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This Article Contains Spoilers -
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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 p. 98). |
| “ | I can be ruthless, but I try to be fair. What will it be? | „ |
| ~ Klaus Wulfenbach to Agatha (Vol. 6 p. 111). |
Baron Klaus Wulfenbach is a major antagonist in the print-and-web comic series Girl Genius by Phil & Kaja Foglio. Although he has good intentions and fights for the side of good, Klaus is paranoid over Agatha Heterodyne, the main hero of the comic, and so comes into conflict with her. As the reluctant tyrant of Europa, the Baron's main goal is to maintain peace and stability across his empire dubbed the Pax Transylvania. His empire is summed up in the motto of "Don't make me come over there".
In the events before the comic's start, Klaus was a sidekick to Bill and Barry Heterodyne as they went on heroic adventures across Europa and beyond. However when the Heterodyne brothers disappeared, Klaus waged a war of conquest all over Europa to bring peace and stability - and it worked. By the time the comic starts he leads a pan-European empire and works to prevent evil (especially The Other) from rising up.
After the Siege of Mechanicsburg, the Baron has been trapped frozen in time as his empire started to break apart into warring states. His reign is remembered by the people of Europa as a "lost golden age of antiquity".
Biography[]
Early Life and Adventures[]
There is little information on Klaus' earliest years. Official statements from the Foglios outside of the comic reveal that he's a construct (artificial human), reassembled by his parents from three (presumably dead) Wulfenbach brothers. When Klaus grew up, he went to university with Tarsus Beetle as a classmate. He also became best friends with the brothers Bill and Barry Heterodyne.
Klaus traveled with Bill and Barry, as well as their Construct allies Punch and Judy, in heroic adventures across Europa and the world; they killed monsters, stopped evil Sparks, and generally worked to stop the chaotic state of war Europa found itself in. Meanwhile a time he fell in love with a young lady named Lucrezia Mongfish, one of the daughters of his arch-enemy Dr. Lucifer Mongfish. However Lucrezia was already engaged to be married to Bill Heterodyne. Unfortunately for him, though Lucrezia publically claimed to renoucne evil, it was a ruse. One night she poisoned Klaus and shipped his unconcious body off to a faraway land.
Though the location of this faraway land is not stated in the comic itself, thanks to hints in-comic and various official statements by the Foglios in interviews it's an open secret that the country was known as Skifander. Adopting the name of "Chump" (it means something different in Skiff than it does in English), he want on adventures with Queen Zantabraxus and presumably fell in love with her to become the father of Zeetha. It is also in Skifander that he became the father of his son Gilgamesh ("Gil"); he had to escape from the country with his son in order to save Gil's life.
Ruler of Europa[]
Klaus returned from his exile three years after he was poisoned. In that time, Europa was made a wasteland by the conflict called "The Other War". Even the Wulfenbach family home was destroyed, so he had nowhere to return to. In his own words, "death, destruction, chaos - the endless fighting - it was like the Heterodyne Boys had never existed" (Vol. 3 p. 097). In response, he took it upon himself to fix everything. But he was going to do it his way, not the way of the Heterodyne Brothers. The Baron Wulfenbach gathered armies under his command and began a campaign to conquer Europa. Out of war, he planned to bring peace - "and it worked" (Vol. 3 p. 098). Under the Baron's rule, Europa entered an era of peace known as the Pax Transylvania that it had never seen in centuries.
During his time as de facto dictator, Klaus was a fairly tolerant ruler, with his only real rule being "Don't make me come over there" (i.e. "don't do anything that would threaten the peace I established"). But to those who break this rule he is very harsh. He also made decisions regarding what remained of the Heterodyne estate, such as turning the destroyed Castle Heterodyne into a prison. He also made a deal with the Corps of Jägermonsters that they would serve his empire until the Heterodynes returned. In the place of his destroyed home castle, the Baron built a giant airship called the Castle Wulfenbach to serve as his headquarters.
