Disney’s Gargoyles were overshadowed in the 1990s by the popularity of the Simpsons and Pokémon. The show relates the tale of a clan of winged monsters who guarded Castle Wyvern in the year 994. The creatures awaken from their mystical slumber in twentieth-century Manhattan and prepare to defend the people against threats to peace. Gargoyles aired for three seasons and a total of 78 episodes. The first two seasons were broadcast on Disney, but ABC took up the third and final season.
Greg Weisman, the show’s creator, was not engaged in the production of the third season beyond the pilot and does not believe the last season to be canon. Gargoyles, unlike most Disney shows, was dark and sophisticated. Each episode was brilliantly filled out and seamlessly merged into the plot thread, despite the fact that it was based on mythology. It contained lessons on navigating moral ambiguity. Many of the characters possessed gigantic appendages and astounding mystical abilities, but it was their depth that made them famous for years. Today, we will look at 13 of Gargoyles’ most powerful villains, who stood out for their wicked brilliance or near-omnipotence.
Thailog
Xanatos had activated a steel clan robot for inflicting wounds into Goliath’s skin. Although Goliath managed to destroy the robot, it had succeeded in scratching bloody lines down his chest. Owen Burnett showed up at the scene to treat the wound and used the opportunity to extract DNA and blood samples. He told Goliath and Elisa a lie about how the robot got activated due to a freak overload and they believed him.
It took 19 weeks for Sevarius to create Thailog with the genetic material. His maturation was accelerated and he was artificially aged to be the same as Goliath. He was educated to have a business sense with a cunning mind. Thailog appeared to be the perfect clone of Goliath, but his accelerated ageing had turned his hair white, eyes red, and skin dark purple. He was willing to do anything for profit and didn’t share the Gargoyle’s instinct to protect humans. He was a sociopath who enjoyed inflicting pain upon others. He would happily betray anyone for his own benefit. He didn’t want to be a pawn to Xanatos or a guinea pig to Sevarius. He desired the resources to create his own identity.
He was also curious about the nature of Goliath, his father. Using information from Xanatos’s file, he drew Elisa, Broadway, and Lexington to Black Rock Point and attacked them. Mistaking him for Goliath, they confronted him about the incident at the clock tower. After the Manhattan Clan decided to investigate further, Thailog tricked Xanatos and Sevarius into coming to the oil rig and capturing them. While the two turned on each other, Thailog captured Goliath and Elisa. Thailog wasn’t interested in joining either of his fathers, he wanted to destroy them. He set them ablaze and left them to die as he escaped with 20 million dollars of ransom money.
Since his escape from Black Rock Point, he has often worn battle armour and a helmet. The group had managed to escape too, but Goliath wasn’t ready to give up. He wanted Thailog to join them and went to meet him one last time. The two got into a fight which caused the entire rig to go up in flames. Goliath was blown off in the explosion and he presumed Thailog to be dead. Meanwhile, Xanatos caught on to Thailog’s plan and realized that he had faked his death. Thailog was cunning enough to pitch Demona and Macbeth against each other, hoping to gain both of their wealth.
He wanted to be as wealthy as Xanatos. Demona turned against Thailog on finding out about Delilah, a clone formed with Demona and Elisa’s DNA. He wished to dispose of Demona and take Delilah as his new mate. Demona and Thailog went up against each other in the middle of a burning roller coaster, where Thailog appeared to be dead but managed to survive and proceeded to attack the Labyrinth.
Thailog had regained control over the clones under the pretence of coming to reclaim Delilah. Owen Burnett and Goliath confronted him and confiscated his weapons in exchange for Delilah. Compelled by his treacherous nature, Thailog stabbed Goliath and tortured him before Elisa. The rest of the Gargoyles arrived to save Goliath but they were slain by Thailog. The battle continued till Delilah arrived at the scene. She expressed no intention of taking either side. Most of the clones followed her back to the labyrinth. Thailog had succeeded in collecting DNA samples from all the Gargoyles as well as Elisa by striking them with a clean blade.
