VAL RHYMIN
Real Name: Val Rhymin (see comments)
Identity/Class: Human; possible magic user
Occupation: Radio DJ, anarchist, thief, influencer (literally)
Group Membership: KZIT (radio station)
Affiliations: Mother (Monk Theppie)
Enemies: Bob, Runaways (Karolina Dean, Molly Hayes, Victor Mancha, Nico Minoru, Klara Prast, Chase Stein), Lydia Stumpmeyer, thousands of unidentified temporarily zombified L.A. citizens (victims)
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: Uncle Val, Val-pal
Base of Operations: KZIT studio at a mall in Los Angeles, California
First Appearance: Runaways III#1 (October, 2008)
Powers/Abilities: Val Rhymin seemed to possess some kind of low level psychic powers (possibly mystical in nature) that allowed him to make a single person mindlessly follow his orders, but also influence their physical health on command. He could cause a heart attack or make someone jump out of a building by using his powers. This power wasn't very strong though and seemed only to work on people that were already agitated or otherwise mentally weakened. Using the power seemed to have some kind of effect on Val's own eyes.
He was a controversial radio DJ with anarchistic opinions. He had no regard for other people's lives and was not above causing harm to a large number of people just to gain more wealth by blackmailing them to steal for him.
He was able to create music with the GarageBand software.
Height: Unrevealed (5'10"; by approximation)
Weight: Unrevealed (160 lbs; by approximation)
Eyes: Brown (solid black while using powers)
Hair: Brown
History:
(Runaways III#1 (fb) - BTS) - Val has been a popular morning show radio
DJ on KZIT in Los Angeles for some time. KZIT Radio FM Station was on
the top floor of a Los Angeles mall.
(Runaways III#1 - BTS) - When the Runaways returned to Los Angeles, Chase Stein listened to the radio and heard that Val Rhymin would interview a two-headed stripper the next morning. Chase felt right back at home upon hearing this because he was a big fan of Rhymin.
(Runaways III#1) - Rhymin was on the air and telling his loyal listeners, whom he called monkeys, that he was the only one speaking the truth. He saw and heard Chase Stein knocking on his window and theorized that one of his monkeys had apparently escaped the zoo. He then advocated to overthrow the government and offered the first listener to bring him an actual brick from city hall a free pass to Whoopee's Burger Palace, the mayor's chair for 100 dollars or the mayor's dog. The station manager Bob rushed his booth and ordered him to go to music because they could lose their license for what Rhymin encourage his listeners to do. Bob kept screaming at Rhymin until he began to feel pain in his chest after Ryhming told him that he wasn't looking so good. Bob tumbled out of the studio while Chase introduced himself as Rhymin's biggest fan ever to him and then asked for a job. Rhymin agreed to give Chase a job at the station because a position had just opened up after Bob fell over the rail outside the studio to his seeming death. He was saved by Runaways Klara Prast growing plants to cushion his fall, which Rhymin didn't know at the time. Val obviously somehow influenced Bob's heart attack and fall!
(Runaways III#2) - Val visited Bob in the hospital and was surprised that he survived his heart attack and 20-story fall and told him that life would be so much easier if he were just dead. Rhymin left while Bob's heart stopped.
(Runaways III#3) - Chase reported in for work as Val's new assistant, but Val was hungover, didn't seem to remember hiring him and had a massive headache he tried to cool with an icepack. He got so annoyed at Chase that he told him to jump out the window, but not hit his car, but to Val's surprise Chase didn't do it. He received a call from the magician Mother, but had to get Chase out of the office first before talking to him. He gave Chase a receipt to pick up his dry cleaning and told him to stop thinking about the stuff Chase had to do for Val. He promised to give Chase something harder like washing his car after passing this test. He then continued his call with Mother and asked him what he knew about zombies.
(Runaways III#4 - BTS) - Chase polished all of Val's boots.
(Runaways III#6) - On air Val was just talking about an incident involving shotguns and stockbrokers, when he heard about a fight at the Queen Mary in Long Beach between super-beings (Runaways vs. the alien Majesdanians). He began to rant that beings like these caused more damage than any natural disasters and asked his loyal listeners to go there and run them into the ocean with bats and cannons if necessary to fight for the people's right for a nation without superhumans that treat normal people like pawns in their games. One of his co-workers at the station realized that Val had completely lost it though one of them mentioned that Val had always been crazy.
(Runaways III#7) - Val met with Mother to ask him if it was possible to create an zombie army. Mother made it clear that it would be possible, but for such a spell to work they had to find a common physical weakness thousands of people in L.A. had. After having a look at Val's assistant, who had brought Val some pictures to sign, Mother asked Val how many people in L.A. have had plastic surgery. Val was sure that probably half of L.A. had plastic surgery and there they had their common weakness.
(Runaways III#7 - BTS) - Val put together an electronic dance rap on the GarageBand software and Mother added a chorus that could transform someone that had plastic surgery into a zombie. They burned it to a CD and took it to KZIT.