Klaus meets Agatha[]
The first time Baron Klaus Wulfenbach appears in the comic itself is very early on (in early Volume 1). He is first seen visiting the town of Beetleburg to inspect it for any unusual activity. When visiting the town university, one of the students able to meet him is a young lady named Agatha Clay (or, unknown to either herself or the Baron at the time, Agatha Heterodyne). The visit to the university goes wrong as a Hive Engine of Slaver Waps is discovered and the professor Dr. Beetle is killed in a freak accident. Agatha leaves the university and winds up lost in a warehouse. She passes out from exhaustion, while the the Baron and his son find a strange clank they try to find the origins of. They find Agatha passed out, and take her to their airship to get more information about what happened in the town.
Agatha wakes up (in Volume 2) on the Baron's giant airship, the Castle Wulfenbach. The reason she is being held there is because the Baron is worried that either she may be in danger, be herself a source of danger, or both. On the airship Agatha becomes romantically involved with the Baron's son Gilgamesh ("Gil") Wulfenbach. However this romance is interrupted when the Hive Engine taken from Beetleburg is opened and the Baron orders sections of the ship to be evacuated. While escaping to safety, Agatha bumps into her adoptive parents Punch and Judy (or, as she knew them, Adam and Lilith), who came on the airship to bring her back home. On their way to escape they bump into the Baron himself; he and the two constructs have a conversation that reveals that Agatha is the daughter of Bill Heterodyne and Lucrezia Mongfish. Klaus claims that the daughter of such a union is too dangerous to be left free and demands that she be handed over to him; Punch and Judy fight back against his troops and tell Agatha to escape. Agatha listens and jumps off the Castle Wulfenbach.
After the incident, the Baron ordered his troops to begin searching for Agatha to return her alive and unharmed. However, his forces don't actually find her.
The next time he meets Agatha (in Volume 6) is when investigating the town of Sturmhalten. Except it's not actually Agatha that he meets, but rather Lucrezia Mongfish possessing her. Lucrezia/Agatha tells the Baron who she really is, infects him with a Slaver Wasp, and puts on Agatha's lost locket. However the locket actually returns control of the body to Agatha last-moment. Ignorant of this fact and believing she is still under Lucrezia's control, the Baron orders Agatha and her comrades killed. This results in a battle where Klaus is seriously wounded and Agatha escapes at the last moment.
Mechanicsburg[]
Baron Wulfenbach is hospitalized (in Volume 7) after the battle at Sturmhalten, being sent to the hospital in Mechanicsburg. Caring for him is Dr. Sun, all the while guarded by his soldiers and visited by his son Gil. Meanwhile he isn't sure if Agatha is in control of her body at the moment or Lucrezia.
Given that Klaus made plenty of enemies in his time, it's unsurprising that once he was hospitalized, countless petty nobles sent assassins to the hospital to kill him. Gil and his bodyguards were able to fight off the assassins but there are plenty of close calls. In the meantime, the Baron insists on being able to get up from the hospital bed and see his troops personally, to which Dr. Sun strongly disagrees. Much to the doctor's fury and protest, Klaus uses a mobile robot-suit that allows him to walk around while still technically being in the hospital bed. Dr. Sun finds a way to get him back in anyways. Much later (in Volume 11), Dr. Sun with the help of Princess Anevka "managed to calm him [Klaus] down" (Vol. 11 p. 90, c.f. p. 86) - except that unknown the doctor, "Anevka" is actually Lucrezia in disguise who is controlling the Baron with the Slaver Wasp. The Baron realizes what is going on and tries to quietly warn his son Gil about the situation through an allegorical fairytale story (Vol. 11 p. 82 through 85); Klaus is represented as a king turned to a wolf, Lucrezia with a witch, and Gil with a prince.
All of this is happening while Agatha Heterodyne is in Mechanicsburg as well, only she's in the Castle trying to repair it. News of a new Heterodyne spreads across Europa in the meantime, and many noble houses send their troops to fight for their various different agendas. This leads to the Siege of Mechanicsburg, a brutal multi-sided battle. The siege leads to the hospital being destroyed with artillery, and many speculate that Baron Wulfenbach was injured (Vol. 11 p. 091) or killed (ibid. p. 106, p. 145, etc.) in the attack. However news gets out that the Baron survived (Vol. 12 p. 043) not long after Gil gets his message disguised as a fairytale, and soon he is up again and commanding his forces.
