Commander Keen - Characters

Characters

William Joseph "Billy Blaze" Blazkowicz II, a.k.a. "Commander Keen" or "Keen", is the main character of the games, and the player's alter ego. Keen is an eight-year-old boy genius purported to have an IQ of 314 (a reference to π). Keen is the grandson of William Joseph "B.J." Blazkowicz (the Allied war hero of Wolfenstein 3D). Keen's parents are Arthur Kenneth Blazkowicz, a television talk show personality in Milwaukee, and Susan Elizabeth McMichaels. Keen's father changed his last name to Blaze for show biz. Keen has one older brother and one possibly younger sister, names unknown. During Keen's first adventure in Mars, one of the friendlier martian aliens, a green critter with an eye on a stalk (called a Yorp) sneaked into his spaceship and came along home. Keen adopted him and named him Spot.

The main antagonist of the series is Mortimer McMire, Keen's arch-rival at school. Mortimer is an evil eight-year-old genius, and has an IQ of 315, as opposed to Keen's 314. In episode 3, it is revealed that McMire was somewhat of a bully towards Keen, beating him up and giving him swirlies because of the latter's lower IQ. McMire wears a black football helmet. Mortimer's older sister, Molly, is Keen's babysitter.

Mortimer's main goal is to destroy all beings of lesser intelligence (i.e. the entire galaxy). In the first game series, Mortimer enslaves the Vorticons, a once peaceful alien race, and attempts to use them to destroy Earth. In the second game series, Mortimer convinced the Shikadi, a race of energy beings, to destroy the galaxy. Mortimer's next plan was to destroy the entire universe, but as the trilogy called The Universe is Toast was never created, his plans were left on indefinite hiatus. However, Mortimer had another couple of appearances: he is responsible for Keen's babysitter's abduction in episode 6 of the series, and in the Game Boy Color release of Commander Keen, Mortimer is responsible for another alien race attempting to rule the galaxy.

Tom Hall, Commander Keen's creative designer, mentioned that Keen is based on himself at age eight. Keen wears a Green Bay Packers football helmet due to the fact that Tom Hall is from Wisconsin.