“Well sometimes, two embryos start to develop, but only one of them survives.”
My heart was racing. “Do I have a dead brother?”
“Honey, no, look at the other ultrasounds. This happened very early in my pregnancy. It’s actually fairly common. The genetic material just gets reabsorbed by the other embryo.”
Not uncommon, and as I eventually learned, it was not even unique as a catalyst for superhuman abilities. But now, young men going through similar circumstances won’t have to blunder through these discoveries: they can simply turn to section three for an in-depth study of known origins for both natural and supernatural powers. Pay special attention to the testimonial from Doublemensch, whose story parallels my own in many ways. I wish I had known then, as a young man, that I was not alone.
I was eighteen when the shadow became real enough for me to see its face. Over the past months I had watched its extremities coming into focus, and noted the suggestion of facial features, which I had attributed to a sort of corresponding maturation as I got older. As we got older. Now it had my face, but there was something else too. One afternoon in the woods I was wearing this bright green jersey with a white star on the chest when I summoned the shadow. The effect was unmistakable. It stood before me, translucent as always, but plain as day. How had I never seen this before? A man in a red shirt with a black star. Skin so dark it was almost black, a shock of nearly-white hair. Right down to his faded yellow jeans, it was my perfect photographic negative. As I truly recognized the negative for the first time, I got a new shock. Only for a moment. The world spun around, and then I felt it: his feet on the ground, the spring air, not on his skin but blowing through him, and through me. For just that moment, I could see myself with his eyes. I was standing on the log wearing a look of confusion, and that old familiar panic. Panic I only ever felt around him. I could feel the tug from the other side, from my side, and then it was over. I fell off the log. For the first time since I was eleven, I lost control of the connection and threw up in the creek.
Weird, feeling that old sense of trepidation again. My power had become new and scary once more. No longer completely under my control. But it was also a turning point for me—the point where I started to learn what the shadow was. It was only a matter of time before I discovered how to use it.
Over the next few years I learned by degrees, still without guidance. My connection to the negative grew stronger, though I did not experience a recurrence of that sensory overlap for quite some time. What I did have was increasing physical control over the negative. I could move it around, and its distance from me didn’t seem to diminish that control. The frustrating thing was that I had a pretty amazing puppet, but it was essentially useless. I could move it around, but I couldn’t touch anything. Since it always emerged as my negative, I could change its appearance simply by changing my own. But nothing more. If I had a mentor, some idea of what to look for or how to proceed, I might have unlocked my potential much sooner.
The key to my career came when I was twenty-two. Home for Christmas, I was down in the woods, walking my negative around after a light snowfall. Nothing unusual. We spent a lot of time alone together. I liked to talk to him. That day, I was strolling along the creek with my negative beside me. Like a friend.
“I feel like I’ve built my whole life around you. I have you instead of friends. I lived alone in college, because I need privacy to spend time with you. But I don’t know why I do it, aside from the fact that I can.”
I paused, and let the negative take a couple of steps in front of me.
“Lately, I’ve just been wondering if I’m letting you be my excuse for not having a real life. I don’t… I’m not part of the world. And I haven’t substituted anything else for living in the world, except for these days with you.”
I was surprised at how difficult I was finding this conversation. It’s how I imagined it would feel to break up with someone. The negative was still in front of me, and though I didn’t quite believe it was a real person, it was hard to look at him right now. I turned around, looked back the way we had come.
“I think maybe it’s time…”
Then I saw it. My guilt led me right there. I turned my back on him and I looked at the ground. My own footprints in the snow. And beside them, a faint trail. Not a set of tracks exactly, but scuffs. The snow disturbed as though by gentle puffs of air. It wasn’t much, but it meant that my negative was becoming substantial. And if he could touch things, then I could use him.
We never finished that conversation.
My earliest criminal exploits went virtually unnoticed. My abilities were pretty limited and didn’t lend themselves to public display, or the sort of theatrics that would later typify my best work. But I had to try something because I had a power, and in this world if you have a power, you do one or the other. You either hurt people, or you save them. I never really got on well with people. To be honest, I never had a particular interest in helping them.
