Welcome to the Couch Club, our recurring column devoted to all things #DCTV! This week, Rosie Knight sings the praises of Kite Man: Hell Yeah!’s snarkiest scene stealer, the hilarious Malice Vundabar.
Throughout my time at DC.com I've written about some extremely deep cut characters, from the marvelous Melba Manton to queer trailblazer Enigma. I love nothing more than delving into the deepest gutters of the DC Comics canon to let you know about the lesser known heroes and villains found within the DC Universe. That's why I was extremely excited to meet Malice Vundabar (Natasia Demetriou) in Max's new superhero sitcom, Kite Man: Hell Yeah! The super fun Harley Quinn spinoff centers around the titular hero and his girlfriend Golden Glider buying and reopening a new bar, Noonan’s, next to the Legion of Doom's headquarters. Like Harley Quinn before it, the show is stacked with DC characters you may have forgotten, but none is weirder and less well known than the mysterious and deeply sassy Malice.
First appearing in 1991's Hawk & Dove #21, the original Malice was far different from the sharp social media savvy teen we meet in Kite Man: Hell Yeah! This earlier version of the character was a bratty little girl who was a member of the notorious Female Furies. Ambushing a pair of cops thanks to her unassuming appearance, Malice soon reveals herself as a brutal foe thanks to her pet demon cat, Chessure, who bursts from the darkness ready to deliver a violent death to the boys in blue.
Created by Karl Kesel, Barbara Randall Kesel and Steve Erwin in the story "Girls Night Out," Malice began as something of a twist on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland for the Garbage Pail Kids generation, her chubby face often contorted in horrible joy as she enacts her villainous Apokalyptian schemes. In an enjoyable female wrongs story, she debuts beside some other fantastically named Female Furies like Bloody Mary and Speed Queen, and she's accompanied by returning Jack Kirby creation Gilotina, with all four of the Furies showing up and showing off in the action-packed adventure.
The murderous little munchkin next appeared over three years later in Karl Kesel and Kieron Dwyer's Guardians of Metropolis miniseries, making sporadic cameos alongside pal Gilotina and the legendary Granny Goodness. Dedicated Malice fans needed to hold on for another year and a half to see their favorite Fury again, popping up in the first issue of Chris Claremont and Dwayne Turner's original superteam series, Sovereign Seven. She was up to her usual hijinks, playfully using Chessure to terrorize unsuspecting targets like the evil little doll she is.
Returning in early 1996, Kesel revived his tyrannical tot alongside Tom Grummett for a throwdown in Superboy #25, following a quick cliffhanger cameo in the previous issue. Interestingly, Kesel opted to show a different side to Malice here, having her act as the more compassionate member of the Female Furies. Of course, it was but a momentary lapse in maliciousness, with Malice soon resorting to violence and calling upon Chessure yet again.
In her first and only appearance on her homeworld of New Genesis, Claremont teamed with Ron Lim for a brief Malice appearance in Sovereign Seven #27 from October 1997, where she's just as bratty and bad as ever. As the decade drew to a close, Malice made her final appearance alongside her Fourth World compatriots in 1999's Image Comics crossover Superman & Savage Dragon: Metropolis by Karl Kesel and Jon Bogdanove. And with that, Malice disappeared for nearly a quarter century until she popped up in Kite Man: Hell Yeah!
One of the biggest joys of DC's animated offerings is how the creative teams reimagine the stranger parts of DC lore. Kite Man: Hell Yeah!'s modern iteration of Malice and her hilarious relationship with Darkseid is a wonderful example of that. She's been transformed into an aged-up apathetic Gen Z'er who takes a job with Noonan’s. Evolving her Alice-esque aesthetic, this Malice is more like a purple-tinged Wednesday Addams, complete with deadpan delivery and dry, morbid sensibilities. Chessure has been shrunken down into a cute companion held in a chest harness rather than an amorphous demon cat living only in the shadows. These changes make for a compelling modern update, with Demetriou's delightful voice performance perfectly complementing the show's fantastic new character design.
Hopefully we’ll get more Kite Man: Hell Yeah! so that we can get a lot more Malice! Either way, if the gothic girlie has made an impression on you, I encourage you to hunt down her previous comic appearances. She’s a wild, wonderfully weird piece of the DCU who deserves more fans. And perhaps now, thanks to her memorable small screen appearances, she’ll finally find some.
Kite Man: Hell Yeah! is now streaming in full on Max.
Rosie Knight is an award-winning journalist and author who loves Swamp Thing, the DC Cosmic and writing the monthly gossip column here at DC.com. You can also listen to her waxing lyrical about comics, movies and more each week as she co-hosts Crooked Media's pop-culture podcast, X-Ray Vision.
NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this feature are solely those of Rosie Knight and do not necessarily reflect those of DC or Warner Bros. Discovery, nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.
