Deadly Viper Assassination Squad

The **Deadly Viper Assassination Squad** (alias **DeVAS**) are the main antagonists in *Kill Bill: Volume 1* (2003) and *Kill Bill: Volume 2* (2004) by Quentin Tarantino. They are an elite group of assassins led by their gangland boss Bill, who ordered them to assassinate former member Beatrix Kiddo - also known as "The Bride". They apparently succeeded until The Bride surfaced and resolved to kill Bill and the other DeVAS members, including Bill's brother Budd; Yakuza queenpin O-Ren Ishii; retired assassin Vernita Green; and contract killer Elle Driver altogether.

## History

### Background

Before the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad was founded, Bill and Budd grew up without a father. Their mother's friend Esteban Vihaio, a pimp lord, acted as a father figure for the two brothers at the time. O-Ren Ishii was left an orphan after her parents were killed by Japanese mob boss Matsumoto. They were, as their name suggests, an assassin squad, run and managed by Bill. He is known to have had romances with Beatrix (his girlfriend and protégée, whom he impregnates) and Elle in the past.

### Beatrix leaving the group

While Beatrix Kiddo is on a mission to kill Lisa Wong, she discovers that she's pregnant with Bill's baby. After that shocking discovery, Karen Kim, an assassin send by Lisa, brakes into Beatrix's hotel room. The two point guns at each other but Karen agrees to go back home after Beatrix explained her that she is pregnant. After that, Beatrix fakes her own death and abandons Bill.

### Massacre at Two Pines and Beatrix's revenge

After moving to El Paso, Texas, Beatrix met Tommy Plympton, an owner of an used record store. Beatrix put him under the pretence that she was carrying his child. After the pregnancy was announced, Tommy proposed to Beatrix, who accepted. Upon learning Beatrix is still alive, Bill tracks her down and orders the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad to attacks the chapel in which her and Tommy's weeding rehearsals take place. Bill's crew kill everyone in the chapel except Beatrix who they later beat up. After that, Bill aproaches the damaged Beatrix and shoots her in the head. The bullet however puts Beatrix in a coma instead of killing her. She was forced to lie in that coma for 4 years until finally working up and starting her revenge on the Deadly Viper Asassination Squad.

Beatrix kills Vernita, O-Ren and Bill in her quest for revenge. Budd is killed, ironically, by a black mamba which Driver puts in a suitcase filled with money. It is left ambiguous whether Elle survives; she is left blinded and locked up with the black mamba that killed Budd, ranting and screaming in an isolated desert trailer. At the end of the film, all the characters who have been killed have their names crossed out on Beatrix's list, but Elle's name instead has a question mark over the top of it, suggesting that she could still be alive.

## Capacities

Although never explicitly said, it is widely held that Black Mamba is the most lethal and skilled of the DVAS after Bill himself, making her the deadliest woman on the planet. Many of them wield katanas, and in the case of Bill and Budd, forged by Hattori Hanzō, an Okinawan sword maker of legendary standing, who comes out of retirement to make his final masterpiece, The Bride's samurai sword. Bill, The Bride and Elle Driver are trained by Pai Mei, a Chinese martial arts master who is later poisoned by Elle Driver. Besides their training in the martial arts, they are also fluent in several languages, well-versed in the use of firearms, and skilled in various assassination, espionage, surveillance and weapon combat techniques. Some members seem to have personal specialties. O-Ren seems to favor ranged weapons (a sniper rifle in her flashback and throwing darts in the confrontation at the House of Blue Leaves), Vernita favors close combat using knives (as stated by the Bride, quoting Bill) and Elle seems to favor poisons (she used this tactic to kill Pai Mei in a flashback, attempted to use it against the comatose Bride, before Bill stopped her and arguably used it against Budd by way of the black mamba). Bill, Budd and Kiddo never demonstrate a preference for any specific weapon or tactic, although Bill's codename (Snake Charmer) and the DVAS almost exclusively female membership may imply that Bill's specialty is his way with women.

## Members

### Members

* Beatrix Kiddo (alias Black Mamba, The Bride, Kiddo, Arlene Machiavelli) (Active and redeemed)
* Elle Driver (alias California Mountain Snake) (Unknown, possibly deceased)
* Budd (alias Sidewinder) (Deceased)
* Vernita Green (alias Copperhead, Jeanie Bell) (Deceased)
* O-Ren Ishii (alias Cottonmouth) (Deceased)

### Associates

* Crazy 88 (Surviving members presumably disbanded or chose a new Leader after O-Ren's demise)
* Sofie Fatale (Active but an amputee)
* Gogo Yubari (Deceased)
* Johnny Mo (Deceased)

## Trivia

* Although their name suggests that the members of the team are codenamed with vipers' names, the black mamba and the California mountain snake do not belong to the viper family; the black mamba is an elapid and the California mountain snake belongs to the colubrids.
* In *Pulp Fiction*, Uma Thurman's character Mia Wallace describes a show she did a pilot for, "Fox Force Five", which was never picked up. The characters she describes match the female members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad with the inclusion of Sofie Fatale.