Speaking from personal experience, being nauseous sucks. Stomach hurts, feeling dizzy, and headaches make for a rough night. Don't believe me? Wait until your twenty-first birthday. Now, imagine a supervillain had the ability to make you feel sick. All he needs to do is think about it, and you'll feel like puking your guts out. And he also makes it hard to tell up from down, left from right, and so on. It'd suck. But then, Green Arrow has had to deal with a guy like that for a number of years. The villain's name is Count Vertigo. Let's get to it.
Werner Vertigo (later renamed
Werner Zytle) began life as a royal in exile. His family was the royal family
of fictional Eastern European country 23c, Vlatava. Sounds less like a country
and more like a European guy’s last name, but we’ll roll with it. The Vertigo’s
ruled Vlatava for ages, until the Cold War sprung up. Vlatava fell behind the
Iron Curtain, and the surviving Vertigo’s fled to England to survive.
Furthermore, young Werner was diagnosed with an inner ear defect, said defect
gives him constant vertigo. Oh, and it
makes him partially deaf. Super. His various hearing and balance issues were
fixed by giving him a specialized cochlear style implant. He tinkered with the
device (Disclaimer, do not mess with medical devices in an attempt to get
superpower) and discovered that he could induce the vertigo effect in others. He
then threw together a costume and became a supervillain, as you do. His first caper was an attempt to steal the
family crown jewels back. His folks had sold said jewels as they made their
escape to England. The jewels were being kept in Star City. So, yeah, he
crossed paths with Green Arrow and Black Canary. Despite his powers giving him
a distinct advantage over his foes, things didn’t end well for Werner. Prison
is no picnic, especially for a dude with a serious superiority complex.
 |
| Props for including the hearing aid. |
A short while later he was
approached by Amanda Waller to join the Suicide Squad in exchange for a reduced
sentence. Werner did well with the Suicide Squad, but it was discovered that
Vertigo suffered from bipolar disorder. So yeah, he’s fallen royalty, partially
deaf, suffers from constant dizziness and nausea, and also bipolar. Middle
finger from the universe. Anyway, things fall apart after the Suicide Squad is
disbanded. While in Europe, Vertigo was kidnapped by a group of Vlatavan
rebels. Said rebels planned on using Vertigo’s powers to help them defeat the
current Vlatavan government, and most likely planned to place him as a puppet
king. What? Not all rebels are good guys. Said rebels used a combinations of
drugs that exacerbated Vertigo’s mental health issues. They made him believe
that he was an Angel of Vengeance, sent to destroy the current rulers. Vertigo
believed himself to be in control, but his mood was controlled by his captors.
Things finally came to head when
the new Suicide Squad stepped in. Poison Ivy used her ability to control pheromones
to enthrall Vertigo and keep him as a slave while the rest of the Suicide Squad
took out Vlatava’s ruler. Vertigo was Poison Ivy’s slave for a number of years.
During his more lucid moments he threatened to kill her when he was finally
free from her control. He was finally freed by Amanda Waller when she had need
of his powers. He needed to stop a few missiles, and the psychos launching
them, from hitting the Dome of the Rock in the Jerusalem. Vertigo succeeded and
for his efforts was enrolled in a drug rehab center. To help him recover not
only from the drugs the Vlatavan rebels filled him with, but also from Ivy’s
toxins. Over the next few years Vertigo suffered from some pretty serious
depression. He even tried to get Deadshot to kill him, but the assassin warned
him to seriously consider the whole murder thing, as Deadshot would not miss
nor hesitate. In the end, Vertigo decided to keep on living and eventually
returned to Vlatava to reclaim his throne.
 |
| I'm feeling sick already. It might just be the stupid costume design. |
Vertigo gathered an army and tried
to reclaim Vlatava from the Vlatava’s President and the current government.
While the two armies fought, the Specter appeared. The Specter is an immensely
powerful and nigh omnipotent spirit of vengeance. He uses his godlike powers to
dole out justice/vengeance Now, Specter was unstable at this point in history.
After watching Vlatava for centuries, seeing the nation constantly at war,
performing ethnic cleansings and other morally questionable activities, he
judge the entire nation as guilty. He destroyed the entire nation, killing
every citizen, save Count Vertigo and the Vlatavan President. Count Vertigo was
obviously heartbroken and more than slightly emotionally scarred by the whole
incident, but unfortunately the death of all of his citizens didn’t convince
Vertigo to mend his ways. He continued to work for the Suicide Squad and
against his longtime nemesis Green Arrow. Cheetah’s don’t change their spots
and all that.
Werner Vertigo/Zytle is a pretty
traditional royal. He’s trained in boxing, fencing, and classic martial arts.
He’s gained more specialized combat training as time went on. The Count is also
able to use his “Vertigo Effect” to cause anyone within a certain distance of
him to feel vertigo. The dizziness and nausea last for as long as Vertigo is concentrating.
His Vertigo Effect can also disrupt the guidance systems on most forms of long
range weaponry, as well as the detection systems of just about any security
system. He originally relied on the specialized cortical implant to get this
effect, but he doesn’t need it anymore. No, they haven’t explained why. He also
uses magnetic boots to walk on metal walls or ceilings. He can now also fly now…
because.
