Characters · November 1, 2026 · 4 min read
Meet Skeevly Grimlash, the villain who might not exist
Every hero needs a nemesis. Zamfyr's is Skeevly Grimlash: galactic menace, master of disguise, collector of grudges and, quite possibly, not a real person at all.
A villain with many faces
Witnesses can't agree on what Grimlash looks like. Some describe a sinister gentleman with an extravagant moustache. Others swear he's a grotesque alien, a cloaked figure or an ordinary-looking Kye behaving very suspiciously. Every wanted poster in the galaxy shows someone different.
That's deliberate. We wanted a villain whose mystery is part of the fun. Grimlash's look changes from story to story, so the audience can never be sure who they're looking at. Any character might be him. Any character might not.
The distraction is the point
Grimlash has a signature move. He ties someone to a rail line, a dramatic, old-fashioned villain move, and then waits for a hero to show up. Zamfyr always shows up. He can't help it.
But the rescue is never the real plan. While everyone is busy saving the captives, Grimlash is somewhere else stealing what he actually came for: a gravity controller, a tide model, a crate of light-crystals or something stranger. The rail rescue is always a distraction.
That gives each Grimlash story a satisfying twist. Zamfyr wins the fight in front of him and loses the bigger game, and Onobo usually figures out what was really taken.
“If Zamfyr is saving someone from the tracks, Grimlash is stealing something else.”
One villain or many?
Theories about Grimlash are everywhere. Some believe he is a single Qu'ah shapeshifter who has worn countless faces over the years. Others think the name has been borrowed by many unrelated Qu'ah, turning Grimlash into a shared criminal identity rather than one person. A few scholars insist he's entirely fictional, a story criminals tell to scare each other.
We're not going to answer that question quickly. The mystery of who Grimlash really is runs through the show as a slow-burning thread, and part of the fun is that Zamfyr finds every theory deeply irritating.
Why he works for this show
A comedy villain has to be threatening enough to matter and ridiculous enough to fit. Grimlash is both. His plans are clever and his thefts are serious, especially when they put Earth at risk. But his methods, the moustaches, the rail lines, the dramatic exits, are pure theatre.
He's also the perfect foil for Zamfyr. Both of them love a grand gesture. Both of them make elaborate plans. The difference is that Grimlash's plans usually work, which drives Zamfyr up the wall.
What's next for Grimlash
Grimlash appears throughout the first season's story ideas, sometimes front and centre, sometimes only as a shadow at the edge of the frame. Each appearance adds another clue, or another contradiction, to the question of who he really is.
You can read his full profile on the site, and keep an eye out for him in the Gallery. Just remember: whatever he looks like in one picture, he probably won't look like that in the next.
Writing a villain who isn't there
One of the trickiest parts of writing Grimlash is that he often isn't on screen. A lot of his menace comes from aftermath: an empty vault, a mysterious calling card, a captive who saw someone different from the last captive. The audience pieces him together the same way the crew do.
When he does appear, we keep it short and theatrical. A grand entrance, a cutting line, a cape swirl and a vanishing act. The less we show, the bigger he grows in the imagination, and the more satisfying it is when Zamfyr finally gets close.
We also make sure his schemes connect to the bigger picture of the show. What Grimlash steals usually matters to Earth in some way: a weather shield crystal, a stabiliser, a navigation beacon. That keeps him a real threat rather than a pantomime villain, however silly the moustache.
A note on captives
Grimlash's rail-line schemes are an old-fashioned villain trope, and we use them with a wink. The people he ties up are always rescued, usually just in time, and usually with a lot of noise. We call them captives, never victims, because nobody in Super Space Buds is going to come to real harm on those tracks.
What matters is the misdirection. Every time the audience watches a rescue, they should be learning to ask: what is Grimlash really doing while we're all watching this?
Zamfyr's obsession
Zamfyr keeps a wall of evidence about Grimlash, covered in string, sketches and furious notes. Onobo keeps reminding him it is in the kitchen. It's one of our favourite running jokes, and one of the ways the show tracks the mystery from episode to episode.
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