(Runaways III#7) - They wanted to test the song on Lydia and Mother made it clear to Val that she didn't have to listen to the whole song, but had to at least listen through one chorus. Val called over Lydia and asked her to listen to this new song that could be the next big hit, which only KZIT had at the moment. Val told her that he had created it and she liked the beat so Val turned it up for her. After noticing the chanting in the background she began to transform in front of Val into a disgusting looking zombie. Mother ordered her to stand up and when she followed his order knew that their test had been a complete success. Val already had plans to use it on the whole city.
(Runaways III#8) - Val was on air again after playing Japanimation Eyes by the Fugees told his listeners that the could find a list of everything played on the channel on their website. He then put on a new song that he promised would change his listeners' lives and it would be the last song they ever needed, which he would play nonstop from this moment on. It was his song with Mother's mystic chant, which began to transform people all over Los Angeles that had plastic surgery at some point into zombies. Val's colleagues weren't too happy and one of them even called the cops. They knocked on his window and asked him to unlock the door or at least change the song while another wanted inside the studio because it was his time slot. Val ignored them and jokingly told his listeners that he hoped that they likes the song and to release their inner zombies. Before his colleagues could break the window they were scared off by zombie Lydia.
The next morning Val was still playing the song and told everyone listening that he was sure that they were either undead or knew someone that had fallen victim to this weird zombie plague sweeping through the city. Val revealed that his promotional director Lydia Stumpmeyer was also affected and that he knew of a miracle cure for everyone that did him the favor of helping him burn the city to the ground and march all the people he considered a cancer to society into the sea like bankers, politicians, movie producers and dogs in Gucci sweaters (that one was very specific) and then steal their money, jewels, gold and a Ferrari and deliver all of it to him at the Hollywood Bowl on midnight. Zombies followed orders, but the Runaways were already on the case after Nico Minoru had heard something in the song and were on their way to stop the zombie plague by stopping it at its source at KZIT. They ran into a bit of a problem with a zombie horde though.
(Runaways III#9 - BTS) - When the Runaways arrived at the KZIT studio it was abandoned, but the song was still playing. Victor shut it off the whole studio, but the song was still playing somewhere. Chase was sure that Val was broadcasting from the mobile truck and could be anywhere. Molly reminded everyone that they knew from the radio where Val would be at midnight.
(Runaways III#9) - With a large crowd of zombies assembled and a zombie band playing at the Hollywood Bowl, Val stepped on the stage and asked for the riches the zombies were supposed to bring him. He arrogantly explained to the zombie crowd how he and his partner had come up with the idea that turned them all into zombies and that all it took was a little magic music. The Runaways infiltrated the crowd and the police surrounded the place, but Val sent his zombies to stop the cops. Nico Minoru quickly trapped Val inside a cocoon before dealing with his ally Mother, an old friend of her parents, and Val's bodyguards. Chase had already found the KZIT truck and on Molly's suggestion reversed the song to to hopefully reserve the spell. It worked and all the people that had been transformed into zombies became human again.
(Runaways III#9 - BTS) - KZIT was shut down and Val Rhymin was most likely arrested by the authorities for turning people into zombies and inciting a riot and multiple other crimes.
Comments: Created by Terry Moore, Humberto Ramos & Dave Meikis.
His name sounds like a stage name, but this is pure assumption.
I am pretty sure Val's dark eyes he hid behind his sunglasses all the time in the first six issues was caused by using some kind of psychic powers. Later issues showed him to have brown eyes. The artist change obviously was the real world reason why the change was made. Probably because the writer forgot to tell the new artist or the previous artist decided for himself to make the eyes look nonhuman.
What is GarageBand? It is an Apple program "fully equipped music creation studio" that allowes users to create music or podcasts on macOs, iPadOS and iOS devices. I had to look it up because I had never heard of it before.
This profile was completed on 08/27/2025, but its publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 25th anniversary event.
Profile by Markus Raymond.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Val Rhymin has no known connections to:
images:
Runaways III#9, p16, pan3 (main)
Runaways III#3, p17, pan7 (head shot, weird eyes)
Runaways III#1, p16, pan2 (on air at the studio)
Runaways III#7, p7, pan2 (head shot, brown eyes)
Appearances:
Runaways III#1-4 (October, 2008 - January, 2009) - Terry Moore (writer),
Humberto Ramos (pencils), Dave Meikis (inks), Nick Lowe (editor)
Runaways III#6 (March, 2009) - Terry Moore (writer), Humberto Ramos
(pencils), Dave Meikis (inks), Nick Lowe (editor)
Runaways III#7 (April, 2009) - Terry Moore (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa
(pencils/inks), Nick Lowe (editor)
Runaways III#8 (May, 2009) - Terry Moore (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa
(pencils/inks), Lee & Yueng (inks), Nick Lowe (editor)
Runaways III#9 (June, 2009) - Terry Moore (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa
(pencils/inks), Roland Paris (inks), Nick Lowe (editor)
First Posted: 09/06/2026
Last updated: 08/27/2025
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
Non-Marvel
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