Of course I didn’t really want to hurt them, either.
When I think about it now, the appeal of my choice is more apparent. When you choose to be a hero, your entire life becomes about the job. People expect you to be there for them, fixing things that were never your problem, and to be a good hero you have to accept that responsibility as if it was yours all along. Call me selfish, but that is not the man I wanted to be. A criminal can have his own life. I would only have to use my power when I needed money, or just wanted to have a good time. It wouldn’t have to be a full-time job.
Villainy was a natural career path for me, but I was very conscious of the public’s perception of people who make this choice. I wasn’t blazing new trails here. Super villains have been around for a long time, dating back at least to early twentieth century America when the Magnificent Stranger terrorized the Midwest with his Traveling House of Illusions. The people he left twisted into funhouse reflections of themselves are the first confirmed victims of super-villainy, and the legacy goes back much farther if you accept the conventional wisdom about Jack the Ripper, Leonardo Da Vinci, and at least two members of the Spanish royal family.
But there is no arguing that the past few decades have seen a dramatic increase in costumed criminals. It has become a bona fide career choice, and like any line of work, the public has certain preconceptions about the kind of folks who decide to take it up. I know I did. After I had committed that first crime I started to imagine myself a criminal, to think about what that actually meant and the sort of company I would be keeping.
Tomorrow’s young super villains will be able to refer to the historical perspectives outlined in chapter two, for a better understanding of how they might fit into the constantly-unfolding drama of costumed crime. But what I perceive as the greater value of this book is the opportunity to have criminals like the Delicate Ape, Doublemensch, Skullkick and dozens of others tell their stories in their own words. Talking about the villains who inspired them, why they chose a life of crime or how it chose them, and the rules they live by.
At twenty-two I’d never seen a super villain in real life, but I had seen all the classic footage of people like Smooth Operator, Lariat Joe and Vanishing Boy. Guys who committed crimes with a certain finesse and a minimum of violence; the notoriously conflicting media coverage all agreed that these villains never hurt their victims or any bystanders, and didn’t even threaten violence unless provoked. As a young man just starting to find his criminal identity, I felt I could look up to these villains, if not for their specific crimes then at least for an apparent code of ethics. When Tin Soldier and Puppet brainwashed forty thousand people during the Chicago Marathon, news wires were abuzz with dire predictions, but the dastardly duo only forced their victims to play freeze tag. I don’t pretend to understand why they did what they did, but I wouldn’t be ashamed to be mentioned in the same breath.
But when I say “super villain”, are these the
people you think of? Maybe, but they aren’t the ones you think of first. First you think of the monsters, like Captain Meathook or Laser Face. It’s not the colorful burglar with the witty banter that the public remembers, it’s the freak that set two hundred wild animals loose in a zoo filled with children.
If this was to be my vocation, I knew I didn’t want to be like them. I was comfortable with theft. I started small and I liked it that way; I was simply honing my craft, becoming more dexterous at picking locks with the help of my dark, silent partner. And with continual practice came the development I’d been waiting for. I was sending the negative through the door of a walk-in vault when I felt a tingle in my skin. In his skin. I couldn’t see the negative inside the steel wall, but I could feel him pass through and out the other side. I wondered if I had his sight, too, but the inside of the vault was pitch-black.
The immediate opportunity here was a major improvement on my usual methods. Up until now, to unlock a door from the other side, I needed a simple button or switch mechanism and I needed to know where it was located. But with sensation in my shadow body, I could reach right into the vault door and feel my way through the lock. I could feel the mechanism and trip the tumblers. Which is exactly what I did, and when I had the vault unlocked, I brought the negative back through. He emerged from inside the steel and I saw my own face, smiling, astonished and excited and alive with possibility. I could see through his eyes, and our future was looking very bright.
