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Name: Lyle Tiberius Rourke
Call him: Rourke
Age: 54
What he does: Commander of Atlantis expedition, bad guy
About Rourke: Rourke is a misleading character. From the very beginning, we think he's on Milo's side. He's almost likeable with his "all-American" attitude, almost like a Teddy Roosevelt figure. The fact that he's voiced by James Garner, who typically plays the GOOD guy was also something that made him likeable, at least to the older generation, who recognized Garner immediately. That made the shock even greater as he repeatedly betrayed those who were closest to him.
We first meet Rourke on the loading dock of the Ulysses, where Whitmore introduces im to Milo, explaining that Milo will translate the coordinates from the Shepherd's Journal. "I see you've got that book we brought back. Nice pictures, but I prefer a godd Western myself," Rourke says, amiably shaking Milo's hand. Milo is at first very respectful and awestruck by the Commander, and notices nothing odd about him.
Rourke exhibits his skills as a leader and cool exterior right away during the adventure, from briefing the crew about the journey's expectaions to the Leviathan attack, from the service for the fallen officers to the attack of the fire-flies. As the story progresses, we see more of Rourke's aggresive tendencies (i.e. flipping out at Milo playing with the horn on the truck, or flipping out when Milo wakes him up at 2:00 AM when the fire- flies attack), but this could merely go along with his cool military persona.
The first hint that Rourke wasn't quite right is when Helga said to him as they were driving into the city of Atlantis, "Commander, there were not supposed to be people down here... this changes everything!" Rourke coldly replied, "This changes nothing." Huh? So what was THAT about? Our curiosity was piqued, but as the plot moved onto more important things (like Milo and Kida ^_^) and Rourke started acting normal again, it slipped to the back of our minds.
Reality hits like a ton of bricks when Milo emerges from his swim with Kida and finds Rourke and the rest of the crew waiting for them- fully armed. Milo's (and everybody else's) shock can be summed up by one of my friends, who said, upon seeing this scene for the first time, "Hey! He's got a sig (a type of hand gun)! Good guys don't carry sigs! Lisa- are they bad guys?!" Turns out that ever since they found the Shepherd's Journal all those years ago, Rourke had been after the Crystal. Now Rourke was intending to use Milo and his connection with the princess in order to locate the Crystal Chamber. And by holding a gun to Kida's head, Rourke succeeds.
They slowly descend into the Crystal Chamber, where they see the mighty Heart of Atlantis for the first time. As Kida falls to her knees in prayer, Rourke scoffs. As Helga grows uneasy at the Crystal's strange behavior, Rourke smirks and orders Milo to find a way to move it. The Crystal itself acts oddly; upon sensing Rourke, it turns blood red and sends down searchlights. When one of these beams falls on Kida, it turns back to a cool blue and calls Kida to join with it. Still, Rourke is unperturbed.
Even after Kida bonds competely with the Mother Crystal, Rourke still will not change his ways. As the other crew members move over to Milo's side, Helga and Rourke back Kida into a metal travelling pod and load her onto a truck. Milo bravely leads the Atlanteans on a siege against him, but Rourke does not lose any of his greed or determination. When Milo rams an aktirak (an Atlantean vehicle) into the side of the gyro-evac and the balloon begins to lose altitude, Rourke tosses Helga over the side in an ttempt to lighten the load, calling, "Nothing personal!"
But Helga wasn't done yet. She shot a flare into the gyro-evac, causing it to descend even more rapidly. Meanwhile, Milo and Rourke were having it out on the deck of the balloon. Milo made a weak attempt to punch him in the jaw. All that got was for Rourke to kick him a few times and then start chasing him with an axe. Milo climbed over the side and clung to the pod that was hanging beneath the balloon, containing Kida. Rourke lashed out with the axe, missing Milo but smashing a window o the pod. The glass had become crystallized by Kida's prescence, and Milo used it as his weapon. He slashed Rourke's arm with the crystallized shard, which caused a chain reaction, and Rourke became a crystallized monstrosity himself. He slammed into the evac's propeller, shattering into tiny crystalline pieces, and that was the end of Rourke...as far as we know...
Cool Funny Rourke Quote: *glances at clock and sees it's 2:00 AM* "I'm gonna kill him."
