in vehicles.
- When this failed, he sends an Attack Bot after them, luckily, the Ranger Operators were there to stop and defeat it.
- Throughout RPM, he orchestrates and stages multiple attacks on Corinth in an attempt to wipe out the last remaining humans. These attacks involved:
- Sending Water Hoser, followed by a Grinder Battalion, to infiltrate Corinth and start an attack, he would eventually grow into a giant size to attack the harbor.
- Sending the Drill Attack Bot to absorb molten magma underground and have it pulsed onto the very bottom of the city to cause a volcanic eruption that would've melted the city.
- Sending Lightning Bot to strike lightning bolts against civilians, endangering them, including a baby present at that time.
- Sending a Vacuum Bot to suck the air and oxygen out from Corinth's atmosphere through a riverbank to let the populace suffocate to death, luckily Scott, Gem, and Gemma prevented this from happening.
- Using a blimp-like, aerial attack vehicle with enough firepower to use as a doomsday weapon to level Corinth to the ground and break its dome. Thankfully, Doctor K prevented this by turning said doomsday weapon into the Jumbo Jet Zord.
- Having General Shifter send in Hammer Bot to cause a massive earthquake in another attempt to level Corinth. This was only prevented thanks to Tenaya 7 sabotaging the scheme.
- Sending Heat Bot to intensely heat up a depot until it causes a catastrophic explosion that would reduce all of Corinth to ash.
- Having Kilobyte implant detonator bombs all across Corinth's buildings in an attempt to set off multiple explosions.
- It is heavily implied that he might have sent a group of Grinders to pursue a mother and her baby, though they would've been dead had it not been for Scott and Ziggy.
- He has Tenaya 7 place a device behind Dillon's back, controlling him into lowering down Corinth's shields to start an invasion and while doing so under his demand, Dillon almost killed the rest of the Ranger Operators had the latter not remove the device from earlier and eventually triggered Dillon's cybernetic enhancements inside his body.
- He ambushes the Ranger Operators twice during their ride to Omega City, which nearly cost them their lives while fighting him, like when he had Dyna Bot straps a bomb on their van which would've killed them if it hadn't been for Gem and Gemma's unexpected assistance.
- He attempts to kill the Ranger Operators during their second fight with his upgraded body.
- He banishes General Shifter for simply "attacking" him with an Attack Bot meant to serve as his new body, which, in truth, was thanks to Tenaya 7 sabotaging it.
- When he found out that Shifter used the same robot for the purpose of defeating the Ranger Operators, he ordered for his destruction out of anger.
- After Tenaya finds out the truth about herself and Dillon being her brother, he suggests to Kilobyte to have her "upgraded", abducting her and later forcibly reprogramming her into a Generation 15 Attack Bot with her consciousness overwritten and subdued, having no trace of her humanity than simply reduced to a robotic slave.
- Luckily, Doctor K was able to perfect an antidote which Dillon used to free her from her programming.
- He builds a new body out of General Shifter's remains, literally donning his own creation's corpse just to power himself to a more destructive level, while never mourning his destruction.
- He has Energy Bot disable the Ranger Operator's morphing abilities and powers in an attempt to render them powerless against him, though it failed later on.
- When Kilobyte activates the virus inside Corporal Hicks to assassinate Colonel Truman, he secretly orders Tenaya 15 to kill the former behind his back as punishment for doing so without his permission.
- He uses an amplitude wave to activate his virus, controlling every last one of the hybrid sleeper agents, including Dillon, to kickstart his last resort and finally invade Corinth.
- He forces Colonel Truman to surrender and holds him captive alongside dozens of civilians by his Grinders, either intending to have some enslaved to produce more Grinders or subject them to becoming hybrids. Luckily, the Ranger Operators saved them before it could happen later on.
- He breaks into the Ranger Operators' base to capture both Doctor K and Ziggy to be taken captive for reasons unknown, then later absorbing and downloading all the information about the Rangers and their Zords through K's computer, having the capability to delete and erase them from existence by manipulating the biofield.
- He manipulates the biofield to delete most of the Ranger Operators' Megazords in an effort to erase them, even having the gall to delete Gem and Gemma from existence (although they do come back thanks to Doctor K).
- He offers Scott, Flynn, and Summer a chance to join him or perish, when they refuse, he comes close to deleting them in the attempt, only to fail thanks to Doctor K and Tenaya hacking into his systems.