My debut as a costumed super villain, in which I robbed the Corwin-Brand Savings and Loan, received fairly widespread media coverage and most of the security footage is still available on YouTube. The job went pretty well—the worst thing about it was my costume and that would get better with time. I had myself a white three-piece like a Southern dandy or Colonel Sanders, with a smart-looking derby to match. I hid my identity with a white surgical mask. It looked a bit strange, but it wasn’t about me. This was about us.
There weren’t many people in the S&L when I walked in, unarmed. I reckoned that if I was dramatic enough, and didn’t waste any time, I could get away without needing a weapon. So I made a big entrance—the one they used to open that episode of Dateline devoted to me. Nobody thinks about this, but I had to scout several potential locations before I found an S&L with a door that could be thrown open dramatically. It worked like a charm. I flung it open, stepped inside and announced:
“Ladies and gentlemen, you may call me Mr. Positive! If you’ll give me just a few minutes of your time, I’ll liberate the cash from your vault and then be on my way. I’m sure you won’t mind if I invite my friend Mr. Negative to join us?”
As expected, the security guard’s natural instinct to apprehend me was curtailed by the sudden appearance of Mr. Negative. My dark double with the black suit, and the skin and mask to match, meant that the rules had changed. These people had never seen me before. If I could generate a negative image of myself and use it to open a vault, who knew what else I was capable of? If the guard had decided to draw his gun, my career might have ended right there. I had no idea what would happen if Mr. Negative took a bullet, but everyone cooperated.
With the money in a bag, Mr. Negative and I retreated to the stolen van I’d parked around the corner. I had him drive while I changed in the back (a maneuver I mastered only after many trial runs). He had to get me two blocks away, where my car was parked in an alley. As we turned a blind corner, I jumped out the side door with a bag of money in one hand and a bag of clothes in the other. I threw them both in the trunk and waited in the car while I drove Mr. Negative and the van through the streets. It took almost a full minute for the police to catch up with the getaway car. I led them another two miles in the wrong direction before I hit the brakes and pulled back Mr. Negative, leaving the police to explain a driverless van with no money in it. I eased my car out of the alley and went home.
So it began. Most of my life after that is more or less a matter of public record. The security footage was on the news by five o’clock that night, and the next day everybody had heard of Mr. Positive and Mr. Negative. I took great care with my public image on those first few jobs. I was loud, amiable, a bit dapper, and always reassuring to my victims. I stole from savings and loans, the odd jewelry shop, and sometimes big multiplexes showing awful movies. Anyplace dealing in large volumes of preferably unmarked cash, and jewels because they were accepted as currency in the criminal underground. Robbing the multiplexes was my attempt at a bit of personal flair. I do object to movies that sacrifice inspiration in a quest for broader appeal. So once in a while, I would rob a multiplex and pontificate loudly, about how the American studio system is devolving the art form, by promoting filmmakers who demand nothing of an audience, which cultivates an audience that neither expects nor desires to be challenged.
The soundbite-friendly speeches were replayed often, adding a charming idiosyncrasy to my already positive media profile. I miss those early days. Each job a new adventure, more about the planning and the outfits, and the adrenaline, than the money. I loved the thrill. I loved the attention. And I think I was rather good at it. Obviously the media agreed, since I got all sorts of good press, and successfully distanced myself from the really scary super villains. My star was rising at the same time that Ghost Medusa held her Christmas slave auction in the bloody wake of the Macy’s tragedy, and sharing airtime with her was all the proof anyone needed. Some super villains live only to sow chaos and fear, and Mr. Positive was not one of those. My thefts were flashy but entertaining, and when I had more money than I needed I always found a way to do something beneficial with it. Maybe I was just trying to balance the scales, but for a bad guy, I was definitely one of the good guys. My victims weren’t too keen on me of course, but the AP and Reuters ensured that news of my exploits reached millions of readers who were not directly affected by my crimes. To viewers around the nation, and eventually the world, I was maybe even a bit heroic. A romantic criminal, like David Niven. Well-dressed. Classy. I tried to bring a bit of John Steed to an industry full of artless thuggery. I was a shy boy with a childhood full of lonely secrets, and I grew up to be America’s favorite villain. This truly is a land of opportunity.
