Q&A Roundup: spandex for heroes, quips for villains

"Anonymous villain" writes in:

On the news reports, I see the heroes dressing in brightly colored spandex and standing on tall things, like telephone poles, rubble piles, or whatever. I get why tight-fitting clothes are good, but isn't this behavior making them a better target?

Yes, it is. But that's what he wants.

Remember that the hero is there for very different reasons than you, and has very different priorities. While you may or may not care about minimizing collateral damage (you should, it's just good business), the hero absolutely does. So how does he help to make that happen?

1. He wears bright, primary colors. Many hero costumes will include red or orange, the colors scientifically demonstrated to best attract the eye.
2. He stands with his back to the wall, to open sky, or whatever - high places are usually the best way to accomplish this.
3. If he's a brick, he invites mundane bank robbers or villain henchmen to shoot at him, throw their guns in frustration, or whatever.

Basically, his goal is to be the target of attacks. If he knows where the shots are coming from, he can make sure they go somewhere harmless - open sky, a thick wall behind him, or whatever. He'd rather you shoot at him than the civilians on the scene. He'd rather you use up your bullets on him rather than save some for potential hostages later on. If he can tank your attack, he'd rather do it than have it go off on some unknown angle.

The bright colors and high angle serve another related purpose, of course - it's attention-getting to the civilians. Cops and Feds wear windbreakers or uniforms with their identification on it in big letters to distinguish themselves for similar reasons, but they still have to have cover and armor and protection and crap. A hero can be a walking talking siren. Once the hero has the crowd's attention, he can either direct them away from the fight or at least get them to listen to him. Standing out visually saves him the time of shouting who he is to everyone and getting them to believe him.

Several people wrote in with some variant of:

Can you share some good quips or dialogue we can use to get started?

In short, no. But I'll at least give the reasons why not.

1. Most importantly, you are responsible for all of your own material as a supervillain. This vocation is for self-directed, independent people who just need some hard-earned experience to light the way for them. If you can't come up with things to say for yourself, stop being a villain. If you want to be in the limelight and have material written for you, become one of those super-entertainers.
2. Even if only ten different villains used the same quip, anyone who's aware of it will know that they got it from some canned source. This sort of faux pas is murder on your rep as a villain. The public will not be impressed and you will be laughed out of the villain community.
3. Some of the best quips and dialogue I can actually think of are from private encounters - and some of those fights I shouldn't even have been at, technically. Plus, most of them were devastating precisely because they were on target. The best wit is circumstantial; there's nothing I can give you that will be a good general-purpose line to use.

In short, write your own material because that's what people, including me, expect you to do.

Why hamminess works, and why experienced villains abandon it

I talked yesterday about "bad" dialogue, hamminess, and so forth. I said something that apparently surprised a few readers - ham works, some of the time. So let's get some definitions on the table, kids.

Hamminess is the act of imparting superfluous drama to your words and actions. There's a lot of reasons for ham, but that's what it is at the end of the day.

Drama is the creation of tension over what's being done and to whom. You watch movies, attend theater, and binge-watch shows on Netflix to find out what's coming next and to see it happen. Even if it's terrible things happening to characters you love, you're still drawn into it.

Tension is the mental desire to resolve an uncertainty. Will the bomb go off? Will your characters escape the blast? Will John marry Marsha? All that bullshit. Stories are interwoven blobs of tension that - hopefully - pay off at the end.

In short, ham is a shortcut to attention management. It's like adding spices or seasoning or extra butter to a bland meal - it's unhealthy, but people will chow down on that shit anyway. It's the pointless action sequence or love scene meant to keep asses in seats during the movie, because nobody will watch the thing otherwise.

So why does ham work? Because people like the tension, and they especially like the payout. People love it when their lives produce drama that wraps itself up neatly for their entertainment. Even if what they're being fed is pablum, they'll lap that shit up.

Ham is important because there's two very different narratives going on. Say for a second that you're robbing a bank - a cliché all its own, but what do you want? If you've read my guide and planned your robbery out in advance, your internal narrative goes something like this: "Walk into the bank - lay down demands - demonstrate powers to ensure compliance - seal the door if possible - get civilians and security to disarm and lay down - collect loot - assume manager pressed the panic button - assume cops are on the way - start internal timer for typical police response time to this location - finish looting - get away using powers or previous arrangement."

That's not super dramatic. That's just a checklist of items that you've worked out and are running through in your head. There might be some unknowns, like "superhero shows up unexpectedly", "cops arrive early", "teller is a superheroine in disguise", or whatever, but you just jump right to "run away" in the event of something you're not prepared to handle. You do, right?

Anyway, remember that there is this other narrative running through the heads of everyone else in that bank. "By Odin, a supervillain! He's masked! He's going to kill us all! My will isn't made out. My kids are at school, they're in danger too. Is he after me? What does he want?" Sure sounds scary, doesn't it. It might have variations like "I've got this pistol, maybe I can be a hero and get that pretty teller girl to like me by saving everyone" or "I don't get paid enough to be security on this gig, so I'm going to lay down like he says" or whatever. But in general, most people's heads are not filled with the same story that's going on in your head.

Here's another true fact. People feel better when the expected thing happens. If people are expecting you to be violent, be violent. If people are expecting a calm, methodical shakedown of the place, do that thing. Your reputation, the mood of your chosen city, and a bunch of other factors play into this. But until you know those things, you do know two things. First, that you're a supervillain. This comes with a ton of baggage all its own. And second, you're committing a crime.

This is where ham comes in. Supervillains are bright, loud, and theatrical. That's our overall reputation. So start with the ham. "KNEEL BEFORE <your name here>! If you value your lives, deliver your goods! And open that vault, or I'll rend it asunder with my <your power here>!" That sort of business. This is unconvincing against professionals who've dealt with villains for awhile, but it works wonders on civilians.

This also explains why ham falls out of favor as you get more experience. First, your capers become more sophisticated, and put you into a different crowd of people. Those people can see through the ham, so it doesn't serve its intended purpose. A thing that becomes useless in the capers you're doing should be discarded. And second, your own reputation and personal style will become more and more distinct, as should your public speaking skills, meaning that ham is no longer necessary to cover that deficiency. You will have a reputation that you can play on, and you'll have the experience to know how.

Rules for Villains: Large Ham, hold the restraint

I was asked by the supervillain Mole Master about the role of cliché quips. While I talked earlier about presentation and showmanship in general, I can go into more detail here.

As a refresher, your primary goal as a supervillain in a social situation is to control your audience and keep them from being too much of an obstruction to your real plans. Very few people achieve their real objective by just standing around talking, unless you count Congress. So let's look at what monologues, dialogues, and verbal wit can do for you.

Control of information

Sun Tzu says, "all warfare is based on deception". Deception is the dissemination of falsehoods or half-truths. Or to put it another way, deception is the control of information. How does your opponent get information? By watching you, but also by listening to you.

