List of Ace Lightning characters facts for kids

This article talks about the characters from the TV show Ace Lightning. This show was made by the BBC and Alliance Atlantis. It's about characters from a video game who suddenly appear in a small American town. The story is told by Mark Hollander, a British teenager. He becomes the helper, or sidekick, of the superhero Ace Lightning. Together, they fight against the evil Lord Fear and his helpers. The show mixes real actors with computer-animated characters.

Main Characters

The main characters in the show are the teenagers and a group of superheroes. These heroes are called the Lightning Knights. They come from the game world, which is known as the Sixth Dimension. Mark Hollander is the main human character. He shares the hero role with Ace Lightning.

Teenage Heroes

• Mark Hollander (Thomas Wansey): Mark is the main character. He is a 13-year-old British teenager. His family moves to a town in the United States called Conestoga Hill. His life changes when lightning hits his house. The characters from his video game suddenly become real! He agrees to be Ace Lightning's sidekick, even though he's not sure at first. Mark and Ace become very good friends. Mark wears a special necklace, which is a piece of the Amulet of Zoar. He tries to balance his normal life with his superhero life. This makes his school grades and social life a bit messy. He wants things to go back to normal. But he shows a lot of bravery when facing the villains. He dates Samantha Thompson for a while. Then he dates Heather Hoffs. Both relationships end because he keeps making excuses to help Ace. In the second season, he likes Kat Adams. He doesn't have superpowers. But he gets a special glove that can shoot lightning.

• Chuck Mugel (Marc Minardi): Chuck is Mark's best friend. He is a bit overweight and very friendly. He is also a big fan of the Ace Lightning game. Chuck is always positive and wants to finish the game. Sometimes, Wayne Fisgus bullies him. Chuck is very smart. He even built a robot to win a science competition. He starts dating Wayne's cousin, Jessica, later in the first season. In the second season, he becomes Ace's second helper. Chuck wears glasses and works as a delivery boy. He uses his computer skills and game knowledge to help Ace and Sparx.

• Samantha Thompson (Shadia Simmons): Samantha lives next door to Mark. She is his girlfriend for most of the first season. She is popular at school and is a cheerleader. She used to date Brett Ramirez. But she breaks up with him to be with Mark. They stay friends, though. Samantha is practical and smart. She is determined to find out why Mark acts so strangely. But she never gets a clear answer. They break up after Lady Illusion, in disguise, causes trouble. They get back together by the end of the first season. However, Samantha goes to a boarding school in the second season. She dates a boy named Jeremy there. When she comes home, she supports Mark dating Kat. Their romance ends on good terms.

• Kat Adams (Ashley Leggat): Kat is the main new girl in the second season. She takes Samantha's place after Samantha moves away. Kat moves to town with her parents. She isn't happy about leaving city life and thinks about running away. She can be moody and likes to argue. But she is also talkative and curious. She wants to be the editor of the school newspaper. She becomes friends with Mark. She is confused by his strange behavior. Eventually, they start dating. She is good at playing basketball. She often wears flatcaps. Kat decides to investigate the strange things happening at the carnival. She finds out about Ace and his friends. The villains capture her in the final episode. But Mark rescues her.

Lightning Knights

The Lightning Knights are the heroes from the video game. They protect the Sixth Dimension from evil. The Lightning Knights work from the Thunder Tower. This is an empty observatory in Conestoga Hills. They need to recharge their energy often using a transformer. If they don't, they will disappear back to the Sixth Dimension. The Lightning Knights are looking for pieces of the Amulet of Zoar. This is a triangle-shaped magic item. It can open portals and bring game characters to life.

• Ace Lightning (Michael Riley): Ace is the main hero of the show and the video game. He is 32 years old. Ace is brave and funny. But he is confused by the human world. At first, he often goes into Mark's house. He accidentally breaks appliances by turning them on. Ace can fly and has superhuman strength. He can also shoot lightning blasts from his wrist cannons. In fights, he uses the Lightning Lance. He also has the Shield of Justice. This shield can take in an attack and send it back. In the second season, he gets a new power called "Ring of Flame." This lets him control fire. As the show goes on, he becomes more human-like. He secretly starts dating Lady Illusion. In the second season, Lady Illusion makes Ace feel human emotions. This messes with his original programming. It makes him emotionally unstable. But he learns to adapt. He starts to feel that someone is controlling Kilobyte. In the last episode, he learns he is from a video game. But Mark helps him accept it. He and Lord Fear team up to send Kilobyte back to the Sixth Dimension. But then Lord Fear seriously injures him. It turns out the injured Ace is Lady Illusion in disguise. The real Ace chases Lord Fear away. Lady Illusion dies in Ace's arms. Ace shows his sadness with a single tear.

