Paperinik New Adventures: Xadhoom / Characters

Paperinik (Donald Duck)
Friends and Allies (Xadhoom)
Villains (Evronian Empire | The Organization | Other Villains)
Other Characters

Xadhoom | Xado

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/xadhoom.gif

"No universe exists that's as big as remorse."

Once she was a scientist from the planet Xerba named Xado. Today, after an experiment she performed on herself, she is the super-powered being Xadhoom, who seeks vengeance on the Evronian Empire for having conquered her planet and enslaved her people. She becomes an ally to Paperinik, despite their first hostile encounter.

First appearance: Paperinik New Adventures #0 "Evronians"

'90s Anti-Hero: She is a being with the power of a god who's single-mindedly obsessed with revenge, with any other goal a temporary distraction or part of the greater whole. She is also not above killing, and in fact commits quite a lot of on-screen murder. Even her name fits the bill, since it translates to "the Creditor".
The Ace: She is probably one of the five smartest people of the universe and definetely the most powerful one.
Action Bomb: She is essentially a sun in a human-ish shell. If she lost control of her powers, she'd become a nova and explode.
Action Girl: Unquestionably the biggest one in the series, having the power of a sun.
Affectionate Nickname: Paperinik usually calls her "Beautiful Eyes" ("Occhi Belli" in Italian). Becomes funnier when she is Brought Down to Normal and recovers her true look... Including her gorgeous emerald green eyes.
Alien Blood: As shown in a flashback, Xerbians have inky-black blood. How her blood looks now, or if she even has any, is anyone's guess.
Aloof Ally: Especially at the beginning, she only cared for Paperinik as someone who could help her wipe out more Evronians.
And I Must Scream: "Chronicle of a Return" reveals that she has been awake and in command after transforming into a sun, and she had to keep exploding and reforming to give her people heat and energy, a process she freely admits was really painful... and she did it for years. She doesn't really seem bothered by it, however.
Paperinik: For all those years? How did you endure it?
Xadhoom: I knew Xerba was being reborn thanks to me!
Angst Nuke: Letting her rage free would cause one that would kill everybody in a vast area, including herself.
Anti-Hero: She isn't constricted by things like "moral code", "mercy" or trying to be better than the ones she is fighting.
Apocalypse How: Capable of inflicting any level of this, up to Planetary: Class 5, depending on how much power she's willing to dedicate to the task.
Arch-Enemy: To the whole Evronian Empire.
As Lethal as It Needs to Be: Invoked: she developed a kind of energy which is lethal only for the Evronians, while only being very painful for other races like earthlings. Is a good thing too, considering she once attacked Paperinik mistaking him for an Evronian or when she started hallucinating.
The Atoner: To an extent: she blames herself for not listening to Xari and others Xerbians's warnings about the Evronians.
Back from the Dead: In the 2016 story arc.
Badass Boast: After she ends up on an Evronian ship:
Evronian: "The party has ended for you!"
Xadhoom: "This is where you are wrong, Evronian! Look at me... I'm all alone, in the heart of an enemy base, surrounded by thousands of warriors! The party for me begins NOW!"
- She also has a pretty cool one in Dance of the Golden Spider, when attacked by the mysterious cultists.
Golden Spider Cultist: "That's impossible! Our weapons hit her, she should be harmless but..."
Xadhoom: "Harmless? Me? Never as long as I live!"
Badass Normal: She proved surprisingly capable of holding her own against Raghor, even without using her powers.
Batman Can Breathe in Space: Justified, as not needing to breathe is one of her powers.
Beautiful All Along: The one time she recovered her pre-mutation look, Paperinik found out she was gorgeous.
The Berserker: Subverted: she on a rampage for revenge and is often furious, but can't really lose control or would become a supernova and explode.
Beware the Superman: For the Evronians; she is possibly the most powerful being in the Universe and has a personal vendetta against them. Even Paperinik had to face this a couple of times, such as during their first encounter, or the time she was hallucinating.
Big Damn Heroes: She does it regulary, so much that both she and Paperinik start lampshading it.
Evronian: "This time Paperinik is not here to save you!"
Xadhoom: "Actually, it's usually the other way around!"
Big "NO!": When she returns to Xerba after the experiment. Also when she thought Paperinik had become a Coolflame.
Blood Knight: She greatly enjoys fighting Evronians and at times complains that it's almost too easy.