What do you want to deceive your opponent about?

The nature of your plan. The easiest way to do this is not to tell him. The more cunning and subtle villain will explain the wrong plan. The cleverest villain will explain the plan and lie in such a way that the hero tries to stop the wrong thing from happening - or actively aids the villain. Not saying anything requires no special skill, so we'll focus on misdirection.

"Die Hard" is the canonical example of this approach. Hans Gruber needs access to a vault that's sealed with an electromagnetic lock, so he tricks the FBI into shutting off the power by telling them that he's got hostages and wants prisoners released. His brother performs a similar act of misdirection in "Die Hard With a Vengeance". The "Mission Impossible" and "Bourne" movies offer similar tricks, but from the hero's perspective.

The easiest way to get good at this is also the most time-consuming: actually plan out all the details of two capers. The first is the one you want your enemy to think you're doing. The second is the one you're actually doing. At every point, think of what you're doing, what could go wrong, and so forth. Then for the fake caper, write some dialogue between yourself and a hypothetical hero, or the police, or whoever you expect to be there. Set it aside, think about something else for a day or two, then come back and re-read all your dialogue. Does it still hold up? Does it give anything away? Can you improve it? Repeat until satisfied.

The purpose of this planning is to come up with specifics. People will be convinced of just about any kind of bullshit if you sound like you know what you're talking about, and the way you do that is to provide specifics. For example, it's common for newbie supervillains demanding money to ask for it in "non-sequential bills". This is obviously a correct thing to ask for, and it gives the appearance of competence and experience doing heists. It won't save you if you actually don't know all the other ways money can be tracked, but if your goal is to sound convincing, it's good.

Your next move. The feint is a traditional tactic. The verbal feint is just a variation on this theme. Your best ally here is expectation - what the hero, the cops, and the crowd think you're about to do. This depends as much on your reputation as your actual caper - a violent villain will be expected to make violent moves. Play up expectations with appropriate dialogue, then do the unexpected.

How well you're doing at carrying out your plan. Your ability to project overconfidence, underconfidence, or confidence in the wrong thing is crucial here. Your ability to emote - to act happy, sad, frustrated, fearful, or whatever - is more important than word choice, so this requires a lot of practice.

Tools for deception

Hamminess. If you saw "Star Trek" and remember Captain Kirk, you have seen ham in action. Same with the 1980 "Flash Gordon", with Brian Blessed as Vultan the hawkman. Ham is overblown, ham is spectacle, ham is panache.

Ham is the tool of choice for two types of villain. The first is the newbie. Someone who's starting out and can't emote deceptively can use ham to mask that weakness for awhile, because the loud bombast is distracting and that's good enough. The second is the experienced villain who's naturally hammy. If ham is in your blood and you've been at the game for awhile, you can get away with it. Most villains abandon ham after they get some capers under their belt, but a few come back to it.

Puns, quips, and word play. Intentionally bad verbal tricks are used to defuse tense situations, lower stress levels, and impart a theatrical air to an otherwise-scary caper. Being able to rattle off funny quips on the fly is definitely a skill that requires more time than I have to teach. As with a lot of things, the key is to practice and keep working.

Like a good caper, a good quip must be used sparingly and not repeated when possible. George Carlin threw away his material and wrote fresh acts every year. He said there's three levels of comedy: funny, funny with good ideas, and funny with good ideas and compelling language. For villains, "good ideas" really means "things I want to make people believe", but otherwise the rules of comedy are a good start when writing such things.

Threats. This is the opposite of verbal humor. Where the intent of corny dialogue is to lower stress levels, a good threat is meant to raise it, or to convey a feeling of menace even when you don't really intend to hurt anyone. This is the tool the veteran villain uses to keep cops at bay, or make the hero question his own actions.

The problem of threats is that they have to be followed through once in awhile or they lose their power. Threats of violence, especially, can lose potency once you become any sort of known quantity to law enforcement, unless you actually do hurt people. Threats against property are far more lasting, and far less problematic to carry out.

Spandex: the whole story

Awhile back, I was asked about wearing tights and I outlined what and when a villain should typically wear. Today I want to go into more detail about skin-tight outfits, also known as "super-tights", spandex, or whatever.

Cost. The worst part about the cost of super-costumes is the expense. If you have a motif, you're basically custom-ordering a new one with your pattern on it every time it gets damaged, which will be a lot. This is why many villains prefer color patterns to distinctive symbols.

Comfort. Spandex doesn't breathe at all. It won't let sweat and body fluids out. This might be rough for mundanes, but for supers - who often have alternate metabolic arrangements - this is a non-issue. What spandex does do is stretch and give, which is something you really need your attire to do.

Appearance. As I mentioned before, spandex will make your toned Stage 3+ body look great. This is important because appearance is a valid tool for distraction, charm, and manipulation. Fuego, the villain turned hero in the 80's, was reputed to have "the abs that launched a thousand ships", and he worked it for all he was worth.

Biology. Wait, what? Yes, really! Many supers have powers that radiate directly from their cells. The effect past the skin is very short - a few inches at most, more often than not. An example is the field radiated by teleporters, or many kinds of defensive barriers. You can learn to push this field further - and usually do, unconsciously - but it can be exhausting in the long term. The solution, unsurprisingly, is to wear thinner clothes and not carry things in your hands.

Protection. Basically nil, but by the time you're ready to wear spandex for the reasons given above, you usually shouldn't need much protection from conventional weapons. My personal rule of thumb: once being shot at point-blank range feels like being punched in the chest, you're bullet proof and can switch over to spandex. Before that, wear body armor. Seriously.

Q&A: Civilian casualties during super-brawls

"Cautious Californian" writes in with:

Why is it that there are so few civilian casualties during many hero-vs.-villain encounters that turn violent? I do my best to run away & rob another day, but some villains seem trigger-happy. Shouldn't that be incredibly dangerous?

This was true back in the 60's and early 70's. What happened after the first few attacks was that strategic planners got involved. They reached out to the people who'd devised London's defenses during the Blitz, to the Israelis, to the Army Corps of Engineers, and so forth. A lot of this expertise filtered into FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) when it was signed into existence in 1979.

Everyone's conclusion fell into a few different buckets.

First, that all rebuilding should include hardening of the buildings that were damaged. This meant emergency shelters, accessible stairwells, structural reinforcement, and the like. Every reconstructed building would include food, water, electricity, and first aid kits. Every shelter would have a signaling system to contact the fire department, police, and so forth.

Second, that supers could rebuild damaged infrastructure far faster than conventional contractors, given similar levels of competence. This led to the funding of super-teams like the Metahuman Task Force, at least in states that were willing to throw around their tax-driven revenues. Conveniently, most states where a lot of these fights happen are also ones with a lot of tax money to spend, so there you are. Nobody cares about throwing down in Kansas.