Demona
Once a member of the Wyvern Clan, Demona went on to become one of the co-conspirators of the Wyvern massacre. Her hatred for humans was strong enough to make her spend thousands of years seeking to exterminate them. She blamed the humans for her misfortunes. She was no longer an ally to the gargoyles who protected the humans and was now their greatest and perhaps most dangerous enemy. Demona is a female gargoyle with pale blue skin and red hair. Her go-to weapons are either a mace, a particle beam cannon or both. In her human form, she can pass as a red-haired, pale-skinned, green-eyed woman. Her eyes glow red when she feels enraged, just like the other female gargoyles.
Born in the year 938, Demona used to be a nameless Gargoyle who was Goliath’s mate, as well as a respected member of their clan. Goliath frequently called her his Angel of the Night. In the meantime, Demona was secretly learning magic from sorcerers, who she also learned how to read. While she was stealing the Phoenix Gate for Archmage, an older version of Demona and Goliath appeared before her and showed her the aftermath of the Wyvern massacre. She grew fearful of how cold and resentful she was going to become in the future.
With age, she had become one of the greatest warriors of her clan. As time went by, she found herself growing bitter over how the humans were treating her and her kind. When the clan’s leader stepped down, it allowed Goliath to take over and Demona became his second in command. The two conceived a child and the next year, Demona laid her egg. Resentful of the human’s attitude towards her clan, she conspired with the captain of the guard to betray the humans who inhabited Castle Wyvern.
The two tried to convince Goliath to take the clan and drive the Vikings away, but Goliath refused to leave the castle unprotected. The captain then decided to invade the castle during the daytime while Demona and her clan would be trapped in their stone sleep. Afraid of coming clean about her involvement in the conspiracy, Demona fled to hide on the beach. She awakened to find her clan slaughtered by the Vikings. Goliath and five other gargoyles had been put under a stone sleep curse by Magus. Finding her mate in defenceless form, she began to blame humans for all the suffering they have caused her.
Demona went on to lead a scattered clan of gargoyles, who were survivors amidst the clans destroyed by the humans. They adopted different strategies to survive and arranged for the clan to sleep in different places. Unfortunately, Demona’s entire clan was slaughtered by King Constantine. With the help of Brooklyn, Demona assisted the Grim in defeating Constantine. She also planned to betray Grim and use the Grimorum to bring Scotland to their knees. But things didn’t go as planned. Years later, she formed an alliance with Macbeth who referred to her as Demona for the first time. With the help of the weird sisters, Demona and Macbeth switched ages and became immortal. The weird sisters had however left out the part about their life spans being connected to each other.
In the twentieth century after Goliath and the other gargoyles awakened from their slumber, she was unable to convince them to join her vendetta against annihilating humankind. She could barely stand the human Eliza Maza. Puck had helped Demona to walk in the daylight by transforming her into a human. The transformation was painful but quick. Under the alias of Dominique Destine, she co-founded Nightstone Unlimited with Thailog. She was attracted to him because of his physical resemblance to Goliath and his callous attitude towards human life.
After a failed attempt at overtaking MacBeth’s wealth, the two decided to create their own version of the Manhattan Clan via cloning. After learning that Angela was her biological daughter, she wanted Angela to join her vendetta but didn’t succeed. Demona discovered her maternal instincts after her daughter was attacked by Thailog. She turned against him, freed the gargoyles and told Goliath to save their daughter. Nevertheless, Demona wasn’t ready to let go of her plan to destroy humankind. She went on to create a virus to wipe out all intelligent life forms from the planet but ended up provoking the Praying Gargoyle’s spell to protect the gargoyles. After Goliath’s intervention, she was forced to abandon her plan.
Archmage
Archmage was a greedy, arrogant and powerful magician. He had trained Demona and Magus on how to use magic while he was a courtier at Castle Wyvern. He was the first person to possess the Grimorum Arcanorum spellbook, which made him incredibly powerful. Back in 975, he had tasked Demona with stealing the Phoenix gate from Prince Elena. He wished to combine the Phoenix Gate with his Grimorum Arcanorum and the Eye of Odin to access unlimited power. But his plan didn’t work as Demona failed to retrieve the Phoenix Gate.
