Speaking of planet-wreckers… 
Venyx
Real Name: Oliver Vale, First Appearance: Broken Mirrors #69, January 1991
Lieutenant Type: Enemy
Die Size: d10
Motive: Personal, Approach: Otherworldly
Traits:
- Lifestealer: When Venyx Attacks, he also Boosts himself using the damage dealt as his roll.
- Regeneration: As a reaction, Venyx may destroy a bonus on himself to step up his status die (to a maximum of d10.)
- Faded: When there are no bonuses on Venyx, he takes a -2 penalty to all actions.
Over the first few years of Broken Mirrors, the Drifter experienced many worlds where a hero’s dream had been brought to life and twisted to darkness, and others where a villain’s machinations allowed them to reign supreme. But as the pages of Venture Comics became more extreme, the comic began to delve into increasingly elaborate storylines, beginning with the most apocalyptic world, yet, “Freakworld”!
Within Freakworld, every hero and villain had been captured, extracted, and twisted by the power of Doctor Freak, who had then used a prototype satellite to disperse his creations across all of planet Earth. Freak believed that the random sets of powers that were created would war with one another, and he could take control of them. Instead, the world immediately descended into chaos and anarchy as the minds and souls of its population were rent apart by his dark experiments, and Freak himself was killed by the monstrously mutated Champions of Truth, in their final act of heroism before succumbing to the experiments he had performed on them. The death of Doctor Freak and the eradication of his citadel wiped out many of the planet’s original superhumans, leaving it a ruined post-apocalyptic wasteland that was far too late to be saved.
The Drifter nonetheless tried to rebuild society, helping a handful of unmutated humans find a sanctuary guarded by a few of Freak’s monsters who had been able to retain enough of their minds to be safe. Along the way, he encountered a variety of terrible monsters, one of whom was the ruthless warlord Venyx. Venyx had once been a cheap local politician, but when he gained the ability to drain the lifeforce of anything he touched, he began to rampage across the wastes of what had been London, seeking victims to power his abilities. He could not recover energy naturally; in order to regenerate and use his energy weapons and shields, he needed new victims.
The Drifter defeated Venyx, but in the process Venyx learned that his world was just a shadow of a true reality, and he became obsessed with escape. Eventually, he was able to use a dimensional traveler to slip free of Freakworld and reach Earth, where he dreamed of reshaping the world into the wasteland he had come from, making his own history true by erasing any sign that it had been different. Lacking the power to do this himself, he began to work as an agent for the most ruthless and dangerous villains on the planet, always angling towards building the world he remembered on the ruins of the world he had invaded. He became a popular tough to throw into an issue, since he was willing to work with any villain of sufficient power, and began to develop a body count that made him one of the deadliest minions in Venture Comics history.
Behind the Scenes:
Another pocket world, another murderous villain for the dawn of the 90s. Freakworld is our “superhero Mad Max” world, and it probably pops up with relative regularity over the course of Venture Comics. Venyx himself isn’t that interesting, but he’s a fun lieutenant to throw in when you want to wreck some havoc; he creates bonuses and can use them to heal, but he doesn’t want to run out or else he’s pretty low-power. Very dangerous with a good boosting ally, though.
