 This article belongs to the Classic Continuity
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| “ | Tonight on the Harangue Nation exclusive footage of Ben 10's latest rampage. This carnage is typical of the destruction he leaves everywhere he goes. Well I say it's time to stop him. I've spent $14,000,000 of my own money to make sure the menace of Ben 10 is stopped. I'm calling you out, Ben 10! | ” |
– Will Harangue antagonizing Ben. | ||
William "Will" Harangue is a loud-voiced television newscaster and the host of Harangue Nation and The Harrangue Show who first appeared in Fame.
Appearance[]
In Ultimate Alien, Will wore a black suit and tie. He had short, brown hair that greyed at the temples, and sported a square chin.
In Omniverse, Will has a red tie and a breast-pocket on his suit with a blue handkerchief.
In The Vengers, Will appeared in a flashback when Ben was 11, where his hair was all brown. He had a blue suit and his handkerchief was white.
In his alien form, Will's skin is olive with several lumps. He has fin-like ears, tendrils on his chin, gills on the back of his neck, tentacles instead of hands, has one eye on his face, two eyes on the sides of his head, and another eye on a tendril on his left shoulder. He has three webbed toes, and his tongue is shown to be a dark green.
Personality[]
Will Harangue is the kind of man who would do anything for publicity. In order to garner ratings, Will launched a smear campaign against Ben Tennyson where he claims that Ben is a threat to humanity and constantly tries to denounce him, including turning the public against him. However, there are a select number of superheroes he is willing to praise, including Captain Nemesis.[1]
In fact, Will's hatred for Ben seems to pathological, given the young hero indirectly embarrassed him on live television when he was 11 years old.[2] This hatred once caused him to make a direct attempt on Ben's life with a robot designed to counter Ben's aliens.[3] While his actions against Ben may result in him being humiliated and Ben bolstering his popularity, Will can attempt to shift public opinion in his favor by editing footage to maintain his claims. Will would even side with dangerous groups such as the Incursean Empire,[4] the Forever Knights,[5] and The Vengers,[2] despite each of their numerous crimes against humanity, due to the fact that they are Ben's enemies.
The only redeeming quality Will seems to have is his stance against massacres, as when he refused to believe Ben when he stated that the Forever Knight's device will murder every alien on the Earth, though he was more worried about his own reputation rather than innocent lives.[5] Will has also disapproved of the Flame Keepers' Circle when they were active,[MW 1] which even Julie had been tricked by.[6]
Similar to Kevin Levin, Will was very proud of his "classic" car, becoming outraged when Way Big trashed it by dropping the deactivated Stalker on it. Kevin understood how he felt, having had his own car wrecked multiple times.[3]
History[]
Five years prior to Omniverse[]
In The Vengers, Harangue reported on Kane North, who was threatening to blow up a building. However, after Captain Nemesis appeared, he ignored North and interviewed the superhero. Since nobody was listening to him, North exploded the building, and while Will interviewed Nemesis, XLR8 saved the people. After XLR8 sped away, Harangue called him a "showboating vigilante".
Ultimate Alien[]
Will Harangue debuted in the first episode of Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, stating in his program that Ben Tennyson is a threat and wanted Bellwood's population to turn against him- directly after Jimmy Jones revealed Ben's secret identity to the world. His declarations on TV put Ben in a bad mood and caused him to be worried about going to school, thinking that his classmates might hate him. However, when he finally went, his classmates proved to be more grateful than Harangue (especially JT and Cash), much to Ben's surprise.
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The Harangue Nation title card
Will reappeared as the main villain in Video Games, where, with the help of Oliver Thompson, he tricked Ben into showing all his aliens' moves for what he thought to be a video game, but actually served to create a spider-like giant robot able to counter all of Ben's aliens. He then used the robot to try to assassinate Ben, even succeeding in defeating him at one point (though he chose to not destroy him immediately because he wanted his public to see Ben's death). The Stalker was eventually destroyed by Nanomech, who had not been scanned because of his size. Way Big then crushed its remains in front of Harangue and "accidentally" dropped it on the anchorman's car. Due to the Stalker's failure, Harangue fired Oliver. To avoid being arrested for attempted murder and vandalism, Harangue later used the battle footage as more proof of the violence Ben was capable of, angrily referring to the destruction of his car as an act of juvenile delinquency.
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The Stalker
Harangue also made an appearance in Hero Time, working alongside the so-called superhero Captain Nemesis, trying to get bad footage of Ben. When Nemesis was arrested, Harangue tried to back him up by blaming Ben, saying that Nemesis did bad things to stop "The Menace of Ben Tennyson".
In Eye of the Beholder, Harangue made a cameo appearance on TV. However, his words were clouded by Ben's thoughts.
Will appeared again in The Big Story when Jimmy Jones reported that Ben (really a plant clone of Ben) was working for a giant plant monster. Although he acknowledged him for providing photos of Ben as aliens, he did not seem to take him seriously.
Harangue appeared on the Burger Shack television briefly in Double or Nothing.
In The Mother of All Vreedles, Will reported on a meteor.
Omniverse[]
Will Harangue reappeared in The Frogs of War: Part 1, when Undertown was exposed to the public due to the town's residents fleeing Earth due to the incoming Incursean Empire, he used this discovery to once again make Ben look like a traitor to his own species.