• Sparx (Deborah O'Dell): Sparx is a young and excited Lightning Knight. Mark calls her to the human world in the middle of the first season. But her arrogant and rude attitude makes him briefly quit being a hero. Sparx is a very eager hero. She often rushes into battle without a plan. This leads to her being defeated and captured. She is hot-headed and fearless. But she is also very loyal to her friends. Sparx is a skilled gymnast and martial artist. She uses the double-edged Sword of Jacob. This sword can shoot pink lightning. She travels around on the Lightning Flash. This is an aircraft that looks like a jetski. She has a strong rivalry with Lady Illusion throughout the show.

• Random Virus (Cathal J. Dodd): Random Virus is a 35-year-old cyborg. He is Ace's old friend and teammate. Six years before the game's story, Random was hurt in an accident. He lost much of his body and his programming was damaged. His new body has tank tracks for legs. He also has a large claw instead of his right arm. Random has two personalities: a good side and an evil side. They switch back and forth. You can tell by the color of his right eye (red is evil, green is good). His good side fears he will hurt his friends. So he hides in the Conestoga Hills junkyard. His evil side wants to destroy anything he thinks is weak, like kindness and heroes. Ace and Lord Fear often try to get him to join their side. Sometimes, he gets so out of control that Ace and Lord Fear team up to defeat him. Dirty Rat called Random to the human world using two stolen Amulet pieces. His robot parts give him superhuman strength and power over machines.

Villains

The villains of Ace Lightning are sometimes called the "Evil Gang." All of them come from the Sixth Dimension, except for Kilobyte. Lord Fear leads them. The villains work from the Carnival of Doom. This is a spooky amusement park. Their goal is to take over the world using the Amulet of Zoar. But Lord Fear would rather destroy the human world. Unlike the Lightning Knights, the villains turn into an item at the carnival when defeated. Then they recover and reappear later. In the show, they take over the old Kent Bros. Carnival.

• Lord Fear (Juan Chioran): Lord Fear is the main bad guy of the show. He is Ace's enemy. He is a 352-year-old lich, which is a powerful, evil wizard who is undead. Lord Fear is smart but gets angry easily. He wants to take over the world. He can stretch his neck and arms like a boa constrictor. He is also a powerful magician. Ace accidentally injured him years ago. So he walks with a limp. He uses his helper, Staff Head, as a walking stick and a weapon. In his free time, he plays a pipe organ in the carnival's haunted house. He also plays miniature golf. He has a romantic relationship with Lady Illusion. Mark defeats him by breaking the Amulet. But he comes back in the second season. Kilobyte then takes over his position of power. He bothers Lady Illusion throughout the season. Kilobyte gives Lord Fear a special vehicle called the Doom Wagon. It's a motorcycle-hovercraft with a chainsaw on the front. In the final episode, he teams up with Ace to defeat Kilobyte. But then he turns against Ace. He seriously injures Lady Illusion before running away.

• Staff Head (Michael Lamport): Staff Head is Lord Fear's loyal helper. He is a frog-like gargoyle. He sits on the end of a bone-shaped stick. He holds a crystal ball that can shoot energy blasts. In the second season, he looks more like an actual frog. He speaks with a Cockney accent. He is snobbish and cruel. He finds out about Lady Illusion's secret relationship with Ace. He forces her to serve Lord Fear by threatening to tell his secret.

• Kilobyte (Ted Atherton): Kilobyte is the main bad guy of the second season. He is known as the Cyber Stalker. Rick Hummel created him to defeat Ace and show off his genius. Kilobyte is a bald man with tattoos. He can make four octopus tentacles come out of his back. These tentacles can take away another character's energy. They can also give new powers, like when he gives Lady Illusion the power to make Ace feel human emotions. He has a cold and grim mind. He thinks like a hunter. He plans to destroy Ace slowly and painfully. He appears from the carnival's ferris wheel. Kilobyte needs a way to get around. So he lets a wasp sting him. The wasp takes on his powers and turns into a giant wasp that Kilobyte can fly on. Kilobyte names the wasp Fred. Fred is the only character he truly cares about. Kilobyte eventually breaks free from Rick's control. He then plans to remove humanity from the world and trap everyone in the game. Ace and Lord Fear team up and blast Kilobyte into the Sixth Dimension. There, he plans to use the trapped Rick to escape and return to the real world.

