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Harangue ov past.png|Harangue five years prior to '''Omniverse''' |
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===Future=== |
===Future=== |
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In the ''[[The End of an Era]]'', Will appeared as the cameraman of [[J. Jonah Jones]]. |
In the ''[[The End of an Era]]'', Will appeared as the cameraman of [[J. Jonah Jones]]. |
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Revision as of 18:22, 15 October 2019
 This article belongs to the Classic Continuity
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William "Will" Harangue is a character who first appeared in Fame. He is a loud-voiced television newscaster who hosts his own show, Harangue Nation. In order to garner ratings, Will launched a smear campaign against Ben Tennyson. He claims that Ben is a threat to humanity and constantly tries to denounce him, including turning the public against him.
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. This includes constantly denouncing some famous individuals like Ben Tennyson while praising others like Captain Nemesis.[1]
In fact, Will seems to have developed a pathological hatred for Ben, which may have begun when the young hero indirectly embarrassed him on live television when he was 11 years old.[2] This hatred caused him to make a direct attempt on Ben's life with a robot designed to counter Ben's aliens, only to end up humiliating himself while bolstering Ben's popularity in the process. He will also deliberately lie to the public and will edit footage to maintain these lies. He's even sided himself with dangerous groups such as the Incursean Empire[3], the Forever Knights[4] and The Vengers[2], despite each of their numerous crimes against humanity, purely 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 in Undertown, though he was more worried about his own reputation rather than innocent lives.[4] He has also been stated to have been against The Flame Keepers' Circle, which even Julie Yamamoto had been tricked by.
History
Five years prior to Omniverse
In The Vengers, Harangue was reporting about 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 cause him to be worried about going to school, thinking that his classmates might hate him. However, when he finally goes, his classmates prove to be more grateful than Harangue (especially J.T. and Cash), much to Ben's surprise.
Harangue Nation title card
Will reappeared as the main villain in Video Games, where, with the help of Oliver Thompson, he tricks Ben into showing all his aliens' moves for what he thinks to be a video game, but actually serves to create a spider-like giant robot able to counter all of Ben's aliens. He then uses 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 is 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 footage as more proof of the violence Ben was capable of, angrily referring to the destruction of his vintage car as an act of juvenile delinquency.
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 Overlord was arrested, he tried to back up Overlord by blaming Ben saying that Overlord did bad things to stop "The Menace of Ben Tennyson".
In Eye of the Beholder, Harangue makes a cameo appearance on TV. However, his words are clouded by Ben's thoughts.
Will appeared again in The Big Story when Jimmy Jones reports that Ben (really Clone Ben) is working for a giant plant monster. Although he acknowledges him for providing photos of Ben as aliens, he does not seem to take him seriously.
Harangue appears on the Burger Shack television briefly in Double or Nothing.
In The Mother of All Vreedles, Will reported on a meteor.
Omniverse
Will Harangue re-appeared 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 uses this discovery to once again make Ben look like a villain.
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 is revealed that Will's collaboration with the Incurseans had damaged his reputation, viewership and ratings[DJW 1] 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 2] change Harangue's DNA into that of a tentacled alien as payback for all the media harassment he gave to Ben, which he discovered to his shock when he woke up the next morning.
His ratings went up again after his alien transformation.[DJW 3]
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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.
Future
In the The End of an Era, Will appeared as the cameraman of J. Jonah Jones.
Appearances
Ben 10: Ultimate Alien
Season 1
- Fame (first appearance)
- Video Games
- Hero Time
Season 2
- Eye of the Beholder (cameo)
- The Big Story
Season 3
Ben 10: 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)
Season 8
- The End of an Era (future)
Comics
Cartoon Network Action Packs
- Beauty and the Ben
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 |
| Portuguese (Br) | Will Arenga | From arenga, harangue |
| 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. He also denounces the inhabitants of Undertown and the Plumbers.
- His Dimension 23 and Mad Dimension counterparts are fans of their respective Ben Tennysons.
- 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.[DM 1]
- Will disapproved of the Flame Keepers' Circle when they were active.[MW 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 human appearance and attitude towards Ben is very much like Robert Kelly of X-Men fame from Marvel Comics.
- Harangue Nation is a spoof of Steven Colbert's Colbert Nation with similar elements to the various Fox News programs.
- The relationship between Will and Ben strongly resembles the relationship between J. Jonah Jameson and Peter Parker/Spider-Man from Marvel Comics. For example, Harangue has at least once tried to kill Ben, just like how Jameson tried to kill Spider-Man with a Spider-Slayer.
- Similar to Jameson's Marvel Cinematic Universe counterpart from Spider-Man: Far From Home, Harangue's smear campaign against Ben started after Ben's identity was revealed to the world.
- However, while various portrayals of Jameson are genuinely convinced that Spider-Man is not the flawless hero he appears to be, Harangue is shown to be knowingly corrupt and his smear campaign is motivated by garnering ratings rather than genuine concern.
- Will is very similar to Glorious Godfrey from DC Comics, criticizing the Justice League the same way Harangue criticizes Ben and tried to turn the public against them respectively.
- Specific similarities can be seen between Will and the DCAM/DCAU, Smallville, and Young Justice incarnations of Godfrey, some of which had Dwayne McDuffie as a crew member.