Disney Villainesses Battle Tournament – Round 1

The Premise –
Sorcerer Jafar, in one last desperate attempt to escape the underworld and return to the mortal world, and following his failed attempt to murder Hercules and Aladdin in order to obtain his freedom (Hercules, “Arabian Night”), proposes to Hades, Lord of the Dead, that a game be played to determine his fate. If Hades wins, Jafar will remain in the Underworld for all eternity with no hope of escape. If Jafar wins, wouldn’t you know it, he will be free to “dance around the Cosmos and whoop it up.” Jaffie’s proposal? Appeal to Hades’ love of three essentials; entertainment, gore, and women.
Round up the most evil women in the cosmos, living or dead, imprison them in the underworld, and force them to duke it out until there are only two remaining. At that point, Jafar will place his support behind one villainess, and Hades another. The Lord of the Dead readily agrees; in fact, he’s enthusiastic about it, inviting all the underworld denizens to witness the spectacle. Needless to say, the only one who isn’t thrilled is Megara, who is outright disgusted and sits on the sidelines rolling her eyes.


The Fates and Jafar play a key role in selecting these nasty women from across time and space. Each villainess is permitted a day’s worth of preparation to gather whatever equipment they may need, although they may only use what they were seen using in their respective films.

The Players:
Mother Gothel vs. Queen Grimhilde
The Queen of Hearts vs. Yzma
Helga Sinclair vs. Mirage
Maleficent vs. Jadis
Lady Tremaine vs. Madam Mim
Cruella de Vil vs. Madame Medusa
Ursula vs. Queen Narissa
So, you all voted, here’s how they’re going to play out. Who will come out on top?

The Fights –

Gothel vs. Grimhilde –
The Queen consults her Mirror firsthand to discover Gothel’s primary weaknesses ahead of time. Learning that Gothel’s weakness lays in the hair of her surrogate daughter, she dispatches Humbert the Huntsman to locate the tower in which she is hidden and slay her so that Gothel will perish from old age; she orders him to bring back her heart in a box as proof. We all know how this is going to go down. Before entering the Arena, Grimhilde also cusses Hades out for not allowing her to use her palace guards in the fight, as they did not appear in the final cut of the film.

Nonetheless, Grimhilde is confident going in and is initially able to psyche Gothel out with her cold demeanor, not even pretending to laugh at any of Gothel’s cheap vanity jokes, which completely throws her off. Still, Gothel regains her footing, determined to claim the Queen’s mirror for her prize, and chucks Rapunzel’s tiara across the arena, knocking Grimhilde squarely in the kisser. While Grimhilde reels from pain and screeches profanity, Gothel proceeds to fend off the Queen’s vultures and raven that swoop around her by using her knife, and then goes fisticuffs, getting some serious licks in the old girl until Grimhilde morphs into her hag form with the hope that Gothel won’t hurt an old lady, which is obviously flawed logic considering who Gothel really is.



In fact, the fight goes on for so long, what with Grimhilde pelting Gothel with apples and Gothel trying to fend off the Queen’s birds, that Gothel herself ends up morphing into her older self, due to increased separation from Rapunzel, whom Humbert obviously couldn’t, and didn’t, kill. After about a day, the two start hacking and reeling from heart palpatations and arthritis pains to the point that they both have to pull out and call a truce. Gothel races back to her tower for a recharge, Grimhilde for a cool drink of water.

Winner: Tie

Queen of Hearts vs. Yzma –
Yzma spends a good twenty-four hours in her laboratory plotting various schemes that are too elaborate to be executed, ultimately coming out with nothing other than gator bites on her ankles. What distinguishes the fight more than anything isn’t which absolute monarch is mightier, but whose henchmen generally prove to be more ineffective in the fight. Kronk wastes time debating with imaginary figures, apparently located on his shoulders, about the virtues of fighting and violence in entertainment venues, as well as with the Cheshire Cat, who gets a kick out of messing with his head. The White Rabbit and the King of Hearts generally waste time repeating the Queen’s talking points while tripping over each other and getting trampled by the Queen’s Cards and Yzma’s Guards. It doesn’t make Yzma look any better that the Queen’s Cards actually have a fair showing against Yzma’s Inca Guards.

The Queen, for her part, makes a point of utilizing her flamingoes to knock Yzma around like a croquet hedge-hog, all the while screaming for Yzma to be beheaded. Yzma’s aerobic skills come in handy, though, and she throws the Queen’s back out in a sick move that looks like something out of a Tai-Bo video. The Queen’s response is to scream at the top of her lungs at a volume that renders everyone in the arena deaf, except Yzma, whose so ancient that she’s practically deaf anyway. Utilizing her quick sadistic wit, and choosing to go with her original regicide plan, Yzma takes advantage of the Queen’s mouth being wide open and pours liquid from a vile down her throat, transforming her into a flea; a “tiny little flea.” But, to save on postage, she swipes the King of Heart’s gavel and smashes the Queen right then and there.

Winner: Yzma

Helga Sinclair vs. Mirage –
Mirage does everything in her power to combat Lt. Helga Sinclair, attempting to use the most advanced, high-tech weapons at her disposal from Syndrome’s arsenal, which says a lot, and Sinclair is undoubtedly impressed. To her credit, she’s able to roll with Sinclair’s punches and kicks every step of the way, even better than she did with Parr’s. But, ultimately, Sinclair’s martial arts skills are too acute for Mirage to keep up with. She reminds Mirage it’s nothing personal, and takes her down in a matter of minutes with a mere chop to the pressure point. She proceeds to horde the weaponry Mirage has left behind for herself and Rourke.