- He blasts the Corinth Tower during his breakdown with Tenaya and General Crunch in there, not caring for the latter's safety.
Clash of the Red Rangers[]
- It's heavily implied that at some point, he ordered Professor Cog to gather the Sanzu River's water in an attempt to destroy the remaining humans in his universe with assistance from Master Xandred.
Beast Morphers[]
- After coming back as Evox thanks to an experiment between Morph-X and Snake DNA infuse to the Cell Shift Morpher by a young Nate Silva, he attempts to wipe out humanity again by absorbing as much Morph-X and taking over the Morphin Grid. For several years, he waited till the Morph-X Towers were activated.
- He sabotages Blaze and Roxy's morphing sequence, placing them into a coma and creating their Cybervillain counterparts, Cyber-Blaze and Cyber-Roxy, with the purpose of having them steal Morph-X for him.
- Because of that, the real Blaze and Roxy are kept in stasis pods for the time being, something that devastated Ravi, the Grid Battleforce Blue Ranger and Roxy's boyfriend.
- Throughout Beast Morphers, he often tasks Cyber-Blaze, Cyber-Roxy, and Scrozzle with the scheme of stealing as much Morph-X as possible, stealing them through Morph-X Towers, barrels, absorbing them from nearby stations, etc. All for the purpose of escaping from the Cyber Dimension to fueling himself for more power, all necessary to his plot of taking over the Morphin Grid.
- Attempts to possess Steel in order to fully escape from the Cyber Dimension, only failing due to the former having human DNA.
- He tasks Vargoyle with stealing a wide amount of Morph-X and endorsed him to use the Memory Pulsator to alternate people's memories, including the Grid Battleforce Rangers (except Steel due to being a robot), with the purpose of having Cyber-Blaze and Roxy infiltrate and blend in Gridbattle Force to steal their mega-transporters.
- He orders Cyber-Roxy to sabotage the real Roxy's stasis pod that damaged her life support system for no other reason than to ensure Cyber-Roxy will prolong than her. Roxy would've died potentially from it had Ravi not destroyed her Cyber counterpart personally.
- He has a Morph-X Tower teleported to the Cyber Dimension in order to fully complete his new body.
- Once it prevails, Evox demonstrates his newfound abilities by easily dismantling the Beast-X Ultrazord, blasting the Grid Battleforce Rangers with no effort, and finally grows gigantic to be teleported to the human world, intending to take over the Morphin Grid and wipe out humanity.
- He possesses Mayor Daniels, Devon's father, after his "demise" and used his position to establish dozens of Morph-X Towers globally as the first milestone to his plans while micromanaging Scrozzle, Robo-Blaze, and Robo-Roxy's next schemes of stealing Morph-X.
- He has Controlatron mind-control a Grid Battleforce employee named Cole to hand over a puppet to Nate Silva, controlling him as well to create a malware dart.
- This resulted in Cole being wrongfully fired for this, unaware due to being controlled, though he does get his job back after Steel realizes how wrong he was.
- He manipulates Megan into creating the Beast-X King Zord to be under the influence of the malware dart to control for himself and let it loose to cause further destruction. It would've escalated for the worse had it not been for Nate and Megan.
- Once his identity is revealed, he aggressively blasts the Rangers and taunts Devon that his father is "gone", cruelly telling him to not bother trying.
- He uses Mayor Daniels' form to manipulate Devon into backing down in an attempt to absorb an amount of Morph-X to save himself. However, it fails once he falls for Devon's trap and is separated from Mayor Daniels.
- He makes a deal with Ryjack, an intergalactic space criminal known for the grand theft of dangerous weapons, to gather as much Morph-X for him in exchange for stealing the past Ranger Weapons from Gridbattle Force's vault, as well as intending to betray him to harness his stash of weapons.
- For the past three weeks, Ryjack was successful in stealing loads of Morph-X, as well as galloons and barrels of them.
- He takes Keeper, the mentor of the Dino Charge Rangers, hostage and gets information about creating Zords from the Dino Charge Rangers' methods, now having the intention of creating a Zord for himself.
- He makes a deal with the Grid Battleforce and Dino Charge Rangers to hand over Ryjack's collection of weapons in exchange for handing over Keeper, which is proven to be false, as he has Snide attack them despite his word.