Third, that nothing could really stop a reasonably powerful super except another powerful super. This has led to the current schizophrenic legal views on supers in the United States.

If you're a supervillain, you may not actually appreciate the outcome of all these steps. You haven't actually worked in an office building or a skyscraper. Here's what it's like.

When word comes out that a villain is nearby, there's a klaxon broadcast through the building. The building security service comes on over a PA system, asking people to descend the stairs. The elevators get shut down, with the exception of those needed to evacuate disabled people. The office workers mill around in the elevator room, checking their mobile phones, gossiping, and being impatient.

If the building itself does come under attack, security tells them to continue down the stairs and into the shelter. Head counts are taken. Someone in security calls the police dispatcher, who ignores them in favor of the more important calls coming in talking about the battle. Once the danger passes, everyone is escorted outside and goes home for the day while the building is inspected for structural damage.

So yeah, the short version is that while a single villain attack can cause millions in property damage and lost productivity, there's a lot of stuff in place to keep the civilians physically safe.

Q&A: Why isn't there a single prison for supervillains?

After talking about incarceration, I was asked:

Why doesn't America just build a single super-villain prison and lock them all up there? Wouldn't it be better to consolidate all the anti-power technology, stronger cells, and trained guards in a single place?

There's several reasons why this isn't happening. Here they are, in no particular order.

Economic interest. Even Federal penitentiaries are located in one state or another. Congressional representatives get campaign contributions from the companies who make power-suppression drugs, from people who build prisons, and both private and public security companies who staff them. In general, the Congressmen want to keep the campaign contributions coming, but more importantly want to send pork to their state. So nobody wants to pick a single site, because there's got 50 smaller ones pouring slop into the trough. Thus, the necessary legislation won't be able to pass.

NIMBY. Short for "not in my back yard". This is the local legislature's answer to "hey can we put hundreds of dangerous demigods in your most populated city?" Seriously, there's been Congressional push-back against building wind farms in their states, because they're afraid of spoiling their view. Nobody wants a consolidated prison in their state for safety reasons, and they aren't making enough campaign contributions at the local level to sway anyone's opinion here.

Accidents and sabotage. That said, there is a legitimate argument about safety. For example, say that you're distributing 22 types of power suppressant to 100 inmates. One screw-up, one swapped bottle, one "accidentally" damaged dispenser or placebo introduced by a ringer, and a pissed-off and re-powered villain is going to rip your prison a new one.

Prison breaks. If someone put 100 villains together under a single roof, I promise the rest of us would blow the shit out of the walls and get those guys out - even if we didn't like them personally. Every active villain out there means less law enforcement resources to dedicate to you. If you do it right, those villains won't be competing with you or interfering with your capers. So overall, a stable and sizable population of free villains is compelling enough for the rest of us to take steps like this.

Thanks for the questions, and keep them coming!

Q&A: Taking over the world edition

My observations on taking over the world (or at least a country) sparked some feedback. First, thanks for everyone who got in on the conversation.

Dr. Frogge points out: Of course any world domination scheme with a decent chance of success will be held tightly to the chest - I’m not about to release MY plans until it’s all over.

I'd expect so! Like any good caper, secrets and specifics are for you and you alone. Like anything else in this guide, my goal is to get aspiring supervillains to start thinking in certain ways about the topics important to their chosen field.

"Ambitious in Alberta" says: Between peak oil, global climate change, international unrest, and open civil war, we supervillains don't have to do anything. When the world breaks, we can come in and pick up the pieces.

Yeah - you and everyone else. I wanted to leave it implicit in the post, and I went as far as mentioning the heroes, but any world conquest plan must necessarily take your fellow supervillains into account. All it takes is for any 3-5 villains of your power level to team up and take you down, and I guarantee you there's that many for every would-be conqueror.

There, I said it. If the world falls apart, it will mean a villain civil war. Some villains will decide they liked the good life of civilization enough to protect what's left of it. Others will decide that a larger slice of this very big pie is worth a few former friends. You can bet that the long planners and clear thinkers in the villain community are looking at the scenarios you talk about and have taken plenty of steps, so if your hope is to be on the top of the food chain, you better be one of those people.

"Mexican Megalomaniac" says: Who in your opinion has come closest to world conquest, or at least world destruction?

Sore wa himitsu desu.

"Eyepatch of Power" says: Aside from the difficulties in destroying threats to your power, you sound pretty down on world conquest. What else don't you like about it?

I think running the world is the antithesis of the villain ethic. Actually keeping a world running well enough to enforce your will is a lot of work. You have to learn a lot of skills, you have to interact with a lot of people, and you're going to be tied down, making decisions, answering peoples' bullshit questions because they can't think for themselves, and just generally managing shit. You don't have time for you, because you'll be too busy.

Don't believe me? Look at before-and-after pictures of any US president, especially a two-termer. The job turns those poor bastards gray and carves deep grooves in their faces. Early in his campaign, the president who led us into Iraq (the first time) looked like your friendly grandfather. Midway through the actual war, he looked like Death warmed over. The office of the president is one of the most powerful positions on Earth, and it sucks the life out of anyone who gets close to it. Now, multiply that by 200-odd countries.

Basically, if I wanted a busy, stressful day job, I'd go get one.

Q&A: Why is 9/11 so significant?

I sometimes get asked - always by supers - "what is the significance of 9/11?" They think that just because there have been violent supervillain attacks in the United States, that a couple of towers coming down shouldn't be a big deal.

9/11 was a big deal for the same reason that the OKC bombing was a big deal: it was done by mundanes. Don't know why this matters? Let me break it down.

Super-terrorism

When a supervillain knocks down a building, it starts a very definite chain of events. The Feds get involved, because any violent crime involving powers is automatically flagged as an act of terror. That opens the floodgates of Federal money, Federal law enforcement resources, and Federal jurisdiction. Next, whoever perpetrated that shit gets his ass nailed to the wall if the local heroes, ACTION, the FBI, or whoever can do it. Next, the owners of the building that got aced call their insurance company's claim representative, hand over the ACTION paperwork, and get paid. Next, the insurance company files the paperwork to put a lien on any stolen property the supervillain had that could have been recovered. Finally, they call up some local outfit, like the MTF, and ask them to do repairs. Again, this usually comes out of ACTION's budget, and is paid for by the American taxpayer. Democrats love this because it gives them an excuse to raise taxes. Republicans love this because it lets them appear tough on crime. Independents hate it, because I dunno, nobody votes them into office so they'll bitch about anything.