Winner: Lt. Helga Sinclair

Maleficent vs. Jadis -
This one proved to be epic, as mystical creatures from all walks of life seemed to get involved. Jadis, armed with her stone knife and wand, and heavily protected by Aslan’s mane, leads her army of minotaurs, hags, wolves, and other creatures via her chariot. They advance against Maleficent’s goons and the Heartless, whom Maleficent has invoked with Hades’ approval, while Diablo swoops through the air crowing orders on Maleficent’s behalf. Jadis hops out of her chariot, and petrifies as many goons as she can, although she has significant trouble with the Heartless, who make short work of about half her army. Maleficent herself waits in the wings, observing the battle as it goes down, waiting to make her move as she analyzes the enemy. Jadis realizes the potential in the Heartless’ power and attempts to maneuver to control them for herself, making an attempt to position herself as the more powerful one, and certainly the more evil one. This backfires as the Heartless attempt to consume her heart, rather than Maleficent’s. While making vain attempts at fending them off with her wand, she makes a final attempt to salvage victory. In one fell swoop, she sweeps to turn Maleficent’s entire army into stone, including Diablo.

This turns out to be another huge mistake, as Maleficent flies into a fit of rage, transforming herself into a will o’ the wisp, appears before Jadis in human form only briefly, and then morphs into her infamous dragon persona, swooping toward Jadis, and pinning her to her own stone table huffing flames and smoke, much to Jadis’ horror. She makes shorter work of Jadis than Aslan could have ever hoped to. She proceeds to bow as Jadis’ minions give her a standing ovation, donning Jadis’ charred Aslan fleece, and letting out a hellish cackle, after, of course, undoing the Witch’s spell over her precious raven. She lets the goons stay where they are as stone, though, heading back to her tower for a good night’s victory sleep.

Winner: Maleficent

Lady Tremaine vs. Madam Mim –

Tremaine, armed with the Godmother’s magic wand, like Maleficent, waits on the sidelines, allowing Lucifer, Drizella and Anastasia to do the initial dirty work in combating Mim, in order to observe Mim’s personal traits and movements. The wicked stepmother casts the first major blow by ordering her daughters to perform “Sing Sweet Nightingale” for Mim, which almost drives her to delirium, in the same way “horrible, harmsome” sunshine does.

But, naturally, the sisters end up fighting amongst themselves and are unable to coordinate an effective teaming against Madam Mim. It isn’t much trouble for Mim to transform into a dozen or so rodents and wild animals to make all three of Tremaine’s henchmen drop to the ground unconscious. Tremaine then moves forward to make use of the wand, and they two duel for a good three hours, transforming into any number of vile creatures in an attempt to destroy one another. Mim finally resorts to turning into the Pink Dragon and Tremaine, by all appearances, is defeated. Mim is all but certain that victory is hers and gloats, before noticing that Tremaine has violated one of the first rules of Wizards’ Dueling – no disappearing.

As it would turn out, though, Tremaine has not disappeared. She has turned into a germ. Tremaine had turned back the clock with the wand in her twenty four hours of preparation to witness the famous Merlin vs. Mim Wizard’s duel. She merely borrowed from Merlin’s playbook. Except, this go around, she turns herself into a fatal disease that wipes Mim out within a good twelve hours. Before parroting Mim’s “sounds like someone’s sick” line in a moment of cruel irony, she disposes of Mim’s corpse in a pumpkin and hitches it onto Old Major the horse who gallops off into the distance. That Tremaine proves to be mighty sadistic when her mind is put to it.

Winner: Lady Tremaine


Cruella de Vil vs. Madame Medusa –
This one starts with a bang and ends with a whimper. These two “mean girl” divas crash their cars into each other when cruising into the arena and begin pulling each others’ hair, screeching, hollering, and yelling about who will pay for the damages. Medusa swats her stick violently, but Cruella begins gaining traction by suffocating Medusa with her furs and cigarette smoke. Snoops tries to interfere and get involved, but Horace and Jasper get a hold of him and kick the crap out of him, embarrassing the hell out of Snoops.

Medusa gains footing by bringing out Brutus and Nero, who make short work of Horace and Jasper, driving them off before they are able to seal the deal and call them dinner. But, while setting them on Cruella, Medusa accidentally hits them with her walking stick and, still bitter from the incident at the Bayou, turn on her once and for all, forgetting about Cruella in an instant. Um, Cruella wins by default.

Winner: Cruella de Vil

Ursula vs. Queen Narissa –
The Sea Witch appears in the form of Vanessa, Narissa in the form of the hag. Narissa tries to pawn a poisoned apple off onto Ursula, but she doesn't buy into it for a second, and starts mocking Narissa's physical appearance, prompting Narissa to transform into her true physical form, and in turn, Ursula morphs back into the Sea Witch. They trade mystical blasts back and forth, stalemating for a while. Nathaniel tries to interfere, but Ursula foists him onto Floatsam and Jetsam who drown him. Narissa decides she's had enough and pulls a real original move - she turns into a dragon!

Ursula feigns defeat and hunches over, concealing the Tritent she had stolen within her twenty four hours of prep. The minute Narissa turns her back to gloat, Ursula utilizes the Tritent to turn Narissa into a polyp, and then nails her with a quick, silent blow that I'll bet she wishes she used on Ariel. Ursula dons Narissa's tiara and obnoxiously gloats about her physical beauty and svelt figure.

Winner: Ursula the Sea Witch

Let's just say that the crowd goes wild over the course of this period. Hades gives the leading ladies two thumbs up, Jafar lets out a fiendish laugh, and Meg retires to a corner to take a sedative.

COMING SOON: Disney VIllainess Battle Tournament: ROUND 2