Quote Originally Posted by lio45 View Post
Hmmm, well, the main villain is basically the most cliché BBEG you can imagine, and his "motivation" (ruling the world) is pretty much "I exist so the PCs and I can have a big Hollywood-style final tussle". He even said once that he gotta save the A-material for the PCs (when he Ghostforms through the Azurite watch tower). So he's there as the story's stereotypical BBEG. Period.

The OotSverse is first and foremost a campaign world for our six PCs. Sure, Rich's an awesome story-teller, and some characters are extremely well developed, but it remains that, in many cases, a character being there for no other reason than the fact the campaign/story calls for them to be there -- mimicking the typical roleplaying story -- is something perfectly normal in the OotS world.
These, along with the "disproportionate revenge" argument are very good and I think they were definitely true say, 500-600 strips ago. But I believe the story advanced way too far from that point and important characters became more developed, with more sophisticated motives. The sole character that didn't change much is Xykon because, there is really little room for his developement right now.

The Linear Guild is also a few steps further from "clichéd recurring villains" they were prior their escape from Azure City. In this arc, they were pretty much following their own plan and ignored the Order until they by chance appeared in the EoB and Nale panicked. And now the new Linear Guild ... Nale has his own issues with Tarquin and Malack and, between Nale and the IFCC, Sabine has also a lot to think about. Tarquin and Malack are complex characters on their own. That's why I think there's more to Z than him being just a spell-resistant obstacle that has to be overcome by V all the time.

On a side note, Z could easily prevent problems from Haley's part with Stoneskin (I don't think that is such a rare spell). I understand why he didn't prepare it prior his duel with V but he would be a moron if he didn't learn his lesson.