The Supervillain Field Manual

by King Oblivion, Ph. D.

  Ecstasy

  Pro:

  The perfect thing to use if your plan involves dancing with glow sticks to house music.

  Con:

  Useful for exactly no other purpose.

  PCP

  Pro:

  Can basically make you feel invincible, so you can charge right into a scuffle without fear.

  Con:

  Does not hinder bullets or other objects from tearing through your skin and organs.

  Alcohol

  Pros:

  Can really get you in a fighting mood; helps loosen your lips if you’re a shy type and need to give a big speech.

  Cons:

  Slurred speech doesn’t help much when you’re trying to talk big; is legal, which I know I said wasn’t a big deal earlier, but you have to admit it sort of removes the thrill of it all...

  Nitrous oxide

  Pros:

  Perfect for someone with an evil-medicine gimmick, and the mask looks appropriately nuts; makes you feel like laughing even when you don’t want to, and laughing constantly is a pretty important supervillain trait.

  Cons:

  Knocks you unconscious—more or less— which may not be the handiest thing when a being made of pure energy is coming toward you to kick you in the junk.

  Nuke

  Pro:

  Is such a powerful narcotic that it inspires cults around it and causes the streets to be overrun with crime in a manner never before seen.

  Con:

  Does not exist yet. Society will have to wait until there are one or more RoboCops for it to go into production.

  Of course, there isn’t some infinite store of authority to go around. Some of us, that is, one of us (that is, me) operate on a global scale.* The rest of us, that is, the rest of you, have to aim smaller. Local.

  Taking over a small country or a municipality is a pretty big deal. It’s not as easy as openly stomping into city hall and telling them to rewrite the charter so that it’s nothing but your name. They make you stand in line and you have to sign in on a registry and then the mayor will make you wait for hours if they aren’t out of town to begin with. If you go storming into a council meeting, they’ll make you wait for a bunch of old ladies who are upset about a neighborhood bar being too rowdy before you can tell them all that you’re going to melt them into their chairs. It’s just not worth the hassle of dealing with the slow-turning wheels of local government. Not to mention that any local superheroes will probably stuff you into a trash can before you even get three steps inside the building. You’ll have to find another way.

  WORST PRACTICE IN ACTION: Two-Face Stakes His Claim

  All it took for Two-Face to take over a big chunk of Gotham City was for a major earthquake to hit and for the federal government to shut off from the rest of the country. Thanks to those lucky breaks, old Harvey Dent kidnapped Police Commissioner James Gordon to ensure that his territory was secure. Other villains, such as Mr. Freeze and Penguin, had their own territory, but Two-Face really reached for the brass ring (until Lex Luthor showed up and spoiled the fun).

  Teaching Moment: Sometimes you just have to let nature take its course. Then hope the government abandons all hope and leaves a big swath of your home city open for you to seize control.

  Prep Work

  For whatever reason, marching a huge force of henchmen into the town square to erect a 50-foot statue of yourself does not automatically make you the undisputed ruler of the land. It should almost certainly work that way, but people tend to have this weird attachment to what pieces of paper tell them instead of what giant slabs of granite tell them. So if you do that, it’s likely the police, National Guard, or a mob of angered citizens will pull the thing down, as if you didn’t force a team of minions to spend months of their precious time working on it.

  This is especially true if no one knows who you are. As I have been saying throughout this book, name recognition is just as important to the power-hungry supervillain as intimidation skills and megalomaniacal tendencies . . . more so, really. Nobody’s going to acknowledge your claim to their home as a real one if they think you’re merely some weirdo off the street who happens to have working antennae attached to your head and an army of giant ants who follow you around.

  So before you go putting busts of yourself all over town or unfurling banners with your face over every billboard, be sure to have these things lined up:

  An Appropriate Target for Takeover

  More on this in a bit.

  A Reputation

  I’ve been saying this since Chapter 1: You’ve got to have a killer rep. Since you’re not actually in charge yet, one way you could build such a reputation is through a news report every week or so. These reports could simply consist of the anchors discussing amongst themselves what a bad influence you are on today’s children, in that you are explicitly telling those children to beat up their parents with dowsing rods. You want the media to bring up your name with no real prompting. That’s when you’ll know you’re a true threat.

  An Army Entirely Loyal to You

  Somebody’s got to ward off the cops and local superheroes when they inevitably come after you the minute you’ve declared yourself leader of your new sovereign territory. Or, at least, someone’s got to be around to herd them all into a mineshaft or onto a big boat so you can strand them, helpless, while you let anarchy reign for a few days. Alternately, you could simply take over the police force yourself using brain slugs. It’s easier than you think to find brain slugs these days.

  Collateral

  People will be a lot more willing to accept you as their leader—or at least cede power over to you—if you hold their local professional football team captive and assure them they will be safe as long as they acknowledge your unyielding authority. You can always bank of people just loving the hell out of football.

  A Sash or Hat That Says: “Leader”

  Never doubt the hat or sash.

  Say it, and they’ll believe it.

