| “ | I'll make you understand! You will know that I am the one who holds the key to the future! | „ |
| ~ Vile to Sigma. |
| “ | Why don't you just give up now and get it over with?! The world as you know it? The Mavericks? Kiss it all goodbye! Doom, mayhem and destruction. This is what we're built for! | „ |
| ~ Vile |
Vile, or "VAVA" (in Japanese: ヴァヴァ, VAV), in the Japanese version, is a ruthless Maverick and the major antagonist of the Mega Man X series.
History
Mega Man X
Vile was created as a battle Reploid for the Maverick Hunters. Although his powers were great, a failure in his circuits made him crazy, never differentiating friends and foes and destroying both of them. He was condemned for imprisonment, but Sigma releases him when he starts his rebellion against the humans, making Vile his right-hand. He attacks the city on his Ride Armor and is challenged by X, but easily defeats him. When he is about to dispose of X, Zero rescues him and Vile flees. Once X and Zero finds Sigma's hidden base, Vile challenges them once again, trapping Zero and forcing X to fight him. He once again defeats X, but Zero escapes the trap and blow himself in an attempt to kill Vile, but he only manages to destroy his Ride Armor. X then awaken his hidden powers and fights Vile, this time finishing him for good.
Mega Man X3
Vile is later resurrected by Dr. Doppler, who wants Vile's help to stop X. Vile agrees to help him, but alerts that he will make things his own way. He faces X in a junkyard, using a new Ride Armor. Once again defeated, Vile activates a bomb to blow the entire place and flees, but X manages to escape. He would challenge X again in Doppler's lab, now with an even more powerful Ride Armor, but he is once again destroyed.
Mega Man X8
Much time later, he is once again resurrected, this time by Lumine, helping him in faking his own kidnapping. He faces the Maverick Hunters X, Zero and Axl many times, being always defeated. When they take the Jakob Orbital Elevator to Moon, Vile challenges them again, fighting with all his strength, but is defeated and run to Sigma's Palace in Moon. There, he fights the Maverick Hunters in a new Ride Armor, being again destroyed. In the Hard Mode setting, Vile is still alive long enough to take down the other hunter (The other character that the player is not using; whoever delivers the final blow to Vile progresses in the Sigma Palace), though the other hunter is later revealed to still be alive and arrives to help during the final battle against Sigma.
Mega Man Zero 2
Vile's ghost appeared to attack Zero mutliple times during his battle with Phoenix Magnion.
Mega Man Xover
Vile is revived again in his original state and joins the union of the villains from across time and space. Vile takes command over World 1. After OVER-1 defeats Chill Penguin, Spark Mandrill, Storm Eagle, and Flame Mammoth, Vile comes out to confront him but is defeated once again.
Personality
Vile is completely insane, destroying everything for fun. He is a very arrogant, violent and rude character with a very unstable and enraged mind. Though he used to be a member of the Maverick Hunters, he never once considered himself as one, and had a habit of not accepting orders from anyone except himself, which often resulted in fierce arguments with his commander and partially to his own arrest and labeling of being a Maverick.
Because of an irreparable short circuit in his electronic brain, Vile developed a strange, almost sociopathic passion for hunting down Mavericks and totally annihilating them, while causing as much damage as possible on the territory. This also includes innocent bystanders and comrades alike. This passion is also what may have led to his own arrest and labeling of being a Maverick.
In all incarnations of the character, Vile holds a deep grudge against X and looks down on him for the fact that despite X having a lower rank than him, he received more attention. He is also a traitor of both the Maverick Hunters and of the Mavericks.
Appearances in other media
Mega Man
Vile as appeared in the cartoon show Mega Man.
Vile appeared in "Mega X", the 26th episode of the Ruby-Spears Mega Man animated series, voiced by Lee Tockar. He came from the future along with Spark Mandrill to steal Lightanium (which, according to Mega Man X, is worth billions in the future) from Dr. Light's newly opened Plasma Power Plant to finance Sigma's war against humanity. He's depicted as near-invincible in the cartoon, as Dr. Wily's robots and even Mega Man are no match for him (mostly because Mega Man's cannon couldn't so much as scratch him). However, he himself was no match for Mega Man X (some lines in the episode heavily implied that Vile had a grudge against him). Vile is depicted as extremely arrogant, looking down on both humans and robots of the present and calling them "puny".
He and Spark Mandrill both appear to Wily near the start of the episode and force him into helping them after easily defeating his robots. The two Mavericks later encounter Mega Man and Roll and easily defeat them, but are driven off by Mega Man X, who followed them back from the future. Dr. Wily reveals his plan to rob the Plasma Power Plant to Vile by flooding the plant in belief that it would stop all its defenses. Vile actually likes the plan (commenting it wasn't bad, "for a puny human"), though after breaking a dam and flooding the plant, some defenses were still active. Vile and Spark Mandrill, however, easily break through them. They successfully steal the Lightanium, along with some materials Dr. Wily needed for a new laser weapon. Though Vile got what he came for, he decides to remain in the past a little longer to destroy Mega Man X. Wily unleashes his new laser weapon on Mega Man and Mega Man X, who avoid getting hit by it, and X destroys the weapon with his own version of Snake Man's weapon. Vile and Spark Mandrill open a portal to return to the future with the Lightanium, but X pushes them both through leaving the Lightanium behind.
