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| “ | I was away for a few years and I came back to a world in ruins. Death, destruction, chaos, the endless fighting—it was like the Heterodyne Boys had never existed. Things were worse than ever. So I stopped it. And I did it my way this time. No more negotiating. No more promises. No more second chances. And I did it alone. Because I had to. And it worked. | „ |
| ~ Klaus Wulfenbach explaining his rise to power (Vol. 3 pp. 97-98) |
Baron Klaus Wulfenbach is a major antagonist in the print-and-web comic Girl Genius by Phil & Kaja Foglio. He's a Spark, and rules much of Europa as dictator.
What Makes Him Magnificent?[]
- He built an entire pan-European empire from scratch. Europa was ravaged by constant war, and Klaus gathered together what allies he could and crafted order from it. Before him, Wulfenbach was always a minor house, and the old Wulfenbach barony was destroyed before he returned home. Klaus started with almost zilch politically speaking, and built one of the greatest empires in Europa.
- He's a brilliant Spark in his own right. He specializes in studying the Spark itself, meaning he understands the works and tactics of his fellow madboys very well.
- He often recruits the soldiers and minions of the various Sparks he's defeated and incorperates them into his own armies, often improving on the works of others.
- While he's often shown to be stern and grumpy, Klaus does have a charismatic side. He laughed when he heard some of the popular stories told about his past with the Heterodyne Boys, and acted affable when unlishing his final weapon on Mechanicsburg.
- He raised his son Gilgamesh Wulfenbach to be a compitent hier to his title, preparing him for all manner of dangers (such as inoculating him to as many kinds of poison as he can).
- In his in-comic debut (Volume 1), he meets with Dr. Beetle in Transylvania Polygnostic University. Beetle tried to attack him by surprise, but Klaus was prepared for something like this and had troops on standby for such a situation.
- He was able to deduce that Lucrezia was the Other — a fact that, in the comic, was only otherwise known to people who worked with Lucrezia.
- When Lucrezia returned to the world (Volume 5), she was utterly surprised by the fact that Klaus came back from exile. For all her scheming, Lucrezia couldn't have predicted someone like Klaus getting in her way.
- When Lucrezia/Agatha infects him with a wasp, Klaus is able to deduce it's Lucrezia by analyzing her body language and speech patterns. Shortly after, he's able to resist her mind-control enough to fight back.
- When he's hospitalized, he tries to command his troops in person even though his doctor commands strict bed rest, so he uses mecha while still technically being in the hospital bed.
- He survived an artillery strike that hit the hospital in Mechanicsburg.
- He outsmarted Lucrezia even when she was mind-controlling him. In the hospital of Mechanicsburg, he fell under Lucrezia's mind-control, but he invited a wandering storyteller and told a fairy-tale to him. He then tricked the storyteller into thinking Gil has an old book with that tale in it. Much later, the storyteller gets to Gil and retells the tale, and people there are able to deduce that the fairy-tale was actually a coded message explaining that Klaus was under Lucrezia's control and needed help.
- During the Siege of Mechanicsburg (Volume 12), Klaus intentionally bides his time in invading the city. When the Knights of Jove land in the city to aid Agatha, that's when he reveals that he had his entire army waiting, and so unleashes the full force of the empire on Mechanicsburg.
- As Agatha turned the tide of the Siege of Mechanicsburg (Volume 13), he came up with a plan on the spot to drop into Mechanicsburg personally to end the fight. Wulfenbach troops evacuated the city. When Agatha and friends thought they won, Klaus dropped in and detonated a hidden weapon which froze Mechanicsburg in a time-bubble, himself included.
- A footnote (#54 to be exact) in the novelization Agatha H. and the Voice of the Castle explains that he funded an advertizing campaign promoting the idea that "You Can Judge A Spark’s Strength By His Lair!" This was meant to keep Sparks preoccupied with maintaining their lairs instead of actually challenging his authority.
- Another footnote (#82 to be exact) in Agatha H. and the Voice of the Castle explains that Klaus built a shadow-town in East Zagreb to lure his enemy Petrus Teufel into the place of their final battle.
What Makes Him a Baddie?[]
- He spends a decent about of his screentime trying to kill Agatha, who is innocent. No matter how many understandable reasons he has to believe she's the Other, she simply is not. He flips back and forth between wanting her dead or arrested, but even arrested it's clear she'd face a terrible fate.
- Even if he brings peace and stability, his empire's rule is based on brute military force. He'd commit cruelties, even to civilians, if he thought it needed to maintain peace. Unruly nobles are more or less kept in place via threats (such as taking hostages aboard his airship, though the hostages are treated well).
- Sometimes he resorts to cruel and unusual punishments for prisoners, most notably lobotomy on some Sparks (though he reserves it only the worst criminals). It's implied he had this planned for the falsely-accused Agatha.
- He punishes some violent criminals with penal labor in the form of fixing Castle Heterodyne, which is full of deadly traps, is almost impossible to fix, and the sentence ends when all repairs are complete.
- He has no qualms in killing Lars at Sturmhalten.
Trivia[]
- He is the only approved MB from the canon Girl Genius storyline as of now, with Cinderella being from a non-canon side story. Other characters could likely qualify, but the ongoing nature of the webcomic makes them difficult to discuss.
External Links[]
- Baron Klaus Wulfenbach at the Girl Genius wiki
- Baron Klaus Wulfenbach at the Villains wiki
- Baron Klaus Wulfenbach at the Heroes wiki
- Baron Klaus Wulfenbach at the Inconsistently Admirable wiki