After getting banished from Castle Wyvern, he retaliated by poisoning Prince Malcolm. The gargoyles tracked him down to his cave to retrieve the antidote required to save the prince. He ended up blinding Hudson in one eye during their encounter. While attempting to retrieve the Grimorum, he seemed to fall to his death. He then managed to survive by travelling back in time and saving himself. Archmage had turned into a bigger threat by the time he attacked Avalon. He coerced the weird sisters to do his bidding by manipulating events.
He had succeeded in acquiring the Grimorum Arcanorum, the Phoenix Gate and the Eye of Odin which granted him ultimate power. He wanted to conquer the world with his power but was warned by his future self about the advancement of technology. The magician needed a base of operations that would hide him from his enemies. He attacked the Avalon Clan and seized control over the land. He didn’t immediately execute them as he desired revenge on Goliath. Believing himself to be invincible, he let the Avalon Clan aided by Goliath strike a counter-attack. When Goliath managed to steal the Eye of Odin, Archmage was no longer able to control the Grimorum. The uncontrollable power of the book ended up destroying him and turning him into a pile of dust.
Odin
In Norse mythology, Odin is a child of Oberon and the king of the Aesir Gods. In the TV animation, he was depicted as antagonistic, fair, wise, and reasonable. He was more of an anti-villain than a chaotic force. His magical powers made him a force to be reckoned with. He could shapeshift as well as command ice, snow and lightning at his wish but iron was his Achilles heel. The lack of his right eye drained him of his vitality and magical energy. His right eye siphoned power away from God and channelled it into the one wearing the eye. His eye had been removed during his term as a vassal and that left him greatly weakened.
The eye was forged into a necklace with a vast amount of magical power after it was brought to Avalon. It ended up stranded in the human world, the knowledge of its powers had been reduced to a mere myth. Odin searched the Earth for his eye during his exile in the human world, hoping for his powers to be restored. When the Gargoyles and Elisa arrive in Norway, Odin had greeted them in disguise. He had offered his cloak to keep Elisa from freezing in exchange for his eye. Goliath had refused the exchange as it was dangerous for anyone to be in possession of the eye.
Goliath offers a different exchange, but Odin leaves as a snowstorm hits the ground. He warns that Elisa might not survive the cold temperature. Fortunately, she finds shelter with a family that the Gargoyles had saved from falling down a cliff. Odin approaches the Gargoyles once again, this time in the form of a hostile polar bear. He attacks Goliath and runs away after stealing the pouch containing his eye. Goliath chases after him by gliding down the hill. He manages to get the pouch from the bear’s mouth and knocks it down on the snow.
After the bear disappeared without a trace, Goliath realizes it’s the old man who had greeted them before. Knowing that the elder is capable of sorcery and will attempt again to get the eye, Goliath decides to leave immediately after getting Elisa. Odin and Sleipnir break into the family’s house and abduct Elisa. He asks for the eye in exchange for Elisa’s life. Knowing that the eye will give Odin incredible powers, Goliath wears the eye himself. He becomes powerful enough to fly and withstand Odin’s ice blasts.
He rescues Elisa and threatens God against harming his friends. Odin leaves with Sleipnir, warning that the battle was far from over. The next day, Elisa and the Strulusons deduce that Odin was behind the recent snowstorm while Goliath searches the skies in pursuit of God. They take refuge in a nearby cave until the storm clears out. That night Angela notices that the snowstorm is caused by Goliath seeding the clouds. He is confronted by the others as his behaviour begins to resemble that of a tyrant. Odin accepts Goliath’s challenge of one final battle. He appears in his battle armor through a lightning bolt. The fight begins with them exchanging blasts of lightning. Odin points out that he had personally summoned Goliath to Norway to reclaim his eye, and tries to convince Goliath out of fighting him.
