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Oh, you misunderstand me. I'm not evil. I'm a scientist, a chaos theorist. It's just that in my pursuit for scientific truth the innocent are bound to be harmed. Such is the way of chaos.
~ Pretorius explains himself to the Mask.
Aaah... Hmm... I can see now that I am more than just a scientist. I actually am evil!
~ Pretorius after obtaining the Mask of Loki.

Dr. Septimus Pretorius, better known as Pretorius, is the main antagonist of The Mask cartoon series as well as a major antagonist in the Adventures of The Mask comic book series.

He was voiced by Tim Curry, who also played Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture ShowIt in the 1990 It miniseries, Hexxus in FernGully, and Taurus Bulba in Darkwing Duck.

Synopsis[]

The Mask is Always Greener on the Other Side[]

Pretorius is introduced as a shadowy figure, observing the Mask's actions. Knowing his goons wouldn't be a match for him, he sends in Walter to capture Stanley Ipkiss. With Stanley on his custody strapped to a chair, Pretorius reveals himself and tells him he plans on studying the Mask in order to replicate it. Stanley refuses to give him the Mask, so Walter brings in Milo, Stanley's pet dog, inside of a cage and begins crushing it within his hands to persuade Stanley. However, Pretorius's goons alert him of an intruder, so he and Walter leave Stanley to check on the intruder. Turns out Stanley was followed by Peggy Brandy, his reporter friend, who releases him from the chair. Pretorius and his goons corner them, but Stanley manages to escape while Walter gives chase.

During the pursuit Stanley retrieves the Mask, which he had thrown under concrete before, and puts it on, trapping Walter with fresh cement and rescuing Peggy and Milo from Pretorius's laboratory. However, he drops a letter he was supposed to put in the mail, from which Pretorius learns that Stanley would be working that day at the House of Tomorrow, a large automated museum full of robots. Detaching his head from his body, Pretorius manages to sneak in the building at take full control of it, using the moving building to cause mayhem around the city. Stanley puts on the Mask and fights the robots inside the place, saving his friend Charlie and Peggy, who were both inside the place, before toppling the whole building within the city bay. While Pretorius's body is arrested, his head escapes, following to cops in order to retrieve his body.

Sister Mask[]

During a visit to the museum, Stanley discovers a new mask supposed to be a sister to his own Mask and mean to be used in conjunction with it, in order to have full control over the Mask persona. Upon wearing both masks, however, an hologram of Pretorius talks with the Mask, revealing that the sister mask was just a fake created by himself which he planted on the museum, allowing him to take control over the Mask's actions. Now under Pretorius's control, the Mask is forced into invading a military compound and stealing a meteorite from inside. Once the Mask gives him the meteorite, Pretorius reveals that it is just one of four special meteorites, which he plans on using to create super powered soldiers. Peggy, along with Milo, find the place and overhear the conversation, so Pretorius forces the Mask into attacking them, but Milo retrieves the remote control, allowing Stanley to take off the mask. In the ensuing chase, however, Pretorius manages to wear the mask, transforming into a monstrous version of himself and giving chase to Stanley and Peggy. Cornering the two, he tries to eat the two, but Milo gives Stanley the sister mask, which he puts on Pretorius, taking the remote control and using it to turn Pretorius into a ball and knocking all of his goons. He finally takes off the mask from Pretorius and puts it on, chasing him while he tries to escape.

Bride of Pretorius[]

Pretorius starts visiting the Coco Bongo, apparently trying to date the women in the place, only to be stopped by the Mask. Once a girl named Evelyn, whom Stanley was dating at the time, accidentally puts on the Mask, however, Pretorius decides she would be the prefect bride for him. He attempts to kidnap her but ends kidnapping Stanley instead. On his laboratory, he reveals a large meteor will be passing through the solar system, so he plans to change its trajectory into a collision course with Earth, something that would cause humanity's extinction, with only him and his chosen bride being able to survive. However, Evelyn breaks into the place and fights Pretorius to save Stanley, but they are too late as Pretorius fires a laser that changes the meteor trajectory. Stanley takes off the Mask from Evelyn and puts it on, saving the world by building a gigantic U-shaped pipe which launches the meteor back into space. Enraged, Pretorius uses his battle body and a bucket of lard to remove the mask from Stanley, deciding to kill him there. Evelyn, however, saves him by firing a mortar into Pretorius, destroying his battle body and knocking his head inside of the huge pipe.