Agatha manages to reclaim the castle, which causes the Jägermonsters to leave the Baron and join her. During the battle authority over Wulfenbach armies is caught in a three-way tug-of-war; first there is the Baron Klaus himself, who believes Agatha is still dangerous and wants to take her captive. Secondly there is his son Gil, given authority to command in the Baron's absence, who wants to help Agatha defend the city. Lastly there is Clank-Lucrezia who is using her power over Klaus to destroy what he built to combat The Other. The Baron supposedly gave orders (ibid. p. 086), which are all but stated to really be the work of Lucrezia, to destroy the Vespiary Squad (who hunt down and kill Slaver Waps) and their Wasp Eater weasels. However the group tasked with doing it was very under-prepared, suggesting that he may be resisting Lucrezia enough to make her attacks weaker.
The Baron then prepares his final advance. Taking his son Gil captive, the Baron gave him two choices; either Agatha perishes in battle, or Gil obeys his will and Agatha is merely captured. Gil submits, and he undergoes a form of behavior modification bordering on mind-control. The Wulfenbach armed forces as well as his main airship are ordered to retreat from Mechanicsburg (in Volume 13), which makes Agatha and friends think the battle is over. However the Baron has one final move to make; as Agatha is in a cathedral, a drop-pod carrying Klaus falls from the sky right in the middle of Mechanicsburg, with a device called a "Take-Five Bomb" that can freeze time around a certain area. Prince Martellus realizes what is going on, and Agatha is dragged through a portal at the exact moment that Klaus activates his Take-Five Bomb. This causes what is known as the "timeskip", as Agatha has skipped two years in the future and Mechanicsburg (with the Baron still in it) is frozen in time.
Post-Timeskip[]
After the timeskip, the original Baron Klaus Wulfenbach was trapped in Mechanicsburg frozen in time. His empire was handed over to his son Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, who proved not as capable as his father. As far as the people of Europa were concerned, the reign of Klaus was a "lost golden age of antiquity" (Vol. 13 p. 125). However Klaus continued to work in a different form; the modification he gave to Gil was a copy of Klaus' personality placed in Gil's mind.
Gil[]
Klaus-in-Gil, taking control of the body.
The Klaus-in-Gil overlay works similarly to Lucrezia's copies, but unlike them, Gil still controls his own body the majority of the time. The overlay works more like an advisor in Gil's mind than a proper possession, though it can sometimes take over in times of extreme stress.
Klaus-in-Gil has shown up a few times, the first time (in Volume 13) being when Gil got a message from Agatha. He showed up again (in Volume 15) when Lucrezia/Agatha took control of her daughter's body at the St. Szpac Depot Fortress. Since the building was under Corbettite protection, the two were not allowed to harm each other, so instead they discussed their pasts. The discussion got heated when Lucrezia suggested Klaus destroy his son's personality; he responed by attacking her before the fight was broken up. During the fight he explained that "I will burn this fortress and every soul in it, before I allow you or anyone else to harm my son" (Vol. 15 p. 043). The last place Klaus-in-Gil is seen is in England (in Volumes 19 and early 20), speaking with Queen Albia when he learns about Lucrezia's past. Later (in early Volume 20), under order from Queen Albia, the Klaus copy was removed from Gil's mind via the Exorcism Engine.
Appearance[]
Both physically and otherwise, Klaus is an imposing man. He is clearly very tall, broad-shouldered, and physically fit. This could be due to being a Construct made from three brothers or simply from frequent physical activity, though it's likely both. Based on the few references to years given, Klaus would be somewhere roughly around 50 to 60 years old during the events of the comic. He has a silver-ish hair (sometimes white and sometimes light blue-ish, likely because of different colorists) and a rugged face with a firm jaw.
Personality[]
Klaus Wulfenbach has always been something of a "morally grey" character, from the time of the Heterodyne Boys up to his most recent appearances. He is shown to consistently value things like peace, order, and (even when not apparent) family. However, he valued order more than he valued law, meaning he's cared more about keeping things functional than about following established customs. As his primary concern is keeping peace, the cause of his role as antagonist is his worry of The Other returning. While this fear comes from a desire to protect Europa's citizens, it also consumes Klaus over the course of the comic and drives him to do things he normally wouldn't want to do.