All it took to unravel my career was one security guard called Clayton. My destruction boiled down to a ubiquitous 14-second clip played over and over again on CNN, Entertainment Tonight, and of course the Dateline special. Before writing this introduction, I’ve never had the chance to explain what happened. I was so accustomed to people being cooperative when I robbed them that I was taken quite by surprise when that guard saw Mr. Negative and charged forward. As Clayton came at me, I had two competing instincts: to defend myself the way a man would, or to make Mr. Negative disappear. I wish I had chosen differently. Or chosen at all. But I just acted. I threw up the shadow’s arms as though to block him, and the guard passed through me. But not cleanly.
When my arms went through his head, Clayton’s brains were scrambled against the back of his skull… and the whole thing was on camera. That was the day I stopped being a romantic criminal. Now I was a murderer. Never mind that it was all a horrible accident. None of the pundits ever suggested that it might have been a mistake. Nobody mentioned that what happened to Clayton was proof that Mr. Positive was far more powerful than he let on. That I had deliberately chosen to abstain from violent crimes in the past and maybe I hadn’t intended to commit one now. I could have been an unstoppable assassin, walking through walls, immune to bullets, but I had only ever acted as a thief. I could have had Mr. Negative step into the body of another person, then turn him solid and pilot them around for a while before shedding them like an empty husk. But none of the nightmares I didn’t bring to bear could make up for the life I stole.
I retreated from the limelight. I had no soapbox from which to apologize, no way to make things right. I drove out to my parents’ house, empty since they died, and returned to the woods where I had spent so much of
my youth. Where I could let the shadow out safely. Where there was nobody to hurt.
I stayed on the property for weeks, spending most days in the woods, contemplating Mr. Negative. Moving him. Moving through him. Testing and retesting how solid or vaporous he could be. Playing patty-cake. Under controlled circumstances, everything seemed to be going fine, but the stress was starting to get to me. I was tired, and that rubber band in my chest was getting heavy. I could maintain Mr. Negative ably enough, but the effort of reeling him back in was growing more difficult.
It was during my time in solitude at the old family home that I decided to make this book a reality. Most young men with superhuman abilities are going to use them on one side of the law, or the other. What I want is for those who decide to commit crimes to have the chance to do so, to the best of their abilities, even if I don’t personally approve of their actions. That way criminals like me, who want to do their work without hurting anyone, have the best possible chance of success. There will always be bad guys who want to kill people, but most super villain homicides are the result of collateral damage and plans gone awry, and those are manageable problems. I had been wishing for this book since I was a teenager. Too many angry, lonely boys with more power than they can handle turn to super villainy to get even with the world. This book is designed to get these young men to think about the ways their powers will transform their lives and create opportunities for the future. Super villains with accurate control of their powers and some basic instruction on criminal activity are far less likely to take a life that they don’t have to take. With Appendix B, Offshore Accounts and Other Long-Term Strategies, they can even plan ahead for retirement, and I hope that with this book making their lives safer, more of them will live to enjoy it.
As Mr. Positive, I never operated as part of a team, and even without a life of crime I’m sure that my all-consuming preoccupation with the shadow would have precluded me finding someone to share my life. I have remained, for the most part, alone, and I have always contended that super villainy is solo work. You can’t start putting criminal personalities into groups and expect things to stay professional. Add super abilities into the mix and sooner or later the games of one-upmanship that normally arise among bonding males escalate into callously (even gleefully) destructive displays of power. That men almost inevitably succumb to such spectacle is shameful enough; that they should end with a body count is obscene. My solitude was part of my determination to be a superior villain, but I would have interrogated the entire criminal underworld to create Your Changing Body.
The Lavender Menace Page 22