Chapter 6
Abilities/Equipment*
You can never have enough pouches.
* Chapter 6 is sponsored by AXES ‘R US, “We are literally sentient axes. Our lives are nothing but pain.”
A question I’ve been hearing virtually non-stop through the Psychomonitor since pretty much page one, but that I chose not to answer until just now because I like keeping you in suspense is, “can I become a supervillain if I don’t have any superpowers?”
The short answer is yes, you can absolutely become a supervillain if you don’t have any superpowers. (Several prominent villains have demonstrated that very fact and are listed at the end of this chapter.) But know this: If you try to go into a gun battle with a knife, you’re going to lose. Similarly, if you go into a fight with superheroes, and you don’t have any inborn powers, the biggest brain on the continent, chemically-induced superhuman abilities, or some kind of device that gives you a fighting chance against a guy who can shoot heat beams out of his eyes, then you’re pretty much going to get stomped. It’ll be less like a knife in a gunfight than a pebble in a missile-launching competition.
With that in mind, how best (worst) to go toe-to-toe with the overpowered, under-intelligent superhero contingent? Ingenuity, my dear friends. Ingenuity.
Bringing Superpowers to You
So, you weren’t born with superpowers? You don’t work in a place that manufactures, stores, or distributes nuclear waste? You aren’t a scientist who, for reasons known to no one but you, only ever uses yourself as a test subject? You don’t know any wizards or aliens fond of distributing super-power-granting rings?
Not to worry, you don’t need to have any of those (admittedly useful) connections, as there are other ways to get superpowers.
Namely, you can buy them from us for three low, low payments of $39,999.99. We will have you go through an agonizing series of isolation-chamber procedures that will grant you a superpower (or for just $10,000 more, any combination of two) from a list of twenty-one high-quality powers found at the end of this chapter.
If you are too dirt-poor to buy our high-quality powers (hey, you gotta spend money to make money, folks), you could alternately try:
• Taking a lot of different drugs at one time and seeing what happens.
• Spending your nights in the desert and hoping that an alien notices you.
• Praying to some gods, Satan, Cthulhu.
• Repeatedly telling yourself you have powers and just hoping that it happens.
• Killing people who do have powers and seeing if you absorb theirs as a reward.
• Doing something really noble and seeing what that gets you (it’s totally easy to use those powers for evil even if you earned them from doing good).
• Trying to talk a goat or some other animal into fusing itself with your DNA.
• Asking for powers for Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa (it helps if your relatives are supervillains/superheroes/mad scientists/gods/Satan/Cthulhu).
• Standing around in various hazardous waste storage facilities.
• Getting bitten by various things, especially if they’ve been irradiated or genetically altered.
• Hanging around superheroes a lot, getting in their way, otherwise generally playing off their tendency to create supervillains.
• Trying out various chants involving the words “might,” “power,” “demon,” “stones,” “runes,” “magic,” “sword,” “dark,” “blood,” “moon,” “Jupiter,” “pentagram,” “sham-bolic,” “tatters,” “terrible,” “black out the earth’s sun.”
SUPERVILLAIN HISTORY FACT
Marlene Dietrich was the first openly supervillain actress in Hollywood. She kept her supervillainy secret for much of her career, but was outed as a villainess in 1942, when she was spotted on top of a studio water tower, remote controlling a robot replica of John Wayne on the set of the film “The Spoilers.” At the time, the robot John Wayne was beating up several hundred studio midgets.
Going Without
If you for some reason don’t want to give the International Society of Supervillains’ R & D department your life savings and none of those other top-notch suggestions work out for you, you may want to completely avoid the whole superhuman game and simply try to obtain and use peak human skills. Examples of this are things like genius-level intelligence, Olympic strength, record-setting speed, catlike agility, Bruce Lee-style kung fu prowess, the ability to talk really fast like the guy from the old Micro Machines commercials, unbelievable crocheting skills, et cetera.
Of course, to reach levels of peak human skill, you’re going to have to do a lot of training—near-constant training—from pretty much birth. So hopefully, you’re reading this in-utero. (We hope to publish a book-on-placenta right around the time we go into our next printing.)
If not, you may have to look into other methods, such as . . .
Technology: The enemy of your enemy (a.k.a., your friend)
You don’t have to do any of the annoying shit it takes to acquire superpowers or gain incredible athletic abilities or incredible brilliance as long as you know the right (wrong) people. And by “the right people,” of course, I mean people from whom you can steal super-boss gizmos that let you do what any tights-wearing superhero can do by, like, tomorrow.