Book Ends: The beginning of Xadhoom involved a dying sun, and her end involved a new-born sun. It ended the way it began...
Break the Cutie: From what we have seen in flashbacks, she used to be a nice and somewhat shy woman who loved dancing and the stars, and wished nothing more than avert the impending loss of energy of Xerba, with her slight arrogance justified by her being the greatest astrophysicist in Xerba's history (it's mentioned she beat the greatest achievement of her predecessor when she was much younger than him). Then, as she successfully completed an experiment to obtain an eternal power source (and becoming that power source), Xerba was invaded by the same aliens she had just signed a trading treaty with...
Broken Ace: Obtaing her powers means she wasn't with her people when they were wiped out by the Evronians, leaving her all alone, bitter and with one hell of a case of Survivor Guilt.
Broken Masquerade: In Dance of the Golden Spider, not only she returns to Earth to stay with the only remaining friends she has left, but at the end of the story Paperinik reveals her presence to the population of Duckburg, presenting her as a trusted ally.
Brought Down to Badass: Happens in PKNA #28 due to the sight of a Coolflame that looked identical to Xari. At the end of the issue it's revealed she never lost her powers: it was the result of her wish the Evronian invasion of Xerba and her powers had never happened, and subconsciously acted on it when she saw that Coolflame. The Evronian Super-Soldier convinced of having killed her was disintegrated shortly thereafter.
Brought Down to Normal: In "Chronicle of a Return" due to the Entomeks absorbing the power of the sun she transformed into. She gets her powers back after ''jumping into our sun''.
Burning with Anger: Not done very often, but yes.
Captured Super-Entity: The Evronians tried to do this to her multiple times. She always escaped, usually thanks to her powers and sometimes with Paperinik's help.
Casual Interstellar Travel: Averted. She doesn't do it for casual reasons, and intergalactic distances are portrayed accurately, making it all the more impressive.
The Chessmaster: She did it just once, right before her Heroic Sacrifice.
Combo Platter Powers: Xadhoom explains her powers to Paperinik in her debut issue as control of matter and energy, fueled by thermonuclear processes. She does a lot with them.
- Energy beams is her go-to attack technique, with a few varieties.
- Super-Strength
- Nigh-Invulnerability, to an extreme extent. Physical attacks don't really bother her, no matter how severe. However, disrupting/siphoning her energy tends to work... if she allows her opponent an hour or two.
- Flight
- Bizarre Alien Senses: Can sense energy emissions.
- Phasing through solid objects
- Shapeshifting: Downplayed, as she has only changed her skin color and open a hole in her body.
- Super-Speed, enough to traverse galactic distances in much less than two years, in-universe.
- Playing with Fire
  - Elemental Shapeshifter: In as much as a super-science based Physical Goddess can be this: in spaceflight and combat, everything below her waist has occasionally become a shapeless, flame-like substance. This may or may not be her true form, after her mutation.
  - Flaming Hair: Once, when she was depowered.
  - Wreathed in Flames: Rarer than the above two, but it has happened.
- Bizarrely, the ability to generate her spacesuit. Justified: Not only does she control matter and energy, but in PKNA #28 "Metamorphosis" it is implied that it has literally become her skin.
- Psychoactive Powers: A prerequisite for Xadhoom's powers to work is a measure of belief that she even has them: without that, they don't work. At all.
Curb-Stomp Battle: Xadhoom has the power of a sun inside her. Fighting her head-on is pointless, and should only be done when a distraction is needed.
Daddy's Girl: When she was Xado: a backup of her personality still talks fondly about him.
"One far away! Someone you don't know. But who had always know me better than everyone!"
Deadpan Snarker: Really, the only kind of humor she is capable of by now.
Depending on the Writer: It's inconsistent in-between issues whether Xadhoom is composed of Pure Energy, a Mutant, or a mixture of matter and energy: Word of God says it's the latter, in-story Xadhoom claims to be the former, and the middle option is unlikely, as she's only referred to as that once, by an Evronian.
Determinator: PKNE revealed she was constantly exploding and reforming as a star, ignoring the pain, to give heat and energy to her people... for years. Even Paperinik, famous for his willpower, was impressed.
Did Not Get the Boy: Even after finding Xari and saving the Xerbians, she realized they were too different and that he would be happier with Xalya. She then went for her Heroic Sacrifice.