Shrink Rap[]

Pretorius, having stolen a piece of plutonium, fights the Mask atop a train but ends defeated and taken to jail. While incarcerated, he is given an appointment with psychiatrist Dr. Neumann, but is surprised as Neumann was wearing the Mask at the time. He tells of an ancient alien race responsible for humanity's advancement throughout history, and that he intended to use the plutonium in order to nuke the city in order to create a powerful flash to photograph this alien race in their home planet. Dr. Neumann deems Pretorius insane, but decides to release and help him anyway, as this would also rid the city of a disease he calls the Ipkissis Mascrosis. Stanley follows the two into a junkyard and manages to take off the Mask from Dr. Neumann, putting it on and swallowing the entire rocket with the nuke inside, thus saving the city much to Pretorius's annoyance.

Mayor Mask[]

The Mask decides to run for mayor against the current mayor Tilton. Stanley, however, is kidnapped by Pretorius's goons and taken to a secret base Pretorius built below the city hall. Pretorius kidnapped mayor Tilton and built a robotic replica to impersonate him, planning on winning the election in order to sell off the city to shady companies and transform it into a toxic waste dump, with which he'd be able to conduct experiments to create an army of mutants using the toxic waste. Stanley manages to escape and wear the Mask but is pursued by Pretorius on the fake Tilton body, the two engaging in a fight which is caught up by reporters, causing the Mask's popularity to drop as he is seen attacking the fake Tilton. Seeing he wouldn't be able to fight Pretorius directly Stanley and the Mask cooperate to win back the Mask's popularity, managing to beat Tilton by one vote. With his win assured, the Mask drops a bomb on the fake Tilton, revealing Pretorius inside of it and causing the fake body to explode. The Mask pursues Pretorius and throws his head into a passing airplane, while the real mayor Tilton is rescued. With the voting tied, Stanley decides to vote on Tilton after convincing him to drop some taxes.

Cool Hand Mask[]

Pretorius's goons steal a cargo of computer chips but the Mask intercepts them and recovers the chips. Though they return empty-handed, Pretorius finds the Mask's fingerprints and a piece of his clothing on their car. In order to get rid of the Mask, he steals the money and cookies from an orphanage and leave the Mask's fingerprints and piece of cloth, framing him for the crime. The plan works, as the Mask ends arrested and imprisoned. Without the Mask to interfere, Pretorius uses the computer chips to hack into all computers in the city and cause general chaos, planning to eventually take control over all computers in the world. Learning of Pretorius's plan, the Mask escapes from prison and confronts him, finding all of the stolen cookies and proving his innocence. In the end the Mask traps Pretorius's head inside of a cage in the wall.

Mutiny of the Bounty Hunters[]

At his wits end for having his plans constantly foiled, Pretorius puts on a huge bounty over the Mask's head. However, knowing the city's criminals wouldn't be able to bring him the Mask he decides to hire two bounty hunters, Tex Clobber and Baxter Simon. The two chase the Mask around town while antagonizing each other, but the Mask gets the better off the two.

Convention of Evil[]

Pretorius invites a group of the Mask's supervillains, including Kablamus, Lonnie the Shark, Bub, Gorgonzola, The Stinger and The Tempest, for a group therapy session with Dr. Neumann, as he wants them to join him to find a way to defeat the Mask. During the session, however, Pretorius receives a call from Neumann telling him he would be late for the session, so the Mask reveals he had been disguising himself as Dr. Neumann the whole time.

To Have and Have Snot[]

Pretorius kidnaps Peggy, who had a cold at the time, and picks a sample of mucus to create a huge monster made of flu. Though the Mask saves her, he also ends getting a cold, which causes various negative effects on him. Because of this he is unable to fight the monster when Pretorius unleashes it on the city, only being saved when Peggy brings him Bavarian wood lice. Fully recovered, the Mask knocks Pretorius into the monster and uses the rest of the Bavarian wood lice to destroy the monster.