Refusing to part with his new powers, he weakens God by draining him of his strength and refuses to return the eye. The weakened Odin is nearly defeated but he uses his remaining strength to free Goliath’s captives from the cave. Elisa and Bronx escape but Angela remains inside on purpose. When she is about to be crushed by the moving walls, Goliath realizes the error of his ways. He regains his senses and rescues his daughter. He forcefully removes the eye of Odin and passes out from exhaustion. Odin finally gets his eye back and places it in his head. Odin then apologizes to Goliath after he wakes up, for putting his friends in danger. Goliath too apologizes, realizing that he’s not knowledgeable enough to be a god, nor fight one. Odin rides Sleipnir up the rainbow bridge as the sun rises, and departs.
Coldsteel
Coldsteel’s soul was placed in an android shell. He was one of the gargoyle members of the Wyvern Clan. Also known as Iago, he had a slightly bigger build than Goliath and Othello. He had a small crest sporting several horns behind his brow ridges, and two large spikes coming off his chin. He had three claws instead of a thumb and two claws, and his wings were similar to Brooklyn and Demona’s. Coldsteel’s appearance was strikingly similar to Iago’s original body, as Xanatos had accessed Coldstone’s memory while designing the robotic body. Coldsteel was equipped with metal tentacles that had the ability to repair themselves. There was no motive behind Coldsteel’s villainous actions other than jealousy.
Iago had manipulated his brother Coldstone into thinking that his mate Coldfire was cheating on him with Goliath. This led his brother to attack the clan leader, but Coldfire made him see through his brother’s deception. Iago was temporarily banned from the Wyvern Clan after his manipulations were discovered. Hakon and his Viking marauders shattered Iago and his clan in 994 CE. Demona and Xanatos pieced together the shattered remains, a millennium later to form Coldstone, a cyborg. After a computer virus invaded the cyborg, Iago’s spirit took over Coldstone’s body.
With the help of a Xanatos program inside Coldstone’s mind, Iago became more powerful and attempted to coerce his brother’s mate to merge with him. Goliath used virtual reality to peek into Coldstone’s mind, and the other gargoyles inside Coldstone were able to reduce Iago’s powers and defeat him. Iago managed to take over once again after Macbeth and Demona had stolen Coldstone and reactivated him.
Iago helped them fight against Goliath and the Manhattan Clan, unaware that the battle was a red herring for Demona and MacBeth to steal the Grimorum Arcanorum, the eye of Odin, and the Phoenix Gate. Iago’s rookery siblings took control over Coldstone’s body after deciding to help Goliath. To express his gratitude to Goliath for rescuing his son from Oberon, Xanatos built two new robot bodies to transfer the souls of Iago and Desdemona into them. Puck nevertheless tricked Alexander into transferring the souls of Othello, Desdemona, and Iago into Broadway, Angela, and Brooklyn’s bodies.
He made the gargoyles think that the robot bodies were Xanatos’s scheme to fight them. Iago was impressed enough to be transferred into the robot body called Coldsteel. Coldsteel blasted off and was followed by his rookery siblings Coldstone and Coldfire. Coldsteel was also summoned by Xanatos to the Scarab Corporation for his help in stealing the stone of destiny. Coldsteel wanted his homing beacon to be disabled in exchange for his services. As per the agreement, Coldsteel attacked Hudson. But he had to abandon his efforts after Coldfire destroyed him significantly. He fled from his sister in order to restore. To compensate Coldsteel for his troubles, Xanatos turned off the tracking device in his system.
Oberon
Lord Oberon is the leader of the Children of Oberon. He resides in Avalon with the Avalon Clan and Queen Titania, his wife. He is the most powerful member of the third race, except for his mother. But was able to overthrow her with ease. He had every magical ability that one can think of but like the other members of the third race, he is vulnerable to iron. Even in his weakened state he is more powerful than the others and can order trees and rocks to attack intruders. Oberon is arrogant by nature and intolerant to anyone who interferes with his plans. He does try to live by a code of honour and forbids his subjects from interfering with the mortals.
