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Real Name:  Vox

Voiced by Larry Drake

A Kasnian double-agent in league with Vandal Savage, Colonel Vox possesses sonic powers that can destroy buildings and bring even the most powerful to their knees.

Dwayne McDuffie on Colonel Vox:  “[The creative team and I] went through old DC Comics looking for a character who could be Vandal's [second-in-command]; we were already thinking sound powers—maybe like Marvel [Comic's] Black Bolt.  I remember I really liked the name 'Vox'—I thought I made up the voice box gimmick off of the name by compressing 'voice box' into 'Vox' (which is Latin for 'voice'), but if one of those other characters already had a similar gimmick, maybe I picked it up from one of the other guys who knew about it.

“Everybody works on everything, so it's really hard to remember who came up with what, or even where something came from.  Sometimes one of the guys will compliment me on a line and I swear someone else came up with it (courtesy of Toon Zone).”

 

Commentary

Don't interrupt me when I'm speaking.  I'd hate to have to raise my voice.

Colonel Vox in Maid of Honor

Loosely based on Vox, the Bionic Bandit—a minor DC villain whose only prior appearance was in Metal Men #51—this character was plucked from obscurity and completely overhauled for the Justice League episode Maid of Honor.  To that end, the creative team combined elements from other DC villains to flesh out the character, such as Sonar (a Green Lantern villain who utilized sonic weaponry for the glory of Modora, a fictional Balkan nation that, coincidently, resembles Kasnia) and Silver Swan (a Wonder Woman villain who could fly and possessed a sonic scream); the end result of this amalgamation being a powerful, well-rounded adversary that employed the best elements of these three characters.

Eschewing a costumed supervillain identity—much like Count Vertigo did in the Batman episode Off Balance—Colonel Vox, in keeping with the James Bond-like tone of Honor, instead took on the qualities of a James Bond henchman, essentially becoming the Oddjob to Vandal Savage’s Goldfinger.  In keeping with this persona, Vox’s vocal apparatus (which he uses presumably because he can no longer speak safely with his own vocal chords without triggering a sonic attack) resembles less a supervillain’s weapon and more a gimmick in the tradition of Bond henchmen such as Jaws (who had steel teeth) and Tee Hee (who had a metal hook for a hand).

It is unlikely that Colonel Vox survived the destruction of the Kasnian royal palace, considering that most Bond henchmen rarely survive to the end of their respective films.

 

Images courtesy of The World’s Finest and Yahoo! Auctions; additional material courtesy of Dwayne McDuffie.

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