What you should have noticed about this sequence is that it's very cut-and-dried, and it centers around one guy - the villain. The Man just has to mobilize some force, ride in like the Lone Ranger, and put boot to neck. Americans lap this shit up like sweet, sweet candy. You think it's a coincidence we're a nation of cowboys? America saves the day in a big, visible way, and that makes everyone happy. Furthermore, it's preventable! You just lock that villain up, and you lock up any other villains you come across, and voila, no more buildings go tumbling down.

The invisible enemy

Now we go back to 9/11. Who did it? It took weeks, months, or years to puzzle it all out. It was the sort of crime that could have been done by anybody with the right motivation. It's the sort of crime that could still be done, despite the security theater the government has put in place since then. It's the sort of crime that an awful lot of people want to do, because of America's absolutely racist, intolerant, violent policies toward other countries. The CIA overthrow the democratically elected government of a country, put a man in place to keep the oil running, and then pundits and hawks talk about bombing them because they don't like Americans for some reason. Imagine!

There's no villain here to lock up. There's no bright costume to point at and say "it was that guy". And deep down, the people in power, and the American citizen, know that they're out of their depth. All of America's mechanisms for dealing with super-crime are useless against an enemy without a face. It costs millions to incarcerate a single super-villain, but it will cost trillions to fully prosecute a war against who America thinks its enemies are - and that war will create still more.

In short, America is dealing with an invisible, intangible, infinitely large enemy that it created, and that grows stronger with every attack. Wouldn't you be afraid?

Veteran villains' reactions

Why were veteran villains like me horrified by 9/11? Why did you see pictures of Professor Pulsar on television, weeping tears through his mask? First is obviously the wholesale loss of life. Few villains are willing to kill so many civilians, and many - I hope most - of us prefer not to murder civilians at all. But secondly, we recognized immediately, like the American All-Stars did, what must have happened, and what it would mean.

The stress of dealing with this new reality tore the All-Stars apart and paved the way for the formation of hero teams like the Icons and Team Lambda. Villains have felt the backlash in different ways. The upgraded security apparatus that America put in place has focused more scrutiny on us, the way it's focused on everyone and everything else. That's one more reason we dress in colorful costumes and battle heroes in casual slug-fests. We know what "serious" looks like, and none of us are eager for the hammer to come down. Pageantry and sportsmanship is better than an angry Fed.

Q&A: Breaking into movies

"Hollywood Hopeful" writes:

Mr. Big, I got a lucrative offer from an unnamed studio to do special effects for, and star in, some of their upcoming science fiction movies! They are promising to work with me to obtain amnesty for previous villainy. Is this legit, and should I take it?

This is not the first time I've heard something like this. While I can say that some such offers are legitimate, I can't say that most are, and certainly not whether this one is.

Is it a good deal for the studio?

I did some research on this, because I was curious. The VFX budget for a film these days can be something like 20 to 50 million dollars, and double that for an effects-intensive film (like some scifi). This money goes to building a rendering pipeline, hiring about 150-250 people for six to twelve months, software costs, training, HR and other overhead, and so on. If you're hiring an established effects house, they'll have soaked some of this cost themselves thanks to earlier productions, but they might also not be available when you come knocking. Either way, you're talking about 10 to 100 million dollars.

Top-drawer law firms are billing at $1000 an hour these days. A supervillain who recently went through this process with his legal team told me that they estimated about 200 hours of billable work for preparation of a case, and another 200 hours in the courtroom (about 25 nonconsecutive days). The whole process was going to take 1 to 2 years of calendar time, but most of that is the court's schedule being busy, and the lawyers would go about their other business during that time. Since the law firm probably averages 2000 billable hours a year, handling 10 cases a year, this sounds about right to me.

The studio - if it is serious - will see $400,000 as a line item expense, compared to their overall budget for a single film. If they expect to have you under contract, and I expect they will, they'll amortize this cost over several pictures. If your powers are good enough to replicate even 10% of the visual effects they want, and you're able to work as quickly as they want, it's totally worth it to them.

Is it a good deal for you?

Former villains get a tremendous range of responses from the public. For some, a villain will always be a villain, screw that guy. Even if your interest in reformation is genuine, some people will simply never accept you. If many such people are on the crew of the films you'll be working on, it will be a painful, miserable process, and you will have the Feds up your ass at every moment of the production, waiting for you to make a single slip-up. That's the biggest risk.

If you're looking at a movie career strictly from an economic perspective, it's not that great compared to professional villainy. By hours worked, you can make 5-10 times as a villain what you'll be making on this gig, even if they pay you what they'd budget for VFX. They won't - the point of hiring you is to save all that money, so they'll probably try to negotiate an hourly with you, along with penalties for late delivery of the effects.

If you're looking at it from a quality of life perspective, it's up to you. Maybe villainy wasn't your thing, and that's totally okay. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise - you should do what you feel is best for your life.

Is the offer legit?

This is the biggie, isn't it. There's ways to find this out, though. Don't take any of this as legal advice. My information may be out of date, so talk to a lawyer.

Did you see "Argo"? The CIA smuggled a guy into Iran by setting up a fake film, and a lot of money was spent making all of that happen. Be sure you aren't worth a similar amount of investment.

Get a contract. Even if you're under indictment, you still have rights. You can sign a legal contract with the studio, and have them pony up some money. Not to you - any assets under your name can be seized by the Feds to cover your crimes. Instead, you want to establish a LLC - limited liability company - that will be paid to deliver the effects work, and you'll be hired by the LLC for this work. If the studio pays out an advance to the LLC, it was worth it to them to appear genuine.

Get specifics on who's handling your amnesty case. Call them up and get confirmation. Once you have an actual court date for the pre-hearing, the US government is in the process, and most judges don't like to be dicked around by the Feds. If it's gone this far, it's probably legit.

Conclusion

This sounds like it could be a good thing for you, if you're interested in the job. To recap, expect to be in this for the long haul; expect that it could be a scam and find out for sure; and make the legal system work for you for a change.

Good luck!

Q&A: Law enforcement and superheroes

"Al Capony" writes in with a very logical question:

If vigilante justice is illegal, why do the police tolerate superheroes? Why am I the only one they're trying to arrest?

Detective Mark Jamieson of the Seattle PD notably said, "just because he's dressed up in costume, it doesn't mean he's in special consideration or above the law." This is high-minded, but impractical. The cops run into a number of problems trying to restrain supers. Let's run down that list, then see what they did about them.

Jurisdiction: Almost every law enforcement agency (LEA), from the FBI down to the campus cops, has a jurisdiction. This can be national or even international in scope, or it can be at the city or state lines. Outside of their turf, the cops lose their power. But by their nature, supers can easily move from place to place, often undetected, and frequently faster than the cops can move themselves.

One of the legal tools created to work around these problems was the escalation of severity for any crime where powers were used. By this, "powers" meant "abilities which a reasonable observer would recognize as superhuman", though that definition has been challenged in court. By making powered crimes, from murder to jaywalking, a Federal case, local LEAs could get Fed assistance, but more importantly, Fed money. In practice this doesn't work as well as anyone hopes. National law enforcement doesn't have the money or manpower to shut down every supervillain.