- He uses the Reanimizer to revive several villains into working under him, such as Sledge and his entire crew (Fury, Wrench, Poisandra, and Curio), as well as Goldar, now under the alias of "Goldar Maximus". He even has Goldar Maximus kill Sledge despite the latter's pleas.
- He tasks Scrozzle, Snide, and Goldar Maximus to gather the necessary resources to create a Zord, which he has Scrozzle assemble Dinosaur DNA and a geode while Snide and Goldar attacked Tyler, Chase, Koda, and Ivan to steal their Energems and were most likely trying to steal Riley and Shelby's Energems too.
- After creating the Chimera Zord, he uses it in an attempt to kill the Mighty Morphin', Dino Thunder, and Dino Charge Rangers to demonstrate his Zord's inevitable might and use it to take over the Morphin Grid later on.
- He orchestrates a plan to have himself captured to infiltrate Gridbattle Force's base from the inside, having Cyber-Blaze pose as the real Blaze to fool the Grid Battleforce Rangers and suggest the idea to them, and eventually pilot the Omegadrone to attack Coral Harbor, not before dealing intense damage to the Grid Battleforce Rangers' Megazords, which was enough to nearly destroy Cruise in the process.
- After being captured as intended, he begins hijacking Grid Battleforce's computer systems, absorbing data to obtain access codes for the Morph-X Towers.
- He sadistically reveals to the Grid Battleforce Rangers that Nate unknowingly brought him back to life and that he is indeed Venjix just to spite the latter, even going as far as to guilt-trip Nate into believing he is held responsible for Earth's total annihilation.
- He uses Cyber-Blaze as a decoy to have Scrozzle access control over Morph-X Tower Five using the access codes, which cost the former his last life and ultimately having all the Morph-X Towers around the globe flow onto the Global Tower Network.
- He temporarily kills Steel in front of the Grid Battleforce Rangers, especially Nate, when the former tried to stop Evox from absorbing most of the Morphin Grid's energy (although he was revived, it was only after Evox's final defeat and death and it was revealed in Dino Fury that it was done by the Green Morphin Master, whom he knew nothing about).
- After finally taking over the Morphin Grid, he turns into a gigantic robotic titan fused from the Morph-X Tower One and the Morphin Grid and prepares himself to destroy humanity in the Prime Universe.
Trivia[]
- He is the third and final Pure Evil during the Disney Era of the Power Rangers franchise. First being Emperor Gruumm and Octomus the Master being the second.
- Ironically, as Evox, he is the first Pure Evil so far in the Hasbro Era of Power Rangers, the second and final being Bajillia Naire. Technically, Bajillia's the sole Pure Evil in that era since both Venjix and Evox are the same person.
- Venjix is the only Pure Evil to have appeared for more than one installment in the franchise.
- To date, Venjix is regarded as perhaps one of the most evil Power Rangers villains in the franchise due to killing three Power Rangers (who all are Sixth/Extra Rangers) and being the most successful villain to have actually wiped out humanity, as well as taking over the Earth.
- While most of his Sentai counterparts (Yogoshimacritein, Messiah, and Enter) are also Pure Evil as well, the sole exception to that is Hirachimedes, who is mostly a bog standard villain, has a few redeeming qualities (genuine loyalty to Yogostein being his most prominent) and overall fails the heinous standard to other Go-Onger villains such as Yogostein and Yogoshimacreitin.
- Even then, Venjix might be considered even worse than the three Sentai Pure Evils, as they didn't succeed in world domination or have as high of a confirmed kill count as Venjix did.
- In Amit Bhaumik's proposed adaptation of Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters called Power Rangers Cyber Corps, it would have meant that the Venjix that was seen in RPM was the same one from the Forever Red crossover, General Venjix. Had Bhaumik's concept for Cyber Corps been picked up, it's unknown how this would have effected Venjix's Pure Evil status, but it would likely depend on whether he subverted the general's loyalty to King Mondo or not.
- If the executive producer of Power Rangers RPM, Eddie Guzelian had not been fired, he would have ended the show with an episode called "Ranger Black". In this episode, Dillion would have been revealed to be a cyborg sleeper agent that Venjix created in order to gain the trust of the Rangers and access to the Morphing Grid. Everything about Dillion's past and his human existence was all to be created by Venjix into luring the other Rangers into trusting him. If this ending had happened, it would have made Venjix even worse.
External Links[]
- Venjix on the Villains Wiki
- Venjix on the Power Rangers Wiki
[]
 Pure Evils
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