In his regular form, he appears to be a tall aristocratic figure in royal garb. He has blue skin, white hair and elvish features. Oberon was separated from his wife for centuries because of her frivolous actions. He expelled all of his people from Avalon until the time of the gathering, to teach them humility and then left Avalon himself. Oberon has two children with Titania and two sons with mortal women. He returned to Avalon for the gathering and at the behest of the weird sisters, he discovered that the gargoyles of Avalon Clan were occupying his island. His attempt to remove them was thwarted by his wife Titania, Goliath, Elisa and others.
Afterwards, he remarried Titania and appointed the Avalon Clan as his palace guards. He has often displayed amoral and hypocritical behaviour. He was unable to follow his own edict of interference in mortal affairs when he assisted his wife in the kidnapping of Xanatos’s son. He also battled Goliath, despite his edict that his and his children’s magic should not affect Goliath or his clan. His relationship with the Manhattan clan is neither that of a friend nor a foe.
Jackal
Jackal the cataclysmic sociopath, is the twin brother of Hyena and a member of the pack. He and his sister worked as mercenaries before they were recruited to the pack by Fox. The siblings were part of an ensemble cast of a television series where they were portrayed as the practical jokers of the team. An anonymous envelope informed the pack of the existence of gargoyles in New York. The pack was approached by Lexington after their performance in Madison Square, a Manhattan gargoyle and an admirer of the pack. Lexington was tricked by Fox and Wolf into leading his friend to a trap they had laid in their studio.
Lexington and Goliath escaped to the city’s rooftops where they were brought down by Jackal and got electrocuted. The pack mercilessly went after the gargoyles but were unable to locate them amongst the statues placed on the roof. The gargoyles took advantage of the situation and pulled each member of the pack aside. Jackal gets jumped on by Goliath while abandoning his teammates. Fox and Wolf are defeated and sent behind bars after holding a swimsuit model hostage. The twins are hired by Fox; the Coyote’s diamond was being held at a diamond exchange.
The two find themselves in disagreement over the method they want to employ. Their plan was disrupted when Xanatos purchased the diamond. Hyena begins attacking the crowd after losing her cool and her brother grabs the diamond after kicking Xanatos aside. They are almost captured by the cops while they escape to the roof. Xanatos manages to get the diamond back by tackling Jackal. The twins escape after Elisa pulls a gun at them. Later they get hired to assassinate Xanatos for interfering in the diamond theft. Jackal and Hyena go after Xanatos’s chopper; they get assaulted by Broadway just as Hyena is about to fire her shot.
The gargoyles hijack the chopper but the twins parachute themselves to safety. They go after Xanatos at his personal retreat but their plan is once again foiled by the gargoyles. The twins are then arrested by Elisa and sent to Riker’s Isle prison. The whole plan was orchestrated by Xanatos to test the twins’ abilities. In the prison, Coyote declares himself the new leader of the pack, and his confidence leaves the twins impressed. Coyote’s resemblance to Xanatos offends Jackal but Coyote manages to win him over. The Pack goes after the Manhattan Clan and successfully captures Brooklyn, Bronx, and Lexington during an ambush.
The clansmen arrive to rescue the gargoyles. In a heated fight, Coyote is revealed to be a robot, that stuns the pack members. They make their escape as an oil tanker is set ablaze. The pack resorts to robbing banks but are interrupted by the Manhattan Clan afresh. Later on, Jackal and Hyena are turned into cyborgs, and they lure the gargoyles into an ambush. They decide to pick a leader based on who defeats the biggest gargoyle and Coyote 2.0 takes the title after bringing down Goliath. Jackal opposes Coyote’s claim and wants to be elected leader but he is outvoted by Dingo in favour of the robot. After their encounter with Anubis in Egypt, Jackal and Hyena part ways with the pack. They move to Guatemala and conspire to destroy the Mayan gargoyles while working for Preston Vogel.