Technique: A lot of police technique boils down to "exhaust the suspect" - like the early humans who hunted wild animals on the plain, we'd simply out-run the prey until it was tired, then pounce. But supers have far more stamina, resilience, and physical strength than the average police officer. Perp sweating fails miserably for similar reasons. You can still get to supers psychologically, but you can't just lean on them until their bodies grow tired - you'll fail first.

Education has been available for decades on how super biology works, and the international law enforcement community has traded tips on how to effectively deal with supers, but not every little podunk town has the budget to send its officers to class for this sort of thing, and even larger cities like Atlanta or Minneapolis find themselves choosing between supervillain containment training and a few new squad cars.

Economics: The actual cost to restrain a supervillain can be 10 to 50 times that of any dangerous mundane. Apprehension, processing, and incarceration can take a big chunk out of any department's budget. Corporations like Persona might be selling power-suppressing drugs to bigger prisons, but that still costs somebody money.

Alright, so there's serious problems. Then what do the cops do about it?

Stool pigeons, snitches, ringers, and insiders have been tools of law enforcement since there was such a thing as law enforcement. The cops have never shied away from using outsiders to help them do their job, and superheroes are just the latest incarnation of that phenomenon. If a "civilian" wants to "assist the police" in apprehending a bad guy, the cops are perfectly willing to turn a blind eye to how it happened.

Everyone would strongly prefer that heroes turn "legit", of course. Some people, like Bluescreen, did just that - he gave up his old life and became an official lawman out of a sense of civic duty. For those that are willing to work with the cops, but don't want to wear a badge, ACTION exists to bridge the gap and file the paperwork so a hero's bust doesn't get thrown out in court. Some heroes want to do their own thing but not be tied down at all, though. Some do get chased by the cops, but most don't, because it's far more practical to go after the dangerous lawbreakers than the helpful ones.

So the short answer is that the cops tolerate vigilante heroes because they can't afford not to.

---

P.S. Pyrepower was squealing at your moniker and wanted to know if you're a My Little Pony fan. Kids these days.

Q&A: Monologues and the Hero

DDT asked me a pointed question during our July 4 outing: when and why should a villain monologue at the hero?

I covered the basics of presentation and showmanship here, but we'll specifically talk about when a villain and a hero verbally spar.

First, if the hero isn't doing much except letting you talk, then he's not actively working to stop you. Sure, he might be stalling for time, thinking of a cunning plan, charging up a power, or waiting for the cops to show up, but he's not doing anything to you at the moment.

Second, the hero is the ideal audience on which to test out your theatrics. If you can intimidate a super-powered being, whatever you just said should scare the shorts off of mundanes. Take your "A" material and try it out on a hero. If he's unimpressed, it's probably not the best you can do - or maybe it is, in which case monologues are not for you. Grats, you found that much out at least.

Third, the hero may feel tempted to talk back. If he does, he may inadvertently reveal some useful information. Just be sure that you don't!

The danger of talking while on a caper is that you'll accidentally leak something you didn't mean to talk about. Controlling this tendency during your monologue is vital! If you can't, shut your mouth and keep villainizing. But if you can, the hero often feels compelled to respond in time, and that presents an opportunity to learn something interesting.

Q&A: My credentials

I've been saving this one for awhile. A few villains (who I've never heard of) wrote in with some variation of "Mr. Big, I've read about your goof-off exploits, but what are your serious credentials for villainy?"

I want to tell you the story about how I broke a fellow villain out of maximum security.

First, let's talk about my powers. I grow, but I also shrink. I can grow and shrink things I'm able to touch and surround in an electromagnetic field (the one my body emits when using my powers). The thing is, when grown, I can surround an awful lot of large stuff. Aside from that, when I grow or shrink, I have control over whether my inertial mass changes too, and by how much.

Second, let's talk about why free villains is good for America. The CIA has a secret prison up in Virginia, outside the D.C. beltway. They take a bunch of supers there, dope them to the gills with power-suppressant chemicals, and do experiments on them. I'm not going to talk too much more about that here, except to say it's bullshit to do what they did, even on captives or prisoners, and every human rights trial since Nuremberg has reaffirmed that. We're a better country than that, and their captives had to testify to what was really going on to get the program shut down. So we needed people broken out. I volunteered to help.

The break-in

The people with the inside knowledge gave me enough details to start from - the prison's location and a rough idea of countermeasures - and I did the rest. The site was off in the woods, half-buried, with only a few structures above ground. It was autumn, so I waited for an opportunity, then shrunk down to tiny size and drifted through one of the open windows on a leaf. At the size I was, I wouldn't set off the sensors - my body's cells were too small to register.

I hitched a ride on a guard's pant leg until I got to the cafeteria. I figured they had to feed their prisoners, right? I'd just follow some guard down there. No such luck. The food was for the prison staff. They kept the prisoners - all supers or other "high value targets" intravenously fed for the most part, with only occasional solid food to keep the muscles intact. This is the downside of being a super, kids - they don't always give you three meals in the can, because you don't always need them.

I realized I'd need some more preparation. So I used the next thing out of my bag of tricks. Those of you who have met me know that I'm heavily tattooed. I'm going to say today for those who don't know that most of that isn't ink. I'm wearing about a thousand individually shrunk objects on my body at all times, packed into suitcases or otherwise secured for small things. I skulked around the place for awhile, sneaking through gaps in the concrete, rat-holes, or access tubes. What was I doing? Planting time bombs - I came with boxes of the things. I set them all for a particular date and time. I figured if I could find my buddy within that time, great. If not, I'd use the bombs as a last-ditch distraction.

The discovery

I finally found my buddy, thanks to the prison's record system. Thank goodness it was all on paper. I guess they didn't trust hackers, or people making backups to report to the Congressional subcommittee, or something. Dead trees in cabinets, stored in the administrator's offices. The locks were mechanical too. I climbed inside those to set the tumblers, then resumed normal size for the first time in about three days.

The files contained a lot of interesting stuff, and we might talk about where some of those went in the future. I shrunk them away - this was it, I reasoned. My bombs were due to go off today. They'd know someone had hit them anyway, so why not get some evidence too?

The prison had an old pneumatic tube system for sending messages - the whole place looked like it had been built in the 50's - so I took that down as far as I could. After that it was a lot of skulking through corridors until I got to the vault. The ventilation system was well-filtered, but I was able to get through the screen - I can go pretty small. I kept enough mass to avoid being blown away by the air pump. That's how I got into my friend's cell.

