The Supervillain Field Manual

by King Oblivion, Ph. D.

  Supervillains tend to work outside of such pairings or groups, unlike the superheroes who always say they “work alone,” but really have like thirty different people who work with them all the time. However, sometimes, one of those ridiculous, heroic super-teams shows up at your doorstep. Occasionally, a plan calls for more than one set of hands/ skills/brains/playfully themed bombs. Every now and again you need a time machine but don’t have one, and you know FutureFop, the ruffed dandy from the forty-fifth century, has one.* That’s when you have to hold your nose and work with . . . ugh . . . other supervillains.

  I can’t stand the young’uns, but there’s one way supervillains are a lot like modern-day hipsters: No, not in that we all wear tight pants that barely come halfway up our calves and weird kerchiefs and pretend we can understand what Bon Iver is saying (though his music does make a great hypnotism primer; play only a few minutes and most people will be so cross-eyed and confused that they’ll be open to basically any suggestion). The similarity is that we, although sharing very specific traits that clearly identify us as a group, often hate one another.

  Call it petty—because it is—but it’s weird to see other people doing what you do in an ever-so-slightly different way. Most often in a way that leaves out some idiosyncratic tic that you find necessary to do your work. Maybe they dress just a little bit differently. Maybe they favor giant, irradiated snakes over giant, irradiated lizards.* Maybe they laugh weird; or maybe they were one of your former employees who you “fired” by blowing up the building they worked in and leaving them to die. There are lots of little, nitpicky reasons.

  Supervillain FAQ: Should I go into politics?

  Those of you who aren’t monarchs of tiny European countries that people always think are fictional for some reason** often raise the question of whether it’s worthwhile to reach out for a so-called legitimate power, either in business or in the world of absurd theater known as politics.

  For some perspective on whether entering the arena of government can be of any use to those seeking the systematic destruction of everything the average citizen holds dear, I turned to Senatrix Restraint, a five-term state senator and life long pain dealer, to see whether she’d do it all over again if she could.

  You know, it’s an interesting question. A while back in the fifties and sixties, it was a lot easier to freak people out. People like the Congress-mangler and others in that first handful of masks that managed to win elections really broke some barriers for us. When he made his first speech on the floor of the House, the one where he told all the other reps that he was going to use a reality transmogrification machine to reshape all their districts so that they’d become his district that all their constituents would become his constituents, and with that he’d be able to make them perform in wrestling matches as he commanded, I mean, that was history in the making right there.

  It’s harder to get noticed now. Every time you turn around these days, somebody’s threatening to cut off food supplies this or wants to seal the air off to maternity wards that. It’s next to impossible to stand out. A couple of weeks ago, I gave this speech on the Senate floor about how I wanted to make this one county a crater because a store clerk there was rude to me. Hardly anyone panicked at all. Just fifteen or even ten years ago, you would have gotten, at the very least, some screaming from the gallery.

  So I don’t know how much of a career boost it is anymore. I will say, though, that it’s not the hill to climb it used to be, either. Fifty years ago, it was a challenge and a chore to win votes as an ‘out’ supervillain, mask and all. Lots of the early bad-guy candidates had to run under the guise of being hero-friendly, revealing themselves as villains on Inauguration Day by holding everyone in attendance hostage and revealing the judge who swore them in to be a Frankenstein.

  Here in the second decade of the twenty-first century, supervillains are often the lesser of two evils when they’re running against plain old politicians. Seizing power has never been easier. It’s that you can’t really get the attention you used to. That’s the thing.

  Plus, it’s tough to get your colleagues, even other supervillains, to vote for any of your bills. You know how that goes. You want to drain a lake and fill it with blood, and they’d prefer to turn the water into sulfuric acid. So you end up compromising and making it a lake of urine; an outcome no one wanted.

  That’s just politics, I guess.

  Oh, hey, by the way, what’s that creepy weirdo The Comptroller doing in here? And why is his mouth wired shut? Is he in some kind of trouble with the Society? I mean, I always thought the guy was kind of strange, but–hey! Why is this big metal door closing? What’s going on! I have committee meetings to get to!

  Heeeeyyyyy!

  Politicians, am I right? Always stretching the truth about being imprisoned after interviews on whether their political careers have helped them in the world of evil. Anyway, take what she said as you may, potential makers of evil laws.

  Whatever the reason, these little details irk us. Supervillains are detail-oriented people by nature, and we also have tons of weird quirks that tend to come out because of what “professionals” call “insanity.” It’s often those quirks that make us who we are, upon which we base our entire identity; so being around someone who you think might belittle that or impose some quirk of their own on how you do things? That’s trouble.

  That’s why it’s imperative that you ensure a few things as you move forward with any supervillain alliance. For one thing, never be part of a group you didn’t start.* You will get crushed.