Count Vertigo has appeared in a number of
series over the years, not always against his longtime nemesis Green Arrow.
 |
| A very creepy Count. Too bad he couldn't get his powers. |
He appeared in Batman: The Animated Series. Known only as Vertigo, he used an
enhanced eyepatch to give off his Vertigo Effect. He stole a sonic drill from
Waynetech to use as a WMD. Despite getting the best of Batman in an earlier encounter,
he’s later defeated by a team up of Batman and Talia al Ghul.
Young
Justice’s Vertigo had a slightly different background. In the episode “Revelations”
he led the Injustice League as the group of psychos attacked various parts of
the world with mutated super plants. Vertigo and the Injustice League are
defeated, but it’s later revealed their group is just the proxy of The Light,
the actual evil Justice League. Vertigo got out of prison time because he has
diplomatic immunity. Which is a plot that I never understood. If you knew one
of your diplomats is a well-known supervillain,
why the heck wouldn’t you wave said immunity? He returns in “Coldhearted.” In
this episode, much to his dismay, Kid Flash is required to run a heart across
country while the rest of the team battle giant floating fortresses spread ice
and snow across the continental US. He’s opposed by Vandal Savage and later the
Count and his forces. Vertigo reveals that Savage’s interference, and it’s kind
of implied the Ice Fortresses are involved, were part of a ploy to stop the
heart’s delivery. The heart was meant for his niece, Queen Perdita of Vlatava.
If she dies, Vertigo was next in line for his kingdom’s throne. Kid Flash
escapes, but just barely. The queen was reported to have died on the table
during the operation, and Vertigo visits Kid Flash in his own hospital room (he’d
been hurt in the fight again Savage and later Vertigo) to gloat. Just as the self-styled
King Werner Vertigo gloats and specified that he’d committed Regicide, Kid
Flash pulls the curtain to reveal none other than Queen Perdita. They faked the
story to get a confession. I don’t know diplomacy that well, but I think a
Queen can give and take Diplomatic Immunity as she likes, just saying. But
anyway, Vertigo is overpowered by the Queen’s bodyguards and he’s sent to
prison. Just goes to show, if you’re going to kill your relative to usurp a
throne, don’t gloat about it until you see the body. Or just not do it, also an
option.
 |
| So even after the Flash's particle accelerator explosion made superpowers possible, we still don't have a powered Count? Lame. |
The CW’s hit Arrow takes a few more liberties with the Count and his background.
In this series, a character known only as The Count is introduced. He’s the
drug kingpin of the synthetic drug Vertigo, a drug that gives people a “floating”
sensation. The Count got his name since that his preferred weapon is a dual
syringe that he tends to inject into a victim’s neck. Get it, he’s like a
Vampire. He earns the Arrow’s ire when Oliver’s sister Thea crashes her car
while high on Vertigo. They battle, but the Count gets the upper hand when he
injects Oliver with Vertigo. Oliver was ODing, but his team whip up a cure for
Vertigo. They duke it out again, and Oliver gets some payback when Oliver gives
the Count a taste of his own medicine. He briefly appears in “Unfinished
Business” when Oliver believes the Count is behind a new string of Vertigo. It’s
revealed he’s still high out of his mind, and that his doc is behind the new
Vertigo. He recovers in “State v. Queen” and escaped during the season one
finale. He’s officially going by Count Vertigo at this point. He teams with
Sebastian Blood and poisons most of the citizens using a faux flu vaccine. He
and Green Arrow fight again, and is ultimately shot via arrows and
defenestrated.
A new Vertigo is introduce in the
third season. This version is Werner Zytle, a minor drug dealer that initiates
a hostile takeover of the drug underworld. He had improved Vertigo, so that the
drug now makes people hallucinate and see their greatest fears. So, yeah, Vertigo
is now Scarecrow. He’s defeated by Arrow and the Canary. A few months later he
escapes prison after forcing a journalist to dose the guards with Vertigo. He
incapacitates Green Arrow and Arsenal, and later battles Black Canary. He bests
her at first using his Fear-tigo, but is beaten in their second encounter.
Count Werner Vertigo/Zytle is not a
character I know very well, but I find him interesting just because of his
powers. He can incapacitate untold numbers with vertigo in a matter of seconds.
Granted, there are a lot of telepathic characters that can do something
similar, but he’s the only supervillain that I can think of that has
effectively weaponized nausea. For a character like Green Arrow, who needs a
lot of concentration to use his weapon effectively, this makes Vertigo a
particular dangerous villain. He’s the nauseating, dizzying, and all around
discomfort causing Count Vertigo. Next time, it’s a surprise. Dun dun, dun dun,
dun dun dun dun dun.
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/youngjustice/images/3/35/Count_Vertigo.png/revision/latest?cb=20111030171655
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Vertigo#/media/File:CountVertigo.jpg
http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131121065317/arrow/images/3/35/Count_Vertigo.png
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20141009053743/arrow/images/0/09/Werner_Zytle.png
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