  A Direct Communications Link to the Public

  Whether it’s a citywide webcast that takes over everyone’s computer or a signal takeover of every TV station in a 25-mile radius, you absolutely need to be able to talk to everyone in the area at once. Why? Read on.

  Your Declaration

  You’ve likely heard that the element of surprise is the key to gaining the upper hand against an enemy; and that’s often the case. But when it comes to seizing control of a town, city, borough, unincorporated hamlet, tiny island nation, or whatever Cleveland is, a surprise attack just isn’t the way to go. Again, no one’s going to acknowledge your authority if they think you’re a joke—an unhinged person with access to a particularly fancy cloak, when in fact you’re an unhinged person with access to a particularly fancy cloak—a Napoleon complex and an occupying force in tow.

  Your actions and the various news reports they engender will get that point across to the public to a degree, but you guys all know how I feel about getting your point across with nothing but actions. It’s bullshit. So get on TV and say one or more or all of these things before you declare yourself the undisputed ruler of the land:

  • “Prepare to be ruled.”

  • “Life as you know it is over. You will know prosperity under my leadership like you’ve never known before . . . unless you cross me. That would mean you will experience much less prosperity. Unless you consider experiencing pain prospering. Then you’ll be prosperous as hell.”

  • “Knock knock. Who’s there? It’s me, the person who rules you now. You were expecting a joke, I know.”

  • “I know you’re probably scared. I would be, too. But look, could being frozen in a giant block of ice, which is what I plan to do to you, be any worse than your day jobs? Really think about that.”

  • “You may think I’m here to ruin your lives, but I’m really here to help you! I’m liberating you from the chains of money and possessions! First order of business: Give me all your money and possessions
.”

  • “I’m not that bad of a person, really. Remind yourself of that as you spend the next decade of your life building a giant monument to me. Make sure my face looks right, but not too right.”

  • “You know where you are? You’re in the jungle baby, you’re gonna dieee.”*

  The Takeover

  Once you’ve announced your plans to take over the position of king of the county, everything else should be relatively simple. March your henchmen around the city and get yourself an office; or maybe have them build you a castle. If the mayor’s still around, put em in a glass box somewhere so that everyone can see that they’ve been neutralized. Put up some billboards with your face on them! All people have to do is believe that you’re the leader, and you are so.

  Well, until they show up. But we’ll get to them in a minute.

  Might the Right Way: Choosing Your Target

  What and whom, exactly, do you want to rule?

  Lots of you are thinking that there’s an obvious answer to that question, but the fact that each of you thought about different types of places right afterward proves to me that you’re all idiots who need to stop thinking my rhetorical questions deserve responses from the likes of you. I’ll train you yet!

  Different people want different things. And, really, you’d better be glad about that . . . otherwise you’ll never have the opportunity to rule anything. Some supervillain or scoundrel much more versed in the evil arts than you would have already claimed your dream kingdom for their own, and would thump you away like an ant.

  Take me, for instance: I already have a vice grip of control on my home nation of Explosia, a grip I plan never to give up, even if the country’s founder, Percival H. Exploso, walked out of his grave tomorrow. I’d as quickly drop him like a bag of dirt. Soon enough, I’ll have the whole world, but you don’t need to worry yourself about that right now. My point is, you’re not getting Explosia. Lucky for you, that’s probably not a place you’d want to rule anyway. I know everyone who is from here and continues to live here, and none of them have any desire to wrest rule away from me, because I personally broke all their spirits. It’s a hobby of mine.

  What you need is your own Explosia. Consider these questions and you should arrive at that decision in no time.

  How big should I go?

  Neighborhood? Town? City? Small island nation? Something even bigger, like a planet in another dimension or solar system? You should scale your takeover plan according to your skills. If you’re essentially what amounts to a low-level thug with some friends, stick to something small. A hamlet, maybe. If you have greater resources and some really cool powers, like, say, the ability to make buildings do whatever you tell them to, a decently-sized city should be well within reach. If you are really well organized and have some sort of floating fortress you can move around easily, then a small nation should be an appropriate goal. If you’re a space god, go after other planets and dimensions. But don’t come around here, big man. I’ve got cannons. Anti-space-god cannons.

  Should it be my hometown/city/region/ country?

  This depends on one key factor: How much do you like your hometown? If you really love it, then why not take over your favorite place? If it’s somewhere you couldn’t wait to escape as a kid, it’s probably best not to spend all your time there as a conquering adult. But, if you hated every single person you knew there, you should probably go out of your way to make them suffer. Revenge feels terrific. Find that ex of yours and prove how much worse off they are because they dumped you by declaring that the only food available for their household are rusty nails. For extra theatricality, set it all up to coincide your ten-, twenty-, or thirty-year reunion! Reunite everyone under your iron fist.

  What about the climate?

  Are you a sentient being made of living fire? Consider a tropical area with some volcanoes. Are you so cold-hearted that you must constantly be in sub-zero temperatures to survive? Go for the poles. Are you a robot? Then you probably won’t give a shit. Otherwise, stick to a temperate zone, you regular old flesh-person you.