He was in bad shape - strapped onto a table, wires and tubes and everything running through him. They were really treating him more like an experimental animal than a person, and that made me mad. The worst part was his healing factor - they would have to cut him open, over and over again, to keep inserting that shit. I was seeing red as I cut him loose.

The escape

It took him a few minutes to come around, which I didn't have. The alarm went off as soon as the camera inside the cell saw me, but I had counted on that. The door leading out had a block of explosive wired up to it. As the guards clustered in front of it, ready to storm in, I blew the charge. They had it coming.

My buddy was still groggy and his powers were jacked by the drugs still in his system. I unshrunk a few suitcases full of weapons - semi-automatic assault rifles, pistols, submachine guns, plenty of ammunition, and some tactical webbing. I helped him get kitted out, and he nodded in readiness. Together we headed into the corridor.

I had plenty more explosives for the doors between us and freedom. Behind us, a group of soldiers had set up a few M240s down the hall. I fetched out a few more toys and flung them into the hall - huge stone walls I'd shrunk down for this purpose. Let them chew through ten feet worth of rock. We kept moving.

We were a hundred feet away from my chosen exit point when the bombs all went off. The whole prison shook. I thought for a second I'd overdone it, and the place was going to come down around us, but they built it well.

We didn't encounter many problems after that - one of the bombs had gone off by the motor pool, and I heard the sound of the gasoline depot exploding. There's no way they could ignore that. The sprinkler system kicked in a few seconds later.

We had to shoot at a lot of the guards, but I don't think we killed any of them - we were mostly interested in covering our escape, not murder. I threw up another rock wall to block the door of the room I had chosen as our exit point, and started growing. My buddy ducked and covered as I smashed through the ceiling and up to the open air.

The prison was pretty far from the highway. To handle that, I'd stashed away several rockets - the little chemical deals you can buy in hobby stores, not anything military. I lit one aimed for where I thought the highway was, then grabbed my friend, and shrunk us both until we could grab hold of the side of the rocket. Then we took off. The nose cone detached and the parachute came out. Hell of a ride, but it worked.

We made it to the highway, but they had choppers. I unshrunk a sedan - with a full tank of gas, natch - and we got in and started driving. As far as I know, they never made us.

The aftermath

Most of what happened next never made the news. But I will say this: I went back to the prison a few years later. The place is totally deserted, with official seal tape over everything. Congress was not pleased with what they heard about.

Similar operations might be going on around the world. Similar prisons might still be open. Similar experiments might be happening to friends of mine. I took an oath then that I would not sit by if I heard about such things again, and by Odin, I haven't. Sure, I break the laws of the country. Sure, I'm a criminal. But I'm an American, and proud of it.

Villains victorious!

Q&A: Influences

Today we're taking a different sort of Question and Answer. I get a lot of comments and private messages that basically ask:

Mr. Big, what are your influences?

I like to think I've been around long enough to be the influencer, but here's a short list of some of the heroes, villains, and other people who made me who I am today:

• The Marxman, you crazy Russian bastard. That head shot is what pushed me to Stage 4. Couldn't have made it without you, buddy! Good aim.
• Tokyo Rose, you're beautiful. Nobody can stop the signal.
• Mischa, you taught me a lot. Anyone can tell a bad lie. You always knew when to tell a good truth.
• B.A.K., you were one of the best. No remorse, no regrets, just a terrifically motivated dude.
• Illumina, for being the all-loving savior of humanity, and for believing that even a bad guy like me can be changed. Thanks for letting me prove you wrong and accepting it gracefully.
• Professor Pulsar, for letting me know just how important science is to an aspiring villain. You'll be missed.

If you have a favorite hero, villain, or other important person, leave a shout-out in the comments.

Q&A: Henchmen

"Evil Employer in Edmonton" writes in:

When will I know I'm ready for henchmen? How do I hire them? What should I do to retain them?

Henchmen are only as loyal as their economic situations. This is the basic truth of hiring help as a villain, and it cuts both ways: people too poor to go anywhere else will be desperate and fickle, but they are unlikely to stab you in the back because they can't. Conversely, henchmen making $200 an hour (American) for fairly easy work will stay loyal through a lot of crap.

Here's some numbers for you. A soldier's pay is anywhere from $15K to $20K a year, but they get a shit ton of benefits - housing, education, and medical. A private military contractor can make $150K to $250K a year, depending on skills. If you can comfortably sustain that sort of cash flow, henchmen are for you.

There are three major venues for hiring henchmen:

Organized crime. Let's just be clear about what I mean here. You are not going to be poaching made men, no way, no how. You aren't approaching the Mob's soldiers with a better offer. No, you are going to the caporegime you work with to make an offer to the boss. If "the caporegime you work with" does not immediately conjure up a name from memory, you are not ready for this.

Cops, mercenaries and PMCs. You can advertise (discreetly!). Avoid "Soldier of Fortune" - it's for adventure story writers. Former members of the French Foreign Legion are a possibility (when in doubt, ask to see a French passport).

Street thugs. This is usually the bottom of the barrel, but if you're on the outs with the local Mob and can't crack the military or law enforcement nut, go here. Find a local gang, offer them money, and explain your program to them. They will be unreliable and territorial, but if you treat their boss as a peer, you can often pump up their ego long enough to get them along for a caper.

Retention is difficult. In general, you want to cultivate loyalty. Fear works best. Cash works reliably. I suggest you get a copy of Machiavelli's "The Prince" and read it carefully.

One trick I've found, especially for unreliable bangers, is to get them into some sort of dangerous situation mid-caper. Then, make sure you are the only one who can get them out. Do so in some flashy, spectacular fashion. You want to shock them into a feeling of admiration, obligation, or at least fear.

The most reliable henchmen will already have gone through some sort of military or law enforcement program, and will want cash. Pay these guys like clockwork. The more thoroughly you make use of them, the more of your secrets they will learn, and the more damage they can do. Never treat them as expendable.

Q&A: Retirement

"Tired in Tulsa" writes in with some related questions:

When should a supervillain retire?

You should retire at the same time as any other job: when it's not fun for you any more. We get into villainy because it's exciting, it's profitable, and it fills a need for us. We get out because it's not those things any more, plain and simple. You may not always recognize when you've reached that point. If you find yourself taking risky chances, or blowing off your usual precautions, consider those warning signs that villainy is wearing thin for you.

The more powerful a villain gets, the more they become alienated from humanity at large. This can be good or bad. It means not getting so fucking irritated with people, but it means you can't get as much joy from the awesome things people do any more. I can't stress enough how important it is to have something to hold onto. For a lot of us, it's villainy. But you must have something.

Other than that, there's no point past which you really must retire. You can never have enough stuff, as long as you're able to keep track of it all (or don't mind losing the rest).

What should I do to retire without getting caught by heroes, the cops, or whatever?

If you have a lot of stuff you want to hold onto, you'll need to exert some effort. Here's a few suggestions on how to proceed.

