Sergei Yurievich Varinnikov / The Warlord

Running the OPD in "The Legacy of
Doctor Destroyer"

Originally the Red Army liaison to the Soviet-Era superteam The Supreme Soviets when first met in 'Piranharecho'. President-for-Life of the Republic of Central Asia after he discovered that he too was a son of Doctor Destroyer.

• Ambiguously Evil: He really is an Evil Overlord who is a Reasonable Authority Figure
• Anti-Villain: A solid Type III. He has helped our heroes as often as he has opposed them:
  • Calls Ted and offers his unconditional support to help capture Menton in 'Force of Will'. Ted has him lead the assault on Alpenfestung.
  • Loans the flagship of his space force to Julie in 'Malva Awakens' so she and Firewing can attempt to save Bob from the Malvans
  • Kills two members of Eurostar who are attempting to assassinate Bob in 'A Week at Davos'
  • De-orbits his malfunctioning flagship on VIPER's European invasion fleet in 'World War VIPER', then single-handedly fights Viperia to a draw to keep her from repelling Julie's attack on VIPER's World HQ
• Colony Drop: How he uses his malfunctioning flagship Tashkent to take out VIPER's attempted amphibious invasion of Europe in "World War VIPER"
• Cool Starship: The Tashkent, featured most prominently in "Malva Awakens" during the rescue of Starforce from the Malvan Phazor
• Deadpan Snarker: THIS sequence from "World War VIPER" after he deorbits his hacked and malfunctioning flagship Tashkent on VIPER's marshalling area for their invasion of Europe:

  (shocked pause. Starforce is not so shocked as to be unable to use 'Lightning Calculator' to estimate the size of explosion necessary to be visible across 2,000 kilometers)
  Starforce (small voice): "100 megatons?"
  Warlord: "Minimum. You'll understand if I was in too much of a hurry to get better data on the final yield?"

• Early Bird Cameo: First met in 'Piranharecho', and not seen again in-universe until he becomes a recurring character in 'The Legacy of Doctor Destroyer'
  • Word of God says that he was in Stockholm for Nobel Week in 1991 and dragged both Bob and Julie into an adventure during that time.
• Friendly Enemy: Is pretty much this to the main cast by the 7th season. A prequel to this trope can be seen in the drink he shares with Ted toward the end of "Tethys Rising."
• Funny Aneurysm Moment: In "Piranharecho", even he cracks up laughing after suggesting that he and Bob look alike because they are related. Then his genetic test from Larisagrad comes back in the epilogue to "The Legacy of Doctor Destroyer"...
• Gadgeteer Genius: His ground-penetrating radar in 'Piranharecho' impresses Starforce with its ingenious use of inferior technology.
• Identical Stranger: Is mistaken for Bob Hawkins a lot when he is younger, which is played for comedic effect in 'Piranharecho', 'Land of the Free', and 'What Happens in Vegas...'
  • Do try to remember that they share a father...
• Magnificent Bastard: The plan he executes across "Land of the Free," "Home of the Brave," and "What Happens in Vegas..." to have Americans build his Warlord battlesuit is breathtaking in the people he involves, the Batman Gambit he executes on Holocaust to insure Nichols Research loses in "Land of the Free", and the manipulation of the Department of Defense's Surplus Equipment auction program to have the suit in the Universal Superworld resort on the Las Vegas strip in 1999 for him to "take delivery" (so to speak)
• Powered Armor: The base chassis comes from the failed "Iron Eagle" American Super-Soldier project, augmented with the finest technology that Mother Russia could provide (or be stolen from either Japan or America)
• Prince and Pauper: Played straight (complete with a hung lampshade) with Bob in "Tethys Rising" because Sergei desperately needed Bob's science and math skills to save the continent from his potentially-errant terraformation project.
  • Sergei's side of the impersonation is played mostly for laughs as he experiences a... uh, sample... of what domestic life with Julie is like.
• Terraform: Diverted several tributaries of the Ob and Yenisey river systems in Asia and triggered considerable seismic subsistence to refill the Aral Sea in 'Tethys Rising'
• The Strategist: Not up to Ted Jameson levels, but judging from how he planned and led the assault on Alpenfestung in 'Force of Will', he's pretty close.
• Utopia Justifies The Means: The Republic of Central Asia is a superpower mostly because Sergei is so... aggressive... with his technical espionage program.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Just wants to see some part of the former Soviet Union resurrected as a Superpower
  • His orbital bombardment of Iranian nuclear weapons development sites at the very beginning of "Citizen Hawkins" earns him almost universal condemnation from the rest of the World Community.
  • By "Ozymandias," he and his nation are in violation of several UN Resolutions for unspecified atrocities committed during both World War VIPER and the South Asian War -- which judging from his conversation with Ted he apparently feels have made the world a much safer place.
• Wicked Cultured: Quotes both Horace Walpole and Percy Bysshe Shelley in the course of the short story "Ozymandius."
• Xanatos Gambit: His plan to deal with Larisagrad in "Like a Jewel in the Heavens" either required the involuntary cooperation of two American superheroes or a nuclear strike by Russia's Strategic Forces, depending on whether or not the terrorists with the nuclear device succeeded in destroying Millenium City.