  And if you do opt to start one, do all this stuff first:

  Know You’re Smarter than Your Recruits

  Yes, you should constantly be riding high on hubris and egotism because that’s the supervillain way, but in cases like this, really do your research.

  What sorts of plans have they tried to pull off?

  If they’ve done some published writing, how good is it? (The book you’re holding is an example of the “universally lauded as brilliant” category, for reference.)

  When they talk, do they say things that go over your head?

  If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, this person will definitely outwit and screw you over somehow . . . and I don’t mean in like an egotistical or hubristic sort of way.

  Even so, it’s also important that you don’t hire total fools, either. They need to be open to any of your suggestions (i.e., commands), but also quick enough on their feet to get themselves out of a scrape if you’re not around. So have a vetting process. Hire some attorneys to do the digging for you. (Also, vet the attorneys to make sure they won’t outsmart you somehow. Get some attorneys to look into their backgrounds.)

  Have Contingency Plans

  Remember how I said that supervillains almost always hate one another? That’s often because we don’t very much like the idea of splitting our winnings with anyone else. Or our glory. Or our lunch. We don’t really like sharing in general. So you should prepare yourself, before you even ask anyone to help you for a mutiny. Figure out effective ways to subdue your allies if they become too hard to handle, because they will knock you down and take your football (or football-shaped Universe Eraser Device) in a second if they get the chance.

  Some ways in which you might consider doing this:

  • Implant them with a chip that you say will boost their strength, but actually electrifies their brain stems when you push a button;

  • Keep a vial filled with a liquefied version of their one weakness on hand at all times;

  • Throw them at the superhero at the first sign of a red cape;

  • Put their chair at the conference table over a trap-door portal to hell;

  • Have henchmen constantly stand behind them to tie their shoelaces together at a moment’s notice;

  • Or be ready to just plain disintegrate them if they mess with you.

  WORST PRACTICE IN ACTION: The Injustice League

  Led by space conqueror A
gamemno, this team, which included Lex Luthor, Sinestro, Catwoman, Dr. Light, Black Manta, Penguin, and others, nearly defeated the Justice League by switching bodies with them. It was only when the Green Lantern figured out a way to reverse the mind-swap that things sort of fell apart. Even then, they had an advantage against the heroes by having spent time in their bodies.**

  Teaching Moment: You can’t switch bodies with every member of a superhero team yourself, even if it would be much more palatable if you could.

  Assert Your Authority

  Before anybody says a word, you need to act in such a way that makes it very clear you’re the one in charge. You may think that you’ve already asserted that simply by being the one who gathered the group together, but you could not be more mistaken. Everyone, even the dumbest supervillain you bring to the table, is going to jockey for a leadership position and assume they are the best suited for the job.

  So how can you make sure the team knows you’re the one wearing the pants (even if you’re wearing some sort of toga or tunic or ribbed, metal leggings)? Stand up and slice the conference table* in half, preferably with a chop of your own forearm. If you don’t have any martial arts skill to speak of, a sword or an energy blade will suffice. Then take the remains of that table and throw them out the window.† Then, say this:

  The very idea of the members of this gathering sitting at a table offends me. That table may indeed have had a head at which a leader could sit, but we all would still have been on the same level. You all will sit. I will float above you. You will do what I tell you.

  Then have some henchmen come in and hold you above their heads for the rest of the meeting. . . . Unless you really can float; that would be even more imposing. However you raise yourself up, this should do a reasonably effective job— at least at first—of making it pretty clear that you’re not just the chairperson, but the float person of this committee of chaos.

  Make It an Odd Number

  I know they’re famous and all, but the Sinister Six really should have been the Sinful Seven or the Foul Five. Why? For the same reason that both the Supreme Court and the Wu-Tang Clan have nine members: Every vote needs a tiebreaker. Of course, in a conglomeration of supervillains, everyone is a leg-breaker, which is also one of our preferred ways of settling ties. To avoid the inevitable deadlocks that will occur in the few and far between times you’ll actually allow your colleagues to take a vote, it’s downright necessary to have that tiebreaking vote at the (non) table. (Wait to break everyone else’s legs until the job is over.) It’s also imperative that that vote always side with you. Which is why you must . . .

  Have a Patsy

  What if everything falls apart? Certainly you don’t want to go in anticipating failure, but come on; look at the morons you have to work with. And yet, it’s likely that you’re the person everyone is going to blame when things go wrong; only because you asserted complete ideological and tactical control over the entire operation. People are always trying to pin it on a scapegoat.

  That’s why you need one person in the group who is constantly under your thumb during the entire caper—the one who always breaks ties in your favor, the one who repeats a lot of what you say, the one who laughs really hard at all your jokes—the one whom everyone else would call your lapdog. Maybe this person is another respectable supervillain you brainwashed and brought in to convince everyone your plan was legitimately going to be profitable for them; maybe it’s a henchman you’ve temporarily promoted to supervillain status for this one week only to bust them back down to toilet brush duty (that’s not toilet cleaning duty; this is when you force them to put on bristled hats and be the brush themselves) immediately after; maybe it’s a hologram of someone who’s stashed away in a closet somewhere.