Distracted by My Own Sexy: During "Metamorphosis", she spends a moment looking at at her reflection. Arguably Justified in that she had reverted to her pre-mutated state at the time.
The Dreaded: The Evronians have a well-motivated fear of Xadhoom, considering she is an indestructible being with the power of a star inside her, and she's hell-bent on eradicating every last one of them.
Dying Moment of Awesome: Killing herself to become a sun and ensure her people's survival. As of New Era, it was revealed her death has been only apparent.
Early-Bird Cameo: Xadhoom is only briefly seen as a silhouette in the very first issue. Two issues later, she gets her proper introduction.
Establishing Character Moment: Xadhoom's introduction: she bursts through that wall and stars taking down the Evronians who got Paperinik cornered.
Evil Debt Collector: Invoked by her choice of name, from the Evronian point of view.
Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Xadhoom is Xerbian for 'creditor', and the Evronians owe her her homeworld and entire species (when told about the meaning of her name, PK admits that it explained everything, given his own issues with creditors). Notable because she acts like a creditor until the end, ceasing her hunt for every Evronians after blowing up their Worldship with their Emperor, the Imperial Senate and many of their best and brightest generals and scientists on it, and saving the survivors of her people.
Face Death with Dignity: Musters a smile when she's about to transform herself into a sun for her people.
Faking the Dead: In a short story, Xadhoom pretended to be dead by reducing her vital functions in order to get inside a spaceship she couldn't destroy from the outside.
A Form You Are Comfortable With: Played with. She can spread her molecules in any way she wishes, but still looks close to what she did as a Xerbian. The playing with part comes in because she's doing it for her comfort, not anyone else's.
Genius Bruiser: Xerba is a Planet of Hats where everybody is a kind of scientist, and she was the best astrophysicist in Xerba's whole history.
Genre Blind: Surprisingly, Xadhoom fails to consider that just maybe the Evronians' new gadget can actually affect her, something that has actually happened four times (the first being in her very first appearance, and the third right after she remarked they can't do anything to her). Not that she'll let it work again after being hit once, or will allow the fourth attempt to actually defeat her...
A God Am I: She delivered a speech to this effect when Xari told her he and the other Xerbians would find a way to bring her back to normal.
Xadhoom: Why? Don't you like me like this? I am truly free! Free from all the needs torturing you! It's you who should become like me!
Green-Skinned Space Babe: Her past self, that is.
Hallucinations: at the beginning of Shooting Star she is wounded by an Evronian superweapon: this causes her to mistake ordinary people (and Paperinik) for Evronians for most of the issue. Thankfully the kind of energy she uses to kill the Evronians is not lethal for earthlings.
Heroic Blue Screen of Death: Seeing Xari as a Coolflame actually a justifed case of Identical Stranger causes her a mental breakdown apparently stripping her of her powers.
Heroic Sacrifice: She becomes a sun to allow her people to survive. She's inadvertently restored by the En'tomek when they try to absorb her, thinking she's a regular star.
Heroic Willpower: In Under a New Sun the Emperor of Evron had managed to capture her by holding the Xerbian survivors hostage, and his scientist were trying to torture her into exploding to use her as a perpetual energy source, but she resisted everything they tried with a smile. It even gets lampshaded by the Emperor when he realizes it. The extent of her willpower is fully revealed in Chronicle of a Return, when it's revealed that the key to her turning into a star was her continuously blowing herself up at a very precise yield and pulling herself back together millions of times every second. She did that for years without the slightest strain.
Hot in Human Form: In "Metamorphosis" Xadhoom gets temporarily de-powered and begins to turn back into a Xerbian, for a time being hard to distinguish from a human. Both Pk and Angus are pleasantly surprised that she’s quite the looker.
Humanoid Abomination: Her levels of power are more akin to a Cosmic Horror than the other characters, hero or villain, and a few panels make it evident that she has no internal anatomy. It sort-of says it all that when Zoster obtained her powers, he eschewed the whole Humanoid bit and went straight into borderline-Eldritch Abomination Galactic Conqueror territory.
Human Alien: Subverted a bit; Xerbians have green skin, but are otherwise physically indistinguishable from humans. Played Straight after her mutation.
Hurl It into the Sun: She did it to herself, in a desperate attempt to regain her powers after being depowered by the En'tomek.
Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: She is not above a bit of forceful interrogation of Evronians to find out what she needs to know.
Just a Machine: She has this opinion of One, even offering Paperinik to "fix it" when the computer wasn't in the mood to cooperate.
I Gave My Word: After interrogating a number of Evronians, she lets them go because she promised they wouldn't come to any harm.
Immune to Bullets: Even when she is weakened, as shown in PKNA #17 "Shooting Star".
Improbable Weapon User: Whatever you do, don't let Xadhoom have a fork!
I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Asks Xalya to take care of Xari before going off to her Heroic Sacrifice.
Killed Off for Real: Subverted; her Heroic Sacrifice in PKNA #37 and the somber epilogue to her arc in #46 seemed to mean she was gone for good, although the existence of a virtual backup of her mind appeared to be the possibile mean of a future resurrection. Come PKNE many years later, and it's revealed she never really died.
Leeroy Jenkins: Her favorite tactic is simply charging in and kill everybody, so it's difficult to convince her of a more subtle approach. It was already discussed in the first issue she appears.
Xadhoom: "Don't you like a good "First I smash everything,then we talk" style entrance?"
Paperinik: "To make them escape?"
Let's Dance: While she was still Xerbian, Xadhoom loved dancing. After her transformation, "Let's dance!" became one of her battle cries.
Let's You and Him Fight: A one-sided case the first time she meets Paperinik: he wants to thank her for saving him from the Evronians; she wants to kill him because she thinks he is an Evronian.
Literal-Minded: On one occasion she was on Earth masked as a human, and Angus, after taking her sunglasses, cried "Blow me down!". Xadhoom delivered a Megaton Punch.
Living Battery: She intended to become this for the Xerbians.
Made of Explodium: Exploding, and reforming, is one of her powers.
Meaningful Name: Xadhoom is Xerbian for "creditor", and she intends to have the Evronians pay what they owe.
Mercy Kill: She considers killing the Coolflames an act of mercy, thinking their "lives" are a Fate Worse than Death. She even tried to do this to Paperinik, when he was seemingly coolflamed in "The Springs of The Moon". However, she unconsciously held back and he survived.
Missing Mom: " In the Shadow" shows that her father is still alive and well, but her mother only appears in a brief flashback of Xado's childhood.
Monochromatic Eyes: Her mutated form has these. Her original Xerbian form has startling green eyes.
Neck Lift: Does this to Raghor in PKNA #28 before blowing him up.
The Needless: She doesn't need air, food or sleep, considering she is the embodiment of a sun.
Nominal Hero: At the beginning, she didn't care about saving or helping others, only killing Evronians due to revenge.
The Noseless: As a side effect of her mutation, she lost her nose and ears.
Not in This for Your Revolution: When Paperinik declared they would have defended Duckburg together, she replied with this:
Xadhoom: I'm not here to defend anyone! I just want to purge that Evronian scum from the universe.No, really. She feels they both have grown beyond the limits of their people, yet still feel responsable for them. So much, in fact, that she saves his spore when the Evronian PlanetSpaceship fell into the sun, while letting the others die.
Not That Kind of Doctor: Like every adult on her planet she has a doctorate. She is not a medic, but an astrophysicist.
Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Averted. While she is also a good mechanic on top of being the best astrophysicist her planet ever had, she is not as well versed as her main job: she couldn't have perfected her device to get back her powers without Porphioolon's help.
One-Woman Army: On one occasion she fought three Evronian battlefleets, using everything they had from warriors with personal weapons to the most powerful guns of the Empire and the one weapon that had ever left Xadhoom helpless. Five pages later, the half-dozen survivors are running like they were pursued by an angry goddess (they were, in a way) as soon as they're given the order to retreat. And that weapon capable of defeating Xadhoom missed due to her altering her body, and she disintegrated it soon afterwards.
Only Sane Man: Zig-Zagged: Xadhoom is prone to anger and will gladly jump in danger without a second thought, so it's Paperinik who must act as the reasonable one.
Outside-Context Problem: For the most part, Paperinik either faces human-level opponents, or low-level superhumans. The change in the status quo that motivates the existence of Paperinik New Adventures is the sudden invasion of Earth by a highly advanced galactic empire — and with them, a super-powered alien named Xadhoom hell-bent on their destruction.
Pay Evil unto Evil: She is as ruthless as the Evronians she is fighting, if not more.
