Danel4d

Desdemona and Maelstrom are more like the two most important characters of the Rogues Gallery, which are far closer to NPC player-equivalents than the major signature characters of the setting. You can meet and fight them much earlier in the game than other signature characters, and they actually have character story arcs of their own rather than being idols that we seek to emulate or surpass.

But yeah, Maelstrom's still pretty weak even by those standards, bless 'im.