In The Frogs of War: Part 2, after the Incurseans had successfully conquered Earth, with the help of Dr. Psychobos's Way Bads, Will congratulated them on defeating Ben and becoming Earth's new "benevolent" overlords, showing his collaboration with the invaders.
In Return to Forever, it was revealed that Will's collaboration with the Incurseans had damaged his reputation, viewership and ratings[DJW 2] despite him making a five part special report to explain how he "sabotaged" the invasions.
In an effort to bolster his reputation and his fan-base, Will secretly worked with Joseph Chadwick and the remnants of the Forever Knights to scan alien DNA to use a device, the Highbreed Pulse Generator, which Harangue thought would turn all the aliens on Earth into humans, but in reality, it would destroy them. Harangue did this because he thought it would increase his ratings again.
After the Forever Knight remnants were stopped, Juryrigg used the device to permanently[DJW 3] change Harangue's DNA into that of a tentacled alien as payback for all the media harassment he gave Ben, which he discovered to his horror when he woke up the next morning. Contrary to his opinion of his new appearance, his ratings went up again after his alien transformation.[DJW 4]
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Will interviewing Billy Billions
In The Vengers, Will reported about the Vengers' exploits, making his ratings rise even higher. In reality, however, they also doubled as a city-wide smear campaign against Ben in order to boost the credibility of the Vengers, with himself being an unofficial secret partner. After the people realized that the Vengers became what they had always been, super-villains, he betrayed them immediately in an attempt to keep his ratings as high as they were before. He tried to smear both Ben and Billy's team to cover up the fact that Billy had Harangue edit footage of the Vengers' battle with Tennyson to discredit the latter further, all in a semi-vain effort to save face.
Appearances[]
Ultimate Alien[]
Season 1[]
- Fame (first appearance; on TV)
- Video Games
- Hero Time
Season 3[]
- Eye of the Beholder (on TV; cameo)
- The Big Story
- Double or Nothing (on TV; cameo)
- The Mother of All Vreedles (on TV)
Omniverse[]
Season 3[]
- The Frogs of War: Part 1 (first reappearance)
- The Frogs of War: Part 2
Season 4[]
Season 6[]
- The Vengers (flashback and present)
Books[]
Cartoon Network Action Packs[]
Ultimate Alien[]
Video Games[]
Cosmic Destruction[]
Will Harangue in Cosmic Destruction
Will Harangue appears in one of the commercials for Cosmic Destruction blaming Evil Way Big's attack on Earth on Ben, stating "Ben Tennyson has brought upon us the Apocalypse" and providing screen shots of the damage that directly wreaks upon the environment to further enhance his campaign against Ben which was leaked to him by Captain Nemesis. Shockingly he attempts to use the opportunity to sell his book titled Ben 10: Threat or Menace?.
Naming and Translations[]
| Language | Name | Origin |
|---|---|---|
| Hungarian | Will Harang | From harang, bell |
| Italian | Will Harangue | From the original English name |
| Polish | Will Moralista | from moralista, moralist |
| Portuguese (Br) | Will Arenga | From arenga, harangue |
| Romanian | Will Harangue | From the original English name |
| Spanish (HA) | Will Harangue Will Harrangue (Return to Forever) |
From the original English name |
| Spanish (Spain) | Will Harengas | From the original English name |
Etymology[]
Harangue means mean or nasty speech, much like the way he criticizes Ben.
Trivia[]
- Will is loathed by some for antagonizing Ben. Because of this, his frequent attempts to turn society against Ben are always unsuccessful.[DM 1]
- Ironically, while criticizing Ben as an alien menace, he willingly praises the Incurseans for conquering the Earth and banishing Ben, which can be viewed as a blatant example of his hypocrisy.
- Will's Dimension 23 and Mad Dimension counterparts are fans of their respective Ben Tennysons.[7][8]
- Will Harangue is not a millionaire, though he more than once mentioned he is spending millions. He is a liar; he gave four different amounts of his expenditures.[3][DM 1]
- In The Vengers, as Ben is joking in the background, Will can be heard on the phone saying "NO, NO. I said we'll do it live. WE'LL DO IT LIVE!" The line is a reference to Bill O'Reilly's outburst.
- Will's general personality is similar to both J. Jonah Jameson from Marvel Comics and Glorious Godfrey from DC Comics, as all of them have been shown criticizing superheroes and attempting to turn the public against them.
- Other similarities between Will and Jameson include the way Harangue Nation and The Harrangue Show brand Ben a "menace" and his more villainous portrayal in Video Games.
- Similarities between Will and Godfrey are evident with the latter's portrayals in the DC Animated Universe, the Smallville television series, and the Young Justice animated series.
- Will's human form is modeled after Robert Kelly from Marvel Comics. Other similarities between them include their support of human superheroes in favor of non-human ones and their racism against a specific "classification" of non-human beings (mutants in Kelly's case, aliens in Harangue's).
- The biggest difference between Will and the characters he pays homage to are that Jameson, Kelly, and Godfrey's respective smear campaigns are motived by a genuine concern for the public. Each of them are also under the impression that anyone they are slandering are not genuinely flawless.
- As for Harangue, his smear campaign against Ben is motivated by a knowingly corrupt nature and an obsession with garnering ratings. There are also implications that he is a bigot just for the sake of being harsh.