  Whoever this person is, it needs to be someone that, if it comes down to it, you can plausibly blame everything on.

  • Oh, it seemed like they were always voting in your favor? It was actually their idea every time!

  • They jumped up and planted a bug in your ear, and you suggested it. They’re repeating what you say?

  That’s because they’re making sure you’re getting out their plans word-for-word, like someone mouthing song lyrics!

  • They laughed at all your jokes?

  Well, you are pretty witty.

  Pin everything back on the patsy and leave the group in shambles, without any of the blame touching you.

  In case you were curious about what other types of villains you need to have in your alliance (you know, besides the patsy), it obviously depends on the plan—heists and demolition missions obviously would need completely different skill sets—but in a general sense, here are some all-around types it’s smart to have around:

  A Leader

  This is you. Be smart.

  A Punching Bag

  Someone who can absorb gobs of superhero fists so you and the other players in the game can avoid unwanted tooth, bone, or vital organ loss. Healing powers, invulnerability, and/or the ability to make multiple versions of oneself are valuable.

  Make everyone immediately aware that you’re the boss.

  An Infiltrator

  Someone who can slide into a place that is heavily guarded and zip right out, unnoticed. This allows for large portions of heists to be accomplished while the rest of the team gets thoroughly hammered. Invisibility and stretching powers are valuable.

  A Heavy Hitter

  Sometimes you have to make stuff blow up, so find someone who naturally makes stuff blow up. Pyrokinetic and combustive powers are valuable.

  An Escape Enabler

  There are teams that can teleport away from situations and there are those that can’t. Don’t be the latter. So what’s valuable here is, quite obviously, teleportation. Maybe flight.

  A Gadget Hoarder

  You never know when you might need a device that makes mummies come to life or makes people want to eat their own teeth. You never know.

  A Weirdo

  While this team member is distracting any nearby superheroes by reciting passages from Faust while smothering his or herself in chicken blood, you can otherwise go about your business. All this person needs is to be insane.

  A Job Badly Done: Taking All the Credit

  I’ve covered how you should wrest control of any group projects away from the other supervillains you’ve recruited onto your team and how to pass the blame to some idiot if things don’t work out . . . but if things do work out, though? You want to be the one who takes home the trophy. I mean the figurative trophy. It’ll probably be something like the United Kingdom shrunk down and stuffed into a bottle or a vial of powder that used to be your enemy or, you know, a whole lot of money. But you get the idea.

  You also want everyone to know that it was you—not any of those other people that were involved—who masterminded everything.

  And also made all the major tactical decisions.

  And won all the fights!

  And saved all those other idiots’ asses when they almost ruined everything!

  Basically, what you want is to make it seem like you brought in these other members along just to have an audience for your amazing supervillainous exploits. Of course, the other members of the team are going to want to get some sort of “credit” for their “contributions,” and that’s if you’re lucky. Odds are they’re all going to want to steal the glory that’s so clearly yours.

  You have some options for how to act to take your deserved victory lap. Some may work better than others, so choose carefully between these courses of action:

  As soon as the Job Is Complete, Shoot Everyone Else on the Team with a Silencing Ray So They Cannot Speak

  This way, you can tell the real story without interruption. The only thing about silencing rays is that they’re almost never permanent.

  Slander Their Names

  It’s not going to take all that much work to get people to believe a cabal of criminals is full of lazy, good-for-nothing liars and credit hogs. (
Sometimes, we can use our untrustworthy reputations to our advantage.) So get out there and make people believe it. But what if there was one supervillain who was also a hard worker and who told people the truth about how they single-handedly did everything? Have the courage to be this person.

  Creative Editing

  Record and/or photograph everything you do, then just edit or use Photoshop to make yourself the clear driver of all activity. The only downside here is that you’re actually recording evidence of your own highly illegal activities, but it’s probably worth it.

  Distract

  As you’re putting a bow on your big, team plan, arrange it so all your compatriots have to deal with some big problem—maybe they get stuck in a sealed room for two weeks or they are attacked by fifteen new “superheroes” who are really your henchmen—that you conveniently avoid having to deal with somehow. Now you’ve got plenty of time to get the real truth out there.

  Kill ‘Em

  You probably won’t need them again. And you’re all supervillains. They had to know this was probably coming.**

  * Can you really trust a guy in a rubber mask who voluntarily goes out at night to sit on a rooftop, looking for people to punch, to look out for their safety?

  † Plus, it gives us an easy target to kidnap so we can really get under the superhero’s skin. And honestly, whose fault is it that a child was standing around in an alley where anybody could freeze her and take her to an Antarctic base?