Mystery Cruise[]

Pretorius builds up a underwater base in the ocean along with a sonar weapon which he intends to use to cause an earthquake and sink Edge City, deciding to test it on a cruiser where all of Stanley's friends were on (the Mask had invited them for his birthday party). Stanley puts on the Mask and confronts Pretorius, but he sends Walter to confront him. After defeating Walter the Mask returns to the boat, and after some convincing goes after Pretorius, defeating him and detonating his base before saving the city from sinking.

The Goofalotatots[]

Pretorius kidnaps the Goofalotatots, three wacky cartoon mascots and poses as their manager, replacing them with robot replicas. The Mask, who was a fan of them, starts helping the fake trio, who are under Pretorius's command, to make all authorities on the city to go insane from their antics. The Mask eventually discovers they are working for Pretorius, saving the manager and releasing the real Goofalotatots, teaming up with them to fight the fakes. Pretorius attempts to escape but the Mask captures his head, which they proceed to use as a ball in a hockey game.

The Aceman Cometh[]

Disguised as an ice cream vendor, Pretorius uses a gun hidden on his ice cream car to zap a scientist named Professor Quartermass, but the Mask notices and fights him, inadvertently zapping Milo before Pretorius escapes. Stanley and Milo go back home, but Pretorius kidnaps Milo during the night. Awakening the other day Stanley notices Milo is missing, so he hires Ace Ventura to help him find the dog. They track down Pretorius to a secret compound he was invading and rescue Milo, even though Pretorius manages to escape. However, they discover Pretorius swapped the minds of Milo and the Professor, so after finding the Professor they track down Pretorius into his secret lab, where he reveals he stole a Martian fossil, from which he managed to recreate a Martian monster. While the Mask confronts the Martian monster Ace Ventura uses the ice cream machine to restore Milo and the Professor. After the Martian is defeated and the machine destroyed the Mask throws Pretorius and the monster onto a rocket and launches them into Mars.

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

  • Pretorius was likely a parody of drug dealer/mob boss Eugene Rapaz from the original comics as both of them share the same face (though Rapaz wore small, rounded-lens dark glasses while Pretorius had round optic implants that looked similar as well).
  • He was named after both Doctor Septimus Pretorius from Bride of Frankenstein and Dr. Edward Pretorius from the 1986 supernatural sci-fi/horror film From Beyond.
  • Despite being the main antagonist of the show Pretorius is curiously absent through most of the second season, only appearing in a single episode in a central role ("Cool Hand Mask") and two other episodes in smaller roles ("Mutiny of the Bounty Hunters" and "Convention of Evil"). Conversely, the majority of the third season episodes are entirely dedicated to him.
  • In the episode "Sister Mask", Pretorius' plans of enhancing his new army with superhuman powers (such as invisibility, pyrokinesis, elasticity and super strength) with the 4 pieces of a stolen meteor fragment pays homage to the heroic Fantastic Four of Marvel Comics.

Navigation[]

           TheMaskLogo Villains

Comics
Original series: "Big Head" | Abner Mead | Eugene Rapaz | Mask Hunters | Nunzio | Papa Croc | Walter
Adventures of The Mask: Bombshell | Couch Potato | Dober-Man | Greenthumb

Movies
The Mask: Dorian Tyrell | Sweet Eddy | Orlando | Freeze | Niko
Son of the Mask: Loki

Television
Aliens | Andrew Bedwetter | Dr. Amelia Chronos | Baxter Simon | Beauregard Klaxon | Celia N. Airtight | Channel Surfer | Cheap Chucky | Cybermite | Dark Star Trio | Davida Steelmine | The Devil | Gorgonzola | Government Guy | The Hood | Kablamus | Lonnie the Shark | Lonnie's Biker Gang | Madame Suspiria | The Mask | Phoney Frenchman | Pretorius | Putty Thing and Fish Guy | Selina Swint | Skillit | Sly Eastenegger | The Stinger | The Tempest | Tex Clobber | Walter | Willamina Bubask

Crossovers
Harley Quinn | Joker | Lobo | Poison Ivy

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