Other appearances
Vile appears in the Rockman X and Irregular Hunter Rockman X manga, playing a role similar to the one he plays in the games.
Vile (with his original appearance and Ride Armor) also has a brief appearance in the last issue from Dreamwave Productions' Mega Man comic, where he catches X with a cable from his Ride Armor, but Zero appears and saves him, giving X a time machine while he fights against Vile and other Mavericks.
Project X Zone
Vile makes an appearance in Project X Zone and in Project X Zone 2. He is one of the boss characters.
Gallery
Trivia
- It is a common tale amongst the Mega Man community that the character's name was changed from VAVA to Vile for the North American release of Mega Man X because Capcom USA was afraid of being sued by LucasFilm because of the character's resemblance to Boba Fett, a character from the Star Wars universe. This was due to Vile's resemblance to Boba Fett's Mandalorian armour, especially the helmet with T-visor, and because his Japanese name can also be spelled "BABA" (the letters B and V are spelled and written the same way in Japanese).
- However, VAVA is actually based on the character Bubba Zanetti (ババ・ザネッティ, Baba Zanetti) from the 1979 film Mad Max.
- Vile is not to be mistaken for Dr. Weil, whose name in the Japanese version is Dr. Vile.
- Interestingly, X can actually defeat Vile in the Ride Armour in Maverick Hunter X by jumping and shooting Vile rather than the armour. In fact, this is the only way X can deal damage to Vile in this game.
- Vile Mk-II had a figure in the Mega Armor series, and the original Vile in the D-Arts line. Vile also had small miniatures of him.
- When fighting him as the mini-boss of the final stage in Mega Man X8, Vile doesn't actually ride the Ride Armor by sitting in its cockpit like before; instead, he stands on top of it, granting a defense which can be broken by Guard-Breaking the Armor before you can deal damage to him using his weakness weapon.
- There are two missing versions of Vile that have seemingly passed by, as he went from Mk-2 in Mega Man X3 to 5 in Mega Man X8 (his official notation in X8, according to sourcebooks, is "VAVA Pente," meaning "5"). It is unknown if those two versions will ever make an appearance.
- Vile and Sigma share the same Japanese voice actor in Mega Man X8, Mugihito.
- In Maverick Hunter X, Vile is very weak to Zero's buster parts. If X uses Zero's buster parts (not Dr. Light's buster parts) on Vile after the game has been completed, X can make short work of him with two correctly aimed shots at full charge. Using Dr. Light's Buster Parts at full charge will only do up to half the damage as compared to Zero's Buster Parts.
- Interestingly, in Mega Man Maverick Hunter X, in battles that involve Vile, Vile doesn't speak to his opponent(s) unless spoken to.
- Vile is the second major recurring boss character in the Mega Man X series, next to Sigma.
- Vile is the first antagonist in the Mega Man X series to become a playable character.
- Vile's weakness in Mega Man X and Mega Man Maverick Hunter X is the same as Velguarder Sigma's primary weakness from the first Mega Man X game: Rolling Shield. After which, there will be different types of weaknesses against Vile in the concurrent games.
- Vile's overall appearance bears some resemblance to Sniper Joe. The similarities are further highlighted in the Rockman X3 manga, where at one point Vile Mk II has a glowing eye in the center of his visor while dueling with X just like Sniper Joe.
- Vile's personality in the Rockman X manga is depicted much differently than the games. In the manga, Vile is seen as somewhat calculative, cunning, and somewhat calm, and can easily catch X off guard. When X encounters him at the abandoned saloon after the battle with Armored Armadillo, Vile mentions to X that he will hunt down all those who bear the name "Rockman" after he finishes him off once and for all, but he leaves while giving X the coordinates of the next Dr. Light capsule. X tries to shoot Vile as he is leaving, but is stunned with a sense of fear.
- The D-Arts Vile figure comes with a glass of Bourbon, an homage to his appearance in the manga. After Armored Armadillo's death, X finds Vile in a bar holding a glass. Vile tells X it would not matter if the glass is filled with Bourbon or mud as Reploids cannot tell the difference between them, and breaks the glass. Later in Sigma's fortress, Vile asks X if he wants a glass of Bourbon before dying, making a reference to their previous encounter.
- It is unknown as to why VAVA is capitalized.
- In Project X Zone, it is noted in Chapter 37 by the main protagonist of Tales of Vesperia, Yuri Lowell, that Vile is very similar to an enemy he fought in his own world known as Zagi. Zagi and Vile share similar parallels in that they are both single-minded in the pursuit of their goal and their existence can only truly be defined when they beat their respective rival (Yuri and X).