• Move your stuff out of the country. Get as many material assets together as you can, and go settle in some lawless location for awhile. Establish yourself there for awhile. You'll want to slowly move these things through the local economy to launder them.
• If you've maintained a secret identity, keep maintaining it. Your goal is to seemingly come into money (your illicit earnings). You'll need to find a suitable cover story, then get your assets from wherever you stashed them.
• If you haven't maintained a civilian identity, things get trickier. Whatever identity you were born with has left a big person-shaped gap in the system. You can try to go back to that, but I don't advise it.
• Think about whether you want to naturalize somewhere else, or try and regain U.S. citizenship. For the latter, you'll need a passport and plenty of supporting evidence.

To get a U.S. passport, you actually want to go to an embassy or consulate outside the United States. You'll need several documents proving your citizenship, and you can get a complete list from the US State Department's website. Prior to 2011, it was easiest to get a Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA). These days, it takes a lot more, but it's worth it. To do this, you'll need the help of the local consulate (corrupt officials will make this process infinitely easier).

A lot of American expats make good money selling their services as fake parents for this purpose, if you can't find an official who will play ball, and can't afford forged papers. This should be the means of last resort, but I felt compelled to mention it.

Frankly, I think the effort required to come back to America and live isn't worth it for a lot of people. For them, go retire in some sunny tax haven. Those guys just want to see money and have some confidence that you won't stir up trouble.

No matter what happens, you need to stop using your recognizable powers. You can masquerade as a Stage 2 - just being super isn't itself illegal - if something happens to you.

Can I retire from villainy to try being a hero?

Absolutely! Just remember that knowing how villains think, that having that level of sympathy with us, may compromise your ability to take action. I'm going to talk more about this in a series on villain morality, but instead of heroics, consider life as a rescue worker or something - a job that won't bring you into conflict with your former associates, and that could still be personally rewarding for an altruist.

Q&A: Sidekicks

"Claim Jumper" writes in to ask:

Should supervillains have sidekicks?

Yes and no. It depends on what you're doing, and what your motives are. All of these things revolve around an important truth of villainy: You are in this for you, other villains are in it for them. Villains can have friendships, working partnerships, and so forth, but at the end of the day we didn't get into this gig for altruism.

Sidekicks are traditionally a hero thing, because heroes and sidekicks have compatible goals. Your goal as a villain is not guaranteed to be compatible with your sidekick's, so it's more likely to end badly if you try to emulate what heroes do.

I'm retiring but I want to apprentice someone

This is more of a mentor-student relationship than a "super and sidekick". In that case, what's in it for you is the feeling of accomplishment in training someone new to do what you did. Your trainee gets to learn new things, do his own capers, and profit from your experience. Provided you both have compatible personalities, this will work out just fine.

I want someone whose powers or approaches complement my own

In this case, you should approach another villain with about the same level of experience as you. Such partnerships don't last long unless both sides feel that they are equal. Bruised ego, damaged pride, and hurt feelings will end unequal relationships.

If your powers are such that you really need a partner, and all you can find is a junior, make absolutely sure you have a clear plan in mind for when (not if) he decides to branch out on his own. I cannot stress enough that such relationships are almost never stable.

I have a relationship with someone (romantic or familial) but have superior powers or experience

You can pursue this if the relationship has already proven to be rock-solid, and you should not plan for a long career as a villain team until you get some experience. You should mutually agree to one or two capers to test the waters, and only then see whether it will it should continue. Some romantic pairings try to invoke Bonnie & Clyde as role models to emulate. I want to point out that those two took totally unnecessary risks and eventually got themselves killed, because people together will do crazy shit that neither one alone would have dared to do.

I want a Mini-Me or Kid Hostage

No. This never works out for long. If you can't show respect to the person you intend to take on as a partner, they will respond to it badly, and you will lose out on whatever opportunity you had in mind. If you need a short-term decoy or something, don't waste the time building a sidekick, training them, or any nonsense like that. Use a random civilian instead.

Examples

Let's talk about a few example villain pairings and how they work out.

Needle and Thread - hired assassins who work the Eastern Seaboard. This is a stable business partnership. The two supers use different code names when working solo, and they come together to fight tougher opponents. They are mutually respectful and have complementary powers; neither one is a "sidekick".

Tellurian and Geode - this is an example of a sidekick-style relationship that went wrong. Tellurian was robbing banks, and during one heist, he impressed a young super at the bank so much, the kid promptly chased after him! They tried teaming up for a bit, as both had earth powers, but Geode's inexperience hampered Tellurian so much that the guy finally left the kid on the scene for the cops to pick up. They reconciled a few years later, but they never teamed up again.

Mr. Big and Pyrepower - c'est moi! I've been helping Pyrepower out on and off for several years. She's a lot younger than me, and she runs with her own crew most of the time. I've been mentoring her (and that's all, you fanfiction weirdos) because I see a lot of potential. For my part, I've got enough material wealth to do what I want, so these days I mostly goof around. None of her capers are going to threaten what I want, and nothing I'm doing is going to get in her way, so it works out.

Q&A: Communist Gorillas on the Moon edition

Today we're fielding an interesting question from "Manhattan Marauder".

What's the weirdest thing you've ever seen in your time as a supervillain?

I'm actually going to let my long-time collaborator Pyrepower handle this one. Take it away, hot stuff!

---

Hi folks, Pyrepower here. Thanks to everyone who has been reading Mr. Big and writing back with awesome stuff!

The weirdest thing I've ever seen has to be Communist gorillas on the Moon. No lie, I promise you it happened.

A bunch of us got together and decided we were going to raid Apollo's house. Seriously, grabbing something from the home of the world's first public super would make us forever. We had a force-field generator called Childe and a molecular manipulator called Levin, so we thought we could make the trip into space safely. We spent a week researching zero-gravity, taking practice flights to the upper atmosphere, that sort of thing. Then we headed up.

Everyone got really excited when we reached the Lagrange point. We were halfway there! Childe and Levin were holding up okay and the rest of us were ready to deal with Apollo if he was home. We planned the raid during one of his walkabouts, but just in case, you know?

We land right at the house. Everything seems okay. Obviously the dude has no security whatsoever, he lives on the Moon so who's going to break in, right? Childe holds a bubble over the entrance while we head inside. Apollo doesn't have much but a lot of it looks like generic antique junk, so we're not sure what to take. We want something only he would have, like an old flight jacket or something.

While we're in there, Hardcase spots something on the security monitors. Apollo isn't just walking around on the surface - he's fighting! So we fiddle with the computer running the cameras to get a better look.