Person of Mass Destruction: With the level and variety of her powers, she can obliterate everything from astroships to planets.
Physical Goddess: She is one of the most powerful beings in Paperinik's universe. She is not entirely physical, though: it's frequently implied, and sometimes outright shown, that the wild-haired, green-eyed vaguely-human, er, Xerbian-looking body is only a temporary and redundant shell, that Xadhoom can easily alter and reconstruct as she sees fit.
Power of the Sun: Or strong solar associations, anyway.
Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "Goodbye Evron. With this, we have closed accounts".
Red and Black and Evil All Over: Subverted: she is surely ruthless, and can lend on the Jerkass side, but is in no way a villain.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Started one against the Evronians when they conquered her planet.
Scarily Competent Tracker: She has the ability to sense energy emissions, both from living beings and machines, even when they are invisible (like the Evronian warship from " Shadows on Venus "). She was able to follow Angus' s signature between thousands of others, and once tracked an astroship from Pluto to Earth.
She Cleans Up Nicely: For most of PKNA #28.
Ship Tease: If she wasn't so determined to find her boyfriend Xari, you might think she was a Tsundere for Paperinik. She also kisses him in PKNA #17.
Showy Invincible Hero: Very few situations credibly threaten her. But damn if it isn't entertaining to watch.
Slasher Smile: What her enemies may see before she destroys them.
Sour Outside, Sad Inside: She is often angry, callous and abrupt. Considering her adult life has been such a tragedy, she is also deeply hurt.
Squishy Wizard: Xadhoom's physical attributes are relatively weak compared to her matter/energy manipulation powers. She is still a superhuman, but her strengths lie in her more esoteric powers.
Superpower Meltdown: If Xadhoom loses control, she turns into a literal supernova.
Survivor Guilt: She has shades of this, especially when she found a recording on one of the Xerbian spaceships.
That Man Is Dead: Back in her first appearance, she made clear to Paperinik to never call her Xado.
Thou Shall Not Kill: Averted as hard as it can be. Quite shocking for a Disney character, especially one who is on the good guys side.
Took a Level in Badass: Suffice to say, Xado took a monumental one.
Took a Level in Jerkass: As Xado she was a nice and somewhat shy woman. As Xadhoom... she isn't. At all.
Trademark Favorite Food: Bicarbonate. She doesn't really need to eat, but her usual diet (thermonuclear processings) gives her "stomach burns".
Tranquil Fury: It's not apparent due the fact she's always killing Evronians in the most painful way she knows while thinking how to make their deaths more humiliating, but a short story showed her allowing a tiny bit of hatred and rage flow free for a single instant, and kill by indigestion an Evronian cyborg capable to harness the energy of the emotions of everyone in the area. That's how we know she's in Tranquil Fury, that and the fact she ever went in Unstoppable Rage for a single instant she'd become a nova and destroy a solar system.
Unrealistic Black Hole: If she lost control of her powers she'd become a nova and then a black hole: One theorized it could suck Earth in.
Unskilled, but Strong: Played With: she knows wery well how to use her powers ( even developing a kind of energy that is only lethal to Evronians ) but hasn't show to have any kind of fighting skills. Then again, with such raw power, she doesn't really needs it.
Vitriolic Best Buds: She is this with Paperinik. He sometimes tries to have Xadhoom not so obsessed on her revenge, and jokingly nicknames her "beauty eyes" due to her monochromatic green eyes.
Walking the Earth: Xadhoom can go pretty much wherever she wants in the Universe, and spends most of the time just flying around and blowing up Evronians wherever she finds them.
Was Once a Man: Xadhoom used to be a Xerbian before an experiment turned her into the embodiment of a sun.
When She Smiles: Xadhoom is depicted as quite beautiful when she smiles in a genuinely amused way.
Willfully Weak: While she's frequently portrayed as invincible, as Zoster demonstrates, she is more than capable of manipulating matter and energy on a near-cosmic scale. However, this is Justified; as Zoster also demonstrates, this comes with a dangerous loss of self-control, which they need, in order to remain coherent.
World's Strongest Woman: If not of the universe.
Yank the Dog's Chain: While becoming a sun and exploding and reforming each second for years while being awake wasn't exactly a happy ending, it was her choice to atone and help her people. However, due to the Entomek depowering her and taking her away, her people had to flee their new planet, and while she was able to go back she is now alone again.