Dr. Viper
Dr. Viper is a male animated supervillain who features in SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron.
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Biography
Dr. Elrod Purvis was an unremarkable biochemist named who worked at Megakat Biochemical Labs and who served as an assistant to Dr. N. Zyme. After years of research, the two co-created Viper Mutagen 368. The noble Dr. Zyme planned to donate the formula to the city, but Purvis had other ideas. For unspecified reasons, he decided to try to steal the Viper Mutagen, to sell to the highest bidder. Dr. Zyme, however, returned to the lab and caught him in the act. A fight broke out, which ended with Purvis taking a fall down a flight of stairs, spilling the chemical all over himself in the process and seeming to die.
His first scheme involved obtaining a rare compound called Katalyst 99 from his former place of employment. Another villain named Morbulus had recently been defeated by the SWAT Kats and escaped into a sewer drain pipe, where he met Viper. Viper took him back to his lair in the Dead Forest, where he turned him into a giant purple bacteria monster, intending to use him in his newly mutated form to break into Megakat Biochemical to steal the katalyst. During this particular caper, many innocent cats were killed by being eaten by Viper's bacteria monsters. They ate a subway train full of commuters and a farmer, and even Dr. Zyme is also thought to have been eaten by one of the creatures. Viper himself fed the farmer to the monster as punishment for trying to attack his creation with his pitchfork. He'd thought ahead, making the monster immune to antibiotics and also giving it the ability to divide into more of itself when hit. He failed when the SWAT Kats killed them all by electrocuting them. Nevertheless, he did get inside the lab where he took Callie Briggs prisoner. The SWAT Kats almost took him into custody, but he blew up the lab using the (as it turned out) highly combustible katalysts. The SWAT Kats and Callie got out alive but Viper seemed to have died.
But Viper was back again for a third attempt, this time setting his sights on the newly constructed office building dubbed the Megakat Tower. Its great height - 300 stories - meant it was perfect for his plan to place a mutant spore pod on the roof, which would explode and spread mutant plant spores all of the city, thereby turning it into the "Megaswamp City" of his dreams. Disguised as a gardener, Viper pretended to water the building's potted plants, but was in reality dousing them with his mutagenic growth formula, which turned them into monsters which he called Plantimals. He took Callie Briggs hostage and held her in the skyscraper's penthouse. A thick wall of vines kept the Enforcers out, while flying Plantimals guarded the roof. Razor was able to infiltrate the building and come up on Viper from underneath however. During this time it was discovered extreme cold killed the monsters, so T-Bone, after rescuing Razor and Callie, dumped a tank of rocket coolant obtained from MASA onto the tower, freezing all of the plant monsters and seemingly Viper himself.
Later, at the city morgue, the Viper Mutagen took effect, and resurrected Purvis - unfortunately, it had a disastrous side effect, causing Purvis to mutate into creature that is half cat, half snake, and with no soul. After scaring a hapless attendant and causing him to go into shock, Purvis, now calling himself Dr. Viper, proceeded back to Megakat Biochemical Labs, where he rounded up Mayor Manx and Deputy Mayor Briggs, who were visiting the lab, and Dr. Zyme as his prisoners, planning to mutate them all into cat/snake beings like himself with a new batch of Viper Mutagen. Luckily for them all, the Swat Kats arrived in the nick of time and stopped the mad scientist and his army of mutant bugs. However, Dr. Viper escaped after being knocked out the window.
Since then he has made the Dead Forest in Megakat Swamp his home, hatching many a scheme to transform the world into an environment only his depraved mind could love: a festering, mutation-filled wasteland. While utterly insane, Viper is a genius at biochemistry, able to mutate anything - plant, animal, or cat - into a mindless mutant monster with little difficulty. His creations have been many varied, but his most infamous included his assistant Fungus-Face and the giant bacteria monsters and plantimals. He even flooded Megakat City with Katalyst X-63, using the chemical to make himself grow into a huge monster, and was a member of the Invincible Alliance of Evil for a time.
Overview
Personality and attributes
Dr. Purvis was shown to be extremely manipulative, opportunistic, sarcastic, and greedy. When Dr. Zyme revealed he intended to donate the Viper Mutagen to the city, Purvis considered him an idealistic fool who was throwing money away. The scientific research Purvis conducted was not undertaken for the betterment of catkind but rather simply to fulfil his own goals of becoming wealthy.
Dr. Purvis was shown to be extremely manipulative, opportunistic, sarcastic, and greedy. When Dr. Zyme revealed he intended to donate the Viper Mutagen to the city, Purvis considered him an idealistic fool who was throwing money away. The scientific research Purvis conducted was not undertaken for the betterment of catkind; his end goal was solely to get wealthy.
Powers and abilities
Originally, Purvis was as an ordinary kat with no special powers inherent in him. By adulthood, he did become a noted scientist who worked on genetics and mutations.
As a result of his transformation, he gained a reptilian hide that allowed him to survive hits that would kill most kats, such as a multi-story fall and an explosion that destroyed the entire floor of a building.
Notes
- Dr. Viper was created by Christian Tremblay and Yvon Tremblay where he was voiced by actor Frank Welker and featured in the setting of the SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron universe.
- Although it is never explicitly stated, a theory among fans of Swat Kats has Viper as more than just a normal Kat mutated into a monster; it is entirely possible that he is in fact undead, especially when one considers his fall down the stairs and the fact that Viper Mutagen 368's purpose was to revive dead cells.
- Viper would've appeared in the unfinished episode Doctors of Doom, where he teamed up with Dr. Harley Street.
Appearances
- SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron:
External Links
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