But what gizmos are best (worst) to get your hands on? I, the author of a book about being a professional supervillain, just so happens to have the answers for you. (Who would have thought!) Next time your employer lets you into his or her super-secret room full of experimental test equipment, keep your eyes open for:
• Jet-propelled gliders and/or jet packs
Perfect for causing free-form aerial terror as efficiently as possible.
• Cybernetic battle suits
Bonus points if said suits include capabilities of increasing or decreasing size, invisibility, invulnerability, stretchiness, or incessantly blinking lights.
• Gauntlets of various types
They should shoot out something awesome, like napalm or solid ice or other awesome gauntlets.
• Mind-control helmets
The easiest way to steal these is to acquire a helmet that blocks mind control beforehand.
• Time machines
If not invented yet, wait until one is invented, steal it, and then bring it to your younger self for more immediate use.
• Robots, animals or robot animals
Also useful are magic animals that can teleport and shit.
• Teleportation devices
In the event that you can’t find any magic animals.
• Huge computers
For making giant schematics, viewing large images of superheroes going through death traps, bringing a certain ambience to a headquarters, et cetera. Also, for doing humongous word processing.
• Aging or de-aging devices
For when you’re too young to be taken seriously or too old to wait out that time machine.
• Any type of ray
Death, freeze, heat, disintegrator, knockout, manta, pulse. But I especially recommend the CR-9666 Death’s Head Revolution, a knockout ray that won’t take up your whole atrium.
• Any type of gas
Poison, radioactive, nerve, noxious, laughing, knockout, poo, erotic. But especially poison.
PROFILES IN LAME SUPERVILLAINY
Terra-Man
History: After an alien killed Toby Manning’s father, the alien took the young man in and raised him as his own. Once Toby grew up, he killed the alien and returned to Earth, adopting the name Terra-Man because, no joke, he was from Earth.
M.O.: When he killed his alien-Dad, Manning stole a big store of advanced alien technology that just happened to resemble the six-shooters and lassos and whatnot of the Old West. He also got a winged horse from somewhere. With those things and a ridiculous-looking cloak and cowboy hat, he fights Superman. Yes. Superman. With a high-tech lasso.
Smoke and Mirrors (Literally)
So it couldn’t hurt to learn a thing or two about special effects.
Let’s say, for example, that you’ve been confronted with a superhero that can’t leave well enough alone and let you sabotage the extraordinarily large ferris wheel at the amusement park by the shore in peace. All you have to do is lead him or her on a trail to a hall of mirrors and give the superhero the impression that he or she has clocked you good, when, in fact, they just broke one of the carnival’s most impressive and expensive mirrors. (They’ll never pay for it either, even when made aware of the fact that all they succeeded in doing was ruining a hard-working mirrorsmith’s life work. Heroes break more stuff than we ever will, and still get all the acclaim, and yet another example of the hero-industrial complex.) They’ll leave you alone and all you had to do was take a quick fall and sell it.
Then, you’ll be free to go take an uninterrupted whiz in the caramel they dip the apples in before getting back out your giant wrench.
21 Common Superpowers: Pros and Cons
Flight
Pros: Little to no traffic; easy access to planes and helicopters which you can threaten; allows you to keep up with flying heroes (which are common).
Cons: Easy to be mistaken for a superhero; constant bugs and birds in your face; if it craps out on you, you’re in trouble.
Invulnerability
Pros: No need to worry about superheroes’ constant punching; if another supervillain tries to stab you (which is going to happen), then you can have a good laugh about it instead of dying.
Cons: You can’t feel it when it hurts so good (and by that we mean during sex); germs can get in, but intravenous drugs can’t.
Invisibility
Pros: Going unnoticed by superheroes, cops, other villains, your mom, the entire women’s locker room.
Cons: Going unnoticed by just about everyone.
Super Speed
Pros: If you have a reason to go to Malaysia, you can go without having to re-arrange your schedule; you’ll rack up at the Olympics.
Cons: You end up going fast everywhere, if you know what I mean (I mean during sex); constantly having to buy new shoes.
Super Strength
Pros: If you can hit them first, you can take puny superheroes down pretty easily; the ability to open any can, any time.
Cons: Car doors come right off; the likelihood that you will probably crush anyone you care about even a little bit.
Stretchiness
Pros: No need for rope when you have an occasion to tie someone up; you can grab things in the other room without having to get off the couch.
Cons: If you happen to pass by an elementary school, kids will play with your arms and legs for hours, and you really won’t be able to do much about it.
Superhuman Intelligence
Pros: Bombarding superheroes with math problems makes them virtually helpless; no need to waste your time reading; the ability to win just about any game show other than “Wheel of Fortune,” where only dumb luck succeeds.
Cons: Terrible headaches; really difficult to communicate with anybody, especially henchmen, because you only speak in words of seven syllables or more; constantly making people’s heads explode with confusion is kind of an inconvenience after the novelty wears off.