• Lady Illusion (Tamara Bernier Evans): Lady Illusion is Lord Fear's evil partner and lover. She has green skin and looks like an elf. She has a real spider for hair. She can change her shape into any person or animal. She can also teleport. She creates bombs that look like crystal balls. She has quick spider-like movements and reflexes. At first, she is quiet and does what she's told. But she quickly starts to hate Earth. She decides to go off on her own. Ace finds her, and they quickly fall in love. They keep their relationship a secret. Only Mark knows about it. Staff Head sees Lady Illusion kissing Ace. He forces her to steal Mark's Amulet pieces by threatening to tell Lord Fear. In the season one finale, she finally betrays Lord Fear for Ace. In the second season, Ace leaves her behind when he goes back to the game. She thinks he has abandoned her. So she goes back to Lord Fear. She steals the Amulet pieces from Mark's house. She does this while disguised as a housekeeper named Felicity Fury. Kilobyte gives her the power to make Ace feel human emotions. She later regrets this. Her loyalty is tested throughout the season. In the finale, she disguises herself as Ace. Lord Fear seriously injures her after she helps defeat Kilobyte. She dies in Ace's arms.

• Anvil (Howard Jerome): Anvil is the strong guy of the villain group. He is a rhinoceros that looks like a human. He wears medieval-style clothes. He has a large anvil instead of his right hand. Anvil talks about himself in the third person. He is not very smart and gets angry quickly. He has superhuman strength. He is as strong as Ace. But he is afraid of the dark and becomes a coward. He is often seen with Pigface. Anvil appears from the carnival's high striker game.

• Pigface (Keith Knight): Pigface is a strange-looking boar or warthog that looks like a human. He is 12 years old. He is a common enemy of Ace. He can eat anything. Even though he is heavy, he is fast and strong. In the second season, he gains the ability to shoot snot from his nose. Pigface is childlike and not very smart. He is often seen eating anything he can find, usually from the carnival's trash cans. He gets upset by Ace's jokes. He is often the first to attack and be defeated. Pigface appears from a trash can in the carnival.

• Dirty Rat (Adrian Truss): Dirty Rat is a winged rat dressed as a clown. He is Lord Fear's spy. He is the villain who appears most often after Lord Fear. Dirty Rat is sneaky and likes to trick people. He enjoys spying on others. But he is a coward. He hides behind other bad guys during fights or avoids fighting completely. He can fly. He also has a great sense of smell and hearing. He can create bombs just like Lady Illusion. He appears from a gargoyle outside the haunted house. He becomes friends with Duff Kent. He enjoys Earth's technology. Lord Fear often treats him badly. Dirty Rat even starts a rebellion against Lord Fear after getting the last Amulet piece. But he rejoins Lord Fear when he gets the other pieces. He becomes Kilobyte's helper. But Kilobyte also treats him badly. In the finale, Dirty Rat runs away from the carnival with Lord Fear after Kilobyte is defeated.

• Googler (Richard Binsley): Googler is a 33-year-old crazy and wild jester. Lord Fear calls him to the human world after getting an Amulet piece in the first season's seventh episode. Googler was trapped by Ace in a place called White Hot Oblivion. So he wants revenge on Ace. He talks about himself in the third person. He makes up his own words, like "googlerize" (which means to destroy). He wears a spiky shell on his back. He can curl into it, becoming a dangerous, fast-moving bouncing ball. Googler wears two talking sock puppets named Zip and Snip (voiced by Matt Ficner). They can fly. They can chew through any surface. They can also take powers. In one episode, they turn Ace into a zombie. Googler appears from the carnival's puppet show theater.

• Rotgut (Robert Tinkler): Rotgut is an undead, old-fashioned cowboy. He is introduced in the second season. Rotgut is a pretty useless and clumsy villain. His body parts often fall off. This forces Rotgut to crawl around to find them. He speaks with a Southern accent. He is sensitive and prefers to be called the "walking dead" instead of a zombie. He appears from the carnival's miniature golf course. Rotgut develops a one-sided friendship with Chuck. He stalks Chuck because he wants to turn him into a zombie. Rotgut can possess people. He takes over Chuck's body, forcing Mark to look after him until he is removed. He becomes friends with Dirty Rat and Duff.

• Duff Kent (Philip Williams): Duff Kent owns the Kent Bros. Carnival. He becomes a slave to Lord Fear after the villains take over his funfair. He puts up with Lord Fear being there. He often begs Lord Fear to keep himself safe. He just wants to run his business normally. He becomes close friends with Dirty Rat. They bond over their shared unhappiness and desire to make money. Duff drives an ice cream truck called the "Dairy Wagon." The villains use it for transport. Duff rebels against Lord Fear in the season one finale. He helps fight against him. But he ends up working with him again in the second season, though on a more equal level. He calls the game characters "cartoons."

• Giant George Wayne: Giant George Wayne is a large, cowboy-like golem. A golem is a large, strong creature made of stone. He appears in the show's video game and the second season. In the show, Sparx meets him when she is trapped in the game. But she defeats him with Chuck's help. In the PC and PlayStation 2 versions of the game, he is part of a boss battle with Dirty Rat.