Anansi
Anansi the spider god, was a powerful trickster and the child of Oberon. Unlike the Anansi from the West African Folktale, he is antagonistic by nature. Despite not being permitted to meddle in human affairs, he was openly cruel in his ways. A long time ago, Anansi had been angered by a female panther for lashing out at his web, and he turned her into a human female. She wanted to return to her animal traits and threatened to kill the Spider God. He laughed at her empty threats and promised to turn her back if she built a city in the form of a spider web. She agrees to his terms and marries Oba, a Nigerian world leader to assist her with the task.
They built the city of Kara Digi, where citizens hunted for Anansi and brought him food. This made Anansi grow fat and greedy while the panther gave birth to multiple children who she grew fond of. Anansi turned her back into a panther keeping his promise, but she missed her human children and wanted them to be turned into panthers as well. Anansi agreed to turn only one of her children and was displeased when she picked her eldest son. He tried to turn the child against his mother and tricked him into killing her, while she was in her panther form.
Upon realizing the truth he agreed to become a panther. Anansi was reluctant but he transformed the prince into a panther and vented out his anger upon the town of Kara Digi. His actions backfired, as it drove people away from the town and no one was left to hunt his food. In the 90s, Fara Maku, a Nigerian chieftain fell in love with a woman. He was grief-stricken after she spurned him for living in a big city. Fara found Anansi and struck a deal with him; to be turned into a werepanther in exchange for hunting for the spider. He wanted to find a way to keep Tea Gora with him by turning her into a werepanther. Anansi became clumsy and lethargic because of the food brought by Fara Maku.
When the werepanthers led Goliath and the gargoyles along with Elisa and her mother to Kara Digi, they encountered the trickster who wanted to turn them into werepanthers to increase his food supply. Angela instructed the group to cut him down, upon comprehending that his magic was based on spinning his web. Anansi was desperate to save his life and offered to grant them wishes. They refused to fall for his tricks and Goliath struck him down with a spear. But Anansi being immortal; turned into a small spider and vanished into the night.
Steel Clan – The Pack
Xanatos had rounded up the pack to star in an eponymous TV show. They were a group of combatants and ambitious martial artists. Xanatos had an ulterior motive for bringing them together. He had secretly pitted the pack against the Manhattan Clan and turned them from TV stars into wanted criminals. Xanatos’s robot double, Coyote, released them from jail. Their former leader Fox stayed behind and was granted parole. Hyena and Jackal were upgraded with cybernetic implants. Dingo was given an Exo suit and Wolf was genetically spliced. Dingo and Wolf went their separate ways while the twins stuck together. Wolf was revealed to be a descendant of Hakon and Dingo became a real hero in Australia, after the matrix fused with his exo-suit.
Fox Xanatos
Fox Xanatos was born as Janine Renard, daughter to businessman Halcyon Renard and his wife Anastasia. While her father valued honour and personal integrity above all else, Janine was quite the opposite. She seemed thrilled with her life and fell in love with David Xanatos. She had her name legally changed to Fox. She was the leader of the pack until they broke out of prison and she stayed behind to trick them into thinking that she had reformed.
She gained early parole for saving a guard and got engaged to Xanatos. Still, she almost died before their wedding as the necklace Xanatos presented her with had latent magical powers, which transformed her into a giant fox-like creature. The transformation nearly destroyed her body from within, but she survived once Goliath and Elisa helped remove her necklace. Later, she tries to take over her father’s company.
Her father takes no satisfaction in seeing her fail and laments about the fact that his only child doesn’t share his values. She tells him that he might get a second chance as she was pregnant with his grandchild. She gives birth to Alexander Fox Xanatos. Amidst the gathering, her mother Anastasia is revealed to be Queen Titania which gives her and Alexander latent magical powers. After the reinstatement of the Manhattan Clan to the castle, she tries to reconcile with Lexington over their past conflict. Lexington agrees to a truce but is sceptical about completely trusting her because of her record.
Fang
Fang was one of the founding members of the Labyrinth Clan, a society of humans who were turned into mutants via genetic engineering. Unlike the other transformed mutants, Fang was quite fond of his newfound strength and powers. He was power-hungry and it caused him to rebel against Talon, the Clan’s de facto leader. He was a loud-mouthed thug and a bully. He felt superior by taking advantage of those who were weaker than him. Fang cared very little about others, and on occasions displayed unsympathetic behaviour. He was a homeless man before his mutation. He was recruited by Anton Sevarius to participate in a project overseen by Xanatos.
