Gargamel (Empath stories)

Gargamel was the main antagonist who, along with his cat Azrael and later with a young apprentice named Scruple, continued to plot against the Smurfs in order to capture and/or destroy them.

His first encounter with the Smurfs was five years prior to Empath's final return to the Smurf Village, when Gargamel sought to capture a Smurf to complete the formula for the creation of the Philosopher's Stone. The Smurfs, after finding out from Brainy Smurf that Nabby was the Smurf captured by Gargamel, had staked out the wizard's castle in order to find a way to break Nabby out of his cage before sunrise. However, as all the Smurfs' attempts to free Nabby before that time came to nothing, they resorted to attacking Gargamel directly until he fell unconscious, allowing them to escape to the village with Nabby. Gargamel, upon awakening, tried to use a formula that he thought would turn him into a giant in order to find the Smurfs, but instead the formula shrank him to Smurf-size, making him realize that the Smurfs had switched the contents of his bottles.

Since then the evil wizard sought to get his revenge on the Smurfs. One of his first attempts to do so was the creation of Smurfette, who sprang from his observations that there were no female Smurfs among them to create a new generation of Smurfs with. Smurfette was intended to destroy them from within through her charms. Papa Smurf, however, foiled Gargamel's plan by using his magic to transform her into a real Smurf. Throughout the course of the next five years, Gargamel would come up with a new plan to capture or destroy the Smurfs, all of which would be thwarted time and again. Scruple became his apprentice after being found on the streets as a vagabond, though any possibility that he may be Gargamel's nephew is totally annulled in the story series.

Upon Empath's final return from Psychelia and his first encounter with the Smurf in question, Gargamel decided that his patience with dealing with the Smurfs has run out and sought the Great Book Of Spells for solving this dilemma; it gave him the Gauntlets Of Gantharros, which enabled him to create powerful magic armor that would grant the evil wizard incredible powers of an unprecedented scale. With the gauntlets, Gargamel overpowered Empath and captured up to half the Smurf population, threatening to destroy the rest of the Smurfs if they don't surrender themselves to him before sundown.

Empath, however, learned of the weakness of the gauntlets from Brainy's studying and, using his mindlinking ability with his fellow Smurfs, caused the gauntlets and the armor created by them to be destroyed. With his protection gone, Gargamel was soundly bested by Empath and forced to surrender, promising to leave the Smurf forest forever with his cat and apprentice. Yet even as Gargamel left, he still vowed that he would get his revenge on the Smurfs someday when they least expect it.