There's an old bald man in some kind of plastic spacesuit, with a big bubble helmet instead of those close-fitting astronaut deals. And with him are these three huge guys - or well, not really guys, because they're wearing the same thing and that means we can their heads. We look closer and they're gorillas! I am not kidding. I don't just mean Children of Lilith ugly dudes, I mean actual gorillas. Back on Earth, we went to the zoo and saw some just to be sure. Nearby we can see what looks like a big metal block. Hardcase pans the camera over that way and we see it's really some kind of rocket. It's got a hammer and sickle on it. Levin says that means it's Soviet, which is like old Russian stuff.

We look back at the old guy and the gorillas. Sure enough, their suits have a hammer and sickle on them too. We watch for awhile, because this is the coolest thing any of us have ever seen, but also obviously the weirdest, and we notice something. The gorillas aren't just fighting like animals. They team up, they surround Apollo, they take on some kind of fighting stance like martial artists do in the movies. They're actually intelligent!

Apollo finally beats them, of course, because come on, he's frigging Apollo and has been fighting Russians since like 1962 or whatever. So we hurry up and get out. We've all totally forgotten about robbing this guy, because he's clearly too cool a dude to steal from, and besides, we got something better. We got a kickass story that nobody else knows about. We even took some pictures of the security setup, so we can prove we were there.

Anyway, that's it. Communist gorillas on the Moon. Seriously, absolutely the weirdest thing I've ever seen.

---

Thanks, Pyrepower. Mr. Big is back in the saddle, and when I heard that story originally, I thought it was unbelievable. Then I saw the evidence with my own eyes. I, Mr. Big, am standing behind the story that PP told here, let's make that official.

So hopefully that answers Manhattan Marauder's question. I want to add that I'm not personally surprised by intelligent gorillas - human beings aren't the only animals to have developed the super-mutation, and I'll share some other stories like that sometime if anyone wants to hear them.

Q&A: Virginia edition

"Villain in Virginia" writes in with a few questions.

Do I have to wear tights?

Absolutely not. That said, depending on your powers, you may want to. Here's the skinny on villain costuming.

First, dress for protection. If you aren't bulletproof yet, get some body armor, for Odin's sake. BodyarmorHQ is the gold standard for vests. The National Institute of Justice does regular testing of body armor for cops, and their reports on the Internet are a gold mine of useful information. Also, and I know people are going to hate this, but wear head protection. A good SWAT sniper will take out a Stage 2 or squishy Stage 3 without some kind of headgear. Incorporate a mask or decoration into it if you must.

If you're bulletproof, wear something expendable, not expensive. Anything you wear is going to be a lot less tough than you are, so expect to lose it. This is one of the reasons a lot of newbie supers look like they just got out of the gym - that stuff is non-constrictive and breathes okay, and you can get it cheap anywhere, no questions asked.

When do you wear tights? When you're a little more established. Why? In two words, sex appeal. Your body is going to be sculpted to near-perfection by the Stage 2 and Stage 3 transition. You're going to be good looking for a long time - your longevity and healing factor will see to that - so this is the time to flaunt it! Studies show that people respond positively to attractive people they see, so you want to show off your assets. That means tight clothes, bright colors, and just enough skin to keep things interesting. For the girls, male heroes will pull their punches and cops will hesitate before shooting. For the guys, a good look gives an air of authority and you can bull your way through a lot of trouble with confidence. I know it's sexist, but if it keeps you alive, what's the harm?

I just have a garage instead of a lair is that okay?

A garage is fine, as long as you don't lead the cops or your victims back to it. In fact, a garage is a good idea for your safe-house, described in my introduction. You can keep a lot of tools and supplies in there without drawing attention to yourself.

My hero went insane and got cryogenically frozen, did I do something wrong?

That's his problem. Your only problem at this point is finding a new hero. You want to pick a hero before a hero picks you, because most heroes will go after someone they think they can take down - you want the initiative here, so you can get a nemesis you can easily handle. Obviously if your primary hero got frozen, this person will be your second and hence less ideal choice, but sometimes that's how life is. Roll with the punches and get back in the game!

Q&A: How do I make money?

Time to answer some new villain questions, sent to us via the usual anonymous channels.

How do I make money?

By all the gods in Valhalla, really? You have superpowers and the bank doesn't. Figure it out. But I promised I'd write this guide, I'm actually going to get into this in some detail.

Start by making a budget. Figure out what you actually need, and what you just want because you're greedy. You'll need to make that much in "clean" cash - those sequentially numbered bills from the bank will tip off the Feds. You can do this through petty larceny, if you can't think of anything more creative. Did you see "Pulp Fiction"? If you rob a place, order everyone to empty their wallets. Keep a bag around to hold them. You can easily bring down over a grand a month just with incidental income like this.

It's important to figure out what you really want - not how much it'll cost, but what you actually want to get. Frequently, novice villains get caught not during the crime, but when they try to spend their ill-gotten gains. If you don't know how to launder money, going right to the stuff you want is often for the best. If jewelry is your thing, steal jewelry. If you like cars, steal cars.

One time I kidnapped the daughter of a hotel manager. I told him she'd be returned safe and sound if he didn't alert the police and told nobody on his staff, and mentioned reporting his undocumented staff to INS for good measure if he squealed. He didn't - I checked. I spent a week in the nice room, upstairs, with free cable and room service every day. I didn't make a dime off that gig, because money wasn't what I was after.

Let's talk about the things that make up a good caper.

1. Information management. The fewer people who know about your caper, the better. You know those TV shows where the bad guy always has a half-dozen identically dressed henchmen? In reality, those are the big leagues. If you are reading this guide, that's not you. "Henchmen" are real guys who make mortgage payments or want to impress their girlfriends with how tough they are. Real guys have second thoughts. Real guys aren't careful about who they talk to at the bar, or want to drag "a friend of mine" into your caper at the last minute. It's always something.
2. Escape routes. Maybe you'll succeed at 30%, 50%, or 80% of your capers. But you want to get away from 100% of them. That's why the first thing you think about, once you've picked a target, is how you get away safely. Have a couple of contingency plans in case the opposition comes to the same conclusions you did.
3. Creativity. The biggest danger of any caper is that the opposition will out-think you. When doing anything serious, always try to put a new spin on the plan. I said earlier to think of some stock capers. You should - but don't lean on them unless you really have to. Throw in some diversions. Mix up your M.O. If you get big enough to regularly appear on the news, listen to what the reporters and cops say about you. If it sounds like they have you figured - i.e. they aren't saying stuff like "we never know where he'll strike next" - then rethink your program.
4. Vulnerabilities. Can you lift an armored car? Can you smash one through the street? Do you know the route an armored car will take? Then go after the car! Don't break into the bank, even if you think you're tough enough to rip open the vault. Go where your objective is most weakly guarded and get it there.

These are general hints. Write back if you aren't sure how to apply your specific power-set, and I'll try to help!

Sun Tzu says, "all warfare is deception". Mr. Big says, "plan capers with your brains first and your ego second."