In this project, he was transformed into a gargoyle-like creature with traits of a bat, an electric eel and a puma. Fang joined the other mutants to live with them in the labyrinth. He would often threaten and exploit the homeless people, who his compatriots were trying to protect. He had gathered two human supporters who followed him out of fear. He bullied a harmless old man named Al and manhandled him when he delivered a pocket change as a present. Brooklyn witnessed the incident and asked for Goliath and Elisa’s help to defend Al.
When Talon and Maggie the Cat arrived at the scene, Fang attempted to fake innocence. Talon had previously reprimanded him for the mistreatment of humans. Talon lectured Fang on his behaviour and left without punishing Fang, believing he was going to come around. However, Fang organized a coup and stole high tech weaponry. Fang imprisoned Talon and Maggie after they returned from an investigation with the Manhattan Clan.
Claw secretly freed her as she went to the clan to ask for help. The Manhattan Clan intervened, defeated Fang and imprisoned him. Months later, Fang found Demona as a cell neighbour. She was annoyed by his constant bickering but decided to free him when Thailog came to rescue her. She thought Fang was annoying, but he could be useful. The trio had lured the Clan and Talon to an amusement park. Fang finally had the chance to go after Talon but once again, he was defeated and imprisoned.
Matrix
Xanatos Enterprises was creating Matrix nanobots in the laboratories of their Australian branch. They had been programmed by Fox and were supervised by her mother. The Matrix was first tested in the Australian outback. The bot had dug a tunnel underground, rupturing to the surface. It consumed all inorganic material in his path including rock, sand and dirt, and converted them into metallic constructs. This caught the attention of the Gargoyles and they were brought to Australia by the magical island of Avalon.
They were aided by a former member of the Pack, Dingo, to prevent the attack by the Matrix. Fox considered the Matrix a success but her mother convinced her otherwise. Anastasia thinks that the bot was in its infancy stage and tells Fox to purge the program altogether. They were unaware that the Matrix had from its containment, continued its expansion. Fox and Anastasia had to abandon the laboratory after it was consumed by the Matrix entirely. They met up with the gargoyles, Elisa, Dingo and his spirit guide.
They explain the danger of the Matrix assimilating the nuclear power plant attached to the laboratories. It would make the bot powerful enough to consume the entire planet. The only way to stop the Matrix was for Goliath and Dingo to fly over him and deactivate it with a kill switch. Unfortunately, they fail to do so and are nearly consumed by the entity. The Matrix assimilates the Power plants and turns into a literal wave of nanobots that consumes all matter in its path. The Shaman suggests communicating with the computer program and Fox points out that it’s not possible.
He performs a ritual that transports Goliath and Dingo’s minds into a parallel dream world where they can communicate with the Matrix on even ground, and where their imagination can come true. Initially, the Matrix tries to dispose-off Dingus and Goliath by creating powerful objects to defeat the two. Goliath manages to get through to him and holds up a mirror to his destructive nature. The Matrix wonders about how it could pursue order instead. Dingus suggests he pursue law and order and become a law enforcer. Goliath and Dingus wake up in the physical world, where the Matrix has taken the shape of a humanoid and asks Dingo to educate him about law and order. Dingo and Matrix form a partnership, where the Matrix fuses into Dingo’s armour and they become a single entity.
Puck
Unlike his human alter ego, Owen Burnett, Puck is a fun-loving prankster who likes to cause trouble occasionally. He is one of the immortal children of Oberon. He has a certain fondness for humans and isn’t as malicious as the other tricksters. His loyalty towards the Xanatos family made him an enemy of the Manhattan Clan. However, this changed after Xanatos redeemed himself. Puck had tricked Goliath into an alternate world, but he was forced to give up his attempt and create another vision. Puck was banned by Oberon from Avalon forever. He had gotten him off his magic training and duty to protect Alexander Xanatos.