Oddly enough, the Baron doesn't actually like ruling over Europa. He said that "politics always annoyed me" and "it's like running a kindergarten", while his true joy in life is "these rare moments of research" (Vol. 3 p. 007). Although he typically comes across as stern and humorless, Klaus is shown to have a relaxed side sometimes. For example, when told about his depiction in some of the "Heterodyne stories" (Vol. 2 p. 061), he is actually amused by them. Gil notes that he's particularly fond of waffles (Vol. 9 p. 077).
Relationships[]
Gilgamesh Wulfenbach[]
Baron Klaus is shown to be a strict yet caring father to his son Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, whom he wishes to prepare to be the perfect heir to the empire. When Klaus first appears in the comic (in Volume 1), he is with Gil and is training him by giving him tests of character.
Even if he often appears cold, he truly does care for Gil's well-being. Even after he overlays his personality over Gil, he tells Lucrezia that he would "burn this fortress and every soul in it, before I allow you or anyone else to harm my son" (Vol. 15 p. 043) - showing that even after the brainwashing he still sees himself as a guardian. In terms of his relationship with Gil the incident at Mechanicsburg was an exception, not the rule, as he was visibly uncomfortable with himself after performing it. In fact, in a conversation where he refuses to mention Skifander by name, he tells Gil "I kept you alive" (Vol. 7 p. 061). In other words, people in Skifander wanted to kill Klaus' infant son for reasons unknown, and Klaus saved Gil's life by escaping.
Agatha Heterodyne[]
As Klaus sees himself as the upholder of order, he sees Agatha Heterodyne as the child of a Heterodyne and a Mongfish to be a threat to peace. However, he rarely gets much time to know much about Agatha personally. His encounter with Lucrezia/Agatha at Sturmhalten colored his perception of her, making him think she's "more a child of the Mongfish family than a Heterodyne" (Vol. 12 p. 068). He is strongly opposed to the idea of his son having a relationship with Agatha.
Powers and Abilities[]
The Baron has many abilities, both from the Spark and from normal training.
- The Spark - Like any other Spark, Klaus has a superhuman level of intelligence. While Sparks typically have a distinct field of knowledge, the Baron has somewhat of a more abstract focus; the Spark itself. His time as dictator has allowed him to study other Sparks, their behavior, and their works. He can just look at a machine or other invention and usually be able to figure out who made it. He also often expands on the works of others. We should note that his Spark is less obvious, as he is far less impulsive than other Sparks tend to be, but given his inventions it's less likely that his Spark is weak as it is under control.
- Physical ability - Klaus is shown to be very physically able, likely from both being a Construct and from being physically active his adventures. Even when hospitalized he is in good enough shape to escape from containment multiple times, and to survive an artillery strike. Given the time he spent in Skifander it's also likely he recieved ancient-style training as a warrior.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Kaja Foglio stated that she came up with the name "Wulfenbach" from The Castle of Wolfenbach by Eliza Parsons, which she heard about in the Jane Austen novel Northanger Abbey (namely, a list of novels in Chapter 6).
- In real-world European feudal titles, a baron is actually very low on the hierarchy, and in most countries baronies are smaller than counties. The amount of land commanded ruled by a baron is usually the land they can see from the top of their castle. Then again, Castle Wulfenbach can fly, so technically Klaus can see all of his land from his castle.
- The information that Klaus is a construct was revealed in the Girl Genius Yahoo! Group by Kaja Foglio, in a post on the 2nd of September 2002 (link, archive). It was later confirmed in a Reddit /r/IAmA/ interview by both Phil and Kaja on the 30th of May 2013 (link), where they elaborated on how he was made from three brothers revived by their/his parents.
- The information that Klaus went to Skifander was revealed by Phil Foglio in an interview on the podcast 'TGT Webcomics' in episode #37 (audio link, archived), around the 11:29 to 12:20 mark. Similarly, the information that he's "Chump", father of Zeetha, came to light around August 21, 2010 when GITP forum user "datalaughing" posted a sketch he got from Phil (reposted in the "Klaus Defence League" LiveJournal group); he requested a sketch of "Chump" and recieved a portrait looking just like Klaus.
External Links[]
- Baron Klaus Wulfenbach on the Girl Genius Wiki.
- Baron Klaus Wulfenbach on the Villains Wiki.
- Baron Klaus Wulfenbach on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki.
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