Telepathy/Mind Control/Memory Manipulation
Pros: You can make people forget all the assholish crap you do, which is pretty useful at Thanksgiving; less likelihood of getting your hands dirty, since you can get average people or superheroes to do stuff for you.
Cons: Having to hear what everybody thinks about you (especially during sex).
Telekinesis
Pros: If a superhero arrives and you don’t want him or her to be there, you can just pick the idiot up and move them or fling a Jeep at them; sandwich-making much less of a hassle.
Cons: Again with the headaches; nosebleeds as well; easy to break stuff if someone says your name, waves boobs in your face or otherwise breaks your concentration.
Teleportation
Pros: Easy escapes; convenient access to various places, such as the women’s locker room.
Cons: Getting stuck in walls; getting stuck inside other peoples’ bodies; getting stuck in the earth’s core; accidentally misplacing a limb.
Size Control
Pros: Ability to turn small provides access to otherwise impenetrable places; ability to turn large provides ability to smash shit.
Cons: Ability to turn small makes you easily crushed or trapped; ability to turn large makes you an easy target and very hard to find stylish attire for.
Time Manipulation
Pros: You can go back in time and kill superheroes before they get their stupid powers; you can go to the future and find out how awesome you’ll be.
Cons: Your future and past selves probably won’t like you (the assholes); paradoxes are a bitch.
Interdimensional Travel
Pros: Lots and lots of worlds to conquer rather than just the one; infinitely more hideouts.
Cons: You can conquer all the alternate universes you want, but it won’t be yours; infinitely more superheroes to bug you.
Healing Factor/Regeneration
Pros: If you have a habit of losing arms and legs, it’s not nearly as much of a problem for you; no medical bills; temporary cool scars/wounds with no permanent damage.
Cons: That shit still hurts; you can absorb a lot more bullets, and people are probably going to know that after a few run-ins.
Animal Mimicry
Pros: It would be pretty great to be as ferocious as a lion or fast as a cheetah or to swim like a dolphin.
Cons: What if it malfunctioned and you were permanently stuck on sloth? That’d make things tough.
Control Over Fish/Super Swimming Powers
Pros: Purview over three-fourths of the Earth’s surface; the top halves of mermaids.
Cons: Everyone will make fun of you, even with the three-fourths of the surface thing; the bottom halves of mermaids.
Control Over Elements/Metal/Energy
Pros: Projectiles any time you want them; you could build bridges for yourself whenever and wherever you needed them; shooting stuff out of your arms is super-cool.
Cons: As soon as the public notices what you’re all about, they’ll probably try to harness you for electricity; not good when you lose control of your fire/ice/water/wind/energy/metal (during sex).
Weather Control
Pros: It’s always good to be able to call up a storm at the baseball game where the local superhero is supposed to sing the national anthem; making it snow during the summer freaks people out in general; hail is a good (bad) distraction that allows for easy escapes.
Cons: Your only real bargaining chip is causing a drought, and sadly, you still need to drink water, too; impromptu thunderstorms (during sex).
Re-Animation/Bringing Inanimate Objects To Life
Pros: A standing army of zombies or Ottomans available at any time; if friends of yours die, it won’t be permanent (though they may try to eat your brain).
Cons: Things that have never lived or have died are really hard to control, and pretty dumb.
Pheromone Production
Pros: You can make people do what you say, and they won’t even know why; hot chicks or dudes will be all over you.
Cons: You will smell terrible; ugly chicks or dudes will be all over you, too.
Immortality
Pros: No need to worry about doing life-threatening shit; the benefits of infinite experience.
Cons: Boredom, such terrible, terrible boredom; having to witness the horrors of do-gooders’ “prog
ress;” especially if you’re into teenage girls, like that Twilight vampire.
9 Badass Supervillains Who Don’t Have Super Powers
The Joker
Known for: Being Batman’s arch nemesis, murder via gas and/or fish, having the largest “HAs” in laughter history.
Why he’s a badass: Not only can the guy go toe-to-toe with Batman despite weighing about eighty pounds, the Joker also has an incredible ability to not die. Seriously, I think you could shoot him right in the face, burn his body and dump him in the ocean, he’d still find a way to come back.
If he had a superpower, it would be: Insanity. In fact, DC Comics lists it as a superpower, as if mental states are somehow meta-human; which, if that’s the case, I know some people who should suit up and go out as General Anxiety Disorder tomorrow.
The Kingpin
Known for: Being humongous, somehow managing to find dapper suits despite being humongous, ruining Dare-devil’s life as much as possible.
The Supervillain Handbook Page 7