  Should it be a tourist spot?

  On the one hand, it can be quite profitable to be in charge of a locale that attracts a lot of tourists. And, you know, it’s more people to indenture into your servitude if you need the toilet fixed. But the thing about tourist destinations is that they have to be—and this is really a deal-breaker—appealing. It’ll be harder to make your hell on earth a real hellhole if you have to keep attracting families there. Maybe if you took over Atlantic City, then nobody would notice.

  Will I want to live there for the rest of my life?

  You’d better want to. If you hate the beach, don’t take over one of the Outer Banks. If you hate sentient rocks, don’t take over Rockburg, the City of Rock People. These things should be no-brainers.

  Do the people deserve my rule?

  You don’t want to control the lives of people who don’t deserve your time and energy, do you? Study up on the schools, the median income, hardy, self-sufficient people? Do the kids make good grades? Will their lack of appreciation of all the effort you put into crushing their little spirits be satisfying to you?

  How difficult will it be to maintain power?

  Are the people too smart? Too hardworking? Too self-sufficient? Will they almost certainly rise up and try to depose you by pelting your castle windows with the rudimentary tools you’ve given them to carve bas reliefs of your head? Then it may not be worth it, pal.

  * Though I’m looking to expand to the solar systemular scale very soon.

  * This statement is the rightful copyright of Guns N’ Roses and Geffen Records. Just be ready for the subpoena.

  Chapter 9

  Wielding Power

  Congratulations! You have successfully wrested power away from the leadership of a territory, municipality, or other such fiefdom and claimed it as your own. Get a crown made. Buy a throne. Go nuts. But do not, and I mean do not, let your guard down.

  You’ve got to look the part.

  As Shakespeare sort of wrote in Henry IV, “Heavy is the head that wears the crown.”* He was right. Jewels and shit are heavy. I wear that stuff all the time and if it weren’t for my sincerely champion-like neck, Id probably have a lot of difficulty with that. But you know the real reason why that head is so heavy? Because it’s grown. And that’s not just from the healthy ego boost a daring conqueror attains from becoming a ruler. It’s also from all the targets people have attached directly to it.

  Supervillain FAQ: Where should I get my clothes?

  “The clothes make the man.”

  —someone who didn’t understand how

  reproduction works.

  Even though that fatuous fool was wrong, clothes are a huge part of someone’s persona. You’d know that if you read The Supervillain Handbook as many times as you should have.** That’s especially true of the worldly, accomplished people who become supervillains. Magneto and Darkseid don’t exactly buy their threads off the rack at T.J.Maxx. So where do they get them? In a few different places.

  Pick the attire acquire method that’s right for you:

  Get a Personal Tailor

  Many supervillains kidnap and indenture tailors rather early on in their evil careers; making them sort of like henchmen, but for clothes. Where can you find these tailors? I don’t know, tailor schools? The yellow pages? Probably lots of places. I’m not your mom. Figure it out.

  Do It Yourself

  Nobody knows exactly what you need better than you. So if you’re someone who can, say, control plants—like Poison Ivy does—just make your clothes out of your plants! Then your boobs can pop out and distract the superhero the exact amount that you want them to.

  Get an Outfit Magicked Up

  You probably know some magic people. Tell them to magic you up something nice, and not to curse it.**

  Earn Them

  Many fight-to-the-death contests in the far corners of space feature a grand prize of an ancient
suit of alien armor. So step up, beat a 400-foot-tall immortal being made of black holes in combat, and it’s yours!

  Have a Giant Multinational Corporation’s Resources Available

  How do you think Luthor got that purple and green monstrosity he wears around? By having employees who can’t tell him “no,” that’s how.

  Have Some Armor Forged

  Forges and blacksmiths are a little harder to come by today than they used to be, but I bet you can find one somewhere. Again, it’s not my job to find these people for you.

  Steal Them

  How did this not already occur to you? Where is your head?

  Kill an Ancient or Mystical Animal and Wear its Skin

  Or you could just stomp on a few raccoons and tell everyone that they were mystical. Nobody’ll know the difference.

  Make the Clothes a Permanent Part of Your Body

  I think that’s how Bizarro’s clothes work. Isn’t it? Somebody call Bizarro and ask him. You know what, on second thought, nobody talk to Bizarro. He will not let up for hours if he gets a hold of your ear, no joke.

  Everyone is going to be gunning for you. The people of the land, many of whom may think they liked things better before you mandated 120 percent of their income be sent to you in a daily pay-me tax enforced by robot visits to their door every hour, on the hour. The leaders of surrounding areas, who maybe had friendly diplomatic relations with the last administration, only for you to send dozens of ray gun-toting thugs into their warehouses to steal their meat, vegetables, and sugar.* The government and army of the country of which the city you have taken over used to be a part. You’ll also have to deal with other supervillains, who may try to swoop in and pull the same hijinks you just did. It’s a long list.