Supporting Characters

• Pete Burgess (Devon Anderson): Pete is Mark's best friend who lives in England. They talk through webcam messages at the start of most episodes. He is one of the first people, after Mark and Duff, to learn about Ace Lightning. Pete often gives Mark advice about his social life and superhero work. He visits Mark in the first season. But Lord Fear captures him as a hostage. Pete then decides it's better to stay out of the characters' fights.

• Wayne Fisgus (Jorgan Hughes): Wayne is a teenager in Mark's class. He bullies Chuck. He tries to act tough. But he gets scared easily. He always wears a baseball cap. He calls Chuck "Upchuck" because Chuck sometimes gets sick. Wayne's father appears in the first season. He is a boastful hunter who exaggerates his adventures. Wayne often looks for Lord Fear, whom he calls the "Bone Man." He is scared of him.

• Jessica Fisgus (Megan Park): Jessica is Wayne's cousin. She first appears near the end of the first season. She and Chuck meet at a school event for the Ace Lightning fan club. They realize they have been talking online for months without knowing who each other were. They start dating in the second season. Jessica wants a stable relationship. She often calls Chuck by his full name when he does something wrong. She is good with computers.

• Brett Ramirez (Brandon Carrera): Brett is Samantha's boyfriend in the first season. He is a popular boy at school and on the soccer team. It seems he comes from a rich family. He is friendly and understanding. He listens to Samantha when she worries about Mark. This is true even after he and Samantha break up. He dates Heather in the second season. He puts up with her snobbish attitude. But he eventually breaks up with her because she holds a grudge against Mark.

• Heather Hoffs (Petra Wildgoose): Heather is Samantha's best friend. She is talkative and enthusiastic. She tries to date Mark after Samantha breaks up with him. Heather takes karate lessons. She enjoys martial arts films starring Jackie Chan. Heather is not as forgiving towards Mark as Samantha is. She dates Brett in the second season. However, she keeps a grudge against Mark. She becomes very snobbish and mean until Brett breaks up with her in the season finale.

• Simon and Fiona Hollander (Ned Vukovic and Susan Danford): These are Mark's parents. They moved from England to America. Simon is an excited man. He is fascinated by America's gadgets. But he often breaks them or ruins his wife's garden with them. He works as an accountant. Fiona works as a real estate agent. She is very protective of her garden. She believes something in their life should stay British. She especially likes her garden gnomes.

• Ashley Hollander (Kayla Perlmutter): Ashley is Mark's young cousin. She learns about Ace's existence early in the show. She promises to keep it a secret. In the second season, she wants to join Mark's adventures. But she is told no. However, she helps Chuck escape from the game world.

• Rick Hummel (Brett Heard): Rick Hummel is an important character in the second season. He runs a computer repair store in Conestoga Hills. He employs Chuck. Rick is actually a programmer who worked on the game. He developed a way to bring the characters to life. But he was made fun of and fired from the company. Before that, he put the special software into one of the game discs. This was the disc Mark bought. He appears in the second season. He watches the characters as the Master Programmer. He works from the backroom of his store. He has a large computer system that holds the Sixth Dimension. Rick creates Kilobyte after Lord Fear is defeated. He plans to use Kilobyte to defeat Ace. He wants to prove his genius to the world. Mark and Chuck find out what Rick is doing. But a power outage makes him lose control of Kilobyte. Kilobyte then traps Rick in the game. Rick joins Kilobyte in the finale. He plans to use Rick to escape the game world.

• Mr. Cheseborough (R.D. Reid): Horace Cheseborough is a science teacher who teaches Mark. He is a grumpy man. He doesn't have much faith in his students. He enjoys marking their daily quizzes wrong. He wears badges that praise himself. Lord Fear kidnaps him as part of a plan to defeat Mark. Lady Illusion temporarily replaces him. He is released. But his memory is erased. However, he remembers being trapped. He becomes convinced that aliens abducted him. In the second season, he meets Lord Fear again. Lord Fear tricks him into creating a formula that can drain Ace's powers. Mark convinces him that he has been tricked. They make a deal: Mark must protect him from the "aliens." Kilobyte captures Mr. Cheseborough and traps him in the game. But Chuck manages to free him. Mr. Cheseborough is so scared that he runs wildly around the carnival. The authorities declare him a madman.

• Nettie Kutcher (Diane Douglass): Mrs. Kutcher is the lunch lady at the middle school. She is very motherly towards Chuck. She often makes special meals for him because he is the only one who appreciates her cooking.

• Coach (David Huband): The Coach is the unnamed gym teacher and soccer team coach at the middle school. He tries to train his team well. He is easily impressed. But he can be a bit clumsy sometimes. He is a secret fan of Ace Lightning.